dragonyphoenix

At first, I enjoyed Silvia Moreno-Garcia's Certain Dark Things. Excellent descriptions of Mexico City's underbelly. It's set in a world where different vampire lines emerged, so vampires are different breeds with different characteristics and abilities. That's so interesting and I can see her doing a lot with it. The characters of Atl and Domingo are engaging and interesting.

But the antagonist, Nick, a Necro vampire who's little more than a stupid bully, about half-way through the novel, rips open a blood bag and dumps the blood on himself. The story lost me there. I won't be finishing it.

Back to the good stuff. Volume 3: Paris trip! Nick is now out but Charlie doesn't want to broadcast their relationship. It seems that Charlie had been outed when a friend of his had been over-heard. Lots of drama to look forward to here and it was nicely played out. Vol 4: the next school year. Nick coming out to his father and Charlie's eating disorder, brought on by the trauma of being bullied at school after he'd been outed. The kids are cute. There's a nice diversity of relationships among the different groups of kids. And the series handles difficult issues in a positive manner. Really enjoying it.

Casey McQinston’s Red, White, and Royal Blue features Alex, the son of the U.S. President, and Henry, a prince of England who don’t get along and are forced to hang out in public and appear as friends. Guess who fall for each other. The characters are enjoyable in this light read. It’s Alex’s point of view and we see his opinion of Henry change as we see them hanging out together for the press, email, call, kiss.

But my favorite part of this story is on the political stage. A woman won the Presidency in 2016. She’s running again in 2020 and it’s a close call as to whether she’ll win or not in part due to the opposition outing her son and Henry’s relationship. With so much that’s frustrating in the press, it was wonderful and hopeful to read about a world that’s moving in a positive direction.

A Declaration on the Rights of Magicians by H. G. Parry. Fascinating world-creation. She takes the idea of inherited magical abilities to a new level. There's the usual control of water or fire, but also mesmerism, necromancy, and vampirism. It's set during the French Revolution in Jamaica, Saint Dominique, London, and Paris. Hundreds of years ago, in response to the vampire wars, the Knights Templar started using talismans to block the powers of magic users but commoners only. Aristocrats can still use their powers. It's very much caught up in the politics of the day, with William Pitt and Robespierre being main characters, but with the twist that they are magic users, and the last remaining vampire is manipulating behind the scenes to build his own empire starting with France. I guess I'm not great at describing why I like a book, but this one is on the list of books I want to own.

I also finished Heartstopper Volume 2. The Heartstopper series is a graphic novel about two high-school boys in love. At the end of the first volume, Nick and Charlie kissed. In this volume, we have Charlie's angst of I kissed my best friend who's straight and now he won't want to be friends and Nick's realization of I kissed a boy and I like it. I like the characters, the boys are very cute, but I didn't connect with this volume as well as I did with the first. Too much working through and talking about feelings? But that's what the overall story needs at this point, so I'm a bit disappointed with myself for not enjoying it more.

Finished two books this last week.

Letters for Lucardo is a graphic novel m/m romance that's part of the Fortunate Beasts series. It explores the relationship between an immortal and a mortal with a focus on the inevitable tragedy. The art is excellent. There's quite a bit of backstory that this doesn't cover. Maybe you need to read them all to get that, but I would have preferred to have more of it filled in. Also, more graphic depictions of sex than my ace-self is interested in. Still, a good read.

Keezy Young's Taproot is a boy and ghost-boy love story. The art, the story, the characters, all charming. I really enjoyed this one.

On the morning of OUTrageous Bingo, I learn of an LGBTQ romance featuring Bingo halls. How perfect is that! ;-)

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I recently read C. S. Friedman’s This Alien Shore. The main idea is fantastic. Space migration caused mutations to the genome and Earth gave it up as a bad cause. Some humans look nothing like us. The people of one planet still looks human; their mutations were mental. They all have what would be referred to as mental illnesses back on Earth, which is quite homogenized in terms of how your mind can vary from the “norm.” So one character is, I believe, autistic and another has obsessive compulsion disorder; they have different names for the different mentalities and I didn’t know what they all were. They paint or tattoo their faces based on their dominant mode of mentality and have ritualized forms of interaction to counter their dramatically different world-views. It’s fascinating. Friedman has created an awesome universe. Note: this race has found a way to use some of their people to travel through space safely (without causing mutations) and so they dominate space travel.

I believe I also spotted influences of early science fiction authors. The differences between Earth and the outer planets reminded me of E. E. Smith’s Subspace Explorers. The means of space travel reminded me of Cordwainer Smith’s “Game of Rat and Dragon”. Since these are both authors I adored early on, seeing their influence made the book even more fun for me.

The book was fantastic. It seems a bit abridged at the end. After the climax, the denouement should have been longer, but otherwise I adored it.

Here in the US, May is Mental Health Awareness Month. Appropriately, and coincidentally, I’m reading Mishell Baker’s Borderline, a novel set in our world but containing mythical and fairy tale creatures, which is told from the point of view of a character who’s been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. Some of the points the character makes, about handling the condition, resonate with things my therapist taught me during the two and a half years of therapy I took to treat depression. Also, the author writes about mental health on her blog. I believe she knows whereof she speaks. The writing’s good too. I’m just shy of 100 pages in, and it’s a great read so far.

The American Library Association's Years Best in Genre Fiction.
The Stonewall Book Awards: The first and most enduring award for GLBT books is the Stonewall Book Awards, sponsored by the American Library Association's Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Round Table.

That American Library Association keeps busy!

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certain dark things

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