Almighty Johnsons, Season 1, Episode 3: Bergerbar

Zeb is interviewing a new flatmate now Gaia is gone (noooooooooooo Gaia, come back – no-one blames you for sleeping with Anders, Dean O’Gorman is just too irresistible, all reasonable people understand that!) the mess of the apartment is a barrier, her playing the accordion can be worked round – Axl coming out of his room naked? A definite deal breaker.

Poor Zeb is finding it very hard to fill that room with Axl’s depression/angst/active sabotage (and lack of clothes and personal hygiene). And poor Mike who is, of course, expected to bail him out. I’m not quite sure taking him to play pool is the best solution for Mike (since he always wins) but gives him a chance to talk to Axel – and Axel to be moody, bad tempered and in no mood to listen. Emo Odin is in the building.

Mike goes to Olaf for advice (oh gods no!) and Olaf says he’ll handle it (NOOOOOOO! In what universe is this a good idea?!).

Olaf’s method of handling Axl involves getting him very very high indeed so he became “one with nature” (as opposed to “upholstered” which means “one with the couch” which was Olaf’s lesson for a younger Mike) and pretty unable to communicate. Or stay on a sofa. Or do anything except giggle helplessly.

A sober Axl goes to see Mike to ask everyone to stop helping and finally talk about his depression. Loving Gaia and investing in her as Frigg. Which failed. Then loving Gaia despite the gods which also failed. And now being without Gaia, unable to cover his own rent and nothing special – and being Odin makes it worse because he’s got a big duty and all this apparent power that he can’t even touch, making him feel more a failure. And to add salt to the wound, the one thing he could be proud of – his family – betrayed him, with Anders sleeping with Gaia. And he’s failing his course for non-attendance.

All in all… ouch.

Ty isn’t finding things easy either – humans not remembering him also affects an old customer who doesn’t give him the same goodwill he’d had. Also, Hodr, lord of all things dark and cold, had a distinct advantage when it came to repairing fridges. He goes home and… sells his house. Quickly – even when his estate agent says he could get more for it. Ingrid, helping him pack, who apparently lives with him at the moment (I missed that – also this may be the first scene where Ingrid is not drinking, about to drink or actually drunk) questions him giving in both his career and his house in the same day (also where will she stay); but Ty wants to restart his life. Stacey suggests working for her but he’s contemptuous of being a cycle courier – which she shoots down, having no time for such snobbery.

And we have a visit from Colin, yes Loki. Oh shit, everything goes to hell when Loki shows up (as it should). He’s pissed that Ty is selling the house since he gave it to his daughter (Hel) after she married Ty and before she died – except, as Ty points out, she left it to him in her will, which cleared probate and not once did Colin try to stop it or challenge it. Colin is determined that Ty won’t sell the house because… because he’s Loki, he doesn’t need a reason!

The Monsters in Your Neighborhood (Monsters #2) by Jesse Petersen

Natalie is the new leader of the Monster support group but it’s not exactly peaceful. Despite having come together closer than ever before, they all live under the shadow of Van Helsing’s declaration of war. After such a delay, they have only just started to relax

When Van Helsing fires the first salvo. Not in a direct attack – or not just in a direct attack – but via twitter and youtube. The Van Helsings target them at their greatest fear – exposure. Exposure to a hostile and terrified public who will rise up in a mob like those the Van Helsings whipped up of old.

As the group turn on each other with suspicion and spite – fanned by the flames of Van Helsing’s divisive tactics and even a traitor in their midst, Natalie must hold them together to face their old foe.

This is one of those book reviews I’m having trouble with – because a lot of what I’ve said about the first book in the series still applies. I don’t like my reviews to sound repetitive, but this book is exactly what you’d expect from the last book.

The monsters are still extremely fun characters – they continue to be everything they were before – while different and odd and, yes, monstrous, they’re equally human. And by human that doesn’t mean nice and compassionate  - no it means petty and prone to panic and likely to be selfish and frightened and resentful and spiteful. Human doesn’t mean nice – and I think too much in Urban Fantasy, a monster striving to hold onto their “humanity” means a monster trying to be compassionate and kind. But that’s only one side of humanity – we’re not all nice. We do fall apart in a crisis. We do look for someone to blame rather than looking for solutions. We are paranoid, we do tend to lash out when threatened or upset or angry. We don’t always make sense. We don’t always act sensibly and we certainly don’t always listen to reason.

This book shows that extremely well with the story set up to try and drive wedges between the monsters of the group. We have seen characters grow – with Linda gaining some strength, Kai and Natalie growing closer with mutual respect and, of course Natalie and Alec have really developed their relationship; all excellent things I wanted to see. But all of that is threatened with the external menace mixed with the individual threats – you can see who is closest to who by the way they bury their suspicion, but those close relationships also mean those who are just friends worry that they’re going to be sacrificed for the sake of loved ones. The paranoia, backbiting and lashing out between them is so very typical of a realistic response – especially when you get directed threats like the Book of the Dead, carrying spells that can kill immortal mummies, is stolen which make Kai and Rehu paranoid and frightened. It’s really well done.

I like how Natalie has grown as well, she used to have a lot of insecurity but she has really come into her own as a leader – clearly standing above the others. She’s really believable as a leader; she isn’t perfect by any means and she certainly has doubts, but you can see why the others believe in her and support her. And I definitely love how Linda has grown with respect to dealing with the man who treats her poorly – oh yes yes I do.

One thing I do like is that perhaps the most monstrous of the group, Patrick the Cthulu, seems to be the most decent and most kind of them as well. Or maybe he just hasn’t been in the group as long as the rest so hasn’t had chance to develop all those little annoyances and grumbles that people forced together for a long period of time tend to develop.

While I was prepared to dislike Igor originally because I had a bad feeling about where he was going, Alec managed to spin it round to make it clear what Igor is – whatever you expect him to be. Igor is the consummate assistant who can’t help but serve and becomes whatever people need him to be; whatever role he assumes, he becomes that stereotype. He’s an interesting take on the whole concept of Igor.

Dead Like Me, Season 1, Episode 9: Sunday Mornings

The theme this week is George and good memories she looks back on. And speaking of things we look back on - Roxy’s back! Thank you – and her first line is pointing out an annoying habit of Daisy’s! Is this why they got rid of her for a while? Because there’s no way Roxy would tolerate the newly arrived Daisy’s shenanigans? Anyway, Daisy accuses George of being “internal” which is why she has no friends. Roxy snarks more at Daisy (deservedly) I think Roxy is going to make Daisy far more tolerable.

In other things getting better, it looks like the Las household may be heading up with Reggie being much happier and brighter with JD the dog with even Joy and Clancy bonding. Things are looking up

Less so for George going to a college for her death appointment (accompanied by Mason for the usual skeevy reasons), reminiscing about their families and how George was so close to her dad as a child but they drifted apart. George goes all internal with the stress presence of the college while Mason, of course, finds some drugs (and declaims his theory that colleges are invented by bacteria). She finds her target – a ridiculously enthusiastic college student with big big hopes that are now very much dashed. And Mason’s peeping Tom ways let him see an attempted rape, to which he promptly clonks the guy on the head with a fire extinguisher.

Afterwards, George and the woman Mason rescued talk about reaction in crisis and how they think they’re ready but then have a brain freeze; and George bonds over how alike they are. Goerge sees a friend and actual friend – and Mason develops a crush. And more than just he-wants-to-have-sex-with-her crush. To which Daisy, seeing Mason with some vulnerable feelings, promptly stomps all over everything.

The problem with undead characters is you can’t wish them dead.

And Roxy is being given grief on her job, as usually – and then he touches her. Touches her when she told him not to. This is where we learn that a pissed off Reaper can rip the soul out of your body, hold it above their head and give dire warnings before putting it back.

At work, George tells Delores she has lunch plans – and Delores very kindly, very patiently tells George it’s fine to say no to her without having to lie. Which shows again how Delores is both kind and annoying – and how insular George normally is. Of course she does have lunch plans this time and she and Charlotte continue to enjoy each other’s company; Charlotte complains about how the guy trying to rape her also hit her joy of the sonnets she was reading at the time – joy George used to share because her dad (a university professor) used to read them to her. In fact, Charlotte invites her to a seminar about them lead by – yes, Clancy Lass, George’s dad. And she’s struck by how engaging and entertaining and clever he is in the lecture hall – completely different from how he was at home. George reflects on how Clancy changed and realised she changed and became a teenager and started avoiding him so stopped seeing Clancy as he was.

The Women of Defiance

Sci-fi, regardless of the medium, has a long history of misogyny. Protagonists tend to be males on a heroic quest, with women reduced to the love interests (read: damsels to be saved) maternal figures, fridged corpses to inspire vengeance or, in a rare outing, the sidekick. This, of course, makes perfect sense given that sci-fi is largely written by men and men act as gatekeepers. Many women have found that the only path to success in this genre is to use their initials in publishing, thus masking their gender or outright adopting a male pseudonym. When we learned that Syfy was releasing Defiance, as an original program, we expected to see the same male headship that can be found on all of the science fiction shows that we currently watch. If anything, we expected even less because Defiance isn’t just science-fiction, it’s dystopian - and there’s nothing like the end of the world to drive us back to 1950s “values.”

At least in terms of gender Defiance turned out to be quite the surprise. Women make up a fairly large percentage of the cast and they are in powerful and varied roles. Defiance easily passes the Bechdel Test week after week and, in many ways, stands as evidence that strong empowered women in science fiction only enrich the story, not detract from it.

Perhaps one of the most compelling characters of the show is Stahma Tarr. At  first blanche she appears to be completely subservient to her larger than life husband Datak Tarr; and victimised by their misogynist culture. Stahma is a soft spoken, conventionally attractive woman, with traditional Castithan beliefs. Many of the humans who interact with her commonly underestimate her because they wrongly focus on her much more demonstrative husband Datak and view him as the threat. Yet, as we see, Stahma is the brains behind most of Datak’s plans and ambitions and it’s strongly implied this has always been the case; even Datak doesn’t realise that Stahma directs actions with deftly skillful manipulation and she is always 3 steps ahead - as Kenya found out to her cost.

Stahma is far from infallible - in some ways, Stahma is a bit of a fish out of water. For instance, before her son Alak’s marriage to the very human Christie she sought a prostitute to teach Alak how to give Christie an orgasm in fear that Christie would not give her father Rafe a good account of their wedding night; clearly what we have here is a huge cultural difference that she was not aware of but even in this situation though her assumption of what would be required of Alak was erroneous, she was plotting for the success of the marriage because she say the political advantages of a union between the Tarr and the McCawley. Stahma learns from her missteps and the next time Stahma faced a cultural difference, she quite astutely turned it to her advantage and pulled Christie closer to her. It’s this willingness to learn, ability change and unwillingness to be bound by Castithan custom unless they suit her (unlike Datak, who is far more rigidly attached to the old ways) makes her one of the most formidable figures in Defiance.

Another fascinating character is Kenya Rosewater. It is incredibly rare to see a sex worker as a main character on television - certainly not one so devoid of stereotypes. Kenya isn’t an exploited victim, she chooses her profession, she’s proud of her profession and her prowess. She is very protective of her establishment and the people who work for her. She is a skillful and capable business woman who doesn’t need help or rescue - she’s also pragmatic and not waiting for a man to whisk her away from all this. In fact, when she developed feelings for Nolan that affected her work, she stopped seeing him; her work came first. She is slut shamed by other residents but she adamantly refuses to accept that and fights back against it - even from her own sister, she refuses to be shamed.

In fact, merely having a publicly prominent sex worker be the sister of the mayor says so much about this setting and while Amanda has expressed reservations about Kenya’s profession, she’s also defended and is close to her.

I can’t say Amanda is our favourite character; she sometimes seems inconsistent and I disagree with many of the decisions she makes. She has her morality, sees rights and wrongs but at the same time she is heavily dedicated to keeping Defiance going which leads to her tolerating the intolerable. Despite this we cannot deny her strength; like Stahma and Kenya she isn’t perfect - she struggles a lot with insecurity especially in the beginning as the new mayor, but she is a skilled manager of Defiance, balances its factions and no character can see the larger political picture with Defiance, the world they live in and the various forces in the world as well as Amanda. Even if we don’t always like her decisions, we have to respect her strong leadership and no-one is as dedicated to Defiance as a whole; while many characters in the show are willing to destroy the greater good for their own profit, Amanda is firmly fixed on that greater good - but perhaps quite willing to trample individuals for the sake of it.

The Reluctant Reaper (Reluctant Reaper #1) by Gina X Grant

Kirsty D’Arc is happily living her life, doing her thing when her day is spoiled by being attacked by a stapler. A stapler. As if violent office supplies weren’t enough, she then finds her boss is actually trying to sell her soul – to get an extension on his old contract

A dizzying series of terrible accidents finds Kirsty down in Hell, the afterlife. And nothing is what she expected but nor is it easy to fix such a blatant mistake. She’s down there for some time – giving her chance to learn a little about herself, her family – and how little she had done with her life but also what she actually wants

Especially concerning attractive Reaper Dante.

You can tell this book was designed to be funny and light full of quips and wit and lots of giggly moments. It doesn’t take itself seriously, it often jumps into the ridiculous and positively wallows there. Everything is a little silly, a lot zany, a lot whacky and more than a little cartoony. And I can appreciate that – some of my favourite books have been those that are just loopy and out there and make me giggle all the time. It’s especially fun when you take something as serious and dark and mournful and, well, grim as a Grim Reaper and throw all this light, silly, funny joy on top. So it had a lot of potential

And completely missed the mark for me. I don’t think I laughed once, unfortunately, I’m not even sure if I cracked a smile. The humour is contrived, it doesn’t fit even in the zaniness. It relied a lot on convoluted mental monologues while Kirsty chased her own thoughts in circles until she could force out a quip (and setting up your own funny lines doesn’t work). There is an inordinate number of puns – puns on top of puns on top of puns that just don’t work for me even slightly.

It has the odd line like: “When life had handed me lemons, I’d gone online and purchased grapefruits. Victoria’s Secret was safe with me.” That wasn’t bad. But gee-nomes that sting you and alter your DNA? Lead by the streetsmart “metrognome”. She gets angry when it’s misty so becomes “misterical”. The mist that would not be missed?  I didn’t laugh – I did groan. I did look back and see if I had actually read that. Then I groaned again. And really, this is just the tip of the iceberg. It gets worse. It gets so much worse.

This is shaky ground to be on. You have a book whose prime selling point is its humour and, to me, it’s just not funny. That’s crashing and burning right there.

But, worse, humour is pretty much all the book has. The plot is really weak. She dies, she goes to Hell, she wanders around and random stuff happens. That’s about it – each random event is an excuse for some more zaniness and puns and maybe some world exploration – but there’s no actual plot. There’s a vague, background “oh I want to go back to my life” but she doesn’t actually do anything about that or about anything else. She just kind of exists. I think this is trying to set up her character as someone who has no karma – because that is exactly what she is in this setting, she has neither good karma nor bad karma (which is currency in this Hell) because she hasn’t actually lived; she never takes chances, she never does anything, she’s not an active participant in her own life. Which is an interesting thing to explore in both a character beginning to grow and over a series – but there’s nothing else in this book to provide a scaffolding around a deliberately blank protagonist.

Under the Dome, Season 1, Episode 4: Outbreak

Julia has Barbie’s map and is definitely suspicious about it – given how she hides it from him.

Outside the Dome the military is packing up and leaving – and those trapped inside gather in a crowd to protest them leaving; writing messages on the dome to ask them to stay, to help get them out. Linda arrives and tries to get everyone to back off since people have died being too close to the dome. She draws her gun which doesn’t really help - and Rev. Coggins starts preaching which isn’t very helpful either. It’s Jim speaking up that manages to disperse the crowd and he disagrees with Linda drawing her gun (damn it, you made me agree with Jim Linda). Jim starts to talk to Linda but she’s woozy and doesn’t look well – she collapses and Jim and Barbie catch her.

Kidnapper James Junior still has Angie imprisoned – bringing her clothes, reminiscences and more creepiness.  When he’s not there she saws at her bonds with the scissors she took, when he is, she carefully plays to his fantasies. When he turns his back to let her change, Angie tries to stab him with the scissors – he grabs the blade, cutting his hand but overpowering her. Ha chains her up and leaves, refusing to let her out “until she’s ready.”

Julia follows the map Barbie left and finds her husband’s car outside of a trailer. It’s were Phil the DJ lives; Phil tells Julia that her husband sold him the car – then he faints, ill like Linda.

At the clinic, Carolyn and Alice bring in Norrie and Joe, worried about their mutual seizures and the possibility of it being contagious. Problem? They have no doctors, the dome killed or cut off all the doctors. They do have Alice – she’s a psychiatrist but she interned in medicine. Joe notices Junior getting his hand patched up and asks if he’s seen Angie – Junior claims he has but doesn’t know where. And Jim and Barbie bring in the unconscious Linda. More and more people come in needing help (Jim sends Junior to help Barbie set up cots in the basement). And everyone misses Peter Shumway – Julia’s husband – since he was a doctor.

Alice performs tests on Norrie and Joe (who are definitely getting on very well – and both know the X-Men) – but finds nothing unusual, when Jim asks for her help. There’s a huge number of patients now, and Alice is the closest thing they have to a doctor.

Julia confronts Barbie on his map – but then she falls ill as well. People ask Alice what’s happening and she thinks it’s a meningitis outbreak by the symptoms but she can’t test because the clinic doesn’t have the equipment. Alice’s family were vaccinated, Barbie was in the military and Junior in college but anyone else is highly likely to catch the disease. Worse, Alice doesn’t have enough antibiotics in the clinic (or enough gloves and masks for that matter). If any of the infected leave the clinic, it spreads.

The Walking Dead Vol 8: Made to Suffer

There’s not much to summarise this volume. The Governor has found the Prison and unleashes the full force of Woodbury against the group and they desperately try to defend themselves

Lots of action, lots of combat, lots of death.

If there can be said to be any theme in this action packed volume, it’s proving just how very mistaken the group was in their complacency and sense of peace we had in the last volume. There they were beginning to relax, plan a future, settle down, build a life.

This week, that was all destroyed. Everything was ruined - we can see this as best symbolised by Rick giving Carl back his gun. Last volume he was ready to let Carl be a kid again, now he is back to being a warrior. The upbeat, even delusional, optimism of last week is replaced by battle plans and even preparations for the worst - having to leave the prison. It seems odd to us to see a prison be seen as something so desperate to occupy and hold, especially as Dale and Andrea flee, but as Axel says (and this is from a prisoner who was actually incarcerated there) this is their home and they see no place for them outside its fences.

Of course, this shattering of the peace was truly shown by the vast amount of the cast was killed. I think this was the first volume that truly established the sense that anyone can die in this series. We fully expected Axel, Patricia, Billy and Alice to be expendable - but Tyreese, Hershel, Lori and, especially, Judith were a shock and showed that no-one (except maybe Rick) is truly safe. Carl has an excellent line on death in this series - everyone dies, he expects no different, it’s just a matter of when and again shows his shattered childhood.

What almost adds to the tragedy of this volume is the pointlessness of it all; Martinez died telling Rick how good he had it in the prison, how much the people of Woodbury would have a better, safer life there. That was what they were fighting for. But the Governor’s greed, evil and rage ended up not only with his death and the disillusionment of his people, but the prison itself so badly damaged that it was no longer useful for anyone. The Governor’s violence - monstrosity even - destroyed it for all of them.

One last element we had was just how far the people of Woodbury had hitched their hopes to the Governor that they were willing to believe his lies, deluding themselves, even when they know what he has done and how he behaves - something we have seen before at the arena matches. The Governor was even telling them how evil and violent Rick & co were while also assuring the crowd that their arenas would be back soon; right up until the Governor's melt down becomes too much for Lily to ignore.

On the issues - most of this volume was combat so there was considerably less than usual, but still some major points. On the plus side, Andrea and Michonne were not only capable fighters, they were combat monsters; they slaughtered the people of Woodbury in vast numbers, they were terrifyingly efficient defenders.

Carniepunk Anthology

By: Rachel Caine, Delilah S. Dawson, Jennifer Estep, Kelly Gay, Kevin Hearne, Mark Henry, Hillary Jacques, Jackie Kessler, Seanan McGuire, Kelly Meding, Allison Pang, Nicole Peeler, Rob Thurman, Jaye Wells

When I first saw this anthology I leaped to request it – so many of the authors included in it are the authors I already read and already love, a collection of stories by them was definitely something I was sure I’d be able to devour in seconds, loving every word.

I preface the review with this to make it clear that my expectations were very very high – perhaps too high given my oft mentioned dislike of short stories. This left me feeling a little disappointed.

Firstly, on the book overall I was impressed by the unity of theme, short story compilations by different authors can feel very disjointed as you are buffeted from epic story to laughing comedy to heart wrenching tragedy that makes them almost impossible to read in one sitting because they’re so different.  While the writing style of this book was, obviously, very varied the overall theme not just of Carnivals but of something sinister, dark and something pretty creepy was generally well maintained throughout. I don’t know if it was intended or if the authors just find carnivals as creepy as I do – but nearly every story had a strong sense of the creepiness, the alien and the outsider about them that helped keep the whole book together as a coherent whole which I appreciated.

In terms of the stories, the ones by the authors that drew me in were very much their style, but also nothing special and didn’t form much of a useful addition to their own stories:

Kevin Hearne’s The Demon Barker of Wheat Street, was a fun ride with characters I’ve come to know and love. Atticus, Oberon and Granuaile are always immensely fun romp around a Carnival, fighting evil with humour and flair with odd moments of depth and emotion to it that so characterises Kevin Hearne’s work; it’s good but not his best, lacking in style or real relevance to the world he has…  if you’re not a fan of the series already you’re going to be a little lost reading this one – and a little Spoilered as well, which is a bad choice for a short story, I think.

Jennifer Estep’s Parlor Tricks, is much the same. If you know her world and her characters then it’s a great read, a nice continuation and nice to see Gin in some semi-downtime. If you don’t know her world then you’re probably going to be more than a little lost as the full weight of her massive Ashland world is thrown at you. As a fan and a current reader of her series, I enjoyed it while still feeling I wouldn’t have missed anything if I hadn’t read it. That’s a good thing in the sense that I don’t want my series to depend on me tracking down anthologies, but bad in that I left the story feeling I hadn’t gained anything.

Seanan McGuire’s Daughter of the Midway, the Mermaid and the Open, Lonely Sea, surprised me in that it didn’t seem to be related to any of her actual series. While I liked this story, I also felt that it was the only one that didn’t fit the overall theme of the book, though I quite liked the subversion of finally presenting the Carnie’s point of view and taking their otherness that had been so pushed through the rest of the stories and making that a strength rather than the sinister nature that had been pushed so far. It was an excellent close to the book.

Notable others were Painted Love by Rob Thurman, it was the first story in the book and did a very good job of setting up the dark and sinister theme; the fantastic and the other, the evil and the cruel, the hidden threats as much as the hidden wonders. It was an excellent choice for the first story. But, as far as the story itself goes, it didn’t work for me. It had a nice twist ending but to make that work it forced a lot of character interaction that didn’t make a lot of sense and some very stilted descriptions. The story also had an over-wordy, over-introspective style that I’ve never particularly cared for. It did really set up the sense of the other – in ways that go beyond the simple supernatural creatures we’ve already known - and definitely laid the groundwork for the creepy, the evil and the sinister