Tuesday, September 11, 2018

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Dreadful Company by Vivian Shaw




Dreadful Company is the sequel to Vivian Shaw's Strange Practice (Review Here), of which I was a big fan.  The story takes a typical version of the urban fantasy genre - where the supernatural lives alongside us in the modern world albeit hidden and with literature's greatest monsters being real beings - but adds a different twist: our heroine isn't some monster hunter, but rather is a monster doctor.  Greta Hellsing is her name, and what she cares about is that every being of the supernatural, be they Vampire/Vampyre, Ghoul, Mummy, whatever, get proper treatment for their ailments in peace.

Readers should begin the series with the first volume, as while this story takes Greta to a new setting (Paris!) and features a number of new supernatural creatures (a werewolf & a bunch of psychopomps, amongst a bunch of other monsters and ghosts), it builds on the relationships built in the first novel.  Even with that foreknowledge, I do think Dreadful Company isn't quite as good as its predecessor, but it's still very good - this is a lighter form of fantasy than some other series, and it still works quite well.  I'm definitely looking forward to the next book in the series.

More after the Jump:

------------------------------------------------Plot Summary---------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Greta Hellsing is visiting Paris for a Medical conference - medicine for the supernatural of course - with her friend and vampire Edmund Ruthven when she starts to notice weird things happening around town - small harmless monsters showing up repeatedly in her hotel room, for example.  But when she makes an appointment to see the self-appointed guardian of Paris, a werewolf named St. Germain, she finds herself kidnapped by a rogue Vampire coven whose leader wants revenge on Ruthven...and whose conduct is both outrageous and dangerous for others of the supernatural (besides, you know, kidnapping her).

But that's not all that's going on in Paris - something is strange is going on with the spirits/ghosts of Paris, as a pair of psychopomps seem to have noticed.  And the guardians of the city, such as the werewolf or Hell's representative demon, might not have been paying enough attention....to the danger of all.

And of course, as her friends - Ruthven, the Vampyre Varney, and others - seek to rescue Greta and perhaps save Paris from the disturbance, Greta will find not only that she needs to escape on her own, but that she cannot help the need to do her duty as a doctor to the supernatural, even for the ones who have kidnapped her.
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As I mentioned in my review of Strange Practice, part of the fun of this series is that Greta is very much not your typical urban fantasy heroine - she doesn't just want to live alongside the supernatural (and isn't in any way part of it) or to protect it from discovery, but to actively help it as a doctor.  The words "do no harm" are essentially her core - so unlike a series like Seanan McGuire's great Incryptid, there's never a point where Greta would ever act to purposefully take the "life" of a supernatural being - whether a tiny wellmonster or a deadly vampire who tried to abduct her.  It makes her a far more unique character and a lot of fun - when she finds a young woman who was turned into a vampire just out of her teens, you can feel her heartbreak for that vampire and Greta's determination to try and help.  She cares, and that makes her both special and fun to read.

Which is not to say Greta's allies are any less fun despite them being a little less willing to spare those supernatural beings who stand in their way.  Most of the cast of the first book return (except for Greta's human friend Cranswell oddly) - including Ruthven (a Vampire), Varney (a Vampyre), and Fastitocalon (a Demon), and they are joined by a few new supernatural creatures (a Werewolf, a couple of psychopomps, and a bunch of smaller more innocent monsters).  And generally they're pretty fun, although Fastitocalon's appearance late is a bit of a disappointment now that the events of Strange Practice have changed his character a bit.  Which is about the only problem with the characters - the pair of psychopomps in particular are kind of fun as they encounter some rather famous ghosts.

The book isn't quite as fun as Strange Practice - I kind of wished that the threat wasn't simply more vampires, because we already have two in the series so there isn't much added there - it's still an interesting plotline, but I wanted more of something new.  But the story is still quite fun and moves along at a great pace, so I can't complain too much, and I'm definitely looking forward for more.  This review may seem kind of short but there really isn't much to say: Dreadful Company is again a very fun adventure/medical story featuring famous creatures of the supernatural and is well worth your time if you're looking for an enjoyable read.
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