Doubletake

Doubletake
by Rob Thurman
p. 2012

Family reunions are the name of the game in Rob Thurman’s 2012 contribution to the Cal Leandros mythology, as each of the three main characters deal with blasts from the past intent on upsetting their already tumultuous lives. A chain of events brings these shady relatives into Cal and Niko’s orbit and leads the brothers to question whether they can trust someone new (hint: no.) while it leads me to question whether Thurman is capable of something new. (hint: yeahhhhhno.) 

It’s Goodfellow’s kin that sets off the series of reunions as every puck in existence gathers in New York City for ‘The Panic,’ their thousand-year reunion meant to tally their number and participate in a lottery to decide who must reproduce to keep the population going for another thousand years. Robin has opted to hire Cal and Niko as bouncers to keep the situation under control and the results are predictably awkward but undeniably hilarious. It’s important to remember that all the pucks look nearly identical, so even though ‘their’ puck is the only non-participant, due to his ongoing experimentation with monogamy, it’s impossible to escape the sight of Robin fornicating with everything in sight, including variations of himself. Cal and Niko’s front row seats to the orgy of the century were so hilariously outrageous that for a few chapters I almost wondered if perhaps Thurman was attempting to do a humorous filler novel for once. It would have been the perfect place for it—coming directly after Cal’s emotional stint with amnesia, which ended with him wiping out the remnants of his monster-reject family, the last vestiges of his Auphe family tree.

Or so he thought. Naturally, there was one ‘brother’ that Cal missed, and he becomes the central antagonist of Doubletake, and definitely future installments too, considering he’s still kicking it above ground by novel’s end. This monstrosity was one of the last failed experiments of the Auphe, incapable of facilitating their evil plan but still capable of creating gates and very much in possession of the Auphe’s twisted sensibilities. Once he escaped from his captive adolescence, Cal’s twisted ‘brother’ educated himself, taught himself to fight, adopted the name Grimm and relegated himself to the fringes, waiting for his chance at revenge against his race. When Cal robs him of this chance, Grimm switches his sights to Cal, and reveals himself for the first time in Doubletake with a new plan for creating his own destructive race—and he wants Cal’s help to get things started.

Disappointingly, it’s more of the same with Grimm—the slimy, all-powerful villain who talks too much and is evil for evil’s sake. This of course means lots of diabolical monologuing and heavy angst. It also means another villain whose intentions are predictable and not at all relatable. It also means, I am cheated out of my potentially humorous filler novel, but that rude awakening preceded Grimm’s entrance in the form of Niko’s shady relative—his erstwhile father, Kalakos, a gypsy bounty hunter of sorts who is in town hunting down the Vayash Clan’s latest escaped responsibility, Janus. Janus is a monster made of metal and fire and it is intent on tracking down and killing every member of the Vayash Clan (even, according to Kalakos, exiled members like Cal and Niko who want nothing to do with the clan). The brothers reject Niko’s father’s attempt to reach out, but are forced to rely on him when Cal is gravely wounded by Janus.

Kalakos was definitely the thread I was most interested in, of the three family reunions. Where Cal’s interactions with Grimm brought nothing new to the table and Goodfellow’s kin brought only laughs, it is Niko’s reaction to his father that brings the most questions. Cal is loyal to a fault; we know he trusts no one and will choose any avenue that most thoroughly protects his brother, so he leaves the decision to Niko on whether or not Kalakos should be allowed in the picture. As Niko’s estranged father accompanies the boys on their two-way Janus hunt, the latter are forced to ask themselves whether they can forgive Kalakos after abandoning them all their lives.

I’ll admit, I wondered if it could work out. Cal and Niko had accepted others into their circle before. Promise and Rafferty are always on the guest list and of course one doesn’t get more ‘inner circle’ than Goodfellow, who the brothers trust implicitly. I allowed myself to hope that perhaps Kalakos could earn forgiveness and be another capable character for the brothers to rely on, maybe a rogue who pops his head in every now and then to offer support...

... Oh, how foolish that was.

Sure enough, Kalakos not only proves what Cal and Niko knew all along—that he is not to be trusted—but he also completely loses the cool, rational demeanor he’d held for the entire book and spontaneously starts monologuing about how eeeeevil he is. It’s almost like Thurman’s villains cannot help themselves. They just have to prove their evil worth by not shutting the fuck up.

It’s disappointing because there are dozens of ways this could have gone and I imagined most of them. Kalakos could have been on the level and become a new ally, he could have have been on the level and died tragically, the brothers could have not trusted him then regretted it when he turned out to be legit, or they could have allowed themselves to forgive only to be let down. Literally any option that allows some combination of these characters to grow emotionally would have been more interesting than what we got. But instead, Kalakos was a bastard all along, surprising precisely nobody. But we’re going to pretend like nobody saw it coming so he can get his villain on in the final act. Yawn.

I’m being a little hard on Doubletake. I liked it like I liked any of the other books in this series, I’m just hoping for a new take on things soon, a promise of emotional growth, and maybe some new characters for the inner circle. If anything, Doubletake actually took away one of the inner circle in the only surprising twist in the book, which I have avoided mentioning until now because it seems about as relevant in this review as it does in the actual book. What I’m referring to is the revelation that George—Cal’s old psychic paramour—the good-hearted girl next door who exiled herself when Cal refused to let her in—the girl whom we haven’t heard from or spoken to in at least 4 books—was brutally murdered by Grimm ‘off screen,’ so to speak. The truth isn’t revealed to our intrepid heroes this time around, making its inclusion here seem kind of random, but in a good way, like a bullet that has been fired but has not yet found its mark. When that bullet hits, I expect all hell to break loose. I only hope that we get proper chance to say goodbye to Georgie when that happens, because she deserves better than the ending she apparently got.

Who Are You

Blackout
by Rob Thurman
p. 2012

The sixth novel in Rob Thurman’s series about half-human Cal Leandros starts out a little differently than the others, with a mystery... sort of. Our intrepid narrator wakes up alone on a beach in South Carolina, surrounded by dead monsters and without a single memory to call his own. The reader may know it’s our very own Caliban, but Cal is completely in the dark... until his past shows up to reclaim him in the form of one very protective older brother and a sarcastic puck.

Thus begins the central plot point in Thurman’s Blackout: Cal has lost his memory thanks to a nasty dose of venom from one of the creatures he fought. It’s not any kind of crippling amnesia, thankfully. More the made-for-TV kind of selective amnesia that still leaves the important parts intact. In this case, Cal retains his fighting skills, his knowledge of the supernatural, his overactive emo-angst, and—most impressively—his snarky sense of humor. The first three I could excuse with minimal hand-waving. The fighting skills and knowledge of the supernatural? Sure, I’ll accept that as muscle memory, instinct and luck of the draw. The angst-overdrive is not too crazy either, considering Cal’s situation; hell, I’d be doing a lot of freaking out myself if I forgot who I was and woke up amidst dead creatures. For some reason, it’s the sarcasm I have the most trouble buying. It’s Cal’s background and surroundings that give him that inimitable sass; I just have a hard time accepting that it comes to him naturally.

But I get it, I do. I can imagine Thurman sitting down attempting to try this new thing out and realizing that it was just half the fun with a fundamentally altered Cal. I mean, what is a Thurman novel without crippling sarcasm and dueling wits? So she kept her favorite elements while still giving us a slightly different Cal. Unfortunately, I think this Cal just wasn’t altered enough to create an interesting character development. In fact, I believe Thurman missed a huge opportunity to do something new and unexpected with her central character, and as a result, I was a little let down by Blackout.

I would have loved seeing a dramatically altered Cal, one who has forgotten about all the supernatural, and not just his own demonic heritage. How intriguing would it have been to see him try out being an average guy, to truly believe a normal life was possible... only to find out as his memory returned that he could never be that guy? How intriguing to see if Niko could let his brother go if it meant he could be truly (if ignorantly) happy for once? It would have been heartbreaking, sure, but Thurman’s never been one to shy away from devastating character developments. I would happily have withstood a ‘Cal-less’ novel for the payoff of his inevitable revelation.

Regardless, I did find Amnesia-Cal’s verbal sparring with Niko and Goodfellow to be highly entertaining, more and more so as his memories returned to him and he settled in to his ‘new’ old life. I found myself laughing out loud at the scene when Cal—after finally disposing of the decomposing thorn in his side that was the mummy, Wahanket—charitably adopts the former informant’s mummified pet cats and descends on Goodfellow’s swanky apartment with the whole herd of them. That entire development was pure gold, and I’m glad Cal finally found an animal that likes him in the form of Spartacus.

Cal’s amnesia came at a good time, too. Our favorite half-human, half-Auphe got some hard truths dealt to him in Roadkill, not to mention an ultimatum in regards to his gate traveling abilities. After finding out you may inherit your evil forebears’ cruel tendencies in spite of everything you’ve fought against, who wouldn’t want to run away, forget everything, and start anew? For a while, I actually wondered if Cal’s condition was a mental defense self-constructed or brought on by Rafferty’s meddling, but it really did end up being the Nepenthe spider venom controlling his memories. The only ‘twists’ in Blackout were that a) Niko was re-dosing Cal out of some misguided notion of protection and b) a sort of out-of-the-blue revelation that Cal had living ‘siblings,’ courtesy of failed Auphe experimentation prior to his birth. Not sure why this was included at the end of this novel, but I suppose it doesn’t really matter anymore! Unless, of course, it was just to plant the idea in our head that there could be more ‘successful’ hybrids running around to be dealt with in the future. If that is the case, things could get really interesting. And really, why wouldn’t there be? Why stop at one, especially when that one is so inherently resistant to their ideals? I wouldn’t be surprised if we get an anti-Cal somewhere down the road.

Blackout’s ‘big bad,’ Ammut, is the first lady big bad, but on the whole, she doesn’t differ much from the other main villains. In fact, she is probably the least visible of all the central antagonists, as she barely appears. I guess I’m okay with this; it meant we were spared some banal villain dialogue and it made the whole thing murkier because it’s easy to forget who the real problem is when you’re so far removed from your nemesis. Promise is back, but she stays away for most of the novel, giving Amnesia-Cal some space as he relearns how to accept monsters into his life. The Delilah problem is progressing slowly, but I’m interested to see how it turns out. There isn’t much else to say because the point of view this time around is all Amnesia-Cal. I did get a kick out of his outside take on Niko-as-martyr-brother, if only because it addressed something I’d thought before—that Niko really is perfect and needs a good wake-up call where his brother is concerned. Overall, not my favorite Cal Leandros novel, but it gave me some new things to think about going forward.

Don't Fear the Reaper

Deathwish
by Rob Thurman
p. 2009

Deathwish is book four of the Cal Leandros series by Rob Thurman, and it marks the furthest I got into the series before setting it aside until this summer. I had thought, initially, that I hadn’t started Deathwish at all, but I found, to my surprise, that I had. At least the first hundred pages. That makes sense, considering the cliffhanger Madhouse ends on, but I’ve been racking my brain trying to figure out why I didn’t continue.

Deathwish stands out in three pretty unique ways:

The first, and my favorite way, is that it is split evenly between Cal-centric chapters and Niko-centric chapters. This is the first time Thurman has employed this technique and it constitutes a major change-up in the narrative. Finally, we get to hear what Niko’s inner voice sounds like, we get to see things through his perspective. This is something that readers have been wanting for a while now and it’s really nice to hear things from a slightly different perspective, but I have to admit that it was not as revelatory as one would think. As I’ve mentioned in my reviews of preceding books, Cal and Niko know each others motives so well, that we almost don’t need the split to understand what the other is thinking. Cal has already guessed what motivates Niko and will go on at length about it from every angle.

The narrative device may not accomplish anything substantial, but it’s still refreshing to get a change-up in the voice. While Niko still retains a sharp wit and a penchant for sarcasm he shares with his brother, his inner voice is definitely more refined over all. Now all I’m waiting for is a chapter employing Goodfellow’s inner voice. Now that should be interesting.

The second distinction is that Deathwish gives us our first hearty digression into Promise’s backstory. Having been around for a couple of centuries, Niko and Cal’s vamp cohort surely must have a lot of interesting history but until now, she has been mostly relegated to the sidelines. Now we finally get to meet some of Promise’s family, who are considerably less... ‘evolved’ than Promise herself. Understandably, the clash between Promise’s old and new definitions of family put quite a bit of strain on her relationship with Niko and the others. I know the events of Deathwish will continue to be referenced from here forward, and I hope to see more incidents from Promise’s storied past continue to make waves in the present. You don’t live as long and as mysteriously as Promise does and not have a few more secrets up your sleeve.

Certainly, Deathwish did much to improve my opinions on the complexity of Promise’s character. In Nightlife and the two books that followed, it was hard to think of her as more than simply an ideal girlfriend for Niko to be rewarded with; here, we learn she is much more inherently flawed than previously indicated.

The third thing that distinguishes Deathwish from the three that precede it is also the most important going forward, and that is the total destruction of the Auphe as a threat. I guess I was wrong when I predicted in Nightlife that they would be the chief antagonists for the entire series... sort of. While it’s true that Cal and Niko obliterated all the purebred Auphe that had been torturing them all their lives, it seems this is only the start of Cal’s acceptance of what he is. Deathwish manages to be even darker than the other books; Cal and Niko operate all over the ‘shades of gray’ spectrum, doing things that can be controversial for the hero of the story. And Cal seems to be embracing his Auphe-gifted abilities, including a dark, violent streak. I suspect this is actually the catalyst for Cal’s inner darkness to come out more, as he realizes he has more in common with his demon heritage than anyone would like to admit.

I have to say, I’m a little over all the excessive angst, but what would this series be without it? In any case, I’m impressed that Thurman ‘went there’ so early in the series. It takes guts to destroy a recurring supervillain like the Auphe, and I’m excited to enter ‘Phase Two’ of Cal and Niko’s lives and see what new antagonists emerge to challenge the brothers in new ways.

I’m taking a little break from Thurman to explore some other worlds this fall, but it won’t be as long of a break as it was last time. I have every intention of getting caught up with the series before the end of 2014. For now, Cal and Niko will just have to sit back and celebrate—as well as the Leandros brothers can allow themselves to celebrate anything—their victory over their enemy and the end of running.

Don't Look Back

Madhouse
by Rob Thurman
p. 2008

I took a quick break from Rob Thurman’s series to let my mind recover from the all the angst by reading something lighter (hah! So much for that!) but I couldn’t stay away for long.

The third book in Thurman’s series is Madhouse, yet another action-filled, angst-ridden journey for Cal and Niko Leandros and their community of nonhuman friends.

This time there are two separate, unrelated threads guiding the book. The main plot is the resurrection and escape of a powerful creature called a redcap who once went by the name of Sawney Beane, the notorious 16th century serial killer. The other is a series of attempts on the life of Cal and Niko’s puck cohort, Robin Goodfellow, by an unknown assailant.

Business first: Sawney Beane is a case brought to them by an associate of Promise’s, who works in the Metropolitan Museum of Arts. When Sawney was resurrected from ash after centuries, he immediately went on a violent and not terribly discreet killing spree; Cal and Niko naturally take on the task of finding and stopping him, but this takes an awfully long time because they keep getting their asses thoroughly handed to them by Sawney. One particularly nasty encounter leads to the introduction of a new recurring character, Delilah, the sister of Flay, their werewolf ally from Moonshine. Like Flay, Delilah works for the werewolf ‘mafia’, the Kin, albeit with a few less burned bridges; Delilah, however, considers herself more of a ‘free agent’ and does pretty much whatever she pleases, which includes starting up an intimate relationship with Cal.

Delilah is a pretty interesting character; she obviously has a bit of a dark past herself, but she doesn’t seem to let any of it bring her down. I hope she sticks around for awhile, though I’m not one hundred percent sold on her sticking with Cal. Delilah, unlike sweet little Georgie, stands on her own two feet without seeming to be simply a love interest for the lead. I hope we get a chance in later books to explore her dynamics with other characters, but we don’t get very far with her here.

Despite his near–imperviousness, appetite for ravaging flesh, and his creepy army of the dead, I didn’t find Sawney as terrifying as I was supposed to. It was more frustrating than anything. The battle with Sawney seemed to set the tone for this series: a bunch of flubbed encounters and proverbial stumbling, some big setbacks, rallying friends and allies, all leading to a boss fight and some messy aftermath. Sprinkle in a liberal helping of Auphe angst and voila, another Thurman classic. I’m not really knocking it. The formula works, for the most part, and it’s entertaining. But it’s hard to take any ‘Big Bad’ that isn’t Auphe seriously when we are told repeatedly how much worse Cal’s demonic ‘family’ are.

It’s the second plot of Madhouse that is much more compelling, as it involves a little window into Robin’s past. Of course, Goodfellow’s life spans such a long time period, this can only be a tiny, miniscule glimpse into the magnanimous puck’s legacy, but I suppose that makes it all that much more telling that it affected Robin so. The attempts on Robin’s life (and I assume, though it is never confirmed, that the crossbow bolt from Moonshine was a lead-in to this subplot) are the result thousands of years of vengeance for something Robin did long ago that he is ashamed of. To be perfectly honest, I don’t even think what he did was that bad, at least, not in comparison to the nasty things Cal and Niko fight on a daily basis. The whole plot serves to prove that not only is there more to Goodfellow than meets the eye, but that he is worthy of being Cal and Niko’s friend and the hero status that is thrust upon him through this relationship to the brothers. That is to say, if Robin feels that bad about something careless he did centuries ago, it cements the idea in your brain that he is not a monster.

The only thing I didn’t like about the subplot was how blaringly obvious it was who the secret foe would turn out to be. Oh, what’s that you say? An unknown assailant is trying to have a main character murdered? I wonder if it could be that random character that supposedly has always worked for him despite the fact that we’ve never seen or heard her mentioned before. Plus, Thurman went out of her way to make Seraglio likeable and mysterious, making it all that more obvious that she would inevitably betray them. And really, what the hell is wrong with her? She’s Robin’s personal cook for god’s sake, and she couldn’t figure out a way to off him discreetly?

In the words of the illustrious Nigel St. Nigel:

“Really? That was your plan? That has to be the poorest executed attack in history. I was two feet away from you all the time. I mean, you have to be absolutely, without doubt, the worst murderer I have ever seen.”

On the Auphe front, the demonic nightmares are conspicuously absent for the bulk of Madhouse but their presence is felt as Cal starts practicing opening portals and ‘traveling’ more. Cal took advantage of this inherited talent to rid themselves of Moonshine’s ‘Big Bad’ and he continues to practice using them to do more of the same in the future, despite Niko’s strong objections. It’s a bit ‘road to Hell paved with good intentions’ cliche, and of course reminiscent of Sam Winchester’s eventual reliance on his demonic powers in season 4 of "Supernatural," but it’s still fun to see Cal embrace something about his Auphe heritage and acknowledge that it gives him an edge over the enemy.

The Auphe themselves may not be physically present for much of Madhouse but they return in a big way at the end in a frustrating cliffhanger that I had to wait a year to see resolved the first time around and had me disgustedly chucking my book at the wall when I read it (and then silently fantasizing about the day I can do the same to my own faithful readers...). I’ll see you all in book four to discuss this latest turn of events!