She's not just a blob of energy, she's also a 14-year-old hormone bomb.

Spike ,'The Killer In Me'


Literary Buffistas 3: Don't Parse the Blurb, Dear.

There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."


Steph L. - Sep 16, 2022 11:27:26 am PDT #27424 of 27939
Apparently if you're enough of a power nerd, there is nothing that cannot be flowcharted.

talking about the Locked Tomb

At a family party last weekend, our nephew talked up this series to me, and maybe I was looking dubious or something (I wasn't feeling dubious), because he said "Okay, 4 words: lesbian necromancers IN SPACE." I said "Those were the only 4 words I needed."


-t - Sep 16, 2022 11:43:35 am PDT #27425 of 27939
I am a woman of various inclinations and only some of the time are they to burn everything down in frustration

I believe that is the primary blurb on the cover of the first book.


meara - Sep 16, 2022 11:47:05 am PDT #27426 of 27939

Yeah I read the first book but it was v much Not my jam somehow. Does the second book change much? Because to me it was more “lesbian necromancers in INSCRUTABLE MYSTERY AND HORRIFICALLY STRUCTURED BUREAUCRACY”?


Jessica - Sep 16, 2022 11:52:33 am PDT #27427 of 27939
If I want to become a cloud of bats, does each bat need a separate vaccination?

I definitely have to re-listen to the first two to remind myself who everyone is by the time this book starts.


Jessica - Sep 16, 2022 11:55:05 am PDT #27428 of 27939
If I want to become a cloud of bats, does each bat need a separate vaccination?

lesbian necromancers in INSCRUTABLE MYSTERY AND HORRIFICALLY STRUCTURED BUREAUCRACY

HAHAHAHAHA

I mean, no, the second book is more of the same and then some. The mystery does, eventually, become scrutable, but it's mostly Harrow's POV and she is unreliable as a narrator at the best of times, and during this book is NOT the best of times for her. So since she doesn't know what's going on, neither do we, until we do.


-t - Sep 16, 2022 11:58:45 am PDT #27429 of 27939
I am a woman of various inclinations and only some of the time are they to burn everything down in frustration

In some ways the second book is very different and in some very much the same. I imagine if you didn't like the first you wouldn't like the second. For some reason I find the persistent WTF IS EVEN GOING ON of it all very pleasing, but if you do not you should probably avoid


Jessica - Sep 16, 2022 12:02:01 pm PDT #27430 of 27939
If I want to become a cloud of bats, does each bat need a separate vaccination?

For some reason I find the persistent WTF IS EVEN GOING ON of it all very pleasing, but if you do not you should probably avoid

I think what I like about it is there are good reasons why the characters don't understand what's going on, so there's never the sense of "If you would just TALK to each other!!" that you sometimes get in books with this kind of mystery? (Not that there aren't situations that would be vastly improved if certain people WOULD just talk to each other, but you as a reader don't ever expect them to actually do so.)


-t - Sep 16, 2022 12:53:19 pm PDT #27431 of 27939
I am a woman of various inclinations and only some of the time are they to burn everything down in frustration

That's true, there's a definite sense that it all does make sense I just don't know how yet which is not always there in this kind of thing. The WTF-ery kind of reminds me of Riverdale which I don't think did secretly make sense but I enjoyed the WTF-ery of it very much for a while anyway. Probably not a useful bit of data but I offer it up anyway.


-t - Sep 16, 2022 1:19:16 pm PDT #27432 of 27939
I am a woman of various inclinations and only some of the time are they to burn everything down in frustration

I definitely have to re-listen to the first two to remind myself who everyone is by the time this book starts.

Oh, good idea. I can do that and will probably be better off for it. I think I meant to start that earlier this month to be ready for the new one but I forgot.


meara - Sep 16, 2022 1:55:30 pm PDT #27433 of 27939

Yeah, the “nobody has any idea what’s going on” is not my favorite genre. Give me competence porn any day.