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Title | Generation V
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Author | M.L. Brennan
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Cover Art | ---
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Publisher | Roc - 2013
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First Printing | Roc - 2013
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Title | Iron Night
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Author | M.L. Brennan
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Cover Art | ---
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Publisher | Roc - 2014
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First Printing | Roc - 2014
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Title | Tainted Blood
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Author | M.L. Brennan
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Cover Art | ---
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Publisher | Roc - 2014
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First Printing | Roc - 2014
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Title | Dark Ascension
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Author | M.L. Brennan
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Cover Art | ---
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Publisher | Roc - 2015
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First Printing | Roc - 2015
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Category | Urban Fantasy
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Warnings | None
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Main Characters | Fortitude Scott, Suzume Hollis, Chivalry/Prudence/Madeline Scott
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Main Elements | Vampires, kitsune, elves, witches, shapeshifters, succubi
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Website | mlbrennan.com
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 Generation V
Reality bites. Fortitude Scott's life is a mess. A degree in film history has left him with zero marketable skills, his job revolves around pouring coffee, his roommate hasn't paid rent in four months, and he's also a vampire. Well, sort of. He's still mostly human.
But when a new vampire comes into his family's territory and young girls start going missing, Fort can't ignore his heritage anymore. His mother and his older siblings think he's crazy for wanting to get involved. So it's up to Fort to take action, with the assistance of Suzume Hollis, a dangerous and sexy shape-shifter. Fort is determined to find a way to outsmart the deadly vamp, even if he isn't quite sure how.
But without having matured into full vampirehood and with Suzume ready to split if things get too risky, Fort's rescue mission might just kill him...
Iron Night
Underemployed by day. Undead by night.
Underachieving film theory graduate and vampire Fortitude Scott may be waiting tables at a snooty restaurant run by a tryrannical chef who hates him, but the other parts of his life finally seem to be stabilizing. He's learning how to rule the Scott family territory and hanging out more with his shape-shifting friend, Suzume Hollis, and he has actually found a decent roommate for once.
Until he finds his roommate's dead body.
The Scott family cover-up machine swings into gear, but Fort is the only person trying to figure out who (or what) actually killed his friend. His hunt for a murderer leads to a creature that scares even his sociopathic family and puts them all in deadly peril.
Keeping secrets, killing monsters, and still having to make it to work on time? Sometimes being a vampire really sucks.
Tainted Blood
Young, broke, and lethal...
Former film student Fortitude Scott is finally gainfully employed. Unfortunately, said employment happens to be with a group of sociopathic vampires - his family. And as much as Fort is loath to get too deep into the family business, when his brother, Chivalry, is temporarily unable to run the territory, it's up to Fort to keep things under control.
So when the leader of a powerful faction of shifters turns up murdered, Fort finds himself tracking down a killer while navigating dangerous rivalries, longtime grudges, and hidden agendas. Even with the help of his foxy kitsune sidekick, Suzume, he'll need to pull out all the stops to hunt for the paranormal assassin.
But as he calls on fairies, witches, and ghouls for help, he discovers that the problem is much bigger than a single dead werebear. The supernatural community is preparig for a massive shift in power within the Scott family leadership - and Fort has landed right in the middle of the gathering storm...
Dark Ascension
After a lifetime of avoiding his family, Fort has discovered discovered that working for them isn't half bad - even if his mother, Madeline, is a terrifying, murderous vampire. His newfound career has given him a purpose and a paycheck and has even helped him get his partner, foxy kitsune Suzume, to agree to be his girlfriend. All in all, things are looking up.
Only, just as Fort is getting comfortable managing a supernatural empire that stretches from New Jersey to Ontario, Madeline's health starts failing, throwing Fort into the middle of an uncomfortable and dangerous battle for succession. His older sister, Prudence, is determined to take over the territory. But Fort isn't the only one wary of her sociopathic tendencies, and allies, old and new, are turning to him to keep Prudence from gaining power.
Now, as Fort fights against his impending transition into vampire adulthood, he must also battle to keep Prudence from destroying their mother's kingdom before she takes him down with it...
I acquired the second book in the series before the first, but it only took a chapter before I felt that this was my kind of book, so I ran out to buy the first book to get the full experience. I'm glad I did because I loved both of them.
If you are a fan of Butcher's Desden Files, you will enjoy Brennan's American Vampire. The main character, Fortitude Scott, is funny and loveable, and more often than not totally outmatched in whatever situation he finds himself in. Good thing he has made a good friend in Suzume Hollis, a butt-kicking kitsune. I'm really happy Brennan made the Kitsune a key creature in her series, they are cute and cuddly when in fox form, cunning and sexy in their human form, and can never resist a prank.
One thing I find critical in any fantasy series is world building, how complete it is, how convincing it is, and being unique certainly helps. And the vampires of this world are unique indeed. They are long-lived but not immortal. They are born nearly human and transition later, but cannot be turned by an exchange of blood. In fact how they are conceived is the strangest thing ever. And did I mention the elves? Since Fort has lived a kind of sheltered life (there's a reason for that), we get to learn about the supernatural world along with him, Brennan creating a rich environment of truly complex creatures and cultures.
And if you think the Adams Family are kooky and macabre, you haven't met Fort's relatives. Mother Madeline, who looks like a little old granny except with the fangs of a viper, brother Chivalry who loves his wives even as he slowly kills them, and sister Prudence who makes most homicidal psychopaths look like well adjusted members of society. And yet, for all that, they are a close knit family, and when push comes to shove they do love each other in their own ways.
And last, but not least, the geek references, gotta love those. Babylon 5, Lord of the Rings...and no, there is *absolutely* nothing wrong with owning a Clue DVD!
If you are looking for a lot of action, a lot of laughs, but also some downright scary, distrubing moments, this might be the series for you. With Charlaine Harris having finished her Sookie Stackhouse series, I needed a new vampire series to sink my fangs into, and I just found it.
October 2015
I love this series, it just keeps getting better. I mean hey, googly eyes!! Googly eyes everywhere! That and Brennan keeps hitting on little obscure tidbits like the following:
It smelled remarkably like one lecture room at Brown where my film theory class had been scheduled immediately afer a senior seminar for chemists. Chemists, as I had leaned that semester, apparently did not make much use of deoderant, and the room would develop enough a funk that it became common practice for whoever arrived first into the film theory class to immediately open all of the windows in the room, even on days when it was snowing.
OMG...though I was in engineering and not film theory, I did have one class that used a room in the chem building...and that was indeed the funkiest room I ever had the *cough* pleasure of using in my four years of university!
Anyway, the series continues to be a whole lot of fun, delving deeper into the world of the supernatural and the Scott's stranglehold on it. Also learning more about Fort's scary family...which given they are his family you end up kind of liking them, and yet each and every one of them is a true monster in every sense of the word. And yet they love Fort and he loves them so you can't quite despise them, at the same time they still give you chills. I like how Brennan keeps Fort mostly human but does away with it for the rest of his family. These aren't your "vegetarian" vampires here, they are cruel and evil, and yet, for what its worth, kind of the good guys?
October 2016
Hmm, didn't quite love this one as much as the previous three. Not because of the characters, they're still great, but I found a bit too much happened in this book. There were about four or five supernatural crises to solve, and ailing mother, an impending conversion to vampire adulthood, it was a lot all at once, and this is only the fourth book in the series. Now I still enjoyed it, it had all the snark and humour of the previous three, but it just tried to cram in too much. I find most urban fantasy have this issue, since they aren't one big storyarc but more episodes in the lives of the characters, each book has to have a bigger bang than the previous (see my review of The Dresden Files). However this big bang came early on in this series. Maybe the author already knows how long she wants her series to go, but if not, will be hard to keep it going a long time after this one. But still, I'll eagerly look forward to the next installment (of which there is not hint, not even a title, at the time of this review).
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