{"id":3334,"date":"2022-08-15T21:02:09","date_gmt":"2022-08-15T20:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/libridraconis.com\/?p=3334"},"modified":"2022-08-29T16:09:39","modified_gmt":"2022-08-29T15:09:39","slug":"monday-minis-37","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/libridraconis.com\/index.php\/2022\/08\/15\/monday-minis-37\/","title":{"rendered":"Monday Minis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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I should preface my review of The Phantom of the Opera<\/a><\/em> by Cavan Scott and Jos\u00e9 Mar\u00eda Beroy with the fact that I\u2019ve never seen The Phantom of the Opera as a stage show. So I didn\u2019t really know what to expect going into this graphic novel adaptation – only having vague awareness of some of the most famous songs. And I was surprised at how the story differed from how I imagined things – I\u2019d somehow imagined it as this great Gothic romance between Christine and the Phantom, but it really, really isn\u2019t. It went in very different directions to how I thought it would – and some that I am still not clear on if they were red herrings or not. And that is probably my biggest issue with this as a graphic novel. I don\u2019t know if this is due to the source material or a problem of the adaptation itself, but it felt like an incomplete story. Thoughts were expressed, but not finished, and the ending was extremely abrupt. As a whole, it felt rather like a collection of ideas than a complete story. And accomplished comics storytelling and great art, unfortunately, couldn\u2019t fully compensate for that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am more of a fantasy reader than a science fiction one, in general. But Kate Dylan’s debut, Mindwalker<\/a><\/em> gripped me so much I breezed through the audiobook in a single day – which, were this a paper book wouldn\u2019t be that unusual, but audio takes about five times as long! Sil Sarrah is a brilliant leading character and the world Kate Dylan creates is both harrowing and compelling. I loved how the story went in unexpected directions and got extremely twisty – not leaving the reader time to breathe and relax. It is a fast-paced, high-octane thriller, a cute romance and a disturbing vision of the future rolled all into one. A great YA, in short. As I listened to the audiobook via NetGalley I would be remiss not to praise Stephanie Cannon\u2019s narration, perfectly translating Kate Dylan\u2019s text to the aural format.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

High Times in the Low Parliament<\/em> <\/a>by Kelly Robson is a Tor.com novella about fairies, politics and bureaucracy. It has the vibes of the UK Houses of Parliament crossed with a good dose of magic and supernatural threat – though it often feels like the fantasy elements thinly veil the author\u2019s contempt at contemporary politics. While I very much agree with the sentiment, I\u2019m not sure it makes for a great reading experience, especially for someone caught in the middle of the futile squabbling of a largely incompetent government. Lana is a scribe, brought to the Low Parliament by circumstance and thrown into these political machinations with little warning. Her allies are only two – a fairy named Bugbite and a human politician called Eloquentia – and those both have their own agendas. As a whole, this novella feels more like a satire with fantasy elements than the fantasy story I was expecting – and I think my lack of enjoyment was more due to timing and circumstance than the quality of the writing or the story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I should preface my review of The Phantom of the Opera by Cavan Scott and Jos\u00e9 Mar\u00eda Beroy with the fact that I\u2019ve never seen The Phantom of the Opera as a stage show. So I didn\u2019t really know what to expect going into this graphic novel adaptation – only having vague awareness of some of the most famous songs. And I was surprised at how the story differed from how I imagined things – I\u2019d somehow imagined it as this great Gothic romance between Christine and the Phantom, but it really, really isn\u2019t. It went in very different directions to how I thought it would – and some that I am still not clear on if they were red herrings or not. And that is probably my biggest issue with this as a graphic novel. I don\u2019t know if this is due to the source material or a problem of the adaptation itself, but it felt like an incomplete story. Thoughts were expressed, but not finished, and the ending was extremely abrupt. As a whole, it felt rather like a collection of ideas than a complete story. And accomplished comics storytelling and great art, unfortunately, couldn\u2019t fully compensate for that. I am more of a fantasy reader than a science fiction one, in general. But Kate Dylan’s debut, Mindwalker gripped me so much I breezed through the audiobook in a single day – which, were this a paper book wouldn\u2019t be that unusual, but audio takes about five times as long! Sil Sarrah is a brilliant leading character and the world Kate Dylan creates is both harrowing and compelling. I loved how the story went in unexpected directions and got extremely twisty – not leaving the reader time to breathe and relax. It is a fast-paced, high-octane thriller, a cute romance and a disturbing vision of the future rolled all into one. A great YA, in short. As I listened to the audiobook via NetGalley I would be remiss not to praise Stephanie Cannon\u2019s narration, perfectly translating Kate Dylan\u2019s text to the aural format. High Times in the Low Parliament by Kelly Robson is a Tor.com novella about fairies, politics and bureaucracy. It has the vibes of the UK Houses of Parliament crossed with a good dose of magic and supernatural threat – though it often feels like the fantasy elements thinly veil the author\u2019s contempt at contemporary politics. While I very much agree with the sentiment, I\u2019m not sure it makes for a great reading experience, especially for someone caught in the middle of the futile squabbling of a largely incompetent government. Lana is a scribe, brought to the Low Parliament by circumstance and thrown into these political machinations with little warning. Her allies are only two – a fairy named Bugbite and a human politician called Eloquentia – and those both have their own agendas. As a whole, this novella feels more like a satire with fantasy elements than the fantasy story I was expecting – and I think my lack of enjoyment was more due to timing and circumstance than the quality of the writing or the story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[88],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/libridraconis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3334"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/libridraconis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/libridraconis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libridraconis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libridraconis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3334"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/libridraconis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3334\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3338,"href":"https:\/\/libridraconis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3334\/revisions\/3338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/libridraconis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libridraconis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libridraconis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}