Category: m

Nancy Drew: The New Case Files, Vols. 1-2

By Stefan Petrucha, Sarah Kinney, and Sho Murase | Published by Papercutz

Nancy Drew Vampire Slayer Part 1 CoverYou might wonder why I read a couple of Nancy Drew graphic novels, but when I tell you that these volumes comprise parts one and two of an arc called “Vampire Slayer,” perhaps you will understand. It was the unlikely union of Nancy Drew and Buffy—and yes, said show is specifically referenced in the endnotes—that compelled me and my compatriots at Triple Take to make this our pick for this month. I admit I didn’t expect to like this very much, but the story turned out to be even more blah than I was anticipating.

Here’s the premise: Nancy and friends Bess and George are on their way to see the hot new movie, Dielight. If they arrive in costume, they get a discount, so when they are chased by a pointy-toothed guy in the cemetery (is it supposed to be a fun twist when it’s revealed that he’s actually running from Nancy’s dog?) they assume he’s headed there, as well. He doesn’t show up for the film, but Nancy spots a mysterious-looking cloaked figure lurking alone in the back of the theatre.

Afterwards, tooth dude pops up again and introduces himself as Gregor Coffson. He is super intrigued by the fact that Nancy is a detective and asks her out, prompting this oh-so-hilarious exchange:

Nancy: Thanks… I’m flattered, but I already have a Ned… I mean… boyfriend.

Gregor: So?

Ned: Hi. I’m boyfriend. I mean Ned.

Gregor: Oh.

Oh boy am I ever rolling on the floor now. *eyeroll*

Anyway, things don’t improve very much from here. Gregor indicates that he has a secret, but he won’t divulge it until he is sure that he can trust Nancy. And because Nancy is a big nosypants, she ends up hanging out with him all the time, oblivious to Ned’s growing jealousy. At first I was pleased that Ned was confident that Nancy would not cheat on him, but that doesn’t last long and he soon begins throwing jealous hissy fits. Gregor’s secret turns out to be totally lame—someone’s stalking him because they think he’s a vampire—and so does the resolution of the story.

Ultimately, the adjective that most comes to mind when describing this story is “lazy.” In addition to the fact that Gregor’s secret is a letdown and Ned’s reaction predictable, there are other signs of shoddy craftsmanship. Gregor claims not to have a cell phone, but then how is he receiving threatening text messages from his stalker? The big reveal (spoilers, if you care) that the stalker is actually Gregor’s long-lost sister Garina is torpedoed when Nancy refers to the girl as Garina several pages before the existence of Gregor’s twin even comes up. And I’d swear that one scene of Gregor and Nancy sitting at a table was simply copied and pasted from one place to another, with only a slight adjustment of Gregor’s arm and the application of some green tint to Nancy’s shirt to differentiate them.

Probably they thought that only kids would read this and no one would notice, but kids deserve effort and originality, too. About the best thing I can say about this is that Nancy’s friend, George, is appealingly androgynous. She should get her own series.

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Skyfall by Catherine Asaro

Skyfall coverFrom the back cover:
Skyfall goes back to the beginning, to the rebirth of Skolia, showing how a chance meeting on a backwater planet forges a vast interstellar empire. Eldrinson, a provincial ruler on a primitive planet, is plagued by inner demons. But when he meets Roca, a beautiful and mysterious woman from the stars, he whisks her away to his mountain retreat, inadvertently starting a great interstellar war, and birthing the next generation of rulers for the Skolian Empire.

Review:
Skyfall is technically the ninth book in Catherine Asaro’s Saga of the Skolian Empire series, but is first if one is reading in internal chronological order. It works well as an entry point, though there were a few things that could’ve used a bit more explanation—presumably this happens in the books that were actually published before this one.

Beautiful and golden (like, literally) Roca Skolia is a “Ruby Psion,” an extremely rare and valued psion descended from similarly rare parents who currently rule the Skolian Imperialate. Because of her pedigree, she is expected to marry someone of the ruling assembly’s choosing and produce more Ruby Psions, the only people capable of controlling “the Kyle web,” an instantaneous interstellar network that somehow protects Skolia. Roca’s been married twice before and her grown son, Kurj, has a lot of mental anguish about the death of his father, the abuse perpetrated by his stepfather, and the atrocities committed by another group of psions who relish the pain of others.

When Roca’s away on government business (she’s the foreign affairs councillor), Kurj calls an assembly vote to discuss going to war with the sadistic psions. She knows he’ll try to stop her from casting her dissenting vote, so goes underground to try to make it back home in time without attracting his notice. Her route takes her to a remote, unspoiled world called Skyfall by “the Allieds” (descendents of Earth) and Lyshriol by its natives. There, her plans are foiled by a treacherous snow storm, and while she waits for it to pass, she falls in love with Eldri, a passionate and epileptic bard with significant psionic gifts, and ends up pregnant just in time for Eldri’s rival to lay siege to his castle.

It wouldn’t be incorrect to label Skyfall as “a romance novel in space.” Certainly Roca’s relationship with Eldri, who believes she’s a gift from the sun gods and is otherwise baffled by the technology she sees as commonplace, is quite romantic, with the two of them drawn together pretty much instantly and conceiving easily when other Ruby Psion births have required much medical intervention to achieve. Roca’s position brings political factors into their relationship, however. It turns out that Lyshriol was once a Skolian colony, so when Kurj eventually comes looking for her and Roca’s family finds out she has actually married this “barbarian,” it is ultimately Eldri’s genes that convince them to accept him (after a barrage of tests during which Eldri’s mental abilities and illness are evaluated).

There aren’t a whole lot of sci-fi elements to the novel, though there are enough to give one a picture of how things work in the Skolian Empire and its relationships with other spacefaring people. Genetic manipulation seems quite normal, as are cybernetic implants, and I am totally envious of the language node Roca has, which enables her to process and gradually learn new languages. Kurj has turned himself into an intimidating metallic giant, but it’s still not enough to shield him from his self-conflicting inner demons. In his case, Asaro effectively uses technology to show just how damaged he is, with some pretty fascinating results.

Suffice it to say, I’m looking forward to reading more in this series!

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The Strange Case of Origami Yoda by Tom Angleberger

From the back cover:
Meet Dwight, a sixth-grade oddball. Dwight does a lot of weird things, like wearing the same t-shirt for a month or telling people to call him “Captain Dwight.” This is embarrassing, particularly for Tommy, who sits with him at lunch every day.

But Dwight does one cool thing. He makes origami. One day he makes an origami finger puppet of Yoda. And that’s when things get mysterious. Origami Yoda can predict the future and suggest the best way to deal with a tricky situation. His advice actually works, and soon most of the sixth grade is lining up with questions.

Tommy wants to know how Origami Yoda can be so smart when Dwight himself is so clueless. Is Yoda tapping into the Force? It’s crucial that Tommy figure out the mystery before he takes Yoda’s advice about something VERY IMPORTANT that has to do with a girl.

This is Tommy’s case file of his investigation into “The Strange Case of Origami Yoda.”

Review:
If you had asked me to sum up The Strange Case of Origami Yoda in one word, my initial answer would have simply been “cute.” When I first finished it, I was left with a pleasant impression but wasn’t sure I had too much to say about it. After a period of mulling, however, I realized that, even if the story itself is fairly straightforward, Angleberger does some interesting things with the way he tells it.

“The big question,” protagonist Tommy begins, “is Origami Yoda real?” The weirdest kid in sixth grade, Dwight, has made an origami Yoda finger puppet, which seems to dispense good advice even though Dwight himself is a big spaz. Tommy compiles a case file of students’ interactions with Yoda in an effort to determine if he’s for real and, therefore, if his advice concerning the girl that Tommy likes should be followed or if it will lead to total humiliation. He allows his friends to add comments and doodles, giving the book a bit of flair.

Origami Yoda offers advice on various topics, like helping a boy not burst into angry tears whenever he strikes out in softball, or helping another kid live down an unwelcome nickname (“Cheeto Hog”). Each chapter recounts a different incident, and though they are nominally written by different students, there is no discernible difference in narrative voice, except in the case of Harvey, Tommy’s obnoxious friend.

Angleberger doesn’t spell out the answer concerning Yoda’s authenticity in detail, but he does show that Tommy gradually gets fed up of Harvey “criticizing everything and everybody all the time” and realizes that he would rather be friends with Dwight, even if he is an oddball. Everyone probably has a toxic friend like Harvey at some point and must make the difficult decision to stop associating with them, and I thought Angleberger handled Tommy’s revelation in this regard rather well.

He also incorporates themes of inclusion and tolerance with subtlety. At no point, for example, is a racial characteristic ever assigned for any of these characters. We know that Tommy is short with unruly hair, Harvey is perpetually smirking, and Kellen is thin, but that’s it. Too, one of the female characters is described as “cute and cool” before it’s revealed a few paragraphs later that she also happens to be deaf. True, characterization doesn’t go much deeper than this for anyone, but I still appreciated the lack of preachiness.

Again, I come back to the idea that The Strange Case of Origami Yoda is a cute read, but I reckon late elementary Star Wars fans would have fun with it. A sequel, Darth Paper Strikes Back (in which Harvey is out for revenge), is due out next month.

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The Science of Doctor Who by Paul Parsons

The Science of Doctor Who CoverFrom the front flap:
Almost fifty years after the Doctor first crossed the small screen, he remains a science fiction touchstone. His exploits are thrilling, his world is mind-boggling, and that time travel machine—known as the Tardis—is almost certainly an old-fashioned blue police box, once commonly found in London.

Paul Parsons’s plain-English account of the real science behind the fantastic universe portrayed in the television series answers such burning questions as whether a sonic screwdriver is any use for putting up a shelf, how Cybermen make little Cybermen, where the toilets are in the Tardis, and much more.

(Note: This is the 2010 revision of a book originally published in 2006.)

Review:
I am not a science person. In my years of schooling, I never once came up with a non-lame idea for a science project and was positively abysmal at experiments. I did pretty well on tests and homework, but if someone’s test tube was going to spontaneously erupt in a geyser of brown froth (true story!), it would be mine.

Suffice it to say, then, that while I enjoy science fiction entertainment, it’s not because of the science. Still, The Science of Doctor Who promises “a plain-English account of the real science behind the fantastic universe portrayed in the television series,” so I reckoned on being able to follow it. Alas, Paul Parsons’s definition of plain English is a bit different than mine.

I was okay with the majority of the material. Chapter topics include the Doctor’s recurring foes, regeneration, gadgets, weapons, space stations, force fields, parallel universes, and more. In general, Parsons would start by mentioning something that happened in a particular Doctor Who serial and then interview renowned scientists as to whether this is actually possible. Most of the time the answer is “no” or “only with extreme amounts of energy/effort,” but there are a few things that are not so far off. The chapters on alien worlds (Lots of planets really do have a north!) and mirror planets were particular favorites of mine.

Stupidly, however, I hadn’t counted on there being so much physics! I frequently found my eyes glazing over during these sections, which were unfortunately clustered near the beginning (making it hard to get started) and end (causing a strong urge to set the book down with only forty pages to go) of the book.

Take, for example, this quote from page 35:

M-theory’s main thrust is to generalize the one-dimensional objects of string theory into p-dimensional objects known, amusingly enough, as p-branes (where setting p = 0 gives a particle, p = 1 gives a string, p = 2 a “membrane,” and so on).

My brain’s response: asdlkjasldkfzzt!

Seriously, is that plain English? I note that Parsons did not bother to define “p-dimensional,” though that probably wouldn’t have been much help to me anyway.

In the end, I did learn some interesting things. In the chapter on Cybermen, for example, I learned that a cybernetic brain implant currently exists that can block the signals that cause Parkinson’s disease. That’s pretty awesome! I also now know that Sontarans reproduce by cloning and it takes only ten minutes for their offspring to reach adulthood. That’s less awesome.

I’m glad I didn’t give up on reading The Science of Doctor Who but now I think I’ll give my brain a rest by actually watching some.

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A Spy in the House by Y. S. Lee

A Spy in the House coverFrom the back cover:
Mary Quinn leads a remarkable life. At twelve, an orphan and convicted thief, she was miraculously rescued from the gallows. Now, at seventeen, she has a new and astonishing chance to work undercover for the Agency.

It is May 1858, and a foul-smelling heat wave paralyzed London. Mary enters a rich merchant’s household to solve the mystery of his lost cargo ships. But as she soon learns, the house is full of deceptions, and people are not what they seem—including Mary herself.

Review:
As a convicted thief, twelve-year-old Mary Lang is about to be executed when she is saved by the ladies of Miss Scrimshaw’s Academy for Girls. There, she receives an education and by the age of seventeen is teaching other students the skills they will need to be independent. Trouble is, she’s not satisfied and the few other career options open to her gender don’t interest her much, either. When she mentions this to the two women running the school, they suggest another alternative: the Agency.

The Agency is a covert organization of female spies, operating under the assumption that because women are presumed to be flighty and empty-headed, their agents will be able to retrieve information more easily than a man might, particularly in situations of domestic servitude. Mary quickly agrees, despite the threat of danger, and soon finds herself serving as paid companion to spoiled Miss Angelica Thorold, whose merchant father is suspected of dealing in stolen Hindu goods.

Mary (now using the surname Quinn) isn’t the lead on the investigation and isn’t supposed to actually do much of anything, but she gets antsy, and in the process of snooping meets James Easton. James’ older brother desperately wants to marry Angelica, but James has heard rumors about her father’s business practices, and so is doing some sleuthing of his own to determine whether a family connection would be unwise. He and Mary form a partnership and spend most of the book poking about in warehouses and rest homes for aging Asian sailors and following people on foot or in carriages while maintaining a flirty sort of bickering banter.

Author Y. S. Lee tries to make the mystery interesting, giving us a bit of intrigue between Angelica and her father’s secretary as a distraction, but ultimately it feels very insubstantial to me. Nothing much comes as a surprise and two story elements that could’ve been highlights—Mary’s month-long intensive training and Scotland Yard’s raid on the Thorold house—occur off camera! Too, Mary is harboring a secret about her parentage which is thoroughly obvious: she’s part Asian. Only towards the end did Lee actually make clear that Mary is keeping this a secret from others because of the foreigner bias of the time, and I must wonder whether the intended young adult audience was reading this going, “What’s the big deal?”

Not that it isn’t nifty to have a part-Asian heroine, of course. Mary is competent and level-headed, though I admit I did get irritated by how often she is favorably compared to “ordinary women,” who would scream or faint in situations in which Mary is able to keep her head. When a mystery stars a male sleuth, do we need to hear over and over how much smarter he is than the ordinary fellow? I don’t think so. On the flip side, the overall theme of the book seems to be “don’t understimate women,” and Mary finds time to inspire a scullery maid to seek out Miss Scrimshaw’s and to convince Angelica to pursue a musical career.

In the end, A Spy in the House is a decent read. It’s not perfect, but I still plan to read the second book in the trilogy in the near future.

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