Tag Archives: urban fantasy

Book Review of The Devil You Know (Felix Castor #1), by Mike Carey

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The Devil You KnowI borrowed The Devil You Know, by Mike Carey, from the local library.

Description from Goodreads:
Felix Castor is a freelance exorcist, and London is his stamping ground. It may seem like a good ghost buster can charge what he likes and enjoy a hell of a lifestyle–but there’s a risk: Sooner or later he’s going to take on a spirit that’s too strong for him. While trying to back out of this ill-conceived career, Castor accepts a seemingly simple ghost-hunting case at a museum in the shadowy heart of London – just to pay the bills, you understand. But what should have been a perfectly straightforward exorcism is rapidly turning into the Who Can Kill Castor First Show, with demons and ghosts all keen to claim the big prize. That’s OK: Castor knows how to deal with the dead. It’s the living who piss him off…

Review:
Surprisingly good. I expected it to be like William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist, but it was much closer to Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files. I enjoyed Felix’s voice and narrative, which is part of my surprise. I’m not usually a fan of first-person POVs. I liked the side characters, even if they’re only shallowly sketched out. I liked how the mystery unfurled and the world created here. I thoroughly enjoyed the book, a little less so at the end than the beginning and middle, but still and overall win.

My only real complaint is one I can’t pin on the book alone. It wouldn’t be fair to blame it for being one more of something that’s become so painfully prevalent in modern books. But since I’ve become aware of it I can’t seem to stop noticing it everywhere. This is yet one more book using the rape and victimization of women as the backbone of its plot. I can’t really blame it for being part of a culture that apparently thinks that’s the most motivating plot device in existence, but I’m kind of starting to feel like it’s the only plot device in existence.

Edit: I also read the second book in the series, Vicious Circle. I never wrote a true review for it, though. I just posted a quick note on Goodreads: A few convenient remembrances just in time to save his hide, but I really quite enjoyed it.

Born to Darkness

Book Review of Born to Darkness (Fighting Destiny #1), by Suzanne Brockmann

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Born to DarknessI checked Born to Darkness (by Suzanne Brockmann) out from the library.

Description from Goodreads:
In the not-too-distant future, the Obermeyer Institute (OI) has made a revolutionary discovery: with special training, humans can tap into the brain’s hidden powers. The training is strenuous, though, and it works only for those with natural potential. Tough girl Mac has that potential, and she’s a devoted member of the OI.

Review:
I seriously almost loved this. Brockman can write. I liked the characters and the plot is an interesting one. But the fact that kept me from loving it and, in fact, coming to really resent large chunks of it is unfortunately so common in modern fiction it’s hardly worth commenting on…except that we should all be commenting on it all the time.

The whole book hinges on cliched female terror. Almost every single female in this book, adult and child, is either raped or threatened with rape at some point in this book. This is used as character development shorthand. Want a villain to seem especially vile? Make him a serial rapist, better yet a serial child rapist or a knife wielding sadistic rapist. Want a woman to be especially pitiable? Make her relive the memory of her rape over and over. What her to be notably strong? Make her over come her rape. Want a girl to be especially terrorized? Make her witness another girl get raped or threaten her with rape. Want your heroes to be especially good guys? Have them overlook the besmirchment of the women they love and, unlike everyone else, not judge them for getting raped. Better yet, have them also save them from the after-effects of their rapes. Either teaching them how to not remain stuck on the memory or convince them it wasn’t their fault. All of these are in this book. Every single one of them and more. It’s common, trope-based characterization shorthand and it’s LAZY writing! I expected so much more from this book.

Book Review of Half-Resurrection Blues (Bone Street Rumba #1), by Daniel José Older

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Half-Resurection BluesI checked a copy of Half-Resurrection Blues, by Daniel José Older, out from my local library. (And discovered that the cast on a broken wrist makes reading a paperback awkward and cumbersome. Grrr. Guess it really is too soon to give up the novelettes.)

Description from Goodreads:
Carlos Delacruz is one of the New York Council of the Dead’s most unusual agents—an inbetweener, partially resurrected from a death he barely recalls suffering, after a life that’s missing from his memory. He thinks he is one of a kind—until he encounters other entities walking the fine line between life and death. 

One inbetweener is a sorcerer. He’s summoned a horde of implike ngks capable of eliminating spirits, and they’re spreading through the city like a plague. They’ve already taken out some of NYCOD’s finest, leaving Carlos desperate to stop their master before he opens up the entrada to the Underworld—which would destroy the balance between the living and the dead.

But in uncovering this man’s identity, Carlos confronts the truth of his own life—and death…

Review:
I liked it, but I didn’t love it. I liked Carlos. I liked the author’s voice. I loved that the main character’s gaze was Puerto Rican, therefore not white, and the reader is gifted with observations we rarely see. (This is part of why it’s so important to have authors of color, not just characters.) I liked the idea of the story and plot. But I always felt like I was playing catch up, like I was never certain what was happening. Time was indeterminate and frequently large chunks of time would pass in what I thought had been a day or two of action. Characters seemed to know things without my knowing how and I just never felt deeply invested in the story.

Having said all that. I think that, though this particular book wasn’t a huge winner for me, the author could be. I’ll definitely be giving him another chance.

Now, outside of the review of the book Half Resurrection Blues, I have to give Older kudos and cool points because of this.

Older signitureI’m taking it at face value and accepting it for just what it appears—an autographed copy of this book, probably donated to the Ferguson library in solidarity during the protests and social actions of last year. I’m a bit shocked to find it in regular circulation, but think it’s fabulous and a great surprise on opening the book.