Dragon Quill

I did threaten just doing the Exalted book, but I’ve had a break either way, so might as well get back to slogging through this.

Let’s see where we’re going.

There are reasons I hate to drive fast. For one, the Blue Beetle, the mismatched Volkswagen bug that I putter around in, rattles and groans dangerously at anything above sixty miles an hour. For another, I don’t get along so well with technology. Anything manufactured after about World War II seems to be susceptible to abrupt malfunction when I get close to it. As a rule, when I drive, I drive very carefully and sensibly.

So, solid opening. We’re recapping info for new readers, something that’s particularly important when one of the defenses of this series includes telling people not to pick up the first two books. For another, this is obviously setting up for the fact he’s about to tell us he is driving fast, and by listing the reasons that’s bad, we get a double shot of tension – speeding is even more dangerous than usual, and something even worse must be going on for him to be doing so.

(more…)

Last time:

I speared him into place with my most ferocious, dark-eyed smile and said, between teeth clenched
on the leather sack, “Hi. Could you tell us where the nursery is?”

Today:

We took the fire stairs.

Yup. We did just completely skip over how they managed to convince anyone to let them through after charging in like they were LARPers who’d finally lost the last vestiges of sanity. (more…)

It’s time for us to jump back in time! Harry decides we really need the backstory to the fun present events.

Even days that culminate in a grand battle against an insane ghost and a trip across the border between this world and the spirit realm usually start out pretty normally. This one, for example, started off with breakfast and then work at the office.

Admittedly I’m way more sick of anyone thinking they need to start the story with breakfast than usual, but I don’t think anyone really wanted to stop and hear about what Harry’s office looks like instead of him following the ghost. Even if I accept this is basically necessary, I think a better point would’ve been to resolve the ghost thing then have an exhausted Harry quip about how this wasn’t how he expected things to go today, cue flashback.

(more…)

Alright. So, last time, Harry was a piece of shit. Today, back to what he was doing when the book opened, back before he made it clear that yes, this book would be horrible.

Michael and I plunged through the hole I’d torn in reality and into the Nevernever. It felt like moving from a sauna into an air-conditioned office, except that I didn’t feel the change on my skin. I felt it in my thoughts and my feelings, and in the primitive, skin-crawling part of me at the base of my brain.

The book makes a desperate attempt to make me forget about that.

The little leather sack of ghost dust in my duster pocket abruptly increased its weight, dragging me off balance and to the ground. I let out a curse. The whole point of the ghost dust was that it was something extra-real, that it was heavy and inert and locked spiritual matter into place when it touched it. Even inside its bag, it had become a sudden stress on the Nevernever. If I opened the bag here, in the world of spirit, it might tear a hole in the floor. I’d have to be careful. I grunted with effort and pulled the little pouch out of my pocket. It felt like it weighed thirty or forty pounds.
Michael frowned down at my hands. “You know, I never really thought to ask before—but what is that
dust made of?”
“Depleted uranium,” I told him. “At least, that’s the base ingredient. I had to add in a lot of other things. Cold iron, basil, dung from a—”

And it does really good job! It’s not good enough and I still hope Harry gets mauled soon, but I’m willing to let the subject drop for a moment. (more…)

Last time, a woman showed up and her appearance was only a little creepily described!

Harry gets right to the point, asking how Godmom got to him so fast. She’s all lolnope. Niceseeingyoubye? tries Harry.

She walked closer, her body moving with a lithe, sensuous grace

aaaaaaaaand so much for that. (more…)

Last time, our heroes just finished heroing it up to save a whole roomful of newborn babies – the most baby babies you can get!

Today:
Michael rested his chin in his hands and sighed. “I can’t believe we’re in jail.”

Okay yeah, but, like, noir + ignorant muggles. Of course you are. (more…)

Last time, vampires! Now, vampires. Yay, vampires! (more…)

Last time, Harry either puts some arrogant murderers in their place OR is a bullying prejudiced jerk to people.

Today, remember sexy godmom? Time for Harry to remember last time’s sexy adventures with sexy godmom, which, yes, I guess the idea he got molested at sixteen was decided right from the start, as was that it was sexy. (more…)

Mortimer Lindquist

Why would you do this to a child? Did his parents not love him?

had tried to give his house that gothic feel. Greyish gargoyles stood at the corners of his roof. Black iron gates glowered at the front of his house and statuary lined the walk to his front door. Long grass had overgrown his yard. If his house hadn’t been a red-roofed, white-walled stucco transplant from somewhere in southern California, it might have worked.
The results looked more like the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland than an ominous abode of a speaker to the dead. The black iron gates stood surrounded by plain chain-link fence. The gargoyles, on closer inspection, proved to be plastic reproductions. The statuary, too, had the rough outlines of plaster, rather than the clean, sweeping profile of marble. You could have plopped a pink flamingo down right in the middle of the unmowed weeds, and it would have somehow matched the decor. But, I supposed, at night, with the right lighting and the right attitude, some people might have believed it.

I’m sorry you don’t think it lives up to your awesome WIZARD door stencil, but let’s consider that he’s evidently making his living doing this while you’re limping along because the police force has literally no one else they can go to.

(more…)

Harry returns home after bullying an innocent man for no reason. He finds An unmarked car sat in my driveway with two nondescript men inside. waiting for him, but sadly, they are not the karma police, just the regular police.

(more…)

Micky Malone owned a nice house. His wife taught elementary school. They wouldn’t have been able to afford the place on his salary alone, but together they managed.

…

Okay, look. I realize you’re a ninety year old man and everything, and were too busy fighting in WW2 to notice that time when back home women were all through the workforce, but both people working has been normal for the past thirty years at the time the book is published. You’ve had decades to work out that it’s no longer some rare anomaly that needs special attention. (more…)

So, Harry is finally slightly motivated to do something now that he was dragged kicking and screaming to the problem. Now he just needs to figure out what’s wrong with Micky. Maybe he should start off making sure Micky isn’t faking. Could be a scam, I mean. Or maybe it’s totally justified ghost or angel or demon revenge. There are so many, many possibilities, remember Harry? So many reasons why it might be okay not to help. Surely that’s always your biggest concern when dealing with someone in trouble.

Nope, looks like somehow when it’s not a sick, starving homeless girl, Harry doesn’t worry about that. Huh. I wonder why. (more…)

We jump now to Harry on the phone. He’s saying he hasn’t gotten the chance to do something due to the whole Micky issue.

it’s four hours of daylight lost.” I filled him in on Mort Lindquist and his diaries, as well
as the events at Detective Malone’s house.
“There isn’t much more time to find this Lydia, Harry,” Michael agreed.

What do you mean, “agreed”? Since when was Harry attempting to do that? Sure, he said he would when you guys left the priest, but then he wandered over to bully Morty instead. (more…)

We open with Harry complaining about how his rapist skull is being such a downer about this whole nightmare business.

“Harry, look at this thing. Look at what it’s done. It crossed a threshold.”
“So what?” I asked. “Lots of things can.

Indeedity. You can’t have thresholds be a non-issue for this long and expect me to care. (more…)

Finding people is hard, especially when they don’t want to be found. It’s so difficult, in fact, that
estimates run up near seven-digit figures on how many people disappear, without a trace, every year
in the United States. Most of these people aren’t ever found.

Yeah, we’ve been through this bullshit before.

This is particularly unforgivable because Harry isn’t just some random dumbass. He’s the guy actually getting tapped for the missing persons cases. (more…)