The Iron Druid series

IronDruid

Here be spoilers. I am reviewing the first 3 books of the series simultaneously, so there will be spoilers for them. You are safe for later books though.

This series revolves around Atticus, a magic-weilding Druid. He’s the last Druid, he’s able to stand toe-to-toe with gods and survive, he looks young but is thousands of years old, he’s… a male Mary-Sue (aka Gary-Stu). Seriously. It was easy to ignore at first, but the further I got into the series, the more it bugged me.

First, the age thing. He’s thousands of years old, but somehow knows how to talk, dress, and act to fit in. In real life, most older people are not up-to-date with modern technology and trends, and yet Atticus, who is many times their age, seems to have no such problem. He even teases Lief the vampire about seeming antiquated, and Lief is like half of Atticus’ age.

Then the power thing. A couple of times the book tries to describe the boundaries of Atticus’ power, and try to make him sound limited, but he killed a god. He also managed to create a magical necklace that other gods hadn’t even thought to make. At the point where I finally stopped reading, there was nothing Atticus had encountered that seemed like a real threat. Not even the Bacchants; by the time they showed up, it felt like they were just an excuse to have Atticus make a promise that would lead to the next book.

The female representation isn’t the best. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s sexist, but a lot of it is shallow and/or stereotypical. There were no female characters that I identified with or liked. Almost all of the women were beautiful or sexy, except for a funny one, a couple of older ones, and maybe some evil ones. Granted, this is true to some extent for the male characters too, but the main character is male, so it doesn’t feel as glaring.

Were the books all bad? No. There were some good points. Atticus is able to communicate with his dog, and his dog is funny. In the first book the dog is obsessed with poodles, but overall his thoughts are amusing. The idea of all the various gods being alive isn’t original to this book, but it is entertaining (most of the time). There’s witty banter and quips that are funny when in the right dosage, though sometimes the author drags it out.

Overall the first one was pretty decent – maybe a 6.5 or 7 out of 10 – but the second one wasn’t as good, and obviously I didn’t finish the third one. The books may not be very original, but they still have some fun ideas to play with. If you like supernatural stories and don’t mind Gary-Stus, you’ll probably get further in the series than I did.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

ForceAwakens

I’ll start with a short, vague review, then dive into spoilers after the warning.

There are a number of very familiar elements in this movie. They can bring waves of nostalgia, or they might feel a tad lazy or maybe even desperate, like the movie is saying “Love me, love me!” Different people will have different reactions, and my reactions to them were mixed.

There’s a fair amount of humor in this movie, definitely more so than any other other Star Wars movies. Some of it was pretty good too, and made the whole theater chuckle. Other parts, while still funny, felt unnecessary or like they didn’t quite fit.

Also mixed were the characters. The leads’ roles were solid, and most of the side characters were decent, but at least one prominently advertised supporting role was unexpectedly disappointing.

The jist? It was good, but flawed. Interesting, but not amazing; a plain, solid good. If you go in expecting a nerdy religious experience, you may be disappointed. Keep your expectations at a normal level and you should enjoy yourself.

Rating: 7/10

SpoilerAlert

First, I must discuss a role that really disappointed me: Captain Phasma. I was really looking forward to Captain Phasma! I was envisioning a kick-ass (albiet potentially evil) female in a not-skimpy, not-ridiculour outfit. In fact, by just looking at Captain Phasma, you’d never even know she’s a woman. So what went wrong? What you see of her in the trailers is basically the entirety of her screen time in the movie. I’m serious. She had may 3-4 lines, and was in the movie no more than 5 minutes. Plus instead of being kickass, she seemed almost pathetic thanks to the scene where she deactivated the shields without a fight at the prompting of our somewhat bumbling heroes. It ended up feeling like they stuffed the character in just so they could sell Captain Phasma merchandise.

With that out of the way, let’s look at the meat of the story. The enemy is building a giant, planet-destroying piece of tech. Someone gets their hands on info that can help defeat the baddies, and the info is put into a droid. The droid wanders around a desert and runs into an unsuspecting character, dragging them into the mess. Said character discovers they have Force abilities, sees their mentor-figure killed, and confronts a Dark Side user. Oh, and after the shields are dropped, rebellion pilots attack the giant death ball, trying to hit a specific point.

Sounds familiar, you say? That’d be because it is. Don’t get me wrong, some familiarity is good, and I enjoy some nostalgia, but I just basically summarized the whole movie, and without character names, it just reads like a mashup of the original “Star Wars.” At what point does nostalgia and honoring the source material become laziness?

Now for one of the major twists. Han Solo’s death was something some people didn’t expect going into the movie. It did have emotional consequences, but I’m not sure if it’s the ones the writers were aiming for. You could see it coming as soon as Solo stepped onto that catwalk, so the obviousness of the setup and the length of the scene diminished the impact; there was no gasp-worthy moment for me. I was disappointed in loss of a fun screen presence though, because I enjoyed Harrison Ford’s acting. The bigger impact for me was my attitude towards Kylo Ren: it condemned him. I’m not interested in his struggle anymore, he just needs to go die in a fire. If it was supposed to cement him in our minds as a villain, then the scene worked, but that means they better not expect us to continue to sympathize with him.

A character you can sympathize with? Finn. Poor guy basically spent his whole life in Stormtrooper-land, but still had enough heart to realize some of the things the First Order was doing was not cool, and he had enough of a spine to run away. Sure, he’s no dashing knight or cool Jedi – Rey’s the Jedi, but I’ll get to that next – but once you consider his background, you realize he is brave. Unfortunately the movie ended with him having sustained what I think was a serious back/spine injury, so we have to wait until the next move to see just how advanced their medical technology is.

Rey is the baby Jedi! Yes, the female lead is the Force-user, contrary to what the trailers would have you believe. This mostly makes up for the Captain Phasma mess. She is not a damsel in distress waiting for rescue, and in fact gets herself out of at least two scrapes without assistance. Once she realizes she can use the Force, she picks it up very quickly, which is one of my few complaints: she figures it out too quickly. In the space of what I think is literally one day, she goes from thinking she’s an ordinary person to using Jedi mind tricks and Force-pulling stuff. At that rate, what do they need Luke for? Give her a week to practice and she’d be Master level.

Other characters: Poe was cool, BB8 was freaking adorable. A pink R2 unit was supposed to make a brief appearance, but I didn’t see it; did you? As far as writing/acting is concerned, Kylo Ren didn’t suck like I feared he would. Overall the actors did a good job, though there were a couple I feel need a bit more experience to really polish their skills.

The ending is basically a cliffhanger, so maybe the sequels will smooth ver some of the bumps in this movie? We shall see.

Secret Wars: A-Force (Complete series)

When I started reading the “A-Force” series, the only other comics I had read were “Serenity: Leaves on the Wind” and a handful of Free Comic Book Day comics. Based on that, “A-Force” really impressed me. But then I started reading “Bloodthirsty: One Nation Under Water” and “1602: Witch Hunter Angela,” and my opinion of “A-Force” dropped somewhat. And when the series finally ended and I had time to reflect on it as a whole, my final opinion wasn’t what I originally expected it would be.

After I read the first volume, I was very hopeful for the series. It had a lot of female characters that I was excited to see kicking butt together in one comic. There was some team tension, and a new character; all potentially great stuff. Then I got through the series and was left thinking, ” What happened? Where’s the rest of it?” And not because of some cliffhanger. See, the comic had all this potential, but didn’t actually achieve most of it. The villain and villain’s motives were predictable; I guessed them in the first volume. I didn’t really connect with any of the characters. Emotional depths and quandaries were not explored like they could’ve been.

By the end I felt that “A-Force” was an excuse to stuff as many female heroes as possible into one short series, and then hope that readers would be too busy gushing over the appearance of their favorite character(s) to care about the plot. And yes, I did my share of gushing, but if I’m going to dish out $4 per volume, I need some more meat to the story.

Ultimately “A-Force” was mindless fun, and certainly not what I’d call bad, but it’s not something I’d be recommending either.

Overall: 6/10

Really, was anyone surprised that Lady Loki ended up being the villain? Anyone? As soon as I saw her in the first volume I thought, ” Here comes trouble.”

Schedule Announcement

I’m not sure I have enough followers to really merit this, but figured I’d do it just in case.

Last month was the start of Fall college classes, and thus my return to school. I have started pursuing a new degree that I hope will be more applicable in the job market than my B.A. in English. Unfortunately this means I will have less time for leisure reading, and even less time to write reviews. As of right now, I’m guessing I’ll be lucky to do one review per month, with maybe some “bonus” reviews over the winter break.

If you’re reading this, thank you for following me thus far. See you all at the next review!

Royal Street

As a Louisiana native, I have a special interest in books set in Louisiana. So here’s a book that’s set in Louisiana, AND revolves around Hurricane Katrina, AND has magic and supernatural creatures. This should be a smorgasbord of awesome, right? Well, no.

The book starts off a couple of days before Hurricane Katrina makes landfall in New Orleans. We meet DJ and Gerald, two wizards that basically police the supernatural community in Louisiana. It’s decided that one of them should evacuate as a safety precaution, and Gerald, as the senior of the pair, decides DJ will be the one to evacuate. She does so reluctantly, and then is stuck outside the city when Katrina hits and floods the city. The wizard council of Elders contacts her, informs her that Gerald has gone missing, and that she has to return to New Orleans and take up the role as head wizard – aka sentinel – in the area.

Back in New Orleans, DJ encounters many problems. The most obvious are the hurricane aftermath: security checkpoints, flooding, no electricity, etc. But there is also supernatural trouble brewing. The low pressure from the storm punched holes through the barrier between our world and the supernatural, and supernatural beings have started crossing into New Orleans.

The ghostly/undead pirate Jean Lafitte has a grudge against DJ. The new partner assigned to her, Alex, seems to blow hot and cold and has an obsession with weapons. DJ is trying to figure out what happened to Gerald, while both Alex and the Elders think he’s turned turncoat. And DJ is an idiot. No, seriously. Her stupidity was one of my biggest gripes with the book. I’ll go into detail in the Spoiler section.

Alex, Jean Lafitte, and Jake – Alex’s cousin – are all presented as interests to DJ. She finds them all attractive, even the undead/ghost Jean Lafitte. Even though Lafitte is old, a murderer, and doesn’t belong in our world according to the Elders. She’s defensive and mentally tags men as sexist, but she herself ogles and stereotypes guys herself. Ultimately, she comes across as a stupid, hormone-driven teenage girl instead of an adult wizard in an import, respectable position.

It’s unfortunate that DJ is such an idiot lemming, because the rest of the book has so much potential that you can see the possible greatness, and almost forgive the author for making the hero someone you want to strangle; almost, but not quite. The idea of supernatural and regular people living in two parallel realms, separated by a barrier that’s policed by wizards is a neat idea. I like the idea of historical figures being powered by memory, and I like the the different factions of wizard magic/society. Hurricane Katrina was handled respectfully, but even there potential was missed.

For me, the saving grace of the book was really the Louisiana setting and Hurricane Katrina. I like that the setting mattered and was utilized, instead of being a story that could’ve been anywhere but just happened to be in New Orleans. As I said, Hurricane Katrina was respectfully handled, and as I read those parts, I liked to think that they’d help non-locals reading the book to better understand what happened and how we felt.

In short, if you like stuff set in Louisiana and/or can tolerate nonsensical romantic elements, you may enjoy this book. If you do not like stuff set in Louisiana and hate nonsensical romance, you may want to steer clear.

Rating: 5.5/10

Jean Lafitte shows up at DJ’s house and attacks her. He actually fires his gun at some point. Later, DJ tries to insist that Lafitte wouldn’t have actually killed her, that she was more useful to him alive, or some such nonsense; to be honest, I didn’t pay much attention. The reasoning given was dumb, and felt like an excuse by the author to make DJ’s ogling of someone that attacked her seem OK. But it’s not. It’s really not. Then, if that wasn’t bad enough, after Lafitte attacks her and Alex makes it clear that she’s not very good at keeping herself alive, she sends Alex off on a wild goose chase so she can go confront Lafitte. On his turf. Surrounded by his men. WTF? At this point I was hoping someone would stab her with a sword, because she deserved it.

And Jake. What the hell? They don’t want to explain the whole magic/supernatural thing to him because they don’t “want to involve him,” but they sent the ghost of Louis Armstrong to live with him! And naturally he charged into a dangerous situation, ignorant to the full danger thanks to DJ and Alex, and gotten bitten by a werewolf. Bravo. I hope DJ and Alex feel like asses.

Locke & Key: Volumes 1 and 2

This series has good reviews, so I decided to give it a shot. Considering the cover art and the fact that the first volume is called “Welcome to Lovecraft,” I should’ve known that this was a horror series, but for some reason I went in expecting something different. I am not a horror fan, so the books were already at a disadvantage when it came to impressing me.

One of the main things that stuck with me about the books is the tone of them. They almost feel like Tim Burton, but turning down the “pure weird” factor slightly and turning up the “violence” factor. In some ways I feel these books were more violent than a lot of movies, because a movie keeps moving, so you don’t spend a lot of time dwelling on the moment of decapitation, for example. In these books, if a character is shot or stabbed or whatever, you’re seeing it out the corner of your eye the whole time you’re reading the panels on the open pages.

I felt the story got off to a slow start. I just assumed the plot would be “move to old house, play with magic keys”; I didn’t realize there’d be more to it until at least half-way through the first volume, or maybe once I started the second volume. There is a plot/mystery, and of course it’s creepy.

Do I like it? Meh. It’s kinda like, I dunno, peeling the dead skin off a sunburn; gross, but oddly fascinating. I can’t say I like the books, but the story is picking up in the second volume and I’m still reading them, so I guess that’s something.

Rating: 6/10

Utopia

I like amusement parks. I don’t necessarily like a lot of the rides -roller coasters and other popular “thrill” rides don’t interest me – but I like some of the shows and tamer rides. At Universal Studios, I particularly liked the new Harry Potter Diagon Alley section, in part because of how immersive it felt. So how about a book set in Utopia, an imaginary theme-park made famous for its immersive visitor experience?

Utopia is a park with four themed sections: Boardwalk, Camelot, Victorian Gaslight, and Callisto/space station. All visible crew members dress in theme-accurate costumes based on whatever section they’re in. In fact, theme/historical accuracy is so important, that the park creators hired historians and specialists of all sorts; even the plants/landscaping is theme-accurate. If Utopia was real, I would go on a pilgrimage to get there.

plz make it a thing

I liked and cared more about Utopia than I did about any of the characters. So naturally, Lincoln Child used Utopia not just as a setting, but as a hostage. The bad guys and good guys duke it out behind the scenes, the bad guys killing people by tampering with/blowing up rides and the good guys quietly trying to stop them. All the while, the park guests are blissfully ignorant. So now I can’t fully enjoy imagining a park like Utopia, because I remember that Lincoln Child is having tourists die there. And the next time a theme park ride breaks while I’m on it – which has happened (Men In Black at Universal) – I can pass the time wondering if it’ll blow up.

y would u do dis to me?

The book was fine for what it was. I can’t say there was anything particularly good or bad about the plot, characters, or story-telling. The only part that really stuck out in my mind was the park itself, but that was marred by the whole burning-and-killing-tourists thing. Is my reaction to the book logical? Probably not, unless Lincoln Child intended for readers to consider the Utopia park a character in and or itself. But that’s ok; reactions and opinions don’t have to be logical. I read it, it was fine, and it’s time to move on.

Rating: 6.5/10

Blood Price

The first books I read by Tanya Huff were her Valor series, which I loved. It had humor, action, and a strong female hero. Blood Price also has humor, action, and a strong female hero, so I should love it too, right? Wrong. But let’s talk about the story first.

Vicki Nelson used to be a homicide investigator. She was good at it and loved it, but quit because of bad eyesight that was only getting worse. So she became a private investigator. She gets hired by a college student to look into the death of a classmate/lover, and along the way partners up with a [non-sparkly] vampire and learns that demons are real. This book is not Supernatural though.

Crowley would’ve made things more interesting.

Yes, there are supernatural elements and humor and fight scenes, but it left me underwhelmed. Since the vampire, Fitzroy, is nocturnal and doesn’t interact much with Vicki, the author tries to interest you in him with flashbacks of his past. I didn’t care though, and skipped over most of them. Vicki has what is described as a “stormy” relationship with Mike Celluci, meaning they scream at each other 90% of the time and have sex the other 10%.

So this is love, huh?

The villain is pitiful. Not in the sense that he’s a worthless villain, but rather that I almost pitied him. I understood his motivations, and while he was creepy, I kinda felt bad for him by the end. I’m not sure if that was the author’s intention or not.

The book was decent, I finished it, and I intend to read the next one, but that’s partially because book I have is a 2-for-1 deal that has both Blood Price and Blood Trail. Hopefully the next book is bit better though, because after the Valor series, Blood Price was a bit disappointing.

Rating: 6/10

So, about the villain. Norman Birdwell is an oddball. He’s the sort of person that, if one day they snapped and did something drastic, deep down you wouldn’t really be surprised. That’s Norman. He wants to be liked, to fit in, to get a girl, but instead he gets laughed at and shrugged off. Repeatedly. To his face. And then he starts summoning demons, making the demon steal cool things for him, and when he still doesn’t get the girl, he orders the demon to kill.

Crowley would hate being compared to Norman, but…

I got the feeling that maybe Norman wasn’t aware that when the demon he summoned needed to “feed” it was actually killing, because when he finally gave it a direct order to kill it seemed like a big deal. That makes Norman even more pitiful, because that means he wasn’t an intentional killer at first. Granted, the fact that he thought summoning demons was in any way a good idea is not a point in his favor, but it doesn’t seem like he started with malicious intentions, but rather was corrupted by the power he was trying to control. Almost more of a victim than a villain. And since I can’t tell how much of this is intentional on the author’s part, it makes Norman a bit of a problem for me.

Free Comic Book Day 2015 – Part 2

This book actually has four different manga stories inside. I will review each part separately, starting with Attack on Titan.

Considering all the praise and hype surrounding Attack on Titan, I expected it to blow my mind, but my brain has remained in one piece. In fact, by the end of the story, I was kinda going “So what?” Yes, I can see how the story has potential, but the actual part in this manga book was nothing special. I may watch the series on Netflix, but unless the TV series is amazing, I won’t be reading any more of the manga.

Rating: 6/10

This second part is about a homeless, roaming, D-list god. I was expecting the god to have a Naruto-type personality, or maybe be like Captain Jack Sparrow. He turned out to be a bit of a jerk and not that interesting, so I didn’t like him. I like the idea of curses and blessings personified/coming to life, but it’s not enough to get me to spend money to read the rest of the series.

Rating: 4.5/10

Viking invasion of Britain. Meh. I like medieval fantasy stuff, but this was lacking in the fantasy element. I ended up skimming the story and nothing really caught my eye. Nothing of interest here.

Rating: 2/10

With how unimpressed I’ve been with the majority of my FCBD loot, I was not expecting a story like this. The story follows an old man, diagnosed with terminal cancer at the very start of the story. To make things even sadder, his family all either takes him for granted and/or ignores him. The only character that seems to give a shit about him is the dog. His situation kicked me right in the feels.

The story’s summary hints that the old man will be getting abilities of some sort, and the ending was pretty cliffhanger-y. I like stories with a less conventional main character, I like the potential of the story, and I wanted to hug the old man. Inuyashiki is the first and only story from all of my FCBD loot that genuinely makes me want to buy more to see what happens.

Rating: 8/10

Boring. The premise described in the summary wasn’t particularly interesting – sounded like a sappy YA novel – and the actual manga wasn’t any better. A guy finds some girl’s clothes hanging in a tree, and then sees a not-naked girl playing some music for some kids. That’s it. I just told you all of what happened in a single sentence. BORING.

Rating: 1/10

Speculation on Inuyashiki. I’m not sure how spoiler-y this is, but figured I’d put a warning. The official summary says that after an incident, the main character – Ichiro – notices something different about himself, and that maybe he’d have a chance to become a man worthy of respect. The end of the tease implies that he was accidentally killed by aliens, and rebuilt as a robot/cyborg (or something similar). This could mean that his cancer is gone (I hope), and that he could have all sorts of fun robot/cyborg powers. Elderly gentleman with super strength and laser eyes,perhaps? Now that’d be interesting!

Free Comic Book Day 2015

The art was fairly close to typical Western comic style art, but I found it more tolerable since I really like Doctor Who. These stories were definitely the best of all the comics, having three self-contained mini-episodes, two of which I could easily see being full-length TV episodes. The fact that the stories made sense, were entertaining, and each reached a conclusion made this the hands-down best comic that I picked up on Free Comic Book Day.

( 0 = Die in a fire, 5 = Average, 10 = I lurv it)

Art = 5
Story = 7
Overall = 6

The first comic, the Secret Wars, was boring and stuffy. The whole thing was nothing but a bunch of stuffy kids standing around discussing the pseudo-science, colliding-universe nonsense that Marvel is going to use as an excuse to create the giant crossover. While the crossover sounds interesting, this part of the comic was a giant snoozefest. I’m not familiar with Attack on Titan, so while at least the second part had action, I wasn’t that impresses with it either.

Art = 5 (Both)
Story = 3 (2.5 for Secret Wars, 3.5 for Titan)
Overall = 4

I was interested to see the new Ms. Marvel, Spiderman, and female Thor together as I hadn’t seen them before. It had action, but the story was just… meh. It wasn’t good or bad, it was just there, and it was short. The Inhumans part was better. I wouldn’t say it was great, but it was enough to intrigue me about the series; what I saw of Medusa made me interested in her.

Art = 5 (Both)
Story = 4.75 (4.5 for Avengers, 5 for Inhumans)
Overall = 4.75

The Teen Titans part left me conflicted. The art is cute, but very childish. Maybe I’d get used to it with time, but it seemed too youthful for a book about teenage superheroes; might’ve been better for something like Powerpuff Girls or Invader Zim. The story was a silly bit of fluff with no real plot, but it was self-contained which was nice. The Scooby-Doo part was stupid. A team of superheroes, including the detective-smart Batman, the ridiculously powerful Superman, and Supergirl needed to call on the Scooby Gang to solve a “ghost” problem? No. Just, not. I don’t buy it.

Art = 5.5 (6 for Titans, 5 for Scooby)
Story = 4.5 (6 for Titans, 3 for Scooby)
Overall = 4.5

I had high hopes for this one. The art is interesting, and just judging from the cover, I figured it’d be about a motorcycle-riding female hero gang. Nope. It had potential, but the writing/way the story was told made it boring. Very disappointing.

Art = 6
Story = 2
Overall = 2 (Story outweighed art)

UGH! So bad, it was frustrating. The “good” art in this comic book looks like Sunday comic strip art at best. In the first part, each “story” was only one page long. Each story was about stupid stuff that might happen in any normal high school, but not even the fun stuff, just lame, run-of-the-mill events! In the second part, the “stories” were a single line long. That’s right, three frames! I didn’t even bother finishing it, and considering it’s basically a picture book, that’s sad.

Art = 1
Story = 0
Overall = 0.5

	flerpi on Star Wars: The Force Awak…
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	The Shadow Throne \|… on The Thousand Names
	River Road \| Beware… on Royal Street
	flerpi on The Thousand Names

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