Review: The Empire
I first heard of this book via The Galaxy Express, an awesomely titled blog that focuses on the subgenre of science fiction romance or SFR. It’s not the first time I’ve used the site to see what’s out there, and The Empire was the subject of an interesting series of posts about cover art. The cover blurb sounded interesting and the Kindle copy was only $2.99? Why not.
Why not, indeed. What Lang has presented here is a study in derivation. A quarter of the way into the book and there’s nothing here to hook me. The world is bland and brings absolutely nothing new to space opera. I realize this is SFR primarily, but SFR and space opera go hand in hand. It lives firmly within the standard scifi setting and doesn’t bother to do anything to spice things up. Sadistic totalitarian state? Yep. Alien menace from beyond the galaxy? Yep. Aliens who are just like humans for no good reason? Yep.
Not to mention errors throughout the text. Things that an editor should have caught, like a your/you’re problem early on and places where verb tense is wrong.
Then there’s the characters.
The hero, Adrian, is boring. Lang gets bonus points taken off for using rape as a plot device and making me actually read through the sexual abuse. This is not a way to get me to empathize with a hero whose primary personality trait–coldness–is something she constantly has to pepper throughout the text. It’s a way to get me to mark the author down as someone I never want to read again. Adrian’s coldness isn’t due to said torture, incidentally. Before Adrian’s torture and abuse (I should’ve stopped there, let’s be honest) his chilly personality is mentioned. More than once. In particular–look. I get it. He has cold eyes. I was less than 20% of the way through the book and had already grown tired of being informed of this.
Kali, our heroine, isn’t much better. She has more of a personality, to be sure, but she’s more an archetype than a person. She’s the brave/sacrificing/spunky/caring sort. Oh, and she’s also a telepathic near-human alien, which is something else that makes me facepalm. I get it when a television show has near-human aliens. That makes sense. Your actors are going to be human and you work with what you have. This isn’t television, and there’s no explanation given as to why there are near-human aliens. I’m not using the term humanoid because she doesn’t even have the decency to have a funny forehead or be randomly blue. (This is actually a problem I have with SFR in general. Too many near-human aliens, too little explanation.)
The brightest point by far is Bryce, the secondary male lead who was a con-man given the choice of enlisting in the military or going to prison. He and Kali are friends, and while he and Adrian don’t get along, he’s surprisingly loyal to the man. He’s not an impediment to whatever boring romance is going on between the boring heroes, either…he’s got this cute semi-antagonistic flirtation going with the junior officer whose quarters are next door to his. If this book were about Bryce and the obnoxious pretty girl next door who presses all the wrong buttons, this would be an ENTIRELY different review.
But it’s not. Perhaps I’m being too harsh here and an engaging plot sets in and Lang will stop telling me how Adrian is cold and actually make him more than just a cardboard cut-out. Maybe she’ll explain why Kali’s people are so close to human. I think the biggest disappointment here is how I can see the ghost of something I’d honestly love in this book. Thing is, I’m a student. I have to read textbooks and notes and if the stuff I’m reading in my leisure time takes more than a quarter of the way through without presenting me anything I haven’t seen done better somewhere else? I’m not going to read the rest. My time is more valuable than that.
The Empire is by Elizabeth Lang and is published by IFWG Publishing.
Grade: DNF
Announcement: Re-opening! For real this time!
I even have a fresh review sitting in the queue.
Not to get into too much detail, I’ve spent most of 2011 struggling with some personal issues that have left me feeling more drained and scatterbrained than usual. (My personal blog spells it out if you’re really that nosy. It’s nothing that interesting.) Feeling better now, though, and my lack of extracurriculars this semester leaves me open to start reading and reviewing again.
So! Hi there!
Announcement: Slight adjustment of schedule!
I still plan on the Tuesday/Friday schedule, but clearly I didn’t manage to get started this Tuesday.
I’ll be ready by Friday. So the grand re-opening shall be this Friday, June 10th!
Announcement: Re-opening!
It’s been over a year, I know. I’m sorry. Life got complicated, then inertia took over.
Starting on Tuesday, however, I will yet again be posting reviews to this blog. I’m looking at a Tuesday/Friday publishing schedule, and will be branching out into novels as well.
See you Tuesday!
Reviews: Manga Recon Catchup
Well, the every week thing doesn’t seem to be working, does it? I’ll do these as I can.
These are my Manga Recon reviews from January 7, 2010 – March 9, 2010
1/11/10
The Magic Touch, Vol. 5, by Izumi Tsubaki: B
Mixed Vegetables, Vol. 6, by Ayumi Komura: C+
1/17/10
St. Dragon Girl, Vol. 5, by Natsumi Matsumoto: B
1/24/10
Deka Kyoshi, Vol. 1, by Tamio Baba: B+
1/25/10
Only One Wish, by Mia Ikumi: C+
2/1/10
Croquis, by Hinako Takanaga: D
Selfish Mr. Mermaid, Vol. 2, by Nabako Kamo: D+
2/14/10
Mikansei No. 1, Vol. 1, by Majiko!: D
2/17/10
Beast Master, Vol. 2, by Kyousuke Motomi: A-
Crown of Love, Vol. 1 by Yun Kouga: B+
3/8/10
Sugarholic, Vol. 3, by Gong GooGoo: B+
3/9/10
Time and Again, Vol. 1 by JiUn Yun: B
Review: Sugar Princess, Vols. 1-2
Maya Kurinoki had no burning dream to be a figure skater when she took her little brother Ryota to the ice rink. She was just using two free tickets that she had won at her local rice shop. Her skating life begins when Ryota, who is hesitant on ice skates, challenges Maya: if she can do the twisting jump they saw on television the night before (a double axel), he’ll try skating.
She lands it. It isn’t perfect–her posture and technique are both off, but she manages to jump, twist, and land on her feet. The other leisure skaters at the rink all congratulate her–except for one, this scruffy-looking man who comes straight up to her and asks her if she wants to become a princess!
His name is Eishi Todo, and by “princess” he means figure skater. He wants to pair Maya up with a male skater, Shun Kano, who is currently without a partner. Maya’s new at this skating thing, but Todo thinks that with Maya’s natural grace, she’ll be able to skill up quickly. Shun isn’t so sure, nor is he interested in having a new partner. He’s still mourning the death of his former partner and older sister Aya.
The rest of the story is about Maya’s education in figure skating and first competition. There is some strife thrown into the mix as the son of the owner of the rink wants to shut it down to build something that’ll make more money, and he bargains against Shun and Maya’s ability to place at the competition.
I’ll be honest here: I picked up Sugar Princess because I felt the need to read some figure skating manga after watching the skating competitions from the Vancouver Olympics. I’m pleased to say that it hit the spot. It’s a little short, perhaps, but the leads are likable and the story is focused on the skating rather than the relationship between the two. This isn’t to say that they have no relationship at all–it’s just that it’s not focused on romance but rather the bonds that grow between two athletes.
It’s a refreshing change.
Sugar Princess is by Hisaya Nakajo and is published in the US by VIZ Media under the Shojo Beat imprint.
Grade: B+
Miscellany: Spring Semester
It’s not so much that I’ve forgotten to read and review.
It’s that I’m taking eighteen credit hours this semester and have also taken an officer position with a student organization at my college. I really should have posted this at the beginning of the semester, but I didn’t think about it until now.
So. I intend on getting to some reviewing of my backlog this week and definitely next, but I thought I should give some sort of explanation as to why you haven’t seen me post anything for a while.
Review: Selfish Mr. Mermaid, Vol. 1
When timid Kanan comes home from his office job to find his apartment flooded, he rushes upstairs to see what’s going on. This sets off a series of events in which the upstairs neighbor, a pushy guy called Kaioh, ends up living in Kanan’s bathtub. Kaioh is a mermaid, though never once is he seen with any fishlike qualities other than his love of soaking in the tub (who doesn’t?) and the ability to breathe underwater (though not through gills).
Soon, a romance establishes itself. I guess. I don’t really see the attraction between the two. As the title suggests, Kaioh is extremely selfish. Kanan is not so much a character as he is a human-shaped doormat who insists that Kaioh is really kind, deep down.
The rest of the volume concerns itself with introducing side characters such as Kaioh’s half-sister Suoh, who is boyish and abrupt, and Kaioh’s childhood rival Haru, who is yet another pretty boy. None of these characters are very interesting to me at all. In fact, I was ready to write Selfish Mr. Mermaid off entirely when suddenly the manga introduced me to Haru’s best friend. A giant clam.
That’s when I started to giggle. Honestly, the giant clam made up for most of what I’d read before. It might not work for everyone, but I’m a Doctor Who fan, and–well, here’s a Youtube clip of why I started laughing:
Unfortunately, the giant clam does not stay a bivalve very long.
The art of Selfish Mr. Mermaid is unremarkable in the best panels, and uneven and off-balance in the worst. There are places where the facial features don’t fit the face or where proportions don’t fit. Underwater scenes don’t seem to pay any attention to the physics of how water works, leaving me to wonder why the characters go underwater in the first place. Overall, Selfish Mr. Mermaid is worth a miss.
Selfish Mr. Mermaid is by Nabako Kamo and is published in the US by June.
Grade: C-
Review: Mr. Flower Bride
Don’t judge a book by its cover.
It’s one of the first clichés I ever learned, far enough back into my past that I don’t actually remember a time when I didn’t know those words. I propose a new corollary to it, however:
Don’t judge a manga by its art.
I quite like the art of Mr. Flower Bride, particularly the expressiveness of the characters’ faces. It’s true that some designs can seem repetitive, but I don’t mind that so much because I can easily decipher a character’s emotional state.
The story. Well. Shinji Souda is the younger son of the Souda family, and when his sister-in-law finds out that she’s pregnant with a son, Shinji is married off. To a boy. Not just a boy, but Aoi Uno, an effeminate boy from his class. While Shinji initially wants none of it, Aoi has been harboring a crush on Shinji for quite some time and was happy to accept the marriage proposal.
The resulting courtship seems kind of rushed. Shinji is quick to accept Aoi as his spouse, even laying claim to him in public, at school. Aoi has initial moments of doubt, but that goes away quickly. I think the story might have benefitted from being longer, but instead there are three short stories in this volume, only one of them related to the main narrative of Mr. Flower Bride.
Of the remaining two short stories, one is a tale of a high school student and his diminutive male bodyguard. It’s nothing new, but it’s not bad. The other–I don’t get the other. There’s a young male prostitute in an image club who is dressed as a woman, the young man who’ll inherit the image club, and some sex that is creepy and almost shotacon. From conversation, I’m surmising that the prostitute is indeed of legal age, but what I don’t get is why the prostitute was male in the first place. It certainly didn’t pertain to the story at all.
In the end, Mr. Flower Bride has little that keeps me interested. The main story, while inoffensive enough, picks a BL formula and sticks to it without deviation. Two of the short stories aren’t really memorable, and the third is only memorable because I find it bewildering and a little gross.
Mr. Flower Bride is by Lily Hoshino and is published in the US by Yen Press.
Grade: C-
Reviews: Manga Recon Catchup
These were my Manga Recon reviews for the week of December 30-January 6.
12/30/2009
The Lizard Prince, Vol. 1 by Asuka Izumi: B+
01/01/2010
The Aristocrat and the Desert Prince by Haruhi Tono with illustrations by Ai Hasukawa: D+
01/03/2010
Pandora Hearts, Vol. 1 by Jun Mochizuki: B+
