Book Review: Mistwood

The second book I received from the Enchanted Inkpot giveaway and there's not much else to say to introduce it. I had a basic idea of what the plot was and thought it had potential but I actually went in completely unbiased which is a bit rare for me. In any case, onto the review!

Mistwod by Leah Cypress

I like the font here, it's fancy but not unreadable, and while the colors don't perfectly blend (I find the hair color just a tad too jarring, although the title picks up the color of the eyes nicely) I do like the concept here and think it works well.

Summary: The Shifter is a mysterious, some would say mythological, being that is bound to serve and protect the royal family of Samorna from any and all harm. Or so she is told, she can't recall anything about her life before she ran wild in the nearby woods but accepts these duties and the name Isabel and goes along with them. But snippets of her past begin to emerge and she realizes that the past Prince Rokan has told her isn't the complete truth and that the truth is very messy indeed.

The Good: While it would be erroneous to say that all main characters share the same traits but there are a number which crop up quite frequently and makes them feeling "main character-ish". Isabel however doesn't feel main character-ish in any way yet is undeniably the MC, not a supporting protagonist as her status as body guard might initially imply but a rather interesting character who grows and ends up being quite complex and fascinating to read. The fact that she's one of the best portrayals of a non-human protagonist I've seen in a long time helps and her internal struggles and conflicts with her past and present make perfect sense and are interesting to watch unfold. When I first heard of the book I thought that it was based on a fairy tale and, while I can't find any references saying it was, it has a lot of real fairy-tale aspects to it (like the ever present theme of transformation).

The Bad: Quite honestly I thought this was an amazingly solid book without any major flaws. The only part that bothered me a bit was that there it seemed like there was a murder the hypotenuse to prevent a love triangle from eventually forming, I couldn't see any other reason for said character to be killed and that frustrated me. Other than that, I wasn't sure what the author was trying to accomplish with the character Albin at times, I suppose she was trying to create a more morally ambiguous character which got muddied along the way, but again this was a strong book without any large failings that I noticed.

So, my favorite of the Inkpot books and a keeper for sure. The author has a second book out now, which I believe is unconnected, that I plan on checking out sometime (just when my to-read pile gets smaller, at this rate I'll have enough books to talk about until September). And on one final, slightly unrelated note, I love how all the books I got from this were also autographed; normally I don't care if I'm able to get a book autographed or not but in an odd way it gave this contest a more personal feel and it just made me happy.   

Webcomic Review Month 2012: Thistil Mistil Kistil, Toilet Genie, Transpose Operator

Still got another few days left, and dreading writing Saturday's epic-length post, I think by now everyone can see why I generally have to write reviews pretty soon after I finish a work. Well that and why watching eight or so different tv/anime shows a week doesn't phase me, although I have certainly found that it takes more effort to review the comics that either have a lot of different plot-lines or take a lot of breaks and I generally don't have that problem with anime. In any case, last year's T reviews.

Thistil Mistil Kistil by Sarah Schanze
Coal is a fallen warrior on his way to Valhalla but things aren't going as planned. As he is informed by a few angry gods his special pendant is not a replica of Mjölnir but actually a piece of it stolen by Loki. It turns out that Loki has also stolen small pieces from other weapons of the gods and so they appoint Coal to find Loki and track down where these missing pieces have gone off to.

This series definitely gets points for having a different setting, aside from Tolkien's works I can't think of that many stories that have heavy Norse influences* and the art also has a distinct look, I believe it was inspired by The Secret of Kells which was inspired by illuminated manuscripts of the time which makes it all the perfect choice. A really big reason I like the comic however is because of how Loki is portrayed. My first brush with Norse mythology, way back sometime in elementary school, had Loki as a trickster but not a "bad guy" so I've always been rather partial to that interpretation ever since which fits this Loki rather well. I really like the banter he and Coal have and I'm curious how to see how the other main characters who have yet to be introduced will fit in with the rest of the story. 



*you guys would not believe the stuff Tolkien stole, it's rather amazing.

Toilet Genie by Cari Corene
The first installment in the DOOR series, Skittlze was an average pug (loved her owners but rather dumb over all) who stumbles across a man chained to a toilet who grants her three wishes, the third of which turns her into a girl. Before Skittlze goes off to discover just how well this last wish will turn out she asks the man how he ended up being chained to a toilet which is an interesting story indeed.

This comic is a lot more "artsy" than most comics I read, both in the actual art style and in the way it's creating it's on overarching mythology, and I'll admit that it took me a few tries to really get into the story but now that there's a good chunk out I think it's easier to get into. Part of the reason I had a bit of a hard time was with the art actually, the character designs are very stylized but by now they've grown on me and I really like how the mythological parts of the story are done in watercolors instead of the normal coloring style. This story is one that's better to be read in chunks than in single page updates but when read together it's weaving together an interesting mythology and history and I'm curious to see where it goes next.

Transpose Operator by Roxy Polk
Sometime in the future everything went to hell and Earth is now a wasteland where the atmosphere kills you and there are mysterious androids running around with seemingly sinister plans. It's in this situation that our heroine wakes up, has no idea who she is or any knowledge of the world but she's determined to survive and find out anyway.


The protagonist of this story is one of the most badass characters I've ever seen, how many characters could wake up in a strange hospital, know absolutely nothing about themselves and the world, be chased by TWO groups of strange people and get through all of that without having a break down (and nearly managing to evade both of them wearing nothing but a hospital gown to boot!)? That's really what attracted me to the comic when I first came across it and even the horror aspects of the story, a genre I normally don't like, added to the setting and made me more intrigued. I've read plenty of dystopian stories and some of them have had horror elements as well, nothing says the future has gone wrong like disturbing medical experiments after all, but it doesn't mean it's any less effective here. Oh and it's total conincidence that the comic came off of hiatus today, I honestly did not plan that.
 

Webcomic Review Month: Runewriters

I was looking at my blog statistics earlier today and found that I had gotten a few hits from some forums where someone was doing a review of my reviews (is this a thing now? It all sounds rather meta to me). One thing I did notice about those reviews is something I should probably repeat here, I am doing quicker, more informal reviews than normal this month to try and help promote all of these webcomics. Sometimes it might not be quite clear why I like a particular comic but I come across works in every medium where I like them yet can't explain why since it's generally something I don't like (I was under the impression this happened to everyone from time to time). Oh and I am aware that blogger likes to go and double space some of my reviews for no reason, if a review appears to have been double spaced no I'm not trying to fill up more space on the page, I've argued with blogger and simply given up after five or ten minutes of trying to reformat everything.
Last year's R reviews.

Runewriters by Shazzbaa Bennett
Magic can always go wrong and for Tareth's friend Severian it seems to be doing nothing but go wrong for the past few days. His spell casting has gone wrong, he's been mistaken for a aberrant (demon) by hunters and what the two of them don't know is that something else seems to be going wrong behind the scenes as the hunters are noticing that their own motives seem to be changing as well.


Another young series so I might have inferred too much with that last line but there have already been a few hints that there is something at work behind the scenes, and that itself is a fairly common staple of fiction, and those hints are one of the reasons that this series caught my attention. The other reason is because of the main character Tareth, she's deaf and I can't remember the last time I read a story with a main character who was deaf* and so far Shazzbaa, who also does the webcomic Today Nothing Happened, has risen to the challenge of showing how Tareth deals with the problems this creates. She's hardly helpless, right now she's actually a lot less helpless than Severian whose a mage, and I can't wait to see where their adventures lead them.






*actually, the only time I can ever recall was a short story in the literary magazine for kids Cricket and that must've been close to a decade ago.
 

Webcomic Review: Steampunk Soiree, Strays, String Theory

Sorry this is going up late, forgot I had work today so between that, homework, and the 24 hour otakus help Japan podcast (which was pretty awesome even if I missed some of the best guests) I've been a bit busy. Guess it's a good thing that these will be shorter reviews tonight huh?

Steampunk Soiree
A newer webcomic that still seems to be finding it's feet, the story here focuses on thieves August and Berkely going on jobs and their unwanted guest Eva (long story that would spoil the first chapter) may be a main character as well. Honestly that's it so far, the comic only premiered last July and hasn't been able to hold a very consistent schedule due to school work, but I do like what the comic is doing so far. The title proclaims it as steampunk yet so far that's just been the background of the story (and that's a good thing, I prefer stories that use genre as a setting, not as something that defines the plot) and none of the characters are exceptionally chatty so there's no way of knowing if there will even be an overall story arc yet. But I do like the art, I like the characters, and I think I like where the story is going so I'll recommend it anyway, here's to hoping it gets more regular updates soon! (also, it has the coolest domain name ever)

Strays
Another comic that's still in it's early stages (actually, like Everblue the synopsis of the comic on it's website mentions things that haven't yet happened in the comic, oops?), this fantasy story revolves are Meela, a young lupian (she looks like a human with a wolf's tail  but they seem to be separate species, there are another human/animal looking hybrids in the story as well) who recently lost her brother (her only family member) and is on her own. She runs into Feral, another lupian who is a mute bounty hunter, and is currently following him around and bothering him and, besides the odd nightmares she's been having recently (which are definitely not flashbacks to her life, although her backstory so far looks just as gruesome)  are the only things of note so far. The story seems to be setting up a pretty big plot but so far almost nothing has been explained or revealed yet (and with a once-a-week update schedule it could take a while to get to this point). So I do recommend the story (the art in particular is very pretty looking, I suspect the creators are anime fans) but with the warning that it could take a while before this story really gets going, fingers crossed that it's pretty soon!

String Theory
2057-2060 in an alternate Earth where the Cuban Missile Crisis went terribly wrong is our setting (not that you can tell yet from the story), it's a little hard to describe the story so far without spoiling the first chapter. So I shall be vague and say that it involves a mad (and not-very-nice) scientist named Dr. Schtien, an intern named Delia, and an explosion. The update schedule on this series keeps throwing me off so I'm having a hard time remembering all the plot so far but it seems to involve government conspiracies and grudges, huzzah for politics, and if the Cuban Missile Crisis is mentioned in the setting then that must be important somehow to the plot. The comic hasn't given me any motivation to stop following it, it's just that the erratic update schedule is making it hard for me to get enthusiastic about it (heck, I thin this is supposed to be a full color comic but a lot of times the comic is updated in only black and white). I think that this could be an amazing comic, just prove me right please! 


Huh, hadn't realized beforehand that all three comics came under the "okay so far, awesome if it keeps going!" header tonight, bit odd. Not much else to say about all of this (except that I had the Wolf's Rain opening stuck in my head while reviewing Strays) so I'll be back again tomorrow with more reviews!

Webcomic Review: Shurb Monkeys, Skin Deep, Sorcery 101

Alright, got half of the "S" comics up today and look for another three tomorrow, which, weirdly enough, all start with "st". Yeah, I don't know how webcomic artists come up with names either but it is funny to see trends like that.

Shurb Monkeys
These days Shrub Monkeys is a journal like webcomic (sadly one that hasn't been updated much within the past year) but the first 25 or so strips are rather, random, didn't remember that until I skimmed back through them, wonder if the print books will be like that as well (actually, there are a number of rather random comics stuck in here that I'd forgotten about). In any case, these days the comic is about the adventures of it's artist and, since I enjoy random, slice-of-life shows, it's right up my alley and it doesn't require me to remember any important backstory so it's easy to read, even with the breaks. I also like the color scheme in the comic (white, blue, black, and purple), bit of an unusal choice and I'm sure it'll look great as a print comic, just wondering what they plan to do with the random/filler comics that pop up early on.


Skin Deep
Well, this comic is a little hard to talk about not because of hiatuses but because the comic has been on a short story for two years now (actually, the latest page of the main story line was posted back in August of 2008, there have been a couple of other short stories posted in the meantime as well as the current, erm, prequel side story thing that's posting right now). The basic idea to this story is that the creatures of legend and myth are in fact real, they have just developed some sophisticated magical clocking technology (using medallions) so they can blend in with humans. This magic does have an interesting side effect however, namely that people who are the offspring of a mythical animal/normal human relationship will be born human and remain so until they come into contact with one of these medallions, enter Michelle and her problem which kicks off the Orientations chapter (and there seems to be a similar problem going on in the Exchange chapter).  I have to admit that I like the Orientation plot line more than I like the Exchange one (the backstory being built up there is much more complex which I love), hence why I'm a little testy about taking so long to get back to it (the comic only updating once a week isn't helping out) but the current comic isn't bad at all, don't get me wrong there. And it is nice to have prettier art now, even within Orientation there was a big art shift and it's a very good looking comic now, sadly the latest chapters aren't available in print form yet. But, since it is a webcomic, it's all up on the website and I would recommend people check out the short stories as well (they don't add much to the main plot but they are pretty fun).

Sorcery 101
I probably need to completely reread this comic so I'll keep the review short. Set in an alternate world with magic (unknown to the general public however), vampires, demons, werewolves (which is apparently just another way of saying wolf demon), the story mostly follows Danny (an adult which is an oddity in the comics I follow) whose a former crown prince, a wannabe sorcerer and blood-bonded to a vampire whose currently teaching at a local private school. As for plot, there are a number of rivalries between, well, everyone but there's no central plot line in the story yet which is probably why I have a hard time remembering all of the episodic chapters. The story crosses over with As We Were (both by the same author, same artist as Today Nothing Happened) and Strange Someone (which I think was done round robin style, now completed) and those stories made things a bit clearer for me, but since Strange Someone takes place in the future it's a bit spoilerific. I'd recommend the whole set of comics to fans of urban fantasy, I just feel like I should really reread this before I say something wrong and make a fool of myself.


So, more "S" tomorrow and I'm almost done with the alphabet! Still got a couple of special days after that but expect a break sometime this week since I can afford to take another at this rate, plus I have the sneaking suspicion that I'm going to have a lot of homework this week which, sadly, takes priority.