Urban Fantasy is constantly surprising me with its infinite variety; just when you think it’s all shirtless vampires and/or werewolves battling for their race’s survival and discovering their destined soul mates, along comes something like Vicki Pettersson’s simply outstanding mélange of mysticism, monsters and Marvel Comics known as The Signs of the Zodiac series to completely shatter the paradigm.
The first book, The Scent of Shadows, was released in 2007, and in its plentiful pages (over 400 of them!) we meet our heroine, Joanna Archer, victim of teenage violence and scion of an obscenely wealthy, casually cruel, casino magnate. Haunted but determined, Jo is a photographer and martial arts enthusiast, documenting the plight of Sin City’s dispossessed even as she searches for her attacker, revenge on her mind. But more is going on here than Joanna ever could have imagined; she is, in fact, a born superhero, and upon her twenty-fifth birthday will manifest powers with which she will either defend or defile the ordinary citizenry of her hometown. She is, we are told, the Kairos, a warrior born of half Light and half Shadow, and depending on which was she leans, so too will go the entire city.
So far, so comic book origin story.
What makes this all so very different, unique and utterly, mind-bendingly awesome is the manner in which Pettersson marries so many different—one might have even thought mutually exclusive—ideas to shape her supernatural world. Ancient mythologies are combined with pop culture and then seasoned with more than a little dynastical drama and served up so sincerely that you could almost believe Joanna’s account to be an actual autobiography. There are big ideas flying at us almost from the first, ideas of portent and power that explode in furious intensity…and then comes the Big Daddy of all of Pettersson’s big ideas, the ultimate in evil, the Tulpa.
Now, when I tell you what the Tulpa is, you’re probably going to instinctively want to scoff a little at the notion, but please bear with me, because this is really, really clever. He, or, more properly, I suppose, it, is a being that was called into existence by pure thought, and he wants only to rule all the planes of all existence (or, at least, the ones that can be accessed from Vegas; it is to be supposed that every city has their own Shadow leader just as ruthless and corrupt as this guy) in order to prove his own worth, or something. He’s not just evil, he’s quite demonstrably soulless, and although the name comes from Tibetan mythology (literally: a thoughtform brought to life), he is very far from Buddhist-esque do-no-harm-y. For anyone who ever thought Lex Luthor or the Green Goblin just had too much sympathetic gray area about them, this is the supervillain for you.
Speaking of supervillains…there’s also the comic book store.
Now, when I tell you about the comic book store, you’re probably going to instinctively want to scoff a little at the notion, but please bear with me, because this is really very clever. In Las Vegas there is a place called Master Comics and it is from there that the Archivist writes and distributes the Manuals, the graphic novels that recount the exploits of both the Light and the Shadow, the city’s conflicting superheroes, and then sells them to mortal children. It is the belief of the youngsters who read these stories that then gives each sides’ champions their power; there is an edict in place that you can only buy either the Manual of Light or the Manual of Shadow each week, and for the most part, the Shadow is outselling the competition.
’Cause who doesn’t love a comic book bad guy?
There is much more to the series than these two elements, of course, and most of it involves serious pain—either physical or emotional—inflicted on our poor, justifiably pissed, heroine. Really, it’s just one harrowing experience after the next. There is the revelation of her parentage and the discovery that her past traumas were not at all random. She makes mistakes and mopes about the place a lot, she is broken and betrayed and generally messed up almost all the time. She comes into her powers and then loses them; finds a family and then loses them; finds love only to lose it, too. (Most careless of her.) And somehow, despite a very transparent disguise that even the eternally dopey Lois Lane would have seen through, she remains hidden in plain sight for a good part of the series, her secret identity barely even scratched by her supposedly diabolical opposition.
I love how comic book-y that is.
In the six books of the series, now complete with the release of The Neon Graveyard on May 3, Joanna goes through Hell and back. Indeed, she kind of goes to Hell and back. And each installment is such a breathless thrill ride that by the time you reach the end of each one, you are almost emotionally wrung out.
The Scent of Shadows gallops by in a flurry of exposition and explosive action; Book 2, The Taste of Night, presents a gripping medical mystery in addition to supernatural ass-kickery; Book 3, A Touch of Twilight, delivers a knockout ending that can’t help but impress; Book 4, City of Souls will hurt your heart and leave you railing against the unkind fates; Book 5, Cheat the Grave, is even more soul-rending, and yet kind of inspiring, too; and then The Neon Graveyard leaves you weary but replete, sad to farewell the resilient Joanna but pleased also that her torment is at an end…at least, for now.
One truly fascinating aspect of this series, if not a character in its own right, is the city in which it is based, and which Pettersson so clearly calls home. Las Vegas is a town of many faces, and from Fear and Loathing to Casino to CSI, we’ve seen its seamy underbelly, and then some. The Signs of the Zodiac series is not even the first of the Urban Fantasy genre to be set in this town so perfectly suited to it, with its massive 24-hour indoor complexes, high turnover of faceless masses and near-obsession with every form of decadence. But Pettersson’s Las Vegas is not the tourist’s Las Vegas, and not the tabloid Las Vegas either; this is the true native’s beloved Las Vegas, a city with many flaws, but beautiful just the same. Compelling, seductive, accursed and alive.
A lot like our heroine.
Rachel Hyland is the Editor in Chief of Geek Speak Magazine.
