Reading roundup and meme
I was going to wait to post until I'd finished Natural History of Dragons #2, but I'm stalled on the last 50 pages, it appears, since I got my Kindle back, and a neat fannish meme came along on Tumblr, so:
10. H.P.Mallory, To Kill a Warlock (Dulcie O'Neil book 1 -- not that I'm planning to read any more of them) -- Oh my god, this book was so bad. SO BAD. And yet it was bad in some trainwrecky way, I guess, that made me finish the whole thing, and rather quickly. (It's quite short, but it's not like I didn't have other things to read. Just... trainwreck.) But seriously, such a bad book. Like, literally no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Spoilers, but you shouldn't care, because you shouldn't read this book
The worldbuilding is abysmal. Dulcie is a fairy living in a post-maskerade world, but the world is actually in no way distinguishable from our normal world. Random people are elves, goblins, demons, etc. but this magical designation of theirs plays no role whatsoever in anything that happens or what they are like. None. And gremlins are basically dogs. Also, for some reason peole swear by Hades and mention other Greek gods, although there is no other Greek mythology influence anywhere. It is just totally random and pasted on yey. Oh god, and don't eveng et me started on how stupid the "magic as science" stuff is. I thought the Kate Daniels books were bad? This one makes Kate Daniels' scientific magic worldbuilding look like the Kingkiller Chronicles' XP No, listen: "A white tincture will combat any colored potions and pull the strength from them; an erasing potion will erase whatever charm was put on your friend; and a PH3 potion will negate any spells put on him by means of acid" and "Another test -- to see if the reason Sam's spell didn't work is because something illegal was used on Trey" (the anti-potion for the potion with illegal ingredients is only kept at Headquarters, for some reason). Oh, and whenever she needed something to be true for the sake of some scene, she just introduced it right there, like, "When I have visions, sometimes whoever is involved knows I'm having them" or "Even though he had me pinned, fairies are faster than elves."
The main character is a vapid idiot. She's a magical law-enforcement type, and everybody in the book keeps telling her how she's the best at her job, and how tough and smart and awesome she is, and she is SO DUMB. She keeps jumping to conclusions and taking stupid actions based on that (and also not based on that, but just because), and she keeps being humiliated and embarrased by like everything, which is clearly some sort of kink, but ugh so annoying! Also, fairies are these super-magical creatures, but her magical powers are constantly thwarted or useless, but not in any way that allows her to use any other positive qualities she might have (probably because she has none). She also doesn't know some fairly basic things about her world, it turns out, like the fact that the Netherworld (where all the main supernatural stuff is based, and where her parents come from) is basically a different dimension. You'd think someone who was charged with keeping track of magical creatures would know that... But actually everybody else we meet is, in fact, a worse magical cop than her, so I guess the part about her being the best at her job could still be true. In addition to beign a magical cop, she's also an aspiring romance writer. At first I thought her writing a romance novel about a pirate captain based on her boss by using his actual name and then doing search-and-replace was meant to show she was not very good at the writing gig, but actually given the quality of this book, I'm not sure. Maybe the author thinks this is the way to go about writing, along with dashing off a new novel in a week or two and sending it off to agents. Oh, also, there's a subplot about Dulcie wanting to get ear augmentation surgery because she's self-conscious about her pointed ears, especially after her asshole ex kept telling her she'd be pretty except for them -- this is actually a neat little bit of worldbuilding that I haven't seen before (but it's probably stolen from a paranormal romance I haven't read...), but then the subplot is pretty much dropped, except that we find out at the end that Dulcie decides she doesn't need non-fairie ears to feel the she's pretty. OK?
The plot is... basically on the level of a porno, in that stuff happens not because it makes sense or advances the plot or reveals character, but just so there can be an excuse for Dulcie to wear a red leather minidress, talk to her various love interests (more on that later), or show Knight being a horny idiot when he is taken over by the creature's instincts for reasons that contradict the established worldbuilding, although this actually makes him less repellent, curiously enough. Dulcie does eventually solve the mystery, such as it is, but nothing around it makes much sense. Oh, and I guess the death of Tad Jones, the kid that Dulcie had a soft spot for and can't forgive Quillan for (everybody else the creature kills is a lowlife) is supposedly something that should be touching, except that he'd never appeared in the book before, and we get to hear about his "flawed, but innate goodness" and lone werewolf status only after he's dead, so it's all tell not show, and Dulcie's "I couldn't help but think I'd failed Tad and it brought stinging tears to my eyes" could not be less impactful if that's what she was trying for... Also, I'm pretty sure the internal chronology of Dulcie's backstory makes no sense whatsoever, but checking that would've required paying more attention than I was prepared to give to this book.
The love interests are, oh god. So there's her boss the elf that she has a crush on, who kisses her, and goes on the lam at the end of the book because he's been selling confiscated illegal potions instead of destroying them, and Dulcie resigns from her job because she didn't have the heart to shoot him, but he leaves a puppy on her doorstep at the very end (even though she did not seem to in any way enjoy having to look after the dog-like gremlins, the couple of days she had to put up with them, this seems to be a good thing?). And then there's the vampire named Bram, about whom she decides to write her next book, because paranormal romance is in (there doesn't seem to be any difference in how paranormal romance is viewed in a world where vampires actually exist vs the real world), and the vampire is basically a combination of Spike from BtVS and Erik from the Sookie Stackhouse books, and is completely and utterly pointless except for being there to make bachelor #3 jealous. Bachelor #3 is clearly the long-term love interest, and he is SUCH an asshole. Like, I know there's a long-standing tradition of alpha male love interests in romance, so he may well not be that unusual, but there was seriously not a single interaction between them that did not make me want to punch him, or frequently them both. He withholds information from her, installs himself at her house, sleeps in her bed because his bad back won't let him sleep on the floor (he explains later; why he also needed to sleep in her bed naked is not explained), and chuckles knowingly at everything she says. She alternates between feeling furious with him, embarrassed/humiliated (like 80% of the time), suspecting he's the bad guy, and being turned on by him -- but not, like, in any sort of order that makes sense, just oscillating between these states.
The writing is... honestly not quite as horrendous as the characterization, plot, and worldcuilding, and there's even the occasional line that could be funny with a tweak or two. But the dialogue is terrible, because it's full of exchanges that add absolutely nothing to either plot or characterization, but are literally just the things that people say to each other as part of small talk, like "Well, have a good weekend if I don't talk to you sooner."
Also, I'm not sure whate category of complaints this fits under, but there are two significant female characters in this book, not including the monster creature, and for some reason we learn the bra size of both of them (32C for Dulcie and 34B for her friend Sam the witch, in case you were wondering). That was a first for me. (The third non-monstrous female character that shoes up more than once does not get her bra size announced, but her boobs were definitely the aspect of her character emphasized the most.)
Also, the books in this series are titled as parodies of various literary classics. This one is presumably To Kill a Mockingbird, and there's also A Tale of Two Goblins, Wuthering Frights, Great Hexpectations. I obviously can't say anything about the later books, but there was no earthly reason why this book needed to reference a classic at all, let alone that specific classic (Thursday Next this ain't), and the title isn't even one that makes much sense for the book. But why should that be any different than the rest of this mess.
11. Jordan L. Hawk, Hunter of Demons (SPECTR #1) -- since I'd liked Widdershins, I decided to give Hawk's other m/m series a try, since the first book was free (and the rest of the first series was on sale for $0.99 for the first six). Like the Whyborne and Griffin books, this is also paranormal (with horror elements) m/m, but set in the modern world.
I actually enjoyed the worldbuilding a lot, more than in the Whyborne books, probably just because I tend to prefer urban fantasy to Victorian/gaslight fantasy, though I do like both. It's a post-maskerade world, but people with paranormal abilities have to register with the government and there is prejudice against them (down to phony rehab facilities to pray out the witchery), as well as an agency that manages both paranormal human affairs and dealing with Non-Human Entities (NHEs), what would be called werewolves, demons, ghosts, etc. And apparently 9-11 involved demons in this universe? There is some neat terminology, like "faust" for a person who is a willing host for an NHE and "mal" as derogatory term for a human with paranormal abilities. Out of this worldbuilding, there's also some nice built-in conflict because one of the protagonists is Caleb, an unregistered weak paranormal who's spent his life hiding from SPECTR and the other (his love interest, of course) is a SPECTR agent, and also SPOILERS between Caleb, as a paranormal, and his brother's widow, who became involved with an anti-mal terrorist organization. Caleb becomes possessed by what is essentially a millennia-old vampire spirit in a way that's actually pretty clever. The most interesting thing for me was the way the NHE entitiy (who acquires the name Gray though it feels no need for names) learn to coexist, both of them changing as a result (because for all his years of existence, Gray has previously only inhabited corpses, not live people, and he learns a valuable lesson about freindship -- no, not really, but he does discover the wonder of existence inside a living body, and so they strike up an interesting symbiotic relationship.
I liked the plot, which is more mystery-like than the more horror-like Whyborne books. Even at the very short length (probably only about 100 pages?) it told a coherent story (though I wouldn't have minded it to be longer), as well as leaving loose ends -- what's the source of the leak inside SPECTR? -- and a stable base from which to explore other mysteries.
I liked the characters, both John (the SPECTR agent), who is my type of urban fantasy character (randomly, his last name is Starkweather, which I know is a real name, but my association of it is with Shadowhunters, so I kept doing a double-take :P) and Caleb, who is sufficiently different from him for them to have an interesting dynamic, and whose growing relationship with the vampire inside him was the most interesting thing about the book for me. I also liked Starkweather's boss, Indira Kaniyar, who seems like an interesting lady, and old friend/SPECTR partner Sean, in the scenes we saw of them together.
The one thing I didn't like? The sex. Not the description or whatever, just the fact that it's in this book at all, because it really felt like "and then they banged". I realize it's a convention of the genre and even a book this short probably would have felt like a tease to readers without it? But, like, Caleb lost his brother very recently, has gone through the shock of almost dying, is possessed by a vampire, has come under the control of a government agency he has spent his life avoiding, and has been betrayed by his only surviving family -- it felt difficult for me to believe that in the middle of and after all that he'd be thinking about sex. Noticing that John is cute for a Spec? I could believe that. But not that it would progress this quickly over the course of just a few very hectic days. And John sleeping with Caleb, who is his case, is ethically problematic; I mean, I know it has to happen eventually, but I would hope not with this few qualms. Well, fortunately this is the sort of thing that should bug me less as the books go on, so I'm definitely planning to read the rest of the first series.
Quotes:
"Community relations officers came into schools twice a year: don't do drugs, don't drink and drive, don't play with loaded guns, don't summon demons."
John: "Ready to start the inquisition?"
Caleb: "Your rack-side manner could use some work."
"I'm not afraid of Starkweather, you moronic demon!" Caleb shouted. "I'm afraid of you!"
"That is foolish. Also, I am not a demon."
more Caleb and Gray:
How many had seen their loved one's corpse up and shambling around?
"I do not shamble."
Caleb surprised them both by laughing. "No. No, you do not shamble. Heaven forbid."
12. Jordan L. Hawk, Threshold (Whyborne & Griffin #2) -- still fun, but I liked this one less than the first one. I'm glad aome and hours_gone_by both warned me about the romantic misunderstandings and the leads' self-esteem issues continuing in the next couple of books after the first one, because at least I was prepared. I still didn't like that aspect of this book, or find it as credible as that stuff in the first one. spoilers from here!
I thought Whyborne was acting like an idiot a fair bit. I could understand being jealous of Elliot; I could even understand thinking he'd misinterpreted his relationship with Griffin and it wasn't anything serious (though when a guy asks you to move in with him first thing...), but his behaviour was pretty immature (and, OK, that's probably justified, too, since this is his first ever relationship, but it made me like him less) and was firmly on Griffin's side in their fight (especially since Griffin then came by to apologize, though Whyborne didn't let him in). And, of course, going to Elliot -- whom he doesn't really trust -- and drinking wine there like an idiot... *sigh* (I did think it quite interesting that, when he's mad at Griffin, Whyborne uses magic to heat the doorknob to stop him from coming after. His willingness to use the Arcanorum knowledge and curiosity about experimenting with it, as well as the way it comes up whenever his darkest temptations take over has been an interesting trend, and I wonder if it will come to a head at some point...)
I did like the visit to Whyborne House, and Griffin getting to meet Whyborne's mother (who whispers to Whyborne "He's very handsome" in Greek). I thought the visit was actually done well through Whyborne's unreliable narrator eyes, where he's cringing about how pretentious and over-decorated the house is and apologizing for it, while Griffin is struck by the opulence, and Whyborne totally doesn't get that. I also liked Whyborne's realization, upon visiting the mining town, of what true poverty actually looks like, which he thought he got to experience but reallydidn't while being "grad school poor".
And I also liked the scene where Griffin comes after Whyborne after he's been with the yayhos, thinking Whyborne's been substituted and he would have to kill him. And the way Whyborne proves it's really him XD -- '"We m-made love the other night -- during the storm -- you licked my, er, that is, my a-anus," I blurted, my face burning. Then a horrible thought occurred. "And if Christine is with you, for God's sake, just skewer me now and be done with it."'
Also, I should mention that one thing I like about this series as opposed to, say, the Magpies, is that Whyborne and Griffin don't fall into tedious top/bottom roles, but actually do a variety of things, and, like Whyborne taking charge actually turns Griffin on.
Also, this book was closer to horror than mystery than the first one, and that's less attractive to me. The yayhos (apparently an actual folkloric West Virginia monster, according to a book I found on Google) were fine, but I didn't need the descriptions of mutilated sown together corpses, and I confess to skimming the battle scenes. And the other part of the problem with a horror-like plot is that pretty much all of the secondary characters we meet in this one end up dead, and what's the fun of that, for a character-driven reader? I did at least like the arc that Elliot gets; he is motivated by things that he thinks of as good, even though he collaborates with the monsters, and he gets a nicely redemptive death.
Christine, though, continued to be a ton of fun. Saying "One or both of you would end up kidnapped, or eaten, or God knows what. Then who would I talke to at those dreadful formal affairs?" and lamenting the fact that Whyborne is such a homebody that she can't marry him for convenience because "U shouldn't have to put up with dunderheads constantly asking what my husband thinks of my career. We would be of no trouble to one another at all, I should think.", helping in the investigation ("Going about talking to the locals sounds dreadfully boring. But if you find you need anyone shot, send word and I'll come at once.")
Quotes:
"My dearest pudding pie," I read aloud.
[Griffin:] "Yes, my little turnip?"
Christine, to Whyborne, after he says they should marry after all and makes a Heracles and Deianira allusion:
Christine: "Well, you can be sure if we were to wed, I'd never do away with you using a poisoned shirt. It would be pistols at dawn or nothing."
Whyborne: "Considering I can't hit a target at arm's length, I had best accede to your wishes in all things."
"Dr Putnam may be in danger as well, assuming they have interest in the brains of women.""
Christine: "They damned well ought to!"
*
Gen relationships meme: Give ma a fandom and I’ll tell you:
- My favorite parent-child relationship
- My favorite sibling relationship
- My favorite family relationship (other)
- My favorite friendship between two people
- My favorite friendship between a group
- My favorite mentorship
- My favorite rivalry
- My favorite hatred/antipathy
- My favorite potential relationship between characters who never talk in canon
As per usual, fandoms of note are: ASOIAF, AtLA/Korra, Avengers (movie-verse only), Babylon 5, Buffy (through s6), Chronicles of Amber, Curseworkers, Demon's Noun, Discworld, Dragaera/Vlad Taltos, Dresden Files, Firefly, Harry Potter, Kingkiller Chronicles, Kushiel's Legacy, Rivers of London, Saga (I think I'm up for it, at this point, even though I'm only done with half), Sherlock BBC, Temeraire, Tolkien, Vorkosigan Saga, and anything else you know I'm into.
10. H.P.Mallory, To Kill a Warlock (Dulcie O'Neil book 1 -- not that I'm planning to read any more of them) -- Oh my god, this book was so bad. SO BAD. And yet it was bad in some trainwrecky way, I guess, that made me finish the whole thing, and rather quickly. (It's quite short, but it's not like I didn't have other things to read. Just... trainwreck.) But seriously, such a bad book. Like, literally no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Spoilers, but you shouldn't care, because you shouldn't read this book
The worldbuilding is abysmal. Dulcie is a fairy living in a post-maskerade world, but the world is actually in no way distinguishable from our normal world. Random people are elves, goblins, demons, etc. but this magical designation of theirs plays no role whatsoever in anything that happens or what they are like. None. And gremlins are basically dogs. Also, for some reason peole swear by Hades and mention other Greek gods, although there is no other Greek mythology influence anywhere. It is just totally random and pasted on yey. Oh god, and don't eveng et me started on how stupid the "magic as science" stuff is. I thought the Kate Daniels books were bad? This one makes Kate Daniels' scientific magic worldbuilding look like the Kingkiller Chronicles' XP No, listen: "A white tincture will combat any colored potions and pull the strength from them; an erasing potion will erase whatever charm was put on your friend; and a PH3 potion will negate any spells put on him by means of acid" and "Another test -- to see if the reason Sam's spell didn't work is because something illegal was used on Trey" (the anti-potion for the potion with illegal ingredients is only kept at Headquarters, for some reason). Oh, and whenever she needed something to be true for the sake of some scene, she just introduced it right there, like, "When I have visions, sometimes whoever is involved knows I'm having them" or "Even though he had me pinned, fairies are faster than elves."
The main character is a vapid idiot. She's a magical law-enforcement type, and everybody in the book keeps telling her how she's the best at her job, and how tough and smart and awesome she is, and she is SO DUMB. She keeps jumping to conclusions and taking stupid actions based on that (and also not based on that, but just because), and she keeps being humiliated and embarrased by like everything, which is clearly some sort of kink, but ugh so annoying! Also, fairies are these super-magical creatures, but her magical powers are constantly thwarted or useless, but not in any way that allows her to use any other positive qualities she might have (probably because she has none). She also doesn't know some fairly basic things about her world, it turns out, like the fact that the Netherworld (where all the main supernatural stuff is based, and where her parents come from) is basically a different dimension. You'd think someone who was charged with keeping track of magical creatures would know that... But actually everybody else we meet is, in fact, a worse magical cop than her, so I guess the part about her being the best at her job could still be true. In addition to beign a magical cop, she's also an aspiring romance writer. At first I thought her writing a romance novel about a pirate captain based on her boss by using his actual name and then doing search-and-replace was meant to show she was not very good at the writing gig, but actually given the quality of this book, I'm not sure. Maybe the author thinks this is the way to go about writing, along with dashing off a new novel in a week or two and sending it off to agents. Oh, also, there's a subplot about Dulcie wanting to get ear augmentation surgery because she's self-conscious about her pointed ears, especially after her asshole ex kept telling her she'd be pretty except for them -- this is actually a neat little bit of worldbuilding that I haven't seen before (but it's probably stolen from a paranormal romance I haven't read...), but then the subplot is pretty much dropped, except that we find out at the end that Dulcie decides she doesn't need non-fairie ears to feel the she's pretty. OK?
The plot is... basically on the level of a porno, in that stuff happens not because it makes sense or advances the plot or reveals character, but just so there can be an excuse for Dulcie to wear a red leather minidress, talk to her various love interests (more on that later), or show Knight being a horny idiot when he is taken over by the creature's instincts for reasons that contradict the established worldbuilding, although this actually makes him less repellent, curiously enough. Dulcie does eventually solve the mystery, such as it is, but nothing around it makes much sense. Oh, and I guess the death of Tad Jones, the kid that Dulcie had a soft spot for and can't forgive Quillan for (everybody else the creature kills is a lowlife) is supposedly something that should be touching, except that he'd never appeared in the book before, and we get to hear about his "flawed, but innate goodness" and lone werewolf status only after he's dead, so it's all tell not show, and Dulcie's "I couldn't help but think I'd failed Tad and it brought stinging tears to my eyes" could not be less impactful if that's what she was trying for... Also, I'm pretty sure the internal chronology of Dulcie's backstory makes no sense whatsoever, but checking that would've required paying more attention than I was prepared to give to this book.
The love interests are, oh god. So there's her boss the elf that she has a crush on, who kisses her, and goes on the lam at the end of the book because he's been selling confiscated illegal potions instead of destroying them, and Dulcie resigns from her job because she didn't have the heart to shoot him, but he leaves a puppy on her doorstep at the very end (even though she did not seem to in any way enjoy having to look after the dog-like gremlins, the couple of days she had to put up with them, this seems to be a good thing?). And then there's the vampire named Bram, about whom she decides to write her next book, because paranormal romance is in (there doesn't seem to be any difference in how paranormal romance is viewed in a world where vampires actually exist vs the real world), and the vampire is basically a combination of Spike from BtVS and Erik from the Sookie Stackhouse books, and is completely and utterly pointless except for being there to make bachelor #3 jealous. Bachelor #3 is clearly the long-term love interest, and he is SUCH an asshole. Like, I know there's a long-standing tradition of alpha male love interests in romance, so he may well not be that unusual, but there was seriously not a single interaction between them that did not make me want to punch him, or frequently them both. He withholds information from her, installs himself at her house, sleeps in her bed because his bad back won't let him sleep on the floor (he explains later; why he also needed to sleep in her bed naked is not explained), and chuckles knowingly at everything she says. She alternates between feeling furious with him, embarrassed/humiliated (like 80% of the time), suspecting he's the bad guy, and being turned on by him -- but not, like, in any sort of order that makes sense, just oscillating between these states.
The writing is... honestly not quite as horrendous as the characterization, plot, and worldcuilding, and there's even the occasional line that could be funny with a tweak or two. But the dialogue is terrible, because it's full of exchanges that add absolutely nothing to either plot or characterization, but are literally just the things that people say to each other as part of small talk, like "Well, have a good weekend if I don't talk to you sooner."
Also, I'm not sure whate category of complaints this fits under, but there are two significant female characters in this book, not including the monster creature, and for some reason we learn the bra size of both of them (32C for Dulcie and 34B for her friend Sam the witch, in case you were wondering). That was a first for me. (The third non-monstrous female character that shoes up more than once does not get her bra size announced, but her boobs were definitely the aspect of her character emphasized the most.)
Also, the books in this series are titled as parodies of various literary classics. This one is presumably To Kill a Mockingbird, and there's also A Tale of Two Goblins, Wuthering Frights, Great Hexpectations. I obviously can't say anything about the later books, but there was no earthly reason why this book needed to reference a classic at all, let alone that specific classic (Thursday Next this ain't), and the title isn't even one that makes much sense for the book. But why should that be any different than the rest of this mess.
11. Jordan L. Hawk, Hunter of Demons (SPECTR #1) -- since I'd liked Widdershins, I decided to give Hawk's other m/m series a try, since the first book was free (and the rest of the first series was on sale for $0.99 for the first six). Like the Whyborne and Griffin books, this is also paranormal (with horror elements) m/m, but set in the modern world.
I actually enjoyed the worldbuilding a lot, more than in the Whyborne books, probably just because I tend to prefer urban fantasy to Victorian/gaslight fantasy, though I do like both. It's a post-maskerade world, but people with paranormal abilities have to register with the government and there is prejudice against them (down to phony rehab facilities to pray out the witchery), as well as an agency that manages both paranormal human affairs and dealing with Non-Human Entities (NHEs), what would be called werewolves, demons, ghosts, etc. And apparently 9-11 involved demons in this universe? There is some neat terminology, like "faust" for a person who is a willing host for an NHE and "mal" as derogatory term for a human with paranormal abilities. Out of this worldbuilding, there's also some nice built-in conflict because one of the protagonists is Caleb, an unregistered weak paranormal who's spent his life hiding from SPECTR and the other (his love interest, of course) is a SPECTR agent, and also SPOILERS between Caleb, as a paranormal, and his brother's widow, who became involved with an anti-mal terrorist organization. Caleb becomes possessed by what is essentially a millennia-old vampire spirit in a way that's actually pretty clever. The most interesting thing for me was the way the NHE entitiy (who acquires the name Gray though it feels no need for names) learn to coexist, both of them changing as a result (because for all his years of existence, Gray has previously only inhabited corpses, not live people, and he learns a valuable lesson about freindship -- no, not really, but he does discover the wonder of existence inside a living body, and so they strike up an interesting symbiotic relationship.
I liked the plot, which is more mystery-like than the more horror-like Whyborne books. Even at the very short length (probably only about 100 pages?) it told a coherent story (though I wouldn't have minded it to be longer), as well as leaving loose ends -- what's the source of the leak inside SPECTR? -- and a stable base from which to explore other mysteries.
I liked the characters, both John (the SPECTR agent), who is my type of urban fantasy character (randomly, his last name is Starkweather, which I know is a real name, but my association of it is with Shadowhunters, so I kept doing a double-take :P) and Caleb, who is sufficiently different from him for them to have an interesting dynamic, and whose growing relationship with the vampire inside him was the most interesting thing about the book for me. I also liked Starkweather's boss, Indira Kaniyar, who seems like an interesting lady, and old friend/SPECTR partner Sean, in the scenes we saw of them together.
The one thing I didn't like? The sex. Not the description or whatever, just the fact that it's in this book at all, because it really felt like "and then they banged". I realize it's a convention of the genre and even a book this short probably would have felt like a tease to readers without it? But, like, Caleb lost his brother very recently, has gone through the shock of almost dying, is possessed by a vampire, has come under the control of a government agency he has spent his life avoiding, and has been betrayed by his only surviving family -- it felt difficult for me to believe that in the middle of and after all that he'd be thinking about sex. Noticing that John is cute for a Spec? I could believe that. But not that it would progress this quickly over the course of just a few very hectic days. And John sleeping with Caleb, who is his case, is ethically problematic; I mean, I know it has to happen eventually, but I would hope not with this few qualms. Well, fortunately this is the sort of thing that should bug me less as the books go on, so I'm definitely planning to read the rest of the first series.
Quotes:
"Community relations officers came into schools twice a year: don't do drugs, don't drink and drive, don't play with loaded guns, don't summon demons."
John: "Ready to start the inquisition?"
Caleb: "Your rack-side manner could use some work."
"I'm not afraid of Starkweather, you moronic demon!" Caleb shouted. "I'm afraid of you!"
"That is foolish. Also, I am not a demon."
more Caleb and Gray:
How many had seen their loved one's corpse up and shambling around?
"I do not shamble."
Caleb surprised them both by laughing. "No. No, you do not shamble. Heaven forbid."
12. Jordan L. Hawk, Threshold (Whyborne & Griffin #2) -- still fun, but I liked this one less than the first one. I'm glad aome and hours_gone_by both warned me about the romantic misunderstandings and the leads' self-esteem issues continuing in the next couple of books after the first one, because at least I was prepared. I still didn't like that aspect of this book, or find it as credible as that stuff in the first one. spoilers from here!
I thought Whyborne was acting like an idiot a fair bit. I could understand being jealous of Elliot; I could even understand thinking he'd misinterpreted his relationship with Griffin and it wasn't anything serious (though when a guy asks you to move in with him first thing...), but his behaviour was pretty immature (and, OK, that's probably justified, too, since this is his first ever relationship, but it made me like him less) and was firmly on Griffin's side in their fight (especially since Griffin then came by to apologize, though Whyborne didn't let him in). And, of course, going to Elliot -- whom he doesn't really trust -- and drinking wine there like an idiot... *sigh* (I did think it quite interesting that, when he's mad at Griffin, Whyborne uses magic to heat the doorknob to stop him from coming after. His willingness to use the Arcanorum knowledge and curiosity about experimenting with it, as well as the way it comes up whenever his darkest temptations take over has been an interesting trend, and I wonder if it will come to a head at some point...)
I did like the visit to Whyborne House, and Griffin getting to meet Whyborne's mother (who whispers to Whyborne "He's very handsome" in Greek). I thought the visit was actually done well through Whyborne's unreliable narrator eyes, where he's cringing about how pretentious and over-decorated the house is and apologizing for it, while Griffin is struck by the opulence, and Whyborne totally doesn't get that. I also liked Whyborne's realization, upon visiting the mining town, of what true poverty actually looks like, which he thought he got to experience but reallydidn't while being "grad school poor".
And I also liked the scene where Griffin comes after Whyborne after he's been with the yayhos, thinking Whyborne's been substituted and he would have to kill him. And the way Whyborne proves it's really him XD -- '"We m-made love the other night -- during the storm -- you licked my, er, that is, my a-anus," I blurted, my face burning. Then a horrible thought occurred. "And if Christine is with you, for God's sake, just skewer me now and be done with it."'
Also, I should mention that one thing I like about this series as opposed to, say, the Magpies, is that Whyborne and Griffin don't fall into tedious top/bottom roles, but actually do a variety of things, and, like Whyborne taking charge actually turns Griffin on.
Also, this book was closer to horror than mystery than the first one, and that's less attractive to me. The yayhos (apparently an actual folkloric West Virginia monster, according to a book I found on Google) were fine, but I didn't need the descriptions of mutilated sown together corpses, and I confess to skimming the battle scenes. And the other part of the problem with a horror-like plot is that pretty much all of the secondary characters we meet in this one end up dead, and what's the fun of that, for a character-driven reader? I did at least like the arc that Elliot gets; he is motivated by things that he thinks of as good, even though he collaborates with the monsters, and he gets a nicely redemptive death.
Christine, though, continued to be a ton of fun. Saying "One or both of you would end up kidnapped, or eaten, or God knows what. Then who would I talke to at those dreadful formal affairs?" and lamenting the fact that Whyborne is such a homebody that she can't marry him for convenience because "U shouldn't have to put up with dunderheads constantly asking what my husband thinks of my career. We would be of no trouble to one another at all, I should think.", helping in the investigation ("Going about talking to the locals sounds dreadfully boring. But if you find you need anyone shot, send word and I'll come at once.")
Quotes:
"My dearest pudding pie," I read aloud.
[Griffin:] "Yes, my little turnip?"
Christine, to Whyborne, after he says they should marry after all and makes a Heracles and Deianira allusion:
Christine: "Well, you can be sure if we were to wed, I'd never do away with you using a poisoned shirt. It would be pistols at dawn or nothing."
Whyborne: "Considering I can't hit a target at arm's length, I had best accede to your wishes in all things."
"Dr Putnam may be in danger as well, assuming they have interest in the brains of women.""
Christine: "They damned well ought to!"
*
Gen relationships meme: Give ma a fandom and I’ll tell you:
- My favorite parent-child relationship
- My favorite sibling relationship
- My favorite family relationship (other)
- My favorite friendship between two people
- My favorite friendship between a group
- My favorite mentorship
- My favorite rivalry
- My favorite hatred/antipathy
- My favorite potential relationship between characters who never talk in canon
As per usual, fandoms of note are: ASOIAF, AtLA/Korra, Avengers (movie-verse only), Babylon 5, Buffy (through s6), Chronicles of Amber, Curseworkers, Demon's Noun, Discworld, Dragaera/Vlad Taltos, Dresden Files, Firefly, Harry Potter, Kingkiller Chronicles, Kushiel's Legacy, Rivers of London, Saga (I think I'm up for it, at this point, even though I'm only done with half), Sherlock BBC, Temeraire, Tolkien, Vorkosigan Saga, and anything else you know I'm into.