Face Off: No, I don't believe it!

We’ve covered before how some of the characters in Urban Fantasy make decisions that bemuse and confuse us. Worse, these awful ideas often work out - making us not only doubt the mental capacity of the character, but also the reality of the world

Which is what we’re looking at today - moments in Urban Fantasy where our suspension of disbelief died, where, despite being able to believe in vampires, werewolves and magic, we simply cannot accept that this could happen.

Continuum works on the premise that Keira, a police officer from 70 years in the future, is back in time (our present) hunting down some bad guys. From the first episode she ends up falling in with Carlos, a Canadian police officer, embraces Keira as a friend and colleague. Why? Because she claims to be a police officer from Portland in the US. Even if she had credentials to back that up (which she doesn’t) the speed with which the Canadian police force accept an American police officer stomping all over is amazing. As an added bonus, her ridiculously super-hacker Alec manages to give her credentials as CIS. A teenager has that kind of ability?

In The Vampire Diaries we have so many to choose from but I think we need to settle on Katherine as a mortal. Waaaay back in the past Katherine was born in Bulgaria in 1476 and, shame of shame, she has a baby out of wedlock. Her father is clearly outraged because he banishes her out of all Bulgaria (technically part of the Ottoman Empire at the time). In response to which she leaves Bulgaria and rides to England. Yes, England. A peasant woman, alone, with a very small baby, manages to cross the entirety of 15th century Europe. That’s leaving the Ottoman Empire, crossing Hungary, crossing the many disparate states that made up the Holy Roman Empire, dropping through France and catching a boat to England. Uh-huh. That’s pretty daunting to do backpacking today - and she didn’t even have scary Youth Hostels to stay in

Face Off: Worst Idea Ever.

So, one of the most common things we’ve complained about from Urban Fantasy protagonists is that they don’t always act in an entirely sensible fashion. In fact, sometimes we have run the risk of damaging our e-readers throwing them at the wall in sheer disgust.

After much debate we just can’t decide which protagonist has had the worst possible idea - so we have to face off some of the finalists! Honestly we looked at a list of many many many Spunky protagonists but they just didn’t compare with these 4 - these are the Elite Spunkies


Elena from CW The Vampire Diaries

Elena spent most of the summer searching for Stefan her vampire boyfriend who had gone rogue.  After much hand twisting she learns that he is on top of a mountain where the werewolves have gathered to shift and hunt as a group during full moon. Elena could have waited until after the full moon to go but no. That would have involved far too much common sense and so she dragged Alaric, and Damon up the mountain. Would you believe that they were actually attacked by werewolves? I'm shocked, really.

Of course, a particularly bad element of this foolishness is that it drags others along with her - they can’t abandon her and are forced to follow her silly self into ridiculous peril.


Rose from The Vampire Academy Series

Rose is absolutely destroyed after the man that she loves Dimitri  is turned into a strigoi.  She is desperate to free him from his fate and decides to travel to Russia to find him.  She knows that he is from a very small town somewhere in Siberia. She takes off for Russia and somehow despite the size of the country she not only manages to find his family, but Dimitiri himself.  She must have stopped by the Palin house for directions, because with being able to see Russia from her house she must have intimate knowledge of Russian geography.

In fact, this whole situation can be summed up with this wonderful drawing from Chai Latte

Fangs for the Fantasy Podcast - Episode 15

This week we talk about the Season finale of Vampire Diaries, the issue of mixed race protagonists, Cassandra Clare's Mortal Instruments, Mark Del Franco's Connor Grey series, Christopher Moore, Octavia Butler, Charlaine Harris, Marjorie Liu's fishy man and Richelle Meade's Vampire Academy

Vampire Academy series - Richelle Meade

So I’m now mining my way through book 5 of Vampire Academy by Richelle Meade, and my canary still clings to life, though it’s gasping a bit. Still, I’m going to keep swinging that pick because though the majority of what I get is dross, there’s enough nuggets of gold to make it worth while.

This series has got steadily better from the first book, Vampire Academy, which is a pleasant surprise in a genre where series usually start well then plummet more rapidly than a cheap roller coaster – and usually far more painfully (right, Laurell K Hamilton?).

The down side is that improving from the first book is no real achievement. The first book was dull, dreadfully dreadfully dull, full of teen angst and drama and so much highschool politics that it made my head ache – as mentioned here

But later books did improve, in fact each book improves on the last. The characters go from barely tolerable to actually quite interesting and, dare I say it, fairly deep and nuanced (well, sorta) but most of all the story really draws me in. It’s almost addictive, even when cursing the flaws of the books I keep reading because I want to know what’s happening next and where the story will go. Following Rose balancing her obligations to Lissa, the Moroi she’s bound to, and Dimitri her mentor/lover/enemy further balancing with Lissa’s difficulty with her unusual magic and the politics of the royal court and among that trying to navigate the fraught relationship with her parents, her love life and her own fears of insanity – this is a fascinating read, even when Rose is frustrating me with her gods-awful bad choice. And the world is novel and different – good vampires with elemental magic, undead vampires stalking them and the half-vampire guardians giving their lives in a corrupt society to keep their charges safe – even while their charges refuse to take the steps to protect themselves.

Fangs for the Fantasy Podcast - Episode 14

Here we talk about the penultimate Vampire Diaries episode, Charlaine Harris' Dead Reckoning, the lastest Southern vampire Mysteries novel, Kelley Armstrong's Bitten and Stolen, Richelle Meade's Vampire Academy and Marjorie Liu's Dirk & Steele

Vampire Academy – Richelle Meade Book 1

Vampire Academy – Richelle Mead

The first book that is, not the series (though I will return to that and maybe touch on the other books in passing).

In fact looking over the series I have to say that this is bizarre reverse world. Normally an author writes their awful, unreadable road-block of a book towards the end of a series, after the series already has enough fans who will suffer through it to keep going no matter what. Start with a great book, then go down hill while the fans clutch on desperate for improvement but masochistically holding on hoping, praying with each new book that there will be redemption and not further plummeting into the abyss (I call this the “Laurell K Hamilton writing style”).

But Vampire Academy flips it. The first book, well, I have to say was painful for me to read. It was dull dull dull dull. Ye gods it was dull. Full of pointless angst and slut shaming and completely lacking anything resembling depth or nuance.

However, if you hold on past this insomnia cure of a book, the second and third books are not nearly so painful. It’s a shame really that the first book is such a damn road block.

It’s possible that I’m being unduly harsh and my tastes just don’t match up with this genre.

Lissa is a Moroi (kind of a good vampire with magic) and Rose is a dhampire (half-vamp, child of a Moroi and a dhampire or a human – no magic but physically stronger than humans and the frail Moroi). Many dhampire are guardians of the Moroi, dedicating their lives, even sacrificing their lives to protect Moroi from the Strigoi – Moroi who have gone to the darkside, undead without magic but physically immensely powerful, they feed by killing and love to nom on Moroi becauseeating them gives them a power boost.

Fangs for the Fantasy Podcast - Episode 13

This week we discuss the Vampire Diaries, Richelle Meade's Vampire Academy, Patricia Briggs' River Marked, latest in the Mercy Thomphson series, Cassandra Clare's Mortal Instruments