Fangs For The Fantasy

Monday, July 14, 2014

Fangs for the Fantasy Podcast: 2014, Episode 19

It's finally time for our podcast! After much delay we've finally got back on track (curse those weremoose)

You can join us here and you can listen live on our youtube channel, here, or in our sidebar. All will also carry a recording after the show is finished. As ever all our previous podcasts can be found in the archive

This week we discuss True Blood (and how much we hate Sookie), Defiance (and how awesome Stahma is), Dominion (and the characters and settings that just don't work), The Strain (too close to the book), the straightwashing of Constantine, Witches of Eastend (too many storylines)

The podcast begins at 7:00pm EST (technology willing)

And those reading along can see our next books of the week:

(Our list is always subject to change should we need to squeeze something in or something random happens)

7th July - 14th July: Memnoch the Devil by Anne Rice

14th July - 21st July: Fair Game by Patricia Briggs

21st July - 28th July: The Vampire Armand by Anne Rice

28th July - 4th August: Daughter of the Sword by Steve Bein

4th August-11th August: Blood Games by Chloe Neil

11th August - 18th August: Merrick by Anne Rice

18th August - 25th August: Blood Passage by Connie Suttle

Memnoch the Devil (Vampire Chronicles #5) by Anne rice

Memnoch the Devil takes Lestat on an extremely long tour of the past, creation, angels, evolution, the passion of Christ and more – because he has a job proposition for the Brat Prince

Memnoch the Devil, also known as “the Bible according to Anne Rice” or “Anne Rice’s theological musings”. Perhaps even “Memnoch lectures you endlessly while Lestat practices his melodrama”.

What it isn’t, is much of a story or a plot. For a story or a plot to happen, well, things have to happen. Things do not happen. Oh there’s something tucked at the beginning. There’s something tucked at the end (a teeny tiny something). But that’s it

The rest of lecture. Info-dump. ONE LONG INFODUMP! One horrendously long, unbelievably unnecessary info-dump. An info-dump that I cannot even imagine having even the slightest relevance to the series. It really is just one long exposition on what the Bible could mean or a spin on it or on the nature of god. It’s a vast amount of world building that is utterly irrelevant to anything the vampires do in their daily lives

If Lestat weren’t being dragged around to occasionally declare himself impressed/awed/horrified it wouldn’t be relevant at all. The vampires are utterly superfluous to this story. All of the characters are utterly superfluous to this story. It may as well have been one long the logical lecture – inly told in the most long winded, dullest way possible.

I’d like to write more on this since it is the vast majority of the book, but there really is nothing more to say. It’s just a big splurge of theological theory pretending to be a novel. It’s completely irrelevant, not very interesting and probably better suited to analysis in a seminary than actually read as a novel in the ongoing vampire series.

But looking at the bits that actually involve the vampires rather than some of the dreariest and long winded exposition I have ever had the displeasure to ready, and it’s not much better or more sensible. Perhaps because these little add ons have just been forced to try and drag this info dump into her world

Lestat fell in love with his victim – I can buy that’s imply because within 10 seconds of meeting just about anyone, Lestat falls in love with them. It’s what he does, it allows even more pointless melodrama. So we get a really long and pointless backstory on this man and some books he read (which seem to be more part of the endless theological debate that basically comes down to “sex and pleasure and love are not bad things. Suffering is not valuable.” Seriously, that’s this entire damn theological diatribe that took an entire book to relate summed up in one sentence) which is never gain relevant. This goes on for countless pointless pages where we learn the pointless minutiae of someone who DOES NOT MATTER

The moose have been slain and ground up in poutine, the technical issues vanquished and, all being well and fully aware that I am tempting fate, we seem to be back!

The podcast will be 7:00pm EST tonight! We hope to see you there

If you need to catch up on any of our previous podcasts, you can find them here

And those reading along can see our next books of the week:

(Our list is always subject to change should we need to squeeze something in or something random happens)

7th July - 14th July: Memnoch the Devil by Anne Rice

14th July - 21st July: Fair Game by Patricia Briggs

21st July - 28th July: The Vampire Armand by Anne Rice

28th July - 4th August: Daughter of the Sword by Steve Bein

4th August-11th August: Blood Games by Chloe Neil

11th August - 18th August: Merrick by Anne Rice

18th August - 25th August: Blood Passage by Connie Suttle

Hemlock Grove, Season 2, Episode 3: Luna Rea

Do you know what this season of Hemlock Grove needs? Another completely unconnected storyline! So we have Christina, the vargulf, the big bad of season 1, raising from the grave. A wolf that looks like Christian chases a girl through the woods – but when she leaps at her she falls with a yelp. It’s only temporary before she gets up and starts chasing again – and we see under the girl’s hood. It’s Shelley.

Peter goes to scout the Caravan Park Andreus told him about and finds it very quiet – except for an angry woman with a gun (she’s not a fan of the park’s old reputation as a hook up spot for sex). And Roman. Why is Roman there?

Seems he’s having the same dreams, just as in season 1. Well, different versions of the same dreams. And the guy and his son who died in the gorge who Peter was so transfixed by last episode was also a premonition from his dreams, just in case there’s any doubt about true dreaming (or about Destiny being right that they should just leave this alone). Roman refuses to listen though because he’s Roman.

Peter leaves only to see emergency vehicles going back the way he came. He goes back and a resident tells him it was a murder suicide – the woman who challenged him and her daughter. More headache visions strike. He goes home to have Destiny warn him again about how bad it is to turn on a non-full moon day and he must must must not do it.

Meanwhile the Vargulf catches Shelly and she beats it’s head in, rips its head into pieces and the damn thing’s still twitching. She goes into an abandoned house and meets a small child who gives her an apple. This is likely an artistic comment on something.

Olivia sees Norman and Marie (Norman’s ex-wife) together and gets all passive aggressive and jealous. Norman wants to get her out of Johann’s care because he thinks she’s being manipulated. He also drops in on Roman to encourage him to make up with his mother. That doesn’t work.

Roman goes on to eat his meet increasingly rare and even videos of surgery make his hunger bite. He decides to distract himself by going to Johann’s super creepy lab and gets confused when Johann and Russian doctor disappear without him seeing where they went

Miranda and Peter go to get parts for her car, she so she can avoid the creepy butler and he so he can avoid creepy Andreus who gives impromptu massages in his underwear). Miranda picks up the tension between Peter and Roman but Peter won’t explain it even after bringing it up. He also gets a call from Lynda – who he calls Lynda – so Miranda gets entirely the wrong idea about their relationship. Rather than let it fester, she asks him who Lynda is and he tells her – that helps.

We need MOOOOAR characters! To a priest who wants Roman dead, and Michael Chasseur (Dr. Clementine Chasseur, the dead hunter’s brother) who wants more evidence that Roman needs to die and is responsible for his sister’s death than the old priest declaring Roman a psychopath. Especially since the priest’s order are trying to buy a huge chunk of the White Tower genetics company. Michael is going to do things his way – the priest warns Michael if he leaves he will lose all of his support. Michael doesn’t even hesitate in leaving

Hemlock Grove, Season 2, Episode 2: Gone Sis

Roman goes to a seedy motel (so labelled by it apparently being commonly used by prostitutes) with a woman called Nadine he’s known before; it appears she’s married to someone called Davey who leaved her bruised. Because this is Hemlock Grove and this is Roman, he loves her bruises. She takes off her top and he starts licking her neck – before pushing her to the floor. Again, he’s resisting feeding. He insults her as “damaged goods”. She’s furious, especially when he doesn’t pay and goes to call her very well spoken pimp (apparently the man who hurts her as well).

Davey is a creepy salesman, offers him different women – including an underaged girl – Roman talks blood type and then just bites Davey. Montage of Davey’s very messy blood being drained vs the very very old fashioned porn film playing. Surprisingly Davey isn’t dead (yet) but there’s a lot of mess

We cut to a woman called Miranda, out driving at night and avoiding a guy she apparently left outside her house. Her night gets a lot worse when a truck behind her tries to ram her off the road and, despite some quick thinking and good driving to avoid it, the truck rams her broadside.

She survives the crash and makes her way to Roman’s house (where he’s just finished cleaning himself up), with a cut in her scalp. She begs him to call for a tow (not the police, she doesn’t have insurance). He invites her in (though it takes him a while and is worried about blood on his carpet).

While they wait for the tow, Miranda admires Roman’s very wealthy surroundings while his silence creeps her out, he offers to let her stay though

To Olivia. A bird flies into her greenhouse. Olivia is sad.

That’s it – I think someone’s trying to put their art degree into use. There are a lot of scenes like this in this episode.

Olivia is sad because some of the drugs Johann is giving her stimulate empathy (he calls it a refreshing break from her sociopathy) which is why she’s all worried about Roman (while the rest of us would be quite happy if he were brutally axe murdered). With the added problem of why they need to talk to Roman, he doesn’t much like either of them.

Andreus is also in town to spend time with Destiny – she seems quite happy to see the guy she’s known for exactly 10 minutes on her doorstep expecting to crash at her place so I assume he is really really good in bed.

Peter tries to visit his mother (lots of scenes of him scanning the surroundings) but she isn’t allowed visitors because she assaulted a guard – which Peter finds highly unlikely and expects someone’s messing with her.

We begin in Easthampton, Massachusettes, apparently. A masked man wanders around a house, seeing the family all tucked in their beds, then goes downstairs, turns on the gas and sets up a candle – he leaves and there’s an explosion. He then goes into the woods and whips himself bloody.

To Ohio and a Rroma gathering, (put together out of a few clichés and stereotypes and looking a little dated but it could have been a lot worse) outside a house. There’s a party going on, it looks like a funeral by the way a dead man is propped in a chair and people stop by him to whisper in his ears. Peter, his mother Lynda and his cousin Destiny attend since the new the dead man, Joe, and they take the time to catch up. Destiny meets Andreus who flirts heavily and I assume will be relevant at some point. They have sex in the kitchen which is just rude (people want to eat) and unhygenic

Peter’s still all heartbroken from last season and Letha’s death. And he gets a lecture from an older man about how young Rroma are forgetting their past – before the police cars roar in – a large number including a police van. The police move in en masse while people scatter and run

Lynda is arrested and the cop hits Peter when he tries to stop him – Lynda drops an envelope on the way out which the police, for some weird reason, doesn’t see.

Peter and Destiny speak to a lawyer who describes the many many crimes in Lynda’s history – and adds that the police are making the case that Romani are a criminal group and Lynda has been arrested for racketeering (organised crime). She’s also being extradited to Hemlock county. Peter’s also worried about how she’d manage in prison: she’s not going to get in Black or Latino gangs and Aryan White gangs just want to “finish what Hitler started.” And the lawyer has a $20,000 bill for them.

It’s a bill they can’t pay – but Destiny does remind Peter he has friends in Hemlock Grove.

Speaking off, to Godfrey Industries and their improbably large skyscraper and a board meeting about how awesome they are and Roman being, well, Roman. He’s his unpleasant self and finds all this medicine for old people dull and would rather make young people sexier. On a less useless front, he also questions Dr. Johann about a large amount of money being spent on very unspecified research. Johann smugly says how everyone is far too ignorant to understand – which doesn’t impress Roman because that just means millions of dollars are being spent on stuff none of the board understands – neatly making the point that with his mother gone, he’s in control and won’t be fobbed off. And it’s just the beginning of the power struggle between Peter and Johann.

Olivia, Roman’s mother, isn’t dead, she’s recuperating (impatiently, apparently having had her tongue sewn back on) in Johnann’s care unbeknownst to Roman. They seem to agree that Roman poking around the books is a bad idea – and wonder how he is satisfying his hunger.

Roman has found a way to feed in, perhaps the most disgusting way possible. He’s paid a man to attach leeches to his body and Roman then eats the leeches. Well, that may be the least romantic portrayal of vampirism there has been since sparkliness.

Dominion, Season 1, Episode 4: The Flood

Michael is taken into hospital while doctors flock to treat him (what training do you need to operate on angels, anyway?) And Alex is arrested for desertion

The prison system is brutal with guards who are arseholes which is not very surprising. Alex makes things worse by headbutting one of them because he’s Alex and of course he does. They beat him and shove him into solitary confinement (his own personal angst room) but, alas, do not kill him.

Tell me again why Gabriel is wrong? I keep forgetting

In hospital, Senator Becca falls asleep by Michael’s bedside and a shadowy figure who-is-almost-definitely-Gabriel sneaks in and uses a feather to heal Michael. When Michael wakes up he’s a little surprised because “empyrean steel” should have killed him (also because he’s always kind of angsty and upset).He also wants the blade that broke off and to see Alex but all of that is distracted while he tells Becca how bad he is for her (nope, stop, Alex has used up every last drop of the angst quota for this show. You are not allowed to be angsty Michael).

After they have sex and fall asleep another Angel arrives, in full Xena cosplay. She nearly kills Becca but Michael stops her, there’s a brief fight before they hit the ground outside and talk. She was only playing and she taunts him for liking her. She’s also Uriel – one of the other Archangels. She’s there because of the Chosen One (of course she is). She tells her “little brother” to meet her to talk.

Claire goes to the hospital to see Starving Waif Bixby (there after the angel attack) and she tells Claire about Alex being arrested (and, despite having known him for some time and being sworn to secrecy, she insists on calling him The Chosen One). Their conversation may have been overheard by one of the other Senators, Senator Frost.

At the senate, Frost makes some passive aggressive comments about how the Chosen One needs to reveal himself, and Evil Whele mocks him for silly superstition. They try to make him sit down but he claims a rumour that says “the child” is in Vega. Whele continues to mock and Frost sits down while giving Riesen the evil eye.

Michael meets with Uriel and Gabriel – Uriel stopping the other two fighting. She also lays down the law with Gabriel. She doesn’t really care if he slaughters humans but Michael is off limits. She’s also pissed at Michael for hiding the Chosen One and “father’s markings”. She demands they end the war which interests both of them because she could end it – by choosing a side. But she loves them both (though finds what Gabriel does with the 8 Balls revolting). Gabriel also talks about Michael forcing the Chosen One with more hints that his “true nature” will turn him to Gabriel

We have a convoy bringing mining equipment through the badlands to Defiance and, for some reason, Niles himself has decided to go with them as has Berlin – is that Berlin?

They’re ambushed and everyone is killed except Niles and Berlin – though the raiders seem shocked that the E-Rep guards fired back and 2 of their own were killed. When Niles and Berlin try to get free it goes badly wrong. Berlin is knocked out and Niles is tripped to his underwear and pissed on by one of the raiders. The raiders leave with the stolen equipment

Well, someone has a beef with the E-Rep. Personally I’m on the side of leaving your enemies dead rather than humiliating them and leaving them to plot revenge.

In the town of Defiance, Datak is telling the clearly furious and frightened Stahma what a good guy he is because he “left her face unmarked” and didn’t carve her open like his dad did his first wife on Casti. But he’s on a new world so he’s so damn loving to let her live. Stahma hits back that on this new world a man and woman can be equal, adding that she actually raised profits while he was gone (by a lot) – she has earned the right to be partners. Of course, Datak doesn’t accept that

To further endear himself with his family, Datak insists that Alak follow him around to follow the family business. He didn’t originally expect Alak to follow in his footsteps, but now Alak has actually killed someone he’s all proud and ready to accept Alak in his criminal ventures. Alak looks less than thrilled.

As they go out in the street, E-Rep soldiers harass Datak over his killing of their general – calling him “haint” and spitting in his face. Despite the crowd watching, Datak manages to restrain his temper and remains polite, even when they knock him to the floor.

It turns out the two soldiers were actually being paid by Stahma to provoke him; she’s extremely annoyed that he’s finally learned self-control.

At the Need/Want Amanda and Nolan are getting up close and intimate before being interrupted by her having to work (though they appreciate the irony of them not having sex because she has to work in a “whorehouse) and Irisa interrupting with a message from Niles (Amanda: “anyone teach you to knock?” Irisa “I was raised by him”. 10 points, Irisa).

A very agitated Niles passes on all the information to Nolan who doubts very much they could possibly catch the raiders in the badlands. Amanda also has sensible advice for how to track down the raiders without just driving randomly in the badlands and hoping to come across them. Niles cuts her dead with a “know your place” line and she leaves, most massively pissed.

Berlin tries to repair her camera while Tommy tries to get her to rest since she was injured: she also objects to being called “Jessica” rather than “Berlin” which follows lots of jealousy over Irisa. Tommy is clear he wants nothing to do with Irisa and wishes she and Nolan would get out of town.

Monday, July 14, 2014