Category Archives: Words

Hack/Slash: Resurrection

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Some time back, I came to the [second] end of the Hack/Slash comic series, a little disappointed that it really was over this time. Well, joke’s on me, because three years later, someone came along and tried again.

The Resurrection series is another continuation by another author, but this one is a little more successful because she understands that the point wasn’t tying up loose ends from previous big stories, it was getting to the root of what makes Cassie appealing and restoring the status quo by bringing someone back. I mean, spoilers, but it’s really right there in the title, innit?

Basically, it’s this: Cassie is done with monsters, living in a trailer in the middle of nowhere making money off Twitch subscribers, which may be the most modern thing I’ve ever read in any comic in all of history. Except an acquaintance of her mother has opened a summer camp nearby, to help the victims of slasher trauma be strong and ready instead of ripe to get angry and disturbed and turn into more slashers themselves. And except zombies keep showing up outside her trailer. And except the nearby prison seems awfully suspicious. Before you know it: new story, continued from the prior series but without the weight of almost any continuity to worry about.

Worthwhile!

Fool’s Fate

I have not finished many series lately. The Walking Dead wrapped up a few months ago, and before that… I don’t know. It honestly might have been the Wheel of Time. Which is going back nearly 10 years I think? One conclusion to draw from this is that I have really way, way, way too many started but unfinished trilogies on my to-read shelf. Another is that there are definitely people who need to do more work on finishing their series, and here I am looking mainly at GRRM. But I think the first conclusion is definitely a relevant one, is all I’m saying, and maybe I’ll do something about that in the next months.

That turned out to be a bigger digression than I thought. Because, I finished Fool’s Fate yesterday, and, okay, that is not technically the end of a series. Maybe it was at the time, and then Hobb decided she could write more after all? I don’t know, but I know someone told me that it felt like the end of the series, and that this person was 100% right. If nothing else were written in this world, I would be… honestly, I’m so satisfied that to some degree I’m concerned about there being more written.

The first trilogy ended with the plot crisis averted, but the character crisis fully embraced, and that’s kind of how I’ve thought of Hobb’s writing as a result, despite evidence to the contrary since. The second trilogy ended with both plot and character crisis averted, but with the acceptance that the world was still turning.

[Because of the author, mild spoilers lurk below.]

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Keepers of the Sun

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This week in the Deathlands, our heroes… are not in the Deathlands, actually. See, for the past three to five books, there have been hints of circa 17th C samurai that have been using the same teleportation gateways that our band of semi-heroes have been using to travel around the post-apocalyptic remains of what was once the United States. (So, y’know, near future sci-fi.) All of which to say, this time they come out in Japan!

Well, in the post-apocalyptic remains of what was once Japan. Because, you know, global thermonuclear war has only the one winning move, and nobody in this series took it.

Anyway: Keepers of the Sun is mostly interesting as a historical time capsule of the late ’80s[1], when we had an economically tense relationship with Japan. I have frequently lauded the sexual egalitarianism of these books, and I would have guessed that the racial parts would be the same. This is… kind of true here? Not as much as I wanted, but in some ways it felt like the blustery, rough-edged folk of the future were learning not to be racist against the Japanese[2] as a stand-in for the (let’s be honest) mostly working class truck driver type who became the biggest audience for this series.

I know for sure that I kept expecting [hereafter follow spoilers for a book you will never read] the other shoe to drop with the nominally noble-minded, Bushido-coded warlord[3], but no, he really was what he seemed. Even their points of contention over a possible mass invasion of the Deathlands could I think have been solved by the realization that even with the many uninhabitable or outright destroyed regions of North America, population reduction has resulted in plenty of room for everyone. But the mostly episodic nature of the series largely prevents that size of change to geopolitics, I suppose. So they found another way to resolve it.

[1] I’m trying very hard to disregard the 1996 publication date here.
[2] Except manga. Everyone stayed racist against manga.
[3] Okay, what I cannot especially defend is the premise that the meager remains of Japan’s main island would revert to circa 17th C warlords, samurai, ronin, and peasants. But since the US has mostly reverted to feudalism, it’s not as troublesome as it sounds at first glance.[4]
[4] I’m a little proud of that phrasing.

Golden Fool

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I have really a lot of thoughts about Golden Fool, which (unless something changes) marks the approximate midpoint of Hobb’s travels in her world of assassins and Elderlings and dragons. That clause looks like the kind of clause you say to fill time, but I meant it to actually convey something, which is that the many swirling thoughts and confusions I have not yet expressed are probably in the right place. After all, if I don’t find myself with more questions than ever and my previously held answers upended in the precise middle of a story, when should I find myself in that predicament?

But anyway, the series and the world continues to be both really good and to not bother me as much as it has in the past, on an emotionally depressive level I mean. So those are both things that are great! In addition, they are pretty much the only things I can say that are not spoilers. Well, that’s not quite true. My one line not very spoilerly summary goes like this: this is the book where Fitz learns how to interact with humans again.

Everything else below the cut, though.

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Death Masks revisited

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So, uh, massive spoilers for not so much this book but for the entire series through Peace Talks, which is not yet published as of this review. Don’t read farther unless you don’t mind.

Without yet having checked my previous review of Death Masks, I assume that I liked it quite a bit[1], since all of the Dresden books have hit me pretty favorably. And yet, reviewing the audiobook relisten in my head, mostly what I think of it is… well, that’s not fair. It’s still extremely positive. The war with the Red Court is really heating up, we get the first real glimpse of the Denarians, Marcone is humanized[2], there’s some big movement with the Knights of the Sword that, if I remember my timelines correctly, has only recently paid off. Plus, they finally introduced Molly, who appears to have set off the chain of events leading to Harry’s procreation. A lot of really important things happened!

The problem, if there is a problem, is that everything I’ve said (or almost everything) is groundwork for future books. Whereas my actual experience of Death Masks as a book was: you know, it was fine. Butcher has already written better single book mysteries and anyway it only reached half-resolution, and only via deus ex missourian at that. I mean, unless you care how the Shroud of Turin thing turned out, which I suppose is fair enough. The problem, briefly expressed already a paragraph above, is that this makes me sound sour on the book, and I’m not! It was, y’know, fine.

Anyway, the by far more important part, my timeline update. The book occurs in February of year 3, seven months after the book prior. And various events lead me to conclude that okay, probably Harry’s daughter was conceived during this book, rather than being 6 months old already. Which makes her birthday in November of year 3 rather than Augustish of year 2. (Because, see, I’m still making this calculation easy on future me. Woohoo!)

[1] Guess: correct! Shockingly.
[2] Which has stuck with me ever since even if the details of how it happened had not.

The Bonehunters revisited

Jesus, I read The Bonehunters eleven years ago. No wonder I don’t remember things from these books. And then, helpfully, I didn’t say much about it, except for that I really like the book and the series. Facts which remain true, so that’s something.

To be fair to past me, it has gotten functionally impossible to discuss these books without spoilers, though, you know? So, prior to the cut, I can say a few things here.

Thing one: I remain pretty happy with the narration. The original guy was probably better, but they fixed the pacing issues I hated so much, and the new guy learned how to pronounce things, so all in all, it’s gone well.

Thing two: I’m pleased that the timeline jumps are mostly over? Well, that’s an assumption, to be sure, but I think a true one. The first four books alternated between relevant simultaneous timelines (plus one random major flashback), then the fifth book is all flashback to before any other events, and this sixth book is dealing with the consequences of everything that has happened prior, setting up an explosive… man, I don’t know. I remember bits and pieces of the next book, but I know I liked it too, and then to be honest I’m not sure if I ever read the eighth one or not. I definitely forgot the really important climax of this book here, so who knows?

Thing three: no, that was all except for spoilers. So thing three is the cut.

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Powers: Z

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Considering how close I am to the end of the published Powers series, you would think I would not have gone three and a half years since the last one I read. That’s just weird. Even more contrary to expectations (well, mine at least), that gap is not the problem I had with the book.

Powers: Z is… well, okay, they’re all about murders. But this is about the murder of the guy who killed Hitler at the end of World War II. Who you would think would be popular enough to have been mentioned by now, especially since apparently our immortal main character used to hang out with Z during and after the war. But okay, comics retcon all the time, and that would not have caused me to blink if the rest hadn’t been so confusing. Which I cannot really explain without massive spoilers, and I’ll just respond if someone asks instead of assuming they’re needed.

But my problems, at broad strokes, included a) my occasional inability to distinguish between the present and flashbacks to the 1950s, b) caused in part (probably) by those flashbacks not actually being very important from either a plot or (worse) a character development perspective. Other than the basic “look, these guys were mobsters in the 1950s, and the people in the modern day plot are also mobsters” parallelism, there just really wasn’t anything there. Finally, c) the fifth issue in the book ended with some really big dangling plot threads, whereupon the sixth issue covered a completely new murder with no apparent tie to or resolution of the prior story, all for the sake of a last second character-driven cliffhanger. Which I sound negative about, but I would not if I hadn’t ended up feeling so much like I didn’t get a complete story in the service of said cliffhanger that I actually spent some research time seeing if there was a missing issue or a misprint of my book or something. As far as I can tell: there was not.

But all the Amazon reviews of the book are very positive, so maybe it’s just me regardless? I have no idea.

The Expectant Father: The Ultimate Guide for Dads-to-Be, part one

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There are two things working against me here. 1) I am not used to reviewing reference books, and 2) I’ve been reading The Expectant Father slowly because the chapters are divided by months, and I’m trying to not read the whole thing in a row so I have a better idea of what to understand in the moment, instead of all at once and then I forget things by the time they’re relevant. As such, I’m only about four chapters in and have something like two-thirds of the book to go, since there is a big delivery room chapter. So this is at least part of why the review is split into two pieces.

Anyway: I do not know how valuable of a resource it is in terms of actual learning / time-specific knowledge. I think it’s probably closer to good than bad along that axis? It spends time talking about how things are for the interloper, how things are for the host, and how things are for me, and man, who knows if any of it is actually right, is my point. But it’s probably good, is my other point.

What it is definitely good at is making me feel like I have a handle on things. Which is, y’know, shockingly important! Or probably not especially shocking, in retrospect. Hopefully it proceeds along the same continuum as I continue to read it. All will be revealed in the second part of the review.

Summer Knight revisited

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I am shocked to see that we finished listening to the last Dresden Files book less than six month ago. It really seems much longer ago. Which means that yay, still accomplishing something here. Anyway: as usual, the first and most important part of Summer Knight is timeline placement. This occurs in June (midsummer, really) of year 2, a good eight months after Grave Peril.[1]

Huh. I just realized why it seems so long: we didn’t really spend any time listening to the book between the August road trip and today. As a result, I do not have a ton of deep insights into the plot of the book, or the way things are going with the series. I do know that a) Marsters is still a good narrator, even if he keeps randomly not knowing some of the technical language of fantasy, and b) Butcher has definitely hit his stride.

Here’s a little behind a cut, mainly because my footnote definitely has a spoiler, so I need to anyway.

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Fool’s Errand

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My Hobbsian (and let’s be honest, to a very real extent Hobbesian) journey continues, with the first book of the Tawny Man trilogy. Fool’s Errand, in addition to being a thoroughly apt title, is a surprisingly focused book. We’ve returned to Fitz’s quiet, retired life (one cottage, one wolf, one teenaged ward, one sporadic booty call), and the Fool has returned from wherever the Fool has been[1], and catching up on the last 15 years of not much happening[2] takes up the first third of the book. Then, the remaining thirds are taken up by, well, you know Fitz was going to get re-involved in the Farseer family and the fate of the Six-or-Seven Duchies, or else how do you even have a new trilogy starring him? But all of the above covers maybe three weeks. Like I said: focused.

So, there’s this one small errand to be undertaken, and if it’s going to cost Fitz everything, that’s pretty much how these things go. Details would go to the heart of what the book and the trilogy are likely to be about, so I’ll stay out of them, but I’m not sure how long it’s been since I’ve been pounded so hard over the head by a book, regarding a single unifying theme; in this case, letting go.

The thing that surprised me the most is that I never felt the sense of personal misery from the first trilogy, nor of societal misery from the second. This was mostly a straight adventure story, albeit shot through with threads of quiet, persistent melancholy. But what I’m saying is, melancholy is so much nicer than misery.

Anyway, I’ll keep reading these quickly, because I’m coming close to needing to finish out the Malazan books, and I don’t want that big of a gap interrupting this story, in which I am already heavily invested.

[1] I mean, it’s pretty clear where, but spoilers. And I reserve the faintest sliver of doubt, based on notions of the other prophet and catalyst on the other side of the Red Ship Wars not being a mislead, but instead a clue. But it’s a very fine sliver indeed.
[2] Or a well-documented trilogy happening, depending upon where you fall in your beliefs about the books