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ginnyzero · 4 years

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Booktober Week 2: Fave Books!

Welcome back to Booktober! Booktober is a month were I’m talking about books, specifically books in the horror/paranormal genres. Anything with ‘horror’-esque creatures counts and as long as they are books. No television shows. Or movies. Books!

If you want to also do Booktober, I’ve placed prompts on my twitter and on my tumblr.

Back when I was first getting into things that were considered more horror and paranormal, things like urban fantasy books were still in the horror section of bookstores. Only later were they moved off into science fiction and fantasy. (I don’t know why, but that is the way it was.) I’m not going to talk about ‘classic’ horror books right now because that’s week four.

Horror to me has always been described as a creepy uncomfortable sensation that can also be fascinating. It’s not necessarily to scare you or make you jump. It’s to grab your attention and make you uncomfortable. If that is the case, to me the best horror books would be Anne Bishop’s Black Jewels books for many, many reasons.

Anne Bishop calls herself a writer of dark fantasy, and she is. On the other hand, the first books of the Black Jewels deal with a lot of issues that are meant to make you uncomfortable. There is a lot of kink like age gaps, and blood giving with vampire and demon imagery. And there is also sexual slavery, castration, child abuse, pedophilia (mostly not shown,) and lots and lots of death. Granted, this is all shown to be horrible and bad. It’s still uncomfortable and horrible. A huge arc of the first three books is the child heroine growing up to defeat the awful people who are the root of the problem. Not that the problem goes away entirely because those awful people had followers who weren’t as awful but could be in the right circumstances.

Men and women both suffer in the books, as well as talking animals. So, obviously, I do not recommend those books to people who love fantasy without a very long conversation about what dark fantasy when it comes to Anne Bishop actually means. However, if you put them into the lens of horror, they fit rather nicely.

I went in unaware for a plane trip between California and New York (a red eye) and ended up devouring the first two of them pretty much nonstop in a way you can’t look away from a train wreck. Fortunately, the last book does have a triumphant ending. Then the later books are ‘softer’ unless they’re the prequel book, but they can still stray into ‘dark’ quickly.

For actual Dark Fantasy of hers, I prefer the Others series. It’s an interesting take on werecreatures and if werecreatures were actually the dominant life form on Earth rather than humans. I really enjoyed the first three books for their characters, world building, and storytelling style. They’re more slice of life than ‘oh we must defeat the big bad.’ The fifth book though left a very bad taste in my mouth as it took a major step back for our main character and going ahead to see if the sweet romance between her and the wolf shifter was going to happen, I just can’t justify it to myself. Which is sad. Because I really enjoyed the set up and the storytelling as a ‘slice of life’ style writer myself. (This happens a lot to me with series. You’ll notice this is a trend.) I’d use Anne Bishop’s storytelling in the Others as a comparison book for my Heathens series.

One of the book series I enjoyed for the world building more than the longer overall story that I found first in the horror section but was actually kitchen sink urban fantasy was Kim Harrison’s “The Hollows” series. The titles first intrigued me being they were takes on Clint Eastwood’s Man with No Name movies and the concept of two women running an agency to solve magical problems sounded really cool to me. Unfortunately as the series progressed it was less about solving magical problems and more about how special the main character was and how messed up her social life kept getting with the final pairing obviously chosen for ‘hotness’ reasons rather than it actually making sense to the narrative.

Look, if it had stayed Rachel and Ivy solving magical problems as they both actually learned from their mistakes and being bad ass and Rachel ended up with the vampire guy who actually respected her and didn’t keep her in a cage like the Fae guy did, I would have gone along with it. It didn’t.

The world building though, I put ahead of something like the Dresden Files because the Hollows worked with the idea the “masquerade” keeping everyone secret had been ripped away and how does a world look if vampires, werewolves, and witches and little Fae have to all co-exist with each other. (The pixie was my favorite character and she did him dirty too.) Werewolves needing extra high basketball hoops and vampires blacking out their basement windows to sleep downstairs. Magic was used more frequently too as Rachel used charms, and circles, and potions on a regular basis.

Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy Dresden for his research into creatures and such. However, at some point, it became less about witchcraft in general and more about Harry shouting invocations at everyone. Gritty Harry Potter style.

Paranormal Romance exploded after urban fantasy became popular. Sometimes, it can be hard to tell the difference between the two except that paranormal romances sold in the romance section have unabashed sex, while urban fantasy sold in the science fiction and fantasy section tend to not. I think the best paranormal romance I came across was Thea Harrison’s Elder Races series. My favorite has to be the first book Dragon Bound with Pia and Dragos. None of her other couples quite captivated me as much as those two. Pia gets herself in a mess and even though Dragos is extremely overbearing, she doesn’t take his nonsense and does what she wants anyways. She needs his strength, and he needs her magical abilities.

The Elder Races series also uses a lot of races I don’t really see in other books, like Medusa. (I’m pretty sure it was her.) Which to me was really cool. I mean the definition of Wyr meant everything from dragons to gryphons on top of wolves and whatever. The Fae were pretty standard Fae for books. I wish her other couples had grabbed me as much as Pia and Dragos. I really would enjoy a series of the adventures of Pia and Dragos. At least they got like three books and several short stories.

Let’s talk about visual books and interactive storytelling to wrap this up. And for manga, I bet you’re going to say ‘Hellsing’ and yes, I did enjoy Hellsing as much as the next person, but no, I’m going with Judal’s Vampire Game. In Vampire Game, the Vampire is trying to get revenge on the reincarnation/soul of the guy who killed him and ending up in the body of a kitten who is taken in by the teenage princess who is this guy’s ancestor. Instead of holding this revenge plot against him, the princess who hates her family decides to help. There’s lots of shape shifting and there are monsters and I didn’t really expect the ending. It’s funny and the princess is a lot smarter and cleverer than her caretakers give her credit for. It was put out by Tokyo Pop and I’m not entirely sure if you can find it anymore. But if you can, I definitely recommend it.

The web comic that I’ve stayed with the longest that involves paranormal and some horror elements is definitely Girl Genius. Girl Genius is considered a Gas lamp fantasy and has definite steampunk elements. It also has werewolves, monsters, mad science, scary ghost like creatures everyone runs away from, eldritch abominations, and the talking emperor of all cats. I know it’s rather a huge deal given how many Hugos it’s won and all, but it’s still one of the comics I still keep coming back to because they keep delivering a good story.

On the interactive side of storytelling, I’m going to stray away from World of Darkness and talk about Firefly: the RPG instead. Yes, Firefly/Serenity has a role playing game! I actually have both and Firefly book has more backstory and lore than the Serenity book, but the Serenity book does a better job of summarizing the elements of the series that are important such as ship as character and the big damn hero crew.

The reason I put this under horror and paranormal even though it is a scifi western is space is pretty scary and reavers and the Blue Sun Corporation with their Hands of Blue make it more so. You could really play around with the horror elements of just being in space, being lost in space or your engine going out like in Out of Gas. And then there’s the different planets with the mining and what else is Blue Sun up to? There’s a lot of wiggle room to make the game and story extremely terrifying and horrifying that didn’t get explored as much in the series or the movie. (And given some of the stuff that’s come out after, maybe it’s a good thing.)

Now some of these recommendations you might be thinking “How can these be your fave? You didn’t like the story completely!” Look, if we’re going to talk absolute faves all I would do is rave about my books and that is just no fun. Plus, I don’t have enough books to cover all the bases. There may be things in these books that I didn’t like, that you might not mind. These are things I’ve read and are traditionally published I can recommend over other things.

Next week, I’m going to talk about more books and specifically about creatures. What books have I read that do creatures the best, in my opinion! You can join in too. Here is an image, use totally optional. Happy Booktober and happy reading!

#writing tumblr #writrblr #booktober #book reviews #book recommendations #horror books #paranormal books #urban fantasy

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recentanimenews · 7 years

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Manga the Week of 9/6/17

SEAN: September begins, and it’s back to school with a giant crush of manga. As always.

Dark Horse has a 3rd volume of Psycho-Pass prequel Inspector Shinya Kogami.

J-Novel Club gives us a 5th digital Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash novel, which… may not be depressing? Possibly?

And there’s also a 6th Invaders of the Rokujouma!?, which gives focus to our favorite underground priestess.

Did you know that Pumpkin Scissors is still running to this day? Somehow? It’s true! Kodansha is still rescuing it digitally with Vol. 13.

MICHELLE: I did not!

SEAN: On to non-Del Rey stuff, we have a 5th volume of GTO Paradise Lost, the latest in the author’s “no matter what I try to write, only Onizuka seems to sell” sequel.

ASH: I’ll admit, although I greatly enjoyed GTO, I haven’t really been keeping up with the sequels.

SEAN: And a 3rd Kounodori: Dr. Stork, which I am now behind on. Yay!

We also have two debuts from Kodansha digitally, that actually came out this week but Kodansha dropped them secretly as always. Black Panther and Sweet 16 (Kurohyou to 16-sai) is a Nakayoshi title that nevertheless seems very racy. It also has a weak female lead and pushy male lead. Ergh.

MICHELLE: Pass.

ANNA: I feel like I have seen this too many times before…

SEAN: And Elegant Yokai Apartment Life (Youkai Apato no Yuuga na Nichijou) runs in Shonen Sirius, and is what it sounds like – protagonist moves into an apartment filled with yokai.

MICHELLE: Hm. Maybe.

ANNA: That sounds promising, but I have a high tolerance for yokai titles.

ASH: As do I, for that matter.

SEAN: You want print? How about the 8th Sweetness and Lightning?

MICHELLE: Yay!

ASH: The series is such a delight! (And yes, print, please!)

SEAN: And there is also the 2nd Waiting for Spring for shoujo fans. Its first volume was unoriginal but soothing.

MICHELLE: I think there’s room for a series like that in my heart. I plan to read volumes one and two together.

ANNA: I have the first volume and haven’t read it yet, but soothing shoujo sounds nice.

Seven Seas has an 11th Arpeggio of Blue Steel, which continues to be the Tom Clancy novel of anthropomorphic personifications.

The debut next week is Captain Harlock: Dimensional Voyage, the 2014 manga sequel that apparently updates Harlock for the 21st century. Despite the fact that it runs in Champion Red, I look forward to it.

ASH: I’m looking forward to giving this one a try, too.

SEAN: And there’s the 8th Golden Time. Still a soap opera, still enjoyable to me.

And Tales of Zestria has a 2nd volume.

ASH: Whoops, I’d already forgotten about this series (probably because it’s based on a video game I’m not particularly familiar with), but it seems like it could have potential.

SEAN: Vertical gives us the 2nd Mobile Suit Gundam Wing manga, which continues to adapt Endless Waltz.

And now for Viz. So much Viz. Starting with the 4th Anonymous Noise, which I hope features some nice screaming.

MICHELLE: Volume three was the first time I had a “this is actually kind of cool” moment, so I will keep going for a little while to see if that becomes a trend.

ANNA: I think it has gotten better as the series develops, and I enjoy the screaming scenes.

SEAN: Bloody Mary’s 8th volume is not about vampires!… wait, yes, sorry. It is.

MICHELLE: *snerk*

ANNA: SO behind on this series, but I enjoyed the vampire angst in the early volumes.

SEAN: Boruto has a 2nd manga volume, which I imagine means the anime has already long since passed it.

Death Note gets an all-in-one edition, and at 2400 pages it comes close to taking the crown for best blunt object.

ASH: I really want to see one of these in person, just to see how it’s put together. I’ve been assured that the spine will hold up, but what about the readers?!

SEAN: Everyone’s still not getting married in the 6th Everyone’s Getting Married.

ANNA: I so enjoy this series. Hooray for Shojo Beat’s stealth josei publication practices!

SEAN: Haikyu!! 15 is out. But you knew that, as it’s a monthly. It’d be weirder if it weren’t out next week.

MICHELLE: I actually have a nice little pile of Haikyu!! to read now. I expect a mini-marathon will be great fun.

ANNA: I have a difficult time reading this series because my kids steal each volume.

ASH: Like Michelle, I’ve (unintentionally) been preparing for a mini-marathon as well. But I do enjoy Haikyu!! so incredibly much.

SEAN: Kimi Ni Todoke crawls to its conclusion some more. I dearly love it every time I read it, but admit that I wish it would hurry up.

MICHELLE: Yeah, I still can’t tell whether it’ll end after high school or actually follow the characters into their college endeavors.

ANNA: I need to get caught up!

SEAN: It’s the end for My Love Story!!, which has a lucky 13th volume to end on. With the rain in Spain defeat our separated couple? Will we get a sweet happy ending! (spoilers: we will.)

MICHELLE: I’m counting on it!

ANNA: Such a great series.

ASH: It really is wonderful!

SEAN: And Nisekoi is also almost-but-not-quite done with this 23rd volume.

Chibi Sasuke’s Sharingan Legend is a superdeformed parody that aims to show us the humorous side of Sasuke. It should be about 4 pages long, then.

One Piece’s 21st 3-in-1 takes us to Fish-Man Island, so it’s slowly catching up with the main volumes.

One-Punch Man’s 12th volume will have some quality punching.

ASH: Excellent.

SEAN: And speaking of Quality, QQ Sweeper finally gets its sequel/reboot with Queen’s Quality. I love this author, so definitely want to read this.

MICHELLE: I’m glad this is finally out!

ANNA: Yay!

ASH: I’ve somehow still not managed to finish QQ Sweeper, but I’m glad we’re getting Queen’s Quality, too!

SEAN: Skip Beat! has a 39th volume, which I hope wraps up the arc with Kyoko’s mother.

MICHELLE: I just read it and it’s great. Of course.

ANNA: Skip Beat is always great, but I am also not fond of Kyoko’s mother.

SEAN: Lastly, it’s not a long Viz list unless it ends with a Yu-Gi-Oh volume, and we get the 2nd of “Arc V” here.

Got your pencils and paper? Or tablets and digital pens, whatever the kids use these days. Also, manga?

By: Sean Gaffney

#Anime #News #Manga Bookshelf

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