Thursday, April 5, 2018

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Strange Practice by Vivian Shaw





Strange Practice is an example of a seemingly growing subgenre of fantasy - the famous monster subversion genre.  Like say The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter, this is a story where famous monsters (or at least kind of Monsters) are real, but as far more harmless beings than the stories would tell and as beings who simply would want to be left alone.  It's a story about a doctor to such beings - one Greta Hellsing - who tries to see to their needs, only to get caught up in something more dangerous.

Strange Practice is not just an example of the subgenre, but it's a pretty damn good one, and while not a story that is "light," it somehow manages to be a fun mix of light and dark elements.  The book's plot isn't phenomenal, but its main characters - the aforementioned Doctor, a human researcher, a demon, two vampires of different kinds - are lovely, especially when interacting with one another, and I can't wait to read more of their stories (a sequel is coming out later this year).  It's not an action story by any means (again, our heroine is a doctor) but a character story, and a really good one at that.  Definitely well recommended

More details after the Jump:

------------------------------------------------Plot Summary-------------------------------------------
In modern day London, Dr, Greta Hellsing serves a valuable, though purposely not well known role - she runs a clinic (and does house calls at times) for the medical treatment of the inhuman.  Ghouls?  Vampires?  Demons?  Mummies?  If they need medical care, Greta will do it.

But when Edward Ruthven, a several hundred year old vampire known for his aid to London's inhuman community, calls Greta to his house, she finds herself involved in a problem of a more dangerous nature than she's used to: someone dressed as a monk attacked Francis Varney, a Vampyre (with a "y", as Francis is lunar sensitive), with a poisoned blade.  Not only that, but similar attacks have been happening all over London, harming humans and non-humans alike.

Greta, along with fellow human August Cranswell, a museum curator, as well as the inhumans Ruthven, Varney, and the demon Fastitocalon soon find themselves searching for answers, because if they don't do something about the situation, both the human and inhuman communities of London will find themselves in big trouble.
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Strange Practice is a little less rigid in how it organizes its chapters than some other books - parts of each chapter take place from various characters' points of view, and while the largest amount of the book is written from Greta's point of view (in 3rd person), pretty much all of our main five characters get some parts written from their own POVs, so we "hear" the thoughts of all of them at some point in the story.  I'm sure this is the type of thing authors are advised not to do....but it totally works here, and it's never unclear whose perspective you're following in a part.

Part of the reason for this is that every character is distinct, with their own personalities, and they're all genuinely interesting.  While you have two humans and two vampire/vampyres (their power differences aren't big enough to matter for this story), each are very different from the other in personalities and histories, so they never seem duplicative in any way.  And the grumpy demon Fastitocalon is a fun addition as well.  Each character has problems and interests, and it's easy to care about each of them as the plot goes on.

Greta makes a particularly excellent heroine.  She doesn't crave adventure or monster hunting (despite her ancestors) - she has been brought up by her father to believe the inhuman creatures are simply trying to live and wants to do her best to care for the community.  She takes the most pride in healing (she has some thoughts about how rewarding cases involving surgery on mummies are), and never moves away from that toward aggressive action, despite being threatened by supernatural beings who want to kill her and her patients.  Her job and her goals are to heal, not to harm, even in the face of danger.  To quote a passage from the book:

"You are not human," she said at last "but you are people.  All of you.  The ghouls, the mummies, the sanguivores, the weres, the banshees, the wights, the bogeys, everyone who comes to me for help, everyone who trusts me to provide it.  You are all people, and you all deserve medical care, no matter what you do or have done, and you deserve to be able to seek and receive that care without putting yourselves in jeopardy.  What I do is necessary, and while it isn't the slightest bit easy, it is also the thing I want to do more than anything else in the world."  

Having a human main character be a protector of monsters isn't a new idea - the InCryptid Series I love so much features that as its premise - but having said main character be focused near entirely as possible on healing rather than adventuring and fighting to protect is different - and it makes Greta a great character I wanted to read more of.

And then the rest of the worldbuilding is also excellent.  We get to see sick ghouls, who need normal health care (including a baby ghoul with an ear infection!), a mummy who needs surgery to be able to "lurch" without pain, a banshee with a sore throat, etc.  It's such a fun collection - much of which are simply cameos in this book - that again, I really wanted to read more of just Greta's normal cases, dramatic plot be damned.

If the book has a weakness, it's in the plot itself being very rote, with the antagonist (whose POV and whose minions' POVs take up parts of the story) being very blah.  To its credit, the book seems to know this, and just uses said plot to develop the characters and world, which are easily the best parts of the story.  And the ending is quite satisfying both as a way to end this book and to tease future adventures to come.

Still, fun characters in a pretty cool world who are kind of unique from other books?  Yeah, I recommend Strange Practice quite a bit, it's a lot of fun.
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