Month: September 2017

[Book Review] Ride The Storm (Cassandra Palmer #8)

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Title: Ride the Storm (Cassandra Palmer #8)
Author: Karen Chance
Rating: Your Cup of Tea Maybe?
Genre/Category: Urban Fantasy, Vampires, Witches, Time Travel, Psychics
Release Date: August 1, 2017

Publisher: Berkley Publishing Group

Note: I received a free copy of this novel from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All of the views in this review are my own. Additionally, this review talks about sexual assault and a creepy relationship the main character has. There are MAJOR spoilers for the book’s romantic relationships.

SYNOPSIS

The New York Times bestselling author of Reap the Wind returns to the “fascinating world”* of Cassie Palmer.

Ever since being stuck with the job of pythia, the chief seer of the supernatural world, Cassie Palmer has been playing catch up. Catch up to the lifetime’s worth of training she missed being raised by a psychotic vampire instead of at the fabled pythian court. Catch up to the powerful, and sometimes seductive, forces trying to mold her to their will. It’s been a trial by fire that has left her more than a little burned.

But now she realizes that all that was the just the warm up for the real race. Ancient forces that once terrorized the world are trying to return, and Cassie is the only one who can stop them…

REVIEW

I’ve been reading Karen Chance’s Cassandra Palmer series since I was a teeny tiny high schooler. I count it as a formative influence and one of the first (and best) urban fantasy series that I’ve ever read.

That’s why it’s been so hard for me to write this review for the latest book in the series Ride the Storm.Read More »

[Small Stitch Reviews] Tomi Adeyemi’s Children of Blood and Bone (Five Chapter Preview)

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Children+Of+Blood+And+Bone Cover

The first five chapters of Tomi Adeyemi’s Children of Blood and Bone are the most stressful things that I’ve ever read. And believe me, they’re so worth it.

When I first heard of Adeyemi’s success and talent (the bidding war and the upcoming movie), people were comparing her to George R. R. Martin. I get it. I do. At this point, when faced with an epic fantasy series full to the brim with political intrigue and the kind of vivid writing that leaves you able to visualize the world, Martin’s works are kind of the “go-to” for that sort of thing.

But Adeyemi’s writing is next level amazing. (I’m not going to be like “She’s better than Martin” but like…)

In the five-chapter preview, we’re introduced to three very different characters in different roles of life. There’s Zélie, a diviner trained to fight against the guards that oppress her and others like her in the name of King Saran. Then, there’s King Saran’s two children: Amari, who comes face to face with ugliness in her family, and her brother Inan, a young man who appears to be torn between duty and desire.

All three of the POV characters introduced in the first five chapters are fascinating figures that I want to know more about. The world they live in is dark and distressing, but even in these five chapters, I got the feeling that we’re going to see so much more unfold as the book (and subsequent series) goes on.

I think that the best thing about The Children of Blood and Bone is seeing multiple characters on the page that look like me and my family. Epic fantasy series aren’t exactly known for their stunning racial diversity and it’s been hard to get into the subgenre of fantasy considering it’s yet another one that I can’t picture myself in.

But I can with this book. I can visualize the characters and the setting they live in without having to jump through hoops like whoa. I know that when the movie comes out, it’ll be like Black Panther where I sob all over the place from the first trailer on (but better) because Black people – especially Black women – don’t get to be the Chosen One. We don’t get to save the day or have a prince (maybe) fall in love with us.

We deserve that.

We do.

And Adeyemi delivers in a big way.

You can check out the synopsis for Tomi Adeyemi’s Children of Blood and Bone on her website along with the first few chapters of the novel. If you read the preview and like what you see, consider not only pre-ordering the book, but spreading the word!

 

 

Luke Cage – Looks Like A Cinnamon Roll…

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Note: This piece largely revolves around sexual racism and the sexual objectification of Black male bodies. There are references to sexual assault, descriptions of objectified Black bodies, and a link to an article on the “Brute Caricature” that includes images of lynchings.

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Fandom seems to think that Luke Cage “Looks like he could kill you, but is actually a cinnamon roll”.

To them, Luke may read as a threat, “but is actually a cinnamon roll” because they see that he has tender and sweet moments throughout his appearances in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. As a result, fandom sanitizes his character so that it can fit this super narrow archetype about what he should be – all while assuming that he was a threat to begin with.

I’m assuming that most, if not all, of the nuance written into his characterization in Luke Cage just went right over their collective heads because a huge chunk of Luke’s arc in his solo series revolves around him trying to figure out how to effectively use his body (rather than having other people use it).

At several points, the series actually addresses Black masculinity and how Black men are inherently seen as violent threats just by existing. And yes, Luke is one of the heavy hitters of the MCU, but he doesn’t want to hurt people: he’s just constantly backed into positions where he has to use his strength to hurt people in order to protect the people in his life.

I’m also assuming that the people who look at Mike Colter and immediately go “wow, this guy looks like he can kill me” haven’t watched the news in a while to see what many killers these days look like. They also have zero common sense because Mike Colter hardly looks like he could hurt a fly.

Saying that physically powerful Black characters such as Luke Cage and American Gods‘ Shadow Moon (played by biracial Black actor Ricky Whittle) “look like they could kill you” prior to calling them cinnamon rolls seems harmless and endearing, but can be linked back to the fact that their bigness and their Blackness are what cause white audiences to view them as threats in the first place.

It’s only after these characters prove their value and their softness (usually in a way that appeals to whiteness), that they’re revered for cinnamon roll status.

But it’s rather clear why fandom does this.Read More »

[Stitch Elsewhere] “Rupert Wong and the Ends of the Earth” Review @ Strange Horizons

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Rupert Wong and the Ends of the Earth

To the gods and ghouls that he cooks for, Rupert Wong is little more than a mouthy piece of meat. At best, the titular character of Cassandra Khaw’s gloriously gory series hardly registers as anything more than an annoyance. At worst, he’s viewed as a tool to be used up, until he can only serve as fuel and food for divinity.

Part of Abaddon Books’s shared “Gods and Monsters” universe, the sequel to Khaw’s 2015 novella Rupert Wong: Cannibal Chef, Rupert Wong and the Ends of the Earth plucks main-character Rupert Wong from the familiarity of his life in Kuala Lumpur, dropping him headfirst into a conflict between some heavy hitters of the Greek pantheon and members of a mysterious organization known as Vanquis. Persona non grata in his hometown due to events in the previous book that lead members of his own pantheon to view him as a traitor, Rupert is removed from everything that is familiar and is transplanted, rather abruptly, to a dreary London neighborhood that seems downright lousy with Greek gods and figures from other European mythologies.

There are two huge things that Cassandra Khaw does in Rupert Wong and the Ends of the Earth that make the book—and the characters that inhabit it—too interesting to walk away from. First, there’s what drew me to Khaw’s writing in the first place: how she writes about flesh and food in a way that makes reading about the go-to nourishment of ghouls and gods a chilling, but captivating experience. Then there’s the way that Khaw writes the remains of the Greek pantheon struggling to gain a foothold in a world that has largely written them off as obsolete—and whose new gods are far less open to sharing.

If you’ve been paying attention to me at any point over the past year, you probably noticed that I’m a bit… fixated on cannibalism in fiction. From Tokyo Ghoul to Hannibal to an actual non-fiction book about how very natural cannibalism is, I’ve been hip deep in media and non-fiction centering the subject. It’s been great and gross!

Back in 2015, author Cassandra Khaw (who happens to be one of my pals on top of being a fantastic writer)  wrote a novella called Rupert Wong Cannibal Chef and I’ve been a huge fan ever since. And when the sequel came out this year, well… I just had to review it. When else would I get to talk about one of my favorite writers’s work, cannibalism, and Greek mythology?

Head on over to Strange Horizons to read my review of Cassandra Khaw’s gloriously gory Rupert Wong and the Ends of the Earth today!

Rayne: A Racist Rando on my Lucifer Review

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Rayne isn’t racist but she just knew that I’d be a “female of African descent” because I… talk about “racism”. Wow. That’s totally not racist at all — oh sorry, I meant that it’s pretty racist and that Rayne can kiss my ass. 🙂

Imagine being so incensed by some random person on the internet’s almost two-year-old review of a pilot episode of a show that’s now starting season two that you write them not one but TWO separate comments explaining in detail how subpar you view their intelligence and accusing them of being easily traumatized by media.

Monday, after my mother and I finally got back home after waiting out Hurricane Irma in a shelter, some random person on the internet decided that that was the best time to try and school me on my initial review of Lucifer’s pilot episode.

This woman, Rayne, wrote me two separate comments insulting my intelligence, my ability to understand dark aspects of fiction, and my understanding of misogyny and anti-black racism as a Black woman. Their two comments were insulting and unwarranted and at no point bothered to point out actual issues with my review (like the fact that I based my review on a leaked pilot episode…).

And this was all over a review I originally wrote two years ago for a show that I’ve since watched past the pilot and found interesting (if predictable).

Clearly, Rayne wanted attention so that’s exactly what I’m going to give her.

Join me in dissecting her comments and feel free to make fun of them in the process.Read More »

Finn – Looks Like A Cinnamon Roll…

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In “Cinnamon Rolls, Sinnamon Rolls, and Capable Killers: How to Categorize Your Fav” the author gives the following description for the “True Cinnamon Roll” (which falls under the “Looks like a Cinnamon Roll, Is Actually a Cinnamon Roll” part of the meme):

A true cinnamon roll really is as innocent and well-meaning as they appear. They can be completely naïve or somewhat sly, or may have the most common sense of the group, but most importantly they are more of a nurturer and healer than a fighter.

Throughout much of the Star Wars fandom in the wake of Star Wars: The Force Awakens male lead Finn (played by John Boyega) has been assigned the marker of the “True Cinnamon Roll”. Here’s the thing, I get where it comes from and as with Bodhi, I think that it comes from a well-meaning place but doesn’t bother to reckon with intersectionality or the reality of how Finn is treated by a significant portion of fandom both on and off of Tumblr.

Despite being the male lead of the film, Finn is not the most popular new male character in the fandom. He’s not the most respected. He’s not even the most written about. Right now on the AO3, Finn is the sixth most popular character represented in the fandom with 7150 appearances so far.

(Minor antagonist Armitage Hux (who only had about 3 minutes of screentime in The Force Awakens) has over 3000 more tagged appearances than that.  I’m never going to stop having a problem with that.)

Let’s look at that definition of the true cinnamon roll again.

At first glance, Finn being equated with a trope predicated on innocence seems pretty great because we live in a world where Black people are assumed guilty even in situations where they are the clear victims of violence. However, fandom doesn’t exist in a vacuum and what appears to come in good faith frequently… doesn’t.

Just because some people honestly view Finn as a cinnamon roll character while not forgetting his character from the film and related supplemental materials, that doesn’t mean the entire fandom does.

In viewing Finn as “a true cinnamon roll”, fandom ignores his actual characterization. Most frustrating, is that many members of fandom ignore that he is a complex character who is literally trying to find his place in the world. It’s a way to look like they care about Finn as an archetype (who is so pure, so perfect, and so put together, that the fandom simply must fall for “bad boy” characters like Hux or Kylo) without needing to care about Finn as a character.Read More »