When God Made Jace Wayland

What I want to know is why the person who made this cartoon neglected to point out that a recipe for Jace would include copious amount of unnecessary teenage angst?

Calling Charlaine Harris Fans: Dead Reckoning The New Sookie Stackhouse Novel is Out Today

I know that many of you like me, are huge fans of the urban fantasy genre.  I would be remiss if I didn’t post a reminder about the fact that Dead Reckoning, the latest novel in Charlaine Harris’ Southern Vampire Series was released today.  Yes, I already have my copy, and as soon as I am done, I will post a review to let you know my thoughts.

I am a little worried, because for a while the last book felt suspiciously close to a Laurell K Hamilton book, but with any hope, she will have pulled back from that.  I am also concerned because during the break waiting for this book to come out I read two other series by her.  I highly recommend avoiding the Shakespeare Series and Aurora Teagarden series.  You will never get the hours back that you invest, and you might endanger your e-reader, because the temptation to throw it in disgust will be extremely hard to resist. From reading both series I have learned that Harris is a big fan of slut shaming, should never ever write a character of colour EVER EVER AGAIN, and has a penchant for sick homophobic and disableist tropes.  I hope that I have successfully warned you away from them.

Get to reading everyone.  I am looking forward to conversation about this book.  I hope that it will be enough to tide me over until the new season of True Blood starts.

Vampire Academy – Richelle Meade Book 1

Vampire Academy – Richelle Mead

The first book that is, not the series (though I will return to that and maybe touch on the other books in passing).

In fact looking over the series I have to say that this is bizarre reverse world. Normally an author writes their awful, unreadable road-block of a book towards the end of a series, after the series already has enough fans who will suffer through it to keep going no matter what. Start with a great book, then go down hill while the fans clutch on desperate for improvement but masochistically holding on hoping, praying with each new book that there will be redemption and not further plummeting into the abyss (I call this the “Laurell K Hamilton writing style”).

But Vampire Academy flips it. The first book, well, I have to say was painful for me to read. It was dull dull dull dull. Ye gods it was dull. Full of pointless angst and slut shaming and completely lacking anything resembling depth or nuance.

However, if you hold on past this insomnia cure of a book, the second and third books are not nearly so painful. It’s a shame really that the first book is such a damn road block.

It’s possible that I’m being unduly harsh and my tastes just don’t match up with this genre.

Lissa is a Moroi (kind of a good vampire with magic) and Rose is a dhampire (half-vamp, child of a Moroi and a dhampire or a human – no magic but physically stronger than humans and the frail Moroi). Many dhampire are guardians of the Moroi, dedicating their lives, even sacrificing their lives to protect Moroi from the Strigoi – Moroi who have gone to the darkside, undead without magic but physically immensely powerful, they feed by killing and love to nom on Moroi becauseeating them gives them a power boost.