Magic

Be warned, this is gonna be one of my random wandering posts, but I'm in that mood and since it's my blog ;-)  This weekend I got to spend time in downtown Washington DC to enjoy the cherry blossoms and then later me and Hubbin spent a couple hours watching random wildlife out in the boonies.  As often happens I started thinking about the books I am reading (and have read and will read) and realized a lot of them fall into the fantasy category, but they also tend to fall into a certain sort of magic category as well.  Let me see if I can show you what I'm talking about.

 Wild Magic - I thought of this as I was wandering around the wetlands, just waiting for a talking beaver to scold me, or a wise heron to dispense some sage words of awesome.  This kind of magic tends to be a wilder, older type.  The stories that involve wild magic are usually set in nature, most often a forest somewhere far away from civilization.  Animals, trees, and old school mythology usually play prominent roles.  Here is where we find the hermit, the wood witch, the hidden fae, the greenman and all sorts of old school magic. A lot of times this is the type of magic you see when a character(s) goes to another world from our.  I love reading about this kind of magic any time I am tired of the real world, or am ready to escape from the pressures of daily life.  Some books that I think are a good example of wild magic are:  The Hunter's Moon, The Tawny Man Trilogy, Alvin Maker Series, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, The Chronicles of Narnia

Civilized Magic - This is what I call the type of magic that follows rules and tends to be of a bit more of a domestic type.  I always get the urge to read this type of magic book when I am around something old and dignified, aka old manor's, formal gardens, having high tea, that sort of thing.  One finds this type of magic mostly in books set in old school England/Europe and tend to feature society and niceties as much as the magic.  People who perform this type of magic tend to be precise and have to follow very exacting rules.  Magic of this nature can also appear to be a bit less grandiose in nature and be very specific, such as a person having a cooking magic, or able to work in a single medium such as metal or glass.  I like this type when I'm in the mood because it really connects every day life with magic and turns the most mundane tasks into awesomeness.  Some of my favorite books that feature civilized magic: The Paper Magician, Harry Potter Series, The Chronicles of Chrestomanci, Sorcery and Cecelia, The Night Circus

Urban Magic - This may be the stickiest category, but in my head it is where I put all the "modern" magic.  Urban fantasy and mixing science and magic all fall into this category.  This type of magic is a more nitty gritty, down and dirty style.  In some cases magician's have incorporated hard science and/or modern items into their casting.  The books that feature this type of magic tend to have practioners that specialize in a type of career like detective, doctor, or specialized exterminator.  I like this type of book because it reminds me to look for magic, even in the middle of the ugliest most concrete covered of places.  I also like it because it shows how anything can be magic, and in most cases it is just undiscovered or unprovable fact.  It is always interesting to me to read the different ways that authors are able to incorporate the realities of the modern world with the fantastic element of magic.  Some of the best examples that I have read:  Magic Ex Libris Series, InCryptid Series, Dresden Files, The Essential Bordertown, Monster

This is by no means a complete list, I am sure we could come up with a thousand categories to place the various types of magic in.  I also realize that there is probably some overlap in these definitions as well.  This is just a rough list that in my own chaotic little head books fall into and it makes it easier for me to figure out what type of magic I am craving at any particular moment.  Some day I will take some of my most craveable books and list what I categorize them as, just to give you all a laugh.  Anyways I hope this makes sense, and if not, just chalk it up to 60 hour work weeks and remember HAPPY READING EVERYBODY!

Epic Road Trip Of Awesomeness!

Hello Everybody!  Is everybody enjoying their summer vacation?  Have you gone anywhere cool?  Finished your summer reading list yet?  I myself have been road tripping it all over the place and have discovered the perfect book to bring on these jaunts.  I talked about it earlier, but am now ready to ramble my little brains out.  The book is Helen and Troy's Epic Road Quest by A. Lee Martinez and IT IS AWESOME!  It was a book I picked randomly from the bookstore stack 'cause it was too perfect not to, and ended up on my favorite book list.  As always SPOILERS AHEAD!

Helen is a minotaur, yep a seven foot tall girl with a cows head, complete with horns, hooves for feet and a body full of fur.  She spends her summer flipping burgers and making friends with Troy, the insanely good looking, yet oddly fully self aware and good natured co-worker.  Things get exciting when Mr. Whiteleaf, the aging elf, tries to summon the Lost God by sacrificing Helen to it.  Things take a wrong turn and the Lost God (who manifests as a huge pile of ground beef) lays a quest on Helen and Troy.   They are approached by the National Questing Bureau and given some tools to help them on their quest.  Off they go to have some absolutley insane adventures.  Meanwhile, Nigel Skullgnasher, an Orcish accountant is summoned by his god to assemble his motorcycle club (which includes a human who wants to be an orc) to assassinate the heroic duo to keep the Lost God (who was banished by the other gods for being a tad to destructive) from obtaining the items he needs to re manifest on Earth.  As Helen and Troy go on their quest, they acquire a three legged dog, various enchanted items and a budding romance.  Some of the tasks they are set to overcome include defeating a professional cyclops, attempting to decipher the fates (lowercase f) cryptic words, survive a dragon preserve, battle a witch with a penchant for gingerbread, and try and figure out where they both fit in the bigger picture of life.   Along the way Helen and Troy are both faced with more esoteric questions, such as which of them is the hero, and which of them is the sidekick, should they finish the quest even though it puts the world at risk or give it up and be killed, and would they ever work as more then friends.  Eventually Helen and Troy finish the quest, the orcs catch up and a big bloody battle ensues.  The Lost God manifests, but is defeated and everybody goes back to attempt to live happily ever after.

Sorry for the chintzy summation, but if I start going into detail I will retype the whole book.  It is impossible to pick a favorite part, so just go read it yourself.  So so so so so many things to love about this book, I am just going to dive in and start gushing in no particular order.  Let's start with the world our story is set in shall we?  This is an alternative Earth, where the legends live on through genetic throw backs, where minotaur's while rare do exist and running into an elf fast food manager is not uncommon.  These folks are called Enchanted Americans and for the most part are treated like any other visible minority.  Magic is a part of this world, yet kept seperated enough that most humans (who are still the majority) and even Enchanted Americans live their lives as modern Americans do.  I find this mix of reality and magic to be blended perfectly and love it, this is one of this authors strengths as his other books also display this urban fantasy style blend. Moving on to the hero's.  Helen is not your typical heroine, she is seven feet tall, covered in fur...and oh yeah has a cows head.  She has come to accept who she is for the most part, but has done this by thinking of herself as somebody who can only go so far, who may never be able to be the leading lady, or the center of attention in any way but as a monster. On the other side of the coin you have the perfect Troy, he is good looking, smart, athletic, funny, and not really stuck up at all.  This pairing gives us the perfect

opportunity to see a myriad of reactions and examine how people look at each other.  I could seriously go on and on and on about all the zillions of ways the author uses these two to make a point, usually in a subtle yet funny way, but a true point all the same.  For instance at one point Troy is trying to describe Helen to his sister, being Asian he is aware that, that is usually the first way he is described and is trying to avoid labeling Helen a nothing more then a minotaur, so he describes her as a tall brunette with really pretty big brown eyes.  This of course brings home the point that most people will use what is different, or distinct about a person to describe them e.g. Black, Gay, The one with the fake leg, etc.  Good, bad or otherwise, this is usually how it works. I love in general how neither of the main characters are typical at all.  The female lead is not conventionally pretty, she is not super anything (other then physically strong...which is because of what she is, not anything special), she is a typical teenage girl, trying to figure life out, and by typical I mean real life typical, not book and movie typical.  The male lead is described as so close to perfect as to make no real difference, and yet he has to deal with that aspect of his himself.  He knows he is good looking, athletic, smart etc, but he also feels that people expect way more out of him because of it, and then he feels bad because he is complaining about his perfection.  The interactions between the two are wonderful and believable and wonderful and awesome and wonderful, I would go on,

but I think I've made my point.  Oh wait one more thing, the fact that the female heroine was the physically dominating/protective one and that the male hero was totally fine with it was really refreshing.  The road quest itself is entertaining and humorous.  I love a well done parody, but find most people either go overboard, or don't go far enough, or just don't understand what is funny.  Mr. Martinez does this tongue in cheek take on a classic epic quest in the vein of the Odyssey and other hero quests to perfection.  He retains all the essentials while at least giving a head nod to some of the more absurd aspects of it.  Ok so I'm gonna quit writing now 'cause a) I want you to all go get this, read it, and come back and discuss it b) I bet if you have made it this far your head hurts and you just want this post to end :-)   I give this amazing book 9 out of 10 possibly enchanted teapots and recommend it to anybody who is looking for a fun read, a book to get you in the road trip mood, or an alternative hero's quest.
What do you think of books that parody a trope?  Do you think we are getting a better variety of hero/heroines in our books?  Am I abnormally excited about this book?

All Hail The God Of Absolutely Never Smiling No Not Ever

Hello to all my bookworm friends and welcome to another ramble for my messy little brain.  Today we shall explore all the things I loved (and a few things I didn't) about Midnight Blue-Light Special the second book in the InCryptid series by Seanan McGuire.  I grabbed this book last week (or was it the week before) because it was easy to carry and I spent the next four hours lying on the grass on the National Mall enjoying myself thoroughly.  First lets get through a quick synopsis as always SPOILERS AHEAD.

When we left Verity at the end of the last book she had just dismantled a snake cult and found what could be the last living male dragon, Hurrah!!!  She is now working at The Freakshow, a new nightclub owned by Kitty a bogeyman (bogeywoman?) and the niece of the former owner Dave of Fish and Strips.  Verity is the head choreographer and lead dancer for the burlesque type shows in this strange little club that mixes humans and cryptids.  What are cryptids? They are creatures of legend, think dragons, gorgons, bogeymen, bigfoot and so forth.  In between shifts at the Freakshow, Verity spends her time studying, protecting and on rare occasions slaying cryptids as part of her Price family work. This all gets complicated when her sometimes boyfriend Dominic DeLuca of the dreaded Covenant (a group working on exterminating all cryptids just

because) stops by to tell her that the Covenant is coming to New York City to do a purge of the cryptid population.  This of course gets Verity all hot and bothered and in need of reinforcements.  Her cuckoocousin Sarah (a human looking creature who naturally manipulates all living things in her environment), her adopted Uncle Mike, Ryan the super hot Tanuki, and his frills loving Waheela girlfriend Istas all move into an old warehouse in the meatpacking district to come up with a plan.  Dominic slips information to Verity so she can watch the arrival of the three Covenant agents who are coming to do the prep work for the purge.  Among the agents is one women named Margaret Healy, a cousin of Verity and hell bent on getting revenge on the Price/Healy family for leaving the Covenant and actually considering most cryptids to be non-evil.  Much jumping, running, fighting and Aeslin mice (you remember these religious fanatic rodents who provide some great comic relief from the last books right?) ceremonies, all leading up to Dominic finally deciding to leave the Covenant and join the Price family in their fight to protect the cryptids.  Unfortunately he decides this a tad to late as Verity has now been captured by the Covenant agents.  Sarah takes over the narrative for a while, which is really cool and gives us a new perspective on both events, and her own character.  She and the rest of the gang come up with a plan to try and save Verity and/or warn the rest of the cryptids who are hiding out at the Freakshow.  We switch back to Verity who is being tortured for information, but finally manages to attempt to escape.  The tension mounts and all the groups finally clash on the roof with Sarah using her mental powers to implant false memories in the Covenant agents saving everybody.  Verity wakes up in the hospital to learn that Dominic loves her and is staying on her side, the agents have been sent packing and the New York cryptids are as safe as ever.  Unfortunately the mind trick Sarah used on the agents also sent her into a telepathic coma...with the results yet to be seen.  The book ends with Verity and Dominic heading back to the Price family compound, Sarah going home with her mother and a promise of more to come.

Obviously there is a lot more to this book, but that is the bare bones of it (I say this in almost every rambling don't I?)  I loved the first book, and I love this book, it has all the fun stuff spunky, sassy heroines, kick-ass fighting, crazy cryptids, love, hate, family it is so so so much fun.  I still love Verity as a central character, she retained all the traits I loved about her the first time around so I won't rehash that bit, but I will say that her character showed some believable growth which I enjoyed.   One of my minor complaints in the last book is that we did not get to see a lot of Verity's dancing, which was supposed to be her passion, this was addressed beautifully in this book by Verity deciding that while dance was her heart, protecting the cryptids was her soul and she would focus on that.  The Dominic/Verity love story is awesome plain and simple.  Verity has no delusions that Dominic is wholly on one side or the other, she is fully aware that he can betray her at any moment (which I think is part of his appeal for her).  In the end Dominic has his own growth arc and comes to learn that he needs to pick a side.  I like that he chooses to leave the Covenant, not just because of Verity, but because he truly no longer believes that all cryptids are mindless evil creatures.  This time around we get to learn a lot about some of the other characters, especially Istas and Sarah.  Istas cracks me up and may be my favorite character in these books.  She is a solid, beautiful, violence loving cryptid who loves frills, lace, and carnage.  Her interactions with the other characters adds great dimension to this story.  Istas relationship to the Aeslin mice is my favorite as they are natural enemy as Istas eats

rodents.  They come to an understanding when they bond over a bbq of evil rat and all is good.  Sarah becomes a main character in this book and our understanding of this cuckoo creature becomes more complete.  Sarah is not a typical cuckoo and is constantly trying to balance her instinctive telepathic tenancies with her moral and ethic compass she was raised with.  There are a few minor things that drove me nuts.  Verity free-runs all over New York, which is great, but the author talks about it all the time, describes it, tells us Verity's feelings on it, like 57 times, I get it Verity likes to free-run, it makes her feel good, it makes me write run-on sentences, enough already!  I also wanted more cryptid information...but that is because I always want to know more.  There is a great little appendix in the back that gives some extra info, but if the author wanted to write a whole book version of it...I would totally buy it...wait, here, she has an online version  The author said that the next two books in the series are about Verity's older brother Alex, which is hopefully gonna be awesome as it feels like Verity's story is pretty complete.  Also if this is the trend I cannot wait to read about the youngest Price sister!  In case you didn't get it, I really enjoyed this book and already have the next one on my shelf.  I give it 8 out of 10 cryptid cabarets.
What kind of cryptid lives near you?  What kind of cryptid do you wish you could be?  How does one acquire a colony of Aeslin mice?

The Holy Feast Of I Swear Daddy I Will Kiss The Next Man Who Walks In The Door

We all know that I usually have multiple books going at the same time, this week two of them have been Deadline and Discount Armageddon two very different books, but I noticed they seemed very similar in style.  Ha then I realized they are by the same author Seanan McGuire and her pen name Mira Grant, apparently I like her writing :-) Discount Armageddon was a really fun read, I enjoyed it thoroughly and laughed out loud at several parts.  It is in the dreaded first person narrative, but not a whole lot of angst so it worked. As always SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!!

Verity Price is the middle daughter in the infamous Price family...well infamous if you run in cryptid circles.  What is a cryptid?  I'm glad you asked, because it is crucial to the story.  Cryptids are what we humans would consider creatures from fantasy, everything from the bogeyman to the tooth fairy.  There are also less well known creatures such as the religious Aeslin mice that have been known to make a Holy Feast out of just about anything.  Anyways the sheer variety of cryptids of every shape and size keep our intrepid heroine busy.  Verity is part of group/family that does there best to protect the balance of cryptids/humans.  She protects humans from the nastier cryptids who prey on them, and also protects the more vulnerable of the harmless cryptids from discovery and harm.  She also helps protect them from the Covenant, an organization that shows no mercy when it comes to cryptids, pretty much using the line of thinking that no cryptid is a good cryptid.  Her family is considered traitors for not only leaving the Covenant when they discovered that most cryptids were not only sentient, but harmless as well; but for also intermarrying with the occasional
incubus. Verity lives in New York City with her own little colony of Aeslin mice, keeping the humor factor at a maximum.  She is trying to become a professional ball room dancer and in between keeps an eye on the resident cryptid population.  To help her attempts at keeping the cryptid balance, she works as a waitress and Dave's Fish and Strips.  Yep our girl works at a strip joint, but not just any strip joint, a cryptid strip joint.  The place is owned by Dave the bogeyman and he employs mostly cryptids such as Candy the dragon princess who is impervious to fire, Carol the lesser gorgon who has to wear a wig so her snakes don't bite customers and Ryan a smoking hot Tanuki who can become quit animalistic when the need arises.  Going about her business of Tangoing, waitressing, and patrolling Verity runs into Dominic De Luca a Covenant member who has been sent to the New York area to see if they need to do a purge.  After a bit of a fight Verity escapes to inform her family of his very unwelcome presence in her city.  Later at a ballroom competition she runs into Dominic again, this time he asks her if she has been helping cryptids leave, as he has noticed a marked drop in the population. Verity is confused as she attributed the disappearances to Dominic's Covenant cleansing.  Together, along with Verity's psychic cuckoo of a cousin discover a sleeping dragon.  This is exciting and a wee bit terrifying as dragons were thought to be extinct, long ago exterminated by the Covenant.  Verity uses her contacts in the cryptid community to find out more information. Dominic tags along, shocked to find out that most cryptids are not only sentient, but posses personalities, feelings, and other traits only attributed to humans.  Apparently in their quest to exterminate all non-humans the Covenant keeps up a pretty hard line of propaganda dwelling only on the potential cryptid danger to humans.  After a narrow escape from a new type of lizard man monster that neither of the two had seen before, Verity and Dominic get it on.  Afterwords they get into a huge argument, both of them realizing they will never agree on the way cryptid/human interactions should be dealt with.  Verity tells Candy, the dragon princess about the

sleeping dragon, causing Verity to be "invited" to the Nest. There Verity discovers the dragon princesses are actually the female of the dragon species, evolved and adapted to fit in with humans.  The supposedly extinct dragons were only the male of the species.  The females have been able to reproduce and keep at least the female side of the species alive by parthenogenesis, but they can't keep it up forever.  They eventually figure out that it is all unmarried females disappearing and that a snake cult is trying to wake and control the dragon through virgin sacrifices (note that this is not the way to wake a dragon up, but silly stupid humans don't know that).  When one of the cryptid girls that Verity and Dominic had talked to goes missing Verity takes to the sewers to find her.  Unfortunately the girl is dead, and Verity herself makes a very narrow escape.  She runs into Dominic who takes the death of the cryptid girl to heart, realizing that he cannot just blindly kill all cryptids he offers to go get the body while Verity goes to work to warn the other girls.  At the club Verity, Candy and Istas a Waheela get ambushed by the lizard men.  Candy gets away but Istas and Verity are taken to become virgin sacra fices to the sleeping dragon.  After a bloody battle won with the help of Dominic and Sarah (Verity's cousin) who had been summoned by Candy the dragon wakes up.  He and Candy have a moment and the dragon turns out to be very nice.  Dominic and the dragon make a deal that as long as they leave each other alone, one will not hunt the other.  Dominic agrees to keep Verity's presence in New York a secret and not hunt harmless cryptids.  Verity goes back to dancing, waitressing and cryptid keeping and the start of a new series is born.

I really enjoyed this book, it was funny, the pacing was good, the characters were all well written, just a good book overall.  Verity is how you write a kick-ass girl.  I know sometimes I complain about the trope of a kick-ass girl, but that is because that seems to be all there is to them.  With Verity it works for a couple of reasons a) She was raised to be a kick-ass girl, so she has a reason to be, it's what keeps her alive. b) She is not a perfect kick-ass girl, she has her believable weaknesses, the biggest being that sometimes she believes to much in her own kick-assness and forgets that other people/cryptids are capable of kicking her ass. c) There is a lot more to her then just her kick-assness. I like how this is written in a kind of classic, almost comic book style, there is fighting, supernatural creatures, and even the occasional skimpy clothing...ok there is a lot of skimpy clothing, but even that serves a purpose.  I think one of my favorite things in the whole book (besides the Aeslin mice), which I have noticed in the authors other books as well is that there is a good bit of actual science in the story.  Now a lot of books would either skip this part, or get really bogged

down in the details, but Ms. McGuire manages to stuff a lot of it in without once slowing down the pace of the book.  I also liked how she used science to point out some of the problems with the hard line Covenant thinking.  In science what makes a gorilla a protected animal, but a Sasquatch a cryptid in need of extermination?  A Madhura who for all intents and purposes is a sweet loving human who just happens to be able to slow decay and bleed sweet smelling blood needs to be killed, but a homicidal human is to be protected?  I also like how Dominic does not have an instant change of heart...not even after he sleeps with Verity.  His change is gradual and comes about as he learns about real life away from the sheltered, propaganda ridden walls of the Covenant.  He also does not come all the way around to Verity's way of thinking, just becomes a bit more tolerant of it, also he call her insufferable woman a lot, which for some reason reminds me of Pride and Prejudice, which is always a good thing. The only things I didn't like are super nit picky.  I wanted to see more of Verity's dancing, she talks about it a lot, but we only really get to see her do it twice.  I want to know more about Verity's family, they seem fascinating, but I think that we will get more of that in later books.  I am definitely looking forward to reading the next books in the series!
Why do tropes sometimes work and sometimes suck patootie?  What cryptid most intrigues you?  What do you think defines a cryptid versus "normal" nature?  Do you sometimes just love a kick-ass book?  Do you think that I really like to type kick-ass?