Magnificent Devices (Magnificent Devices #3) by Shelley Adina

 Lady Claire Trevelyan is making her way across the Atlantic to the Americans with her flock of adopted wards and Lord and Lady Dunsmuir; thereby escaping forced marriage to Lord Selwyn and his dastardly plotting.

Unfortunately, they run into air pirates over the Americas and quickly find themselves at their mercy – and Claire’s little flock is separated. Ransoms are demanded and Claire and her charges must try to escape and reunite in a harsh, lawless, unforgiving land.

And then Lord Selwyn rears his ugly head again. After his theft of the device he’s seeking to make his own nefarious deals in the Americas – but he hasn’t given up on Claire either and will use any scheme he can imagine to force her to marry him.

Yet more excellent fun with Lady Claire! I love these characters, love this protagonist and love this world. Much of what I’ve said about the previous 2 books in the series applies here as well. These books are immense fun. They have a glorious Steampunk feel and aesthetic – including a perfect use of language and etiquette to get that ideal Victorian feel, and the immense humour potential that comes with it. There’s something so amazingly fun and funny about these so-very proper people being swashbuckling heroes.

The setting is really vivid, it’s extremely well described without being a clumsily long winded and it’s very different from both London and the world we expected. Replacing the civilised, proper settings of the city for this rural, frontier near-wilderness was a big change but the book pulled it off magnificently.

I think this book has a slightly darker, more serious cast than the previous ones. Because the flock is split up, Claire is frequently worried for the lives of her charges – which is a stark contrast to her usual worries and concerns in previous books. Their manoeuvring and adventures take on a much starker and more serious cast when you have missing children you care for, or when you are trying to face down a pirate who has frequently threatened to kill you. I think it’s good that the tone did become more serious because of that – the relationship between Claire and Jake, Tigg and the Mopsies is far too powerful and meaningful for menaces against them to be seen as light and funny.

The writing maintained its perfect pacing though – the action kept moving forwards, the characters were still incredibly awesome and the fun was still there in immense quantities. The darker, more painful emotions fit into the story seamlessly, there was no jarring change of style nor did the author flounder with the different tone and the extremely different setting. Was it less fluffy? Yes, I think it was – but it was still immensely fun.

And it’s still one of those books where you really feel for the characters – I can think of no greater testament to the realness of them than that. Reading this I was enraged on Claire’s behalf at her treatment by James Selwyn. It’s one of those books that is so well written that you feel for the characters – and share their outrage and their anger.

Fangs for Fantasy Book of the Week

Every week on the Fangs for the Fantasy podcast (archives here) we read a book and discuss it on the show. The review for the book of the week always goes up on 3:00pm (EST) on a Monday (Monday’s book review).

To give people a chance to read along with us, every Monday we’re also going to include a list of our planned books of the week for the next few shows, so people can get the books, read them and join in the conversation.

  

21/1-28/1: Ever After by Kim Harrison (carried over since we lost a podcast)

28/1-4/2: Magnificent Devices by Shelly Adina

4/2-11/2: House Rules by Chloe Neil

11/2-18/2: Moonshifted by Cassie Alexander
18/2- 25/2: King Makers by Clay and Susan Griffith

Black Swan Rising (Black Swan Rising #1) by Lee Carroll

Garret James is an ordinary New Yorker, with a very complicated lineage. On a day out, Garret stumbles upon Lee, the proprietor of a weird store.  Lee is not interested in her ability to make jewelery but he does request that she open a silver box for him. Like Pandora's box, when Garret opens it, despair enters the word putting everyone she loves at risk.

Garret quickly learns that as the Watchtower, it is her responsibility to stand guard between the world the humans inhabit and the summer country (the world of the fae). With four days left to save the world, Garret must learn fae magic, deal with the legacy of her ancestors and decide where exactly a billionaire vampire fits into the equation.

I struggled to get through the first eighty pages of this book and thought very hard about rating it a DNF (did not finish).  The writing is overly descriptive at times, to the point of downright annoying. Do we really need to know the last detail of what Garret is wearing, or the people around her for that matter? At times I just wanted to scream, "tell the damn story already."  The story did pick up briefly but unfortunately returned to it's meandering pace for a time again.  In it's best moments, Black Swan Rising was epic, but it was hard to bulldoze thorough the extraneous information to get to the good parts.

I truly like Garret the protagonist.  Unlike far too many protagonist in this genre, she didn't run around kicking ass and taking names.  Garret was simply an ordinary human thrown into extraordinary circumstances. Her power came from the elementals she met along the way, which really fit with the theme of a woman on a journey of self discovery.  To survive, Garret had to learn to trust her instincts because everyone around her seemed to have some sort of agenda. I did however find it troubling once again that Carroll employed the dead parent trope in order to build character for Garrett.  Why is it so hard to write an urban fantasy novel in which the protagonist doesn't have a tortured past?

Garret's love interest is a vampire.  I was quite pleasantly surprised that he sought consent before feeding from her and consent in their love making.  Rather than having the usual perverted ancient vampire crushing on a teenage girl, Black Swan Rising suggested that the relationship between Garret and Will Hughes is based on an attraction he has to the descendants of Margarette.  This explains Will's emotions but it doesn't really explain Garret being caught up with a person she has just met.  This also means it's far more likely that Will has feeling for Garret only because of her resemblance to her ancestor.  

Do No Harm: Season 1, Episode 1: Pilot

We start with ominious music and the clock shifting to 8:25 – and Dr. Jason Cole wakes up. He puts away an empty medicine phial and the injector that was by the side of his bed.

We catch up with him again in the hospital, gowned and scrubbing up, and he sets his watch alarm for 10 hours – when asked what happens in 10 hours, he says “company.”  Doctory stuff happens and we’re introduced to a whole bunch of masked people while he gets ready for surgery – which first involves a glucose test – he can’t operate until he’s sure his blood sugar is right, he’s diabetic. They go into surgery and pessimistic, sarcastic guy, Dr. Kenneth Jordan, is all gloom and doom about the guy they’re operating on going to die (just what you need assisting you in surgery). He thinks they should give up on him and spend more time on patients they can actually help. Of course, Jason hangs in there and saves the man; Kenny boy giving him a snippy look over his mask.

Switch to leaving time and his boss (after some fun joke flirting) gives him some $1,000 tickets for a baseball game courtesy of the man whose life he saved. He tries to beg off but she protests – it’s his birthday and his diabetes stops him working at night, not enjoying a game. He gives the tickets to Kelvin, a cleaner, explaining he’s “not himself” during the night games. He continues to walk out, constantly checking the time while he’s joined by a man called Josh (seems to be his lackey) who quickly runs down his schedule for the next day and finally gets his vial of “oblivion” illegally from his nice friend, Reuben who also warns him that his medical chart is all over with elevated badnesses. Jason can’t talk about it – he has to get home.

This follows some real, non-funny flirting with Dr. Solis who wishes him a happy birthday (she knows, she googled him) she invites him out but he begs off – she realises he doesn’t have plans even though it’s his birthday and he adds that he’s going to church.

Which he does go to – and speaks to a man there, Will, just as he breaks up a support group. He supports people with Dissociative Personality disorder – something Jason denies he has but Will says affects everyone differently. Jason claims he’s had 5 years without incident – he’s in control. Will counters that knocking himself out every night is avoidance. Jason says he doesn’t have time to do more because he only has 12 hours – every day at 8:25, Ian Price takes over only to go away again at 8:25 the next day, which is how its always been. He says he’s interested in a woman (Dr. Solis I presume) but how can he pursue it when he’s only conscious for 8 hours a day? That’s when his alarm goes off – 45 minutes left. Will says he’s in a cage and urges him to surprise himself, make his remaining time count.

So he goes to the club Dr. Solis mentioned and meets her there. They talk about why they became doctors (he hurt someone very badly as a child and now wants to atone) when his alarm goes off – she wants to know why he’s keeping her at arm’s length and they kiss – until he starts almost seizing. He leaves rapidly. He runs home, fumbling doors and locks to grab his vial and inject it with only 10 seconds to go. But he doesn’t fall unconscious. It doesn’t work.

He wakes in a strange place, in a bed with 3 women. He leaves the bed and finds more people passed out sleeping after some heavy partying. He has flashes of memories of partying, drugs,. Getting in a fight. He has “Happy Birthday” written on his arms.

At work he orders a full range of tests from his lackey Josh then goes to see Dr. Ken Jordan (the arsehole, who is threatening a poor lackey for having a stutter) to get him to take over his rounds, then to Dr. Lena Solis to try and do the “it’s not you, it’s me” speech. She offers to be a friend and supporter if he needs it.

Jason goes to see Reuben panicked about “Oblivion” not working and Reuben tells him that “he” (Ian) has become immune – and he can’t make it any stronger without it becoming deadly. Reuben promises to work on something else – but what about tonight and Ian seeking revenge?

Jason gets in a taxi and asks to be taken “as far away as you can get.” He arrives at a motel with 10 minutes to spare, and has the desk clerk post his personal items back to Philadelphia.

Meanwhile, in the hospital, man wakes up and starts hallucinating things when he sees himself in the mirror. He panics and has to be sedated while they call to page Dr. Cole – Jason.

At the motel Jason takes a shower and shakily writes “Do No Har-“ in the condensation when Ian takes over. And realises Jason has left him with no cash or credit cards. He ransacks the room out of temper as much search – but does find Lena Solis’s phone number that Jason tucked into his pocket.  He calls her and she comes to the motel.

The Vampire Diaries Season Four, Episode 12: A View to a Kill

Stefan wakes and finds himself in bed next to a sleeping Rebekah, and  so he attempts to do the walk of shame, but when Stefan opens the door Klaus is waiting for him. Rebekah is not impressed to see Klaus and sees this as an invasion of her privacy. Klaus reports that Kol stole his daggers and that he believes that Kol's fear of Silas has pushed him over the edge. Rebekah does not agree to help him and demands that Klaus leaves.  When Rebekah heads into the shower, Klaus asks Stefan to talk some sense into Rebekah but Stefan says that he has to go and keep an eye on Damon, who is still on lockdown, after being compelled to kill Jeremy. Klaus points out that if Kol is allowed to roam free that Jeremy will die and that they will kiss their path to the cure goodbye.  Klaus adds that if Stefan helps to dagger Kol that Jeremy will live, and Damon will no longer be compelled.

At the school, Caroline has roped Bonnie into replacing her organizing the dance. Elena apologises for not being there to help out but adds that she has Jeremy on house arrest.  Elena is not impressed that Matt and Jeremy are doing nothing but playing video games.  Elena tells Bonnie that her plan is for Jeremy to kill Kol because Kol's sire line would be long enough to complete Jeremy's mark. When Elena turns on the water, she drops the phone because it starts to burn her hands.

Now on the phone with her father, Bonnie learns that he has dropped vervain into the water supply. Rudy says that he is reinstating the curfew and cancelling all town events.  Bonnie reminds her father that there's a dance tonight, but he replies, "not anymore." When Bonnie gets upset, Rudy says that he is trying to protect her and that the well being of the town is his responsibility now.  Bonnie says that she has been doing fine without him getting involved. Rudy is not pacified and brings up the number of people who have died in Bonnie's senior year alone. He demands Bonnie head straight home for a family meeting. The moment Bonnie hangs up the phone, Kol attacks her saying, "no one can get to the cure if you're too dead to lead them." Bonnie uses her magic to drive Kol back but when she starts to lose control, Bonnie runs away.

Stefan has gone to see Damon, who says that he thinks it's safe to set him free.  Stefan pushes a bottle of water and a small vile of blood through the bars.  Klaus then comes to the window and says that he is there to babysit.  Stefan tells Klaus to give Damon a vile of blood every few hours, so that he doesn't desiccate and that if Damon gets to strong, that he should be bleed out again.  When Damon suggests that Stefan is giving him the silent treatment because he slept with Elena, Klaus answers that Stefan must be over it because he caught him sneaking out of Rebekah's bed that morning. Stefan leaves saying he will let them know when he gets the dagger from Rebekah.

Elena calls Stefan and tells him about Kol trying to kill Bonnie.  Stefan does take the time to ask how Bonnie is doing and then tells Elena about Klaus's plan to dagger Kol. Elena then lets Stefan in on her plan to have Jeremy kill Kol.  Apparently, Bonnie believes with her new power that she can hold Kol long enough for Jeremy to get a clean shot.  Stefan reminds Elena that Kol is a brother to Klaus and Rebekah and though they are "dysfunctional bickering lunatics," they stick together no matter what.  Elena suggests that they counter by having Stefan use the dagger on Rebekah. When Stefan replies that he can't do that, Elena says, "I know you can't because vampires can't use the dagger but Matt can." Stefan agrees.

Elena calls Kol and he threatens to rip off Jeremy's arm.  Elena says that she wants "to call a truce in the name of Silas," and promises to meet Kol wherever he wants. Kol says that he will come to her and then rings the doorbell.  Kol demands that Elena open the door and invite him in.  Elena suggests that it would be stupid of her to let him in but Kol reminds her that he cannot kill Jeremy with his own two hands because then he would spend years suffering with the curse, trying to kill himself. As Kol is talking, Elena writes a message to Matt instructing him to find Stefan and the dagger. She then writes a message to Jeremy to leave, but Jeremy points out that he is the only one who can invite Kol inside. Elena opens the door for Kol and she says, "if I let you in, my brother goes" Holding a crossbow, Jeremy invites Kol in.

Beauty and the Beast: Season 1, Episode 11: On Thin Ice

 Vincent’s wandering around during the day now, look at him getting all daring. He drops in on Catherine to help her with her physical therapy after being shot (she’s frustrated at being on leave because of it). Awkwardness happens when Alex calls and they not!discuss their non-relationship.

Wow, Vincent, you spend your life hiding in the dark with only one friend and you still manage a love triangle. Behold the power of CW. If CW did the story of the last man on Earth, he’d still manage a love triangle.

He goes on to Alex’s to find that she seems to have covered nearly every flat surface with pictures of them both together – in a totally-not-creepy-honest way. He also seems not very happy by her stripping naked. Don’t take it personally, Alex, Vincent is never ever happy.

Catherine has to go to a therapist to deal with her being-shot trauma and instead dumps her relationship drama on him. He’s better man than I, there’s a window right there and he makes no attempt to leap out of it, but does try to steer her towards talking about the whole being-shot thing. He then does the aggressive therapy thing to make her all questiony and uncomfortable. Personally I think if someone asks “who are you really protecting” when you use the “serve and protect” line you should really have “the public” ready as a response. Really.

As she leaves, she sees Alex – who is surreptitiously taking some drugs out of a storage room and hiding them – and then lies about them to Catherine. Oooooohhh, love rival may be evil.

JT joins me in being confused how Vincent has 2 potential girlfriends despite being a legally dead shut in. Ah JT, doubt not the power of the CW! JT apparently went to Alex to tell her he couldn’t see her again because finding out about Vincent ruined JT’s life and Catherine’s (what, so he’ll take Catherine because her life’s already ruined by the big secret? Wow… that’s romantic). But instead decides that maybe he can see Alex and just not tell her that he’s a mutating manimal who has been known to lose complete control and rip people into teeny tiny shreds with lethal government agencies with massive powers hunting him down!

Uh… someone slap him. Please.

This is when Catherine arrives – she doesn’t slap him but does tell him that she saw Alex stuffing a bag full of drugs and that there’s an open narcotics theft case going on at the hospital and the police in charge will find out. Vincent insists they don’t know if Alex is guilty (sure, she could have a perfectly innocent reason for illicitly stuffing a duffle bag full of drugs like… like… damn, even in the name of snark I can’t think of one. Let’s assume she’s getting pills for her sick aunt. Aunts rather. It’s a big family). Catherine asks if Alex knows how care she has to be about keeping Vincent’s secret – and Vincent says no. Catherine still doesn’t slap him.

At the police station, under dire threat of manipedis, Catherine makes Tess tell her about the case she’s working. Noah Hawkes, super rich guy who went sky diving with his wife who died when her parachute (and back up) were both tampered with by a left handed person 24 hours or so before the jump. Catherine begs to be allowed on the case but Tess says no – Jo has laid down the law.

Agatha and the Clockwork Princess (Girl Genius #2) by Phil & Kaja Foglio

 Agatha and Krosp have made their escape from the airship city and are now trying to work their way towards Mechanicsburg, the home of the Heterodynes. Except their airship crashes, leaving them stranded in the Wasteland, where the abominations from a thousand eccentric Sparks roam unchecked. It’s a daunting task to face alone

Luckily she doesn’t have to, after winning the trust of a travelling show full of truly excellent eccentrics and managing to duck the Baron and his minions. But it’s far from a simple trip to Machanicsburg

Because Agatha isn’t just the daughter of Bill Heterodyne, but also of the evil and devious Lucrezia Mongfish whose schemes were far further reaching and far more evil than anyone ever imagined. Worse, even though she’s long dead, she left plans for her daughter, plans for her return from the dead and the resumption of her dark dreams empire.

This is a difficult review to write. Whenever I sit down to write a review, I want to be original, I want to say something new and interesting about the book. But this book is a sequel to the already awesome Agatha and the Airship City and I’m in the difficult position of wanting to say “just like the first book.”  Which is a rather limited review.

But it’s also accurate. This book is still immensely fun. It’s immensely whacky. It has an excellent, wonderful world with all the immense weirdness that a full continent of eccentric, weird science can produce.  We have strange constructs, we have clanks in all their various forms, technology that strains the very limits of imagination and wonder. Everything that made the last book so amazingly fun, so weird, so wonderful and, ultimately, so very different from what I’ve seen before is present in this book as well

The one thing I will say is that this book has a slight shift in style, balance and theme from the first book. The first book was zany, fun, random and chaotic. It’s gloriously cheesy, immensely funny, frequently silly and with vast amounts of joy and fun as we’re introduced to this glorious world, grinning all the time. Yet, at the same time it had an underlying sense of vast forces hanging the balance with the potential for battles that could consume Europa coupled with some potential for heavy emotional moments.

And then we hit this book and those epic forces have stepped up. We have Lucrezia Mongfish and the Other with their terrible machinations that could bring down the empire and enslave the continent. We have Agatha very personal involved in this conflict, fighting desperately to stop Lucrezia, despite her very intimate connection with her. This is a battle where people are dying, it’s a battle where many more lives are at stake. There is loss and grief and real risk, not Othar-style silly, fun non-risk but actual dark, steely risk.

We also have some very compelling relationships – Agatha and Lars was fun and light, but with a heavy undertone and a powerful ending. Agatha and Zeetha form a very strong and powerful friendship. These relationships gave us a cast of characters to care about – not just a few main characters and lots of very fun background ones. This gave us people we could worry over, people who could be lost and be a grievous loss – and they were. Even Wolfgang’s fear and grief for Agatha are powerful, well conveyed and add to the changing focus of the book. Even the resounding tragedy of the Clockwork Princess herself was far darker than I imagined I’d see in this series.

There was a darker edge to this book, the dark emotion, the grief, the anger, the desperation , the potential for loss and the epic scale of the Other and its forces added an edge that wasn’t there in the first book. This book had more depth to it, meaning it was still a fun read, but it was less of a whacky read. It had substance and heavy flesh on the bones beyond humour, randomness and this amazingly impossibly wonderful world with all the machinations of the eccentric sparks, but in doing so it made the book less light, less fluffy. I won’t say it was a dramatic shift in content so much as emphasis – the rampaging clanks and monsters and cruel experiments are the same as in the first book – but while they were funny and silly then, seeing the direct aftermaths and being directly caught among them shows just how dark they can be (and how dark any Spark can easily become – as we see with Wolfgang almost turning on Ardsley).

Supernatural: Season 8, Episode 12: As Time Goes By

 We begin in 1958, a man, Henry, saying goodnight to his son (and I’m going to take a leap from the “previously” and suggest they’re Winchester ancestors) before going out into the night. He reaches a door with a unicursal hexagram craved into it (in a circle, so I guess a unicursal hexacle). He does a secret knock and is invited in to meet Josie and being initiated.

Josie is invited into a room by a man in a robe but when the door closes we hear roaring, screaming and yelling in Latin. Henry rushes in and sees the chanting cultist facing off against Josie. A cultist on the floor, bleeding from his eyes, hands Henry a box and tells him not to let Abaddon get it. Josie snaps the cultist’s neck and turns demon-black eyes to Henry – who wisely scarpers. She follows using the patented slow-villain walk while Henry finds a lab and starts messing with bottles.  Henry, the speed she’s moving you could have been in Canada by the time she gets to you

He adds blood to his recipe and paints a symbol on the back of the door. He chants (not in Latin, I think) and the rune glows as she tries to use her demon powers to open the door (the door knob is right there, you lazy demon). The tension builds, power against power – and there’s a flash of light. And Henry lands in Sam and Dean’s hotel room. Presumably in 2013.

He asks them which of them is John  Winchester.  They reply neither and when he starts babbling Dean slams him against a wall. He asks after John again and Sam insists that since he fell out of their closet, they get to ask the questions. He tries to leave and Sam and Dean start to cuff him – with some fancy finger work he manages to cuff them – and escape into a confusing 2013. He breaks into the Impala (oh dear) and is intercepted by Dean and a gun.

Back in the hotel room and post-demon testing Dean is agitated by the man asking after his dad, breaking his car and calling them “alpha male monkeys”. Which is when Josie/Abaddon arrives and throws Sam and Dean away with classic demon telekinesis. She threatens Henry a little, tells him he’s not a fighter – and Dean stabs her in the back with the demon-dagger. It hurts her – but doesn’t kill her. Oooh uber demon.

They flee to the car and make a getaway while Josie reads the mind of the motel employee to find out about them – before killing him. They stop when Henry needs to be sick by the side of the road. He’s a researcher, unused to action. He tells them he’s from the past, that the demon’s Abaddon and he demands to see John – and Dean tells him John is dead. Which upsets him, since Henry is John’s dad (hands up anyone in the audience didn’t see that coming).

Time for some fast food – whole they’ve tested and believed his story, Dean’s still not a big Henry fan since John hated his father who ran out on him when he was a child (possibly due to time travel). Dam counters that John himself was hardly father of the year. Time to talk Abaddon and Henry underestimates the Winchester’s experience and Dean flashes his shiny demon knife at him. Apparently the time travel spell tracked his own blood – it used blood, sands of time, an angel feather, tears of a dragon and charge from his own soul (so, simple then). He’s less pleased to discover that the big magical legacy he intended his kids to have as “Men of Letters” failed and his grandkids are hunters - which he considers to be apes.

Big grand explanation of how the Men of Letters are watchers, researchers, holders of forbidden knowledge who share their precious knowledge only with special hunters (not those that just rampage and kill), or as Dean sums it up “yodas to our jedis”. Sam points out that neither they nor anyone they know have ever heard of the Men of Letters  (and, all things considered, they would have).