Tag: v

Valhalla Online by Kevin McLaughlin

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Literary rating: ★★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆☆☆

I could have sworn this isn’t the first entry in the LitRPG genre I’d reviewed, but I’m damned if I can find the previous one. So, just to be safe, I’m going to explain what LitRPG is: apologies if this is unnecessary! Basically, it takes the structure of role-playing games (RPGs) – things like character levels, ability scores, etc – and applies them onto a story structure. Obviously, the overlap between RPGs and books has been a long one: Dungeons & Dragons is heavily influenced by the work of Tolkein. But it has been mostly one-way traffic. The LitRPG genre sends things back the other way, producing novels that adopt the practices of the games.

Quite how this is managed, is up to the author. Here, the heroine is Samantha, a military police officer who wakes to find herself part of Valhalla Online. This is a fantasy-based online RPG, which was intended to act as a virtual repository for the personalities of the deceased, granting them eternal life. Which comes as a shock to Sam, because she never signed up for this very expensive process. However, for good reason, the “virtual dead” are extremely limited in their ability to communicate with the outside world. Only those who complete the entire game are allowed to do so. This means Sam will first have to figure out how to rack up a high score, in order to begin finding out how she got here and what’s going on. Her army training might help. But even West Point didn’t prepare her for dealing with magic spells and storming castles.

It’s a quick and light read, one which contains few surprises at all. We don’t learn much about Sam’s life before Valhalla Online, and I’m not even sure we even discover what she looked like in the real world. All we’re told is that in-game, “Her hair seemed to be about the same color. Her skin tone looked familiar to her.” The cover tells you more than the entire novel. It would probably help to be loosely familiar with at least the concept of RPGs, though McLaughlin does a decent job of explaining the game mechanics, without getting bogged down in it.

The main issue is that death literally has no sting here. If Sam suffers a mortal wound, she just gets sent back to a set location. She may lose some of her equipment, and suffer a bit of psychic shock, but that’s about it, despite the author’s efforts to put over some mental trauma. It’s accurate enough as a computer game goes, but shows that what works there doesn’t necessarily transfer to other media. This lacking of a sense of mortality may partly be why Roger Ebert said in 2010 that computer games can never be art. But that aside, this keeps moving forward at a brisk pace, and for obvious reasons, the reader learns about Valhalla alongside Sam, which makes for a smoothly entertaining experience. It’s more or less standard hack and slash, though towards the end, she subverts things nicely by recruiting a pack of enemy kobolds (think: mini-orcs) to her side. Pretty sure that wasn’t in the tutorial…

The ending is little more than a save point, though it does come after a neat bit of loot sniping. Again, the lack of mortality applies as much to Sam’s enemies as to her; there’s little sense of triumph when the villain will simply re-spawn tomorrow. I finished the first volume having been pleasantly entertained, just not much more. I feel I probably don’t need to buy the remaining entries, because I suspect I can largely figure out how things are going to progress in them. There’s just not enough replay value to be found here.

Author: Kevin McLaughlin
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
1 of 4 in the Valhalla Online series.

The Vampire Sword, by T. L. Cerepaka

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Literary rating: ★★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆

This series opener got a favorable review from one of the ladies in a Goodreads group I belong to. Since I’m interested in the vampire mythos, and especially intrigued by fiction that approaches it from a Christian standpoint, her review got my attention, though I hadn’t previously heard of either the author or the series. So, when I discovered that I could download the e-book for free, I opted to give it a try.

This is basically urban fantasy, and is clearly influenced both by the Twilight Saga and the Harry Potter series (though Meyer and Rowling are each significantly more accomplished writers than Cerepaka is). What makes it somewhat distinctive in that 24-year-old Tara is a Baptist pastor’s daughter and a Christian believer herself (she made a Christian commitment at the age of 13), who takes her faith seriously, has taught Sunday school, and is singing for her dad’s congregation in a church service when the book opens. But this Sunday proves to be atypical, when an actual vampire crashes through a sanctuary window (on the second frame of the e-book) and bites her in the neck. As in the Twilight books, those who survive a vampire bite normally become vampires themselves. But as the previously clueless Tara learns, she and her dad are Sorcerers, genetically gifted with magic powers most humans (the Powerless –think, “Muggles”) don’t have.

Vampires generally don’t bite their Sorcerer enemies; they just try to kill them. But a rare bitten Sorcerer becomes a half-vampire, with some vampire traits (including a blood thirst –though vampires don’t have to indulge that with human blood, despite the strong temptation) combined with ability to use magic, though just as in the Potter books, that takes training. Unfortunately for Tara, that not only poses theological conundrums for a good Baptist young lady; half-vampires are considered by both the Vampire Council and the Sorcerer’s Parliament as unnatural abominations that need to be killed on sight. And then there’s the added wrinkle that, as Council agent Lucius soon reveals, Tara’s assailant was working for a rogue Vampire Lord who has his own agenda –and it’s an agenda the rest of the world won’t like.

If that sounds like an interesting premise with good possibilities, it is (provided you like that sort of thing –which I do!). The execution, though, isn’t nearly good enough to fully realize the potential of the idea. Throughout my reading of the book, I found myself thinking of ways in which the literary craftsmanship could be improved; obviously, that’s never a good sign! Cerepaka’s prose is minimalist (and often awkward), telling the story straightforwardly enough, but with little description or texture to enflesh the characters and situations. Since Tara is the first-person narrator, we get inside her head; but even so, neither she or the other major characters are very well-developed; we’re never even told, for instance, what she does for a living, though she has a job.

As that would imply, the novel is much more plot-driven than character-driven, and the characters tend to be mostly two-dimensional. No sense of place is evoked; our setting is Texas, where the author lives, but we only learn that in Chapter 20 of a 29-chapter book. (Until then, the references to Greensboro and South Side had me picturing a setting in North Carolina and south-central Virginia!) In a couple of places, facts are stated in the narration and then contradicted a couple of pages later. Although romance actually isn’t a significant element here – it probably is in subsequent books – what there is of it is an unconvincing, one-sided insta-love.

So, why three stars? There are a few pluses here. This is a very fast-paced book, beginning with a bang and moving along quickly through a short time-frame: just about two days for the main story), and though the prose is undistinguished, it flows relatively easily, even despite Tara’s tendency to repeat things in places or over-explain. That makes it a quick read, and I was engaged enough with the story throughout to be anxious to keep clicking to the next frame. Once I started reading it, I finished it in four days, and for me that’s pretty good time for reading an e-book! Cerepaka does display some originality in the treatment of his vampires, and in creating story elements like the Shadow Way and the Strangers, and of course the Vampire Sword itself. Though historically it couldn’t have been forged “ten thousand years ago” –metallurgy didn’t exist then, unless we imagine Robert E. Howard’s lost Hyborean Age! I appreciated the fact that Lucius is a “Pure”, a vampire who eschews human blood, and is disposed to help rather than hurt humans; and Tara’s sincere spiritual struggle with the question of whether, as a half-vampire, she still has a soul and a relationship with God, or is beyond His grace, gave the tale a certain degree of depth.

A word about Tara’s character is worthwhile, since it’s the most developed one here, and obviously the most central. Despite the deficiencies in the portrayal, she does come across as basically likable. Yes, she’s overly concerned with the fact that Lucius is handsome, sometimes to the point of making my eyes roll. But she’s a single woman in her 20s, not a plaster statue on a pedestal. The same can be said of the fact that her Christian faith doesn’t mean she never says a swear word, nor that she’s a paragon of devotional practice. She is who she is; but the person she is has a kind heart, a caring disposition towards others, and a core of guts and resolve when the chips are down. While she’s definitely in a distress situation here, she’s far from helpless; and though she’s not into violence, she’s game to do what has to be done –a fact we learn when she takes out the vampire who bit her with a head shot from a pistol her dad dropped (the bullets were silver). Another thing that helps credibility here (and also adds some depth) is that her greatest challenges in combat situations don’t hinge on her physical fighting ability (which is largely untrained at this point!) but rather on the strength and purity of her moral will.

All in all, I liked this well enough as an entertaining read.  I wouldn’t spend much money to buy it, or the two later books – but I might pick up a used copy of the sequel if I found one at a flea market or a yard sale. :-)

Author: T. L. Cerepaka
Publisher: Self-published; available through Amazon, both for Kindle and as a printed book.
Book 1 of 3 in the Vampire Sorceress series.
A version of this review previously appeared on Goodreads.

Valentine: The Dark Avenger

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★★★½
“An unexpected Valentine’s gift.”

It’s always nice when a film manages to surpass expectations. Coming in, I was thinking this was going to be nothing but a low-rent, dubbed, caped crusader flick. And, to be honest, that is exactly what it is: a low-rent dubbed, caped crusader flick. But it proved considerably more entertaining than, say, Terminator: Dark Fate, which I saw the same weekend, and which cost roughly a thousand times as much to make.

It has an interesting hook. Waitress Srimaya (Linden) is recruited by a film-maker, Bono (Settle, the only American in the cast), who wants to make a superhero movie that will be a positive role-model for the citizens of crime-riddled Batavia City. With no producer willing to back him, Bono opts to go the viral route. When he sees Srimaya’s martial arts skills in action, he brings her on board to star in videos where she goes up against and beats robbers, muggers and other street punks, clad in a fetching little mask and cape designed by stylist friend Wawan (Dagienks). But her actions bring her to the attention of crime lord, Shadow, who is carrying out a vendetta against the local police.

There’s a nice sense of progression through the film, with the heroine’s gear and costume improving from the pretty basic to the impressively nifty, as she and Wawan learn from her experiences, e.g. add more padding. It also is willing to kill off people you didn’t expect, and if the true identity of Shadow is something you might well figure out before the end, the reasons behind it are unexpected and well-considered. Even the dubbing didn’t irritate me, in the way it usually does – though this may partly have been been because I still put English subtitles on!

The main appeal is the action, however. Indonesian films have a reputation of late for being remarkably impressive, and if this isn’t quite The Raid or The Night Comes For Us, choreographer Robert Suwandi delivers the goods. Linden in particular, is better than expected, and I also liked the Suicide Squad-like trio of female henchmen used by Shadow. The directorial style does tend a little too much to the hyper in terms of movement and cutting, yet it also does a good job of meshing practical and CGI – better, indeed, than Terminator: Dark Fate. For the CGI is used to enhance, rather than replace the physical effects, in particular during a car-chase following a bank robbery.

My interest in the Marvel Cinematic Universe has steadily waned as it has become an unstoppable behemoth. Films like this, however, I find considerably more interesting.  Not necessarily because the stories they tell are particularly novel, just that they seem created out of a desire to tell those stories, rather than as cold, calculated commercial entities. I’d rather see a film with rough edges here and there, made with passion, than one which is clearly just a job for those involved. This movie is a good indication of why.

Dir: Ubay Fox, Agus Pestol
Star: Estelle Linden, Matthew Settle, Arie Dagienkz, Fendy Pradana

Viking Destiny

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★★★
“Low-rent vikings”

The success of Vikings has spawned its fair share of similarly set films, and this isn’t the first such to stray into our purview, following Viking Siege. As there, it’s clear that the budget isn’t anywhere near its television inspiration. As a result, these films have to work harder in other areas, to make up for what they can’t offer in spectacle. Siege did this by mostly taking place in a single location. Destiny tries (and fails) to be at least occasionally epic, but benefits by having a genuine action heroine, front and centre. Not quite Lagertha, perhaps, yet close enough to be a pleasant surprise.

It’s Helle (Demetriou), who was the daughter of King Asmund of Volsung, swapped out for a male child, due to heir-related reasons. However, her replacement has grown up neither interested in, nor suitable for, leadership, while Helle has turned into a bit of a bad-ass. After Asmund’s death, his brother Bard (Nieminen) tries to take the throne, framing Helle for the murder of the official heir. She manages to escape, and with a little guidance from Odin (Stamp, who must have needed a house car TV payment or something), prepares to claim her rightful place on the throne of Volsung. Meanwhile, Bard has some divine guidance of his own, in the shape of Loki (McArthur).

The paucity of resources available is most painfully apparent during the final battle for the kingdom, which clearly has little more than a football team (plus substitutes) taking part on each side. Unless Volsung is smaller than San Marino, they shouldn’t have bothered. Considerably more successful are the one-on-one fights, such as Helle’s battle against one of a pair of hulking giant killers (note, no hyphen!), both played effectively by 6’8″ body-builder Martyn Ford. Demetriou has a fast, athletic style in combat, which is a nice contrast to the brute strength used by her far larger opponent. Generally, though, she looks and acts her part very well: as mentioned, maybe Lagertha Lite, yet a worthy shield-maiden, none the less.

The supporting cast may err on the side of panto, Nieminen and McArthur in particular, yet this doesn’t feel particularly inappropriate, given their villainous nature. Rather less interesting are the low-rent hippies with whom Helle joins up in her wandering through the woods. They show up to spout pacifist philosophy and drink fermented turnip juice (!), before mysteriously acquiring weapons and the skill to use them – just in time to slaughter and be slaughtered in the final battle. Pacifism: it’s vastly over-rated…

But when it sticks to the smaller scale, and its heroine in particular, this is by no means terrible, providing your expectations are similarly restrained. In some ways, it seems like a throwback to similar British sword and sorcery flicks of the early eighties. from polished entries like Excalibur, down to the cheap ‘n’ cheerful (yet not necessarily less fun) end represented by Hawk the Slayer. That’s not entirely a bad thing, in my humble opinion.

Dir: David L.G. Hughes
Star: Anna Demetriou, Timo Nieminen, Murray McArthur, Terence Stamp
a.k.a. Of Gods and Warriors

A Vigilante

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★★★
“The grubby truth about vengeance.”

Sadie (Wilde) has escaped from an abusive relationship with her husband (Spector), but at a terrible cost: the death of her son. In an effort to come to terms with her grief, and make use of the survivalist skills forcibly imposed on her, she becomes a vigilante. Responding to coded messages left on her phone, she travels around to confront abusers and prove that there is someone tougher, willing to stand up for the victims against them. But this doesn’t give Sadie the closure or peace that she seeks. Before she can help others, she’s first going to have to help herself, and confront the man who made her what she is.

There’s a grim, messy realism about this, which is plausible, and is both the film’s biggest strength and its greatest weakness. Violence, or the threat thereof, doesn’t really solve anything, and there’s precious little satisfaction gained by Sadie from it. Or anyone else: you could argue that, by robbing others of their agency, she’s doing more harm than good. But nor does this mundane approach make for great cinema. It’s one thing to rob vigilante violence of its adrenaline-powered rush, and the film consciously does that, even cutting away during the final confrontation between protagonist and antagonist. However, the film-maker needs to find something to replace it, otherwise you’re left with an empty experience. Admittedly, that may be the intended conclusion here. Yet if your point is the pointlessness of it all… what’s the point?

There is something to be said for the banality of the evil we see portrayed here, especially in the first case, when the well-dressed businessman is revealed to be an abuser. Yet, I can’t help noting the complete lack of any due diligence by Sadie. If a woman says she’s abused, well, that’s clearly good enough to justify a good helping of the old ultraviolence. A less polemic film might have leveraged that into its story, though again, perhaps her lack of interest in justice (despite her stressed reluctance to kill) is part of the flawed package she represents, along with a supreme disinterest in what happens to anyone after she has left the building.

The looming presence of her abusive husband is a little too convenient, especially in the way he suddenly pops up when dramatically necessary; some kind of foreshadowing would have helped. No denying the strength of Wilde’s performance though, and you get to see and feel every ounce of pain as she experiences it, in a way that becomes almost uncomfortable to watch. In the end, however, it doesn’t really tell us anything we didn’t already know. No matter how many “upbeat” vigilante movies I see, I enjoy them purely for the cathartic exercise, not as a primer. I don’t think I need a cinematic antidote like this, in order to be reminded that it’s actually not a good thing to take the law into your own hands.

Dir: Sarah Daggar-Nickson
Star: Olivia Wilde, Morgan Spector, Kyle Catlett, C.J. Wilson

Vengeance of a Snowgirl

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★★★½
“Revenge, truly served cold.”

The elevator pitch version of this sounds like a million other kung-fu films: Shen Ping Hong (Li) seeks revenge on the people who killed her parents and left her crippled. But there’s rather more going on beneath the surface, and shades of grey on both sides. One of her targets, Lord Kao Hung, regrets what happened and wants to help Shen regain the use of her legs. But Shen only agrees to let his son Tien-Ying (Yueh) help, in the belief that it will make her mission of vengeance easier. It feels almost like she’s a mad dog, lashing out at anyone who tries to help; keeping the severed heads of her victims in jars is a clue there. Meanwhile, Kao’s associates – and Tien-Ying’s ex-girlfriend (Chiao) – think he’s helping because he wants to get Shen’s jade sword for his own ends, and are intent on getting their revenge in on her first.

Let the record show, Chris wandered in half-way through this, glanced at the screen and said, “Is that Sammo Hung?” Knock me down with a feather if it wasn’t Sammo, in a minor supporting role as a villainous henchmen. This is why I love my wife: her ability to spot martial arts legends in 1971 cameos. Er, well… Not just that. Anyway, this would be massively overshadowed by the release, just two days later, of another Lo Wei film, his first for fledgling studio Golden Harvest. The Big Boss would put both studio and its star, one Bruce Lee, on the map, and Snowgirl would be all but forgotten.

In particular, the way it twists the usual “You killed my _____ and must die!” tropes are what makes this stand out, along with a second half which turns into something resembling a series of video-game side quests. Because the spring where Shen can heal her legs is so frigid, you need a magic pearl to survive near it for more than a few seconds… The pearl is in the belly of a volcano, reaching which requires a suit of flame-resistant armour (looking remarkably like a fireman’s uniform)… This is held in the treasure house of a remote prince, who will only agree to lend it out, if Shen can beat his champion… And there’s not a save point in sight.

The fights are decent, rather than spectacular, and we never get the hoped-for face-off between Shen and the disgruntled ex-girlfriend, who has skills of her own. On the other hand, Li does a good job of working round her character’s disability – though her ability to fly, makes me wonder why she bothers walking anywhere! Lo, who also makes a brief appearance as the heroine’s father, shoots good, long takes which help enhance his lead actress’s talents, and if nothing else, the ending will likely stick in your mind for its unexpectedly downbeat example of altruism and self-sacrifice. It mostly looks very nice, except for a thoroughly unconvincing “volcano”, and all told, it’s a shame this isn’t more well-known.

Dir: Lo Wei
Star: Li Ching, Yueh Hua, Ku Feng, Lisa Chiao

Viking Siege

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★★★
“Tree’s company…”

This has the potential to be truly bad, and you need to be willing to look past ropey production values, a possibly deliberately shaky grasp of period (unless “Daisy” really was a popular girls’ name in early medieval times…) and uncertainty as to whether or not this is intended to be a comedy. Yet, I have to admire its “everything including the kitchen sink” approach: throwing together elements from genres as disparate as Vikings, zombies, aliens, sword ‘n’ sorcery and female vengeance shows… well, ambition, at the very least.

The story starts with a group of women, led by Atheled (McTernan), infiltrating a priory. They seek revenge on the monks, because of a sideline in human trafficking which has cost the women dearly. Their plan for vengeance is somewhat derailed by a local lord turning up, and entirely derailed by the arrival of a horde of Vikings, in turn hotly pursued by what can only be described as demonic shrubbery – not for nothing are they referred to and credited as “tree bastards.” To survive through the night is going to take an unholy alliance between the various parties, as well as some captives in the basement – fortunately, those include someone who can speak Viking (McNab). Given their radically different goals, this will present problems of its own.

Wisely, for budgetary reasons, action is largely constrained to the main hall of the priory, with occasional forays outside. This set-up is very Night of the Living Dead, and the tree bastards are also infectious, albeit not quite in the traditional zombie sense. However, it’s in the creatures that the film’s limited resources are most painfully obvious, with them being little more than obviously blokes in masks. Although the boss shrub does occasionally look impressive, when shot from the right angle, it feels a bit much, and is a case where less might well have been more. Just make them nameless berserkers, you’d have much the same impact and save yourself a lot of time, money and effort.

The chief saving grace are the performances. McTernan has the inner steel to go with her crossbow bolts; her colleagues, Seren (Hoult) and Rosalind (Schnitzler) in particular, are very easy to root for; and the nameless translator has perhaps the most interesting character. It’s these that kept me watching, such as in the atmospheric scene when the backstory of the tree bastards is explained. Though told rather than shown, it’s delivered with enough energy to prove more effective than some other elements (martial arts? gunpowder?), which had me sighing in irritation.

To be perfectly clear, it’s a case where you need to go in with your expectations suitably managed, i.e. keep ’em on the low-down. Based on the blandly generic DVD sleeve and title, I probably wouldn’t have even bothered, and certainly would not have expected any action heroines. As such, this was a pleasant surprise, and it kept me more entertained than I feared it might. My advice is, treat it as a loving tribute to a whole slew of B-movie genres, no more and no less.

Dir: Jack Burton
Star: Michelle McTernan, Rosanna Hoult, Samantha Schnitzler, Adam McNab

Vixen: The Movie

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★★★½
“For fox’s sake..”

Having dipped my toe into the animated DC World with their 2009 version of Wonder Woman, I thought I’d scope out this more recent entry. It collects together both seasons of the Vixen web series, as well as new footage. The series began in 2015, with six five-minute episodes under Tucker, and six more followed the following year, directed by Geda. It’s a cross-over from the “Arrowverse”, with appearances from the Flash, Green Arrow and Black Canary, among others – some of the voices here are done by the same actors as the live-action TV shows.

The focus, however, is on Mari McCabe (Echikunwoke), a orphan from Africa who was brought up in Detroit by a foster family. Virtually all she has linking Mari to her original roots is a necklace, and this is no ordinary trinket. The totem allows the wearer to tap into animal spirits and gives them their powers, e.g. strength of a gorilla, speed of a cheetah, etc. This comes as a bit of a shock, not only to Mari, but also to the rest of the Arrowverse, who were under the impression superpowers were only the result of exposure to intense radiation.

Regardless, several problems result for Mari from this. Firstly, she has to try and figure out how to control and harness the potential abilities. Secondly, her older sister, Kuasa (Rose), feels the totem belongs to her, and their struggle for control forms the focus of season one. In the second series, we discover it is just one of five elemental artifacts, and when the “fire” totem is discovered, former general Benatu Eshu arrives in Detroit, intent on acquiring it, for… the usual reasons power-hungry former generals want to get their hands on relics of great import, I guess.

While more or less your standard superhero origin story, there is an underlying awareness, occasionally bordering on self-mockery. This certainly helps, given I’m no real fan of the superhero genre in general, so seeing this poke fun at itself – albeit gently – basically beat me to the punch. Some of the background characters were occasionally an issue for a novice like me, who is almost entirely unaware of the Arrowverse. I imagine most viewers will not be in that boat, but I felt it worked better when concentrating directly on McCabe, and exploring her background and development.

The animation seems cut from the same cloth as Wonder Woman, which means it makes for nicely fluid action. Although in some of the more talky sequences, I was occasionally distracted by the absence of movement anywhere except the lips. They do a good job of crafting a feature out of something episodic, even if the join between the two seasons is fairly obvious. Fans of Arrow should stick around for the post-credits sequence which (I’m informed!) ties into Echikunwoke’s subsequently appearance in a guest role as Vixen in Arrow. Yet even for someone like me, outside that group, this was a character I liked, and wouldn’t mind seeing more of – whether in animation or live-action.

Dir: James Tucker + Curt Geda
Star: Megalyn Echikunwoke, Anika Noni Rose, Neil Flynn, Sean Patrick Thomas

Venom in the Skin, by Jessica Gunn

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Literary rating: ★½
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆☆

To be fair, the low rating here is not necessarily just the author’s fault. It was only almost at the end – when I was checking to see how much more I had to endure – that I discovered a salient fact. While this is described as being “Book 1” in the series, it appears to be a follow-up to the same writer’s five-volume Hunter Circles series. The heroine there, Krystin Blackwood, turns up in a cameo here, as do other characters, and it’s quite possible this would make more sense if you’d read that series. However: if you call your novel “Book 1”, it should be capable of standing on its own merits. Otherwise, call it “Book 6,” dammit.

As is, for a rookie reader, the does a really poor job of world building, presuming far too much of the background as known, and setting up situations where the reader is left entirely in the dark about who is doing what to whom, and why. The heroine is Ava Locke, who was previously part of a team of demon hunters, involved in a secret war between the forces of light and darkness. Save Ava, all her team were wiped out by Veynix, one of the enemy demons. She goes into her side’s version of witness protection, yet ends up the masked champion at an underground fight ring which pits demons against humans. That is, until her identity is exposed, and it turns out Veynix (and his collection of venomous poisons) is on her trail again. And the authorities behind Ava don’t exactly have her back.

For this novice reader, it was a real struggle, and if I didn’t feel like I had to write a review, this would likely have been a DNF (did not finish). The first half in particular, felt like really lazy writing, elements being dropped in without explanation. Even after I got to the end, and saw the semi-helpful chart at the back, I’m still not sure what a Hunter Circle is supposed to be or do. And is there magic – sorry, magik – or not? Seems most people can teleport at will, but other magic is… vague. [I have no clue about the significance of Ember witch magik] Some have it, others don’t. And a central character uses it once, then conveniently “forgets” they have it for the rest of the book – until it becomes necessary to the plot at the end. If I’d been reading a physical copy of this, and not an e-book, such a convenient contrivance would likely have led to it sailing across the room at that point.

There is a fair amount of action, from Ava’s fight-club contests, building to a battle against Veynix in his lair, and these are hard-hitting encounters. I just didn’t care about them or or the outcome, since I had no investment in either the participants or the world they inhabited. #RemoveFromDevice

Author: Jessica Gunn
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services, available through Amazon both for Kindle and as a paperback.
Book 1 of 2 in the Deadly Trades series.

Vampariah

  By

★★★½
“Not half bad.”

I should start by explaining the above tagline. The main monster here is the aswang, a female vampiric creature from Philippines folklore. Its main distinguishing feature, is that after passing for human during the day, at night it splits its body in two, and the top half then flies around, killing people and eating their entrails, using a super-long tongue. There is a secret group, tasked with keeping mankind both safe and unaware of these, as well as any other creatures that go bump in the night. One of its top agents is Mahal (Dennis), who has a particular interests in aswangs (aswangii?), since she blames them for the death of her father.

When word of one operating in San Francisco reaches her organization, she begs its head, Michele Kilman (Deleon) for the chance to track down and kill it. However, when Mahal locates Bampinay (Almario), the aswang in question, she’s in for a shock, and her entire worldview is turned upside down. Mahal learns the disturbing truth, both about her own heritage and the group for whom she operates. Maybe she isn’t working for the good guys, after all, and the aswang are just… misunderstood?

To be honest, the budget here is some way short of being capable of pulling off the level of effects necessary to do the ideas justice. This is particularly obvious in the aerial battles, which would be okay, if only this were a mid-priced Xbox game and not a feature film. However, the invention and energy present make it relatively easy to set aside the frequently ropey technical aspects, and embrace the well-considered world and its characters. To build things, Abaya adopts a slew of different styles from silhouettes to mockumentary. The latter is used for one of those monster shows, in which an American goes to the Philippines in search of the aswang (he perpetually mispronounces it as “ass wang” – it’s actually more like “ah-SWANG”), only for it to find him first…

The film is continually inventive like this, with another new facet appearing every few minutes, such as the hopping vampires, familiar from Hong Kong movies of the eighties (brief pause to pour one out for the late Lam Ching-Ying, the doyen of that genre!). It is possible you might get more out of it if you are familiar with the culture already, and there are plenty of digs at the West, in particular Western men. Bampinay has no trouble feeding entirely on sleazeballs and politicians who deserve to have their guts gobbled down by a flying half-woman. If you’re so inclined, there are some interesting subtexts about cultural identity and gender to unpack as well.

Yet it remains highly accessible, with characters who are universal and fun to be with. In particular, there’s Mahal, who is probably the closest thing to a female version of Blade I’ve seen, with buckets of attitude, and them some to spare. At one point she spits at a misogynistic colleague, “Why don’t you go find yourself a chupacabra to fuck?” This was likely the moment at which I let go of my doubts and climbed on board for the ride. Do the same, and you’ll have fun.

Dir: Matthew Abaya
Star: Kelly Lou Dennis, Aureen Almario, Arlene Joie Deleon, Roberto Divina.