Game of Thrones Series Finale

This episode was such an epic mess that I don’t even know where to start. All that foreshadowing over the years, the subtle hints, the build up, all of it flushed down the drain in one fell swoop. The episode felt like a fuck you to the characters, the story, the audiences. I have yet to come across a human being who liked the episode.

Dany’s death was by far the cheapest shot. By this time, everyone knew she had to die, but it was the way she died that left a really bad taste in the mouth. I thought the show made it clear that she no longer trusted Jon in episode 5. Why then, did she have a change of heart in this one? Why was she suddenly all in love with him again? What did I miss?

The fact that she died while being kissed by the man she loved is just utter and absolute shit. It could not have been executed worse than this. And that she died literally 10 mins (at least that’s what it felt like) into the episode was also supremely disappointing and anticlimactic. There was no build up!

Where do I even begin with Jon! Except to say that his character was perhaps the most fucked up. What was up with the “she is my/our queen” litany? Who was he trying to convince at that point? The fact that she straight up murdered thousands of innocents and he was still backing her! All of his actions season 7 onwards are out of character. The Jon we saw is not the same guy he was in season 6.

If he really was in love with her, in which case it was one of the worst executed love story ever in the history of cinema and television, what was the point of asking Sansa if she had any faith in him? What was the show trying to achieve? Why frame Jon and Dany so badly that literally none of their scenes together as a couple felt right? It makes no sense!!!!

What’s the deal with Tyrion? He’s made one mistake after another. He backed a foreign invader. Why are the lords of Westeros even listening to his advice? His advice should be worth shit considering just how badly he’s been doing. Why is he The Hand? How is that justice? He’s complicit in the genocide, he’s a criminal, why isn’t he at the Wall with Jon?

Bran is the king of the six kingdoms. Please hold while I try to wrap my head around this asinine idea. How? Why? As the TER, he should be an objective observer. He has no business holding power. I thought the whole point of the story was to dissolve The Seven Kingdoms! But seriously Bran the Broken? What the everflying fuck! Even high on weed, I would have had a tough time swallowing this shit!

Bronn is on the small council, again why? What has he done to deserve the honour? He didn’t kill Tyrion and his payment for that was High Garden. He was a sell-sword and remained one till the very end. Why is he on the small council and Master of Coin at that!?

How did Sam become the Arch Maester? How is he qualified?

What happened to the Ellaria Martel and her daughter? The show conveniently forgot about them.. Who was Varys writing to? What did those letters achieve? Did he even manage to send them?

Sansa as Queen in the North was perhaps the only thing that made sense. This was the only part I liked. But I didn’t like the execution. The most important day in her life and none of her family is around? There’s no Arya, Bran or Jon, no Brienne or Yohn Royce! The fact that you didn’t see one recognisable face among the Northmen is telling. Hell, even Lord Glover was absent. It lacked the scope and scale of the first 2 coronations. Why did Brienne leave Sansa and go south? In the end, Sansa is alone.

What was up with all that Jonsa framing? They were framed as a couple always. What was the point of Ned telling Sansa that someday he’d find someone who was brave, gentle and strong , frame Jon as exactly that and then serve this shit? Why frame Jon and Sansa as couple in everything except name? Why frame Sansa as clearly being jealous of Dany? Why frame Sansa and Dany as romantic rivals? WHAT WAS THE DAMN POINT!!!!!

Arya is off to explore the world and I don’t mind this, but why not have her with Sansa when she’s being crowned? All because D&D wanted a cool intercut between Sansa, Arya and Jon? It wasn’t cool. What was the point of The Lone Wolf Dies but the Pack Survives? The pack broke up, they all went lone wolf. What was the damn point?

What were D&D smoking when they wrote this shit and why did everyone else who read it think this is good? How did nobody raise any red flags? Did no one think this is garbage? Or were they so impressed with themselves that they could no longer see that what they’re writing is unadulterated putrid shit. D&D can’t write original stuff to save their life, they did okay so long as they had GRRM’s books to adapt. As soon as that dried up, the show slowly went from bad to worse. They wrote themselves into a corner and then had no idea how to get out of it. Dany needed more time to devolve, more time for the threat of her to be realised. They needed at least 3 more episodes and better writers.

Now I can only hope that the books are better and that GRRM finishes writing them. In the meantime, there’s fan-fiction and I have never needed it more than I do right now.

Aurora Rising (Aurora Cycle #01) by Jay Kristoff and Amie Kaufman Review

Here’s the thing you should know about Jay Kristoff and Amie Kaufman’s books, they will leave you a mess by the time you’re done reading their book. I just finished Aurora Rising and I’m still in the middle of processing just what I read.

I am also an idiot for reading this book right now when there’s no sign of book 2, not a tentative release date, not even a damn blurb!

Aurora Rising’s format is very different from The Illuminae Files. We follow multiple POVs; Tyler, Scarlett, Cat, Finian, Zila, Kal and Auri. Like The Illuminae Files, this series too, takes place in deep Space, far into the future. Mankind has learnt to travel to distant galaxies using the Fold, literally folding time and space. As they traveled farther and farther away from home, they encountered other inhabitants and potentially habitable systems, replacements for a dying Earth.

Aurora Rising is about a band of misfits who are forced to work together to survive and instead of simply co-existing, they form deep bonds of friendship.

Tyler is the star pupil of Aurora Academy, nearing graduation, he’s supposed to be getting ready for his draft. As their highest ranking student, he could have his pick of the crew. But all his carefully laid plans get shot down since he ends up missing it when he decides to rescue a strange girl, the sole survivor in a graveyard of a ship that disappeared two hundred years ago. So now, with the exception of Scarlett and Cat, his sister and childhood friend respectively, he’s saddled with the recruits that no one wanted.

The plot is a wee-bit vague but I guess it makes sense since it’s only book 1. I understand unveiling the mystery slowly and organically because Auri’s character is central to the plot. She’s the catalyst that gets all the intergalactic wheels in motion. She, the team and the audience all learn together, we are with them every step of the way.

The real stars of the book are the characters. Having read The Illuminae Files and other books by the authors (but especially Mister Kristoff) I knew that I should not get too invested in the characters since none of them are safe but they’re just so well written that I couldn’t help but fall in love with every single one of them.

Tyler is the Alpha, the team leader, he’s charismatic and a natural leader. He’s a great tactician and values his team even though it’s not the team he wanted. He’s stoic and willing to make tough decisions for the better of the team.

Scarlett is the Face, the diplomat and Tyler’s twin. She was one of my favourite characters. She’s got plenty of sass and sarcasm and she’s not afraid of using every weapon in her arsenal if it gets her and her team what they need. She was also the most caring in the team, aware of each member, their needs. She genuinely cares about them.

Cat is the Ace, their pilot and she was the best in the Academy. While she trusts Tyler and Scarlett since she grew up with them, her demeanour with the rest of the team can be a little harsh. While the others start to get over their distrust of Aurora, Cat is the last person to get over that. But despite that, she still puts her life and career on the line to try and keep her safe with the rest of the crew.

Finian is the Gearhead, he’s the one responsible for the maintenance of their ship. He probably has the best lines in the book. He suffers from a disability which is why he needs to wear an exosuit. It is the source of his insecurity and he overcompensates for it by sometimes antagonising those around him. He is also canonically bisexual, made evident by his clear appreciation of both Scarlett and Tyler (he has excellent taste!)

Kal is their Tank, the warrior, their combat specialist. Kal also comes from a race of aliens and a clan that excels in combat making him even more lethal. He’s trying to be different from what his history dictates. He’s been a loner but he learns that perhaps he can depend on his team and these people.

Zila is their Brain and is in charge of keeping the team safe should they get injured or fall sick. She is perhaps the least vocal of the team, rarely speaking and sticking to facts and logic. She doesn’t always understand those around her and they don’t always understand her but this team is the one place where she feels she fits in about as much as she can.

Aurora or Auri is the one we know least about. She wakes up after being in cryosleep for about two hundred years. Everyone and everything she knew has been dead for decades. The world has changed. By the laws of space travel, she should not be alive and she should definitely not be sane and here she is, alive and seemingly sane. All mention of her family and the new settlement on another planet have been wiped clean, no records, digital or otherwise.

Add to that, she seems to have developed strange powers that defy all explanation. She and the team undertake a mission not only to protect her but also to uncover the mysteries that surrounds her.

I have to hand to Kristoff and Kaufman, after creating that strange virus in Illuminae and then the lanima in Gemina, one would think that they wouldn’t actually be able to top that, in terms of the creepy factor. But outdone themselves they have! I won’t say what it is, I’ll let you discover that for yourselves. But boy, was it creepy!

I have no idea when the next book will be out or whether it’s a duology or trilogy but I can’t wait to read more about the Squad 312 and their exploits. The only upside of reading Aurora Rising so early, I get to reread it closer to the release book 2.

The Lovely and the Lost by Jennifer Lynn Barnes Review

If I can count on a Barnes book to do one thing, it would be to pull me out of a reader’s block. I’ve been stuck, unable to read/finish a book and its been long enough that I was starting to get frustrated. Thankfully, once I started The Lovely and the Lost, I was hooked from beginning to end.

The Lovely and the Lost focuses on Kira who was rescued from a forest when she was a young child. Now, nearly 18 years old, she still faces the consequences of the trauma she suffered all those years ago. Her adoptive mother, Cady works in Search and Rescue along with Jude, her adoptive brother. All three excel at training dogs who can be instrumental in finding those lost in forests. They have one more member of this team, Free, who is part of the family in all but blood.

The family is pulled to Cady’s home town when her father comes to her to help find a child gone missing in the nearby forest, it’s dense and covers a lot of area, they need all the help they can get and Cady is one of the best in the world.

This book follows one narrator, Kira and everything we see is from her point of view. She’s not someone who speaks freely so we spend a lot of time inside her head, with her thoughts. This can sometimes hamper the pace of the book but not here. It’s a well-paced book and while I’m not yet sure whether it’s a stand-alone or part of a new series, the way the book ended, leads me to believe that we could possibly get a duology.

Barnes is exceptionally good at writing characters, they’re all so distinct and even though we haven’t been with these characters long, they’re incredibly well fleshed out and layered. Their personal dynamics are well defined, they’re so different from each other and that’s a good thing because it makes them fit like a jigsaw puzzle, making up for each other’s weaknesses.

If you’ve read other books by Barnes, especially the more recent series, then you’ll find certain similarities between those characters and the kids in this one. Not to say that she’s recycling characters but that she has a way of writing them that’s become recognizable.

I loved the dynamic between Kira, Jude and Free. Where Kira spent most of her time inside her own head and was a woman of few words, Jude was the eternal optimist and free with his words and Free was unpredictable and capable of jumping from one topic to another. Together, they made up the Miscreants. I loved Cady and learning about her own life from before. I loved Mac and even Bale (Cady’s father) Ness was harder to figure out, her character feels a little inconsistent. I liked Gabriel as well and I’d like to see more of him if there are any additional books in the series. I hated the Sheriff and I was bummed that he didn’t get punched unconscious.

I appreciated the way Barnes handled Kira’s trauma and her way of dealing with it. It felt real and visceral. I admire the fact they she treated it with respect. Kira suffered nightmares and flashbacks but she fought with every fiber of her being to get better. I loved that she had a support system around her, people who knew and loved her unconditionally and let her know that she was loved.

But, by far, the true MVP of this book are the dogs, I loved all of them but my favourite was Silver. They were all adorable with personalities as different as those of their humans. I thoroughly enjoyed The Lovely and the Lost and it is a great book.