text: I was barely able to finish this book. Armstrong makes fun of vampires and witches, etc. by dragging in all the cheesy pop culture references she can think of. This made it very hard for me to take her characters seriously. I might have been able to swallow the idea of Cabals (giant glitzy corporations run by sorcerors; it's unclear why they don't just take over the world and have done), but Armstrong really lost me during the 20-page extended send-up of Anne Rice's vampires. This genre is rapidly sinking into self-referentialism, and Armstrong is the worst culprit. In Industrial Magic, she ruins what could have been a perfectly good story with these unfunny namechecks and rebuttals to writers who are actually better than she is. On top of that, the viewpoint character, Paige, is unfortunately named: she's as flat and boring as the pages she's written on. Her central relationship is with her boyfriend, Lucas, but their coupleship seems to revolve around the trading of sexual favors. Are we supposed to think this is cute and funny? 
  
  Take-home project for Armstrong: next time, try putting some genuine emotion into your work
  