'The Tapestry of Fate' - May 20

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. So, I look at ‘The Tapestry of Fate’ by Ms. Chakraborty, and what do I think?

…A complete re-making of the franchise, that is what. In the series debut (2023), ‘The Adventures of Amina…’ the novel was extremely influenced by Disney’s PotC franchise. (Remember it? Mr. Depp was acquitted, aye, but so far, he kept a low profile regardless). It was not a bad novel, but the Daevabad series was better.

Now we came to ‘The Tapestry of Fate’, and the entire premise we were given in ‘The Adventures’ gets not-so-subtle dismissed. For example, Captain Amina’s first mate, Timbu, was in the same-sex relationship with a man named Joseph, who was also of the Judaic faith – and now that plotline is not mentioned at all, and Timbu himself has a much-reduced role – for the bulk of ‘The Tapestry’ he is not there, not really. Many other characters, introduced in ‘The Adventures…’ became sidelined or removed or barely mentioned in ‘The Tapestry’, leaving the spotlight not just on the novel’s villain, queen Lab, (no, that’s not a typo, that’s her moniker; at least Ms. Chakraborty and her team didn’t name her queen Lab O’Ratory, as that would be just silly), but also on Amina, Dalila, and Raksh.

…Raksh (I’m quite sure it’s an abbreviation of ‘Rakshasa’) was decidedly an enemy of captain Amina and her crew in ‘The Adventures’; now, in ‘The Tapestry’, he’s part of the team instead. Pause.

Listen, I can list the differences as how the novels in captain Amina line treat the characters, the plot, everything else, but what for? Let us just assume that Ms. Chakraborty hired a ghostwriter, or re-hired an old ghostwriter, or hired a new one, and move on. To where?

That is a good question. What else is out there? The ‘Twisted Disney’ series, where various respected authors are paid to create book-length fanfics about various Disney characters? If you like Disney, you will probably enjoy the different adventures of Jasmine, Mulan, Lilo and Stitch, etc., and buy those books; if you do not, you probably will not.

Ms. Patricia Briggs keeps on releasing the novels about Mercy, but not all. This brings us back to the topic of ghostwriters – on her own, Ms. Briggs’ novels are an endless parade of Mary Sue – one is called Mercy, and the other is called Anna or Ann, depending on which of the Marrok’s two sons a novel focuses. Ms. Briggs did not have something to name her Mary Sue three distinct names – one can be called Mercy, another Anna (or Ann), and the third – Betty or Cherry, off the top of my head – but no. Clearly, if Ms. Briggs’ Mary Sue is not named Mercy, her name has to start with the letter ‘A’, or else it just does not work.  

…Like all Mary Sue novels, the female characters who are not the main lead are villains, who are treated much harsher than the male characters, or else are bitchy and redundant. Fair enough. Ms. Briggs owns a ranch, she can release as much fiction as she can afford. Huzzah. What next?

MCU itself does not know what to do with ‘Punisher: One Last Kill’. BB has released their second S2 ‘Endlings’ episode – this one on the giant Galapagos tortoise. Again, they dutifully took the Wikipedia article – or just asked one A.I. or another – read the results, and, well, read the results to us via YouTube.

Aye, it is somewhat curious to think how people moaned the fate of Lonesome George, when just a few miles in one direction or another his cousins flourished, and, in this case, extinction didn’t get to be forever, and it is interesting to learn just how easily giant Galapagos tortoises crossbreed/hybridize with each other, and how tricky is conserving those species/subspecies, but-

Pause. I enjoyed watching this episode. It was straightforward, simple, and fun to follow. Whether or not it was original, is another question, but after reading Ms. Chakraborty (seriously, the woman does not even look the part – are we talking cultural appropriation here, or has it been relegated back to empty noise?), I do not really care. BB

Testament of Loki - Dec 13

To continue the topic about 2018’s novels, let us…not make a stink like a mink, (cough, I thought this was funny), but talk about… ‘The Testament of Loki’, for a change. Written by Joanne Harris, this…actually has nothing to do with Disney, MCU, or Riordan, at least not too much.

What is this novel? It is a sequel to an earlier ‘The Gospel of Loki’ novel. That one was yet another retelling of the Norse myths, just one done from the point of view of Loki, from the beginning to Ragnarok. That is it, really, as far as fantasy novels go, this is as basic as you can get; whereas the Greco-Roman myths never had a proper conclusion, they have sort of faded away by the time of Christ, the Norse myths actually did: the Ragnarok would come, the old world and practically everyone will die – good, bad and ugly – and there will be some sort of a new age, a new world, and everything and everyone will be new. The end, and has vague echoing similarity with both monotheism – Judaism, Christianity, even Islam – and dualism, such as Zoroastrianism. Jolly good, but then we get ‘The Testament of Loki’, and this is where the novels change.

On one hand, ‘Testament’ is a YA novel, not unlike those of Riordan or J-Ro. In the first half of ‘Testament’, Loki escapes the afterlife via a video game of all things, takes over a body of a teenage girl and eventually helps her come to grips with her identity, fix her life, find her backbone, etc. – a not too different story from the other YA novels, even the LJ trilogy that became briefly popular during the summer of 2018 due to the movie made from the first novel. Now, of course, those books can be found in various stores, offered at a discount, but this is how the glory of the world passes.

And on the other hand, ‘Testament’ in the second half is Loki hopping all over dimensions, doing his best to stay ahead from Odin, Gullveig-Heid, Mimir, and even Thor – and he succeeds as he gets to be reborn as a new person at the novel’s end. Here, the tone of ‘Testament’ shifts from a typical YA to something more along the lines of Neil Geiman, with some Lovecraft thrown in, purposefully or not. In the second half, ‘Testament’ becomes one crazy ride of a novel, (on Sleipnir, no less!), and the only thing spoiling it is Loki’s…no, not so much narcissism, as his complete lack of understanding when he should fall silent and not make it all about him.

…Yeah, good luck with that – whether it’s Marvel or not, Loki always makes it about him; in A: IW movie, he dies, supposedly. Cough. He already ‘died’ in various films, including the ‘Thor: Dark World’ movie, so good luck with that as well. Loki has to keep on moving, even if it is just his mouth, because otherwise? He just might stop existing and explode/die/etc. However, in ‘Testament’, this attitude of the Trickster becomes exhausting, and people may stop rooting for him and just wait for the novel to end, which it does, as Loki had tricked everyone, outmaneuvered everyone, and gets to be reborn as a new person in a new world, where he gets a much expected break from activity, because even he as a baby cannot move around much, (well, not at first). Somehow, despite his, and his author’s, best intentions, the readers are not rooting from him as much as they did in the beginning of ‘Testament’ anymore. Ms. Harris, who had created this version of Loki, might have succeeded a bit too well in making him into an anti-hero, and as such, he is hard to root for in the novel’s end.

Oh, and the YA human characters of ‘Testament’? Yes, they get largely abandoned/dismissed by the second part of the novel, which decreases the novel’s impact on one hand, and on the other makes ‘Testament’ almost into two novels – one that is Loki’s adventure among the modern YA Americans, and the other which is Loki doing Odin’s bidding and rebuilding the old world, building a new one from scratch, etc. Yes, this is not unlike Ms. Cervantes ‘Storm Runner’ novel, which is also really two novels stitched into one, and we have discussed Ms. Cervantes’ ‘Storm Runner’ and their relationship with Mr. Riordan and his PJ-verse the last time. Now let’s just admit that ‘Storm Runner’, (and ‘Aru Shah’) is supposed to expand the PJ-verse and bring new literary life into it; whether they succeeded is another story – ‘Aru Shah’ feels completely unrelated to PJ-verse, while ‘Storm Runner’ feels like a weird imitation of the original, and it is not even so very flattering. ‘Testament’, on the other hand-

…On the other hand, Ms. Harris was never a part of Mr. Riordan’s PJ-verse; ‘Gospel’ was a simple retelling of the Norse myths, while ‘Testament’ is a more experimental piece, (which is mostly successful, too). ‘Gospel’ was an alternative to PJ-verse’s ‘Magnus’ subsection, and while it was never as successful as PJ-verse novels, it still worked. So has ‘Testament’ – because it cruised the coattails of its’ predecessor and because it dips its’ toe enough into the YA waters to swim in the wake of passing of HP novels, and PJ-verse novels, and similar novels; what will happen when Ms. Harris decides to write a sequel to ‘Testament’ is another story.

Of course, this in itself is an open question; Patricia Briggs’ novels – Mercedes Thompson and co. – are even more successful and popular than Ms. Harris’ books are, (about Loki and otherwise), but lately Ms. Briggs seems to have gone onto a downswing: lately there are no new novels by her, which is strange, since the last ones were some of the best. Of course, maybe she just does not want to write books anymore, for whatever reasons – in real life she owns a ranch, (or something along those lines), and doesn’t need income from books; she possibly writes (wrote) MT and co. novels for entertainment, and if she doesn’t want to write, she won’t. The end for MT and her universe. Anything else?

…Yes, there is a rumor that a new MT novel is coming in May 2019, but we will have to wait and see if anything comes out of it. For the moment, MT novels are on a hiatus…but we got plenty of other novels, including ‘The Testament of Loki’, to fill in the gap in the meanwhile.

This is it for this time. See you all soon!