Bite Club (Morganville Vampires #10) by Rachel Caine

The unstable state of Morganville has spawned a considerable number of plots in the aftermath of the last few battles; some of them far reaching and sinister and some as simple as grab to make money. The instability leaves Claire and her friends with a lot of difficult choices. When an acquaintance is involved in dubious activities, do you report them and risk the vampire authority’s disproportionate response? Do you ignore him and hope that he isn’t doing something that could jeopardise the whole system – or provoke and even greater backlash? Or do you get involved and risk being pulled in yourself?

And then Shane is pulled into such a scheme himself - a strange fighting tournament – a chance for him to express his skills and talents, a chance for him to hone them. But it’s also a chance for the deeply repressed sides of him to come to the fore, his deep seated hatred of vampires that he tries to keep buried is encouraged to flourish in the ring – but how much is it changing him? And what are the ultimate goals of his manipulators?

As if it weren’t thorny enough, Bishop, Amelie’s creator, the ancient and lethal vampire has broken free again – and any of the plots could be his doing to reclaim ascendency.

This book did several things right that previous books had annoyed me about. Firstly, Claire was involved in the plot from early on and throughout the book; in the past I’ve been annoyed by the fact that the protagonist seemed almost ancillary to the proceedings, almost a spectator. Secondly, Claire and her crew handled things alone – but they did so for good reason, they weren’t just charging off like a loose cannon because they wanted to or for random reason. They were involved and they had to try and handle this as alone as they could because they understand the ruthless, scorched earth policy the vampires habitually employ and know Shane will get caught up in it. I also like that, when it did come down to it, Claire did seek help, did realise things were beyond her and did stand up for what she wanted and needed without coming off as a petulant child or someone poking the bear (which she has managed extremely well in the past). She both sought the help she needed, worked with the powers that be and wrung out the concessions she deserved in a sensible and reasonable fashion

In fact, all through this book, Claire’s actions have been relatively sensible and realistic. Certainly not always correct – but always believable and always real – and I can believe she is as smart as she’s supposed to be.

I’m not entirely sold on Shane’s POV – to the best of my memory it’s the first time we’ve stepped outside of Claire’s head. It came with a lot of info-dumping and the same style of long winded monologues that so dominate people’s mental processes in this series. Yet I think it was essential to truly explain this book, what was happening to Shane and how he has grown as a character. From the outside this wouldn’t have worked, Shane would have looked nonsensical and Claire would have looked like a doormat. Or the juice he was drinking would have looked like some kind of mind control elixir. Only in his head can we see the effect of his upbringing, his helplessness, what he has suffered, the abuse of his father, his ongoing fear and hatred of vampires and how the juice affected all of them. Together it made Shane a much more complex character – and a character we could still, on some level, identify with even as he goes off the rails

This book did have scenes that could be seen as superfluous – and, again, that has been a problem with the book series in the past. But in this case I think they genuinely did serve a purpose – like the fencing scene showing off more of the factional differences in Morganville and the differences between Oliver and Amelie even while they both make common cause despite their differences. I think it was, perhaps, a slow and drawn out way to make those points, but the scenes did have a point and did develop the complexities that rules this town. I really like the sense of how dangerously balanced the town is – with the different philosophies of ruling and the battle between human independence and vampire predatory instinct all overlaid with a sense of not provoking any one of several factions (human hunters, Amelie, Oliver, the old Bishop loyalists, human authorities) too far without the whole thing collapsing.

I can’t say I’m the greatest fan still. The writing style is too enamoured of its very long winded internal monologues. Nearly everything that happens has to be agonised over by Claire over and over again at great length that I do tend to find boring. I still think Monica and her cronies are almost cartoonish in their ridiculous extremity and, at this stage in the series, I’m not sure they even come close to adding anything to the overall plot.

There are also elements of the world building that I don’t think I can fit into the canon sensibly. I can’t imagine, in a place as control dominated as Morganville, that a building as big and public as the gym would be built without any kind of CCTV. I have trouble believing that the psychic Miranda would be wandering around quite randomly on her own – and known as a psychic by a fair few people – without Amelie or Oliver or Myrnin checking it out, verifying its truth and then seizing her as a valuable asset. I’m not entirely sure why Amelia and Oliver, knowing what was going on, would wait as long as they did to act. Nor am I entirely sure what the point of her was.

Ghost Town (Morganville Vampires #9) by Rachel Caine

Morganville has changed a lot extremely rapidly and it is still, in many ways, reeling from what Bishop did to the town and the after effects, including the human residents of the town demanding a far greater level of protections while a faction of vampires resents the greater aggressiveness of humanity. It’s a delicate balance

It’s even harder to maintain with the destruction of Ada, the computer that managed to boundaries around Morganville. Without the shields and the portals and, most importantly, the field that erases humans memories when they leave, Morganville is now vulnerable and the vampire’s control is tenuous.

Tensions flare still higher when violence leads to an actual coup and the return of draconian punishments the vampires had supposedly abandoned, completely ignoring the human council members.

Then the badly damaged computer starts messing up – and it’s not just the memories of people leaving that it tampers with.

This book follows the pattern of the last book in fixing many of the issues that so characterise the Morganville vampire series.

Firstly, Claire is fully involved in this story. She is involved from the first page, involved in trying to find a solution and involved in implementing the solution – the protagonist is an active participant in this story. And she isn’t an active participant because she has decided to meddle and what everyone needs is a clueless 16 year old flailing around for no good reason. It is actually reasonable for her to be front and centre in this campaign, she is the one with the knowledge and the skills, she is the one who is best able to actually confront the problem.

And her motivations and reasoning are sensible. Initially we have to ask why she’d support the vampires, but the memory loss makes it personal. But more, she sees the nuance of the volatile situation and the risk of the vampires lashing out if they don’t have their safeguards. The factions are similarly fleshed out. We also see some real proof of Claire’s maturity with her not just seeing this nuance but also her behaviour over her father’s heart condition.

The factions that are tearing at Morganville are also far more nuanced than we’ve seen before – Amelie and Oliver have an interesting relationship that is fascinating to explore. Myrnin is almost a tragic figure even while terrifying and dangerous and brilliant. Even Shane’s father has some depth to him. It’s actually rather bemusing but the big forces in the town and the antagonists are, in many ways, far more developed than the actual 4 main characters.

Review: Kiss of Death, by Rachel Caine, Book 8 of the Morganville Vampires Series

  

Michael has a made a deal with a recording studio to finally get his music out there. It’s exciting, unique – and involves them leaving Morganville. This is also a useful opportunity for Claire and co since it allows them to avoid a deal Claire made that could get them all eaten.

On the road, they quickly raise the chance of finally escaping Morganville for good. But Oliver has been sent as chaperone and what about the loved ones they left behind? More, it’s clear that Even and Michael, residents of Morganville all their lives, have little idea of the outside world and how to behave in it.

Then there’s the problem of the vampire rebels. With the Morganville security network down, the only thing holding the vampires in Morganville is Amelie’s word. And some are not accepting that. Leaving the town, these wild vampires are looking for a new place to take over, one without the rules and restrictions of Amelie. Their travel makes them cross paths disastrously with Claire & Co – and when they reach their destination, they find things are not what they expected.

I’ve always had mixed feelings about this series. I’ve felt that the world that has been built and some of the background characters have been fascinating and have a lot of potential.  Unfortunately the main characters don’t appeal to me and I often find Claire, the protagonist to be an outsider in her own story. In short, I was coming close to giving up on the series, it’s just not for me.

This was my “last chance” book, the last book I’d read before I shelved the Morganville vampires and didn’t open another one.

And I enjoyed it.

By taking the story out of Morganville, we introduced a lot of new contexts and themes. We got to see how the very insular life the Morganville residents had lived. How they were so used to the supernatural dangers of the vampires and how they are used to negotiating the dangers of Morganville, that they were utterly lacking in the social skills necessary to survive in small towns with close minded, dangerous people without vampires lurking around to keep order. It was a really well done twist that added a lot to the world, the characters and the story.

Review: Fade Out by Rachel Caine, Book 7 of the Morganville Vampires

After the last few books, life in Morganville has just come out of a series of disaster. The war with Bishop is finally over, with the ancient vampire destroyed. The illness that was slowly killing the vampires of Morganville has finally been cured – it looks like the town has been saved and can begin to return to normal – reinforced and made more just by the concessions Claire wrung from Amelie for the rights of humans within the town.

But things are not stable. The new laxer rules have led to some humans prowling in gangs, carrying the weapons they are legally allowed to carry

Similarly, groups of vampires are frustrated by the “domesticated” way that Amelie makes them live, working through the blood banks and the people they protect rather than hunting and are seeking to either change the system or leave Morganville entirely.

These revolts couldn’t happen at a worse time as Amelie is consumed by grief from the loss of Sam. She’s unable – or unwilling – to put down the revolts and even Oliver is questioning her ability to rule.

Against that we have the problems of reality TV coming to Morganville – and Ada, the vampire computer that maintains the town, its portals and its veil of secrecy is becoming increasingly more erratic and dangerous – threatening not only Myrnin and Claire but also the future of Morganville.

The book makes me think almost that one story was planned and then the author changed her mind after a few chapters and decided to write another. I think we’re supposed to be having the found work of how Morganville is now unstable with vampires and humans rising up against Amelie’s control and this is supposed to be foundation for a new meta arc after the end of the Bishop storyline. But I don’t think it went especially smoothly, we spend a lot of the beginning of the book worrying about vampire opponents of Amelie, whether Oliver will stand against her, whether there is going to be an anti-vampire human uprising – then we suddenly leap over to the cameras.

There’s not much smooth transition there and the two plots are tied together clumsily in a way that, I think, is supposed to suggest that one leads into the other.

Similarly there’s the plot line with Ada and the implications of that, what it means for Claire and Myrnin and what it means for the town as a whole – Ada is vital for the continuing functioning of the town and enforcement of its rules and status after all. Again, there’s a vague sense of tying it into the previous 2 plot lines but no real connections so much as a jump from plot to plot.

I think what frustrates me more is that any of these three could have been interesting plot lines in their own right – political unrest after the war with bishop could be interesting to pursue and tax the Scoobies decisions on where they stand and why. There could be a continuation of the question of whether to support vampires at all, even exploration of Amelie’s claim that vampires are dying out and humans control the rest of the world so don’t they need a space? This could have been an interesting plot – and I really hope it’s explored in future books because it wasn’t here.

Similarly with Ada – what are the consequences for Morganville without Ada, what does it mean, what did Ada do, can Morganville exist without it? This needs exploring a great deal more than we saw.

Even the reality TV show, its implications and the considerations of national media et al could have done with extra exploration. Instead we had the previous two ideas developing and then this plot line kind of slapped on top. It didn’t flow for me.

Despite that, all 3 plotlines were more interesting than the Bishop storyline for me, primarily because Claire is involved (albeit convolutedly) in these stories and not just a clumsy, awkward observer to action that is, primarily, happening behind the scenes. I got a much larger sense of being involved in the plot this time, of Claire at least somewhat fitting into the story and us seeing the full extent of the action unfold rather than being an outsider, only seeing half of the story and any scenes where Claire was involved being somewhat shoe-horned into the proceedings.

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

Review: Carpe Corpus by Rachel Caine, Book 6 of the Morganville Vampires Series

Morganville is under the control of Bishop. All resistance is quashed and even Claire is forced to obey with the magical tattoo that compels her will. The whole town is under Bishop’s brutal regime, anyone walking around after dark can expected to be hunted and killed by vampires loyal to Bishop and the old system of tax and protection has faded. In short, things may have been bad under Amelie, but they’ve never been close to as bad as this.

Of course, there is a resistance. Amelie is still alive and leading her vampires in a shadowy campaign against Bishop in a clever and desperate ploy to release his grip. Other vampires are seeking to flee the city, and no small number of humans as well. But Claire finds herself forced into the margins, unable to be part of the battle as people fear her under Bishop’s control (and others revile her as a traitor) and further as she is forced to follow the mentally unstable Myrnin who appears to have thrown his lot in with Bishop.

Add in Claire’s worry for Shane who has been imprisoned for trying to kill vampires along with his father, Claire’s being forced to work with Bishop even as he uses her for his vile control and Claire’s worry for her parents and being ostracised from her friends, well altogether times are pretty dire in Morganville.

This book had a really great story. Bishop is ruling the town and the resistance must both find a cure to the pervasive illness that is continuing to afflict them while, at the same time, work away to bring bishop down and roust him for good. It’s especially hard because several vampires have been forced to convert, serving Bishop – as has Claire herself. There follows a lot of careful manipulations, crafty plans and covert movements around Morganville, helped by some very clever and brave undercover agents in Bishop’s regime – all cumulating in a truly genius plan to finally bring Bishop down in an amazing play of cross and double cross.

The problem is I’m kind of extrapolating here. Because we’re following Claire. And Claire is involved in NONE OF THIS. So we don’t see it. Instead she whines about Shane being imprison, then spends a lot of time with Shane (and I’m not against this because the relationship is touching and sweet and actually kind of well done which surprised me. But there’s a war going on, less teen romance, more war!). She then spends much of the rest of the book moving medicine from lab to lab and following people around while they do things for the resistance with occasional bursts of random activity that doesn’t do much. I’m particularly not impressed by having Claire go and explore places for no reason. We’ve seen her do this before, in this book she decides to explore the boarded up coffee shop of Common Grounds. Why? No idea, a vague feeling at best. It’s sloppy writing.

And while we didn’t get to see all this fascinating behind the scenes plotting, instead we got some random scenes that didn’t matter much and added nothing to the storyline. The Goldman storyline that added nothing. Claire being kidnapped, AGAIN, for no good reason. The Dean storyline. Even the ending where they play pass the book with Bishop. They all seemed tacked onto this glorious main storyline we didn’t even get to see.

Claire, as a character and a portrayal continues to annoy me, especially since she is an observer to the actual events rather than an active participant.

Spunky Agency: Fake Empowerment and not-so-strong Female Protagonists

Spunky Agency is a term that we use quite often on this site.  We have included a cursory definition in the Fangs Lexicon, but because it is in such regular usage, we thought that it would be appropriate to create a post clearly defining what we mean by this term, with an example of some characters that represent Spunky Agency..

A character possessed of Spunky Agency, is one who makes extremely impulsive decisions that often are reckless and put her in ridiculous danger. This, of course, is meant to frame said protagonist as a person of action. Quite often you see the term "strong" used to describe this kind of action when in fact a better descriptor would probably be, “does not have the sense that God gave cabbage.“

These protagonists use their agency in such ridiculous ways that it actually undermines it. Their decisions are so poor we wish they wouldn’t make them at all - these characters aren’t strong because their “strength” is so misapplied. We have so many classic examples in the genre - Sookie Stackhouse has made some incredibly poor decisions, starting with deciding to investigate a serial killing in vampire bars and just getting worse from there. Clary from the Mortal Instruments virtually embodies this trope with her clueless portal jumping without knowing what’s on the other side. Claire from the Morganville Vampires constantly makes decisions that make my head ache (checking out the curious, locked, lightproof room in the library in a town filled with vampires? Really? What did you think was hiding in there? Mushrooms?)

Of course, bad plans are not the only element of Spunky Agency. How many times have we seen a group make a plan and then the Spunky Agent decides she’s going to sneak off and do her own thing instead? Yes, I`m looking at you Elena from the Otherworld series. How many times will she pretend to agree then go against everything decided? The Spunky Agent decides she knows better than her fellows and feels she can discard their input on a whim.

Similarly, the Spunky Agent will often refuse to accept any other input. She presents a fait accompli, a “my way or the highway”. Her agency is only realised by dictating to the others - even when they are often more experienced and knowledgeable than she is. Elena from Vampire Diaries frequently forces Stefan and Damon to accept her ridiculous plans. Jayne (oh thee of faux french names) from the Blacksun’s Daughter Series knows she should not be in command and yet still leads around the experts; making reckless plans that needlessly risking other people’s lives.

Another common element of Spunky Agency is poor impulse control - or outright random violence. Keillie Riviere from The Hoodoo Series so epitomises this that we’ve actually named the trope after her. To prove how strong and confident and determined she is, she punches people. She even punches Augustin, the leader of an international police and governing body. While she may be the most in need of anger-management therapy or some jail time, she’s hardly alone. How many times has Anita Blake got up in someone’s face at the slightest provocation?

Review: Lord of Misrule by Rachel Caine, Book 5 of the Morganville Vampires series

All out war is now tearing through Morganville. Bishop and Amelie have gathered their forces and their factions and are feinting against each other in an underground conflict that could literally tear the town apart.

Parts of the town are burning, others in ruin. Refugees are flooding to the few safe spaces and among them many humans are finally seeing a chance to throw off vampire control and are lashing out and rioting in rage. But not all of their anger is directed against the vampires – humans who are seen as collaborators are also being targeted and all pretence of rule of law is threatened. In such chaos of course Shane's dad has to come back to town.

Even without the riots, humans have to wonder what the future holds – which vampire master or none at all?

And if that wasn't enough – the stress is accelerating the vampires' disease. The more they remain under pressure, the faster the disease spreads and the more confused, frightened and uncontrolled the vampires will become. A cure becomes more essential as the battle heats up.

And there's a storm coming, extreme weather rolling in to add more chaos and destruction to the already torn town

Feast of Fools by Rachel Caine, Book 4 of the Morganville Vampires series

In the last book we were left with a cliffhanger. The Bishop, Amelie's father has come to town – and so has Claire's parents. The Bishop is dangerous, threatening and powerful...

And we open the book basically in the same situation. Big threatening bad guy and Claire's parents hanging round. And then we enter a holding pattern. I said the same thing about Midnight Alley and, sadly, I have to say it again, there's very little plot to review.

There are events. Claire spends a long time worrying about the big bad vampires, worrying about her dad, worrying about Shane, worrying about Myrnin in his cage, worrying about, well just about everything. But nothing actually happens. No plot moves forwards, nothing is advanced. There are events – but even less of them than there were in the last book. Claire goes to university, Claire drinks coffee. Claire's relationship with Shane continues (without developing), Claire keeps studying the vampire disease, Eve's brother Jason hangs around and is creepy. Eve's father dies and they go to the funeral. Shane and Claire go to the blood bank and give blood. Michael plays the guitar at Common Grounds and is good at it

I hate to present a long paragraph with just random bitten out events but that's pretty much the book.. Even in Midnight Alley there were more events to reference, but not here. I wouldn't mind if the events were good for foreshadowing or character development or world building, but even then there were too many of them without plot scenes interspaced - but most of them don't seem to add anything. They feel like filler scenes - and most of the book is like that. Worse, all of the foreshadowing of the Big Bad is told and told and told and told and never shown, it's vexing.

And it continues like this until we get to nearly 90% - and that is when the bad guys make their move, there is a great big showdown and the powerful, dramatic aftermath and hints of a long time campaign to come. Bishop makes his move, Amelie responds and fights back, lines are drawn, humans and vampires come together it looks like a rocking battle and a truly great story will begin here, filled with tension and reluctant alliances and fights for the whole town... except it started at 90%. It's really sad because she could have put this at the beginning of the book and gone on from there and actually had a fascinating plot. At least I have some hope for the next book

Midnight Alley by Rachel Caine, Book 3 of the Morganville Vampires series

So let us begin, as I normally do, with a plot summary.... and I've deleted this a few times because my openers were a bit snarky – but the plot of this book was a problem to me.

Stuff happened. There are EVENTS. Random stuff happening, but they're not really linked as a plot. There's no coherent whole and, in some ways, Claire feels completely dropped into storylines that don't concern or involve her. There's a lot happening that doesn't advance the plot, storylines kind of limping along without going anywhere but above all, these events and plot lines are not linked. There's a tangle of stuff happening rather than a coherent plot.

The dominant story line is that Amelie, big Founder Vampire, to whom Claire has pledged herself (for some reason. Technically to protect her friends but the at the same time it's made clear that the protection doesn't extend to them) has ordered Claire to become the apprentice to Myrnin, an ancient and knowledgeable vampire. Myrnin is ill and Amelie wishes to preserve his knowledge as much as possible by using Claire's superbrain (I know I know, after reading Glass House and The Dead Girl's Dance it's bemusing to think Claire even has a brain, but remember she's supposed to be super smart). To further complicate things, the illness makes Myrnin violent, unpredictable, unstable and dangerous – and he's killed his 5 previous apprentices. Myrnin's illness is degenerative and, surprise, all the vampires have it! So it's only a matter of time before everyone dies – and it's Claire's job to continue his work and find a cure!

The Dead Girl's Dance, by Rachel Caine, Book 2 of the Morganville Vampire series

At the end of the last book, Glass House, Shane called in his father in a desperate attempt to save them from the wrath of Morganville's vampires. Of course, they managed to escape that wrath by earning the support and protection of Analee, the Founder of Morganville who had enough clout to keep them safe.

The problem is, Shane's father and his vampire slaying biker gang still arrived. And they're still looking for blood and they don't intend to leave without slaughtering as many vampires as possible, preferably all of them. In fact, it seems this was Shane's reason to return to Morganville anyway – to gather as much intelligence as possible in the eventual attack.

Shane's father instantly launches a path of destruction, killing vampires wherever he can. Worse, he has no concern for collateral damage and his gang does not hesitate to kill humans who look like vampires – even resorting to kidnapping humans to follow their plans.

And worse still, Shane is quickly implicated in the killings. The penalty for vampire slaying in Morganville is being burned alive. Claire, Michael and Eve must find a way to convince the vampire authorities that Shane is not guilty and they should spare his life.

Fangs for the Fantasy podcast, Episode 27

This week we discuss True Blood "Cold Grey Light of Dawn", Yasmine Galenorn's Darkling from the Sisters of the Moon series, Lauren Beukes' Zoo City, Kelley Armstrong's Bitten from the Otherworld series and Rachel Caine's Glass Houses from the Morganville Vampire series