Book Review: Fire Horse Girl

So, I'm not 100% sure how I got this book. I remember seeing it on Unshelved's bookclub list and entering a contest there to try and get a copy myself. Didn't hear anything so I assumed I hadn't won a copy and then one showed up at my apartment on my birthday which left me quite happy. Until I realized a few days later that I had never had the book sent to my apartment and that UPS had somehow magically known to send it there instead of my PO box, they had even put a second shipping label on top of the original one. I'm still happy I got the book, I'm just now very confused how it happened, I guess I got lucky that I had them reroute a package of mine a couple of weeks earlier and they were able to look up my address again?


Fire Horse Girl by Kay Honeyman

Summary: Jade Moon was born in the year of the Fire Horse and she embodies all the traits of it: stuborn, reckless, and headstrong. Partially because of this horoscope, and partially through Jade Moon fulfilling it, she's lonely and frustrated so when a cousin arrives at their house with a plan to go to America for a new start eager to take it, no matter what problems they might find there. 

The Good: Bit of a different setting than I normally come across which was nice (although I did have to make sure I read this and The Broken Lands far enough apart that I didn't accidentally mix up Jin and Jade Moon), I liked how it was set in San Francisco in the 20s and the author kindly provided a list of sources which I'm going to check out since I realized that I really have no idea what the history of the west coast is like. And it was that not exactly novelty but different-ness about Jade Moon's situation, the setting, and how her new life in America turns out that kept me interested in the book.

The Bad: The pacing felt a little weird to me, although I think part of that was because the book flap talked about Jade Moon going to America and the cover showed that she was going to crossdress and as a result I expected both of those events to happen sooner than they did. Even taking that into account I felt like the story just lingered in a number of places for too long which is funny since it's not a very long book, if you were to pace it a bit more briskly it would have been a very short novel. As hinted at earlier, the characters aren't exactly original and they're a bit too flat to be compelling. I'm not surprised that this is Honeyman's first novel because in some ways it really feels like a first novel, there are some great parts and some needs work parts, nothing terrible but it's not a book I expect to win many awards either. 


In the end I'm going to give this book 3 out of 5 stars, it's the kind of book I'd check out from the library, read once, and not feel the urge to own/re-read. In fact, I think I'm going to swing by the local library and donate this in the hope that this book gets more use that way than it would just sitting on my shelves.

Comic Review: Smile

Sorry that this one is late guys, weirdly enough it wasn't exams that threw me off schedule but all the last minute errand-y thing I had to do before graduation, gonna see if I can catch up by Monday but since my graduation isn't until Sunday that might not happen. And also, I'm gonna try but I might not have a comic review for this upcoming week, I've plain ran out of books that catch my eye at the libraries, heck I even read Abandon the old in Tokyo by Yoshihiro Tatsumi and you know what, I just didn't feel like reviewing it. Part of this might be because I saw the blog post by one of the First Second editors talking about how they would rather have someone review a book (that they got from them) if they felt like they wanted to write a review rather than they were obligated. And I just don't feel like I would have anything meaningful/important/useful so yep, I read it, liked A Drifting Life more which I recommend and let's talk about this book now which I do have things to say about!


Smile by Raina Telgemeier

Summary: Raina was excited to get braces since all her classmates had them and this would make her more normal, although when she knocks out her front two teeth her braces suddenly become a lot more complicated and end up being a part of her life a lot longer than she expected.

The Good: Last week I praised Nothing Could Possibly Go Wrong for the mundane aspects of it and, unsurprisingly since this story uses braces as part jumping off point part unifying theme, I'm going to do the same thing here. Usually braces, and glasses, only pop up in stories (middle grade stories anyway) as a device either to denote someone as a nerd or as a "look this character is just like you and me!" one off story which has always struck me as odd since so many kids in America do have braces. And wow did I emphasize a lot with Telgemeier's story (headgear? Yep. Crying in the orthodontist's office? Yes and worse!) and even though it's set a few decades back it doesn't feel dated in the slightest and I think that people, kids and adults alike, will be able to enjoy it for another few decades. Even if braces are replaced with something less painful the rest of Telgemeier's story will still be more than relevant.

The Bad: This was a pretty solid story and I don't have any real criticisms of it. It did take me a little while to realize when it was set, although that was me being silly not really the story's fault, but it felt paced well within the story and it was easy to see what choices Telgemeier was going to make. Best of all, as I semi-mentioned earlier this is a middle grade story and even though I normally don't like those as much I think this works great as an all ages book and it doesn't talk down to it's audience, honestly since it does that right just about any problem would seem minor by comparison.

The Art: The book was in full color which I thought was a good choice, it gave the art a certain color it just wouldn't quite have had if it was just in black and white tones, it wouldn't have fit with the art's nice rounded style. I guess it sounds odd to talk about if an artist's style fits the story or not, especially since I don't often run across a story where I feel like the art is completely wrong for it, but what i mean here is that this is a autobiographical comic and even though the art is what people would call cartoony it doesn't use things like over-exaggerated reactions or huge sound effects which would have felt totally out of place in the story. In that respect it's also a good example of how you don't need a super realistic art style to tell an autobiographical story, then again I could have pointed you to half a dozen webcomics to also prove that point.


So, a good 3.5 or 4 out of 5 stars for this and a hearty recommendation. I've heard that Telgemeier has another book out there and I will need to make sure to track it down in the near future and see what that one is about, probably sooner than later given my lack of buffer.....

Anime Review: Maoyu

Sometime last year I was reviewing on of the Spice and Wolf novels (really need to catch up with those at some point) and someone commented telling me about one of the manga adaptations for this story which I read, enjoyed, and thought "hah this is never getting an anime, it's too obscure!" Well less than two months later one was announced and I happily ate my words, although judging by the rather poor sales so far (I think each volume has been under 2500 units each, not nearly enough to recoup costs) I might have been right thinking that this story was just too niche for people to appreciate, although I think there were other factors involved too.


Maoyu (Maoyu Maouh Yuusha or Archenemy and Hero)

Summary: The demon and human worlds have been at war on and off for a long time and finally the human's Hero has managed to make it all the way to the Demon King's (Maou) stronghold in an attempt to assassinate him, only to find that Maou is actually a lady and she has been waiting for him in order to put into motion a plan that will stop the war. As she explains with her charts and papers the reason the war has been going on so long is because it's profitable for both sides and if they truly want to save their worlds then they'll have to end the war slowly and secretly, something Hero has a hard time understanding but accepts and thus a very strange partnership was born. 

The Good: I was able to actually follow the economic here for the most part which was nice since in Spice and Wolf, even when they took the time to explain everything in great detail, usually lost me there which was frustrating. And in many ways the story feels smart or at least genre savvy, plot wise the characters are on top of things, can figure out how to counter their enemies efficiently, heck its very premise is to take a very well worn trope and run in completely the opposite direction with it. I like those sorts of premises and it was enough to keep me interested in the show all the way through.

The Bad: I've seen a lot of people give this show crap because "look at the character's names, they're all 2D stereotypes!" which seemed especially unfair because it was being said two or three episodes in. In the end neither Hero nor Maou are very deep characters, they have their moments but in the end some of the side characters end up being more fleshed out which isn't necessarily a bad thing, although I would like liked Hero and Maou to be a little less stereotypical in some ways (mainly concerning their relationship) and the story probably would have been better for it. I also saw people giving the story crap since not only did it originate on 2ch (which I had known) but it was actually written without an outline but just taking suggestions from readers (which I hadn't). The story was reworked before being printed so honestly I think a lot of those complaints fall flat but I do wonder if the story would have dragged out it's love triangle for so long otherwise. For me though the biggest problem of the show was it's pacing, which seemed a bit strange from the beginning where it was too slow in one or two places and then too brisk the rest of the time, and even with that it didn't cover the entire story. I, like many people, do tend to gravitate to the adaptation of a story I see first and maybe it's because of that but I do really think that the Kotowaru manga just had the pacing work a bit better and that that makes a world of difference.  

The Audio: It took a little while but the opening song for Maoyu eventually grew on me but then again I said the same thing about UtaKoi's song and they both share a shrillness at points which I don't think many other people like. The ending song felt much smoother and fit the tone of the show a bit better, although as a warning the images for the opening and ending songs both give away the entire story (it's a bit less obvious for the ED but someone translated the cipher and it laid everything out quite plainly). In a bit of an odd twist, this show shares the two lead voice actors with Spice and Wolf (they were the same ones who had done the earlier drama cds) but since it's been years since I've seen SW that I didn't mind and might not have noticed if other people hadn't pointed it out. All the voice acting seemed fine regardless, no real stand out or problematic moments for me anyway.

The Visuals: It did take me a little while to get used to the anime designs vs the designs from the manga I was more familiar with (for comparison's sake, novel art is the far left, the manga is the one next to it and anime is the far right) but after I got used to the character designs everything (except Maou's boobs, physics simply does not work that way and when I looked at some comparisons with the BRs I swear they actually made them look a tiny bit more realistic) looked fine. I was a bit surprised at how painterly some of the backgrounds look since the anime character designs don't look painterly at all but it was a nice touch and worked well with the feeling of the story.

Now for the tricky part, my overall feelings. While I would watch more if a second season came out, and I would buy the Kotowaru manga if it came over, I don't think I would buy a copy of the anime since it had enough pacing issues and such that, well, it just didn't work as well as I think it could have. And even though the anime is streaming on crunchyroll to the best of my knowledge no US anime company actually picked it up for licensing so I'm unlikely to have this dilemma for real anytime soon. With that I give it a 3 out of 5 stars for average, not terrible but could have been better and I rather wish it had been.

TV Series Review: Doctor Who: The Pyramids of Mars

And it's time for another classic Doctor Who serial, I really like how the serials that BBC decided to air complement each other so well. The Aztecs had one of the shows famous lines about not being able to rewrite time and in this episode when Sarah Jane questions if they really need to save the day since she obviously came from the future the Doctor shows her how much the future will change if they don't (and I really do think these two go together given the shows guidelines about what can be changed and what can't). In Tomb of the Cybermen we see the character Victoria and in this serial Sarah Jane is running around in some of her clothes (which are actually period appropirate for once!). And in Spearhead from Space the Doctor begins his long term relationship working for/with UNIT and here they were aiming to go back to them for a bit, and as usual end up in the right place but the wrong time by several decades. 


Doctor Who Classic: The Pyramid of Mars

Summary: While the Doctor and Sarah Jane were attempting to get back to UNIT after some adventuring they accidentally end up in what would become their headquarters a few decades too early, although knowing the Doctor and his relationship with UNIT that might have been on purpose. Also, knowing how adventure calls to the TARDIS it may also be no coincidence that they land in the middle of a plot to unseal an alien known as the Egyptian god Set from his prison on Mars. 

The Good: This was a fairly solid serial, it shows something that I've been thinking about a lot lately which is how it seems like in Classic DW the companions were always having their own side adventures instead of just tagging along with the Doctor (like they seem to do most of the time in Nu Who) and I like that, even if it's still a bit hard to see the companions as fully fleshed out characters when you only see a single story with them. Especially since in Sarah Jane's case my first experience with her was in Nu Who when she was completely and fully an independent adult whose a bit more jaded than she is here, honestly that made for some odd dissonance but that's my problem, not the show's. Other than that, while the twist on Egyptian mythology didn't work 100% for me it worked better than I would have thought if someone had just said "they were all aliens-" "suuuuure, because everything on Doctor Who is aliens-" "who sealed Set on Mars" and it's always a good thing when DW actually pulls off their bizarre set-ups.

The Bad: One thing I think I've said a lot over the years is how I don't like it when Doctor Who kills off a lot of it's one episode characters. Not because this is a family friendly show or such but because it always feels so pointless, the Doctor (and companions) rarely seem to be torn up over it and we never see how other people react to their friends and family mysteriously dying and that does frustrate me. I did feel like the story got a bit too overly complicated by the end but I guess that was the result of them needing to fill time. 

The Audio/Visuals: Oh dear, we’ve entered that weird era of British television where the shows were at least partially shot on a higher frame rate, here it’s really obvious to me that it’s not the usual 24 frames per second when the characters move around quickly. Even though I would love for us to move to a higher frame rate in general it’s still unusual enough to look jarring and, considering most of the special effects look cheesy to start with and I’ve heard it’s even harder to make them look good at higher frame rates, yeaaaaah. Weirdly enough there are some moments when the special effects look really good but by and large you can tell that most of their props were made of foam and for some reason that detail pulls me out faster than almost anything else. Also, there are some shots where the video looked a little distorted, like they were shot with a lens that was slightly fisheye, and I don’t think that was on purpose. I could be crazy and imagining something that wasn’t there, and it could be a result of aging over the years, but that didn’t really help the show regardless.


Yep I really can't wait until I'm back near my libraries that have a pretty good selection of classic Doctor Who (/the time to browse and see just what Netflix has for streaming), the more I watch of it the more I like it, bit sad that by the time the next classic serial rolls around I won't have BBCA anymore so who knows how I'm going to watch it. Actually, at this rate I won't have BBCA for the finale of the current season, that's going to be frustrating considering how spoiler laden the internet will be.....

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!