Book Review: Susan, You’re the Chosen One

Susan, You’re the Chosen One by Lauretta Hignett

Susan Moore is a middle-aged woman going through a difficult menopause. She used to live an opulent life, but her ex-husband Vincent divorced her and is now living with an intern less than half her age. Susan’s meager existence is crammed into a half-studio apartment next to her building’s roof access. One night she sees four young people standing on the ledge. They look like Lord of the Rings elven warrior cosplayers. She tells them to get down.

 Later, they come a knocking. Cress, who looks like she’s just past her teens, assumes Susan is the Chosen One. Susan sends them off. When they return, the oldest, Prince Donovan (whom Susan thinks is hot, though he is in his late twenties), takes the lead. Connor simply makes her apartment door disappear.

Susan assumes this is another hallucination. And this is one of number of things that makes Susan so interesting. At first, we were very sympathetic to her, and ready to hate her ex-husband Vincent. But we learn more about her in dribs and drabs. Susan suffers from “Menopause-induced paranoid schizophrenia, intermittent explosive disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, acute psychosis, and rage.” (p. 19). Concerning the divorce, she thinks “I’d lost him, and it was all my fault.” (p. 22).  Even more disturbingly, “I’d hurt him. I’d almost killed him.” (p. 23).

At one point, Seraphina visits, the intern-turned-fiancée. A delicate young woman, she says she and Vincent were concerned about her and just wanted her to get better. Susan becomes so hostile, Seraphina “flinched, like a beautiful doe in a meadow startled by a loud noise.” (p. 147).

So this is not the average urban fantasy. Usually, we would expect the protagonist to look like the young Fae girl Cress, complete with a long sword strapped to her back and a dagger at her hip. After all, who doesn’t enjoy reading about some Buffy beating down some creature? But she and the Fae Prince Donovan and their two companions are supporting characters. Or, the protagonist could be more like Seraphina, who would eventually become bolder. But she’s not it, either.

How many urban fantasy novels have a middle-aged woman as the main character?

But is our protagonist good? Yes—mostly. Her ambiguous nature due to her past keeps us curious. And what hallucinations did she have? When the supporting characters tell her she is the Chosen One—among other things, that means she has inherited the bloodlines of all the species, including fae, humans, and mermaids—she thinks she is having an interesting episode.

When Susan is forced underwater, she finds she can breathe because she is part mermaid. She even talks a sea witch into revealing her spark stone. But all the time she thinks she is having a long hallucination. It’s not until halfway through the novel, when her two fae companions visit her office and talk to humans there, that she realizes all this is real.

As far as the plot is concerned, Donovan’s younger brother needs to be stopped. He wants to swallow all the spark stones—yes, swallow—and that would be bad. But the plot hardly matters. What matters are the funny interactions between Susan and her new companions.

 Cress describes one of the spark stones, saying, “It is a light blue, clear, like your mortal sky on a cloudless day.” After searching for a while on her phone, Susan waves an image of it at them. When asked where she found it, she replies, “On eBay.” (p. 44).

Donovan wants to steal this spark stone, instead of buying it. Susan knows the owner and warns he has a rottweiler as a guard dog. She tries to describe it, and Donovan concludes it is one of the “hell-hound familiars” that guard some of the fae. (pp. 48-49).

At Susan’s workplace, a sleezy guy knows about her mental issues. He threatens to use that to get the promotion she deserves. She calls him a “Loki wannabe.” And so, “Loki?” Cress gasped. “He is here? In the human realm?” (p. 62).

When going to lunch, Donovan says, “Make haste, woman. Gather your things.” (p. 86.) I’m sure all women like to be talked to that way.

Astute readers will notice these amusing quotations are from the first hundred pages of the book. But these moments don’t stop there. It simply becomes harder to come up with a pithy quotation without giving much more context.

For something less amusing, there is the moment Donovan confronts the jerk who is trying to steal Susan’s promotion. Donovan grabs him by the throat in the classic way, then says, “From this day forth, you will never look directly at the woman you call Susan Moore. You will not make eye contact.” (p. 128). The sleazy guy is so terrified, he does not contact human resources.  

Overall, Susan, You’re the Chosen One by Lauretta Hignett is a fun read with an unusual protagonist. Susan does use foul language, which her four companions do not, which is a disadvantage. But all the fish out of water experiences—on both sides—are constantly amusing.

BOOK REVIEW: The Lies of Vampires and Slayers

Jade is a vampire slayer, though she denies it. She comes from a family of vampire slayers, with the inherited ability to sense vampires or blood nearby. But slayers are the hired assassins of the supernatural world, and Jade is through with it. She wants to make a positive difference, so she has left them behind to join the Magical Response Task Force. Teaming up with wizards, were-beings, and vampires, they form an elite force that patrols the streets of Magiford to take on any supernatural rowdies who disturb the peace.

But Jade is not really accepted by her teammates They assume nothing good about her attempts to talk. When she approaches two teammates, who are exchanging friendly insults, “My movement killed Brody and Tetiana’s verbal sparring. Their smiles disappeared when they glanced at me.” (p. 6) What makes it worse is Jade has a phobia of socializing. Her attempts are pathetic, whether with her teammates or ordinary humans in her apartment complex, ending in silence or a few words that don’t sound friendly. When a neighbor holding a baby and a diaper bag tries to talk to her, she just mumbles. Then when the neighbor struggles her way into an elevator, Jade is belatedly able to talk. “Oh, I’m so sorry, I should have—and she’s gone.” (p.74) Going back to the Task Force, Jade has to be careful when she bleeds, because her blood can be deadly to vampires.

Jade turns out to be quite effective. She has enough dexterity that she can climb a chain link fence with a dagger in either hand, then perch on the edge of an open dumpster. She also seems to sprint farther than a normal human can. And when six insects the size of cars invade from the fae realm, six members of the Task Force fight them. Jade doesn’t want to use her handgun, since humans are around, so she stabs two of them to death by herself.

The running gag/slow burn throughout the story is her relationship with an immensely old, extremely powerful vampire named Considine. Jade encounters him and wonders what he is doing in Magiford. He happens to move in next to Jade and calls himself Connor. Since Jade always wears a mask while on patrol and never reveals her name, and since Considine always has his hood scrunched together when outside so only his red eyes can be seen, they don’t recognize each other. Since Jade finds it easy to talk to vampires, they spend time together, each lying about their backgrounds. And so Jade finds someone she can get close to.

K.M. Shea’s The Lies of Vampires and Slayers kept my interest throughout. But it was not because of the quality of the storytelling. It had all to do with Jade’s personality. Her phobia of socializing is realistically described, and her fumbling attempts to do small talk are achingly realistic. This continues throughout the story, and it never gets old.

A couple of supporting characters also never get old. Tetiana is a female vampire from Ukraine. Since vampires live so long, they often do not keep up with the latest technology. When they are supposed to call in to headquarters, she always shouts into her handheld radio, because headquarters are so far away. Grove is a fairy who constantly carries potions. He offers them whenever a teammate gets hurt. Since some are poisonous concoctions he hurls at monsters, his teammates often turn him down.

So the characters are interesting, but the storytelling is not the best. Often, Shea puts in too much detail. She goes to great lengths to describe the clothing of even minor characters, including the color of each item, which just slows down the storytelling. When running with her radio, Jade notes, “I had to slow a little bit so I’d be understandable as I unhooked my radio and pressed the button so I could talk.” (p. 142) These details do not make the scenes more vivid; they just lard them down.

Also—and don’t roll your eyes at this—she often does not separate participial phrases with commas. When Grove hurls one of his potions, “It shattered on impact showering him with golden liquid.” (p. 267) We need a comma between “impact” and “showering.” This occurs constantly throughout the book, and it jerks a reader out of the story.

On a more meta level, The Lies of Vampires and Slayers is part of a shared universe. This is great for her fans, and is a reason to buy more of her books. But it does not always work smoothly. Jade’s Magical Response Task Force is part of the Curia Cloisters. Shea never defines in this particular book what that is.

But overall, Jade has an engaging personality, and the action scenes are interesting. A great plus is that the novel has no sex scenes and no swearing or foul language. I wish more urban fantasy novels were like that.

Dolly the Vampire Slayer—Reprise

Dolly Parton has been in the news a lot recently. In October, the State Department granted her the 2024 PEACE Through Music Award. Then in November, she was #1 in Billboard’s 100 Greatest County Artists of All Time.

This gives me enough reason to reprise my 2020 post, Dolly the Vampire Slayer.

________________________________

Or this could be called “Slay Belle.” So this is the convergence between Dolly Parton, country music star, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Dolly Parton rocketed to fame with her hit song “9 to 5,” which was the centerpiece of the 1980 movie of the same name. She became famous not only as a country singer, but as a symbol of what nowadays is called female empowerment.

Then there is Buffy the Vampire Slayer. This is the TV series that jumpstarted the subgenre knows as urban fantasy. Were there some urban fantasy novels before Buffy? Sure. But it was the Buffy series that made urban fantasy an overwhelming subgenre in novels, movies, and TV shows.

So how did that happen? It turns out Dolly Parton was an uncredited producer of the original movie Buffy the Vampire Slayer. That’s right. And Dolly’s company financed the TV series. It was Dolly Parton behind it all the time! 

 photo by Eva Rinaldi

But what if Dolly hadn’t done that? See my post What if Buffy had Never Been? to see how life as we know it would be different. Meanwhile, you can see every season opening for Buffy below, including the musical episode.

Then you’ll definitely want to see my post Buffy the Vinyl Slayer.

TV Review: Moonlight

I recently rewatched the 2007 television series Moonlight. Mick St. John (Alex O'Loughlin) is a private investigator with a secret: He’s a vampire. He looks about thirty, but he’s actually eighty-five. He takes an interest in protecting Beth Turner (Sophia Myles), a reporter who really is about thirty. They work together, doing some mild breaking and entering for clues for their respective lines of work.

Beth keeps saying that Mick looks familiar, but he brushes that off. As a walking CSI lab, Mick can tell if a vampire was around a dead body, and he can smell blood from a crime scene and tell if it matches an individual’s blood sample. And he uses his incredible strength and speed to save Beth and others.

It turns out that when Beth was a child, Mick saved her after she was kidnapped by a vampire. They sure make a cute couple. I wonder if they will get together?

Mick is front and center, Beth is on the right

Moonlight is different from other television or movie series on the subject. Mick does not normally kill other vampires, nor is he an isolated individual. Instead, there is a thriving but secret vampire community in Los Angeles. Mick’s best friend is a four-hundred-year-old vampire who has lots of vampire contacts. Mick has a contact in the coroner’s office who supplies him with blood. If Mick meets another vampire, they pick up each other’s scent and say something like, “Oh, so you’re a …” This large, secret community is an interesting take.

Keep in mind this was written in the early 2000s. The characters have cell phones, but they aren’t smart. Research on the internet is by desktop computer, and it takes a while. Beth works for an internet news group, and though they have higher ratings than more established sources, it’s still viewed as a novelty.

Another interesting fact is that this was one of the last of the great American private investigator shows set in modern times, until a new batch came out fairly recently. Most crime investigation shows involve the police or CSI types, and all the government resources they have. Seeing how private enterprise does things differently is refreshing.

But what kept viewers coming back was the on-again, off-again relationship between Mick and Beth. Mick thinks he’s no good for her. Beth keeps getting more and more fascinated with him. What will happen? 

Book Review: Monster Hunter Guardian

Julie Shackleford is a member of Monster Hunters International. You can probably guess what they specialize in, and it requires a lot of guns. The other Monster Hunters are on a mission in another country, so all Julie has to do is care for her three-month-old baby, Ray, and hold down the compound.

But some monsters are not simply fierce things to be shot down by bullets. Some can infiltrate the mind of a person and suddenly control that person’s actions. And so Ray gets kidnapped by a trusted friend. Julie does what any monster hunting mother would do: She loads up for bear and chases after her child through a portal. She ends up in Germany, but her rifle doesn’t make it. Still, she proceeds to do an amazing amount of damage with a handgun, and even a sword. She takes down cult members and creatures of sheer evil in amazing numbers, trying to get Ray back. 

  

Click to enlarge 

Monster Hunter Guardian by Larry Correia and Sarah A. Hoyt is the eighth book in the Monster Hunter series, but it is a stand-alone novel, so the reader can understand it without having read the previous installments. Still, even though the book is action-packed, there are a few slow moments at the beginning where those familiar with the series get caught up with what is going on with her husband and grandfather.

The action really flows after that. Julie takes an enormous amount of damage as she takes down one cult member or evil thing after another. Obviously this is explained in terms of her toughness and her desire to rescue her baby, but it is somewhat hard to believe she can stay on her feet, let alone keep fighting. Then again, you should see the other guys.

The story does have its lighter moments. She arrives in Germany in the middle of their equivalent of Mardi Gras, so she blends right in with her tactical look, which I found quite funny.

Also, the cover is a treat. The artist, Alan Pollack, obviously studied a certain fight scene in the book. It is incredibly accurate. True, Julie doesn’t handle her gun and the sword at the same time, but still. And how many action heroines with glasses have we seen on book covers?

So if you like guns, or women with guns, or wonder how you would do if you had to rescue your baby, or just want a ripping good yarn, Monster Hunter Guardian is for you.

Whack-a-Gnome

So the latest crisis is a shortage of garden gnomes. Supply chains in general have been stressed for the little fellows, but then the Suez Canal was blocked for six, count ‘em, six days. Great Britain felt the shortage quite keenly. Where is gnome central—the Middle East? The Indian subcontinent? Some part of what used to be called the Orient, where factory workers beat those cute hats into shape? What must they think of Western civilization?

image from satellite ESA Copernicus Sentinel-2

This, of course, brings us to fantasy. Special Unit 2 was an early form of urban fantasy on television. Detective O’Malley was played by Michael Landes. Detective Benson was played by Alexondra Lee. Together, they fought creatures of legend, such as mermen, gorgons, werewolves, and even a dragon, who threatened the human race. Their street informant was a gnome named Carl, played by Danny Woodburn. The series was quite funny and full of action, so I highly recommend it.

But to the point, O’Malley and Carl did not get along. The relevant part starts at 5:45.  (Warning: some coarse language.)

Charisma Carpenter Speaks out on Joss Whedon

I’m a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and to a lesser extent, of Angel. (See my post “What if Buffy had Never Been?”) If you care about either series, please read the tweets by Charisma Carpenter, who played Cordelia, here:  

https://twitter.com/AllCharisma/status/1359537746843365381/photo/1

I’m not in favor of the cancel culture. But if someone gets the idea to cancel a certain someone, not my fault.  

Addendum: Sarah Michelle Geller posted on Instagram that she doesn’t want to be forever associated with Joss Whedon. Michelle Trachtenberg, who played Buffy’s sister Dawn, reposted that and added there was a rule that Joss Whedon would not be allowed in a room alone with her again.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CLH9ce-ByTV/?utm_source=ig_embed

Book Review: The Girl Who Sees

Sasha Urban is an illusionist—a stage magician. After doing her card tricks in restaurants, she finally gets her break to do her act on a TV talk show. Although nervous, Sasha manages to guess the card the host is thinking of, and a sealed envelope reveals her prediction of the day’s headline. All this is normal stage magician stuff. After all, Sasha knows the supernatural does not exist.

Then a zombie attacks her onstage—an actual zombie. The security people tear it apart as if they do this all the time. After being stared into a trance, Sasha is carried back to her apartment. She has a dream of another couple of zombies getting sicced on her. When this comes true, a friendly neighbor named Vlad destroys those two. Vlad doesn’t need to eat, and he doesn’t seem to age, so he’s a …

The Girl Who Sees by Dima Zales is a fun novel. Sasha keeps seeing impossible things, but because she gets put into a trance, and the people around her downplay what she sees, it’s a while before she knows for sure that the supernatural is real. As a stage magician who knows that magic is not real, this rocks her worldview.

This is written in first person, which is common enough for urban fantasy. But it’s also written in present tense, which I didn’t notice while I was reading it. First person present tense is best for a character who does not know what is going on, and that fits Sasha.

We also get an insight into how certain stage magic tricks are done. For me, this doesn’t ruin those performances—it shows the immense preparation that goes into them. And Sasha uses her mentalist abilities to try to get some clue as to what is happening around her.

Also, it is peppered with pop culture references--everything from The Matrix to Batman to Alice in Wonderland. And okay, Sasha Urban is a marketing kind of name for a character. But it works. Fellow writers should not be jealous.

Buffy the Vinyl Slayer

Below is the Buffy action figure made out of vinyl.

How important was the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer? See my entry titled “What if Buffy had Never Been?” 

What if Buffy had Never Been?

Buffy the Vampire Slayer changed popular culture in more ways than one. It paved the way for the incredible dominance of urban fantasy in novels—these are the novels set in our modern times that tend to have women fighting vampires, werewolves, etc. At one point, as I was looking at the science fiction/fantasy shelves of a bookstore, a fellow walked by and complained about the lack of science fiction. “It’s all vampires now!” Although urban fantasy is currently shrinking, it’s still an established part of such bookshelves.

Those who are not into such novels would have noticed the uptick in TV shows set in contemporary times featuring vampires, werewolves, etc. They must have wondered what was going on!

Buffy also changed pop culture in another way. Their musical episode “Once More, with Feeling” was so successful, other TV series went on to have special musical episodes. I find the song “Walk through the Fire” to be one of the greatest popular songs ever written. It’s copyright, so I can’t show you it on this blog, but I’m sure you can find it. That soundtrack is definitely worth owning.

But what if Buffy had never been?

I’m talking about a slightly alternate universe. Many people wonder why Buffy wasn’t that successful in its first season (actually only a half-season in length). Why? It was up against Ally McBeal.

For those of you who don’t know, Ally McBeal had a very different portrayal of the feminine. It featured Ally literally swooning over men she met, and it dominated among young female viewers. As I watched the first season of Buffy and saw how fantastic it was, I knew that many young women who should have been watching it were wasting their time watching Ally McBeal. I was quite concerned Buffy wouldn’t make it.

But for its second season, Buffy was no longer on against Ally McBeal, and the rest is history. But what if Buffy had been cancelled?

Urban fantasy would not have dominated the bookshelves. TV shows with contemporary vampires and werewolves would have been far fewer. Even the movie scene would have changed, since I don’t believe the Twilight series would have been such a raging success without Buffy paving the way. I know that Ally McBeal had its share of musical numbers, but without the success of the Buffy musical, other TV series would not have dared to write entire episodes as musicals.

Joss Whedon, who was the driving force behind Buffy, is now directing The Avengers movies, which are changing expectations for movie blockbusters. But without the culture-changing success of Buffy, he would have just been some guy who felt sorry for the blondes who got killed in horror movies.

So instead of pop culture featuring variations of Buffy kicking a vampire’s head in, it would have been dominated by stick-figured women swooning over the men they liked. Now, isn’t that a nasty alternate universe?