Watch This! Angel (Pt. 1)

Welcome to Part One of a three part post series on Angel. Buffy the Vampire Slayer was a show that was unique at the time and became iconic, to the point that many shows and movies have since tried to capture it's particular brand of appeal, with varying degrees of success. It seems natural that such a larger than life show would deserve a spin-off. Angel was a natural character choice for a spin-off series. His history and mythology are deep enough to be expanded upon over the course of many seasons. It's still surprising to me that the series only went on for five seasons, when it rightfully could have gone on much longer, as evidenced by it's continuation in comic form. But let's just work with the show we have, for now. This initial post will focus on the main cast of characters, with heavy bias on the ones I find the most interesting.

Angel, Out of Sunnydale

Angel himself is far more interesting in his own series than he is in Buffy. One of the problems with his existence in Buffy is the fact that he is supposed to be centuries old. Buffy, throughout his entire tenure as a main cast member, is a high school student. However wise, worldly, and jaded Angel is supposed to be, however tortured he is, we don't get to fully appreciate it because he's  in the role of high school boyfriend. And that, my friends, has an undeniable ick factor to it. Whether or not you like Buffy and Angel together, whether or not you think they're soul mates, you have to see the truth that as long as Buffy is not grown up, Angel cannot act his age. The writers have to temper his maturity so that it doesn't come across as ridiculously skivvy.

Once Angel gets to LA and starts his mission for redemption, all of the sudden you start to feel his age. He is written as a tortured, reluctant super hero. Suddenly his backstory as a vampire with a soul seems darker, and it fits with the darker tone of the entire show. We see, for example, that he isn't mindlessly good all of the time. He makes questionable choices and get's caught up in the need for revenge. In season two, he becomes so focused on taking out the bad guys of Wolfram and Hart that he completely severs himself from his friends. His mistakes are what make him engaging.

Cordelia, All Grown Up

Cordelia is our second transplanted Buffy character. She was originally a shallow, privileged, mean
spirited foil for Buffy. Gradually, however, she was given more depth. She's shown to be smarter than she let's on, and more complex than the typical cheerleader character is usually allowed to be. She dates the comically unpopular Xander, hangs out with the Scooby Gang, and survives some of the bigger battles of Sunnydale. So while you might initially think that she seems like a rather random choice for a main character in the spin-off series, it actually makes some sense. She's already well established, and at least redeemable if not likable.

One of the things I  appreciated about Cordelia's development is that she kind of continues to be a little vain and a little shallow, despite learning empathy and the need for a higher purpose. She's given the gift of visions of people who need Angel's help. The visions are painful and rob Cordelia of the possibility of a completely normal life, time and time again. As a result, she becomes less of a socialite and more of a fighter, though she has much fewer opportunities to kick ass than the boys do.

In terms of how well she functions as a romantic interest for Angel...well, that never rang true for me. While I'm not the biggest fan of the Buffy/Angel pairing, I never felt like Angel's chemistry with anyone else was really complete.

Wesley

In Buffy, Wesley was best described as Not Giles. He's there to try to replace Giles when the council determines that Giles sucks at his job. He comes across as irritating and even a bit comedic, and his character continues in this fashion throughout his initial appearances in Angel. His character development takes a series of turns, however, beginning with the episode in which he's captured and tortured by Faith. From this point on, he becomes steadily darker and more complex, making some morally questionable decisions, but always trying to fight on the side of good. Like Cordelia, I initially disliked his character, and like Cordelia I felt he remained flawed throughout the series. However, his character get's a better treatment in terms of both romance and send off. I really liked him with Fred, is what I'm saying.

Gunn

The first non-transplant character in Angel is also the most manufactured of the main characters. I urban character, a tough guy who has lived on the streets, maybe even been in a gang of sorts, but is still on the right side of the good/evil line." And out of that mold springs Gunn, with his tough sounding name and his tough attitude and his tough toughness. Still, it's hard to dislike the guy, who frequently serves as the team's muscle despite a lack of formal training or super powers of any kind.
can almost hear the writers cooking this guy up. "Okay, we have this urban fantasy set in Los Angeles. We need a really

Angel has a lot of other recurring characters who, depending on what season you focus on are part of the main cast. It would be impossible to fairly cover all of them. In terms of which recurring characters I liked the most...

Darla seems like a natural addition to the cast, since she's Angel's maker and a huge source of conflicted emotions for him. During one of the shows more interesting arcs, she brought back to life as a human with a soul, and she struggles with how to deal with that. Later she's given the Mystic Pregnancy treatment, and her character basically becomes a plot device. I'm mostly okay with the way the writer's handled this, however. I like that, while she's mostly a villain, we do get a sense that she has a good side, a part of her does actually love Angel, and she is capable so sacrifice.

I also really like Lindsey, both as an antagonist and reluctant ally. He's a cynical, jaded character with a murky sense of morality--basically he's the clichéd lawyer from all shows and movies. During his time at Wolfram and Hart, you kind of get the sense that he's in over his head, that he doesn't want to become entirely evil. Yet he's not above some underhandedness, and he does stay with them despite a chance to jump ships. He's the kind of character that I really enjoy, because you can see his motivations, but you're never sure how evil he actually is. And, in fact, he's probably mostly just selfish.

That's the run down of Angel's most interesting characters, or at least as much as I'm able to do in a reasonably sized post. In Part 2, I'll be discussing the world building and How Things Work in the Angel/Buffy universe. The final part of the posting series will of course be a top ten episodes list, and then we'll be moving on to other things. Stay tuned.

On Destiny: A Review of Born to Darkness by Suzanne Brockmann

I don't normally read romantic suspense. It just happens to not be my favorite sub-genre (unsurprising, when you consider that I don't like mystery novels either). However, I have a history with Suzanne Brockmann's work--her Troubleshooters novels were among the first adult romance novels I explored when I decided that I liked romance novels. They were wonderful and terrifying and sexy, that handful of books that I read. I kind of got out of the series as I started to gravitate more toward paranormal, but the fact remains that I really like Brockmann's style. So when I saw that she has this new series, and it's set in the future and has science fiction elements...sign me up!

So, yes, this is the first book in that series. It's set in the not too distant future (a couple of decades, I believe), and there has been a depression and times are tough all around. But more to the point, a scientific community known as the OI has discovered people with elevated integration levels--advanced use of their brains that gives them psychic powers. In addition to research, the OI is fighting to bring down the manufacturers of a drug called Destiny, which has the power to artificially give people powers--at the cost of their health and sanity. Our heroine, Mac, is part of OI and a Greater-Than (person with powers), who's particular power is empathy and a bit of self healing. Oh, and irresistible charisma that makes men believe they're in love with her. Our hero, Shane, is a blacklisted ex-SEAL, who OI picked up as a Potential (one who might, with training, develop some powers). Shane comes into the OI to start his tests and training, but things get sidetracked when he learns that a little girl, who happens to be a Greater-Than, is missing--in the hands of violent drug dealers. Shane is determined to help Mac and her team get that little girl out safely.

Positive Comments

Okay, as always I'm going to try to do this as spoiler free as possible, but it's going to be tough because all of the things I liked and disliked are somewhat specific...so lets just say MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD right now....

On Space: A Review of Wanderlust by Ann Aguirre

Wanderlust is the second book in Ann Aguirre's Sirantha Jax series (the first is called Grimspace). This was a pretty bipolar reading experience for me--I loved it, and I hated it.

Following the events of book one, the universe is under new control, and Jax is asked to serve as an ambassador to a planet of potentially hostile inhabitants, and convince them to join the Conglomerate for the sake of peace. Jax is joined by the crew of characters we became familiar with in Grimspace--Dina, Vel, Jax herself, and, of course, March. They're joined by a multitude of new characters along the way--Jael (a genetically engineered human), a pilot named Hit, and many more.

Positive Comments:

I love the characters. Jax is in a rough spot throughout most of the book, and you can really feel her pain as she works through everything. March is an incredibly interesting character with a lot of unexplored depth that I can see being revealed in this and future books. The relationship between the two of them is another issue entirely, but overall I still see them as a fitting couple. The rest of the cast is great, as well. I like all of the clever little developments that Aguirre manages to work in, including Jax's little PA 245 getting it's own personality and becoming a character in its (her) own right.

I love the action. Aquirre has a talent for keeping readers in the moment during the perilous parts. Fairly early on, our characters are trapped in a small space with a bunch of man eating spider creatures, and I was afraid for them at an almost heart-pounding level. I also love the space travel, and the way that jumping through space makes Jax feel. I love that sense of adventure and urgency that you get in these books.

Critical Comments:

Jax spends a lot of the book ill and feeling sorry for herself about it. Yeah, getting sick or injured is a reality. Yes, it's absolutely permissible to have unhealthy characters in your book. But when your heroine and narrator is too ill to fight or defend herself, is vividly aware of this fact, and uses it as an excuse to 1) pity herself, and 2) push away the man she loves, it turns into a downer of a book. I had a hard time cheering Jax on as she was forced to stay hidden or stay behind the more competent fighter. Yes, I know not every character has to be a viscous, combat-ready fighter. I just prefer, in this kind of book, to see strong heroines who fight for worthy causes and, most especially, fight for their man--literally or figuratively.

This brings me to the March/Jax relationship. As I said, Jax is sick and she pushes him away because of it. Then, just when it looks as though they'll move past that, certain events lead to a forced separation. I've been reading so many forced separations between established couples lately that it's almost starting to feel like a cliche to me. And I have to ask myself at this point, why do authors feel the need to do this? I understand that it's an easy way to create conflict, and conflict leads to relationship and character development. But overall, I happen to prefer the conflict that comes from trying to stay together against the odds. So yeah, the direction that I saw their relationship going in made me just a little unhappy, but maybe it wouldn't bother other readers as much.

Bottom line? There is absolutely nothing wrong with this book. It's a full story, with a great plot and lots of subplots. It's got all of the elements of a good space opera. I happened to dislike some of the choices that the author made with her characters. But I still really like the characters, I  still like the series, and I'd still recommend it to most readers. 2.5 stars.

On Frost: A Review of Kiss of Frost by Jennifer Estep

I happened to win an ARC of this book back in October. It's the second book in the Mythos Academy (see my review of book one HERE). I had mixed feelings about the first one. This one, on the other hand, left me feeling pleasantly surprised.

In Kiss of Frost, Gwen is convinced that a Reaper is out to kill her because of the events of the first novel (which is all I can say, and still try to be spoiler free here). Gwen is still relatively unskilled when it comes to weapons and self-defense, but she does have a talent for investigation. Thus, wanting to prove herself and uncover her would-be killer, Gwen uses her psycometry powers to sift through her classmates' secrets.


Positive Comments:

I liked the winter setting and themes. I fully expected this book to be set entirely at the academy, which would have been fine. Instead, most of the story takes place at a ski resort where the Academy hosts a Winter Carnival. The change of scenery makes the story seem fresh.

As I said in my first review, the characters are quite interesting and thoughtfully written. In this book Gwen has finally started to come out of her shell socially, but she's still a fairly geeky and introverted character. I love Daphne, Gwen's best friend, who is the perfect blend of cheerleader and warrior princess, with a dash of computer nerd on top. Logan, the obvious love interest, is still hot and intriguing, and his character is finally beginning to show some depth. I also liked how the background characters were handled; Oliver, Carson, Preston, and so forth. The author manages to give them distinct and interesting personalities in very few pages.

As an aside, yes, there is actual kissing in Kiss of Frost. But I'm not telling you who kisses whom, because that would be a spoiler.

The overarching plot of the series seems to be headed in an interesting direction. This story by itself is pretty small and not overly exciting, but it does feel like it's building to something epic.

Critical Comment:

Gwen makes some questionable judgement calls. There are times when she seems to be willfully refusing to see obvious facts. This is frustrating for the reader, but I will acknowledge that Gwen is new to her role in the Mythos world, so a few mistakes may be excusable.

The only other complaint I have is that these books have a lot of untapped potential. The author has taken the time to build a world where all gods and goddesses and mythological creatures from all cultures exist, but she doesn't do much with them. Instead we get mortals fighting other mortals, with a little help from a giant killer wolf. There is so much more that could be done with this kind of world building, and as much as I enjoyed the story a part of me is disappointed at the wasted opportunity.

In the end, my expectations for this book were met and I dare say exceeded slightly. In the world of YA fantasy novels, these aren't anything special or ground-breaking, but they are enjoyable. I recommend them. 4 stars.

On Jumping Genes: A Review of Grimspace by Ann Aquirre

I've been interested in reading Ann Aguirre's Sirantha Jax series ever since I stumbled upon it at the local Booksamillion. I feel like there just isn't enough really good female centered sci-fi out there--although the subgenre seems to be growing. Anyway, this Grimspace really hit the spot for me.

Jax is a jumper, possessing a rare gene that allows her to navigate a spaceship through grimspace. This enables the ship to move through stellar pathways at faster than the speed of light. When a ship she was navigating crashes for no explained reason, the Corp (the military/government body that controls everything) is eager to pin it on her. She's rescued from their clutches by March and his crew. March wants to use Jax's unique talents to start his own school of jumpers, outside of the Corp's control.

Positive Comments:

The narrative is written in first person and present tense. At first that struck me as odd, and I worried that it would prevent me from getting into the story. Instead it worked really well, lending a sense of immediacy to everything.

Jax is a strong, confident female lead. She has a sense of humor and a smart mouth. She has flaws and quirks that bring her to life. I really enjoyed seeing the story from her perspective.

The rest of the character's are equally fascinating. March, the leader of the crew (and obviously the potential love interest) is pretty well developed. I found his motivations and his struggle believable; he wants to be a hero and complete a quest for the greater good. Then there's Saul, the doctor, who is interested in the science behind their goals. Dina the engineer, and Loras the communications savant, were equally interesting members of the crew.

The world building is very well done. Often in sci-fi, the technical babble is the stuff a reader has to wade through to get to the real story. In this case, the technical stuff is the real story--and it's intensely interesting. The idea of grimspace and jumpers is well thought out and makes sense, but isn't explained in excessive detail.

Critical Comments:

There were a few issues with plot structure and pacing. On several occasions it seemed that the story strayed from the original conflict, jumping into a different and only vaguely related conflict. There are bursts of action all over the place, which is awesome, but it makes it hard to determine what the primary climax was meant to be. There is a central story, and that story gets told, but there are a lot of other things going on. As a result, the pace is inconsistent, and there's a disorganized feeling to the novel.

The big villain of the story is obviously the Corp as a whole. As is typical when the adversary is an entire government body, the author chooses one character to sort of represent them and serve as a more targeted villain. I'm avoiding naming this person because I don't want to spoil it. I found it a little disappointing, though, that we didn't get to see more of this person. I wanted more background, development, and motivation.

Overall: This book had some flaws, but I really enjoyed it. I liked Jax and the other characters, I loved the world building details, and I loved the entire tone of the story. Aguirre has a strong storytelling voice, and I look forward to reading more of her books. 3.5 stars.

On Gypsies: A Review of Touch of Frost by Jennifer Estep

Touch of Frost by Jennifer Estep is this month's book club pick over at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. I just finished it last night, with mixed feelings. Primarily I liked the book. But the issues I have with it are many, although all very minor.

The book is told in first person narrative with Gwen as the narrator. Gwen is the new girl at Mythos Academy, a school for teens descended from the gods and champions of classic mythology. Most of the teens are warriors from rich families, and grew up knowing their heritage and their purpose. Gwen, however, has no warrior abilities to speak of and knows nothing about her mythological origins. She does possess a "gyspy gift"--psychometry--the ability to touch objects and people and get information about them (images, thoughts, emotions). When a girl is brutally murdered in the school library where Gwen works, she tries to use her gift to solve the mystery.

I thought that the initial ideas within the book--the use of mythology, the setting, the characters--were pretty fantastic. I had really high hopes early on when the book introduces Valkyries, Spartans, Amazons, etc, that it was going to build into an epic and detailed story. Estep uses Gwen as the fish out of water type character who doesn't really know anything about the mythological world, and thus has to have everything explained to her. This is generally a good world building strategy. The problem with it in this case is that it kept the story small. We are limited to Gwen's point of view and Gwen's knowledge of events. So instead of an epic story about gods and goddesses, you mostly get a murder mystery with a paranormal touch. It's almost entirely exposition, with a lot of pages devoted to building up to future books. It's a good story, but I thought there was a lot of unrealized potential.

The narrative gets a bit repetitive. The author seems compelled to remind readers of important details over and over, and in my opinion it makes for a lot of wasted space.

I liked that the characters had actual personalities. I've been noticing in my YA reading that protagonists are often given minimal character traits, as though authors are afraid that by giving them real personalities they might make them impossible to relate to. Not so here. Gwen is full of sarcasm, curiosity, and a touch of geekiness. It's unfortunate that, due to grief over her recently deceased mother and not really fitting in at Mythos, she spends most of the book friendless and isolated. Because of that, it took me almost the entire book to get a handle on her character, but at least she isn't flat and boring. And her development is fulfilling. She comes out of her shell, learns a lot about herself, and helps to save the day.

I had one problem with Gwen: I didn't really buy her skepticism regarding the fantastical elements of the story. I've had this complaint with other books. If you personally have a magical power that you've lived with your whole life, why would you be surprised or in denial about other powers existing?

Now imagine theses girls had super powers. Scary, right?

The social scene at the school was pretty intriguing. Mostly we learn about the Valkyries, who are the most popular girls. As you might expect, their mean and catty to one another and everyone else. Pretty accurate to what I remember from high school (minus the super powers, of course). Many of the other kids behave more like typical college students--lots of drinking and sex. None of which Gwen actually experiences, being isolated as she is, but she tells us about it repeatedly.

That brings me to Logan, the "love interest" of the book. He's a cool character, a Spartan with a lot of warrior skill, but he's under-utilized. There isn't really any romance to speak of, only a mutual attraction between he and Gwen that doesn't go anywhere. To be fair, I only expected romance because of the source of the recommendation. To my knowledge this is mostly being marketed as YA fantasy. And I'm sure we'll see more of Logan in future books.

This book is a nice meld of classic mythology elements and a few modern paranormal elements. If you like that sort of thing, and especially if your looking for a decent young adult book, I'd recommend this. I have high hopes for this series. 3.5 stars

The Romance of Spaceships: A Review of Gabriel's Ghost by Linnea Sinclair

Space Penguins!

Gabriel's Ghost by Linnea Sinclair was a book that I picked up as part of my quest to diversify my romance library. "Scifi romance" only just came to my attention, though why that is and why there aren't more of them out there mystifies me. The last things I read that can be honestly categorized as scifi were the Young Jedi Knights books back when I was a preteen. That's embarrassing to admit, and leads me to to my disclaimer: I am in no way an expert on the science fiction genre. Now on to my review.

This book was an oddly satisfying blend of seemingly dissimilar elements, rather like a peanut butter and banana sandwich. Mmm. Chaz was a career military space captain until she was falsely accused of killing a large number of her crew. She is sent to Moabar, a prison planet, to live out the remainder of her years. The book opens up to her being rescued by Sully, a space pirate of sorts who Chaz tangled with in the past. Sully (Gabriel Ross Sullivan) offers Chaz her freedom if she will agree to help him with a mission which involves shutting down a gen lab breeding jukors (horrible killing monsters).

Right from the start you get the sense that Chaz and Sully have some history. This is conveyed in the way that they banter and tease. It's slightly cheesy, but extremely effective not only in establishing what their relationship is and what it's going to build to, but the unspoken longing that has existed between them. I was really impressed by how Sinclair built three dimensional characters and a three dimensional romantic relationship in very little time. I completely bought into the love story.

Chaz is the narrator as well as the heroine, and she goes through the most in terms of development. Readers are informed that Chaz was a fairly by-the-book officer in her military career. But when it's brought to her attention that the government is doing something very wrong (breeding jukors) she agrees to risk a great deal to help because she genuinely believes it's the right thing to do. In her journey she must also confront a certain prejudice against people or creatures with psychic abilities.

Psychic talents are despised by the empire, and all children (Chaz included) are raised to hate and fear them. I really liked this take on a classic prejudice story line--mainly because I think psychic talents, if they existed, would be pretty frightening. Imagine if your significant other, your boss, your most loathed enemy, whoever, was able to read your thoughts or manipulate your mind. That's frightening to me. And yet, so often when these talents are utilized, in paranormal romance for example, people are very casual about it. In Christine Feehen's Carpathian books, or Marjorie Liu's Dirk and Steele series, everyone has crazy mind talents and they form deep psychic connections to one another, and it's all just part of their world and nothing special. Nobody runs from the guy with telekinesis or the chick who can read minds. So yes, I really liked that Sinclair made psychic abilities an issue and used Chaz's point of view and character arc to address that issue from multiple angles.

The scifi elements were great. Sinclair introduces only the details necessary to the story, without any extraneous flashy world building. You don't need to learn an entire futuristic vocabulary or the names of a hundred alien species. As a result, even a novice sci-fi reader like myself is comfortable with this book.

My criticisms are pretty minor. The narrative gets a touch cheesy and repetitive. I lost count of the number of times readers are reminded that Sully has "obsidian" eyes. I was also a little bummed that the ending was a "happy for now" instead of a "happily ever after".  I can forgive this since I know there's a sequel.

This is a fantastic book, and I highly recommend it. 4.5 stars.