REVIEW: The Magpie Lord by K.J. Charles

The Magpie Lord by K.J. Charles
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I wish I liked this book as much as all of my friends and trusted reviewers do. In fact, there is a very little reason I shouldn’t. Very. Strong writing, strong mystery, strong romance, and yay, a graphic yaoi-ish sex scene. The book screamed “Love me!” to me, but I didn’t... because my mood says “Fuck you. Neener-neener.” What a capricious bastard.

What I Liked

+ the couple

It would have been way too easy to make Lucien this annoying character who suffered endless guilt trips over the evil his family inflicted on people. Thank Cthulhu that wasn’t the case because I hate that kind of character. Bite me, emos. I loved LOVED how Lucien accepted things as they were, let the past rest, and tried to make things right as they came up. He refused to take any blame for his family’s evil because, no-brainer, none of it was his fault. In fact, he was one of their victims too as readers would quickly learn. I loved how pragmatic Lucien was in his principles and how straightforward his attitude was.

With Stephen, I loved how he was utterly professional and didn’t let his grudge against the Crane family get in the way of helping Lucien. He won a lot of points from me when I saw how he quickly recognized Lucien, the new Lord Crane, was innocent in the matter and was contrite for his initial antagonism.

+ the romance

Because of Lucien’s easy-going, direct personality, it was as angst-free as it could be, particularly for a historical M/M Romance where things are not unicorn pooping rainbows for LGBT people. In regard to Stephen, I must admit I was a little (just a little!) frustrated with how much it took for him to get onboard with the smex. That was only because I wanted the two men to get together as soon as possible and be happy. Be still, my romantic heart. I really liked how there was an instant attraction but no instant love. The romance developed steadily with sexual tension that didn’t leave me frustrated.

What I Didn’t Like

+ magic

I would have liked the world building on magic to be more solid. It was too wishy-washy for me, too “magic does whatever the crap it likes.” I get the ability to use magic could skip a generation or a few, but how is it that all the descendants of the Magpie Lord became magic incapable? What happened there? Also, how did the famous Magpie Lord fall into obscurity within the family?

I wanted a framework of magic to work from, and I didn’t truly get that from Stephen despite his very educational magic lessons. I felt like magic was a convenience trope of the plot rather than a pillar element of the world building.

+ the bad guys

I would have liked to know how the bad guys came up with their evil plan since from what I gathered, the legend of the Magpie Lord was obscure, even among the magic-users. But this is a minor complaint compared to what happened at the climax. I hated how the bad guys got the upper hand despite how capable and astute our heroes were. I just didn’t like how it was too late when our good guys finally figured things out and then only managed to prevail at the last minute. It felt a tad contrived; it felt like things were only stretched to that point simply for sake of DRAMA like a TV show.

Conclusion

I rate The Magpie Lord 3-stars for I liked it. I didn’t really like the climax but the Glad-To-Be-Alive Sex at the end made up for it. My one true complaint is that I wished I enjoyed this book as much as my friends did. However, one thing is for sure. This is a quality read (am not surprised to learn the author is an editor) and a strong start of a historical Urban Fantasy series. I’m definitely coming back for book 2.

Goodreads | Amazon

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REVIEW: Fortune's Pawn by Rachel Bach

Fortune's Pawn by Rachel Bach (aka Rachel Aaron)
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book was great, but there were a few things that could have been done a lot better.

What I Didn’t Like

+ the romance

I did not care an ounce for the romance between Devi and Rupert. Of all the men Devi had met in her life, as someone who traveled a lot and was in a field dominated by men which meant she was surrounded by men at all time, she had to go fall for Rupert who is one of the worst men that she could have fallen for. It’s not because Rupert is a bad person; to the contrary, he’s a fucking Gary Stu. It’s because he cannot be more unavailable for romance. I hated how for most of the book, the romance was one-sided on Devi’s end. In addition, Rupert is a danger to Devi and he can easily ruin her career goal to become a Devastator, a dream she has worked to hell for, because of who he is and his duties.

+ the love interest

Who is Rupert? Well, as I said he is a Gary Stu. He’s tall and handsome. He cooks. He protects Ren, the Captain’s mute little girl. He fights better than he lets on, better than anyone Devi, a super tough heroine who has fought countless people and things, has ever known that it seems so... inhuman. He’s mysterious. *gags* I felt like a wishlist of traits in the perfect marriageable man was being checked off as Rupert was developed as a character, and ironically the dude is not even available for romance so fuck marriage.

Upon revelation, readers learn Rupert is a self-torturous soul who is forced to choose between doing his duties and being with his first love that is Devi. When I learned that, I immediately thought, “Am I reading a science-fiction or a cheesy romance set in a science-fiction?” Oh my gawd, the romance was so cheesy!

+ the romance, part 2

The romance was also forced. Rupert’s reasons for falling in love with Devi were flimsy as straws; it was borderline instalove. Devi was unlike anyone Rupert had ever met. Bitch please! With Devi, I was baffled how a self-proclaimed commitment-phobe could suddenly for the first time in her life not only fall in love but to fall in love with someone, as said before, who could not be more unavailable for romance. Devi could have chosen Anthony who she had known for a long time and trusts and does her favors (which she doesn’t even return), Anthony who loved her and made his intention of wanting a commitment with her clear, Anthony who has the look, the job, and the money, etc. But oh no, Devi had to choose the guy who made it clear he cannot be with her, and she was willing to risk everything for him when he clearly said he could not do the same. Have some self-respect, Devi. Have a fucking bucket of self-respect.

The only silver lining was that Anthony wasn’t pulled along in Devi’s romance shitfest and appeared only twice in the book, both times briefly. No stupid love triangle, at least.

+ the ending

And the ending. What the fuck? Basically, the plot shoved Devi back to step one and now in book two readers will be forced to go through the romance shitfest between her and Rupert ALL OVER AGAIN. No. Just... no. I kind of hope Rupert is one of the characters that gets killed. The ending left a sour taste of what was mostly an enjoyable read if you put aside the romance shitfest.

What I Did Like

+ the heroine

A friend told me a Goodreads reviewer described the heroine as a Kate Daniels in space. Kate Daniels? In Space? I love Kate Daniels! This book turned from “mildly interesting, read it when in a scifi mood” to “very interesting, read it over the weekend.” The description was accurate much to my pleasure. Devi was every bit the kickass heroine I expected. The things that made Devi different from Kate was her ambition, her reverence for her Paradoxian heritage and monarch, her respect towards authority, her fondness for the drink, and her proud attitude towards sex. When Deviana Morris wants some, she gets some, whether it be drink or sex. Screw you, double standard. I loved her unrestrained attitude.

I also loved that she was nobody’s fool. Devi knew when to follow her instincts and when to ignore them for the sake of continual deception and her career. She didn’t put complete trust in the Final World Lock, her Paradoxian armor suit’s black box, and had a backup black box called a Mercenary’s Bargain even though it was illegal as death. The woman was prepared and practical, completely believable as a mercenary.

+ the world building

I wasn’t as lost as I thought I was going to be because the book was hard science fiction with alien races and intergalactic conflicts. It didn’t take me more than a few chapters before I tightly grasped what was going on and who was who and of what alien race and loyalty. The world building was very solidly done. The geopolitical landscape read genuinely like world news you would see on BBC or CNN except the setting is in the distant future and there are aliens in the mix.

You had your intelligent and big-ego-to-match bird-like aliens, the aeons, your hunts-and-eats-other-aliens lizard-like aliens, the xith’cal, your mysterious hardly-ever-seen jellyfish-like aliens, the lelgis. Of course, there are humans, and they separated into Terrans and Paradoxians, the former a republic, the latter a monarchy. But it’s not just humans who have factions, I also got to learn of a few in other alien races. As it is with humans, just because you are of the same species doesn’t mean you share the same loyalty. There were as many intraspecies conflicts as there were interspecies ones.

The world building didn’t say there was a war going on but there were “military conflicts,” government conspiracies, biological weapons, blah blah, the usual shit you read on worlds news, except as you know, with aliens in the mix. That said, sometime aliens do get along with each other as the case is with the Glorious Fool.

+ the other characters

As a reader, I have a pretty hard time tracking characters but this book did not give me any hardship. Every character of the Glorious Fool was distinguishable and memorable. I love the sense of humor which underlaid the character development. Take for example, Hyrek. One would think the last character to be the ship’s doctor, I repeat: the ship’s doctor, is of a race who eats people, but yet there was Hyrek, a xith’cal doctor, a genderqueer xith’cal doctor.

Hell, some of the characters I least expected to like I actually came to like. Nova, full name: Novascape Starchild (yes, really), helped man the ship’s bridge. She was developed as this sheltered girl who came from, um, a religious group to put it kindly if you catch my drift. Of course, I quickly saw that beneath the sweet hippie surface was someone who actually thought for herself and there was a perfectly good reason for the existence of the religious group. Psychics are in the house!

Cotter was the other half of the security team which Devi served on, and dude was a stereotypical sexist thug whose brain was only capable of seeing things to kill and killing them. I expected there to be a lot of drama and spats between Devi and her antithesis of a co-worker, but surprisingly there were none. Cotter was a wee smarter than I thought and didn’t need more than one asskicking lesson to accept the fact that Devi was the top dog. Cotter grew on me. He grew on me more than I thought because what happened to him at the end, I was... sad.

I came to care for all the members of the Glorious Fool, yes including Rupert as much as he annoyed me. Dude did save Devi’s life a bunch of times, and I like Devi alive. With Captain Caldswell, I have mixed feelings to be honest even though there are good reasons to despise him. I have mixed feelings because I have yet to learn his side of the story. I’m not ready to condemn him just on Devi and Rupert’s side of the story alone. But I think this is a good thing because it means his character is dimensional.

+ the plot

Putting aside the romance, I liked everything about the plot. I liked how the plot balanced between the slow times and the fast times. I never felt bored at all. My favorite parts were when Devi tried to uncover conspiracies, and we readers learn what Devi learned was only the tip of the iceberg. I foresee epicness.

There are a lot of things in play, and it could have been confusing, which is why I am really thankful that the book was strictly narrated from Devi’s first person viewpoint.

Conclusion

I rate Fortune’s Pawn 3-stars for I liked it. While the yucky romance cost the book a star, the book remains a great read. I actually think the current book description doesn’t do enough to advertise how action and intrigue-filled the book is. If you’re in the mood for science-fiction promising epicness and love kickass heroines, give a Fortune’s Pawn a try.

Review of book 2: Honor's Knight

Goodreads | Amazon

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REVIEW: Pandaemonium by Ben Macallan

Pandaemonium by Ben Macallan
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I didn’t care for book 1, but at least it was interesting enough. Book 2, Pandaemonium, was downright horrible. The book was truly its namesake, full of wild confusion.

The book started out fine, picking up immediately where book 1 ended. This time around, however, the story was told from Desi’s viewpoint instead of Jordan’s. I liked Desi and thought she was a good kickass heroine in book 1, but I came to like Jordan a lot at the end of book 1 so I was disappointed that book 2 didn’t continue from his viewpoint. But hey, it was Desi. Kickass heroine. I expected my disappointment to quickly fade. I could not have been more wrong. Things went downhill — fast.

Desi was on the run because bad guys were after her. It was the same thing ALL OVER AGAIN from book 1 except book 2 had her teaming up with her ex-boyfriend Jacey instead of Jordan. I quickly tired of the story. I thought Jordan’s narration in book 1 was long-winded, but Desi’s narration in book 2 was worse. Way WORSE. Her narration was a stream of consciousness, which I abhor. It didn’t take but a New York minute for Desi to turn from one of my favorite characters of the series to one of my least favorite.

Although things were happening, the plot progressed very little. Very little made sense, either. Characters just seemed to do stuff for no rhyme or reason. Many times I would be thinking, “What the fuck are these characters trying to accomplish?” Around a quarter of the book, I skimmed because I couldn’t endure the shitty reading any longer. I couldn’t believe how far in the book it took for Desi to learn who were the bad guys that were after her. I couldn’t believe how much time Desi spent thinking about her romantic drama crap with Jacey and Jordan towards the end when they were about to confront the bad guys. Woman, have some priorities!

Only at the end did I finally stop skimming, and what happened there confirmed my decision to skim as a smart one. Not much was resolved, especially not the love triangle. Though the bad guys were finally dealt with, it was lackluster and not worth reading the entire book to get to there. It was definitely not worth reading the entire series either. Desi’s character growth, the kind that should have started in the beginning of book 2 if not all the way back in the middle of book 1, finally started in the last chapter... of book 2, the end of the series. What a PISSER, and here I thought book 1’s ending was a pisser. I didn’t realize the book 2 was trying to outdo itself in angering me.

Conclusion

I rate Pandaemonium 1-star for I didn’t like it. At All. Stories should be as long as needed, but this one had absolutely no reason being dragged out as a duology. This one was one of those cases where the editor or the publisher should have insisted the story to be a standalone and have the book 1 and 2 just be ONE book.

I do not recommend this series. It’s a waste of time.

Goodreads | Amazon

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REVIEW: Desdaemona by Ben Macallan

Desdaemona by Ben Macallan
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This book could have been a lot better. I had more excitement reading the book description than I did reading the book itself. Oh, there were exciting parts in the book but they were scarce. Most of the book was about the characters’ emo issues. *rolls eyes* It was not what I signed up for.

+ the characters

Jordan was the main character and the narrator. I didn’t mind how he deliberately kept the reader in the dark about his identity... at first. It was not until the middle of the book that I came to realize there was absolutely NO reason for him to do so. Most of the characters knew who he was from the start. When he finally told the reader who he was, it came as a passing matter of fact, not as a plot twist or like anything that was supposed to astound the reader. My patience with Jordan quickly wore thin, and I was already struggling with his long-winded narration. On the bright side, I was glad he actually did things beside just running away and hiding behind Desdaemona and used his brain.

Desdaemona, I liked. I found consolation in the familiarity of her attitude as a kickass heroine. I loved how she was utterly confident in her abilities to kick ass and protect Jordan. She cautiously approached danger and fought enemies strategically. What happened at the climax, I didn’t fault Desi for becoming the person she wanted to be and why she what she did.

+ the world building

The world building was murky as shit. It was a chore to even learn surface details. Surface. For example, readers learn a small group of powerful families ruled over the hidden magical world. What readers do not learn are who all of them were, what they ruled over, why they ruled over what they ruled, and so forth. Learning a few of their names and that that their names were not to be spoken lightly should not (seemingly at least) constitute HALF of the information given about these families.

Underdeveloped world building is rarely ever an issue for me because my imagination can fill in the gaps, but these weren’t gaps. They were fucking canyons. The world building was very disjointed.

+ the ending

The ending was a PISSER. The bad guy our characters fought wasn’t EVEN the main bad guy, and formidable as that bad guy was, the battle should have been a simple case of numbers. The book spent an inordinate amount of time building how each of those characters were powerful, but when it came to the final battle those characterizations were thrown to the wind.

To add insult to injury, the book had the audacity to end abruptly with nothing resolved and a new issue at the last minute. The “The End” mocked the reader. It FUCKING mocked me. If I didn’t have book 2 on hand and value my stuff, I would have spent days cursing the book out and smashing things.

In Conclusion

I rate Desdaemona 2-stars for it was okay. I was never so bored that I felt compelled to skim (the pacing was surprisingly brisk), but I was annoyed with the narration and angered by the ending. The 2-stars is conditional on the fact that I had book 2 on hand to read next.

After reading book 2 and thus finishing the series, I can firmly say I do not recommend the series whatsoever. Avoid.

Goodreads | Amazon

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REVIEW: The Eldritch Conspiracy by Cat Adams

The Eldritch Conspiracy by Cat Adams
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Reading book 5, it’s easy to forget things used to be really angsty in the beginning of the Blood Singer series, and I was more than happy to forget it. Celia rocked my world!

+ the heroine

The heroine still battled the same personal issues from the beginning of the series, such as the issue of being a vampire and, on top of it, a Siren. However, she didn’t let the issues get in the way of her life as she often used to. I really liked how far Celia has come in accepting herself. It was about damn time. Better late than never!

I was amazed by how much she could shine when she got a tight grip on her issues. Celia was focused, prepared, and vigilant. She tempered her bleeding heart with pragmatism; there was no stupidly rushing into danger trying to save people when she’s likely to get killed along with the victims let alone saving anyone. She heeded advice and future visions. Yes! She cooperated and adapted. Double yes! Holy shit! Praise to Cthulhu when an Urban Fantasy protagonist actually listens and makes good choices because that shit does not happen often in Urban Fantasies as much it should. The short version of my accolade: Celia was a badass! WOOT!

The only thing I didn’t like about Celia was how she continued to roll in guilt trip shit, and unlike the guilt trips in previous books this one was definitely needless. For some stupid contrived reason, towards the end of the book readers suddenly learn that Celia has stabs of conscience for using her Siren power to psychically attack bad guys at the end of book 2 in self-defense and to save the world. The fuck? It was in self-defense AND to save the world against bad guys. They were PSYCHOPATHS for fuck’s sake! Why was this brought up all the way from book fucking 2? I was peeved by Celia’s double standard with supernatural attacks and human weapon attacks as if shooting a bad guy to death with a gun is better than psychically attacking a bad guy to indefinite coma. No, Celia. NO. Thankfully, the guilt trip shit was limited to a few pages and didn’t have any impact on the plot. Obviously, I shouldn’t reasonably expect Celia to quit guilt tripping cold turkey.

+ the romance

The other thing I didn’t like, the thing most, if not all, reviewers on Goodreads didn’t like, was the romance. Book 4 left Celia and Creede in a really good place, but in book 5 readers quickly learn they broke up between book 4 and 5 and the romance pendulum swung back to Bruno. Say what? On one hand, I recognize romance are messy and never linear. On the other hand, it’s fiction, it’s book 5, and there’s creative liberty on the table. Take it! How long must the love triangle be dragged out? At this point, I don’t really care who Celia ends up with. Creede, Bruno, or some other random dude. I just want the love triangle to go away. It’s tiresome. Stop it.

On the bright side, the romance was a minor plot line so there was little stupid drama. Unfortunately, the catch was that there was no romantic resolution to be had either. The love triangle crap continues!

+ other things to note

I didn’t care much for the happy ending as I would have liked. I found it abrupt and in great need of an epilogue.

The title is a bad one because the Eldritch thing was not relevant and there was no conspiracy to it. In fact, there was hardly any conspiracy to be had, let alone an Eldritch one. Evil schemes, yes. Conspiracies, no.

The issues with the ending and title are trivial but the thing is these were the same trivial issues I had with book 4... Hmm. I hope these issues will be fixed in book 6.

In Conclusion

I rate The Eldritch Conspiracy 4-stars for I really liked it. I wasn’t troubled by the romance crap as other readers were so it had little effect on my rating, which is why the rating is as high as it is.

Unfortunately, as much I liked this book, I get the feeling it’s a fluke and that the next book will put the series back to its usual angsty, stupid self. Here’s hoping not.

Goodreads | Amazon

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REVIEW: Spook Squad by Jordan Castillo Price

Spook Squad by Jordan Castillo Price
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

CAUTION: spoilers, rant

Man, what a disappointment. I pray to Cthulhu this is not the last book of the Psycop series because it would be a GIANT disappointment. GIANT. “Throwing the book across the room” giant. It took me a few books into the series before I finally liked one enough where I could firmly rate it 3-stars without waffling between 2-stars and 3-stars and get a streak of solid good books running. That fun ride sure ended quickly because book 7 put me back to waffling with the rating. Correction: there wasn’t even waffling so it was worse. Did I mention Spook Squad is book 7? I don’t expect every book of the series to hit the mark, but once you hit book 3 of a long series, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect a minimum of... Well, I don’t know what the right word to use here so I’m going to say “quality” ill-fitted as it is. Maybe “entertainment”? You get the idea.

Things I Didn’t Like

The biggest problem I had with book 7 was the pacing. It was slow as a snail. The speed did not pick up till the last third of the book, and even then, yikes. There was just no hiding the problem that the plot MEANDERED. I knew Victor paying his debt to FPMP with an exorcism wasn’t going to be a simple task, obviously. However, the way the plot tried to make the matter a complicated task was strained and convoluted. I love head games but the head games between Dreyfuss and Vic in book 7 were inane and unbelievably dull.

Now, I wouldn’t have minded the plot much if there were “good” interactions between Victor and Jacob. By good, I mean scenes with relationship development, emotional connections, and maybe a few physical connections to satisfy my smut cravings. Intimacy, essentially. There was barely any intimacy in the book. The mm-romance aspect was halfway to nonexistent much, much to my dismay. There was one romance scene, a pretty lengthy sex scene to boot (woot!), but it was token.

My goodness, Vic and Jacob didn’t even have the talk about why Jacob joined the FPMP. Considering book 6 ended on that plot twist, I would have thought book 7 would begin with the talk. Instead, what I read was Jacob having the talk with Carolyn, his ex-police partner. She appeared in the beginning and disappeared after a couple chapters, never to be seen again for the rest of the book. What the hell? There was no resolution with Carolyn whatsoever and it bugged me.

What bugged me Ten Times More was Vic. Dude fucking regressed a handful steps back to his junkie ways, trying to score pills off of Dreyfuss. Uh, I thought we were fucking past that. Apparently, not. *facedesk* I know drug addiction is a life-long battle, but ugh. This was just... I can’t... Stupid! It’s book fucking 7. S-E-V-E-N. I wanted to smack Vic on the back of his head for not taking Dreyfuss up on his offer to recieve alternative medicine that would come with no string and no cost to Victor except only his time and patience. Aaack. Damn you, Victor. I know, I know. Flawed protagonist and all that shit. But this was some maddening shit.


SPOILERS AHEAD.


Lisa and Dreyfuss dating, WHAT THE FUCK? Then at the end they got engaged? What?!!! Contrived doesn’t even begin to describe this shit. What the hell was Lisa thinking? Oh right, she wasn’t thinking. Woman was camping out in Vic and Jacob’s living room in a fucking tent like some hobo, I kid you not. Suffice to say, I was very disappointed in Victor and Jacob for not doing enough by Lisa. Not to say they didn’t try to help Lisa (they did), but they could have done way more in my opinion. Woman needed a fucking intervention!

Runner up on the list of issues I had with Vic, second place to his junkie ways, was his gross insensitivity towards Richie. I was astounded and irritated how Victor did not know Richie had a developmental disability till now in book 7. How oblivious can he be? And this a fucking detective character and a character who have known Richie since teenage-hood back in their Camp Hell years, my goodness. All this time Vic just thought Richie had a horrible odd personality? *facedesk* Casual ableism: NO.

Speaking about Richie, what was up with him quitting FPMP at the end of the book? The portrayal of FPMP led me to believe no one could actually quit, especially psychics because the agency needs all the psychics they could get, especially those like Richie who have some exorcist capabilities even if it’s mostly just BS. Beside, how would Richie support himself? Because it was not as if he could do anything else. Why am I the only one who seem to give an actual fuck about Richie? FFS.

To replace Richie, Vic joined the FPMP after so much hate for the agency. *raise hands* I give up.

Things I Did Like

I did like how there was little of Crash in book 7. I loathe the character.

I liked Dreyfuss’s character development. Nice to see dude wasn’t all that bad and that the FPMP wasn’t this evil secret government agency who disappeared people as I was half-led to believe. Not say they don’t do such things, but it’s never a matter of black and white.

In Conclusion

I rate Spook Squad 2-stars for it was okay. Book 7 is undoubtedly one of the worst books in the PsyCop series. Despite the rantiness of my review, I was mostly bored with the book, believe it or not. Each issue I had with the book by itself wasn’t bad enough to make me mad. At the very most, I was irritated. However, when put together to write my review, that’s when I got mad.

The short version of it: book 7 was boring and bullshitty.

*Buddy-read with Dlee.

Goodreads | Amazon

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REVIEW: Vortex by S.J. Kincaid

Vortex by S.J. Kincaid
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I thought after the events of book 1 Tom would learn his lessons and be cautious and prudent in book 2. Nope. *anger eye-twitch* He acted the same as before. No character growth. No lessons learned. Dude was fucking TSTL.

*flips table*

Rambling rant ahead.

+ the main character

Tom pissed off every influential and powerful person he came across. He pissed off people he needed help from, people he couldn’t afford as enemies, people who could make his life very hard for him or put an end to his life altogether. They were bad people so I understood the reasons for his flippant attitude but that was no excuse to go and shake the fucking beehive.

Tom wanted to become an Intrasolar Combatant and fight epic battles among the stars, yet every single action of his showed otherwise. Dude was unbelievably self-destructive. I would admire his courage to stand up to the bad guys and fight for his ideals and not take the dirty path to attain his dream if he wasn’t such a filthy hypocrite. I was frustrated at how Tom never considered what it really meant to be a Combatant or realized the great depth of his hypocrisy if by some godforsaken miracle he does become one. To become a Combatant meant to become a pawn of the bad guys and perpetuate the corruption, oppression, and everything that is wrong with society and the world.

For someone who helped his father swindle, no matter if their targets were bad guys, Tom had little right criticizing others for swindling themselves. Yes, those people were evil capitalists, but that just meant they were swindlers of a much higher level. The point is that Tom was no paragon of righteousness yet he acted as if he was much to my irritation. Hypocrite!

Tom knew how things worked in the dystopian world yet he bumbled along through life like he didn’t. He thought he could just head-butt his way towards his goals. He was so astoundingly bull-headed that he took the phrase “dumb as bricks” to several new levels.

Tom failed to practice vital discretion with his technopathy because if people found out about his very rare ability he would get a one-way ticket to the laboratory. He never once thought to train his ability and use it to survive and get the upper hand. For instance, if he thought to use his technopathy for espionage, many bad things could have been easily avoided. So fucking easily.

Tom acted with no consideration of the consequences whatsoever, impulsive as fuck. He ignored countless pieces of advice and warnings, common sense be damned. He was so insufferably TSTL that when one of the bad guys made good on his death threat I felt no pity. I actually felt a little joy that it happened, a little disappointed that it didn’t happen sooner, and a bit surprised and befuddled that it didn’t happen more often considering the growing number of enemies Tom made as the plot progressed.

In summary, the main character was TSTL on so many levels, levels that I have not even begun to scratch the surface of, that hardly a chapter went by where I didn’t think he was an absolute waste of space. A discussion of Tom’s personality flaws and dumbass decisions could fill up a book on its own.

+ issues with other characters

I also took issue with other characters. Of course, they were nowhere near problematic as Tom.

Elliot was one of the cyborgs and Intrasolar Combatants, and I didn’t like how he was used as a prop character. He had no purpose other than showing up very conveniently to show Tom the errors of his ways and simultaneously show the readers how dystopian and shitty the world was. Just when I thought things couldn’t get more contrived with Elliot, it did. Elliot underwent a sudden change of personality for a dramatic scene towards the end. The scene was supposed to be this gleam of light in the dark, designed to bring a sense of hope to the story so the readers would believe things could change for the better. However, all I could think of was that Elliot got infected with Tom’s TSTL-ness. Holy hell, Tom’s TSTL-ness was contagious!

Heather was another cyborg and a Combatant like Elliot, and I didn’t like how she was portrayed negatively. Heather was self-interested, self-empowered, and a sexual character, and for these qualities she was inflicted with a Madonna-whore narrative complex. As one of the prominent female characters with Wyatt and Medusa, Heather was the one with the sex appeal and sexual interests, and she alone was made out to be a bitch. Nice.

Blackburn was one of the bad guys, a mad scientist trope. I found it very odd how things between him and Tom were, for the most part, drama-less. I expected the two to duke it out after what happened in book 1. Instead, I saw Blackburn helping out Tom a few times. The fuck? It was just very inconsistent how Blackburn’s character was established from the ending scenes of book 1 where his true self was finally revealed. Vengeful. Paranoid. Has a loose screw. The guy should be trying to get Tom on a lab table to be prodded, poked, and vivisected.

Last but not least, I wish there was more nuances to the evil capitalist bad guys. Not that these characters weren’t believable, but at their very core they all seemed to blend together and the traits that make them different seemed superficial.

+ characters I liked

About the only characters I liked were Wyatt and General Marsh. I liked Wyatt because among Tom’s cyborg peers she seemed to be the only one who had any sense and who took things seriously. She was one of the few characters who would be the least likely to make a stupid mistake and get killed. Quite pitiful the cast.

I liked General Marsh because he was a dimensional character. I saw him as a good guy despite the bad things he did. I didn’t like what he did but I understood his reasons. He fully understood the dystopian world and the necessity for change, and he didn’t hesitate to get his hands dirty. Whether readers like him or hate him, at least someone was doing something to change the world, something that was actually productive. I wished the book featured more of General Marsh. His appearances were very few for someone who was an important character.

In Conclusion

I rate Vortex 2-stars for it was okay. Despite the aggravation that was Tom, the book was engaging. I liked the science fiction elements and the world building.

If you like this series, check out Psion Beta and Data Runner.

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REVIEW: The Bell Tower of St. Barnabas by Alice Keats

The Bell Tower of St. Barnabas by Alice Keats
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The book cover and description made the novella look like a typical Boys Love manga, and it really did read like one. The usual tropes were there: a school setting, an unrequited love, and at least one of the boys was handsome and had great appeal to the opposite sex, generating groupies and predictable jealousy issues. The only thing missing was the obligatory consummation scene at the end, which was a disappointment. Oh well. It didn’t affect my rating negatively.

What could have affected my rating negatively was the angst. As a hater of angst, I appreciated how the brisk pacing and viewpoint shifting kept the angst to a minimum. I liked how Caleb’s viewpoint was the dominant one but not the exclusive viewpoint. Thus, I didn’t have to deal with Caleb’s brooding for any minute longer before the desire to skim started to arise.

I really liked how both boys were friends from the start because it made the boys’ feeling very believable. There was no blemish of instant love. Caleb’s obliviousness and Gabriel’s longing feelings could have easily come off as annoying but didn’t. I liked how it didn’t take too long for them to get together, and even though a lack of communication remained I liked how they made efforts to overcome it. Caleb and Gabriel were adorable.

Also adorable were the boys’ two friends who sat with them at lunch. Jinx and Elliot were a gay couple, and they could have rivaled Caleb and Gabriel for the reader’s attention. Yet, they nicely shared the spotlight and never took it away from the book’s main couple. I loved how for all four boys the issue of being gay was largely a non-issue and that the focus was on the boys’ feelings for their lover.

I was also fond of Emmeline. She was decked in pink and sparkle and had a stubborn and airheaded demeanor like a fairy cliche. What stopped her from being a nuisance was her genuine efforts to grant the wishes of true love. Emmeline was actually quite droll.

One character that did have me concerned was the evil female cliche. In this novella, the cliche took the form of a schoolmate who did not want the boys to be together because she had a crush on one of them and wanted that boy for herself. Thankfully, at the end she turned out to be a nice girl and things resolved amicably. I did wish, however, that the conflict with her had been resolved sooner. It lasted too long for my liking.

In Conclusion

I rate The Bell Tower of St. Barnabas 3-stars for I liked it. In addition to reading like a typical Boys Love manga, the novella also read like a contemporary fairy tale. Small magic brought the two boys together but it was true love that bonded them. It was that kind of fairy tale. I liked the nice balance between angst and sweetness. The writing was kind of cheesy but jovially so. The novella was a safely enjoyable mm-romance.

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REVIEW: Sidekicked by John David Anderson

Sidekicked by John David Anderson
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Superhero fictions tend to fall into two camps: campy and meta. This Middle Grade fiction fell into camp meta, and it fell flat on its bottom with a splat. Ouch.

+ the main character

I struggled to like the main character because Drew was quite nettlesome. I was aware that because he was only 13 years old I should cut him some slack, and I did. I cut him lots of slack, despite the jabbing fact that the people in charge thought he was mature enough to handle and keep chemical weapons and to go out on the street and fight bad guys. What was I saying, again? Oh yes, I cut Drew lots of slack. Still and all, by the middle of the book, I had to wave the white flag. He had shown not an inch of character growth. Not a fucking inch.

Drew was one of those brats who lives a good life but thinks they don’t. What we had in first person narration was complaints about how unhelpful his superpower was, how his superhero partner sucked, how much he disliked Gavin, and how much he liked Jenna and wished she would reciprocate and stop spending time with Gavin. Rinse and repeat. I understood his complaints for the most part were meant to be humorous in a sardonic manner but none of it amused me.

I felt bad for Gavin for how Drew treated him, and I was already feeling bad for Gavin for being typecast as a slow witted jock. Drew’s fellow sidekick did nothing to him to earn his enmity except for being everything Drew wanted to be: tall, handsome, muscular, popular, and having a superpower that is “combat compliant.” Drew’s jealousy was a pain in the neck. I hated how none of the characters called Drew out for the crap.

What was worse was that accompanying his jealousy with Gavin was his possessiveness with Jenna. She was his best friend yet Drew treated her more as a go-to emotional comfort blanket than as a friend. She was there for him many times but the few times when she needed him he doesn’t deliver. To my horror, Drew worked that “Nice Guy” attitude where if a guy is a nice to a girl for a certain period of time she must reward his niceness by being his girlfriend. No. Just no. 13 years old and already his feet were on the road to dick-hood.

In addition to Drew sucking as a decent person, he also sucked as a sidekick. His super senses could be extremely useful in crime-fighting, investigation and espionage for example, if only he would realize it and quit shallowly seeing superhero-ing as all about the epic battles. He never really did much to my exasperation. I struggled to understand why Drew continued to stay in H.E.R.O. when many times it seemed like his heart wasn’t in it. Now, to be fair, I also blamed the program and Mr. Masters, the person in charge, for not doing right by him. Ugh, so much incompetence.

Anyway, I had difficulty believing how Drew managed to survive with so few injuries when things could have easily taken a turn for the tragic. He had incredible luck let me tell you. Now, Drew did make smart decisions, but they were very few and far between, and that’s why I took issue. The kid was very smart, but just like his superpower, he never made full use of his brain as often as he should have. He had so much potential but displayed very little of it.

+ the plot

For most of the book, Drew was a passive participant, which made for a dull read. Not that Drew didn’t do anything, it was just that he could have done more, and he could have done it with a lot less whining. The plot didn’t hit the ground running till halfway through, and even then it wasn’t running fast. Action scenes were scant and fleeting. I could forgive all these things if the book brought any worthwhile commentary about the superhero theme. It brought shit.

Well, things weren’t all bad. The best part of the book were the twists towards the end. They completely surprised me. Unfortunately, they also put in a crimp in the portrayal of strong female characters, and the book was already dripping in machoism. It was depressing that even the good things came with some problems of their own.

Rubbing salt into the wound was the lackluster ending. I think I saw half of an inch of character growth from Drew at the end. Talk about pitiful. The other characters were equally disappointing as well, especially Titan. When the story revealed what happened in the past that put him into depression, it turned out to be something stupid and cliche. Oh, boo hoo cry me a fucking river. I wanted to bitchslap the dude... and maybe also tie him to a rocket and launch it to the sun. Man, what a group of shitty characters.

In Conclusion

I rate Sidekicked 2-stars for it was okay. The book was engaging but it failed to meaningfully explore the superhero theme and, more importantly, it failed to entertain me. If you plan on picking it up, I recommend borrowing over buying. Or better yet, try The Cloak Society, a better Middle Grade superhero fiction.

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REVIEW: Surrender by Lee Nichols

Surrender by Lee Nichols
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Book 3 concludes the Haunting Emma series, and what a boring series it was. Truthfully, it shouldn’t have been a series at all. The story had some good things but they were very diluted by scenes that often went nowhere and conflicts that were extended way, way beyond their shelf life.

The beginning of book 3 was slow, so slow that it should have been condensed to a few chapters and started towards the middle of the book. The middle was better but useless chapters still plagued it. Consequently, I skimmed because my patience was gone. I couldn’t be bothered to wait any second longer for the characters to finally deal with Neos.

+ the characters

You would think massive time and energy would be spent in preparation for the fight against the ultimate villain of the series, but no. The characters were winging things. I was shocked and angered by how the characters failed to make defeating Neos their fucking priority. Really? A psychopath from the fucking grave was on the loose and boy troubles were their main concern? REALLY?!

The one character who showed any commitment and serious preparation to defeat Neos was Bennett, which was good... if only he wasn’t using a highly-addictive, highly-hazardous power-boosting drug to do it. *facepalm* Boy was more likely to drop dead before he could do anything.

I was vexed at how Emma ignored and enabled Bennett’s drug habit. She spent more time thinking about how she could get some decent alone time to make out with her boyfriend than she did about the fact that her boyfriend was a junkie and she should help him. I was already struggling with the fact that she picked the “bad boy” over the good boy, Simon. It was not until in the middle of the book did she finally recognize Bennett’s drug problem, but to make matters worse, she helped shit and they broke up. Stupid teenagers.

You ask where are the parents? Well, Bennett’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Stern, kicked Bennett out of the house in the beginning of the book and were useless as could be. They were only there to look after the kids, which they did a horrible job of. Emma’s parents, while they finally came back and stayed with Emma, were almost as terrible parents as the Stern’s were. They did little parenting, and none of it showed me that the characters truly took the issues seriously. We finally get some needed parental presence in the story and it turned out to be flaccid. Four parents, all of them fucking useless!

So I put my final hope with Max, Emma’s older brother. I had hoped when he came back in the middle of the book he would finally bring Emma to proper sense and purpose but, alas, no. I foolishly thought optimistically.

+ the ending

After several listless chapters and characters, Neos finally showed up at the end. I was disappointed how it was the only the time in book 3 he showed up, how his appearance barely lasted for a few scenes, and how utterly weak his presence was compared to the previous books. It was the final showdown yet the ultimate villain got treated like an uber tired loose end.

I hurt my eyes from rolling so much from how it all depended on Emma, the special snowflake, to defeat Neos. If this book had any sense of realism, the silly girl would have been dead in the beginning... of the series.

The only solace I found with the ending was that everyone fought and survived and that the romance between Emma and Bennett, despite a few deus ex machina, resolved satisfactory. I may have been frustrated with the characters but not so much that I wanted any of them to suffer tragic fates, which is the greatest compliment I can give to them. Seriously with sincerity. I even got a little sad for the few characters who died in the previous books.

In Conclusion

I rate Surrender 2-stars for it was okay. If you plan to pick up this boring cliché trilogy, read the books back to back. This is a series where it’s hard to remain invested and remember things if you don’t. I only recommend picking up this series if your library has nothing better at the moment for you to read.

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