Commentary and book review blog

Stephenie Meyer has temporarily set aside her vampires to give us, adults, a science fiction story. Well, she exceeded my expectations because this book turned out to be a solid sci-fi thriller.

The Host, doesn’t employ an original storyline because to me, it sounded like another version of the Body Snatchers. When I mentioned the plot of Ms. Meyer’s book to my family, almost all of them said, Stargate. I’ve never watched Stargate but as the saying goes, there are no original ideas. Moving on. In this story, an “alien race” of parasites has taken over the planet, using humans as hosts and leaving only a handful of human rebels behind. While humans fought the good fight,in the end, well, they lost.

The main story arc follows Wanderer, a soul who has been recently inserted inside a human host. Her host turns out to be apart of the human resistance and her name is Melanie. She died a violent death (only to be healed later as a viable host). After discovering she was trapped, she threw herself down an elevator shaft.

Melanie makes her presence known to her new host almost immediately and the two battle with each other for the upper hand. Resistant hosts are rare. Needless to say that Wanderer controls the body but Melanie’s thoughts and memories are hard to suppress and whatever info she’s assigned to find is equally hard to discover. Wanderer’s job is to report any info that she learns about the human resistance from Melanie. She left behind two people she loved: her little brother Jamie and the love of her life, Jared.

Wanderer and Melanie develop a tentative friendship out of necessity since they both have to share one body. Melanie uses what power she has, in the form of dreams and memories to gain Wanderer’s attention and sympathy and draw her into her cause. The tip over to the rebel side isn’t really all that hard since Wanderer is already feeling somewhat sympathetic and guilty about what her people have done. She starts to suffer a crisis of loyalty with her relationship with Melanie and strikes out to find the two people she left behind.

Wanderer does discover the band of human rebels led by Melanie’s Uncle Jeb and she spends most of the story in captivity with them, only to come out a different person at the end. She becomes a significant part of their human community (only after they slowly accept her, most of them anyway) and helpful in their raids for medicine and food. As for the love triangle, that was rather weird (and somewhat predictable) and I didn’t particularly care for it but she did resolve things nicely.

A lot of Melanie’s memories and feelings toward Jamie and Jared are shared with Wanderer aka Wanda (her human name). I got impatient with her having all these feelings for Jared because I felt he didn’t deserve it. He was the last one to come around when a few others were convinced (after a brief time period) that she meant them no harm. The first time he sees her, he punches her in the face. Funny, in that her Uncle figured it out (about Melanie still being alive) but Jared was much harder to convince and he was allegedly, the love of her life, but he fails to recognize her.

I think midway into the story, another hero was starting to emerge and it was the last person I would have expected Wanda to hook up with but anybody else was better than Jared. I won’t reveal his name. Their scenes together were really nice and I looked forward to reading them. I thought the hero, once he came around like the others, was a bit too accepting of Wanda, because technically, she is a parasite attached to Melanie’s brain. I thought the author was overreaching there, in his total acceptance of her species but it was nice that he could overlook all of that.

After finishing this book in two days, I didn’t really take much time after to really digest the story. I will say that the author’s main theme was about what it means to be “human” and we get to see that perspective, the good and the bad from an “alien point of view”. Melanie was a much more aggressive character, someone I could identify with while Wanda is more self-sacrificing and always willing to do the right thing. The story maintains a nice tension throughout this 625 page story. I had my moments of uncertainty about the outcome of these characters. I cared about what happened to them, found myself worried for them and forced myself to read the ending, just to make sure everything would be a-OK (haven’t done that in awhile.)

The body count in here is pretty low. There’s no sex, just a lot of hand holding and kissing. The chemistry is nice as is the implied sexuality, where the characters come close but then it’s aborted. Ages 12 and up is the recommended audience for this story. I found nothing inappropriate or overly sexual. Your mileage may vary. I’m sure the story had some plot holes, some lapses in logic, a couple of threads overlooked, but despite all of that (if anything), I was entertained. The sci-fi aspects are low-key so it is a novel more or less for those who don’t enjoy sci-fi. The epilogue seems to hint at a sequel, too. I’m intrigued enough to know what happens next. My grade, a solid B.

The Host by Stephenie Meyer was published on May 6, 2008 by Little and Brown and is available in hardcover for $25.99 and ebook for $17.99 at your favorite retailer.

Blood Alone by Masayuki Takano, volume #4 in an ongoing series, rated for Older Teens (+13 and up), published by Infinity Studios, Feb 2008 release, $10.95 US, that is currently on back order at Amazon.com but my local bookstore had four copies on the shelf.

This is a series I’ve been avidly following. It’s a story about a young girl name Misaki Minato. She’s young (age hasn’t really been mentioned) and she’s rich. Her father is a famous musician. In this entry, we learn that Misaki and her father were targets of vampires several years ago and Misaki was bitten as a result. Her vampire nature has remained dormant thus far and she has tightly held onto her humanity. Her guardian, Kuroe Kurose, is an aspiring novelist who does the odd job on occasion (investigative work) since he was a former vampire hunter. A vampire attack several years ago, resulted in Kuroe being gifted with “adivuarat kurai” which translates to eyes that see the truth. Kuroe is human and an equal match for vampires since he is immune to their vampire tricks and can see past their glamour.

In this entry, Kuroe and Misaki’s past are fleshed out further and the story gets much more interesting. Starting with Kuroe, we see that he was a prolific vampire hunter. Kuroe and his partner, Jessie, go after a orphan vampire but the intelligence they received from Scotland Yard was unreliable and this slip up nearly jeopardizes their mission. Jessie ends up injured (broken leg) and Kuroe is sent to babysit Mr. Reiji’s daughter, which is Misaki, in her place. That is how the two of them actually meet.

I won’t say anymore with regards to the plot. I will say that I am happy with this entry in that we get to see how Misaki and Kuroe met and how past events that has shaped their lives unfold. If you’ve read the previous three volumes, you’ll know that Misaki and Kuroe have known each other for a long time and share a past history. Also, Kuroe is unaware that Misaki’s feelings for him go beyond the affection of being her guardian. What makes this entry (vol.4) so nice is that we see how much Kuroe is devoted to Misaki, as he pledges to protect her and take care of her.

Also, there is plenty of suspense and violence and vampire lore to enjoy. Renfields, magicians and a couple of bad vampires round out the secondary cast while some were missing like Higure (who looks like a kid but is several centuries old and a master vampire). This volume fleshes out the characters a bit more, giving readers insight into what makes these characters tick. I think that is one of the biggest reasons why I enjoy this series so much is that it is character driven. Plus, it doesn’t hurt to have a few vampire baddies to kill and provide us with suspense along with the usual vampire politics and power struggle.

Must mention the artwork and the beautiful cover: just lovely. Dialogue in each of the panels are clear and easy to follow. The action scenes weren’t bad either. The manga does read right to left. Infinity Studios put out beautiful looking books and it is what distinguishes them from other managa titles on the shelf. The only drawback to this series is the availability. They don’t stay on the shelf long. Blood Alone is not exactly your typical vampire story. It is a love story between a young girl who happens to be a vampire and her love for her guardian, who has sworn to protect her. Their relationship is front and center and I’m enjoying every bit of it. My grade, A. This is a great series that has a bit of mystery, a bit of suspense, a bit of romance and a lot of the supernatural and I can’t wait to read volume 5.

The Society of S by Susan Hubbard reads like a modern day vampire story and a coming of age story with 13 year-old Ariella Montero narrating. Is there such a thing as a literary vampire novel? Ms. Hubbard certainly writes her tale in a scholarly fashion but her vampire tale really doesn’t add anything “new” to a genre saturated with vampire lore ad nauseum. Her prose is rather dry and the plotting and pacing was very uneven thereby making it very easy for me to put this book down.

The Society of S has a bit of Anne Rice’s “Interview With the Vampire” type of style, with Ariella gathering the answers to some of the questions she’s had about her life and her family and putting them in her journal. The author doesn’t write in a journalistic fashion but Ariella does at certain times refer to her audience with open ended questions.

Ariella has led a sheltered life, being home schooled and having her own cook, Mrs. McGarritt, to prepare her meals for her (she’s a vegetarian). Her parents are estranged. Her father is a scientist and an erudite who is described as being very handsome. He is a bit of a stiff collar, often citing the works of Edgar Alan Poe and other poets in conversation. His height, pale looks and dress attire of sun glasses, trench coat and hat often leaves a lasting impression on people. Ariella says he has lupus and she herself has some type of weak immune system so she’s rarely left her house. One day, Mrs. McGarritt decides to introduce Ariella to her family. She becomes fast friends with her daughter, Kathleen and has a romantic interest in her son, Michael.

The main story arc is about Ariella wrestling with her self-identity with a subplot centering on her finding her mother. There are very few supernatural events in this story, because it is simply not the focus. In fact, half the novel is over before you encounter anything “extraordinary”. There are vampires living amongst us and that’s nothing new. The story is a bit heavy handed on the science behind vampirism and the advanced technology that has allowed this subculture to thrive in modern society. For instance, blood supplements being used as blood substitutes and the continuing research behind making artificial blood is imperative for their survival. Ariella speaks of “other” supernatural beings living amongst humans and having high positions in our state government and science community. Her goal in writing this journal is to relay those facts to us mere mortals in hopes of rendering a better of understanding of the vampire community.

The story is very uneven and most of it is uneventful. Ariella’s father’s brief time at Cambridge was one of the few interesting parts of the book as well as the love story. There’s also a murder investigation that really takes a back seat to the other two story arcs. Encountering evil in the academic setting is just not original to me and reminded me other such stories that use that backdrop as well. The author goes through the usual vampire folklore, acknowledging some of it (aversion to sunlight), dismissing others (shape shifters). They do have the power of invisibility (something to do with shifting electrons) and reading thoughts. Her vampires are quite evolved. You still have a few vamps who have disdain for humans along with other sects of this culture wanting to just blend in unnoticed.

There’s a few flashbacks, mainly of Ariella’s father telling her what happened to him at Cambridge and explaining the events that led up to her mother’s disappearance after she was born. I didn’t quite buy into the rationalization of why Ariella was left when she was a baby. It just didn’t make sense to me. Ariella starts having dreams of crossword puzzles and other things that relates to her mother. Over the course of a summer, there are subtle changes to Ariella that might be best described as “unusual” for a teen girl to experience. However, her father says that her fate regarding her “mortality” remains uncertain because since he was afflicted as a vampire, he’s not sure if she will become one, too.

The Society of S will not be as popular as Stephenie Meyer’s vampires, I’m afraid. I’d have to disagree with Ms. Harris on that cover quote because the two author’s narrative voice couldn’t be more different. The reviews I’ve seen of this book so far has been pretty mixed. I’d have to side with those who found this story less than captivating. The most intriguing character was Ariella’s father, Raphael and I wish he would have been the narrator because his back story of running across evil would have been much more interesting told from his pov. Ariella herself was an ok narrator but often I found her boring with her knowledge very limited for a sheltered 13 year old.

The author doesn’t allow supernatural events to override the telling of a young girl’s self-discovery. The “extraordinary” is incorporated into this story but, again, it is not the focus. The story is about a young girl ascerting her self-identity and finding her mother and possibly reuniting her parents. The ageless teen-age fantasy. The Society of S is a coming of age story and I’ve read my share of those and often I’ve enjoyed them. However, this story just didn’t make any impression on me despite the beautiful prose. The premise seemed promising but it was poorly executed, IMO. My grade, C-.

Vagabond, story and artwork by Takehiko Inoue was released back in 1998 by VIZ media, with 27 titles translated in the US and #28 set to release April 2008. The story was adapted from the novel, Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa, which tells the fictitious exploits of a famous swordsman, Miyamoto Musashi (Shinmen Takezo character).

Looking for a story strong on Japanese history? That also has a hint of romance? I was completely surprised at how much I enjoyed this manga. The foundation of the story is based on real historical events, and wouldn’t you know it, the battle to rule Japan was instigated by the lack of a strong successor? The graphic novel opens with Takezo (who would later become known as the famous Miyamoto Musashi) and Hon’iden Matahachi, surviving on the battlefield and on the losing side of the Sekigahara battle, that would mark the beginning of shogun rule in feudal Japan.

The two men left their home in Miyamoto village to go off to war to make a name for themselves. The first volume follows Tazeko in his teens and takes up 2 days after the war is over. We see that Taeko has already made a name for himself in his home village. He is brash, arrogant and has a reputation as being a deadly warrior. Rumors spread around about his “odd” childhood and how he lived in the mountains. He is a survivor and once he is set on his path, he pretty much stays on it. Matahachi and Tezeko have a couple of bandits after them that eventually leads them to cross paths with a couple of beautiful women who steal swords from fallen soldiers on the battlefield for money. Matachachi has a fiance back home but that doesn’t stop him from falling in love. Matachachi is not as fierce as Tezeko. He is more of a “lover” and not much of a fighter.

Tezeko has a knack for making enemies and has the Tsujikaze gang after him. He shames them by killing their leader and heads back to his home village of Miyamoto, thereby leading the now leaderless gang there as well. A trap is set for him in the unlikeliest of places and that’s where the story dangles. I only bought the first volume and will have to seek out the rest. The graphic novel does have a hint of romance, a couple of sex scenes and some humor. The artwork is nice especially with the beginning of each story splashed with a couple pages of color before going back to black and white frames.

I am often no good at deciphering action scenes in graphic novels and the one’s in here weren’t too hard to follow. However, it is terribly graphic and violent in the fight scenes. My favorite character has to be the “granny.” She is very upset to learn that Tezeko comes back home without her son. She blames him for “luring” him into war and leaving him behind. She gets even more upset when Tezeko comes back home with bad news for Matachachi’s soon to be bride and that is where the story ends - with intrigue and heartache. There are other notable secondary characters that stood out as well. I don’t know why I waited so long to read this graphic novel and I think I might have the second one around here, somewhere. Anyway, my grade, A. Excellent first entry that has peaked my intrerest for the rest of the series.