This, my friends, is how you do a graphic novel adaptation
I originally read this comic as an ARC and then decided to purchase it immediately before I even finished it. Since I was reading the series via ebooks, I wanted something for Ms. Briggs to sign for when I meet her at San Diego Comic Con this July. I was going to try to get through the ebooks as fast as I could so that I could then also purchase a paper copy of my favorite installment. After seeing this comic, there’s no longer a need. And even better, it fits in with the theme since it’s about the comics at Comic Con (well, it supposed to be anyway). I’m now super excited so I can spaz to Ms. Briggs in person about how wonderful of a job the artist did. I can already tell this is one of the best. Talk about doing a series justice!
No doubt this graphic novel adaptation accomplishes the most important goal of all; it’s very visually very pleasing to look at! That’s the point of a graphic novel at all, right? I actually enjoyed the comic much more than the actual book. The book comes off as somewhat bland in parts (though the series gets better with every book), but seeing the action come to life on the pages gets my adrenaline pumping. The drawing style is fabulous and not over the top. I love the coloring and shading and spent a few panels simply admiring the images. I feel like it truly captures the Mercy Thompson world. Mercy’s gorgeous, Adam’s sexy, and Sam actually looks much better than I assumed he looked in the books. I thought the artist was very good with expressing the characters’ emotions as well. A few of the transformation scenes were a little awkwardly drawn, but it didn’t detract from my enjoyment.
I like that it’s close to the book. I think that made me read it much faster. Unlike the book, it kicks off with action to draw you in. It was a nice technique to keep it engaging. I felt the pacing was just right. There wasn’t a moment where I was bored and yet it stayed true to the plot.
I always have this trepidation of looking at fictional characters outside of the reading medium. 9 times out of 10 it just doesn’t capture the images I’ve conjured up in my mind. I am so pleased that’s not the case here.
We get a bonus section that’s by a completely different artist. It’s a completely different style that doesn’t portray the dark urban fantasy feel, so I didn’t really connect to it as much. Also, some of the proportions and angles were off. I recall at one point a character was drawn cross-eyed.
It ends with short of a narration of the panels to see how the artist conceptualized the panels. It was pretty cool to see their process, but not really necessary. My biggest enjoyment was in the meat of the story. I wish we could have seen Stefan, Warren, and Kyle in this volume though.
Because these look so good and flow so well, I plan to follow the comics for this series in conjunction with the books, as long as Ms. Amelia Woo continues to illustrate. It’s very rare that I can say I prefer any other medium to the original, but in this case I very much prefer the comic to the novel.
(ARC provided by NetGalley)
There are big changes ahead in Chicagoland
The highly anticipated 4th novel of the Chicagoland Vampire Series, Hard Bitten, totally changes the game. This book focused a great deal more on the politics side of things. The vampires have been out, and now the shapeshifters follow. That’s naturally going to be alarming for normal humans, so they have been protesting against all supernaturals-that they know of that least. To complicate matters even further, three women have gone missing after a secret vampire bloodletting soirée turns violent. It’s up to Ethan and Merit to get to the bottom of it because the higher ups (namely the Mayor) don’t plan to stand for it.
She teams up with Jonah, a Red Guard member (from an organization that wants to recruit Merit), and together they discover a new drug that’s out on the streets affecting the vampires. This is the last thing the vampire community needs as it will validate human fears. Merit faces a lot of danger as she digs deeper to discover the root of the problem and who’s causing it. Who can she trust?
I know that a lot of readers are split on how they felt about this book, but it wasn’t the end that lost me. It never had me to begin with. I feel like I’m experiencing a delayed reaction; everything I found irritating this time around has pretty much always been there. So I guess it’s not Neill, it’s me.
I’m really picky about my vampires (as if my screen name wasn’t an obvious indication), so I sort of felt like you could have taken the vampire aspect out of this book and everything would virtually be the same. Ethan doesn’t feel that badass to me. We know he is old and strong, but he never really exudes the maturity I would expect from a supernatural being that’s lived for centuries. He talks the talk, but he just doesn’t have that swagger. I realize my opinion probably goes against the grain, but I’m being honest.
And of course Merit and Ethan’s relationship was a bit confusing, if not annoying. In the previous book they’re together, then he breaks it off until the end where I thought that they reconciled. Turns out that wasn’t quite the case in this book and it’s Merit that has the problem. She obviously loves him, and he realized his mistake, so what’s the big deal? Just be together and make that one less complication to deal with since they have plenty of them. I prefer Morgan anyway (at least from the first book) because I found their interactions fun and sexy, but I digress.
There were times that Merit came off as a dormitory RA rather than a sentinel for me. The action sequences are few and far in-between and it took too long to get to the point. The Cadogan setting with everybody living the dorm life is just a bit ridiculous to me now. They’re adults, some even over 100 years old. Am I supposed to believe that they’re content with 4 tiny walls as their residence for years on end? I couldn’t WAIT to move into a decent suite in college and that was after two years. I’m younger than Merit and not far removed from college myself.
I tend to like when series have an end in sight and now I’m hearing that this one will be ongoing. I don’t want to be stuck with another Hollows (though now we know when it will end), or even worse, Anita Blake. This book is way too light to really be categorized as either since it’s borderline young-adult. With that said, I still found a lot of enjoyment in the first book. It’s just that its sequels haven’t been able to recapture that same magic for me, which could be due in part to my desire for the style to evolve and mature as Merit supposedly is. It’s kind of like how I find the premise of the Vampire Diaries show so ridiculous; the cast is in their 20s-30s and still try to pass off as high schoolers, especially Damon’s character who frequents their school functions. Creeper much?
I am pretty indifferent about reading the next book, and this one leaves off definitely making you wonder what’s going to happen next, so that’s a sign that this series is no longer for me. I can imagine it will be agony for its fans. I wish this series well, and while I’m likely to at least read general spoilers about the next book, I’ll be stopping here on Merit’s journey.
Tangled Threads - Not quite as good as its predecessors
Coming off of the high from Venom, I had a lot of high hopes for Tangled Threads, Book 4 of the Elemental Assassin series. Unfortunately, it comes up a little short for me.
Unlike the prior novels, where it kicks off with high action, this book definitely has a slower pace. After taking care of Elliott Slater, Gin has sent Mab Monroe a message (as the Spider of course), and Mab’s listening. She recruits another assassin, a damn good assassin, to come in and deal with The Spider who continues to pick off Mab’s men, making her empire seem vulnerable to the other underground players. Gin may have finally met her match as Elektra LeFleur is an elemental with the power of electricity, and it’s every bit as strong as Gin’s ice and stone abilities.
Mab’s got other plans as well, attempting to start a new nightclub that would make the sex-infused Northern Aggression look like Barney and Friends. It would feature the 8-year-old daughter of one of Northern Aggression’s employee’s. Can Gin save the little girl in time to keep her from being a victim of pedophilia and other abuse?
Gin’s long lost sister, detective Bria Coolidge, gets more screen time and interacts a lot more with Gin. All 3 (Bria, and Gin as Blanco and The Spider) are huge targets, obviously making things a bit complicated, but when isn’t it for Gin? Will Bria figure out that Gin is her sister in this book? Where do they go from there?
This book honestly felt like filler to me for the first half. In prior books, I wasn’t quite as annoyed with the repetition, but this time it was so rampant. Most readers will not start a series at Book 4, so there is no need to cater to an obvious minority and rehash ad nauseum pretty much everything that happened in the prior books…more than once. The character details are glaringly repetitive (it’s been beaten over our heads that the spider is a symbol for patience) as are Gin’s one liners like “sloppy sloppy sloppy” “enemy enemy enemy”. We get it already! These books are not very long to begin with, so if they will be short, the plot needs to move along.
I really do not get her obsession with Donovan Caine. It was a matter of days that they interacted over a course of weeks and they hooked up twice. Does she even know his middle name? And yet she is soooo broken up about his rejection of her when she know very well that’s the reaction most people are going to have when they learn of her “day job”. Those two didn’t have the kind of connection to me that would warrant her love-sickness lasting throughout the series, so what’s the big deal?
I was also a bit annoyed about Owen Grayson. I do believe they are moving a bit too fast and he’s fallen for her a bit too easily. It sort of takes the fight out of them finding their way to each other, which I honestly sort of like in my favorite series. I also wish we could see him in action more. His powers are put to use, but I feel like he could be a true badass; if not as good as Gin, then at LEAST as good as Finn.
With that said, once the action got going, it was up to Elemental Assassin standards. I was much more engaged in the latter half, but Elektra’s introduction sort of distances the reader from the heart of the story. With Elliott Slater’s death, you felt like Gin was getting closer to Mab. It doesn’t quite feel the same when Estep keeps bringing in enemies that shield Mab. It slows progress on that front, but the developments in Gin’s personal life keep this book from being considered completely as filler.
I would recommend starting this series from the top, but with how it’s written, I am assuming that the author doesn’t want this to be necessary. I would not recommend starting on this book simply because it’s not the best installment in terms of quality. With overarching plot lines, these books really shouldn’t be stand alones, and I definitely hope that the repetition is toned down significantly in the next book.
Consistent quality in the second time around
Bagic Burns (Book 2 of the Kate Daniels Series) by Ilona Andrews
Magic Burns takes off more or less where book 1 left off. Kate’s still working for the Order, she’s still broke, and she’s still alone. She gets a new little friend in this book though.
I gotta say, normally when children are introduced into a series it sort of slows the pace of the book and takes away the swagger. But I can actually say I was more interested in her interactions with Julie than any of her fights with all of the super natural big bads. I really liked seeing Kate so dedicated to helping her, literally risking life and limb to see her reunite with her mother. She had a believable balance of distance with her, but I think it’s a great quirk to Kate’s character that she has an actual reason for wanting to be distant with people. It doesn’t feel contrived at all.
Bran was also a pretty cool character, and interesting frenemy of sorts. His banter and come ons to Kate were almost as entertaining as her interactions with Curran. If you’re a huge fan of Curran, you won’t see him too much in this book, but when he’s there, it’s eventful to say the least. Their interactions and courting etiquette make so much sense, haha. I seriously would have thought Kate would have been clued in on what he was doing since she’s so knowledgeable, but it’s cool. The moment was funny.
Again, I really like the angle chosen for the vampires in this series. It adds so much intrigue because you really want to know who navigates them.
Kate’s a wise-ass with a heart of gold, and wears bows on her panties. What’s not to love?
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