It's a different world

 My brother, Charles Ebert, published an anthology of his short fiction titled A World Where Sandy Never Died and Other Worlds, which I finished up a few days ago (and haven't had a chance to review yet, because of my hideous work schedule this week.)

This work collects 12 stories, 11 of which were published elsewhere, and each comes with a preface talking a bit about the story. Most fall somewhere under the umbrella of "Soft Sci-Fi" or "Near Future Sci-Fi", although more than a few are under different headings.  

Honestly, I was happy a story I heard him read out loud at a convention was included here ("Hauntings"), since it's almost a play on Beetlejuice in terms of trying to get rid of a problem tenant. 

We have a much more "could be current" story in "The Ossuaries", where the connections between historical atrocities and our modern age come really into focus, as does the choice between fulfilling a dream or temporarily preventing an echo or a previous atrocity. 

I enjoyed the title story, which concerns people people slipping between universes to find albums from artists who died in our world but survived in others. While I'm not as passionate about the artists mentioned in here as the author is, I kept picturing other ways to enjoy such excursions, and wondering if one could build a much larger story on world presented here. 

For me, those 3 are the highlights of the collection. They're all good and well written, but these three are the ones that stuck with me. I believe this one is on Amazon, so if you have some extra cash, give it a whirl.

This is why we tell the story

 In a case of falling victim to targeted adverts, I ended up buying Stephen Purdy's Second Edition of Flop Musicals of the Twenty-First Century Part I: The Creatives thanks to something I saw scrolling. 

According to his afterword, this came about due to a question of of a theater seminar he was leading, which lead into getting in touch with people involved in several levels of productions that are now considered failures. 

Frankly, some of them I expected to be included (Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark), some I was surprised to see were considered flops (Rocky), most I had never heard of, and in a few cases (Lestat) I found myself wondering who thought they'd be a good idea in the first place. 

Anyway, the book covers 13 musicals that either did not return the money invested in them, closed very quickly, or really disappointed in other ways. (In almost every case, ticket sales were below 50% for every performance prior to closing; most shows need at least 70% to remain profitable enough to keep running.) In some cases, like Glory Days, Wonderland, and King Kong, the shows never really got taken through a lot of development processes like out of town tryouts or workshops, and therefore couldn't get the kinks worked out prior to arriving in New York. Others did well out of town, but failed to find an audience in New York (Cheeseburger in Paradise.) Some (Dance of the Vampires) had too many cooks trying to fix things (In that last case, the star of the show got all kinds of creative control, and wound up becoming "Liberace as a Vampire"). Some had dream teams of creatives, like Elton John and Bernie Taupin working with big name choreographers, but the book kept changing while the music didn't (Lestat. Again, I have yet to figure out how a condensed version of Anne Rice would work as a musical. If by some chance one of our local troupes produces it, I'd love to see it.) 

Hearing more about Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark was also very entertaining, since the music I heard from it was good (written by Bono and The Edge from U2), but all I ever heard was the number of accidents involving the show. While the accidents likely did play a big part in the fact it lost $20,000,000, the number of rewrites (the first act ended with a battle between Green Goblin and Spider-Man, the second act involved a new character named Arachne trying to trap Peter in her web in dreams... The words tap dancing spiders was used to describe this. It was supposed to end with a big shot of webbing cannoned off the stage onto a screen like a splash page in the comics. Sadly, the device never worked, everyone hated the second act, so they stretched out Act I into two acts, with a thrilling aerial finale.)

Another, Glory Days, has the honor of being one of the rare shows to close the night it opens. Which is sad, since by all accounts, the show was a diamond in the rough, and ran into issue of hitting Broadway before it was really ready to be there. (It fell victim to market research saying a scaled down intimate show would play well in a cavernous setting.) Which is sad, since the plot synopsis listed with the show makes it sound like it would be a good watch, but the stress of the show evidently nearly ended the friendship of the guys who wrote it. 

Cheeseburger in Paradise evidently did really well in tryouts in more tropical climes, but New Yorkers (and tourists) evidently weren't all that interested in getting drunk and listening Jimmy Buffet songs. 

By far the one thing that sticks out in almost every story here is exactly how many good things people involved in these shows had to say about them. These folks remain invested in things that have long since gone dark, telling fun tales from behind the scenes, and discussing why they think their show didn't find an audience. 

All told, while some of the shows in here might find new life either touring or a revival either in New York or a local production, they all succeeded in opening on Broadway, a feat not every show gets. And frankly, it sounds like many of these shows deserve another chance somewhere.

Mages in this series are like Spinal Tap drummers

 And as the twofer concludes, Jak Koke's Beyond the Pale concludes the Dragoneheart Saga, wrapping up the various story lines we've been confused by for two books now. 

Burnout, now Billy, is still possessed by Lethe, and being held captive in Atzlan. Ryan has the Dragon Heart, but needs to find a way to get it to Thayla in the spirit realm. A young blood mage who is entranced by Thayla is trying to break free of her mentor. They get a new Mage, Talon (who stars in his own series), and start meeting some of the bigger names in the setting, like Harlequin, the elf who may or may not predate the 6th Age. 

By the end, everyone is either dead or redeemed, we know what Lethe is, and Ryan finally gets the answers he's been seeking. 

The conclusion here is a hell of a lot better written than the preceding books. I do have to wonder how much of it is canon, though, since it reveals a solution to a fairly major mystery in the setting. 

Really fun read to conclude the trilogy. Worth the slog through the past two books.

Ghost Gangsters

 Morgan Brice returns to Cape May with Blink, as we join Ben and Eric on another adventure in ghosts and gangsters. 

Friend Jaxon wants to reopen an old theater with the Arts Council. Problem being said theater is cursed by a strega, and Jaxon winds up in a coma. 

In the mean time, the Russian Mob and the Newark Mob are gunning for our heroes thanks to their former jobs. 

It's pretty much what I've come to expect from these, fairly breezy, a bit of smut, and the incongruity of two guys trying to protect each other from their pasts also dealing with domestic issues, like whether or not to propose or even move in together. This one does have a nice twist towards the end, involving the best Spielberg reference in print currently.

Fun, light, and good for a relaxing evening.

Locked up

 Clockwork Asylum by Jak Koke, aka Book 2 of The Dragon Heart Cycle, picks up right after the last book ended, with Burnout swimming in the Snake River, possessed by the spirit Lethe.

This leads to Ryan Mercury and Assets Inc trying to track him and the Dragon Heart artifact down. All while Ryan and his girlfriend have to deal with the investigation into the death of Dunzlekhan, in which both are suspects. 

All of which leads up to an explosive conclusion in the Dragon's arboretum as almost every faction involved in the affair wind up in DC at the same time.

While this is better paced and much clearer than book one was, it still suffers from way too many plots not quite meshing together well most of the time. 

But still, I ended this one wanting to read the finale much more than I wanted to read this one after the first.

Death of a Dragon

 I picked up the Shadowrun DragonHeart Saga a while back, since evidently my favorite Mage in the setting showed up in here somewhere. While he isn't in the first book, what is in here is kind of interesting.

Stranger Souls opens with Ryan Murphy, an agent of Dunzelkhan (Elder Dragon, and newly elected president of the United Canadian and American States) running afoul of some kind of ritual in Atzlan (formerly Mexico.) Not long after Ryan goes down, Dunzelkhan blows up in front of the Watergate Hotel in the DC Fed. 

Then we briefly meet Lethe, a male spirit tasked by Thalya to find the Dragon Heart to keep the chasm between our world and the outsiders open. 

It's a lot to process, and made more complicated by the fact that Ryan, while not dead, is however being prepped to receive possession by a gent who currently lives on as a Matrix simulation. And lest we forget, there's Burnout, the cyberzombie, who, like a certain antagonist from another franchise, is much more man than machine. 

Eventually this all winds up with the Dragon heart fallin into the Snake Rive along with an antagonist possessed by Lethe while Ryan figures out who he is now that he has two different sets of memories. 

It's engaging, but it's messy.

Making a killing on the licensing

Grady Hendrix's new novel, The Final Girl Support Group, amuses and frustrates in almost equal measure, which isn't helped by Lynette, our focus character, being agoraphobic and paranoid, nor do a few dropped plot lines through the course of the book. (To be fair, Lynette first got hung on a rack of antlers in Utah by a guy dressed like Santa who then killed her boyfriend Tommy; a few years later, the killer's brother also dressed up as Santa and tried to shoot her.)

On the other hand, given the basis of the novel, this isn't exactly a great surprise, since the mostly 70's-80's Slashers popping up in here had similar issues. (I mean, one girl, Julia, went through this universe's Scream, which was the early 90's, and Stephanie, who we meet later on, just more or less undergoes the 2009 remake of Friday the 13th. The original is represented by Adrienne, much like Nightmare on Elm Street is represented in Heather, while Marilyn went through The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Dani's brother escaped the asylum on Halloween to try to kill her both at home and later at the hospital. Crazy Chrissy, who we meet towards the end, is not part of this group, mainly because she fell in love with the guy stalking her Homecoming dance, and now sells murderabelia. For those who haven't caught on to the naming conventions here, our Final Girls either share the name of the actress who survived the initial franchise offering, or have a name that's a play on it.)

The main girls here (Lynette, Julia, Adrienne, Marilyn, Dani, Heather) are all part of a long term group therapy session with Dr. Elliott. As happens with long term therapy, most everyone is in a rut, following the same patterns that they've been cast in. Adrienne now owns Camp Red Hook, which she's turned into a sanctuary for women survivors of violence. Not long after the start, a new massacre happens at Red Hook, leading Adrienne to kill herself. Someone else confesses to the murders Dani stopped, making her doubt that she did the right thing by killing her brother with a tire iron. The man who killed Lynette's family and boyfriend reveals the letters she wrote to him as part of a pen pal program and says that they'd had a sexual relationship, which sets her up as an accomplice. 

Not long after Lynette's apartment gets shot up, she starts believing that someone much have hacked her hard drive, read the book she was writing filled with her perceptions of her group mates, and is using that information to take down the final girls. (Some of this gets proven correct after all the girls get emailed copies of the book.) 

Lynette goes on the run, gets arrested, gets broken out by the lawyer she used to sleep with, then goes on the run with Stephanie in tow, thinking the newest final girl is likely also a target. 

Eventually, we do find out everything that's going on and why, but there's quite a bit of missing information towards the end, most of which involves secondary plots. 

I've seen a few posts on goodreads questioning this book vs. Riley Sager's debut novel Final Girls, and while they share similar themes, they are not the same book. While they share similar set ups, Sager's is a lot less movie obsessed, and the heroine there is less sure of her own motives. Hendrix, who's writing tends to center on various tropes and molding them into something new, takes this narrative in different directions, and doesn't make the rookie mistake of throwing the two biggest plot twists within a page of each other and 5 pages before the end. They're both fun reads. And other than a similarity of titles, they're very different reads. 

While a few loose threads brought this down a peg, I still really enjoyed this one.

Wedding Bell Blues

 Seanan McGuire's When Sorrows Come finally completes the long time coming nuptials of Tybalt, King of Cats, and October Day, one of three known Dóchas sidhe, albeit by a human father. Given how long this plot has been simmering, it's nice to see a payoff on it.

Mind you, the wedding's in Toronto, and just about everyone who's not dead, imprisoned in a deep fairie realm, or in enchanted sleep shows up for it, just in time to get suckered into an attempted coup on the High King of the West by doppelgangers acting under orders from another shadowy figure. 

Which means we're basically reading Buffy the Vampire Slayer Gets Married. Which is not a bad thing, as Buffy (despite Joss Whedon's recent revelations) remains some of the best TV made. 

But, it does mean that much of the narrative is essentially a case of let's solve a mystery while we get to the grand event at the end, which climaxes with Toby and her wedding party facing down archers while wearing formal dress. It's an awesome spectacle, cheesy as can be, but none the less deserving of a bucket of popcorn and cheering. And the sheer numbers of cameos throughout the main book (and the novella at the end, which is less a novella and more an epilogue, since Toby narrates the reception), bring a lot of plots covered in the prior 14 book back to the forefront, showing Toby how her unusual choices have lead to better outcomes for people who would otherwise not have had them. 

As to where this goes next, I cannot say. McGuire has stated she knows where October's story ends, but this seems much more of a resting point than a finale. I look forward to how this continues.

Running with the shadows of the night

 Robert N. Charette's final volume of Secrets of Power, Find Your Own Truth, is very exciting, and deftly maneuvers around several plot threads right up until the end, when it falls flat on its face during the dismount. 

We start with Twist/Sam off in Australia doing his best Indiana Jones and trying to recover a stone filled magic to heal his sister Janice of her Wendigo transformation. What he doesn't know is that said stone is a keystone keeping the totem of Spider in check. (Note to readers: most totems in the setting are "good". Insect and arachnid totems aren't.) 

Any rate, Sam's big ritual to heal his sister doesn't work, so he going looking for Howling Coyote, the Amerind shaman responsible for the Ghost Dance that reshaped North American politics not long after the Awakening. The Elves are looking for the stone, and Sato of Renraku who played a small part in book one is looking for Sam. Dodger is looking for the ghost in the machine he keeps running in to. 

Finally, in the third act, everyone finds what they're looking for, as Sam manages to recreate the Ghost Dance, and we get what feels a LOT tacked on as plot threads long ignored suddenly get tied in to the finale. Which is fine, it just feels a bit like a GM liking a players' idea enough to rewrite a plot line that they suggested into the canon. It happens, but it also feels very very tacked on. 

Was reading this trilogy worth it?

Yeah, even if the setting has developed well beyond the scope of what this early fiction presents. Which I'm not going to complain about, since it's fascinating to see how things evolved over the years.

Nice to know relations didn't improve

Robert N. Charrette's Choose Your Enemies Carefully picks up the tale of Twist/Sam and his search for his sister a few years after the events detailed in the first book of Secrets of Power. Although this time, we actually get to meet Janice, the goblinized sister. Indeed, she gets rescued from the Yomi walled neighborhood in Hong Kong in the first chapter. We gets glimpses of her as she works with another of her kind (implied heavily to be an orc or troll, although the big reveal at the end proves that assumption wrong), as she moves around the world. 

Her brother Sam, aka Twist, on the other hand is trying to raise money to go rescue her from Yomi, proving again to be an ethical Shadowrunner. He does wind up getting sucked into the books main plot through deceit by the people he cares about, winding up in England, dealing with a Circle of Druids trying to oust the Elves of Tir, which used to be Ireland. Said Druids first attempt recreates an old Christopher Lee movie (I'm ignoring Nic Cage's remake; this book predates it, plus no one is screaming about bees), then morphs into something else. 

By the end, Sam/Twist has dealt with betrayal from both Dodger, his hetero husband; and Hart, who was trying to kill him in the last book, and is now his side piece overseas. At the very end, after all the ugly chains of story resolve and we find out who all has been using everyone else throughout, we watch as Sam and Janice reunite briefly, and the consequences thereof, which will likely be one of the plot threads in the finale. 

While this book was not quite as readable as the first volume, it remained a pleasant experience. I mean, we're watching someone who's essentially a pawn learn to move outside of his programmed parameters, and how his relationship with his Dog totem is making him more of a Shaman of Justice more than anything else.I'll be interested to see how everything works out.