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Of Fury and Fangs Cover and Synopsis Reveal

Posted by :letitia.carelock@gmail.com On : June 11, 2020

Tags:blog post, contemporary fantasy, cover reveal, dragon hunting, dragons, faye worthington, goodreads, Kamala Anjali, of cinder and bone, of cinder and bone series, of fury and fangs, Rhett Jackson, science fiction, science fiction novel, synopsis

You’ve been patient and the time has finally come. Here’s the next book in the Of Cinder and Bone series.

Someone wants Dr. Rhett “Jack” Jackson dead.

After surviving a vicious attack from a dragon in his own home, Jack and Dr. Kamala Anjali investigate who sent the dragon to kill him. Unfortunately, their list of enemies is long. Plenty of people have an axe to grind with the two scientists responsible for the rebirth of the previously extinct dragons that are now flourishing on every continent of the planet. Jack and Kamala rejoin with their team at the Knight Division to hunt down the culprit and put an end to their revenge scheme once and for all.

But will it cost them everything?

Of Fury and Fangs is the fourth novel in the Amazon and USA Today bestselling Of Cinder and Bone series, following Of Cinder and Bone, Of Blood and Ashes, and Of Dawn and Embers.

Of Fury and Fangs hits bookshelves October 24th, 2020. Add it to your Goodreads shelf here and make sure you’ve already liked my Facebook page to stay updated for when I post excerpts. The pre-order will be available within the next couple months, so stay tuned and be sure to spread the word!

The Dresden Files Reread and Review: Dead Beat

Posted by :letitia.carelock@gmail.com On : April 14, 2020

Category: Book & Movie Reviews

Tags:blog post, dead beat, harry dresden, karrin murphy, reread, review, the dresden files, the dresden files reread, the dresden files reread and review, thomas raith, waldo butters

Well.

Look at that.

I almost took as long a hiatus as Jim Butcher did completing Peace Talks.

*rimshot*

Get used to that joke, folks, I’m a bitter old crone.

In light of being stuck indoors for a while due to COVID 19, and in light of the recent explosion of news now that Jim Butcher finally completed Peace Talks and it’s being released July 2020 with Book 17 Battle Ground releasing in September 2020, I’ve decided to pick back up on my R & R. We left off a few years ago on Book Seven, Dead Beat. As always, spoilers for both this book and future books abound. You have been warned.

Just as an aside before we start, I have a bone to pick with Jim Butcher, his camp, and the fandom over Dead Beat. Some years ago, someone started saying that any new readers interested in the Dresden Files should start at Dead Beat and skip the first six books.

That’s the dumbest, wrongest, most irresponsible “advice” I’ve ever heard.

If you’ve read my recaps, you’ve seen the utter bombs that have dropped in the series prior to this book. I violently disagree with anyone who has ever told new readers to start at Dead Beat. I will fight Jim Butcher himself over it. Don’t you dare tell someone new to franchise to skip the first six books.

Wanna know why? Let me give you just a taste of the incredibly important things/people that happen either for character reasons or for plot reasons that have consequences or payoff that continues through the rest of the season:

Harry’s mother, Margaret
Harry’s father, Malcolm
Murphy’s father, Colin
Ebenezar McCoy
The White Court
The White Council and the Senior Council
Thomas’ connection to Harry
The Denarians
The Summer and Winter Courts
The Summer and Winter Mothers
Lea, Harry’s godmother
Jared Kincaid
The Archive
Susan Rodriguez and the Red Court war
Mortimer Lindquist
He Who Walks Behind
Mac and his bar
The Knights of the Cross
The archangels
Waldo Butters

And that’s just a fraction.

A literal fraction.

So I just want to put my two cents in here and say that while Dead Beat is considered a game changer for the books and one of the first big turning points, do not ever tell someone to start in the middle of the goddamn Dresden Files. It’s reckless and it’s going to make them miss out on so much rich story and so many vital character interactions as well as just some plain great novels. Stop it. Stop it now.

Anyway.

I’m a little funny about Dead Beat, personally. To tell you the truth, I don’t remember it very much because I am shipper trash and this is the book with no Murphy in it. I tend not to pay as much attention to the Murphy-less Dresden Files novels because that’s my favorite dynamic. But to be fair, this is still a good novel and the next one coming up, Proven Guilty, is chockful of awesome Harry/Murphy content, so let me get over myself and dive into the madness once again.

We open Dead Beat with a case of sibling rivalry. In case you’ve forgotten by now, Thomas, Harry’s older brother, has basically been cut off and booted out of the White Court mansion—now headed by his older sister, Lara Raith, who is behind the scenes controlling their father, Lord Raith—and is broke due to spending the last of his fortune to pay off Jared Kincaid for the job Harry hired him for in Blood Rites. Thus, the two Le Fey boys are living together in Harry’s tiny basement apartment and it’s not exactly the easiest thing to deal with. Aside from Susan, Harry’s only ever lived alone with a cat, and later, his dog, Mouse, whom he decided to keep. They’ve been living together close to a year, and Thomas is an incubus sex vampire, so poor Harry is having to deal with beautiful women randomly appearing at his place and wrecking it up on a regular basis since that’s how Thomas feeds himself. You can understand that it makes him exasperated.

Plus, there’s the bonus of these women mistaking Harry for gay.

Which…I’m so sorry, that’s one of the funniest damn things in this whole book.

The problem is that Harry and Thomas don’t actually look alike and they can’t tell people they’re related because it’s very dangerous for their enemies to know that, so the two of them hanging out constantly makes people jump to the wrong conclusion.

This will be important later.

Also, hilarious.

Which brings me to my next excellent bit.

After Thomas returns from the shower once the girl leaves, he reveals that he absolutely ships the hell out of Harry and Murphy.

This is also important.

Harry: [Murphy] said she’d be dropping by.

Thomas: Oh, yeah? No offense, Harry, but I’m doubting it was a booty call.

Harry: Would you stop it with that already?

Thomas: I’m telling you, you should just ask her out and get it over with. She’d say yes.

Harry: It isn’t like that.

Thomas: Yeah, okay.

Harry: It isn’t. We work together. We’re friends. That’s all.

Thomas: Right.

Harry: I am not interested in dating Murphy. And she’s not interested in me.

Thomas: Sure, sure. I hear you. *rolls eyes* Which is why you want the place looking nice. So your business friend won’t mind staying around for a little bit.

Thomas gets it.

Seriously, Harry, you had an entire epiphany in Mavra’s lair that you were jealous of Kincaid taking off Murphy’s pants, and yet you’re going to pretend she’s still just your friend? Thomas smelled that lie almost immediately and I love it.

However, while this is quite amusing, Thomas is having a rough time because incubi can’t exactly hold down regular jobs. Thomas is constantly being jumped by other employees and passerby’s, so he’s frustrated and angry once Harry starts to needle him about his control and bails. It is tough to think about what he’s going through, honestly, and it’s part of why I like Thomas so much as a character. White Court vampires typically don’t do what he does. Thomas only feeds on willing partners and only just enough to stay alive. Other vampires take who they want, when they want, and take until they kill their victims or enslave them to the pleasure. It’s got to be hell to fight those impulses when it’s literally what keeps Thomas alive and sane. But we’ll dive into that more later on.

Harry cleans up and takes Mouse for a walk and Murphy is waiting for him when he gets back.

And then Murphy drops a freaking atom bomb on us.

She’s going to Hawaii.

With freaking Jared Kincaid.

You know. The assassin.

The very not human assassin.

Jim Butcher:

Harry is very understandably angry, confused, worried, and jealous as hell. Murphy came over to leave her location and info to reach her hotel in an emergency as well as the key to her place to “water her plants” while she’s gone.

And here’s where things get interesting.

Murphy is asking Harry a question that unfortunately, poor stupid Harry isn’t aware of yet.

Murphy doesn’t need someone to water her damned plants. Does she need to drop off her location in case Kincaid does something shifty? Probably, yes, but she came over for two real reasons: (1) to have an excuse to ditch the trip if Harry was in the middle of a case that required her help (2) to see if Harry finally realized the romantic and sexual tension between them and would stop her from going by sharing his feelings with her.

This scene is infamous. It really grinds my gears, but in a good way. This is great writing because Harry is tragically a couple steps behind Murphy in this case. I love him to death, but Harry is VERY slow on the uptake emotionally speaking and he’s too far into his own denial and self-doubt to respond to Murphy’s unsaid question. However, the interesting part is that Harry senses something is off but he just CAN’T put his finger on it. He can feel her hesitance, but because he’s overly cautious, Murphy still leaves for the trip.

It’s so goddamn frustrating.

But it’s still good writing.

I really would have loved for Harry and Murphy to have had a conversation about their relationship at this point, but he’s not ready yet and the first time they talk about it in the next book is very interesting, so congrats to Butcher on being patient and pacing it out. It’s a really good internal conflict for Harry during this book because he’s out facing all kinds of dangers but he’s also thinking about how much he wants Murphy not to be with Kincaid because he’s jealous and worried because he cares about her a lot.

Mind you, the entire interaction ends with this bit from Harry’s inner monologue: I watched her go, feeling worried. And jealous. Really, really jealous. Holy crap. Was Thomas right after all?

Harry, you’re a fucking moron.

When Harry checks his mail, he gets a nasty surprise: a threatening letter from Mavra with photos of Murphy killing Renfields during the Black Court vampire raid from the previous year as well as a lock of Murphy’s hair. He’s to meet her that night at his grave in Graceland cemetery or she’ll release the photos, ruining Murphy’s career forever and most definitely landing her in jail.

He meets Mavra and is told to find the Word of Kemmler or she’ll have all the photos sent to the authorities, which means both the regular cops and the White Council. She gives him three days to get it, which coincidentally means his deadline lands on Halloween, his birthday. Ah, just another day in the life of Harry Dresden.

Harry heads home to get the skinny on the Word of Kemmler from Bob the Skull, an air spirit of knowledge he keeps in his basement. We find out Kemmler was a necromancer responsible for World War I and II, for crying out loud, so the guy was major bad news in his day. Bob has been owned by a number of people and things in the past and it so happens he was owned by Kemmler before Justin, Harry’s former master and abuser, owned him as well. Bob has purposely forgotten much of what happened with Kemmler since the guy was a walking nightmare. In order to get more knowledge, Harry taps into Bob’s memories but it goes very sideways as Bob becomes rather demonic when they talk, so Harry switches him back to normal.

The Word of Kemmler is his most awful, evil spells and if anyone gets their hands on it, then havoc and death will be everywhere, especially since some of his followers may still be alive. The magic needed to do a big bad thing would require sacrifices in advance, so Harry heads to see Waldo Butters at the morgue.

And here is one of the aforementioned turning points.

Butters gets one hell of a character upgrade in this book.

And it’s one of the most well-done, surprising aspects of the series.

Our delightful dork Butters is in the morgue practicing polka for Oktoberfest when Harry arrives. This will be important later. Don’t look at me like that, I mean it.

Butters has been studying Harry’s X-rays and recovery progress—if you recall, his left hand is burnt to hell—and lets Harry know his theory, which is that his body literally heals itself until an injury is gone, not just to the best it can do for functionality, which is why he thinks wizards live five or six times longer than the average person, which means there’s a good chance Harry will get the functionality back in his hand. This is a very cool, very heartfelt moment when Butters tells him. I love it. Their friendship is gold.

Butters notices something odd about a body and is about to look into it when a necromancer attacks the lab, using the poor dead security guard as a zombie enforcer. The lead Mook is named Grevane and he’s after Butters. They manage to escape and Butters insists that Harry tell him The Truth, to which Harry reluctantly agrees, since Harry learned his lesson from the last few times he didn’t want to tell someone The Truth and they got killed.

Harry gives Butters the abridged version of The Truth and explains that necromancers have to have a “beat” in order to control zombies, so any sound they can generate that’s repetitive keeps their will over the zombie. If it stops, the zombie just does whatever the hell it wants, so they have to formulate a plan to stop Grevane from getting to Butters as well as find the book. Harry got a look at the book Grevane had with him, so he takes Butters back to the apartment and leaves him with Mouse to investigate.

He stops at a bookstore and grabs a copy of the book that Grevane has and meets one of the bookstore’s employees, Sheila. This will be important later.

On his way out, he’s confronted by two previously unknown entities: Cowl and Kumori. They want the book as well, as Chicago only has two copies. Harry realizes he’s seen them in passing before at Bianca the Red Court Vampire’s place. They actually try to parlay with him to just destroy the book if he doesn’t want to hand it over, but Harry is the stubborn sort and doesn’t play ball. Cowl attacks and Harry just barely manages to survive it and Billy the werewolf and his pack show up to back Harry up. Cowl and Kumori retreat and Harry leaves with the pack as the cops approach.

They take him to Georgia’s parents’ place and Harry overhears Georgia and Billy having a very interesting conversation about him. In particular, about his burnt hand and some of his behavior, how he’s angrier than he has been before, and that when he flipped the car on top of Cowl, Billy smelled sulfur. I really like the tension in the scene as Harry has HUGE blindspots about himself—again, this will be VERY important later—and we as the readers forget that because we’re inside his head, we know his motivations, but others don’t. Georgia is asking Billy to consider stepping back if Harry asks them to because she knows Cowl is big bad business that they’re not ready for and she’s also asking him to consider if something is wrong with Harry since he’s also been very distant lately.

Harry tells them about the demon Lasciel and the coin. It’s a tough conversation considering that Harry has tried every spell he can find to try to separate himself from the demon and nothing has worked. Worse still, he’s doubting himself since he picked up the coin instead of Harry the second when Nicodemus tossed it, so he’s concerned about his subconscious desires as well. What’s really important here is the friendship between them as Harry tells them what’s going on and they agree to do what they can and that he thanks them graciously. It’s really such a grounded scene and it’s why I love Harry so much as a character. I especially love that Georgia points out that Harry is basically the supernatural dad of Chicago; he immediately takes anyone who needs help under his wing and puts their needs before his own, protecting them before protecting himself, which is why she was asking Billy to be willing to hang back. She didn’t want them to distract him considering the level of danger that he’s in, which is a great show of what good friends they are to him. It’s very touching.

Once the heat dies down, Billy and Georgia take Harry back for his car only to find it’s been bashed up with a baseball bat by someone clearly trying to send him a message. Billy and Georgia very kindly offer to get the Beetle towed and lend him their SUV so he can continue investigating since he’s on a deadline. Again, this is a really heartwarming moment, showing how much they care for him and trust him and I like it a lot.

Harry goes to see Mortimer Lindquist, a fake psychic but someone who does happen to have enough supernatural talent to be helpful sometimes. Harry wants Mort to ask the dead if they can help him locate the necromancers. He refuses at first, but then Harry tells him Murphy’s in trouble and Mort knew Murphy’s father, so he agrees to help. The ghosts are able to confirm there are six necromancers currently in Chicago.

Harry returns home and Thomas is home and Butters is asleep. Harry starts to read the book he acquired, but he falls asleep and is visited his father, Malcolm Dresden. It’s probably one of the best scenes in the book, if I’m being honest, as the affection and reverence that Harry has for his late father and vice versa is so palpable. I’ve said a million times that one of the reasons Jim Butcher is my favorite author is that he doesn’t skimp on the powerful emotional scenes with Harry and his loved ones, as well as just other characters in general. A lot of the times male authors want to make their hero really cool and don’t want to focus on things that matter to him on a personal level. Harry is and always has been someone who is deeply impacted by everything around him and he’s not afraid to show his emotions, good or bad. The whole interaction is just simple encouragement from his dad and it’s wonderful.

The next morning Harry and Thomas go for a run and Harry gives him an update on what’s going on as well as telling him about Murphy running off with Kincaid. I want to mention that Thomas is in mid-run when he finds out about Murphy and Kincaid and he full-on stops running for a few seconds.

Thomas @ Jim Butcher:

Thomas is all of us.

It is notable that by now, Harry has realized that Murphy wanted him to tell her not to go. However, he’s trying to rationalize it and say that he’s being reasonable by not going after her due to their friendship and professional relationship. Thomas takes a very good shot at him for it and it’s really good and tense because Thomas is frustrated that Harry doesn’t see that the two of them could have the real deal. Thomas is in love with Justine and he knows how good it can be, but he’s been denied that due to being a vampire. It’s comforting to see that Thomas isn’t pushing Harry to go after Murphy just to be a needling older brother or because he wants him to get laid. Thomas cares because he knows they can go the distance and be happy, which is more than he would ever be able to do being who he is.

This segways into Harry confronting Thomas about his hunger and what he’s dealing with. Thomas comes up with a clever way to make him understand: he challenges Harry to race him down the beach back to the car. Naturally, Thomas is a freaking vampire with vampire speed, so Harry has to use basically every last drop of his strength and agility to “win” the race, and is exhausted and is about to gulp down a whole bottle of cold water when Thomas knocks it out of his hand. And then Thomas quietly tells him that’s what it’s like for him every waking moment of his life. Harry finally understands why he’s been tense and frustrated lately and it’s a great bonding moment for the brothers.

Harry drops Thomas back off at the apartment and heads for the nearest use of dark magic on the map, which is at the Field Museum. The museum currently has the infamous Sue on display at the time, aka Sue the T-Rex skeleton. This will be important later. Turns out there’s been a murder, so Harry sneaks into the crime scene to snoop. He of course forgets that he’s like seven-feet-tall, so one of the S.I. cops who is on the scene, Rawlins, spots him mid-snoop. Rawlins is another character whom I have affection for in terms of being a reasonable authority figure and an ally to both Harry and Murphy. It amuses me greatly that he’s been busted down from detective on account of having a smart mouth and an attitude, since it explains a lot of why Murphy trusts him. His intuition and his knowledge that Harry works with Murphy and she trusts him allows Rawlins to feel comfortable enough to let Harry in on some details of the murder victim, Charles Bartleby. It also helps that Murphy’s father, Colin, saved Rawlin’s life a long time ago so he’s always had Murphy’s back.

On a hunch, Harry asks if Rawlins knows what happened at the morgue and he doesn’t, which means Grevane cleaned up the mess and no one knows Butters is missing nor that the security guard is dead. Harry decides to take Butters along to the morgue to see if what the necromancers want is still in the building. They head inside and take a look at the body Butters had been about to examine and it’s mutilated very badly.

While Harry waits for Butters to help with the autopsy, he overhears the two assistants to Bartlesby come in to ask about the body and his personal items. Harry recognizes that the male, Li, is a ghoul. He hustles to get Butters gone before they get in trouble, but the other corpse that got hit by a car Harry recognizes is a smuggler who works for John Marcone. Cue eyeroll.

In case you forgot—and it’s easy to because this character is so dull—John Marcone is Chicago’s mob boss. He has his fingers in pretty much every pie of organized crime and he’s very aware of the supernatural underbelly as well. He and Harry hate each other’s guts, but both are too dangerous to get the other one killed so they mostly just try to stay out of each other’s way.

They go back to Billy and Georgia’s to try to see what’s on the jump drive, but it’s just an empty file with a number that has sixteen digits. Harry checks his voicemails and he’s got a painfully frustrating check-in call from Murphy and then a call from Sheila, the cute bookstore girl, that something’s up. Harry has Billy take Butters back to the apartment while he continues snooping.

Harry heads to the bookstore and is hurt to learn that its owner, Bock, doesn’t want him around anymore since he’s pretty much got trouble on his heels at all times. Harry agrees and talks to Sheila, even landing himself a date with her later, but shortly after he runs into Li and Alicia, trying to find who bought the Erl King book. Alicia demonstrates some very scary dark mental magic and unfortunately the only way for Harry to break loose is to tap into some of the demonic power in his head. He tries to make a break for it, but gets injured and they take the book. He lucks out that Marcone’s bodyguard, Gard, saves him before Li can finish him off. He gets pulled into a car with Gard, Marcone, and Marcone’s other bodyguard Hendricks. Marcone cooperates, giving him a tip since it’s in his best interest that Chicago isn’t overrun by the undead and in retribution for one of his men being murdered.

Harry gets his injured leg fixed and talks to the tip Marcone gave him, which is an EMT who saw Kumori revive a dead guy the previous night.

After that, Harry heads home and Thomas warns him about Butters being too scared to be any use if they get cornered. It’s a really good conversation as Thomas isn’t saying it to be mean, he’s saying it out of concern for Harry dragging Butters around as literal deadweight. Harry sticks up for him in a unique way, which is telling Thomas that they won’t do him any favors if they tell him to run and keep running, as the fear will control him for good. He and Thomas talk through what he’s learned and Harry recounts what he read in Erlking, so to dig for more info, he decides to call up Lea, his absolutely batshit insane, dangerous, hyperviolent “godmother.” Lord help us all.

But to his surprise, when he tries to summon Lea, Mab, Queen of Air and Darkness as well as the Winter Court, also pants-shittingly terrifying, shows up instead, saying that Lea is imprisoned for challenging her authority. However, Mab is still bound by her loyalty to answer Harry’s questions, so Harry instead asks her about the Erlking. Mab tells him that the Erlking is basically the king of goblins and has control over dead hunters’ spirits, which is linked to why the necromancers want to get his attention, so to speak. Harry tries to dig for more but Mab won’t cough it up unless he becomes the Winter Knight. As right now, Mab has her current Knight, Lloyd Slate, imprisoned and tortured for “disappointing” her. Harry theorizes the necromancers want to raise the ancient spirits all at once and absorb their power, which would make them too powerful for pretty much anyone to stop.

And as Harry gets back to his apartment, he gets jumped by zombies.

Harry Dresden, you are bad for my heart, sir.

The wards that protect Harry’s apartment are meant to stop magical beings from entering, but it has a limit to just how much it can take. Once the bad guys throw enough zombies at it, the wards will fail and then it’s just getting through the steel door to bust inside. Butters understandably gets hysterical because the only plan they’ve got is to try to break for the car and leave.

What follows is one of the most notoriously awesome, heartwarming things in this series.

Harry: We’re not going to die!

Butters: We’re not?

Harry: No. And do you know why?

Butters: *shakes his head*

Harry: Because Thomas is too pretty to die. And because I’m too stubborn to die. And most of all because tomorrow is Oktoberfest, Butters, and polka will never die. Polka will never die! Say it!

Butters: Polka will never die?

Harry: Again!

Butters: P-p-polka will never die.

Harry: Louder!

Butters: Polka will never die!

Harry: We’re going to make it!

Butters: Polka will never die!

Thomas: I can’t believe I’m hearing this.

You’re fucking welcome. Everyone’s life has been enriched by witnessing this scene. Legit, if you shout this at a comic book convention or somewhere that a large number of geeks enter, someone will probably shout it back to you. It’s that famous a scene. For good damn reason.

Harry manages to negotiate with Grevane to get everyone out in exchange for the numbers they found on the flash drive. Corpsetaker crashes the party and Team Dresden manages to bail from the ensuing battle. They all head to Murphy’s place to get stitched up and rest.

Which leads to one of the other funniest goddamn jokes in the whole series.

Poor Butters thinks Harry is gay.

The best part? Thomas thinks it’s fucking hilarious. He then proceeds to enable Butters by being fake-nice to Harry while Butters is stitching him up and I can’t even start to tell you what a belly-laugh it gets out of me that Thomas not only thinks it’s funny, but he just makes it even worse for shits and giggles. It’s EXACTLY what an older brother would do and that’s why I crack up every time I read it. Harry and Thomas are arguably my favorite fictional siblings for this exact reason. Their relationship is so realistic.

Thomas pulls a fast one and gives Harry painkillers instead of antibiotics, which make our giant idiot sleepy and Thomas tucks him in. And Harry proceeds to stab us with more feels when Thomas puts him in Murphy’s bed: The last thing I thought, before I dropped off to sleep, was that the cover smelled faintly of soap and sunlight and strawberries. They smelled like Murphy.

Harry, you dope. You’ve got it so bad for Murphy it’s not even funny.

When Harry sleeps, the demon in his head, Lasciel, finally manifests herself. Since Harry had no choice but to use the Hellfire to get out of a jam earlier, she now has permission to be in his head. She’s not the true demon, but an imprint of her, basically, since the real coin is under Harry’s basement under a lot of powerful magical wards. They have a brief conversation in which Lasciel offers Harry her almost endless knowledge and power and Harry tells her to shove it.

When he wakes, he gives Thomas and Butters the low down on his terrible plan, which is basically to call the White Council and get Wardens dispatched to Chicago to fight and then he’ll try to summon the Erlking at the same time as the necromancers, which means if he pulls it off first, then the necromancers can’t steal the Erlking’s power for their evil plan meanwhile Bob, Thomas, and Butters try to decode the numbers to figure out where the Word of Kemmler is so he can give it to Mavra to save Murphy’s life. The entire thing is basically suicide. Because of course it is.

Billy stops by Harry’s office to make sure he’s alright after hearing what happened at the shop and to warn him that people are very worried about his erratic behavior lately, which Harry brushes off due to all the shit he’s dealing with. This will be VERY important later.

Harry stops by Sheila’s apartment and has her recount the poems in the Erlking’s book so he can summon him because she has a photographic memory. Kumori stops by, but reveals that she just wants to talk, so they enact a ceasefire. She wants him to back off and he wants her to back off, but understandably, neither of them can do so. She does reveal that she and Cowl’s mission is to harness death magic to literally end death in general, making everyone immortal. Yeesh.

Harry heads to Mac’s bar to meet with the Wardens, which consist of Donald Morgan, Carlos Ramirez, Anastasia Luccio, and two newbies. Then Luccio goes and offers Harry his own grey cloak, to Harry’s shock. Then Harry finds out that the war with the Red Court has taken out twenty percent of the Wardens forces so far. It got worse as the Red Court chased them through Nevernever, the land of demons and other creatures, and then called to the Outsiders, which are malevolent beings that live outside of Harry’s resident dimension, reality, and universe. Still, knowing how the Wardens and the White Council operate, Harry wants no part of their ranks. For damn good reason, I might add. Morgan is a dickhead bully who followed Harry around for his entire probation period just waiting for a chance to cut his head off and even tried goading him into attacking him so he’d have an excuse to kill him once. Luccio manages to persuade him that they’ll support him and that she at the very least trusts him and it will shift the tide of opinions in the White Council away from him since he technically started the war (but to be fair, the Red Court just needed an excuse, they were planning it already). She makes him regional commander and reassigns Morgan so he won’t be hovering over Harry’s shoulder looking for a place to stick a knife and they start strategizing what to do.

After the meeting, Harry heads back to Murphy’s place. Thomas called his sister, Lara Raith, and implied that Harry—who knows that she is running the White Court and not her puppet father Lord Raith—might spill the beans unless he receives some sort of assistance. She got them some info about where they think the ceremony will take place. Harry sends Thomas out to drop off a message to the Wardens and preps to go trap the Erlking in a circle so the necromancers can’t summon him.

Harry calls up the Erlking and actually manages to hold him, but Cowl jumps him and the Erlking as well as the Wild Hunt are unleashed on Chicago. He and Kumori leave Harry alive out of respect, and out of the knowledge that the Erlking is just gonna come back later and off Harry. Butters and Mouse are thankfully safe inside the house, and it’s now that Harry realizes that Mouse is scary smart and in no way a regular dog, which is adorable. Unfortunately, though, Kumori stole Bob since Kemmler used to own Bob and Bob would probably know how to give them the instructions they need for the Darkhallow spell. Let the good times roll.

Harry and Butters leave, still trying to figure out the combination, and then we get possibly one of the biggest, nastiest bombs in the whole book dropped on us.

Sheila isn’t real.

She’s Lasciel projecting herself through Harry’s five senses to appear real to him, but she’s not physically there or anywhere but in his head.

Feel free to shit an absolute brick and then throw that brick at this bitch’s head.

I’ve not talked about this bit because I wanted to get to it in sequence with the book. This is one of the most intensely fucked up things that’s happened to Harry so far in the series. I mean, the level of cruelty and manipulation by Lasciel is staggering. She outright lied to his face to get him to comply with her “help” and then tries to pass it off as not that bad to him when he finally puts it together that it’s all in his head and that’s why his friends and Bock the bookstore owner have been worried he’s going nuts. He’s been talking to thin air, for God’s sake. Lasciel insists that she actually enjoyed playing the role since Harry didn’t know it was her, and Harry is a very sweet, charming man all on his own, for no reason other than that’s just how he is, even when he’s in danger. She hasn’t interacted with any people in probably a very long stretch of years, so in a way, she’s not all the way lying about enjoy Harry’s company when he didn’t know it was her the whole time.

But it’s so fucked up.

Lasciel is directly preying on Harry’s weaknesses. She knows he’s soft on women. She knows Murphy left him and he’s hurting and jealous and longing for her this whole time, worried about protecting her from Mavra, and feeling bad that he couldn’t act on his feelings before she left. Deep down, of course Harry wanted a friend and ally during this tough fight, and she’s the only girl around who is smart and pretty and interested in him for who he is, seemingly. What a bitch move. It’s a ‘cut out your heart with a spoon’ moment for me. I am so offended on Harry’s behalf that it’s not even funny. She played him like a fiddle and it’s so depressing and messed up that it’s tough to reread the scenes before Harry finds out Sheila’s not real.

The other piece that’s important as well is that Lasciel is self-serving. If Harry dies, she dies as well. She is still a real entity even if she’s just a copy of the real Lasciel that lives inside the coin in Harry’s basement. She really is trying to help him survive the ordeal so that she can survive as well.

However, Harry recognizes the slippery slope he’s on and asserts his will power until she’s out of his head temporarily and reassures Butters that now he’s aware that he’s been played with so badly. Poor guy. It’s also tough as hell on his friends to have faith in him when he’s literally been hallucinating without knowing it for the past couple of days, but it’s a testament to what good people Harry knows that they keep giving him the benefit of the doubt.

Harry and Butters manage to throw together a tracking spell and find the Word of Kemmler hidden in the skull of Sue the T-Rex at the museum. Grevane confronts Harry and we find out that his buddy that’s been with him the whole time is Cassius, a former Denarian who Harry went to fucking town on in Death Masks, and for good goddamn reason. Grevane leaves with the book and Cassius starts trying to get Harry to tell him where his Denarian coin is. With torture. It is very, very rough and I do not like it and I want to sue Jim Butcher for $300 million in emotional damages.

But luckily, just before Cassius is going to kill him, Butters and Mouse crash the party.

Butters does an admirable job of kicking ass Butters’ style and Mouse makes the final kill, but unfortunately, Cassius gets out his death curse before Mouse kills him. A Death Curse is something a wizard or sorcerer can use right before their final moment. It’s one of the strongest kinds of magic ever, since it’s involved with death, and you can’t avoid it or reverse it usually.

And Cassius’ death curse is “die alone.”

…yeah, I’m suing Jim Butcher for $500 million emotional damages now. Jerk.

Both fortunately and unfortunately, Cassius’ death curse is not immediate. It doesn’t kill Harry on the spot. Harry passes out and sees Id Harry and Lasciel in his subconscious, who have a coming to Jesus talk with the fact that he’s basically heading down an assisted suicide path with his solutions. He finally has no choice but to allow Lasciel to help since there’s not much he by himself and with his few allies can do to survive the night.

It is now, my friends, that we reach the most infamous scene in the entire Dresden Files series.

Harry fucking Dresden riding a zombie dinosaur down Michigan Avenue.

Mm-hmm.

Read that again. Drink it in, people.

My idiot wizard boyfriend has outdone himself.

Since he’s read the Word of Kemmler, he reanimates Sue and has Butters use his polka suit to provide the beat as they haul ass to the site where the necromancers are trying to summon all the spirits.

And it turns out Sue’s pretty handy against an army of zombies. She eats Li. Good girl.

Harry takes Sue and Butters over to the Wardens and gets them caught up and ready for the final assault just as the spell starts to rev up. Corpsetaker attacks Luccio, switching their bodies and minds in the attack and Harry just barely manages to realize it in time. He shoots Luccio’s body and kills Corpsetaker.

And of course, Donald fuckin’ Morgan sees this, thinks Harry’s a traitor, and tries to execute him.

Harry is already too shaken by what he did and is about to let it happen, but Luccio revives in Corpsetaker’s switched body and makes him stand down. I know that Donald Morgan has reasons and motivations and a backstory that we will find out later in the series, but honestly, from the bottom of my black heart, fuck Donald Morgan. I hate him so much. He is everything wrong with the White Council and everything wrong with soldiers in general all rolled into one despicable man. I loathe him even though I’ve read the books and I understand that he is a three-dimensional character. Still. Fuck him.

The Wardens except for Harry and Ramirez are too injured to help, so they press on, leaving Butters to be safe with them, and take Sue out towards the Darkhallow. Ramirez turns out to be an absolute hoot and gets along with Harry, trusting his instincts and the actual good things people have had to say about Harry for once, and it’s a relief.

Ramirez kills Grevane, but Cowl and Kumori get the jump on him and knock him out, capturing Harry. Bob is facilitating the spell and Harry manages to get through to the real Bob, releasing him from the skull. Bob flies into the now loose Sue and comes to Harry’s rescue, and Harry is able to stop Cowl from absorbing the souls and completing the Darkhallow.

Go Team Dresden.

Harry wakes to get a nod of respect (and a warning) from the Erlking. He and the Wardens all get cleaned up and he gives Mavra the book, though not without threatening the shit out of her over Murphy and it makes me shipper heart sing. Nothing says, “I love you” like “if you touch her, I’m declaring war on you.” Oh, Harry. You’re such a romantic.

There’s also a lovely scene of Harry standing over his grave and his father visits again, giving him reassurance that while the death curse will indeed hit someday and while Harry had to do really fucked up things to survive this time around, it’s still his choice to be who he is in spite of the dark things surrounding him.

Things wrap up pretty good. Luccio is on leave to heal, so Morgan takes over for her in the meantime and actually admits that he was wrong about Harry for once (and I still don’t care and hate his guts) and Murphy comes home with her arm in a sling, implying that Hawaii had its own adventure for her (that I will never ever read even if Butcher does write it) and Butter gives Harry a guitar so he can start to rehabilitate his hand, ending the book on a sweet note.

So that was Dead Beat. Woof.

Dead Beat is definitely a rollercoaster ride. It’s one of the books that has very few downtime moments and it has momentum like a freight train. Harry is thoroughly trampled both physically and emotionally and so was I rereading the sheer amount of trauma he went through. For that reason, I have to say Dead Beat is kind of tough on the senses. I do admit that I miss some of the brighter spots and the downtime that Blood Rites or Summer Knight had in them. Overall, while it’s certainly not the darkest book, it is one with some of the darkest consequences and where Harry feels so overwhelmed and hopeless, which is a common theme since Butcher is a sadist. It’s a fantastic book, though, and I get why it gets a lot of buzz in the reading community.

Overall Grade: 4 out of 5 stars

Join me next time for another personal favorite of mine in the series, Proven Guilty.

Kyo out.

Of Fury and Fangs – First Line

Posted by :letitia.carelock@gmail.com On : March 7, 2020

Category: Author Events

Tags:blog post, dragon hunting, dragons, first line, new release, of cinder and bone, of cinder and bone series, of fury and fangs

It’s that time of year again! As I near completion on the fourth novel in the Of Cinder and Bone series, Of Fury and Fangs, I thought I’d drop that first line on you while you wait.

“It was one AM when all hell broke loose.”

I hope that whets your appetites. Stay tuned for more news, including cover reveal, synopsis, excerpts, and release date! The fastest way to stay in touch is Facebook and Twitter, so make sure you’re following both and see you soon.

Sincerely,

Kyoko M.

Hindsight is 20/20: My Sixth Year in Self Publishing

Posted by :letitia.carelock@gmail.com On : July 21, 2019

Category: Inspiration

Tags:blog post, hindsight is 2020, recap, self publishing, sixth year

“What’s it like being a self published author?”

One more year. One more set of bumps and bruises.

Though my life right now is the equivalent of the “This is Fine” dog .gif, I can safely say that I’m happy to still be in one piece. By now, you’re all used to me telling you just how bloody difficult it is being an indie author, so I won’t fill your ear with that this time around.

What I can say is that while I’m currently in Hell, at least I got to enjoy a few things along the way, one of which was a literal miracle.

For one, I got to languish in the arms of the incomparably handsome, articulate, kind, funny, charming Tom Hiddleston. Recap here.

In March 2018, I stumbled onto the radar of New York Times bestselling author, and my personal favorite female writer, Ilona Andrews. She downloaded The Black Parade, read it, and then contacted me to say that she enjoyed it and wanted to make a blog post for me. Yes. That is a real thing that happened, and yes, I still am in disbelief, same as you. You can read the recap right here, and there’s even screencaps to prove this truly happened. It’s mindblowing, and by far the kindest thing that has ever happened to me, period, in my entire career as an author.

And I don’t mention that in order to brag. I mentioned it simply because it honestly opened up some opportunities for me to be in front of an audience I would never have a chance to get in front of if not for Ms. Andrews. It was truly an act of complete selflessness, and I am forever in her debt. It allowed me to get a huge surge of sales, and I honestly learned so much from that one conversation with her. It also put me in front of some bloggers and reviewers who wouldn’t know about me without Ms. Andrews’ help, and I am still reaping the benefits of that today.

So what did I learn in my sixth year as a self-published author?

Be ready and willing to help each other. Ilona Andrews’ act of kindness really did remind me that I think all authors have a responsibility to help each other. Even if you’re a small fry, you can contribute something. Your experiences and knowledge of any part of the writing process can be a boon to someone who is on their way up the ladder behind you. This is a pretty dark world we live in right now, so it’s imperative that we continue trying to be good to each other in spite of it. Even if it’s just retweeting each other, sharing links, posting reviews, or simply complimenting each other’s writing styles, encourage other authors. You never know when one of us is struggling and wants to give up, and maybe your help keeps them going.

Learn to manage yourself alongside your work. A large part of why everything’s on fire in my life is that my mental health has been steadily declining in recent times due to stress and financial burdens. As a result, I wrote a lot less during the previous year and this year as I tried to find coping mechanisms, since at the time when most of it was at its worst, I had no outlet for my problems. Now, however, I’ve been able to create a strategy that will hopefully nudge me towards being mentally healthy. Your health is absolutely important, and you shouldn’t dismiss its effect on your writing. Authors always talk about the grind, and some of us can turn out an incredible amount of pages in a short amount of time, but please don’t forget that everyone is different. It’s daunting to read about something like Stephen King writing an entire 200k novel in like 90 days. It can make you feel like you’re just a hack, but everyone is different, and you have to find your own balance. Take care of yourself, and then take care of your writing.

Procrastinate less. Yes, I know. Practice what you preach, Kyo. I’m addicted to procrastination, so I’ve had to teach myself not to do it as much. Baby steps. If you’re the same way, make a conscious effort to tame that self-destructive need to procrastinate so that you can be productive and happy.

Get creative with your regions of discoverability. One fun thing about the Internet is that people can stumble across your work in the most random ways. I made a joke last night about how I always update my TvTropes.org page for each of my novels because “it’s free real estate” and a follower actually commented saying that’s exactly how he found The Black Parade, and it blew my mind. I had just been goofing off creating those pages for poops and giggles, and it actually worked! Therefore, feel free to just go nuts with different things that are of interest to you. Sometimes it can actually drive people towards you, and towards your work as well.

Don’t forget the personal touch and Word of Mouth. I recently attended Black Girl Geek Con’s debut year as a guest, and while it was a small, first time event, I met so many beautiful, interesting black authors, and found a fantastic amount of enthusiasm from the people who came. It was a lot of fun getting to meet the people in the library and even though the crowds were small, the enthusiasm was huge. I actually sold the most amount of paperbacks in one sitting at that con than at larger events that I have been to before. It’s not always about attendance numbers. Remember that someone buying your book is in a way buying a little piece of you. Always be open to sharing yourself with others when you’re out on the con appearance trail.

2019 has already been an uphill battle for me. I’m Sisyphus at the bottom of his mountain. But I’ve got extra thicc thighs and strong shoulders, so trust me, I’ll get my boulder back rolling up again soon. Thank you to everyone who has supported me thus far, and I hope that I continue to entertain you as I make my journey up that mountain again with all new works.

Of Dawn and Embers Release Day

Posted by :letitia.carelock@gmail.com On : July 20, 2019

Category: Author Events

Tags:blog post, blog tour, dragon hunting, dragons, faye worthington, Kamala Anjali, new novel, new release, of cinder and bone series, of dawn and embers, Rhett Jackson

You know the drill, people. It’s out. Go read it. Spread the word.

Plus, enter to win a $20 Amazon giftcard as we kick off day one of the blog tour. Thanks to everyone who pre-ordered! Remember, today is the last day to purchase it for .99 cents. It will go up to $4.99 tomorrow.

Hindsight is 20/20: My Fifth Year in Self Publishing

Posted by :letitia.carelock@gmail.com On : July 20, 2018

Category: Author Events, Inspiration

Tags:annual blog post, back to black, blog post, dragoncon 2017, hindsight is 2020, kyoko m, michael rosenbaum, ming-na wen, nathan fillion, of blood and ashes, of cinder and bone, of dawn and embers, steve blum

“What’s it like being a self-published author?”

Five years. Holy shit, you guys. Didn’t think I’d ever be able to say I survived this long in this brutal, cut-throat career path. I’m just as surprised as you are to still be here, trucking along, trying to survive.

2017, in my honest opinion, was almost as bad as 2016 aka the year the Darkest Timeline started, and the only reason I say that is that because 2016 set the precedent that we’re all screwed until the end of humanity, by comparison, at least I was ready to get my ass kicked all up and down 2017. I’m just about as battered and exhausted as I’ve ever been after making it through another rough year. But there’s often a rainbow behind the thunderstorm, so it wasn’t the worst every single moment of the year.

As far as my personal life goes, 2017 was good to me in terms of vacations. I got to spend a week running around Los Angeles for the first time ever as an adult for my own personal Treat Yo-self excursion. I had an absolute blast. It might be my favorite vacation I’ve ever taken so far. Even though I totally hate Dragon*Con, they lured me in again with the promise of my husband Nathan Fillion, and meeting him was nothing short of amazing, as well as the incomparable Ming Na Wen, Steve Blum, and Michael Rosenbaum. It was an unforgettable weekend and I smile every single time I look at any of the photo ops or autographs I got from those amazing actors.

Back to Black hit bookshelves in 2017 and did moderately well sales-wise, thus proving that readers are still interested in Jordan Amador’s wacky adventures, even without our lovely archangel Michael in the picture. It also has a soft spot in my heart simply because I adore how the cover turned out (huge thanks to Brose Designz—please check out her work; it’s all gorgeous). I also sheepishly admit it was fun to dive back into the dynamic between Jordan and Belial, and I’ve heard from a few of the readers that he’s honestly a favorite of theirs. I don’t blame them. He’s such a compelling bastard. I always muse that Betty Hutton’s “He’s a Demon, He’s a Devil, He’s a Doll” is a perfect description of him.

I also re-designed the cover for Of Cinder and Bone, and was met with a massive improvement in sales. I lament that I didn’t find Brose Designz earlier. I could have saved myself the trouble of re-branding, but to be fair, I searched long and hard and couldn’t find any dragon covers I could afford the first time around. If you’ve never seen OCAB in paperback, I suggest you give it a consideration: it looks absolutely freaking beautiful in book form. The ebook cover doesn’t do it justice. I can happily say the same for Of Blood and Ashes too.

Lastly, OCAB became a permanently free title in December of 2017. I fully admit it hurt my soul to do that for a book with such a hefty word count and one that was easily one of the hardest novels for me to complete, but you’ve got to be willing to make sacrifices for the greater good as an indie author. After all, the marketing strategy with a free first-in-series gets results even at the expense of my time and considerable effort, which is a good Segway into what I’ve learned this past year.

Write what you love and you’ll find yourself surprised at the results. So I published OCAB back in December 2016, so all of 2017 was basically an enormous learning experience. I was extremely nervous about publishing this novel simply because it’s very niche concept-wise. I started out in the urban fantasy/paranormal romance genre, and while some readers tend to read both sci-fi and fantasy, I knew there wouldn’t be as much overlap as any known author would have since I’m just an indie author. It went quite slow at first, to be honest, but then it slowly began to pick up consistent sales. What’s more is that while not all of the people who read The Black Parade read OCAB, I found that there was indeed a market for this concept despite how odd it sounds off-hand. One thing I truly find myself surprised with is that people don’t mind as much that the story is about chasing after the dragon rather than being about dragons in general, and that they are in fact drawn into Jack and Kamala’s friendship and eventual romance, and those were two of my biggest worries when I decided to publish it. I sheepishly admit the book is indeed too long—that’s the most common complaint in all the reviews I’ve received, positive or negative, and don’t worry, I intend to rectify the length once I’m back on my feet money-wise—but the reactions I’ve gotten have been better than I expected. I worried that OCAB was a three-star book, and people are generally telling me it’s a four-star book consistently. That’s an amazing thing to hear since I thought it would under-perform in comparison to The Black Parade, which I am slightly more “known” for. It shows that expanding your horizons isn’t always going to be a bad thing and that’s it’s quite easy to underestimate yourself as an author, and to underestimate the readers too. I wrote OCAB because it was fun and it was something I felt passionately about, and for different reasons than the Black Parade series, and it seems as if that’s what is drawing new readers to it.

Be discerning about who you allow to have your time, effort, and content. I have to be a bit vague about this lesson so as not to invite unwanted attention to myself, but should any young authors start looking into the boxed set style of marketing with other authors, please do enough research beforehand to see who you’re getting in bed with. Sometimes results may vary. Sometimes you find out people have bad reputations behind the scenes and it’s too late to do anything but ride it out. It’s hard to see that sort of thing from the surface should you receive an offer or be interested in submitting a book to a set, but I recommend that you do some Googling and check KBoards forums before making that commitment. All I’ll say is that I’ve been dissatisfied with the sets I entered into in 2017 and you honestly won’t have to worry about seeing me post about sets for a long damn time.

Find your flock. I may or may not have stolen this from the tagline of the movie Storks. (Which, by the way, is currently on HBO and if you’re a twenty or thirty-something, you have got to watch that movie. It’s absolutely amazing.) Although it cost way too much money and was a pain in the ass, returning to my hometown of Atlanta was a good move for me because it put me back in contact with local authors, colleagues, and friends. I’ve been able to attend a handful of author events ever since I moved back, and while none of them are anything huge, it’s been great to rub elbows with like-minded folks. We get to discuss relevant topics that the fandoms and readers and world at large doesn’t always find the time to talk about and we’re able to keep each other grounded and motivated. I always recommend for new authors to try to connect with people in their genre or even in their area since it’s nice to chit-chat about the business with someone who gets it. I fully believe that the key to reaching the next level as an author lies in getting Word of Mouth generate. Sadly, if you’re a small fry indie author as well as an introvert, it’s hard to accomplish that goal, but it is possible. One step at a time, I am working towards getting myself out there, meeting new people, and finding those who might be interested in my work.

To quote a catchy tune, “We’ve got a lot of work to do!” and 2018 is half over. I’m happy to say that I am currently penning the third novel in the OCAB series, Of Dawn and Embers, and that you’ll have more news from me in the fall regarding the plot synopsis and release date. Be patient with me, my darlings. I’m so glad you’re still on this raggedy train with me and I hope to see you for the next ride.

Is Loki Evil?

Posted by :letitia.carelock@gmail.com On : May 13, 2018

Is Loki evil?

Doesn’t that sound like such a simple question?

I mean, I could have answered that question quite easily back when we only had two movies to base the evidence on: Thor and the Avengers. Now that we’re at a total of five performances by the lovely Tom Hiddleston, I find myself struggling with evidence for and against this simple little question. It’s sort of made me consider that maybe the idea of good and evil isn’t as clean-cut as I once thought. I’m no stranger to grey area, but Loki has made me examine my own definition of evil now that we’ve gotten a complete scope of who he is as a character over the course of the Thor and MCU franchise. I thought it would be fun to muse over the question and see if I can draw an actual conclusion, or if I’ll remain undecided on the issue.

Naturally, major spoilers for every single film Loki has been in.

Evidence supporting evil:

Arranging Thor’s banishment: Loki of course made the excuse that he was simply trying to stall Thor being crowned King of Asgard as “a bit of fun” and because he believes Thor is a buffoon. He egged his brother on to go after the Frost Giants, knowing Odin would blame Thor and cast him out, leaving the throne to eventually fall to him. Gee, what a nice thing to do to someone who was raised alongside you and shows clear signs of having loved you since the moment you met each other, Loki. You ass-hat.
Plotting Odin’s assassination: Now we get into some tricky territory. Loki planned to secure himself as the hero and savior of Asgard by letting the Frost Giants into Asgard to slay his father and then killing Laufey in a double cross. It then gave him an excuse to wipe out the Frost Giants, thereby erasing his past and whatever feelings of guilt and inadequacy that their existence created in him. He also murdered his own damn father with zero remorse, and while I can agree that I can see why since Laufey appears to be nothing more than a monster who left him to die, it’s still incredibly messed up.
Killing Thor: Yep. There’s no if, ands, or buts about it—Loki tried to kill his brother, innocent people, and Thor’s comrades to keep himself on the throne. He didn’t even seem remorseful about it either.
Attempting genocide on the Frost Giants: This also speaks for itself. The reasoning here doesn’t hold water, either. Loki found out he wasn’t Odin’s son by blood and it twisted up inside him until it completely warped his view on his upbringing. Therefore, to him, eliminating the Frost Giants out of revenge for being abandoned and finding out he’s just a monster who looks like a prince made sense. Out of sight, out of mind. Still, even though the Frost Giants didn’t appear to be anything similar to good, decent beings, there is no excuse for genocide. Loki had no right to kill them all based on the actions of Laufey and Odin.
Trying to kill Thor a second time on the Rainbow Bridge: This is a particular sting to me because Thor so clearly didn’t want to hurt Loki, and certainly didn’t want to kill him. One thing that tears me up about Loki’s selfish, cruel nature is what it does to Thor. Nothing pisses me off more than the fangirls trying to say that any of this shit is Thor’s fault. We never see Thor treat Loki wrong. At most, sure, he talked over him and has probably embarrassed him in the past, but there is no abuse shown in their background. Thor loves his brother to death. Truly, selflessly. It’s so tragic that Thor loves him unconditionally considering what happens next in their joined narrative. At the end of the day, Thor just wants his brother back. He doesn’t care about Loki being a Frost Giant. He wanted to fight by his side and laugh and do all the dumb things brothers do. So Loki trying to kill him twice in the same film where we see how much Thor’s family means to him is just a big fat gut-stabbing to the feels.
Pretty much everything Loki does in The Avengers: the strongest argument for Loki being evil is largely here, in my opinion. I mean, we have blatant murder, mind control, plotting to have the mind-controlled Clint murder Natasha, at least two direct attempts to kill Thor, trying to kill all the Avengers as well as everyone aboard the helicarrier, killing Agent Coulson in cold blood, and then blowing up a good chunk of New York in the process of trying to rule the planet earth. Odin’s beard, this is Loki’s most evil actions that we’ve seen from him period. What’s so fascinating to me is that we still see just a peek that Loki pretends that he’s just an apathetic cold bastard, but then there are moments where we know that’s not the whole truth. The way he quietly asks Thor, “Did you mourn?” with this conflicted look that kind of sums up why I wanted to write this argument in the first place. He wouldn’t have asked if he didn’t care. Loki cares what Thor thinks of him, to some degree. It’s even in the scene atop Stark Tower where Thor tries again to bring his brother around. It’s very quick, but an actual tear slides down his face right before he stabs Thor and mutters, “Sentiment.” Loki keeps choosing the wrong side, choosing to be a selfish, thoughtless monster, and yet it’s still clear he feels fear, regret, remorse, and other emotions same as Thor does, but he refuses to let his emotions control his actions. He’s set course for the iceberg and he’s just going to crash into that thing no matter what. Good intentions mean nothing. The actions make the man, and the man is a monster in The Avengers.
Guiding Malekith’s lieutenant to Odin’s bedchambers: Ooh, if there’s one thing that burns me up with Loki, it’s his constant blame and revenge against Odin. Don’t get me wrong—Odin’s no prize. He’s a garbage father by the time we piece together what he’s done since his sons (and as we discover in Ragnarok, his daughter too) were born and/or found, but in this case, Loki’s in the wrong in so many ways here. Odin showed mercy taking Loki in, and it doesn’t matter his intentions. Odin raised Loki alongside Thor as an equal and Loki, from what we can tell, was just as loved by their mother Frigga. He has no excuse to pretend like his background justifies his desire to see Odin dead. It’s all just to cover up his own shortcomings and envy. It’s just a damned shame that Frigga paid the price for Loki’s hateful nature.
Faking his own death and bespelling Odin so he could impersonate him and keep the throne on Asgard: Once again, this one is such a freaking gut-stab to the feels. I want to slap Loki so hard for lying to Thor and making that poor man think he’s lost his brother again, and after saving his life. It’s just the worst. Loki is the most self-serving, egotistical piece of crap for doing this to Thor. It makes me want to throw Odin’s words right back in his smug face: “All this because Loki desires a throne.” “It’s my birthright!” “Your birthright was to die!” As mean as it is, Odin is right. Loki was shown mercy and what does he do with it? Get his mother killed and try to usurp the throne yet again, and not because he’d be a good ruler, simply to appease his damned ego.
Trying to kill Valkyrie: Thank Odin he was soundly beaten senseless, but it’s messed up that Loki tries to kill Valkyrie so she can’t get in his way. It’s even worse since he forces her to relive the absolute worst moment of her life, although it ends up spurring her to do the right thing and help Thor save Asgard. Loki is such a bastard for that, for driving the knife in and twisting it.
Betraying Thor on Sakaar: Thankfully, Thor had enough sense to know Loki would try it again, but even after all this time, Loki is perfectly happy to throw Thor to the wolves in order to get ahead. It’s worse because he knew the Grandmaster would either continue enslaving Thor or kill him outright. He couldn’t act as if there was some other fate awaiting Thor if his betrayal had panned out for him. It’s even worse when you consider the conversation right before it where Thor tells him, “Loki, I thought the world of you.” Loki’s so quick to blame Thor, to act offended when Thor suggested Loki stay on Sakaar if they get rid of the Grandmaster. He never holds himself accountable, just using that blanket “I’m the God of Mischief” excuse in place of accepting his reprehensible actions.
Stealing the Tesseract from Asgard during Ragnarok: As we come to find Loki’s fate in Infinity War, all I can think is this could have been avoided if he’d left the damned thing there. Loki, Loki, Loki, why are you like this? Half of Asgard would still be alive if he hadn’t taken it from Odin’s vault before Asgard was destroyed. Does that mean that Thanos would have failed? Who knows. But Loki’s decision costs him his life, Heimdall his life, and also the lives of many innocent Asgardians thanks to his power-hungry nature. I suppose this argument is sort of answered in that Loki pays for his selfish act with his life, but it also ends up being a point for and against him, as you’ll see below.

When you add all that up, it makes quite the statement. We have strong evidence to support the “Loki is evil” argument. He is vain, self-centered, ego-centric, callous, and most definitely a sociopath of epic proportions. Everything he does is in service to himself, for the most part. He wants power and he wants attention (or as Tony so cleverly put it, “he’s a full-tilt diva.”) Loki appears to love nothing except himself and nearly everything he does serves that purpose.

But not everything.

Evidence against evil:

Goading Thor into fighting him on the Rainbow Bridge: the action itself doesn’t present a counterargument to the “Loki is evil” theory, but it does poke a hole in it. It’s a very carefully written scene, in my opinion, because now we see the cracks in Loki’s metaphorical armor. Loki pretends he’s this big bad wolf, but some of that young pup comes out through this scene where Thor demands that Loki turn off the Bi-Frost to prevent him from destroying Jotunheim. He’s so desperate to prove himself and to accept this “I’m a monster” mentality that he keeps pressing Thor to fight him, knowing that Thor doesn’t want to and that he wants it all to be over. He could have ended it all right then and there and it’s possible that Loki would have just served a sentence for his crimes instead of being executed, but Loki can’t accept his past and rejects everything in favor of becoming the monster of his origin. What also gives me some massive feels is a line that I’ve long debated with myself about being genuine: when Thor puts together that he can’t stop the Bi-Frost, so he starts destroying the bridge and Loki yells, “What are you doing? If you destroy the bridge, you’ll never see her again!” Ouch. You could definitely use that exclamation for both the argument and the counterargument. On the one hand, maybe Loki is just trying to manipulate Thor to get him to stop destroying the bridge. On the other hand, maybe Loki does realize what a selfless thing Thor is doing and some part of him doesn’t want Thor to suffer being stuck on Asgard away from the woman he was falling in love with. It’s a delightfully ambiguous line. Does Loki actually mean it? He still tries to stop him right after this line, but that doesn’t make it completely invalid. It’s a vastly interesting idea in and of itself. The whole struggle between the two is that Thor loves him and wants them to be brothers again, and Loki cut himself off from his adopted family and wants to rule so he doesn’t have to accept being an outcast. So does Loki actually have a remnant of his old self somewhere inside him and that’s the part of him that called out to Thor when he was destroying the bridge?
Loki’s reaction to Frigga’s death: Alright, here’s where the gloves come off in terms of Loki’s characterization over the course of the Marvel films. Loki and Frigga have an argument shortly before Loki guides Malekith’s lieutenant to Odin’s bedchambers and unfortunately Frigga dies defending Jane. Loki loses it. He’s a complete and utter wreck when Thor returns after Loki has gotten the news, and Loki knows it’s all his fault. He’s so wracked with guilt that he doesn’t even reveal to anyone that it was because of him. What gets me—and this is a testament to Tom’s skill as an actor—is that vulnerable little question right when Thor sees through Loki’s illusion: “Did she suffer?” Ouch. Oh man. It’s now apparent that the big bad wolf is a scared pup inside, at least for a moment. He knows he’s screwed up and he can’t take it back. It’s definitely sealed on the scene as they travel to meet Malekith on the abandoned planet: “Trust my rage.” One of the only real, true things we see from Loki is his desire to get revenge for Frigga’s death.
Loki saving Thor on the Night Elves’ planet: For once, he actually follows through with Thor’s plan and tries to help him stop Malekith. He even saves Thor’s life, and while it ended up being a con in the end, I still think that was a genuine moment of Loki being Thor’s brother again. He could have let Thor die, let Malekith consume the nine realms, and just rule another world in the ashes of what’s left, or he could have become a true ally of Malekith’s as well, but he didn’t. He stuck to the plan and he saved Thor when he didn’t have to and that’s surprisingly touching considering the monstrous things Loki has done in the past.
Loki shedding tears upon Odin’s death: Tom Hiddleston is a hell of an actor, man. I have to keep giving him props for knocking this complicated character out of the park. There are two interactions that are truly important during this scene: First, the look of shame on Loki’s face as he steps up next to Odin after apparently casting a spell so strong that it took Odin months or years (the timeline is a bit hard to tell, but Thor says it’s been two years since Ultron, so that gives you an idea of how long Odin had to have been on Earth either still bespelled or accepting his exile) and yet Odin doesn’t strike him, yell at him, or even denounce him for it. Odin says, “my sons.” Loki glances over at him, and the look of utter disbelief and vulnerability on Loki’s face is just like a kick in the nuts. That one expression shows that after all is said and done, Loki still wants a family. He still cares what Odin thinks of him, and he’s been wrapped up in this cocoon of hatred only to find out that maybe he was wrong the whole time to assume Odin rejected him for Thor, or to assume Odin hated him after all that he’d done. For just a second, Loki sees the light and sees the truth. Second, as Odin’s ashes float off into the ocean, Loki openly weeps. Wow, wow, wow, does Hiddleston kill this part of the movie. It truly tugs at the heartstrings to see that in spite of how many times Loki’s betrayed Odin, he sheds tears at his father’s passing, and after finding out that after all this time Odin still calls him son. Monsters don’t cry. Human beings do. Loki is still human. Maybe not completely, but there is definitely a part of him that isn’t a monster.
Trying to convince Thor not to fight the champion on Sakaar: Again, this is definitely pretty self-serving here. As much as Loki despises Thor, he knows good and well that Thor is a contender and Thor could help him overthrow the Grandmaster if they banded together. I think Loki actually meant it, personally, that he would get Thor out of the arena fights and they’d just try to survive on Sakaar in the meantime until they figured out what to do. What also seals it is Thor’s refusal to speak and it genuinely bothers Loki. He starts to prod him to reply and gets more agitated the longer Thor just sits there and stares at him. I dig that a lot. That’s a great scene, because in spite of all the horrid things Loki’s done, part of him still wants to be reunited with his brother. He just can’t help himself. He wants acceptance and he wants power and he wants to prove that he’s just as good and worthy as Thor at the end of the day. He even shows signs of worrying about Thor fighting the champion since the champion is undefeated. In the end, Loki just closes back up again and becomes his same old self, but the fact that he reveals his plan to Thor and tries to get him to go along with it suggests that he still cares. He doesn’t want to, but he does.
The elevator conversation during the escape from Sakaar: Thor crushes my heart into paste with this scene, which is a testament to the awesomeness of Chris Hemsworth. It hits me so hard when Loki says, “Do you truly think so little of me, brother?” and Thor just looks at him and says, “Loki, I thought the world of you. I thought we were going to fight side by side forever.” Oh, my heart. It hurts so much when the camera pans back and Loki’s honestly stunned. As mentioned above with Odin’s death scene, Loki figures out that he was wrong about what Thor thought of him this whole time and wrong about their relationship as well. Thor has been forced to fight Loki time and time again, and yet he always tries to be kind or show him mercy because Thor is just that kind of loving, genuine person. Loki lies to himself and believes that Thor is a thoughtless bully who always wants to show him up, but here he realizes it’s not true and maybe it never has been. Loki constantly projects his own rejection onto Thor and uses it as an excuse for being the villain. He thinks he’s a monster, and this is what monsters do: they turn on their loved ones and they try to get ahead. For just a moment, Loki can’t help but face the fact that Thor loves him in spite of all that he’s done.
Loki returning to Asgard to help: again, yes, this is mostly because Loki is a full tilt diva and he wants Asgard to know he’s coming back to be their “savior.” (My God, was that not the most satisfyingly over-the-top reveal? I love you, Loki, you little extra shit.) While it’s mostly so he can get some recognition, Loki still risks his life to protect the people of Asgard and help the Revengers defeat Hela. If he didn’t care, he wouldn’t have gone. He would have stayed on Sakaar and tried to overthrow the Grandmaster. I like the small touch of Thor coming back from facing down Hela and Thor says, “You’re late” and a visibly worried Loki replies, “You’re missing an eye.” Oh, and Thor saying Loki’s late? Another body slam to the feels. Thor had been hoping Loki would come around and believing that he would, and Loki came through. The big dopey smile Thor has on his face when the ship shows up does me a world of good, man. I just can’t emphasize how much I love Thor’s endless forgiveness and desire to see his brother be what he could have been all along: an ally. For just one instance, Loki lives up to the potential he’s been unconsciously seeking the whole time over the course of his journey as a character. He could be that guy. He could be the hero and the brother that Thor deserves, and that he himself deserves to see and believe in. It’s such a great show of the complexities that mix together to form this ridiculous horn-having, hair-flipping demigod.
Loki and Thor’s scene on the ship: “I’m here.” Loki didn’t run away. He’s there with Thor in the end and Thor’s so happy about it that it makes me cry knowing it’ll all go to shit soon afterward in Infinity War. The warmth we see from the two Odinsons in that scene could make the Eternal Flame tremble in comparison. It’s one of the rare scenes that Loki shows some honesty and good will towards Thor, even if he still has ulterior motives behind the scenes.
Loki dies trying to save Thor. Oh, boy. Here is the mother of all convincing facts that maybe Loki isn’t entirely evil. As we approached Infinity War, my gut had been telling me that based on his character development and the arc the MCU set him on, Loki would die giving up the Tesseract in order to save Thor’s life. However, it’s one thing for me to have had this theory beforehand and an entirely different thing to watch Loki die in an attempt to save his brother. It hurt me deeply. It hurt me simply because if Thor hadn’t kept believing in Loki and loving Loki in spite of all his horrible actions, Loki would have simply let Thanos kill him. What really tears the scene is that Loki does try to just let Thanos kill Thor rather than give up the Tesseract, but then he watches his brother scream in agony at Thanos’ hands and he simply can’t go through with it. It just destroys me that there were tears in his eyes as he watched Thor suffer and in the end, he tried to do the right thing, and he died protecting his brother. It was inevitable that Loki would meet his end this way, but it still says so much about the powerful relationship we’ve seen change and grow from the first Thor movie to now. Does it invalidate all the evil he’s done in other movies? Hell no. However, it definitely is the most compelling counterargument for this essay that Loki isn’t completely evil. He made his own bed and he’s finally had to lie down in it, but he went out trying to repay his brother’s love after so many years of betrayal. It breaks my heart, honestly.

So what does it all mean, in the end?

If we go by actions alone, the bad outweighs the good and Loki is evil. However, how do you define evil? If we go by Webster’s definition, we find that evil is: “morally reprehensible” or “arising from actual or imputed bad character or conduct.” Is evil simply the absence of good? If so, then no, Loki isn’t evil. There is good in him. There’s more bad than good, but it’s still there and in the end he chose to do the right thing rather than defaulting into his old ways. Furthermore, is he evil in part of the story and not in the rest? Possibly, yes. What makes Loki so hard to pin down is the fact that up until Infinity War it’s an ongoing story, so if you pluck him out at certain points, it’s still open for debate what constitutes as evil. He certainly is evil for large chunks of his overall storyline, but when he develops, the picture gets away blurry and hard to describe. In that case, what is the measure of evil? Is it the whole journey or the ending? Can the lives he’s taken be weighed against the lives he’s saved? What tips the balance on the scales of the soul?

I hope you guys know, ‘cause I sure don’t.

All I can safely say is that Loki is complex. He’s mostly bad, but the streak of good in him has honestly saved lives, so it’s hard to throw him away completely as the villain. He’s neither totally the villain nor anti-hero, but just this sassy asshole who straddles the fence. Big props to the many writers who brought our brilliant trashlord to life. He shall be sorely missed.

Year in Review: 2017

Posted by :letitia.carelock@gmail.com On : January 5, 2018

Category: Inspiration

Tags:2017, 2018, back to black, blog post, kyoko m, of blood and ashes, of cinder and bone, personal post, the black parade series, year in review

Yep. That was my 2017.

In summary, I have enough perspective to say that 2017 wasn’t as bad as 2016 by default because 2016 was nothing but a continuous stream of suckerpunches to everyone’s ‘nads, and since 2016 set the precedent that everything was going to be awful from now on, we knew to expect nothing but awful things in 2017. That’s pretty much what we got, to be honest. It wasn’t all bad, but it was pretty much mostly bad, imo.

Still, I was able to snatch just a few happy moments in this dumpster fire of a year that followed up what I considered to be the definitive apocalypse. I was able to go to Los Angeles for a week and run around being silly and doing whatever I wanted. I attended Dragon*Con and met Nathan Fillion, whom I’ve been crushing on since 2009, as well as Ming Na Wen, Michael Rosenbaum, and Steve Blum. I’ve managed to sort of dig my book sales out of its shallow grave and nudge it back towards the direction it needs to be in. I wrote a sequel to my science fiction/contemporary fantasy mashup and published an all new novella for The Black Parade series, Back to Black. I was also accepted into an anthology of black sci-fi/urban fantasy based out of Atlanta that’ll be hitting your bookshelves later this summer. I moved back to my hometown of Atlanta, GA and have been happy to remember what it feels like to be somewhere comfortable that’s also more conducive to my career.

It hasn’t been easy. I’ve been through some stuff this year that I never anticipated and I’m unsure if I’m the better for having endured these kinds of hardships, but I’m happy to have made it out alive. I’m happy that you guys survived it as well and I hope that 2018 treats you even the tiniest bit better than 2017. We still have a hard road ahead for us, but if we stick together, I think we can survive another year of metaphorical ‘nad punching by life.

As for the future, 2018 is going to be a weird year. I’ve got another Of Cinder and Bone novel on the docket for this year, though it will depend on how things go with Of Blood and Ashes in terms of if I’ll write and publish the third novel (working title is Of Scales and Shadows, but it’s subject to change) this year. Technically, I do one book a year, sometimes two if the situation calls for it, and Of Blood and Ashes came out January 2, 2018 in the Sirens and Scales boxed set, so I’ve already met my goal for 2018 publications. The third book will still get written, but I guess we’ll see what happens throughout the year to determine if I’ll publish it in 2018. This year and next year are probably the most flexible years in my writing career, as I have the room to decide what I want to do and where I go from here, since The Black Parade’s main novels are done (might do another short story collection someday, stay tuned) and this new series is about to hit its third book.

All I can say is hang in there. I’ve got some moves to make and I hope you want to be around for the ride.

See you on the salt mines, friends.

-Kyoko M

Sirens and Scales Release Day

Posted by :letitia.carelock@gmail.com On : January 2, 2018

Category: Author Events

Tags:blog post, boxed set, dragons, Kamala Anjali, of blood and ashes, of cinder and bone, Rhett Jackson, science fiction, sirens and scales

The day of reckoning is finally here! The Sirens and Scales boxed set is available for purchase on all sales channels. That’s 20+ exclusive science fiction and fantasy titles revolving around dragons, mermaids, and sirens for only 99 cents from USA Today, New York Times, and Amazon bestselling authors! Don’t wait! Grab a copy now and get reading!

Purchase links here.

Of Cinder and Bone is now permanently free!

Posted by :letitia.carelock@gmail.com On : December 31, 2017

Category: Author Events

Tags:blog post, dragons, free ebook, Kamala Anjali, kyoko m, of cinder and bone

Cover art by Marginean Anca of BRoze Designs

Hey, guys! This is the official announcement that Of Cinder and Bone has been moved to a permanently free to downloadable novel on all sales channels in eBook form. Please enjoy it and spread the word as far as the eye can see. After all, reviews are precious and help new readers give the book a try. The more reviews, the more sales. The more sales, the more money. The more money, the more books I am able to write at a faster pace, so please remember to review it after you’re done reading it. Download links below.

Thanks and happy holidays!

-Kyoko M

Archives for : blog post

Of Fury and Fangs Cover and Synopsis Reveal

The Dresden Files Reread and Review: Dead Beat

Of Fury and Fangs – First Line

Hindsight is 20/20: My Sixth Year in Self Publishing

Of Dawn and Embers Release Day

Hindsight is 20/20: My Fifth Year in Self Publishing

Is Loki Evil?

Year in Review: 2017

Sirens and Scales Release Day

Of Cinder and Bone is now permanently free!

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