Book Review - Rob Thurman's Cal Leandros series

This past summer, I had the awesome opportunity to attend the infamous San Diego Comic Convention with famous vampire-smut author and Dark Horse Comics editor Jemiah Jefferson and my mom. Since my mom's medical condition got us the big ol' Handicapped stamp on our badges, we found ourselves in priority seating in the first row during the most packed day of panels. After the charming discussion about Stargate: Universe, Caprica, and other shows I don't watch, I excused myself and literally ran from the room, abandoning my mom and Jemiah to the wolves by asking them to save my highly-coveted front row center seat. I bolted through the crowd, dodging and weaving past fanboys dressed as Storm Troopers and girls that looked like anime characters, ducking around overpriced coffee kiosks and vendor booths and random people playing ukelele in the lobby. I ran down a staircase, almost twisting my ankle in the process, and desperately scanned the banners hanging from the ceiling to display the aisle numbers in the vast showroom. I needed to find the Mysterious Galaxy table, and I needed to find it fast--- the reservation ticket I held clutched desperately in one hand would only grant me a thirty-minute lapse until I had to be back in my seat in the upstairs panel room. The SDCC staff thought I was on a bathroom break.

So why was I busting my ass and risking losing my primo spot (before The Big Bang Theory panel, even, when I would be sitting close enough to count Johnny Galecki's beard-hairs)?

Because of a petite little redhead who I had been wanting to meet for a very long time.

Her name is Rob Thurman, and when I first saw her debut novel Nightlife sitting on the 'new release' shelf of the local bookstore, I assumed she was a guy by her name. The book had gorgeous cover art by Chris McGrath, a handsome long-haired emo kid crouching on a rooftop glaring into the bleary night sky. Since I work at a bookstore and am often forced to straighten the paranormal romance section, I am more than accustomed to covers involving men like this--- except they also almost-always involve a terrible tribal tattoo, a superficial scratch somewhere on his ripped six-pack abdomen or chest, or a woman in a bustier. So to see a cover that featured none of those things was intriguing enough for me to pick it up.

It was like a roller coaster ride from the first chapter; the books center on a pair of brothers, Caliban (which means monster, for my non-Shakespeare fan friends) and Niko Leandros, half-Romanian and, in Cal's case, half-demon. The boys share a lying whore of a gypsy for a mother, but Caliban has a demonic elf known as an Auphe for a father. When they are very young, the Auphe drags Caliban through a portal into purgatory; Cal emerges half-insane, feral from his time in Hell and also a couple of years older since time works differently there. From that point on, Niko and Cal dedicate their lives to running, to training their bodies to defeat the forces of evil. Niko is a tranquil, even-keeled meditation junkie with a passion for weapons, discipline and fierce family loyalty. Cal is a smart-ass virgin who can't come to terms with the evil blood inside of him.

From the first book through the sequels Moonshine, Madhouse, Deathwish, and the brand-new Roadkill, the Leandros brothers have grown exponentially as people. Caliban has not only faced off against his evil genetics, but he is casually dating a psychotic werewolf while his brother dates an elegant vegetarian vampire. They have been to Hell and back, fought off hordes of evil, and protected each other through thick and thin. Niko has had to face his biggest fear--- a hallucination of Cal dead which left him mentally scarred afterward--- and accept his biggest challenge, which is letting Cal make adult decisions on his own and accept his own consequences for his choices.

In addition to the two ass-kicking brothers, Rob has introduced me to my favorite fictional character to date, Robin Goodfellow. When I was a kid, the puck in mythology was always my favorite, and I had a soft spot for fauns, satyrs, and Pan as well. In the first novel, Rob has the brothers venture to a used car lot to obtain a ride; they happen to meet the owner of the dealership, one Robin Goodfellow. Robin is the epitome of sex on legs, a slick-talking pan in designer clothes and an expensive haircut, a master swordsman, a lover that makes Caligula look like a blushing schoolgirl, and a smartass who invokes some of the best pickup lines in any urban fantasy  novel currently on the bookshelves. 

She has also taken many established myths and flipped them on their heads--- for example, elves are red-eyed, silver-teethed monsters bent on world destruction, peris are like angels but without the asexual holiness, vampires take iron supplements to keep from killing people, and werewolves run their own version of the mafia known as Kin. The Scottish folklore about Sawney Beane, an infamous serial killer and cannibal of legend, was the basis for her novel Madhouse, a truly disturbing and original work. Her werewolves are born, not transformed, and they can get the same diseases as the neighborhood mongrel. In addition to these, Rob brings out myths you've never heard of; she uses some of the most obscure beasts from a huge variety of cultural lore to add new villains to the story, things like mud-monsters that eat joggers in Central Park, mummies that live in the basement of world-famous museums and are addicted to the internet, and homicidal zombie-cats that take great pleasure in mass slaughter.

Rob has a distinct voice that shines through in her work; she is the cynical tough girl, and you won't find a drop of romance in these books. There's no Harlequin love story, no drawn out sex scenes or even any gratuitious nudity. Since ninety percent of the books are told from Cal's jaded, world-weary point of view, he is not interested in details about anyone's sex life, and thus they're omitted from the story itself. I personally appreciate this touch; if I want smut (and it's certainly not hard to come by in the urban fantasy genre), there are plenty of writers who specialize in just that. Rob's own touch is more adept at a fast-paced, well-plotted story with twists, turns, and occasionally a complete plunge off the edge that you never saw coming in time to catch your breath.

So while I may have busted my ass and temporarily abandoned my front-row-center spot at SDCC for two minutes with a fiesty little redhead, it was well worth it. I now have a full set of the Leandros novels all autographed (I didn't buy new copies, but rather let her sign my dogeared ones. I wanted her to actually see how much I love them, and of course the first copy you buy of anything is always the most poignant one. You wear it through, or watch it so many times it begins to skip, or read it until the pages fall out in clumps, but the replacement always feels like a cheap whore after the genuine love between you and the first copy) except for the new one, Roadkill, and Rob and I talk sporadically through her journal and emails. She is a wonderful, extremely talented writer who stands out in a genre where it's all too easy to fall for the formuliac approach and wait for the paycheck to roll in. Au contraire--- Rob Thurman would rather keep her integrity and her generic mac 'n cheese in the interest of sticking to her guns--- and her gun of choice in this case is Cal Leandros' signature Desert Eagle.