Pettersson, Vicki: The Scent of Shadows
The Scent of Shadows
Writer: Vicki Pettersson
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Pages: 455
I've been avoiding these books for two stupid, superficial reasons: the first, the author's last name. It's bad enough that there's two t's, but two s's as well? Every time I look at or type her name, my brain is crying over what appears to be an obvious typo. The second reason, cover design. Not the art itself, but the design: that black bar along the right, which they've utilized for blurbs, looks like it belongs on the jacket of an anthology or the cover of a magazine. It irrationally bugs me.
At any rate, these two superficial, stupid reasons made me ignore these books in stores. But more and more, I've been hearing how great this series is, and how original. So what the hell, let's try it.
The premise: By all rights, Joanna Archer should be dead. She should've died at sixteen after a brutal assault in the Nevada desert, but she's alive, and she's spent every moment since then making herself hard as stone. A fighter. She's also a photographer who combs the Las Vegas streets at night, looking for the man to attack her, looking for the chance at revenge.
But she's not the only hunter in town. Just shy of her 25th birthday, there are other, darker things in the shadows that want Joanna Archer dead. And some of those things want her for something much, much worse . . .
Spoilers.
So let's get one thing straight: if you're looking for something different in the urban fantasy genre, this is it: no vampires, no werewolves, no witches, no fairies. In fact, there's not even a real "paranormal romance" to speak of. Oh, there's a love interest, and there's a sex scene, but that gets, erm, let's just say RESOLVED pretty quickly.
What's left? Well, it's more of a superhero story with an urban fantasy voice, which in and of itself is cool. I'm still not completely clear on the whole set-up or why certain people are super (other than it passes through your mom's side), but basically, you have a person whose "power" seems to be in line with a certain star sign of the Zodiac. There's a Light side and a Shadow side, and of course, those two sides battle each other.
Joanna Archer is, of course, a little different. For starters, she was brutally raped when she was nearly sixteen (not so different). That was, in a way, her first "death" because it was the death of her innocence, leaving behind a hard shell of a person who ended up pregnant with an unwanted child that she gave away (BTW: I don't believe that kid is Joaquin's but rather Ben's. After all, didn't Joanna spend like a WEEK or something with her teenage love before the attack? I dare the author to prove me wrong! Besides, from the research I've done, it's pretty difficult for a woman to get pregnant from a rape. Not that it doesn't happen in real life, but not as often as the media would like us to think. Then again, this WAS a supernatural being raping Joanna, but she didn't know it at the time). Then Joanna devoted her life to learning Krav Maga. She's also a photographer who prowls the LA streets at night daring people to attack her, as well as to find the rapist so she can kick his ass for what he did to her. She's the daughter of one of the richest men in Vegas, and her little sister is blonde, beautiful, and "bubbly" and was once a Playboy bunny.
But as we learn, Joanna doesn't belong to Xavier at all, the identity of her real father is unknown until she undergoes her "second death," her metamorphosis that gives her the powers of the Zodiac (or whatever). Except, she never knew such a thing existed. Her first clue that something's not right is her blind date with Ajax. This opening is pretty jarring, and not just because it sets off building tension right away. No, it's jarring because I don't believe for a second that Joanna, prior to Ajax outright making a threat for her to stay or he'll kill everyone in the resturant, would sit around taking his bullshit. I mean, seriously. I would've flung water at him, walked out and if he'd followed me, used my kick-ass fighting skills to, well, kick his ass.
But she doesn't, because Ajax has to maneuver her to the Valhalla, the casino her father owns, where it just so happens Ben Traina, her former lover, can intervene when she decides to escape and yank her to safety once Ajax is apprehended. Sparks fly, and they decide to reconnect on a date the next night.
Her second clue: while prowling the streets that night, she runs over a homeless guy who manages to come back from the head and pull all his broken bones back together. He gives her a cryptic warning about surviving her birthday and sends her on her way. Oh, and in both instances, Joanna smells something very foul and corpse-like on the air.
Finally, all these vague warnings come to a head while Joanna's at her sister Oliva's (whose a real sweetie despite appearances, and she's wicked smart). An ex of Olivia comes by to pick up his stuff, he attacks them both, throws Olivia out the window, and tries to kill Joanna. Only in the middle of all this, Joanna goes through her metamorphosis, gets understandably pissed off, and kills the ex instead.
Which basically launches the rest of the book and some answers.
Sounds kind of random, doesn't it? One thing after another, and that's a pretty good way to describe the plot. It's pretty jarring at the beginning, for reasons I've already mentioned, and the rest of the book follows suit with "this happened, then THIS happened, and then THIS happened." I don't mind an action-filled plot by any means, but there were more times than I cared to count where Joanna did something no sane woman would do, like spend another five seconds with Ajax on a blind date after he opened his mouth, or she did something completely stupid, like go to the comic shop as Olivia (though Warren might have told her to go there for research, but if I did, I don't remember) because that's a clear sign that Olivia's not who people thought she was, then there's the whole telling off of the construction workers (which she pays for later at least), and then going to develop the pictures of Ben before she meets Warren and the gang. The latter was really stupid because there was no good reason to do it other than to set up a battle. You knew something would happen, so there was no surprise.
The comic book shop about killed the book for me. Greg's an avid reader, and I've been to a comic book shop many a time. And let me tell you, I thought her approach was pretty stupid, but so was the comic shop owners. If someone wants to know about superheroes, just rattle off a list of titles they should read like WATCHMEN and be done with it. I know they have a reason to be kind of suspicious because they carry Zodiac comics, but the whole rant about how people view them was so silly and bad I wanted to put the book down. And I REALLY wanted to put the book down when there were ZODIAC COMICS. What the hell? I mean, why would the Zodiac members even want their stories told? Let's face it, some of that stuff might convince a more attentive person to look at the real world twice (and can a non-Zodiac person even read it? If not, what the hell's the point of having them?). I like that the Light can't read the Shadow and vise-versa, but the whole thing reeked of silliness and I didn't enjoy those parts at all.
But I think I have a slight bias when it comes to superheroes in fiction (and movies and comics for that matter). This is actually done better than what I'm used to seeing in fiction, and anyone who's a fan of superheroes should be delightfully giddy over this book. And there are some really great moments: I knew as soon as we learned Joanna had undergone a transformation that she now looked like Olivia. That was a fantastic touch, though it killed me, absolutely KILLED ME, to see the hell Ben's going through. Great angst, but how long is this going to last, and why not create an excuse to tell Ben the truth? Okay, there's the logic that if he suddenly stops grieving, people might look at "Olivia" twice, but still. I don't want to see this stretched out for the whole series. In fact, I want it resolved pretty quickly, because it's a painful way of keeping the characters apart that's not satisfying in the slightest for me. Mostly because I'm not convinced Traina will survive the series (how I WISH there were spoilers for these books on Wikipedia), so the whole keeping-apart thing will likely piss me off at the end.
Of course, there's a couple problems with Joanna as Olivia: her computer skills. That's got to come to play somehow and ruin Joanna's cover. There's also the fact I don't believe she can slip into her sister's skin THAT easily to fool Cher, Olivia's best friend. It's a noble effort, but I'm not buying it, not yet.
And let's get to the real meat of the story and the major source of my confusion. Joanna's mom, Zoe, was the previous Archer who worked undercover to breach the Shadow side. She slept with the Tulpa, and the Tulpa is really Joanna's father. Okay, fine. She's Shadow and Light and therefore special. But the book somehow made me think it was her FATHER, not her father somehow sending SOMEONE ELSE, who raped her (and theoretically fathered her child). Then, somehow, I got the idea the Tulpa's name was Joaquin, but at the end, when Joanna confronts the Tulpa, I get the feeling that's not the case. The Tulpa seems to be a nebulous being and not capable of physical form unless he gets inside someone else. Which makes sense, but who did Zoe sleep with exactly, and is Joanna's physical father also her rapist? I know for sure that Joaquin is the rapist, what I don't know and what I hope isn't the case is that he's also her father.
I don't know. The book confused me, and I wasn't even reading fast this time. Would someone please explain this to me? I don't care how many spoilers you delve in to, but I'd like this to be clear in my head. Cause I'm really, really confused about this.
Oh, and one other nitpick/peeve: could the bad people BE any more BAD? For all of Ajax's talk of grey, that's such bullshit considering the characterization of the bad guys, and Xavier is laughable. At least we find out later he's WORKING for the Tulpa and therefore has an excuse to be a one-dimensional, sexist asshole. And then there's the fact that even though SOMEONE in the Tulpa's organization knew that Xavier wasn't Joanna's father, how come none of them knew she was the Tulpa's daughter? And for that matter, if Joanna was the weakest during metamorphosis, why did Ajax bother with the pretense of the date two days earlier to kill her? Why not just kill her when it would be easiest to? Bah.
My Rating
Give It Away: I'll make one thing really clear: if you want urban fantasy that DOESN'T involve the usual fangs, fur, or fey, this is a must-have. Superhero urban fantasy is a pretty original thing, and the world-building is interesting, though I don't have it all straight in my head yet. I realize I have a bias against superheroes, hence my rating. While I wasn't completely enamored of the voice or the protagonist (who does at least change and grow through the book, so that's a perk) which made the book not as addictive as it could've been, there's are things this book does chillingling well, like Joanna's identity. I may read forward in the series, but there's certain things that I want to be spoiled on before I read forward to see if it's going to be emotionally satisfying for me to go on. Like I said, there's a lot of interesting stuff going on, and it's definitely original for an urban fantasy, but I'm not pulled in, not yet.
Next up:
Sharp Teeth by Toby Barlow