monsters Archives - The Y Logs

Yzabel / January 12, 2017

Review: Strange Magic

My rating: [rating=2]

Blurb:

Yancy Lazarus is having a bad day: there’s a bullet lodged in his butt cheek, his face looks like the site of a demolition derby, and he’s been saran-wrapped to a banquet table. He never should have answered the phone. Stupid bleeding heart—helping others in his circles is a good way to get dead.

Just ask the gang members ripped to pieces by some kind of demonic nightmare in LA. As a favor to a friend, Yancy agrees to take a little looksee into the massacre and boom, he’s stuck in a turf war between two rival gangs, which both think he’s pinch-hitting for the other side. Oh, and there’s also a secretive ass-hat with some mean ol’ magical chops and a small army of hyena-faced, body- snatching baddies. It might be time to seriously reconsider some of his life choices.

Yancy is a bluesman, a rambler, a gambler, but not much more. Sure, he can do a little magic—maybe even more than just a little magic—but he knows enough to keep his head down and stay clear of freaky-deaky hoodoo like this business in LA. Somehow though, he’s been set up to take a real bad fall—the kind of very permanent fall that leaves a guy with a toe tag. Unless, of course, he can find out who is responsible for the gangland murders, make peace in the midst of the gang feud, and take out said magical ass-hat before he hexes Yancy into an early retirement. Easy right? Stupid. Bleeding. Heart.

Review:

[I received a copy of this book through NetGalley.]

A fun enough read in the UF genre, even though it dragged enough in places, and some things would’ve needed more development.

This book is packed with grit, action and magic suited to it, with a no-nonsense main character who wasn’t the most interesting ever, but likeable enough, in a sort of Noir way. This is the kind of character who’ll try to do the right thing, even if it means getting into dire straits, and I can seldom fault that: at least that’s a laudable motivation, and I’ve seen much, much worse in terms of not getting one’s priorities straight.

The novel reads a bit differently in terms of supernatural creatures involved: there’s magic, sure, but not the usual vampires or werewolves—the ‘monsters’ we get to see are more of the Rakshasa or extra-dimensional variety, which is a nice change.

Also, no useless romance, so bonus point as far as I’m concerned. Yancy’s family doesn’t exactly count, the ‘romance’ already happened—but there’s definitely something to unveil here in the next book(s), because why he had to leave them is not very clear.

On the downside, as previously said, the story itself dragged in some parts, causing me to skim more than read; some editing would’ve been good here, and same with the various flashbacks or inserts about this or that fact. (The latter made me think, ‘why not?’, but they tended to break the flow of action when they occurred during, well, action scenes, which is to say regularly.) This reflected on the characters in general: had they been more developed, they would’ve been more interesting to follow. Not to mention the lack of female characters, apart from a passing mention and a hostage.

The antagonist’s motives weren’t deep enough (so the guy doesn’t want to kill, but he still plans on having many people die to further his goal, but he doesn’t like and wish things were different, but he’s still going with it… Huh?), and when considering the plot as a whole, that was a seriously weak point. There were those serious stakes, pitching gangs against each other, trying to get Yancy killed while we’re at it, involving dangerous creatures, for a motive that didn’t hold much water and didn’t make a lot of sense because it was so likelyl to backfire anyway.

Still, I think this series would have potential, were it to give more room to its characters to evolve, so I’ll give the second book a try.

Enregistrer

Yzabel / July 31, 2016

Review: Monstress (volume 1): Awakening

Monstress, Vol. 1: Awakening by Marjorie M. Liu

My rating: [rating=5]

Blurb:

Set in an alternate matriarchal 1900’s Asia, in a richly imagined world of art deco-inflected steampunk, MONSTRESS tells the story of a teenage girl who is struggling to survive the trauma of war, and who shares a mysterious psychic link with a monster of tremendous power, a connection that will transform them both. Entertainment Weekly praised MONSTRESS as “one of Image Comics’ most imaginative and daring new series” and dubbed it the “Best New Original Series” in their year-end “Best Comics of 2015” list.

Collects MONSTRESS #1-6

Review:

[I received a copy of this book through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]

Actually, I received the first 6 parts, now gathered in this volume, so I thought I might as well review everything at once.

The 6 books are a blend between “traditional” comics and manga, especially in the themes and graphic style.

I found the art gorgeous—the cover got me interested even before I read what the book was about—with its seinen-style style softened in parts with rougher lines, and the way it pictures a civilisation both refined and savage, through the auction and the Cumaea, on a backdrop of war with “monsters” (the arcanics). The Cumaea reminded me of a kind of medieval-flavoured order of “nuns” who hunt and capture monsters to perform cruel scientific experiments on them. Also, characters reminiscent of eastern folklore, like the kitsune-type child, coexist with more “western” characters (the little cyclops or angel-winged kid). Said art remains impressive throughout the whole volume, able to convey both harshness and a certain softness: gorgeous landscapes, expressive characters, and creepy features when it comes to the more monstrous parts. (It seemed slightly darker in issue 5, and I’m not sure if it’s on purpose or a matter of different inks, but I find it’s quite fitting, reflecting the way the story is evolving (towards darker revelations and purposes).)

The first part follows Maika, a fierce young woman who looks but isn’t human, as she’s “bought” by a Cumaea nun and brought into their compound. Gifted with a strange power she cannot fully control, Maika is looking for answers, and isn’t shy about dirtying her hands to get them. The reader is also introduced here to a few other characters, some who will likely appear in other issues, and others who probably won’t… but I suspect their shadow won’t vanish as easily, and we’ll still hear about them.

In the second part, we get to discover the world outside, and not through a couple of flashbacks only. While Maika and the little kitsune manage to find a friendly woman to help them travel, the Cumaea’s badass and ruthless leadership is unveiled some more… and the world itself is not the least ruthless of all, what’s with the war still looming over its inhabitants. Not to mention the various uses of lilium.

Part 3 highlights the gruesome truths of the world (that “mountain” on the last two pages…), among which what’s hiding within Maika. Literally, may I add. The monster is revealing itself, and it is scary. Yet at the same time, beauty remains in that world, too: in its landscapes, in the costumes (Maika in her simple dress tends to make one forget the Cumaea’s clothes), in the wonders it may also contain. Kippa the cute fox-kid also plays more of a role, discarding an opportunity for running away to behave bravely instead. It may not seem much, but… but that kid is cute, and a little cuteness is not unwelcome in that world.

Part 4 and 5 also introduce more players, like the Warlord and the Queen, and the plot thickens (hints about what happened in Constantine). And in part 5 and 6, we get to see more of the mysterious Dusk Court, who have their own sources of information and their own plans for Maika, and even sent a bodyguard sent to escort her to their lands. Meanwhile, the Cumaea make their moves as well, and some of them are also in a long game, more than meet the eye for sure. Also, what is being done to these poor kids downstairs, and are the cats their guardians, or here to suppress their powers, or?…

As for part 6, this collection of first issues ends with a cliffhanger that doesn’t bode so well for Maika. Cosmic irony much? I am sad that I won’t get to find all the answers now, yet I’m also glad that the plot isn’t too simplistic noro “drowned” in pretty panels.

Notes:

– I find it particularly interesting that most important characters are females (men are mostly seen in passing), but in a way that doesn’t get pointed at: they aren’t strong or important “in spite of” being female (the way you unfortunately see in too many works of fiction), they just ARE, which is great. And speaking of the Warlord… haven’t we seen that face?

– I’m not sure if the “Awakening” volume also containes the “cat lessons” that were at the end of each individual issue. I found them interesting, and I didn’t mind the infoo-dump since it wasn’t imposed within the story itself, so all’s good for me in that regard.

Conclusion: Definitely a graphic novel I want to keep reading, for its wonderful art (both soft and harsh, a little weird, creepy in places, and with beautiful landscapes and buildings) as well as for the direction the story seems to be taking: Maika’s stay at the compound is only the beginning. So many questions, and hopefully many answers to come… in the next collection of issues.

Yzabel / July 22, 2016

Review: This Savage Song

This Savage Song by Victoria Schwab

My rating: [rating=2]

Blurb:

Kate Harker and August Flynn are the heirs to a divided city—a city where the violence has begun to breed actual monsters. All Kate wants is to be as ruthless as her father, who lets the monsters roam free and makes the humans pay for his protection. All August wants is to be human, as good-hearted as his own father, to play a bigger role in protecting the innocent—but he’s one of the monsters. One who can steal a soul with a simple strain of music. When the chance arises to keep an eye on Kate, who’s just been kicked out of her sixth boarding school and returned home, August jumps at it. But Kate discovers August’s secret, and after a failed assassination attempt the pair must flee for their lives.

Review:

[I received a copy of this book through Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review.]

Took me a while to get to this one, I don’t know why, so apologies to the publisher—I’ve had the ARC for a few months.

I guess it didn’t turn out like I thought, although I don’t know what I expected. Something more… intense? Savage, like the title? More action? Or maybe for the “failed assassination” part to happen sooner?

On the one hand, I really liked some of the concepts introduced here. First, the city divided between North and South, each side in the hands of “leaders” with their own ruthless ways—one a mobster-like crime lord who keeps the monsters in check by being a monster, too, and the other a benevolent military type who nevertheless has no qualms to associate with monsters as well. Second, the way those monsters are born: the shadowy Corsai from violence that doesn’t result in death, the Malchai from actual murder, and the Sunai for massacres, which contrasts in a terribly beautiful way with how they feed: born from the ugliest acts of violence, of dozens, hundreds, thousands of people killed in bombings and the likes, yet performing their killings through enchanting music. And let’s not forget the conundrum of the monster who wants to be human, who knows he cannot be, and who risks turning into an even worse monster if he denies his nature (not feeding basically means he’ll turn into a mass-murder predator, then will wake up having lost some bits of his hard-won personality… forever).

Also, no romance. Seriously. Not for one moment is it implied that Kate and August are meant to end up with each other in that way. As reluctant partners-in-crime? As friends at some point? Sure. But no twu wuv for these two, and that’s a breath of fresh air in a category (YA) where you know almost every main lead will meet one, potentially two (or more!) love interests.

Wonderful, wonderful ideas. The boy-monster who desperately wants to be human, even trying to believe in that dream when he gets to attend a school full of human beings, and the girl who’s ready to any length, including threatening her schoolmates and setting fire to a chapel at night, in order for her father to finally acknowledge her—meaning she needs to be as bad as him for that to happen, therefore turning into her own kind of monster.

And yet… Yet I couldn’t feel much of a pulse in the story. Maybe it went too slowly. Maybe it’s the kind of story where the characters need to be thrown in the action first, and then get to meet and to know each other, to discover their respective secrets and accept who they are (and who the other is). The Colton Academy part was perhaps too long, with August and Kate appearing like generic characters rather than real people (they remained a bit bland throughout the novel, in my opinion). And while I tend to like information about the world being given regularly, distilled between two events or two dialogues, instead of being chunked at the reader in huge blocks of info-dumping, in the end I still don’t know what that world is made of. Strangely enough, I may not have minded this if the story had been set in V-City only, with “The City” as a character itself; here, it was too much a “yet another USA turned dystopian for some unknown reason”.

Conclusion: loved the concepts, execution though was too weak compared to what could’ve been (and I know it definitely could’ve been, coming from this author!).

Yzabel / November 22, 2015

Review: Death Vigil (Volume 1)

Death Vigil: Volume 1 by Stjepan Šejić

My rating: [rating=4]

Blurb:

Gifted? Join the Death Vigil in their ongoing war against the ever-growing power of the Primordial Enemy! Only catch is you have to die first. Become a corporeal immortal Death Knight and obtain reality-altering weaponry in the never-ending battle between good and evil.

Review:

[I received a copy of this comics through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]

This volume gathers issues 1 to 8, and while it’s not necessarily the most original take on the concept (the Reaper as a sort of goth girl + the scythe), I pretty much enjoyed it no matter what. Because, well, let’s be honest: I like goth chicks with scythes. Also I always have a soft spot for necromancy in general. And when it comes to toying with tropes.

I really liked the artwork and colours, although sometimes it was hard to differentiate between characters when their hair weren’t distrinctly black or white, and the author/artist went a bit heavy-handed when it came to cramming a lot of details in a panel. Granted, I read a PDF copy, which didn’t help (especially with panels on two separate pages—I had to change my display). It wasn’t such a big problem in the long run, just at times. Overall, the art grabbed me.

The scenario itself was somewhat simplistic: the Vigil (good guys) vs. the Necromancers (bad guys), complete with mysterious writings in the hands of a semi-crazy scientist/archaelogist bent on transcribing them. Nothing too original, but… it still worked. Sometimes you don’t need uber-original to be happy. There was action, and monsters, and cute monsters (Mia!), and Necromancers (some stupid, some definitely creepy), and puns (cheesy, but I’ve been known to be a much worse punster at times). Bad puns galore and characters dealing in death and horror, yet keeping a sense of humour? Count me in. Necromancers being both badass yet also highly ridiculous in how they always (always: even Sam, one of the main characters, keeps remarking about it) take their shirts off before running to battle? I am a simple being; this kind of stuff amuses me. It may be dumb, but it worked as far as I was concerned, possibly because I was in the mood for it.

Apart from the art and from smiling at the puns and all, what I also liked was the diversity. The people gravitating about Bernadette the Reaper were a family of sorts, all of different backgrounds and age, with strong bonds. A lot of female characters, too, and not the damsel-in-distress type: Marlene saves the day more than once, Grace looks frail yet is everything but, Clara actually gets back on her feet fairly quickly and embraces her power (which is fun, even though at first sight her weapon seems useless) instead of remaining “the typical clueless newbie who needs to learn all the ropes from Big, Burly Senior Male Characater”… That was refreshing.

Speaking of powers, while the scythe, knives and spade+pickaxe combination remain more “classical”, there’s also an interesting gallery here. James is a MMORPG player and his weapon is a deck of cards, which he uses as if he were playing Magic. Clara’s a feather which can do other things than just write. Chiyoko and Vlado can’t speak each other’s language, but their powers work really well together, and they have developed other means of communicating.

I’ll gladly pick the next volume. The subplot revolving around Clara, the mystery around Bernadette’s origins, Sam and his relationships with his tools (and also the hand)… Those make me want to know more.

Yzabel / September 28, 2013

Review: The Fear Institute

The Fear Institute by Jonathan L. Howard

My rating: [rating=4]

Summary:

Johannes Cabal and his rather inexact powers of necromancy are back once more. This time, his talents are purchased by The Fear Institute as they hunt for the Phobic Animus – the embodiment of fear. The three Institute members, led by Cabal and his Silver Key, enter the Dreamlands and find themselves pursued by walking trees plagued with giant ticks, stone men that patrol the ruins of their castles, cats that feed on human flesh and phobias which torment and devastate. The intrepid explorers are killed off one by one as they traipse through this obfuscating and frustrating world, where history itself appears to alter. Cabal, annoyed that the quest is becoming increasingly heroic, finds himself alone with the Institute’s only remaining survivor, and after a shockingly violent experiment, begins to suspect that not everything is quite as it seems…

Review:

(I got an ARC of this book from NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.)

I’ve only read the first novel in the “Johannes Cabal” series, and hope I haven’t missed on too much by tackling #3 without knowledge of the events in #2. But from what I saw, “The Institute of Fear” does well enough as a standalone book, with the occasional hints at Cabal’s past adventure(s) being easy enough to understand.

The crossover with H.P. Lovecraft’s worlds and creations was nicely done in my opinion—here, too, prior knowledge isn’t absolutely necessary, although the regular winks are, of course, best enjoyed when you know what they’re about. It is also a cause for a lot of deadpan humour, which is something I like. Johannes Cabal is the voice of cold, unfazed logics in a place (the Dreamlands) that is all but rational, and where everything is shaped according to people’s deeply rooted unconscious beliefs. For instance, cats. If enough people believe that cats are intelligent, cunning creatures, then cats in the Dreamlands are exactly that, and have to be treaded around carefully. Well, this is what happens at several moments, and the hapless three travellers who’ve come to seek Cabal as their guide are reminded of such facts on a regular basis.

The necromancer’s point of view is definitely one of sarcasm and dark humour: a protection for his charges, but also his own way of keeping fear at bay, for Fear (or rather, its physical incarnation) is what the adventurers are seeking here, in order to destroy it. Their journey is impeded by the strange, changing geography, monsters, dead beings, and various other elements pertaining either concepts of dreams or the lovecraftian corpus. It’s full of interesting ideas (the dreffs, the Moon slavers), and it seems there’s always something new to discover… and dread.

If anything, I’d say the pacing was a little unequal in places. But the tone of the narrative definitely made up for this in my opinion.

Yzabel / September 7, 2005

Monstercake

It had been a few days I had bookmarked this blog with the intent of writing a little blurb about it here, but I got sidetracked by my recent theories about languages, among other things.

Better late than never, here is Monstercake, “a cast of the odd, misfortunate, and downright horrible, brought to you daily” by Eugene Smith. Each blog entry intriduces some kind of “monster”, whether this is evident at first sight, or done with a more subtle approach. Sometimes scary, sometimes funny in some kind of twisted way, inks or watercolor, freaks or folklore monsters, these drawings aren’t always what one would expect of them at first, and the style is one I find very pleasant.

Today’s post features Cthulhu in a salaryman suit. Well, probably not Cthulhu, but isn’t it an interesting way of seeing things?