Charmed and Dangerous
May. 16th, 2024 07:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
got_quietI am very backlogged on posts I meant to make but now it feels like to time to make them has passed. I did just finish a book though so here's what I thought of that at least.
Charmed and Dangerous is an anthology of m/m fantasy. I picked it up because I was looking up books by Ginn Hale, and this one listed her as one of the contributors. Tl;dr is it's good. The stories are urban fantasy types, for the most part, and aside from a couple stories I liked them all. Decent variety of plots and pairings within the relatively narrow genre of m/m fantasy romance. For a more thorough review:
Dim Sum Asylum: The was a fiction Venus fly trap. The beginning starts out okay. The MC is a half fairy cop in Chinatown with a tragic backstory dealing with fantasy racism. He gets paired up with a hunk rookie who acts weird towards him so he decides not to trust him. They go on a little adventure chasing down a cursed fertility idol that's run away, and then after catching it the hunk shows up at the MC's apartment, basically announces that he's something of a stalking chaser who's wanted to get close to the MC for a long time, the MC calls him a stalker and then is like, I'd still like to fuck. The two of them fuck with the rookie saying a bunch of kind of weird fairy chaser things and that's that. I didn't like the story on many levels. The adventure part was ok but didn't integrate with the relationship at all really. The weird stalker confession at the end was completely lampshaded and I couldn't tell if it was meant to be a sexy and self aware scenario or if it was just very confused. My gut reaction after reading was, "That was kind of awful!"
Swift and Black Dog - Ginn Hale: A much better story. The MC is a jaded adult who, as a teenager had been part of a group of revolutionaries that did a lot of vicious, violent shit. Most of his friends are now dead, ruined, or settled into the establishment that emerged after the Tyrant was killed. The MC is summoned by an old companion, who informs him that she is dying from an attack by another companion, and it's time for the MC to make good on a promise and do a little assassination. In the process the MC meets a guard who has some connection to the plot, and who believes that the new order has room for proper democratic reform, and that assassination isn't the only option anymore. The worldbuilding is typical Ginn Hale dark and violent sort of stuff, with that ultimate fresh note of optimism about the future in the end. The romance in this one was actually sweet, though the murder and the revenge was the focus. The guard is something of a hero worshiper of the MC, so if you like having grizzled, cynical older men getting wooed and softened up by idealistic young guns this story has that.
A Queer Trade - A necromancer's assistant has to chase down some spells accidentally sold to a wastepaper merchant. The wastepaper guy and the assistant hit it off while digging through the paper piles, there is a bit of a disaster as the spells get loose, and then things turn out ok and the pair end up together. This was a sweet, entertaining and simple story. The setting is like an alt 19th century England or something around there? There is some engagement with homophobia and racism, as the papermonger is black and at first wary of the assistant's attitude towards him. I'd say this story focuses more on the two MCs interacting with each other than most of the others, and it does a decent job of developing the relationship.
Magically Delicious - I really like m/m stories where the pair are already together at the start of the story. IMO this is an under developed part of the genre, because so many books are focused on the get-together romance plot. The MC is basically a food inspector for the magical version of the FDA, tracking down magical additives and stuff like that. His boyfriend, a hunky special forces agent, ends up getting "attacked" by an unknown ailment and the MC starts investigating the cause. The worldbuilding is a familiar "real world but with fairies and goblins and leprechauns" sort of thing. Nothing special, but the story was well written and had a lot of whimsy in it.
Everyone's Afraid of Clowns - A couple sort of accidentally end up in a sort of haunted house made out of an old theater, because the MC recalls running into a ghost there in the distant past. The plot in this one felt a little ping pong and unfocused, but I did like the relationship, which was again already established at the beginning, and had the LI being kind of horny for all of the weird shit that his medium boyfriend went though. But as far as a complete story I'd just call this kind of mid. The momentum was not there.
The Thirteenth Hex - This can be read independently but is an installment in Jordan Hawk's Hex series. I honestly can't remember if I've read it before in a different place, but I don't think so? Probably? If you haven't read the Hex series it's based around shifters who pair with witches and all of them serve or are associated with a magical police force in 19th century NYC. Hawk's stuff can be a little bit shlocky. He likes to sort of pick up the affect of the old timey fiction, but that's one of the reasons I enjoy it. You don't really need to know the plot of the series to enjoy it. There's an overplot that doesn't get real closure but it doesn't matter too much. This leans more erotica and romance than some of the other stories, I felt.
The Soldati Prince - An EXTREMELY cheesy shifter story where some guy is marked as a tiger spirit king's soul mate. The writing in this felt like it was dancing on the edge of sparkly self-insert fiction cira 2000 AD. I did not really gel with the humor, which consisted of snarky internal quips at the end of every other sentence of narration. It read like the sort of nonsense fantasies that 14 year olds tend to write (I say this from experience) where characterization, logic, and even sentence level editing is maybe not so important, but some random guy getting whisked away into a magic world and instantly becoming a prince, the end, is what matters. I couldn't really get over how shallow the plot was or how mid the writing was and didn't end up enjoying this.
One Hex Too Many - We're back on more solid ground with this one. Yet again a police caper where the copper is a member of the supernatural division. There's been a murder, so this story starts out a little more violent than the rest I guess. The story takes the structure of a classic detective mystery. The MC is just doing his research talking to suspects, etc. There's a little bit of worldbuilding concerning the nature of magic that plays into the solution, which was decent enough for a mystery story. The romance was there between the MC and his rookie LI but not particularly important or interesting.
Josh of the Damned vs the Bathroom of Doom - A weird but endearing short that takes place in a convenience store, run by a warlock and serving as a gateway between this world and Medusa's realm. The note at the front states that this is a story set in a larger series, but I didn't feel like not knowing which series this came from took away from enjoying it too much. It's much more of a simple slice of life story than the other stories, which all tend to have more action oriented plots. I thought it was cute. Maybe this is what cozy gay horror looks like?
The Trouble with Hexes - A private eye gets hexed and has to turn to his ex to solve the problem. This was a cute story, though a little drawn out and maybe a little workmanlike in the prose department. The relationship is not particularly fraught even with the ex element, since the two are both clearly still in love and also the breakup was because the PI didn't believe that magic was real. Most of the story is about managing the hex and then crossing suspects off a list. I'm not sure I felt the urgency all that much, even though Vincent kept saying that his ex was going to die any minute now.
Charmed and Dangerous is an anthology of m/m fantasy. I picked it up because I was looking up books by Ginn Hale, and this one listed her as one of the contributors. Tl;dr is it's good. The stories are urban fantasy types, for the most part, and aside from a couple stories I liked them all. Decent variety of plots and pairings within the relatively narrow genre of m/m fantasy romance. For a more thorough review:
Dim Sum Asylum: The was a fiction Venus fly trap. The beginning starts out okay. The MC is a half fairy cop in Chinatown with a tragic backstory dealing with fantasy racism. He gets paired up with a hunk rookie who acts weird towards him so he decides not to trust him. They go on a little adventure chasing down a cursed fertility idol that's run away, and then after catching it the hunk shows up at the MC's apartment, basically announces that he's something of a stalking chaser who's wanted to get close to the MC for a long time, the MC calls him a stalker and then is like, I'd still like to fuck. The two of them fuck with the rookie saying a bunch of kind of weird fairy chaser things and that's that. I didn't like the story on many levels. The adventure part was ok but didn't integrate with the relationship at all really. The weird stalker confession at the end was completely lampshaded and I couldn't tell if it was meant to be a sexy and self aware scenario or if it was just very confused. My gut reaction after reading was, "That was kind of awful!"
Swift and Black Dog - Ginn Hale: A much better story. The MC is a jaded adult who, as a teenager had been part of a group of revolutionaries that did a lot of vicious, violent shit. Most of his friends are now dead, ruined, or settled into the establishment that emerged after the Tyrant was killed. The MC is summoned by an old companion, who informs him that she is dying from an attack by another companion, and it's time for the MC to make good on a promise and do a little assassination. In the process the MC meets a guard who has some connection to the plot, and who believes that the new order has room for proper democratic reform, and that assassination isn't the only option anymore. The worldbuilding is typical Ginn Hale dark and violent sort of stuff, with that ultimate fresh note of optimism about the future in the end. The romance in this one was actually sweet, though the murder and the revenge was the focus. The guard is something of a hero worshiper of the MC, so if you like having grizzled, cynical older men getting wooed and softened up by idealistic young guns this story has that.
A Queer Trade - A necromancer's assistant has to chase down some spells accidentally sold to a wastepaper merchant. The wastepaper guy and the assistant hit it off while digging through the paper piles, there is a bit of a disaster as the spells get loose, and then things turn out ok and the pair end up together. This was a sweet, entertaining and simple story. The setting is like an alt 19th century England or something around there? There is some engagement with homophobia and racism, as the papermonger is black and at first wary of the assistant's attitude towards him. I'd say this story focuses more on the two MCs interacting with each other than most of the others, and it does a decent job of developing the relationship.
Magically Delicious - I really like m/m stories where the pair are already together at the start of the story. IMO this is an under developed part of the genre, because so many books are focused on the get-together romance plot. The MC is basically a food inspector for the magical version of the FDA, tracking down magical additives and stuff like that. His boyfriend, a hunky special forces agent, ends up getting "attacked" by an unknown ailment and the MC starts investigating the cause. The worldbuilding is a familiar "real world but with fairies and goblins and leprechauns" sort of thing. Nothing special, but the story was well written and had a lot of whimsy in it.
Everyone's Afraid of Clowns - A couple sort of accidentally end up in a sort of haunted house made out of an old theater, because the MC recalls running into a ghost there in the distant past. The plot in this one felt a little ping pong and unfocused, but I did like the relationship, which was again already established at the beginning, and had the LI being kind of horny for all of the weird shit that his medium boyfriend went though. But as far as a complete story I'd just call this kind of mid. The momentum was not there.
The Thirteenth Hex - This can be read independently but is an installment in Jordan Hawk's Hex series. I honestly can't remember if I've read it before in a different place, but I don't think so? Probably? If you haven't read the Hex series it's based around shifters who pair with witches and all of them serve or are associated with a magical police force in 19th century NYC. Hawk's stuff can be a little bit shlocky. He likes to sort of pick up the affect of the old timey fiction, but that's one of the reasons I enjoy it. You don't really need to know the plot of the series to enjoy it. There's an overplot that doesn't get real closure but it doesn't matter too much. This leans more erotica and romance than some of the other stories, I felt.
The Soldati Prince - An EXTREMELY cheesy shifter story where some guy is marked as a tiger spirit king's soul mate. The writing in this felt like it was dancing on the edge of sparkly self-insert fiction cira 2000 AD. I did not really gel with the humor, which consisted of snarky internal quips at the end of every other sentence of narration. It read like the sort of nonsense fantasies that 14 year olds tend to write (I say this from experience) where characterization, logic, and even sentence level editing is maybe not so important, but some random guy getting whisked away into a magic world and instantly becoming a prince, the end, is what matters. I couldn't really get over how shallow the plot was or how mid the writing was and didn't end up enjoying this.
One Hex Too Many - We're back on more solid ground with this one. Yet again a police caper where the copper is a member of the supernatural division. There's been a murder, so this story starts out a little more violent than the rest I guess. The story takes the structure of a classic detective mystery. The MC is just doing his research talking to suspects, etc. There's a little bit of worldbuilding concerning the nature of magic that plays into the solution, which was decent enough for a mystery story. The romance was there between the MC and his rookie LI but not particularly important or interesting.
Josh of the Damned vs the Bathroom of Doom - A weird but endearing short that takes place in a convenience store, run by a warlock and serving as a gateway between this world and Medusa's realm. The note at the front states that this is a story set in a larger series, but I didn't feel like not knowing which series this came from took away from enjoying it too much. It's much more of a simple slice of life story than the other stories, which all tend to have more action oriented plots. I thought it was cute. Maybe this is what cozy gay horror looks like?
The Trouble with Hexes - A private eye gets hexed and has to turn to his ex to solve the problem. This was a cute story, though a little drawn out and maybe a little workmanlike in the prose department. The relationship is not particularly fraught even with the ex element, since the two are both clearly still in love and also the breakup was because the PI didn't believe that magic was real. Most of the story is about managing the hex and then crossing suspects off a list. I'm not sure I felt the urgency all that much, even though Vincent kept saying that his ex was going to die any minute now.
