Watch This! Buffy The Vampire Slayer (Pt. 1)

This month, I thought I'd dedicate a few posts to one of my all time favorite shows--Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The show first started in 1997 (I would have been 7 at the time), but I didn't get into it until around 2000. At that time, I had just discovered Harry Potter and with it, a love of fantasy and all things supernatural. Buffy has a very different tone, but it's similar in that it's grounded in the real world, where most people are not aware that supernatural forces exist, and that the heroes are normal teenagers with normal problems that are only exacerbated by the presence of magic and so forth. Also similar is the "chosen one" premise, the idea that fate picks one seemingly ordinary individual to be the savior. The difference in premise is that while Harry has one singular task to perform (kill Voldemort), which once completed will ultimately leave him free to live out a happy ending, Buffy is stuck killing vampires until she dies. Harsh, yes?

Buffy is the Mother of the Kick Ass Female Protagonists of Urban Fantasy

Oh, there were kick-ass females before her and there have been even  kick-assier females since. Hell, Anita Blake predates Buffy by about four years, and she's certainly earned her alpha stripes (despite enumerable flaws). But what Buffy did, in my humble opinion, is bring the kick ass female into mainstream light. The show is popular, a pop culture phenomenon, and for my generation she was the final word on unlikely female heroines.

Joss Whedon has become somewhat famous for his ability to make petite female protagonists into convincing fighters. Buffy is consciously written to subvert the cliché of the ditsy blond teenager who is the first to die in every horror movie. Her influence has made small-but-lethal ladies into a popular trope in and of itself in urban fantasy. Buffy makes up for her weak appearance with implied superpowers--supernatural strength and speed. Many UF authors do something similar, granting their heroines magical powers or gifts that bely their harmless visages. Others use brains or extreme weapons training, or some combination of all of the above. You can see why this is such a popular premise to launch a series on--it makes for such interesting and varied protagonists, with varying levels of angst and drama.

Buffy suffers from the classic fantasy heroine conflict--she wants a normal life, but she can never have one. Something always gets in the way. But she is, essentially, just like every teenage girl--and thus she goes through all of the same milestones--but on steroids. The loss of her virginity is a huge disappointment, to the tune of her boyfriend turning psycho-killer. She runs away from home and is met with a wake up call, in the form of a bizarre demonic slavery system. She finds that she wants to be popular, and become Homecoming Queen, but ends up fighting homicidal monsters all the way to the dance, only to find that she's not even runner-up. And so on. Buffy is relatable because, like most teenage girls, she feels like nothing ever goes her way and the world is against her. In Buffy's case, her life really is often miserable and the world really is out to get her. The relatability draws you in, her losses and disappointments make you emotionally invested, and her constant triumph over the monsters brings you comfort.

The fact that Buffy was so widely popular and is still remembered fondly (and continues on via comic books and so forth), means that she's often the basis of comparison for any UF heroine. Rightly so. When I read young adult urban fantasy in particular, I'm always looking to see in they included the traditional Buffy character--naïve but not stupid, seemingly and yet actually quite strong, snarky and unexpectedly smart. Maybe she has a group of friends like Buffy, or impossible romantic relationships like Buffy. Whatever variation the author goes with, there's almost always a tiny tribute in there somewhere.

Blog Tour Review: Purgatory Reign by L.M. Preston

Today the blog tour for Purgatory Reign stops here! Let's dive right into the review, shall we?

The story follows Peter Saint, an orphan with some unusual talents, who is on the run from an evil organization. He's not alone, soon being joined by scruffy Angel, a small kid with surprising fighting skills and lots of secrets. The two try to find sanctuary while attempting to unravel the mystery of two opposing organizations, the power they wield, and what exactly they want with Peter and Angel.

The is a good, tense, action driven urban fantasy. There's violence, magic, car chases, and mystery layered on thick. It's never boring, and that's very important.

I liked all of the characters a great deal. I found Peter an interesting mix of honorable rule breaker and survivor. I liked Angel a lot as well. I felt like their relationship  developed a bit too quickly, and I was frustrated by the lightning jump from dislike to implicit trust, but that's a common sin in books and I can't complain too much.

My other primary frustration with this book was the style of the world building, which uses a lot of withholding to keep the story mysterious. Personally, I prefer to have the rules of the world and what is going on in it laid out early in the story. I like to know who the players are and what the stakes might be, so I can focus on the action within the plot. That's not to say that the world building isn't intriguing, because it is. The villains are scary, the settings are creepy, and the magic sufficiently believable. The fact that I prefer my explanations clear and early in the story is a matter of personal preference.

To conclude, this book is worth a read if your a fan of urban fantasy steeped in religious/magical history. The pace is snappy, there's plenty of action, and the end will not disappoint you. 3.5 stars.

On Grifters: A Review of Fate's Edge by Ilona Andrews

Ever feel like you're just reading something in order to finish the series, but you're no longer that deeply invested? I felt that way with this book. That's not to say that there aren't good things about this book, but oh gods, I had to fight myself a bit to see them.

If you aren't aware, this is actually book 3 in The Edge series. It's hero and heroine are Kaldar and Audrey, respectively. We've met Kaldar in the previous book--he's a cousin to Cerise. Audrey is a former lock pick/thief from a family of con-artists, who now desperately wants to turn straight. But she agrees to do just one last job, steals something huge, and Kaldar ends up charged to get the item back. He enlists her help, and of course, romantic things ensue. He also ends up taking George and Jack, Rose's little brother's from book one, along for the ride. And Gaston, who I honestly still can't picture. But whatever.

So, what works in this book are the elements that always work in Ilona Andrew's books. The action is tense and fun. The fantasy elements are used creatively. The characters are clever, feisty folks that have walked in a lot of morally grey areas and come out mostly good.

The dialogue and chemistry between Kaldar and Audrey is...well, it's there. It's dropped into the book like the authors thought it had to be, "We have to have a hero and a heroine, and they have to make each other's naughty bits tingle. But we can't focus on that too much because, obviously, big world threatening primary plot..." It's probably unfair for me to complain that the romance didn't work for me in a book that is obviously not a romance, and no one promised it would be (accept for Mr. Cover-Art, there's something inexplicably romance-ish about that. But honestly, that's kind of my point. Why have that subplot if you can't or won't take the time to do it justice?

At the same time, I mentioned that I did like the characters, and I did. A lot. I like Kaldar especially. He's a scoundrel in the best possible way. He loves to steal, and get the better of people, but there's no malice in it. He's the best of both worlds in that way.

I liked the decision to include Jack and George in the story. They make interesting side-kicks. For me, they are two of the most natural and interesting characters included in the series. I sort of find myself wishing they'd just skip ahead and give them a book or two. I'd get excited for that.

As for the plot itself...I don't know, it's not poorly written, but I just don't feel that invested. The stakes weren't high enough for me. As I stated in my review of Bayou Moon, the world building is adequate, but it's never been my favorite universe to visit. I almost wanted to see something huge and terrible happen, just so that the overarching world would develop a bit.

For me, these books, this series, has just been okay. I wouldn't say that they're the worst reads you could pick out of the urban fantasy pile, but they aren't the best either. 3 stars.

On Nursing: A Review of Nighshifted by Cassie Alexander

I bought this book based on the description, and looked at reviews after the fact. They were pretty mixed, and many of them quite critical. So when I started I had some feelings of trepidation, to be sure.

Edie's brother is a drug addict, and she's sick of watching him flirt with overdose and infection. So when she's offered a mysterious nursing job on a floor called Y4, in exchange for a mysterious promise that her brother will become clean, she takes it. Y4 turns out to be where non-human patients are sent--vampires and their servants, werewolves, shapeshifters, zombies, and so forth.   When a patient dies on Edie's watch, having asked her with his last words to find Anna, she's compelled to do just that. Her actions soon put her on trial with the vampires, in a life or death struggle for survival.

The best parts of the book are, without a doubt, those that take place in the hospital. You can tell the author knows nursing, and has just added the supernatural parts in for flavor, and as a result it feels very real. I was drawn into Edie's life and her struggles to fit in and do her job.

Edie's a surprisingly novel sort of heroine. She's kind of a screw up--she makes mistakes that endanger patients and coworkers, she makes questionable personal decisions, she has random unprotected sex...But she has a good heart, too, and she means well, and she's terribly easy to relate to. At every turn, I could easily see myself making the same fatal errors.

Among the secondary characters, we meet a zombie and a shapeshifter--both potential love interests, predictably. But the zombie is really different from your typical UF hero, and I found myself very intrigued by him. He's not at all attractive, for one, with lots of scars. I hope to see more of him as the series progresses.

The biggest problem with the book is that, outside of the hospital the plot mostly drags. It is not nearly as inspired, and the mystery is not something I could force myself to care about.

Overall, this urban fantasy manages to stand out a bit because of the medical aspects and it's oddly appealing heroine. I hope for great things from this series. 4 stars.