The Magicians: Season 4, Episode 5: Escape from the Happy Place

Elliot is in his dream world and yes he is still alive. He’s in the Physical Kids house, enjoying his time and memories with Todd and especially Margo - yes it’s classic “you’re locked in your happy memories prison” trope

But there’s a persistent knocking on his memory door and we’re introduced to Charlton. Charlton was the Beast’s original host (and now dead) and has a convenient source of knowledge (and being beaten up by Margot). He tells Elliot that everything but he and Elliot is a memory - but there’s a bunch of monsters around as well - monsters which were the Monster’s old hosts. Which were monsters locked in a prison which is a lot of awfulness… they’re only safe in the happy place.

Which is fine but Charlton reveals the door out of this is in Elliot’s worst possible moment which he will have suppressed

There follows an exploration of Elliot’s worst memories. Starting with the truly moving and tragic - Elliot bullied as a child and his first use of magic to kill his bully which deeply traumatised him. It was moving and painful. But no door. Then there was the him becoming the bully which was just damned annoying because the whole “homophobe bully is actually gay” trope is nauseating, homophobic, has horrendous real life implications and is generally awful.

Still no door

Step back and it’s time to try Elliot’s many many many many hilarious suppressed memories. Because happiness and self-awareness don’t go so well together and Elliot chose happiness.

Through his many many sins (all dicks and daddy issues) Elliot realises what is his biggest regret and suppressed memory - Quentin

After their epic, beautiful, 50 year relationship (which was never mentioned again AAARGH HOW?!) we finally get a scene where Quentin and Elliot discuss this - specifically Quentin pointing out they’d just had a super awesome 50 year loving relationship, they know they work together as a couple so why not go for it? Elliot objects (he’s cut off but he seems to be suggesting that Quentin is not gay or bi which… uh doesn’t seem to be the case? And I’d rather they not continue that thought because they idea that being gay or bi has no relevance to a romantic relationship with someone of the same sex is annoying and has trope implications) claiming it definitely wouldn’t work and it was always lack of choice. Except our Elliot reveals how this was all lying and Elliot was afraid and now deeply

OH MY GODS MAGICIANS! I don’t know whether to love you eternally for finally doing this scene or be so damn angry that you left it this late and until Elliot may die. Gah gah gah gah. You better remember this The Magicians, when Elliot is saved (WHEN NOT IF) and he and Quentin are back together (THEY BETTER BE) you better not play any damn “oh hey let’s be friends” moment. Elliot’s darkest, most regretted and suppressed memory is TELLING QUENTIN NO - you’ve done this now!

The Magicians: Season 4, Episode 3: Bad News Bear

The gang is gathered facing the Elliot monster who is merrily deciding how to kill them in a way which will cause the most suffering.

But downstairs, Margo arrives and runs into Marina. Now Marina is running away because her god-detecting wards have done a collective Oh-fuck and since an alternate version of her (time lines are so confusing) got brutally murdered by a god she’d rather flee for the hills. But she does have a trap for a god - ambrosia that will get them super high and distracted - she tells this to Margo

Margo joins her friend, sets up the trap - and doesn’t use it. Instead trading the location of Bacchus and the means to incapacitate him in exchange for all their friend’s lives. The Monster may hate them but he really really really hates the gods so much more

Josh isn’t thrilled with this plan being a good friend of Bacchus - but Margo is nothing if not ruthless. He thinks she should have used the trap on The Monster but Margo isn’t a fool - the last time they used a god killing thing (a bullet) on the Monster, it was immune and they just killed the host. And since his current host is Elliot, Margo is not happy with that.

They’re transported magically to Fillory and Josh’s job is to poison Bacchus. Bacchus lays on ALL THE GUILT on his best friend. Josh can’t do it but he runs straight into Margo who a) nicely flips the sexism of “pussy” and b) shows her extreme ruthlessness and plans to murder the whole party if he doesn’t get on side… he does

Bacchus is poisoned.... And fed to the Beast. We get some nice exposition with the Beast telling us that he came from the same parents as the gods, that he has his “kind” were trapped together and the Beast ate them all. Hence why he’s called a monster. He knows the gods took something from him but doesn’t know what it is… but he wants it back. Bacchus can’t give it back and, while desperately begging for him to pick any other gods… the Monster slices him open and pulls out a glowy magic red heart

A heart that, to Margo’s fairy eyes, glows like the sun

Julia meanwhile meets with Henry who is just such a glorious wreck with his hidden stash of booze, confronting him about both putting a target on her gang and, at the same time, playing too safe when facing the Library and the McAllisters, compromising too easily. And I think she’s not wrong? But after last episode when we brutally saw Henry’s devastating self-doubt and hate it’s clear that Henry maybe doesn’t have the self-confidence to go all in and trust to his abilities - which is kind of what Quentin, Julia etc all did. Especially this episode. This episode pretty much sums up their entire policy of charging in and trusting that they can handle it. And Julia is even more inclined now - the reason she kept coming back to life last episode? She’s a god. Oh she lost her god powers, but there are still perks

So with Margo and Josh away, that leaves the rest to figure out how to survive. So the McAllisters (the former faerie slavers) are credited with bringing magic back - and handing it to the Library. The McAllisters have now put a huge bounty on the gangs’ lives. And, of course, Marina, not being a super nice person, intends to collect on this. Which is why she tried to bring the illusion down in the first place

Quentin steps in an insists on paying her off - with Deweys. Deweys are coins from the Library - magic credit. The Library gives a small amount of background magic to everyone - but if you want to do a bit more then you need to get some more magic from the Library. And the library has a whole set of coinage they dish out for that - the biggest is the Dewey.

The Magicians, Season 4, Episode 2: Lost, Found, Fucked

Marina has gathered most of our cloaked magicians together to try and break the spell on them… which doens’t work, doesn’t work at all

She also gets a magical automated voice mail from Henry Fogg telling her to cease and desist and that trying - or succeeding - in breaking the spell that is shielding them will only cause everyone to die horribly.

Marina being Marina, is not going to listen to any automated warnings. More, she realises that the cloaked people must be Henry’s most favoured students, who else would they be? She begins poking and prodding at Penny until she finds the spell that suppresses his Travelling ability (we’ve seen previously that his Travelling ability is non-human magic so isn’t subject to the limitations of magic rationing) which he uses to buzz around quite merrily.

The rest of the group are torn - and Kady puts it best: their lives are fake. Even when their fake lives are awesome (Josh’s biggest conflict is his penis is too big, Penny has legions of groupies and Kady is like a super-cop bordering on a hero) they’re blatantly comic book. No-one really has lives like this.

Marina uses Penny’s travelling ability to nip into Henry’s office, steal his shiny disguise potion and inject him with it - all witnessed by Todd. Her plan is to convince Henry to reveal the antidote to save himself. He refuses, protecting these students is too important to him. He also questions which of the many many many time lines this Marina is from. Honestly, I’ve lost track. I know one of the Marina’s was Henry’s lover but I’m pretty sure that isn’t this Marina.

It has gotten rather confusing.

Instead Henry embalks on a rather epic goodbye session, having Todd record his memoirs and laying out his deep, abiding pain in a moment that would be almost funny if it weren’t so poignant - from his alocholism, his self-loathing, his gambling and his general self destruction. He finds it cathartic, but it’s super emotional as well. We also remember that he is one of the few who remembers all 50 of the alternate time lines - 50 lifetimes all of them ending in absolute horror and awfulness. With that, even magic is a grand and awful disappointment to him. He almost welcomes losing his identity. Todd watches all of this casual revelations from his suicide plans to all his confessions with a growing sense of horror

Until he meets with Etta, his tailor who seems to know him better than anyone, knowing his clothes are a shield to keep people at bay and, ultimately what a good man he is before he breaks down in tears and tells her everything. Including how he tried to make the best lives he could for his “most annoyingly millennial of students” but Marina has doubtless planned something far worse

Someone else who learns the truth is Julia, still stuck in the identity of Kim, who is worried about him leaving since he’s the only one who believes in her (since she’s so bad at magic)... but Todd is incapable of keeping a secret and has told her everything. She realises she is one of the masked people and asks who she really is.

Of course Henry doesn’t tell her - but he can actually talk about it, since he cast the curse he is quite capable of stopping random things killing him from talking about it. He urges her not to poke this for her own safety. He, again , refuses to reverse the spell

And he goes to Marina to have his identity erased and replaced with a homeless person - and Marina calls him dad. And it’s possible among the whole time line thing I just missed that?

The Magicians, Season 4, Episode 1: A Flock of Lost Birds

So last season a lot happened - including the series changing from being something that made us cringe on a regular basis to something that was truly awesome and even came with some really super super music.

And Margo.

All hail Margo. All of you - you at the back, get with worshipping.

So magic was removed by the gods after our not-quite-heroes killed Ember and the old gods took an exception. They launched an epic quest which came with a really awesome Queen/Bowie cover and eventually restored magic - which in turn all went pear shaped when Alice decided, in her rather confused and broken way because ye gods she went through a lot and eventually decided all magic was bad and had to be destroyed. Julia stepped in and said nu-uh and since she was a god that stuck and Alice was stopped - but Julia was duly de-godded in the process. And then Zelda lead the librarians into the mess, took control of magic which is now rationed

Finish that all off with restoring magic also reducing a great scary powerful thing that could possess people and out not!heroes all having their memories scrubbed

Except Alice. Alice broke a deal with the Library so she’s locked up by them - where we’ll join her. She’s in her cell, making it clear to Zelda who is both evil overlord and kinda has a conscience so feels kinda guilty about the overlording, that she would like her to die in all the fires, preferably yesterday. While Zelda thinks the library is the bestest fascist all controlling super power ever and she totally wants Alice to join. One day. When Alice doesn’t hate the library, magic and pretty much everyone else

Her main concern is that the monster will hunt down her amnesiac friends who, magicless and without even knowing they’re Magicians, will be squished very easily. She hatches a plan which involves sort of faking suicide and capturing a cockroach. Yes your guess is as good as mine, I’m just going to say that it’s Magicians so this will be a) funny b) disgusting, c) horrifying or d) all of the above. But we may get a song

On the same cell block is Nick, the Magician who became obsessed with finding good people then good children who then worked with elves to try and reward good children and yes we have Santa Claus. Magicians is… odd. Very very odd. He has lots of pep talks for Alice

Henry Fogg also hates the Librarians but he’s more subtle and snarky than Alice so is instead using Passive Aggression of epic levels to remind Zelda he would also like her to die in all the fires - but also carefully taking aim at that conscience and reminding her everything is going to go wrong, our Not!heroes are all going to be hurt and it will be All Zelda’s Fault.

Lies Sleeping (Rivers of London #7) by Ben Aaronovitch

The Faceless Man, Martin Chorley, is moving closer and closer to his mysterious but doubtlessly destructive final goal. But the Folly has gathered all its resources, all it connections to begin Operation Jennifer which will final stop him once and for all

And Peter Grant, detective constable and apprentice wizard, boyfriend to a river goddess is going to be in the centre of the front line

I like Peter a lot, as a character. There’s so many aspects to him which are so refreshing and fun to read. Perhaps most surprising of them is he’s a person. A real person with a life. He’s a police detective and a wizard but he also goes home to his mum for dinner and fending off her massively spicy Sierra Leonian cooking. He has a pint. He goes home to Beverley. In a genre where so many people, especially detectives, seem to just exist for the drama, he actually has a home life. He’s not sitting there declaring “I am Police! My Life Is Fighting The Crime!”

I also like that he’s a good man - and how he’s a good man. Peter isn’t naive. He knows there are times when being a bit of a bastard would be more effective and safer. He overtly thinks that there would be a better way to do things - but those would involving not caring for people, not following the rules and, ultimately, not being a good man. Peter isn’t a fool and is aware that he is sometimes actively making his life more difficult and dangerous -but these rules matter to him. But nor is he self-righteous, he doesn’t think he’s better than other people, he isn’t judgemental. He’s hopeful without being naive and he’s cynical without being bitter. He doesn’t expect the world to be better but he is determined to make it better. And oh my gods, can I say how much I love seeing a fictional police officer who cares about the rules? It seems to be a staple of fiction to have the police break the rules gleefully and we’re supposed to support it. I like to see a fictional police officer who actually cares about the law. I really like how Lesley stands as counterpoint to him - because again she isn‘t super demonised as all evil - but because maybe she just doesn’t have his same lines. And she maybe has a point? These rules and laws have been put in place for completely non-magical people and do they even apply, can they?

And he’s extremely funny and fun with a lot of very wry observations which were hilarious. I love Peter, I love his voice, I love how we get this incredible hard balance of being a good person without being naive or bitter is just hit perfectly. He’s wonderful.

He also fits the world - this wonderful setting in London, full of research and knowledge and pure love of the city - but that love is the same as Peter’s goodness. It’s love that is mixed with cynical knowledge of reality - whether it’s Lesley’s angry retort that London sucks all the wealth and attention from the rest of the country or Peter’s cynical knowledge of London Traffic, funding, neglected areas, some truly awful architecture and more - he sees ALL of it and loves it despite it.

Iron and Magic (Iron Covenant #1) by Ilona Andrews

Hugh D’Ambrey, the great Biblical wizard’s Warlord, has been banished from his presence. For decades, longer, Hugh was Roland’s servant and a lethal, terrifying fighting force and general. And now he doesn’t know who he is

But his soldiers rely on him, people hold grudges, his rival Ness especially. They need safety, they need a home - but who would trust them

Ilara and her people need protection. They’ve been driven to run for too long but are now secure in an actual castle… but they have no soldiers. And Ness wants their land.

It’s not a romantic match… but it is a practical one.

It is so hard to review an Ilona Andrews book. It’s hard because the things that make these books so special - the awesome world building, excellent characters, massively fun storylines and tight, descriptive yet well paced writing are pretty much the same in every book. Early on they set the bar at awesome and kept repeating the same levels of awesome and that leaves me with a happy stunned with joy, grieving because I’ve finished it and then flummoxed on how to produce a review that isn’t a duplicate of the last review

This book follows Hugh D’Ambrey - a very different standpoint from Kate given how he has been such a major villain for much of the Kate Daniels Series and how he is, pretty much, The Worst. I admit to having some reservations - I’m not against redeemed villain narratives but all too often they’re done far too simplistically which rarely if ever actually touches real redemption and usually amounts to a handwaving of their past

But this worked. Because it didn’t try to redeem Hugh. Hugh is a monumental bastard and always has been. He doesn’t claim to be different, Ilara doesn’t think he’s different, even the fact he wants to preserve his people isn’t presented as making him a good guy. Even exploring his toxic relationship with Roland and how Roland controlled him isn’t used to redeem or excuse him (though it does include some really excellent character growth moments as Hugh basically learns how to be Hugh without Rolan’s overwhelming presence). Even meeting old enemies who are grudgingly willing to work with him isn’t presented as forgiveness, even when he apologises. Even his own levels of self-hatred and self-recrimination: all of this is here but, at the same time, I don’t think the book ever intended me to think “Hugh is a good guy now”.

And I really like his relationship with Ilara. Firstly she’s an equal - she has her people and he has his both are the supreme leaders who have earned a vast amount of loyalty and even as the two factions begin to blur, it never happens in a way that undermines either of them. Neither are ever the junior partners and while he clearly has combat advantages over her in some situations, she is equally clearly the one with by far the most powerful magic.

And they hate each other which I love. Yes, I know I talked about persistence not being a virtue and love interests whose dislike is worn down by one party’s persistence. But that isn’t happening here - Hugh and Ilara marry for political reasons, so people will believe that their alliance is real (especially since Hugh. under Roland broke a whole lot of alliances). But Hugh and Ilara despised each other from the very first day and their sparring is glorious. Their searing loathing for each other (even as it slowly melts into respect but is never ever not a battle) is hilarious and mutual - Hugh isn’t setting out to win Ilara’s heart and Ilara

Storm of the Gods (Areios Brothers #1) by A. R. Braun

The Greek Gods returned 30 years ago after centuries of dormancy after they were drained in the big battle against the Titans. They have set up their new land in California.

Derek is a scion of Ares, carrying the legacy of his powerful war god sire, along with his brother follow their role to capture and defeat dangerous monsters. And capture over rogue scions

Including the heir to the mysteriously missing Athena and four other powerful Scions. But as he gets closer he realises things are far from simple and world changing devastation could follow him making the wrong choice. But does he dare oppose Ares? Can he even oppose him? Who can fight the god of war?

Greek mythology! I am sold. Sold sold sold. Throw me some good ol’ ancient god mythology and I’m always one board. Doubly so when you get all the research in place and go all out for the research pulling in figures like Cassandra and random Greek monsters (so many Greek monsters) and generally working on their characters while adding a heavy dash of original concepts as well? Sold sold sold

So we have a world where after several centuries of dormancy after fighting the Titans, the Olympians have woken up and are back. And Not Amused that humanity has sort of forgotten them or, at very least, has stopped worshipping them. Since the Greek Gods are not exactly known for their humility, gentle persuasion or generally not being capricious, short tempered and seethingly insecure jealous sex maniacs, this did not go down well.

The Greek gods chose their territory - California - and divided it between themselves as new regions for the new Greek nation state. It is inferred that the US objected to this. It’s also heavily inferred that Zeus was having None of that and there’s something of a detent between “Neo Vasileio” and America

This is one element about the world building I like - we have that excellent balance between giving us lots of information so we know what is happening in this world, who is who, what the stakes are, what powers are being thrown around, etc etc but not so much that we’re inundated with unnecessary facts. Even though I kinda really really want those facts. I want to know what the reaction was with the greater world. I want to know exactly what Zeus did. I want Zeus and Hades and Apollo to be more than extremely briefly appearing characters. I want to meet all the Greek gods who have territory that we haven’t met yet - Artemis, Aphrodite, Hermes, Poseidon, Demeter, Haphaestus, Hestia, Hera, Perseophone. I want to learn all of this

The Magicians, season 3, Episode 13: Will You Play with Me?

So it’s time for the season finale and the final plan to bring magic back. And the many many many many many ways it goes wrong

We start with a recitation of the story that led them to the quest - how a knight was captured and kept in the big bad castle and his daughter went through several epic quests, becoming a knight herself and finally reaching her father with the seven keys

This comes from Quentin reciting the book with Elliot and Margot hectoring. Because they always hector. It’s what they do. They now plan to reach that castle, with Kady and Alice reminding us that the Library is still a threat having their own insidious agenda.

The first set back comes from Julia’s ascension. The spark within her has grown to a flame, she’s a full blown Goddess, Our Lady of the Trees and this is all super awesome. A messenger goddess shows up to take her to godlandia where they can focus on greater and better things like creating new worlds. She does advise the occasional answering of prayers, for morale, but really there’s far more important things to focus on than individuals, with a side dig at how brief humans are. In particular she wants Julia to give up her connections to her friends

She has a really good goodbye scene with Quentin - full of their platonic love - and she charges him with enough magic for one spell. Elliot is happy for her. Margot… more practical and very Margot.

They continue to look for the Castle at the End of the World without Julia and Josh hits on finding the architect which through research, examining the book and brainstorming they conclude is Calypso, a powerful nymph and is now CEO of an app company (creating a “new form of prison” in freemium games).

Calypso agrees to see them and kind of help because she was a great friend of Prometheus. As we learned from Bacchus, Prometheus loved human Magicians and wanted to give them magic - so much so that he created the quest and the door into the Castle at the End of the World to allow humans to be able to access it. He poured a lot of himself into it - creating the 7 keys with his own essence which left him vulnerable… and led to his death

This is also why Calypso doesn’t like human Magicians as she blames them for his death - but she did promise her lover she’d help them. They also learn from her that the knights stayed in the castle the guard the monster within and can leave at any time - but despite it basically being an eternity of imprisonment, they chose to stay. Which says just how important guarding this monster is - that they’d make this sacrifice (Sacrifice is something of a theme this episode. And this season really)

They really emphasise just how dangerous this castle is and how it was built for something so very very very scary. Which is also why the quest is so epic - to prepare them for the monster

She also points them to the direction of the castle - in Fillory, the underside.

To study the castle Penny volunteers to travel in but, surprisingly, Margot nixes that idea - they already have enough Penny blood on their hands. Instead Quentin uses his oneshot spell to enter the knight’s dreams. She is Ora and explains she’s the last guardian, everyone else is dead to the monster and she’s terrified of letting anyone else in which could compromise the security of the place.

But she agrees to help them for one exchange - Quentin agrees to stay and take over guard duty. No-one is amused by this but Quentin insists - since so many others have sacrificed and he knows the cost of this quest. He also objects to using the god-killing bullet because he promised Ora no attempts at crafty plans

Elliot, Margot and Alice are not amused. Also Margot isn’t happy he used his one shot spell to “talk to the help” rather than kill the monster

But there are many other things starting to go wrong

The Magicians, Season 3, Episode 12: The Fillorian Candidate

Penny23 has now joined the cast which means he now has to be brought up to speed on what is happening in this timeline.

Josh was, perhaps, not the best person for this as he is overly interested in who is having sex with whom. Unfortunately Kady also arrives and is pretty heart broken to realise this Penny is not her Penny and doesn’t even know her. She helps with the recap though - including Julia, herself and Renard. So he’s up to speed

Everyone else is rather worried about this whole monster at the end of the world thing they’ve been warned about. Bringing magic back while unleashing another terrible threat doesn’t strike anyone as being a good idea, especially since their last ill-thought out plan led to losing magic in the first place. So who to speak to about hidden knowledged?

Why that would be the Library - so off Alice goes (followed by astrally projecting Penny because no-one trusts her or the Library) to ask the Librarian. Who knows nothing beyond the fact that the Castle at the End of the World is full of things that Man Was Not Meant to know. She suggests asking an actual god since they’ve done that a few times and the god should know.

More ominously she also hands Alice a syphon which she needs to charge up with magic (clearly the plan was to harvest the Mcallister’s fairies) - and she suggests using Julia. It’s clear Julia won’t be a fan of this and the Librarian expects Alice to use force. Uh-huh everyone is suspicious of this

But they do take the advice of finding a god: but Bacchus has been banned from Instagram and Persephone isn’t picking up Julia’s calls

Julia is getting a lot of her own prayers - her power is growing massively, she’s now hearing people’s feelings and even their prayers. Including Henry’s utter desperation. We’re reminded his eyes cannot be magically healed because they were magically damaged - magic could fundamentally change him. But Julia isn’t a magician any more - she’s a god. And she has a special get out clause and is able to heal Henry’s eyes

Penny23 and Kady have reluctantly come to an idea of a god to speak to - Renard. He’s not dead, he’s running around without his powers but presumably with the knowledge of the Castle at the End of the World. Obviously going after Renard is a hugely sensitive topic for Julia and Kady. Julia’s worried not about his power - but because he’s a trickster and can’t be trusted. But she absolutely cannot let Kady go alone. But they don’t need to search for Renard - because Julia is a god

Which also means when they arrive on Renard’s doorstep there’s little he can do about her. Even when he tries to belittle her and demean her, she’s not having it for a second. She even says that she’s taken his spark and grown it - she’s more powerful than he was. And it’s glorious to see her put him in his place.

He does tell them that the Castle At The End of the World is full of “mistakes,” abominations the gods never meant to create. He also tries to shoot them with the bullet he took from them - the god killing bullet they created. Julia is far too awesome for this and happily freezes him and steals his bullet: she and Kady agree this will be perfect for killing whatever monster is in the Castle and call that a good one

They also, much to Penny’s shock, don’t kill him. Him being miserable and powerless is punishment in their eyes. I think they could have done something creative with fingernails

I also quite like that they point out Renard has a shelf full of feminist literature - just because a man has a carefully crafted reading list doesn’t mean he’s not a rapist arsehole.

This settles the dilemma of the monster at the end of the world, technically.

While in Fillory we have more drama.

The Magicians, Season 3, Episode 11: Twenty-Three

So with a whole lot known about the fairies now, it makes the quest for the keys a little more fraught. In Fillory Margot in particular is definitely not going to be team fairy no matter how good she was on Earth. They decide that they need to speak to Julia about this - and since Tick has put out wanted posters for them all (which Margot and Elliot consider most unflattering) and the only person who can get around is Josh

So Josh meets up with Julia to discuss the key issues - Julia is meeting with the generally drunk Dean Fogg to explain the fairies, Irene’s escape and the general slaughter of the entire McAllister clan. He’s not drunk enough for this. And Dean’s always kind of drunk. Also he disapproves of their flowery cleaning charm - but is impressed by Julia’s awesome god-like power that allowed her to replace all the wards on Brakebills all by her godly self.

Josh and Julia consider what to do with about the keys when they’re zapped to an alternate time line - the same alternate timeline they used to visit an alternate Alice (with lots of ramifications from the various resetting time lines). There they meet Alternate Josh who quickly tells them how their world has fallen apart: the Beast is there still killing them all and to make it all so much worse magic cut off with them as well, leaving them all practically helpless. This beast wears one of the keys around his neck which is, presumably, how he gets his magic.

I’m assuming grenades aren’t an option.

Josh and Julia also consider that maybe they can get this key (which apparently has the power to see the future, which none of their keys have) then they can skip the fairy key, at least for now.

For some reason Julia wants to speak to Quentin about it - which I don’t get at all: they need  Quentin to make these decisions? But when they use the key to get to Fillory, instead they get a key to the alternate timeline. Because magic makes its own rules.

In the alternate world, Marina the Hedge witch is still alive and she and Josh are happy to meet them for their plan - which involves drugging them and handing them over to the Beast. It seems the Beast wants Julia and they’re desperate enough to do anything especially since in their world Julia is long since dead.

The Trouble with the Twelfth Grave (Charley Davidson #12) by Darynda Jones

Charley has a problem. Reyes, her demonic, powerful, godly husband has finally been released from the supernatural prison he’d been locked in. But what emerged was far less human and far more supernatural and demonic than what went in. She has no idea what drives him now - and fears that ending the world and everything in it may be on his to do list

Fearing the same, it looks like God and his angels want to get pro-active in exterminating him

Trying to return Reyes to humanity is beyond tricky - especially when she’s distracted by a series of odd murders: people killed by fire and claws but no indication of to how. It looks like woowoo so of course she’s called in

Charley continues to be the utterly zany, completely unbelievable character we all know and love. She’s hilarious, she’s random, she doesn’t even remotely approach sensible on even her best day and it generally works. I think it especially works in this book - in previous books there have been moments where I think Charley, her randomness, her need to name everything etc have been taken to degrees that are not just ridiculous (everything with Charley involves ridiculousness, it is known) but also to a level which is just not funny any more.

This book managed to keep all the amusing quips, Charley’s complete lack of anything resembling an attention span, her love of Mexican food and coffee to levels which are completely inhuman, and her inability to take even the most severe moment seriously and still manages to keep it coherent

I think part of the way it manages this is Charley’s grown. I’m looking back through my list of quotes and I can’t put my finger on any one moment that I can point to as an example. But there is a definite different feel to Charley. She has always been the silly, irreverent, fun driven protagonist - but in the last few books she and the story has taken a distinctive turn. She’s a god, she’s not just a god but an extremely powerful god. She knows this - and while she doesn’t lord it over anyone or even use her extensive powers a great deal, there’s a new solidity to her. Previously she would charge into dangerous situations because she was just that reckless or because she felt there was no other choice or she didn’t think things through. Now there’s a sense of “I’ve got this” about her - there’s a confidence to her that wasn’t there before. I still can’t say how it’s conveyed, but it’s definitely there

What helps this book a lot is the much more coherent plot lines. While we have Amber involved in her own background activity and a police case, and a crime family with a grudge against Peri, one of her best friends, ultimately nearly everything is connected. In previous books there felt like there were maybe 3 or 4 plot lines, none of which were going anywhere, none of which were actually achieving anything and all would end when the book did. They were fun, but they were too many and they felt like distractions. Here we had the quest to find Reyes and the plan to try and get him back on side, we had the murders (because we always have murder mysteries) which are still connected to the Reyes hunt and we had Peri, her relationship issue and the dangerous crime family. This wasn’t connected to the others but also had enough threads to suggest a longer term plot than we’ve already seen, it certainly didn’t feel over when the book was over, exactly. This coherence of storyline may have helped focus Charlie a lot more, especially as it also allowed more time to examine what Charlie actually is