Tag Archives: review

January 22, 2020

Tabletop RPG: Serenity the RPG System Thoughts

By Rebecca M. Horner

(After a long drought, finally an RP post! Sorry ya’ll, I had the plague and it will not go away.)

So I had bought the Serenity the Roleplaying Game’s book ages ago, along with a big old Verse map and a giant book about a specific cargo run. Why? Because I was interested in seeing how playable it was. Now, the book itself isn’t laid out in the most logical of senses, and sometimes it seems a bit screwy to me. I’m not going to critique the system as a whole, but instead, talk about how it plays.

I ran it this last weekend for a group of three players. It was specifically meant to be short, one or two sessions, three at an absolute maximum that I didn’t see happening, and so in an effort to keep it short, I chose to use one of the episodes of the series (“The Train Job”) as my framework. Bonus, most of my players had either never seen the show, seen only a small percentage of it, or hadn’t seen it in well over ten years and had since forgotten a large chunk of it. I had no worries about them actually recognizing what I was up to.

The game started off a little shaky–I’m not used to DMing, and I was trying to think of how to describe something I had seen in a show to convey exactly the right tone. But as the players started to make their plan and I got comfortable, we all started to enjoy ourselves. This is where the good parts of the game really started to show themselves. It isn’t loaded down with rules and schematics, but instead relies on the imaginations of the players and the DM, and on the way that they RP things out. It also gives some players a bit of flux.

What I mean by that is the use of Plot Points. I know of other DMs who will deliberately fudge rolls if a character rolls poorly and it may lead to someone having a bad night, or for similar reasons. Serenity makes that almost unnecessary with the use of Plot Points, provided the characters haven’t been just slinging them around. By really using them when they can tell a roll is important, it lets them get the desierable outcome without some…somewhat shady but good intentioned shady…actions on behalf of a DM, which I can appreciate.

That being said, 1’s still happen, and critical failures can lead to problems. But I’ve taken the stance that just because you failed the roll it doesn’t mean something catastrophic has to happen, and depending on what it is, the party isn’t screwed. In my most memorable case from this last weekend, one failed the hiding roll with a 1 while the other did really well. So I did something like you’d see out of a comedy skit to explain how both got hidden because of how well the other person rolled covering for both of them. Everything still proceeds, and everyone at the table got a laugh out of it. Failures don’t have to mean instant-death, and I was glad to get to DM something like that.

Is the lack of detail sometimes annoying? Oh very. And the rate of lethal damage applied to the weapons, while realistic, means that combat is never going to go well, and I’m still thinking about how to balance that out in a longer game. I also have to figure out whether I’d want to do something similar to Whedon’s work, where there is a long arc that we’re building to but a lot of it plays out in small moments, or if I want the long arc to be the focus with occasional side jobs. But that comes back to the flexibility of the system. It really lets you run the type of game that you want to run.

I don’t know if I would recommend this system for a newbie DM and newbie group of players. It’s not laid out in a way that’s neat, there’s a lot of holes, and the combat is harsh. But for a group that has messed around with a few systems, it is pretty forgiving to let them let their hair down for a bit. As a newbie DM, I had the advantage of knowing the world best, which gave me the measure of control that as DM I need to have any kind of confidence. With a group of die-hard Firefly fanatics, that isn’t going to be the case…but other new DMs may not have my anxiety crutches, so your mileage is just going to vary on that front.

If I can trust my players to stay off my blog, I might talk about the planning I go into for longer campaigns, but that’s a big maybe. I wouldn’t want to accidentally spoil anyone’s backstory or arc for them, and that will cause sour feelings. (Plus some of the players are uber private, which I respect.) In the meantime, if you can get your hands on the book or a PDF of it, it’s worth a page-through at the very least.

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October 2, 2019

Review: Tamiko and the Two Janitors

By Rebecca M. Horner

Sorry it took so long for this review, ya’ll, I had to wait for finances to behave. ^^; For those who are curious, I am going to do the other short stories in this universe and Lord Mettlebright’s Man…eventually. It’s a matter of timing at the moment. (A small part of me wants to wait for there to be four and just do my big paperback purchase then, get everything all at once.) But let’s get to what you actually care about.

Tamiko and the Two Janitors takes the Amaranthine Saga to a location that’s only been referenced before–America, where the Emergence has not been going over well (and is anyone surprised? Nooooo). Enter elementary school principal Tamiko Reaverson. While she has no connection to the In-Between, she is determined to help the Amaranthine find a place among humans, opening up her school and the community to them so they no longer have to hide. Unfortunately, it turns out there’s secrets a-plenty in both the school, in her family, and on her family’s farm, and in true fashion, it all starts coming to a head all at once.

Alright, from here on out there may be spoilers, so read ahead at your own risk. I’ll try to keep them to a minimum though.

Characters, as always, were amazing. I think I particularly liked our “B” plot with Melissa and Jiminy the most in this one, watching as they tried to figure themselves out and what they really wanted while working together with the wolf pack. I also liked Ash and Tamiko, though their relationship felt a little rushed to me? Maybe that’s just because the last two books it was this huge…figuring out thing, and this one it was pretty straight forward. It does break the pattern, which I totally appreciate. Kip was amusing, but the relationship between him and Joe is still murky for me, so I want more of that. The wolves sort of got to touch on things that we at least barely skimmed in earlier books, so it was nice to see more of them and how other characters react to these new elements to their world, even the ones who think they are in the know!

This book it really felt like the established characters took a step back. Oh, there were still there, but I think getting away from Japan helped keep them from taking over the whole thing and making it a web. Instead, we just got little flashes, which totally worked for me, since I definitely still want to see these characters, I just want to focus on the current story too. The way their on-going plots were touched on, such as Argent and his hunt for both the rogue fox and the rogue dragon who may or may not be working together and I can’t figure it out yet, and Kimiko and Quen and their courtship, it all wove together with this story so I didn’t question why it was included, and yet I still got an update and to see these characters I love.

Speaking of plot, I wasn’t always one hundred percent sure of where this one was going to take me. Partly because I hadn’t read either of the two fanfics I could see working into the mix (just the summaries so I recognized them, lol), but also because she kept the story moving. It wasn’t in the bad way, either, the way certain writers who shall not be named tried so hard to subvert expectations that they ruined it, but instead in a way that pays off so that the reader stays with the story and is satisfied with the conclusion (aside from the obvious series hooks dangling). Like it shocked me right out the gate, I had a little freak out, and it sort of just kept going. I was highly amused by both my own reaction, and what I was reading.

I am going to touch on world building here. There were some pretty subtle prods at the situation in America being like the civil rights movement. As a local from Oklahoma, I definitely saw it more like the indigenous population and their struggles. This really pushed it more towards being like them in my head. They have a lot more of the land struggles and issues with being between nations in terms of laws and practicalities (spoken as someone who has to work with the tribes as a foreign nation at work). That makes it very personal to me, and something that I’m pretty strong about. I hope we continue to see this situation improve in future books.

As a series whole, this felt like a solid continuation of the series. I didn’t get lost like I did in Kimiko, and it excited me similarly to how Tsumiko did. This isn’t a series I’m going to put down after the third book, like others, so you can expect these reviews to continue. I think each one actually gets better…of course, Argent is still my favorite, so I also could be biased, lol.

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September 9, 2019

Review: Descendants 3

By Rebecca M. Horner

I know I live tweeted this during the premiere, but now that I’ve watched it multiple times, I still have feelings that I need to get out, plus the set needs to be complete. As a note, I am trying to be…less abrasive, I suppose?…of my reviews, even if I have issues with them. This is especially true for this movie, since it premiered so soon after the loss of Cameron Bryce (Carlos).

Descendants 3 picks up a bit after the second movie, bringing a fresh class of kids from the Isle of the Lost to Auradon for a chance at turning good. However, a clash with Hades at the gate puts the entire program in jeopardy, especially when a villain appears and begins to wreck havoc on all of Auradon using Maleficent’s scepter. Mal and the others must obtain Hades’s ember, the only force capable of countering the scepter, and bring an end to it…once and for all.

Okay, spoilers from here on out, ya’ll. Look away if you don’t want to see anymore.

Continue reading

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August 26, 2019

Review: Fast and Furious Presents Hobbs & Shaw

By Rebecca M. Horner

Normally, I leave the action movies to Ginny. However, the Fast series has a small piece of my heart. I love Vin, and then they brought in the Rock for the first one I ever saw, and I was hooked. So when I saw that we were doing a film centered around Johnson’s character, I had to go see it. I’m even reviewing it while it’s still in theater!

Both Luke Hobbs and Deckard Shaw are complete opposites, as proven by the opening sequence! But when an artificially created virus is stolen, they are forced to team up, Hobbs because he is the leading tracker in the world and Shaw…because the last one seen with the virus was his younger sister, Hattie, and his mother has laid on a guilt trip. If they don’t kill each other in the process, they will have to face down the considerable might of the Eteon group, who are determined to save humanity from itself, by any means necessary. The lead soldier? An old acquaintance of Shaw’s named Brixton, who remembers the man who left him for dead.

Despite being “presented” by the Fast and the Furious, the only real members of the franchise that we see are Hobbs and Luke, which not only lets us flesh their characters out more, but also gives us new characters to play with that tie specifically to them instead of to the whole Fast gang/family. For example, we got to see more of Sam, Hobbs’s daughter, and of Shaw’s mother. I loved that we got more of Sam and single-dad Hobbs, not only because it’s an unconventional family dynamic in media but also because she is hysterical. And I love the way that they wrote Magdalene, so I’m always happy to see more of her and her interacting with her children.

But the story was very tight on Hobbs, Shaw, and the new addition of Shaw’s sister, Hattie. Hobbs was his usual self, though I saw a little more return to how he was in the first movie Johnson starred in rather than the last one. No complaints, but it was a nice meld of the two characterizations. I also liked how it delved into his back story for the back half of the film, since the front half is more focused on Shaw since it introduced his sister in that part. Speaking of Shaw, I thought he was his usual abrasive and yet suave self. (I don’t know how the actor pulls that off.) It took longer than I admitted to completely comprehend the joke to his prior work, but it still made me snort the half I immediately got. They overly played the combative nature between the characters for me, and I think that was because they didn’t want them getting along too much too soon.

Hattie gets her own special call out. She didn’t use her sex appeal as her only skill, nor was she limited to just a hand-gun. Instead, they gave her a wide range of skills, and didn’t go out of their way to over-sexualize her aside from occasional shots of she’s pretty, it’s going to look that way. She was the Plot Ball, but she was a competent Plot Ball that was doing just fine on her own before our heroes showed up. I like how she was ready to make whatever sacrifice that was needed in order to protect the world. Also, she gets bonus points because even though she had a flirt-mance going on with Hobbs, they didn’t let it take over the movie and it didn’t get hot and heavy, it was just a light little flirt and attraction. This gives me hope for them being a longer romance arc.

(If you want the sexpot thief/spy, there is Madame M and her whole group of girls in Russia, you get your fill, but she is also amusingly competent.)

This gets me talking about a plot a little. Now, I don’t have a high standard for story in action films. It has to be enough to keep me entertained, not necessarily enough to make me think. This one…was about at that level. They pushed jokes and the bad blood between Hobbs and Shaw until the plots broke, and then built them back up again. It was pretty straight forward with not a whole lot of surprises. That being said, it didn’t try to pull a surprise out of nowhere either. (Yes, that’s a GoT call out, no, I do not care.) I’m just happy that they didn’t make the Plot Ball a weeping damsel in distress who needed saved, and at the same time she wasn’t a robot-agent either. It took time to show that she was angry or scared or regretful, and it really focused on the family aspect. Some people may hate it, I for one liked it.

Setting, oh gosh, it was pure scenery porn at times. Samoa in particular was beautiful, and I loved how they changed the lighting depending on which part of the story was supposed to be the focus in terms of Hobbs’s expertise versus Shaw’s, or whose narrative we were following. We didn’t have the usual street racing or custom cars as we did last time, but I think there still some legit car chases and explosions that are very much the standard for a Fast film. It was just of a different type, which makes me wonder if they are trying to pull the “save the world” plots out of the main franchise and focus more on the street-level racing and crime, and then let Hobbs and Shaw deal with spy shenanigans. (But that’s just me guessing.)

Overall, not only was Hobbs and Shaw a fun romp, but while there was some second hand embarrassment from the very guy centric jokes, there wasn’t some of the blatant sexism that the other Fast films have despite their best efforts recently. That made it one of the more enjoyable films for me to watch. If you don’t like the other Fast films, I hesitate to say you’ll like this one, but if you have a couple of nitpicks with them but otherwise find them good, this is right up your ally.

Plus, they brought in Roman Reigns. I DIED.

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July 2, 2019

Review: Serpent’s Smile

By Rebecca M. Horner

(Sick writer was sick, I’m back now though!)

Serpent’s Smile is the latest in the Heaven’s Heathens series, and this time we’re staying close to home. Charged by her grandfather to investigate rumors of another gang moving something through Jasper around their town’s Founders Day celebration, most of the action is centered around Savannah as she takes lead on an unofficial (but really, this is Jasper, it’s pretty official just not on the books) investigation into the other gangs’ around town and their activity. Meanwhile, Gideon is still feeling out his place in the pack, and gets exasperated pretty quickly with the new meat syndrome going on. Savannah proves to be a welcome distraction to all that, and a helpful instigator if needed. Whoever thought it was a good idea to try and move product under the Heathen’s noses obviously didn’t know who they were messing with. But then again, we’re talking about a motorcycle club of werewolves–they rarely do.

Character-wise, I think we see a lot of serious growth in this book. While the backstory of the prior two books gives it more emotional impact on the reader, without it there is still a payout as far as actions taken and the characters changing (the impact is just maybe not as strong). Most of the main protagonist characters are familiar to us at this point, not only Savannah and Gideon but also Frankie and the rest of the foursome, Eberon and Corey, Violet, and several others. We even see Boone from the prior book again! It made me snicker. While the core of these characters remains the same, so it wouldn’t matter in which order I read the three books, because I did read them, some things hit me harder, like Frankie and her love triangle, and we finally get some payoff with Gideon and Savannah. (Only a little, because what’s a little lighter fluid on a building inferno of a slow burn relationship, right?)

The world building and the new characters sort of dove-tail together in this one. We’ve got some expanding upon the conflict between Savannah and her people and Ashley and her group, which is all well and good. And likely leading to some huge stand-off later, sort of like Captain America vs. Iron Man in the Civil War arcs. Right now, we’re at the petty bickering and claiming of territory stage…sort of like in the first Avengers film. I can see the beginning elements and conflicts though that are going to lead to hell later. We also filled in some of who is going to be standing on either side of that conflict…as well as a few who are probably going to stay firmly in the middle rather than get drawn in unless they can help it.

But you’ve also got new characters in the forms of the rival gangs that Savannah is poking her wolfy nose into. The Indian reservation gang is ruled out pretty quickly, but we get two new ones: an Italian run gang and then a primarily black gang. This could easily fall into the trap of racial stereotyping and obviously some other things that should be avoided, right? But many of those stereotypes exist for a reason, and as long as they aren’t the only aspect to the characters, and those aren’t the only POC in the book, I am okay with it. Ginny has a wide variety of characters in her cast, so that isn’t a problem, and there is just enough added to the rival gangs that I don’t think they are completely problematic as they could be. I’m hopeful that this isn’t the last we see of these characters, because if they are built up even more, it will continue to waylay those concerns.

That leads me to the plot, which is a bit different than usual. Yes, there’s still lots of the great character moments that help drive the narrative and speed the reading of the book, but the action isn’t in segments set in particular stages. Rather, there is more of a build and escalation to it, much like what you see in more of a normal book than an action movie, or maybe a combination of both since there are some moments that I could see being shot more like an action scene than it reads. Either way, the flow is just different enough that if you read all three together, it shakes you up a bit so it still feels fresh for you, and yet if you are reading out of order, it still fits with the other books in the series. (Also, I love a lot of the events in the final act, I spent a lot of time giggling.)

There is a little bit crime procedural, a little bit action movie to this one, and I like the change of pace. I also liked that we were given at least a little tidbit to make the long wait to Gideon and Savannah figuring themselves out easier for us to handle, and the fleshing out of upcoming confrontation and existing characters. While there are areas that could be taken wrong, I think they were handled okay and shouldn’t detract from the story at all, especially if further expansion on those characters happens.

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May 28, 2019

Review: Rodeo’s Run

By Rebecca M. Horner

Preface: Rodeo and his whole family is my fault…or at least his family is, I’m not 100% sure Rodeo himself is all my fault, but you know, probably. But otherwise, I am not responsible or biased more than normal, lol.

Rodeo’s Run takes our familiar friends Savannah and Gideon on a little bit of an unintended adventure. It was supposed to be a simple escort mission. Go down to the Panhandle charter, escort the caravan of horses through No Man’s Land. Unfortunately, bandits decided to get involved. And of course the girls insist that they save the stolen horses. Now Savannah’s “uncle” Rodeo has to keep an eye on several in love couples in various shades of denial, and he’s beginning to understand Brand a little too well. Now if only they could get safely home without bringing the mess home to his folks, he’d be happy.

Alright, where do I start? Well, we have some new characters in the form of Rodeo, his parents, and other people around Jasper, Colorado, as well as the people we already met in the first book. There’s also new characters in Hooker, Texas (…okay, that one is also  my fault). But what’s nice is because the plot is evenly split between locations, the new characters and interactions aren’t as overwhelming, so it’s easier to track names because you can associate them with a particular location. I also think the different personalities really play well in this book when they have the chance to show them. It helps associate the personality with the name strong enough that even if you don’t remember them right away, within a few paragraphs, you recall them.

Much like the last book, the plethora of characters keeps anyone from being the token anything, gender or race. I think my favorite of the new arrivals (besides Rodeo) are the siblings Jorja and Rascal. Not only are they fun because of their relationship with Savannah, but Rascal ends up having one of the strongest friendships with Gideon. (The other men are still getting there, relationships take time, ya’ll.) That lets us see parts of Giddy that we haven’t had a chance to see before, and it also adds new layers to his and Savannah’s relationship as a result. Even if they are still will-they-won’t-they, God, Ginny is going to kill me with the slow burn.

World building wise, this book really let Ginny expand on her world more than the first book did at least in terms of fine detail. While she painted a lot of the broad strokes in The Lone Prospect, Rodeo’s Run narrowed the focus down to what the environment was like for the people in this world and how the countries are structured. It also let her explain more about how new clubs are founded, and as someone who knows nothing about motorcycle clubs, I was glad for the info dump. There was time spent to research and it shows. It isn’t in your face about the future/sci-fi elements, either, just enough to remind you of what the setting is.

Like I mentioned earlier, the plot ends up splitting between two locations. You have the group that includes our two main protagonists that go on the journey, and then you will sometimes flashback to those who are waiting back at home, for lack of a better word. This helps interrupt tension as well as pass through time, and it honestly helps keep the reader moving through the pages. Like always, there’s a lot of what a traditional publisher would call filler and I call the fun stuff that we all want to see, so it’s easy to just keep going with the flow of the story. It also ends with a sense of satisfaction, so you feel like you got your emotional investment back rather than feeling still on the hooks.

Similar to the first book in the series, it isn’t super-tight in terms of pacing and drama and tension. But if it was, I wouldn’t find it as enjoyable? Drama for drama’s sake is just exasperating and gives me heartburn as I try to figure out how stupid the characters are. What drama there is in Rodeo’s Run and the tension is managed responsibly, with smart characters there to offer advice, and some surprising outside perspectives for those who can’t see past their own noses. And along the way, there’s a lot of fun.

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May 18, 2019

Review: The Lone Prospect

By Rebecca M. Horner

Amazon may block me from reviewing, but I can spread the word to you all! I am doing a series of reviews on the first three books of Ginny’s Heaven’s Heathens series (and yes, that’s a link to all three in a bundle). We’re starting with the beginning which I hear could be a very good place to start… Okay, no more Sound of Music references, I just gave myself bad flashbacks. On to the review of The Lone Prospect!

Gideon is searching for a place to belong now that he has been discharged from the New York military. He can’t go back to his family farm, so he instead begins to wander the other surviving countries that carved themselves out after the Cascading Wars. There may be a place for him in Jasper, Colorado, though when he arrives, nothing is quite like he suspects. Enter one Savannah Barker. Savannah finds herself saddled with the new puppy when her grandfather Brand decides to test Gideon’s mettle by throwing him into hot water to see if he sinks. She’d be (more) annoyed, except for two things, not counting Gideon’s good looks that she isn’t going to think about too hard. One, her grandfather does these sorts of things far too often for his own amusement. And two, as a biker club of werewolves, their concept of dangerous is a little different from everyone else. Add in that they are mercenaries, and well, she has to hold on to her patience by her fingernails. Gideon’s smart mouth is not helping.

Believe it or not, I am capable of being impartial here. (Hell, Ginny’s and my relationship started because of a review, what do you all think of that?) And I can honestly say I love these characters. Everyone has a personality, everyone has a backstory, and everyone has their own goals. While normally in an ensemble writing type book, that could get ugly, Ginny not only keeps the story centered around Gideon and Savvy, she also takes the time to let the story breathe. Rather than worry about the book being too long, she gives us time to know the characters, to be invested in them, and then the plot comes second (it’s still a good plot, you just don’t worry about it as much, you are having too much fun watching Giddy get boggled). The characters, and the relations between them, make this book.

In particular, I love the fearsome foursome and the female-forward approach. There are so many female characters, none of them have to fit this pigeon hole of “every woman” that is impossible to do. Similarly, the men are there to balance them out to avoid the same problem of “every man.” As a result, you are able to pick your favorites and run with them. It also allows for different relationships to be shown–some healthy, some not. And it asks some uncomfortable questions, ones I think we should be asking that I don’t think have right or wrong answers, it just depends on the people. It’s hard, and it sucks, but they are important questions.

Speaking of plot again, its a fun action romp. Don’t look for super deep angst or drama or mystery here, think like a good action movie. I’m not saying there isn’t angst or any of the other flavors, I’m just saying it isn’t key to the story-arc. It does provide you a sense of completion while it continues to lay the ground work for more later. It may meander a bit, but it’s important meandering to help you understand the world that she’s built. Relying on it being similar to current standings will only get you so far, you have to have those bits of facts. Her werewolves are also different, since they rely on both old legends, old Hollywood, and real wolf facts rather than the false stuff they feed you in elementary school. (Even if Savannah is awful at explaining.)

I’ll admit it, the world building is where I get lost. Not because Ginny doesn’t do a good job, I don’t think, but because a) I don’t read sci fi, or even fantasy sci fi like this, regularly enough so my brain isn’t trained for it, and b) first book in the series and unreliable narrators. I understand enough to get through this book, and then it gets significantly better as it has a chance to build, but you do have to keep your mind open and be tracking it all as you go because otherwise you are going to catch yourself thinking it’s an urban fantasy instead of future dystopian and then you are sunk. (Because sometimes labels are important.) There are reminders, so you aren’t Alice in Wonderland with the path getting erased in front of you and behind you, but the book is long enough that if you are reading in sections over several days, I figured I’d give you the warning.

If you like a fast paced book with a tight plot…eh, go elsewhere. There’s plenty of those to read, and then you’ll have to go to fanfic to get any actual emotional weight out of them. (We like Harry Dresden, we don’t see enough of him outside of panic-mode to love him.) But, if like me, you will start a 600k fanfic at midnight and stay up all night reading it… Ginny writes for you. She pays attention to the things we really want out of a long read, and gives it to you. It’s fast, it carries on so quickly you wonder how you got to where you are, and it’s full of lovable characters. I definitely suggest checking it out if that type of book is your cup of tea.

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March 31, 2019

Review: Closer to the Chest

By Rebecca M. Horner

The last in the Herald’s Spy reviews! (At least until I can afford to buy the Family of Spies series, which may be a while, yay happy homeowning and trying to get my life together over here, ugh.)

So where does the final book in this series take us? Someone is blackmailing and then threatening the noble women in Valdemar high court. While normally not too big of a bother and a part of the political game, this time there is a definite malicious edge to it that Amily can’t quite ignore. Meanwhile, Mags finds that businesses being run by women are facing an increasing level of hostility and sabotage. Both events correlate with the introduction of a new religion in Valdemar that is misogynist at its core. It will take approaching both sides of the problem, plus Mags putting himself into a dangerous situation, in order to unravel the truth for the protection of Valdemar!

First impressions, this was the story that Misty wanted to tell. Both of the prior books were just build up to it, allowing for her to introduce characters, skills, and concepts in prior books so she could get to this story. It’s the only explanation I have for the plot being that much tighter and everything being more in keeping with what I expect from a Valdemar book. This means it finishes on a high note, at least, though I fear most loyal readers are going to skip this series entirely as a result.

There were parts of the plot that worked for me, and parts that I just cringed my way through. I like the idea of the enemy being a religion that is preaching against women beyond bad stereotypical roles. I resent that it was Mags who got to go to the bottom of it, that the idea when Amily first presented it was scoffed at or seen as her making leaps in logic, and that despite it being a very female forwarded plot, it still felt like men were the main heroes of this story. Maybe I’m just too harsh of a reader, but when I figure out that these are the people who are doing something wrong, and then when a female character points it out and gets told to either wait as others investigate or until there is evidence of actual wrong doing… It just rubs me the wrong way.

On the plus side, I did find the church having two Gifted of their own among their ranks to be nice. Usually Heralds are either against normal people or people with regular magic, so seeing those with mind magic who aren’t Chosen by the Companions and how they can end up being used for nefarious purposes by a religion was cool. I also appreciated the emphasis on how expensive books were and how women were the best to copy those texts in the days before the printing press. It’s something I don’t think many people appreciate due to how prevalent the written word is in our lives, but Valdemar has always made a point of emphasizing how important the oral stories and thus the Bardic gifts are, and for good reason.

I like the idea of the Queen’s ladies, the group of handmaids, and I’ve seen similar concepts before, but ugh, I feel like there is so much wasted potential as a result. I don’t think enough was done with them besides making them a spy network that Amily has access to, and I feel like between Amily, these girls, and some of the resources they have, we could have written Mags out of the book entirely. I get the importance of male and female power balance, but come on. We don’t have nearly as many female Heralds as the focus of books as it is, being denied it yet again was just irksome.

For me, Closer to the Chest was the closest that this series has gotten to a traditional Heralds of Valdemar book. But overall, the series just felt tired. Like there were certain scenes that were what Misty actually wanted to write, or certain plots and subplots, and the rest of the book was just a vehicle to get to them. One of my writing professors once said that unless a scene excited you, you needed to edit it to death until you did like writing it or cut it entirely. I wonder if that could be applicable to this series for Misty…

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January 14, 2019

Review: Tempests and Slaughter

By Rebecca M. Horner

I approached Tempests and Slaughter with a healthy amount of both caution and interest. On one hand, it was more of Numair and that always makes me happy. He and Daine are my OTP in Tortall. On the other hand, this is a prequel. I was going to have to put up with Valarie, guaranteed, and with one of the worst villains in Tortall history being viewed as an okay guy. Blegh. But I finally knuckled down and read it. While I don’t regret it, it definitely wasn’t what I expected either.

Not yet Numair Salmalin, Arram Draper is a young boy at the College of Mages in Carthak. Tempests and Slaughter tells of his late childhood/early adolescence, as he rises with the ranks of powerful mages with the growth of his Gift. As he grows farther away from his family and home in Tyra, he has to learn not only who he is and what he can tolerate, but also who his friends are becoming. In the end, plague hospitals and arenas decide for him where his limits are. Now if only he can bring his only two friends, Valarie and Ozorne, along with him.

So, let’s get it out of the way. I love Tamora Pierce’s writing. I’ve had my style compared to her a couple of times, and it always makes me squee because she has such a way with prose that it just flows, smooth and clear. Thankfully, she spared my overly imaginative butt too much medical in the hospitals, but the way she did it is very real to how people who are in those professions describe how they feel after it is over. I really valued her return to third person and in normal chapter format. It wasn’t so heavily cluttered with slang that I needed the dictionary in the back just to wade through until I adjusted to the dialect, but it was there enough to carry the culture of the world across. It was a little different, because the narrator is a boy for the first time for an entire book rather than a short story, but after a couple of chapters, I managed to fall in with it. I think it’s interesting how she keeps exploring new formats and narrators, rather than sticking to formula.

World building wise, she had some room to play and it shows. Carthak was barely hinted at beyond the capital during the Immortals quartet, and while some of the short stories have touched on other countries as part of the empire, we haven’t seen all of it. There’s a curious mixture of African cultures, and I use that term in relation the continent as a whole. At times, I see the south and the tribal influences, but further north it is reminiscent of Egypt and it’s interactions with Europe. I also saw bits of South Africa, if only because of the way the ruling class appears to be of light skin versus…everyone else. This is also the first time we saw how a mage was trained, from the ground up and without pesky fighting training to overlap, and while at times I felt a little like the magic systems were too muddled, that is more personal taste than anything, and it was interesting to see how magecraft is taught for the Gift when there aren’t deities involved.

Characters is really where this book could have made or break for me. I knew I was going to like Arram, because I liked him as an adult. It was curious to see how clumsy and unsure of himself he was as a boy, though, and how easily swayed he was by others around him until he found his backbone. I also wasn’t suspecting his healing magic to be at the forefront, but then, his entire history is so secretive, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Valarie… Ugh. All of my problems with Valarie still exist. I mean, her “kitchen witch” label aside, she really just irks me. I don’t think that will ever change. I don’t like manipulation like I see her doing, even when it is for the sake of those she considers friends, at least without some sort of moral code behind it, which I know she’s lacking in. And then there was Ozorne. He could have gone wrong very quickly, but thankfully Tamora never forgot what he was going to become. The brief flashes alone were enough to sooth me, and then she dropped his ambitions, his goal to unite everything under one Empire, and at that point I knew he was the same person we knew, it was Arram who hadn’t realized it yet. That is going to be fascinating to see continue, and I’m beyond curious to see what the tipping point will be.

As for other characters, the teachers rotated around so much, I had a hard time nailing down a favorite. I did like Yaven and how he applied something most people would consider silly to help Arram concentrate, and how that evolved into other lessons. Sebo and her ties to the crocodile god were also interesting. Oh god, the crocodile god was hilarious, I was very amused by him and his interactions. My only complaint, if you could call it one, was Preet, if only because she seemed like a plot device more than a character. The lack of mention of her to Daine in prior books also makes no sense. But then, we don’t know how Preet’s plot is going to end, so I could end up being placated.

This definitely reads to me like there’s one more book, possibly two, in this series, but I don’t think it’s going to be a quartet and I’m leaning towards just one more like the Aly Cooper books. That seems about right to me, because really this is mostly bringing some light to a mysterious back story that I’m sure fans like me have been wondering about since the first books with Daine. I can’t wait for the next book and to see where this story is going and how it will dove-tail with where we first met Numair.

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December 16, 2018

Review: Thoughts on PreCure

By Rebecca M. Horner

Yeah, we’re going down an anime rabbit hole this week, partly because I splurged on hardbacks that won’t be here for a couple more days, mostly because I’m binge watching and have feelings…and a small part because of an upcoming surprise in roughly two weeks that makes me want to touch on my girly obsessions a little more publicly so no one is necessarily surprised out of liking me.

So I am a magical girl genre fiend…provided the story isn’t stupid and the transformation sequences aren’t sexualizing the characters. That means my options are extremely limited. Sometimes something really cool will happen, like Madoka, that break the genre, but usually you have three options: the classics (Card Captor Sakura, Sailor Moon–I can’t speak on Crystal yet, I hated the animation quality of the first season too badly and I hate Rini as a character and she seems to have an even bigger part in Crystal, soooo I’m dragging my feet, etc.), those gross animes that use a genre meant for young girl viewers as a chance to cater to the lowest denominator, or the one magical girl series that is always putting out new content–PreCure, which is short for Pretty Cure and is a bit like sentai shows, just with magical girls.

Now, PreCure feels like it has been around for ages, but it actually only came out in 2004. It just churns out a new team (with two early exceptions) every year, each with a different theme, and the main focus is supposed to be on these girls figuring themselves out and female positivity. The year actually surprises me because the first team, a pair actually, have such 80’s designs…and actually some of the others end up that way too. I’m not sure if it’s because the character designers for those seasons are older and don’t know what girls actually wear or if Japanese fashion during those years has gone weird, retro directions, or what.

The idea of PreCure is that the main characters are supposed to be in middle school, and the early seasons kept with that–the characters looked their actual ages. And sometimes, the newer seasons fall back on that. But PreCure 5 actually pushed up the physical or appearance ages of their team a little, and then Fresh! took it even further. While Heartcatch (which is what I saw a couple of years ago) tried to go backwards with three of the four members reflecting more childish bodies, Suite went right back to high schoolers…which sort of defeats PreCure’s purpose in my opinion and plus I just couldn’t fall in to Suite.

Now what caught my attention to PreCure in the first place? …Oh, I got suckered in, badly. They threw a cold, elegant girl associated with moonlight and roses into Heartcatch, I felt obligated to watch because that is my jam to the utmost. (My favorite Yu-Gi-Oh! character is Seto Kaiba and in Yu Yu Hakusho it is Kurama, I have tropes and aesthetics that you are guaranteed to get my attention with.)

Cure Moonlight

Admittedly, Cure Moonlight is a bad one to use as a measuring stick, she’s overpowered as hell, but I digress. I stayed not because there was one character who matched my preferred aesthetic, but because the writing of Heartcatch was absolutely to die for. I bawled at one episode, it was that intense.

The problem is, it seems like PreCure has one writer who is capable of taking the tropey, overly saturated parts of the genre and making them into something that is enjoyable not only for young children, but also for us old fossils who refuse to stay out of the genre. Yes, Heartcatch is fashion and flower centric, which should be too sweet to stand. But then you add that it also addresses familial commitments and pressure, parental abandonment or feelings of it, grief for passed friends, failing and having to figure out what happens next. It’s so hard to balance without going doom and gloom, but God did Heartcatch manage it.

I couldn’t find another one that caught my attention in the same way (I tried Princess, it made me cringe), though now I’m wondering if I was too hasty with some of the more in-between seasons. Why? Because I finally saw all the transformation sequences for the main team of Kirakira, which I initially dismissed as too stupid. Sweets, okay, animals, sure, together? To paraphrase Ginny, “WHY?! Why not one or the other?!” And then I heard the reasoning behind it and that just made it worse. Too stupid for words, hard pass, thank you. But see, it already had a crumb of my attention because the front three were in the same, more childish designs as Cures Blossom, Marine, and Sunshine had been. And the original clips I saw sped past the older two girls. So when I finally saw Macaron, I knew I was sunk.

Cure Macaron

I knew just from how her face was drawn, this character was too interesting to ignore because that face reflects a lot more personality than usual tropes. A little bit of digging, and I had suspicions that whoever wrote Heartcatch was involved with Kirakira. I am only 17 episodes into it, and I can guarantee that, or at the very least someone there took a few pages out of her book because it is hitting on deeper themes already, and it is also doing it in ways that are different than Heartcatch had previously done (or really, that I had seen everywhere). Cure Macaron being a prime example, who is also smart, finally someone who is as smart as the villains!!! I am also admittedly eating up the Macaron and Chocolat interactions with a spoon…

So, what does that mean about PreCure? Well, it’s like any other sentai show (or the U.S. equivalent which is Power Rangers). Sometimes, everything from story to character designs is on point and something that not only young children, but also older viewers. Other times, the character designs are awful or at least illogical, but the story might be salvageable. Sometimes the character designs are great, and then you are left with superficial garbage for story. And then there are times it’s a total wash. It’s sort of a round robin coin toss on what is going to work, what isn’t, and what is going to survive. But you know what? At least PreCure tries new things with each team, and tries to go, “Okay, you didn’t like this years PreCure, next year is different so maybe it’ll be more your speed.” I can get behind that.

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