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21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
I really wanted to like this, December 4, 2005
This review is from: The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl (Bantam Spectra Book) (Paperback)
I really wanted to love this novel. I like Pratt's short fiction. I love the cover: the image, the title, and the tagline: "If primal evil wants California, it's going to have to go through her first. . . ." It looks like great fun, sort of H.P. Lovecraft by way of Aaron Allston's GALATEA IN 2-D, and has nice cover quote from another couple authors I like. But, while I didn't particularly dislike the book, I didn't find it all that interesting, either. It was rather dull and will, I suspect, be quickly forgotten. The characters were pleasant enough but not particularly captivating or memorable, and the story seemed too thin for its four hundred pages -- it probably would've made a better novella than full-length novel. The villain is disappointingly weak, and inconsistencies abound: in one scene, the villain's incidental touch hurts a character, while later he slaps that character with no ill effect. At one point several police officers are slaughtered, and then for the rest of the novel the police do . . . nothing. They just take it in hand. In one chapter a character interacts with another, and several chapters later seems to have no recollection of it. And too often our heroes get out of their trouble a little *too* easily and conveniently; there's rarely any sense of danger. This book is a reasonably well-written, reasonably amusing read, but it never achieves the energy or excitement that it promises. If you want to like it, you probably will. It's mildly enjoyable, but not particularly recommended.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fine first novel: an urban fantasy with Old West elements, May 6, 2006
This review is from: The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl (Bantam Spectra Book) (Paperback)
About The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl I think I can say: "this is a very promising first novel, and well worth reading, but also quite clearly a first novel." This book is Urban Fantasy, despite not being set in Seattle or Minneapolis or Newford. That said, it has an original flavor: the fantastical elements have an Old West manifestation.
The protagonist is Marzi (short for Marzipan: hippie parents), night manager of a coffee shop in Santa Cruz called Genius Loci. Marzi is an artist, having dropped out of UC Santa Cruz after a nervous breakdown a couple years previously. She draws a fairly successful underground comic called The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl, about a woman who travels to a fantasy Old West and confronts weird villains. Her best friend is Lindsay, a talented bisexual artist still at UCSC. Lindsay keeps trying to set her up with men, but Marzi is skittish just now, after the breakdown. Then a new young man moves in above the coffee shop. Jonathan is studying Garamond Ray, a modestly famous artist who painted the walls of the coffee shop before disappearing during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Lindsay pounces immediately, and perhaps surprisingly has a bit of success pushing Marzi at him.
But at the same time the very strange artist Beej seems to go completely nuts, and starts talking about the Earthquake god. And another couple of artists, Dennis and his ex-girlfriend Jane, act oddly too. In particular Jane seems suddenly to be made of mud, and she seems to want to kill Marzi. All this seems perhaps connected with a locked storeroom, entering which precipitated Marzi's breakdown a couple years previously. That storeroom has an unknown Garamond Ray mural ... which means Jonathan is very interested.
So: Jonathan wants to get into the storeroom. Marzi is afraid, and especially afraid to let anyone else in. Dennis and Jane and Beej are starting to act very strange indeed ... Of course, Marzi will go in, and find a door -- a door that leads inevitably to a version of the Old West that is all too much like her comic. In particular, it holds a chaotic "god" called the Outlaw, who desperately wants to escape back to the real world, and do what he does best: destroy. So when Jonathan lets his curiosity get the best of him (with a little help ...) things go pear-shaped.
And it's up to Marzi to confront her fears, and to learn how to confront the Outlaw in the appropriate manner. Which of course she does, though not without some personal and general cost.
My main problem here was an ending that seemed abrupt and just a bit pat. Yet at the same time several innocent people are killed -- but somehow we are spared emotional involvement with any of the killings -- the characters who die are essentially redshirts, and I felt this a distinct failing. I also felt that the characterization of the villains -- well, Dennis in particular -- was rather lazy. Dennis is a cliche, and not a very interesting cliche.
But as ever when I cite what's wrong with a book I feel I'm overstating things. (Well, not "as ever", but in this case anyway.) The novel is a very engaging read. The good guys, Marzi and Lindsay in particular, are very well portrayed. It's well-written, and the magical elements are well-imagined. It's a good book -- a good first novel, and certainly promising good things to come.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
not a "must read" but definately worth reading, February 27, 2006
This review is from: The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl (Bantam Spectra Book) (Paperback)
i wouldn't say "go out now and buy this book right now!!!", however, if you are looking for a good sci-fi/fantasy type of book, with a straight up plot that is pretty straight forward, this book is worth your time. the characters are interesting, not stereotypical, and are fleshed out enough so you know them but you are not overburdened with smothering details.
for me, the story moved a bit slow at first, and seemed thin and plodding in spots, but the book reads smoothly enough to where the short comings didn't kill the book completely.
i like the statement it makes (in my opinion, this is how i took it) about art and how artists see the world around them. i like how the author includes the santa cruz earthquake and the way he describes some of the scenes are just perfect.
the writing is good, not pretentious, and pretty smooth. the story is good, basic plot, pretty straight forward. worth it.
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