jenjen4280

Better late, than never: here's my summary of what I've read & seen for the month of November. I seem to average a book a week, usually fiction, which makes me feel the need to mix it up a bit with some non-fiction or fiction that will force me to think -- after I compulsively finish all of the Marla Mason series, of course.

Books

The Better Part of Darkness by Kelly Gay - First book in an urban fantasy series about a cop who polices off-worlders, specifically from two different dimensions that roughly parallel heaven and hell. Her partner is an off-worlder from the heaven-like dimension. Someone is manufacturing a drug that first puts the user in a coma and kills them. Charlie Madigan, divorced mother of a teenager, is called to investigate an overdosing of the drug and this time the victim is the best friend of her daughter. It's not a bad otherworldly police procedural with supernatural elements, but it just didn’t grab me. That being said, Booboo read it and said “it was just okay,” which is a bit damning. I’ll wait and see what Seester thinks of it. Maybe I’m judging it too harshly.

Embers by Laura Bickle - Lt Anya Kalinczyk is an arson investigator with the Detroit Fire Department and she also happens to be a lantern – someone who can exorcise ghosts and demons by essentially swallowing them – and she has a salamander “Sparky” (in the mythological sense, not an amphibian) as her familiar. In addition to her day job, she runs with a group of ghost hunters on occasion, performing exorcisms. The plot revolves around a series of fires where there is a strange symbol etched in the floor of each of the burned buildings and a general lack of accelerant. I don’t want to say much more because it would give away too much about the mystery of the book. The other plot that is concurrent with the arson investigation is that one night out with the ghost hunters Anya swallows an old, powerful demon that doesn’t disappear, but gets stuck inside her and begins to slowly take over her mind. I really enjoyed this book. Anya and her supporting cast are all well-rounded, I suppose some readers might be annoyed by Sparky and perhaps think he’s too cute but I didn’t find it overbearing, and the author’s descriptions of Detroit landmarks both vacant and occupied are excellent as is her descriptions of arson investigation. Booboo and Seester both really enjoyed this book too. My only criticism is the lack of LBGT characters, although there are a number of characters of different ethnicities, which is refreshing to see in an urban fantasy novel. Highly recommended.

Sparks by Laura Bickle – Lt Anya Kalinczyk, Sparky, and her gang of ghost hunters is back. This time Anya is investigating the death of a man who appears to have spontaneously combusted. The victim was a collector of magical artifacts and an old friend of one the ghost hunters. Another victim spontaneous combusts and during the investigation Anya figures out that someone is harvesting and harnessing ghosts and it’s up to her, Sparky, and the ghost hunters to stop them. I liked this book as much as I did the first one, as did Booboo. I can’t wait for the third book in the series to be published! Highly recommended.

Blood Engines by T.A. Pratt – First novel in the Marla Mason series. Marla Mason is the chief sorcerer of the city of Felsport. Susan, a rival sorcerer in Felsport, is nearly finished preparations to cast an unstoppable spell that will kill Marla, so that she can take over as chief sorcerer. Marla’s only hope of preventing her own death is by finding the Cornerstone, a rare magical artifact in San Francisco. Marla and Rondeau (her best friend and second-in-command) travel to SF to meet up with an old friend, but when they arrive they find their friend murdered by poisonous frogs. While trying to find the Cornerstone and give a little payback to the sorcerer who murdered her friend, Marla and Rondeau must stop the murderer from raising an old Aztec god and remaking the world into a place where magic and gods are fed by constant bloodletting and sacrifice. I loved this book. Great characters, well written, occurs in my favorite city and both Marla and Rondeau are bi-sexual, really this book was a breath of fresh air in the otherwise overwhelmingly hetero genre of urban fantasy. I can’t wait to read the entire series. Highly recommended. In the interest of full disclosure, I finished this book on December 1st, but read the bulk of it in November, so I’m counting it as part of my November reading.

DVDs

DC Showcase – contains four animated short films: Superman/Shazam: the Return of Black Adam (new), Green Arrow, Jonah Hex, and the Spectre (the last three all previously released). It’s an odd mix of short films. The Return of Black Adam and the Green Arrow short are for younger kids both with simplistic good versus evil plots, but Jonah Hex and the Spectre are more for tweens and teens think PG-13, as they allude to sex and are more violent than the other two short films. Jonah Hex is more like a horror movie, while the Spectre is more like a 70’s exploitation film – both of them are excellent, whereas I was bored by Black Adam and Green Arrow. Extras on the DVD include a couple episodes of the Brave and the Bold, which I had not seen before and I enjoyed very much. In all, the DVD is not really worth buying if you already own the DVDs that have the other three shorts on them, if you don’t already own those shorts; it’s worth at least a look.

Monsters – Several years ago a probe sent to Jupiter returns to Earth and crashes in Mexico near the U.S. border. The probe brought back with it a species of aliens that resemble large octopi (think 100-200 ft tall octopi). A quarantined zone has been established that covers roughly half of Mexico. The quarantine is enforced by both the US and Mexican armies mainly keeping the creatures confined to that area, while leaving people free to cross in and out of the zone at their own risk. The plot revolves around a young woman, the daughter of a publishing mogul, who gets stuck in Central America and must get home, and the photographer, who works for her father and has been tasked by him, to get her home. They purchase a ferry ticket to get her home at great cost. All she needs is the ticket and her passport and the ferry will skirt the quarantined zone and get her safely to the US. Unfortunately, the photographer gets robbed, losing all of their money and passports. Now they have to find a way home by going through the quarantined zone. A slow, but otherwise very realistic and excellent movie. At times it seemed more like a reality show or documentary than a film, but really that just added to the atmosphere of the film itself. Recommended.

Trick r Treat – Fantastic horror movie that unfolds across the course of one Halloween night and follows five different groups of people throughout the night. The movie leaps back and forth through time as it follows the storylines and the other characters are often glimpsed in the background and the evening unfolds. Thoroughly enjoyable and satisfying movie. I’m not going to sum up the plotlines, it’s best to go in blind and watch it all unfold. Highly recommended.

Surf Gang and Gang Girls 2000 – Two short films, each 24 minutes by Katrina del Mar, an indie (and lesbian) filmmaker. Enjoyable, vaguely exploitive films that are what the Suicide Girls should be. The acting is earnest, if not a bit amateurish, but that adds to the fun, home-made movie aspect of the films. Both films are about fiction all-girl gangs rumbling with one another. Recommended for fans of the nouveaux exploitation genre.

Movies

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1 – An excellent movie. The three lead actors have definitely matured and their acting is quite good in this half of the last film. I thought the screenwriter did a good job condensing the novel into what was presented in the film, but Booboo was dissatisfied at how some of the scenes were changed. We’d both like to see an extended cut version, which they’ll hopefully release around the holidays next year. The only drawback is that this film really does only feel like half a film, rather than a self-contained film, but I’m okay with that. Can’t wait to see the next half of the film as that has some of my favorite scenes in it. I did feel like this film bogged down a bit in the middle, but I felt that way with the book too when they’re stuck in the woods trying to find the horcruxes. Highly recommended.

Graphic Novels

Clubbing written by Andi Watson, illustrated by Josh Howard – As punishment for trying to get into a club with a fake ID, a young Londoner is banished by her parents to the English countryside to her grandparents house, where she’s forced to work in the golf pro shop at the country club they own. Strange happenings and murder are afoot in the town and our intrepid heroine investigates with the help of an attractive, brooding local boy. Thoroughly enjoyable and I definitely did not see the twist at the end of this book. The art was excellent as well, sort of an animated type of style that fit nicely with the written material. Highly recommended. I’ll have to look for more of Andi Watson’s work.

Kind by Holly Black, illustrated by Ted Naifeh –This is the final book in the Good Neighbors trilogy. It’s a dark series and is not appropriate for younger readers, although it should be fine for tweens and teens. Naifeh’s art is excellent throughout the series, and Black’s writing is very good, but I’ll need to re-read all three books in succession to fully evaluate the story.

Guardians of the Galaxy vol 4: Realm of Kings (Marvel) – The latest (and last?) collection of the series. I was pretty lost through most of this because it’s been so long since I read volume 3 and I haven’t read any of the tie-ins from the crossover event and at some point another artist takes over and honestly I couldn’t stand his art. The only reason I’m even partly following the series is because of Martyr and Moondragon and Martyr gets killed off at the end of the book. Lame. I do really love the non-human characters in this book though: Groot, Rocket Raccoon, and Cosmo. Maybe I’d like this collection better if I knew what the heck was going on: this book is part of the on-going events that have been occurring back-to-back for several years now. I refuse to buy into the whole “event” b.s. It’s just another way to sell more comics. Whatever. I have not been impressed by anything Marvel has done for several years now.