Book Chop: Monster Blood Tattoo #1 "Foundling"

Title: Monster Blood Tattoo #1: Foundling
Author: DM Cornish
Genre: Fantasy
Verdict: A delightful little book about nothing.

Weird. But cool.

After reading this one, I had to do some research on it. The Wiki page revealed something that makes a lot of sense. But I digress.

FOUNDLING is set in a world where monsters are real, humans fight them, and a mashup between life and mechanics isn't all that uncommon. (Ships, for example, have living monster organs "grown" into them.) Likewise, people can undergo surgeries to gain what are, in effect, superpowers. In the midst of these warring superhero monster-killers and the monsters themselves is our young hero, Rossamund.

Rossamund is a "foundling," a fancy way of saying he's a wandering orphan who go picked up. He starts out at the orphanage, hoping that one day he'll get drafted into the navy. Too bad! He gets picked up to be a "lamplighter" instead, which sounds like a crummy job. When he leaves to report for duty, he gets picked up by slavers poising as businessmen.

The slavers get shot at by the military. Rossamund escapes by jumping off their boat into the rivver. Then he meets Europa, a lady with surgical lightning powers. They have a run-in with monsters and kill them. After some more wandering they meet a mailman, who's pretty cool. Then they run into the slavers again, and the lightning lady kills them. Rossamund reports to the lamplighters for duty a few weeks late.

The end.

I'm actually serious. That's the end of the book.

It seems like I'd destroy it for that being the entire plot, but it was really enjoyable for some reason and I can't put my finger on it. Maybe because it was technically fantasy, but with suspended sci-fi explanations for a lot of things...which I haven't seen a whole lot in YA fiction, and I like. A lot.

But to the backstory: Cornish developed the world for the story in his spare time over the course of many years. Eventually an agent picked up his world and liked it, and offered him a rare contract, one wherein he would turn in 1000 words per work for very small advances. Eventually he got a story set in this very detailed world (I mean the map alone is more detailed than most epic fantasies I've read) and the first book was born.

The second and third books are about twice as long as the first one. I can only imagine how much deeper the story gets as it progresses. I'm intrigued enough to keep reading, but yeah--it's a good little book wherein virtually nothing happens with regard to plot. It was still fun though. So I tip my hat to Mr. Cornish.

Book Chop: Ex-Heroes

Title: Ex-Heroes
Author: Peter Clines
Genre: Superhero zombie apocalypse
Verdict: Crude, with a good story, albeit a problem here and there.

I was looking at another book online when Amazon recommended me this one. I think that's how I found it. It's put out by a small press, so I doubt I would have heard of it otherwise.

Clines combines two staples of science-fiction and horror for something I've never seen a take on before: superheroes after a zombie apocalypse. Some of the heroes even become zombies themselves. It's really, really cool. I Am Legend meets Resident Evil and X-Men in less than 300 pages.

The heroes themselves are an interesting spread. In a lot of ways they were modeled after the heroes of WATCHMEN, including Zzzap/Dr. Manhattan, Mighty Dragon/Nite Owl, Stealth/Silk Spectre, Gorgon/Comedian, and Regenerator/Ozymandias (to an extent.) Not too many of them had original powers, but with superhero stories there isn't a whole lot that hasn't been done and isn't ridiculous either. (I did like Gorgon's power: he had these goggles he wore all the time, because if he made eye contact with people he could drain their energy and become temporarily stronger.)

The book had a cool format too: most chapters were in the present, but every other chapter or so was a flashback written in first-person from one of the heroes, giving just enough insight to show who they really were, and also tell an important part of the story. Mighty Dragon and Gorgon had some pretty basic crime-fighting stories, while Zzzap showed what the start of the apocalypse was like, and Regenerator showed how the whole mess started. Other chapters, like the origins for Cerberus, were just plain cool.

Downside? A lot of profanity, a lot of crass talk. Naturally gruesome as well, and of course there's at least one obligatory slut character. (The leader, Stealth, has Skank Potential, but she only dresses that way.) The story had some flaws, including a plot hole about the reveal of the villain, and why he was so bad. Also, why hole up in Los Angeles when you can go out into the neighboring farmland and thrive out there?

In the end I was glad to see that it wrapped up in a cool way, and victory for the heroes--as well as the people they protected--wasn't a clean rout. It cost them, and it showed a bit of the aftermath. Given that Clines is a screenwriter, the story was pretty visual, and would make a good flick.

Book Chop: Beastly

Title: Beastly
Author: Alex Flinn
Genre: YA Paranormal
Verdict: Surprisingly substantial

I heard about BEASTLY from two sources: Bree Despain mentioned it on the Writing Excuses podcast when she was a guest star, and I also saw a trailer for the movie version that looked semi-interesting. (Only when I saw that same trailer with the sound on did I realize the movie will be a turd.)

The basic pitch? It's "Beauty and the Beast," told from the beast's point of view, in high school, during modern times. In the midst of many-a-teen-crappy-romance books, this one is actually a gem. It didn't ignore the original angle of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale, and stayed true enough to the bones of the story with a modern application.

Kyle Kingsbury is the head honcho hot guy at his snobby prep school, where his hot-but-stupid/mean girlfriend only wants material things to be happy. When an ugly girl confronts him in class about his disgusting obsession with style-over-substance, he hatches a plot to embarrass her in front of the whole school at a dance.

Naturally this chick turns out to be a witch, and casts a spell on Kyle, turning him into a beast. Unlike the crappy movie trailer, this doesn't give him awesome-looking tattoos and battle scars--it turns him into a fur-and-fangs monster, more reminiscent of the Disney version.

One thing I liked about Flinn's book is how thorough it was: there weren't any contrivances in getting from point A to point B. Kyle tried a LOT of things that he thought would break the spell, a lot of "cheap fixes" before admitting to himself that he had to do it the witch's way: love someone and earn her love in return. And I think she showed it in such a way that it was believable. Even better was the fact that it was short--the audiobook was less than six hours, and the narrator was good.

The format was also interesting: it starts with a chat room transcript. The room moderator is one "Mr. Andersen" (aka Hans Christian, who wrote fairy tales.) Frequent members of the chat room who show up to discuss their problems are modern versions of the Beast, the Little Mermaid, the Frog Prince, etc. While you only see Kyle in the book, you still get to learn about other people going through other love-related issues via these chats.

Unlike most teen paranormal romances, this one has something meaningful--and true--to teach about love. Flinn didn't skip that in her story just to get to the good parts. Andersen gave her the skeleton of a perfect story generations ago, and she held to that while still writing enough of it to make it her own.

I enjoyed this more than I thought I would, and will probably read it again. It's an entertaining book that doesn't drone on, and teaches something good to its target audience. Available in paperback.