Book Review: Changeless

As a quick heads up, it looks like there won't be a review tomorrow since I've had just a hard time getting a hold of tv shows/movies to watch. I hate to miss an update like this but I just don't have anything and, looking ahead, I'll have plenty of stuff for the next month or two afterwords. My school has simply spent the first month and a half playing movies I have no interest in and I've had a time and a half getting a hold of Life on Mars (plus I kinda thought that Once Upon a Time and Grimm would be done by now and now it looks like neither of those will be finished until May). Again, sorry to do it but after this I don't foresee this problem popping up for another few months at leas.

So, as for the actual review, I read Soulless quite a while ago and hadn't gotten around to the sequel since I was having even more trouble finding a copy of that then I had of the first book. No idea why but I eventually had to utilize the inter-library loan system to get a copy of the book from half-way across the state and it looks like I'll have to do something similar to get the next few books as well. It's a shame that it's been so hard for me to find these books, it's a fun series, it's regular adult fiction (or possibly romance fiction, I'm not 100% sure) which I don't read that often so it's a nice change of pace and I just don't know what my libraries seem to have against it, maybe it's the publisher?

Changless by Grail Carriger

Summary: Picking up where the last story left off, Alexi is now married to werewolf Alpha Lord Conall Maccon and has settled into her role of prenatural (ie, completely unmagical to the point where her touch turns werewolves and vampires into humans again) adviser to Queen Victoria. Recently there have been some strange events that have puzzled everyone in the supernatural society, a "normalization field" where all ghosts in it are exorcised, vampires become human, and werewolves are unable to transform. Conall chooses at this time to run off to Scotland to deal with pack business with a personal connection for him and Alexi has to chase after him, especially since the normalization field is tracking north to Scotland as well.

The Good: Alexi is a clever and competent lead who is quick on her feet and holds her own in arguments, I really enjoyed her as a main character, she's just fun to read about. I also like a lot of the supporting cast, special mention goes to newcomer Madam Lefoux whom I have heard is a reoccurring character in future books, although I was a bit sad that the change of setting meant that some characters got less page time than they had in previous books. The story does a good job at expanding the setting and further establishing it as an alternate reality and I hope that the next book expands it even farther.

The Bad: Unfortuantly a good bit of the conflict in this story arises simply from miscommunication and it's just not a good thing when you have to have characters willing not act in their best interest to draw out a plot. To the story's credit however this was only done by side characters and Alexi is quick to point out how stupid this all is so none of the main characters had to grab the idiot ball for this to pan out (well, mostly, there is some towards the end to create the conflict for the third book which made me wince). There were points in the later half where the story moved a bit too slowly, again mostly because of some obvious and infuriating miscommunication, but the first half moved quite quickly. Also, really don't understand the choice to shove Alexi's half-sister into the story and make her travel with them as well, I really don't understand that choice and don't think she needed to be in the story at all.

I really enjoyed this installment and as soon as my to-read pile becomes a more reasonable size again I'll put in another request for the next book. The fifth (and I believe final?) book in the Parasol Protectorate comes out in March so I don't think I'll have time to read all the other books before that, as was my original time, but hopefully some library will have a copy of it once I get through the next two. 

Book Review: The Last Unicorn

Originally I was going to just watch The Last Unicorn movie since I had found it at the local college library but when I looked up the call number I discovered they had the original book as well and decided to read it first. I’ve wanted to read the book for years, just because I’ve heard so much about it over the years but my public library didn’t have a copy (I believe I read something else by Beagle back in middle school though). I was surprised at how old the book is, I knew the movie was old but I still expected the book to be a decade or two younger (it was published in 1968) so I was surprised by how the book had more of an older fantasy flavor instead of a new fantasy feel.

The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle

My copy of the book didn't actually have a cover, just a plain blue binding but, since people like images, here's what the 40th anniversity edition should look like. 

 

Summary: After the unicorn hears that she is the last of her kind she leaves her forest for the first time in centuries to find out if this is really true. Along the way she will see what has become of the world, meet some interesting people and learn what it means to be mortal.

The Good: The book feels more mature than fantasy does so readers who want a deeper, less light-hearted fantasy would enjoy this tale. The book is also written in an older style* so people who simply aren't as fond of how modern day fantasy is told or how characterization is done will probably like this as well, it does appeal to a good-sized audience in that respect. The characters are all well-developed (with the Unicorn and Prince Lir getting the most) and the story wraps up without any loose ends, it's a well thought out and planned story.

The Bad: At times it feels like this story isn’t sure just when or where it’s setting is which is a bit annoying. It’s entirely possible that the setting is meant to be an anarchism stew of sorts but otherwise it just feels sloppy for parts of a kingdom being stuck in the middle ages when other parts have more modern features (such as talking about wandering poets recording songs while eating tacos). The pacing in the book is a bit odd, the whole book is a quest but, while the first half of the book is spent rapidly traveling from place to place, the second half is set in one place and the story really slows down which I'll admit I disliked. 

I'm still not entirely sure what I thought about this story, and it's been a good week since I read it, since it was just so different from what I normally read but I don't think I liked it. I had a hard time sympathizing/empathizing/understanding the characters (although I did like Molly a lot by the end), the setting bothered me (I'm always picky about settings though) and I didn't understand the romance (and again, romance, not my favorite thing in a book). It was a well-written book and again, it might just be because I'm used to young adult fantasy instead of adult fantasy, but I just didn't enjoy reading this book in the end.  

Also, I'll post the first part of my summer anime overview tomorrow (not waiting any longer for Funi's simulcast for Baka to Test 2) but it's going up a bit late since I'm helping out a photographer all day tomorrow. The whole thing is already written, don't worry about that, it's more a matter of when I'll be at my computer to actually post the silly thing, my best guess is at 7pm EST. 


*it's a little hard to explain but, there is definitely a difference between the fantasy written now and the fantasy written even 20 years ago, I really need to write a whole post on it to explain what I mean.