Elitist Book Reviews

The Highest Frontier

2012-02-13T08:00:00.000-07:00

I grew up in a small farming community in Oregon, so when I left for university--with a student body three times that of my hometown--it's reasonable to say that it was an intimating experience. THE HIGHEST FRONTIER by Joan Slonczewski reminded me about those first overwhelming months. Except with way cooler stuff.

Fast forward to several decades in the future and Jenny Ramos Kennedy, a girl from a rich and politically powerful family, is beginning her freshman year at Frontera College--a school in a space habitat. It looks like a regular college on earth, with buildings for classrooms, dorms, faculty offices, and cafeterias. There's also a community of farmers who emigrated from an earth under attack from global warming and ultraphytes--an unknown alien seeded them into the Great Salt Lake and they've been reproducing ever since, creating mass quantities of cyanide in the process. It's all a big mess.

Jenny must navigate hard classes, new friends, an odd roommate, an athletic team, volunteering as an EMS, a budding romance...and so much more. Readers will follow along as she attends classes, takes counsel from the local pastor, and tries to keep up in all the social activities and coursework--as well as pressure from her politically minded family. FRONTIER is actually a pretty exhausting book to read, because not only are we trying to keep up with an active co-ed and understand all the new science and imagery being thrown at us, but about a third of the way through we're presented with a mystery, and Jenny is compelled to understand what's really going on.

At first I had a hard time getting into this book. Since FRONTIER is almost exclusively a concept novel, it contains ideas and 'what ifs' about earth's climatic and political futures. There's slanball, a null-grav scoccer-like game, where minds are used instead of actually touching the ball. Instead of smart phones, everyone wears 'diads' over their eyes that connect them to ToyNet, with instant news feeds, texts from teachers and friends, invites to parties. It's all sensory overload and Slonczewski immerses you in it from page one, and drags you along until you finally get your footing. Even though it's light on plot, FRONTIER has more than its fair share of ambiance and setting.

Jenny is the main narrator, with President Dylan Chase occasionally piping in with college administrative issues. Jenny has recently suffered the death of her twin brother, Jordi, and begins as an uncertain, emotionally distant young woman. Slonczewski does a great job with Jenny's growth and characterization. She's a smart girl, but still quite normal for her age, with her hang-ups and moments of clarity. Her relationships with the other kids in her class felt real--for the most part, some of them I didn't quite understand.

Slonczewski is a professor of biology at Kenyon College (the college hosts a 3D image of what Frontera College looks like) and her love of the subject shines in FRONTIER. She peppers it with questions about ultraphytes. The space hab residents create food and homes from amyloid and carboxyplast--it's cheaper than shipping up everything from the planet. The space hab is twenty years old, practically ancient technology, with potentially serious problems if the power ever goes out. My favorite: you can print out things, from your printer, such as clothes. No need for a closet, or wearing the same thing everyday! Well, assuming you can afford it.

The story takes place during the presidential election, and I'd probably be more interested in that if I weren't so numb from the recent onslaught of the current news. But again, Slonczewski handles it well, and makes it an important part of the story. In a way it's a very timely commentary on the current political climate in the U.S., without being overbearing or agenda-ridden.

In all, it's a thoughtful book to read, with a likable heroine and some cool concepts. While it took time for me to become immersed in the story, it was worth the time.

Recommended Age: 14+, although comprehension might be difficult for readers less experienced with Science Fiction
Language: Mild
Violence: Minor
Sex: Referenced but without detail: rape is referenced; sex with animals is referenced; homosexuality is commonplace

Sound like a novel you want to try? Here's your link:
THE HIGHEST FRONTIER

Know No Fear

2012-02-10T08:00:00.001-07:00

KNOW NO FEAR marks the 19th book of the Horus Heresy series. For those of you who are unaware, Warhammer 40,000 is a table top game set in the 41st millennia: in the grim darkness of the future there is only war. Anyway Warhammer 40,000 is epic in the truest sense of the word, a science fiction universe with a slathering of dark fantasy thrown in for good measure. For a table top game it has a surprisingly rich and detailed history due to contributions from some great fiction authors. The greatest of those authors is without a doubt, Dan Abnett and the greatest event in the history of the game's whole shared-world fiction is the Horus Heresy.

All the above was written for the benefit of those unfortunate enough never to have heard of WH40K. That said, KNOW NO FEAR is NOT a good starting place for the uninitiated. If you have an interest in genetically enhanced superhuman warriors battling against all manner of vicious foes then I suggest you start with HORUS RISING, the first book in the Horus Heresy and a wonderful way to test the waters and see if this is a series for you.

KNOW NO FEAR takes place shortly after the initial hostilities of the Heresy have kicked off. The XIII space marine legion, the Ultramarines, are caught unaware by a supposed ally-turned- traitor during muster for a campaign against the orks in another sector. The betrayal is so complete that within hours a majority of the loyalist fleet has been destroyed and the planet of Calth is wreathed in flames with casualties accumulating at an alarming rate. KNOW NO FEAR is all about one of the greatest battles of the Horus Heresy, a fight to the death between the stalwart Ultramarines and the fanatical Word Bearers.

To date the Horus Heresy books have fallen into three categories. There are the plot and character development pieces, sparse with action and focused primarily on displaying the character of the players of this galaxy spanning high speed chess match. Then of course there are the novels that bask in hyper violence as only space marines can deliver. These books are so affectionately described as bolter-porn. Last there are the truly great pieces of fiction that transcend the "shared-world" stigma, novels with deep characters, engaging plots, and furious action sequences. Unfortunately KNOW NO FEAR does not fall into this final category, rather it would probably best be described as bolter-porn.

Don't get me wrong though, this does not have to be a bad thing, especially if you've been keeping up with the series. The last few Horus Heresy novels have been lackluster character pieces. I love the new focus on storytelling inherent in the series but it seems as though great action has taken a backseat to overbearing attempts at "literary" writing. KNOW NO FEAR is a much needed change of pace, delivering on the action with one of the highest body counts since the earliest days of the series as the two largest space marine legions duke it out. Abnett writes battle scenes with real talent, showing all the levels of a military engagement from high command strategy to small unit tactical. There is a little something for every adrenaline junkie, from cold void boarding action to siege warfare and even some space marine on daemon melee.

The reason why this is a good book instead of a great one is simple. It lacks character depth. The book starts out great, Abnett's prose is beautiful and striking from the get go and his unique approach to writing this specific novel was awesome. The pacing is brutal and chapters fly by. The POV is split up amongst a rather large cast of characters whose perspectives start just before the tragedy and tie up just after. This method is highly successful in portraying the awful series of events that take place and while I was reading I got a disaster movie vibe. Readers get a unique view of these superhuman warrior elite as spectators, victims of an insidious plot...at least until they get their bearings and fight back.

The problem with this, as successful as it is, is the lack of characterization. Unless you've been following the series very closely you are unlikely to be able to tell who most of these characters are or why they matter. There is no clear main protagonist because the cast is spread so far to get a wide glimpse of the carnage. Readers will be hard pressed to maintain tabs on each of the Ultramarines and as excited as I was to see Ventanus, Captain of the Troublesome Fourth he never shined as brightly as I'd hoped for.

One final complaint. Because of the analytical nature of the Ultramarines they use the terms "practical" and "theoretical" in conversation quite heavily. At first this seems like a neat quirk that can be attributed to their combat effective minds. Eventually though the dialogue does get a little grating. This is nowhere near as bad as Abnett's use of the phrase "wet-leopard-growl" in PROSPERO BURNS, but it can be irritating.

KNOW NO FEAR is a fun read, a must have for WH40K fans. There are some great cameos and even a little foreshadowing to the future of the series. Anyone interested can order the book now at the Black Library website where it has been released a whole month early.

Recommended Age: 14+
Language: Some, including fictional curse words
Violence: To the extreme. These are superhuman warriors created solely for the purpose of winning wars against the most despicable foes imaginable. And now they're having a go at each other.
Sex: None

Start from the beginning here:
HORUS RISING

Or, get the new one:
KNOW NO FEAR

Shadow's Lure

2012-02-07T08:00:00.002-07:00

There is just something about assassin novels that I love. A while back when I read Jon Sprunk's SHADOW'S SON, I was immediately struck by how smooth the novel was, and how fun the main character was. Sprunk's first novel wasn't perfect, but it was loaded with promise.

As you all know by now, when it comes to judging new authors I use a slightly different measuring stick. With the first book I want to be pleasantly surprised. The second book is all about improvement. I'm happy to report (and very relieved, because Sprunk is a ridiculously nice guy with an even nicer wife) that Sprunk's second novel SHADOW'S LURE is better in nearly every way when compared to his first novel.

SHADOW'S LURE begins a very short time following the events of SHADOW'S SON. Our awesome assassin, Caim, is off in self-imposed exile attempting to figure out his past. With him, of course, is the ghost-like and gorgeous Kit whom only Caim can see. Josey is back as well, and most of her time is spent adjusting to being Empress.

The truly great parts of the novel all take place with Caim "on-screen". He is a terrific character who is as inwardly insecure as he is outwardly stone-cold awesome. I love assassin novels and stories because that typically means I will get tons of action. The body count of SHADOW'S LURE is high as Caim is caught up in a war between the normal world and the Shadow. I judge action pretty hard, because I've read some pretty amazing action sequences over the years. If an author doesn't do action well, I will call attention to that fact every time. Sprunk does action well. It is smooth like the assassin this book contains, and deliciously brutal.

Josey's parts are the weakest of the novel. Caim makes all the side characters around him better, and since he isn't around, Josey's sections lag. What's more is that there is a little bit of Elayne from The Wheel of Time in here--something that strikes fear into the core of my soul. If you notice this like I did, have no fear, Josey does grow out of it by the end of the novel, but I was panicking for a bit there. Overall her character was just "OK" to me. Not bad, but she didn't excel either. Can you guess what one of my main hopes for book 3 is?

What I loved about SHADOW'S LURE was the scope of the story. It was still focused on the individual characters, but events were so much bigger than in book one. For the most part Sprunk handled it all very well, and I'm impressed with his growth in ability from SHADOW'S SON to SHADOW'S LURE.

I still could, however, see where he has room for marked improvement.

The first 200 pages of the novel are tight and effortlessly paced. I utterly devoured them. The next 100 pages after that lagged, and seemed more scattered than the beautifully woven first half of the novel. There were clarity issues regarding who is present in certain scenes--to make a video game reference, it was like the novel had "texture pop-in", but in terms of character rather than scenery. Suddenly a character was there talking when I thought the main characters were alone. It's distracting.

The final 100 pages, including ending, are pretty awesome all the way around. We get some great resolution as well as a solid direction for each of the main characters. I love the little twist thrown in at the end to make the love story not so tidy. Sprunk also gets rid of a metaphorical crutch Caim was using while making him more powerful. Even the villain was way better than the one from the first novel. The setting is way more realized.

As you can see, I liked SHADOW'S LURE a lot. It was a fun, fast, action-packed novel that left me eager to read the follow-up. There is a lot riding on book 3, SHADOW'S MASTER, and SHADOW'S LURE has given me a ton of confidence in Sprunk's writing ability. I absolutely can't wait.

Recommended Age: 17+
Language: It's odd. There are times when Sprunk seems to purposely and noticeably avoid swearing, then others where it comes out super strong.
Violence: It's a novel about an assassin. Did you think it was going to be about bunnies and rainbows? Of course it is insanely violent.
Sex: Towards the beginning of the novel there was actually a fairly strong scene. An orgy-like scene that goes on for just a tad. It isn't overly descriptive, but it stood out since there isn't any in the entire rest of the novel.

These novels are terrific. If you like assassin themed novels, you should be reading Jon Sprunk. If you like assassin themed video games, you should be reading Jon Sprunk.

SHADOW'S SON
SHADOW'S LURE

Elitist Classics: Childhood's End

2012-02-03T08:00:00.000-07:00

Aliens have invaded Earth. At first glance, the Overlords' motives appear altruistic—they eradicate war, poverty, and sickness—but some men question their motives, and the aliens aren't exactly forthcoming.

Written in 1953, CHILDHOOD'S END by Arthur C. Clarke shows us the results of an alien-imposed utopia on mankind. With this book Clarke asks a lot of questions—he answers some of them with possible solutions of his own, but leaves others open that are worth exploring. First contact with aliens is a common theme in Science Fiction, from Wells' WAR OF THE WORLDS, to Star Trek, and other, more current fiction. Clarke's version imagines mankind as a small, but still meaningful, part of the universe.

CHILDHOOD'S END is written in Clarke's straightforward style, with subtle humor, and a keen eye for human behavior, but it's still dated in spots. Since it addresses thought-provoking societal issues, the pace is slower than Clarke's more action-based books such as the fun RENDEZVOUS WITH RAMA (also worth reading) or the strange 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY.

Still in print, it's always available at libraries, and there's even an Audible version. It's well worth your time to pick up this novel and see where our a lot of our current SF novels have come from.

Recommended Age: 12+
Language: None
Violence: None
Sex: None

The Daemon Prism

2012-01-31T08:00:00.014-07:00

I've been looking forward to reading THE DAEMON PRISM since reading THE SOUL MIRROR in May. I had no clue what to expect, or where Carol Berg was going with the story. After the stunning climax in MIRROR, what else could happen? As it turns out, there's an even bigger plot we haven't discovered yet.

At the end of book two, Anne and Dante retire to the country where he can teach Anne her new-found magic skills. Portier has gone into hiding to recover from the events on the mount, but also to study the myths and history that would make people believe he is a Saint Reborn. They had discovered and thwarted the nefarious plots of the aspirant--but it turns out that the conspiracy is even deeper, and they must stop the evil that would bind the world of the living and dead together permanently.

SPIRIT was narrated in first person by Portier, MIRROR by Anne, but DAEMON is primarily Dante, a PoV that is a complicated, tortured soul. He's proved in every book that he's willing to do despicable things in order to see the mystery through, and will even risk his friendships and the relationship with the woman he loves. Berg has made a deliciously tortured character in Dante, whose past has shaped him, and we finally get to see in DAEMON exactly what that means. Many are convinced he's the evil that needs to be stopped, but Anne, Portier, and Illario are steadfast in their trust that he's doing what's ultimately the right thing. In DAEMON Anne, Portier, and even Illario make brief appearances as first person viewpoints to round out the narrative; but here, it's Dante who shines.

When the narrative started I had a hard time understanding how this new plot line continued that of the previous books. It begins with Anne returning home to her parents to help with the household, leaving the blind Dante alone and feeling abandoned. Until a former soldier appears at his doorstep with a dream that has tormented him for years, and fears it will cause him to go insane. But Dante learns that the dream is actually someone looking for him, and he's compelled to find out what it's really about--something about magic stones and setting free the beautiful woman trapped by them.

I tried to figure out how this seemingly random storyline coincided with the previous books, and for a long time I felt like it was a contrivance. But, as in the previous books, patience wins out--Berg has a bigger picture in mind through the entire series. Dante's story is compelling, and it's worth the wait to watch it slowly build and come together in the final climax of the series.

We also see more of the world outside of Sabria; before we were limited to the capital city and a few areas around it. This time we travel to Dante's hometown and beyond, to cities where history is catching up to and influencing the present. Berg's world is varied without being overwhelming, with a rich history that's interesting to unravel and explore. I only wish there were more.

If you've read the previous books, yes THE DAEMON PRISM is worth the effort to see it through. Berg does take her sweet time telling the story, but there is a purpose to it, and when the threads start coming together in the final 70 or so pages, everything gets mashed up and jumbled and exciting.

I know I gush; however, I'm not completely blind to the book's imperfections, including some unanswered questions, abruptly tied off character story lines, and pacing issues through the middle of the book. Yet, they are small issues when one looks at the series as a whole, because the overarching narrative is fascinating and compelling.

Can you read THE DAEMON PRISM without reading the first two? No, and you wouldn't want to. The previous novels are worth the slow buildup of information--magical, historical, religious, character--and the time it takes to see this series to the very end.

Recommended Age: 16+ more for comprehension than content
Language: Fewer than five instances
Violence: Death, torture, and grisly magic rites, much more than in previous books
Sex: Referenced and described in a handful of instances (including as part of a death ritual), although without detail

This phenomenal series contains:
THE SPIRIT LENS
THE SOUL MIRROR
THE DAEMON PRISM

The Last Page

2012-01-27T08:00:00.001-07:00

A good friend of mine lent me his copy of THE LAST PAGE by Anthony Huso saying that it was a book he thought I would really enjoy. He compared the book to China Miéville (of whom I am a rabid fan). I’d heard some other good things about it as well so I picked it up and read it. Here’s the blurb, (mostly because I’m not sure I could describe the book succinctly by myself).

The city of Isca is set like a dark jewel in the crown of the Duchy of Stonehold. In this sprawling landscape, the monsters one sees are nothing compared to what's living in the city's sewers.

Twenty-three-year-old Caliph Howl is Stonehold's reluctant High King. Thrust onto the throne, Caliph has inherited Stonehold's dirtiest court secrets. He also faces a brewing civil war that he is unprepared to fight. After months alone amid a swirl of gossip and political machinations, the sudden reappearance of his old lover, Sena, is a welcome bit of relief. But Sena has her own legacy to claim: she has been trained from birth by the Shradnae witchocracy--adept in espionage and the art of magical equations writ in blood--and she has been sent to spy on the High King.
Yet there are magics that demand a higher price than blood. Sena secretly plots to unlock the Cisrym Ta, an arcane text whose pages contain the power to destroy worlds. The key to opening the book lies in Caliph's veins, forcing Sena to decide if her obsession for power is greater than her love for Caliph.

Meanwhile, a fleet of airships creeps ever closer to Isca. As the final battle in a devastating civil war looms and the last page of the Cisrym Ta waits to be read, Caliph and Sena must face the deadly consequences of their decisions. And the blood of these conflicts will stain this and other worlds forever.

With comparisons to China Miéville it can’t really be surprising that I was slightly underwhelmed with the finished product. There is much in THE LAST PAGE to be admired and there are certainly wonderful ideas, but as a whole it just didn’t satisfy me the way I was hoping it would.

And I feel bad about that. This review is going to come off seeming like it was a “meh” book. It will certainly be filed in the "Books That Are Mediocre" category. But that doesn’t really do it justice. To me that feels like I’m saying that the book was OK. Not true, there were parts of the book that were good. There were parts that were very good, excellent even. And then there were parts that I didn’t like so much, and others I thought could be better.

Let’s start with the good shall we? (I’m an optimist that way.) The ideas. Just like in a standard China Miéville book, THE LAST PAGE has quite a few really weird slightly gross and totally enthralling ideas swimming in it. There are moments that just stick out; pictures, scenes, and scenarios that are just so darn cool you want to paint them and hang them on your wall (except that some of them are really gross and you don’t want that on your wall). The other thing I really rather enjoyed was the writing itself. There were moments when the language was just gorgeous. It was thick and vivid and really helped paint that mental picture. One scene in particular when the (not gonna spoil it) finally (not gonna tell you). Man, that was sweet!

But then there were times when the language was actually an obstacle. My dad told me he had seen someone refer to the writing as “Someone threw a thesaurus at a wall” and honestly at times THE LAST PAGE felt that way. It felt as if he were trying TOO hard to wow me with how cool the language could be and it got confusing. Sometimes the language worked, others it didn’t.

The other problem I had with the book was the story itself. It seemed less to me a coherent story that moved along with good twists and turns, than a random series of events to take us from one cool idea to another. For me it lacked direction and focus. The character arcs for Caliph and Sena just didn’t do it for me. They didn’t grow enough as characters or come to great conclusions or do much of anything other than take us from cool idea to cool idea.

All in all though, I’m glad I read THE LAST PAGE. Like I said there are some images and ideas that I will take with me and for that I am grateful. It was even enough for me to give Huso’s next novel a shot when it comes out. Overall the ideas are great. If he can clean up the story and characters a bit for me, that will be something to read!

Age Recommendation: 16+ Bits of language, gross scenes and a bit of sex stuff thrown in.
Language: A bit. Not abundant, but obviously there.
Violence: There’s some gross stuff thrown in.
Sex: A few scenes and references

This book is one that tends to affect different readers in different ways. If you want to give it a shot, here is your link:

THE LAST PAGE

Boneyards

2012-01-25T08:00:00.001-07:00

One of the very few Science Fiction series I truly enjoy is "Diving" series written by Kristine Kathryn Rusch for Pyr. The series follows the character Boss as she progresses from diving the wrecks of space ships to leading a huge corporation that is focused on controlling thhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gife scientific progression of a dangerous version of stealth technology. Why do I like this series so much? I think it mainly boils down to two points. 1) I like the main character, and 2) it is one of the more accessible SF series out there.

The latest entry to the series, BONEYARDS, follows on the heels of the prior novel. Boss is helping Coop--the captain of the Dignity Vessel that was thrust 5000 years into the future (Boss' present)--investigate the whereabouts of the Fleet. As I type that out I realize just how important it is for you readers to start this series from the beginning. There simply isn't any way to enjoy this novel without having read the prior two novels, DIVING INTO THE WRECK and CITY OF RUINS. Without those novels you have no hope of having any real connection to the main character, Boss, or any of her crew.

So, if you haven't read the prior novels stop screwing around and go pick them up. They are awesome.

Anyway. Back to the review.

BONEYARDS is divided up into two separate stories. We have Boss' sections, which are told in 1st Person as usual. Then we also have chunks told in 3rd Person from Squishy, a character you should remember from the prior novels. While Boss is helping Coop, Squishy is off on a solo mission to destroy the Empire's base researching stealth technology.

The Boss sections are fantastic, and are exactly what most readers will be looking forward to. There are moments of internal doubt and weakness that act as a counterpoint to the hard exterior that she wears as a leader of a massive corporation. The Squishy sections, however, will likely be a tad more difficult for readers to enjoy. It isn't that they are bad, because they aren't. Half of Squishy's sections are flashbacks to her life working with the Empire. While they do serve as a window into her head, as a reader I just wasn't as invested in her character as I was in Boss. This made the pacing slow down dramatically, and I found that I would often check ahead to see how much further until the Boss sections.

While I wish the Squishy sections could have been a little more dynamic, they do work well once you get used to her sections. And on the whole the books works really well.

Until the ending.

I distinctly remember looking down at the page number seeing I only had twenty pages left and thinking, "There's no way to wrap this up." Remember, the title of the novel is BONEYARDS. Without spoiling exactly what the Boneyards are in the novel, I feel like I should mention that they never actually spend any time in them. They look at it from the outside, then decide (for various non-spoilery reasons) to go back later. Instead of going into the Boneyards, we get a very quick meeting of the Boss & Squishy storylines. It's really kind of weird, because the ending is both satisfying to read because of Boss's resolution, but it is also flat due to Squishy's ending. I literally said out-loud, "Well that was cool...except...wait, that's it?"

BONEYARDS is half a novel. It's a really good half novel, and there is a definite resolution on a personal level for Boss, but I really needed more. In a glass half-full way, this is a good thing. I enjoyed this novel quite a bit and would have gleefully read another 300 pages that dealt with the exploration of the Boneyards, and the consequences of the finale of the this novel. Instead I got a bit of a flat cliffhanger.

So should you read this novel? Absolutely. I really liked it, and I think you will too. This is SF that everyone can enjoy. But you need to go into it with the understanding that this feels like there should be a BONEYARDS Part 2 floating around. Even as half a novel, it is still very enjoyable and has actually made me looking forward to the next book even more.

Recommended Age: 15+
Language: As with the prior novels, there is some swearing. It can be strong, but it doesn't permeate the novel.
Violence: A bit towards the end, but it isn't focused on.
Sex: Referenced, but never shown or talked about in detail.

You should be reading this series. Here are your links to pick them up:

DIVING INTO THE WRECK
CITY OF RUINS
BONEYARDS

Elitist Classics: Dragonflight

2012-01-23T08:00:00.000-07:00

Pern is a planet inhabited by human colonists, whose way of life is affected by the deadly Thread that rains down at intervals from a nearby star. The only way to stop the Thread from reaching land and causing destruction is to burn it en route using genetically engineered telepathic dragons with their dragonriders to guide them.

Anne McCaffrey's Pern stories are based on science, the dragons not merely existing as mythological story fodder, but for a purpose. The series deals with themes of colonists wanting a pastoral society verses the technology needed to deal with threats to survival—and as a result switches back and forth between fantasy and science fiction flavors. Dated in spots, but still worth reading.

It was books like this that started an entire generation of female readers onto the SF path—and if my own tween daughter is any indication, they still do.

DRAGONFLIGHT was published in 1968, parts of which were novellas that originally appeared in Analog magazine the year before. The book is always in print and will be available at even small libraries. The Dragonriders of Pern series covers a thousand years, most taking place after DRAGONFLIGHT, with a few prequels.

Recommended Age: 12+
Language: Mild
Violence: Some and not usually graphic
Sex: Implied

Apparently a movie version will begin filming in 2012. We'll see if this actually sees the light of day.

Also, Michael Whelan painted several of the covers, which are worth taking a closer look at.

The Folded World

2012-01-17T08:00:00.001-07:00

I feel kind of like a broken record here. Once again we have another book by the amazing Catherynne M. Valente is out. Once again the book is wonderful. Once again the prose is beyond the capacity for mere mortals to absorb without crying. Once again I am left enraptured at the end of her tales wanting more. How many times can I say that Valente is writing flat out brilliant stuff and you guys should go out (and I mean the DAY a book of hers is released) and buy it? You need me to say it once more? Very well. If you insist. Buy it! Buy it now!

THE FOLDED WORLD is second book in the Dirge for Prestor John series. It picks up where the last book, THE HABITATION OF THE BLESSED, left off. Of course this is Catherynne M. Valente and stories rarely flow in an uninterrupted straight pace. So when I say that this book picks up where the last book left off, it’s true and then it’s not true. The last book contained three separate stories. The stories were copied from books plucked off of a tree. The books needed to be copied quickly as the book fruit was starting to rot. The stories wove in and out of each other introducing us to characters in various stages of their lives. This book follows in that vein as three more books are plucked from the tree.

We get another tale of Hagia, the blemmye wife of Prester John, this time much earlier in her life as she goes to war. We have the tale of Vyala, a lion charged with raising John’s deformed daughter (my favorite character thus far in the series). And we get the tale of another John Mandeville thrust into another part of the kingdom of Pentexore.

Some of the stories take place before the events in Habitation and others take place after. This time the tales focus on war, the effects of it on inhabitants who will live forever, and it’s consequences. The book felt more focused here for me than the last one. Both books serve to continue the story of Pentexore, and of John’s reign while he is there, but this one in particular had more a focus, and would stand alone better in my opinion.

In the end, however, the world is the big winner here. There are some wonderful characters. There are those whom we met previously who are more sketched out in this volume. There are those we meet for the first time here. As usual they are weird and a little unsettling, and entirely wonderful. Yet all of it serves as a backbone to this wonderful place, Pentexore, that the stories are taking place in. As enchanting as the stories are (and they are), it’s the world that I go back to visit each time.

I won’t say much more about THE FOLDED WORLD beyond that. Anything I write here won’t do justice to the tale that Valente is writing. Let it suffice to say that these (THE HABITATION OF THE BLESSED and THE FOLDED WORLD) are great books. These two novels are different, hard to describe, and hard to compare to anything else out there. And they are completely wonderful.

Age Recommendation: 16+ not based so much on anything here, but the last volume contained some sex and other things, and I think you should read the books together.
Language: None to my recollection
Violence: A few scenes here and there. One in particular, but not too gory.
Sex: Mentioned a few times. Not shown in this book.

If you aren't reading this series, you are insane. Here are your links to pick up these amazing novels:

THE HABITATION OF THE BLESSED
THE FOLDED WORLD

Reamde

2012-01-13T08:00:00.000-07:00

REAMDE is the second Neal Stephenson novel I have read, the first being the all time geek classic SNOWCRASH. Unlike SNOWCRASH and, from what I understand, the majority of Stephenson's other works, REAMDE is a pretty contemporary affair. Fans of irreverent, pop-culture laden science fiction will be disappointed in no small degree. Those looking for a fast paced thriller, on the other hand, may want to give REAMDE a chance.

The story starts out with Richard Forthrast, family black sheep and video game entrepreneur. Richard has made quite a name for himself in the business world by building an MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online) game from the ground up with a focus on harnessing the revenue stream of Chinese "gold farming." The game's success attracts a group of hackers that unleash a scheme to ransom players own encrypted data files back to them for a fee. I could go deeper into the plot, but not without giving away major spoilers.

REAMDE starts out strong as Stephenson introduces readers to Richard and his family as well as the vastly imaginative concept behind Richard's MMO titled, T'Rain. Stephenson is well known for utilizing infodumps as a method of world building and this is clearly evident at the beginning of the novel. Richard's personal history and the nature of T'Rain is established early on. Not once did I find an infodump to be boring or jarring. Stephenson is a highly intelligent author that has obviously done extensive research on the topics he writes. T'Rain in particular is a brilliant creation, not from just a gaming standpoint but from a money making standpoint as well.

The problem with REAMDE is that Richard and T'Rain feature prominently at the start but vanish towards the middle. Richard reappears at the last third of the book and T'Rain gets a little more spotlight but the book is not really about either of them. It is difficult to go into too much detail without broadcasting any spoilers but a couple hundred pages in the plot gets hijacked by a seemingly random occurrence that ends up taking priority through the rest of the novel. Granted, this is obviously was Stephenson was planning but it feels like the story got derailed and continued chugging along off the tracks instead of making any attempt to link back up. REAMDE is much more about international terrorism than it is about online gaming and computer hacking.

Once you get past this abrupt change of pace of course REAMDE makes for a solid thriller. The cast is diverse, ranging from Zula the adopted niece of Richard to Hungarian hacker Csongor, ex-Spetznaz security consultant Sokolov, and British spy Olivia. There is plenty of globe trotting and a fair bit of action especially in the last hundred or so pages. Stephenson takes special care to properly write about the handling of firearms and writes believable action sequences. The villains are pretty flat, standard ne'er-do-wells with no deeper motivation than to kill.

The thing is, fans of Stephenson will probably be expecting something a little deeper than REAMDE. There is no real theme to the novel, no probing into culture or psychology. And if Stephenson fans will be off put by the lack of depth, thriller fans will likely be unwilling to sit through hundreds of pages of build up. There are a lot of moving parts to REAMDE and it takes every bit of the considerable length to (somewhat coincidentally) guide all the chess pieces into play for the final showdown.

If you are going to read REAMDE don't rush out to be the massive hardbound, weapon of blunt destruction edition. Pick up a copy at the library or wait for it to be converted into a smaller (but still considerably deadly) paperback.

Recommended Age: 16+
Language: It's there but not in any great quantity
Violence: Yes, plenty of shooting but nothing too gruesome
Sex: It happens twice or so but strictly off scene

Think this book is for you? Here's your link to pick it up at far less than the bloated cover price:
REAMDE

Low Town

2012-01-10T08:00:00.000-07:00

Do you know what a cornucopia is? I'm not sure if this is the greatest analogy or not, but the imagery of a cornucopia is immediately what came to mind when I was reading this novel. Based on that single word, your impression of the book right now is probably dependent upon your own connotation of the word cornucopia. The idea of a cornucopia in my head is a pretty generic one, without any kind of preconception of the pieces contained by the...uh...aforementioned cornucopia. (How many times can I feasibly use that word in a single paragraph without having it ruin me? Best not to ask.) Anyhow, generic is pretty much where this book landed. Solidly in the land of mediocrity.

LOW TOWN is a debut novel (yeah, there was a rash of newbs in our pile and guess who got em?) by Daniel Polansky. I went into the book with high hopes. In essence, the book is about...mmm...well, it's about a whole lot of things, and they're all mashed up into one big--

Nope. Not going to say it. Put on your big-reader panties, everyone. I'm going with implication this time.

The story itself revolves around the character of the Warden and is told from a first-person POV. This kind of presentation was probably the one thing that saved the book, as I'm a reader that's big on character and it's fairly difficult to avoid putting character into first-person prose. The Warden is a guy that hustles drugs for the meaner parts of Low Town, although he's not without competition. He's a pretty unsympathetic guy that's been through the ringer as a former member of the elite police force of the city, and at the outset of the story he really doesn't care about much of anything or anyone. Just there to make a buck and shaft everyone he can. Even his so-called friends.

But then someone starts killing kids and he gets tied up in it. Although, you should probably read that one as: his former employer tells him to find out who's doing it or take a one-way trip to feed the fishes.

This is really where the story starts, and unfortunately it comes in at about a third of the way through the book. Up until that point in the story, I couldn't find much of a rhyme or reason as to what was going on or why things were happening. There was no direction. Although this problem does shrink somewhat as the book progresses, the feel of the book kept jumping all over the place. The world building suggested a dark, gritty city where the dregs of society live, and yet when a couple of kids get murdered everyone is all of a sudden appalled at the very idea of killing an innocent child. Another issue was that the near history feels very medieval, but then the main character has WWII-like memories come up, with trenches, and black-powder bombs, and hand-held guns. There's even a very Harry Potteresque feel to a couple scenes that totally took me for a loop. It was just all over the place. This made the story fairly difficult to get into, but once I got used to it, I did just kind of go with the flow.

Polansky's prose is decent for the most part. In sections, the lack of supporting detail made it difficult to follow what was going on. In others, everything seemed fine. So, kind of a mixed bag in the presentation department as well. He definitely could have used a few more commas though. There weren't enough of those by a long shot, and repeatedly made for a lack of clarity that got annoying.

The thrust of the novel is ostensibly a combination of noir and fantasy, but it felt mostly like sketchy noir with a very light sprinkling of magical influence. Still, besides being somewhat predictable at the end, it wasn't what I'd call a bad book. It absolutely didn't stand out in any way, shape, or form for me though, and thus earned its rating quite handily. It was just there, right in the middle of the mediocre pack, waving its arms and screaming at me, trying its best to catch my attention. I guess I've just seen so much better stuff out there that I couldn't spare more than a passing glance.

Another one for the shelves, but not necessarily your precious time.

Recommended Age:
Language: Infrequent but strong, frequently distracting
Violence: There are some pretty messy deaths via magical construct and otherwise
Sex: A few references, some brief anatomical description

Awakenings

2012-01-06T08:00:00.001-07:00

AWAKENINGS is Edward Lazellari's debut novel and not a bad one at that. It's not often that I come across one as good as this, in fact. It's a story that struck a chord with me, landing somewhere smack in the middle of John Connelly, Mike Resnick, and a jaunt through the backless Wardrobe.

The plot revolves around the efforts of a couple parties from a magical world named Aandor to find a prince that has been lost in our world. It's difficult, really, to say much more than that without including some spoilers, as the development of the story is so intimately tied with the progression of the book. This was one of the things that I really liked about the way the author put the story together. Each piece of the story that is revealed comes as the characters interact with one another and try to piece things together themselves. Thus, anything more detailed that I might include to whet your collective appetites might spoil the plate, and I'd rather avoid that.

Suffice it to say, there are several characters of interest (a police officer, a druggie with low morals, and a high school kid), lots of engaging action, and a little amnesia thrown in to mix things up. Readers start out knowing who the various search parties (both nefarious and well-intentioned) are searching for, and it's obvious fairly quickly who the targets are. Thankfully, the author never tries to hide this from us. Along in the mix are some trolls, some gnomes, and a relative of Mr. Fantastic's that has wicked-sharp claws and blue ink for blood. Oh, and the dude that can pull your beating heart out of your chest without killing you. He's in there too.

As an aside, it was also pretty funny. I like books that make me laugh. You too? I thought you might.

One of the main characters, Seth, really reminded me of The Prisoner from King's Dark Tower series. (Ah, and we come back to the beginning. See how I did that? Yes, I accept applause. You can make notes in the comments section...) It's hardly ever a bad thing, for me, to see a story channel a favorite character of mine from a previous read. Here, Lazellari does something very similar to what King did, in that he takes a character that is quite supremely unsympathetic and gets us to like him. From Seth we get humor in abundance and eventually some guilt, and it all really worked for me. I loved the high degree of characterization in the book. The author has done it with each of those we spend time with, and secondary characters as well. You get the high school kid that's beaten by an abusive step-father. You see the confusion and heartache as the more fantastical characters learn about their past lives. You see the affect of this new-found history on the officer's wife. All good stuff.

The one complaint I have about the book is that it essentially stops right in the middle of the story without any kind of resolution, minor or major. We have a couple chapters that summarize where each of the characters is and, Bob's your uncle, we're done. The one thing that the ending does have going for it is that there is a fairly large change in the situation of each of the various characters. A plot turn. Still, it just didn't feel like a proper ending. Even if there are going to be sequels. It was like Empire Strikes Back without the reveal from Darth Vader. Luke lost a hand. Okay. Um, now what? It doesn't ruin the ending, but there just isn't any punch to it. You know? (You caught that one too? I thought you might.)

On the whole though, I'm completely impressed with this new entry and will be looking forward to Lazellari's next installment. In some respects, I think the sequel has potential to totally come off the rails and end in catastrophe as we move from the "real" world and into the magical one. And yet this first chapter of the story has also shown the very distinct possibility of being one of those fantasy stories that sticks out amongst all of the other magical-world crossovers. We'll see. Definitely not a book to miss, and fairly high on my scale of Like.

Recommended Age: 18+
Language: Frequent and strong
Violence: Pretty high
Sex: Lots of references from Seth, and one low-detail scene

Sounds pretty good right? You want to try it out for yourself? Here's your link:

AWAKENINGS

The Cold Commands

2012-01-03T08:00:00.001-07:00

What a truly disappointing task it is to write a mediocre review for a highly anticipated sequel. I finished reading Richard K. Morgan's THE STEEL REMAINS a short time ago. The book had some rough edges that needed some buffering but it was a promising start to series by a well established author. I read the book as quickly as possible so that I could start THE COLD COMMANDS the moment it arrived. Sadly, this is one sequel that left me unfulfilled. This review contains some things readers may consider SPOILERS, so please read at your own risk.

This is from the Amazon product description of The Cold Commands: "An expedition is outfitted for the long and arduous sea journey to find the lost island of the Illwrack Changeling. Aboard are Gil, Egar, and Archeth: each fleeing from ghosts of the past, each seeking redemption in whatever lies ahead. But redemption doesn't come cheap these days. Nor, for that matter, does survival. Not even for Ringil Eskiath. Or anyone--god or mortal--who would seek to use him as a pawn."

Here is the problem. This expedition? This expedition never gets under way. In fact the expedition is never even outfitted. Shoot, it's two hundred pages into the book before the purpose of the expedition is brought to light. Afterward a group of expeditionaries is assembled but nothing else comes to pass, leaving readers to assume that this expedition will be part of the third novel. This is the biggest problem with the novel. At the start you can feel the momentum, the characters being guided toward this plot beacon. And as the pages fly by the characters only seem to creep closer by the inch. The gun is introduced in the first act but forgotten about completely by the third it seems. As I got closer and closer to the end I found myself imagining the cast of Monty Python's Quest for the Holy Grail screaming "GET ON WITH IT!"

Like the last novel I found Ringil and Archeth's perspectives to be the most compelling while Egar's story failed to hold my interest. Sadly Ringil's perspective seemed to flounder during this novel as well. Ringil starts out with a bang, rescuing slaves and killing evil doers. But then he winds up in the Gray Places, and his perspective loses focus. The real gem of THE COLD COMMANDS is Archeth. Once again I found myself enthusiastically waiting for her chapters, eager to learn even the smallest bits about the Kiriath or the Helmsmen. The are some new supporting characters introduced but there is no real effort to develop them any further than their direct relationships with the main POV's.

The best part of this series to date has to be Morgan's inclusion of science fiction elements into this fantasy world. The Kiriath and their technology, specifically the mysterious Helmsmen are intriguing. Unfortunately the horrifying Aldrain have a limited presence in the novel, even if their machinations are clearly going on in the background. My favorite overall moment of the story is when the Helmsman responsible for delivering the warning to Archeth and the Empire explains the earliest history of the world and the origins of the Kiriath/Aldrain conflict. More of this would have been welcomed.

The novel is not completely without pros. Ringil is, as ever, a fascinating character. Fans of the genre are unlikely to find an anti-hero as unique as Ringil Angeleyes. As ever, Morgan's anger and sharp wit is at play. Fundamentalist religion takes a heavy hit, as does imperialism. The forces of the world are painted in shades of black. There is darkness in the world and Morgan does not shy away from violence and more controversial issues. THE COLD COMMANDS is not a bad novel. Richard K. Morgan is a highly skilled writer, especially when it comes to dialogue. That said, THE COLD COMMANDS strikes me as irrelevant, a prime example of "middle book syndrome." The stage is set for the third book in the series, but this installment seems superfluous. I'll go ahead and buy THE DARK DEFILES, but I'll be more careful with my expectations.

Recommended Age: 17 and up
Language: Plenty of strong language and creative cursing
Violence: Blood and gore in spades, not for the squeamish
Sex: Several explicit scenes, heterosexual and homosexual in nature. There is also a rape scene very early on

Should you want to grab these books, here are your links:

THE STEEL REMAINS

THE COLD COMMANDS

Best of 2011

2011-12-30T08:00:00.002-07:00

It was our New Year's Resolution for 2011 to make sure that our Best of 2011 post actually made it into 2011. And yeah, we totally nailed it! (Barely)

This year was just unreal. How do you pick the best books when there were so many freaking amazing ones? The answer?

Dart-board...........OK not really. Maybe. And like usual, we cheat if an author had more than one book out.

***

BEST OF 2011--These were our collective favorite reads of the year.

I DON'T WANT TO KILL YOU - Dan Wells
THE SCARAB PATH - Adrian Tchaikovsky
THIRTEEN YEARS LATER and THE THIRD SECTION - Jasper Kent
THE CRIPPLED GOD - Steven Erikson
VARIANT - Robison Wells
THE CURIOUS CASE OF THE CLOCKWORK MAN - Mark Hodder
AMONG OTHERS - Jo Walton
THE HEROES - Joe Abercrombie
THE DRAGON'S PATH and LEVIATHAN WAKES - Daniel Abraham, James S. A. Corey
DEMONSTORM and RAVENSOUL - James Barclay
EMBASSYTOWN - China Miéville
READY PLAYER ONE - Ernest Cline
HARD MAGIC and SPELLBOUND - Larry Correia
IRON JACKAL - Chris Wooding

HONORABLE MENTIONS--any other year these would have made our "Best Of" list (and that list is already crazy awesome and long!!!!!):

THE ALLOY OF LAW - Brandon Sanderson
STONEWIELDER - Ian C. Esslemont
CRYOBURN - Lois McMaster Bujold
THE SOUL MIRROR - Carol Berg
CHILDREN OF THE SKY - Vernor Vinge
THE GIRL WHO CIRCUMNAVIGATED FAIRYLAND IN A SHIP OF HER OWN MAKING and DEATHLESS - Catherynne M. Valente
WITH FATE CONSPIRE - Marie Brennan
DEADLINE by Mira Grant

Yeah...as you can see this year was just AMAZING. The books above are a mix of all the reviewers' various picks. We feel absolutely horrible for leaving off any other awesome books, but we had to cut it off somewhere.

***

COMING IN 2012...

After the year we just had, you'd think we'd be jaded. No freaking way. 2012 is set to blow our (and therefore, your) minds!

REPUBLIC OF THIEVES by Scott Lynch (for real this time)
THE KING'S BLOOD by Daniel Abraham
CALIBAN'S WAR by James S. A. Corey
EXPEDITION TO THE MOUNTAINS OF THE MOON by Mark Hodder
BLUE REMEMBERED EARTH by Alastair Reynolds
THE SKYBOUND SEA by Sam Sykes
THE GAMES by Ted Kosmatka
FORGE OF DARKNESS by Steven Erikson
A MEMORY OF LIGHT by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson
THE DAEMON PRISM by Carol Berg
A RED COUNTRY by Joe Abercrombie
MONSTER HUNTER LEGION by Larry Correia
THE SEA WATCH by Adrian Tchaikovsky
ORB SCEPTRE THRONE by Ian C. Esslemont
THE BONEYARDS by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
THE CHOSEN SEED by Sarah Pinborough
BLACKOUT by Mira Grant
THE DUSK WATCHMAN by Tom Lloyd

There are a bajillion other books coming out next year that we didn't list. Let's face it, we are book readers. There are probably dozens more books coming out y our favorite authors that we don't even know are coming out yet. That's the nature of the game.

So, sound off in the comments below about your own choices for best of the year and which ones you are the most excited for.

Planesrunner

2011-12-27T08:00:00.002-07:00

You know him for his Science Fiction like THE DERVISH HOUSE and others, but now Ian McDonald invades YA territory with PLANESRUNNER and a world where the Earth exists in almost limitless parallel universes.

Our PoV character is teenage Everett Singh, soccer goalie, science smarty-pants, and son of the brilliant Tejendra Singh, who created the infundibulum--a sort of map to the parallel universes, or "planes". Before now only the ten Earths that have been able to create gateways can visit each other, but with Tejendra's invention any earth can be jumped to. But agents from the E2 plane will do anything to get the infundibulum, even kidnap Tejendra from under Everett's very nose. Little do they know that it's Everett who his dad left it to for safekeeping, and he'll do anything to rescue his dad.

The majority of the book is spent in E2, where electricity was discovered in the 1789, and as a result oil-related technology was never developed...including plastic. In this Steampunk-like world Everett befriends the eclectic Sen, the teenage pilot of the cargo airship Everness, and via her a new family among the airship's small crew.

PLANESRUNNER was fun to read, with a creative mix of Steampunk and SF, and after visiting E2, I expect Everett will jump to other planes, so I'm looking forward to reading about those--he leaves hints for what the other earths would be like. The science is interesting and explained without feeling like it's over my head. And following Everett's adventures felt realistic, although he seemed a little too smart for a teenage boy.

Everett is a well-drawn character, but my favorite is Sen, the snarky bohemian orphan, who finds Everett fascinating, and is quickly drawn into his predicament. The other characters add eclectic flair: Captain Sixsmyth, the young captain of the Everness and her sense of honor; Mr. Sharkey, the American "gentleman" who spews bible verse; Mchynlyth, the Scottish engineer; and Charlotte Villiers, the E2 agent with the killer shoes and fascinators who is determined to get the infundibulum.

The storytelling itself is almost stream-of-consciousness as Everett goes off on tangents in the middle of the action--which is stylistically reminiscent of McKinley's DRAGONHAVEN. I like it, but it may frustrate some readers as it slows the story's pace. McDonald also has the habit of stringing scenes one after another, making the pacing lumpy and disconnected feeling, although by the end it makes sense. One other problem is Sen's frequent use of slang. While it adds "authenticity" it can get confusing; fortunately the book contains a dictionary of slang terms.

Despite the jumble of events, they lead up to an exciting ending, where Everett is backed into a corner with no obvious solution. And while there's no clear "win", and McDonald leaves the ending open for the following books in the series, it is a fun ride.

Recommended Age: 13+, more for comprehension than content
Language: None
Violence: Some fisticuffs and peril, but no blood and gore
Sex: Teenage hormones, but no direct references or innuendo

Buy the book here:

PLANESRUNNER

Ready Player One

2011-12-23T08:00:00.001-07:00

READY PLAYER ONE, by Ernest Cline, is a book I'd come across in various online blogs and forums. Going into it, I knew it was some sort of love letter to 80s pop culture. Since I'm sort of an 80s pop culture nut myself, I figured I'd give it a go.

What I got was so much more.

There are few books these days that can make me stay up late, read during breakfast, and keep reading during my lunch breaks (or skip my lunch breaks altogether). This is one such book. I finished it in under a day. Once I started reading, I just had to know what happened next.

Part of this is due to the great, simple setup: it's the future. A Steve Jobs-like man (James Halliday) has just died. He created the basis for the world wide virtual world everyone calls their home away from home now. He'd become a recluse, and he had an enormous fortune--and no heirs. So on his death, he announced that he'd hidden the fortune somewhere in his virtual reality. He'd left clues to find it. Whoever gets it first wins.

So a very clearly defined objective. Super.

It also helps that Ernest Cline (the author) gives us a main character in Wade Watts that is so easy to relate to. He's a senior in high school who has an awful life. Abusive foster parents, terrible living conditions, very little hope of ever breaking free. So of course he dreams of winning this contest. The book is in first person, and the immediacy that brings keeps everything moving quickly.

And what a contest it is. Halliday was obsessed with the 80s. He loved it. And so all his clues are hidden in layers of 80s nostalgia. Since such a great fortune is on the line, the earth as a whole suddenly takes a huge interest in 80s nostalgia, too. You've got more pop culture references than you can believe, on so many different layers. But it's all well-incorporated, and explained for those who don't get the references. Again, the explanations aren't burdensome--they work.

Naturally, every good story must have a great villain, and in this case, it's a rival company--the rights to Halliday's virtual software are on the line, too--and they want them. If they get them, they're going to start raising prices on what everyone has come to view as a basic right: a free virtual world, with access to all. The company starts buying up competitors, recruiting the best of the best to come work for them and help solve the puzzle. These are mean, nasty people who aren't afraid to get their hands dirty if it'll get them ahead in the game. There are no rules. They do whatever they can to win.

Now remember: I'm a pop culture nut myself, and I love me some 80s, so this was a bowl full of Crunchberries for me. But I imagine that it would be bliss for just about anybody. The pacing is great and the mystery is well-developed. Like I said, I don't remember a book that's gotten me this involved in a long time. It also helps that on top of all this the story is great science fiction as well. Cline has created a very believable world not too far in our future, and I wondered throughout just how close to reality his predictions will become. Some of it is bleak, but some of it also had me wishing there was a fast forward button to life.

Are there weaknesses? Hardly any. The ending is perhaps a bit more schmaltzy than I'd like. But we're talking the last page or two, and even that was probably me just being sorry to see the book come to a close. READY PLAYER ONE is a blast of a read, and if any of this review has sounded even remotely interesting to you, you owe it to yourself to check this book out.

Recommended Age: 14 and up.
Language: Some naughty words of all the varieties you can think of, but nothing too prevalent.
Violence: Video game-esque, although there are some real world violent scenes, too. Still, nothing too gory or gruesome.
Sex: Very minor. A few references here and there, but nothing in scene.

Want to grab this book? Here's the link:

READY PLAYER ONE

The Crimson Pact, Volume 2

2011-12-20T08:00:00.000-07:00

I had massive reservations about trying to review this one. Yes, I reviewed the first volume, and so it only makes sense that I should review the second...and yet... How does one go about reviewing a short-story anthology that includes the first authorial offering of one’s near-perfect boss? Or even how does one have the audacity to review such an anthology that is so closely connected to the review site itself? I mean it. How do you even start to tackle something like that? To tell you the truth, I have absolutely no idea. So, I’m just going to tell you what I thought about it--straight up--and hope that it comes across well.

THE CRIMSON PACT, VOL 2 is a continuation of the demon-themed anthology offered in VOL 1, both edited by Paul Genesse. For those that haven’t read VOL 1, the premise of the over-arching story is that a certain number of knights have pledged themselves to fighting against a horde of demons that has decimated their world and then fled into the multi-verse. These knights are The Crimson Pact.

The stories in both volumes give you a range of offerings--from fantasy to science fiction, from epic to flash--and usually stay with that theme of demons. One of the new facets of this volume is that several of the stories were continuations from the first volume. I was interested in seeing where a number of these stories would go, but mostly seeing where the anthology would go as a whole. Would it develop that theme of the Crimson Pact more, or would it just be another bundle of demon stories?

For me, a majority of this anthology was a pretty big let down, with an even showing in the Didn’t Like, Mediocre, and Liked categories. This kind of variation is partially to be expected, as this is a collection of stories from not only lots of different authors but also from a lot of new authors. The main focus of my disappointment came from the fact that I had liked a much larger portion of the stories in VOL 1.

There were four stories in VOL 2 that I really liked, and one that completely blew all of the others away in a wispy cloud of chaff. I’ll mention those here.

“Still Life” by Steve Diamond is about an FBI detective that is dealing with the trauma of having his seven-year old son taken from him, the connection of that abduction to a criminal named The Photographer, and the ultimate resolution to the long-standing case. This story was killer. I loved it unabashedly. And yes, Steve is my boss here at EBR. Have I been obvious enough about that?

“Dark Archive” by Sarah Kanning is a continuation of a story that I enjoyed in VOL 1 and deals with the fallout of what happened to the main character, Danielle, and her connection to the magical book being held in the library where she works. Not to mention the demon that is now caged within her. This one started great, and even though it ended a bit abruptly, I really liked where this story went.

“Trail of Blood” by Alex Haig is one of the few flash stories that I enjoyed. It’s a western-themed, trailing-the-bad-guy epic that really caught me up in its grip. It had a feel similar to King’s The Gunslinger, which I really enjoyed. It also introduced the wider story behind this one in very few words, making a quick believer out of me. More of this in future Crimson Pact anthologies would be welcome.

“Seven Dogs” by Suzanne Myers is a continuation of a story from VOL 1 that I didn’t remember at all. In my defense, it was one of the shorter pieces. Anyhow, this one had some great atmosphere that painted the picture of a post-apocalyptic world in which seven demon-dogs are trying to destroy the remaining vestige of humanity on a far-flung planet. It had this science-fiction flair and sense of foreboding that was just great. Not to mention the plight of the hunted, which I loved.

And then there’s the last. Yeah. My opinion of this story was the kicker when I first sat down to write this review, because not only was my boss’s story really good, but his co-authored story absolutely knocked it out of the park. Yup, that’s right. The best one of the bunch is:

“Son of Fire, Son of Thunder” by Steve Diamond and Larry Correia. I mean, just wow. This story comes from a combination of the character that Steve gave us in “Still Life” and Larry Correia’s Diego Santos, a United States Marine that has been shown exactly how and when he will die. In typical Correia fashion, this offering to the reading masses was a glorious feast of hot lead and biting humor that brought these two characters into the same demon-killing shooting range. So much fun to be had with this one. I seriously need some more of this. Like now.

So can you see now where I was coming from at the beginning of the review? Just frustrating! The really tough part is that without the one-two punch of "Still Life" and "Son of Fire, Son of Thunder", this anthology would have landed solidly in the Mediocre range for me. On the whole, VOL 2 is just another demon anthology. I’d love to see something more pointed in the direction of the Crimson Pact. I can totally understand wanting to keep the anthology general enough that a wide array of author-hopefuls could contribute, but in order for it to stand out, for me, I think it needs a bit more direction.

Still, for five bucks? The two best stories in the anthology make it worth every one of those pennies. I just hope you can take all this for what it is: my honest opinion.

Okay, Steve, you can put that lightning bolt away now.

Recommended Age: 18+
Language: Some of the stories are fairly profane, but in general there's not much
Violence: Some of the stories are pretty violent and gory/graphic
Sex: One story has a 13-year old in a sexual situation, a couple scenes

The Crimson Pact Website

Grab the collections here:
THE CRIMSON PACT: VOLUME ONE

THE CRIMSON PACT: VOLUME TWO

Ghost Story

2011-12-15T08:00:00.000-07:00

I realize this review is fairly (really) late. I simply wasn't sure what I should say about Jim Butcher's latest. Overall I love this series, but there have been some moments that have driven me absolutely crazy (like the whole novel, TURN COAT). The newest Dresden Files novel, GHOST STORY, is not the absolute best in the series, but is isn't the worst either. In the end, it's fairly solid.

What GHOST STORY amounts to is "It's a Wonderful Life, Dresden Edition"...kinda.

Coming right out the gate I'm just going to say there are some spoilers in here. If you haven't read the past few novels, then I'm going to ruin a few things for you. There's no way around it, and frankly if you are reading this review of the thirteenth novel in the series without having read the rest of them...well, you deserve to have some stuff spoiled. So there.

Harry Dresden is dead. He's a freaking ghost. At the end of CHANGES he gets totally shot and we are left wondering what the heck happened to our snarky hero. So GHOST STORY is essentially about Harry being a ghost and attempting to solve his own murder while also trying to help the friend who he left behind when he ate a bullet. Through it all, Harry sees just how crappy Chicago and his friends are without him around.

The interaction between the physical world and the spirit world that Harry is part of is pretty well done. In addition, the way characters have changed since Harry has been gone is believable and really well done. Seeing the anger and anguish in many of these characters was fantastic. The point of it all was to allow the readers of the novel and the characters within the novel to see that Harry really was the glue holding everything together. No one acts out of character, and that consistency is really the strong point here.

Action, of course, is handled well. It has a different feel to it which was a tad refreshing for a series that has been going on as long as the Dresden Files has. There is a lot less of the overt "and then he put all of his remaining anger and emotion to cast one last spell" crap.

So, I've pointed out a lot of good stuff here. The story is solid, the characters are great, etc. But there are some things that, in my opinion, hold it back a tad. Nothing game-breaking, but there were things that bothered me.

On a minor side, the middle 100 pages of the novel are slow and repetitive. We get to see some of Harry's younger life, and while that may seem cool on the surface, old Harry just isn't near as interesting as the current Harry is (if the reverse was true, we'd have serious problems). These moments are cool on the surface, but when I sat and really thought about them I realized that they weren't really needed at all and were repetitive. Some readers will no doubt absolutely love them, but they didn't work 100% to me.

My main gripe is that I'm starting to get a little jaded to Harry's ability to be so much more clever than everyone. This drawback (in my opinion) shows it's ugly head late in the novel and darn near killed it for me. I mean, I get that he is a rock-star wizard at this point, but would it hurt to actually have him fail in a meaningful way that isn't totally swept under the rug or easily rectified later? I need that sense of danger. I need to see that Harry fail in a big way to make his accomplishments seem even better. Right now I feel I bit like I am seeing the Green Bay Packers take on a high school powder puff football team. There's just no competition for Harry.

What saves this book for me is the raw character emotion of the other characters other than Harry. The ending of GHOST STORY specifically has some real moments of pure emotion that are near perfect. It helps me overlook most of the above nit-picks that I have.

So does GHOST STORY keep the Dresden Files relevant? I think so. It's still one of the best Urban Fantasy series out there today. My opinion is that I need to start seeing a direction for the latter books in this series. I don't want things to return to the status quo in the next book, but right now that is my greatest fear for this series. Until then, GHOST STORY is well worth your time.

Recommended Age: 15+
Language: There can be some strong language, but it never gets out of control
Violence: Not near as bloody this time around since most things are ghosties
Sex: Far lighter of the innuendo and what not this time

If for whatever reason you are reading this review and have not started the series, well, you're crazy. Don't worry, we still love you. Here is the reading order and their Amazon links:

1 - STORM FRONT
2 - FOOL MOON
3 - GRAVE PERIL
4 - SUMMER KNIGHT
5 - DEATH MASKS
6 - BLOOD RITES
7 - DEAD BEAT
8 - PROVEN GUILTY
9 - WHITE NIGHT
10 - SMALL FAVOR
11 - TURN COAT
12 - CHANGES
Short Story Collection - SIDE JOBS
13 - GHOST STORY

Dark Descendant

2011-12-12T08:00:00.006-07:00

Nikki Glass is a descendant of Artemis. Yes, that Artemis. But it isn't until she unwittingly becomes one of the Liberi that she becomes immortal and her powers of the hunt manifest.

The result of this sudden change in status is that the two warring groups of Liberi—who happen to be based in the Washington D.C. area—want her on their side. You see, Liberi are descendants of gods from many different pantheons (Greek, Hindu, Norse, etc.), and have inherited the abilities of their god ancestors. Unfortunately for most of them that doesn't include a sense of morality or responsibility for the human race and Nikki would be the perfect person to hunt down their enemies. She wants nothing to do with it, but they won't let her off that easily.

Jenna Black isn't new to the Urban Fantasy scene, considering her Morgan Kingsley Exorcist novels (there's a short story from CHICKS KICK BUTT). But here Nikki is less 'kick butt' than Black's previous series, and that seems to be on purpose. Sure she's a P.I., but not the take-risk type, and as a result this more about how this once normal woman must now cope with a supernatural world.

For the most part Black does pretty well. Nikki is likable (despite feeling a bit Mary Sue-ish), and her attempts to deal with the situation are believable and entertaining enough to read. The Liberi who work for Anderson Kane are the more interesting assortment of beauty, brains, and brawn, each with their unique set of abilities and personality. Black writes in black and white: the bad guys are truly evil and while the good guys aren't spotless angels, it's hard to see much grey area. Still, they are entertaining in their own way.

Black's first person narrative is straightforward and quick paced, despite hiccups in narration, the occasional suspension of belief, and the cliche prose. Black does her best to explain things (for example, why a virgin goddess has descendants in the first place), but it isn't exactly subtle. There are other oddities like how Nikki's relationship with her adoptive sister feels awkwardly written, as well as clunky references to Nikki's emotional baggage.

But by the end, Black hits her stride and delivers on all her promises in a tidy resolution, even if we're left with some questions in the end. Even better: no cliffhanger, and the book still suggests a continuing series.

This is your typical Urban Fantasy fare, but promises a new twist a la Rick Riordian. Dark Descendantis a fluffy palate cleanser with some fun ideas. But don't let yourself get caught up on the details.

Recommended Age: 16+
Language: A smattering of stronger profanity
Violence: Mostly peril, a few deaths, but the scenes are only moderately graphic
Sex: One of the main characters is a descendant of Eros, so there's plenty of strong innuendo and references, but no graphic scenes

Want to give this book a shot? Here's your link:
DARK DESCENDANT

The Unincorporated Woman

2011-12-09T08:00:00.001-07:00

In case you can’t tell from the titles, THE UNINCORPORATED WOMAN is the third in the Unincorporated series by the Kollin brothers Dani and Eytan. It follows THE UNINCORPORATED WAR which was a sequel to THE UNINCORPORATED MAN. I believe subsequent volumes will be titled The Unincorporated Gas Station and The Unincorporated (fill in here).

I kid about the titles. In all honesty I like these books overall. I was thrilled to read the first one and really rather enjoyed it. It felt like something Heinlein would have written in his prime (and that’s saying a lot). The second volume was a large departure from the tone of the series in my mind. It did some things I didn’t expect. It had one flaw that kind of irked me, but on the whole I was able to enjoy it (though not as well as the first.)

This latest book follows in much the same vein as the second book. It’s better, in my opinion, and I was happy about the changes made. I’m looking forward to the next book (which I think is the concluding volume, but don’t quote me on that), but I still wish they would get back to what made the first book so good.

The best addition in my mind to this book is the Unincorporated Woman herself. By the way I’m about to get all spoilery here on the Unincorporated War so if you haven’t read it--and plan to--then just skip to the end of the review where I’ll say, this was a fun read, and be done. If not then by all means keep reading. Where was I? Oh yeah, the Unincorporated Woman… So at the end of THE UNINCORPORATED WAR, Justin dies...well, is assassinated more accurately. So to fill a void there, another stasis pod found with another human alive from the 20th Century. It also happens to be the person that helped Justin set up his own stasis pod. Welcome back to life, Sandra.

Sandra is a much more interesting person than Justin was in the last book. We get back to the "wow" factor of someone coming back to life and experiencing this world with fresh eyes. She’s also headstrong, manipulative and brilliant. That makes for a fun character. On top of that she’s thrust into the role of president--a position that is supposed to just be a figure-head type of role with no real power, and a lot of the fun in the book comes with watching her gain some power through manipulation. I was glad to have her in the book and the series definitely took an upswing with her addition.

The rest of the book was much the same as the last. It is still fun to read about Janet Delgado winning battles and plotting the strategy of the Outer Alliance. I’ve really enjoyed the story line of the AI’s trying to keep themselves hidden from mankind while still twisting and turning events to their favor. All in all the book was fun.

I do however have the same complaints with this book that I did with the last one. The world is built upon (and indeed the war itself is being fought over the idea of) incorporation. The idea that a person can sell stock in themselves and lose the ability to make major decisions for themselves (those decisions would be left to the stock holders). The idea of buying a majority in oneself. The whole idea of running a life like a major business. What a great idea! Yet once again that idea is shoved to the background and remains completely unused. Bummer.

Other than that I have no real complaints for the book. It was a little hard to believe that a newly awoken person would be thrust into a presidency (you’d think such a job would require a basic understanding of the world they live in). But hey, I’m willing to suspend my disbelief. It was fun. This isn’t the greatest thing I’ve ever read, but it’s certainly good enough that I’ll keep buying them and enjoying the ride.

Age Recommendation: 15+ This is pretty tame stuff. A word here and there but nothing too major.
Language: A small smattering. Nothing bad.
Violence: Again nothing too harsh.
Sex: Mentioned a few times. Alluded too more than talked about.

Want to give this novel a shot? Here are the links to the various books in this series, in order:

1 - THE UNINCORPORATED MAN

2 - THE UNINCORPORATED WAR

3 - THE UNINCORPORATED WOMAN

This Shared Dream

2011-12-07T08:00:00.014-07:00

Siblings Jill, Megan, and Brian were orphaned while in their youth—but now as adults they still don't know what really happened, since their parents simply disappeared. It turns out that their parents had something to do with the development of Q, a sort of world network of education and communication, and its later incarnation: the Device, the machine that will change the world.

But someone wants the Device for their own use, and Jill and her family are in danger.

THIS SHARED DREAM by Kathleen Ann Goonan is the sequel to IN WAR TIMES, but having not read the first book, I think I went into THIS SHARED DREAM lacking some key information and connection with the characters. In a desire to be up-front, you need to know that even though this book is well written and thought out, it took me weeks to trudge through--it just didn't appeal to me personally, so read this review with that in mind.

The story begins several years after the first. Goonan packs the first handful of chapters with enough characterization and backstory to keep new readers from getting lost. However, it does mean there's not a whole lot of action.

Fortunately it's the characters who make up for this lack of a quicker pace. Jill, Megan, and Brian are all complex people, with a believable relationship with each other as siblings, as well as with their spouses and children. At times the connections they feel with each other and with their parents Bette and Sam are poignant. I admit I'm rarely touched by character inter-relationships as much as I was in THIS SHARED DREAM.

The story revolves around time travel. Bette, Sam, and their friend Eliani Hadntz want to stop war for all time, but it means changing events that would have happened—such as the assassination of JFK—and as a result the timeline we know is much, much different. They use the Device in order to move around in time and know what events to change. Bette and Sam travel timestreams as though they're everyday vehicles, and not some abstract concept. Goonan does the best she can explaining how they move in time, but there's only only so much she can do without making my brain warp from the details.

As a result THIS SHARED DREAM is really a concept story. Goonan's prose is subtle, but it's clear even from the beginning that this is about the steps Hadntz is willing to take in order to create a new world, a world without war—a utopia. Her altruism leads her to attempt to change human nature itself via social engineering. Unfortunately, in this novel she's a rather mysterious creature, and rarely makes an appearance (perhaps we see more of her in IN WAR TIMES?). It's via Bette, Megan, and especially Jill that Hadntz achieves the results she wants. They make a pretty convincing case that their motives are pure. I still wonder, however.

In the end, I'm simply the kind of girl who reads books for the plot and action--and while this book has a definite story, it's so deliberate and pedantic that I had little motivation to pick it up again between chapters. If you enjoy the concepts of time travel and developing utopias, then this book is full of what you're looking for. If you want quick-paced, lighter time-travel fare without overt agendas, try Connie Willis instead.

Recommended Age: 16+ more for reading comprehension than content
Language: Fewer than five instances
Violence: Referenced, but nothing detailed, and even then infrequent
Sex: Rape is referenced

Want to grab this novel? Below are the links to it and the prior novel as well:

1 - IN WAR TIMES

2 - THIS SHARED DREAM

Elitist Classics: Le Guin's Earthsea Cycle

2011-11-30T08:00:00.002-07:00

Perhaps Ursula K. Le Guin's most recognizable work, her Earthsea stories are categorized as YA—but are definitely worth reading as adults. The first novel, A WIZARD OF EARTHSEA was published in 1968, and revolves around the wizard Ged and the islands and sea of Earthsea itself. It starts off with Ged leaving home to learn magic at a school. Sound familiar? Le Guin is the reason why it does.

Told in an omniscient narrative, it can get a little distant, but the prose is lyrical and lovely, particularly her descriptions of the people and their history, the land and sea, and the way the magic works. The novels are short so it would be easy to read the entire series quickly—each is as good as the last.

The books continue to be in print and will be available at most libraries. Le Guin is best known for tackling societal themes of culture and race with finesse, so it's worth picking up her other works, including her Hugo and Nebula winning THE LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS (1969); while not as accessible as Earthsea, it's worth the effort.

A WIZARD OF EARTHSEA (1968)
THE TOMBS OF ATUAN (1970)
THE FARTHEST SHORE (1972)
TEHANU (1990)
TALES FROM EARTHSEA (2001)
THE OTHER WIND (2001)

Recommended Age: 11+ to read; could be read to younger children, but there are themes of evil and darkness that may disturb children younger than 8
Language: None
Violence: Moderate peril, but it's rarely graphic
Sex: None

The Unincorporated War

2011-11-28T08:00:00.001-07:00

You may remember that THE UNINCORPORATED MAN followed the adventures of Justin Chord, a man who had frozen himself in a time capsule to be reawakened when the cures to his diseases were found and he could be revived to live again. Justin indeed was awakened to a world run by the system of incorporation, the selling of personal shares to individual lives. The vast majority of mankind was working, not able to make their own decisions, towards being a majority share holder in their own stock thus taking control of their decisions and their lives. Justin saw the system as tantamount to slavery and started to oppose it immediately. The end of THE UNINCORPORATED MAN saw Justin forced into space towards the outer planets starting a revolution that pitted the outer planets and asteroid belt versus Earth and its incorporated system.

THE UNINCORPORATED WAR picks up where MAN left off. Justin is now president of the outer colonies and trying to fight a war with the inner planets. Meanwhile Hektor Sambianco, Justin’s main opposition in the courtroom in the first book, is the only one who sees just how dangerous Justin is to the world and his perfect incorporated system. Hektor rises to power on earth to continue to fight against Justin.

I don’t expect all of you to get all of that. There’s a lot going on here and more to it, as well. Characters who appeared in the first book take on new significance here, showing more depth than they had originally. New characters appear and the world seems to shift from the courtroom to battles in outer space. This isn’t to say that the book turns into an all-out action novel. It felt more like reading Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy. The action is never so much described as discussed later. The joy isn’t in the battle scenes themselves, but in the strategy behind them and the tactics of the various military leaders. I loves me a good action scene as much as the next guy, but I was happy with the way the Kollin brothers sucked me in with the various scenarios that played out in space.

It’s weird how a series of books, the first playing out in courtrooms with legal battles and the second dealing with very real wars out in space, can have a similar feel to it, and yet it really does. It still all about maneuvering and outwitting your opponent, and that’s where the book really shines. The battles are fun and engaging. There are twists and tricks to them as each battle is played out. The reader thinks that the battle is going a certain way only to have the rug pulled out from under them as it quickly turns.

Sadly there were some other things that I was disappointed with. Let’s start with Justin. As the unincorporated man back on earth, he was a fun character. He was brash and self assured. He was the main driving force back on earth for the events that happened there. Such is not the case here. Justin as President of the Outer Alliance really is quite boring. He is relegated to talking in meetings while all the real fun character action and motivation is left to other characters. Indeed it seems like the story has left him behind.

Which leads me to my other complaint about the book. I know it is a cardinal sin for a reviewer to talk about what they wanted the book to be instead of talking about what it is, but darn it I’m going to do it anyway, so let’s get it out of the way. As a Military SF book about war between the outer planets and the inner planets of the solar system (mainly Earth and Mars), the book works just fine: it’s a good, solid read. But (and this is a big BUT I’m talking about here), it’s called the unincorporated war, emphasis on incorporation! You know, that really cool idea from the first book? Where people sell stocks in themselves and are run like mini companies? Doesn’t that sound cool? You’d think something like that, an idea like that, would trickle down into every aspect of the book. Every character back on earth or mars (who by the way is incorporated) should think about incorporation or act on some aspect of it all the time! It should come up all over the place. It should affect every decision they make, every action. The ramifications of such a system should be so wide spread that it encompasses everything. And the characters in the outer alliance? They should feel the lack of it (I mean they’ve been living with it their whole lives right?) It should affect what they are doing as well.

But you know what? It doesn’t. Not for a second. Not for even a brief microsecond. All we get are a few scant references as to why the war is being fought. “We must put an end to this evil system of incorporation.” Why? As far as I can see it does absolutely nothing. Every character on earth behaves just as he or she wants without any thought or consequence. The system has disappeared in everything but name only. And that’s my biggest complaint. This story of the war is fun and well done, but it could have been written in any other bland SF universe. The Kollin brothers have invented something else, something truly fun to think about, and then they left it by the wayside.

Which is a bummer. THE UNINCORPORATED MAN started off on a pretty decent start, but I was hoping for more with this one.

Recommended Age: 14+ I'd say. It’s a bit slow for younger readers. Not enough explosions and whatnot.
Language: Scattering of words. The Kollins aren’t in to a ton of profanity.
Violence: Nothing gory. Space battles, but all impersonal.
Sex: None

Want to give this novel a shot? Here are the links to the various books in this series, in order:

1 - THE UNINCORPORATED MAN

2 - THE UNINCORPORATED WAR

3 - THE UNINCORPORATED WOMAN

Hearts of Smoke and Steam

2011-11-22T08:00:00.001-07:00

In THE FALLING MACHINE you were left with a cliffhanger: during the battle with Lord Eschaton, Tom is dismantled and Sarah leaves home after a fight with her father.

The continuation, HEARTS OF SMOKE AND STEAM begins over a month later. Even though Tom was destroyed, Sarah was able to recover his heart in the chaos. Unfortunately it's broken, and she needs to find someone to repair the heart, but doesn't trust the majority of the people in New York who are able to do it. Her search leads her to Emilio Armando, an Italian immigrant and inventor—whose past, if Sarah knew it, would make her think twice about trusting him with Tom's secret.

In the meantime, the Paragons have lost two of their rank, and must find help, as the remainder of them aren't getting any younger. They interview new applicants—a strange and varied assortment—and discover King Jupiter, who appears to not only be able to create amazing technology, but who may just have supernatural powers. Don't forget, however, that in FALLING we learn that one of the Paragons is a traitor. The Paragons are in great danger, and as a result so is New York.

After a slow start, the action in HEARTS moves very quickly, even more than in FALLING. I read the books in succession, and after I was finished I had to sit on it for a while to absorb everything before I could disseminate how I feel about this series thus far. The action moves fast and is detailed, but like in FALLING the actual plot isn't much further than when we started; I could probably number the main plot events on one hand. This doesn't mean, however, that FALLING and HEART aren't lots of fun to read, because they are. I only wished there were more. (Hrm. Wanting more isn't necessarily a bad thing, is it?)

There are more PoVs here compared to the previous book, and the switching back and forth isn't strictly chronological. Mayer will move PoVs around in time in order to cover simultaneous character viewpoints in an important scene. While it's helpful for knowing all the events in a scene and each character's motivations, it does get confusing. Mayer did it in FALLING, too, but not as much as he does in HEART and it got frustrating when I was more interested in the forward movement of the plot.

Sarah must deal with the reality of being a working-class girl in 1880s New York, find a trustworthy repairman, and keep her identity secret from the Children of Eschaton who will do anything to retrieve the heart. She wants to be a hero like her father and the Paragons, but she's discovering that it isn't all adventure—it's dangerous and frightening work. But Sarah is determined, and works past her worries in order to restore Tom, which she believes is the only thing that can stop Lord Eschaton and his 'children'. Tom was the most interesting character in FALLING, but in HEART there's very little of him—and most of that is his disassembled parts. This was a frustration. The story is about him, and yet we see very little of him. Fortunately we are introduced to some new characters, including Emilio, who's trying to move past his complicated history. These new viewpoints add flavor to the storytelling.

The majority of the setting is established in FALLING, but in HEART Mayer doesn't set it aside in favor of plot advancement. We still get to see new and exciting inventions, learn more about what life was like in 1880s New York, and discover some fascinating things about Tom and the true genius of Dennis Darby, his inventor.

More self-contained than the first book, HEARTS ends without as big of a cliffhanger...comparably. Not that Mayer doesn't like to leave you at the edge of your seat. He promises more adventure, and has set up for a spectacular continuation.

Recommended Age: 14+
Language: Very little
Violence: People get stabbed or shot, some death, but not detailed enough to be gory
Sex: Innuendo—there was none at all in FALLING, but here there's the potential for a romantic relationship, and the prudish mores of New York's high society are addressed; there are also references to erotic art

Want to give this series a shot? Below are the links:

1 - THE FALLING MACHINE

2 - HEARTS OF SMOKE AND STEAM

Cry of the Newborn

2011-11-18T08:00:00.001-07:00

James Barclay. You know the name. You know that his Raven novels made him one of my favorite authors. If you live in the US, finally getting his novels has been a welcome breath of fresh air. That’s all great and dandy, but there is something we in the US are missing that our UK buddies still have exclusive.

The Ascendants of Estorea.

You see, James Barclay, being the ambitious writer that he is, decided he wanted to write something that could be used not only for the pleasure of reading, but also for weight-lifting. CRY OF THE NEWBORN is a huge novel, both in size (a trade paperback of 800+ pages), and scope (covers 15 years of time). This isn’t the flashy, up-close-and-personal Raven series. No, this is a tale of the Estorean Conquord, a religious empire that has stood for 850 years. It feels very much like the Roman Empire. There are two main stories going on here, spread across numerous PoVs.

The first story is of the Conquord itself as it does what all huge empires do: expand. There comes a point in an empire’s life that in order to survive, it has to continually expand. This idea has been illustrated in Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Shadows of the Apt series, and is presented to us with amazing clarity here in CRY OF THE NEWBORN. The thing is, the bigger an empire becomes, the easier it is to become complacent, over-confidant, and foolish. It lends to disaster. The first half of the novel is showing the pride before the fall. The second half of the novel is of everything going wrong.

The second main story follows four children from birth until the age of fourteen. They are the first pure Ascendants. They have control over all the elements, and can shape them to do their bidding (read: magic). Some see them as salvation. Most everyone else sees them as an affront to God. Blasphemy incarnate.

I could go on for pages about the setting, the characters, and the story. There is an amazing level of detail and world-building in this novel, all of it executed with care and precision. This world feels alive. Rich. Vibrant. The first half of the novel is very slow due to all of the set-up, but its payoff is truly incredible.

None of the setting, or any of the time and effort put into the history of this world would be worth two pennies if the characters weren’t solid. But this is James Barclay. Character is what makes his Raven novels work, and it is what makes CRY OF THE NEWBORN live. The four children Ascendants are great—a nice mixture of childishness and beyond-their-years maturity. Paul Jhered, a tax collector for the Conquord, was my personal favorite. Seeing his attitude change over the course of the novel was once of the best parts. Then of course there are the dozens of other PoVs, all of which are interesting and unique. I loved some characters, hated others, and felt a bit of both towards others still. Loved it.

There is a lot of war in this novel. Sieges, open-field battles, and naval warfare. Where Barclay’s Raven novels tend to focus on the few of the Raven taking on other small groups attacking them, CRY OF THE NEWBORN showcases big, epic battles. There’s no flash to them, just hard, brutal fighting and carnage. As a reader, you will truly feel the devastation war brings. There is a particularly poignant section towards the very end of the novel where an army begins a battle-chant about how they understand that each side of the conflict is made up of singular people who want nothing more than to survive and return to their families…but death will prevent that. The battles in this novel will cause your heart to pound in your chest, and no one is truly safe.

The only thing, in my mind, that keeps this novel from being absolutely perfect is how long it takes to get going. But once it does, CRY OF THE NEWBORN is a prime example of incredible Epic Fantasy. Hey, it has a Steven Erikson cover quote on it. CRY OF THE NEWBORN is epic, ambitious, thrilling, and horrifying all at the same time. It is one of the finest novels I have read in quite some time. Now I know first-hand what all you UK readers have known for ages; The Ascendants of Estorea is freaking incredible.

And I still get to read the second half of the series, SHOUT FOR THE DEAD. Folks, this is why I read books. You should totally import this. Now.

Recommended Age: 17 and up.
Language: Very, very sparse.
Violence: This book is FULL of war and violence. You feel the horrific devastation, but you never feel it was just thrown in.
Sex: One very brutal scene that was handled as well as I have ever read.

The Restoration Game

2011-11-16T08:00:00.001-07:00

Sadly I think I can write up this review for Ken MacLeod's THE RESTORATION GAME in one, short sentence. Ready for it?

Too little, too late.

I’m gonna write my review. I’m gonna tell you a bit about the story and various other things, but everything you need to know is right there. This book was hard to get through (and it was only like 250 pages), and while there was some very cool stuff that happened (really really awesome stuff that I think deserves more attention than it got here), it happened too late in the story and honestly most of the story didn’t seem to lead up to the conclusions.

I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start with a recap of the story shall we?

There is no such place as Krassnia. Lucy Stone should know—she was born there. In that tiny, troubled region of the former Soviet Union, revolution is brewing. Its organizers need a safe place to meet, and where better than the virtual spaces of an online game? Lucy, who works for a start-up game company in Edinburgh, has a project that almost seems made for the job: a game inspired by The Krassniad, an epic folk tale concocted by Lucy's mother, Amanda, who studied there in the 1980s. Lucy knows Amanda is a spook. She knows her great-grandmother Eugenie also visited the country in the 1930s and met the man who originally collected Krassnian folklore, and who perished in Stalin's terror. As Lucy digs up details about her birthplace to slot into the game, she finds the open secrets of her family's past, the darker secrets of Krassnia's past—and hints about the crucial role she is destined to play in THE RESTORATION GAME...

I took that right off the back of the book and really it fits well. If that sounds like your type of book, then by all means dive right in and enjoy.

The problem I have with it is that there’s really no mention of anything remotely Science Fictionish about it. Sounds like a political thriller doesn’t it? I have news for you, that’s what this is. About 225 of the 250ish pages are devoted to a political thriller type of story. There are plots and schemes and revolutions and more factions and groups of people than I could keep track of (literally—I was very lost in who was working for whom and double agenting for what). The other 25 pages deal very briefly on some very interesting science fiction ideas, almost all of which occur at the end after I’ve already slogged through the rest of the book.

As political thrillers go does the book work? I honestly don’t know. I don’t read a lot of them. I prefer SF (that’s kind of why I review them). There were moments that I enjoyed and even parts of it that I was engaged in, but more often than not I was trying to bull through it hoping that it would turn around.

As far as the SF stuff at the end, well, I liked it a lot. There were some very cool ideas. Ideas that made me think, ideas that I would like to see explored some more. But in the end those ideas seemed rather tacked on to the political story. I think I would have preferred a much shorter story (novelette perhaps) with the same SF, but a more streamlined version of the rest of the story.

Maybe this is your cup of tea. I’ve seen some good praise for the book out there. Honestly this could be a case of just being the wrong book for the wrong reader. If you’ve liked Charles Stross’s near future thrillers (HALTING STATE and RULE 34) then I think this is more up your alley.

Recommended Age: 14+ because of the complexity of the factions, a bit of language and sexual innuendo.
Violence: Very little. Only one specific reference I can think of.
Language: Moderate. There’s language but it isn’t extreme.
Sex: None

Want to give this book a shot for yourself? Here is the link:

THE RESTORATION GAME

Chicks Kick Butt

2011-11-14T08:00:00.001-07:00

Yeah, yeah, don't roll your eyes at me. The title CHICKS KICK BUTT sounds totally cliché and dumb and silly. But it's totally fun and entertaining. CHICKS is a short story compilation of several popular female Urban Fantasy authors—some you've heard of and some you haven't—and other than a couple of mediocre entries, is a solid group of stories. So let's get to it, shall we?

Shiny by Rachel Caine starts off the book with a story from this popular author's Weather Warden series. Joanne has weather magic, and her boyfriend David is a powerful Djinn. On an outing to the beach, they come across a photo shoot for a Bugatti Veyron—and the woman draped across it is none other than a new Djinn. David makes them stop to investigate her, as she's something of a troublemaker. And, of course, trouble ensues. One of the better stories in this compilation, the characters are interesting, the story moves quickly, and the situation and ending unfoldes unexpectedly.

In Vino Veritas by Karen Chance is about Dory—from Chance's Dorina Basarab series—a dhampir (child of vampire and human), and vampire hunter. A previous job with the Chinese mob has come back to bite her, and she must deal with the fallout. This selection is predictable, and in order to remember what it was about I had to go back and re-read it again, which is never a good sign, even if the first read through was enjoyable enough. In the end I wasn't really sure what it was about, it was a little convoluted, and as a result it was easy to dismiss.

Hunt by Rachel Vincent is about college student Abby, recently turned werecat. While on a campout with some friends, they're attacked, and Abby's secret is in danger of being revealed. Traumatized in her youth, Abby must deal with her fears in order to save her friends. Despite the steady writing and believable emotions, it was had to get the full effect in so short a story without feeling like I was being bludgeoned with Abby's emotional baggage. Still, it finishes well.

Monsters by Lilith Saintcrow is my favorite of the compilation. It's about Eleni, a vampire Preserver, with the special skills and abilities that involve protecting "what would otherwise be lost...[those] skilled in an art that would reach its highest expression when freed from the chains of mortality." When her charges are killed in an unexpected attack by humans, she must avenge their deaths. For such a short story, the worldbuilding was well written, and the characters interesting. While the ending leaves the larger story open for more, the conclusion is still satisfying. On her site, Saintcrow says she may write more about Eleni.

Vampires Prefer Blondes by P. N. Elrod is one of the few in this collection where the main character is completely human. Set from Elrod's Vampire Files series, this short takes place in the 1930s, and Bobbi is the headliner for a traveling act in the Chicago area. After one evening's show, a group of roughs come looking for one of her chorus girls, and it turns out a vampire is involved. The writing is slick—the main character's PoV is entertaining to read, gives a feel for the era, and makes me believe that even though Bobbi isn't trained to fight, she's still willing to help someone in trouble with the undead.

Nine-Tenths of the Law by Jenna Black is about exorcist Morgan Kingsley, who happens to be 'possessed' herself (not something she advertises on her business door). She's approached by worried parents who believe their wayward daughter is possessed illegally. Demons are allowed to possess humans who are of legal age and volunteer for it—there are some benefits, after all, to having a powerful spirit inhabit a mortal body. But there are fanatical groups who will do anything to rid the world of demons. An entertaining story, if a bit predictable. The characters are well drawn, and the world interesting without being overbearing. From the Morgan Kingsley Exorcist series, which is complete.

Double Dead by Cheyenne McCray starts off with a sort of glossary of terms, which I'm certain is hardly ever a good thing for a short story. It's about Nyx, part-human part-Dark Elf, whose Drow abilities make her day job as a PI much less dangerous than her night job as enforcer for the paranormal council. While main character Nyx is interesting, the story was a contrived confusion of motives and behavior that didn't make sense, and the ending action scene was gimmicky.

A Rose by Any Other Name Would Still be Red by Elizabeth A. Vaughan is the shortest of the stories, and the action scenes are exciting and fast-paced. Unfortunately, the result is that I never got a clear vision of the setting (is it medieval?), of the main character Red's abilities, and the point of the story.

Superman by Jeanne C. Stein is about a newly turned vampire. "Superman" has a prologue and even 'chapters', which results in a drawn-out story. I could handle an overlong short if it were tightly written, but it's not, and even worse it's cliché and overwrought. Skip it.

Monster Mash by Carole Nelson Douglas takes place in Las Vegas, where werewolves and vampires own and run casinos. Delilah, from Douglas' Delilah Street series, is called in to investigate the haunting of a local casino, and get rid of the problem if she can. She's human, but walks among the supernaturals with confidence. Douglas lays on the setting pretty thickly, so it's hard to keep up with all the lingo. But the fast-paced dialogue, clever mystery, and likable heroine make this story one of the top five in this compilation.

Wanted: Dead or Alive by L. A. Banks is about recently turned vampire Tanya, and the short opens with an overwrought woe-is-me monologue. Then we're launched into pre-story of Tanya's bounty hunter past, and her 'lucky' kill of master vampire Dimitri. As his killer she inherits Dimitri's wealth and the vamps he's turned; and today, a month later, we learn that other vampire masters want her dead. Her distaste of bloodsucking has turned her into an altruist who'll only kill the truly criminal. The story is contrived and feels unfinished.

Mist by Susan Krinard is probably the most ambitious of the stories, with so much worldbuilding taken from ancient Norse mythology that the learning curve is a little high for a short story. An Earth-bound Valkyrie believes that the final battle is past...but is it? The action moves along at a steady clip, and by the end you're invested in the story and how it ends. And even though "Mist" feels more like the beginning of a novel than the other more self-contained contributions, it's an entertaining read.

Beyond the Pale by Nancy Holder is about Meg, former U.S. border agent, and now Fae border agent, due to her recently manifested second sight. But the battle with the Fae is not so much about illegal immigration as it is about keeping the Erl King from stealing children and replacing them with changelings. A fast-paced and interesting story, "Beyond the Pale" has magic and a cool Black Forest setting. PoV character Meg is a complicated woman; the writing does lack subtlety with her feelings and motivations, but the characterization was pretty good for a short. The ending wasn't what I expected, and I still have some unanswered questions, so I'm not sure if I'm satisfied with it—but at least it was memorable. Holder's site says she plans to continue this story in novel form, and if she continues on as she has here, it's easy to see the potential for a great series.

Recommended Age: 16+
Language: Depending on the story, but most are relatively clean; a couple of them have a smattering of stronger profanity.
Violence: All of them have violence; some are stronger than others; almost all contain death, and some of them get very gory.
Sex: Mostly reference and innuendo; "Superman" and "Wanted: Dead or Alive" have graphic scenes.

Want this book? Go here:

CHICKS KICK BUTT

The Third Section

2011-11-11T08:00:00.003-07:00

By now most of you faithful readers should have picked up a copy of Jasper Kent's novel, TWELVE. If you are like me, TWELVE completely blew you away with its terrific blend of Historical Fiction and Horror. I mean, come on, that ending? That was freaking awesome. And the twist made it even more horrific and awesome. TWELVE easily became one of my favorite books last year. The sequel, THIRTEEN YEARS LATER, was awesome in its own way, but fell juuuuuuust short of its predecessor.

And now we get book three, THE THIRD SECTION.

The third entry in the Danilov Quintet has us following Aleksei Danilov's two children (who don't know they are siblings), Dmitry and Tamara. Naturally this novel follows their (re)discovery of the vampires, and the machinations of the Aleksei's nemesis, Iuda (now known as Vasily).

The first thing that stood out was how different Dmitry is. This novel starts in 1855, thirty years after the events of the previous novel. Aleksei is in exile, and thus not a PoV character. Yet Aleksei's legacy still has such an enormous impact on the two main characters. Dmitry has been molded and changed by the past 30+ years, and it paints a starkly different picture of his persona. For Tamara, the quest to find out who her father really is (Aleksei was exiled before she was old enough to realize what was going on) leads her right into the crossfire of the vampires.

These characters are so refreshingly different from those in the prior two novels. Don't get me wrong, I loved Aleksei's PoV, but I think this is one of the main failings of series fiction. Far too often we follow story after story of just one character, and if the author isn't careful the characters get dull. Kent has avoided this issue entirely, and has handled it expertly.

The way Kent handles the historical facts is awesome, unsurprisingly. The action is terrific. The pacing is great. None of these should surprise you. All the same, it is a relief to me that Kent has managed to remain so consistent from novel to novel.

Here's the thing. If you have read the first two novels in this series, you know what to expect. If you haven't read the first two books, I'm a little unsure why you are reading this review. Quit fooling around and go treat yourself. So the only thing I want to mention is how INCREDIBLE the last quarter of THE THIRD SECTION is. This novel is batter than book two, and has me debating on whether it is better than book one. And this is all due to the ending. It blew me away. If you had any doubt or fear that THE THIRD SECTION wouldn't live up to the standards set in the first books, take my word for it.

Seriously, just go out and buy the book.

Recommended Age:b 17+
Language: Some, and it can get strong.
Violence: Remember, these vampires don't try to sparkle you to death.
Sex: A lot of references and some scenes that border on being really detailed.

Buy this whole freaking series! It is completely awesome!

1 - TWELVE
2 - THIRTEEN YEARS LATER
3 - THE THIRD SECTION

Gateways

2011-11-09T08:00:00.001-07:00

I’m not sure if I’ve ever read anything quite like GATEWAYS. On the outside it looks like any regular old collection of short stories and novellas. Sometimes those collections have a central premise or theme, and this one certainly does. But it’s the premise and how it’s put together that really got to me. The premise is “Isn’t Frederick Pohl awesome? Let’s have a book to celebrate him.”

I’ll admit that before I read this book I knew little of Frederik Pohl. I’ve read through almost all of the Hugo winning novels and came across Gateway (the book from which the title of this collection is based). It was one of the rare old Hugo winners that really knocked my socks off. It didn’t feel dated, it still stood out as an exceptional book. Based on that I picked up a few more of Pohl’s Gateway books. I wish I could say that they were as good, but sadly they didn’t capture the magic the original did. Reading online I am not alone in that opinion.

But that’s it. That’s all I knew about Frederik Pohl. I opened this collection thinking that maybe all of the stories would be set in Pohl’s gateway universe, (I still think that’s a cool idea by the way. Somebody get on it.) Instead I found that the stories were written to the intent of capturing the spirit of Frederik Pohl and his work.

To my surprise the thing I found most fascinating about the books were the dedications at the end of each story. After each novella or story, that particular author would write his own thoughts on Pohl. They ranged from years of shared experiences and lifetime friendships, to simple crossing of paths. Some of the names on the cover didn’t even write stories for the anthology, but rather they just wrote out their thoughts and feelings about Pohl.

It was fascinating for me to read through those dedications and see a story unfold. The story of modern SF as we know it. To see and hear accounts of Pohl as a writer and editor and even agent and see how it affected the authors in the book (most of whom I read regularly) and Science Fiction in general was amazing. The characters in their respective stories were interesting, but nothing compared to the character of Frederick Pohl, the man who helped shape Science Fiction.

I’m not going to spend a bunch of time dwelling on the stories in GATEWAYS. The stories are there and they are for the most part very good. They range from short to long, comical to poignant and everything in between. But they are not the focus, nor should they be. The focus is throughout the book a simple heart felt dedication to this man who helped inspire, and shape a generation of SF writers and readers.

As tributes go, I can’t think of anything better.

Recommended Age: Depends on the story. I can’t remember anything too harsh however. 14+
Violence: Nothing too bad.
Sex: Referenced a few times. Never shown.
Language: A scattering of words depending on the author.

Want this awesome tribute of stores? Follow this link: GATEWAYS

Siren Song

2011-11-07T08:00:00.000-07:00

In BLOOD SONG, Celia was attacked by a vampire, but not turned completely. Instead she's an "abomination", a sort of vampire limbo, with both perks and disadvantages. She also learned that her great-grandmother is a Siren—yes, the magical variety who can sing men to their deaths—and since being bitten it appears that these traits have finally manifested for Celia. The perk: men come when she needs. The disadvantage: women hate her.

One would think that having some supernatural abilities might make life a little easier. Not for Celia, who's convinced that everyone thinks she's a monster: the Sirens, the vampires and the humans. It's all a big mess. And because of who and what she is, someone wants her dead, and will do anything, even call up demons, to finish the job.

SIREN SONG begins with a big action scene right off the bat. After the events in BLOOD SONG, Celia was being taken to an institution that would make sure she's safe to be roaming among the general public. On the way her and Dr. Scott are attacked, physically and mentally. They survive, but her relationship with the good doctor is irrevocably damaged, and she's no closer to discovering the assailants' motives.

Unfortunately, that opening scene consists of the majority of the book's excitement for the first three-quarters, and the story moves forward much slower as Adams builds up the piecemeal plot. The pace hiccups in places, as Adams tries to move quickly from scene to scene, event to event, making the pacing less consistent compared to the first book. Fortunately, the sundry information and events finally tie up nicely in an exciting conclusion.

In the meantime Celia must deal with her new abilities. It's rare for abominations to live as long as she has, because usually their sires turn or kill them soon after they're first bitten—fortunately hers is dead. She refuses to drink blood, but she's limited to a liquid diet, and watching her try to deal with it can be amusing. Add to that her Siren abilities and no man can really trust her and all women hate her. She handles these wrenches in her life with aplomb...mostly. At this point it's just getting through it day by day, but she refuses to give up. We see few other characters from book one (alas very little of the sexy werewolf and Celia's Italian former boyfriend), other than a big scene with the ghostly Vicki. We instead get to know others better, including John Miller, the mage who owns a bodyguard firm (potential romance?); Bubba, the bail bondsman whose office is on the same floor as Celia's (fisherman, tough guy...Mensa member?); and Celia's Siren relatives.

In fact the entire second half of the book deals with the Sirens. We get to see their culture, with their queens and their island isolated from the rest of the world. It doesn't feel like anything special, though, and not particularly interesting other than to learn about Celia's origins. It turns out, though, that it's a good thing Celia goes, because it appears that their role in all of these events, even the ones in BLOOD SONG, may be deeper than first thought.

We see more of how mage magic works, which was interesting and well done. The roles of magic in this world are important—from the everyday variety to creating protective wards to how they fight with it. Adams used clairvoyants a lot in BLOOD SONG, and they were interesting and affected the plot. This time around there are several clairvoyant 'prophecies' but they're vague and pointless, which was frustrating.

For a middle book in a series, SIREN SONG is rather mediocre, and not worth trying to read as a standalone, because the story depends a great deal on what came before. Despite this, at least we're clearer who the bad guys are, and their motives—which was my big frustration in BLOOD SONG. Still, the world building, character progression, and cast is what keeps me interested, and I'm looking forward to reading the conclusion, DEMON SONG.

Recommended Age: 16+
Language: A couple handfuls, not as much as in BLOOD SONG
Violence: Lots more peril than BLOOD SONG, and the couple of fight scenes are as exciting and detailed as the ones from the previous book
Sex: Referenced, with only minor details

The Alloy of Law

2011-11-04T08:00:00.002-06:00

My favorite works by Brandon Sanderson are his Mistborn novels. From the moment I picked up THE FINAL EMPIRE all the way through the last page of THE HERO OF AGES, I was loving the series. I like all of Sanderson's novels, but the Mistborn series, for me, is far better than all the rest.

And now we have a new Mistborn novel, THE ALLOY OF LAW. When I received a copy of this in the mail, everything else went on hold.

THE ALLOY OF LAW is set 300 years after the events of THE HERO OF AGES. The city of Elendel is in the midst of an industrial awakening, and the characters of the past Mistborn novels are all referenced by way of varied religions. The story follows Waxillium Ladrian as he goes from being a frontier lawman of sorts in the Roughs to a lord over his house in the city--think equal parts Bruce Wayne and Wyatt Earp. The woman Wax is to marry is kidnapped, and thus begins the adventure.

First things first: THE ALLOW OF LAW is a standalone novel. While I imagine a bunch of the stuff from here will end up referenced in Sanderson's next Mistborn Trilogy, this is a stand-alone novel. The first two things that stood out while I was reading this novel was first, the evolution of the setting. Sanderson does an excellent job showing how this world has evolved from the city, to the religion, to the culture. It is all done logically and descriptively. It felt like the Mistborn world had actually evolved rather than just painted over with a vague, western facade.

The second thing that jumped out was the evolution in the magic. Waxillium (Wax) is a Twinborn. He can use both Allomancy and Feruchemy. Not only did Sanderson avoid falling back on having his hero be an all-powerful Mistborn (a nice touch), but he still managed to make his hero powerful by mixing powers together. It was an extremely refreshing blend of familiar and new, and honestly has me super excited for future possibilities. Seriously. Just think about it for a minute.

Yeah. Awesome, right?

The side characters feel like just that: side characters. They are fleshed out enough to give the story weight, and to make the reader like them. But don't expect the other characters to be fleshed out like you would from Sanderson's THE WAY OF KINGS. THE ALLOW OF LAW is a short (by Sanderson's standards!) novel. I'll tell you why I'm OK with this: the novel is focused. I wanted to get to know Wax, and Sanderson did that. No fluff. No wandering. No repetitive sections. Nope. THE ALLOY OF LAW is a focused and well-paced novel.

Did I love everything about it? No (when do I ever?). A lot of this comes to personal taste, so none of this may bother you readers at all. Remember WARBREAKER? Where all the characters thought they were comedians? THE ALLOY OF LAW has the same sort of vibe. Now I get that Brandon doesn't do super dark and gritty (which I would LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE him to do...he would KILL it!!!), but to me the humor in this novel was too much. Just when I would start to completely lose myself in this beautiful progressing world, Wax or his friend Wayne (another Twinborn with some awesome abilities) would do something so silly that I would be thrown completely out of the novel. Now perhaps this is my fault for expecting an actual Western...and when I think of Westerns I think of Unforgiven. ALLOW OF LAW is hardly Western at all. It's light Western, and light Steampunk.

But here's the thing, that humor only makes up a very small portion of the novel. If you are OK with Sanderson's humor, then you'll love this book. If, like me, you aren't a fan, then simply ignore the humor and focus on the gunplay and magic--you'll likely love the novel this way.

My favorite part of this novel was the ending. Not only do we get a very cool set-piece that shows how far the world has come, but we get some great action, a light twist, and then Sanderson has characters choose duty over desire. I was worried Brandon was going to go all "happily ever after" on me. Whew. Didn't happen.

It's hard for me to rank this book in terms of Sanderson's other novels. I like it better than ELANTRIS and much better than WARBREAKER. The jury is still out on how Stormlight Archive series is going to turn out. But THE ALLOY OF LAW isn't quite up to the standards of the other other Mistborn novels. I think this is due to it feeling more like a long novella that was able to sneak into novel-form. That's not a criticism, just an observation. The long and short of it is fans of Brandon's work will love this novel.

Now I know I said this is a stand-alone. I know Brandon has said this is a stand-alone. But c'mon, man! Give the readers another novel or novella in this setting using the Roughs you describe in the beginning. Do it Deadwood style. PLEEEEEEEASE!

Recommended Age: 13 and up.
Language: Hardly any. Abercrombie this is not.
Violence: Lots of gunplay and magic fighting. I dig it.
Sex: Nope. Abercrombie this is not.

Spellbound

2011-11-02T08:00:00.000-06:00

If you are a fan of Larry Correia's work, you've had a sweet year. MONSTER HUNTER ALPHA. DEAD SIX. HARD MAGIC. Yeah...that's some good reading. You know from my reviews that I have liked all of these books. But of all of them, HARD MAGIC is the one that grabbed my attention. It marked the start of a terrific Alternate History Urban Fantasy Dieselpunk Science Fiction Fantasy novel. For the sake of having a usable category, I call it Urban Fantasy.

Anyway...

The second book in the Grimnoir Chronicles, SPELLBOUND, is out, and it has everything good from the first book plus even more awesomeness. This is my favorite series by Correia. Period. Look, I love his other works, but this alternate take on 1930's USA is freaking great.

Following up on the crazy events on book 1 (in other words, go buy book one now and stop reading this review), all (mostly) of the main characters are back. No one really believes that Faye is as powerful as she is, or that she accomplished what she did in the first book. All of the main people in the government are pointing fingers at the Grimnoir knights and saying how dangerous they are (think Mutant Registration Act from X-Men), and they seem to be proven right when the President of the US is nearly assassinated. The crime is pinned on the knights, and things go from bad to worse.

Here is what impresses me about Larry Correia: he is always trying to get better. His books sell well and entertain a huge number of people. But even he knows that he had issues in his early books. There would be pacing problems here and there, and often the female characters needed a bit more depth. The mark of a good author is when that author looks at the fair critiques of his work and busts his butt to improve in those areas. Correia exemplifies this trait, and all you have to do is look at the insane difference in quality between MONSTER HUNTER INTERNATIONAL and SPELLBOUND. Night and day, people. Night and day. And it's not like MONSTER HUNTER INTERNATIONAL was a bad book. I thought it was great.

What I noticed in SPELLBOUND was how Correia was able to better control and juggle a large cast of characters. Even a step further; not just juggle them, but let them grow before the readers' eyes. Both Faye and Sullivan are freaking awesome. The side characters have enough detail to carry the scenes from their PoV, but not so much to take away from the studs of the show.

I also feel like Correia's plotting is better. He's good at having a very defined focus for what he wants to accomplish in the novel. As a result, I never really felt like this book was the middle book in a series or purely setup. It has a life--and a vibrant one at that--of its own.

Do I even need to mention the action? I mean, really? The day Larry Correia stops writing awesome action sequences is the day I will recommend Dan Brown as the greatest ever (never going to happen). We've got giant monsters and freaking robots in SPELLBOUND. And a samurai. And more demons. Yeah.

Now. There is one thing I want Correia to work on. He isn't bad at it by any means, but when so many things are going right in a novel, even little things tend to stand out. I need more tragedy. When Correia puts it in, he does it pretty well (just look at the very end of ALPHA). But I feel like we don't get it enough. There are a few good scenes in SPELLBOUND, but I feel like they came juuuuuuuuuust short. It's like the difference between hitting a Triple vs a Home Run in a baseball game. Or a long pass play in football (American version) that goes for 60 yards...only to have the receiver tackled at the 1 yard line. Still great plays, but maaaaaannnn was it almost unbelievable. I don't want it to seem like I'm bashing Correia here. I'm not. His emotionally charged scenes are pretty good, but Correia is right on the edge of absolutely killing it.

So, should you be reading this series? Well duh. In my opinion, the Grimnoir Chronicles has the best story, best characters and best writing of all of Larry Correia's novels. SPELLBOUND is Larry Correia's best book in his best series. I loved it.

Recommended Age: 15 and up.
Language: Yup, but less than, say, DEAD SIX or MHA
Violence: Of course. I'd be a bit worried if there wasn't any.
Sex: Nope.

Dark Jenny

2011-10-31T08:00:00.001-06:00

Important disclosure: this book was completely not for me. At the same time though, I think that there are a bunch of people that will really like the thing. Let’s make this clear though: I’m not one of them.

DARK JENNY is the third Eddie Lacrosse novel by author Alex Bledsoe. I haven’t read any of the other novels in the series prior to this, but I don’t think I suffered because of that. This time is told as a frame story about something that happened a while ago in Mr. Lacrosse’s life, dealing with the history of Great Britain...erm... Grand Bruan.

Eddie Lacrosse is a “sword jockey” (read: private investigator) in a fantasy world that is very solidly Arthurian. In fact, it’s so Arthurian, that all of the major players are present: Arthur, Gwenevere, Lancelot, Morgan, Merlin, and all the Knights of the Round Table. Of course, they all have different names, so it’s not really a re-telling of the Arthur tale, but...it is. The only real new players in the tale are Mr. Lacrosse (focus point of the tale) and, of course, Dark Jenny (minimally).

The story starts out with Mr. Lacrosse having been hired by a woman to search out her husband, who has been decidedly lacking in his husbandly affections as of late. Eddie’s a sarcastic, wry, and yet somewhat sentimental kind of guy that has a very easy way of telling his tale. In the process of Eddie’s investigation, he’s implicated in the death of a Knight of the Double Tarn (read: Round Table). Although very few of the other knights believe Eddie might have had anything to do with this death, he’s arrested and then quickly given a leash long enough that he can clear his good name. The story rushes from one place to the next, rollicking between fights and poisons and ogres and invasion, never really slowing down until we get to the end.

Bledsoe’s writing is good. It’s fast and easy. Unfortunately, except for our main character, Eddie, nearly all of the other characters come off as cardboard. World-building is essentially nil, with the bulk being laid upon the back of the reader’s prior knowledge of Arthurian England. There are occasional mentions of “walking through the castle” or about “so-and-so wearing a suit of armor”. There are swords that pop up occasionally too. The naming convention was incredibly modern, which really made it quite difficult for me to get into the swing of things. The story could have easily been stripped of its Arthurian trappings, of the “fantasy” setting, and but for one very small scene been entirely told as a modern-day mystery. It probably wouldn’t have been as interesting though. So, two cheers for frilly settings. Hip hip, hooray! Hip hip, hooray!

This novel was very status quo mystery for me. The climax was even the culmination of a plethora of “I’m not going to tell you” moments followed by the ubiquitous “here’s how it all REALLY happened” explanation. The only things that really save it in the end is that the story just reads so dang fast and it doesn’t ever take itself very seriously. It’s a frolicking, fluffy, marshmallow of a story that you can get into and get out of with very little effort.

I can absolutely see that there will be people that will LOVE this novel. In fact, Amazon reviews are actually quite high, thus reinforcing my thoughts. Still, there’s nothing here that was out of the ordinary, or surprisingly new, or really even worthwhile for me. Solidly mediocre. It wasn’t bad by any stretch of the imagination though. So if you’re in for this kind of fluff novel, you might want to pick this one up. If not though, you know where you can go for some goods.

Recommended age: 18+
Language: A little bit, though strong
Violence: Some, and a bit gory at those times
Sex: Very minimal, but two scenes were surprisingly content-riddled

Alex Bledsoe's Website

The Falling Machine

2011-10-28T08:00:00.003-06:00

Sarah Stanton is the only child of business magnate Alexander Stanton. She's a woman ahead of her time—her time being New York's 1880s, the Gilded Age of industry and technology, but otherwise behind on women's suffrage.

However, Sarah doesn't let her father or society's strictures slow her down. Sure she has to wear a bustle and corset, and her father wants to marry her off by the end of the season, but that doesn't stop her from trying to find Sir Dennis Darby's killer.

In the meantime, Darby's magnum opus, an automaton named Tom, is also trying to find his creator's killer. Unfortunately as a machine he's considered persona non grata, and the Paragons—the vigilante heroes of New York who use steam and technology to serve and protect, among whom is Alexander Stanton himself—refuse to follow Darby's last request to make Tom their new leader. They even go so far as to confine the automaton and refuse to repair him. Sarah sympathizes.

THE FALLING MACHINE by newcomer Andrew P. Mayer covers a lot of ground. What really makes a hero? Is it the mask and costume? Is it supernatural abilities? Is it their sense of morality? Steampunk fans—especially the YA variety—will enjoy this recent addition to the sub-genre. Not only are there superheroes and robots, but the steampunk tech plays an integral part of the story, there's a mystery to uncover, societal issues, aging superheros, and a villain who truly believes that he's doing the right thing—even if it means murder and the breakdown of their way of life.

Mayer does a good job explaining the story's machines and inventions, and he includes some fascinating concepts. Even though these descriptions can slow the pace, it helps develop the atmosphere, and since the tech is important to the story, it's worth the time to pay attention. We only get a taste of his portrayal of Industrial Revolution-era New York, its high society as well as the common man. Despite this brief glimpse, I still got a good feel for the time and place, and I suspect there will be more as the series continues, as there simply wasn't time to go into depth here.

Mayer creates the story's superhero crossovers with enough stereotypes to make them familiar, but without being lazy—they still feel like real people. I enjoyed both the main characters, Tom and Sarah. Tom is more than a machine, as he attempts to carry out his maker's plans. Readers will learn a lot about Darby and the kind of man he was from the machines he made. Sarah is barely into womanhood and discovering the kind of woman she is and wants to be. Her relationship with her father feels a little forced, but it isn't hard to believe that Alexander Stanton behaves as a result of his era and class.

Unlike the wealth of steampunk coming out today, there's no magic or vampires or werewolves in THE FALLING MACHINE. I can't say I'm too sad about it. The result is that the focus is on the tech itself and its importance to the story, and not simply tech for its own sake with the supernatural stealing the show.

While the pace moves forward consistently, revelations come slowly, and the story isn't much further along by the time we reach the end of the book. Most of the novel is told from Tom and Sarah's PoV (with minor references from Alexander Stanton and the Sleuth Paragon Peter Wickham), so the storyline involves following clues and trying to come to a conclusion. Another issue with the pacing involves the villain not even appearing until the end of the novel. While THE FALLING MACHINE storyline itself is mostly self-contained, the ending leaves the conclusion too open, and readers will have to wait until the second book, HEARTS OF SMOKE AND STEAM , to hopefully find some answers to their inevitable questions.

Recommended Age: 14+
Language: A handful of moderate uses
Violence: Tom and Sarah's sleuthing does lead to danger; there's blood, but otherwise it's not gory
Sex: Vague references; one of the Paragons is referred to as a sodomite a few times

Want to give this series a shot? Below are the links:

1 - THE FALLING MACHINE

2 - HEARTS OF SMOKE AND STEAM

A Fire Upon the Deep

2011-10-26T08:00:00.001-06:00

Confession time. I had never read A FIRE UPON THE DEEP until now. Please don't think less of me. The thing is, and I've mentioned this before, I'm not a big SF reader. In general, I think most writers of SF are far more interested in showing how intelligent they are rather than telling a good story. It's a personal opinion. Every now-and-then I fins an SF novel that I really enjoy, but it just isn't my thing. That's why I let my reviewer, Shawn, handle most SF novels that are sent to me.

Anyway, back to my startling revelation. I'm sure tabloids are going crazy somewhere. I happened to mention to a publicist at Tor that I hadn't read the Vernor Vinge classic, and he freaked out. A week later I had a copy in my PO Box from that same publicist. Likewise my good reviewer, Shawn, was a bit surprised at this glaring hole in my reading background. He had just sent me his review for Vinge's THE CHILDREN OF THE SKY, and I thought, "Hmm. Maybe I should really read the original. See what all the fuss is about." After all, A FIRE UPON THE DEEP is considered one of THE classics in SF.

Honestly I was prepared to be totally let down, but I pressed on so that I could give a newbie's view on the novel.

First impression? I read the prologue and absolutely hated it. I wanted to put the book down and go read some James Barclay. But I had made promises, and I keep my promises at least 50% of the time.

The good news is that the next 80 pages were completely fascinating. The odd tone of the prologue vanished (later I came to understand it...still hate it, but understand it), and I was left discovering an enthralling universe filled with odd aliens and a very small cast of humans. The main story revolves around a civilization of humans unearthing an entity (the Blight) that spreads throughout the galaxy taking over nearly everything. I am paraphrasing there and not using the correct terms, but using those terms would make me have to describe the whole effing book so that it all makes sense to the reader who hasn't experienced this novel.

A small ship with very few humans on board escapes the Blight and crashes on a medieval world inhabited by a race of creatures soon dubbed the Tines. The Tines are dog-like creatures that are separated into small packs of 3-6 (generally) individual "dogs" making up a single hive-mind personality. They are super intelligent, and are one of the most fascinating parts of this novel. In a way, the Tines and the world they live on make a good chunk of the novel almost a Fantasy novel rather than SF. These portions of the story focus on two human children, Jefri and Johanna, and a variety of Tines.

The other characters firmly ground the novel as SF. Ravna and Pham (along with two plant-like aliens) end up on a mission to save the two children and their ship which may have a way to destroy the Blight.

So here's what I ended up liking about this novel. While it is SF, it doesn't feel like it the entire time. As I mentioned before, there is a nice mixture of SF and a little fantasy mixed in here. This slight genre blending made the novel far more enjoyable than I expected. For some reason I was expecting to need multiple PhDs in physics and rocket-science to understand anything happening in the novel. Instead, the novel came across as fairly accessible. I felt the characters acted in believable ways. I thought the writing was clear. The concepts surrounding the way the universe is set up is really freaking awesome. I was really diggin' the whole thing.

And then the novel got REALLY slow. After the first 100 pages, the novel was a lot of people sitting around punctuated by brief moments of "stuff happening". It wasn't a bad "slow", but it did kill some of the excitement for me. Momentum faded away. I put the book down for a few days. Really, I just wanted something to happen. Something big. 2/3 of the way through the novel a lot of stuff did happen, but I wished it would have all come about a little sooner.

I realize I'm talking very vague here, and I apologize. A FIRE UPON THE DEEP is a complex novel. For me to explain all the details would 1) take for-freaking-ever, 2) be boring as heck, and 3) ruin a lot of the fun discovery. If you've already read this novel, you know what I'm saying. If you haven't read the novel, then the best thing I can recommend is buying the book. The book lays it all out for you.

There is a lot of good here. The ending makes up for most of the extreme slowness of the middle of the novel. Everything is wrapped up a tad too neatly for my taste, but it was still cool to see the convergence of technologies in an anti-Prime Directive sort of way.

So did I like this book? Yeah, I actually did. Vinge is a great writer. His ideas are sweet. His alien characters are awesome (his human ones are solid, but not amazing). It's a slow, dense Space Opera. If you are into Alastair Reynolds, you'll dig Vinge a lot I think. I liked the overall accessibility of the novel. Yes, I liked this book quite a bit. From a guy who doesn't really like SF that much, I think this says a lot. I can easily see why people who love SF--and thus my reviewer, Shawn--are absolutely entranced by this novel. I'll definitely read the prequel and sequel(s). I'd totally consider this an Elitist Classic and put it in the Science Fiction 201 level, and I'd recommend it to all you SF lovers who have somehow missed it until now.

Recommended Age: 16 and up mostly for comprehension.
Language: Hardly any.
Violence: Not much.
Sex: Mentioned, but never detailed.

Dead of Night

2011-10-24T08:00:00.002-06:00

As much as I liked zombies, I think there was a point where I reached my limit. I used to get all sorts of excited when I read the back of a novel and the golden word "zombie" jumped out at me. But then things got a little out of control. Zombies were everywhere; TV, movies, books...wherever you looked a zombie was staring back at you. So I cut back. I stuck to AMC's The Walking Dead and the excellent comic it is based one. I limited my zombie novels to those by two authors: Mira Grant and Jonathan Maberry. A month or two ago I started feeling an itch. A desire to read about zombies. Right when I was about to give in, I got Maberry's new, straight-up zombie novel in the mail, DEAD OF NIGHT. Not only did I get to indulge my slight itch for zombies, but I did it by reading one of my favorite authors.

DEAD OF NIGHT is about the onset of the zombie apocalypse in Stebbin County, Pennsylvania. A famous serial killer is executed, then sent to Stebbins County for burial. Except this is a zombie novel, so you know this guy isn't going to stay buried...if he even makes it into the ground in the first place. The main characters are two cops, Dez Fox and JT, and a reporter, Billy Trout (who is Dez's ex). These three characters make great reads, and for the most part act like i would expect them to (more on this in a bit).

Here's the thing. This is a zombie novel in the most traditional manner. Zombie outbreak --> zombies bite people --> everyone freaks out --> guns, guns, and more guns --> zombies bite people...you get the idea. While not the most original take on the subject, it is Maberry's execution of it that really gives the novel some bite (Pun totally intended! Stop shaking your head, you know it was awesome!). His pacing is fantastic. His humor well placed. His horror even more perfectly placed than the humor. For me, the novel got completely awesome when PoVs from the zombies started showing up. So well done. So. Well. Done.

I have two things that kept pulling me out of the novel. First, I felt like there were too many PoVs. We had the main characters, zombies, side characters, nobodies, government people, a radio station...basically everyone in Stebbins County and in Washington DC. It was a few too many in a book that wasn't long enough to incorporate that as many as were included. But I could deal, because the pacing kept the pages turning.

the thing that really pulled me out of the novel was how unaware of zombies the people were. They act like they never had heard of zombies, or that Romero was never born. Even when the dead start walking around chomping on people, the scared individuals start throwing around (and dismissing) everything from viruses to terrorism to freaking vampires...yet they never think, "Hmm, zombies." Maybe it is because I am spoiled by how well the self-aware world worked in Mira Grant's FEED. Regardless, this really pulled me out of the story. On the flip side, after I finished the book I heard that this was Maberry's way of trying to capture a Night of the Living Dead type of atmosphere in a modern setting. Assume people didn't have much knowledge of zombies. How would the government, law enforcement agencies, news people and general citizens act? It softened the blow quite a bit, and gives the book a lot more leeway. If you go into the novel with that latter mind-set, you may not have any problems at all (and I recommend you do read the book thinking that way regardless--you'll like the novel more).

I was leaning towards only "liking" the novel rather than "loving" it when I read the last two chapters. Those two chapters changed my mind. I ended up loving this book. Would I want a sequel? Nah. I want this story left like it is. It has more impact with it ending this way. I would like to see Maberry hit the more supernatural stuff again like in GHOST ROAD BLUES. Until then, and until I get a new Joe Ledger novel, DEAD OF NIGHT will tie me over perfectly.

This just reaffirms why Jonathan Maberry is one of my favorite authors.

Recommended Age: 18+
Language: Tons.
Violence: There is some really effed up stuff here. It's brutal, violent, and heart-wrenching.
Sex: Talked about, but nothing too explicit.

PS - I should also point out that Maberry's use of the TS Elliot poem "The Hollow Men" is freaking awesome. Well done!

Blood Song

2011-10-21T08:00:00.000-06:00

Celia is in vampire limbo. She hasn't joined the ranks of the undead, but she's no longer human. She's got fangs, a taste for blood, and superhuman strength; but at the same time she's awake during the day and can withstand sunlight, holy water, and other vampire repellents.

You see, a security job for a foreign prince who wanted to enjoy the night life on a visit to L.A. turned deadly. During the chaos Celia was attacked by an old vampire—and it's only the oldest vampires who can create new ones—but the process was interrupted. Instead of dying or being turned, Celia became what's known in vampire circles as an abomination.

But that's not the worst thing. Her sire plans to finish the job, and she must find and kill him before he does.

I just want to get something out of the way. I really enjoy Urban Fantasy (for several reasons that I won't bore you with). I've read my share of the kick-butt female variety, and a lot of times it's frustratingly unrealistic. Often these women are really only men with boobs (can I use that word on this blog?), who are loud, obnoxious, and unsympathetic, who have an emotional breakdown thrown in to make them feel more feminine. Fortunately, BLOOD SONG doesn't have this problem. Sure Celia could kick your butt, but really it's nothing personal. It's her job. She's a professional bodyguard, and she has the lifestyle, attitude, and skills to prove it. But it doesn't change the fact that she's still a girl who's having a really bad day.

Set in present-day Los Angeles, this is a world of vampires, werewolves, warrior priests, mages, telepaths, and a variety of mythological creatures. Religion does matter. But so does an education in the supernatural. Adams makes sure we understand how things work in this world, what magic is used for, and how the human public deals with the things that go bump in the night. But since Celia isn't magically gifted, she has to use her smarts, and some trusty gadgets to keep her in the game.

Cat Adams is the pseudonym for the writing duo of C.T. Adams and Cathy Clamp, and they have quite a few books under their belts—and it shows. The plot progression proceeds at a great clip, we're introduced to the large and varied cast without being overwhelmed, the location/magic all make sense and are explained without boring info dumps, and the first-person PoV narrative is engaging and fluid. However, even the most experienced writers can have trouble with a story, and in BLOOD SONG the storytelling suffers from a few hiccups and the plot can get convoluted—while Adams explains things, I still had trouble following who exactly the bad guys were and who/why/what they were up to.

The best thing about this book is the main character Celia, who is likable and interesting. The next best was that the story didn't go where I expected it to. Sure, like I expected, more things go wrong, we meet more of her friends, learn more of Celia's history and what makes her tick. But then other characters throw a wrench into the story and Celia has to react. She does the best she can to control what's going on, but too many times even the best-intentioned people have other ideas; yet others want to use her for their own purposes; and even her own family has surprises in store.

Eventually Celia does take matters into her own hands. But watch out, because this chick refuses to be jerked around.

Recommended Age: 16+
Language: It's liberally sprinkled
Violence: Vampires=blood and gore
Sex: There's a scene at a strip club; Celia gets a little hot and heavy with the ex; a few references other than that

There will be more to see in my review for SIREN SONG, the next book in the series.

Blackdog

2011-10-19T08:00:00.000-06:00

I think I was in third grade when I first learned about river deltas: places where a river empties into a large body of water, slowing from its directed flow into an ever-broadening depository of silt and mass that will, so often, teem with vibrant life. I can’t remember the last time I’d thought about the phenomena that result in such earthy structures, let alone the concept, and yet the analogy between a river delta and this book fit so perfectly to one another that I simply couldn’t deny it.

BLACKDOG is KV Johansen’s debut novel, and though I didn’t find this read overly amazing, I did end up making a few realizations about the search for new authors and what might be important when choosing to take a chance on one. The world in BLACKDOG is one that is rife with potential. Gods and demons fill the playing field, with the Old Great Gods having removed themselves from the scene quite some time ago. Attalissa, one of the plethora of regional-specific gods, has chosen of her own will to evidence herself as a mortal being that is perpetually reborn. She has taken for herself a protector, the Blackdog, that rears and teaches her of her potential and history with each renewal of life.

The story starts with a bang, as the renegade wizard, Tamghat, has gathered and brought an army to the doors of the Lissavakaili temple, on an island in the middle of a sacred lake within the holdfast of the mountains. Attalissa, alas, is too young and has not yet come into her godly powers. Thus she and the Blackdog are driven by the threat of death from her holy bastion, the only place in the expanse of the world in which she can survive, and into the realm of other non-mortalized, and very introverted gods. Thus, she becomes mortal in the true sense of the word, with no protections and no hope of re-attaining her position of power unless she returns one day and destroys the threat of Tamghat.

And that was really the problem with the story. The girl has to grow up before she can be powerful again and regain her throne.

So, she grows up, and in the interim, we learn a lot about the world, and the other gods, and how those gods interact with the world at large, and the history of the world. Like Tom Lloyd’s cover quote suggests, the book is quite “interesting” in this regard. There is a whole lot of what I considered world-building here, and it is filled with detail. This development, which we get throughout the entire book, was at the crux of my realization because this world literally “teems with vibrant life”. The world felt full. It felt realized. And it filled the pages. Showcasing this ability, I think, is probably what got the book noticed, because the author displays so much of what I think is missed by many others.

The other half of my delta-analogy though describes what really made the book difficult to enjoy. Amidst all of this apparent “life” and potential, the pacing of the book--which is obviously fast-going right from the beginning--quickly slowed into a languid crawl and never got moving again. Tamghat, instead of going after vulnerable girl and consuming her soul, decides to take up residence in Attalissa’s temple and wait for her to return. Attalissa, instead of trying to find some way of removing Tamghat from his position, runs into the desert to hide and grow up. And a third interested party, Moth (another protector of sorts for the entire world that ends up becoming a major player) has to spend the entire book tracking down Tamghat because she was lazing about in the snowy north, instead camping out in the place where the wizard had been trapped with several others of his kind. So we readers spend the entire book waiting for things to happen. And they do--eventually--but there was nothing surprising about the end in the slightest.

Characterization was pretty rough. A few characters are fairly well fleshed-out, but on the whole they were scattered and had sketchy motivations. The cast of characters was massive too: thirteen. The major amount of time revolves around those few that I’ve listed above, but introducing all the others absolutely slaughtered the pacing of the first fifth of the book. Moth was definitely my favorite PoV, because she was the one character that had clear motivations and concerted movement toward her goal for the entire book. The others just seemed to do a whole lot of waiting, and planning, and passing the time.

On the whole, the book was WAY too long to support the story, but about spot on for what it could have been. There’s so much potential here that I think could really lead to good things in later novels. That is, if that potential is harnessed and instructed and then pointed in a single direction. I’ll be very interested in seeing where this newly-published author goes with her future work.

Recommended age: 14+
Language: Very little
Violence: A few injuries from swords, broken bones, people die
Sex: Obviously avoided in several instances

K.V. Johansen's Website

The Shadow of the Soul

2011-10-17T08:00:00.003-06:00

Admittedly, I am a fanboy of several things. Steven Erikson novels. Christopher Nolan movies. Jamiroquai. California Pizza Kitchen. The New Orleans Saints. I've recently added another author to my fanboy list. Sarah Pinborough. All of you readers will recall how I unashamedly squealed like a little girl in delight over Pinborough's novel A MATTER OF BLOOD. I loved everything about it (read the review here). Well I finally managed to read her sequel to that amazing novel, THE SHADOW OF THE SOUL.

I loved it!

Pinborough's The Dog-Faced Gods Trilogy is an odd melting-pot of genres and ideas. You get a gritty crime novel mixed with some Urban Fantasy. But don't forget the strong Horror elements or the Science Fiction. This series pretty much mixes it all together effortlessly.

The story of THE SHADOW OF THE SOUL again follows DI Cass Jones. He's dealing with the consequences of exposing a massive amount of corruption in his police precinct in London, as well as dealing with all of the personal fallout from the family matters from A MATTER OF BLOOD. As bad as things are for Cass, they get worse when an enormous terrorist attack cripples London. As he investigates the terrorism, he soon realizes that it may all be wrapped up in the otherworldly people he came into contact with in the previous novel.

The reason I absolutely fell in love with the first novel was its perfect mixture of ideas. It was like that recipe where you just happen to get every single thing perfect, and the taste of the dish created is so good you want to brag to all your friends and family about it. I had absolutely no idea how Pinborough would be able to follow up on A MATTER OF BLOOD. While THE SHADOW OF THE SOUL wasn't quite as perfect as the first novel, it was still freaking amazing. For me, A MATTER OF BLOOD was an 11 on a scale of 1 to 10. THE SHADOW OF THE SOUL comes in at a 9.8 on the same scale.

It all begins with the character of Cass Jones. He is so flawed and easy to identify with. He gets frustrated. Overwhelmed. He sees things that are wrong with the world and wants to fix them. He feels guilt for putting people in terrible situations. He also is very much alone in the world. All of this is presented to the reader with supreme ease by the author. At the same time Pinborough shows that in some ways Jones is not even close the best person in the world. The change in Cass from the first book to the second is readily apparent and completely natural.

The setting is also handled perfectly. London (not to mention the rest of the world, really) it going through a slow apocalypse of sorts. Life is tough. Situations for people are beginning to seem completely hopeless. The tone Pinborough writes into this novel is spot-on perfect. As Cass Jones begins investigating a series of supposed suicides, the tone is enhanced even further. Descriptions of everything from buildings to murder scenes hammer home the decay of the world. The weariness attaches itself to the characters, changing them even further.

I love the Pinborough writes. I love the way she describes the world through the eyes of Cass Jones--he sees that the world is in a bad way (and that he himself is a mess), but he always looks up to see where things are hopeful. The pacing is terrific. The horror is frightening. Most importantly you never feel like anyone is safe which exponentially adds to the tension as the novel progresses.

Honestly I'm having trouble keeping my gleeful enthusiasm in check. I absolutely love this series. THE SHADOW OF THE SOUL, while obviously the middle book of a trilogy, does so many things right that all I want to do is read the next book in the series. This is the type of book (and series) I wish I could write, and am actively working towards that end goal.

This series is due to hit the US next year. If you don't want to wait, import her novels from the UK. You won't regret it. You may just become a complete fan like I have.

Recommended Age: 17+
Language: Tons.
Violence: All sorts.
Sex: Talked about but never shown in detail.

Sarah's Website:
http://sarahpinborough.com/

Trio of Sorcery

2011-10-14T08:00:00.000-06:00

TRIO OF SORCERY contains three novellas by seasoned author Mercedes Lackey. She's known for strong heroines in her YA and Urban Fantasy novels, and the three main characters in TRIO are no exception. Each of the book's mysteries are shorter stories based on characters from Lackey's existing series—if you haven't read any of them, then this would be a good introduction; if you have, at the very least these are an entertaining addition. Lackey's writing overall is straightforward, with excellent pacing, and storylines with a few twists.

Arcanum 101 - Diana Tregarde is beginning her studies at Harvard in the early 1970s. But she's not your typical co-ed. She's a witch, however not your ordinary variety.

A sort of prequel to Lackey's 1990s Diana Tregarde series, "Arcanum 101" shows Diana's beginnings as a paranormal investigator. A Cambridge police officer shows up at her door early in the term, having been told that she knows how to deal with the strange and unusual. Being a Guardian, once asked for help, she's compelled to give aid until the problem is resolved.

It's a fun story with good set-up and setting. Her powers have limits and are explained. I get a good feel for the era and place, and the characters are an interesting assortment of skeptics and the curious.

Drums - Also set in the 1970s, "Drums" is about Jennie, a Native American Medicine Woman who works as a PI with her boyfriend David and her grandfather. They're hired by Nathan, whose girlfriend Caroline goes suddenly reclusive. Jennie learns quickly that it has nothing to do with Nathan, alcohol, or peyote: it has to do with a vengeful ghost.

Like "Arcanum", "Drums" is a novella from part of an existing series, with established characters and setting. Despite having not read the other books, and the story's brevity, I got a great feel for the culture--well, at least the parts that were important to the story.

Jennie, despite her experience as a Medicine Woman, is flummoxed by the ghost and the danger it is to Caroline. She uses legend, magic, and logic to solve a complicated problem. She's a great character, and the story sucks you in.

Ghost in the Machine - Tom works at Many Worlds Online, a popular MMO. A new zone has recently gone live, but players are whining about the difficulty level—and the new area boss, the Wendigo, isn't behaving according to its programming. Tom thinks it might be a hack, but when he logs in his avatar in god mode...he's immediately face-planted by the Wendigo. The game's developers quickly realize that there's no fix for this, short of shutting down all the servers.

So they call in the cavalry: Ell, a self-proclaimed techno shaman. Ell eventually comes to the realization that too many facts from the Wendigo myth are used, and as a result, past and present belief in the Wendigo have made it real. And now it wants to find a way off the MWO servers, and into the real world.

While I enjoyed Tom as a skeptic PoV, whose reactions and character were enjoyable to read, the second PoV, Ell, was a little too perfect as the magical techie with all the answers. The resolution to the problem seemed a little over-the-top, and as a result the wacky climax, while amusing, kept me from taking the story at all seriously.

Recommended Age: 14+
Language: None
Violence: One mildly graphic death; moderate peril; video game violence
Sex: Mild references

Children of the Sky

2011-10-12T08:00:00.001-06:00

HOLY CRAP!

What a year for Science Fiction it's been. I mean we've had LEVIATHAN WAKES by James S A Corey that was excellent. China Miéville's EMBASSYTOWN was weird, wonderful and brilliant. Robert Charles Wilson finished up his Spin trilogy in fine form with VORTEX. And now along comes Vernor Vinge to show us all again how this is really done with CHILDREN OF THE SKY.

I'm going to be perfectly honest here from the beginning. A FIRE UPON THE DEEP (also by Vinge, and actually CHILDREN OF THE SKY is a sequel to it), is one of my favorite books of all time. Around these here parts (and by these here parts I mean amongst us reviewers at EBR), I'm kind of the Science Fiction guy. If an SF book comes along, most likely I'm the one reviewing it. The reason I read SF--and love it so much--and the reason I look at all those SF books and go through the pages of science and weird inventions and sometimes crappy aliens, is so I can find a book like A FIRE UPON THE DEEP. FIRE, along with DUNE, in my opinion, are the standards upon which all other SF must be judged.

Needless to say (but I'll say it anyway), when I heard that Vinge was writing a sequel to A FIRE UPON THE DEEP, I was thrilled. When Steve called me and told me he had a ARC for it I did a little happy dance. (He's lucky he didn't tell me in person. I'd have kissed him full on the mouth.)

Were my expectations high for this book? Absolutely. Did Vinge meet every one of those expectations? No. Did he give me something else instead that was wonderful and amazing and still one of the best books of the year (if not the best)? Yes.

The book picks up where A FIRE UPON THE DEEP left off, or rather, ten years after Fire left off. Ravna, Jefri, Johanna, all of the rest of the children and all of the tines, are still stuck in the bottom of the slow zone. The Blight is still out there (supposedly) and is slowly making it's way towards the world. Ravna has been seeking the fastest way to build up the technology of the burgeoning world to have a fighting chance when the blight arrives. Meanwhile the other children are growing up and starting to question the stories they have been told about what has happened since they were put to sleep at the start of FIRE. Complications ensue, alliances, betrayals. Along with all of that is an ever widening view of the tines world and society. Things I had never thought of or considered before were given the spotlight.

CHILDREN OF THE SKY, in short, was brilliant. No one out there does space opera like Vinge. There are books who have great plots with well thought out ideas, but normally characterization suffers because of it. The book is a showcase for a thought experiment. Other books showcase great characters but the plot is quite as intricate; isn't as cool, isn't as mind blowing. Vinge does it all. the characters are real and you feel for them. The book is a page turner. And the ideas are wonderful (the Tines are still up there as my favorite aliens I've ever met in a book).

I loved it. I loved it. I loved it.

I needed to get that out of the way before I mentioned a few things that bummed me out about the book. I don't want you all thinking the book wasn't great. It is. It just wasn't perfect, nor was it A FIRE UPON THE DEEP again. The thing that I felt the lack of in this book was the rest of space. In A FIRE UPON THE DEEP, the story was split between the turmoil on the Tines world, and then what was happening in the rest of the universe with the blight and the zones of thought. There were aliens and Powers and space battles and ships. I loved how the two stories came together. I loved watching it build up to an amazing conclusion. This book focuses on the Tines world and the struggles there. It was brilliant, but I missed being in space and I thought we would see more of it.

The only other thing I can think of that bothered me is that this is obviously a middle volume in a trilogy. Something I didn't know before. There are still questions left unanswered (now more so than at the end of Fire). The problems still approaching our heroes seems even larger now. This is a great book, but the story is not done yet. The problem is, I WANT TO KNOW THE REST, DARN IT! Now we have to wait for Vinge to finish the story.

If CHILDREN OF THE SKY is any indication, the wait will be well worth it in the end.

Age Recommendation: There's some hard science stuff so I'd say 14+, but really as soon as you can understand it and enjoy it, go for it.
Language: Very Little
Violence: A little bit, nothing too gory.
Sex: A few references but nothing shown or talked about.

The Half-Made World

2011-10-10T08:00:00.001-06:00

Until recently I thought Felix Gilman was associated with the Warhammer 40K books, which I really didn’t think would be for me. So, I never picked up any of his books. Honestly I don’t know what ever put that idea into my head, but a couple of weeks ago an impulse sent me out to check my sources and I found out that Mr. Gilman wasn’t associated with the 40K books at all. Although, one of the main characters of the Warhammer 40K books was named…can you guess? Yup. Felix. I am so ashamed.

THE HALF-MADE WORLD is Felix Gilman’s third book. The first two were a duology, and this starts a new story that was really a whole lot of fun to read. The premise revolves around an alternate version of the Wild West with a whole bunch of twists on it. There are four major players in the game this time:

The Line is led by a few dozen massively sized, demon-possessed machines, as they are expanding their influence across into the Western U.S. They travel by rail, are ubiquitous with smoke and oil and grease. They contain within their arsenal machine guns, helicopters, tracking devices, amplifiers, noise-bombs, and a whole host of other goodies. They are the advanced technological mode of the Wild West and they are coming to swallow you whole.

The Gun is a scattered mob of toughs that each carry with them a gun possessed by a demon. These are the bandits of the West. The demons of the Gun and the demons of The Line hate one another and want nothing more than to wipe the other from the face of the land. The Agents of the Gun never have to reload, their bodies heal at an advanced rate, and their masters provide them enough speed and strength that make capturing or killing an agent is nearly impossible, though it has been done. The demon-possessed Engines and Guns can be destroyed, but the demons that inhabit them are later reborn in another gun. Or another engine. A condition that only perpetuates the war.

Two other groups, the Hill Folk (Indian-like people that can be killed but come back to life later) and those that are unaligned (nothing special about these poor schmucks), are caught in the crossfire of The Gun and The Line again and again as the war wages across the hills.

The story starts as Liv Alverhuysen, a psychologist who has just lost her husband, has received an invitation for her husband to visit a hospital on the far western edge of the explored world. They need help with certain patients that have lost their minds from the noise-bombs of the Line. She decides to accept the invitation for her husband and makes her way there. Creedmore is an agent of the Gun, though one that has been out of favor for a time. He’s called upon by his master to find a General that has been found in a hospital far to the west. This general has a secret within his scrambled mind of a weapon that can kill the demons. Lowry, a leader of The Line, has been given the task of finding...are you following this?...a General. In a hospital. In the far west.

Oh yeah.

Reading the first five chapters of this book taught me just how much I LOVE a setup. And to find it so early in the book, I was mega-excited. Not only is this story well structured, it’s full, too. History and description and character fill the pages, and it all just flies by because Gilman does such a great job of making us forget that we’re reading a book. His prose is fluid and descriptive and immersive. Secondary characters were meaningful and important to the story. There was so much to love about this book and I gobbled it all down eagerly.

I only had a few issues with the book. The first was rather large though and dealt with the idea of the “half-made world”. The far western edge of explored lands was supposed to lead into the half-made world, where the land was nebulous, and the dreams of visitors and inhabitants formed the world into what it would be. It’s a place where things aren’t named and no one visits, for fear that they will die within its reaches. And yet, once the story progresses past this western border, the results were less than impressive. In fact, except for a very few pieces that were actually pretty cool, the land felt very mundane and normal, with flora and fauna and even settlers. It was a bit deflating to find so little new when I got there.

My second disappointment was on a mid-range level and concerned the minimal amount of action in the book. There is some, but by and large it’s really short or avoided. With the huge setup and convergence of the major powers of the West on this hospital, I expected a BIG shebang. What I got was good, just less (and more delayed) than I had anticipated. Though I am expecting goodness in the next book.

The third tripping point, and this really doesn't have any reflection upon Mr. Gilman at all, is the fact that for essentially the entire read I thought this was a stand-alone book. It isn’t. In like manner to his previous offering, this story was developed as a duology. So the ending I thought I was going to get wasn’t there. There definitely was an ending, and I felt like it was satisfying once I realized what it was. I love the fact that this guy is writing two book series (different!), and the ending on this one was good. It just would have been nice to know ahead of time what I was holding. Trilogies are marketed and labeled as such. Multi-book series similarly. Standalone books look like what they are. Duologies don't crop up that often, but they need to be labeled differently. They’re NOT standalones. Someone needs to do something about this.

On the whole, this was a really fun read and should lead nowhere but up in the next volume. THE HALF-MADE WORLD is very near the top of the Like scale for me. The stakes have been upped and the mystery has grown. I’m actually really excited for the next, and if it doesn’t come out pretty soon I may just go back and see what his previous books were like. Actually, that doesn’t sound like a "half"-bad idea. Hee-hee.

Recommended Age: 16+
Language: Fairly seldom but strong
Violence: Sparse but does get a bit gory at times
Sex: A few references to an MC being with several different women

Dust & Decay

2011-10-07T08:00:00.000-06:00

One of my favorite books last year was ROT & RUIN by Jonathan Maberry. It was a great take on the after-effects of the zombie apocalypse from the eyes of a teenager. It was also a great example of YA well-done--a fast paced story with fun dialogue and a setting that mixed horror and humor well.

DUST & DECAY was released last month, and I was extremely excited to get a chance to give it a read. Benny, Tom, Nix and Lilah are getting ready to leave town in search of the jumbo jet they saw flying at the end of the first book. Their training is going well, and everything seems to be on schedule for them to head out into the Rot and Ruin.

But this is a zombie book. More specifically this is a zombie book by Jonathan Maberry. Anything that can go wrong does go wrong. In the case of this novel, things go wrong right from the very beginning.

I think this is Maberry's strength in DUST & DECAY. Through the conflict introduced literally at every little turn in the road, we get to see how the characters have grown and how they cope with the horror surrounding them. It seems like in every novel I read, the characters always react perfectly controlled in terrible situations. It was refreshing to see some characters completely fall apart under the pressure.

What are some of these crazy situations? Oddly enough (or maybe not odd at all) it was the acts of humans that were the most horrible for the characters to witness. The rumors of a new Gameland (where kids are thrown into pits with zombies gladiator style) are floating around. Someone is killing hunters by luring packs of zombies to them. Certain people want revenge on Benny and the gang for the events at the end of the previous novel. The group barely makes it out of town when everything goes wrong.

This is where I'm of two minds about this novel. Part of me is a bit bugged by the lack of actual movement in this novel. Without giving much away, I got the feeling that this was almost an alternate ending to the first book. It's a great ending by itself, and it would have worked really well as the ending of book one. But for book 2? I don't know, the whole thing felt like running in circles.

On the other hand I think this story needed to have this portion to it. The characters--especially Benny--needed to come into their own. Could they have really made the journey to find that jumbo-jet without the events of book 2? Probably not. Are the characters much stronger individuals following the end of DUST & DECAY? 100% without a question.

So now you see where my internal back-and-forth on this novel comes from.

All of that being said, then ending is pretty great from a character and action standpoint. Again, seeing how terrible people gives the zombies in the novel an added bit of their humanity back...which is one of the major themes of this series, in my opinion.

When the last page of this novel was turned, I really liked it. Did I absolutely love it like I did ROT & RUIN? Not quite. DUST & DECAY is still a great read, and I encourage you to buy and read both of the books in this series.

Recommended Age: 13 and up.
Language: Not much, if any.
Violence: There are some pretty crazy things going on here, but Maberry does a good job pulling back just a tad considering the target audience of the novel.
Sex: Nope.

Snuff

2011-10-05T08:00:00.000-06:00

Terry Pratchett. The man's a living legend, and his Discworld series is one of the few works out there that proves humorous fantasy has a place in this world. At this point, reviewing his books is about as useful as giving a thumbs up to a work by John Grisham, right? So why bother with a review of his latest book, SNUFF?

Plenty of reasons.

First of all, some Pratchett fans out there might not be aware that he has a new book coming out. As a diehard Pratchett fan myself, I know I wouldn't want to miss one of his works just because I was too busy being distracted by other books at the moment...hey, it happens. But let's be honest: any serious Pratchett fan should already well aware of the latest book on its way. That said, Discworld has over 35 books in it, and that sheer number alone is the main reason I'm writing this review. There might well be fantasy readers out there who've heard of Pratchett, but have no desire to devote themselves to a 35+ novel epic. It'd be like tuning into Lost for the last three episodes, right? Wrong.

Pratchett's Discworld series is a series only insofar as it all shares the same globe, and some of the same characters. In reality, the series is cut into smaller chunks, with certain characters taking the lead role in certain books. Thus, you have the Witches books, the Death books, the Wizards, Tiffany Aching and the like. Fans have their favorite characters. I personally really like the Death books and the City Watch books, and so I'm really happy to report that SNUFF is a City Watch book.

So what does that mean exactly? It means that it has Sam Vines as the main protagonist. He's the street-wise head of the of the City Watch, and he usually has a full rank of watchmen below him. SNUFF is a bit of an oddity in this regard, as Sam takes a trip to the country with his wife and son (and awesome butler Willikins). Other City Watch characters appear in the novel, but they take on fairly minor roles--many of them no more than cameos. This is all just to say that if you haven't read a Discworld novel, there's no time like the present to start. SNUFF isn't the best of the bunch, but just being a Discworld book sets it above most of the other books being published today.

Another unifying aspect most of the Discworld novels have is that they each take on a certain theme. Religion, tradition, free agency--I don't mean to say that Pratchett hammers his readers over the head with a theme (well, not usually), but each book often drives home a certain point. In Snuff, Pratchett tackles the very weighty subject of racism. What makes a person a person? In Discworld, there are many different sentient beings. Humans, Trolls, Dwarfs, Nac Mac Feegle (sort of militant Scotch Smurfs)--they all get along, more or less. At the very least, they treat each other as beings worthy of some degree of respect. Except goblins. Goblins are just about as bad as rats. They're disease-ridden, incapable of higher thought, and killing an entire group of them is no worse than getting the exterminator to come out and take care of a nasty spider problem.

The story in SNUFF involves Sam going to the country, and he meeting a colony of goblins who have been treated very poorly over the past few decades. Not that he really cares about it--until someone kills a goblin and tries to use its blood to implicate Vimes in a murder. Then it's personal. Vimes starts to get to know some goblins personally, and he discovers (surprise surprise) that they really aren't too different from humans. (Aside from the propensity to like eating turkey gizzards, that is. And the bathing habits)

It's a twisty, turny plot, with rollicking boat rides, deep caves, and some key harp music. In the hands of a lesser author, all of this would get overwhelming and dry. Even in Pratchett's well-practiced pen, the book has a tendency to bog down a bit more than some of his other Discworld novels. I think this is mainly due to how bleak the subject material is. It's hard to make something like that be humorous at the same time.

In the end, however, it's a subject worth addressing. Using fantasy characters, Pratchett's able to let his readers look at their own prejudices in a non-threatening way. Is it too much to hope that someone reading SNUFF will read about the way goblins are treated and realize that they mistreat some people based on preconceived notions? Possibly, but I applaud Pratchett for trying.

Recommended Age: 14+
Language: Light
Violence: Some, but never overly bloody. Violence happens, but Pratchett keeps the tone light enough to keep it from becoming gory.
Sex: Nothing but a few heaving bosoms.

The Fallen Blade

2011-10-03T08:00:00.000-06:00

There are times when, as a reviewer, you pick up a book, get about twenty pages into it, and then say, “There’s no way I’m going to finish reading this.” This happened to my illustrious boss, Steve, when he started reading this book. So, he stopped reading it, and then pawned it off on me. [grumble, grumble] You still have to love the guy, though.

THE FALLEN BLADE is the first book of a trilogy written by Jon Courtenay Grimwood. I’d never read anything by this author before, and doubt I’ll be voluntarily going to back for another round anywhere in the near future. The story revolves mostly around a youngish boy, Tycho, that has been turned into one of The Fallen (read: Vampire) by jumping into a magical fire (read: Time Travel Portal), and ultimately gets trained as an assassini (read: assassin) by a master of such, while living in Renaissance-age Venice. Vampire assassins flying around Venice, you say? What could be bad about that? I know. The premise doesn’t sound that terrible at all. In fact, it sounds like it could be quite good. Honestly, it’s a shame how it all turned out.

Five pages in, I knew I was in trouble, and essentially nothing changed from that point until the end of the book. Thankfully, all of my issues can be boiled down to a couple, very distinct concepts.

First: Clarity

No, not the drug that Tom Cruise huffs in Minority Report. I’m talking the kind that lets you see through a glass of drinking water. The kind that lets you enjoy the beautiful blue sky soaring high above you. The kind that lets you understand, as a reader, what is going on in a story when you read the words printed across the pages of the book. There’s none of it here. And I mean none.

Right from the get-go I had no idea what was going on. There's a kid hanging from a wall where people can see him, but no one will help. He's praying, but not even the Gods deign to listen to him. Then it’s four months prior, and there are some new characters coming in, but I’m not sure which ones I’m supposed to think are important because the PoV keeps jumping around all over the place. There’s a complete lack of detail and context that makes me want to tear my eyeballs out every time I come back for more. There’s no sense of place, or history, or meaning, or anything that grabs at my interest. The prose almost feels more like slipstream, the way it jumps from one topic to the next; from one character to the next; from one place to the next. Literally every character in a given scene not only comes across as cardboard, but each of them gets the opportunity to finish the sentences of the other characters. Nowhere to be found, though, is any kind of explanation or attempt to help the reader understand what any of it means. This makes the dialogue feel more like it's full of repetitive interruption, completely destroying any ability to understand what is going on in a scene or why it matters.

Second: Suspension of disbelief

There was a whole lot that happened that just didn't make sense, thus pulling me away from the experience and leaving me confused. This issue was very intimately tied into the lack of clarity. Events take place that don't make sense, and seem to just be there to allow the plot to move along. There's also a decided lack of detail when it comes to the city itself and women. The only piece of this alternate-Venice that stood out was the large timbers that have been driven into the ground to line the canals. Then there's the fact that 95% of all the description we get about any of the women that play parts in the story are described solely by the shape and size of their thighs and breasts. The pieces that make up an engaging world and a fascinating read were just lacking in the extreme.

Now granted, the entire book wasn’t horrible. Occasionally, there were a few pages that would string together something interesting or understandable and I’d start to think that maybe the book would turn a corner. Then it’d drop right back into the mess and start floundering again. I literally had no idea what was going on, why any of it mattered, or where the story was even going until I had made it clear to the end of the book. Once there, I stepped back and looked at all the pieces that had been laid out—the named characters, the connections, the city, the political intrigue, the betrayals, the supernatural elements—and said, “Wow, this really could have been a great novel.” And it could have. It really could have. But it wasn’t. Actually, I'd rather have read TWILIGHT again, than this one. Wading through these pages was like trying to find a marshmallow at the bottom of a swamp: literally impossible and what’s the point if you can’t eat the marshmallow afterward anyhow?

Honestly, I’m completely in awe that this novel ever saw the light of day. Then again, I don’t know what I would have done if I’d told someone to go write a book that had this really amazing-sounding premise and then they came back with this. “Gaping fish” is the only visual I can seem to bring up. I’d be interested in any other suggestions.

A book to avoid like the black plague, which missed being included in this tale by about 50 years.

Recommended age: 16+, though why you'd want to torture them with this, I don't know
Language: Infrequent, but strong
Violence: Werewolves, assassins, a vampire—there's some
Sex: Some scenes of sensuality

Jon Courtenay Grimwood's Website

The Immorality Engine

2011-09-30T08:00:00.000-06:00

I've come to a point in my reading life where I start planning the books I'm going to read well in advance. A new Dresden Files novel in the Spring. New Erikson & Esslemont novels in the Fall/Winter. A new Joe Ledger novel around February/March. Since starting this whole review gig, I've added George Mann to my list. For whatever reason, he work always entertains me.

Now, I dig Mann's Ghost series, I really do. But I get REALLY excited for the Newbury and Hobbes novels. This series just pushes all the right buttons for me. A copy of THE IMMORALITY ENGINE finally came to my doorstep, and I ignored everyone and everything while I started and finished it in virtually one sitting.

I absolutely love the setting and the blatant parallels to Sherlock Holmes. Sir Maurice Newbury is one of my more favorite characters to read, and his assistant Veronica Hobbes is his perfect match. You'll recall (and if you don't, this is where I remind you) that one of my main complaints for this series has been the small amount of screen time given to Hobbes. She was such an interesting character, but I never really felt like I was allowed to understander her from a reader's perspective. If I didn't know any better, I'd say Mann was reading my mind (or my reviews...whichever makes more sense). This book is told almost primarily from Hobbes' eyes. And it is awesome.

There are a lot of questions for readers going into this novel. What is the Queen's real goal? What is the deal with Hobbes' sister? Can Newbury keep it together without falling completely under the spell of opium? For the most part all these questions are addressed and answered. It was quite refreshing actually. What the readers end up with is a fairly solid trilogy that answers a ton of questions while setting up further story.

Again, I can't stress enough how great it was for me to get a majority of PoV sections from Veronica Hobbes. I just find her character so extremely interesting. She is very much a woman ahead of her time, and in this specific Steampunk setting it works absolutely perfectly. Don't get me wrong, I love Newbury. I love his Sherlock Holmes persona. I love his toughness. But Hobbes? For me she is excellent. I could read another novel right now from her PoV and be totally immersed.

You'll notice I haven't said much about the actual plot. The thing is, readers want to know if a series maintains its quality through the whole ride before starting it. All of you awesome readers want to read a review for one of the latter books in the series without having the earlier books spoiled. I get it, I really do. For the most part I can make that work. So, here is what you need to know:

THE IMMORALITY ENGINE is terrific in every single way. Once you read this book, the whole series will take on a different light. The real villains will seem more intelligent and more frightening. The main protagonists will seem more human. Suddenly a ton of small details from the first two books will pop out. George Mann did an amazing job making this novel work.

And seriously, look at this cover of the US edition. A mechanical horse with a Gatling gun on the side? If that doesn't make you want to read the book you are dead inside, and I pity you.

What else can I say to get you to read this book and this series? THE IMMORALITY ENGINE (and the prior novels) is about pure enjoyment and fun while reading. You get mystery, action, a little romance, Steampunk and supernatural stuff all wrapped up in one novel. I love this book, and I will endeavor to give George Mann a huge hug should I ever see him.

Recommended Age: 15 and up.
Language: Very, very light. Almost none.
Violence: To me, this was the most violent novel of the series, but there still wasn't a ton. This series is about the mystery.
Sex: Nope.

Books in the Newbury & Hobbes Series:

THE AFFINITY BRIDGE
THE OSIRIS RITUAL
THE IMMORALITY ENGINE

After the Golden Age

2011-09-28T08:00:00.000-06:00

Celia West had it good growing up. At least that's what everyone thinks. She's the daughter of the wealthiest man in Commerce City, and heir to the West fortune. Dad and mom are also superheros. Everyone asks what it was like growing up with Captain Olympus for a dad and Spark for a mother. Celia avoids the question, but if she answered it straight up she'd say, "Not as awesome as you would think."

But Celia has since graduated from college, moved out of the luxury penthouse she grew up in and into her own place, and works as a forensic accountant at one of the city's biggest accounting firms. She only wants to be normal. And pretty much avoid her estranged father.

Then her boss assigns her to the city's district attorney as a consultant on the Case of the Century: prosecuting the notorious villain Destructor for tax evasion. Mom and Dad and the rest of their superhero team spent decades dealing with the Destructor's...well, destruction in his attempts to annihilate Commerce City and the people in it. Dad votes to 'visit' him in prison and end the trial hoopla before it even begins. Too bad he doesn't.

Carrie Vaughn could have made AFTER THE GOLDEN AGE into a comic book farce, poking fun at the genre as it seems others have done lately. Instead, even with the book's satire, on the whole it's a nod to superhero comics, with a feel-good story. But even if AFTER THE GOLDEN AGE can be a little sappy, it doesn't mean it's all squeaky clean. Celia overcomes a conflicted past, even the good guys have grey along the edges, and the villains are villains for a reason.

Told from Celia's straightforward PoV narration, the story moves forward at a steady clip, revealing along the way what life was really like being the child of supers—including her short stint as the villain's henchwoman just to tick off her father. As we learn more about Celia, it's easy to like her and appreciate her struggles, even if they weren't exactly the everyday variety. Well, except that she keeps getting kidnapped. You'd think she'd get smarter about that after a while.

It takes place in Commerce City, your typical Metropolis-type city. The superpowers of strength, fire, speed, water are typical. But then, they aren't the main characters of the story, so not a lot of time is spent explaining their powers or the how or why.

While the story is entertaining, and the characters interesting, there are relationships, characters, and plotlines that go nowhere, or end up meaning little by the end of the story. These are the things that kept this book from the 'like' category. While I enjoyed the main storyline, Celia's relationship with her parents, and the sweet love story involved, I couldn't get past the contrived climax and certain pointless plot elements.

In the end, even though AFTER THE GOLDEN AGE isn't perfect, I still I enjoyed it, and the novel's issues won't keep me from reading it again.

Recommended Age: 16+
Language: Fewer than five instances
Violence: A few characters die, but it's not overly graphic; most violence is off-screen
Sex: A couple of referenced scenes, but without detail

The Enterprise of Death

2011-09-26T08:00:00.002-06:00

You know, sometimes I’m a whiner. I admit it. If there’s something in a book bothers me, I mention it. Something I think could be better in a story? It bubbles out. I’m just trying to stay honest, really. There’s a certain set of pieces that I think help make a story good. I also believe that you faithful readers share my opinion of at least part of that set. So when writing these responses, I always do my best to show you the playing field, lay out my set of rules, and then stay consistent from one review to the next. And then someone like Jesse Bullington comes along and shows me that, yes, sometimes, you can even break the big rules and still come out on the other side smelling like roses.

THE ENTERPRISE OF DEATH is Jesse Bullington’s second published novel, but it’s not the second book in a trilogy. Huzzah! Not only does Mr. Bullington stand out in this respect, but he pulls off a mean set of chops with some style as well. Between his photo and the sparse, rather gothic, cover art of the book, I had absopositutely no idea what to expect from this novel.

Awa is a Moorish slave, traveling with her mistress and mistress’s eunuch, when they are captured by a devious necromancer and, after her companions are killed, Awa is turned into an unwilling apprentice. The necromancer’s motives are, of course, devious, and we learn more of his magics and his desires as he tortures Awa to the best of his ability. Most of the story revolves around how Awa deals with her necromantic powers and the wiles of her teacher, though it does also revolve around her friends. Niklaus Manuel Deutsch of Bern is an artist turned mercenary, that he might have money with which to subsist and to paint, who has been called upon to deliver a witch to Spain. In little time, the paths of the two cross, and we are blessed because of it. There are also several other minor characters that play a part, though none of them for very long, and yet despite this I felt there was quite a bit of good characterization for all players introduced.

At first, I thought the story was going to be a historical fantasy, 16th century Europe and such. It certainly came across that way. There are so many elements that Bullington has woven into the tale that seem to come straight from the books: the monarchy, the cultures, the history, the religion, and the superstitions. Even some of the characters are plucked right from the pages. Yet, it didn’t feel like a historical fantasy to me. It was just a fantasy that had a lot of history built into it.

Bullington’s prose is easy to read. Quick. Funny. It had me hooked from just about the first page, but then he started jumping heads all over the place and that brought things to a screeching halt. Suddenly I had no idea what was going on or who was who, and I found myself reluctantly settling into my SufferingChair to wade through the confusion. I’ve mentioned before my difficulty in caring about stories that don’t keep some kind of limited perspective from the main characters. Thankfully, this trend didn’t continue. Though there was still considerable head-jumping throughout the novel, it was more akin to that found in Dune, if you’ve read that one (which you should have).

The pacing for most of the novel was lightning fast, though there was a section toward the middle that started to drag a little. This coincided with a part of the story that I didn’t really understand. There’s a timeline that gets hung over Awa’s head along the way, and in order to escape the consequence at the end of that timeline, she needs to accomplish a certain task. Well, to say the least, she doesn’t seem to try to be accomplishing that task with very much vigor, and the story suffers some for it. I really liked the conclusion though and in how it all wrapped up.

In the end, the story seemed to be about friendship, though it was littered with betrayal and hatred, with the grotesque and the creepy, with the weird and absolutely the unsettling. This is one of those novels that I think deserves a warning for the weak of constitution. This guy has put together a whole load of stuff that’ll make some of you squirm for a month. Others may never forget some of the twisted stuff Bullington throws around on the pages like a millionaire might his twenties. A good read, but just...yeah. :)

Recommended age: 18+, for the entire gamut
Language: Strong and frequent, occasionally distracting
Violence: Lotta peoples dying and being brought back to life and gory messes
Sex: Quite explicit in places, including several scenes mixed with the dead, and a high number of references in general

Jesse Bullington's Website

Kitty's Big Trouble

2011-09-23T08:00:00.000-06:00

With all the trouble Kitty has gotten into since she was turned into a werewolf, it's hard to imagine that it could get any worse. But there's a reason why book #9 is named KITTY'S BIG TROUBLE--by the end you'll understand.

But, instead, let's go back to the beginning. In the last book, KITTY GOES TO WAR, she learned about the U.S. government's use of werewolves in combat, and she asked herself: how long have they been doing it, and who else in U.S. history could have been hiding their own supernatural origins?

These questions lead her on a strange chase across state lines and eventually points clues to Roman, a very old vampire she's crossed paths with before. So is it coincidence that vampire ally Anastasia calls Kitty the very next day asking to help stop Roman from acquiring an ancient and powerful artifact?

Vaughn does stretch the connections here a little thinly, as Kitty, her husband Ben, and friend Cormac, traipse through Kansas and then San Fransisco. But once they get to California, and Anastasia explains why she asked for their help, then things really get moving. And from there on out the pace moves quickly, and in a direction you won't expect.

Set in San Fransisco's Chinatown, most of the action actually happens underground, in a series of mazes that shouldn't exist. In rooms that shouldn't exist. That houses people who Kitty once thought of as myths.

But it's less the setting than the people who will keep you reading. I enjoy Kitty and Ben's relationship more and more. We get to learn more about Cormac and the sorceress spirit he houses in his body, and their unusual partnership. Anastasia and Roman, as vampires, are old and mysterious and rather self-absorbed, so it's hard to really enjoy them as characters. There are other, new characters who are fun to read about, but I don't want to spoil your fun.

Sure the title alludes to the movie Big Trouble in Little China, since they are both set in the same city/neighborhood. But it's more than that. Something happens, and Kitty is given a new responsibility that's bigger than ever. Sure KITTY'S BIG TROUBLE is a good, consistent addition to the series, but in a lot of ways it's really a segue of what Vaughn promises will follow. And Kitty doesn't disappoint.

Recommended Age: 14+
Language: A handful of instances
Violence: The usual smattering, but not particularly gory
Sex: Vaguely referenced by a married couple, otherwise just some cuddling

Moxyland

2011-09-21T08:00:00.000-06:00

It’s not often that I let go and enjoy a book just for the ride. I’m more of an intensive reader, who looks for what he wants, enjoys it when it’s there, and complains when it’s not. Simple. Cut and dry. But there’s that something other that comes along every once in a while and just grabs you. There’s something about it. It’s got class. It’s got style. It’s got “Moxy”, kid.

MOXYLAND is Lauren Beukes' first novel, and if you’ve been hiding under a rock somewhere (like I feel sometimes) you might not know that she missed getting the Campbell for best new writer this last year by just a hair. MOXYLAND was a very interesting novel for me. Not only is it Science Fiction, but it’s told through four separate first-person viewpoints. This would normally be a tough row for anyone to handle, but Beukes pulls it off really well.

Kendra, Lerato, Toby, and Tendeka are all young hipsters living in a near future South Africa where technology bumps a go-go and the Government rules with an electronic fist. Everyone’s wired up through their cell phones, and the cops use that to full effect. Screw up once? They tase you hard. Want more? Cell phone privileges revoked, and then it’s game over for you, because on-line presence is so important to the life of the future. The world Beukes has painted for us is filled with internal nano-tech, and viral crowd-control, and bit of the Big Brother a-la 1984. People have become advertisements and sports coats broadcast your picture gallery of choice. Right from the get go, we’re dropped into the middle of this nitty-gritty, chaotic landscape, with street slang tossed like hot popcorn through the air. It’s so hard to just not be dragged into this novel with eyes wide and fingers itching to turn the page.

The pacing of the book was fast and even, with most of the forward plot progression dealing with the efforts of Toby and Tendeka to put one over on the Big Man Government. They’re the street-level rebels that don’t like how they’ve been treated, and can’t handle the fact that the Government has all this power over them. Anything they and their pack of friends can do to throw a finger in their direction, while staying below the radar of the police, is on the agenda for the day. Lerato is Toby's buddy, a brilliant programmer that plays occasionally to the tune of her friends and hacks the corporate firewalls through dangerous backdoors. And Kendra, the art-school dropout, gets caught up in the middle of everything.

As with most first-person viewpoints done well, characterization is great. Each of the four players came across to me as complicated and full. They’re in the middle of their lives, the middle of their story. No farm boys here. No little girls waking up from eternal sleep to find a new world surrounding them. This was one of the most engaging things about this book for me. It was immersive in a way that I have only very seldom found. At the same time though, the multiple viewpoints did take a bit of getting used to. Three of the main characters sounded really similar to one another, with Lerato standing out. The others got a bit muddled for me at first, and only after a while became distinct enough for me to differentiate between them. Regardless, each was easy to read and immediately engaging. Really impressive all, especially given that this is Beukes debut novel.

The piece that kept this novel from being great in my mind is a complete, finished story. The end really left me wanting. There’s a big twist for one character, and a very literal ending for another, but there wasn’t a whole lot that really left me feeling satisfied when it was all said and done. The book is fairly short as it is. I would have liked to see more of the story. More of the world. I wasn’t ready for it to be done. So give it up for Lauren, peoples. She’s definitely one to keep on the radar. Check this book out.

Recommended age: 16+
Language: Some, but not a lot
Violence: Fighting with cops, but nothing gory
Sex: A couple scenes, but they're quick with little detail

Lauren Beukes' Website
Moxyland Website

Dead Six

2011-09-19T08:00:00.007-06:00

Admit it. Once upon a time you read Tom Clancy too. There's no shame in that admission. Clancy had some awesome stuff...you know, before he just seemed to lose his touch. CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER. WITHOUT REMORSE. Yeah. Awesome. But here's the thing, there came a point where the story took a back seat to Clancy showing off how much he knew about the technical aspects of everything military related. If you go on for a full chapter talking about how a bullet works, and then don't do anything with that chunk of pages, you're doing it wrong in my opinion. It's about the story. It's about the characters.

Tom Clancy went away well before he wrote TEETH OF THE TIGER (I still shudder), and there wasn't really anyone who captured my imagination the same way.

This is the part where a lesser reviewer would say, "Until now!" I refuse to say that.

DEAD SIX is Military Fiction. It is also Larry Correia's first published collaborative novel. DEAD SIX is co-written with Mike Kupari, a newcomer to the writing scene. Now, I've read a lot of Larry Corriea's solo work. Typically it involves monsters get shot in the face with guns. Larry is unapologetically pulp. He writes for the fun factor, and he's proud of it. But here's the thing, he actually knows his stuff when it comes to weapons and the military.

When I read Military Fiction, I've noticed that if the author (or in this case, the co-author) is a guy who was/is actually in the military, the novel has some added "pop" to it. This is where Mike Kupari comes in. The guy, by definition, is a complete stud. Have you seen "The Hurt Locker"? It's about those crazy guys that go defuse bombs that are set with the intention of killing, well, everyone. Kupari is one of those guys. Seriously. Writer, off duty. Bomb defusing guy filled with awesome when in the field. Credibility? Pssshh. He sweats out more credibility in an afternoon that most of us every gain in a lifetime. And as cliché as it sounds, you wouldn't know by reading the novel that Kupari is new to the writing scene.

DEAD SIX is written from two First Person PoVs, each written by one of the authors. One PoV is Lorenzo, one of the best thieves and assassins in the world. His job is to kill the other PoV, Valentine. Valentine is a member of Dead Six, an elite military organization that is sent to the Persian Gulf nation of Zubara to perform counter-terror operations.

So how does DEAD SIX read? It reads like the good Clancy novels where the focus is on character and and story rather than textbook-like, useless details. There is a lot of action here. Kupari writes like a pro I never expected from a first-time author, and Correia writes like the pro author I've come to expect. This novel is actually pretty grim. The body-count is really high. Both Kupari and Correia manage to keep the tone dark and serious, all the while giving the reader enough humor to keep things from being too depressing.

Every little while I would stop an say, "Man, that was crazy over-the-top!" But then I would stop and think, "Nah, not really that over-the-top at all. Kinda scary. AND EVEN BETTER!!"

Here is what I like the most about this novel. I absolutely love the way the two PoVs contrast, yet have similarities. They are very much like opposite sides of the same coin. When they start having indirect interactions with each other, the enjoyment factor for the reader skyrockets. Then when they have direct interactions, it gets even better. This is the reason why I've always been a fan of collaborations. When both authors feed off of each other, the story's quality is insanely awesome. This is truly a case where the novel is greater than the sum of its two fantastic parts.

I'm pretty much always impressed by the way Correia goes about his business. It's why I like him, and why I will always read his novels. Not to take anything away from Correia (long-distance high-five, buddy), but I was seriously impressed by Kupari. I knew which author wrote each PoV (nope, not telling), and there was no drop-off in quality from one co-author to the other. I ran into Kupari at a local convention and told him as much. I don't think he believed me. You all know me well enough by now to know that I always tell the truth (and that I'm the most humble guy in the entire universe...by far). When I say it, I mean it. Kupari could stop being Captain America today and become a successful author.

So did I like DEAD SIX? Nope. I friggin' loved it. Every word of every page. I haven't felt this taken by straight-up Military Fiction since I read CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER.

Buy it.

Recommended Age: 17+
Language: Military, assassins and crime lords. Yeah. A lot.
Violence: I feel silly even discussing this in a Military Fiction novel. Tons.
Sex: Nothing detailed.

The Postmortal

2011-09-16T08:00:00.001-06:00

In THE POSTMORTAL, Drew Magary explores what the realistic fallout would be if scientists discovered a cure for aging. A “vaccine” that would stop aging in its tracks. Take it when you’re twenty-five, and you’ll be twenty-five forever. On the surface, this sounds really appealing. Who wouldn’t want to live forever, after all? But that’s where the “realistic” part comes in. The future Magary paints is much bleaker than the knee-jerk reaction everyone automatically thinks of.

This near future is seen through the eyes of John Farrell, who gets the Cure relatively early on, when it’s still on the black market and officially banned by the US Government. Farrell takes us from the dawn of this new age all the way to its natural conclusion, at least for him. At each stage, Magary does an excellent job exploring the nooks and crannies of a society that’s had death relegated to such an afterthought. What happens to Hollywood, for example, if the movie stars stop getting old? You don’t really get many new movie stars, for one thing. The established stars become entrenched in their roles, and new ones have an even harder time breaking in to the business. Imagine a world where authors aren’t just competing with Stephen King and John Grisham, but with Twain, Dickens, Tolstoy, Cervantes, Poe, Shakespeare, and all the other greats. As an author, the thought gives me nightmares, although as a reader, it would be epic!

The book has a lot going for it. Compelling characters with conflicts you can relate to (not always a given in a Science Fiction setup like this one), a plausible near-future setting, and a "What if" foundation that really makes you want to keep reading, because surely it can't get any more horrible for these people. (Hint: it can.)

My biggest gripe with the book (and it’s fairly substantial) is that the basis of the novel seemed off to me the entire time. Yes, scientists discover the cure for aging, but it’s treated by everyone as the cure for death. The two don’t go hand in hand in my mind. After all, how many people actually die of old age these days? You’re not suddenly immune to cancer, accidents, car wrecks, drowning, gunshot wounds, choking--the list goes on and on of things that can still kill you. Sure, the death rate would decrease, but it wouldn’t decrease at the marked rate depicted by Magary.

In the end, this is a fairly moot point, however. I don’t think I’m spoiling anything to say that Magary does have his characters eventually find the cure for cancer and other diseases. Science is rushing along so quickly (both in his imagined future and in our own present) that it’s not a huge leap to believe this can and will happen. And once those two cures are developed (one for aging, one for disease), then it’s definitely believable to me that the results could be as catastrophic as Magary depicts.

I enjoyed THE POSTMORTAL, both as a thought experiment and as Science Fiction. It was interesting to see how something that seems so good on the surface can have so many far reaching consequences. I’m not convinced it would play out exactly as Magary portrays it, but he makes a good enough argument for me to concede the very frightening possibility.

Recommended Age: 18+
Language: Plentiful
Violence: Lots of it, at times very detailed and gory.
Sex: A few fairly explicit scenes

Ravensoul

2011-09-14T08:00:00.000-06:00

DEMONSTORM was the end of the Legends of the Raven series. Main characters died horrible and glorious deaths. As readers we all shed a collective tear (or twenty) at the sacrifices the characters made. But then James Barclay wrote another end to the series with RAVENSOUL. I mean, really, what's a guy to think? There wasn't really any room to add onto this story. It was done.

Or so I thought.

James said an interesting thing to me in an email that I think really changed my viewpoint on the novel for the better. He said that DEMONSTORM is the end, but to think of RAVENSOUL as a bonus story full of closure. Having read RAVENSOUL now, I can say that this helped me a great deal. This novel is the last ride of the Raven. As awesome as DEMONSTORM was (and I freaking loved it), I felt like some things were kind of left floating. RAVENSOUL gives the reader a massive sense of "This is totally the end."

This novel picks up a while after the finale of DEMONSTORM. Sol, once the Unknown Warrior, is now the ruler of Balaia, and Denser is Lord of the Mount. The rebuilding of the world is coming along nicely...and the the dead start returning. This includes those of the Raven who died in previous novels. A dimension hopping race known as the Garonin have sealed off the afterlife and are after Balaia's mana.

Barclay's strengths have always included characters. No matter which novel of his you read, you can bank on the characters being very easy to like (or hate depending on what he wants you to feel). RAVENSOUL feels a bit like meeting a few of your old friends for dinner. You see how they've changed, and how the last few years have molded them into completely different people--for better or worse. The trademark wit and action of the previous Raven novels is here in abundance. The novel feels like the natural progression of the series.

I want to point out how well Barclay manages to make the reader feel emotion. Not gonna lie, DEMONSTORM had me shedding more than a few tears. I didn't think Barclay could outdo that level writing excellence. But man, there is a scene at the end of RAVENSOUL that just thinking about it makes my eyes get watery. It's one of the most emotionally powerful scenes I've ever read.

So this is it for the Raven. I'll admit that this isn't my absolute favorite Raven novel. I think DEMONSTORM still holds that position. But this is a close second for me. The Garonin are worthy foes for the Raven and for the Elves. RAVENSOUL is a must read for those of you already reading this series. If you haven't read Barclay yet, I'm beyond confused. You should have started reading the series the minute you read my review of DAWNTHIEF back in the day.

The bad news? This marks the end of the Raven. The good news? There is still more Barclay to read. Not only does he have an Elves prequel series focusing (partially) on Auum, he has another series called the The Ascendants of Estorea. Yep, there is more Barclay to read. All is well in the world.

Recommended Age: 16 and up.
Language: At times it pops up, and it can be quite strong.
Violence: No Barclay is complete without copious amounts of blood and gore.
Sex: Nope.

Thirteen Years Later

2011-09-12T08:00:00.006-06:00

A while back I was given my first exposure to Jasper Kent's TWELVE. In short, TWELVE completely blew my mind. A mixture of Horror and Russian historical fiction, Kent's first novel, in my opinion, was nothing short of brilliant. I'm still extremely upset that it didn't end up on the Hugo ballot. If you haven't read TWELVE, stop reading this review of the sequel. There are some unavoidable spoilers for book one in this review. Do yourself a favor and go buy the first book. You will love Jasper Kent for all eternity. I sure do. My wife may or may not be jealous.

Seriously, this is your last warning.

When I took a vacation to England earlier this year it won't come as a shock to most of you that one of the first things I did was find a bookstore. I don't think I passed a bookstore without going inside to browse over the course of the entire trip. One of the many books on my shopping list was Kent's THIRTEEN YEARS LATER. The novel takes place--wait for it--thirteen years after the first novel in the midst of the Russian Revolution. Aleksei Danilov is older, but he is still a spy. He has put himself in position to out the entire network of people who wish to overthrow the current tsar, Aleksandr the First.

And then Aleksei comes across a message from his long dead friend Maks. His friend who died at the hands of the vampires in the prior novel. The suspense and mystery that made the prior novel so good are both injected into the novel right away. The vampires from the prior novel were of the non-sparkling variety, and were freaking terrifying. So the instant they were reintroduced in THIRTEEN YEARS LATER, my heart started beating just a bit faster.

What makes this novel great isn't just the promise of Horror elements being mixed with Historical Fiction. The skill with which Kent writes his characters and handles the historical information is the key to the success of this novel. Aleksei is brilliant. To see how much he has changed from that character we were all introduced to in TWELVE is exactly what we like to see in a series. It is an odd sort of progression. He is more hardened from his experiences with the vampires (much more cold-blooded in some ways), yet at the same time he is much more soft-hearted due to his children. Speaking of, his son, Dmitry, is a welcome character. The inexperience of his youth is so well portrayed.

What I appreciate the most about THIRTEEN YEARS LATER is Kent's ability to make me enjoy the history of the setting. He doesn't the reader over the head with unimportant details. Even better than that? This made me want to pick up some history books and brush up on some Russian history. Not only that, but Kent's ability to lend some much needed freshness to the vampires themselves is so refreshing.

In my mind, TWELVE scores an easy 9.8 on my "Books Completely Filled with Awesome" scale. THIRTEEN YEARS LATER didn't quite capture the lofty score of its predecessor. In only scores a 9.7. I know. How can Jasper Kent live with himself?

THE THIRD SECTION is the next novel in the series. I honestly can't think of any novel I'm more excited for.

Recommended Age: 17 and up.
Language: Some fairly strong language at times
Violence: Some of the creepy stuff Kent pulls off is simply astounding.
Sex: Talked about, but never graphically.

Buy this whole freaking series! It is completely awesome!

1 - TWELVE
2 - THIRTEEN YEARS LATER
3 - THE THIRD SECTION

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

2011-09-09T08:00:00.001-06:00

Yes, I know, this review comes a little late. After its being nominated for a Hugo. After it being out for over a year. Despite this, I'm still glad I'm the one who gets to review it. Yay me!

It's probably a good thing that it is me, because while it's impossible to deny the EBR Overlords' discriminating tastes in the Speculative Fiction literary world--because, well, they are always right--even they will pass on a perfectly good book because it simply doesn't appeal to them, or they just don't have time. They can be quite benevolent that way. Again, yay me!

I'm speaking, of course, of last year's phenomenon THE HUNDRED THOUSAND KINGDOMS by newcomer N.K. Jemisin, a novel with a clichéd and dull-sounding jacket summary, which likely caused many a bookstore browser to pass it by for one that sounded more unique. At least until their friends read it--this book's initial popularity was via word of mouth.

The reason why is Yeine, the PoV narrator. Young woman. Barbarian foreigner. Potential heir to the throne. She tells a compelling story that begins with her arrival at Sky, the palace of the court, where demigods walk the halls, she vies with two cousins for the throne, suspects her grandfather of murdering her mother, and unravels everyone's hidden agendas...even her own.

It's true, this book is not what it first seems. It is much more.

But that doesn't mean it's an easy book to swallow. The court at Sky is a hedonistic den of murderers. Their god Itempas killed his own sister and enslaves his brother and children. Yeine wants desperately to believe in the good intentions of the people she loves and trusts, but even their motivations become suspect. It very nearly makes the reader despair at the folly of men and the destructive flaws of their gods. None of these problems appear to be fixable in any way. So what's Yeine to do?

While Yeine is a layered and fascinating character, the prose is formal and as a result the PoV narration can feel distanced. It takes some time to draw out the kind of person she is and her motives; at first all she can do is observe and that can be dull. But then things happen and she slowly gets more interesting. Other key players are her grandfather and heir-cousins, the palace steward and magician, but they're all rather one-dimensional.

The characters that Jemisin threw all her writing talents at are the gods. A millennia or more ago, Itempas punished all the other gods, and either killed or enslaved them. He gave a portion of his murdered sister's soul to the Arameri people, which enables their highborns to command the god and demigods who live in the palace, and who are bound into corporeal form. They can go free if Nahadoth promises Itempas to serve him completely; but Nahadoth refuses to bow to the man who killed his sister-lover, even if it means suffering in a semi-mortal state, with the pain and humiliation that involves.

Nahadoth and the demigods notice Yeine as soon as she arrives, and attempt to solicit her assistance in their bid for freedom. This is the main storyline, but don't forget Yeine's mother—she may be dead but she remains a key player in this big mess. The plot starts out cliché enough, but then Jemisin throws in a twist. Then another as Yeine uncovers more secrets about her grandfather, mother, and the gods themselves. The plotline is a convoluted one as it weaves between characters living and dead, so be sure to give the story your full attention, because you won't want to get lost.

The majority of the novel takes place in the palace called Sky, a luxurious and magically maintained city unto itself, from where the Arameri control the rest of the world with an iron fist. They have the blessing of Itempas, the god of daytime and order, and as a result are able to use magic to enforce their control. Magic is learned by scriveners, because it's the language of the gods and their sigils from which the source of magical power is tapped. In KINGDOMS we don't see it in action much, so I would have liked more, but perhaps there will be more to see in the next novel. Beyond Sky, we get only a taste of the rest of the world, including Yeine's home country of Darr, and their customs and history. There isn't time for more detail, but it's still interesting.

By the end, Jemisin has built up so much tension, interwoven plotlines, exposed characters' secrets, and explained so much back story that she promises a big climax. Fortunately, she delivers—and it's above and beyond what's required, becoming a mind-blowing and satisfying conclusion.

Is THE HUNDRED THOUSAND KINGDOMS perfect? Well, no. The storytelling has some inconsistencies, and a couple of the secondary plotlines lose steam and peter out; I mentioned other issues earlier. Overall these are minor, the biggest factor being less about the quality of the book than the potential audience—this novel won't appeal to everyone.

Recommended Age: 17+
Language: None
Violence: Some on-screen torture and deaths that involve blood, but otherwise infrequent
Sex: Frequent references, including deity incest; a handful of detailed scenes

With Fate Conspire

2011-09-07T08:00:00.002-06:00

Admittedly, there are some great perks to being a reviewer. The lavish lifestyle includes all-expense-paid trips to foreign countries, supermodels, perfectly cooked steaks...OK, none of that. I get books. Lots and lots of books. Some are awesome, and some are terrible. One of the greatest perks is reading a novel I'd never have picked up on my own and discovering how fantastic it is. That happened to me last year when I read Marie Brennan's A STAR SHALL FALL. Set in historic London, the novel unexpectedly shoved me down in my comfy reading chair and didn't let me up until I had finished the novel. Understand, that sort of thing rarely happens to me anymore.

Brennan's latest, WITH FATE CONSPIRE, quickly became one of my must-reads of the year. So when it came in the mail (personally sent by the author herself, no less) I happily returned to my comfy chair and began reading. The concern should be obvious. Could Brennan easily capture my imagination again? Would the literary lightening strike twice?

Yes. Yes it did.

WITH FATE CONSPIRE is a completely absorbing novel. I think, though, that much of the reason I loved Brennan's latest is that she didn't write the same type of novel again. Oh sure it is still about the Onyx Court. Faeries are still hidden right under the noses of the mortal Londoners. But this novel is SOOOOOO different. This story tales place in London of the 1800's with the underground rail system being completed. As you can imagine, the iron rails are causing immense destruction in the Onyx Court. WITH FATE CONSPIRE is the tale of a civilization of faeries trying to save their home and preserve it for the future. This isn't the love story that A STAR SHALL FALL was (though that element isn't totally absent). This is a tale of corruption and redemption.

One of the main characters of the novel is Eliza, a girl who saw her childhood love abducted by faeries years ago. Her goal at first is simple; find her lost love. The other main character is Dead Rick, one of the fae. He has no memory of his life prior to a few years ago, and his memories are being held hostage. They are two wildly distinct characters, and neither one ever got to the point where I thought, "Geez, i wish we could get to the other character again..."

However with these individual character stories comes my only real tiny issue with the novel. That bit I mentioned about Eliza looking for her lost love? It's mentioned on the dust jacket. It's her main motivation for the entire story. Yet as a reader, the story tried overly hard to avoid telling me what happened until over half-way through the story. Sure it was a great reveal when it happened, but seeing it earlier (like, at the very beginning) in full detail wouldn't have hurt the story in the slightest, and would have given me a much better reason to identify with her plight right at the onset of the story.

But that's it. That's the only small thing that stood out. The rest was absolutely great.

The writing was fantastic. There are very few authors that really impress me with the way they write. Bakker. Valente. Gaiman. Brennan, for me, is right there. I love how she writes. Her descriptions of old London are vivid. If I'm honest, I'm seriously jealous of how she does it. Her pacing is slow, but never dull. I often felt like I was slowing down my reading purposely so I could catch all the little literary goodies she has buried in the pages. And even though this novel (as is the case with her prior novels as well) is slower, I found the reading to be easy and relaxing. The pages flew by.

I love how believable her characters are. Everything in this setting is bleak, yet the characters never truly give up hope. They will go to any length to meet their diverse goals.

Brennan's work isn't for everyone. There are some readers who just won't like this novel as much as I do. Then again, that's kind of the point. Different strokes for different folks, and all that. I love these books. WITH FATE CONSPIRE is absolutely fantastic. It can be read as the fourth book in the series, or by itself. Whichever way you read it, the important part is that you DO read it.

Like I said, being a reviewer has its perks. One of those is being able to discover an author as awesome as Marie Brennan.

Recommended Age: 16+
Language: Based on the types of characters encountered, and the time period, there is a lot more swearing than in the prior novel. It never really feels shock value though.
Violence: Violence isn't really relied on in this series. Sure there is some great, brief action, but it isn't a focal point.
Sex: Talked about, but nothing detailed.

The White Luck Warrior

2011-09-05T08:00:00.001-06:00

How to start this one. [[sigh]] Seriously, I have no idea. This book was just such a massive disappointment. Well. That was actually easier than I thought it would be. Just say it, I guess. Now I can go have a breakdown.

THE WHITE LUCK WARRIOR is the second novel of Bakker’s second trilogy set in the world of Earwa the Three Seas. The Prince of Nothing Trilogy is one of my favorite fantasy series. Both Steve and Nick are of the same opinion. After reading those first three books, I was really excited to hear that we’d be getting more of this story. Two more entire trilogies, in fact. I have to say, though, that after making my way through THE JUDGING EYE, my compatriots and I were less than enthusiastic about things. Regardless, I decided to reserve my own judging eye (eh? eh?) until a later date and continue with the series. Right now I’m regretting that decision quite a bit.

THE WHITE LUCK WARRIOR follows three main story-lines, much like its predecessor. We have the progression of The Great Ordeal, a massive, multi-national army pressing into the northern country, to where the evil of the Consult waits to be destroyed; the progression of Achamian and the Skin Eaters, as they drive toward Sauglish and what Achamian hopes will be the undoing of Anasurimbor Khellus; and finally we have Khellus’s wife, Esmenet, who has been left behind to try and keep the empire together.

Bakker’s prose is, of course, really well done—that’s nothing new—so even the really dense chapters that have little to no dialogue in them, race past your eyes with ease. His use of italics and ellipses though…atrocious. Horrific. Ludicrous. It’s like he was trying to make the book mysterious and somehow life-altering by using those two methods alone. Forget about the story, isn’t this mysterious? Isn’t this life-altering? Seriously over the top and destroyed my ability to enjoy what plot there was in the book. They got in the way BIG TIME!!!!!! and were COMPLETELY ANNOYING!!!!!! (Kind of like TextInAllCaps and LotsaExclamationPoints...)

The first half to two-thirds of the book is almost completely given over to travel across the wilderness, be it from Achamian’s group or The Great Ordeal. In the case of The Great Ordeal, we learn the names of seemingly every captain and general and head honcho in the bunch. Names and titles and countries and over and over and over. And flags and standards and armor and UGH. Enough already. Give us some story! From Achamian and Mimara we get navel-gazing after navel-gazing thought as they plod on and on and... Granted, what else are they supposed to think about while traveling through the wilderness or the jungle or the mountains or wherever else they may be? Between these two story-lines, readers are getting The Slog of Slogs, indeed (a reference from the journey these two separate groups are taking). Sound interesting? Wait, there's more.

Thankfully, the entire book wasn’t consumed by the Slog of Slogs. Outside of it, though, plot development felt very minimal. In the last 150-200 pages or so, things finally get moving. There's development of Esmenet's situation, which I enjoyed once things started happening, though the time spent on Kelmomas's storyline after everything goes down was disappointing in particular. After the slow plodding and detailed renditions of everything else in the book, the development of his character during this part of the story felt very rushed and like it had been given very little attention. In fact, he mostly just tells us what happens to the kid. That's a pity too, as after finishing everything it seems to me that Kelmomas is going to play a very important role in things, indeed. Perhaps the most disappointing was the extremely minimal role that the White Luck Warrior played in the book. After his introduction in THE JUDGING EYE, I had some high hopes, but the way he ended up being handled reminded me of how frustrated I was after finishing THE BRIAR KING and finding out the minimal role the title character played in that book. Of course, every book in that series was disappointing, but that's beside the point.

Then, surprise of all surprises, the climax of Achamian's story arc AGAIN revolves around another "tribute to Tolkien"? Are you freaking kidding me? After the end of The Judging Eye, I would have thought Bakker would go somewhere else for some source material, but no. Stick with the classics, I guess. Oh well.

I remember watching two separate interviews with Bakker. The first one was completed sometime during his process of writing the Prince of Nothing trilogy. He talked about how he’d write and rewrite the scenes with Khellus, agonizing over whether or not he was getting the character right, as Khellus was supposed to be so much more intelligent than anyone else. So much smarter than even the author that was writing him. Effort. Strain. Work. And I loved every bit of it. The second interview was taken just after The Judging Eye was released, I believe. I don’t remember much about that one except for a single comment Bakker made, describing his writing process as "throwing a lot of sh*t on the walls and seeing what stuck". (That's a quote!) For me, that says it all. I’m done with Bakker. For those readers that can handle all the Slog for such little progression, interesting and good or not, I wish you the best. As for the rest of you? Stick with his Prince of Nothing Trilogy and then look somewhere else. This round just ain't worth the price of the ticket.

Recommended age: 18+, as before with his stuff, though there's significantly less adult content this time around
Language: Regular and strong
Violence: Lotsa, lotsa
Sex: A couple scenes, fairly strong

And, dependent upon how your tastes roam, links to the Forum for Bakker's books and Bakker's blog

God's War

2011-09-02T08:00:00.002-06:00

If I haven't said so before, Night Shade Books is putting out some seriously great stuff. There just comes a point where I get tired of all the same crap out there, and need something completely different. I've had this type of experience before with other novels from Night Shade like THE WINDS OF KHALAKOVO and NEVER KNEW ANOTHER. This time it was Kameron Hurley's GOD'S WAR that had me nodding in appreciation.

GOD'S WAR is an SF novel taking place on a world that is currently entrenched in a Holy War, and has been involved in this same Holy War since...well, forever. If you are a male, you get sent to the war front and have what amounts to an almost zero-percent chance of survival. The war is brutal. This story follows Nyx, a female bounty hunter who used to be a sanctioned assassin (they call them "bel dames" in the novel) as she takes on a mark that has potential to alleviate all her financial concerns. Of course, as a reader, you know that nothing good can possibly happen in this type of scenario.

Pretty much everything technology-based in GOD'S WAR is done through bugs. Most everything is organically grown and repaired through small and large creepy crawlers. Organs and limbs can be regrown. Everything has a kind of dingy feel to it.

The characters in this novel are all deeply flawed, and perhaps that is why I enjoyed the novel so much. Perfect characters are boring. Characters that have to overcome themselves as much as their external obstacles, however, really work for me. Nyx is the main character, and she is essentially a complete screw up. Her decisions--often poor ones that he has alternative but to make--lead to terrible situations. The other main character is Rhys--a "magician" from the opposite side of the war. He has a limited ability to control bugs. The dynamic between the two main characters is great. The weird loathing trust that has a slight hint of attraction is extremely well done.

The tone of this novel is very grim. Very dark. There is a overall sense of hopelessness that this Holy War is eventually going to kill everyone. And that is where the main story comes into play. That job I mentioned earlier? It not only pays well, but just may end the war. Of course, there are ways to end a war while making things so much worse. That is what this novel explores. Of course all of this is reinforced by some pretty wicked-awesome world building. From politics to religion, Hurley covers it quite well in the novel. It's all top-notch, really.

There were a few things that nagged at me while reading. I mention them because I would be completely enjoying the novel, and then get yanked out periodically. The main thing was transitions. When switching from one PoV to another there would be no time anchors. Sometimes only a little time had passed, and at others a LOT of time had passed. It's like the clarification that would have smoothed this all over was cut just to get to the next section in a hurry. GOD'S WAR isn't long. Smoothing these parts out would have made this novel one of the better ones of the year for me. Additionally, another really minor thing is how it seems like Nyx's forward motion in plot centers around her being abducted every few chapters. It gets a tad worn.

But look, the rest of the novel more than makes up for those small annoyances. The real test is whether or not I see improvement in the second novel, INFIDEL. And yes, I will most certainly be reading it. GOD'S WAR is exactly the type of novel needed by readers everywhere to get them past the monotony of general SF and Fantasy.

Go buy this novel. You'll dig it.

Recommended Age: 18+
Language: Lots and lots.
Violence: Even more violence than language. Nyx cuts off people's heads as proof of her bounty being complete.
Sex: A ton of references, and some scenes (non detailed). Gay or straight, GOD'S WAR isn't picky. Actually there are some pretty good reasons for some of the homosexual relations in the novel. It isn't there for shock value.

Go check out Kameron Hurley's site:

http://www.kameronhurley.com/

The Crimson Pact, Volume 1

2011-08-31T08:00:00.000-06:00

Short stories. Seems I’ve been getting through my fair share of them lately, between the Nebula nominees, Hugo nominees, the most recent Writers of the Future anthology, and more. The hard part with anthologies of short stories is that it’s usually such a mixed bag. There will be some that’ll knock your socks off and others that make you feel like someone’s licking the butter between your toes. It isn’t often we get an anthology that stands really high overall, though sometimes you can find em. Most end up just left or right of middle.

THE CRIMSON PACT, VOL 1, was edited by Paul Genesse and based on a framework short story written by Patrick Tracy--it is the lead story of the anthology, "The Failed Crusade". The basic premise revolves around a set of knights pledged to fight against a horde of demons that has decimated their world. They are The Crimson Pact. The tone of the piece is grim, and though the story itself felt more like the portrayal of several journal entries than a complete story, it sets the stage really well for the short stories collected in this anthology.

Each of the pieces purportedly addresses these demons after they’ve entered some kind of interdimensional portal and been sprayed across the multiverse to wreak their havoc. Some of the stories deal with the knights directly, others only with unconnected persons and their interactions with the demons. With twenty-five stories in all (twenty six, if you count the premise), the anthology hosts a wide range of pieces. There's fantasy and science fiction. There's urban. There's flash fiction. There's epic. There’s a lot of great writing, and a few where it's pretty poor. Mobsters and private investigators and fairies and machine guns and yeah. Just a bundle of stuff to enjoy.

There were four stories in particular that I really liked.

“Solitary Life” by Donald J. Bingle was about a king's new head jailer who finds documentation of a prisoner that has been neglected for so long that he expects the man is dead and those servicing his cell to be hoarding the supplies for themselves. When he commands that the cell be broken open, however, he finds much more than he anticipated. This was the perfect opener for the anthology.

“Hidden Collection” by Sarah Kanning is about the exploits of a new library intern and some of the trouble that she gets into by sticking her nose into closets and sealed crates that she shouldn’t be. This one was fun and terrifying at turns. When the demon makes his entrance (and no that’s not a spoiler. Demon anthology, people) it seriously creeped me out.

“Bull King” by Larry Correia is essentially a chapter ripped out of his new book HARD MAGIC. There are gangster types and dames up against a group of baddies that just happen to be able to summon a big mother-killin' demon to fight for them. Although the story took a bit to get into because of all the characters thrown at me, this one was loads of fun. Fast-paced, funny, intense. Weapons out the yang, both magical and mundane. Getting a taste of Larry’s stuff in this way should totally make readers want to go out and buy some of his books. Especially the one that this came from.

“Of the Breaking of Stars” by Chris Pierson deals with a scientist living in a world where the stars are exploding when some fascinating technology falls into his hands and the Eater of Worlds is rapidly approaching. Smart and engaging, this one was a great ending for the anthology.

Of course, there were some that just didn’t agree with me, and one or two more that were really tough to get through. For the most part though, I really enjoyed them. There were two things in particular that I think would have helped the anthology immensely.

The first was an understanding that some of the stories are only partials. Although the editor points this fact out in a note at the end of the anthology, I had no clue that there were several stories that would have continuations in Volume 2. There were more than a handful of times where I got to the end of a story and said to myself, “So where’s the rest of it?” I was a bit annoyed, honestly, but it’s good to know now that some of those stories do continue. Also, some kind of notification at the end of the stories that will continue in a subsequent volume would have been nice.

The second issue I had was that there were another handful of stories that really didn’t seem to have any kind of direct connection to The Crimson Pact at all. I can see how including stories with a wide range of demons would open up the pool of possible entries, but I would have liked to see something that wasn’t just another collection of demon stories. Even if the connection is really faint, like the way a particular demon looks or what a given demon is trying to accomplish, would have made me more interested in the anthology as a whole. In that way, the stories would be populating a universe, instead of just being one-offs.

On the whole, I liked THE CRIMSON PACT, VOL 1 quite a bit, and I think you readers will too. Not only am I interested to read some more demon stories THE CRIMSON PACT, VOL 2 when it is released shortly, but I'm also a tad excited for one of our illustrious overlords who has actually written two short stories that will be in VOL 2.

The collection is huge at more more than twenty stories and more than 140,000 words in length. For $5, this is a great deal. Go grab it.

Recommended age: 16+
Language: For the most part, no, though there are a few stories that get kind of vulgar
Violence: Demon-killing, but nothing very graphic is focused upon
Sex: Some talk, but no scenes

The Crimson Pact Website

The Goblin Corps

2011-08-29T08:00:00.000-06:00

If you enjoyed THE CONQUEROR'S SHADOW by Ari Marmell, then THE GOBLIN CORPS is more of the same. Only sillier. I know, I didn't believe it was possible, either, but just read the cover blurb: "The few. The proud. The obscene." Yes, yes he went there.

The source of said hilarity are the main characters, an "elite" group of goblinesque creatures formed by the evil Charnel King for a special mission: there's a troll, a kobold, an orc, a gremlin, a shapeshifter, an ogre, and a bugbear. Put them all together in their various levels of stupidity and prejudices, mix up a few stereotypes, drop them in the middle of a fabricated training mission with no defined leadership, and out pops a big, crazy mess. But then that's the point. They're supposed to be an elite military squad, but it's really just a bunch of bumbling around. It's funny. It's goofy. Eventually everything gets straightened out and they surpass all expectations. Yadda yadda. Until, at last, they learn the real mission they were assembled for.

THE GOBLIN CORPS has some of the same problems that CONQUEROR'S did, the least of which being the unnecessary adjectives cluttering the narrative. There's also the inconsistent PoV switching, which is usually the result of Marmell attempting to cram as many gags as he can into one scene. The characters of the demon squad sound a lot like humans with few cultural and physical details thrown in to differentiate them. The setting is your usual sword & sorcery world, the magic standard fare. The plot could have been pared down, the middle drags on, and the conclusion lacks real punch. As a result, this book bordered on a mediocre rating. However, despite these flaws, either Marmell is growing as a writer, or his new publisher (Pyr) provided him a good editor to help smooth out his storytelling. Whatever the reason, the result is a marked improvement.

Unlike the inconsistent characterization in CONQUEROR'S, THE GOBLIN CORPS has some characters you'll enjoy rooting for, whose motivations make sense. Sure they're the bad guys, and not only do they work for the Charnel King, they aren't very nice people, either. And yet, Marmell's characterization is consistent for most of them, and they progress over the course of novel with his signature campy style. It's kinda hard not to like someone who makes you laugh. Even if said goblin is a jerk.

By the time I got to the climax I looked back over the book and realized something. It feels like one, long dungeon crawl—and a really exhausting one at that. It includes quests for our adventurers to pick up and deliver magical items. Big, bad bosses who seem impossible to kill, who often require unconventional solutions. The group itself consists of a thief, a mage, an idiot with a club...you get the picture. And, of course, no dungeon crawl would be complete without mocking everyone in typical RPG fashion.

All of this could be stuff you've seen before, and therefore THE GOBLIN CORPS may sound like more of the same. And in some ways it is. Except Marmell really is clever. He comes up with some ingenious situations, locations, and some downright sinister bad guys. Of course, don't forget the twist: our "heroes" are not handsome elves, noble humans, or punt-worthy gnomes. So, maybe, this twisted version is another dungeon worth crawling through.

Recommended Age: 16+ for content
Language: Unlike his first book, which was pretty clean, this one has ubiquitous profanity, including many anatomically impossible threats
Violence: From simple knocking each other around, to a wizard's gruesome magical experiments, to battles with blood and gore, and lots of mean bugs
Sex: Referenced a couple of times

Deadline

2011-08-26T08:00:00.002-06:00

Full disclosure. I loved Mira Grant's novel, FEED. I didn't think I would because I was a tad tired of zombies, but FEED was still awesome...especially the ending which was absolutely incredible. Sure there were some things that made me say "meh", but I personally thought the characters were fun (specifically in the latter half of the novel when the story got really grim and bleak), and the setting was fantastic. Not to mention, Mira Grant's writing appealed to me with its accessibility and her sense of pacing. If was my personal pick for the Hugo this year. I bought copies of her books and lugged them to WorldCon so I could stalk Mira down for signatures. Yeah, I'm a fan.

After I read FEED, I knew immediately that's I'd gobble up the next book in the series, DEADLINE. But I was worried. WAAAAAAAY worried. If you've read FEED, you know how the book ends. How the heck to you follow THAT?

DEADLINE is told from Shaun Mason's eyes, and the change in tone is really what helps set this apart from the prior novel. Shaun is an angry, angry guy. As the reader, you get to see his grief and complete lack of faith in anything. For the most part this is all executed extremely well. However, during the novel he has a penchant for wanting to punch anything and everything. It gets old, and feels unneeded.

Luckily neither Shaun nor the reader is given much time to dwell on the tragic ending of FEED. Things happen fast and furious to start out. Again, Mira Grant perfectly illustrates that in a world of zombies, the humans are still the biggest danger to humanity.

You may be asking yourself, "Self, why hasn't the reviewer talked about what the book is about?" You see, FEED is still relatively new, and the ending is one of those endings that MUST NOT be ruined. If I talk about DEADLINE with very much detail at all, it will hurt your reading of FEED. Here's what I can give you. Shaun and the crew are investigating a conspiracy that was introduced in the first book. The conspiracy is even bigger than anyone realizes, and Grant does a great job of illustrating the danger our protagonists (not to mention the world) face.

One thing I've noticed about zombie novels in general is how much it bugs me when the world introduced in the novel isn't self-aware. What I mean is that our culture has been exposed to zombie-related media for so long now, that we will have a grasp of the situation when the zombie plague runs wild (note: when, not if). Mira Grant's novels address this so well, that it makes reading other zombie novels that don't take it into account feel unrealistic. This world feels legitimate.

There is one thing that I should mention that did kinda nag at me a bit. Middle novels are hard, and not only is the author trying to set up the third novel in the series, but he/she is also trying to refresh the reader on the events from book one. DEADLINE suffers the effects of this in certain areas. There are certain bits of information that just don't need to be fully explained again. The pacing can get bogged down a bit due to the over-explanation (or repeated explanation) of details that the author feels essential the reader understand completely. This isn't a huge deal for the most part, but it bothered me enough to notice and to bring up.

That said, this book has some moments that are just freaking awesome. And I don't just mean action scenes, though the book does have plenty of those as well that had me giggling with horrific glee. DEADLINE has some terrific character scenes that show just how crazy things are getting for people.

Now, depending on how observant a reader you are, you may catch one of the major twists (there are a few). I caught it very early on in the novel, but it didn't affect my enjoyment of the novel (at least I don't think it did...it's not like I can test it). If you don't catch the twist, the ending is a serious "HOLY CRAP!" moment. Like FEED, it was the ending to DEADLINE that won me over on loving the novel.

Here is the question you need to ask yourself. Do you want to read a zombie novel that pulls in Science Fiction sensibilities without losing the Horror aspect of the sub-genre? Do you want a zombie series that shows just how much more horrible humans can be as opposed to the zombies? How about a series with good characters? If you answered "yes" to any of the questions, you need to pick up FEED and DEADLINE by Mira Grant. If you answered "no", too bad, read the books anyway. They are completely awesome.

Recommended Age: 17+
Language: Lotsa swearing.
Violence: If there WASN'T violence in DEADLINE, it really wouldn't be a conspiracy-filled, zombie novel would it? Of course there is a ton of violence.
Sex: One short, but fairly detailed scene. It's mostly used to show how much psychological and emotional baggage a character has.

Go check out Mira Grant's website:

http://www.miragrant.com/

And in case you didn't know, Mira Grant is a pen name Seanan McGuire uses. Seanan is best known for winning the 2010 Campbell Award for best new writer. She writes Urban Fantasy under that name which I hope is as good as her zombie books.

http://www.seananmcguire.com/

Last note: Seanan is an awesome person. I was able to chat with her for a bit at WorldCon in Reno, and she is one of the nicest people even...when she's not planning to kill you. As an author, being nice is a good thing. It impacts what people think of you and your work. Seanan's personality made me like her work even more.

The Word for World is Forest

2011-08-24T08:00:00.000-06:00

Before there was Avatar there was Ursula K. Le Guin's THE WORD FOR WORLD IS FOREST. Written in 1972, and the winner of the 1973 Hugo Award for best novella, Tor decided that the current furor over sustainable ecology would make this novel a timely re-release. At the very least it's an entertaining comparison to Cameron's blue-peopled visual extravaganza.

The similarities will be obvious from the start: humans can now travel to the stars and will take other planets' natural resources for their own use; the nature-loving natives who just want to preserve their way of life; the racist Army dude who is willing to do anything to fulfill his objective.

If this story reads as predictable, it's because, well, it was written 40 years ago, and the story has been used in many different incarnations since then. Le Guin was a trailblazer with not only her stories and characters, but with her ecological and race-relation themes. It's worth it to see the origins of some of these ideas (see also Shawn's review on LITTLE FUZZY). Here it starts off with the interesting dilemma: the planets were all seeded thousands of years ago by a main race, so the 'aliens' are actually distant cousins who evolved differently from the same stock. So, how different are the three-foot, green-furred Athsheans from Earth's humans? The answer to that is actually very important.

A quick read, TWFWIF is told from the PoV of our three main characters: Captain Davidson, Captain Lyubov, and Selver. Davidson is running a remote logging camp on the planet New Tahiti and is having trouble with the natives he calls 'creechies', which they've been using for menial labor, but they're lazy and incompetent. Not only that, but the landscape gives them trouble: after logging an area instead of making it farmable for soybeans, the land turns into mush. The scientist Lyubov, however, doesn't see things the same way as Davidson. The natives' tribes are named for the different trees which makes the forest an important part of their culture. Their 'laziness' stems from a culture with vastly different sleep cycles--in fact dreaming is an important and revered ability among the Athsheans. Then there is Selver, the native Athshean, who despite being raised in a pacifist culture, realizes that force will become necessary in dealing with the invading humans.

Le Guin explores the issues of a clash of cultures, despite a shared origin and how genocide can be caused by ignorance or greed. Another dominant theme is the importance the environment has on the Athsheans and how the humans' interference will have horrifying repercussions.

As a result of a short story with a focus on the themes, setting, and storyline, the characters, while interesting, didn't have enough time for an in-depth study and will feel like stereotypes. But that's not really the point of Le Guin's story, her intent is to make the reader reconsider the importance of culture vs environment.

Recommended Age: 14+
Language: Minor references and racist lingo
Violence: Yes, although not in-depth scenes
Sex: Rape is referenced, but not shown

The Nebula Awards Showcase 2011

2011-08-22T08:00:00.001-06:00

Good short stories in my opinion are those that get in, get memorable, and then get out. They’re quick, they’re sharp, they’re efficient. Sometimes you can’t help but come out a little dirty. Others catch you with your back turned and give you the once-over of your previously boring life. And then there are the stinkers. Ugh. Let’s not talk about those though.

THE NEBULA AWARDS SHOWCASE 2011, edited by Kevin J. Anderson, is a relatively short (under 400 pages) anthology of works nominated for the award by authors wide and various through the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Contained within SHOWCASE are all of the short stories and novelettes that were nominated in 2010 (including the winners) and the winning novella, along with a few extras from long-standing authors in the field that were given special honors. As with many compilations of short fiction, there were some stories that worked for me and others that didn’t. I’ll mention a few of them specifically.

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by the short stories. Perhaps there’s something about the short form and Science Fiction that just works for me. Maybe it’s the fact that authors are forced to get to the point instead of wandering around aimlessly with their beautiful prose. Then again, it could be that the short story realm is just so darn ruthless when it comes to those stories that make it and those that don’t. Whatever it is, essentially all of the short stories that were nominated here were pretty good.

Saladin Ahmed’s "Hooves and the Hovel of Abdel Jameela" is a story about a physician and his interaction with an old man and his not-so-typical wife that totally made me open my eyes and look at this guy for real. This was one of the few Fantasy stories, with great storytelling and twists a-google. He has a book coming out in Feb 2012 that I was pretty meh about before reading SHOWCASE. But no longer, my friends. No longer.

"I Remember the Future" was mostly awesome, only falling short for me because the end took a turn for the cheesy instead of dealing with the real-world issues it had built on concerning family, paternal presence, and the call of a writer's muse. Granted, the story is Science Fiction, but it really shouldn’t have been, in my opinion. It could have been so much more.

"Bridescicle" by Will McIntosh was a really interesting take on the post-life dating scene and quite well written. There was a lot in this one that really pushed my buttons.

"Spar", the winner of the Nebula in the short story category, is not for everyone. I should probably repeat myself here. This story is not for everyone. And definitely not for kids. In short, it’s an extremely explicit portrayal of a space-faring woman that is captured by an amoeba-like alien. It is disturbing in so many ways, and then just ends with nothing significant to make all the shudder-inducing horror worth the read. Why did this one win? Because it was gritty? Because it pushed the boundaries of what people will read? Honestly, I haven’t the first clue, and I’d almost suggest that readers just skip over this one. It’s really short, and they aren’t going to miss anything worthwhile by not reading it.

Unfortunately, the stories from the novella nominees didn’t garner any of the same surprises. In fact, this was the point where everything devolved into what I’ve come to expect from Science Fiction: bloated prose, wandering plots, and literary pontification. Very well-written all, of course, but really nothing that I cared to read in the slightest. There was, however, one exception.

And it was a big one.

"Divining Light" by Ted Kosmatka should have taken this award home without even a blink being tossed in the direction of any of the other stories nominated. This story was Awesome with a capital A. Intensive science revolving around the particle-wave theory of light but twisted slightly to great effect, simple explanations, and all relayed to readers with a pretty faulted character at its core. I could easily say that this entry alone would make the anthology worth buying...except for the fact that Asimov's has posted it for free on their website. In fact, I’d suggest going there to read it, because the two small pictures that have been included in his story were inadvertently swapped in the SHOWCASE version. It's stories like these that give me hope that there is still something in Science Fiction to love, and I’m now eagerly anticipating Mr. Kosmatka's debut novel that is coming early next year. If you do nothing else, read this one. It’s the goods.

Bringing up the rear was Kage Baker’s "The Women of Nell Gwynne’s, which was a pretty solid effort. Good prose. Good characters. Interesting premise and humorous development. Kind of like a Victorian-era Charlie’s Angels, if the Angels all had a day job in a brothel. The ending did get a bit confusing for me, and felt like it got wrapped up a bit too quickly, but on the whole a good effort by the late author and well-deserving of the award.

On the whole, this was a decent read, though I’ve placed it in the mediocre category because the bulk was simply just mediocre Science Fiction. It’s interesting to see what other authors think is good. The other side of the card, of course, comes from us, the reading public, through the Hugos. Apparently, Mary Robinette Kowal edited a Hugo anthology for the award last year, but it didn’t sell well enough to garner a return this year, which mostly just confuses me due to the nature of the award itself. Didn't the readers pick these stories as the good ones? Really? Such is the way of things, I suppose. Although, you do have Shawn presenting all the goods from an EBR perspective of the Hugo nominations this year anyhow. So how can you complain?

Recommended Age: 18+
Language: Most stories are pretty mild, but there are a few that go overboard ("Spar" being the largest offender)
Violence: No gore really, but some that hit it hard ("Spar"...again?)
Sex: Three stories have fairly strong ratings here, and one ("Spar"...surprised? Nah) completely blew the top off the lid

Embassytown

2011-08-19T08:00:00.002-06:00

My dad and I have an ongoing argument. My dad seems to think that PERDIDO STREET STATION by China Miéville is a superior work to THE SCAR (also by Miéville, set in the same world as PERDIDO). While I know better. THE SCAR is better, better plotted, cooler stuff. In one thing we are agreed, however. In my opinion THE SCAR is a 10 (on a scale of one to ten, ten being perfect) whereas PERDIDO is a 9.9. For my dad it’s PERDIDO that gets the 10 and THE SCAR the measly 9.9. They are both good books. Fantastic books, genre-altering books.

Why am I telling you all of this? Because EMBASSYTOWN, the latest novel by China Miéville, is probably a strong 9.8 in my opinion. Easily my favorite of Miéville's books since THE SCAR.

EMBASSYTOWN was what I expected from THE CITY AND THE CITY. It’s a brilliant novel based on a very cool central premise surrounded by vivid weird imagery that only Miéville can provide on this scale

Now how do I explain EMBASSYTOWN? Every time I felt I was getting a good grasp on the novel, Miéville would change directions and throw me another curve ball. I could say it’s about a girl named Avice who lived in Embassytown and showed that she could become an immerser: one who could travel the immer between worlds awake and transport starships. But it’s not about that. I could tell you it’s about an alien race who speak simultaneously through two mouths. These aliens are unable to understand their same speech spoken back to them unless it is through a conscious being (computers don’t work) and even are unable to understand it unless a mental link exists between the two speakers. They are unable to lie and unable to speak in the abstract. They create living breathing metaphors for concepts they long to describe. But it’s not really about that. It’s about addiction. It’s about politics. It’s about language and truth and meaning.

IT IS WONDERFUL!

I raced through this book. I loved the ideas and concepts. I found myself going over and over again, in my mind, the ramifications of the dilemmas of the characters. I found myself thinking back to experiences in my own life. This book is amazing. It was everything I wanted it to be and then a little more.

This is Miéville writing straight up Science Fiction for the first time (you could argue technically that the Bas-Lag novels are SF, but they are something else altogether), but it’s not SF like you’ve ever seen. Mieville isn’t worried about explaining the cool technology of the world so much as the aliens, and even then it’s not the outward appearance that counts but the utterly alien viewpoint. The Hosts, as they are called in the book, are something truly extraordinary. They are alien beings in every sense of the world offering a different way of looking on life, the universe and everything. These are not Star Trek aliens, these are real, different, intelligent beings.

As with most of Miéville’s books, the city, Embassytown, shows itself as almost another viewpoint character. That might be one of the reasons I love Miéville’s work so much. I feel like these are real, living, breathing, gritty places. Not necessarily places I want to live, but real, nonetheless.

If I were to find a flaw with the book it would be the narrator, Avice. She goes through the plot of the novel, experiencing and even engaging in the major events, yet I got the feeling that she was merely a vehicle to drive the story forward. I never got a handle on her, or her character. She was there to tell the story, to show it to us, but nothing more.

But what a story it is. Several times I felt the book coming to a crescendo only to have another twist and another problem thrown in my face. The book explores the implications of language and truth and humanity expertly. I can only hope that Miéville writes more in this world. Given his track record however, whatever he writes will be worth picking up and reading.

Recommended Age: 16+ It’s a complicated book with some deep concepts.
Language: Surprisingly light for Miéville. Still a bit, but not a ton.
Violence: A few deaths and other things, but it never seemed graphic to me.
Sex: It's Miéville. Of course sex is talked about. It doesn't get too graphic in this one, but it is definitely mentioned...as are threesomes.

How to Survive Safely...

2011-08-17T08:00:00.000-06:00

I read about this book awhile ago. It was a story about a time machine repairman, who owns a non-existent dog. It also happens that his mom is stuck in a one-hour time loop, living the same Sunday dinner over and over and over. Also the protagonist's (who just happens to be named Charles Yu just like the author) dad may have invented time travel. Oh, and Charles also killed his future self, so he's wondering when his present will catch up to the past, where he gets shot. I read that premise and thought, wow, that sounds like a book full of great fun ideas. It looked like a fun book. I need to read that.

Turns out the story, HOW TO SURVIVE SAFELY IN A SCIENCE FICTIONAL UNIVERSE(long title, I know), is really about none of those things. It was a more intimate personal story about the repairman, Charles, and his relationship with his father. I'd be OK with that too, if it worked. But it didn't. I read through the whole thing waiting for it to take off, waiting for something, anything to happen. Maybe the fun Science Fiction stuff would start happening and all kinds of wacky adventures would follow. Nope. Maybe the characters will leap off the page and I'll grow to love them and cry at the end when they reunite, or die or save the world or whatever (I'm not gonna give away the ending to you guys. There's a special punishment in the afterlife for people who give away endings). Wrong again. Instead the book was full of great promise that never reached maturity.

The book was a conundrum by all accounts. It's a short book, clocking in at a little under 250 pages, yet the author goes on as if he's writing a 1000 page door-stopper. There were paragraphs that were literally two whole pages long and seemed to repeat the same thing over and over and over again. And then it would repeat what it had said. And then it would say the same thing that it just said again. And then it would say something and it turns out you already knew what the author was saying. You see what I'm doing here, repeating myself? Now you know what HOW TO SURVIVE SAFELY IN A SCIENCE FICTIONAL UNIVERSE. Except you don't.

The other half of the book reads like stereo instructions. It was confusing to the point of total obscurity. Even with basics like how time travel works. There are plenty of books that at least give you an idea of how their theory of time travel works (for example, can you meet yourself and change your past, and if not, then why? Things like that). I'm really OK with a lot of SF mumbo jumbo to explain the quantum entanglement whatever you call it, but normally I also get a good explanation of what is happening. This book never did that. I don't know if the book was even supposed to make sense or if there were a bunch of science words in there instead of "and then something sciencey happened to make it all work". Actually come to think of it, I would have preferred that.

There were some moments of joy to be had in the book, no doubt about it. There are quite a few Star Wars and Star Trek references throughout to make me giggle. At one point the protagonist mentions a friend of his working on the Death Star and how nice the cafeteria is. Good stuff, right? Sadly those moments are few and far between. I was hoping for whimsy, something witty and clever. Instead the book was a dud. I didn't care as much as I wanted, I didn't laugh as often as I should have, and I was lost a whole lot more that was necessary.

Bummer, cause the premise sounded really cool.

Recommended Age: Not sure, cause I didn't get most of it, so uh, older than me?
Language: None that I can remember.
Violence: Dude shoots himself, but other than that nothing.
Sex: Minor innuendo.

Sword of Fire and Sea

2011-08-15T08:00:00.000-06:00

I, like any decent purveyor of story critiques, am an author-hopeful. Once, about ten years ago and near the beginning of my writing “career”, I came up with the idea of evil monsters that could travel through shadows to get where they wanted. I thought at the time how creepy and cool something like that could be, and that I might actually use these shadow beasts in a story someday. That is, until a good friend of mine suggested that doing so might not be such a great idea because the bad guys could just wait until night time (or ANY time/place that it got dark) pop in on our heroes, slaughter the lot of them, and then take over the world. End of story. I’ve moved on since then. This novel felt like it hadn’t.

SWORD OF FIRE AND SEA is the first book in a trilogy named The Chaos Knight and is Erin Hoffman's debut novel. It is a story told from the perspective of a ship’s captain, Vidarian Rulorat, who has been called upon to fulfill a generations-old family promise to the fire priestesses of Kara’Zul. His mission, should he choose to accept it, is to accompany Ariadel, a special fire priestess, from the temple of the fire priestesses in the north to a friendly temple of water priestesses in the far south. Along the way, he encounters rogue telepaths called the Vkortha, mighty gryphons, love, betrayal, and a prophecy or two, as well.

This one fell within my 10% rule pretty quickly, and if I hadn’t been asked to review it, I would have bailed really early. It wasn’t that it was particularly bad, there just wasn’t anything that really grabbed me. The prose is decent, though quite explanatory, and stays pretty high-level. Characterization, unfortunately, sums to essentially null. As the story progresses, and the main party amasses more people and more sentient gryphons, the names and references all got jumbled and difficult to tell from one page to the next who we were talking about now or really what was going on at all.

At times the story tried to get bigger, bringing in a trading company that dictates what the central government does. Then we're introduced to the prophecy of the one that is supposed to come and seal away the chaos magic forever behind an already closed gate. These scenes though were counter-balanced by others that just cripple the story—-the most memorable being the entire chapter devoted to the massage house, with its masseuses and their lotion. And there was a cat. I’m sorry, but I just hate finding cats in fantasy novels. I should probably write a fantasy story about a cat sometime so that I’ll hate them less.

On second thought, no, I shouldn’t.

The plot of SWORD is very linear and progressional, with one event/task leading the main party of characters to the next. In so doing, they travel quite extensively and visit many places that are quite difficult to discern from one another. Each trip is completed by gryphon, and so these legs of the journey happen on a very short time scale. This leads to a really vague sense of just how big the imagined world of the story is and how each of the individual pieces of the world-building fit together. I’ve heard complaints before about the horse being the “fantasy equivalent of a motorcycle”, and in this one the gryphons act as almost a perfect substitute for the "fantasy helicopter". They move the characters from one location to the next, flying through the air at fast speeds, and never seem to get any attention. At times they impart information. In others, they fight a bit, though those scenes are few and far between.

The two largest difficulties I had were the nebulous magic system and the lack of an impactful ending. The main character acquires the ability from a goddess to access the magical power of the world, and then starts using it with little to no training or effort as if he were a prodigy. At each of these times, he uses the magic "without thinking" or he just knows how to do what he wants, as the power is somehow tied to his will. At one point, the Vkortha use a wind-storm to swoop down on the main characters, steal Ariadel—the special fire priestess, in case you’ve forgotten—and then disappear. (Shadow monsters, anyone?) Later, the main character is given a magical power equivalent to that needed to move planets within the universe. (Sunshine…heroes maybe?) Every time the magical ability came up, the results seemed to get more and more preposterous. And then the big bang ending, which kept getting referred to throughout the book, passed like a puff of air and seemed to be forgotten entirely. At first, I totally thought that I had missed it, but no. The impact just wasn't there.

Looking back at this review, I’m seeing a whole lot of complaint and I apologize for that. Really, there’s nothing that was absolutely unforgivable about this story, it’s just that there was a whole lot of mediocrity and it was handled in a fairly poor way. If I could take back the time I spent on this one, I definitely would. And if you get the chance to read this one, and you think anywhere near like we do here at EBR, then I’d probably suggest that you pass on it as well.

Recommended age: 14 plus
Language: One reference to a swear word as being a "bedroom" word
Violence: Some fighting, but not really
Sex: A single reference to someone being naked

The Magician King

2011-08-12T08:00:00.001-06:00

Many people have strong feelings about Lev Grossman’s 2009 book THE MAGICIANS. It’s inspired no small amount of passion—both for and against. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the book, it tells the tale of Quentin Coldwater, a young man who’s about as diehard of a Narnia fan as you can get. (Except of course Narnia isn’t actually Narnia. It’s called Fillory—but the parallels are too strong for there to be any doubt in the reader’s mind.) He's a genius, extremely gifted, and kind of a major self-obsessed jerk. You know—like a lot of teenagers you know, except Quentin really is a genius. But he hates his life, and he wishes more than anything that Fillory were real, and that he lived there, instead.

Spoiler alert for those of you who haven’t read THE MAGICIANS already: Fillory is real, and Quentin ends up living there, instead.

Of course, it isn’t that simple. THE MAGICIANS is best described as a realistic Harry Potter. Quentin goes to a school for wizards, he befriends a group of like-minded self-obsessed teens, and they end up kind of saving the world.

Some people loved the book because of the shot of realism it injected into a genre that usually has more than a bit of rose-colored tinting going on in it. Some people hated it because of how mean and petty the main characters can be. Full disclosure: I was a huge fan of the first book. It made me realize some of the assumptions so many fantasy books make—it asked important questions, and the answers to those questions weren’t always pretty. What if the magical world the main character discovers doesn't change his life for the better? What if the problems he had before—character flaws, unmet dreams, etc.—still exist? And when you think about it, doesn't that make sense? Why should walking through a wardrobe suddenly make everything else okay?

THE MAGICIAN KING picks up where THE MAGICIANS left off. Quentin is now a king in Fillory (much like the Pevensies are kings and queens in Narnia at the end of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe). And he and his fellow narcissists are off hunting a magical rabbit. Quentin has grown bored with how easy his life has become, and he’s wishing things would get a little less boring.

Wish granted.

He embarks on a quest that begins as more of a lark but takes a terrifying twist for him when it ends up dumping him back in the real world. (Yes, that’s fairly spoilery, but it’s also boldly stated on the book’s jacket flap, so I don’t suppose I’m spoiling too much for you.) That’s about all of the plot I want to give you, though. You don’t need much more, because you’re likely going to only read this if you’ve read the first book. In that case, you find yourself in one of a few groups.

First, you loved the first book. If that’s you, then by all means: full speed ahead. Grossman does a fantastic job bringing the story to the next level, and exploring the same world in a manner that doesn’t feel tired or hackneyed or been-there-done-that.

Second, you hated the first book. If that’s you, then I’m surprised you’re even reading this review. There’s not much here for you if you absolutely loathed book one, as some people did. It’s still Quentin, and he’s still, well . . . Quentin. So move along, folks—nothing to see here.

Third, you were on the fence about the first book. You liked the literary feel of it, but the characters bugged you. If that’s you, then let me tell you a bit more. THE MAGICIAN KING introduces an important viewpoint character: Julia. She’s far less self-centered than Quentin, and her sections help to balance the book in a way that The Magicians could never quite reach. Instead of being bogged down in Quentin’s mind for unending stretches, you get the chance to see this world through someone else’s eyes. And while she has flaws and challenges herself, she is much easier to accept, identify with, and root for. (Really, it would have been disappointing if she didn’t have flaws—that’s one of the strengths of this series. The characters are real, with believable shortcomings that go beyond Hermione-is-a-know-it-all and Draco-is-snide-and-mean-and-evil.)

It also helps that this book starts with Quentin already having learned lessons from his experiences in the first book. You don’t have to relive that same journey again; he grows in different ways this time.

THE MAGICIAN KING is a quick read, well-paced, and intriguing throughout. It has a strong literary flair to it, but enough adventure, magic, and humor to keep it from feeling stuffy. As long as you didn’t hate the first book, you should definitely check this one out.

Recommended Age: 18 and up.
Language: Lots. Plenty of it plenty objectionable. This is an adult book. It would easily be rated R, for all the reasons you can think of.
Violence: Yes. Not pervasive throughout, but there are some very graphic, disturbingly violent scenes in the book.
Sex: Quite a bit, including one very specific, highly disturbing scene. Like I said, this would be a hard R movie if it’s ever adapted and sticks close to the source material.