Review: Heroine Complex by Sarah Kuhn

Heroine Complex by Sarah Kuhn

Published: DAW Books (2016)

Series: Book 1 of the Heroine Complex Trilogy

The Book:

“Being a superheroine is hard. Working for one is even harder. Evie Tanaka is the put-upon personal assistant to Aveda Jupiter, her childhood best friend and San Francisco's most beloved superheroine. She's great at her job--blending into the background, handling her boss's epic diva tantrums, and getting demon blood out of leather pants.Unfortunately, she's not nearly as together when it comes to running her own life, standing up for herself, or raising her tempestuous teenage sister, Bea.

But everything changes when Evie's forced to pose as her glamorous boss for one night, and her darkest secret comes out: she has powers, too. Now it's up to her to contend with murderous cupcakes, nosy gossip bloggers, and supernatural karaoke battles--all while juggling unexpected romance and Aveda's increasingly outrageous demands. And when a larger threat emerges, Evie must finally take charge and become a superheroine in her own right... or see her city fall to a full-on demonic invasion.” ~WWEnd.com

I read this one because the author was nominated for the JWC Best New Author award.  It’s not exactly like the sort of books I usually gravitate toward, but I enjoy branching out sometimes! I should also mention that this book was provided to me by Net Galley for consideration for the Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 2018. I did read it for that purpose, though my review is considerably delayed.

My Thoughts:

Heroine Complex is a quirky, cartoonish superheroine story, which makes it a good read when you’re up for something light and fun.  The story follows two Asian American women, Evie Tanaka and Annie Chang (a.k.a. Aveda Jupiter), who live in a San Francisco where opening demonic portals have granted some people supernatural powers.  The story is fast-paced and easy to read, and Evie’s narration is pleasant and often funny. The style feels a little like a comic book, in the sense that everything is over-the-top. Descriptions tend to be kind of kitschy, and each character is an extreme version of their particular type. This makes the world feel very colorful and energetic, though it also adds some silliness into high stakes situations. 

While I enjoyed reading the story, I sometimes had difficulty believing in the relationships between the characters.  For instance, Aveda Jupiter and Evie are childhood friends, but I initially didn’t pick up on a friendship between them at all. Another key relationship in the story, Evie’s romance subplot, seems to happen really quickly.  A lot of the emotional development for both relationships take place in passionate, confessional conversations. Occasionally, I would have liked to see a little more change through actions rather than dialogue. Despite this, I still enjoyed seeing this story through Evie’s eyes, and I’m happy with how the conclusion ties up the various character arcs, as well as the main plot with the threat to San Francisco.  The story continues in Heroine Worship and Heroine’s Journey, the second and third books of the trilogy. 

My Rating: 3/5

Heroine Complex is a light, fun Asian American superheroine story, set in a San Francisco threatened by demons traveling through unpredictable portals.  The conversational and quirkily humorous narration by Evie Tanaka makes the story smoothly readable, and through her description the world feels vibrant and comic-book-like.  On the other hand, I felt like the character development relied a bit too much on emotional conversations as turning points, and I sometimes didn’t really buy the relationships.  In any case, it was an entertaining book, and I would recommend it to others looking for stories in this vein. 

Review: Four Roads Cross by Max Gladstone

Four Roads Cross by Max Gladstone

Published: Tor, 2016

Series: Book 5 of the Craft Sequence

The Book:

“After helping to save Kos Everburning, Tara has remained in the town of Alt Coulomb as a Craftswoman advisor to the church.  Soon, she finds herself in the center of a new crisis. Kos’s love, the moon goddess Seril, was thought to have been killed in the God Wars.  However, Seril Undying has returned, as have her gargoyle children.

The people of Alt Coulomb know Seril only as a scary story to frighten children, so they are not going to easily welcome her return with open hearts.  Her lack of followers makes Seril weak, and Kos’s love for her makes her a liability. Those who do business with Kos point to her as an undisclosed financial risk, and some are using her in a legal battle to overturn Kos’s power. Tara and her friends will need to find a way to protect Seril, Kos and the city from disaster.”~Allie

This is the fifth book in the Craft Sequence that I’ve read, and I intend to keep reading them.  I just recently bought book six, A Ruin of Angels, and Gladstone has shown no sign of leaving the series anytime soon.   

My Thoughts:

On Gladstone’s website, I’ve read that this book is intended to be a finale novel for the “first season” of the Craft Sequence.  It is also the first book of the series that I would call a strict sequel, and it ties together the stories and characters of most of the other Craft books so far. Because of this, I’d recommend that readers check out the other books (at least Three Parts Dead, and ideally also Last First Snow and Two Serpents Rise) before digging into this one.  The story follows up the events in Alt Coulomb of Three Parts Dead, and characters and places from the other two novels also make an appearance.  Full Fathom Five, though, happens chronologically after Four Roads Cross, and thus can be read afterward.  Four Roads Cross doesn’t do a lot of hand-holding with respect to remembering what has come before.  If you’re like me, and it’s been years since you read the first book of the series, it might help to give yourself a quick refresher before starting.

With so many recurring and even some new characters, Four Roads Cross is bursting with different subplots, all going on in parallel.  I read the book slowly, occasionally interrupted by life-related stuff, so it sometimes got hard juggling so many characters and narrative threads. I think it would have flowed better if I’d read the novel at a quicker pace. It may have also made it more difficult that the various subplots were so different in tone.  There was a quiet, domestic story about faith and family, a cop thriller, a crisis of faith in church hierarchy, a quest, and more. All of the plotlines were focused on the same crisis and shared some thematic similarities, but I felt like they never fully merged. However, I enjoyed the commonalities in the stories, such as the exploration of the role religious faith plays in the lives of different kinds of people.

Gladstone’s world is as vibrant and quirky as ever, and his incisive and often hilarious writing style keeps things moving along at a brisk pace.  In some ways, his style is similar to Terry Pratchett, in that humor and references to the fantastical sit comfortably alongside more serious observations about human nature.  For instance, here are the thoughts of the protagonist Tara, addressing the rejection one can find returning one’s hometown with new and unpopular ideas:

“A year ago she stood in a graveyard beneath a starry sky, and the people of her hometown approached her with pitchforks and knives and torches and murder in their mind, all because she’d tried to show them the world was bigger than they thought.  

Admittedly, there might have been a way to show them that didn’t involve zombies.” ~p. 25

 

Tara is one of my favorite characters in the series, for her intelligence and resourcefulness, as well as for the fallibility of her judgment (as evidenced by the zombie incident).  Her story is also very post-grad, dealing with student loans, the fallout from having a predatory academic advisor, and having to choose between pursuing academia or industry-- or in this case, church advising or craft firms.  As someone not too long out of grad-school myself, it is very easy to sympathize with her and her problems. Though I’m focusing on Tara here, plenty of other fascinating characters return in this novel, such as the former-addict Cat, the vampire pirate Raz, the gargoyles, and the skeletal Craftsman The King in Red, among others.  On the more ordinary side, we also get a peek into the lives of a handful of people who sell at the local market. All of these characters have an important role to play in the crisis coming to Alt Coulomb, and it was a lot of fun to see how each story came to a conclusion.

My Rating: 4/5

Four Roads Cross is a direct sequel to Three Parts Dead, and it also incorporates characters and places from the other books of the series.  The novel concerns the return of the goddess Seril, Kos’s love, and the crisis that her current weakness may bring about for the city of Alt Coulomb.  It features a lot of familiar characters (Tara, Cat, Raz, Abelard, Caleb, etc…) as well as some new faces. Different sets of characters are involved in a variety of plotlines, each of which feels different in tone, though they all address the same crisis.  There’s a ton going on in this novel, and plenty of characters to keep straight. It’s worth the effort, though, and I enjoyed the time I have spent in Gladstone’s unusual world of economics, faith, and magic. Overall, it felt like a fitting finale for the story that began in Three Parts Dead, and I am happy to know that it isn’t going to be the final novel of the Craft Sequence.

Review: Borderline by Mishell Baker

Borderline by Mishell Baker

Published: Saga Press, 2016

Series: Book 1 of the Arcadia Project

Awards Nominated: Nebula, Tiptree, and World Fantasy Awards

The Book:

“A year ago, Millie lost her legs and her filmmaking career in a failed suicide attempt. Just when she's sure the credits have rolled on her life story, she gets a second chance with the Arcadia Project: a secret organization that polices the traffic to and from a parallel reality filled with creatures straight out of myth and fairy tales.

For her first assignment, Millie is tasked with tracking down a missing movie star who also happens to be a nobleman of the Seelie Court. To find him, she'll have to smooth-talk Hollywood power players and uncover the surreal and sometimes terrifying truth behind the glamour of Tinseltown. But stronger forces than just her inner demons are sabotaging her progress, and if she fails to unravel the conspiracy behind the noble's disappearance, not only will she be out on the streets, but the shattering of a centuries-old peace could spark an all-out war between worlds.” ~WWEnd.com

This is the first book I’ve read by Mishell Baker, and I actually got this copy at the Michigan ConFusion Convention, where I even got to see her in some panels!  She seems like an interesting person.

My Thoughts:

In broad strokes, Borderline hits a lot of tropes I associate with the fairy-based urban fantasies, but there are also some things that cause it to stand apart.  The general premise seems quite familiar, following a young human heroine who sparks the interest of the fey, and who is recruited by a secret organization to work sort of like a detective.  The heroine, Millie, breaks the usual mold, though.  Rather than being especially appealing to the fey, the metal in her body has made her an embodiment of their childhood boogeyman.  Millie suffers from borderline personality disorder, and her failed suicide attempt has destroyed her career as a director and left her with two leg prostheses. I thought that her voice seemed very human (disclaimer: I have no experience with BPD or leg prostheses), and I appreciated her frankness about the difficulties her injuries and mental illness cause in her daily life. I think that seeing the world from her perspective--and seeing her awareness of how BPD affects her responses--makes it easy to empathize with her.    

Despite the presence of magic, a parallel world, and fairies, this is not the kind of story where anything can be wished better.  Choices have real, and sometimes permanent, consequences, and there’s no guarantee that everything will work out in the end. Millie, her colleagues at the Arcadia Project, and the even the showfolk and fairies all have flaws or weaknesses that can be exploited. Luckily, the people at the Arcadia Project are also quite competent, and Millie is a highly intelligent protagonist.  This combination makes for an unpredictable and tense story. I genuinely didn’t know whether Millie would solve the case successfully, and whether or not everyone would make it through alive.  In case it is not clear, I loved that about the book, and I loved that the decisions the characters made carried real weight.

Millie starts with what should be a routine assignment, but which turns into a progressively more complicated and dangerous case.  It was a satisfyingly twisty mystery, and I enjoyed watching from behind Millie’s eyes as she worked to unravel the many threads. The supernatural parts of the world were revealed and explained fairly slowly, and I think there’s still plenty to learn about how things work in the sequels.  This first novel does tell a complete story, but it’s also clear that this is the start of a series. While novel establishes the premise of the Arcadia Project and its work with respect to the local fairies, I get the sense that this series is going to be more serial than episodic. Thus, it’s probably a series that should be read in order.  I think I’ll probably continue with this story, and see what’s next in store for Millie.  

 

My Rating: 4.5 / 5

Borderline is the highly entertaining first novel of an urban fantasy series, which features fairies from a parallel world and the realities of Hollywood in this one.  The main character, Millie, is a talented and driven young woman with a fascinating personality, who is recruited by a secret organization that manages relations between the parallel world and ours.  She begins the novel in a pretty dark place, and soon throws herself into a dangerous case that becomes increasingly complex.  The story was pretty suspenseful, and I liked that the characters were allowed to fail in meaningful ways.  The next book in the series, Phantom Pains, is already out, and I’m planning to get to it at some point!

Review: Last First Snow by Max Gladstone

Last First Snow by Max Gladstone

Published: Tor, 2015

Series: Book 4 of the Craft Sequence

The Book:

“Forty years after the God Wars, Dresediel Lex bears the scars of liberation-especially in the Skittersill, a poor district still bound by the fallen gods' decaying edicts. As long as the gods' wards last, they strangle development; when they fail, demons will be loosed upon the city. The King in Red hires Elayne Kevarian of the Craft firm Kelethres, Albrecht, and Ao to fix the wards, but the Skittersill's people have their own ideas. A protest rises against Elayne's work, led by Temoc, a warrior-priest turned community organizer who wants to build a peaceful future for his city, his wife, and his young son.

As Elayne drags Temoc and the King in Red to the bargaining table, old wounds reopen, old gods stir in their graves, civil blood breaks to new mutiny, and profiteers circle in the desert sky. Elayne and Temoc must fight conspiracy, dark magic, and their own demons to save the peace-or failing that, to save as many people as they can.” ~WWEnd.com

I am still loving Gladstone’s Craft Sequence!  I read this one as a part of a read-along, and you can see our spoiler-filled discussions here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.  I feel like the books and events in this series are now sufficiently interconnected that--even though each book has its own standalone story--you really need to have read the previous books in the series to best appreciate this one.

My Thoughts:

I was very eager to get to Last First Snow, because I had heard that it was a prequel involving the life of Elayne Kevarian, a recurring character from the previous books in the series.  I loved Elayne in Three Parts Dead, was excited to see her again briefly in Full Fathom Five, and was thrilled that she would be a viewpoint character this time around.  Her perspective of the world does not disappoint; she is the same intensely driven, intelligent, and powerful woman she is in the previous novels, and the insight into her emotions and reasoning only makes her more fascinating.  The other viewpoint character is actually someone I found very unsympathetic in his previous appearance, Temoc from Two Serpents Rise. I was surprised that he was such a compelling character-- a dedicated father, husband, and Eagle Knight who was struggling to reconcile his obligations to his faith and his people with those to his family.   I definitely didn’t agree with many of his choices, but I could see the pressures made him into the man he is in Two Serpents Rise.  

I think prequels are challenging stories to write, since the audience knows the direction everything has to go. In this case, while I knew the broad strokes of how the situation would end, the journey there was surprisingly tense.  I think my rough knowledge of what must eventually happen between Temoc, his gods, and his son added an extra layer of dread to my perception of events.  Even when things seem to be going well, I was always waiting for everything to fall apart.  The details of the central conflict, also, kept the tension high.  I might know roughly where Temoc and Elayne would end up, but I had no idea what would happen to any of the minor characters on either (or neither) side.  Each of these minor characters had their own motivations, even if they sought similar goals, which made the tangled knot of disagreements between the protestors and the developers that much more complicated.

Though the world may be full of Craft and supernatural religious power, the main conflict involves the very real-world problem of gentrification.  The developers want to improve the Skittersill, but their plans would destroy the existing community.  It was interesting to see both sides lay out their arguments during negotiations, and to see if there might be a way forward that addresses the concerns of both parties.  Of course, as in real life, the gradient of power did not only fall along economic lines.  The developers were largely secular Craftspeople, while the protesters mostly held to a religion that had fallen out of power in the Wars. The negotiations not only had to solve the immediate problems, but to avoid re-opening old, not-truly-healed wounds.  I don’t want to spoil the end of the book, but I think anyone who has read Two Serpents Rise will already know that something is bound to go violently wrong. I will say that the ending was powerful and heart-breaking, and--despite being a prequel--it held several unexpected surprises.  In my opinion, this is the strongest yet of the Craft Sequence novels.  

My Rating: 5 /5

Last First Snow is the fourth novel in the Craft Sequence.  It is a prequel that takes place in Dresediel Lex, featuring Elayne Kevarian and Temoc, in the years when Caleb from Two Serpents Rise is still a child.  Elayne and Temoc are both fascinating, conflicted characters, and they are accompanied by a cast of minor characters whose differing baggage and motivations impact the direction of the story.  The central conflict involves a protest against the proposed gentrification of the Skittersill, but this immediate issue also threatens to re-ignite violence in the city along ideological lines.  I thought this was a very powerful and tragic story, and it is my favorite novel of the Craft Sequence to date.

Review: Full Fathom Five by Max Gladstone

Full Fathom Five by Max Gladstone

Published: Tor, 2014

Series: Book 3 of the Craft Sequence

The Book:

“On the island of Kavekana, Kai builds gods to order, then hands them to others to maintain. Her creations aren't conscious and lack their own wills and voices, but they accept sacrifices, and protect their worshippers from other gods—perfect vehicles for Craftsmen and Craftswomen operating in the divinely controlled Old World.

When Kai sees one of her creations dying and tries to save her, she's grievously injured—then sidelined from the business entirely, her near-suicidal rescue attempt offered up as proof of her instability. But when Kai gets tired of hearing her boss, her coworkers, and her ex-boyfriend call her crazy, and starts digging into the reasons her creations die, she uncovers a conspiracy of silence and fear—which will crush her, if Kai can't stop it first.” ~WWEnd.com

I’ve been enjoying Gladstone’s work, and I’ve now finished reading all of his currently-published Craft novels (the review of Last First Snow is coming soon).  I read this one as a part of a community read-along, and the spoiler-laden discussions can be found here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.  As a side note, I read this book several months after I went to my first ever Caribbean island to visit a friend, and there were a good few setting details that really reminded me of St. Kitts!

My Thoughts:

The Craft Sequence is a series of standalone books set in the same universe, but I feel like it’s getting to the point with Full Fathom Five that the books are significantly interconnected.  While the main characters and plot can be enjoyed separately from the rest of the series, events and characters from the previous two novels also play a role.  I think that I would now recommend reading Three Parts Dead and Two Serpents Rise first, in order to fully appreciate Full Fathom Five. The series has generally dealt with the interplay between different kinds of Faith and Craft in society, and this novel adds in the idea of idols--mindless economic constructs that are maintained by a priesthood that goes through the motions of worship.  It was interesting to see how this kind of business would affect a society that had historically been religious, and how it could fit into the larger web of power in this world.

The Craft novels also typically feature a creative new culture and society, and Kavekana is probably my favorite thus far.  It is a religious community that has turned to mindless idols in their gods’ absence, in order to maintain their economic and political independence.  Just as the idols are only shadows of their former deities, other things have become warped from their original purpose as well.  For instance, the horrifying stone figures that encase, torture, and brainwash petty criminals might have served a gentler purpose of instruction in better days.  It felt like Kavekana was in a precarious equilibrium, at the point of having lost its old mythology without yet developing something new and meaningful to take its place.  Change is inevitable, though not always good, and I was very curious to see how the mystery at the heart of the novel would change Kavekana.

Kavekana may being going through an overall transition, but how this will affect the people who live there varies based on what level of Kavekana society they inhabit. The island is a different place for the people who work with foreign businesses, the poets and regulars of the casual beach bars, and the refugees and other street children who are just trying to keep enough soul to live. Primarily through the eyes of Kai, an idol priest, and Izza, an orphan of the Wars, we see how different these two views of Kavekana are, and how little they overlap. Kai is very good at her job, and her intelligence and resources put her in place to uncover the conspiracy, but Izza is the one who stole the story for me. I was impressed by her resourcefulness, faith and compassion, even after she had suffered so much already in her short life. She knew very well how bad things could get for her in Kavekana, but still felt obligated to minister to the other children. Their stories do eventually merge, and I enjoyed how well everything tied together in the end.  I hope Izza and Kai show up again in future novels!

My Rating: 4 /5

Full Fathom Five is the third novel in the Craft Sequence, and the first one that I would suggest having read the previous novels first.  It has a standalone story and all is explained as needed, but events and characters from the previous two novels come into play.  The island of Kavekana, which had lost its gods and now marketed idols, felt like a living and changing place, and I was eager to unravel its secrets.  The main characters, Kai and Izza, showed very different views of their society--from the privileged to the homeless.  I appreciated Kai’s determination and intelligence, and was drawn in by Izza’s faith, pain, and internal struggle between self-preservation and caring for others.  This was another excellent installment in the Craft Sequence, and I hope Gladstone writes many more!

Read-Along: Last First Snow by Max Gladstone, END

This week wraps up the read-along of Max Gladstone’s Last First Snow, and I have provided the questions for the final section, chapters 54 through the end.  Beware below of spoilers through the end of the novel! 

1. Everything came to a head in this chapter, and Elayne chose her tricky path for protecting the Skittersill. Do you think there is more she could have done, or do you think she chose the right path?

I think it is natural for her to feel she could have done more, but I really think she did all she could. She knew her own limits, and knew that she could not openly defy the Red King in his own city and hope to win. She twisted a lot of promises, including her words to the Red King and the insurance contract, in order to protect as much and as many people as possible. After seeing the dead in the square, I think she felt like she had fallen into the same mistake as the developers in the negotiations— she had protected the real estate of the Skittersill, but allowed its community to burn.  She must have protected quite a few people outside the square, though, who would have otherwise been killed or rendered homeless.

Elayne Kevarian has always been one of my favorite characters in the Craft Sequence, and this story has only made me respect her more.  Rather than allying herself blindly with Craft or Faith, she is determined to help make the world a better place for human beings to live. When the Red King decided to commit mass murder, her decision to follow her convictions and oppose him seemed true to her character and her history.  I wish there were more consequences for the Red King’s actions, but he has at least lost Elayne’s friendship.   

2. Now we see more of the Quechal gods, and the way they think of their believers. What do you think of Temoc's chosen path? Also, what do you think of the Quechal faith after this betrayal?

I should have guessed this would happen, but I didn’t really think about it until Temoc was mysteriously unable to protect his believers.  It makes a brutal sort of sense.  Temoc wanted his gods to protect the believers, but the gods wanted to use the believers' deaths to protect themselves.  I can’t imagine how sick Temoc must have felt after that betrayal, and I wonder if he regretted his choices.  He is a dedicated Eagle Knight, though, and he had already figuratively sacrificed his family for his beliefs.  Maybe he feels that he has gone too far down the path to ever be able to back out.

I feel like the Craft Sequence usually shows the pros and cons of the ways of Faith and Craft, and does not usually come down heavily on one side or the other.  However, I feel like the Quechal faith serves as a pretty clear example of why the Wars happened in this universe.  I can’t imagine why people followed the Quechal gods in Dresediel Lex in the first place, and it boggles my mind that people would continue to do so after Chakal Square.  Still, I think this book is still balanced in its portrayal of the two sides, as the Red King has committed his share of atrocities.   

3. When all seemed lost, Elayne heard a mysterious voice. Do you have any theories on what that voice is, and how it fits into the Craft mythology?

I have theories, though they are probably wrong!  This voice was associated with the starlight, which is the source of Craftspeople’s power.  Could it be that the dichotomy of Craft/Faith is false, and that the two are interconnected?  I mean, perhaps the origin of the power used in Craft is God, a greater being than the various Earth-bound deities we’ve seen in the different cultures.  How would the Craftspeople react to find out that they are actually still a part of the system that they have turned away from?  This could fundamentally change Elayne’s understanding of the world.

4. What did you think of Last First Snow overall, in comparison with Gladstone's other books? What was your favorite part(s), and what would you most like to see more of in future books?

I think this was an excellent book, and it’s now my favorite of Gladstone’s novels (Three Parts Dead is my second favorite).  This last section was both exciting and emotionally draining, and I have such conflicted feelings about Temoc.  I don't know if I could point to one favorite moment, but I loved the part where Elayne was taking the fire of the Skittersill into herself, while also splitting her power to protect as many people as possible. I would like to see more of Elayne in future books, and prequels that involve the world during the Wars.  It looks like the next book is going to involve Tara (another of my favorite characters of the series) and Alt Coulomb.  I hope Tara calls in Ms. Kevarian for help!

Other Stuff:

—Chel didn’t make it.  I was hoping she would, after she wasn’t sacrificed during the last section. I do think Elayne saved the wrong person, but I don’t think she had much of a choice.  She didn’t have enough time to react in order to save Chel.  

—I assumed Mina was going to die, because I didn’t remember her from Two Serpents Rise… she must have been in there, and I’m just forgetting her.  Hurray for Mina’s survival!

—It bothers me that none of the people in power have to deal with any major consequences for their actions.  The Red King actually napalmed his own citizens, and he is still in power.  I guess there is no one powerful enough to hold him accountable, as much as Temoc wishes otherwise.

Review: Skin Game by Jim Butcher

Skin Game by Jim Butcher

Published: Roc, 2014

Series: Book 15 of the Dresden Files

Awards Nominated: Hugo Award

The Book:

“Harry Dresden, Chicago's only professional wizard, is about to have a very bad day… Because as Winter Knight to the Queen of Air and Darkness, Harry never knows what the scheming Mab might want him to do. Usually, it’s something awful. He doesn’t know the half of it… Mab has just traded Harry’s skills to pay off one of her debts. And now he must help a group of supernatural villains--led by one of Harry’s most dreaded and despised enemies, Nicodemus Archleone--to break into the highest-security vault in town, so that they can then access the highest-security vault in the Nevernever.

It's a smash and grab job to recover the literal Holy Grail from the vaults of the greatest treasure hoard in the supernatural world--which belongs to the one and only Hades, Lord of the freaking Underworld and generally unpleasant character. Worse, Dresden suspects that there is another game afoot that no one is talking about. And he's dead certain that Nicodemus has no intention of allowing any of his crew to survive the experience. Especially Harry. Dresden's always been tricky, but he's going to have to up his backstabbing game to survive this mess-assuming his own allies don’t end up killing him before his enemies get the chance…”~WWEnd.com

This is the first of the Dresden Files I’ve read, mostly just because I don't have a strong interest towards detective stories (which is how I had always classified this series in my mind). I picked this one up because it was nominated for the Hugo Award. I’m probably not going to go back and read the whole series, but this one was pretty fun.

My Thoughts:

Given that it’s the 15th book in a series, I think it’s pretty impressive that Skin Game was such an easily accessible book for new readers (e.g., me).  It was pretty clear that there was a lot of worldbuilding and character background I was missing out on, but it didn’t get in the way of understanding the story.  The relevant aspects of the supernatural world and the many characters were clearly (re-)introduced as they were needed.  I sometimes felt that it went slightly overboard, reiterating particular pieces of information often enough that it began to feel a little repetitive, even for a newcomer.  I think this was probably a departure from the usual pattern of the series, with Dresden stuck in a team with the villains, so it might have been more shocking for a long-time reader.  Altogether, while my response to the novel was certainly affected by not having read the rest of the series, the novel still worked as a whole and told a complete story.

Skin Game has a very casual, conversational style, full of jokes and pop culture references.  I mostly enjoyed the humor, even though some of the references went past me.  I also thought the heist was pretty entertaining, both in the villain team’s interactions and the strategic use of each members’ magical capabilities.  There were some pretty fun plot twists, which made the reader re-evaluate the assumptions they were not aware that they had made earlier in the narrative.  One thing that did bother me a bit, though, involved the female characters.  I didn’t really mind Dresden’s constantly referencing their physical attractiveness, since I’ve heard that’s just one of his things.  What bothered me was that many of the female characters seemed to fall into a pattern of failing at a particular thing while their male counterpart succeeded--a failure/success that was generally linked to their relative integrity or value.  It could well have been a coincidence, but it was enough to slightly jolt me out of enjoying the adventure each time the pattern repeated.

The story moved along pretty briskly, and there was plenty of action of the magical variety to keep things exciting.  The preparation and the heist itself involved some interesting magical challenges, and, as Harry anticipates, the team contains a number of dangerous shifting loyalties.  In an action-based story like this, I’d expect to see a lot of collateral damage in terms of property and human lives.  I really respected that this was one area where Harry would not compromise his principles. Throughout, he remained determined to protect bystanders at all costs, and it bothered him on the few occasions when he failed in this goal.  He definitely has his flaws, but I liked that Harry continues to try to be a good person, despite Mab’s influence. It seems like Harry Dresden is still poised to have more adventures, whether he wants to or not!

My Rating: 3.5/5

Skin Game was an exciting heist novel with a casual style of narration, many characters, plot twists, and a pleasant amount of humor.  Despite being the fifteenth novel in a series, it was pretty easy to follow with very little prior knowledge of the world and characters.  In fact, I sometimes felt like Harry reiterated information a little too often as the story progressed. I’m sure a lot of the story would have a deeper resonance with someone who has been following the series, and who is emotionally invested in the journeys of recurring characters. Overall, I had fun reading this book, but I doubt I’ll go back to read the rest of the series.

Read-Along: Last First Snow by Max Gladstone, Part 3

Welcome to part 3 of the read-along of Max Gladstone’s Last First Snow!  This week’s questions are provided by Anya of On Starships and Dragonwings, and cover chapters 38-53. Beware of spoilers ahead through chapter 53!  The action seemed to be picking up in last week’s section, and I think we’re well into the peak this week.  I’m not seeing how this can end happily for pretty much anyone, so this was a hard place to stop reading!

1. Turns out the Major is more noble than we initially thought! What do you think of his character arc and the big reveals during his sacrifice? (I assume he preferred male pronouns since he was presenting male and it wasn't otherwise specified.)

This whole situation is so messed up that I’m not sure I can even see it as noble.  I do think that I judged him a little too harshly on my first impression.  He was an agitator to start violence in Chakal Square, and he carried a large part of the blame for why the situation ultimately dissolved into a war they couldn’t hope to win.  However, I think he did care about the people, and he did work for peace when Temoc asked.  He was going to die anyway, when he volunteered as a sacrifice, but at least he knows that his death will mean something to the people he died for.

Also, I guess we’ll never know why the Major chose to present as a man, and why it was so important to him that the others not see during the sacrifice.  Was he trans?  Did he just think people would take him less seriously if he was female?  I was suspecting, since he was always covered up in armor, that the Major was not human. Looks like I was off the mark with that one.

2. There seems to be a lot of sneakiness going on between the fires being set in Skittersill, someone following Temoc and then Mina and the initial assassination attempt that set everything off. Any ideas what is going on? Do you think they are all coincidences or related?

Given the reveal at the end of the section (more on that later), I think it could be all Tan Batac.  There goes his claim that he wants to make the Skittersill a better place for the people who live there.  I can only imagine that the assassination golems were sent to ensure that Temoc came back to elevate the violence to all-out war.  I guess Temoc was right to be worried about his family, then, because the plan appeared to be to murder his family in order to provoke him.  It seems like it would have worked, too, if not for Caleb’s wounds.  I don’t want to support Temoc’s decision to do that to his son, but it may have saved his and his mother’s lives.

3. We get a lot of details from the King in Red about how he turned into a skeleton! After so much build-up to that particular oddity of Craft, what do you think? Would you do it if you were a Craftsman or Craftswoman?

That is not actually what I’d been imagining, throughout the series.  I had imagined it as a gradual thing, that you become less fleshy and more skeleton little by little, as a result of using Craft.  I didn’t realize that it was actually a transition through the moment of death.  Somehow, that makes it less awful to me.  I think that I would follow Elayne’s path.  I would take care of my body, and preserve my natural life as long as possible, but I would plan to make the jump to “full skeleton” when the time came.

4. At the very end of this section, there is a discussion about Tan Batac getting the Skittersill insured long before that was decided on. What do you think that means? Was anyone else a bit confused on the finer points of the insurance contract?

I’m really not a lawyer or economist or even a business person, so Gladstone does kind of lose me sometimes on the contracts.  However, if I understood correctly, the contract stipulated that Skittersill land with occupied residences could not be forcibly bought on the market.  On the other hand, if the residences no longer existed, the land was fair game.  That was why they were requiring such good insurance, so that the residences would not just ‘mysteriously’ burn down, allowing the land to be bought out from under the Skittersill residents.  

It seems, though, that Tan Batac orchestrated his own near-death so that he would be unable to sign the new insurance contract for the Skittersill, and so that the peace would erupt into violence.  Now the Skittersill is uninsured, and all the destruction that Temoc and the Red Kings’ war is causing is freeing up land for development.  This is beginning to look like Tan Batac is really behind everything, and Alaxic was just a distraction.  It makes me think that Tan Batac’s last words, “Not at all what I expected,” were simply his shock at how much being shot really hurt, not shock at being shot in the first place.

Other Things:

--The scarring of Caleb was somehow so much worse than I imagined.  He made his family believe he had chosen them over his sense of obligation to the old gods, and then he drugged his son and he left him bleeding to death.  I can’t imagine what Mina is going through right now, having to deal with the fact that the man she chose as her husband is capable of something like that.  I suspect it is not going to get easier when she hears what he is doing in Chakal Square.  

--This section had some really intense action, as well!  I think the most heart-pounding bit for me was when Mina was fleeing the assassins with Caleb, through the use of giant, soul-sucking, flying insects.

--I am happy Chel is not dead.  The way things were going, I had started suspecting her as the sacrifice.  That whole scene was pretty horrific, and I dread to see where things will go from here.  Still, I’m glad she’s okay for now.