Of Swords and Parasols

This is an anthology of four urban fantasy novellas by Jim Butcher, Simon R. Green, Kat Richardson, and Thomas E. Sniegoski. My reaction to each was about on par with my reaction to each author in the past.

I liked Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files story “The Warrior,” which was spoilery for recent books in the series, and focused on Michael and his family. In complete honesty, I almost would have rathered it be about Michael than Dresden, as I really like him and his family. Simon R. Green’s “The Difference A Day Makes” read like an early Nightside book, before the metaplot took off. Strangely, Dead Boy’s car was the best character in it, IMO. And there was self-imposed amnesia.

I tried reading Kat Richardson’s Greywalker recently, and bounced off it, despite a premise that I really liked. Sadly, I had the same experience with her story here, despite the added Mysterious Artifacts. Thomas E Sniegoski’s “Noah’s Orphans” was like his A Kiss Before the Apocalypse for me, in that it had angels and fallen angels living among men and a private eye angel and lost races and I couldn’t get into it. Which makes me incredibly sad.

 Crashing Paradise is the 4th book in the Menagerie series, which is essentially a dark urban fantasy version of superheroes, about a group of fighters from the supernatural, half of whom are only slightly less bad than what they fight.  They're led by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, one of the world's most powerful(and well preserved for a guy who's been running around since the Victorian era) sorcerers.  He's more than a bit on the arrogant side, but he's earned it.  Then tere's Ceridwen, his girlfriend and a fay princess, and Dr. Graves, the ghost of a scientist and adventurer.  Then there's Eve, mother of all humanity and all vampires(yeah, Eve/Lilith threw me too, but it makes sense in context.)  She loves shopping and expensive clothes and could make Dracula pee in his pants and run screaming to his mommy.  Except she is his mommy, so it wouldn't do him any good, and Clay, and immortal shapeshifter created and discarded at the dawn of time.  In the non-pretty people arena, there's Danny, the changeling demon with a potty mouth, and  Squire, their surly and snarky hobgoblin chauffeur.  The ghost and the demon's(human0 mom have an almost thing going on and the mother of all and shapeshifter have a near symbiotic codependent abandonment issues thing going.

This volume involves a demon and an angel joining forces to invade the garden of Eden using Eve.  As this involves kidnapping Eve, a few armies are sent for the job.  The book involves the bad guys learning it's really stupid to kidnap Eve as she will escape and destroy them all.  While Clay is busy destroying all the ones who are out in the field.  And that if they aren't left a few to kill, Danny and Squire will come and do unpleasant things to the corpses out of annoyance at being left out.  The other's will be properly heroic while Doyle proves he's smart and kicks butt.

Honestly, there is a plot, and it's a good one and a well written book.  But lets face it, that's irrelevant.  These books are about a group of badasses doing two things: annihilating losers who think their badass but are nothing in comparison, and taking down guys bigger and badder than they are while looking and acting cool and snarking.  It more than admirably succeeds on that front.