Melinda SnodgrassRecensioni

I read the first 17 Wild Cards, but I logged that last one eighteen years ago, so I've missed a bunch in the meantime. Unfortunately, the characters in this graphic novel are from books 21-23 and 31, and the author assumes I've been keeping up, leaving me a bit lost in the finer points of this police procedural graphic novel.

Wild Cards is set in a world shaped by a cataclysmic event in the 1940s that released a virus over New York City that gruesomely kills most of the people it infects, but leaves a small number with body-deforming mutations, gives a smaller number powers that amount to useless parlor tricks, and grants the smallest number full-blown super powers. Those with the worse luck live in a slum neighborhood of New York City called Jokertown.

The lead character is Francis "Frank" Black, a legacy police detective with daddy issues who was never infected by the virus. Assigned to Jokertown, he wants to find who removed the skeleton from the pile of skin and muscle that's been found in an alley. But when that case starts to reveal secrets the powers that be would prefer uncovered, he finds himself offered with a distracting high profile operation against Russian mobsters. The various plots get all muddled and I lost interest long before a cheesy showdown tried to tie it all together.

The story is narrated by a character whose identity is not immediately revealed, though it is pretty easy to guess very early on. But the story makes no attempt to justify why or how this character could be the narrator, so the identity reveal feels like only half of a payoff, with a second shoe left undropped.

The other side characters are barely introduced, lowering the stakes considerably when bad things happen to some of them. One character has a ridiculous Barbie doll figure that is unexplained in the book, but some research revealed she is a Joker whose body has the characteristics of a greyhound dog. The artists failed to show the exaggerated canine teeth her prose appearances describe.

The art, by the way, is going for an Alex Ross painted realism that does look pretty good most of the time, but it has a stiffness that fails to convey action sequences well.

I really enjoyed this urban fantasy and am going to continue with the series. I have been in a weird reading slump (mainly due to fatigue issues), but returned to this book happily even though it took me a while to read.

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I rather liked this one, mostly because it addressed the problem of communication which so often gets utterly handwaved with universal translators. I also liked the focus on Uhura and her love story; she is great. I didn't love the Klingons, but given when it was written there wasn't so much to go on, and it at least presents them as individuals rather than a faceless menace.

Dnf. It is a day in the life of kids at a music competition. Not what I enjoy about the series. Hoping the next is better.

Because I am so enchanted by New Mexico, I expected a little more from this book. However, I did like it.

EDIT 2022: This review contains reference to the fact that I worked a temp job while reading this.

Somehow I thought this was going to be a legal thriller set in an urban fantasy world. I kept reading until the end, looking for that element. (EDIT 10/22/2018: I rearranged several clauses of the following sentences because in anger, I can write quite the tangled run-ons.) The following sentence is one of my least favorite to write, considering I spent the better part of a decade writing fanfiction. This reads like a bad fanfiction, complete with a Mary Sue, stupid romantic subplot jammed into the final paragraph of the first fifty pages, enormous paragraphs of Mary Sue's inner monologue, and barely any plot advertised. The legal thriller part was so incredibly bland, that at first, I didn't realize I was reading it.
The book opens up with Linnett, our Mary Sue, whining that she was coerced into taking a case last minute and her life is so haaaard and she's furious that she's flying coach, pro hac vice. I regularly work temp jobs as a legal assistant. I've worked for attorneys who fly coach, on short notice, and on cases pro hac vice, all the time. As in, five times a month. You are no hotshot attorney, madam. Your behavior throughout the book indicates you are two years out of law school (apologies to better lawyers!) and you are a thirteen-year-old in a woman's body.

The plot doesn't show up until nearly a hundred pages into the book, and it's a workplace shooting out of nowhere. Mary Sue that Linnett is, she -heroically- jumps to save the paramedic and only has some blood splattered onto her shirt. She utterly forgets what a hospital is, and marches into her office shortly afterward. A long paragraph is dedicated to someone rushing out to get her a new, expensive blouse since we can't have a Mary Sue not be the prettiest woman in the room. She seems to have an odd fascination with pointing out how pretty women of color are when they're around her for five seconds. It comes off as trying too hard. Serious societal issues are addressed here with the Sledgehammer of Symbology (credit to Mervin of Das Sporking for the term), and clumsily at that. Lots of long-winded paragraphs.

Entire pages are dedicated to her love of horses and I don't care. I suppose this was meant to provide characterization. She lovingly describes each item of clothing she ever wears in three or more sentences per item. The more expensive it is, the more it's described. She whines about her refusal to eat rich food and screeches about calories. Some of us can't afford food. Stuff yourself.

The book ended with no real resolution. I could practically hear the author shout, "I am tired of this story! Here are more paragraphs to pretend the ending! I'm done!" All I could do was shake my head a bit

Only occasionally painful. Come on, allow for a bit of adult behavior and maturity of responses for people who've carried big responsibilities. But there's only a systems wide war being waged, so something has to be done for a bit of drama. For the number of events over the months this covers this is a pretty sketchy treatment, but that may be a blessing.½

I am so glad I won this on a blog giveaway as I would not normally read this kind of book - vampires, werewolves and lawyers - really liked the story and the writing. Highly recommend. I will be looking out for the next in the series.

Snodgrass is a favorite author, specifically for her Edge series. But this high-concept, space opera was wonderful. She's a far too little known gem in the world of science fiction. The book takes humankind into the universe as subjugators of other races and worlds, ending up as a strong social commentary for our own times. The narrative infuses much of her New Mexico culture while still maintaining the strong sci-fi concepts. There's corruption and intrigue, all laid over a coming of age story. And it's a bitRomeo and Juliet, too - born of Hogwarts, but so much better. I'm really hoping to get to the remaining novels in the series.½

MilSF crossed with Latin soap opera

Heavy doses of honor. Not a lot of combat. One ^very^ graphic sex scene.

An excellent follow up to the first book, but the cliff hanger ending is brutal!!

I plan on pre-ordering the next book.

Good, but big plot hole

I did mostly like the plot and the characters. But the plot hole was glaring. Pay-no-attention-to-the-Man-who-forgot-to-close-the-curtain kind of obvious, to me.

Spoiler
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So she takes her cell and puts it in a safe deposit box at a bank, because ‘they’ could trace it even if it was turned off. Then she returns to the bank and checks her messages.

Then she AGAIN goes back to the bank and uses the phone!!!

At no point do the ‘badguys’ actually trace her phone. They curiously don’t set up a stakeout at the bank her phone is just sitting in. The otherwise capable PI (John) lets her return to the phone, even though it should be avoided.

Then she makes phone calls on landlines, because tracing those is harder?

More research on the various phone systems is needed before make them a plot point.

MilSF crossed with Latin soap opera

Heavy doses of honor. Not a lot of combat. One ^very^ graphic sex scene.

An excellent follow up to the first book, but the cliff hanger ending is brutal!!

I plan on pre-ordering the next book.

Good, but big plot hole

I did mostly like the plot and the characters. But the plot hole was glaring. Pay-no-attention-to-the-Man-who-forgot-to-close-the-curtain kind of obvious, to me.

Spoiler
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So she takes her cell and puts it in a safe deposit box at a bank, because ‘they’ could trace it even if it was turned off. Then she returns to the bank and checks her messages.

Then she AGAIN goes back to the bank and uses the phone!!!

At no point do the ‘badguys’ actually trace her phone. They curiously don’t set up a stakeout at the bank her phone is just sitting in. The otherwise capable PI (John) lets her return to the phone, even though it should be avoided.

Then she makes phone calls on landlines, because tracing those is harder?

More research on the various phone systems is needed before make them a plot point.

Fun read from Chick-lit/Romance/Legal/Vampire mix

This is a book to read when your brain needs a holiday. It's a light, fun, fast, slick, self-referential, tongue-in-cheek (I hope) cocktail of every genre you might be looking for.

We have an alternative earth in which Vampires and Werewolves and Fairies (collectively known as The Powers) dominate the law, the military and the entertainment business.

Our heroine graduated at the top of her law class, yet she shows few signs of being really bright. She gets her first job working for a White Fang (Vampire reference - not Jack London) Law firm. She achieves outcast status amongst her human colleagues because she was fostered in a Vampire home, falls victim to the office sexual predator, falls into an intrigue that pits her against Werewolf mercenaries who try (repeatedly) to kill her. She falls a lot in fact. And most of the time it saves her life or wins her a case. She may not be the world's brightest lawyer but she is supernaturally lucky.

Although she is often brave, taking on Werewolf assassins and chauvinist bosses with equal enthusiasm, she seems a little damaged - very dependent on "Daddy" both her natural father and her Vampire foster-father.

The book is well plotted and slickly written, with good banter, nice pace and well-choreographed action.

Bornikova raises her game as a writer when she is describing anything to do with horses and she manages a surprisingly (but appropriately) repulsive sex scene.

What I've described so far would have been enough for a pleasant read but probably wouldn't have had me looking for the next in the series (isn't everything in a series these days?)

What pushed me into the "OK, I'll try the next one" camp is the feeling that the damage our heroine sustained in her fostered-childhood and the supernatural luck that follows her and the unusual patronage that she receives from the Vampires, point to a longer, more interesting plot arc and to the possibility that our heroine may get past her daddy issues and end up seeking a reckoning with a set of gelding shears. One can but hope.

I loved this series and this was the best of the three... but I want more!!! Hoping that a 4th book comes out soon. I found Linnet and the world she lives in really different and creative. There's been so many books about werewolves, vampires and the Fae, but this one felt really different. It had a lot of interesting ideas, and I am looking forward to finding out what happens next!½

Though not as painful as the second book of the Imperials series, this is really a sparse 2/3 of a book with a few vignettes to reach a specific end. It's seems more calculated than felt, and what I mostly felt was either like hitting the characters over the head or hoping the aliens would wipe them all out.½

Always interesting to read the books set away from the traditional superhero stomping grounds of NYC. I found this one charming.

I have to say, I did not expect to have our heroes encounter Jeeves and Wooster. Hilarious.

Setting aside at page 95 because I'm not really enjoying anything it's doing. The reason vs religion central struggle seems to be getting both more and less nuanced: all religion is not bad, but there's a strong vibe of all bad is religious, or at least ignorant, that just... I think it's a cop-out. If you're going to pivot your worldbuilding and story around a fundamental struggle of/for humanity, and then sort of blame the depths of humanity's nastiness on Old Ones / aliens / evil emotion-eating creatures from a parallel dimension, I'm going to go off looking for something more interesting and intelligent. That's just how it is, unfortunately.

I might have stayed for delightful prose or gripping characters, but the former was far more workmanlike (not a flaw if the story it's carrying is enthralling me) and the latter weren't doing anything for me, especially our poor little pretty rich boy hero. His sexuality has been interestingly and subtly flagged, but he's just got so much privilege that I can't say I'm particularly interested in his various crises; I did think that his faith was going to be an interesting element, but it seems to have been flimsier than anticipated.

Anyway, too many books on the list to carry on with something that's giving me this much meh. Onwards.

I didn't find this novel particularly enthralling, but it was both easy enough to read and an enjoyable diversion from real life. My favorite part, hands down, is that the plot and the story's tension depended on legal circumstances and solutions rather than supernatural ones. Yes, there are vampires and fey and werewolves, but the main character is a lawyer and her goals are purely law-oriented.

There were a couple important parts of the world that weren't examined with any kind of thoroughness, which deeply, deeply unsettled me. Primary among these instances is the idea that vampires don't bite women, ever. I, as the reader, understood it's supposed to be a sexist throwback that simply hasn't been examined by the novel's society with any rigor, but the main character was so blase, and her friend's outrage over it felt so manufactured, that the whole thing ended up being handled poorly and without any nuance at all. I'm not even sure if it was meant to simply be one of those unfair, sinister things within our culture that we overlook, or if there is some plot-related reason for it.

Overall, I'm glad I got the ebook on sale. I wouldn't have been happy to pay full price for this book, but I did enjoy it well enough that I found a copy of the sequel at my local library and will begin reading it shortly.

You simply can not enter a stream of 22 novels on #22 and hope to follow/like it, despite what flyleaf says. This seems to be a clever concept, but the fact remains that it is very clear that the novel is a series of sketches brought together with a common storyline. Sometimes multiple authors work, sometimes not.½

There has been a secret war fought since the begining of time. On one side are the old ones, the side of religious fanaticism and magic; the other side is fought by the Lumina, the supporters of science, rational thought and technology.

Richard Oort is a police officer and saves the life of a young female, and inadvertently changes the course of his own life. Caught in the middle of the battle he finds himself fighting along side an unusual group, and questioning his faith in the God he has always believed in.

I very much enjoyed this book although I did find some points a little far fetched (I know, it's science fiction .. but still!) I found it hard to believe the main characters just believed in the supernatural aspects with such ease and hardly any proof. Otherwise I found this to an enjoyable read.

Lymond like protagonist, actually described as Della Robbia Angel. Includes a reference to Men of Iron which is kind of cool.