Book Review: Mechanica

Time to end the week on a, hmm, weak note? Well that's not normally how I try to do things but that's how it is sometimes!

Mechanica by Betsy Cornwell

Book Review: Manners & Mutiny

Lord this blogging schedule is so off now, but I really want to power through and talk about some books that I read recently that I adored without falling farther and farther behind. So let me get back on track with a steampunk novel (is it just me or does it seem like steampunk has faded with as a fad? Genuine questions!) that I sadly did not adore.

Manners & Mutiny by Gail Carriger

Book Review: Prudence

Well this is later than I wanted, both for this week and in general. I think I read this book back in April or so, my library got the book surprisingly fast, and I'm not sure why I forgot about it since I have plenty to say about it....

Prudence by Gail Carriger

Book Review: Waistcoats and Weaponry

As a general heads-up, no anime/cartoon review on Monday since all of my plans to watch something have fallen short this week and I'm feeling rather grumpy about it honestly.

Like many things in life, author visits/book-signings seem to be something that happens sporadically and in groupings. I only found out about this one a week beforehand and was rather grumpy since I do own the Parasol Protectorate omnibuses and would have liked to get them signed but they were several hundred miles away from me and I didn't trust the post office to get them up to me in time. I only found out because the local indie bookstore that was helping with the events posted it in their newsletter, Carriger never goes on tour on the East Coast and didn't announce it on her blog until just two days in advance! Grumbling aside, it was a good talk and I was quite happy to spot this book just a couple of weeks later at my other library system since I still recalled some of the things Carriger said in her talk that were rather pertinent to this book!

Waistcoats & Weaponry by Gail Carriger

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.

Book Review: Etiquette and Espionage

Some people might already be familiar with this title and are going "Helen, why are you reading this if you haven't finished The Parasol Protectorate?!" Well I still haven't been able to get a hold of books three through five and since this series is set 25 years earlier I figured it would be safe enoough (what you guys should be asking is how I got an ARC before a book was published for once, Unshelved had a link to where you could request one of a few different books from Little, Brown and I guess I was one of the first people to request since I got a copy). As a note this book actually isn't out until February but within a month you should be able to find a copy at brick and mortar bookstores or online.


Etiquette & Espionage by Gail Carriger

Summary: When Sophronia is sent off to finishing school she expects something boring and conventional, after all her sisters are quite dulled and they've already been "finished". She certainly wasn't expecting a school on an airship where dancing and poisons are taught side by side and the teachers include a vampire and a werewolf. But somehow this all suits her rather well and gives her an almost respectable outlet for the mischief she gets into.

The Good: While the book itself isn't clear that it's set 25 years before The Parasol Protectorate (although seeing some familiar character names did tip me off) you certainly don't have to read those books to read this one and enjoy it, an especially good idea since those books were adult fiction while this one is young adult. Sophronia and the rest of the main cast are rather fun characters, although I did find them a little young for my taste (the characters aren't quite young enough to cross over into middle grade but come off as a bit too clever for 14-16 year olds). Regardless, this was a fun book that embraces the quirks and strangeness of the setting and I hope the next one is even stronger. 

The Bad: At times I was wondering if I was reading a parody of the steampunk genre (I'm sure that one group of characters was meant to poke fun at some of the more ridiculous costumes you find at conventions) since it gets well, odd at points. It's a little hard to articulate what exactly is weird (the characters attitudes? the fact that a school for mad geniuses is considered a normal part of the setting? the strange technology?) since Protectorate had it's moments of oddness as well (especially involving the technology) but here it's just a bit stranger. It did pull me out of the story a bit at times, hence why I'm calling this a bad thing, but it shouldn't be a deal-breaker for most. The ending also feels a bit unresolved, it's the first in a four book series so while it's understandable that not everything is wrapped up I just felt like this book didn't have it's own, distinct arc (sure there was the hunt for the missing technology but just didn't feel completely wrapped up to me). 


Despite the fact that this book felt a little off/like a little was missing I'm still giving it 3.5 out of 5 stars for entertainment and fully plan on reading the upcoming volumes (and buying my own copy of it, ARC's are just a bit too flimsy for my tastes).  

TV Series Review: The Legend of Korra

I have decided to start my end of spring/beginning of summer reviews a week earlier than planned since once again I looked at my list of shows and realized at this rate I'm not going to finish up until August (as it is I might have to start reviewing two shows a week, we shall see) and since I finished up Korra about 12 hours before I finished Fate/Zero 2 it's up first! Obviously I haven't had a chance yet to get along with my re-watch of the first show but given that the second season is still in production (so I'm not expecting it before fall 2013 to be completely honest) it'll give me something to do during the break.

The Legend of Korra

 Summary: 70 years after the end of the first series and 17 years after the death of Aang, the new Avatar Korra has masted water, earth, and fire bending and is eager to start her airbending training (despite the fact that she is the complete opposite of spirituality from Aang and as a result has never been able to airbend). But Tenzin, Aang's son and the only airbending master in the world, has other matters on his plate since he is also in charge of governing a new nation, Republic City (formed from the oldest Fire Nation colonies in the Earth Kingdom whose cultures had become so entwined it was decided that it was better to let them continue to co-exist than separate), where anti-bender sentiments are on the rise. Korra decides that she will go to him then and gets entangled in pro-bending, romance, and politics.

The Good: I will admit that Korra isn't a terribly original character if you were to genderflip her, she's rather similar to a lot of shonen protagonists, but I still do love the concept of having a late teenaged, female, not-white, protagonist of a show, not in a school setting, who is, well, brash and young for lack of a better phrase. I do believe Korra grows in the show, not tons but certainly some, but more than that I do hope her presence of tv (combined with stuff like The Hunger Games and Brave) show off that yes, people will watch action shows with a female lead. I do like a lot of the characters on this show regardless, Asami in particular (I do like how she and Korra were female characters but more nucanced than "one is a girly-girl and the other is a tomboy") but also some of the older cast including Tenzin and Lin Bei Fong. I also loved the setting, partially because (as I have made it clear before) I love the 1920s as a setting and technology was always a part of the original show from very early on so I didn't find it jarring. Finally I was amazed at just how political a kids show got to be (yes people, this is rated Y7 or youth, seven year olds, Nick is clearly crazy) and those episodes were my favorite ones of the show. 

The Bad: One big thing that the internet has been practically screaming about for the past few days, yes this show had some serious pacing issues which were most apparent in it's finale. Given how well the original show was paced I cannot believe that the creators weren't aware of the problems here (which I know I know, doesn't make it better) and, based on some information from interviews, I do wonder who made the final call that the show should be 12 episodes instead of 20, Nick or the creators. Again the finale had the most trouble here, it also created some problems with the romantic subplot I wasn't as happy about (although I have no trouble with that subplot as a whole) and I desperately hope that the second season ties up some of the loose ends here otherwise I will be unhappy with it. The show simply had too many things it tried to include (hence my thoughts that it was the decision of Nick, not of Bryke, to make the show only 12 episodes) yet I cannot figure out a way to cut anything major in order to help with the pacing.

The Audio: The Track Team returns in to continue composing for the show and, while I don't think they quite suceeded with the premise of "if jazz was invented by the Chinese" the tracks were gorgeous regardless. There are some more jazzy pieces in this series and there are plenty that make full use of the more traditional instruments that serenaded the original show and really hope that the music gets a full release this time around. As for the voice acting, I didn't like some of the voices oddly enough (Older!Aang and Older!Toph sounded off to me and Dante Basco's character sounded at least five years younger than they looked) but overall I liked the main cast and thought they did a good job throughout.

The Visuals: While there were several shows airing this season that had some great looking fight sequences, such as Fate/Zero 2 and Accel World, they often had so many effects and fast cuts that the fights themselves were almost hidden from the viewer and at times it was hard to tell how good looking everything was. Korra never had this problem and was able to show off it's amazing choreography to the fullest and even when the characters weren't fighting there was a great amount of detail in the backgrounds. I do wonder if Nick plans to release this show on BR (given that the original show was released on DVD I do believe there is at least a DVD release planned down the line), although I'm not 100% sure that the visuals are enough to make me choose a BR over a DVD.

In short, I still love the show but there are certainly problems with it (outside of the finale the biggest problem is that there weren't any downtime episodes to get character development, I think Asami probably had more than Mako and certainly more than Bolin did) but hopefully those next 14 episodes will help. Fingers crossed in any case! 

Book Review: Goliath

Bit later than I would have liked this review to be up, like it's predecessors this book was released back in the fall but between waiting for the library to get it and my large to-read pile (I, erm, may have bit off more than I could chew, combined with my March break I have more than enough books to review for a long time) it took a while to get to it. So no I do not have a copy of this book yet but fully intend to get one soon, if my anime expenses don't take over my budget for another month....

Goliath by Scott Westerfeld, illustrated by Keith Thompson

Summary: Deryn and Alek continue their trek eastward on the Leviathan as the world falls farther and farther into war. But the Leviathan might have the solution to the end of the war, along the way they pick up renowned scientist Telsa who claims to have a weapon that could level cities at a glance, a weapon that force anyone to stop all the fighting and what Alek is banking on. Deryn and the other Darwinists have their doubts however and Deryn is finding that it's becoming harder and harder to hide her true identity and the more involved she becomes in the world's affairs the more dangerous it becomes to reveal it.  

The Good: Westerfeld continues to expand his world by showing off Japan and the Americas and their blends of technologies and ideologies was nice*. Also nice was some characters from the second book reappearing, I’ve grown rather used to trilogies which have different expanded casts in every book that this was a nice surprise. The book actually balanced a large cast very well with even more factions being introduced and no one felt like a flat, background character. This was helped in part by the pacing, a lot happens in the story and the Leviathan covers even more ground than the first two books and it never feels like one area or place drags on too long or is breezed by too quickly, everything flowed very well.  Finally, fans should go to Westerfeld’s blog and read the extra chapter set after the series which was quite fun.

The Bad: While the ending wasn’t bad and was what I had been expecting, since I knew the actual history Goliath was borrowing, so it wasn’t quite as satisfying as I had hoped. Again, it’s a reasonable ending, makes sense (hence I had predicted something rather close), it just didn’t hit the right emotional notes with me (not the very end end, the whole ending in general). I was also a bit underwhelmed with what the Lorises were really supposed to be, it does sound like Doctor Barlow broke a major rule while creating them but I still fail to see why they were ever supposed to be important to the conflict. Overall, the ending was a bit underwhelming and played out fairly close to what I predicted and, as someone who likes tricky plots I found it a bit unsatisfying. 

The Art: The art continues to be stunning and while I felt like some of the crowd scenes weren’t quite as detailed as the ones from the second book but the art has noticeably improved from the first book (which wasn’t bad, it simply got even better). The art continues to be the easiest way for me to promote the book to friends (it’s much easier to flash a few pictures from a book rather than find time to make someone read a few passages that they hopefully like) and it’s the biggest reason that this book is on my to-buy list (and on a similar note I'm excited for the companion guide which will have even more illustrations in it, coming out later this year I believe). 

Despite the ending not being quite as interesting as I hoped this was still a very strong installment to end on and I'm looking forward to whatever Westerfeld writes next. Actually, come to think of it I don't think I've heard of what his next project is (other than the pre-Uglies graphic novels and the companion book for this), hope it's interesting!

*although I question that the [American] South, the god-fearing South which today still has issues with “moral debates” today (I mean, for god's sake my state votes on a constitutional amendment against gay marriage even though it's already illegal) being the half that had fabricated beasties, I can see where he was going with the North and their machines but it didn’t quite work for me, an East-West split with an industrialized East and a fabricated West would have made much more sense.

Anime Review: Last Exile: Fam the Silver Wing

It's been a while since Studio Gonzo did a full and proper tv show, the last one was Shangri-la from 2009 which had a rather cool premise but completely failed by the end (and the main reason why I get nervous whenever I see a sci-fi story trying to throw mysticism in, reaaaally didn't work here). Despite that I was curious to see Gonzo's newest offering, a sequel to the original Last Exile series which I enjoyed quite a bit. I don't consider the show a masterpiece as I have seen many other people do, the middle/two-thirds mark falls too flat for that, but like Hugo from yesterday it's a great example of a story starting out with a small premise and growing into something that encompasses the characters entire world. I was a bit confused by some of the early promotional material ("okay, how did Earth go from having one moon to seven, did we really mess up the planet SO MUCH that we destroyed the moon in the process or something?") but thankfully those details were cleared up by the series, even if some other important ones weren't.


Last Exile: Fam the Silver Wing

Summary: Set two years after the first series and now on the planet Earth, Fam is an orphan who was taken in by the Sky Pirates when she was just an infant and loves nothing more but finding adventure in the skies with her friend Giselle as her navigator. But the two of them quickly get out of their depth as they become entangled in a brewing war between the imperialistic Ades Federation and find themselves siding with the young heir to the opposing Turan kingdom Millia.

The Good: If the viewer considers Millia instead of Fam to be the main character in this story (despite the fact that her name is in the title Fam feels and acts more like a supporting protagonist) then the story works very well showing how Millia starts out as a pampered and privileged young girl who must quickly grow up and seize control of her world lest it be completely wiped out. There are some returning characters from the original show and, while sometimes they aren't given enough screen time (and by that I mean multiple times they disappear for three or four episodes without the show having a 30 second scene showing what they are currently doing) they manage to have important roles but never upstage the main trio. The show is exciting and fun overall but when you look too closely at some of the details it starts to lose it's glean. 

The Bad: If the viewer considers Fam instead of Millia the main character and lead of this series then it starts to fall rather flat. I have no problem with Fam being an optimistic character, indeed with how dark the series gets at points it's needed, but her character development is spotty and occurs much too late in the series (and there's really no reason she should've had so little, even side characters need to grow in a story). But a bigger problem than Fam is the overall villain and their plan which just doesn't make sense. At the heart of the conflict is a land war similar to the Israel-Palenstine conflict of today, who is supposed to live where? Do the original settlers who were displaced for hundreds of years have a right to take the land or do the people who moved in the intern and have no other "native land" than that have a right to stay? The problem here is that not only does the story contradict itself, the returnees from the first show have found livable land far away from everyone else so there clearly is more land to go around, but I'm also highly skeptical that the only liveable land is right around what the fans believe to be the Mediterranean Sea, the creators seem to have completely forgotten there's more than 2/3 continents here. Not only is this conflict had to take seriously because of it's flaws but the villains actions in the end just don't make sense and it's frustrating because some of the other characters could have made better villains. While many of the staff from the first series returned the writers did not and it's a difference that is keenly felt.  

The Audio: Both the original and LE:Fam share musical composer Hitomi Kuroishi and, as a fan of Celtic inspired music, I was very pleased with this choice and the music sounds gorgeous. The music has a very similar feel to the music from the first series and is well-placed. The opening and ending songs aren't as memorable as the ones from the original but they work alright and don't feel out of place. The voice acting is solid as well, I believe all of the returning characters except for Alvis used the same voice actors as before, although it sounds like the English dub will have a hard time doing the same*.

The Visuals: The art was surprisingly a mixed bag here, while the CGI looked rather good in many places (and blending CGI with traditional 2D animation is one thing Gonzo used to be good at) there are many times where if you pause and look closely the regular art looks a bit sloppy or the characters look off. LE:Fam is hardly the only show to do this (and I'd argue that it never gets as bad as the background messiness of Persona 4 the Animation) but it is distracting to have some very gorgeous scenes right alongside overly simplistic details. In the end I still liked the look of this show very much and  hope that some of it was cleaned up/corrected for the DVD/BR releases.


It may not sound like it but I did really like this show, it just went down in it's second half and is certainly not as good as the original. There is one more problem with it that didn't quite fit in with the review, there were several events in the show where viewers went "wait, that's different from the original show, how did that happen?" and everyone had to throw up their arms and go "we don't know!" There is a manga that is set to bridge the two series, Travelers of the Hourglass/Sunadokei no Tabibito but it only started running the same time the anime aired so that so far has raised more questions than it has answered. Honestly I wish that manga had started back last February or March when the anime was announced so it had more of a lead and started to cover things (in an ideal world it would've been finished before LE:Fam or been a show itself) but hopefully in another couple of years this show will make at least a bit more sense. For US/Canadian readers the show can be viewed for free on Funimation's website. 



*to clarify, Last Exile was original licensed and dubbed by the now-dead Genon with California actors and both shows are now licensed by Funimation who is based in Texas. Worse yet I've heard that Dio's voice actor no longer does much acting and I might have heard that another actor had passed away and there's still another half dozen or so returning characters that they'll either have to match or make special accommodations to make this work.

Comic Review: Amulet (volumes 1-4)

A few years back when I was working in the local library I found the first volume in this series, read it, and didn't think much of it. Looking at the publication dates I don't think there were any other volumes out at the time to change my mind but over the years I've seen plenty of praise for the series, the kind of exhuberent praise that makes me squirm in my seat and go "how could something I found so average be so extraordinary to others, did it really improve later on or such?" Differences in taste could easily account for that difference but I was really puzzled and, after finding all four books staring at me in the local library (book five should come out this fall, I'm thinking the series won't be much longer than six volumes) I decided to give it a second go and try to figure out what all the buzz was about.

Amulet by Kazu Kibuishi (volumes one through four)

Summary: After a tragedy rocks their family, Emily along with her brother Navin and mother move to the old family home in the countryside to start a new chapter in their lives. They weren't expecting this new chapter to be so adventurous however as Emily inherits her Silas' amulet which gives her both great powers and unexpected responsibilities in the world of Alledia where they quickly become embroiled in an old war with enemies lurking everywhere.

The Good: While I still don't get quite all the hype I see for these books they are certainly well-written with an interesting plot. While Emily and her family are vital to trying to save Alledia she acts more as a catalyst than a promised savior which I like, it makes it much easier to take her role in all of this seriously. I also like how her brother Navin has also had sometime in the spotlight, initally I was worried he would be overshadowed because Amulet truly is Emily's story but his development (as well as that of a number of side characters) has been well placed and adds to the story. 

The Bad: It's a bit of an odd complaint but even after four books I still feel like we haven't gotten to know and understand Emily all that well, I feel like Navin has gotten much more character development (possibly because Navin has more downtime and Emily has been so busy there's no time for quiet, character establishing scenes). I do dislike how their mother is written however, it is hard to write capable adult characters in children's literature but the mother here just comes off as a bit too flat, someone to spout advice that doesn't even end up working in the end. Also a bit frustrated at the villain introduced in the fourth volume, everything was paced so quickly I had to re-read the story to figure out what happened and I didn't see a motivation or a reason for another villain at all. Despite all of that I am curious to see what happens next in the story, not so curious as to actively seek it out but rather enough that if I come across it at the library at some point I'll check it out. 

The Art: The comics are in full art and, while the art isn't going to blow your socks off it has progressed nicely and gets better and better with each book. The settings look nice and distinct, the pages flow well and all the characters look different from each other. The art hasn't blown me away but it's not underwhelming either so I have no complaints with it.

It's mostly for superficial reasons but the early parts of this story still remind me strongly of The Spiderwick Chronicles which is also probably because they're both middle grade, also probably why this story didn't grip me as much. I'd easily recommend these books (both series) to my younger step-sister but probably not to my college aged comic reading friends.  

Webcomic Review Month 2012: The Becoming, Bird Boy

This year I had a bit of an odd problem that I kept planning on reviewing some webcomics, looking at my list and going "yeah that's a good number of comics for one day" and then the comics finished! I saw a lot more shorter comics this year than I did the previous year and I'm not sure if that's a trend or just luck on my part. In any case, here we have one comic that it's for the long haul and another that's just starting up so if you like your comics on-going and long then you should be in luck!
Last year's B review.
 

The Becoming Written by J. Alan Shelton and Illustrated by Douang Khamsitthisack

 In the isolated city of Bellac the air is thick with politics from both the government and the all-powerful church as each side seeks to outmanuver the other side to achieve their own goals. The newly orphaned Oscar LeBeau seems to be caught up in the thick of it as he and the woman who killed his father, Jeannine Delacroix, discover there are even more secrets than either of them would have guessed.

I hate to say this but this is a comic that doesn't work that well updating one page at a time on a weekly basis. There has been at least one time, probably more, when I've considered dropping this comic, gone back through to re-read it to give it one last chance, and then suddenly all the stuff that was confusing me made sense. There are just enough characters and plotlines, especially since there is at least one spin-off story providing more backstory, to make things confusing yet when you read it in chunks it's quite interesting. The art is also quite pretty, it has steampunk aesthetics without feeling gimmicky and it's surprisingly colorful. So I do recommend the comic and maybe other people, ones who aren't following as many comics as I do at once, will find it easier to remember all the plot threads.

Bird Boy by Annie Szabla

Bali is a young boy who wishes that he could be of more use to his tribe, or at least be taken more seriously but so far he seems to have only caused even more trouble for his tribe by finding an ancient sword and accidently unleashing a monster on them.

I debated whether or not to review this comic this year or if I should save it for next but in the end it was the art that won me over since the story already has a gorgeous and a distinct style. There's not much to say about the plot at this point, the story is under 30 pages but I really liked Szabla's other (sadly unfinished & doesn't seem to be on the internet anymore) work Cealdian so right now I remain confident that the story should be solid as well.
 

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. 

Continuing shows for Winter 2012

I should have a post up about the new winter anime I've been checking out next week (since I'm always one of the last people to post anyway) but today I've got a quick rundown of the two cour fall shows I'm continuing with and what they're doing right now. I've seen the latest episode for each of them (which means anything from episode 11 to 14) and I'll try to keep the spoilers down since that's never fun for anyone.

Chihayafuru: I still love this series but I’m loving Chihaya herself a little less now, I just wish she would train and get better already instead of having a freak out in nearly every match! For a josei show there are an awful lot of shonen tournament tropes in here and I’m really hoping the series moves away from them in order to let the story flow more naturally and to let the characters have more development.

Future Diary: It's odd but I am enjoying the show despite the fact that almost none of the characters are likable (I'm actually like Akise the most now and I was pretty sure I'd hate him when he first appeared). In a weird way the show has been fun, a little twisty, and I am really curious to see where it goes in the end (although I don't see myself buying the DVD/BRs of it).

Guilty Crown: Yes I’m still watching this and no I’m not entirely sure why. I almost wish I was blogging this show weekly because each episode does do one or two things right which makes me happy (characters freaking out after they kill people! Characters who don’t immediately want to team up with what amount to terrorists! Shuu’s mom appears to be a capable and smart lady!) but then they do so many things wrong or just plain odd (people in the Funeral Parlor: can someone PLEASE explain why you’re following Gai? No seriously Shuu’s right, your blind devotion to him is creepy!) that the overall review of this thing is going to be hard. It isn’t great and isn’t always even good but it does do enough things right that I want to see just what the heck they pull out of this series in the end.

Last Exile: Fam of the Silver Wing: The art is up and down (generally it’s the characters that look less detailed while the backgrounds are still nice, hoping that Gonzo has enough time/money to retouch bits for the DVDs) and some of the characters need more development (I swear that Fam is a shonen hero who got genderbent and put in here, her general confidence with small moments of self-doubt that she tries to hide from everyone else) but I still love this show. The world building is well done, the latest flashback episode shows that they put a lot of thought into the politics of the various countries and the characters have developed enough for me to be satisfied. I am a little worried about how this show is going to end, it’s almost half way done and no matter what the character’s end goal is they still have a long way to go, but I’m going to keep crossing my fingers and hope for the best.

Persona 4: Much like Guilty Crown I’m not entirely sure why I’m watching this show. I haven’t played the game (although I am watching the Let’s Play of it that Giant Bomb did, I prefer to listen to stuff in English when sewing so this was the perfect thing to watch recently) and it’s clear that the pacing is not the best here but, well, somehow I’m enjoying this. Mostly it’s the unintentional comedy in it (or sometimes the intentional bits) that keep me giggling but I am enjoying this for some reason or another. Enough to want to say buy fanart of the series, as well as continue watching the series and the LP, but not enough to buy DVDs/BRs down the road.

Again, next Wednesday I should have some quick blurbs up about the new shows this season I've tried out and at the top of yesterday's post I posted my new schedule that goes into effect next Sunday.

 

Fall Anime 2011 Reviews: Part one!

Well then, Funimation is actually not doing a same day simulcast for Last Exile: Fam of the Silver Wing and since the show isn't airing until Monday I'm just going to leave a blank for it here and fill it in later on, I just won't have the time to do both of these posts later in the week and I've seen everything else I'm interested in. I also don't have a mid-season retrospective for what I'm still following this time around since the only show I'm following that halfway done is Mawaru Penguindrum (I ended up dropping Nura since it wasn't doing anything for me and I don't regret it) and I didn't want to make a post about a single show. I'm still loving the series to pieces for it's strangeness and strong plotline and between this and Star Driver earlier in the year it's really obvious now what parts of Utena were from Enokido and what parts were from Ikuhara, I might need to do a big post comparing all three when this one finishes up.

As for the new shows I'm doing this in the same style as before, I've seen at least one episode of each new show (more in some cases, it just depends on when the series aired) and I will try out the first series via fansub if I'm really curious about it. However, since I try to watch one (if that many) series fansubbed each season and I'm still following Penguindrum I won't be watching any new series that don't have a simulcast no matter how promising they seem.

 Chihaya Furu
Originally I wasn't interested in this series when the charts started coming out (I've enjoyed sports anime before and I've even read a large part of the Hikaru no Go manga) but I normally don't find the shows that interesting. Then I heard that this was a josei series so I decided to give it a shot and at least try to show that there is a small demand for more well done shojo/josei series, plus it was being simulcast over on crunchyroll and I still have a membership there. The first two episodes have been mostly flashbacks explaining how Chihaya became interested in the Japanese card game furata and those two episodes just blew me away. While Chihaya is oblivious and naieve she also has some remarkably perceptive moments, is stubborn and has a strong sense of what's right and wrong, what else can you want in a heroine? I'm curious to see how much of her personality, if any, has changed once all the flashbacks are over but I can see myself really enjoying this show (especially since it has 2-cour to try and pace everything right, too bad the manga it's based on isn't finished yet).

Future Diary
If I had posted this even one day earlier I would have said that this seemed like a cool series but since it wasn't being simulcast I wouldn't continue watching it but lo and behold it got a simulcast earlier today with the Funico agreement so I can watch it after all (a similar thing happened with Croisee in the summer season actually, makes me glad I wait a little bit to post these reviews). I read the first volume of the manga years ago and thought it was interesting so I was curious to see if it was as cool (but kinda disturbing) as I remembered and it appears that yes, this is a story with an insane yet cool premise (god of time and space gets bored so he gives 12 people future diaries to kill each other with and the victor takes his place, doesn't help that this god seems to like chaos) and characters who are just plain nuts (because sane people wouldn't take this as an opportunity to go murder each other). This show is also two-cour and the manga is finished at 12 volumes so I hope that's enough to tell the whole story.

Guilty Crown
The first of the two noitaminA shows, Guilty Crown is a curious show since it follows in noitaminA's recent trend of anime original stories and is only the fourth show in this timeslot to be two-cour, hopefully this means that the story will end up being better than the timeslot's other recent anime original stories (Fractal, [C]). All of that said, this is not a traditional noitaminA show and really shows how the timeslot it now trying to appeal to 2channer's/anime fans with deep pockets instead of it's older/more fringe audience from even a year ago. The premise is similar to Code Geass (with whom it shares some key staff) or any other show that has an apathetic/weak male lead who is given a mysterious power by a beautiful, out of the ordinary girl with connections to a group of rebels in Japan's dystopian, ruled by a foreign power future. It's not original but so far it's really pretty, the first few minutes before the title rolled were beautiful and would have dragged me into the show even if I hadn't already been interested in it. Funimation has the simulcast for this series and I hope it does well for them, also hope that the plot does well since I'm tired of being disappointed by noitaminA shows in the final act.

Last Exile: Fam of the Silver Wing
Not counting the flash anime they put out the summer season, this is Studio Gonzo's first anime in a few years and it's a good thing that such a controversial studio (they've produced some good work and some awful work over the years, their last series Shangri-La was sadly one of the later) is starting off with a sequel to one of their best known titles. Starting a few years after the first series ended, Last Exile: Fam is set on Earth where the Ades Federation is slowly conquering all the lands and has now turned their eyes to the Turan Empire. This doesn't concern Fam and her copilot Giselle as much, they're sky pirates and beholden to no one, but after seeing the Ades turn against Turan in the peace talks Fam offers to save the two princesses of Turan if the sky-pirates get their ship later on. In some ways it's a lot like the first two episodes of the original Last Exile (ordinary pilots getting caught between two warring countries and might possibly have a way to end the war) and while the art worked has been slightly "moe-fied" compared to the original show the characters already feel like real people and not cardboard cut-outs. Finally, a great thing about this show is that people are finally posting links to all the backstory about the original story and I'd encourage everyone whose seen the original series to read it (this timeline is a great place to start), partially to refresh your memories and also because it really clears up the ending of the original and helps explain the background of this series. 


Phi Brain
I saw a few other reviewers say good things about this show so I decided to give it a whirl, although it took me a few minutes since I was sure I had seen crunchyroll pick it up for a simulcast but it appears that I was mistaken and this show is unlicensed thus far. However, while the premise of the series sounded interesting (a puzzle obsessed world and the main character is really good at solving them), the presentation just didn't work for me since the show took itself way too seriously and in doing so felt too illogical. Supposedly hard puzzles that the rest of the cast couldn't solve seemed quite simple to the audience and a secret underground (literally) society that, erm, does something with life-threatening puzzles just felt too silly to me. Maybe if this was simulcast I would give it another episode (although it seems as if the second episode was worse than the first) but for the moment I've dropped it.

And here is part two!

Book Review: Soulless

Augh, sorry about that guys, I posted on twitter saying this review is delayed but if you don't follow me there and didn't get the message I'm sorry, I was preparing for a con last week and just ran out of time to do that and update here (and the review is up late tonight since now I'm trying to catch up with everything/look for photos of me and my friends, people upload their photos fast these days). So the schedule for the rest of the week is thus, either a movie or anime review Wednesday, comic on Thursday, book on Friday and then back to a regular update schedule next week, I'll even try to write up Monday's review early so that doesn't get delayed.

So, Soulless! I've been trying to read this book for over a year but, despite the fact that it's in the catalog in my local library, I don't think they actually have the book and I hadn't checked to see if the other libraries had it instead. But recently I found out that there was an ebook copy of the book and decided to try that instead and was pretty pleased with it, I'll talk more about that after the main body of the review.

Soulless by Grail Carriger

  Don't have that much to say about the cover, mostly because I'm still embaressed about the time I thought someone had stolen the image (I believe it was Clockwork Couture) and it turns out that Carriger got the image from them and with their permission. The image just fit the book so well that I didn't even stop to think that it was a pre-existing image, which does show how well the picture works for the book.

Summary: Alexia Tarabotti is a bit of an odditity since she is a 25 year old spinster living in Victorian London and fairly happy with her life. But she's actually even stranger than that, in a world with vampires and werewolves and where the amount of "soul" people have determines if they will survive the transformation to the undead, Alexia is soulless and a mere touch from her renders all the undead normal again. All of this culminates in her getting entangled

The Good: While some people may debate this* Soulless is set in a steampunk world (with lots of nice details about the setting) with a more supernatural conflict which is a nice blend of genres and fans of either should enjoy the book (romance fans should also love this story since that's also a major part of the book). I found it to be a pretty quick read and something was always going on in every scene and the romance managed to strike a nice balance between smutty^ and slutty so it a fun little book to read.

The Bad: At times the prose just feels a little off. It has a tendency to repeat itself, the pacing doesn't always feel quite right and sometimes the characters just act/react in strange ways. It almost feels a little too unpolished to be a real book and more like a story you could read online (really good but needs some oversight to make it even better). The plot is a bit predictable, especially with how the romance progresses, so if anyone is reading this book with the hope that the blending of genres might produce something really new and exciting I'm sad to say that nothing really new came from it.  

As for the e-reader, I downloaded an e-reader from Adobe and was fairly pleased with it. I could make the pages/text bigger which was nice and could add in bookmarks to make finding my place easier. I do wish I could scroll down the page (since I like keeping whatever text I'm reading towards the middle of the page) but no matter how I tried to do that (keyboard, touchpad, the side bar) it would just go to the next page instead which was a bit frustrating. All in all however the reader worked much better than I expected and I will be sure to check out other e-book only books my library has in the future.

 *just came across some blog post debating if Soulless "bustlepunk" not "steampunk" which just sounds like an awful lot of nitpicking to me
^which I suppose shows this isn't a YA book, some people get pissy if a YA book even has something as tame as kissing in it

Anime Review: Last Exile

Back in October 2009 Tor.com declared the whole month was steampunk month and I thought it would be fun to watch a steampunk anime to celebrate along with them (well, and enter every contest they had, didn't win anything at the time but I did win one of their posters later on!). But the thing is, there isn't a lot of anime out there that could be called "steampunk" even if it has recently become incredibly popular in the west. One of the few titles I found, and one that I recognized, was Last Exile which I rather enjoyed, even if immediately after finishing it I had to go look up all sorts of information to understand the ending. I had been thinking of re-watching it sometime but didn't have the motivation until a trailer for the sequel, Last Exile Fam of the Silver Wings (airing this summer), came up and made me super nostalgic for the series, bring on the re-watch!

Last Exile

Summary: Living on the world of Prester, Claus and Lavie are vanship pilots who make a living delivering messages all the while tuning up their vanship so they can one day cross the Grand Stream, an area of aerial turbulence that splits their world in half. But one day they come across a downed pilot who entrusts his delivery to them, a little girl who every power wants and needs so they can use her to change the world. 

The Good: It's surprising that this anime isn't better known in the steampunk fandom since the first half of it is a really good example of the genre (better yet, the anime is from 2003, a few years before the current craze, so it doesn't feel like the creators are throwing in random trappings to attract these fans, it feels like a very organic setting). The show starts feeling less steampunk-eque around the middle of the series, when the goals of the characters change a bit, but the story is still well plotted and is mostly well paced. It's a very satisfying show in the end, there is a clear beginning, middle, and end with explained backstory and reason for the characters actions (mostly) and there is real change in the end.

The Bad: Oh the ending, there's such a thing as an open ending and there's such a thing as a "we ran out of time!" ending*. What the show really needed to do was reduce episode 25 (a breather episode) to half an episode, put the first half of episode 26 as the second part of 25, and then expand on the rest of 26 in it's own episode, it desperately needs more explanation. The middle of the series has trouble too, there's a period where nearly every female named character has a crush on Claus (the romance in general could have been handled a little better to be honest) which makes most of them act horribly out of character for no other reason than "they're jealous," despite not being jealous before or after this bit. These aren't little details either, these are big details that, in the end, are a bit hard to ignore or forget and make the show less great that it could have been. 

The Art: The show is from 2003 so the CGI looks outdated and then you throw in the fact that it was created by Studio Gonzo and the CGI is rather conspicuous and, since it's used on all the vanships and airships, it pops up a lot. But other than that, the characters all look distinct, everything stays on model, each group of people (Anatory, Disith, the Guild, the vanship pilots) have a distinct look and aesthetic to them so it's clear that a lot of work went into the designs for the show. 

The Music: There is only one opening and one ending theme for the series and both of them are rather memorable and a bit haunting. The opening starts off with some strange engrish (although the imagery is far weirder) but flows well and the ending is a well done ballad. Sadly neither of the songs are translated on the Netflix stream but, as far as I can remember, the lyrics made sense the first time I saw the show. Speaking of which, the first time I saw the show I saw it subbed but this time around I watched it dubbed and I'm pleased with both languages. Some parts of the dub felt a little flat and merely average and some of the voice acting was spot on, the only voice that felt odd was Dio who came off as a bit creepy in the dub and sounding like certain spikey haired characters from Digimon and Wolf's Rain.

So I'm really happy I re-watched the show, although I'm annoyed that, even after a year and a half piecing together everything I could about the ending, (it appears there was some more information on it that never made it's way out of Japan and was never translated) it's still confusing. And now I'm even more excited for the new season coming out this summer. It has a lot to live up to (and a lot to explain!) and if it's anything less than amazing I'll be sad, which leaves me vaguely terrified since Gonzo's last work (Shangi-la) was a mess and I just don't want this to be a mess.

*Normally I'm alright with an open ending but in this case, where it's not entirely clear what PLANET the characters are on, that's a bit of a problem. Based on a few scenes plus material for the new show I think the end was on Prester but you could make a good argument that it was on Earth instead. Also, one character, who I always thought had died (since they were last seen in a situation where they practically couldn't make it out alive) appears to have lived after all and, while I'm certainly happy they're alive, the fact that it took eight years to confirm this is not a good thing.