Book Review: Prisoners in the Palace

So, every fan of any media goes through burnout sometimes, some more frequently than others and some not often at all. I tend to go through a book burnout about once every two years (I think the last time this happened was when I read all of those really blah science fiction books two summers ago) and I'm in one of those stages now. I'm not seeing much I like at the library (not surprising considering how many years I've been going to each of them), going through my to-read list I'm baffled why some of those books are on there, and just not getting much pleasure out of reading. I grabbed this one from my school's library before exam week since I needed something to read when not studying and, well, at least it was better than the two or three books I tried before it from my list and ended up returning unfinished.

Prisoners in the Palace by Michaela MacColl

Summary: Liza Hasting has just suffered two tragedies: her parents have died in a tragic accident and she is apparently left with no fortune nor skills to earn money with and will soon be destitute. Because of this she agrees to become Princess Victoria’s lady’s maid and, since she stands a better chance at paying off her father’s debtors if her lady becomes queen and rewards her, she finds herself acting as Victoria’s maid, confident, and spy on the things going on around her.

The Good: As far as I can tell this was a fairly historically accurate novel (which sounds strange since MacColl says in the author notes that she rearranged parts of Victoria’s life so that the story flowed better) and I can’t remember the last time I read a book set in/around the Victoria era which didn’t involve supernatural happenings, it was a nice change. Liza’s situation ended up being handled more realistically than I would have expected. Actually, the novel made me realize how much I missed the upstairs/downstairs going on at Downton Abbey and it makes me want to read/watch other stories with that same dynamic.

The Bad: In the end, even though this wasn’t a terrible read I just didn’t get anything out of it and I’m not sure why. Liza was an alright main character, although she lacked some spark that would have made her a memorable lead, but I did feel like Victoria was a really inconsistent character and it was hard to tell if she had grown at all by the end. The story was okay and worked yet, even seeing in the author’s notes that the pacing of real life events had been reworked to make the story flow better, it still felt a just bit too laid back considering what the stakes were. Everything just felt a bit flat about this book and, if I hadn’t just come off of two weeks where I couldn’t find anything that I was enjoying reading at all I probably wouldn’t have finished it.

So giving this just 2.5 out of 5 stars for being an okay book but not one I expect to remember long into the future. And crossing my fingers that I get out of this burnout soon, although it's going on for longer than it normally does. 

Book Review: Timeless

And I finally, after several years of trying to achieve this, have finally read all of the Parasol Protectorate series, wahoo! So, same drill as before, talking about the summary of this book involves some good sized spoilers for the first few so only continue reading if you've read the first few or just plain don't care, although considering just how large this one is I'd recommend against that.



Timeless by Gail Carriger

Summary: Alexia and Conall’s daughter, Prudence, has been born and as predicted she has the ability to borrow a vampire or werewolf’s abilities which causes a whole slew of trouble given her surroundings. So its not without misgivings that Alexia accepts an invitation from the oldest vampire queen of them all in Alexandria, near the God-Breaker Plague of Egypt, and heads south hoping to resolve the mysteries of her family once and for all. 

The Good: In retrospect, Carriger started seeding many of the subplots that would appear in Heartless and Timeless rather early on and I’m impressed. I’m sure some might find the ending overly neat but considering how many of the characters in the series actively try to create neat endings for the people around them this shouldn’t be surprising. As for the actual book, I had always been worried how Alexia’s pregnancy, and subsequent offspring, would be handled but it all worked rather well here. Alexia still acts like herself, she and Conall truly love Prudence (which is in line with their characters), and the child is important to the story but not a plot device. Considering that I was expecting her to be left on the sidelines while the adult characters went on more adventures this is much, much better than I had hoped and for me that’s why the series ended so satisfactorily, it was smarter than I expected and that makes the story work for me better than almost any other ending could have. 

The Bad: In the end I do wish we had gotten a bit more information about both Alexia’s father and Floote. That storyline was also foreshadowed fairly early on but I think it needed not exactly more foreshadowing but more details revealed earlier on, especially considering how important it ended up being. Also, I feel like Madam Lefoux’s character ended up changing quite dramatically through the story, and well, it felt a little uneven by the end. Granted there is a timeskip between this book and Heartless, plus considering how Heartless ended a change in relationship makes sense (and she was changing in Blameless as well), but I almost feel like the Lefoux of Changeless is a completely different character from the one of Timeless. I’m not sure what I would have liked done differently but something does feel off and I feel like it could have been handled in a smoother fashion.


So I'm giving both this book and this overall series a 3.5 out of 5 which might be a bit low but there were just enough rough spots in the series to bother me yet despite those it's rather solid fun and I'm glad that I now own the books and would recommend them to a number of friends. Well, after making sure that my friends are okay with the implied sexytimes in the books but frankly considering how, uninterested and easily bored I am by sexytimes usually if I don't mind them then no one else I know will. With that in mind, if you like supernatural urban fantasy in Victorian London with some romance then give these a shot, hopefully you will have a better time finding the books than I did!    

Book Review: Heartless

And moving right along we've reached the penultimate book in the Parasol Protectorate series so there's not much I can say to introduce it now, just the usual warning that due to how this this series is set up by summarizing the book I spoil a large twist from earlier books. Thankfully this one isn't as bad as the others, nothing jaw-droppingly surprising happened in the third book but if you haven't read the second book yet then just read that first and then look at my reviews in case you aren't sure if you want to continue.


Heartless by Gail Carriger

Summary: Alexia and Connall are back together and finally know what their baby will be, something different from either of them, a skin-stealer, and that's why the vampires have been putting up a fuss about their marriage from the very start. So, even though that is resolved now, their lives aren't quiet enough to let them simply prepare for the baby's arrival, the politics of London's supernatural society continue to shift and change and cause rather major problems for everyone involved. 

The Good: Even though I'm about to outline why I thought this book was rather weak it was still a fun read and I was interested to see that some of the side characters are becoming steadily more important with more time and characterization spent on them. I'm used to stories that are more or less one long story broken into chunks of some kind (episodes, books, updates) and therefore don't add onto the main cast as much since the story is already going. This series is a bit different since you could split it into a few stories all within a larger story and that gives it a chance to elevate these characters without taking away from the rest of the cast, I rather like this and wouldn't mind seeing other stories do similarly.

The Bad: Looking back on this series as a whole this was the weakest book in it and in some ways I wish three and four had been rewritten to combine the two since no big plot revelations really happened in either and this book feels like it's just tidying up a few loose ends in preparation for the last book/setting the stage by creating a few extra conflicts for it. Speaking of that, I've just been a bit unhappy with how Madame Lefoux has been portrayed this entire series. Perhaps I should have waited until the Timeless review to bring it up but she feels like an entirely different character if you compare the second volume to this one or the fifth, and not because of growth but just because it feels like Carriger changed her mind about her partway through and either couldn't or didn't rewrite everything else to be in line.


Sorry this is a bit short but unfortunately I was unable to finish writing this while I still had the book in front of me so some of the plots of 3/4/5 are starting to blend together in my mind and I don't want to talk about something which didn't actually happen in this book. Since it's a bit weak I'm going to give it only a 3 out of 5 (which I know I give to a lot of things but a 3 is average and, well, most things are average), onto the final one!

Book Review: Blameless

So I finally, finally! got a hold of the rest of the Parasol Protectorate series, it just took me a while to realize both that the nice hardcover editions could be bought secondhand on Amazon for a reasonable price and that I had a birthday coming up where I hadn't really requested anything. In any case, expect reviews for the other two books in the series pretty soon as well, I ended up tearing through all three books in less than a month. Oh and as was the case with the first two books, a plot even from the end of the second book is critical to setting up the third book so this review is going to have more spoilers than usual even though I've done my best to keep them as vague as I can, just avoid the summary.


Blameless by Gail Carriger

Summary: Following the reveal at the end of the previous book that Alexia is pregnant she is out on her ear with Conall accusing her of unfaithfulness and living with her family who are being, well, her family. Confused as to how this actually happened Alexia decides to track down the only group of people who know anything about prenaturals, the Templars, all while dodging a large number of assassination attempts from the vampires.

The Good: This book manages to both have Alexia leave England to explore more of Europe and yet still include the most interesting characters (either as part of her entourage or by including a POV back in England). I think that’s always the hardest part to pull off when a story is set in a different location than the previous installment was and Blameless pulls it off better than a lot of stories do (although in retrospect we don’t actually see a lot of the rest of Europe, maybe that’s what the Parasol Protectorate Abroad series will be about). Also, while I’m sure someone out there will disagree with me, I thought the pregnancy plotline was handled fairly well, especially since the “oh the lady is magically pregnant and it’s scary!” plotline is sadly more common than you’d think. Alexia is her normal self, the pregnancy is unexpected but doesn’t threaten her health and, well, it’s not very scary. It’s treated fairly sensibly and much better than I expected it to.

The Bad: As just about every character points out, this is a rather flimsy reason to separate Conall and Alexia, although since it was necessary for the Templars to actually appear on page sooner or later (both because of what they know and because of their connection to Alexia’s father) and this was a good fit for that plotline. As an aside, it is slightly frustrating that it’s nigh impossible to have a good summary of these books without spoiling the events of the previous one, although that’s not really a problem with the books, especially considering that I enjoy books that are that plot reliant normally.

Webcomic Review Month 2013: Penny Dreadful, Polterguys Prince of Cats, Princess Princess

Whew, got the biggest batch of reviews for the month here, even though I'm a little sad I don't find as many great webcomics every year I have to admit it's nice that I don't have to make as many huge posts as this. Oh and the ComicMix March Madness tournament is still going on so if that's your thing make sure to go out and vote, think they've reached the quarter-final round as of writing this so it's going to finish up pretty soon!


Penny Dreadful by Maggie G Vicknair

The 20th century is barely a decade old and Penny Hart has found herself lost and alone in it. Through a series of strange events she finds herself in the employ of the Harker Institute of Super-Natural Studies and while she finds herself starting to enjoy her new life of adventure it's still a bit much to simply take in a stride.

As a heads up, this is one the webcomics which has a fairly dramatic art shift early on, apparently Vicknair completely changed the way she drew it starting in chapter two, so if you don't like the art very much in chapter one be sure to look at a later chapter before writing off the comic for that reason (and of course the art style does change and become more sophisticated as the story progresses as it does in practically every comic out there). As for the characters and plot I'm really fond of this one since the characters are just a touch sarcastic (well, more than a touch at times) and being a sarcastic person myself I occasionally wonder why characters aren't commenting on how strange their lives are. Despite this little extra self-awareness the copious supernatural elements of the story manage to feel just right for the story without anything out of place (although a little more exposition about how magic works in this world would be nice, I'm assuming that's simply coming later) and the story seems to be slowly revealing that there is a greater plot lurking behind the events of the individual chapters, can't wait to see what's going to happen!


Penny Dreadful can be read online and does not have a print version as of writing.


Polterguys by Laurianne Uy and Nathan Go

Fans of shojo manga will undoubtedly find something familiar about Polterguys but in a fun, enjoyable way. Like many a heroine, Bree finds herself living with a bevy of cute guys under strange circumstances but her's are a bit stranger than normal. While she's simply moved out of the dorms for a bit of piece and quiet the five guys living in her old house are all dead, none of whom can remember how they got that way, and there are demons out there who will happily hunt down a lost soul and send it off to wherever those souls go. In a moment of impulse Bree puts her own life on the line to give the boys a chance to find peace before they move on but can she really do anything to help? 

Bree is a likeable heroine whose relatable, has spunk, and also has a rather realistic experience of having college turn out to be different than she expected (although most of us didn’t have demons and ghosts to make the shift even harder). This first book neatly wraps up one plot while leaving plenty more for future installments and introduces a new one which might prove even more interesting in the end. I'm not sure when the comic is going to start updating again (as far as I can tell, from twitter and tumblr, I think Uy and Go have started outlining it but haven't gotten much farther so it's likely to be a while) but even if it's only as consistent as this first installment then I think it'll be worth the wait.

Polterguys can be read for free online or purchased as a book.


Prince of Cats by Kori M. Handwerker

Lee might be able to talk to cats but frankly that isn't a really big problem or concern in his life currently, high school is. In a small, conservative town where you can be rich or poor but never anything but straight and that certainly doesn't help when his relationship with his best friend Frank starts to change and neither of them feels quite sure where they want, or even expect, it to end up.

Yep this is another story with queer characters in it and, while there hasn't been anything that would be considered graphic by anyone so far, the about page does indicate that there will be some non-graphic sex scenes later on, readers with delicate sensibilities or a habit of reading webcomics at work be warned. Funny enough this is also yet another comic done in watercolors which I'm seeing more and more of these days and I rather like it. Obviously this has no impact on the story but I still like the feeling it gives. Getting to the actual story, it's a little slow moving and awkward but honestly that sums up a lot of high school as well. I am happy to hear that there are going to be other gender/sexual identities present in the story as well (since it always seems odd to me whenever you have a large cast of characters and every single one of them is straight and Prince of Cats is developing a pretty large cast of background characters), although a bit sad that it sounds like there will be an asexual character but they won't even recognize what they are in story. I can certainly relate to that, and it sounds like they'll be a minor character in the story anyway, but I at least hope I can recognize who it is.

Prince of Cats can be read online and the first few chapters are also available in print form.

Princess Princess by StrangelyKatie

I know I said that I wasn't covering any finished comics this year but I completely missed that this one was in fact finished so I'll just slip it in here. Princess Princess is a rather quick tale about a princess locked up in a tower whose recused by, well, another princess. The story is based on that simple idea but fleshes out its two princesses quite well into distinctly different people with their own problems and lives, it doesn't just change one of them from a prince and call that a day. It's cute, quick, funny, yes the two girls do like each other as well, and smarter than you'd expect so I recommend everyone to check it out over here if you have some time. And while you're there I'd also recommend another of Katie's comic's, which I've seen around on tumblr before but hadn't realized it was hers, which is even shorter and nicely bittersweet.


2012 "P" comics

2011 "P" comic (which weirdly enough also finished up within hours of me writing about it, I'm amused by the similar timing anyway)

TV (Special) Review: The 2012 Doctor Who Christmas Special

Originally I wasn't sure if I was going to watch this let alone talk about it, just been feeling a bit burned out on Moffat's projects lately (for no real reason), but then I remembered that the new companion was supposed to be introduced in this episode and that's rather important. And, after watching the special, I realized I had a lot of thoughts about it (both good and bad) so I guess I'm also going to talk about it!


Doctor Who Christmas Special 2012: The Snowman

Summary: The events of Angles Take Manhattan are still affecting the Doctor strongly and he has sworn off helping humanity again, although it seems like he can't stay away and can't stop being curious about all the strange and unusual things around him. Like, snow with a memory and a habit for producing snowmen with toothy grins, although it's going to take that and a human girl named Clara to get him back into the saving-the-world business.  

The Good: I really liked how the Doctor was written and handled here, it's immediately clear that the end of the previous (half) season has had a strong effect on him but that he's still the same Doctor we've seen for the past few years, he can conquer grief or at least be distracted from it. And it was fun to see Clara unsettle him and show just how much he likes to show off to his companions (and the audience as well), all in all it was a pretty entertaining episode and reminded me that yes, I would like the second half to hurry up and get here already.

The Bad: I'm in two minds about Clara, on the one hand she's fun, sassy, and the dynamic she creates with the Doctor is fun (since through her actions she shows how set he is in some of his ways, also just how much the Doctor loves to mentor his companions to become greater than they were) but, well, she did come off to me as a bit shallow by the end. Sure it's hard to completely flesh out a character in one episode (and should you really completely flesh someone out in their first appearance) but the show has done that with some of it's side characters before, it's certainly possible. So yes, rather mixed feelings and I'm also a bit worried about Jenna-Louise Coleman's character for a completely different reason, apparently it was a last minute choice to have her play a character in the first half and I'm worried that Moffat is going to make the series more timey-wimey than it needs to be again. Yes Doctor Who is a show that has a lot of camp and a lot of strange stuff in it but it still needs well, call it a base of logic to stand on, rules that it can't contradict, and I'm afraid that it's about to do some very odd stuff that's going to mess with the continuity*.

The Audio: Hmm, didn't notice anything really new music wise. The intro may have changed but I was a little distracted by the (trippy) visuals to notice. All the music worked however so no complaints here.

The Visuals: Well I finally figured out why Vastra looks odd to me, despite all of the prosthetics on the actresses face it still has a very human facial structure (and eyes), I do wish in that the designers went even father with the design. Other than that small revelation on my part, no real comments on the episode. It seemed weird that Jenny was wearing pants at one point but I don't know nearly enough about Victorian era fashion to actually say if the rest of the clothes were accurate or not and as for the setting, well, you see one Christmas story set in a snowy, especially Victorian, London and you've seen them all.


It feels odd to rate a single episode so I shall sum this all up by saying that while awkward at times this was still enjoyable, even if it makes me worried about what's coming next. Which I guess is also your average Doctor Who episode.....



*for those who want spoilers, doesn't the end of it imply that reincarnation or something similar exists in the Whoverse? Which I think would just make things complicated or I could be over-thinking it, only the second half will tell and who knows when that is coming out.  

Manhwa Review: Lizzie Newton: Victorian Mysteries Volume 1

Now here's a title I wasn't expecting to talk about today, somehow (I think I saw it as an ad on a webcomic) I found a website that Seven Seas had set up where they were going to upload a few pages each week of this book until it's release and I read along and enjoyed it quite well (although I just found out that they only had license to have it up as a webcomic for a year and that expired earlier in the month). However I thought they were missing the last chapter/half a chapter since A) the page count number didn't match up and B) it was a rather awkward place to end since the criminal had been identified but not caught (and I wasn't going to review just part of a volume). Today however I was in a bookstore and caught site of the book so I decided to see how much was left and I discovered that in fact the entire first volume had been published online, the remaining pages were devoted to a one-shot. So this is now totally fair game for me to review, good thing since I was really wondering how to classify this one and when I'd get around to it otherwise.

Lizzie Newton: Victorian Mysteries Volume 1 story by Hey-Jin Jeon and art by Kiha Lee

Summary: Elizabeth "Lizzie" Newton is a young lady who is more interested in writing her mystery stories (which she's become rather well known for) than dealing with some of her more tedious social duties but when she stumbles upon a crime scene during one of these events she can't help but investigate a bit herself. There she discovers that what looks like a simple suicide is in fact a murder and drags her fiancee Edwin into her investigation to solve what the police don't even know is there. 

The Good: While you can't exactly figure out the mystery yourself from all the clues (something which happens very rarely for me in any mystery regardless of medium however) the characters are rather meticulous explaining the details later so it feels like a well-thought out mystery that's complicated enough to remain unnoticed if you're not looking for a mystery but still within the range of what a clever person could solve. Lizzie is a spunky heroine and, while not highly original, is likable enough and her banter with Edwin worked well (although the story dropped a few hints that there's more to him than we/Lizzie know and I just hope the story won't take forever to address that). It's a first volume so it's rough around the edges at parts but it's completely grabbed me and I would quite like to read more and see where the series ends up going.  

The Bad: As alluded to earlier, this volume ends in a really awkward place and has the page room for more story and I much would have rather had this story completely wrapped up in one volume. Unless the story was just a bit too long for one volume and they decided to delay it to stretch over two volumes instead of having it carry over just a bit and then start a new story, that would actually make sense. That is my biggest complaint and, well, an unsatisfying ending is a rather large complaint especially with the two volumes (I don't know if the second one is the finale or if the series is on-going) being published six months apart. Pretty much everything else that can be called a flaw (not yet rounded characters, character interaction also comes off as a bit flat at times) can be easily explained by the fact that this is a first volume, it's a really solid first installment all things considered.

The Art: Ms. Silverman on ANN has already talked about the details in the art with more authority than I have so go read her review for that and I'll just talk more generally. And the art is pleasant, I was actually surprised to hear that this was a manhwa because previously the art I've seen from manhwa has been much more stylized (in different ways though) and this just looked like a webcomic that has more shojo roots than some.


So I give this 4 stars out of 5 and fully plan on buying this and the next volume when I get a chance, especially since it looks like this is the end of the free preview on the site (which makes sense since it was more than generous, just wish there had been a little note saying "End of Volume 1" somewhere) 

Book Review: Clockwork Prince

I think by now I am enjoying  the ID series more than TMI (even though I never quite like either as much as I want to, they're just missing some spark to draw me in completely and feel a bit flat without it) although judging how long the hold list was for both of them at my local library I think it's the opposite way around for most people. Regardless, I got a hold of both this summer (I was really doubting at one point that City of Lost Souls would come in before I went back to school) and I'll be talking about CoLS next week which is interesting since I think that had the first deliberate cross-over between the two series (aside from Magnus anyway), but more on that next week and that's only a theory of mine anyway.

Clockwork Princes by Cassandra Clare

Summary: After the fight with the Magister in the previous book Tessa feels closer to her new Shadowhunter friends but her position of safety is threatened since if they don't catch him soon all of them will be out of a place to live and more vulnerable than ever. Tessa, Will, and Jem all pitch in to help find out more about the Magister's past (and Tessa's on the side since they seem to be connected) but the more they find out the less makes sense.

The Good: The whole novel ends up being build-up and it's not as terrible as that sounds. Yes it's true that Will got the most character development out of everyone but many of the side characters got some development, if anything Tessa got the least probably so whatever is going on with her will be revealed during the climax in Clockwork Princess. I do remember complaining in Clockwork Angel that Magnus had a lot less page time than I expected and that was rectified here. He was one of the more prominent side characters and it was interesting to compare how much he's changed in the roughly hundred years between series and I do hope that he has a large role in the final book as well.

The Bad: As I mentioned in the intro, despite really trying to like these books they all still lack some "spark" that I need to get really invested in them. This series has everything that should interest me, slightly older characters than TMI, a setting which (while not new) isn't as cliched as expected, the fantasy/magic part of the setting is well thought out and has a lot of ideas in there and Clare makes good use of them (a pet peeve of mine is when there is a really interesting background detail and then the author doesn't utilize it at all, not a problem here). And despite all of that, I'm still not hooked on the series, it's just one where I'm more than content to put my name on the list at the library and read something else instead of agonizing over the wait. Another weird thing which I also can't pin down why I don't like it is how the romantic triangle is going. Tessa has ended up with the guy I wanted her to but there are hints that she doesn't like it/that it will end badly/it will just be complicated for the sake of plot* which is practically the epitome of why I don't like love triangles.


I do plan on reading Clockwork Princess next year but I'm not holding my breath for it. Well, and considering how long the line will probably be for it at whatever library I get it from that's probably a smart idea. And I am also curious how the movie for City of Bones will turn out and, barring reviews that say it's absolutely terrible, I'll try to catch that as well (although that's not until next August so that's even farther in the future).  



*normally this is the part where I make a snarky comment about how everything could be solved with an OT3 but there is an actual reason why that wouldn't work here, well, two considering that I don't expect Jem to live through the last book at this rate.  

Movie Review: Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

WOW, sorry about that folks, it's exam week for me over here so my schedule is a bit different from normal and I completely forgot about updating until half an hour to midnight last night and decided it would be best to simply push everything back a day (so the review of Chihayafuru will go up tomorrow and from there everything should be back on track). This might not have been helped by the fact that I found the sequel Sherlock Holmes movie to be the most boring one I've seen all semester so let's get to the review to elaborate on that.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

Summary: John Watson is about to move out of his apartment, shared with his friend Sherlock Holmes, as he gets married, despite Holmes’ mixed feelings on the matter. But the honeymoon will have to wait as Moriarty, the one person to ever truly equal Holmes and the man responsible for the events of the first film, launches another grand scheme that Holmes must prevent lest it plunge all of Europe into war.

The Good: Making Moriarty into a weapons dealer was interesting, I don’t actually recall what his exact profession was in the original was but here it worked well with the story and did explain how Moriarty wielded such power. And, quibbles about the setting aside, considering that Moriarty is a thread to all of Europe (not just Great Britain) the choice to have Holmes and Watson travel outside of England was a good one and showing the extent of his plans certainly helped out. I also enjoyed this movie's "designated female side character (who is never super vital to the plot" Simza much better than Irene Adler last time around although she, as was every character that wasn't Holmes, Watson, or Moriarity, felt largely unnecessary by the end.

The Bad: I did actually enjoy the first movie for the action-y fun it had but here it tried much to hard to have a “serious” plot which didn’t work so I didn’t enjoy this film. It didn't feel like a mystery, and when you are adapting a story about one of the greatest fictional detectives that’s a problem, and it was just very hard to take everyone’s schemes seriously. From the Indiana Jones-like secret passages to the “the fate of Europe rests in the hands of one man” deal (while Moriarty profession makes sense it still doesn’t explain how he has that much power), everything just felt very fake and movie-ish and it’s hard to take a story seriously enough to get attached to it and care about it.

The Audio: While the some of the music felt very similar to the first movie’s music it just didn’t grab me the same way. Actually, a lot of it felt rather boring with some more modern sounding pieces mixed in with the more bouncy “Sherlock Holmes” themes plus some generic “gypsy music” as well. I’ve been listening to a lot of Hans Zimmerman music lately actually, between the films I’ve seen and a film score radio I set up on Pandora, and this just didn’t impress me as much as his work normally does.  

The Visuals: Done in the same style as the first, the setting looked very gritty and dirty and, while Victorian Europe did have it’s not so pleasant underside for sure, it feels out of place for Sherlock Holmes since the original cases always had a veneer of respectability to them, not stories that dragged Holmes back and forth across the underworld. I question a number of the costume choices here, specifically the ladies clothing (which I remember having a problem with in the first movie as well) but sometimes everything was just so grimy I couldn’t tell. The bullet time was used sparingly which I thought was a good choice, it did convey how Holmes saw the world well and wasn’t used so often that it felt merely like a gimmick.

In short, I have seen quite a few Sherlock Holmes adaptations (these movies, Sherlock, all four seasons plus all the specials of the Granada series which covered 42 of the original 60 stories) and this is the weakest I've come across. The actors never manage to feel like the characters, the setting is weak, the plot never feels like a mystery plot and if they were to ever make a third film (at this point I hope everyone simply moves onto other projects) I'll be sure to avoid it. 

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. 

Anime Review: Victorian Romance Emma: Second Act

Nozomi has really gotten on the ball recently about putting their shows on their youtube channel, I have no idea if it's just for R1 viewers or if anyone can see their shows, so the week after the first Victorian Romance Emma season finished up they started posting episodes from the second season. As before the episodes are only up for a limited amount of time, I believe for about a month each, so unfortunately you won't be able to check it all out there now, I'd recommend anyone whose interested in Nozomi's shows to follow their twitter to keep an eye on stuff like that. But enough about that, onto the review!

Victorian Romance Emma: Second Act

Summary: Emma has left London and found employment as a common maid in the Malders household where she tries to forget about William. William is also trying to forget about Emma and find happiness in his arranged engagement with Elanor and slowly finds himself growing into the family business. But fate gives them one more chance to meet and they discover that no, this just isn't going to work.

The Good: It's lovely to watch a romance where the characters don't spend the entire show trying to spit it out that they love each other or become suspicious and jealous of their significant other, rather this is the story of Emma and William realizing that yes, they do love each other and love each other enough to overcome the circumstances between them. Also nice is that both of them do seem to have at least a little bit of feelings for other romantic interests in their lives, after all it's odd for people to only fall in love once, and I thought those were handled fairly well (and by that I mean they were realistic and messy, while the show does present a rose colored view of love it does also show that love isn't the solution to everything). The show also added on an epilogue which I hadn't seen before, apparently it's from volume 10 of the manga and I stopped reading it when the main storyline stopped (the last few volumes are just short stories) which was a pleasant surprise that I enjoyed*. 

The Bad: This may have been just since Nozomi didn't stream episode 0, a recap episode that fits in between the two seasons, but people unfamiliar with the manga might be rather confused how Emma ended up with her new appointment and I'm really curious why the show didn't simply put that in the first episode anyway. Elanor's father comes off as a very flat character, I don't remember him being such an ass for the sake of being an ass in the manga, and that made some of the later problems a bit harder to take seriously. And once again there are a number of coincidences that allow Emma and William to meet up again but if you were a fan of the first series, and you must to be watching the second, I doubt that will bother people much at all.

The Audio: The opening and ending themes are done in the same vein as the first season, instrumental only music that sounds quite European and a bit folksy, something that sounds like it could've been played 100 years ago. In fact, the op and ed might simply be variations on the ones from the first season, I believe the ed is and the ops sound rather close. There are some additions to the cast but all the voice acting is as solid as it was in the first season and all of the characters manage to sound like real people, not like cartoon caricatures of people.

The Visuals: As I said in the previous review, the visuals work here but they just don't quite work for me. Something was lost in the change from the manga to the anime and I just didn't find the show as aesthetically pleasing in animated form. I will admit that the lack of variety in character designs bugged me, especially the lack of variation in eye and hair colors (it's true that in real life many people in England could be expected to have blonde hair, but there are many different shades of blonde hair and this anime only had one color yellow for hair, honestly that bothers me a lot more than characters in a realistic setting having "unrealistic" hair colors). Conversely, I did like the color schemes for the many outfits in the series, a lot of shows seem to be scared to use bright colors in a Victorian setting so I'm glad to see a show that went ahead and did so.

Another lovely installment in the series and it makes me want to buy the limited edition sets from TRSI even more (provided I can save up enough money before they're gone and, considering all the stuff I need to pre-order/buy from Bandai and such it's looking less and less likely sadly). I actually wish this series was a bit more well-known since I know of so many people who don't normally watch anime (mostly YA authors I follow on twitter who are suckers for romance) who I think would adore this show, not sure how to go about making the show more well-known however.




*provided that you don't remember, as tvtropes points out, by that point World War I is just around the corner and realizing that the rest of their lives would be filled with the World Wars and Great Depression

Anime Review: Emma A Victorian Romance

Nozomi/The Right Stuf has been streaming a lot of this shows recently on youtube, most episodes are only up for two weeks but provided you keep up with them that's plenty of time, and this is one of their titles I've wanted to try out for years. I've read all of the main storyline of the manga and a few of the spin-off volumes (almost all of which sadly are super expensive since CMX went out of business two years ago) but I had held off from purchasing the anime since I wasn't so sure how much I would like this version.

Emma: A Victorian Romance

Summary: Set in Victorian England, Emma is a maid to the retired tutor Mrs. Stowner and lives a quiet yet content life serving her mistress. But one day Mrs. Stowner’s old student William comes to visit and it’s love at first site for the two of them. The problem is that William is the son of a wealthy merchant who hopes to marry his son into nobility to raise their class and no one, except William’s friend the eccentric, Indian prince Hakim, believes their love can ever succeed.

The Good: The original manga had a meticulously researched setting which makes this one of the most realistic depictions of Victorian England in anime and it's always nice to have a well thought out setting. The characters are clearly a product of their time and the ways they think and act are clearly influenced by the world they live in, except for Hakim who seems a bit too eccentric for his background and it's possible that's why he fades from a main character to a minor character as the season goes on. All of the main characters get enough screen time to flesh them out so that their motivations (and this is more of a slice of life story so the setting and character motivations drive everything) become very clear and understandable and that makes the whole story feel more realistic.

The Bad: Between the fact that I remembered more of the earlier parts of the series and I like the later parts of the series better (season two) it took a while for this show to get going for me. Since Emma is such a quiet (and many times passive) character I sometimes find her to be the most boring character in the story and William often wasn't any better for me, I'm never fond of characters who think of almost nothing but their crush when they're in love. I did come to like all the characters more but in the very early episodes I was worried that maybe I didn't like this story as much as I remembered and was going to be terribly disappointed as it went on.

The Audio: Emma elects to go for wordless opening and closing themes and instead have upbeat, almost folksy sounding, instrumental pieces instead which work quite nicely. The voice actor work is also quite nice, no dub exists for the series but the Japanese voices manage to sound completely natural regardless. It might help that I was less familiar with these voice actors (so I never had the odd moment when I recognized them from another role) but they all had very natural and down to Earth voices, especially Emma’s and if a series didn’t a dub that the setting really needed (part of the reason I haven’t watched this show before is because it is so odd to see a series set in England without an English vocal track) at least it had an excellent Japanese dub.

The Visuals: Kaouru Mori’s original manga contained a lot of fine detail, some of which I thought was lost in the anime but I seem to be in the minority here. I feel like the facial designs don’t translate as nicely (although they are very expressive) and at times the art seemed just a bit too bright. The backgrounds however are wonderfully detailed and provide the series with the same sense of authenticity that the manga had. The art did grow on me after a while but after reading the manga which was entirely pen and ink shaded it was a bit of a shock to see so many bright colors (although it's true that the Victorians did have brightly colored outfits so that would be historically accurate). 

It seems like I choose a very good time to follow this series since TRSI is offering a nice bundle pack of both limited edition sets of the series (which come loaded with extras) and I think I will try to grab those this holiday season. They've started streaming the second season as well so I've gotten back into the rhythm of the story and if I can't buy all the manga volumes then I might as well try to buy all of this version instead. 


 

Webcomic Review: The Phoenix Requiem

Alright, my evil British Lit paper is done and only one review to write today, clearly this is a good day. Oh and thanks to Everblue for linking to these reviews, my pageview count just shot up and I hope you guys find some other awesome webcomics to follow!


The Phoenix Requiem
Unlike many of the comics I've reviewed before, this one is almost done! I'd be surprised if the comic runs more than a month longer actually but all that means is that new readers don't have to worry about catching up to the comic and can take it at their own pace. Set in a Victorian-inspired world with supernatural elements (namely a war seven hundred years ago between the spirits and hellions where both sides were vanished and the world lost it's magic), everything seems calm in the village of Esk where Anya, a doctor in training, a regular workaholic. Then on a regular winter's day, a young man named Jonas appears on the edge of the village on the brink of death and Anya manage to save his life. Romance begins to follow but with a plague brewing and Jonas demonstrating some non-Earthly powers life is about to get a bit more hectic. The art here is very lovely, originally cell-shaded the old pages have been recolored and now the style resembles a Victorian painting much more so I'm hoping to get a copy of the first book sometime (it's even published by the same people who do The Meek and Lackadaisy Cats) since it's very nice to look at. The plot flows well and has some very nice plot twists that I didn't see coming at all which is always fun. There's a good deal of romance in this story, which is usually a turn off for me, but seems to work well enough here, although it does make me worry for the ending a little bit...


Funny enough, this is the webcomic that really got me started on webcomics back in September 2009. Sure I'd read a few before but I started this one when I was feeling a bit out of it (I was getting over something, my mom still swears it was swine flu), blazed through the whole comic so far in one go, went to the links page, bookmarked every comic there and then slowly read through all of those and, for the ones I liked, bookmarked all the comics in their links pages and repeated the process. I probably glanced at 200-ish comics over a month and eventually narrowed it down to something more like 40/50 that update weekly. So thanks to this series for showing me that some webcomics do actually update on a regular basis without sacrificing plot or artwork in the process, I didn't believe it was possible before this one!


EDIT: Heh, the last two pages went up just hours after I posted this review and I think I'm happy with the ending (and too lazy to change the review to past tense, heh).