#rejectedembers

[rejectedembers]

Cinder or Tinder: Cress + Winter

Guess who’s sick? It’s this bitch!

So, I’m already anticipating that this review is going to be a huge fucken mess. This one’s gonna be a two-fer since I read these books one after another, but I’m also going to talk a little bit about the series as a whole because I don’t feel like making a separate Firebrant. Considering it’s been a month and a half of dealing with mental shit since I finished this series, I’ve probably already forgotten about a few things from these last two books (and I didn’t make any notes because I’m a really organized and responsible book reviewer). So, let’s get this shit-show on the road!

Warning: Seriously, do I even need to mention that there will be spoilers? It’s the end of the gods damned series, of course there are spoilers.

Cress is the third book in the Lunar Chronicles series by Marissa Meyer. The book begins with Cinder and the team on their way to rescue Cress, the mysterious hacker helping them out, from her satellite. But things go horribly wrong when Head Thaumaturge Sybil Mira appears. Scarlet is captured, Cress and Thorne must traverse the desert seeking civilization, and the rest of the team plus newcomer Jacin find their way to the town Dr. Erland is hiding in. When Cress and Thorne finally reach the group, they come up with a plan to halt the royal wedding by kidnapping Emperor Kai. 

I feel like this is the book in the series that I have the least opinions of. It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t bad; it was acceptable. I recognize that the chapters involving Cress and Thorne traversing the desert were important to build up their characters as well as their (eventual) relationship, but they were a bit too long and boring with not really all that much happening. It didn’t help that not all that much was happening with Cinder and Wolf either, and I still don’t care about Scarlet, so yeah. Juxtaposed against this, it felt like the ending happened far too quickly, and Cinder’s successful battle against Sybil didn’t seem totally believable considering everything up until this point has let us know that Cinder is not very good with her Lunar gift. It was an anti-climatic end to a villain that should have been taken into the final book.

Cress gets the cinder rating.

Winter is technically the fifth book in the Lunar Chronicles series by Marissa Meyer, and a lot happens in this one. The crew comes up with a plan to start a rebellion on Luna, overthrow Levana, and instate Cinder as the new queen. While the palace is preparing for the wedding and coronation, Levana orders Jacin to kill the beautiful and popular Princess Winter who suffers from Lunar sickness, making her mentally unstable. The story after this is a sequence of events of the crew trying to build their rebellion while struggling against Levana’s attempts to stop them. In the end, Cinder’s ramshackle army storms the palace, her confrontation with Levana ends with Cinder having no choice but to kill the queen, and peace is established between Luna and Earth with Cinder as the new Queen of Luna. Happy endings abound as the main characters all get romantically paired off.

Not gonna lie, this book gave me some Feels™, but the more I think about it, the more it doesn’t make sense. A group of, like, nine people start a rebellion from nothing, absolutely nothing. They don’t meet up with pre-existing rebel groups on Luna, they have no access to any established forms of communication and information collection, they barely know anything about Luna’s history or its geography or its culture, and they don’t even consider the option of reinforcements from Earth (like Special Ops from literally any Earth government since they all want to see Levana deposed). It’s not just “oh, let’s make the politics simple so that teens can understand how revolutions work”, it’s downright lazy in assuming that an entire (successful) rebellion can come out of a fugitive teenaged girl claiming to be the rightful heir. The lower class population of Luna might want to see political and social change, but it’s not very believable that so many people would be willing to lay down their lives just because one person “inspired them”. 

Also, this book just further shows how unbelievably dumb and emotional Levana is. Throughout all four books that I’ve read, Levana seems to make almost every decision out of some emotional capacity regardless of the (obvious) consequences. This strongly contrasts with the reveal that Luna is the way it is largely because of Levana; that she took a monarchy and turned it into a totalitarian society, and managed to maintain it this entire time. But it’s just so unbelievable that someone like Levana, who makes such poor decisions, could have done all that. She really wasn’t an enjoyable villain.

In Winter, we also get Thaumaturge Aimery as a “villain” instead of Sybil. He’s made to be very easily unlikable just by being a weasel and a coward, but he’s not interesting like Sybil was. He wasn’t built-up enough in the previous books for the audience to get attached to him, he’s less powerful and so less threatening than a previous villain (Sybil), and his final “boss” appearance feels very contrived just to add struggle for the main characters. 

So, let’s talk a bit more about the ending and the main characters. I still love (most) of these characters; Jacin is a bit bland, Winter is endearing but annoying, and Scarlet is still...Scarlet. Honestly, I LOVE the happily ever after nature of the ending. I love that all these ships that were being built up actually get to happen, that the author recognized what the audience wanted, that Meyer didn’t bother to try and pull a twist ending for a story that really didn’t need it or kill off a major character only for shock value. I think a lot of authors lose sight of their vision but especially their audience’s wants when they pull that shit, and I’m glad that didn’t happen here.

That being said, I still think there was a lot of needless suffering by the main characters by the end, especially at the end. Winter goes temporarily insane after saving herself and her friends seemingly just because and not from the guilt of killing. Wolf is turned into a full wolf mutant, but it doesn’t have any real effect on anything or anyone but himself (and only until Scarlet reassures him). Thorne is mind-controlled to stab Cress, but it doesn’t leave any impact because it happens in the final confrontation and then everything is wrapped up with happy endings just afterwards, so it’s just one last panic for Thorne for no reason. I don’t think it helps that the main characters generally fare pretty well throughout the series until the end where most of them get messed up somehow. Just feels unnecessary. 

Winter, and the whole series, gets the cinder rating. It wasn’t perfect and sometimes there were some pretty noticeable flaws, but it was fun and still made me feel emotions, so overall good shit. And in case anyone was wondering, Thorne is the best character and I’m not going to apologize for that.

It is unlikely that I will read Fairest, Stars Above, Wires and Nerves, and anything else released in this universe. This is because I feel done with this series, and I’d rather move on to new things. It was a fun trip while it lasted, but I’m ready to get off now.

[aftgficrec]

Also give me the best crack fics you have please I want to laugh until I pass out

As promised, we dug up more crack! We’ve also found a new fandom challenge where everyone gets to join the fun - check out #badly drawn aftg here. Get crack-a-lackin’!- A

crack fics 1

breathe air into my lungs (a chinese whisper fic) by CynicalMistrust, djhedy, filteredred, jemejem, kahlee_116 [Rated T, 11273 Words, Complete, 2020]

IMPORTANT PREMISE: This fic was written as a game of 'chinese whispers', where each writer could only read the segment that the author before them wrote so keep that in mind: when you see an asterisk, expect things to change wildly!! Similar to a telephone game but all in one fic, it resulted in...an amazing mess.

Including Neil as a merman (the ONLY thing consistent about this fic - go figure), Andrew initially as an overdramatic surfer dude, the Foxes as surfers but also a swim team AND also as navy-men, pagan magic, kidnappings, large sea creatures and sharks, Riko being a bastard (as usual) and many people being thrown overboard from boats that didn't initially exist.

tw: implied/referenced abuse, tw: implied/referenced torture, tw: (beloved) minor character death, tw: violence, tw: flashbacks, tw: nightmare, tw: blood, tw: near drowning

Of Bets and Kittens by Sunny_Apollo [Rated G, 2621 Words, Complete 2017]

Andrew walks into his home only to be greeted by his boyfriend on the floor with more than 20 kittens on top of him. He didn't sign up for this.

Andrew is Not Emused by gluupor [Rated G, 1735 Words, Complete 2020, AFTG Bingo]

Everyone was born with an innate Talent, some more useful than others. Andrew's is the ability to transform into a bird.

No one mentioned the fine print.

Fandom Fun Posts

AFTG in a general

@notactuallybatman​ here | @danwylds here | @exycuter​ here | @sapphicrenee​ 1, 2 & 3 | @neiljostenisahimbo​ here | @foxymorons​ here 

Neil stuff

@stick-ball​ here | @idcky​ here | @nxah-czerny​ here | @sapphocadoes​ here | @ace-ephalopod​ and @fuzzballsheltiepants​ here | @palmettios​ here | @am-nj​ and @foxerice​ here

Andreil stuff

@jexnmcrexu​ here | @strikerminyard​ here | @pipedream​ here | @fatoumy​ here | @haruoro​ here | @miniyrds​ and @youknow-igetit​ here | @sixinsultsago​ here | @moonsandstarsaregay​ here

Everyone and anyone

@andrewminyardamiright​ here | @humanscarmuseum​ here | @yrosup​ here | @sixinsultsago​ here | @drewjosten​ here | @egglorru​ here | @neiljostenisahimbo​ here | @rejectedembers​ here | @jostenvere​ here and here | @writingpuddle​ here | @cowpants147​ here | @karmiky here

Art

height swap au? art by @jojen-hewitt inspired by @some-sort-of-firefly

the foxes make neil buy his own clothes cartoon by @beebeebee333 

allison is a fashion designer, neil has an idea comic by @saevity

one of my favorite scenes comic by @4yourhands inspired by @exycuter

neil’s jortventure video series by @darcyolsson part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | faster jortventure | andrew’s neilventure | part 4 | part 5

[blakliteluminus]

Yoooooo, listen up

Got a new blog. Check it: http://rejectedembers.tumblr.com/

[rejectedembers]

Cinder or Tinder: The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue

What a perfect book to kick-off Pride Month! I’d heard that this book was pretty gay, and, mang, does it ever deliver. If this isn’t on everyone’s Must-Read Queer Novels, then what the fuck are you doing with your life? (Probably something way cooler than me, but still, read this book.)

The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue is a fun and romantic road trip adventure set in the 1700s. The plot follows aristocratic teens Monty and Percy, along with Monty’s tag-along sister, Felicity, as they travel across Europe, enjoying the last year they’ll ever have together before they must assume their respective adult responsibilities. But in an act of petty revenge, Monty inadvertently puts the group in danger. Running for their lives, the teens still get their Grand Tour, although it is nothing like what they’d imagine it would be.

This is the funniest and gayest shit I’ve read in a while, and I enjoyed every page of it. The characters feel real and endearing, making it easy to get invested in their personal struggles. The setting is just detailed enough for you to get a good mental grasp without bloating the work itself. The plot, though basic, does its job which is to push along the development of the characters while introducing some heart-stopping scenarios. The romance is sublime; a perfectly paced slow burn. This novel really has it all, and never loses focus.

I need to give huge props to Mackenzi Lee for the writing and pacing. It was clear and evocative, eliciting the desired emotions when it was meant to, but always keeping everything in balance.

It’s also remarkably diverse in its cast. The novel discusses issues of racism, ableism, classicism, homophobia, misogyny, and abuse, but does so in a way that seamlessly bridges the historical setting of the story with current states of these same issues. This care and attention to both the past and present is a testament to Lee’s excellent writing skills.

The Gentleman’s Guide definitely gets the cinder rating. 

[rejectedembers]

Firebrant: The Golden Compass

So, here I go again nitpicking children’s books like a cynical, adult asshole. There were, surprisingly, a lot of little things that just kind of pissed me off and drew me out of the world of The Golden Compass, like, more than usual I feel, because I managed to fill up a whole page of notes on this one (including quotes and page references, because I’m a sophisticated asshole). And so, without further ado, allow me to ruin your childhood for my own salty pleasure.

I already touched upon a couple of my complaints in my more-or-less spoiler-free review, but I’ll reiterate them again here, because I can. Every line of dialogue is written with an accent, and it’s one of the worst things in the world to read. I especially hate how it breaks up the flow of the writing, because you’ll get paragraphs of narration that are written in regular English and then, out of nowhere, dialogue is written in with terrible accents. Maybe it’s just me, a person who is not accustomed to British accents, heavy or not, but it ends up reading in an almost start-and-stop manner since trying to decipher the intentionally misspelt words makes me slow down and use more brainpower than should be necessary in a children’s book. And, going back to the weird use of heavily detailed sections followed by sparse sections, the book is a bit chunky. It feels like we spend way more time in some sections of the book than is necessary. For example, the Jordan College section goes on for way, way too long considering how quickly in-universe it is abandoned. By contrast, so little detail is given about London that I kind of forgot Lyra ended up there while I was reading the novel despite the fact that Lyra herself spends a good few weeks in the city.

Alright, so onto the new stuff. One of my biggest questions while reading this book was: when the fuck does this story take place? I get that it’s supposed to be an alternate universe Earth type situation, but seriously, I don’t think a proper date is ever given. I read somewhere online that it’s supposed to take place in the late-Victorian Era (so anywhere between 1880 and 1900ish), but there are such huge technological advancements that I would contest this and perhaps place it closer to 1910, or even 1920, given OUR world’s technological discoveries. The universe of The Golden Compass has zeppelins (page 74) and neon signs (page 179), the former of which were invented in 1895 but not commercially used until 1910 and the latter of which were invented in 1910 but didn’t gain popularity until the 1920s in our world. And yet women seem to still be largely considered second-class citizens. That’s not to say I was expecting social equality, however, the world feels devoid of the suffragette movement, which was HUGE for its time. I dunno, it just really bothered me that I couldn’t pin down a time period, either one that can be associated to our world or simply one that makes sense in the world of The Golden Compass.

And this is where we get into the shit that’s going to really make me look bad. Ok, so, first of all, I want to address the elephant in the room. I haven’t seen too much about this, but I feel like the use of the term “gyptians” to refer to a particular cultural group within The Golden Compass is kinda racist. It’s pretty clear that Pullman’s gyptians are based off of our world’s Romani, or at least a stereotypical version of their culture. The term “gyptians” appears to come from the disparaging term for Romani individuals, “g*psy”, and while it was uncomfortable just to see the word pop up here and there, it made me more uncomfortable to see the gyptian characters be totally complicit in its use. The gyptians themselves refer to themselves as such in the book (gyptians isn’t even capitalized like it should be for real-world ethnic groups). While I am not Romani myself and so cannot speak as to the exact appropriateness of the use of this term, I do think it was rather insensitive for Pullman to have named this cultural group as he did. It kind of speaks to a lack of research of actual Romani accounts, as well, so there’s that.

Next we’re going to get controversial with this statement: I don’t understand, from the first book alone, how His Dark Materials is meant to be feminist in nature. I understand that there are complex female characters and that the main character of a sci-fi adventure is a girl, but there’s this one section that really, really bothered me. So, when Lyra is staying with the gyptians, at one point a group of women approach the patriarch, John Faa, about joining the mission. They provide both emotional (it is their children who are missing just as much as they are the men’s) and logical (it may prove easier to employ women in certain situations requiring espionage) reasons, and yet, last minute, John Faa does not permit any of them to go. This issue is never brought up again. There are no consequences to none of the women going. John Faa, who is by and large treated like a hero and stand-up gentleman, is never made to explain his reasons for his decision. And the women seem to simply accept his ruling since none of them speak out or try to sneak aboard the ship anyways. This could have been a perfect opportunity for Pullman to show equality by having men and women fight side-by-side. It certainly would have stood out in contrast to the rest of British society, which had already been clearly shown to push women into the background whenever possible. It was incredibly frustrating to see this idea brought up only to be pushed aside later, and really made me question Pullman’s feminist message.

Lastly, I just want to point out that Lord Asriel is abusive to Lyra. I don’t think this is really a secret, but, like how the gyptians and gyptian women were written, Pullman’s writing makes it seem like we should just accept it and move on. In our first introduction to him, we see him painfully twist Lyra’s arm and threaten to break it just because she’s somewhere she’s not meant to be (and while Lyra is a bit of a troublesome child, her actions don’t warrant this kind of reaction from an adult). On page 14, Lord Asriel straight up says, “If I hear the slightest noise, I’ll make you wish you were dead.” Yet, Lyra spends most of the first book idealizing him, wanting to find him and work with him in his research. And while Lyra does eventually confess that she’s afraid of him, and even realises that he has never and will never love her like a father (page 368), she shouldn’t have been spending all that time in between seeing no fault in him. Children know when they are being mistreated. At the very least, Lyra should have had doubts about Lord Asriel from the beginning. 

Before I wrap this up, I just want to say that the foreshadowing is just really, really obvious. I know, I get it, it’s a children’s book, it’s not supposed to be difficult to figure out, but I have a couple things to say about that. First of all, stop treating children like idiots. Second of all, I don’t care if it’s for children, no one should read a sentence that literally spells out “this character has a great destiny ahead of them”. OF COURSE THEY ARE IMPORTANT AND HAVE A DESTINY TO FULFILL, THEY’RE THE MAIN CHARACTER. Either let the audience clue in on their own damn time, or don’t bother making it a mystery at all.

...So, yeah. That’s all I have to say about the beloved children’s book, The Golden Compass. Thanks for coming out to the undeserved barbecue, everyone!

[rejectedembers]

Firebrant: Shades of Magic

So, here I go again, being a hypercritical bitch about a beloved book, or, rather, series. I want to make it clear right off the bat that I LOVE this series; I love the characters, I love the setting, I love the writing. I’d read this series again in a heartbeat, and no doubt eventually will. That doesn’t mean that I don’t see its flaws and weaknesses, or at least see what it could have been.

Spoilers inbound.

Without a doubt, this series’s biggest strength is its characters. I would even venture out in saying that Schwab doesn’t write characters, but rather people for how real they feel. A big part of this stems from her enchanting, but not overly flowery style of writing; descriptions never overstay their welcome. But these are all things you discover the more you read. The series’s major draw, however, is its setting, or at least that’s what the premise would have you believe.

The blurb on A Darker Shade of Magic immediately informs you of the parallel Londons (Red, Grey, White, and Black), and how only Antari can travel between the worlds. My assumption upon picking up this novel was that the inter-dimensional travel was going to play a significant part in the upcoming tale, and it does...for the first book. But once you get into book 2, characters seem to barely ever travel between the worlds. 

This is especially noticeable in the third book where I don’t think they traveled outside of the Red world at all to resolve the main conflict within the plot. Traveling could have easily been facilitated without even changing much of the plot: the MacGuffin the protags are after could totally have wound up in one of the other worlds at some point in time (I’ll elaborate more on this later). It’s especially annoying since we get constant reminders via Ned’s chapters of how Osaron’s magic seems to be seeping into the other worlds. It’s like Schwab is dangling the possibility of going there in our faces only to never deliver on this promise.

Honestly, the big problem here is simply a lack of world-building. When Schwab does spend time describing even the small, insignificant parts of everyday life, the setting really comes to life. I had very little difficulty imagining all of the Londons despite the fact that I’ve never even been to a single London in my own reality. But after establishing these settings in the first book, Schwab rarely returns to world-building from the perspective of the past. Events and characters become very grounded in the present, and even in flashbacks the focus is generally on the characters and what they were experiencing internally. The Red, White, and even Black worlds start to feel like there just isn’t much history to them, when that can’t possibly be true. And while I agree that it would have been rather tedious to sit through pages and pages of a character expounding on the “grand history of Arnes” or something of the like, there is something in particular that irks me when it comes to the lack of history.

The Antari play such a large role in the series, and yet after everything is said and done, you don’t actually get to know all that much about them. You get to know tonnes about the Antari characters, but almost nothing of the Antari themselves, their culture, their historical roles. Granted, part of the appeal of the Antari is that even they can’t answer what they really are, where their powers came from, why they were chosen, but how Antari come to be and what they decide to do with themselves afterwards are two entirely different groups of questions. It’s mentioned that there were once dozens if not hundreds of Antari prior to the catastrophe that happened in Black London. I find it hard to believe that, even if they each had their own loyalties, some of them wouldn’t have come together to create a unique culture. Even, at least, something more or less academic, trying to find answers to the question of how Antari come to be. 

I was really disappointed to find that the lore of the Antari was never expanded upon. More information on the Antari could have provided a lot of substance to many different areas of the story. The Antari characters could have learnt something about themselves while delving deeper into the mysteries of their predecessors, the concept of a culture of inter-dimensional travelers opens up more opportunities to include traveling in the story, and the plot could have received some much needed resolution for several key questions (I’ll expand on this later, too). 

This leads us to the overarching plot of books 2 and 3, easily the weakest part of the series. I love a good “save the world” plot as much as the next fantasy junkie, but I feel like it was just tackled lazily here: some evil force shows up, threatening to destroy all that the characters love, and they are the only ones who can defeat it. Other than that, there’s not much else to say about the main conflict, no twists or turns in the structure that keep you on your toes. A large chunk of the time was just waiting for the characters to find a solution they can start working on so they can finally have something to do. 

It doesn’t help that Osaron is one of the least compelling villains I’ve read about recently. I feel that Schwab was aiming to make him both a threatening, alien force unable to be reasoned with or properly comprehended by mortals, and a relatable human-ish being with desires and personality. I find him to be a failure on both ends, since the addition of some aspect of humanity completely destroys the image of him as an imposing, unbeatable entity, and he never reaches a level of depth and complexity that the human characters do, making him seem more like a caricature of a villainous person than anything. And this comes in stark contrast to Athos and Astrid, the villains from the first book, although you don’t even know they are the true villains until at least halfway into the novel. They were quite compelling for how they were very human and yet very, very twisted, and I really wished there had been more with them, especially for how they could have contrasted with Holland, showing us what White London is versus what it could be. Obviously, Athos still would have had to die, but it would have been interesting to see Astrid try for revenge or something of the like.

All in all, I don’t think the structure of the series helped. The first book very much feels like a standalone; one or two elements don’t get completely solved, but I also don’t think it was necessary to have seen them get resolved to have still had a full story experience. And while the first book provides set up, the plot of A Darker Shade of Magic feels entirely separate from the plot of A Gathering of Shadows and A Conjuring of Light, and because of this, the entire series feels stilted. Books 2 and 3 are so intertwined they might as well be one book, but the jump from book 1 to 2 is downright jarring in comparison. To be honest, I prefer the jump from 1 to 2 over 2 to 3, but considered as a whole, the lack of a continuous plot through all three books (or the lack of dedication to a series of single book adventures) definitely makes it seem like Schwab only intended to write one book but somehow came out with three.

In general, I would have liked to see a story that had an overarching plot, but included smaller moments of drama and adventure within. The characters are what really make this series stand out, and they shine the brightest when they interact with each other. They needed more time together, conversing and taking part in some action, solving problems together. Setting up almost episodic mini-arcs would have provided a good platform for this.

When it comes to leaving the main plot (mostly) intact, the ending could have been a bit more like this. Lenos could have known of an Inheritor due to his Antari grandmother, and, through tracing its path, they discover that she smuggled it to one of the other worlds (providing a little validation for Kell). Thus, our three Antari travel to either White or Grey London (perhaps Lenos’s grandmother sent it somewhere it could do no harm), and take part in their own little adventure to retrieve it. This would also provide an ideal chance to have them discover and learn from each other and/or their surroundings something about Antari history and culture. Meanwhile, Alucard stays behind with Rhy, and the two discuss what happened in the past (I’m not sure it’s ever explained why Alucard can’t just tell Rhy the truth. Is there a reason why Rhy may not believe him without proof? Seriously, it bugged me how they just never talked it out.). Rhy forgives him either then or later, and Alucard should have a moment where we see him protecting Rhy, making Rhy’s choice later on to have Alucard be an official protector make more sense, especially politically since there would have been witnesses. The three Antari eventually return, and execute their attack (or still have to travel to the ship market since maybe the Inheritor got smuggled around again). The point is the majority of the time spent mostly just sitting around the palace struggling to find a solution would be cut out, or relegated to some much more concise Rhy/Alucard chapters.

There are a few other disappointments I had with the series. Ojka, while an interesting character, is never really given much to do, a moment to shine. Most of the chapters involving her feature her internal thoughts about Holland and what he’s done, but not what she’s done. It feels like she was built up to be and do more, and so is far too quickly killed off. 

I’m also disappointed that there wasn’t some deeper connection revealed between Osaron and the Antari. I really got the sense after A Darker Shade of Magic that there was something about the Antari specifically that resulted in Vitari not being able to immediately take over their minds and bodies, something more than just “they are extra magical and thus extra magically resistant”. Once I got a bit into A Gathering of Shadows, I theorized that everything from Black London, including stones, was a piece of Osaron via his magic, and that Vitari was just a branch of Osaron’s consciousness. Thus, whatever special connection Vitari had to the Antari also applied to Osaron. 

After more solid evidence was given to suggest Delilah was Antari, I came up with a more fully-fledged theory: Osaron was to be the Black London Antari, or at least used to be one prior to absorbing all of the Black world’s magic. This would check out with the general pattern that was emerging: one Antari from each of the worlds. It also made sense logically as only an Antari should have been capable of whatever magic resulted in Osaron claiming it all in his own world. Not to mention this would explain the relative lack of/access to knowledge on the Antari; one of their own practically destroyed an entire reality, and they would not want that happening again. The magic, thus, that connected Osaron/Vitari to the Antari was more than just power, but some mystical tie that exists between Antari. Obviously, this is not what happened at all.

I have a few other, smaller nitpicks. I really wanted to see Kell and Alucard face off in the tournament just to experience the absolute bitterness that would be Kell after being forced to throw the match or else be caught. This would have contrasted well in a later scene of Kell and Alucard fighting side-by-side and discovering that they work well together. I also wanted to see more adventures aboard the Night Spire. It could have been more removed from London, or at least on the outskirts and so available to the group. In any case, the ship got a lot of play early on and build up in general for something much bigger, and for it to pretty much never come back in the main plot was disappointing. Pretty much everything with Ned and King George the IV was a waste of time. I was really hoping that that subplot would go somewhere if only to allow for some inter-dimensional traveling, but unfortunately not. I’m not a fan, either, of the decision to make the series rather dark and depressing by the third book. I understand that the situation was meant to be dire and “real” and adult, but it started to feel cheap once characters just started getting killed off left and right. 

Also, while I feel that the characters were very well-written, there is one thing concerning Kell that has bugged me since the end of the first book: he never seems to feel any real guilt over sending Holland to Black London. Admittedly, Holland was the aggressor, and so I can see Kell not feeling overly guilty about besting him and pretty much killing him in their last duel, but Kell is an Antari and he knows that they heal faster than most and can recover from some otherwise pretty nasty injuries. So, it kind of baffles me that his excuse for why it’s alright that he sends Holland to Black London is because Kell’s sure the other Antari is going to die anyways. Holland did end up recovering, so I just feel that maybe Kell should have known better than to assume. 

In any case, Kell’s never really forced to confront any guilt over the fact that the whole situation is entirely his fault even if it was simply a chain of consequences from one unfortunate choice. The closest we get is that he, eventually, sympathizes with Holland and the poor treatment he’s getting from everyone, because, had he given in at the end of book 2, Osaron would have used his body to get to Red London. If anything, though, this consequence didn’t feel like a result of a decision Kell made, but rather one that Holland made when he first found Osaron in Black London. The reason for Kell’s guilt or regret should come from the decision he made back in book 1 to send Holland to Black London, but there’s never get a good scene of him mulling over this fact, or even approaching Holland about it in a meaningful way. There’s also, that I can remember, no mention of Kell ever feeling that he should be completely responsible for finding a solution to the situation he inadvertently caused. Even if he never vocalizes it, or tries to go out on his own, he just never even thinks about it, and I just find it so incredibly odd that a character like Kell never feels the depth of that guilt either towards Holland or the entirety of Red London.

So, that’s all I have to say on this series, I hope. I do really love this series. It captured me from the onset, and even as I sat there with a critique starting to form in my brain, I couldn’t help but want to read more, for it to go on forever. My complaints are largely things I’ve noticed in retrospect, and aren’t about to deter me from picking up these books again. The Shades of Magic series deserves all the praise it gets, and I hope this rant doesn’t deter anyone from loving it any less.

[rejectedembers]

Book Ask: The Beginning

To celebrate (almost) finishing my first book list, here’s a little ask for everyone! 

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1. Have you ever had a recurring dream? (Lair of Dreams by Libba Bray)

2. What is your favourite fairytale? (The Lunar Chronicles by Melissa Meyer)

3. What is your favourite heist movie? (Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo)

4. What magical world did you imagine going to as a child? (Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor)

5. Have you ever betrayed a friend for personal gain? (Vicious by V. E. Schwab)

6. Have you ever used blood in any kind of ritual? (Shades of Magic by V. E. Schwab)

7. What kind of animal would your animal companion be? (The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman)

8. Are you on good or bad terms with your family? (Son of a Trickster by Eden Robinson)

Bonus!

9. If you could have one psychic ability, what would it be? (Before the Devil Breaks You by Libba Bray)

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Send away!

[rejectedembers]

Cinder or Tinder: Six of Crows

Good day or good evening. Today, I’m reviewing the Six of Crows duology which includes Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo. I originally read Shadow and Bone when it first came out, and a couple years after that finished the rest of the Grisha trilogy, and so I found out about the duology by keeping up with Bardugo’s work. It pleases me to no end to actually watch an author improve over time, and that’s certainly how I feel in regards to Six of Crows. Bardugo’s Grisha trilogy introduced an interesting world, but a not very interesting main plot, main character, and villain, and I’m glad to say that most of these issues have been resolved in the new duology.

There will be spoilers in this review as I am tackling both books.

Six of Crows tells the story of six teenagers who are hired by a wealthy and powerful merchant to break a valuable Grisha, someone who can shape aspects of the world in a manner akin to magic, out of the world’s securest prison. Motivated mostly by money, these six teenagers, who largely stem from the underworld of the city of Ketterdam, grow as a team as the story goes on. Together they are able to outsmart and outmaneuver the various obstacles in their way, succeeding in their mission if only by a hair’s breadth. Back home, they are betrayed, one of their number is kidnapped, and they are forced to flee and hide and plot out their revenge.

This book has very good pacing. I feel like the perfect amount of time was spent introducing the six main characters and how they came together to become part of this mission. The mission section itself seems a bit short, but luckily it remains concise because of that. And the betrayal at the end, although obvious, was also handled very well. 

The characters have depth and motivation, and are, for the most part, realistic. One of my biggest issues with young adult novels is how authors tend to write teenagers in unbelievable, non-teenagery ways, and I don’t think this novel succeeding in that regard. Sometimes the main characters act their ages, sometimes they seem far too mature even considering what their lives have been like. I would have preferred to see the crew as young adults rather than teenagers, even simply adding one or two years on most of them. My other gripe about the characters is how the author spent much more time on some characters and their back stories than others, even fully completing a few of the back stories in the first book. I would have preferred to see the back stories equally spread out over the course of both books.

Overall, Six of Crows is highly engaging, thrilling, and well-written.

Crooked Kingdom picks up where Six of Crows left off. The crew, minus one, are holding out at a hideout while they plan and execute their vengeance. Once their missing member is retrieved, the crew gets to work bringing down the merchant who betrayed them, all the while skirting other forces seeking their escaped prisoner, which results in the villain’s arrest. Afterwards, the crew disbands and they each move on with their lives, aiming to achieve once distant dreams.

The pacing of the second book is not as good as the first’s. Crooked Kingdom suffers a lot from extra padding, the addition of scenes that don’t really need to be there or at least not be as long. The plot goes in circles a couple times with how it looks like the crew have been successful in pulling off their plot, but then something happens and they are back to square one. This happens a few times, and it’s very frustrating to see a group you know is capable and who you also want to see succeed continually get knocked back by plot (in)conveniences. 

Still, the characters remain very well-written and believable (although Bardugo continues to struggle with realistic villains), and the story is engaging and interesting, although the end felt a little dark for the sake of being dark, and it isn’t entirely satisfying in how the group disbands by the end. 

I’m probably eventually going to make a Firebrant post about the duology, and later the trilogy, but for now, Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom get the cinder rating.

[rejectedembers]

Cinder or Tinder: the Shades of Magic series

Good day or good evening. I’m going to do something unique this time and tackle three books at once. I read the Shades of Magic series by V. E. Schwab one after another back in October and November, and so I think it’s only right that the review match my experience in some way. The premise of these novels is that there exists four parallel universe Earths that are connected by magic, but are otherwise inaccessible to each other except by Antari, specially gifted magic-users who can use blood magic to travel between the worlds. 

Since I’m covering an entire series, there will be spoilers as the review goes on.

A Darker Shade of Magic introduces the two main characters and the broader situation they must later face. Kell is an Antari who travels between the worlds relaying messages from the king and queen of his homeland (Red) to the rulers of the other worlds (White and Grey). The fourth world, Black, has been consumed by magic, but one day Kell is asked to smuggle a rock from one world to the next. The rock turns out to be a malevolent piece of dark magic, and so Kell and Delilah, a thief from the Grey world, set out to return it from whence it came.

A Gathering of Shadows takes up the story a couple months later. Kell suffers the consequences of his actions and has been further restricted in his travels. Meanwhile, Lilah lives as a pirate, learning magic on the high seas. With a magicians’ tournament set to take place in the capital, the stage is set to see Kell and Lilah’s worlds come crashing back together alongside some new and familiar faces.

A Conjuring of Light resumes immediately after the end of the second book. Red London has been plunged into darkness, and the shadow king’s followers threaten to break into the palace at any moment. Everyone is trying everything they can think of to keep the palace safe and defeat the shadow king. A plan is eventually formulated, and so Kell, Lilah, Alucard, and Holland set out to retrieve an item that will help them seal away the shadow king. 

A Darker Shade of Magic is a great book. Beautifully paced, Schwab doesn’t bog this story down with unnecessary details. The settings are wonderfully described, giving you just enough that you can imagine it all on your own. The plot is also pretty focused and self-contained, making the first book almost feel like a standalone novel. This book also introduces you to Schwab’s brilliant character writing. All of Schwab’s characters feel real and interesting, and what I loved the most out of this novel was simply the various character interactions to be had. The plot is, admittedly, a little weak, but doesn’t detract much from everything else.

A Gathering of Shadows starts off very strong, but ends up teetering off at the end. Schwab introduces more worldbuilding and more characters which is always a joy with her writing, but the story starts to lose focus once the plot shifts from the magic tournament to a “save the world” type of plot, and not a very unique one, either. While the introduction of the shadow king plot doesn’t come out of nowhere, it’s simply not very exciting. The characters continue to be excellently written, however.

A Conjuring of Light continues and eventually wraps up the shadow king plot. Large parts of the book don’t really involve much happening, although it doesn’t feel empty since there is a lot of character interaction. The inclusion of the MacGuffin item makes me question if Schwab had fully planned out this book before she started writing the plot since it does feel like something that comes out of nowhere. This book also includes a lot of dark stuff happening for, seemingly, shock value. The end does wrap up very nicely, however, and results in mostly happy and satisfying endings. The main draw of this book remains its characters and the way they interact with each other.

Overall, I give the Shades of Magic series the cinder rating, although I will likely rant about this series in a later post.

[rejectedembers]

Cinder or Tinder/Firebrant: Strange the Dreamer

Alright, let’s slam the fuck straight into this one ‘cause I’m tired and want to go to bed. 

Warning: Spoilers

Strange the Dreamer is the first book in a duology by Laini Taylor. It tells the story of your average orphan, Lazlo Strange, whose only dream in life is to one day go to and find out what happened to a mythical city now known as Weep. One day, he gets that chance when a group of delegates claiming to be from the lost city arrive seeking outsiders to help them with a particular problem the city has. Lazlo becomes embroiled in the city’s past as he works to save its future, finding love and a little something of himself along the way.

Alright, so this book was...good. It did have my attention (most of the time), so that’s something. If you like purple prose, you’re gonna love this book. I don’t think there’s a single page that doesn’t get at least a little flowery, although there were only a couple times where I started to think it was a bit excessive. The plot is decent, the characters are well-written, and the settings are pretty interesting and thought out.

My biggest problems are with the intertwining issues of pacing and genre confusion. So, the copy I read was about 550 pages long. The first, let’s say, 50 or 60 pages are just one long intro for Lazlo. It does drag after a bit, there are long sections that kind of just repeat information we already know or can infer, but it does put the focus on the main character thus indicating that it’s going to be all about him: this is Lazlo’s story first and foremost is what I got from it. Then, there’s a brief part where you think it’s going to have a big travel montage, but that’s swept aside very quickly, so it’s not really an adventure tale. Ok, so they finally make it to Weep about a third into the book, and it sort of becomes...a thriller? The focus also shifts slightly away from Lazlo here as a new point of view character, Sarai, is introduced. A few other characters also become a bit more important-feeling here, too, which kind of makes the entire story feel like it’s more about Weep (a concept one could infer from the introduction) and less about Lazlo. 

And then the story, about two thirds in, shifts rather unexpectedly into a romance. And, perhaps this is just the cynical part of my brain talking, but the romance, one, completely absorbs the focus of the story leaving room for nothing else, and, two, is not very good. The romance is, literally, love at first sight, and involves one character who is at least 20 years of age and one character who is at most 16. And four years may not sound like a big gap, but it is when you’re that age (young people, please trust me on this). Not to mention that this romance (which the reader gets to experience something like three days of before book 1 ends) is composed of whole chapters dedicated to nothing but these two characters going on fantastical dreamscape dates and making out. They communicate and that’s fine, they even (sort of) do things together, and that’s fine, too, but the romance just feels so sudden and then it’s forced in your face for pages and pages on end...It could have been structured much more elegantly.

And then a whole bunch of actiony stuff all happens within some 30 pages, and the book just ends.

This combination of poor pacing and genre confusion ends up compounding to make the story read like it’s happening in chunks or sections rather than a single, flowing narrative. To be honest, however, I think that the only real fix to this would be to entirely overhaul the plot and remix events/details, so for what it is, Taylor probably structured it the only way it could be.

Still, it had some unique ideas and there are a couple of mysteries I wouldn’t mind seeing solved. I’ll give it the cinder rating, although I’m on the fence about whether I’m going to read the second book when it comes out.

Favourite quote: “Here, captured between covers, was the history of the human imagination, and nothing had ever been more beautiful, or fearsome, or bizarre.”

[rejectedembers]

Firebrant: American Gods

There are two things about me some of you may know. First is that I’m hypercritical, over-analytical, and often unafraid to tell people my honest thoughts. Because of this, I tend to destroy the things that people love. Second is that I’ve been actively trying for a while to enjoy Neil Gaiman’s works, and have, so far, been unsuccessful. I’ve already done a review of Stardust, and anyone who has read it can probably tell that I wasn’t a fan of the book, and now I think it’s time I sink my teeth into American Gods, a novel I read two or three years ago now, so bear with me if I can’t remember details.

As a disclaimer, this isn’t going to be a proper review or critique. These book rants, or brants (copyright pending), are mostly going to just be me venting about a book or series I have issues with which will sometimes stem from a more “educated”, writing perspective, and sometimes will just be my own personal opinion on the matter. Try not to take anything I have to say to heart.

Spoilers below, obviously.

Ninety percent of American Gods is boring. What I’m talking about is, of course, the main plot of the novel. The premise is that a man, Shadow, goes on a road trip across America with the Norse god Odin, who is disguised as an elderly but wily gentleman, and they meet up with other ancient deities as Odin attempts to recruit them for some conflict against the new American gods, telecommunications and money and other modern things. This concept is actually very intriguing and very relevant to our world today; how do we balance where we’ve come from with where we’re going, especially as the two seem to become more and more different from each other as time goes on? 

But what really drew me in was: how is this author going to portray these ancient gods in the modern world? Like many people my age, I think, I grew up on mythology and folktales. I would spend hours researching Egyptian deities, Greek deities, Meso-American deities, and, yes, even Norse deities. I imagined reliving myths and going on adventures with these ancient deities, some of which did involve bringing them into the modern world, my world. Being able to read someone else’s version really captured my attention...until I realised that it just didn’t lead to anything.

Because here’s how American Gods goes down. The road trip aspect of the story is just Shadow and Wednesday going from one ancient deity’s house to another where Shadow has philosophical conversations with these deities and hears about how much they miss the old days. From what I can remember, this happens almost every time, and it gets old really fast. Ironically, the philosophy chatter doesn’t really add much character to these deities, and eventually they all just blend into a big ball of depressed has-beens. Thus, the road trip part of the road trip hardly feels like a road trip. Outside of maybe two or three events that I can recall, nothing of note ever happens in between visiting the deities. The road trip is less about the trip and more about the destinations. There’s simply not enough character given either to the secondary characters or to the places that are featured.

The main characters don’t fare much better. Wednesday’s plan is pretty ludicrous considering he barely seems to set up anything beforehand. It’s taken for granted that the ancient deities are going to show up to some great battle and fight for their place in the world, so it’s a mystery why Odin even bothers going around and talking to them to convince them at all (considering how, in the moment, he rarely seems successful). And Shadow, holy fuck, to this day I still struggle to put together the pieces of his arc. We get Shadow’s story in pieces, which is fine, but none of the tellings flow together. We get sections out of order and just whenever. If someone could actually explain to me how Shadow and his undead wife fit into the main plot and why they, specifically, need to be there, that would be great, because I can’t figure it out. Is anyone else disappointed that Shadow didn’t end up being an ancient god, or at least a demi-god of some sort, who had lost his memories in order to make Odin’s scheme work or some shit? Seriously, there’s just no reason for Shadow to be there.

All in all, I think the main plot lacks focus. The road trip idea is fine, and the battle between old and new gods idea is fine, and the Odin scheme is fine, but I don’t think all these things work together, and I especially don’t think these ideas were executed well together. A story where Odin wants to connect with his half-human son and so ropes him into a fucked up road trip to meet other deities so Shadow can learn philosophical lessons would have been interesting. A story where the two of them go around attempting to recruit deities for a battle while Shadow tries to figure out what being a demi-god is all about would have been interesting. A story where Odin’s scheme backfires onto Shadow, drawing him into the mess due to their blood tie or some bullshit, which leads to Shadow, an otherwise normal guy, suddenly being thrust into the creation of his own myth where he’s expected to be the hero would have been interesting. All three of these things together is fucken ridiculous, it’s too much. And when a story loses focus, the audience loses their motivation to stick around.

But you know what part of American Gods I did like? The B plot, the out-of-nowhere section in the middle of the book where Wednesday leaves Shadow in some random town for months. This is the only part of the book that has focus, where you know exactly why you’re reading: something mysterious and horrifying is happening in this town, and Shadow, as the main character, needs to find out what it is. It’s wonderfully paced, introduces a small cast of characters you come to both care about and suspect, and paints a clear image of a small, American town. I didn’t really expect how it was going to end, and I’m really glad I did stick around for the entire novel if only to have read the ending to the B plot. It really makes me think that Gaiman should write mysteries and thrillers instead of straight up fiction. 

So, there are my thoughts on American Gods. It was the perfect storm of a bunch of really good ideas coming together through poor execution to create an aimless mess. This book is why you should always keep your stories focused and concise; writing one amazing story is better than writing many mediocre stories. 

[rejectedembers]

Cinder or Tinder: Scarlet

Good day or good evening. Today, we’re going to take a look at Scarlet, the sequel to Cinder and next tale in the Lunar Chronicles series by Marissa Meyer. I read this book much more recently than Cinder, and I must say....it’s not as good. Continuing where Cinder left off, Scarlet introduces new protagonists in a new story, although this book is just as much Cinder’s as it is Scarlet’s, much to its detriment.

As this is a sequel, this review will include spoilers.

Scarlet tells two stories in one book: that of Scarlet whose grandmother has gone missing and that of Cinder as she escapes from her imprisonment to seek answers. While looking for clues to her grandmother’s disappearance, Scarlet finds Wolf, a mysterious man who agrees to help bring her to the people who may be responsible for her grandmother’s kidnapping. Meanwhile, Cinder escapes from prison with the help of a fellow inmate, and the two head out to find Princess Selene themselves.

I liked this novel much less than I did Cinder. To be quite frank, the parts I disliked were all from Scarlet’s side of the story. Though Cinder didn’t get to grow or do too much in this novel, she remains a far more interesting and realistic character. I am not a fan of how Scarlet was written if only because, nearer the end of her part of the story, she seems to completely change in personality in order to facilitate parts of the plot. I disliked the romance and didn’t find it believable. In the version I read, there was bonus content at the end that  explained Wolf as a character which I think should have been incorporated into the main story to better explain his motivations there. 

This sucks to say, but the end of Scarlet’s story reads like a piece of uninspired fanfiction. Everything is resolved in a convenient fashion, characters do not act like themselves, and a villain shows up just to be some kind of opposing force to be defeated. It was very anti-climatic. Scarlet’s story wasn’t given nearly as much time as it needed to fully play out like Cinder’s did. Scarlet needed her very own book, but instead you get something a bit closer to a 50/50 split (even an 80/20 split in Scarlet’s favour would have proved the better option).

Overall, I give Scarlet’s parts the tinder rating, and Cinder’s parts the cinder rating. I will most likely continue reading this series if only to find out what happens to Cinder.

[rejectedembers]

Cinder or Tinder: Cinder

Good day or good evening, and yes, I realise that the title of this article reads ridiculous. Today, I’m going to review Cinder by Marissa Meyer, a book that I read a year ago and actually really enjoyed despite probably being a bit too old for it. Cinder is a sci-fi retelling of the classic Cinderella story set some two hundred years into Earth’s future, and is the first novel in Meyer’s The Lunar Chronicles series. 

Cinder tells the story of Cinder, a sixteen-year-old cyborg working as a mechanic in New Beijing. One day, the prince stops by her booth seeking someone who can repair his android. Cinder accepts and is promptly swept up into a series of political schemes and plots, finding out pieces of her missing past along the way.

Cinder is a wonderful sci-fi retelling of the classic Cinderella story, but it doesn’t just copy and paste events from the original tale onto its plot. Meyer masterfully weaves the key elements of the folktale into this new setting in ways perfectly compatible with her new envisionings of the characters alongside neat little twists that keep you guessing despite how familiar you might be with the original tale. Here, the Cinderella story hasn’t just been retold, but reinvented, and it’s a true delight.

Meyer has also written some of the most convincing teenagers I’ve read about in a long time. Cinder is both sixteen and independent and capable due to her work operating her own small business. She gets emotional even when she’s trying not to be, and makes poor decisions when someone she loves is on the line. The same can be said of Prince Kai who struggles between being the role model his people need and the teenager he is and wants to be. Both characters who are very well-written and easily capture your attention and desire to see them succeed.

Overall, Cinder is a great story, an excellent read for teens especially, but I don’t think adults should miss this one, either. It definitely gets the cinder rating!

[rejectedembers]

I’ve never talked all that much about my experiences in France. Those three months are difficult things to describe as so much of it was just about living. It’s been a little over ten years since I left and returned, and many of those memories have faded with time. But there are a few moments I’ll never forget, and I’d like to share two in particular on this day of remembrance.

At some point, the family I was staying with had planned to take us over to England, but, due to time constraints, this part of the plan fell through. Nonetheless, we all drove out from Paris to Normandy to visit the Mémorial de Caen, a war museum and memorial. It was a sombre if not educational affair, but it paled in comparison to the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial. 

I was pretty confused when we first arrived not only because I had no idea where we were going prior to our arrival, but because it was a clearly-marked American space on French soil (I’m fairly certain the family forgot I was Canadian). The confusion quickly melted away to pure shock when we walked into the cemetery proper. 

...I paused for a long time while I was writing this post. The memory of that moment is so incredibly powerful that words simply cannot do it justice, although I will try anyways. 

It had been a warm day in April, I believe; not too bright, not too dark. The grass was green, so, so green, that it allowed the white of nine thousand grave markers to stand out brilliantly. That number may not sound like much, but when you’re standing there surrounded by row upon row upon row of cold, marble headstones...It feels endless. The knowledge of so many dead buried just below your feet drags down each and every step you take, a weight you can’t quite shake the entire time you’re there. The place is beautiful, but still, sad, a testament to loss.

I remember stopping before one grave in particular. Today, I cannot remember the soldier’s name, but I remember this: he died at the age of sixteen. Sixteen. Some of my friends at the time were sixteen, and I couldn’t fathom then seeing them leave for war and never coming home. And yet, this grave wasn’t unique amongst the rows. The bodies of boys buried beside men, beside their fathers, beside their brothers, beside their friends and fellow soldiers, each of them sent out to die. It was a story that repeated itself over and over.

The parents who planned the trip never really asked me or the other kids if we wanted to go. They believed it was important that we know the true cost of war, that we remember the death and destruction that happened in France so many decades ago. They were passing on this tradition of respect to their children which was taught to them by their parents, and to their parents by their grandparents. A living memory to honour the dead.

The second moment I want to mention is much more personal. The events of the day are a mystery now, but this one memory will always stand out for me. I was out with the family doing errands, and we were just entering into the next store when an elderly gentleman stopped me. He must have noticed the Canadian flag on my sweater, because he came up to me and began to thank me and my country for all that we’d done, for helping to free France from the Nazis. I don’t remember responding, if I did it was most likely in broken French because I was simply dumbstruck in that moment. The man’s expression was just so genuine, so full of emotion, that he almost didn’t need to say a word to get across how grateful he was. And just like that, we went our separate ways, back into our own lives.

I don’t know what that man lived through. I don’t know if he fought in the war, I don’t know if he lost friends and family, or how old he would have been at the time of his country’s occupation. But whatever this man had experienced had effected him to such a degree that he felt it necessary to thank a fourteen-year-old girl from another country for the sacrifices her compatriots made some sixty years past. Even as I sit here typing, I continue to feel humbled by this stranger’s gratitude.

Wars don’t end when the last bullet is fired, or when a piece of paper is signed. The echoes of those gunshots ring out across generations, louder to some but heard by all. A message, a warning, one that we, as humans, haven’t heeded yet as the men at the top continue to send out bodies to fight and die for their own personal gain. How different would our world be if only our first response in the face of conflict wasn’t to pick up a gun, but rather to pick up a pen? What kind of peace could we have forged had only reasonably people sat down and talked before a single drop of blood was even spilled?

Hopefully someday we will know, because we will have buried our weapons instead of our dead.

[rejectedembers]

Cinder or Tinder: Mogworld

Good day or good evening! Today we will be taking a look at Mogworld by Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw. This was the book I was reading before I got into Vicious, the first book to be completed from my reading list. Best known for his video game review series Zero Punctuation as part of The Escapist e-magazine, Yahtzee has been involved in several creative endeavours, including video game creation (such as the Rob Blanc Trilogy and the Chzo Mythos games). Mogworld is his first novel.

Brief warning: mild spoilers ahead.

Mogworld tells the story of Jim, a mage-in-training who has been brought back as an undead corpse by a necromancer sixty years after his death. But not all is doom and gloom as Jim and the rest of the undead take up comfortable jobs as the necromancer’s minions fending off the castle from adventurers. One day, however, angels descend and begin deleting everything in the area, and only three undead, Jim, Meryl, and a priest, manage to escape. In the outside world, they discover that no one can die and no one can be born, much to Jim’s chagrin as he has been attempting to return to his eternal slumber for months. This sets them on their quest to find a way to end the Infusion so Jim can finally die and stay dead, discovering a much, much deeper secret about the world they live in along the way.

Mogworld is one of the funniest stories I’ve read in a long time. Croshaw’s sarcastic, dark humour really shines through and is executed perfectly with just the right amount of wit. Characters, even minor ones, are distinct and real, and you very easily find yourself wanting to see them succeed, no matter how ridiculous their goals may be. The plot plays somewhat of a secondary role, and I do find it gets rather muddled closer to the end, but the mystery and eventual reveal is well built-up. 

In the end, Mogworld was a lot of fun and made me surprisingly emotional; I laughed, I gasped, and I even almost cried. Mogworld definitely gets the cinder rating.

Favourite quote: “I’d rather be a protagonist,” I said.

[rejectedembers]

Cinder or Tinder: Son of a Trickster

Good day or good evening. Today, we’re taking a look at Son of a Trickster by Eden Robinson, a First Nations author from British Columbia. Son of a Trickster is a coming of age story that weaves together the reality of growing up Native in the modern world with the fantastical element of finding out that magic and the supernatural is very real indeed. The novel is pretty dark in both tone and plot (even the comedic moments are dark humour), and so can seem rather depressing at times, but it really hammers home at the very least an approximation of what it must be like experiencing life from a First Nations’ perspective in contemporary Canada.

Son of a Trickster is the story of Jared, a sixteen-year-old First Nations kid living on the Kitamaat reservation in northern British Columbia. Jared lives on the edge of poverty with his divorced mother who is a bit of a violent party animal and kind of abusive. One day, Jared hears a raven talking to him, is approached by a Trickster spirit claiming to be his father, and eventually meets an elderly lady who may secretly be a monster. Jared’s already fucked up life gets even more fucked up as time goes on.

There is just one thing I wished I’d known going into this novel: it’s the first book in an ongoing trilogy. There’s nothing about how the book was designed or marketed to explicitly make that clear, and so I spent large parts of the book wondering when certain major plot events were going to happen, and feeling a bit cheated at the end when the climax came rather late and didn’t lead to much major resolution. This didn’t ruin the experience for me, but my expectations based on false information often led to me asking questions I didn’t need to be asking myself. I also had this problem with The Diviners (which I hope to review eventually), which is also the first book in a series and yet isn’t explicitly marketed that way. 

With this in mind, the book reads like an extended introduction. By far, the majority of the book deals with Jared’s everyday life and family and friend-related events that pop up once in awhile. It’s not until near the very end of the story when the supernatural elements really kick in, which I’m assuming will be pushed to the forefront in the following books. Some parts really slow down because of this, although this may be because I simply enjoy more heavily and overtly fictional works over contemporary settings. 

Robinson’s true strength lies in the personal relationships Jared forms with various people in his life and the kinds of interactions that they have. The writing is contemporary and easy to follow, although I find the later sections of the book to be written in a less captivating way. I think one of the major draws to this book is the way Robinson depicts the very real and raw lives of First Nations individuals and groups, and doesn’t bother to sugar-coat anything. The little dashes of cosmic wisdom are also appreciated if not a little out of place.

Overall, I give Son of a Trickster the cinder rating, although I most likely will not continue with the series as it is simply not the genre I prefer.

Favourite quote: Come closer and let me speak to the creatures that swim in your ancient oceans, the old ones that sing to you in your dreams.