Review: The Star-Touched Queen

The Star-Touched Queen by Roshani Chokshi
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I guess this book just isn't for me...which is a shame, because it sure looks pretty and fantastical, and at least it doesn't suffer from a bad case of purple prose. More like lilac. Unfortunately, The Star-Touched Queen proves to be seriously hard to follow, and the characters feel a little half-baked, mostly because dialogue is something of a weak point for Chokshi. Her characters talk so formally that it gets distracting, which makes me feel even more detached from the narrative as well. And then the magical elements feel a little out of place, like the book can't really decide if it's high or low fantasy.

It's good to see more diverse reads out there, and #OwnVoices too, but this isn't one I can recommend. If you're looking for non-Western fantasy, I'd recommend The Wrath and the Dawn instead.

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Review: The Revival

The Revival by Chris Weitz
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I was expecting better for this conclusion to the Young World trilogy, but I confess myself a bit disappointed with the final result. It's shorter than I expected, which isn't really to the book's benefit. There are simply too many POV's to keep track of, which makes the story feel pretty disjointed, and there isn't much of a resolution. But at the very least, Weitz keeps things interesting with an always-moving plot, and at least we get to see more of the characters we know and love - Jefferson, Donna, Peter, etc.

If only Weitz could have had the chance to write maybe 100 more pages to settle the most annoying lingering details.

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Review: Ahsoka

Ahsoka by E.K. Johnston
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'll admit, I don't know as much about Ahsoka as I should. I haven't seen any of the animated Star Wars movies or TV series, whether because of the off-putting animation style of The Clone Wars or the Rebels ads playing up bizarrely Phantom Menace-esque humor, I'm not sure. But at least E.K. Johnston's book provides enough backstory for people like me who aren't so well-acquainted with Ahsoka. Not to mention glimpses into the lives of other major figures in the early days of the rebellion, like Obi-Wan or Bail Organa. And, being Star Wars, there's tons of action to go around in this fast-moving story - which, hopefully, will be just the first in a new Ahsoka series. :)

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Review: Labyrinth Lost

Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Córdova
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Labyrinth, like Pan? A little bit, to be sure.

Labyrinth Lost is a little something completely different from The Vicious Deep - although it still carries a lot of Zoraida Córdova's trademark style, darkly fantastical and often darkly humorous too. Alex, our bruja heroine, is a powerful young woman with so much potential, and yet she's every teenager that's ever been in that she wants to forge her own path, turn her back on what her family wants for her...

...which, incidentally, catalyzes her trip down the rabbit hole.

Although the journey through Los Lagos is at times a little too fast-paced when it should be savored more slowly, what kept my interest high most of all was Alex and her traveling companions, all of whom were engaging and complicated and just plain clicked very, very well. And then there were all the surprises, particularly towards the end of the book, when I found myself seriously torn between loving and hating one of these characters. (No spoilers.)

I'm surprised my library actually got this book - but then again, they seem to be very good at ordering Córdova's books before they hit shelves, more so than for a lot of other authors I enjoy (Taran Matharu, Jay Kristoff, Danielle Paige...) Hopefully next year they won't spoil their good track record, and they'll provide copies of the as-yet-unnamed sequel ASAP.

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Doctor Strange: Marvel's Most Literal Movie Magic

***THIS IS A SPOILER-FREE REVIEW.***

"I've come to bargain..."

Phase Three of the Marvel Cinematic Universe began this year with Captain America: Civil War, an absolutely A-grade thriller. The next in the series, Doctor Strange, has a lot of hype to live up to - not only as Civil War's follow-up, but also from hype of its own making, with the marketing campaigns highlighting what promised to be the movie's greatest strength - its unique visual style, completely new for the MCU.

Welcome to the New York Sanctum.

A few people were leery of Benedict Cumberbatch getting cast in the title role, but me. I thought he pulled it off perfectly. He brought the right amount of arrogance and snark to channel his inner Dr. House - and hell, with his gravelly American accent (not as good as Hugh Laurie's, but then Laurie wasn't quite perfect either), he sounds uncannily like Fox's former favorite pill-popper. But then this origin story takes a huge turn off a cliff, literally, when Strange gets distracted while driving and crashes his speedy Lamborghini. His origin story parallels that of Tony Stark very strongly in that respect - a rich genius playboy (though Strange is neither a billionaire nor a philanthropist) who falls from decadence and learns a few long-overdue lessons in humility.

And that's not the only lessons he learns. On the advice of a man who seemingly pulled off a miraculous recovery from a paralyzing spinal injury, he goes to Nepal to seek spiritual enlightenment at a place called Kamar-Taj.

There, he gets a little more than he bargained for. He finds his way into a world of sorcerers, and under the guidance of the Ancient One (Tilda Swinton being, well, Tilda Swinton) and Mordo (traditionally a villain, but prepare for some surprises), starts to learn the magical arts himself. Everyone has the power to draw on the energy of infinite other worlds, it seems. All one has to do is learn how to harness it.

Naturally, there are those who don't harness it properly. Enter our villain, Master Kaecilius (is Mads Mikkelsen ever a good guy?) He's been drawn in by an evil god's empty promises of immortality and being one with the Dark Dimension - a little bit of subtle Satanism in a movie where the mysticism is otherwise predominantly Eastern - and now he's out to bring the Ancient One's world crashing down around her ears.

This is when Strange must stand up to be counted as a hero - and overcome his primary flaws of arrogance and anger. And, if Mordo is to be believed, his unwillingness to kill. Sure, a lot of his fellow comic-book heroes make it a point of not killing - Batman and Spider-Man in particular come to mind - but hey, given how deadly Kaecilius and his minions are...

Overall, the movie's one major weakness is the basic story, which I've recounted as much as I can without spoilers. It's a unique, fresh twist for the MCU, dovetailing beautifully with the introduction of Ghost Rider and the Darkhold on the current season of Agents of SHIELD, but it's another origin story, and it carries a lot of the same old tropes we got in Iron Man, Spider-Man, The Amazing Spider-Man, etc. etc.

However, what sets it apart from a lot of previous MCU installments (particularly those of Phases One and Two) is its more serious tone. Though it's still lined with considerable levity - a few one-liners and sight gags got the entire theater roaring with laughter. It doesn't have the same emotional range as, say, Guardians or Civil War or The Amazing Spider-Man 2 or Big Hero 6 - that is to say, fewer big tear-jerker moments, although there's one death scene in particular that'll give you some real feels.

Characterization is done very interestingly too - Doctor Strange is the most anti-heroic MCU film since maybe Guardians of the Galaxy. Strange himself, as stated above, is quite flawed - although the Cloak of Levitation can look beyond that enough to take a considerable liking to him. (You're gonna love the Cloak, that's for sure. It's got an eerily similar personality to Aladdin's Carpet.) But Strange isn't the only complex character in this movie. Mordo, Wong, the Ancient One, even Kaecilius show considerable depth and dynamism. And they're all deadly badasses. Did I mention that?

This badassery extends to the filmmakers as well - especially those responsible for the movie's visual effects, which, as promised, are incredible. Think Inception on steroids, kaleidoscopic and gravity-bending. Most of these action scenes take place in a "Mirror Dimension" in which reality itself fractures into broken shards, but it has no effect on the real world - at first, the Ancient One introduces it to Strange as a safe space to practice his powers. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 won't give up its throne as my favorite visual-treat movie easily, but Doctor Strange is the closest contender yet to TASM 2's electric slow-mo awesomeness. The only reason why Strange doesn't quite manage to take the throne is because while its effects are top-notch, they have a habit of upstaging the human actors because they're so prominent in their otherworldliness. Your eyes will want to follow the warping matter (which makes the sort of mechanical clicking sounds you'd expect the model machinery behind the Game of Thrones opening credits to make, if only they were actual models instead of CGI - and if only Ramin Djawadi's ear-worm theme tune wouldn't play over it) instead of the fighting sorcerers.

But hey, we'll always have the scene where the Ancient One first blasts Strange's astral form out of his meat-suit physical shell. That part, with all the wild colors and ridiculous speeds and Michael Giacchino score, feels like a Disneyland ride. Thank God the trailers never showcased that particular highlight so much. And also, the chakra-like light shields the sorcerers like to use for defense - these remind me so strongly of Stark tech that they feel like perfectly MCU-aesthetic magic.

But I'm going to go back to the Ancient One for a moment so I can address the controversy surrounding that character. One of the screenwriters, I think, called her casting a "Kobayashi Maru" for Marvel - essentially unwinnable. Cast an Asian person and the movie would run the risk of presenting the Ancient One as an offensive "Magical Asian" stereotype, so the movie went the other way and rewrote the Ancient One as Celtic, though still ambiguously Asian in appearance. While a testament to Tilda Swinton's chameleonic acting style, given the character's standout complexity, Marvel really should have striven harder to cast an Asian actor in the role. Director Scott Derrickson, however, has spoken on this controversy with considerable candor and awareness, much more so than a lot of his contemporaries - and of course, the movie does, to its credit, further distance itself from harmful stereotypes by rewriting Wong, who (as I understand) used to be a manservant, into a librarian you'd do well not to cross.

Doctor Strange isn't a perfect movie, and it's certainly not the MCU's best, but as a shaker-upper, it does its job beautifully. From me, it gets an A-. 

And so we close the book on MCU movies of 2016. Next year, we're getting the most yet, I believe, with three - Guardians Vol. 2, Spider-Man: Homecoming, and Thor: Ragnarok. All of which I'm really looking forward to, especially the former two because for sure they'll keep Phase Three from getting too grimdark.

Till next time, Pinecones...

#FeedTheRightWolf

Remember - Denis Leary is always watching. Always.

Review: The Midnight Star

The Midnight Star by Marie Lu
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

First and foremost, I have to say, I'm surprised at how short this book is compared to its predecessors. Short it may have been in terms of physical size, but in terms of content? Twists, turns, power failures for all the Young Elites, uneasy alliances aplenty, and impending worldwide environmental disaster? The Midnight Star was every bit as big and five-star as we've all come to expect every time Marie Lu releases a new book. It never ceases to be the same gripping, dark-fantasy world we've all come to love over the last couple of years, and I'm really sad to see it go, especially after this book officially takes us out of the mortal world and into others beyond.

But hey, at least this won't be the last Marie Lu book, ever.

To The Young Elites, I now say ave atque vale.

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Review: Nevernight

Nevernight by Jay Kristoff
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"Those who are dead are not dead
They're just living in my head."
-Coldplay, "42"

This week, a creative writing classmate of mine presented a story told in the point of view of an awkward young man at the laundromat who picks up a girl, goes home with her, and appears to sleep with her...except he's stabbing her dead, violently, and then he moves on to her sisters as well. Our general consensus - even the professor agreed with it - was that the story was senselessly violent against women, and with no purpose too. (And this was from a guy who takes pride in writing women, the better to understand them, or so he would have us believe.)

This short story came to mind when I read the first few pages of Nevernight only because Kristoff writes his own interplay of sex and violence the opposite way to how my classmate did it - having the woman be the killer, and having it be her job, because she makes her living as an assassin. I wonder how that first chapter, were it presented in this class, would have been received. (For sure, Kristoff writes women better, and he's got the track record to prove it.)

It's definitely an eye-popping introduction to this dark, gripping fantasy, that's for sure. After that first chapter, though, the book slows down a lot, to the point where for about 100 pages or so, I worried that it would be a damaged-by-hype write-off for me. Luckily, Kristoff keeps the reader interested with a storytelling device you wouldn't expect to see in a fantasy book (and certainly not one inevitably comparable to the works of George R.R. Martin or Sarah J. Maas) - hilarious Jasper Fforde-esque footnotes. Even though the footnotes do sometimes distract from the main story (because they're so funny, and often so huge they spill onto the next page), they're the main reason I kept going until the story picked up the pace and made up for the slow-moving first quarter or so. They help so much with the world-building too, adding extra detail to the history of Itreya. It's a well-built world, too, combining sci-fi elements (the triple suns) and sprinklings of recognizably Spanish and Italian influences (a bit of the Inquisition here, a Carnival-celebrating canal city there, and a Renaissance-esque artist famous for his portraiture skills and for being executed for treason for sleeping with a prince.)

My quest to find a Jay Kristoff work that lives up to the extremely high standards of Illuminae continues, but Nevernight is my second-favorite of his books now - though that'll probably change whenever I finally read Gemina.

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