SPN and fiction
I think Dean knew what roofies look like because John made sure he did. Because people have been calling Dean “pretty” since forever, but Dean still had to go into seedy bars and other joints you wouldn’t want your kid in. Ugh, I have many thoughts about SPN but I don’t know if they’re really thoughts or just feelings.
Margaret Ronald, Spiral Hunt: Evie Scelan is the Hound, whose nose can find anything (no animal transformation, though). She ekes out a living as a finder of lost objects and a bike messenger. Boston’s “undercurrent” is ruled by powerful, dangerous adepts, and when an old flame asks for her help, Evie is drawn far deeper in than she ever wanted to go. I thought that this was very well-executed urban fantasy: there are even two male love interests to go along with the eldritch powers, but the powers themselves are unusual and the conflicts felt organic, not formulaic.
Margaret Ronald, Wild Hunt: After the events of the previous book, Evie’s getting noticed as a potential power in the area, which isn’t that great for her. A new client gets her tangled with ghosts-and she’s starting to explore new aspects of her powers that threaten to drag her under entirely. Again, quite enjoyable.
T. Cooper & Allison Glock-Cooper, Changers: Book One: Drew: Free LibraryThing Early Reviewer book. I really wanted to like this YA about a boy who wakes up as a girl, and is informed by his parents that this will happen three more times before he chooses his final identity, because he comes from a long line of Changers who live among ordinary “Statics.” But a premise like this walks a fine line: choose to explain, and you risk not making sense at all. Here, Changers always change on the night before the first day of class each year of high school (Wait, why and how? What happened before high school was common/when mobility was extremely limited so that it was difficult to move to a new place four times in four years? What do people do in parts of the world where school is year-round? Etc.). There’s not only an elaborate Changer culture with a Bible and a messianic mission that involves Changers continually mating with Statics so as eventually to make the whole world into Changers (um, how did they have fake IDs/histories prepared for the new person with pictures?), there’s also a Changer resistance that wants to go public and a Static opposition that somehow knows about Changers and … opposes them somehow, supposedly locking them up in basements (why would that help v. killing them?). The creepy would-be rapist older brother of the girl that Ethan, now Drew, likes turns out to be one of these Static fanatics, because of course he is. Oh, and did I mention that when Changers kiss Statics, the Changers get glimpses of the future? Drew’s reaction to the change and the massive infodump is to get briefly mad at her parents, immediately accept her new identity, and head off to the first day of school, grumbling. Yay for gender fluidity and Drew’s interest in both Chase the hot Changer boy and Audrey the cool Static girl, but I can’t say this is done well.
Alaya Dawn Johnson, The Summer Prince: June Costa is a privileged young scion of the ruling classes of Palmares Três, a self-contained coastal city in what was once Brazil. Given extended lifespans (at least at the top of the food chain, and at least for women; men are less common, less powerful, and more likely to kill themselves), young people have no political power. June is an artist with a generalized sympathy for those below (literally below, since that’s where the stinky green work of growing stuff/recycling takes place), whose rebellions become more and more significant as she works with Enki, the Summer Prince whose bloody sacrifice at the end of a season will supposedly guarantee political stability-as the sacrifices have for decades. It’s a surprising and powerful YA; recommended.
comments on DW | reply there. I have invites or you can use OpenID.
Margaret Ronald, Spiral Hunt: Evie Scelan is the Hound, whose nose can find anything (no animal transformation, though). She ekes out a living as a finder of lost objects and a bike messenger. Boston’s “undercurrent” is ruled by powerful, dangerous adepts, and when an old flame asks for her help, Evie is drawn far deeper in than she ever wanted to go. I thought that this was very well-executed urban fantasy: there are even two male love interests to go along with the eldritch powers, but the powers themselves are unusual and the conflicts felt organic, not formulaic.
Margaret Ronald, Wild Hunt: After the events of the previous book, Evie’s getting noticed as a potential power in the area, which isn’t that great for her. A new client gets her tangled with ghosts-and she’s starting to explore new aspects of her powers that threaten to drag her under entirely. Again, quite enjoyable.
T. Cooper & Allison Glock-Cooper, Changers: Book One: Drew: Free LibraryThing Early Reviewer book. I really wanted to like this YA about a boy who wakes up as a girl, and is informed by his parents that this will happen three more times before he chooses his final identity, because he comes from a long line of Changers who live among ordinary “Statics.” But a premise like this walks a fine line: choose to explain, and you risk not making sense at all. Here, Changers always change on the night before the first day of class each year of high school (Wait, why and how? What happened before high school was common/when mobility was extremely limited so that it was difficult to move to a new place four times in four years? What do people do in parts of the world where school is year-round? Etc.). There’s not only an elaborate Changer culture with a Bible and a messianic mission that involves Changers continually mating with Statics so as eventually to make the whole world into Changers (um, how did they have fake IDs/histories prepared for the new person with pictures?), there’s also a Changer resistance that wants to go public and a Static opposition that somehow knows about Changers and … opposes them somehow, supposedly locking them up in basements (why would that help v. killing them?). The creepy would-be rapist older brother of the girl that Ethan, now Drew, likes turns out to be one of these Static fanatics, because of course he is. Oh, and did I mention that when Changers kiss Statics, the Changers get glimpses of the future? Drew’s reaction to the change and the massive infodump is to get briefly mad at her parents, immediately accept her new identity, and head off to the first day of school, grumbling. Yay for gender fluidity and Drew’s interest in both Chase the hot Changer boy and Audrey the cool Static girl, but I can’t say this is done well.
Alaya Dawn Johnson, The Summer Prince: June Costa is a privileged young scion of the ruling classes of Palmares Três, a self-contained coastal city in what was once Brazil. Given extended lifespans (at least at the top of the food chain, and at least for women; men are less common, less powerful, and more likely to kill themselves), young people have no political power. June is an artist with a generalized sympathy for those below (literally below, since that’s where the stinky green work of growing stuff/recycling takes place), whose rebellions become more and more significant as she works with Enki, the Summer Prince whose bloody sacrifice at the end of a season will supposedly guarantee political stability-as the sacrifices have for decades. It’s a surprising and powerful YA; recommended.
comments on DW | reply there. I have invites or you can use OpenID.