Stargate Origins, Season 1, Episode 8, 9 10

So james and Catherine have clearly been happily busy since they wake up half naked in a tent in time for Asset’s arrival with her Nazi fanpoodles and professor Langford who continues to serve as nazi translator with no objections

The people all bow and scrape before Asset, their god, and for some bizarre reason Brucke the Nazi decides that he wants one of his Nazis to fight one of Asset’s soldier in hand to hand combat to the death to prove whether their minions will die for for their leaders. Which seems… bizarre. Unsurprisingly Asset’s warrior wins because a) he has a spear vs a knife and b) Asset’s arm is armed with medieval weaponry and therefore used to hand-to-hand combat more than the Nazis who are armed with guns.. I have absolutely no idea why he would think this was remotely a good idea.

When he sees his soldier about to die, he decides to shoot the warrior to save his soldier which really annoys Asset but she decides to let it go. And then he murders his Nazi soldier.

Eva is absolutely enraged that he dare kill a Nazi soldier and servant of of Hitler. She is not behind his god claims and is a loyal Nazi. So, y’know, evil either way. She keeps snarling at him from now on and has some pretty good put downs. He’s still promising Asset lots of slaves to convince her to keep allying with him.

Watching all this Catherine does her standard thing of wanting to charge in and get herself killed and James does his thing of stopping her, as he does. This dynamic is getting old.

Asset also makes a big speech about how she can give things to people and how she can take them away - and decides to break her healing stick she had given to the people. She has a tear in her eye while doing it so clearly she does care which is very un-Goa’uldy but there’s still not a lot of explanation of why she did this rather than have it used to heal her downed warrior? Serqet, the hotpants Goa’uld tries to handwave this but it doesn’t make a lot of sense.

What it does do is convince Kasuf and all his people that the Nazi has corrupted their god which I’m assuming is not her goal but who even knows.

Catherine speaks to Kasuf and shows him Stargate symbols so he can lead her to a place where various codes and co-ordinates for the Stargate are. She copies them down - then destroys them so the Nazis can’t use them. Of course when she returns to James and Wasif she realises Asset can just dial it up for them. On the way she tries to talk Kasuf out of his gods, that they’re enslaving him - but he insists they’re free and genuinely worship the gods. It’s hard to convince people they’re slaves when they don’t believe it? That’s the advantage of calling themselves god in the first place.

Waif and James plot how to get to the Stargate - and Wasif is very very very concerned about what the Nazis can do with all the naqueda and the Stargate, while Catherine and James are mainly concerned with each other (Wasif is finally frustrated by this).

Langford finally finds something resembling a spine and doesn’t translate Asset asking if they should kill Catherine et al. Eva continues to give Bruke shit and Bruke continues to be more and more of a megalomaniac. Langford also finally tells Asset that nazis are not nice people and Langford and the Nazi fight, Asset and Sequet just watch to let the humans fight their own battles

Asset also seems to have raided Lady Gaga’s wardrobe while Sequet is still rocking her hotpants.

Stargate Origins: Season 1, Episode 6 & 7

So this rather bizarre, not especially well made but full of pretty people strangeness continues

The Nazis, still bizarrely speaking English, use the professor to translate for them and the professor does so for he is a jellyfish. They want to make an alliance with the Goa’uld for their shiny tech so they show Aset a film reel of Nazi Germany which Aset seems to find impressive and her minion seems to be a bit weird about a projector

Isn’t Goa’uld technology rather advanced and their armies rather larger for them to be that impressed by Nazi Germany?

And why is this Goa’uld impressed by, basically, shadow puppetry? And was she really impressed by a machine gun?

Y’know looking at the main series and this one, I question why the male Goa’uld seemed to wear rather a lot of clothing up to and including metal gold suites while the female Goa’uld wear a few scraps of nothing and, for one of these, daisy dukes.

Laughably the wikia actually says Goa’uld have no concept of gender (despite having queens and rigid gender roles. So hmmmmm)

Aset also notes that Nazi Germany takes many slaves which a) makes Aset thinks humans are ready to be enslaved again and means this show is dancing in dubious dubious territory. And b) this is what the Nazis can do for her: give her lots and lots of slaves

Because last episode she was all; for getting allies to fight Ra has turned into getting slaves to worship her. Her attention span is somewhat limited it seems

The professor also needs to grow a spine.

In exchange she’s going to give them the magic rock lots of Goa’uld tech is made out of which can smash through most things. Because this is pre-energy weapons and the Goa’uld fight by hitting stuff?

Now to the three pretty but inept people

Stargate Origins, Season 1, Episode 4 & 5

Time for more impossibly pretty people to keep investigating the desert land beyond the Stargate (I’m assuming this is Abydos because it looks a lot like it).

The pretty Wasif, pretty Catherine and impossibly pretty James go through the Stargate, arrive in Abydos and begin to set up their theme for the next two episodes: Catherine and James argue constantly while Wasif provides the odd word and the odd comic relief. I won’t say he’s cast as the comic relief because that would be like saying one of the three stooges is the comic relief.

They see the alien skies and realise they’re not in Egypt any more, more they can’t figure out how to use the remote to get back to Earth because Earth’s symbol isn’t on the remote. They may also be entering the code wrong.

Lots of bickering, James being in favour of being cautious, Catherine in favour of charging in. Catherine making it abundantly clear she’s not going to obey James and pretty much setting the tone of her doing her own thing. They find the dead Nazi… and a Goa’uld. And Catherine smacks James for suggesting that maaaaaybe her elderly father is dead

(He’s not, he’s imprisoned by other Nazis who are busy taking pictures and occasionally talking in mix of German and English. So that was a useful segment. Writers, each episode is only 10 minutes long, you need to not waste time. We have more bickering)

She’s female, and what seems to be inevitable, the female Goa’uld is wearing what appear to be daisy dukes and some wisps of gold cloth. They fight her and though she’s decided to dispense with Goa’uld technology in favour of a big stick, she easily fights them all, knocking them escape. Luckily for them Catherine manages to accidentally hit a bracelet button activating a teleporter and removing the Goa’uld from the fight. Oh and James has a semi-freak out in the middle of it because he accidentally touches Catherine’s breasts

To which our intrepid explorers think they’ve found a magic stick.

They also run into a young human who is clearly afraid of them (as James proves by yelling “boo” of course) but trying to lead them somewhere. Which they duly ignore and decide to go somewhere else. Oh and they don’t understand a word he says and when Wasif starts to mention he may recognise the language, James and Catherine silence him. Because sensible like that

After managing to exchange names, they follow Kasuf to some tents and are quickly taken prisoner and tied up with lots and lots and lots of bickering. Poor Wasif, stuck with the pretty bickering people.

Wasif manages to free them so they can bicker some more and bicker some more and then accidentally stab Wasif.

Oh Wasif, these pretty people are dangerous for you.

Wynonna Earp (Wynonna Earp, #1) by Beau Smith

Wynonna Earp is a descendant of the famous old west lawman Wyatt Earp.  Colour me unimpressed. She is drafted by the US Marshals Black Badge division to go after all things which go bump in the night.  Wynonna is a no nonsense cop who experiences absolutely no fear up against creatures which would make the most of at the very least scream and run the opposite direction.

My decision to read Wynnona Earp is based on our commitment to read the source material of all media that we watch.  Wynnona Earp, the television series which is currently airing on Syfy.  The television show really is aimed around the idea that Wynnona is a descendant of Wyatt, which is not a central point to the comics.  She is chosen for her skill and her fearlessness.

I find Wynnona as a crime fighter absolutely ridiculous.  She runs into situations with little planning and little back up.  Invariably, despite the fact that Wynnona is strong, she needs to be saved by a man twice.  Can you picture any male protagonist with the same background having to be saved, let alone by a woman?

The artwork in this comic leaves so much desired.  Why is it that any male law enforcement official is dressed from head to toe, while Wynnona sports thigh highs, a bare midriff or short skirts?  Who gets into battle looking like this?

This is absolutely Hawkeye Initiative material. What sense does it make for her to go up against a nest of vampire who are hopped up on drugs dressed like this?  If that's not enough, we even have drawings done is such a way to show off T&A.  

A kickass protagonist is an awesome thing but a kickass protagonist who is overly sexualized is sexist and ridiculous. The horrible portrayal wouldn't have been so bad if we had seen even a modicum of intelligence coming from Wynnona.  At best, we got badly written one liners that simply rise to the level of bad snark.  

Leaders of international criminal organizations are being killed. This leads Wynonna to little Cairo in New York City.  Amir Tasmir has big plan is to bring the goddess"Timat" back to life and use Wynonna's body as her vessel.  As far as I am aware, there is no Goddess Timat but there is a goddess Tiamat of the Mesopotamian Religion (Sumerian, Assyrian, Akkadian and Babylonian) At any rate, apparently it has been prophesied that Timat will make her return in a blonde body.  Go ahead and roll your eyes because I did.  Why the hell would a supposedly ancient Egyptian goddess choose to come back in the body of a blonde white woman? It makes absolutely no sense. It seems to me that this prophesy is all about making Wynonna the extra special special one. If Wynonna's character had been developed beyond T&A, such a cheap trick wouldn't have been necessary.  If that were not enough, Wynonna refers to the men who work for Amir as, "sand stooges and stinking sand lovers"  Thanks for that. This language isn't even coded; it's blatantly racist.

The Grimoire of the Lamb (The Iron Druid Chronicles, #0.4)

 

Okay to start this review, I feel it necessary to give full disclosure that I am totally a Kevin Hearne fanpoodle.  This means that this review will probably just consist of the obligatory fanpoodling that happens when one of a readers favourite author released a new book.  Lucky for you, The Grimoire of the Lamb is a novella so that means you won't have to tolerate much of my poodling. 

The Grimoire of the Lamb is set four years before the events of Hounded.  This means that  while we still get Atticus and Oberon having an epic adventure in Egypt, Granuaile is missing.  It all begins when a man from Egypt calls with the hope of purchasing one of Atticus' rare books. Nkosi Elkhashab is desperate to get his hand on the a grimoire, which appears to have nothing but recipes for cooking lamb, but Atticus decides that there has to be more to Elkhashab's desire than ancient culinary delights and does some research. When he learns that the grimoire contains 13 spells, which Elkhashab wants to use to "restore Egypt to its rightful place as supreme among the world," Atticus realises that no matter what happens, Elkhashab must not be allowed to possess it. 

When Elkhashab manages to undo Atticus' magic and escape to Egypt, Atticus and Oberon have no choice but to follow.  Like every other pantheon,  Atticus is not exactly very friendly with the Gods.  Before Atticus can even deal with Elkhashab, he must find a way to make peace with the goddess Bast, whose holy book he stole centuries ago.  

Review: The Darkening Dream by Andy Gavin

Sarah is a brilliant student in Salem, Massachusetts in 1913. She has a very promising life ahead of her with her brilliant mind, albeit she’s less than pleased with her family trying to set her up with nice Jewish boys, especially when Alex, a new and intriguing boy moves to the area.

Of more concern is Nazir – an ancient and powerful vampire that has also arrived. Working with a local Warlock for an even darker power, they seek an ancient, holy artefact. Vampires, warlocks, demons and even vengeful Egyptian gods are all gathered to seize the prize.

And Sarah is the one called upon to stop them. But she has good friends and a surprisingly powerful family history and with faith, magic and determination she refuses to step aside – whether that battle takes her into fetid vampire lairs, cobbling together half understood spells to save the lives of young children or stepping through angelic portals to fight among angels.

I love the world that is created here. While none of it is unique in itself – the elements of demons and magic and vampires together makes for a very rich combination. It also harkens back to the original core of vampires as a monster in horror stories rather than the current, romantic depictions.

Nasir isn’t just a bad guy, he is out and out evil, complete with terrifying bat form and bug-eating servants, he is Dracula as Dracula was, an insidious threat to be feared and fought rather than a romantic character to embrace.

The world also draws on a of divine imagery with heaven, hell, archangels and the power of faith which instantly sets the story up with an epic feel. It has a strong sense of being much more than a fight for a few people or just one object, but with massive forces in the balance.

And part of that is because the world is very well built. Magic doesn’t involve just saying a few words and waving your hands, there is ritual and rules. Some of them very complex and requiring an almost scientific knowledge. It’s great to see a well thought out world that has magic with systems rather than shiny hand waving. And, of course, this is built on a considerable foundation of research that is always impressive to see – I feel that the author has done a lot of reading on Judeo-Christian theology and mythology and the fullness of it is really there in the text.

As to the romance element – I didn’t dislike it but nor did I particularly like it. I think it was unnecessary – a deep friendship would have served as well - but it didn’t derail the plot. Perhaps it did help destroy the sense of time and place, but, frankly, that was already hanging on by a thread.

Thankfully the story was really well paced and switched point of views smoothly enough between Parris, Nazir, Alex and Sarah that the romance, while adding nothing, couldn’t detract from the story either. The action and tension is well maintained throughout, the downtime explained and never drags and there are no moments where I’m left wishing they characters would move faster – nor are there any moments where I felt lost or rushed, except at the end.

At the end of the book we have a twist – it’s a well foreshadowed twist that is really well done – it can be predicted but only if you’ve been paying attention as the clues were there but not overt lampshading. It adds an extra nuance to the end of the story (which works really well into the book’s cliffhanger ending) and promises more depth to follow. Yet, at the same time, we’d just had the big, epic confrontation and this felt a little tacked on the end. Perhaps it should have left off with a hint and moved this part to the next book. Having the big show down and then action afterwards feels vaguely like winning a big sports match, sitting down with a cup of tea and having someone drag you up again to go to the gym.

Dresden Files, Season 1, Episode 2: The Boone Identity

This episode Harry has a client who wants him to communicate with the dead – which is far from his favourite thing but far be it from him to be picky. The client keeps feel his daughter’s presence, but Harry feels nothing. The girl was killed in a robbery at her father’s antique store – when a man killed her, stole an artefact then died stealing someone’s car to try and escape.

The ghost doesn’t take kindly to Harry not believing and treats him to a flash back of the events of her death.

Of course, speaking of annoying ghosts, we have to flip to Bob while Harry and Bob discuss exactly what the ghost was trying to show Harry and why, while Harry cooks dinner (I actually quite like to see protagonists do mundane things like cook – so many of them seem to live on air and none of them ever ever ever need to go to the bathroom).

But the ghost won’t move on so Harry is going to follow it up – so he goes to bug Murphy, his handy-dandy police contact, to get the files on the robbery (which involves an unnecessary side-trip to info-dump flirty lady) to find that the person who shot Boon (the thief) during the carjacking gone wrong was a very rich Mr. Miller. Info-dump lady also has the ancient Egyptian tablet – the lock of Anubis – that has been shattered.

Harry goes to visit Miller as a representative of his client to talk more about Boon’s death – and finding a statue of Anubis in his home. Of course, Bob is very very good at pointing out that this is hardly a massive coincidence, but his doubts are treated as unreasonable as opposed to, well, perfectly reasonable. I have to divert a little here to question the idea that so many Urban Fantasy writers think this kind of knowledge is soooo rare. Anubis is not exactly an obscure deity, someone having an Anubis statue should not instantly link them to any kind of Ancient Egyptian paraphernalia any more than a woman wearing Ankh jewellery is secretly an Egyptian Sorceress.

Still, we make the leap and decide that this points to a link between Miller and Boon, just in time for Murphy to turn up to ream Dresden out for harassing Miller – and thankfully Murphy also treats his Egyptian art link as highly dubious.

Of course Harry ignores this warning and goes to check up further – and finds that his client was selling the Lock of Anubis online – and finds that a prisoner bid on the item while it was for sale. A Professor Sabin, a professor ancient Egyptian mythology who mummified a kid alive (why… why would he do this? I mean, Egyptology 101 makes it clear that mummification is not something practiced on the living… how would obsession with Egyptology lead to this?). The ghost also helpfully nudges them towards Sabin.

So Harry goes off to see Sabin in prison and found that Sabin and Boon were friends who discussed Ancient Egyptian funerary rites and finds that Sabin has an Egyptian tattoo on his neck just as Miller has – and apparently so does Boon. This startling evidence he takes to Murphy who….. treats it with the contempt it deserves.

Of course, Dresden’s wild theories are justified when someone starts shooting at him from a car. Dresden takes it to Murphy – as he should – but then accuses Miller of copycatting Boon because the attacker wore a ski mask and carried a shotgun. Really? This is copycatting? Using a gun and concealing one’s face are not the hallmarks of a copycat. This isn’t an MO – this is drive-by shooting 101.

Then he gets to see the autopsy photos of Boon and sees he doesn’t have the tattoo Sabin mentioned. But looking back through the records they find he had them in prison.

And this leads to Murphy joining Harry to interrogate Miller… why this 180? Because Boone, a known criminal, has been researching Miller, a wealthy man. Uh-huh. She then goes with Harry to confront Miller on their evidence - an interest in Egyptology and similar Egyptian style tattoos. Yes, this is some crack evidence here. Murphy theorises that Boone stole the tablet for Miller and then dropped it – so Miller shot him (in the street in public no less) to punish him.

And then Harry strikes on the idea that Boone’s tattoo wasn’t transferred using the tablet allowing Boone to transfer bodies to Miller (and that he’s planning on moving to a new victim soon). Hey it makes as much sense as Murphy’s theory. And it’s right! So rather than dismissing Harry as being ridiculous, Miller snaps and holds Murphy at gun point – then kill himself and leap to Murphy’s body. Boone/Murphy shoots Harry – but his magical shield bracelet from his mother protects him.

Thankfully earlier in the episode Murphy cut her finger on Dresden’s door – allowing Harry to use it to create a voodoo doll (Voodoo as black magic again, alas this is an over-tired trope to say the least. It’s not like Harry doesn’t have enough options of sympathetic magic in European traditions that he actually draws upon) to attack Murphy’s body. Bob is not impressed by Harry’s use of black magic. Bob presents a great alternative plan but Harry is insistent on his plan. And he needs a banishing spell to get Boon out of Murphy, but Egyptian magic isn’t Bob’s speciality and Harry goes to Sabin instead – as a professor of Egyptology who told Boon about the lock of Anubis to begin with.

Next to flirty info-dump woman to get the lock of Anubis and then uses his voodoo doll to hurt Boone/Murphy and convince him he can reach Boon/Murphy wherever they go, goading him into hunting down Harry and kill him to be free.

Review: Shadow Fall by Seressia Glass, Book 3 of the Shadow Chaser Series

Kira is faced with a lot of revelations in this book. Balm has presented her with a package full of all the answers to the questions she always asked. Who her parents where, why she has her powers, why she was raised by the Gilead – a Pandora’s Box of answers, if Kira feels she can face them. But some truths are hard even for the hand of Ma’at to face.

Even simpler truths abound – such as exactly what she feels for Khefar, the 4,000 year old Nubian warrior who remains the only man she can touch and who is sworn to destroy her if she falls to shadow. And then there’s her friends – and what they feel about her after her many brushes with shadow magic.

But more than that, she has to face a shifting understanding of the world – of the shadow magic inside her, as a part of her and with both the Lady of Balance and the Lady of Shadow having a claim on her as much as the Light did. And if these questions weren’t hard enough, she suddenly finds her advisors silent – Balm, Ma’at and Anansee. What she does have in their place is the Lady of Shadow – and Set, the Egyptian god of Chaos who is also staking his claim on Kira

Story wise, I’m afraid I wasn’t enthralled. A large section of this book is spend with Kira realising she has Shadow magic in her as well as Light magic and that it isn’t infected into her, it’s actually hers through her ancestry. She has to deal with recurring nightmares of Set, the very avatar of chaos in her own pantheon. And this is huge. I mean, after so long believing all things shadow is evil (and for good reason. In fact, brief tangent, if we’re going to talk about “order” and “chaos” and “balance” it would help if the shadow weren’t presented as entirely and utterly evil) and then realising that it makes up part of her ancestry? Believing she has this evil in her blood? Believing she is going to be inexorably pulled towards this evil – something she fears so much that she asked Khefar to not just kill her but unmake her entirely should she succumb? Yes, this is going to disturb Kira. She is going to spend a lot of time very upset about this, very worried about this and spend a lot of time being, well upset and worried.

So I’m not concerned with it being realistic… but it is a lot of the book spent on this. And while it makes sense that she would be rather overwhelmed by it, I just don’t find it a particularly fascinating read – as the turmoil just keeps going on and in great detail. And it doesn’t help that there isn’t a great deal of other plot to balance it or hold it down. It’s ironic really because Kira continually laments how little time she has but doesn’t seem to actually do an awful lot.

We also have a scene were Kira decides to witness the werehyena challenge for succession. Which she does and it’s interesting, gives an insight into a few things and general fun to read but… it adds nothing to the story. It’s just this orphan scene dropped in there for no apparent reason. There are other similar scenes – like the big tense showdown with the banaranjan on the top of the Gilead building. I’m not saying they’re bad scenes – they’re not, they’re good, they’re interesting they add to the world and I enjoyed reading them – and normally I wouldn’t mention them. But these scenes, added to Kira spending so much of the book in self-analysis and worry and general little attention to the main plot line until the end of the book. The plot line, when it arrived, was epic, powerful and full of great climactic scenes of awesomeness – but it was a bit late coming

I repeat again, these weren’t hard or boring scenes to read. Nor was Kira’s upset unrealistic, out of character or in any way wrong. But I would have preferred more focus on the main plot, reaching the main plot earlier and generally more involvement of the main plot. I still enjoyed reading all of these scenes and thought they were well written and added to this wonderfully rich and complicated world. I love this world, I love the forces of light and shadow, the three ladies of light balance and shadow. I love the ancient Egyptian pantheon, love the different magics and the vast number of different hybrids and not just following the same tropes of vampires and werewolves.