Category: reviews

Quick Thoughts: Healthy Women Conflict

Laura Highcove

Been watching a new Chinese Drama called ‘Everyone Loves Me’. Basic premise is Yue Qianling (female lead) is an artist at a game company and also loves playing fps games. She has a friend group who play together. Gu Xun (male lead) is a member of the friend group, and likes her, but she likes him in real life, and neither of them know the other is the online friend.

Gu Xun has Yue Qianling come work for his department due to her art skills for a particular character, and the person who was working on this character is a woman. I was impressed that they added conflict by having the woman disapprove of her in a completely reasonable way. Yue Qianling’s new and untested, hasn’t worked on this type of game before, her first draft comes out very bland, so the other artist has plenty of reasons to criticize her. And again, the criticisms are completely justified, and while blunt, are not harsh.

The reason I’m pointing it out is because it’s such a refreshing thing to have to women in conflict in an Asian drama in a reasonable way that doesn’t have anything to do with them both bring in love with the same guy or out of irrational jealousy/pettiness over the other’s looks. It’s a legitimate character interaction.

And yes, Yue Qianling does eventually earn her approval.

First Impressions: My Demon

Laura Highcove

My Demon is a Korean Drama currently coming out on Netflix. Korean Dramas are always hit or miss for me. It is still difficult in this day and age for K-dramas to have a romantic story where the female lead is empowered, or at least not reduced to a helpless damsel in distress if she’s not outright mentally abused by the male lead.

In My Demon, an immortal demon, whose job is to grant a person’s wish for payment of their souls after ten years, loses his power-granting tattoo to a powerful young CEO who is being targeted for death.

I just started episode 3 of this series and so far it has some nice green flags:

  1. The female lead is a CEO, competent, empowered one, and does not suddenly lose agency when the male lead shows up.
  2. The male lead has magic powers, but they are limited when his tattoo transfers to her (for unknown reason) so he does not hold all the power in the relationship.
  3. The female lead is told that the tattoo has his powers and that he needs to be touching her to use them, thus avoiding infantalizing the female lead in that he would just hang around using her without her knowing why.
  4. Most of the major decisions regarding how the two of them interact are made by the female lead instead of the male lead simply forcing himself on her constantly.
  5. And though the male lead is a self-centered jerk, is not set up as a child the female lead needs to keep cleaning up after.
  6. I swear, Korean Dramas are what YA Fantasy would be without the gd age restrictions.

I remain hopeful for this series considering how many of the painful tropes it’s already countered, but I’m annoyed that it’s coming out slowly. Also, since it’s a K-drama, the fact that it’s only 16 episodes is unusual, but they’re not pussy-footing around the plot, and we know the story will be wrapped up at the end of those episodes.

So if this series interests you, like it does me, give it a shot. I’d love to hear what you think about it.

Review: Black Leviathan

Laura Highcove

My Review of Black Leviathan by Bernd Perplies

My summary: Dragon hunters go out on flying ships to fight and kill dragons, which provide most of the food and clothing to the people of the Cloudmere.

Why I picked up this book: I think I saw it featured in one of Tor.com’s newsletters. I read the back cover copy and thought it looked good.

What I knew going in: It’s a retelling of Moby Dick, but set in a fantasy world with dragons. Also, it was written in German and then translated into English by Lucy Van Clee.

My response: The language was very simple, but that may be a result of it being translated from a different language where the rhythm of language is just different. I found myself pulled along following Lian’s story and the world was very beautifully pulled together.

I was a little less than impressed with the ending, which felt like it was a lot of ‘oh, this is happening because of destiny.’ When there wasn’t really much of a focus on destiny before that point. It almost felt like the book was about to be over and he needed to wrap everything up. There were also a lot of questions that simply got left at the end of the book, which would’ve been fine if there was a sequel, but as far as I can tell there isn’t. Right now I’m just looking at it as there’s enough answered for the book to be over, and enough unanswered that you know the characters are going to go out and have more adventures.

Do I recommend this book?: If you’re going to be upset by a less than stellar ending, then avoid it, but if you’re okay with a wonderful ride of a book and wonderful world-building then I do recommend it.

Review: Gotham Seasons 1-4

Laura Highcove

Review: Gotham

My husband and I describe Gotham with the phrase: “The worst show on TV we never miss an episode of.”

Our relationship with Gotham has been very interesting, from the beginning. We gave it a shot because it’s Batman, or that universe at least. This show has a lot of bad qualities, one of which being the almost universally bad acting. In season 1, I almost couldn’t stand any time Jim Gordan, the main character, tried to act anything more than a casual conversation between coworkers. Bruce Wayne, was almost as terrible, but we gave him a pass because the actor was still a kid. The only person who did seem to be able to act was Harvey Dent.

And yet, week after week we kept coming back to the show, and it paid off. Because this show knows how to do payoffs. Of course I can’t necessarily give any of those without spoilers galore, but while the lead up is rough and sometimes painful, this show can make the different plots and the different characters come together into beautiful and amazing moments that make you want to cheer.

And thankfully, by Season 5, the acting has improved, and looking back, the character development has been rather beautiful. Jim, Penguin, Barbara, Selena, Ivy, and especially Ed and Bruce. Jim still overacts when he gets really emotional, but Bruce has really settled so firmly into his role and it is a beautiful thing to behold. The first episode of Season 5 has me eager to see how things are going to progress. If you haven’t given Gotham a shot, I’d encourage you to. And if you can make it through the first season, it’s totally worth it. (Plus, season two is when Alfred suddenly becomes more British, because I guess they got a writer who knows British lingo.)

Review: Foundryside

Laura Highcove

My Review of Foundryside by Robert Jackson Bennett

My summary: A thief takes the job to steal something, even though the offered money is enough to inform her that it’s a job that would be better left alone. She knows she shouldn’t open the box, but she just can’t help herself.

Why I picked up this book: Truthfully? Because I was impressed enough by his ‘Divine Cities’ trilogy and the ending he nailed, that I picked up this book without even reading the cover. I find myself doing that a lot more, recently.

What I knew going in: The book is called Foundryside and he got some cover quotes by impressive people.

My response: I had my mind blown by the world building at least three times in the first 150 pages of this book. I devoured this book like it was a thriller, it pulled me along so beautifully. There was one span of maybe ten pages somewhere close after the halfway point that dragged enough for me to notice. The characters were all enjoyable, the magic system was amazing, and I am dying to find out more about the world he’s set up.

Do I recommend this book?: In terms of world-building and magic system, I was impressed by this book more page for page than anything Sanderson I’ve read. Wow, that was actually painful for me to write. So yes, go read this book.

Review: Vicious

Laura Highcove

My Review of Vicious by V.E. Scwab

My summary: Two college students discover how ExtraOrdinaries, people with special abilities, are created. And then they try it for themselves.

Why I picked up this book: I liked her first series, plus I heard it was really good.

What I knew going in: I knew it was about people with special powers.

My response: The cover certainly portrays the correct feeling. I found myself intrigued by how she draws the reader through the book using time skipping to introduce questions to get you around the fact that the main character really isn’t all that likable, especially to begin with.
I enjoyed this book, and the characters in it, but it didn’t really hook me in any meaningful way. But then darker, grittier series tend to really have to grab me with characters, and this one just didn’t do that. I’m not sure whether I’ll pick up the next book or not.

Do I recommend this book?: It was well written, just not my cup of tea. I have a few friends I’d recommend it to because I know their reading habits, but I won’t go out of my way to talk it up.

Review: Partials

Laura Highcove

My Review of Partials by Dan Wells

My summary: Eleven years after a virus wipes out 99.9% of the human population, there have been no babies that live more than a few days. A females over 18 must have babies as often as they are able, in the hopes that one will be born immune to the virus. All while the Partials, super-human soldiers who released the virus in the first place, loom over them as an ever present threat.

Why I picked up this book: Been listening to Dan Wells on Writing Excuses forever, and got to know him better while I was on the Writing Excuses Cruise, so I figured I would read another of his books.

What I knew going in: The Partials Sequence was fairly popular.

My response: Not the first time I’ve been late to something because I was reading, but the first time in a long while. This book took a while to get going, but as soon as Kira, the main character, decides she needs to try and capture a Partial, I was loathe to put the book down. The world seemed entirely realistic, if not terrifying, and there were even very good answers to the questions of why a teenager is given so much responsibility, and why she can figure out things that no one else was able to in eleven years.
In addition, I found that in being on a boat with Dan Wells for a week indoctrinated me to his personalty enough that I kept hearing him in the words I was reading. First time I’ve interacted with a professional author enough for that to happen. (I look forward to reading another of Mary Robinette and Howard’s stories to see if the same thing happens with them.)

Do I recommend this book?: Yes. Even though post-apocalypse is not really my jam, I liked the characters and the story was rock solid.

Review: Legion

Laura Highcove

My Review of Legion by Brandon Sanderson

My summary: Stephen Leeds has hallucinations that have personalities and expertise that help him solve crimes, but who he must imagine as realistically existing in the world (ie: Each individual hallucination must have his or her own room, or their own seat on an airplane.).

Why I picked up this book: Mostly because it’s Brandon Sanderson. I actually passed on it when it was just a novella, and only picked it up now when all three stories are included.

What I knew going in: That the main character could interact with his hallucinations.

My response: I always thought this was an interesting concept, but it got a new layer when I realized the lengths Stephen had to go through in order to stay sane. The mysteries he solves, in themselves, are interesting, but I really loved Stephen and his interactions with the other people in his brain. Also, very satisfied with the ending, but then I don’t think Brandon’s let me down on that count yet.

Do I recommend this book?: It’s entertaining enough. I’ve read so much Brandon Sanderson now that I feel no need to champion every one of his books. I’ll still recommend the Mistborn trilogy first, and if (and ONLY if) you’re a dedicated epic fantasy fan, the Stormlight Archives, over this book.

Review: Avengers: Infinity War

Laura Highcove

My Review of Avengers: Infinity War

My summary: Thanos is here. Yeah, we’re f&%$ed.

Why I watched this movie: I love the MCU.

What I knew going in: The rest of the MCU.

My response: Well part of me is ashamed of myself because I didn’t write this review back when I first saw the movie, and thus had the strongest opinions about what I saw. Now we’re left with what I remember the best, which perhaps are the things that hit me the hardest. First off, the opening scene basically kicked me in the face, not just because Loki died, but because of how well it set up the tone for the entire movie. As soon as that first scene ended, I looked at my hubby and said, “Well, holy crap.” I liked what they did with Thanos and making him somewhat human feeling. And yes, I read articles on the dangerous precedence it sets to claim Thanos really loved Gamora, who he abused for years. But I don’t think there’s any question that Thanos is a bad guy, but even bad guys are still human on some level.

The fights were all pretty cool, and they did a great job putting all the characters in even though they each got so little screen time. I was surprised by a few of the people who got ashed, but I don’t remember why specifically now since I’ve been sitting with who went and who didn’t for months now. And I was fine with them getting ashed, because, well they’re superheroes and that’s just what happens. What hit me hard, like I cried in the movie theater, was the after credit sequence where you’re in a city and half the population gets ashed. Seeing that made it far more real than ‘oh, the superheroes in the movie disappeared’. People were just gone, leaving behind friends and family who have absolutely no clue what happened, who were in no way involved. Is the rest of the world even going to be told what really happened? And while we *know* it’s all going to get fixed somehow, we have no idea how quickly, and if anyone will remember what happened or not.

Do I recommend this movie?: Yes.

Review: Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom

Laura Highcove

My Review of Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom

My summary: An RPG/Squad/Kingdom Builder/Idle Game blend about a young prince whose father is murdered, and is then saved by the President of the United States (not even kidding), and gathers a group of friends to create a new kingdom and unite the world in peace.

Why I picked up this game: Someone told me about the kingdom building aspect of it, and I was interested in that, plus I needed some sort of reward for finishing Camp Nanowrimo.

What I knew going in: Kingdom builder/RPG with Ghibli designs.

My response:

Positives:

This game is actually like three games in one.

There’s the RPG game, with free-moving combat a-la FFXV, only fighting felt easy and much more natural than FFXV. You level up, get new weapons and armor, and unlock and level up spells. There were also higglties. I didn’t use them the way they expected you to, but meh. My gear was so overpowered by late game that I didn’t need them.

There was also a …squad combat game, that you used to fight battles they they wanted to feel better than a party of three versus some monsters. You had four squads of people that would then fight other squads of people as you took territory and built structures. It was a ton of fun, but I don’t think I made it sound all that great.

And lastly, my main reason for purchasing the game, a kingdom-building idle game that I focused most of my attention on. The resource you needed in order to build up the kingdom was timing based. So even when I wasn’t playing the game proper, I would leave the game running and check back every half-hour or so to use the recources or finish research. You also recruit people from other kingdoms to yours in order to put them to work. I found out later that there were checkpoints in the main story where you were required to have your kingdom to have a certain amount of “reputation”. I wasn’t even aware of this because I was basically building up my kingdom as much as I could whenever I could. This is also why my gear was so boss by the end of the game.

An interesting feature was that every quest basically told you exactly where to go and who to talk to. There were even markers on your map telling you who had a quest for you. And when you were tracking a quest 90% of the quests showed you exactly where to go on the map. Part of me was annoyed that the game held your hand so tightly in this regard, but the other part of me was happy to not have to do much wandering around without purpose, or talking to everyone each time a major plot point resolved in order to find new quests. So in the end, I enjoyed it, but I could see some people being annoyed by the simplicity of it.

Overall, loved the game-play itself.

Negatives:

Not impressed with the dungeons or the so called “mazes”. Dungeons were stupidly linear (and bland looking), with no more than two paths at a time, one of which would either loop back in or end in short order. And then there were the Dimensional Mazes. I was terrified to go in the first time because they talked about how you couldn’t save, and there was no map, and over time the enemies would get stronger. They were stupid and not at all difficult, and the ones I found during the course of normal game-play didn’t even have good items in them.

Music: I started playing without sound on at all because the music in almost every place besides Evermore had this …urgency to it that made me tense. Like the kind of music that plays when you need to hurry up, only it was like that all the time. English voices weren’t bad.

The Story. Okay yes, there are spoilers from here on. You’ve been warned, but the story is so bad and literally nonsensical in places that I really have to make fun of it. Tuck yourself in, this is going to be a long one.

So the game starts in a motorcade in what appears to be the ‘real’ world. We zoom in on an older fellow in front of what is very obviously supposed to be the seal of the United States President. He is driving into “New York City” and a nuke goes off. Stay with me. The Potus, having survived, begins to glow.

Cut to Evan, the prince who’s father has just been killed because of course he has, with the bad guards are closing in and suddenly light! Out of nowhere, the Potus, Roland, who is now like 30 years younger (and hott for Ghibli), shows up, takes in the situation, and shoots the guards.

Eventually Roland gets decked out with swords and a weapon-holding magic armband that refills his gun with bullets … They escape, leaving Evan’s bad-ass nursemaid behind to fight a mouse centaur who looks awesome but who never shows up again!

We (the party) meet up with some air pirates, and then go find some unsettled land, fight off a few bandits, get their own Kingmaker (a magical animal you need in order to prove you’re a king) and establish Evanland. Okay, so now the Kingdom Building aspect finally starts.

Everyone goes to Dogland in order to have the leader sign our peace treaty to unite the world. (Evan is a cat from Cat/Mouseland) We discover a sinister snake-wearing man is controlling the Dogleader and using the country’s love of gambling to make things very uncomfortable (financially) for people. Snakeman steals the Dogland Kingmaker, but everything’s okay otherwise and we get the treaty signed. No problem with this story yet.

Then onto the water kingdom. We get there and there are all kinds of weird rules in place (like it’s illegal to fall in love and outsiders are shunned) and there is this creepy eye watching everything. We get the Waterqueen’s right hand man in our party, who swears the queen is good even though all evidence points to her being all sorts of insane.

After we finish this area’s dungeon, (and lose the Waterland Kingmaker to Snakeman) we learn that the Waterqueen’s rules are not insane. In fact this kingdom was blown up by a volcano some time ago, and she has been continually turning back time so the kingdom still exists, but for the spell to work the number of people on the island has to stay the same. So no one can move off or onto the island, nor can any new people be born. But it’s okay (and totally not insane) because she’s going to let the spell lapse since they’ve had enough time, but before that she wants to marry her right-hand man, but weddings take a while to plan so she tells him to stay in our party until the wedding is ready to take place, and of course she’ll sign our peace treaty. I’m not even making this up. This was literally the ending cut scene for this area. Not to mention immediately after this I started recruiting people from her kingdom to my own. The kingdom never blew up and the Waterqueen and her subjects helped in the final battle …

Next we headed to Techland, a kingdom where technology (and guns) exist. (So at least I have some sort of explanation for why the armband was able to create bullets.) Here, Techleader is working his workers literally to death, but turns out he’s also controlled by Snakeman who steals Blastoise, I mean the Techland Kingmaker. Once Techleader is no longer under Snakeman’s influence, he’s cool again. No matter those people who died. We’re all friends forever.

Brief interlude where Roland convinces Evan (and the rest of the party) that he’s betraying him so he can sneak into Mouseland and get an important artifact by buddying up to Mouseking. Only Mouseking was never fooled, Roland manages to get the artifact, and explains the convoluted plan to Evan after the fact …

Then we all go back to Mouseland, where the cats now live in the slums because they treated the mice horribly before. Was Evan’s father a bad guy? Turns out no, because we find his journal, which is holding his soul (or part of it?) and he was trying to fix the hatred between the cats and mice, but Snakeman messed things up. Oh, and Snakeman shows up and takes the Mouseland Kingmaker. But Mouseleader signs our treaty. Yay!

Now Snakeman has all four Kingmakers and brings back his lost kingdom, along with a huge Kingmaker, the Horned One, that starts sucking the souls out of everyone in the world (except Evanland, because we still have our Kingmaker)

All the kingdoms have united and go to fight this new threat. (All while Roland starts having dark energy fits.) We get to Snakeman who reveals his plan to us along with the fact that he is Roland’s soulmate! (!?? Literally the day before I got to this cut scene I was watching a speed run of Ni No Kuni the first, and found out a big part of that game is that there are two worlds and each person in one world has a soulmate (in that they share a soul, not they’re lovers) with someone from the other world. There was no mention or allusion to this in Ni No Kuni II until this reveal.)

Anyway, turns out this is why Roland was pulled to this world, and we can’t fight Snakeman because it will hurt Roland. We fight him anyway. Then we find out Snakeman is doing this because he fell in love with the Kingmaker of his own kingdom and the gods punished him by wiping out his kingdom, and turning the Kingmaker into the Horned One.

We eventually triumph only to find out Snakeman (and kingdom) was not cursed by the gods, but the Kingmaker chose to become human to love Snakeman. In doing so she released the energy that made her a Kingmaker, which then destroyed the kingdom, and (I think) in trying to stop the backlash of energy she released, got caught in it and turned into the Horned One? I kind of gave up on the story by this point. Either way, they can’t be together. But Snakeman is going to start over and build a new kingdom from scratch because Evan inspired him with 12-year-old wisdom.

Now at the end of each chapter, Evan has been meeting a “curious boy” in his dreams who often says something wise and/or hints at something that happens in the next chapter, leaving the player to wonder who he could possibly be! (Mostly I forgot about him until each chapter ended.) Well, turns out he is King Ferdinand, the king who, in the past, united the whole world. Only King Ferdinand is actually Evan’s son, from the future, but he has the ability to send his mind through time, and of course he wanted to go back and see his father as a child, because who wouldn’t? Oh, and why was Evan told King Ferdinand lived in the past? Obviously because the person who told us was a seer, but didn’t know she was a seer, so she thought King Ferdinand was from the past. I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP.

/sigh

And then, of course, Roland gets pulled back home, ends up in his motorcade again, heading into “New York City” when fireworks go off instead of a nuke.

Thanks for playing!

Do I recommend this game?: I highly enjoyed the game and feel I got more than my money’s worth of enjoyment, I just had to ignore the story to do so.