Review - Breaking the Dark: A Jessica Jones Marvel Crime Novel review

    BREAKING THE DARK by Lisa Jewel is the first of the Marvel crime novels that has been released by the House of Mouse for adult readers. I've already read both it as well as the sequel, ENEMY OF MY ENEMY, by Alex Segura (which stars Daredevil). How adult is it? Honestly, not really very much and it's a lot lighter than either the Netflix show or the original Alias comics. That's not necessarily a bad thing and if you want to read a decent novel about crime fighting with a dash of vampire makeup influencers. 

    Jessica Jones, for those unfamiliar with the character, is the creation of Brian Michael Bendis when he couldn't use Jessica Drew AKA Spider-Woman (I). His idea was to do a gritty private detective series with a female protagonist in the Marvel Universe and more or less succeeded. So much so that a successful Netflix TV show was created around the character. In all likelihood, if you want to buy this book, you probably already know the character from one or the other. 

    This isn't quite either the comic version or the TV show one but a hybrid as little is made of Jessica Jones' ties to other Marvel superheroes and no mention of her past as Jewel but Malcolm is obviously the character from the comics rather than the Netflix version. This is less confusing as it sounds but the alternate continuity becomes clear as Jessica's pregnancy with Luke Cage's baby plays a role in the story but none of the messiness related to her dating Scott Lang by the time they find out. This isn't a spoiler as her discovering her pregnancy is a chapter or two in. No Trish or Carol Danvers serves as her major female friend. 

    Indeed, if I were to summarize this book's take on Jessica Jones, it would be she's considerably less messy than either of her incarnations and her inner world streamlined. Jessica has strong feelings for Luke Cage already and would want to marry him even before the baby becomes an issue. She's traumatized by the Purple Man but the exact details are never gone into like they were in both the comic as well as show. I'd go so far as to say this Jessica is far more functional, likable, and effective as an adult in a profession. Which isn't to say that the more mainstream versions aren't entertaining but they're both heavily reliant on their interpretations of Jessica being a human train wreck.

    With all of that out of the way, is the book any good? Yeah, I think so. The premise is Jessica is hired by a woman who thinks her children have had something strange happen to them while they were visiting their father in England. Whether trauma, changeling substitution, or brainwashing is something she can't tell even if her primary clue is they no longer care about their cell phones. Jessica, needing money, takes the job and finds that they are actually Stepford Children that are related to a story taking place a hundred years earlier. Along the way, Jessica Jones discovers an evil makeup influencer (aren't they all) and a woman who wants to kidnap women to force them to watch John Hughes movies in their jammies. I'm not kidding.

    The weakest part of the book is probably the flashbacks to the villains' past that take up way too much of the book and don't have any characters as interesting as Jessica Jones. The bad guys' motivation isn't particularly intriguing and I would have appreciated it being more about our central character. On the plus side, I like that they went with an original villain that isn't precisely explained in an easy category like mutant or vampire.

    In conclusion, Breaking the Dark is a solid and entertaining novel that feels like it takes place in the present with the culture of beauty, teenagers, and the generational divide. Jessica Jones is a bit nicer and more put together than usual but that actually fits well with her preparing to be a mother. I like the story and while it's not really the "dark and gritty adult crime novel" I expected, I had a lot of fun from it.

Available here 

Kingdom Come: Deliverance review

    KINGDOM COME: DELIVERANCE was released in 2018 to mostly positive reviews but quite a few complaints. The result of an indie developer and Kickstarter money, it was initially riddled with bugs but a labor of love. Much to the surprise of the community used to developers abandoning their games after release, Warfare (the company) continued updating the game with hefty DLC as well as patches. The Royal Edition was followed by a massive graphics upgrade to modern consoles just this year and it is now on par graphically with the recently released Kingdom Come Deliverance 2. 

    Kingdom Come: Deliverance is a alt-historical story that contains a few mild traces of low fantasy set during the war between King Wenceslas IV of Bohemia and King Sigismund of Hungary in 1403. As they're a Czech developer, this is important national history for them but for a majority of players used to only English or French history, it is a fairly new period. Fans of low fantasy will love this feeling as the Game of Thrones feel is strong and the real-life historical figures are every bit as messy as the best grimdark fiction.

    The premise is that you are Henry, a blacksmith's son in the city of Skalitz (technically Silver Skalitz, which is a bit weird to leave off). Skalitz is treated as a small village, though, and it doesn't take someone familiar with most fantasy to know that their home life is doomed. King Sigismund's forces sack the city as they did in real life and Henry is left to seek refugee in the nearby city of Talmberg. From there, he attempts to go back to Skalitz to bury his loved ones only to get mugged and lose his father's sword.

    Yes, that is the plot of the game, losing your father's sword and recovering it. The game benefits strongly from keeping the stakes far more modest than in other games. Henry saves a noble's son? He gets a horse. If you manage to do fantastic service to the kingdom, then you can potentially become an adult squire to a nobleman with no real expectation of being knighted. This is, to Henry, fantastic social mobility. Certainly, much better than being a blacksmith but you're an enlisted man versus an officer and work for a living. You even start the game as illiterate and have to pay to be taught to read.

    Kingdom Come: Deliverance's early gameplay is punishing as hell and that hasn't been changed by the updates. Henry has no knowledge of combat at the start and if he starts a fight with the town drunk in the starting area, he's liable to get his ass kicked. You have to train and master the controls both in order to survive Kingdom Come: Deliverance. Indeed, the realism is helped by the fact that facing down multiple opponents is suicide until you've managed to get yourself some decent armor. Even then, you can find yourself taken down by not managing yourself against opponents from behind.

    Much has been touted about the game's realism with Henry needing to eat, sleep, and clean himself regularly. If you neglect the above or don't manage the numbers carefully by overeating, you end up getting status debuffs. The save system is also punishing with the fact that you need special potions to save or a safe place to sleep. The latter was so unpopular that they implemented an automatic saving system that happens when you quit the game. Even then, the current system sucks and is one major area of complaint versus if they'd just included an unlimited save system.

    Kingdom Come: Deliverance's gameplay is a lot like Skyrim with no magic, a much better dueling system so that button mashing is not your friend, and a very slow fast travel system. You have to do the things you want to master and while my Henry ended up a Renaissance Man with knowledge of alchemy, healing, swordsmanship, thievery, speech, and horse-riding, he also worked like hell for all of these. He was also a crappy archer no matter how hard I tried to master it. The game caused me to almost quit several times during the early period with how hard lockpicking and stealth were but then they suddenly weren't. It's an addictive gameplay loop and I ended up putting something like a hundred hours in just the main game.

    The DLC for the game is fantastic with my favorite being "A Woman's Lot" where you play Henry's childhood friend and possible love interest, Theresa. That is also hard but nicely switches gameplay as while Henry is capable of fighting at later levels, Theresa must stealth her way through the sacking of their village. I also am fond of "From the Ashes" where Henry is given yet another gag promotion in the prestigious position of bailiff--of a town that's already been burned to the ground. He must now shell out all of his money from adventuring to get the place running and spending the equivalent of Richard Branson money in Medieval terms.

    I really like Kingdom Come: Deliverance and think it is something that everyone should play before they pick up Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2. The story is great, the worldbuilding impressive, and the adventures are all entertaining. There's some flaws in the gameplay and I wish there had been slightly punishing early options. Even so I came to love all the characters and learned a huge amount about the 14th century Holy Roman Empire. 

9/10 

Resident Evil: Requiem review

    RESIDENT EVIL: REQUIEM is the latest installment of the incredibly long-lived franchise that started when I was a wee teenager and has continued steadily ever since. I'm a huge Resident Evil fan, albeit not really someone who masters the games. I got my start reading the SD Perry novels and enjoyed all of the Mila Jovavich movies that were a source of comfort during a dark period in my life alongside Kate Beckinsale's Underworld series. Long story. Resident Evil has always been dumb fun for me but also my baby's first horror series as well. There's darkness and scares in the series but up against a bunch of people who like to shoot it in the head.

    Requiem is the ninth numbered installment of the series but there's literally dozens of spin offs ranging from Revelations to light gun games. I haven't played all of them but I have played a lot of them and my favorites are probably VII and the Resident Evil II remake. I prefer Resident Evil to Silent Hill but I never really came to love Resident Evil IV the way so many other video game fans have. I'm just not a big fan of pulse-pounding action versus more methodical investigation that others emphasize.

    Resident Evil: Requiem is a game that chooses to split the difference between the action and horror elements of the franchise after recent games have been struggling to balance the two. It also attempts to marry the extensive past of Resident Evil (which is for old folks like me) with an introduction for newcomers. Whether it succeeds in this is going to be a matter of individual taste rather than something that can be definitive spoken.

    The premise is that Grace Ashcroft is the adopted daughter of Alyssa Ashcroft, a protagonist from Resident Evil: Outbreak. Grace's mother was murdered years before in a creepy hotel that Grace is sent to investigate by the FBI despite the fact she's not an agent but an analyst. She's also not accompanied by any backup, which does take me out of the story a bit. Seriously, you should send an experienced agent along with her so they can be horribly murdered! Anyway, she soon finds there's an evil conspiracy afoot and is kidnapped by the game's villain, Gideon.

    Meanwhile, Leon S. Kennedy has found himself investigating yet another Umbrella scientist on the run. Leon is now 52 and still looks fantastic but he's changed out Hunnigan for aged-up Resident Evil 2 mascot, Sherry Birkin. Sherry is 40, by the way, which tells me just how old I've become. Leon spends his portions kicking ass and taking names, roundhouse kicking zombies in the face while blowing their heads up with his super pistol. The two protagonists could not be more different and it does give the game some much needed variety.

    The Grace sections of the game deal with the fact she's a clumsy, terrified, and confused young woman who is struggling with creatures that will kill her instantly. The Leon sections are full of pulse pounding action that sadly gets a bit repetitive. Still, I think they struck a pretty good balance with both sections giving you a break from the other. I think the Raccoon City sections are less interesting than the ones set in the abandoned mental hospital (which is as classic a place for a horror setting as possible). Basically, there's only so much you can do with a bunch of abandoned ruins unless you're Fallout.

     The villains are kind of one-note with Gideon being little more than another evil Umbrella scientist and Zeno being a rehash of a character that I thought was overused before 5. Still, the plot is perfectly serviceable and the climax promises a resolution to a lot of longstanding plots. One element I did dislike was the attempt to redeem a longstanding Resident Evil bad guy who you can't really redeem just by saying he had a daughter he loved.

    In conclusion, Resident Evil: Requiem is a solid entry into the franchise with some truly creepy moments and good gameplay but it's also somewhat mid compared to Resident Evil VII and Village that managed to reinvent the formula. Still, I would have preferred to either have Rose as the protagonist of this or have a deeper examination of Leon Kennedy as an aging hero.

8/10 

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms season one review

    I admit that I was a lot iffier about this than I expected to be. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms should have been my most anticipated show of the year. Instead, it was hovering behind Fallout, Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, and even House of the Dragon. Which is strange because I am a huge George R.R. Martin apologist. I don’t care that the series is unfinished or that I disliked season eight heavily. No, I am a ride or die for Westeros and love the Dunk and Egg series of novellas. I anticipate them more than The Winds of Winter.

    No, I was afraid of the very common feeling of fans who have a beloved property being adapted – I was afraid of them ****ing it up. Yes, that was exactly how I felt with less asterisks to cover up the swearing. The shadow of Game of Thrones season eight hung heavily in the air and I wasn’t entirely fond of the alterations done for House of the Dragon season two. Very few people treat Martin’s work with the fidelity it deserves. Would this? It turns out, yes, yes they did.

    So what is A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms about? Well, a hedge knight named Dunk (Peter Claffey) is the squire of a sixty year old warrior named Arlan of Pennytree. This being Westeros, Arlan dies of a chill and Dunk decides to take up his mantle as a poor mercenary that is going to risk it at all at a nearby tournament. There he meets a young boy named Egg (Dexter Sol Ansell), takes him as a squire, and soon finds himself offending the powerful before deciding on what sort of knight he should be.

    In a very real way, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms shows that Westeros can be done on the downscale with most of the story taking place from Dunk’s perspective and not really moving from the Ashford setting. Compared to all the super-expensive dragons and massive sets, it manages to tell a story that encaptures everything that makes the setting wonderful. In the end, it was always about the characters and their complicated choices.

    The story feels a little stretched across six episodes and the additional content is something that tends to drag down the rest of the material. Would this have been a better two and a half hour movie over the three hour season? Tough call because I am very glad to have a new series but there really wasn’t enough story for this. The fact it came out as fantastic as it did, though, means this is a small complaint.

    Part of what I think makes the story work so good is it is a reminder that George R.R. Martin’s reputation for nihilism and grimdark is somewhat exaggerated. The only reason people think this is because we’re in the Empire Strikes Back portion of A Song of Ice and Fire. Dunk is a great believer in heroism, honor, and chivalry but that’s because he’s outside the system. The contrast between those who know it’s all talk and the person who believes in it is the source of ninety percent of the conflicts.

    The smaller scale of the story doesn’t hurt the show nearly as much as you might think. However, the allusions to things like the Blackfyre Rebellion, Dornish Marches, and other activities make the world feel much bigger than is shown. It makes me greedy for more seasons of this show and kind of wish that we’d done a season of the first three stories even though so much would have been lost in the process.

    Peter Claffey’s earnest performance really is what sells this story but the supporting cast is all memorable and I came to love both the Laughing Storm (Daniel Ings) and Raymun Fossoway (Shaun Thomas). The Targaryens are also given far less screen time than House of the Dragon but all of them give us a sense of both why their house has endured but also why it’s in slow decline to irrelevance. The show implies a lot more resentment against the “incestuous aliens” than I think is appropriate but it does give a feel that their end is coming.

    The depiction of Westeros is a much more stable place than in the main universe and more colorful. Robert's tournament felt too small and Viserys' tournament felt too big but this definitely gets the carnival-like atmosphere that I've always wanted for them. Even so, we've got so much hidden resentment and hatred going on that you can see where the seeds of Robert's Rebellion will spring from (and that was undoubtedly intentional).

    Little touches like the fact that the houses really commit to their iconography (the constant apple puns of the Fossaways, the bee-themed coffin of the Beesbury's, and Dunk getting large amounts of tree mockery once he takes it as his coat of arms) are the kind of thing Martin loved but the shows downplayed outside of the Targaryens. Martin is a master of wordplay that really just disappears from the adaptations more often than not.

    Of the additions to the show from outside the books, I'd say that I think Maekar's portrayal is far more nuanced and he goes from a somewhat one-dimensionally gruff man to a loving father tormented by his own failures as well as blindness to how bad his children are. I don't care much for the flashback to Flea Bottom or attempts to elevate Ser Arlan into a superman, though, even in Dunk's memories. Red the Harlot is great, though, and I wish her great luck with her ending in the show.

    In conclusion, I like the action and the setting as well as the smaller focus. Will we get to the She-Wolves of Winter before Martin writes it? Maybe, maybe not, but this goes a long way to reminding me of just how much I love the setting. I love many fantasy settings but Westeros will always have a place in my heart and these lower stakes stories are the things I’d love to see more of.

Wizards of Dragon Keep is now available!

Hey folks,

I'm pleased to say that one of my epics has been completed. THE DARK UNDERMASTER SAGA (Lords of Dragon Keep, Guardians of Dragon Keep, and Wizards of Dragon Keep) has been finished with the third book. WIZARDS OF DRAGON KEEP is now available on Kindle Unlimited, in ebook, and in paperback form.

---

"So, we've got an army."
"Yes. All of the Southern Kingdoms are united for our big battle with Veles."
"Except, he's not fighting us. He ran to Earth."
"Yeah, I didn't see that one coming."

It is the time for the final battle between Veles and Aaron's heroic band of misfits. Except Veles doesn't show up. Unfortunately, this leaves Aaron holding the bag as the various factions he's united have ended up divided. Worse, Aaron is slowly metamorphisizing to becoming a god and will soon no longer be able to be among mortals. Can his relationship to his loved ones' survive? Can he defeat Veles before he's bound by ridiculous rules against stopping him? Can he stop Jon from making incest jokes?

WIZARDS OF DRAGON KEEP is the third volume of the Dark Undermaster Saga, a humorous send up of dark fantasy like Game of Thrones, The Witcher, and Dark Souls. It is a progression fantasy LitRPG that follows the adventures of video game computer programmer, Aaron Bartkowski as he is hurled bodily into the world of his favorite author, Larry C.C. Weis. Unfortunately, Weis turns out to have been much better at stealing from other, better, authors than he was in giving his heroes a break.

I am also very happy to announce that the work has begun on LORDS OF DRAGON KEEP's audiobook

Available here.

Lords of Dragon Keep is free from February 4th to 9th

Hey folks,

I'm pleased to say that LORDS OF DRAGON KEEP is free from February 4th to February 9th. What is Lords of Dragon Keep? It's my fun attempt at LitRPG humor where a guy is dipped into a dark fantasy setting influenced by The Witcher and A Song of Ice and Fire and meets all the horrific grimdark with BOUNDLESS OPTIMISM! Can a combination of kindness, empathy, and incredibly terrifying D&D abilities overcome a world of horrific cynicism? Find out! The price is right, certainly.

It also has a talking raven.

"Give me the incredibly short summary of what the hell is going on, please. The kind you could fit into a movie trailer."
“You’re trapped in a video game world based on a hack dark fantasy author’s rip-off of better books.”
“Uh huh. Maybe you could be a bit more detailed.”

Aragorn "Aaron" Bartkowski was a programmer working at Epic DungeoneeringTM, the world's largest fantasy video game company. Much to his surprise, he was selected to pick up the latest manuscript from reclusive author Larry C.C. Weis. Weis had been working on his newest book for over a decade and the good folk at Aaron's company had dibs on adapting it. Unfortunately, Weis was also a wizard and sent Aaron to the world that inspired his books.

Aaron proceeded to find himself in a Slavic mythology themed world where he's believed to be Weis' main character, Garland of Nowhere. Equipped with the powers of a RPG protagonist, Aaron must accumulate experience and equipment while navigating a setting that seems worse off than Game of Thrones and Dark Souls put together.

LORDS OF DRAGON KEEP is a LitRPG progression fantasy isekai that takes the grim out of grimdark with biting humor as well as intelligent exploitation of the rules. It has excellent world-building, a great supporting cast, a bit of romance, and lots of laughs. Oh and there's a talking raven.

BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/books/lords-of-dragon-keep-by-c-t-phipps

Undercity: Rebellion by SC Jensen review

    UNDERCITY: REBELLION by SC Jensen is a post-apocalypse dystopian adventure novel that I absolutely loved. Anyone who knows what I write is aware that I am a huge post-apocalypse fan and I absolutely love when weird new civilizations emerge out of the wasteland. I’m also a fan of SC Jensen with her Bubbles in Paradise books that are goofy cyberpunk adventures. So, I was all set to read this one and just didn’t get around to actually enjoying it until this week. Yeah, my TBR is huge and that sunk me from my efforts to get around to it for almost a year. Now I’m kicking myself for letting it get so long.

    The premise is that society has been destroyed by war in the distant future. Out of the ashes of this apocalypse has emerged a new civilization divided into two separate parts: the top dwelling Elysian Empire and the bottom-dwelling City. The Elysians still have access to advanced technology ranging from genetically engineered supersoldiers to immortality while the City only has a few districts where electricity is available. It is a distinctly uneven relationship with the Elysians also frequently buying unwanted (or wanted) children as slaves.

    One of the City’s scavengers, Ghost, has a worse life than most citizens because her younger sister, Lyca, has been missing for over a decade. Ghost vainly (?) hopes she’s still alive somewhere and that her searches will ease the guilt she has for not protecting her. It is after one of her last leads dries up that Ghost encounters the mysterious Lynch, a man who claims that not only is her sister alive but that he can lead her to her. Unfortunately, this comes with the strings attached that Lynch is a well-known anti-Elysian terrorist and wants Ghost’s help in organizing another attack on the upper levels.

    What follows is an interesting variation on a caper story and a revolutionary story in one. Ghost must use her contacts with the city’s underworld to assemble a group willing to suicidally throw themselves at the overwhelming power of the Elysian Empire while also deal with the fact that most of them have severe issues with Ghost herself. Ghost also has an attraction Lynch but this would mean betraying her relationship with her existing girlfriend, Mirelle. Ghost is not the only LGBTAQ character in the book but I like how it’s just not a big deal in the City.

    As antagonists, I had a few issues with the Ursaal. He’s basically a Baron Harkonnen-esque monster with no redeeming qualities whatsoever that affects my enjoyment of the story. In post-apocalypse stories, I generally prefer more moral ambiguity. The Time Keepers, of which the series is named, are much more interesting on that level. Are they good, bad, or a mixture of both? They’re supporting Lynch’s war but definitely put off an incredibly shady vibe. Certainly, they’re extremely ruthless and that is something I hope to see more of in future installments.

    In conclusion, Undercity: Rebellion is a fantastic novel that I really enjoyed. The world building was well-done and evocative. I really felt like I understood both the Elysian Empire portions of the setting as well as how the City functions. I like the characters, especially Ghost, and I hope to see a lot more of these in the future.

Available here