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| 4.13
| 45
| Aug 22, 2017
| Aug 22, 2017
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it was ok
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~2.5 I've been procrastinating on this review for months, to the point that I've even been avoiding all of Goodreads. No matter how it looks, I don't e ~2.5 I've been procrastinating on this review for months, to the point that I've even been avoiding all of Goodreads. No matter how it looks, I don't enjoy writing negative reviews, particularly of series that I previously enjoyed. I really wanted to like The Dark Interest. I've relished the rest of the series: I like the magic system that Sloan sets up, the affectionate familiarity with the city of Baltimore, and I even enjoy disliking jerkish antiheroic protagonist, Dorian. The series has routinely gone in directions I didn't experience, often leading to the tarnishing and darkening of Dorian's character. I've found it fun because it's so unexpected. Sure, there were some rough elements, some moments that made me wince, particularly in the first book. But this book took it to a whole new level, and in ways that can't simply be dismissed as a jerkish protagonist's warped perspective. Fair warning: because some of my issues with the book are major aspects of the plot, there may be spoilers from here on out. In recent years, Baltimore has been central in a nationwide struggle over race, police brutality, and equal justice. In 2015, following the death of Freddie Gray in police custody (and Tyrone West in 2013), the city erupted into mass protests that led to a declaration of emergency, enforced curfew, deployment of the National Guard, dozens of fires, and hundreds of arrests. For years afterwards, national news was riddled with stories of mass demonstration, civil unrest, and arrests of protesters. Despite it all, all six police officers associated with the tragedy were acquitted or had charges dropped against them. More recently, Baltimore police have been arrested for racketeering and caught on the bodycams they thought were turned off planting evidence to incriminate suspects. Long story short, like many cities in the US, a conversation on equal justice is an inescapable part of the reality of the city. In The Dark Interest, Sloan brings up that conversation, but in the most tonedeaf way imaginable. A riot erupts when the story starts, and Dorian being Dorian, his major concern is whether his restaurant will be destroyed or whether the riots will generate "a vibrant dinner rush." . Much of the subsequent plot involves the Baltimore riots, without ever quite saying as much. More specifically, he appropriates them as a plot point and attributes the anger to supernatural forces: "Even though all of this was very real, this uprising wasn't a natural process. Long in coming though it may have been, this violence was engineered. Angry, ancient forces were pushing this city over a tipping point it might not pull back from." "That's what this Summer of Blood is all about. Don't you see it? They're cranking up the heat."I'm generally uncomfortable with this sort of twisting and belittling of history, but when the wounds are still so raw and the struggle is still ongoing? There are tragedies it is utterly unacceptable to appropriate, conflicts that it is repugnant to twist and debase and minimize and devalue. America's current conversation about race and justice is one of them. The problems with this book don't stop there. Much of the story involves the "Jokomo Gang," a Black gang from New Orleans "displaced by Hurricane Katrina" . The members are described as "into drugs and guns" . Their brand of magic is described by Dorian as follows: "It's not African voudou. It's Louisiana flavor, which blends lots of horrible shit from the Catholic Church, Santeria, and basically anything else the Dark Choir decided to toss into that gumbo pot."The practitioners are termed "Reckless dabblers. They stir up primal beings that rage unrestrained and unstewarded into our world."The leader, Lasalle, is called a "wannabe crime lord" , "a hoodlum" , "an outright criminal" , and the "lead thug" . Lasalle is portrayed as a slow-witted, surly, angry, immature Black man who Dorian actually castigates a "acting like a child." Just in case you're in any doubt about the dog whistles going on here, Dorian later casually accuses the gang of "Get[ting] their free ride in Baltimore." When the gang confronts Dorian, questioning him about his recent actions, the "good cop" protagonist appears to "save" Dorian by harassing and belittling them without apparent cause, going so far as to refer to them as "boys": "You boys raising a ruckus out here?" If you don't understand why referring to African-American men as "boys" is toothclenchingly offensive, I'm happy to point you to some references. But in the book, this is portrayed as a heroic rescue against a gang of "your basic street thug[s]" . At another point, Dorian ends up in a police station and assumes that everyone else behind bars-- all African-American-- are "probably wondering what a man like me was up to in a police station." (emphasis mine). (view spoiler)[Things began less than optimally when Dorian stops a kid--poor and African-American, naturally-- from committing a theft, and they have a conversation in the author's attempt at dialect. It went downhill from there. I was mystified when Dorian jumped to the conclusion that the kid from the intro was running with the Jokomos-- the only thing I can imagine is he assumes all Black kids are muggers and gang members and all of "them" stick together. There is absolutely no other reason to think that. And of course, naturally, a Black kid is the mugger. Of course, there were other things that pissed me off about the book. Dorian has always been a jerk, and his level of jerkhood in this book is over the top. He decides he deserves to run the city because he can trust no one else. He has no principles other than self-preservation. He decides that he "had to betray Choi" to save himself. Why not just take consequences for his own actions rather than destroying someone else's life? At the very least, he shouldn't pretend he was forced into that choice-- he could have chosen to accept responsibility. (hide spoiler)] I wanted to like this book. I really did. And actually, even though it infuriated me, I found it interesting to explore the perspective of a character so imbued with white privilege that his only thought during a mass protest against police brutality is whether he'll get a dinner rush. But what I have real trouble with is the unexamined nature of much of the prejudice; the thoughtless, caustic nature of the white privilege that imbues it. Maybe if you understand what this book is going in, you can get past all this, but I couldn't. That doesn't mean I won't give the next book a try; I'm constantly fascinated by how far down Dorian can be dragged, and the ending is a zinger. Okay, that's all from me. At least now you know why I've been procrastinating and avoiding Goodreads for these last few months. ~~I received this ebook through Netgalley from the publisher, Curiosity Quills Press, in exchange for my (depressingly) honest review. Quotes were taken from an advanced reader copy and while they may not reflect the final phrasing, I believe they speak to the spirit of the novel as a whole.~~ Cross-posted on BookLikes. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Sep 2017
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Sep 22, 2017
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Sep 21, 2017
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Paperback
| |||||||||||||||||
| 0765379201
| 9780765379207
| 0765379201
| 3.72
| 351
| Jul 25, 2017
| Jul 25, 2017
|
really liked it
|
As a huge fan of both hardboiled/noir and science fiction, Adam Christopher's Ray Electromatic series has been a guaranteed hit with me. Raymond (get
As a huge fan of both hardboiled/noir and science fiction, Adam Christopher's Ray Electromatic series has been a guaranteed hit with me. Raymond (get it?) is the last of the robots from an aborted attempt to replace various public sector jobs with a silicon workforce. Still supposedly with the "Electromatic Detective Agency," his programming has been altered by the amoral supercomputer Ada (get it?) to transform him into a robotic killer-for-hire. Every twenty-four hours, his magnetic tapes run out and his entire memory is removed and wiped clean. Any book involving a robot running around in a trenchcoat and trying to solve a hardboiled mystery pastiche is bound to go over well with me, and Killing is my Business is no exception. This story, which involves a mafia boss, a mad scientist, government agents, and secret plots galore, is as entertaining as it is wacky and engrossing. One of the things that makes this series so unique is the tension between Ray's hitman programming and his innate desire to be a good detective. He is simultaneously brutal and naive, and the longer he goes before his memory is erased, the more human he becomes. Then there's the tension and hope as his clock runs out, and the sudden shock of the newly-hard, cold, memory-erased Ray. it's a very unique take on the "tarnished knight" and chiaroscuro aspects of hardboiled detective fiction and noir. If any of this sounds intriguing, then the Ray Electromatic series is well worth a look. ~~I received an advanced reader copy of this ebook through Netgalley from the publisher, Tor Books, in exchange for my honest review. Thanks!~~ Cross-posted on BookLikes. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jul 06, 2017
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Jul 09, 2017
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Jul 06, 2017
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Hardcover
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| 0765391821
| 9780765391827
| 3.56
| 262
| Mar 07, 2017
| Mar 07, 2017
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really liked it
| "This seemed to be my lucky night for going undercover, which was something I rarely did on account of the fact that I was not only a robot but the la "This seemed to be my lucky night for going undercover, which was something I rarely did on account of the fact that I was not only a robot but the last robot, which tended to make me stick out in a crowd just somewhat."Robot noir? Just those words and I'm already a fan. Raymond (get it?) is the last robot in Hollywood. Intended to replace the human police, general robophobia left Raymond a lone and lonely robot, his only friend the profit-obsessed supercomputer Ada, these day he makes his money as a hitman (hitrobot?): "Private detective by day. Private killer by night." Raymond's newest job is a dancer at a club--doesn't matter who or why she is wanted dead, just that someone is willing to pay for it. But when Raymond finds himself within a web of instincts, his detective instincts take over. Christopher's noir pastiche is pretty perfect. Femme fatales and fast-talking gangsters abound. Fast-talking gangsters abound, and there's the standard noir sexism and proliferation of femme fatales, despite a near-but-not-quite-successful subversion of the trope.(view spoiler)[I'm thinking here of Athena, where she turns out to be the gangster (epic) but then Raymond spends all his time feeling sorry for the boyfriend. What, no sympathy for the wives of all those male gangsters? (hide spoiler)]But what was most important to me was that he has the patter down perfectly. It's hilarious. Some of my favourites: "I thought it all went rather well against my chassis , which was bronzed and the color of those sculptures by that guy who did sculptures in bronze." "Being a hit man— hit robot—is an interesting business. It requires a certain level of what I like to call not being caught. There were ways to avoid that particular outcome and I liked to think I was pretty good at a few of them. I had several advantages in my favor. I didn’t leave fingerprints, for a start."Despite the comedy and all of the noir spoofiness, there are also some really interesting elements I'd love to see Christopher expand upon. Raymond has been reprogrammed--by Ada-- to be a hitman. As he puts it: "A little adjustment and I was invited to the party. Which was also fine. Because I was programmed to think it was fine."His personal memory is constrained to a short tape reel that is overwritten when he returns to Ada, which reminded me a bit of Person of Interest. And how did Ada become the ultimate evil scheming femme fatale in the first place? I'd love to better understand her background and how she interacts with her clients. Overall, it's a great little novella, and I'm looking forward to another adventure with Raymond the Robot. The plotting is tight, the story moves fast, and the ending manages to be both somewhat ambiguous and, to me at least, entirely unexpected, which was fun. If you're looking for a short punch of scifi noir, Standard Hollywood Depravity is well worth a look. I received this ebook through Netgalley from the publisher, Macmillan-Tor/Forge, in exchange for my honest review. Quotes were taken from an advanced reader copy and while they may not reflect the final phrasing, I believe they speak to the novel as a whole. ~~Cross-posted on BookLikes.~~ ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Mar 17, 2017
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Mar 18, 2017
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Mar 17, 2017
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ebook
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| 0425276007
| 9780425276006
| 0425276007
| 4.08
| 444
| Jan 03, 2017
| Jan 03, 2017
|
really liked it
| "Tonight we rise as one and change the world!"Bone Street Rumba. Half-Resurrection Blues. Midnight Taxi Tango. Battle Hill Bolero. From the titles "Tonight we rise as one and change the world!"Bone Street Rumba. Half-Resurrection Blues. Midnight Taxi Tango. Battle Hill Bolero. From the titles alone, it's clear how important an influence music is on Older, and his love of rhythm and texture can be felt through the pages. Sure, it's a story about ghosts and humans duking it out against supernatural monsters, but for me, the series is just as much about New York City, the backstreets and communities that half-dead Carlos Delacruz and his full-ghost and human friends inhabit, from the juxtaposition of layered history in the ghost world to creeping gentrification to chatty santeros to the clash of cultures on the city streets. In Battle Hill Bolero, the story really picks up its tempo. If you've read my reviews before, you probably know I'm somewhat cavalier about series order-- even in this case, I started with Midnight Taxi Tango (#2) and only recently went back to read Half-Resurrection Blues (#1). So please take my word for it when I say that this book simply won't work without the previous two in the series. (In fact, that realization, which occurred within the first chapter of this book, is the reason why I went back to read the first book.) Any discussion of the plot necessarily involves spoilers for the previous books, so consider yourself warned. After the slow buildup in the previous books in the series, the rebellion against the Council has finally reached boiling point. After a host of mutual misunderstandings, Carlos and Sasha are finally trying to work things out, complicated by the revolution exploding around them. Battle Hill Bolero is chock-full of battlescenes, and some of them are pretty awesome. However, I did find it surprising that, given the series' focus on exploring the humanity of the other characters, there was so little concern for the sanctity of the lives (or unlives, as the case may be) of the adversaries. This is a civil war that pits friend against friend and coworker against coworker. How did the fight against the Council become a fight against a faceless enemy? I also don't tend to find plotting to be Older's strong point, and this book was no exception. I never really understand why the antagonists--and some of the protagonists-- do what they do; their often contradictory actions seem to serve only the plot. (view spoiler)[One thing that drove me slightly nuts was Carlos's entirely inconsistent status as secret rebel. At one moment, they're looking for a traitor; at another, he's going out to a bar with them; at another, they offer him a job; at another, they're attacking his house. It was logically inconsistent and didn't even really drive the plot. The ngks were another issue. While it was gratifying to see all the pieces of the previous books come together, I have no clue how or why they got involved, and why anyone thought it was a good idea to employ the magical equivalent of a nuclear attack. And while it was interesting to finally find out what happened at Carlos's death, it was sort of a letdown. Honestly, the whole "murder their whole families" thing still makes no sense to me, particularly given that Carlos and Sasha had no idea who they were in their previous lives anyway. But the biggest issue was, of course, Flores. Other than to drive the plot, what was the motivation for all the insane actions he took, from sending them to the Web to starting a war against them to bringing in Caitlin? He was basically a plot device, and a shallow one at that. (hide spoiler)] I'm drawn to these books because of the vivid glimpses of New York that Older gives us, the diverse characters, not the plot or action scenes. And I absolutely loved some of the characters introduced here, from Kris the take-no-prisoners ghost to Red, a transgender pirate whose spunky spirit outlived his body by centuries, as well as old friends from previous books. And then there's the sheer love of language that imbues the story, and the sly situational humor that is such an integral part of urban fantasy. For example: "Meetings are Satan's way of balancing out all the beautiful things in the world, like music."We even get an enjoyable cameo from Shadowshaper as well as a few hints about the next mythological entities Carlos and the gang will encounter. Battle Hill Bolero is a watershed book for the series. It absolutely cannot be read without the other books in the series, for the plot is filled with an unexpected but gratifying symmetry. I'm not sure where Older will take the series next, but I'm definitely in for the ride. ~~I received this ebook through Netgalley from the publisher, Berkley Publishing Group, in exchange for my honest review. Quotes were taken from an advanced reader copy and while they may not reflect the final phrasing, I believe they speak to the spirit of the novel as a whole.~~ Cross-posted on Booklikes. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Nov 20, 2016
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Nov 26, 2016
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Nov 20, 2016
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Mass Market Paperback
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| 0451166000
| 9780451166005
| 0451166000
| 3.74
| 491
| 1989
| Jul 03, 1990
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liked it
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None
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Notes are private!
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1
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not set
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not set
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Mar 29, 2016
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Mass Market Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 1501119567
| 9781501119569
| 1501119567
| 3.57
| 1,252
| Jun 01, 2016
| Jun 28, 2016
|
really liked it
| "Only a lunatic would live on the Moon. "Only a lunatic would live on the Moon.So opens The Dark Side, a bold, brash, larger-than-life adventure with the aforementioned lunatics on the dark side of the moon. Exploding goats, discussions of democratic murder, bouncing chases across rooftops--bouncing because of the lower gravity, of course--, men with bowie knives popping up to interrupt informants as they open their mouths to tattle on the villain, rough terrain vehicle chases across moon craters… this book's got it all. In some ways, The Dark Side reminded me of Douglas Adams, if Douglas Adams decided to borrow plot points from Guillermo de Toro and James M. Cain. Like Hitchhiker's Guide, the tone of the book is conversational, repeatedly breaking the fourth wall with explanatory asides to the reader, apparently with the assumption that the reader is a prospective tourist to the moon. The whimsical and punny character names-- Q.T. Brass, Johnny D-Tox, Dash Chin, Prince Oda Universe, etc-- reminded me of Adams as well. However, there is one sharp difference: the level of gore. Since Purgatory started life as a penal colony, the number of immoral characters isn't much of a surprise, but the details of some of their atrocities are still horrifying. Don't get attached to the characters of The Dark Side because in almost every case, here's what's going to happen: the character will be introduced, be humanized (or possibly dehumanized) through a backstory, and then suffer a grisly fate. All within a few pages. Rinse and repeat. Sure, Adams has a pretty high death toll in Dirk Gently and Hitchhiker's Guide, but Adams' deaths are comparatively gentle and mostly happen offscreen, with a whale and a pot of petunias suffering some of the most graphic on-page deaths. (I still feel badly for the whale.) Like Adams or early Pratchett, I think O'Neill is using death as comic relief, but it's something I have difficulty appreciating, particularly since the deaths are often wincingly, breath-catchingly graphic. Unfortunately for me, I don't find death--even the death of sperm whales falling towards a planet--all that funny. At the same time, O'Neill really, really gets the hardboiled/noir vibe. He's got the cheerfully immoral city, the almost admirably egotistical gangster kingpins, the enigmatic femme fatales, the sly wit, and the jaded but earnest detective. Example quintessential hardboiled quote: "He's come to trust the droids implicitly. It's an illusion, of course, because he knows very well that robots can be programmed to betray, but in his experience humans are always programmed to betray."Our protagonist, Damien Justus--pronounced like "Eustace," although no one on the moon seems to believe him-- has just been transferred to the city of Sin, part of Purgatory, on the dark side of the moon. (They tell it like it is in Purgatory. Motto of the city: "There's nothing better than living in Sin.") On his first day of work, he gets a bombing, and while no one on his team seems all that bothered, Justus quickly realizes that the murder may be tangled up in something much, much larger: a conspiracy that will put him in the middle of a power struggle between mob boss Fletcher Brass and his daughter, QT Brass. All too soon, Justus is fencing with the Brass family and their shared "art of preemptive candor" while dodging bullets, escaping hits, and investigating an ever-increasing pile of bodies. Even as Justus remains mired in Sin, a psychotic android is on its way to the city, swiftly internalizing Fletcher' Brass's "Brass Code" into its new moral system: "Never bang your head against a wall. Bang someone else's." If you're in the mood for a crazy, colorful, flamboyant noir space adventure, The Dark Side may be for you. ~~I received an advanced reader copy of this ebook from the publisher, Simon & Schuster, in exchange for my honest review. Quotes were taken from an advanced reader copy and while they may not reflect the final phrasing, I believe they speak to the spirit of the novel as a whole.~~ Cross-posted on BookLikes. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Mar 16, 2016
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Mar 29, 2016
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Mar 16, 2016
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Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 0356505316
| 9780356505312
| 0356505316
| 3.92
| 7,385
| Jul 2015
| Jul 02, 2015
|
really liked it
| "Please allow me to introduce myself… "Please allow me to introduce myself…Meet Mo, a.k.a. Dominique, employee of the UK's super-secret black-ops magic organisation (they call it the Laundry), wife of Bob Howard (a.k.a. The Eater of Souls), bearer of a psychotically evil soul-sucking bone violin, and combat epistemologist. When Mo takes a trip to do a little glad-handing with the Deep Ones (aka BLUE HADES), she thinks she's finally going to get a bit of well-deserved R&R. But before she knows it, a tiny mistake has landed her neck-deep in trouble, and even worse, in bureaucratic paperwork. In Mo's world, the end is nigh, and all hell is beginning to break loose. As the barriers between our world and the Elder Ones of the Dungeon Dimensions break down, more and more people are gaining magical abilities. Magic is rationalized in the context of culture, and given the superhero craze, suddenly there are a disturbing number of people running (or flying) around in Lycra suits that may not precisely flatter them. And a series of mistakes leave Mo in charge of a brand-new superhero ops organization tasked with stopping the superhero singularity. To make things worse, there's a new supervillain Mad Scientist on the loose, and he he's leaving behind messages of the "Tremble, Fools, Before It is Too Late!" variety, and worst of all, the messages are printed in Comic Sans. I suspect that the most divisive part of the book will be the change in narrators from Bob to Mo. Personally, I strongly preferred Mo to Bob. She's introduced to us in the midst of an unjustified attack of jealousy, but once she gets past that, I really warmed to her. I've grown a bit tired of Bob, and Mo's spiky, sarcastic, vibrant personality revived the series for me. I also wasn't too surprised by their marital issues; intentional or not on Stross's part, I've never sensed any chemistry between Bob and Mo. (Since much of the series is a Bond spoof, there are quite a few obligatory Bond girls, and Bob doesn't really think of Mo when she's not around.) While the previous books in the series don't really defy their Bond roots in the sexism department, I thought Stross did a pretty good job with his female characters here. He even has a wonderful riff on the Invisible Middle-Aged Woman syndrome. (Sure, there's the obsession on Bob's past partners, but Mo's Bechdel test failure moment is actually called out in-book.) The plot itself is rather measured, dealing mostly with Mo's struggles to get her fledgling superhero team going. I'm pretty sure anyone who has dealt with bureaucracy will find it amusing. For me, however, the ending was a bit of an off note. (view spoiler)[ If I understand matters correctly, the combined incompetence of Mo and the Laundry causes thousands of deaths. If the Laundry knew what was going on--and the conversations with the SA certainly suggests that--why not go after the organization? They're not all-powerful. They're not even magic. Surely a bit of explanation, shock and awe, or, in the worst case, deaths would have solved matters. Also, I know I'm a pedant, but I'm a bit weirded out by the oath bit. We (the barbarian Americans) also have the "lawful" bit, but for us at least, "lawful" means that it has to pass the legislature and be part of the law--just because an executive said so wouldn't make it right or true. Firing upon unarmed civilians without cause is kinda not cool with the UCMJ. So what about an immoral order by a superior officer makes it lawful? And how on earth was there not a witchhunt against Mo? She was shown on live TV to be killing a mass number of people with an enchanted weapon she was known to own, and, presumably, control. I pretty much do consider Mo and the Laundry culpable, and that assessment includes the mitigating factors. And Mo made everything worse. She deduced nothing. She solved nothing. She acted as the puppet of everyone around her. She didn't even withstand Lecter and ends up requiring rescue. Again. Granted, that's what always seems to happen to Bob as well, but given the context, it was somehow worse here. The other thing that really, really pissed me off was the ending, when Mo meets up with Mr Patronising Git, aka Dr Armstrong. In the last paragraph of the book, he responds to her valid concerns that (a) she did more harm than good, (b) she's worn out with it, and (c) the Laundry is an untrustworthy organization with a patronising speech in which he pretty much directly calls her hysterical. And she apparently takes it. There are moments in the book when Stross's gender biases surface. Mo spends a lot of time jealously obsessing over Bob and the women who knew him, and there's quite a bit of the catfight vibe in the opening. I found it rather irritating, but sure, maybe some women are like that. But Stross's complete ignorance of a serious hotbutton is just a step too far. There's a proud and ongoing tradition of dismissing women as hysterical or overemotional. It's so common that these days, it's part of bias training. Yet the book ends with this arrogant git calling her overemotional and telling her she'll "calm down" and "regain her center" and think better of it all? Really? And you're going to end the book with that? I would have loved to give this book five stars. Up until the ending, I really thought it would happen. But between the too-neat cop-out and the blind sexism of the last paragraph, the end left a bad taste in my mouth. (hide spoiler)] As always, Stross is absolutely hilarious, and this time, you don't need a computer science degree to get in on the jokes. Some of my favourite quotes: "Yes, she's a blood-sucking fiend. But she's also a superbly competent administrator and has an MBA which I think you'll agree makes up for a lot of sins." "Scientific research is a bottomless money pit. You can approximate Doing Science to standing on the Crack of Doom throwing banknotes down it by the double-handful, in the hope that if you choke the volcano with enough paper it will cough up the One Ring." "Despair, dismay, disorientation, and delusion: the four horsemen of the bureaucratic apocalypse." Unfortunately, though, I don't really think it's possible to read this without the context of the previous books. I skipped only one (#5, The Rhesus Chart) and found myself quite bewildered by the references to recent events. I can't imagine how hard it would be to read this without some knowledge of the Laundry, the Eater of Souls, and CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN. However, if you're looking to give the series a try, I think you can start with #2 ( The Jennifer Morgue ) or #3( The Fuller Memorandum )--I did. **Note: quotes were taken from an uncorrected advanced reader copy of this ebook and may not reflect the final version. However, I believe they speak to the spirit of the book. ~~I received an advanced reader copy of this ebook through Netgalley from the publisher, Ace Books, a Penguin Random House imprint, in exchange for my honest review. Thank you!~~ ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
|
Jul 07, 2015
|
Jul 12, 2015
|
Jul 07, 2015
|
Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 1612184588
| 9781612184586
| 1612184588
| 4.28
| 7,705
| Feb 18, 2014
| Feb 18, 2014
|
really liked it
|
Someone is trying to send Nate Garrett a message, and since it's Nate, they're sending it with blood. When Nate receives a call from an old friend and
Someone is trying to send Nate Garrett a message, and since it's Nate, they're sending it with blood. When Nate receives a call from an old friend and arrives to find the friend rather messily murdered, he knows something is up. When the mysterious killers follow up with a well-placed bomb, it begins to get a little personal. Nate soon realises that the people after him have some connection with a case he closed over thirty years ago, a case that happened to involve both the magical powers behind Avalon and the pocket-dimension kingdom of Shadow Falls. Since that case left everyone involved either dead or imprisoned, Nate is left with more questions than answers, but he's still ready to enter the fray with aplomb: "You don't know what game they're playing." Although With Silent Screams is actually the third book in The Hellequin Chronicles, it was my first entry into the series. I can therefore say with assurance that the book works perfectly as a standalone. The set-up is a little like a cross between Kevin Hearne's Iron Druid and Jim Butcher's Dresden Files; like Atticus O'Sullivan, the protagonist of Iron Druid, Garrett is an ancient being living in a modern world. Like Harry Dresden, Garrett is an extremely powerful magic-wielder with a preference for wind and fire. However, McHugh is far more adept at constructing a millenia-old inhuman protagonist. Unlike Atticus, Garrett doesn't pepper the book with endless pop-culture jokes, and while his phrasing is modern, it is British rather than American. Garrett also has far fewer scruples about killing his enemies than most of the urban fantasy protagonists I follow. As he explains, "Like humans, some [sorcerers] have trouble taking a life and some don't. I fall into the latter. I'm not psychotic or evil or anything so damn melodramatic, I just don't have the luxury of second-guessing myself. If someone is coming to attack me or the people I care about, it's them or me. Simple. If they want to push something to that degree and they threaten a life, then theirs is now forfeit. ... if taking a life means people I care about are safe, then I don't think twice about it."Nate holds true to his claim. He has a tendency to divide people into "good" (aka "on his side") and "bad" (aka "not on his side"), and exhibits very little guilt about gruesomely dispatching the "bad" folks. Despite my general dislike of amoral protagonist, I thought it worked surprisingly well, especially given that Garrett is a 1600-year-old Hellequin. Early on, I realised that it was rather like reading a book with Kincaid from the Dresden Files as the protagonist. I have a weird fondness for Kincaid, and that carried over to Garrett. Part of the attraction was Garrett's sardonic and often black-tinged sense of humour: "There is nothing you can do--" The magical world was only sketchily defined, but I found several aspects of it quite satisfying. As far as I could determine, most magic-wielders are either sorcerers or alchemists. I found alchemy, which provides the ability to alter or transform various materials by touch, to be rather ill-defined and highly variable in power from moment to moment. Nate, too, showed huge volatility in power level; in one moment, he's taking out a house of monsters; in the next, he's being dominated by a novice. However, there were plenty of aspects I enjoyed, such as the casual mentions of historical figures. For example, representatives from the magical world are always sent to have a "first meeting" with new leaders. Teddy Roosevelt apparently seriously considered shooting the magical representative, Nate desperately wanted to kill Henry VII (he liked Richard III and thought he didn't deserve all the bad press, and, as he says, "Charles II was an interesting one--I'm pretty sure he was either drunk or stoned for the entire meeting." The plot itself is enjoyable, if rather impressively gory. Initially, the chapters alternate between the present and flashbacks of the previous case, and I thought the device worked well. I also could have done without a certain amount of vampire-fueled wish-fulfillment and a discussion about "man cards" and "acting like girls", but all of that was definitely in character for Garrett. While there is some amount of mystery, Garrett has a frustrating tendency to fail to ask the obvious questions, so he usually finds the answers by stumbling into trouble. Garrett's version of thinking ahead: "Do you have a plan?"Most of the story is a series of non-stop battles. Most of the protagonists I follow are either low-power or exceedingly eccentric, so I found the more straightforward magic fights a refreshing change. I found Garrett's battle style, especially his use of flame and air, to be very reminiscent of Harry Dresden, so if you're looking for something similar, this series is definitely worth a closer look. Garrett also spends basically no time agonizing about the death he causes: "Will you kill them all?"If you're interested in action-packed urban fantasy and you're tired of angst and guilt, then The Hellequin Chronicles may be a good fit. As for me, I'm off to dig up the first in the series. ~~I received this ebook through NetGalley from the publisher, 47North, in exchange for my honest review.~~ Excerpted from my review on booklikes. ...more |
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not set
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not set
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Mar 02, 2014
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Paperback
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| 0316079901
| 9780316079907
| 0316079901
| 4.13
| 4,111
| Mar 08, 2010
| Feb 01, 2011
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really liked it
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**edited 11/28/13 Something is wrong with the city. Spectres and Saturates (scum monsters) stalk (or squish) through the streets. There is writing on t **edited 11/28/13 Something is wrong with the city. Spectres and Saturates (scum monsters) stalk (or squish) through the streets. There is writing on the walls of London. The ravens of the Tower are dead. And Matthew Swift, somewhat-deceased, partially-possessed sorcerer, has been attacked through the very phone lines from which he draws part of his identity. When he awakens from unconsciousness, wounded and bleeding, it is to the realisation that the Midnight Mayor, mysterious protector of the city, has been murdered. But what with the disturbing entity calling itself the Death of Cities after him, he hardly has time to care about all the people from his own side who suspect him of having a hand in the Mayor's death. There is no way that I can write a review that adequately captures the world that Kate Griffin creates. (Honestly, I think this song--"Septimus" from the soundtrack of Stardust--with its quixotic uplifting tone and darker undercurrents, captures the story better than any words of mine.) I was floored by the sheer creativity of A Madness of Angels, and Midnight Mayor is just as fantastically inventive. The sheer creativity of the world is delightful: conjuring with ASBOs is largely ineffective, spectres can be trapped in beer bottles (you can drown anything in the bottom), and Tesco's receipts can be deadly. In the end, the darker mood was far outweighed by dry wit and extravagant imagination. This book made me smile, and that is too rare and wonderful to resist. ~4.3 Due to my disapproval of GR's new and rather subjective review deletion policy, The rest of my (rather verbose and quote-filled) review is posted over here at Booklikes. ...more |
Notes are private!
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Jul 26, 2013
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Nov 27, 2014
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Jul 26, 2013
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Mass Market Paperback
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| 1841496553
| 9781841496559
| 1841496553
| 4.19
| 5,577
| Sep 03, 2009
| Sep 03, 2009
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really liked it
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In the Felix Castor books, the gritty, jaded irony of the best of noir/hardboiled meets the precarious uncertainty of a fantastically imaginative apoc
In the Felix Castor books, the gritty, jaded irony of the best of noir/hardboiled meets the precarious uncertainty of a fantastically imaginative apocalyptic world. Carey's prose is vivid, compelling, and compulsively readable, and Fix Castor manages to be sympathetic despite his many flaws. The Castor books portray a self-destructive protagonist submerged by his guilt, isolation, and loneliness, struggling to stay afloat in an uneasy sea of moral grays. Carey has a gift for interweaving human conflict and supernatural elements into a seamless whole. In every book, up to this point, the root of the conflict has been man's inhumanity to man. Each book has started with an apparently trivial case which leads Castor deeper and deeper into a poisonous web of conspiracy amongst privileged and powerful. All of the conflicts, in the end, come down to human sins and human actions. In Fix's world, humans are the root of all evil. Until now. Throughout the series, Fix has been tormented by guilt over his involvement in the fate of Rafi, his old college friend. Several years before, Castor, desperate to rescue Rafi from a botched demon summoning, accidentally bound his friend's soul to the demon Asmodeus. Since that time, Rafi has been half-mad, locked away to prevent the demon who possesses him from wreaking havoc upon the world. In The Naming of Beasts, Asmodeus puts his own plans into action and the plot that has been simmering for the last four books finally explodes into the forefront. For me, this meant that the driving force of the series--the tragedy of human inhumanity--was strangely absent from The Naming of Beasts. Most of the conflict comes from the machinations of the demon Asmodeus, and while Jenna-Jane Mullbridge, the other main antagonist/schemer, is technically human, she is essentially a straightforward symbol of the Evils of Science. While the plot is action-filled and fast-paced, it doesn't really have the corkscrew-twisty whodunit element that I found so compelling in the earlier books. It also has so many plotholes that I could use it for straining pasta. (view spoiler)[I'm really OCD about mysteries, and...well...here's my list of plotholes: One of the biggest problems for me was the demon power issue. Books #2 and #4 make it pretty clear that a loose demon--any loose demon--can do a tremendous amount of damage. We've seen that even a small amount of demon essence can drive whole communities into savage fury or suicidal frenzy. So why did Asmo limit himself to running around and tearing a few people apart? Why didn't we see Asmo putting the works on massive groups of people? According to Fix, the reason for the random murders was to tip Rafi over the edge. Clearly if that was the goal, the more random violence, the better. It is therefore improbable to me that Asmo would restrain himself to those few deaths. The same is true for Fix's narrow escapes; given that we've seen how loosed demons can affect people at a distance, why not force Castor to kill himself, or at least freeze, during their first struggle? From a plot perspective, I understand why Asmo was limited to physical violence; until this book, Castor hasn't "powered up," so for the plot to work, Asmo had to be quite low-powered--ridiculously so, from the point of view of #2 and #4. Continuing with my gripes about human evil, I was frustrated that one of the most fascinating aspects--the origin of demons--was essentially dropped in this one. While the plot would have created an interesting opportunity to explore Asmo's lost humanity, he is reduced to a two-dimensional sketch of evil incarnate. Even Juliet's previous humanity is ignored, and her previous incarnations, her slow transformation from angular, savage creature to the softer Juliet, almost seem to contradict her human origins. As a mystery reader, I was also frustrated by the dropped plot threads/ red herrings. For example, how, precisely, did Linda fit in? Asmo claimed she did...what did he mean? Who was the "he" who Rosie warned Fix about? Surely not Gil, not with that oh-so-suggestive pause and change of subject. And why did Asmo hide in the tunnels? Why did he traipse around the city in a suggestive pattern? Why pick those particular people to kill? As I've noted, the reason given--to weaken Rafi--seems awfully tenuous, because surely killing Fix--or random passerbys--would have helped as well. Asmo has always struck me as an intensely practical guy. Surely there are plenty of other succubi in Hell; why not call up one of those to free him, then come back and wreak havoc on humanity? Why spend so much effort and take so many risks in the pursuit of Juliet? And come to think of it, why keep Fix alive? Why was he "needed"? That particular rationale for Asmo's actions seemed awfully weak to me. Come to think of it, how did Asmo make it out of England? Was that ever clarified? I'd also like to honour Castor with the Darwin Award for going into Asmo's tunnel unaided and unprepared instead of saving all the exorcists at the pool. Jeez. Even Fix's whole "recording" thing bothered me: it's a game-changer, because it means that Fix's power to banish demons is not directly related to "self"; it can somehow be amplified by someone else's tech, recorded, modified, and more. So what does that mean for the future? Can others record Fix and use the recordings without his presence? If so, what, precisely, contains the magic? On the same note, the whole photo thing didn't work much for me either. What, would plastering arbitrary pixels work, given that they *could* be reconstructed to a face? Basically any set of pixels--any set of varied colours--can meet that description. Talk to any found-objects artist. If not, is it the intention, the belief, that matters? The meaning to the creator? If so, then who needed to embue the weapon with meaning? Rafi wouldn't have known what they were doing... was it exorcist power? It all just seemed awfully sloppy to me. (hide spoiler)] While I've always sympathized with Fix's guilt-driven mission to disentangle Asmo and Rafi while keeping Rafi alive, for me, it's always been about Fix, as I consider Rafi a waste of space, an arrogant, weak-willed, selfish sociopath, a user of others, and one who deserves to reap precisely what he has sowed. Much of my feelings are carried over to Pen, Rafi's whining girlfriend and Fix's unrequited love interest. Pen is always ready to blame everyone else for Rafi's actions, to place the consequences of Rafi's choices on everyone else's shoulders, to sacrifice anyone else for her precious lover's comfort. The demon-haunted Rafi is, in short, the perfect abuser and Pen the ideal enabler, both always willing to heap guilt and inconvenience and danger on everyone else to get what they want. I think it comes down to a universal moral quandry of endless fascination to philosophers: is personal the same is important? My viewpoint: find the most culpable person and let 'em have it. One reason why I'm endlessly captivated by hardboiled/noir is that this perspective almost unerringly places me (at least in principle) on the antagonists' side. In Castor's case, I was incredulous at Castor's unquestioning decision to thwart those planning to kill Rafi/Asmodeus. He is willing to sacrifice any principle, to encounter any danger, to risk all--including countless other lives put at risk by a demon on the loose-- to save his friend. I just kept wondering why he bothered. (view spoiler)[Personally, I thought the HEA ending was an utter cop-out, especially with the convenient little tidbit about Rafi remembering nothing about the atrocities he committed. It may just be my disappointment talking. Given the events of the previous books, I fully expected the irony of Fix managing to save Rafi, only for him to die during the dissolution of souls. The bittersweet ending I craved was Rafi having the opportunity for freedom from a vengeful Asmodeus, but for once, taking a selfless decision, destroying himself and Asmodeus, and thereby finding some sort of redemption. Instead, we get this flat, contrived bit of superficial cheer. So Rafi and Pen get to dance into the sunset, consequence-free, leaving a sea of bodies behind them? Bully for them. I see two alternatives: (1) Rafi spends the rest of his life wracked with guilt over the harm he has caused, unable to ever be comfortable in his own skin, unable to ever be happy again, or (2) Rafi is a sociopath and Fix has just released him to rampage again. Either way, it is not an HEA. (hide spoiler)] Science fiction and fantasy provide wonderful opportunities to twist reality just enough to put readers into a situation where their prejudices and preconceptions no longer apply and they can re-confront the basis for their beliefs. I think that's what Carey was trying to do with Juliet: we all know abusive men are terrible, but what if the abuser is a woman? What if the abuser isn't even human? What if she's the prototypical demon lover? What then? For me, however, it's still a black-and-white issue of domestic abuse, so Juliet's foray into sofa-throwing put a real dent in my sympathy for her as a character. While I was disgusted by Juliet the abuser, her attempts to define and quantify love and relationships were illuminating. Carey does his best to paint her as a sympathetic character bewildered by her own loss of control, yet resigned to the darkness in her nature: "There are limits to how far you can change yourself. I've come to the end of an arc, Castor, and I'm swinging back." There were still plenty of aspects of the story that I loved. Much of the plot centres around the importance of names, and I always find that idea fascinating. Castor continues to struggle with the changes in his world and his own role in it. Rosie, the elderly but still bawdy ghost, makes another enjoyable appearance, and at several points, Castor descends into Cockney rhyming slang, which warmed the cockles of my little Amurrrican heart. Despite my general distaste for woo-woo-evils-of-science-style plots, I was captivated by the vivid, gut-wrenching descriptions of Jenna-Jane's laboratory, where the dead men truly and terrifyingly "lose their bones." The climax, too, is positively pulse-racing; towards the end, I found myself hyperventilating (in traditional Castor style, come to think of it), with my hand convulsively clutching my jaw. Carey also manages to insert a few truly brilliant quotes into the story; for example: "People only want as much history as they can easily carry around."This might be the way the world ends, and I may have been sneaking Eliot quotes into every Castor review I've written, but I'm going to resist temptation, no matter how depressingly apt one particular quote may be. To me, it felt as though the book had drifted away from the soul of the series: the strident cry against man's inhumanity to man, the acute, unblinking stare into human atrocity, the depiction of human folly and weakness--all have all been replaced by the simple, straightforward, distant evil of a coldblooded demon. There were plenty of bright moments and characteristic Carey wit, but I'm still sad that this beautiful chiaroscuro ends with such a feeble whimper. While I'm not thrilled with this ending to the tale, I have loved every other minute of Castor's powerful, imaginative, gripping series. If you're in the mood for gorgeously gritty noir, please give the series a try--the first book is The Devil You Know. ~3.5 Originally posted on BookLikes, which may have additional quotes and comments (yep, it is possible for this review to be longer) that I didn't copy over. ...more |
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Jan 03, 2014
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Jan 23, 2014
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Jul 25, 2013
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Paperback
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| 0316093645
| 9780316093644
| 0316093645
| 4.14
| 3,392
| Jan 01, 2011
| Mar 24, 2011
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really liked it
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Matthew Swift, partially deceased sorcerer, symbiotic host to the electric blue angels of the wires, Midnight Mayor and protector of the city, is not
Matthew Swift, partially deceased sorcerer, symbiotic host to the electric blue angels of the wires, Midnight Mayor and protector of the city, is not an entity to be summoned lightly. But when he disappears in a blink and awakens in a conjuring of blood, it looks like someone has taken the chance. One perilous rescue, one fight to the death, and one burning building later, Swift's troubles have only begun. Oda, his sometime-enemy, sometime-ally, has been stabbed through the heart, but she seems determined not to go gentle in that good night. Lady Neon, queen of the newly reinvented urban faeries, and the Tribe, self-mutilating individualists, are calling for one another's blood, a sinister darkness is waiting at the end of every alley, parts of the city are vanishing from reality, and everyone seems to be expecting Matthew to Do Something about the situation. As always, Griffin's imagination is breathtaking. From the giant eagles that Matthew summons to rescue him from the fiery abysses of Sidcup, to the metal god of the underworld, to medical history reporting magical treatments from the NHS, Griffin's creativity is astounding. This is my fourth book in Griffin's London and I'm still floored by how many quirky, entertaining magics Griffin manages to introduce. One of the most marvelous aspects was the Neon Court: Once upon a time, in that old time when life was still magic and life was lived in the trees and forests and rivers and hills, in the old time of wild, ivy-tangled, rain-dropped magic, before the lights burnt and the spells flickered with electric fury, there existed the Faerie Court...But alas, the Faerie Court did not move with the times, and did not predict how a steam train could carve the landscape, or how a factory could discolour the sky, and, as the times changed, so did the magic, migrating with the people to the cities and becoming rich with smoke and stone and the sound of metal. And so the Faerie Court declined, and those who sought its blessing dwindled, until there was nothing more than a dusty hollow in the carved-out heart of a wood, crumbling with the fall of autumn leaves..[until] an enterprising princess...declared the founding of a new court: the Neon Court, whose heart was in the heart of the cities...And in time Lady Neon herself became little more than a myth: a figure only ever seen by the shadow of a street light, moving between city after city, forever chasing the night and avoiding the sun, a reveller whose lips could seduce any creature they touched.Those in the eternal quest for light and music and superficial beauty are contrasted with the Tribe, people who, seeing themselves as different from the rest of the world, seek to accentuate this divide via self-mutilation and self-augmentation until they are no longer recognisably human: "Once-humans, or humans that had cut away every outward sign of humanity, skin and flesh, in the hope that when they no longer looked human, they'd no longer have to obey human rules." Griffin explores the very human attempt to reshape the exterior in an attempt to redefine the self. As Matthew notes, both "thought the key to being perfect was to cut away the bad things." As both the Tribe and the Fey demonstrate, ripping away facets of one's exterior, whether in a quest for beauty or uniqueness, can mutilate and warp the interior as well until all humanity is gone. The plot follows the pattern of the other books in the series: Swift, aided by an (unfortunately all too disposable) snarky female sidekick, is pursued by an implacable supernatural foe. With the clock ticking and the city at risk if Swift cannot destroy the foe stalking him, he is forced into an alliance with distrustful, threatening, and morally ambiguous supernatural groups. The standard witty banter is still present, as Dees, Swift's Alderman ally, and Penny, his apprentice, are practically slot-in replacements for Oda and Vera. Several characters make their usual cameo appearances, including Sinclair, Charlie, and the inimitable and ever-entertaining Dr Seah. Griffin again tends to interject third-person interludes into the story, but despite the potentially dramatic content, I found these to be exposition-heavy and emotion-lite. The plot itself is quite twisty and satisfying, and the malevolent magic is genuinely shivery. Three books in, I'm still fascinated with Swift's character and the conflict between electric angel and dead sorcerer. In Neon Court, Griffin delves even deeper into the darker aspects of this peculiar fusion of personalities. While the brooding, sarcastic, depressive Matthew is reasonably typical for the genre, the electric angels are something else altogether, a heady mixture of wonder and delight and blazing passion and pride and fury. The electric angels are inherently amoral; they would destroy a city just to watch the dance of flames amongst the ashes. Griffin does a fantastic job in creating these dual aspects; the moments in which the angels take control are palpable, and not only because of the pronoun switch. When Matthew is overcome by strong emotions--pain, weakness, or bewilderment--the angels tend to step in with a ruthless simplicity. As he explains, I've got two kinds of magics. I've got the nice, sitting-at-home-not-troubling-anyone kinda magics...and we have the magics of fire and death, of destruction with no chance of return, of blood aflame and flesh turns to dust...which of us do you want to meet?There is only one aspect that the two personalities truly share: a tangible affection for the life within the city. Although dark throughout, the book is sprinkled with Griffin's trademark creativity and wit. Dees, Swift's new assistant, is particularly entertaining, as she manages a riposte in all of her verbal duels with Swift. Take her response to his attempt to angle for a complement: 'Mr Swift, if it's any comfort to you, I can promise you that were I not a happily married woman with a husband I love well,' sighed Dees,'you would definitely be in my top two genders of choice.' Of course, not all the snark and quixotic imagination in the world can lighten the tone when the blood starts flowing. Almost every named character dies, and by now, this shouldn't be a spoiler. In my opinion, Griffin's bloodbaths have hit saturation point: the deaths have become predictable, an aspect to be expected and endured. In every book, at least one of Matthew's female allies will be spectacularly murdered, conveniently driving Swift over the edge and allowing the angels to take control. As he notes in reference to the death of his friend Madness, "[Her death]..made complex things simple." This trick to send the villains over the Moral Event Horizon does indeed make things simple, at the cost of all the complexity and depth that might otherwise be explored. It takes more courage to keep your characters alive, to let their personalities and relationships develop and grow, to maintain the suspense without resorting to cheap tricks. Yet no matter how inured I was to my favourite characters' deaths, no matter how accurately I predicted their demises, events still left me with an aching throat. One unexpected delight of the book was the way in which it re-examined the events of A Madness of Angels. I've had Swift pegged as an antihero for a while, but it was interesting to see him try to reconcile his own motivations for pursuing Bakker. One of the other subplots of the book, the exploration of the "chosen one" trope, fits neatly into this theme. I have always been fascinated by the struggle between what is right and what is necessary, the extents and limitations of responsibility, and the role of choice and guilt in maintaining humanity. As one character remarks bleakly, "One has to prioritise when it comes to big feelings. One can only feel big feelings for so many people, otherwise one has to feel lots and lots of little feelings for lots of little people, and then frankly you'd stop being the hero." Perhaps this is the ultimate theme of the book: the struggle to define the line between hero and monster when both do what they think must be done. Overall, I cannot recommend this series too highly. Although I'm not thrilled with Griffin's decision to repeatedly re-isolate her hero and increase character turnover, there are too many wonderful aspects to these books to resist, from Griffin's incredible imagination to her laugh-inducing humour to her vibrant depiction of London. I've seen Griffin's writing aptly described as a "Marmite style", but if you happen to be a fan of her rather quirky, dialectic and dialogue-heavy stream-of-consciousness, please give these books a try. Excerpted from my (long, quote-filled) review on Booklikes , which contains additional commentary, spoilers, and quotes. CAUTION: READING PROGRESS UPDATES CONTAIN SPOILERS! ...more |
Notes are private!
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Aug 27, 2013
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Dec 29, 2014
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Jun 22, 2013
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Hardcover
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| B004RCNGVM
| 4.21
| 2,882
| Mar 01, 2012
| May 01, 2012
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really liked it
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The Matthew Swift series involves one of the most fantastical and whimsically creative worlds I've encountered, one of the most fascinatingly broken p
The Matthew Swift series involves one of the most fantastical and whimsically creative worlds I've encountered, one of the most fascinatingly broken protagonists that I follow, and a style that sucks me into the narrative. I accept that this series is not for everyone; it's written in lush stream-of-consciousness, and there are certain tropes utilized again and again which may be a turnoff for some readers. But if you haven't at least tried the books, you don't know what you're missing. So why is this series so very addictive? Part of it is the world that Griffin creates. This is my fifth book in this world and she still has the power to surprise, to delight, to horrify me with her creativity and the richness of her imagination. Throughout the series, one theme is constant: that "Life is magic." Griffin's delight and wonder in the life of the city makes the magic of her world nearly tangible. From women who crumble into dust to imps who colonize vacuum cleaner bags and take vacations in the dumpsters,Griffin's world is extraordinary and yet familiar. Her London is detailed with something deeper than mere affection; when Griffin's characters speak of souls rooted in the stones at the heart of London, I think she speaks from experience. Part of it is the writing style. I know I originally complained about it, and I'm not sure if it has grown more elegant or simply grown on me, but I find all of it--the stream-of-consciousness, the heavily dialectic speech, the lush descriptions--oddly compelling. It draws me into the narrative so deeply that I can hear each character's unique voice and cadence. Even in the darkest moments, Griffin inserts insanely wacky little tidbits that you can't help but laugh at. Take this little scene: "'You know how vampires are allergic to garlic?' At the same time, one issue I discuss in all of my other reviews still hold: I can't think of a single series in which the average sidekick lifespan is this short. Do not get attached to characters; they most likely won't make it past the first chapter of the next book. Honestly, at some point, the cheap shocks stop working, even on me. Again, I think the cardinal sin is not just this facile attempt to tug at the emotions of the readers, but the fact that the high death count means that very few characters' personalities are allowed to develop, to grow, adapt, change, mature. Worse still, the characters die in a TV-show style, with no one left in permanent grief, no real thought given to friends and families and lovers left behind. In each book, we restart with a similar set of stock characters, often easy slot-in replacements for the all-too-recently deceased. If the deaths meant more to the other characters--if Matthew was more haunted by their absence--then I think I could forgive the deaths more. All to often, it seems that Matthew's Right Thing is to protect the things that are important to him personally, however arbitrary his definition of importance might be. He saves the individual at the cost of the many, and because they are a nameless grey multitude to him, their lives do not weigh heavily on his shoulders. This type of quest-- to Save The Child, to Rescue the Princess, to Avenge The Family, to Bring Justice, to achieve this at all costs and with any sacrifice necessary-- is one of the most central tropes in the fantasy genre. I think it captures the world that we want to live in, a world where, truly, no one is ever left behind, where the daring rescue risks everything yet costs nothing. Griffin subverts the trope; personal is apparently the same thing as important, but the sacrifice is not an empty one. As one character tells Matthew, 'You've survived a lot of things that most wouldn't have; I respect that. But how'd you survive?' In the end, the destruction wrought by both Matthew and his antagonists demonstrate that the distinction between personal and important must remain a tenuous one, a liminal space in which humanity resides. It is all to easy to become "forward-thinking," to act "proactively", to dehumanize the world into a machine to be optimized, to lose the people in the process. The section titles-- from "You can't be everything to everyone" through "You can't save those who don't want to be saved", and finally, to "...but you might as well try"--create a fitting end to Matthew Swift's tale. Like these phrases, repeated over and over within the narrative, Matthew is trapped in a cycle of destruction; the harder he tries to hold onto his humanity, the faster it is subsumed into the madness of the angels. He is a powerful character, a gloriously imperfect one, yet one of his tragedies is his inherently static nature, his inability to pull himself out of the abyss. It is fitting, then, that the story of Matthew's world is continued by another narrator in the next book, Stray Souls. It provides a new potential for hope, for change. Matthew Swift's story may no longer take centre stage, but Urban Magic lives on. Excerpted from my review on Booklikes, which contains additional quotes, comments, and spoilers that I was too lazy to copy over. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Oct 29, 2013
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Mar 15, 2015
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Jun 22, 2013
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Kindle Edition
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| 1841496561
| 9781841496566
| 1841496561
| 4.14
| 5,920
| Mar 01, 2009
| Mar 01, 2009
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it was amazing
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***WARNING: a main theme of this book is self-harm (specifically cutting) It isn't fetishised or romanticised, but Carey's writing is quite visceral a
***WARNING: a main theme of this book is self-harm (specifically cutting) It isn't fetishised or romanticised, but Carey's writing is quite visceral and my review has quotes, so beware of triggers...*** It all starts with a jailbreak. Felix "Fix" Castor, aided by the succubus Juliet, daringly swipe Fix's demon-possessed friend out from under the noses of the sadistic doctor who wants to take him apart to study him. Fix is just beginning to catch his breath when the police arrive on his doorstep. To his surprise, however, Fix isn't carted off to jail for kidnapping; instead, he is taken to the scene of a near-fatal assault. Much to his chagrin, the police didn't ask him over for his supernatural senses--they just want him to explain why "F Castor" is scrawled across the car window in blood. When Fix learns that the victim of the attack was a childhood enemy, his quest to discover the meaning behind the message leads him back into his murky past and into a darkening future. This book left me breathless--and not just because I read it at the gym. It wasn't just the atmosphere and characters, or the scenes that ripped my heart into shreds, or the plot that kept me guessing into the second half of the book, or even the flawless worldbuilding; it was the visceral, visual nature of the scenes Carey painted and the way he used the template and tropes of pulp to delve into the duality and hypocrisy of human nature. Throughout the series, one of my favourite aspects has been Carey's use of the supernatural conflict as a metaphor for the story's more human tragedies-- a ghost's speech is stolen from her in the same way that her life as an illegal immigrant and prostitute left her without a voice, or spirits that physically steal men's bodies in much the same way that their entrepreneurial ruthlessness has trampled others. (Yep, I like my metaphors blatant.) This book explores a new theme: self-harm in all of is manifestations, from the supernatural to the mundane. The location, too, the Salisbury estate, is one of Carey's best: Fix describes it as "One step closer to Heaven....streets eighty feet of the ground...a city in the air...leave your worries on the ground, take to the skies and live clean. Only it turned out that you left a lot of other stuff on the ground, too... closer to Heaven, maybe, but you bring your weather with you."It is a Babel whose towers were built to rival Heaven and is thus inevitably doomed to failure. Within this fallen city of all-to-human gods, we have a young boy who forsook his innocence of youth and apparently jumped from the airy balconies. (view spoiler)[I loved the imagery of the boy's death; his fall--his fall from grace--leads to the creation of a demon. I think Fix's references to Milton and Paradise Lost aren't coincidental. (hide spoiler)] Throughout the series, the atrocities that Castor faces are, by and large, man-made. Every aspect of the world speaks of man's inhumanity to man; even the supernatural beings are, at their core, people. Ghosts, loup-garou, and zombies are people who have been refined by death into something both more and less human, and even the actions of demons are inexorably shaped by the humans who summon them into the mortal plane. (view spoiler)[The reveal about the true nature of demons was stunning; it came as a shock to me, yet was such a natural fit for the world that Carey had built that it had all the satisfaction of a last puzzle piece fitting into place. We have the contrasting paths of Juliet and Mark; Juliet seeks to understand/remember what it is to be human, while Mark strips away all self other than pain and fury. (hide spoiler)] Through Castor, Carey deconstructs the hero. Throughout, we see a man who is willing to shoulder the responsibilities of others, to throw himself into the fray for friends and strangers. One little oddity stuck out to me: both his mother and brother call him "Felix," so Fix must have bestowed his nickname, with all of its semantic baggage, on himself. To protect and rescue--to fix, in fact--is the role of the hero, yet over and over, Carey has shown us the consequence of choice and the arrogance and unbearable guilt that underlie this apparent selflessness. As one character tells Fix, "'You persist in thinking that...the whole world is full of the waste products of other people's mistakes? That your role in life is to clean them up, and to take the thanks for it? (view spoiler)[...and thus the inevitable tragedy. (hide spoiler)] Castor's tendency to involve himself stems from both his own desire for absolution and an innate arrogance, for why does he believe he has the right, the strength, to make decisions that impact so many? Yet Fix is only one example of this hypocrisy; this duality of saviour and destroyer within the novel. (view spoiler)[Anita first saves the child Fix from a fall to protect the brother of the man she loves, then later pushes him off a bridge to protect her son; his injuries, especially the punctured lung, echo Kevin's, and the words she whispers to Fix as she throws him off--that it will be all right--are the words unsaid when she saved him before. Matty, the literal father figure, can offer grace and forgiveness to his children in God, yet cannot save his own son from sinking into despair. Anita indirectly comments on the ultimate irony of Father Matthew's profession when she finally decides to submit to Kevin: "I don't deserve any better...look at me, Richie. Look how I'm living. He'll put a roof over our heads. He'll be a father to Mark. Fuck knows, somebody's got to be." Even Kevin "saves" Anita even as he destroys her, just as Fix, in a different way, "saves" Rafi from the ministrations of Jenna-Jane only to trigger the dissolution of his soul. (hide spoiler)] Carey's exploration of self-harm is equally complex and multi-layered. Self-harm is itself a paradox; it is a way to act out on one's self-hatred; a way of keeping silence while voicelessly screaming for help, for redemption. It is a form of self-punishment, of hatred and disgust so deep that only disfiguring the vessel can relieve the pressure. Yet while it provides a temporary sense of absolution, it is not constructive, and one quickly becomes addicted to that wire in the blood, that ecstatic moment of release. One of the characters, Mark, speaks to this paradoxical sense of transformation: "If I could talk, I'd talk. It's the easy choice.Through another character who "[carves] out his indignation on his wrists and forearms", Carey captures how this form of silent self-expression, ostensibly a release of anger against the self, may truly target the world. Self-harm is, at its core, a selfish act, for it is an absolute, egoistical focus on the self even in the annihilation of self. Throughout, Carey provides perspectives and consequences, but neither fetishizes nor condemns. I think he truly sought to understand; in the dedication, he thanks an anonymous "A" for conversations and the basis for the poem. As is typical, Fix is more straightforward and sees the cutting as an ecstatic, sexually-tinged escape, yet his typical lack of subtlety and self-knowledge itself adds another layer to Carey's portrayal. For Fix himself is self-destructive: he goes out of his way to damage his potential relationships before they have a chance to bloom; in his thoughts, he tortures himself with endless slashes to his psyche by going over and over his own guilt without ever thoroughly analysing and altering his behaviour. It is the same vicious cycle of self-hatred and self-destruction, and the scars it leaves are just as deep. The book is indeed a fast-paced thriller with a satisfying mystery and tight worldbuilding, but also something more. Fix's description of a news archive of past tragedies perfectly captured my emotions: "And in that typographic ocean, dark shapes moved of their own volition, against the sluggish tides. People hurt and killed each other, or themselves; broke against pavements, were impaled on railings, swallowed razor blades, carved gnomic messages on their own flesh or the flesh of their loved ones. There was blood, and there was pain. It drew me in, until I couldn't see the land any more." *****WARNING: MY READING PROGRESS UPDATES ARE SPOILERY.********* ...more |
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1
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Jun 12, 2013
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Jul 17, 2013
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May 04, 2013
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Mass Market Paperback
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| 1841494151
| 9781841494159
| 1841494151
| 4.00
| 7,771
| Sep 26, 2007
| Sep 26, 2007
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it was amazing
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~4.5 Felix "Fix" Castor, ex-exorcist and provider of "spiritual services" (no, he doesn't know what it means either) is having woman troubles, and not ~4.5 Felix "Fix" Castor, ex-exorcist and provider of "spiritual services" (no, he doesn't know what it means either) is having woman troubles, and not just romantic ones. Sure, after the events of Vicious Circle, Pen, his unrequited love interest, isn't speaking to him, and Juliet, demonic succubus and his unrequited lust interest, has a committed relationship with another woman, but he has far more problems than that. Pen has gotten him embroiled in a nasty court case over his demonically- possessed friend Rafi, all while trying to ignore his existence. Carla Gittings, widow of another exorcist, is being haunted by the angry geist of her late husband and has enlisted Fix's help. If that weren't enough, Fix has been hired by a distressed wife to prove that her husband didn't commit a murder--an extremely dead psychopathic American murderess did it instead. As I said. Woman troubles. As Fix begins to try to make sense of the situation, he begins to think that the cases are related and that Carla Gittings' husband may have stumbled into a horrific conspiracy of murder and possession. As Fix's involvement brings him to the attention of some of the most deadly antagonists he has yet faced, it's time to follow "The gospel according to Castor, Chapter 1, Verse 1: When in doubt, duck." As always, Carey's book was a wild ride. I love Fix's wry voice, and the vivid writing and dialogue bring the characters and world to life. As always, I'm not sure this is a perfect fit for fans of The Dresden Files; not only are the world and tone much darker, but even the basic structure is somewhat different: Harry Dresden typically goes up against antagonists several power grades above him, but his formidable magical talents make him a serious threat. Fix has the same powers as any exorcist, but nothing more; only his determination, guile hero tendencies, and dependence on stronger allies allow him to make it through. As Fix himself says, "I'm like Avis rent-a-car: Because I'm insignificant, I try harder." The world itself is fascinating. Personally, I think that Castor is in the middle of the Rapture, and for once, the protagonist had nothing to do with bringing about the apocalypse. The mysteries beyond the grave come back to haunt the living, and society has no rules defining the interactions with the undead. Exorcists, as Fix once did, contend that the ghosts and zombies are nothing but echoes and that exterminating them is as benign as flipping off a radio. Some, like Fix's colleague Jemma-Jane Mullbridge, take advantage of the lack of guidelines to perform experiments on the undead that no ethical board would allow any living creature. A growing group of bright-eyed idealists have become activists who assert that both human rights and life itself continue "after breath". Fix Castor isn't sure what happens after death, and now carries a heavy weight of guilt from his past actions as a carefree exorcist. All of the supernatural beings in Fix's world, other than demons, are human in origin, so there are no easy and guilt-free salt'em-burn'em solutions as there are in most other urban fantasy series. In the end, every atrocity Fix encounters is inherently a human one, so the story repeatedly explores the lengths humans will go to retain some semblance of life. Even the interactions with demons are an exploration of humanity. Juliet is now in a relationship, apparently in love with the bookish Susan Book. She seems as confused as the reader in understanding what this means, and I was intrigued by her attempts to construct a human identity and to rationalize her own past as a being repeatedly forced to use her sexuality to destroy others. Juliet's actions raised one aspect of the books that I had difficulty in describing coherently: the portrayal of women. The hardboiled/noir genre has a proud history of partitioning women into either "damsels in distress" or "femme fatales," but Carey goes one step farther, utilizing the gender divisions from the 19th century. All but one of the women in every single book (as far as I can recall) are repeatedly described as vibrant, animalistic, and ruled by their passions, while men base their actions on logic and calculation. The only individual to break the dichotomy is Jenna-Jane Mullbridge, and Castor actually describes her as "unfeminine" a few times. Personally, I think it's a generalization best left to the Victorian times. On a lighter note, Carey is one of the few writers in the genre who creates honest-to-goodness mystery stories, and I think this is his best so far; you'll figure out much of what is going on before Fix does, but it will take half the book instead of half a dozen pages. There is also an encore of one of the creepiest instances of a were-beast I've personally encountered...it might even make you look at all those internet kitty memes a little differently. One of the formulas for naming your hardboiled/noir protagonist is to combine a mundane first name with a proper-noun-and-meaningful last-name. That's how you get Harry "the building was on fire and it wasn't my fault" Dresden, Alex "I see the the true future" Verus, James "Sandman Slim" Stark, etc. "Castor" is indeed apropos: castor oil is used therapeutically as a purgative, but it also happens to be a major source of ricin. Like his namesake, Fix starts out attempting to do good, but his presence is often disastrous for those around him. His given name and nickname have a certain irony: he is certainly not happy, his presence is rarely felicitous, and however hard he tries to fix all of the problems he sees, he is doomed to failure, at least in his assessment of himself. Fix Castor is a man drowning in his own guilt, submerged and isolated from the rest of humanity by his remorse and self-loathing. He walks the mean streets, dragging his crushing weight of guilt and self-hatred behind him, making every interaction into a hostile one because he fears that forming attachments will eventually lead him to fail someone else he cares about. Every single story that Fix has told about himself is a story of self-recrimination, from his childhood dealings with Katie to his failure to save Rafi. Every single story he tells us, including the major plot of each novel, ends with him blaming himself. Considering Fix as an unreliable narrator, this is an interesting effect: either Fix remembers all incidents in his life from the perspective of his own failings, or he is actively attempting to present himself negatively to the reader. In either case, it creates an oddly vulnerable, human, and ultimately likeable character, to be seen not as a lost, violent soul, but only as a hollow man. Yet again, the most depressing aspect of the book for me was the isolation, which is in no small part created by Fix's shell of hostility. Fix has scant trust and even less respect for most of the people he encounters, and in the dingy world that Carey has created, it is difficult to blame him. After the last book, his friendship with Pen and Coldwood have practically disintegrated, and the events of the story put even his relationship with Juliet into jeopardy. As always, Fix and Nick are openly and aggressively hostile, with Fix going out of his way to antagonize the zombie; I can't comprehend why Nicky ever lets Castor through his doors, and I really don't understand why he continues to help. Yet as usual, Fix tries to be there for whoever leans on him, from Carla to Juliet to Pen. Yet again, he sees himself as failing them all. Dead Men's Boots is a deeply satisfying story: a tightly plotted, entertaining mystery placed in an imaginative world that explores the boundaries of humanity and death. I can't wait to start the next book. Excerpted from my (rather verbose and quote-filled) review on Booklikes. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Apr 12, 2013
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Apr 23, 2013
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Apr 12, 2013
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Paperback
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| 0316068594
| 9780316068598
| 0316068594
| 3.76
| 8,010
| Apr 02, 2009
| Feb 01, 2010
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it was amazing
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**edit 11/27/13 Two years after bleeding to death in an unfriendly alley, Matthew Swift wakes up in his old apartment, blinking open eyes that have tra **edit 11/27/13 Two years after bleeding to death in an unfriendly alley, Matthew Swift wakes up in his old apartment, blinking open eyes that have transformed from muddy brown to electric blue. He-- and the entities who possess him--have only one thought in his/their mind: revenge against those who killed him and brought them back. Madness of Angels captures the essence why I keep coming back to urban fantasy. When I read UF, I want to enter a world both alien and familiar, where the mundane touches the sublime, where the everyday rules and patterns and flow of life take on new meaning and shape. For me, Griffin's London exemplifies this delicate balance of wonder and absurdity. It is a world where the ebb and flow of the trains beneath the city creates a rhythmic heartbeat of magic, where familiarity and belief create genius loci: deities of bag ladies and beggars, trains and towers. And then there is the life blood of the city itself, the power from which light and noise and movement and life are born. ... Due to my disapproval of GR's new and rather subjective review deletion policy, the rest of my (rather verbose) review is posted over at Booklikes. *********WARNING: PROGRESS UPDATES MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS********** ...more |
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1
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May 23, 2013
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Jun 06, 2013
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Feb 19, 2013
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Mass Market Paperback
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| 0446618713
| 9780446618717
| 0446618713
| 3.97
| 9,046
| Oct 05, 2006
| Jul 01, 2009
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really liked it
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Something very bad is happening in London, and the rising of the dead is only the start of it. The ghost of a child has been stolen from her parents'
Something very bad is happening in London, and the rising of the dead is only the start of it. The ghost of a child has been stolen from her parents' home. A man ridden by a demon has become even more disturbingly violent. A local church seems to have been invaded by a dark presence. Ordinary Londoners have suddenly succumbed to bouts of horrific violence. The end is nigh and the demons have come out to play. It isn't long before Felix Castor is right in the middle of the game. Carey's books make for fantastic urban fantasy pulp: strong plots, vivid action, and an engaging narrator. But while this series may be hardboiled urban fantasy, but I would not necessarily recommend it to Dresden Files fans. Castor's world is significantly darker than the Dresdenverse. While Dresden tends towards lightly hardboiled, Castor is pure noir: isolation, moral greys, a cruel world, and a bleak future. While the plot involves demons, it mainly centres around man's inhumanity to man(and /women/children/ghosts) in sickeningly graphic and extremely disturbing detail. Neither the protagonist nor his associates have the sort of clear moral certainty that Dresden usually assumes, and while Butcher's books portray Christianity and the Catholic church positively, Castor's vitriolic hatred of religion fairly drips off the page. The writing is terse and wry and the wordplay is often humorous, but even considering that our dauntless hero is a Liverpudlian who looks like a used car salesman and whose weapon of choice is a bright green recorder, it's amazing how unfunny I find these books. That is absolutely not a complaint; I suspect I have difficulty seeing the funny side because I so quickly became absorbed in the world and plot. Perhaps the most depressing aspect of the book for me was Fix's isolation. Considering that his closest confidant is the demonic succubus who owns his soul, Castor won't be winning any popularity contests. He goes out of his way to antagonise everyone he encounters, from his supposed friend Nicky to potential information sources to the suspicious policewoman investigating him. He even has the potential to alienate the reader--I found his tendency to boast about his own ignorance while scorning the beliefs of others to be grating, and I suspect it is even more trying for readers of faith. Although I find his actions frustrating, I think Fix's pugnacious attitude can be seen as a masochistic, guilt-ridden attempt to punish himself and keep himself isolated from people that he fears he will fail. For him, hell is indeed himself, always alone, with "nothing to escape from and nothing to escape to." But even if Fix made an abrupt personality shift into placating cooperation, his world would hardly be less dismal: there are simply too few decent human beings in it. I love that all of Carey's characters are complex mixtures of selfishness, altruism, bravery, and cowardice, but I feel that all of them veer far closer to the monster than the angel. I can count only two human characters who are significant enough to be faced with difficult choices and still seem to make reasonably humane decisions--and that's if you let me use the technically undead Nicky and you let me discount Matthew Castor's hard, unfeeling, holier-than-thou actions from the last book. Castor's (human and still living) "friends" are especially problematic. Fix's cop acquaintance simultaneously calls him "friend" and spinelessly betrays him. I never liked Rafi, Castor's demon-ridden friend, but in this book, we learn more about how he ended up sharing headspace with Asmodeous, and his actions do not reflect well on him. I also revised my opinion of Pen, Castor's (unrequited) love interest: she's not just a vapid, shallow, bimbo; it turns out she's also a selfish, self-righteous, myopic [expletive] as well. All of this goes to create a very dark world; while this was obviously Carey's intention, I tend to shy away from books where the characters are so flawed that they are difficult to empathise with. Despite my reservations about the characters, I quickly found myself engrossed in the story. Carey's writing is incredibly visual. Maybe his ability to create such vivid scenes stems from his experiences writing for comics and graphic novels, but all of it, especially the demon scenes, go to create a story that is simply crying for someone to take on the movie rights. Carey also shows considerable skill in creating a mystery--I guarantee that you will figure out two parts of it about 100-200 pages before Fix does, which is admittedly frustrating, but there are some marvellous twists and turns at the end that will certainly surprise you. Carey's worldbuilding continues to delight me; his particular supernatural setup is both incredibly creative and solidly thought out. Overall, the book is a fine example of dark, gritty, urban fantasy pulp: it is imaginative, suspenseful, often heart-wrenching. If you're in the mood for a world of moral greys, vivid action, and a page-turning plot, Felix Castor is the protagonist for you. Excerpted from my review on BookLikes, which contains additional quotes, spoilers, and comments that I was too lazy to copy over. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Feb 19, 2013
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Jan 22, 2015
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Feb 19, 2013
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Mass Market Paperback
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| 0451464397
| 9780451464392
| 0451464397
| 4.56
| 87,420
| May 27, 2014
| May 27, 2014
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This is Harry Dresden. [image] This is Harry the Bolshevik Muppet.* [image]. .[image]Put them both in dusters and there really isn't much difference, This is Harry Dresden. [image] This is Harry the Bolshevik Muppet.* [image]. .[image]Put them both in dusters and there really isn't much difference, especially now that Mab is pulling Dresden's strings. They even have the same hair. *by the way, if you're not up on muppet pop culture, the Bolshevik muppet's name really is Crazy Harry. He is described on the wiki as, "An unkempt figure with wild eyes and a mad cackle, he delights in blowing things up." Well, shoot. I dropped by to see if it came out in the next few months. It doesn't. Despite a certain amount of ambivalence about Faustian bargains and cold days, I'm dying to read this for a rather random reason. If the books stay true to pattern, then this is a Denarian book, so hopefully one of my biggest questions since Small Favor will finally be answered: who, who picked up the Denarian coin? Seriously, it wasn't a very big helicopter. Practically a locked-room mystery. (view spoiler)[I vote Sanya, because that provides a certain nice symmetry. But I have no idea. (hide spoiler)] I wonder if Charity will go after him with a frying pan, a steak knife, or a battleaxe. I vote all three. Otherwise, I want to know: (view spoiler)[ --Hey, remember the Fomorians terrorizing Chicago? About them...do tell. --Remember how the White Council had been taken over by Black Councilites? How's that going, then? --Cowl and Kumori: totally think they're Justin and Elaine, but I'd like to find out for sure. --Who had Nic on a timetable in #5? --Who sideswiped Dresden in #8 and bombed Murph's car in #9? --And anyway, considering our info came from Maeve, what actually happened in #8? Still waiting for an explanation of the fetches. --Who fixed Little Chicago in #8? (Please, please don't say God.) --And anyway, how does one explain to a mother that one has trapped her daughter in a horrific and inexorable process of dehumanization until ultimate destruction of self? I suspect the explanation starts with "Uh....". --Please, please, do not let the title pun mean what I think it does. (view spoiler)[ (hide spoiler)] (hide spoiler)] ...more |
Notes are private!
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0
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not set
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not set
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Jan 19, 2013
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Hardcover
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| 034547824X
| 9780345478245
| 034547824X
| 3.80
| 10,404
| Dec 27, 2005
| Dec 27, 2005
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liked it
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**edited 11/28/13 There's a certain stereotype about the streets of New York City. To non-City-dwellers, the phrase can conjure a claustrophobic skyli **edited 11/28/13 There's a certain stereotype about the streets of New York City. To non-City-dwellers, the phrase can conjure a claustrophobic skyline blocked with lowering buildings and blinding lights, anonymous figures studiously avoiding eye contact as they rush past each other on the sidewalks, seething masses of pedestrians pouring onto the streets at random to the furious honks of stultified drivers, and snobby natives glaring at gaping tourists. Basically, the stereotyped New York is a place where people on the streets don't see each other as human. In Joe Pitt's NYC, "inhuman" is a pretty good description. Due to my disapproval of GR's new and rather subjective review deletion policy, The rest of my (rather verbose) review is posted over here at Booklikes. ~2.75 ...more |
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1
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Aug 15, 2013
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not set
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Jan 07, 2013
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Paperback
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| 0451461398
| 9780451461391
| 0451461398
| 3.99
| 6,805
| Mar 06, 2007
| Mar 06, 2007
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liked it
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**edited 12/20/13 This is one of those books I enjoyed, but also kind of enjoyed hating. I kept a running snarky commentary going in my head the entire **edited 12/20/13 This is one of those books I enjoyed, but also kind of enjoyed hating. I kept a running snarky commentary going in my head the entire time I read it...but I just couldn't put it down. I think the easiest way to describe my reaction to this book is in terms of buttered popcorn jelly beans. [image] Yes, these bizarre candies exist--they're made by the American company, "Jelly Bellies." In abstract, the concept is repulsive, but they looks so pretty that you pop one in your mouth. The taste is bizarre, a weird mixture of abrasive saltiness and supremely gooey sweetness. When I first tried a buttered popcorn jelly bean, I made a horrible face...but it was so weird that I tried another one out of slightly sickened fascination. And before I knew it, I found I actually kind of liked the taste... and then I was addicted and had eaten the whole handful. The book was just like that--even while I groused and mocked, I just kept reading. ...And that's all I'm going to post here. The rest of my (rather verbose) review is posted over here at Booklikes. Why? Because I disapprove of GoodReads' new policy of censorship, and will no longer allow my full reviews to be posted here. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 20, 2012
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Dec 25, 2012
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Dec 20, 2012
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Mass Market Paperback
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| 0756407680
| 9780756407681
| B00A2PTC7U
| 3.74
| 9,300
| Sep 04, 2012
| Sep 04, 2012
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liked it
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**edited 01/29/14 Urban fantasy protagonists aren't usually angelic, and in all senses but the literal, neither is Bobby Dollar, a.k.a. Doloriel, angel **edited 01/29/14 Urban fantasy protagonists aren't usually angelic, and in all senses but the literal, neither is Bobby Dollar, a.k.a. Doloriel, angel of the Lord. But Bobby Dollar is basically a defence attorney, and when the trial is over your eternal fate, you want the most fiendishly jesuitical lawyer you can get. In Bobby's world, the judging of the soul turns out to be a very literal process: after you die, a demonic prosecutor and an angelic defender turn up to bluster and bamboozle the judge over your final destination. For Bobby, watching a soul be upgraded to Heaven or banished to Hell is part of the standard work day. What isn't quite so everyday is the soul apparently considering itself to be ROR (released on its own reconnaissance) and vanishing from court. Of course, Bobby Dollar is the lucky angel to turn up on that particular case. All too soon, souls are disappearing everywhere, a demon is murdered, a precious artefact has vanished, and Bobby Dollar is in the centre of the frame. Down these mean streets an angel must go who is trying quite hard to be neither tarnished nor afraid...and not quite managing either. ... Due to my disapproval of GR's new and highly subjective review deletion policy, I am no longer posting full reviews here. The rest of this review can be found on Booklikes. ...more |
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Jul 05, 2013
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Jul 10, 2013
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Sep 14, 2012
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Hardcover
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my rating |
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| 4.13
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it was ok
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Sep 22, 2017
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Sep 21, 2017
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| 3.72
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really liked it
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Jul 09, 2017
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Jul 06, 2017
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| 3.56
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really liked it
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Mar 18, 2017
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Mar 17, 2017
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| 4.08
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really liked it
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Nov 26, 2016
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Nov 20, 2016
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| 3.74
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liked it
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not set
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Mar 29, 2016
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| 3.57
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really liked it
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Mar 29, 2016
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Mar 16, 2016
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| 3.92
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really liked it
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Jul 12, 2015
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Jul 07, 2015
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| 4.28
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really liked it
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not set
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Mar 02, 2014
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| 4.13
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really liked it
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Nov 27, 2014
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Jul 26, 2013
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| 4.19
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really liked it
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Jan 23, 2014
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Jul 25, 2013
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| 4.14
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really liked it
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Dec 29, 2014
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Jun 22, 2013
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| 4.21
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really liked it
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Mar 15, 2015
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Jun 22, 2013
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| 4.14
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it was amazing
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Jul 17, 2013
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May 04, 2013
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| 4.00
|
it was amazing
|
Apr 23, 2013
|
Apr 12, 2013
|
|||||
|
| 3.76
|
it was amazing
|
Jun 06, 2013
|
Feb 19, 2013
|
|||||
|
| 3.97
|
really liked it
|
Jan 22, 2015
|
Feb 19, 2013
|
|||||
|
| 4.56
|
not set
|
Jan 19, 2013
|
||||||
|
| 3.80
|
liked it
|
not set
|
Jan 07, 2013
|
|||||
|
| 3.99
|
liked it
|
Dec 25, 2012
|
Dec 20, 2012
|
|||||
|
| 3.74
|
liked it
|
Jul 10, 2013
|
Sep 14, 2012
|
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