I laughed, I cried. Korean, Japanese and Indonesian culture and characters. I loved Dali's comparatively different approach to danger (magic + brains)...moreI laughed, I cried. Korean, Japanese and Indonesian culture and characters. I loved Dali's comparatively different approach to danger (magic + brains) and other things from Andrea (bullets) and Kate (magic + sword). Jim's low key but effective presence and reasons for being unusually submissive around Dali made complete sense. I could not be happier. My copy is highlighted to death. A most excellent shortie. I very rarely rate them 5 stars. Happy, happy, happy!(less)
Vampire tales of loneliness, revenge and what love means.
Frater's superb characterization continues to thrill me, though now I'...more'Life: thick and red.'
Vampire tales of loneliness, revenge and what love means.
Frater's superb characterization continues to thrill me, though now I'm a little scared of how she's able to so exquisitely bury inside the hearts and minds of vile predators and abusers and paint them in all their terrible glory. It's not often that stories are told from the villain's perspective, especially ones that I actually appreciate, but these I did.
Part I: The Ache of Loneliness
★★☆☆☆ The Whisper An introductory story of a night-loving mortal woman coming upon a male vampire.
★★★☆☆ The Two Mothers Before you think it, there are no lesbians here! A vampire woman longs for a child, spots one suffering from leukemia out walking with a mother willing to sacrifice everything for her love of him, including her life. I found it interesting how the mother was willing to share her child with another and let him call her "mama".
Part II: The Revenge of the Vampires I love a good "revengeance" and Frater delivers in spades. This quote explains this section perfectly:
"When a woman says no, it's really best to leave her alone. You just never know who you are fucking with."
★★★★☆ The Predator
'She was undermining him. He was so frustrated, when he lay in his bed during the day trying to sleep, he would fantasize about taking her forcibly right there at work. He could feel his hands closing over her neck, pushing her back onto a copier as she cried out in terror. Sometimes, that was his only solace when she ignored him. No matter what happened, he would always conquer her in his dreams.'
★★★★★ Vengeance Sitting in a chair with a gun is an old man waiting for his annual visit from the wife he vilely abused. Every year she beats him to within an inch of his life for his awful violence towards her (rape and beatings), her children (the girl he molested, the male he rendered infertile) and the full-term unborn child he killed. By far my favourite story of the collection.
Part III: The Inner Sanctum Trilogy
★★☆☆☆ The Aspect of Her Eyes A male vampire speaking of his love and admiration for his wife to his female progeny while watching said wife hunt their next meal.
★★★★☆ The Memoirs of Moniki Memoirs of a 5-to-7 year old girl neglected and abused by her alcoholic father in the 1930s. Helped by a genetically-engineered rat created by the Nazis and rescued by the female vampire admired in the previous story. Contrasting the abuse Moniki received by her biological father and the endearing love by her new vampire parents was interesting, though I'm not sure the girl's loving grandmother would approve of her new life even though she's now safe and happy since they probably qualify as 'the devil' she feared.
★★★☆☆ Blood and Love Our vampire couple showcase their enduring and all-consuming love for one another, paling in comparison to human love. (less)
Dear god, what have I read?! Horrific. Superficial Too Stupid To Live characters I don't care about, stumbling around blindly asking to be eaten.
Comed...moreDear god, what have I read?! Horrific. Superficial Too Stupid To Live characters I don't care about, stumbling around blindly asking to be eaten.
Comedy
Having loved the show Married with Children I impulsively decided I would love this too. However, I'm wondering now whether "zombies" and "comedy" can ever be a good mix in the post-Carry On world, and in the absence of Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead totally pulls off the ZomRomCom). And perhaps with this book by marketing it as a comedy excuses the wafer-thin characters, the TSTL behaviour (e.g. checking out a potentially zombie-infested casino for the hell of it) and inappropriately timed arguments (while zombies are bearing down on you) about nothing in particular.
Romance
Um, where exactly was the romance? We meet Sarah and David on the brink of divorce as they attend their regularly scheduled marriage counseling appointment. David's demise from having a promising future to being an unemployed deadbeat husband and all-round slacker and Sarah's exhausted from having to work 6 days a week leads her to constantly criticise him and picking fights at every given opportunity, leaving them both deeply unhappy and wanting out of their marriage. Counselling wasn't helping until...they killed their therapist. After that they work together to kill (directly and indirectly) almost every human they come into contact with regardless of whether they happen to be infected. In doing this they come to see each other's positive attributes i.e. bravely killing everything in sight, appearing as heroes in each other's eyes. So again, where was the romance? One off-stage sex scene and...I can't remember if they ever kissed. Not good.
Zombies
Were pretty cool actually. From bite to brain-eating, the incubation period is 10-25 minutes. Red eyes, strangely happy facial expressions, faster than the average human and the ability to continue simple repetitive actions, describe these zombies. Although there is the requisite gory imagery e.g. a legless undead dragging itself along the ground carrying a baby in it's mouth, it never truly hits home, the gut-wrenching horror of it all.
I hold Rhiannon Frater's As the World Dies trilogy up as the epitome of all things zombie and while reading it I laughed, I cried and I added guns to my wishlist. That was terrifying but there was humour, too. A good balance. MWZ focuses too much on the humour and whilst funny, sometimes it was grossly overused and forced, at the detriment of the characters' intelligence and the graveness of the situation. It's the same with the swearing, I'm not opposed to the well-timed f-word when the world is going to hell and you could die at any moment but it shouldn't be repetitive.
After ogling this book for a while I'm disappointed it didn't live up to my expectations. I could've DNF'd at any point, my lack of affection for the couple left me uninterested in whether they lived or died but obviously they were never in any danger considering it's part of a series.
I'm giving up on this one. I wasn't offended by it as others have been, I just found it uninteresting and was struggling to read every page with enoug...moreI'm giving up on this one. I wasn't offended by it as others have been, I just found it uninteresting and was struggling to read every page with enough concentration to take in the information.
Chess isn't a very sympathetic character as she's rather selfish and unconvincing as a survivor of an abusive childhood. She's a functional addict but the drugs cause her to make mistakes in what can be a very dangerous job. Her troubles are of her own making as others exploit her weakness for pills in order to satisfy their own needs. She's bothered by none of this. Me thinks she has a death wish. It all felt very blah, very monotone. More of the same. It seemed there wasn't anything to look forward to. 102/346 pages read.(less)
Amy or "Ames"
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