Wednesday Scrolls - Literary Heroines Who Don't Suck, Urban Fantasy Arena

Yeah, we're still at it. Hope you're not tired of the Literary Heroines Who Don't Suck Saga, because we're barely halfway done. Last week we had the Fantasy Arena, which gave us our three Fantasy finalists: Hermione Granger, Courtney Crumrin, and Lady Fire. This week it's Urban Fantasy's turn.

I explained the process as best I could in the Fantasy Arena last time, so if you don't know, go back there and scan it, because I'm not going over it all again. If you want to review the competing chars, revisit the Urban Fantasy edition of LHWDS (the 'Heroine' link).

And the first battling pair of the Urban Fantasy round is... Kerry Nowicki (Companions Of The Night, Vivian Vande Velde) vs. Clarissa "Clary" Fray (Mortal Instruments series, Cassandra Clare)!

Category One. Personality.

Kerry's your definition of average. She's a bit snarky, but no more so than the average teenager. She scares easily, but who doesn't in real life? But she's also incredibly loyal to her family and incredibly brave. She's real.

Clary is your definition of "average." She thinks she's not pretty but is, she floats off into a world of her own in her head, and she's a bit oblivious. A cliché, but she does it well.

Winner: Kerry. At some point during the debate, Clary started whining and Kerry told her told her to get over herself.

Category Two. Fight!

Kerry has no technical training, but she has good instincts. She's had her hands around a gun and knows her way around a desperate brawl.

Clary is very slowly picking things up. She's naturally clumsy, which counts against her.

Winner: Kerry. Clary put up a good fight, but one-on-one isn't a good angle for her.

Category Three. "Kiss Me, You Fool!"

Kerry and Ethan. The. way. to do vampire romance. It's subtle, but obvious. Real, but not overdramatic. Amazing.

I'm a big Jace/Clary fan, and I admit to being a Jace fangirl, but their love story is so complicated and irksome, it's hard to squee over any more. Too many stupid twists and turns. Sure, they may be deeply in love, but it's an awful lot of work.

Winner: Kerry. Kerry and Ethan are so perfect, and all their complications actually make sense.

Category Four. Friends.

Kerry has no good friends. Or at least, none that are mentioned. She's pretty much just got Ethan.

Clary's only real friend is Simon, who, curiously, is the only person who stays human for a significant amount of time. But no matter what species he is, he's pretty cool. He's not, however, very powerful.
Winner: Clary. Simon looked around and waited for a while, but no one showed up for battle. Sorry, Kerry.

Category Five. Urban Fantasy Elements.

Kerry herself is just a human, but she has a powerful vampire friend who owes her a favor or two.

Clary is a dormant Shadowhunter, which means she's stronger than a human, but nowhere near as strong as a trained Shadowhunter or even a vampire, werewolf, etc. She does have abnormal powers though, even for a Shadowhunter.

Winner: Clary. She gotz special skillz.

End Score! Kerry: 3 Clary: 2 Yay, Kerry! You move on to the next round! Don't worry, Clary, Mortal Instruments will always have a special place on my bookshelf.

And our second battling pair is... Mercedes "Mercy" Thompson (Mercedes Thompson series, Patricia Briggs) vs. Claire Danvers (Morganville Vampires, Rachel Caine). First of all, this isn't really fair because Claire is sixteen and Mercy is who knows how old, but definitely an adult and far more experiened. But we'll see how it goes.

Category One. Personality.

Claire is a tough teenager. She goes to college two years early all by herself and endures cruel hazing, so she must be tough. And then she meets the vampires. Plus she's actually smart, and she knows how to use her knowledge. But she's not supergirl either, so she's well rounded. She doesn't need some sadistic childhood to make her interesting.

Mercy, of course, is also tough. She grew up with werewolves, after all. But she's got your basic adult urban fantasy heroine personality: tough, clever, and wears impractical clothing on her book covers. But she's a bit more interesting in the fact that she actually is tough and clever.

Winner: Claire. Mercy's personality may be more assertive, but Clary wins the argument because she makes more sense, and really is just more interesting.

Category Two. Fight!

Physical challenges are not Claire's strong point, but she does good when she needs to. She's not opposed to throwing a punch, but if she ever tried to beat someone up, she'd probably fail.

Mercy, on the other hand, grew up with werewolves. Of course she can defend herself.

Winner: Mercy. Claire didn't stand a chance.

Category Three. "Kiss Me, You Fool!"

Claire and Shane are cute. Not original or spectacular, but cute. Shane's obviously crazy about her, but she's not all he thinks about, and the same goes for Claire.

Mercy follows the tradition of adult urban fantasy heroines by having several love interests, all of different species. But she never actually gets close to any of them, which branches off from the norm, but leaves her with nothing.
Winner: Claire, mostly by default.

Category Four: Friends.

Claire's got the ghost friend, the goth friend, and the boyfriend. And you might even count the two most powerful vamps in town, but that'd probably be stretching it.

Like most adult urban fantasy heroines, Mercy doesn't have a best friend or even any really good friends, but you can count Stefan, a vampire, and Warren, possibly the only gay werewolf.

Winner: Draw. Mercy's friends might be more powerful, but Claire's are more reliable.

Category Five: Urban Fantasy Elements.

Claire actually has none. In fact, she'd be better suited to a science fiction novel, the little genius.

On the other hand, Mercy turns into a coyote.
Winner: Mercy.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a TIE. Tie Breaker Category: Drama Queen.

Sure, Claire freaks out plenty of times, but she gets over it. She's a scientist after all. She just looks for the facts, finds them, deals with them, and moves on. No needless drama here.

Mercy's hardly a drama queen, but sometimes she gets immersed in her issues and you get bored. Sure, maybe she's got some interesting backstory, but no one really wants to hear about it in the middle of a murder mystery. Get some closure already.

Winner: Claire. The sixteen-year-old has less drama than the coyote woman? Weird.

End Score! Claire: 3 Mercy: 2 Draws: 1 Congratulations, Claire! Hurrah for the underdog! Don't worry Mercy, you're still one of the best adult urban fantasy heroines.

And our last pair is...Sookie Stackhouse (Southern Vampires, Charlaine Harris) vs. Kaylee Cavanaugh (Soul Screamers, Rachel Vincent)!

Category One: Personality.

Sookie's adorable. She's sweet, but since she can read minds, she's not naive. She can be mean when she has to, and half the time she's just struggling to appear normal.

Kaylee's personality is refreshingly normal, which makes her seem very real. She keeps a clear head in a crisis, but when she lets herself freak out when the situation calls for it.

Winner: Sookie. She's just funner to hang with. Even Kaylee agrees.

Category Two: Fight!

Sookie's no martial artist, but she can take care of herself. In her world, she kind of has to.

Kaylee mostly relies on luck and the element of surprise. But hey, whatever works.

Winner: Draw. Neither do too well against each other.

Category Three: "Kiss Me, You Fool!"

Like every other adult urban fantasy heroine, Sookie has a variety of love interests, but they're all so much better than everyone else's. They're not random shmexy males popping up all over the place and exhibiting strange attraction, they actually have purpose.

Kaylee, however, has one boyfriend, Nash, who made the hate list. Hm.

Winner: Sookie. Every one of her gentlemen friends could beat Nash one-on-one.

Category Four: Friends.

Sookie's got a few of them, Tara, Sam, and others that pop in and out as the series goes on. They all have their moments.

Kaylee's got the human best friend and a reaper friend, Todd, who is pretty darn awesome.

Winner: Sookie. Tara and Sam are very intimidating, and Todd knows when to back down.

Category Five: Urban Fantasy Elements.

Sookie is telepathic with fairy blood. Not something you hear every day. She's also surrounded by vampires, weres, fairies, and just about everything else.

Kaylee is a bean sidhe, or banshee. Also something you don't find every day. The only other creatures she meets are reapers and demons, though.

Winner: Draw. Sookie gets points for being paranormal herself and still having the classic vampires and werewolves, but Kaylee does awesome too for being something very rarely used and doing it well.

End Score! Sookie: 3 Kaylee: 0 Draws: 2 Congrats, Sookie! You proceed to the next round! Ouch, Kaylee, but you still did pretty good.

So our Urban Fantasy finalists are Kerry Nowicki, Claire Danvers, and Sookie Stackhouse! Tune in next Wednesday for the Classic & Historical Heroine Arena!

--Persy

Persy -- The Demon's Lexicon by Sarah Rees Brennan

Nick and Alan Ryves's life is one of constant motion. They never stay long in one place, have to always be ready to fight, and have to keep from getting into too much trouble just being them. Oh, and there's Olivia, their crazy mum. They have to look after her, too.

Many years ago, Olivia stole a powerful charm from one of the evil magicians (all magicians are evil, btw), Black Arthur. Ever since, Black Arthur (and just about every other magician) has been chasing them around the country, trying to get it back. And Olivia can't give it back, because it is now the only thing keeping her alive.

Nick wouldn't have a problem with his mum's death. Olivia can't stand the sight of Nick, and Nick can't stand the sight of her. But Alan cares about Olivia, so Nick won't let anything happen to their mum. Alan's the only person Nick cares about.

It's not a bad life. That is to say, they've gotten used to it. But everything goes topsy turvy when siblings Mae and Jamie Crawford come to them for help. A demon has been visiting Jamie, and he now has two demon marks on him, which means there's no hope. Nick tells them Jamie's death is now enevitable, and he's ready to move on. But Alan wants to help, and they end up getting into a whole mess of trouble.

From the very start I hated this book. It felt a bit too...written, if that makes any sense. None of the characters feel real, like someone you might meet on the street. They feel like characters. And then there's their characters. Let's start with Alan and Nick. Nick is always, always, always angry. He's the absolute extreme of teenage angry. Alan, on the other hand, is always, always, always nice and sympathetic and loves everybody. He's the absolute extreme of friendly love and happiness. Or something. Mae is just kind of there to have a girl character, and you can tell that Sarah Rees Brennan tried to make her interesting (pink hair, odd fashion sense, likes magic stuff), but it just didn't work. Mae is just there. Jamie is definitely my favorite character. He's kind of awkward and funny in a nerdy kind of way, and when he and Nick are stuck together things are always funny.

There were many, many times where I almost put down the book. I'd flip forward some, glimpse a mildly interesting paragraph, and then just keep reading in the hopes something got better. And then when I read the first half of the book in about an hour, I figured I might as well just finish it.

I've never been so irritated to find an author who writes well.

Turns out, there is an explanation for everything (well, mostly everything). There's a reason Nick is so, so, so angry all the freakin' time, anyway. Not much about Alan's lovey dovey-ness, but oh well.

I'm not going to tell you what the explanation is, because that would be ruining the most amazing plot twist ever. So, unfortunately, I'm going to have to recommend that you read this book, because it turns out Sarah Rees Brennan does kind of know what she's doing after all. Sigh.

The ending almost makes up for the rest of it, because it was a very good ending. And you know how I feel about endings: a good finale will make up for almost anything else you do. But I still can't quite like any of the characters, or even the world in general. But that one plot twist...*sigh*.

So this is obviously a very mixed review. Hated it almost the entire time I was reading it, but...GAAH. I hardly ever find a plot twist I don't see coming, so now that I've found one that actually makes perfect twist and took me completely by surprise, I can't help but respect and admire the book and writer who pulled it off. So venture into The Demon's Lexicon at your own risk.

--Persy

Arty -- The Wish List by Eoin Colfer

Yes, I know just about everyone knows Eoin Colfer, but I've been reading mostly series for a while - this is the only stand-alone I feel like reviewing.

Meg Finn is too bad for Heaven and too good for Hell. That pretty much sums up The Wish List. During an attempted heist on an elderly man's house, Meg and her partner-in-crime Belch blow up a gas tank, which kills them both. Because of a random act of goodness, though, Meg finds herself perfectly balanced between Heaven and Hell. So, to tip the scales, Meg is sent back to Earth as a ghost, to assist the man she and Belch assaulted before they were killed.

If you've read any of the Artemis Fowl series, you know what you'll get from Eoin Colfer - witty dialogue, sharp action, and lots of twists and turns. One of the characters instantly reminded me of Foaly, with his technological doublespeak. All fairy references aside, however, Wish List stands on its own.

Meg isn't overly endearing unless she's bantering with Lowrie, the old gentleman she has to help. Lowrie is more likable, even if a little cliché, as a crusty old guy with lost dreams he wants to fulfill before he too kicks the can. The supporting cast, of course, is typical of Colfer's style.

Also predictable is his loose regard to morals and lawbreaking. To fulfill one of Lowrie's wishlist items, they have to break into a football stadium. The next item has to do with getting revenge on a childhood bully; though he doesn't actually follow through, Meg herself gets her revenge on her stepfather through Lowrie. It annoyed me a little; but if you don't mind that kind of thing, you'll be fine.

Lawless antics aside, The Wish List was a fun, short read for people who have exhausted Artemis Fowl. Colfer's fairies are better, but his ghosts aren't half bad either.

Arty

Persy -- Story Time by Edward Bloor

All Kate Peters wants is to star in her school's fall performance of Peter Pan. She doesn't want to go to the 'Genius School', Whittaker Magnet School, and besides, she's not a genius anyway. Her uncle George is, though, and Whittaker wants him.

To clarify, Kate's mother, June, and George are siblings, but they were born about thirty years apart, so George is two years younger than Kate.

When George goes online to look at school districts, he finds some disturbing information about Whittaker. Their district is in the shape of a mutant octopus, with branches reaching out seemingly at random. Kate and George later discover that this is because Whittaker changes it's borders in order to lasso in all the intelligent kids. That's why Kate is being made to go to Whittaker: she and George live at the same address. Whittaker can't have George without Kate.

There are plenty of strange things going on at Whittaker: every day they have a test. In fact, that's really all they do. Whittaker isn't actually teaching them anything, just training them to be good test-takers.

But the real trouble doesn't start until several people begin to act strangely. During one story time, one of the librarians suddenly jumps up from his chair and starts telling a story that is not in his voice. And just as he finishes, he collapses back into his seat, dead. As time goes on, one boy pretends to be a monkey, a girl continues running into a wall until she passes out, and a woman behaves very inappropriately in front of the First Lady.

There has always been talk of Whittaker Magnet School being haunted, but could there really be a demon running around? Kate befriends Pogo, a librarian who can only speak in nursery rhymes, and who definitely knows something about what's going on.

This is a satirical novel, which you might want to realize before finishing the book. I didn't realize it for a while, which was why I had a rather low opinion of the believability of the story. But I love satire, so now a lot of the book makes more sense!

In the very beginning, I really wanted to murder Kate. She was an arrogant little brat who was rather mean to her uncle George (who of course is awesome). But as it all continues, she gets over herself a little and isn't as annoying. The story isn't really a character-developing one, though, so it's not like she went through a huge, inspiring change. My favorite characters are definitely George and Pogo. George is always pointing out when things are redundant (like saying 'ISBN number' or 'space-age NASA technology'), and Pogo's nursery-rhyme speech is so much fun! But of course, most of the novel was told from the view point of Kate.

I wasn't very happy with the ending of the book. Kate and George really didn't do much throughout the entire thing except listen in to what everyone else was doing. They might've solved the mystery, but they didn't solve the problem.

If you don't understand satire, you probably shouldn't read this book. You might find it enjoyable (it's a really easy read and has lots of humorous parts), but you would probably get annoyed at how unrealistic it is. But if you do like satire, or just want to give it a go, go ahead! I read this book in practically one sitting, so it shouldn't take up a ton of your time (though you might stop several times and wonder what all happened in the last twenty pages, because it won't seem like much).

-Persy

Arty -- The Prophecy by Dawn Miller

Forgotten memories and terrible childhoods. Angels and odd abilities. Supernatural enemies and... the St. Louis Arch?

Sam and Jonah, Jenna, J, and Carly are best friends. Then, some horrible accident tore them apart. The only thing is, they can't remember what that accident was. They can barely remember any of their childhoods.

Seven years later, Sam, now nineteen, is having strange dreams. He wakes up to find he's created paintings he couldn't have possibly painted. He can barely sleep for the nightmares. He sees his old friends in those dreams, so he calls them all - now living in various places across the country - and asks them to meet in St. Louis. What he can't know - but somehow does - is that they're having those dreams too.

Meanwhile, a secret society known as the Alliance is beginning to put its finishing touches on its plan to join their supernatural allies in strength. What's in their way? Sam and his friends, of course. Which is why another secret society, the Resistance, wants to find those five teens in a hurry.

I'll admit it - I mostly bought the book for the cover and the promise of angels. In that way I was disappointed. Angels only really come into play, except for short 'cutscenes,' at the very end. And it's still not a huge role.

What The Prophecy doesn't lack is conflict. Internal or external, there's always something going on. That's what kept me reading - the question of what in the world can this author do next?

And there were some amazing twists in the plot, mostly related to Jonah (by far the best character in the book, except for perhaps Sam and Mikey). The book is a complex one. However, this can sometimes work against it. Especially at the beginning, it's hard to understand exactly what's going on. Be prepared to read some pages three or four times before you kind of get the action.

Another confusing thing - Miller obviously knows her angel and demon characters very well. Much better than we know them. She drops names and statuses like Girgori, MazziKim, and Irinim without really telling us what they are. This isn't a bad thing, except when the context makes it difficult to decode the meaning. Most of the time, this is the case.

Another thing I should mention - the action in this first book in the Watchers Chronicles is mostly build-up. Until the end, the characters don't really know what's going on. This makes the book seem to move slowly.

An impatient reader would probably get tired of waiting for the action to pick up. (In which case, I would recommend the Dragons In Our Midst series by Bryan Davis, an excellent series with some similar aspects, beginning with Raising Dragons.) A more persistent one would reach the exciting climax of a book that could be the beginning of a great series.