Showing posts with label Books that are Mediocre. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Books that are Mediocre. Show all posts

After the Golden Age

7:00 AM Nikki

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


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The Nebula Awards Showcase 2011

7:00 AM Nikki

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


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All the Lives He Led

7:00 AM Nikki

Frederik Pohl’s GATEWAY is one of my favorite Science Fiction books from the Golden Years. I read it during a stint of trying to find out what made a good Science Fiction story. That was a tough row, let me tell you, but I definitely liked that book and remember it from all the rest. So, when I saw a new Pohl book pop up on our list of those available, I took on it—hoping that I’d find another instance of good Science Fiction.

ALL THE LIVES HE LED is the most recent novel of Science Fiction luminary Frederik Pohl. In it we are introduced to Brad Sheridan and told all about his life in the late 21st century. We are told about the eruption of the mega-volcano in Yellowstone and how it showered a majority of the United States in a blanket of ash, killing millions and devastating the economy and lives of those left alive. Appropriately enough, our narrator Brad takes the opportunity to travel to Pompeii, Italy, where someone had gotten it into the head that it would be a really cool to make that once ash-buried city into a place of celebration for the 2000th anniversary of the mighty blast of Mount Vesuvius. Brad takes a job as a grunt worker, trying to pay off a debt of indenture that he took on to be able to leave the slums of New York.Decent setup for a realistic, post-apocalyptic story—if somewhat benign, as there are no killer nano-viruses, nuclear-weapon fallouts, or mutant zombies with which to fight.

Most of the story though is involved in the details of Brad’s new job, the interests of his few friends, the past-lives of his family members, and a few adventures with the love of his life, Gerda. And there’s some terrorism stuff that sprinkled in here and there as well. And that’s about it. Except for the last 70 pages or so.

Mr. Pohl obviously knows how to write. The first-person PoV that he uses to display Brad Sheridan is engaging and easy to read. Brad comes across as an actual resident of that not-too-far future, with a bit of cynicism, a touch of humor, and a slice of his life to tell. The pacing of the book is quick, and things get moving pretty fast. They go and go and go and go...but don’t really lead us anywhere in particular. Instead, it’s more of a fly by the seat of your pants retelling of the life of Joe Schmoe. The characterization of the main character is good, but most of the other characters feel like fill-ins. There’s a security officer who's good at her job, but the rest could have had a tag slapped on their heads with a single word to describe them. Girlfriend. Teacher. Buddy. Crummy boss. (Okay, that’s two words. I admit.)

Then, near the end of the tale, Brad is given several data drives that have loads of documents and videos and information in general about all the people that Brad has dealt with over the course of his job in Pompeii and how they are definitely not what they appeared to be. We get about 60 pages of that, and then there’s an ending that I suppose was an attempt to be impactful, but really had little connection to the rest of the book and so it didn’t work for me, and then it’s done.

Leaving me not knowing what to think.

Except to lump this book into the rest of the mediocre Science Fiction mash-up and move on. I was quite disappointed. I can’t even say how much. I don’t even think I could recommend this book to those readers who like Science Fiction. The science here was very slight, very uninspiring, and even though it was necessary to the story, the tale barely felt like it belonged to the genre at all. And the relevance or the title? The one that actually screams Science Fiction? No idea. Grumble.

Recommended Age: 16+
Language: A few strong references, intermittent
Violence: A few deaths, nothing big
Sex: Various and frequent references, but no scenes

Frederik Pohl's Website


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Perfect Shadow

7:00 AM Nikki

Brent Weeks' immensely popular Night Angel Trilogy was published in quick succession. Readers had all three of his debut books on hand, devoured them, and then had to wait for his next novel. While imperfect, it was easy to see Weeks' potential for spinning a good yarn. THE BLACK PRISM has been released since then, but Weeks did take a little time to go back to the world he started out with, and gives us a novella about the assassin Durzo Blint.

Durzo is a character with a lot of back story, but since Night Angel wasn't about him, we didn't get to see much of it. "The Perfect Shadow" will give readers a glimpse into his life, specifically about how he became the man that is Durzo Blint. If you haven't read any of the Night Angel books you wouldn't know that Durzo is actually almost 700 years old, and has lived a lot of lives, in different countries, under different names.

As far as character studies go, it's too short and even disappointingly cliche. It's written much like Weeks' first book WAY OF SHADOWS, with its movie-esque action scenes and standard fantasy setting; the pace is quick and the prose easy to read. Unfortunately very little time is spent on Durzo actually learning the assassin trade and the rest of the time we're exposed to frequent wish-fulfillment sex. There's little to no setting, so those unfamiliar with the world will have a hard time creating a mental image of the time and place, especially since Weeks jumps around Durzo's memories.

It's only available on Kindle and Audible for pretty cheap, so if you loved the Night Angel world, and Durzo fascinated you, then you may want to pick this up. It's a quick read with details and insight about what makes Durzo an interesting character. But if you haven't read the trilogy, you'd best pass.

Recommended Age: 16+
Language: Quite a bit
Violence: Well, yes, he is an assassin, so there's blood and killing
Sex: Referenced. A lot.


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Hellhole

7:00 AM Nikki

Everyone has prejudices. I don’t care who you are or what your background is, we all have things that just irk us to no end. As a reviewer it can be difficult sometimes to put those prejudices aside, to try and read a work based on it’s merit alone and ignore everything else. I have a secret for you readers. I’m not a fan of the latest Dune books put out by Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson. I haven’t read them, but I have read the original Dune and it’s one of my favorite books ever. I don’t like the new books because it feels like they are trampling on something sacred to me. Who are they to tell me what else happened in the Dune universe. Only one person has that right. Frank Herbert. And since he is dead we are just going to have to content ourselves on what he left for us. Now I know, Brian Herbert is Frank’s son and maybe they even have some old notes and things. I don’t care. It still feels wrong and I don’t like it (plus the other reviewers here at EBR all assure me that the new Dune novels are freaking terrible).

So when I received HELLHOLE by Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson, I thought it was a cruel joke being played upon me (and who knows, it may have been), but I decided to put aside my prejudices and read the book and judge it on it’s own merits. And then something funny happened, something strange and utterly unexpected.

I started to like it.

I know, weird right? But I did. I was having fun reading it. And despite the cast of characters that appeared to include hundreds of viewpoints, I was able to easily keep track of the story and enjoy it. The story takes place on a backwater planet named Halholme (nicknamed Hellhole by it’s citizens) where a defeated General Tiber Adolphus is exiled. He there attempts to undermine the core planets, start a rebellion and organize a new government of deep zone planets. Really it’s more than that, but the rest of the characters and story all hang off of that basic framework. I was surprised how all of those stories interwove and brought out new and interesting details.

And then aliens showed up.

Now, I’m an SF nerd, no apologies. If there’s an SF book to be read and reviewed here at EBR, I’m usually the guy to do it. I love aliens, I really do. I love weird planets and alien cultures and all of that, but these aliens killed this story for me. They put a gun to the novel's head and blew it to messy chunks of confetti. The aliens felt forced, unimaginative and all-powerful/wise in that Yoda way, yet cryptic in that zen master way. It all felt so over-done that I wanted to throw up. Which is a bummer, cause I was enjoying it up to that point.

So all in all, the book was a surprising roller-coaster of a read. I just wish that it had ended on an upswing instead of a down. There’s good stuff to be had here, but I don’t think I’ll be rushing to pick up the next book in the series. In the end, the total package was mediocre.

P.S. Can you believe I made it through this whole review without making a reference to reading a book entitled HELLHOLE and being forced to review it. SO MANY JOKES!

Age Recommendation: 16+
Language: Not much
Violence: Nothing remarkable
Sex: Alluded to but never shown


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Seed Seeker

7:00 AM Nikki

A few generations ago, the sentient Ship found the planet Home, and seeded a human colony there. Ship promised to return one day to check up on their progress after it finds more planets to colonize.

Now Ship has returned to Home, and the people there aren't sure they want it to come back.

There are two different groups of people living on Home, as represented by their PoV narrators. There are the 'dome dwellers' who remain at the initial settlement and live off the technology and supplies that Ship provided when they first arrived. Safrah is one of the four young adults who still live there, helping to raise the children grown from the mechanical wombs; all older adults have died. They consider themselves 'true humans' because they haven't integrated with the alien biology of the planet. However, the majority of the population moved away from the first settlement, and now live along the river, including the young woman Bian. Unlike the dome dwellers who live among deteriorating technology, the agrarian river people are thriving and growing.

The characters, particularly the main PoV characters are an interesting assortment of people, with their problems, wants, and fears. The switches between PoV was smooth and easy to follow. The cultures of the dome dwellers and the outsiders was sparsely drawn, but was well enough done to not overwhelm a YA audience with too much information.

On first glimpse the concept of SEED SEEKER is really interesting. And the first quarter of the book sets up the story nicely. But then niggling problems became apparent, and by three-quarters of the way through they became full-blown annoyances.

A good portion of important information that affects character choices and behavior isn't given sufficient foreshadowing; it's not explained until we're in-the-moment, which makes the resolutions feel contrived. For example, the dome dwelling children are too afraid ever go outside. However, near the end of the novel we learn that one of them has been sneaking out on increasing forays for the past several months...which conveniently helps the river people gain entrance to the domes they would otherwise be lost in.

The prose could have been more fluid, and as a result it slowed the pace, making the book almost tedious to read. The dialogue was particularly awkward, mostly because the characters provide information that was hard for me to believe real people would share. The creative naming convention, especially when referring to people who don't have a direct bearing on the plot, cluttered the narrative unnecessarily.

The most important of these problems is the eventual realization of the contrived plot. Bian and Safrah spend the entire novel afraid. Afraid of their own lives. Afraid of the other community's culture. Afraid of Ship's potential 'judgment' on the colony. Afraid of what's going to happen. Fortunately they stumble forward in their lives despite this fear—even if it's not clear why they're afraid of everything around them. It got overbearing at times, because their fear and fear-based actions were important to the plot's forward momentum...which meant the momentum was slow and stilted.

Despite the interesting premise, the execution lacked any real strength. YA readers who really enjoy science fiction may likely enjoy this book for the themes of colonization, quasi-religious judgment, technology vs pastoral, opposing cultures, and a sort of "first contact" with Ship. However, others with a passing interest in Science Fiction may find it dull.

Recommended Age: 12+
Language: None
Violence: Brief scene near the end, and not particularly graphic.
Sex: Several of the characters have romantic intentions which lead to marriage, including one same-sex couple who must overcome cultural obstacles.

SEED SEEKER is the final installment of the Seed Trilogy, after EARTHSEED (1983) and FARSEED (2007). However, it's easily readable as a standalone.


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Bitter Seeds

7:00 AM Nikki

Why do all good YA novels have adults in them that are either incompetent, abusive, or otherwise inattentive to the point-of-view children? Easy answer: because any rational adult seeing children in such horrific and/or dangerous circumstances, would without a second thought step into the story, hide the kids in the basement, and call the SWAT team to take out the bad guys. How on earth does that even remotely apply to an alternate historical fantasy based on WWII German superhumans fighting magic-wielding Warlocks? Stick around and find out.

BITTER SEEDS is Ian Tregillis’s debut novel and the first in the Milkweed Triptych. Apparently when the guy isn’t working at Los Alamos National Labs, he chums around with writers like George R. R. Martin and Daniel Abraham. Smart people + smart writers = total coolness. To say the least, I was interested in this one before I ever found out what it was about. And after I did? Talk about upping the stakes.

The novel centers around World War II with POVs from both sides of the struggle. From England, we get Lieutenant-Commander Raybould Marsh, former soldier and current member of the Secret Intelligence Service, who gets caught up in the workings of an uber-secret group named Milkweed after he recovers a filmstrip showing German super-humans flying, and disappearing, and levitating machine guns. His buddy, the wealthy Englishman William Beauclerk, has been lazing about trying to get into trouble when Marsh approches him with news of the supernatural. This isn’t totally off, as Will’s family is one of a long line of Warlocks, who can use their skills to engage the powers of the Eidolons, a magical race of uber-creatures that remind one of nothing more than mini-cthulus. From the German side we get Klaus. He’s one of the sought-after super-humans and can essentially turn himself into a ghost for as long as he can hold his breath and his battery, to which he is wired, has a charge. Klaus has contemporaries, however, that include a man that can incinerate pretty much anything, a nearly-mindless cripple that can smash armored tanks to bits, and his sister, Greta, who can see into the future. Throw all of this goodness together with crushed ice, shake, pour, and you can’t help but get awesome, right?

Right?

Well, I admit, there is some awesome to be had, but overall most of it just fizzled for me. First the good though.

The biggest thing going for this novel is the descriptions. Great setting, history, sense of place. Interesting and complicated concepts are easily understood. Not once did I get held up because I didn’t understand something. There are also a lot of pretty cool ideas that have been put into the story. Background and history and continual intrigue also factor into the works. Characterization was decent, though two of the main PoV character, Marsh and Will, were pretty much indistinguishable from one another. Prose is well-done and reads fast.

A large issue I had though was that it just didn’t feel like any of the main characters did anything of note. Marsh goes on a number of recon missions and feeds information back to his superiors. Will collects up all his Grandfather’s friends that are Warlocks and then let them deal with the Eidolons. Mostly what Klaus seems to do is run away from things. There were a few times that he made decisions, but they really didn’t lead anywhere. Most of these complaints can probably be boiled down to the fact that there really wasn’t a logical, progressive plot that I could follow. I didn’t know from one chapter to the next really what was happening, or what any of the individual groups were trying to accomplish. Most of the story is told from a very high-level summary-laden perspective, with infrequent character-centric moments, and on the whole just didn’t work very well to relay the story. You can probably chalk this one up to the fact that the guy is a new author though. He'll learn to be better.

Despite the good and the bad that I found here, the piece that really took all the tension out of everything for me was Klaus’s sister, Greta. She’s a pre-cognitive without a leash, and as such she pretty much just pulls everyone’s strings. They all dance to her whims, whether they know it or not, and though it's stated several times throughout the book that she’s most likely a sociopath, I didn’t really get that from the interaction I saw from her. For me, Greta was just like the well-meaning parent that swoops in to save the day, placing her children in the basement and taking care of everything herself. Granted, she does make one decision that questions my opinion in this regard, but I just couldn’t bring myself to see her as a sociopathic manipulator rather than a benevolent dictator.

In the end, this one was nearly a study for me in amazing potential leading to disappointment. I can’t say that it was bad, but it wasn’t great either. From what I understand though, due to some truly horrific circumstances associated with Tregillis's previous editor, the entire trilogy is essentially done and waiting for approval from his current editor. Not Rothfuss-done. Just done. So that can’t be a bad thing for readers. If you do pick this one up and find that you like it, at least you can be happy that they’ll probably be put out fairly fast.

Recommended age: 18+
Language: Infrequent, but strong
Violence: A few bloody fight scenes but for the most part, no
Sex: Very little, though there are a few direct references to necrophilia

Ian Tregillis's Website


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For the Win

7:00 AM Nikki

FOR THE WIN is Cory Doctorow's novel from last summer. If you have read and liked Doctorow's work in the past, then this book will be just right for you. If not, then I don't think this book will push any buttons that Doctorow's stuff missed in the past. Basically this is the typical Cory Doctorow novel.

The novel is about a bunch of online gamers forming a union.

No, really. That's what it's about. You want more than that? Fine. The story follows several view point characters around the world, all connected by online games (similar to World of Warcraft) that they enjoy playing, but want better rights for the work they do. There's Mala and Yasmin, brilliant young players in the slums of Dharavi. Leonard, or Wei Dong to his Chinese friends, who lives in California and is addicted to the online games and his friends. Matthew and Lu are some of those friends in China trying to get a better deal for their gold farming services. All of their stories have different twists and turns as they evade corrupt cops and ruthless bosses, and eventually bring them all together for the finale. But like I said, this novel is about a bunch of online gamers forming a union.

I read this book initially because I enjoyed Doctorow's LITTLE BROTHER so darn much and I was hoping to get a little more of the same. And I did...partially. Doctorow's writing style is clean and effortless to follow and even during the times when the characters are talking about something totally foreign to me, Doctorow pulls back for a moment to explain in simple terms what's going on. Normally I find this off-putting, but for some reason I like it Doctorow's work. It feels like I'm watching Mythbusters where right before they explode another car into a million pieces they step back to explain the physics of said explosion. There is also still a fun story going on with all the characters. The characters are all interesting and sympathetic and I did find myself wanting to keep reading to see what would happen.

That being said this book didn't delight me the way LITTLE BROTHER did. The fact that it had multiple viewpoints for me was a detraction. In LITTLE BROTHER I was able to really get into the mind of the character. I followed his every move. In FOR THE WIN, the constant changes in viewpoint sometimes had me lost as I tried to keep track of the different people. The negative side-effect here is that it also made it easier to put down for long stretches of time--not good. The viewpoint would switch and I just wouldn't be into the current story so much. The other complaint that I personally had with the novel was the fact that it the entire book dealt with a bunch of gamers. These are people who spent countless hours in their respective video games...and then the novel spends almost no time in the games themselves. I was kind of disappointed in that. It seemed like a fun way to show the lives of these characters. After all, they spend more time in that virtual world and come to think of themselves more in that world than out of it. Why then couldn't we see those fun imaginative games?

Overall FOR THE WIN was a mixed bag for me. I'm not upset that I read it, but it wasn't my favorite book of all time either. Doctorow is a big proponent of sharing his work for free online. He figures that if you really like it you'll go out and buy a copy and support the author. So that's good news for all of you out there. You can go out and read any of Doctorow's books for free right now. If I were you though I would start with LITTLE BROTHER.

Recommended Age: 16+ The plot is a bit complicated and not as action packed as kids might be used to. There's also a bit of language and violence.
Language: Not a ton, but it's there.
Violence: Again not a ton but some. One scene in particular was fairly graphic.
Sex: Mild innuendo.


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Black Halo

7:00 AM Nikki

Sophomore novel. You know the term. And if you don't, then here. Hmm. That didn't work very well. Did anyone else know there wasn't a wiki for the term "Sophomore Novel"? Who'd have thought? Now I have the urge to go write one. Perhaps I will. Oh look. There's a wiki for haiku. How about a haiku on sophomore novels:

Great debut, I say,
but then this lackluster. Why?
It is the way. [[sigh]]

If any of you missed Sam Sykes's spectacular debut, TOME OF THE UNDERGATES, you should really go read it. Loads of fun. I loved it. BLACK HALO is the second novel of the Aeon's Gate, and after that first one I was seriously interested in seeing what Sykes was going to do next. TOME OF THE UNDERGATES could have been the climax to an entire series and readers probably would have been good with it. Action. Packed. But there was this pretty large issue that the whole thing happened on a boat. Thus, when BLACK HALO didn't start on a boat, I was ready to go.

Lenk and his five followers, after stealing the illustrious Tome of the Undergates, have crash landed on an island. Well, a massive sea serpent might have had something to do with it. But they're there. On the island, that is. And apparently it's deserted. They're all pretty sick of each other though, and after that last book who can blame them? They weren't exactly the most happy-go-lucky bunch of folk to begin with. Lenk's having some problems with these voices in his head. They just won't shut up. They've been bothering him for a while now, telling him to kill everyone or to bail on them because they're all going to betray him eventually anyway, and they've gotten considerably worse since he took a looksie at the pages in the Tome. Kataria is struggling more with the whole lifestyle choice she's made. She's supposed to kill all humans, and Lenk is, after all, a human. Soon she starts to hear the voice of another Shict though, and is fighting against all her thoughts and emotions. Gariath has kind of gone off the deep end. Wandering away from everyone else, he starts to talk to another dragonman that apparently died a long time ago, but for some reason is still on this island and has shown up to fill him in on a few choice details about the place.

And honestly, it wasn't long before I had to ask the question: Does anyone else feel like they're on the island from Lost? I kind of threw my hands up though when Lenk follows the stream to the cave where bad things happened a long time ago, and then he goes inside it. So much for subtlety in imitation...

Syke's writing in this book is every bit as good as in the previous one. He has this way of writing that makes it easy to read lots of pages. His characters are, at once, interesting and nuanced and complicated. There were two new point-of-view characters in BLACK HALO that were really quite good. The first is a wizard that's been charged with tracking down those that use magic "illegally" and without cost, that has difficulty ignoring the abuse of women. This is the character that starts the book off. The one that got me excited about everything because I was going to see more of the world. The second new character is The Mouth, the human through which the sea-goddess Mother Ulbecetonth speaks, that is sent to release The Father from his captivity. Unfortunately for Ulbecetonth, the Mouth's faith is wavering because of a daughter that he lost to sickness a long time ago. Both of these characters are immediately engaging. This is absolutely one thing that Sykes has brought to the table in both of his offerings to us: great characters.

Unfortunately, there's not a lot that really happens in this novel. There's a whole lot of navel-gazing. A whole lot of lying on the beach. A whole lot of hanging out with the lizard men. A whole lot more hanging out on the beach. We get a bunch of back-story and history, both of the characters and the island. Interesting, but progressive to the plot? Honestly, it's not clear yet. There's not a whole lot that happens to the plot, other than, perhaps, it gets fleshed-out a little.

The detailed, blow-by-blow, thought-by-thought writing of TOME OF THE UNDERGATES worked great for one reason: there was so much action going on that the reader just got swallowed up and dragged along with the current. This made the pacing of the novel fast, furious, and absopositutely more fun than the proverbial barrel of ninja-monkeys. Sykes's writing here is much the same, but the book lacks all of the action from the first novel. So the pacing is incredibly slow. Painstakingly such. There are a few exciting spots, some fun fight scenes, some tense creature moments, but what's really missing is a significant amount of progressive action. Most of what is there just feels random or pointless. I did like the climax...well, the end of the book (I don't know if I'd really call it a climax--there wasn't a whole lot of actual build-up), as there was a big fight with lots of monsters and magic and dragonman-mayhem. Still, fun as it was, it didn't feel like it progressed the plot at all. Except to set up the third book. Which it did perfectly. But sill, this is a perfect example of the whole "Middle Book Syndrome" you read about a lot on this blog. If there's anything that's obvious by the end of BLACK HALO, it is that the third book of the Aeon's Gate will be just a chock-full of violence and carnage as TOME OF THE UNDERGATES was, if not massively more so. Which is good, as long as it ends with something other than Lenk getting his hands on the Tome. Again.

Some day I think that Sam Sykes is going to be a really good author. He has "the way" with words. He knows how to write not just characters, but character. And he has a wildly imaginative mind to boot. His books are fun. I admit it, though, I expected a lot out of this one while feeling like I got very little. Too much character, not enough plot. Not enough progressive story. Lots to like, but this one would need so much more, and so much less, to be something really great. Here's to hoping that the next one is a step up, and that it's considerably more than just action.

Recommended age: 18 plus
Language: Mild swearing, not frequent.
Violence: When the action comes, there's a whole bundle, and it gets messy.
Sex: Some more kissing, some humorous references, and a fairly disturbing scene of violation that is, thankfully, interrupted.

Sam Sykes Official Website


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The Greyfriar

7:00 AM Nikki

Clay and Susan Griffith’s novel, THE GREYFRIAR—the first novel in their Vampire Empire series—has been receiving all sorts of rave reviews. Naturally when a novel gets that much good press, it grabs our attention. At that point our only option is to read it to see if the hype is justified.

The first thing we decided was that THE GREYFRIAR should probably be marketed to the female readers in the Urban Fantasy crowd. The reasons why become readily apparent the further into the book you read. But more on that later--we just felt we should get that out of the way right from the beginning.

The world Clay and Susan Griffith have created is an alternate history of our own world that has drastically altered the future. In 1870 a vampire apocalypse--called the Great Killing--drives humans basically out of the northern hemisphere. In this world vampires can’t cope very well with heat, so the surviving humans retreat to the tropics to rebuild their civilization. Fast-forward to the year 2020. In a steampunk-like society, the two major nations of humans are on the verge of joining together through an arranged marriage which in turn will mark the beginning of humanity’s efforts to eradicate the vampire menace.

The novel starts off terrifically. The Griffiths give the readers a fairly good idea of what things are like in the world. From airships, to politics, to the way vampires are portrayed. In those first few chapters we get some good world building, and some good character introductions. And then BAM, huge action sequence. We get a good sense of the absolute horror these people feel when encountering the monstrous vampires.

But for us, this is also when things go wrong.

The main PoV of THE GREYFRIAR is Adele, the heir to the throne of the Equatorian Empire. Along with her only sibling--the royal backup plan should Adele ever die--Adele is on a tour of the border lands of her Empire. Even the characters in the novel comment on how dumb of an idea this is. “Yeah, let’s send out our only two heirs to the dangerous borders of our nation. What could possible go wrong?” There was really no need for it, and the consequences aren’t even really explored (indeed it introduces a plot hole later). When the initial action sequence gets moving, Adele is obviously placed in a ton of danger. Vampires attack her warship, sending it crashing to the ground. The terror is everywhere. Her brother is attacked. Things seem hopeless.

Enter the Greyfriar. A vampire killing masked-man whose true identity is unknown. He saves Adele while killing his way through the vampire aggressors. He seems oddly strong and quick. He is Adele’s Zorro.

And thus begins the most predictable plot progression we’ve seen in a novel this decade (well, apart from the recently released THE UNREMEMBERED...but at least THE GREYFRIAR wasn't a total plot ripoff of another novel). From the instant the masked Greyfriar is introduced, we predicted EXACTLY how the plot would progress. Look, we’ve all read this story before. Damsel in distress is rescued by masked man. But why is he masked? Why, to cause conflict and a breach of trust the instant he shows the damsel his true visage. Can you connect the dots from here? You should be able to. It was utterly predictable all the way to the very end with the requisite “It has always been you” moment. The female demographic really seems to be the group loving this romantic story, and that’s fine. It wasn’t until we forced ourselves to think of the novel as chicklit that we could reconcile many of our problems with it.

The problem is that it was the absolute safe route. No risks were taken in this novel. None. And that right there is the single most disappointing aspect in this novel.

Were there other annoyances? Definitely. The Griffiths seem to bounce between 3rd Person Limited and 3rd Person Omniscient when ever the mood suits them. Action sequences were the biggest offender. The Limited sections were written so much better than the Omniscient ones, and we hope that they learned from this experience and write the next novel in pure Limited. Another problem? In the ARC we read a character is seemingly paralyzed in one scene, then running around the next. Hopefully we just read that wrong or it was corrected in the final release. Also, there are times when distances seemed accurate when characters were running around England, and other times when they just didn’t add up. Lastly, we really don’t like the title. Vampire Empire? Ugh. Throw in GREYFRIAR and say it all as fast as you can. And we’re really getting tired of the never-changing Chris McGrath covers (not the authors’ fault, obviously).

It’s a real shame there were this many problems with the novel because there were also some really great moments. The description of the violence was perfectly brutal, and the action scenes that stuck to the Limited PoV were pretty awesome. Descriptions were great, especially of London. While the characters were a tad flat and predictable, there were still interesting for the most part. The overall pacing of the novel was very quick and fluid when it wasn’t getting bogged down by eye-roll inducing moments.

When we initially finished the novel, we didn’t like it at all. However once we allowed a little time to pass and decided this was targeted more at females than a true male/female split demographic, we softened our opinion a little. This series still has plenty of promise, and many of the things we had problems with obviously haven’t bothered a large chunk of readers. This is one of those novels that for us is mediocre. Will you like it? Tough call. We recommend you read it for the potential it has and decide for yourselves.

Recommended Age: 14 and up.
Language: Not really.
Violence: Tons, usually well done.
Sex: The world of this novel is very much entrenched in the whole Victorian “we are all super proper” way of thinking. Sex isn’t openly discussed.


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Down the Road

7:00 AM Nikki

DOWN THE ROAD is one more entry into Zombie-genre novels that we wound up reading, even after we swore off of them. Gallery Books has been good to us, and for the most part we like what they give us, so we couldn't deny this little guy a read. This is Bowie Ibarra's debut (and only, so far) novel.

It's pretty obvious right from the start that this book isn't reinventing the wheel, and that Ibarra is an extreme amateur at writing. Transitions are rushed, descriptions (except for the gore...holy crap) were minimal, and character development was only nominal. All of this can be somewhat expected though when you see the page count total at just over 200, and then see that the print is very large. This book took a whole 40 minutes to read. Seriously.

It is our highly-respected, ultimately-important opinion that if you are going to write a "zombie-flick" book in a market this saturated, you have to at least make an effort to do something different. DOWN THE ROAD is exactly what you would expect from a zombie book, with every twist and turn telegraphed pages and pages before it comes. Especially if you have even watched just one movie. To the author's credit he actually wrote the book some years ago through a publisher that didn't care to have him revise or edit the book. What this means is that we have an M. Night Shyamalan situation. Little-to-no outside opinion or oversight can be a bad thing. DOWN THE ROAD is basically every zombie movie you have seen, put on paper. It's like Ibarra didn't even try to be original, and instead just focused on being as gruesome as possible.

Everything you would expect from a zombie story is here. We have the fascist government trying to contain the outbreak and even the clichéd guy who gets bitten and for some reason doesn't tell anyone. It was kind of annoying reading a story we have all read or seen about 100 times before. Even in a novel this short we found that our patience wearing extremely thin.

The books succeeds in its aim, but sadly the aim wasn't very high. If the book were any longer we probably would have gotten bored and put it down. Though to be honest, we kinda wished the book actually was shorter in places. There were a few very explicit sex scenes that really didn't need to be there. They were strictly shock-value, gratuitous and fantastical. After reading the "Director's Commentary" at the end of the novel, we have to wonder if--no offense to him--Ibarra wasn't just putting some of his own fantasies down on paper. It was kind of creepy.

That's a lot of negative stuff about the book. Why did it warrant Mediocre instead of Hate? Well...we didn't hate it. Duh! OK for real, there were some things Ibarra did completely right.

While there was tons of zombie-centered gore and action, at its heart DOWN THE ROAD is a decent character study of a man losing his grip on humanity. Ibarra was brilliant in how he focused the narrative on something extremely simple. It is basically the main character's attempt to get home. He has to traverse a normally very easy, very enjoyable trip "down the road" to his hometown. On the way he encounters all sorts of horror and it certainly takes its toll on him. The rest of the characters don't have enough to evolve at all, but each reaction to the zompocalypse is unique and gives a feeling of depth to the rest of the cast.

The narrative does have a large hiccup early on in the book. George (Why does every zombie book HAVE to have a character named George!? C'mon people...the homage to Romero is getting old) decides to totally murder two people. This type of degeneracy should have come after some experiences that led him to it. Instead it comes out of nowhere and immediately makes us dislike the main character. Even with this hiccup, something pretty cool happened as we read the book. The more degenerate he became, the more we hated the guy. Then oddly we rooted for him even more and hoped he would succeed and redeem himself.

Aside from that early misstep George's experiences and reactions were interesting enough and pretty well executed...though unoriginal. Another great thing was that Ibarra didn't feel the need to evolve his zombies, or give them some gimmick/flavor-of-the-month (probably because it was originally written a while ago), in order for them to be interesting. We all love 28 Days Later, but we all kind-of/sort-of wish, inside, that the zombies were a bit more classical. DOWN THE ROAD features the absolutely relentless, shambling, slow-yet-terrifying, zombies that started the genre. The zombie scenes are intense, and not just for the graphically described gore and violence. Ibarra gives these meat-eaters a real sense of malevolence that many Horror books lack from even the most horrific creatures.

We are going to use our cop-out summary for this book, yet again. If you are a Zomb-fan, you'll probably love it. If you aren't a Zomb-fan, and looking for something in the Horror genre, it will probably be better to look elsewhere.

Recommended Age: 18+. Adults only.
Language: Ridiculous amounts of every curse word. Overused.
Violence: Lots and lots and described in disgusting gruesome detail. Zomb-fans will not be disappointed. Most people will wonder why so much description was on this and so little on setting.
Sex: Multiple extremely explicit scenes. They are so graphic and unnecessary that this scores huge marks against the book for us.


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Troubled Waters

7:00 AM Nikki

Zoe is a coru woman, which means she has an affinity to water and blood, and the traits associated with it. But Zoe is different: water comes when she calls.

Zoe's father was the king's closest adviser, but ten years ago was exiled from court, and took his young daughter with him to live in a small village. At the opening of TROUBLED WATERS, Zoe finds herself an orphan; the day after the funeral, the king's adviser, Darien Serlast, comes to collect her to become the king's fifth wife.

With nothing left to tie her to the village, Zoe goes with Darien to the city to marry the king. At least, that's what Darien tells Zoe. It turns out he knows a lot more than he lets on. As a result, Zoe doesn't trust him, and at the first opportunity, she escapes into the city and the obscurity of the river flats, where the city's poor gather to sleep.

TROUBLED WATERS is an undemanding story to read, with flowing prose, subtle foreshadowing, and steady pacing--and not a whole lot going wrong for our heroine. Certainly her father died, but I kept waiting for a tragic turn in the story. Anything. There was a brief episode where her money is stolen, but she retrieves it on the very same page. This is a la-de-da skipping through town, living in the safe (?!?) homeless tent town on the river flats, easily finding a hap-hap-happy cobbler and his wife to hire her as a shopkeeper, all of the food is delicious, everyone is all so well meaning, the clothes are lovely, and then she discovers she's the heir of a wealthy and powerful noble house.

What does all this equal? Not much tension. So what's to keep a reader turning pages? In this case, the world building. Oh...and, um, if you're inclined for it, a sweet love story.

The first hundred pages consists of leisurely forward movement, it's almost exclusively world building. We learn a lot about the city, but the main focus is the magic of the element/spirit traits of the people (water, wood, fire, earth, air). These classifications shape society, behavior, and their understanding of each other. This is what kept me reading more than the characters, especially Zoe who sometimes felt like she was just going through the motions of the story. Her actions are inconsistent, she makes foolish decisions (usually without consequences), and is thrown into a position of power but provided no guidance--all things which happen to be useful to advancing the story, but makes Zoe difficult to like and the plot often unbelievable.

There are a few other characters, most of them friends or relatives of Zoe, who help her out and provide support and encouragement. She eventually interacts with the queens, princesses, king, and other important people of the city, but all of these are shallow caricatures, if entertaining. The most well-drawn person in the book is her love interest, Darien Serlast. He is a hunti (wood/bone) man, and as a result is determined and unyielding. As the king's right-hand man, he has power and responsibility in his own right. Zoe's very nature frustrates him...and intrigues him.

As the head of her noble house, or 'prime', Zoe comes into her powers and discovers the extent of what of a coru prime really can do. As the story progresses, she learns some disturbing truths about her father and the king, and as a result becomes embroiled in court intrigue. She comes to rely on Darien, and he on her. You can pretty much guess the results.

TROUBLED WATERS is a sweet book, with nice characters, and a happy ending. Sure there are some contrivances, but it's not the kind of book you can let yourself get stuck on the unbelievable parts. This is a good one for those who like to avoid the rough and dark stuff out there.

Recommended Age: 14+ for reading level and comprehension more than content. This is a YA novel shelved in the adult section.
Language: None
Violence: None
Sex: Kissing and some talk about affairs


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Esperanza

7:00 AM Nikki

Hypothetical situation for you. You live in the US, and one day you get a phone call from a doctor that tells you your father has just suffered two major heart attacks, possibly received some brain damage as a result, and that he has consequently sunk into a deep coma. Naturally you rush to his bedside, forget about your life entirely, and fret over every blink and shift until finally, several weeks later, he wakes up. When he does, he starts rambling about how he's traveled forty years into the future to a little village in South America where he made enemies with some bad ghosties, and that he needs to get back there to figure things out. Then he leaps out of the bed, grabs the lamp, and proceeds to smash it into the wall, stating that one of the ghosties has come to get him. Again, naturally, the doctors at the hospital throw him in the psych ward.

What do you do?

A) Let the docs take care of him because that's what they're there for;

B) Break him out of the place because naturally he's telling you the truth;

or C) Write a note, slit your wrists, and hope someone finds you fast enough that you'll end up in the same loony bin as him.

If you answered A, you might be able to consider yourself normal.

If you answered B, you will completely understand this novel.

On the other hand, if you answered C...well, I'm not going to go there, but you probably need to talk to someone. Preferably, a professional.

ESPERANZA is the first book in a projected trilogy called The Hungry Ghosts that deals with...well...hungry ghosts. Kind of. This is MacGregor's first book for Tor, but by no means her first book. She's been writing mysteries, thrillers, and astrology books since the early 80's and has about thirty all told to her name.

The story, what there is, revolves around three main characters: Tess, an FBI agent from 2008; Ian, a college professor from 1968; and Dominica, a brujo, or hungry ghost leader that resides in the town of Esperanza. Page time is split between the three. Tess and Ian are trying to figure out what’s going on, why they ended up in Esperanza together, and after some craziness, how to get back to each other and the city in the same time. Yes, this is a time travel story too. Sort of. Dominica just wants them both dead. Plain and simple.

From all accounts, this is purported to be a supernatural thriller, though I can’t say that I exactly know why, for there were few thrills to be found. Supernatural, yes--it’s about ghosts--but the decided lack of tension or suspense made it difficult to ever really get into the book. There’s a whole lot of information, most of which seems to flow quite freely between the several characters without anything actually being said about it. People just kinda know it. Or feel it. Or sense it. You know? [[nudge, nudge]]

The characters are fairly lackluster; development arcs, non-existent. Prose is good, but that’s to be expected with how many books MacGregor has written. There’s also definitely a lot that happens in the book. There’s some good progression from one scene to the next. The two human characters learn things and then move on, trying to figure it all out as the brujos come after them time and time again.

The biggest problem, as evidenced by my intro, is that characters that are supposedly living in this world (our world, the real world and not some variant of it) react and act in ways that are incredibly inconsistent with reality and just happen to coincide greatly with moving the plot along its path. The example I used was quite possibly the most grievous of these infractions, but as these instances cropped up again and again I lost the ability to suspend my disbelief and ultimately lost interest altogether. So when the whiz-bang finish came with flamethrowers, and snipers, and grenades, and people dying left and right, I was just flowing right over those words to get to the final ending. I’d had enough of the brujos.

I’ve been told by people I trust to not expect too much from books labeled as “thrillers”. This book is a perfect example to me of why that statement might be true.

My favorite line of the book though, cannot be missed: "He saw a tiny opening, dived, struck the ground, rolled, leaped up, and raced away from them." I mean, seriously, who does this? Well...okay. Captain Kirk. You win.

Recommended age: 16 plus
Language: Some. Fairly frequent.
Violence: A few people “bleed out” in disturbing ways, and there’s the war scene at the end. So, yeah, it's there.
Sex: A couple scenes that pass by pretty quickly.

Trish MacGregor's Website


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Hawkwood's Voyage

7:00 AM Nikki

Buzz, buzz, buzz. Can you hear it? Bees? you wonder, but no. Not bees. Did someone leave the stereo speakers on? No. Not that. Huh. Then what? I’ll tell you what. It's the buzz of advertisement. Every once in a while we see it pop up. There’s some new book or author that gets people talking and soon it’s all over the place and everyone wants to know more. There was a bundle for NAME OF THE WIND, a grip for TOME OF THE UNDERGATES, and yes there was enough for this book that I got caught up by it. Thus.

HAWKWOOD AND THE KINGS is an omnibus version of two books written by Paul Kearney back in the mid-90’s that Solaris decided to bring back after some of Kearney’s more recent novels got some acclaim. Decent idea. We’ve seen it before and will see it again. Sometimes it works great: more of a great author to digest. Others, not so much: earlier work isn’t up to par with what we know. Which is this? I can’t say one way or the other as this is the first Kearney novel I’ve read, but if I had to guess, I’d say it’s more than likely the latter due to poor presentation. The first book in the omnibus was originally titled HAWKWOOD'S VOYAGE, which I found rather confusing as I was reading it. More on that later though. This review will take us through that first novel collected in HAWKWOOD AND THE KINGS.

The story itself revolves around a couple main characters. The first we meet is Corfe, who is a solider escaping the burning and looting of the City of God. The nefarious Merduks have finally done the unthinkable and sacked the city. Instead of fighting through though, instead of trying to find his commanding officers, or instead of trying to find his wife and save her from their rapacious enemies, he turns tail and runs away. Bye bye city. Can’t stay to chat. Hmm. Unfortunate beginning...

Then we get Hawkwood. He’s the captain of a fine sailing vessel, touting a crew from all over the known world. He’s at the end of another trip and finally sailing back into the realm of the Monarchies of God. As the ship comes into the port of Abrusio, however, he notices that there are burning bodies everywhere. The church has declared all foreigners and those with magical ability to be heretics, and as such they must all be burnt at the stake. Like any rational character would, he ignores all the signs and sails into port. As a result, half his crew is thrown in prison and put in the queue to be killed. And thus he can’t turn his nose up when he’s approached by a representative of the king to load a bunch of magic users into his boat and set sail toward an unknown continent, months to the west. First though, he has to visit his mistress for several days and then yell at his wife for being so weepy after hearing the news. Nice.

The book itself is involved with both Hawkwood’s journey across the waters (eventually) and the advance of the Merduk army across the Monarchies (as preceded by Corfe). There are also a number of other secondary characters through which the story is told. Arungzeb, the Merduk king. Bardolin the Mage. Heria, Corfe’s wife. Abeleyn, the King in Abrusio. Murad, the king’s cousin. Hu--- So many, you ask? Yes, I know--this is quite the list--but there’re still a few more. You don’t want to know? But there’s such a good reason. Here. I’ll just give it to you.

This novel has an omniscient narrator.

We move from one character to the next, sometimes mid page, never really getting a sense of who any of them are; though when we do they're not all that impressive. We see very few connections between them, which are important; we don’t see arcs, which we love; we hardly even see emotion, though when we do it feels like a switch has been flipped. And then flipped off again. There are, in essence, no characters to love. No character to enjoy.

And that completely breaks my heart.

What is here is a ton of possibility for story, but we don’t really get one. In fact, it reads more like a history book through a combination of info dump, prose, and speech:

Here’s what’s happened up to this point.

Here’s a good description on what the city/room/landscape/boat looks like.

Here’s some conversation to help you understand what’s happening around the world (most times with little to no obvious connection to a character of interest)

Next chapter.

The one thing that Kearney does do quite well is give a good sense of living on a boat. As a significant portion of the story happened on a boat, this was an added bonus. But bonuses do not a story make. Especially if said voyaging boat trip doesn’t start until 60% of the book has already passed. (You find that odd too? Well then.) Writing was well-done. Pacing was rough for the most part and shifted frequently. As I mentioned, no real character development. Logical progression. The scope was epic though, I’ll give it that: the big bad church, politics spanning vast countries, evil baddies from other countries coming to chop you and yours to bits, magical heretics peppered in amongst it all. And there was even a werewolf.

The problem was that I couldn’t care a fig about any of it. Too bad, really. I would have loved to see something non-mediocre. It just wasn’t there. That said, there wasn't enough to put me off of reading the next part of the omnibus.

Recommended age: 18 plus
Language: Occasional, but strong
Violence: War and werewolves. Yeah.
Sex: Several scenes that, oddly enough, received more detailed attention than the main crux of the story

Paul Kearney’s Homepage


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A Discovery of Witches

7:00 AM Nikki

Debut author Deborah Harkness has been on my 'to read' list since her appearance at New York's ComicCon fantasy author panel with the likes of Peter V. Brett, Naomi Novik, Brandon Sanderson, Jim Butcher, and Joe Abercrombie. Yeah, a newb sitting amongst some of the most popular fantasy authors today. I had to know if she deserved being there.

In A DISCOVERY OF WITCHES Harkness takes all the urban fantasy romantic tropes and...uses them. Main PoV character Diana is smart, orphaned, stubborn, beautiful-though-she-doesn't-know-it, and a powerful witch. Her vampire love interest Matthew is almost perfectly thoughtful, impeccably dressed, brilliant, rich, and well connected. The antagonists resent their blossoming romance because vampires and witches 'just don't mix' (Really! It's never happened before!). There's the trendy locales (Oxford, France, upstate New York), the wine/books/artifacts only a centuries old vampire could have, the tension between the supernatural races. If you've read your share of urban fantasy, you've seen all this many times over.

The issue isn't that Harkness uses these tropes over again--they are tried and true for a reason--it's that it's her first novel and you can tell. Her foreshadowing lacks subtlety. Last-minute contrivances fix issues. Too much time is spent on the minutiae of eating/traveling/clothing. Expository conversations are used to forward the plot. And the plot itself is bogged down with irrelevant information. You know, the kinds of things any Writing Excuses episode would explain are problems because they affect flow and readability.

But do these problems ruin the story?

For most urban fantasy readers, those are issues that won't impede their enjoyment of the love story. However, while I enjoyed Harkness' blending of ideas and the magic, even if they aren't exactly groundbreaking, the execution made it hard for me to enjoy it on a level that would make me give an unhesitating endorsement.

The story starts off with a problem: Why does everyone want Ashmole 782? Diana is a Ph.D. in history, an expert on alchemical texts, and during her research at Oxford she finds a text that has been missing for 150 years. She can tell it's special because it fires off all her witch's senses. But she's here as a scholar and not a witch, so sends it back, where it disappears again. Now every vampire, witch, and daemon in Oxford wants to know how she got it to appear and if she's going to do it again. Because its hidden text supposedly explains the origin of paranormal creatures--and perhaps even how to destroy them forever.

During Diana's research, Matthew Clairmont appears. He's mysterious and attractive, but he's a vampire. He's a scientist at heart, who wants to not only know the how but also the why. He claims to want to help Diana, and is interested in Ashmole 782, but his altruistic intentions are suspect. Diana, against her better judgment, is drawn into Matthew's circle of protection. The other witches don't want anyone but another witch to ever obtain Ashmole 782, and see Diana's vampire-trusting behavior as a betrayal.

Then the dots start connecting: the death of her parents, the meaning of the text, the motives of witches and vampires who are trying to keep Diana and Matthew apart. Harkness blends history, magic, science and alchemy into a story that sucks you in despite its awkward pace--because, really, you don't know where Harkness is heading with all this and you are compelled to know.

Harkness's prose is easy enough to read, and she handles the magic well, including the separation of the supernatural races, and even the 'science' of their behaviors. Even though some of it seems to be for convenience's sake (i.e., vampires awake and walking around during the day; their meeting being 'fate'). My favorite part of the entire book is the sentient house where Diana's witch Aunt Sarah lives. It creates new rooms for guests, has temper tantrums, and hides/reveals things at the appropriate times.

The love story between the main characters is a strangely mixed bag of reality and contrivance. I wanted to want to see them together, and they seem to fit together as a couple personality-wise, but the execution made Matthew creepy and Diana wishy-washy. Matthew is an over-protective control freak and Diana is a 30-something Ph.D. who devolves into a lovestruck teen, which made me kind of embarrassed for my sex. It doesn't help, either, that it only takes them a few weeks to decide this is True Love Forever.

While I was eventually able to enjoy the main characters, and even the plethora of secondary characters that are important in Diana and Matthew's lives, I couldn't get around the meandering storyline. Certainly there's forward movement as they fall in love, travel, and unravel the mysteries of Ashmole 782, but I look back and there's just so much fluff. I spent 500+ pages reading to remember all these details (historical, alchemical, etc), only to have them mean nothing to the story. If you asked me, I don't think I could pinpoint the exact climax of the novel (I think it was around the 2/3 mark, which is an awkward spot); then the last third of the novel devolves into a meandering buildup for an event that leads into what's obviously going to be a sequel. I guess we'll have to see if she improves with subsequent novels.

Recommended Age: 16+ for sexuality
Language: Fewer than five instances
Violence: Not much beyond a hazy torture scene and some peril
Sex: One detailed scene and plenty of implied scenes and conversations


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Up Jim River

7:00 AM Nikki

You know what I’m getting tired of? Book covers that have absolutely nothing to do with the content of the book. I get the whole “first impression” bit. I understand the very essential concept of getting a potential buyer to just pick up the book. I also know that publishing books is a business. But honestly? The amount of false advertising present on book covers today just ticks me off. Then again, I have no idea what kind of cover might have persuaded me to pick this book up in the first place had it had only dealt with the concepts presented therein, and not been entirely based on a metaphor of the story instead. So, a quandary for you: False-advertising? Or no sales? Option number three, if you ask me.

UP JIM RIVER starts out quite interesting, even though each character has about four names and breaks into complicated dialectal speech seemingly at random. Méarana is the daughter of a semi-famous Hound named Bridget Ban that has gone missing. Naturally, she’s out to find her mom, but she needs some help because the Hounds (kind of the big-bad FBI of the science-fictional world Flynn has developed) have given up the search and, well, she just needs some help. Thus, she enlists the aid of Donovan, an old drunk that used to work with her mother on occasion, but whom has recently been imbued with multiple personalities via the work of some very nasty people. These personalities of his each have a name/title, have unique control over several faculties of Donovan’s body, and all speak through different fonts on the page. Bold, brackets, script, italics, a couple others. There are seven of them present in total but for the most part they all sound just about the same, so it’s tough to distinguish between any particular one of them. I found it was best to just take their thoughts at face value and move on. Too confusing, otherwise. At length, our two adventurers set of across the galaxy to find their missing Hound/mother and make Méarana feel whole again.

Flynn’s writing is just grand here. Poetic, fluid, descriptive. Awesome, in a word--it was one of the reasons why I decided to give this book a try over the others I saw on the shelf--but I found that the more I read of it, the less I liked it. I realized that I just wasn’t sinking into the story. In fact, it felt more like an acid trip than anything else (err...from what I've been told...). Floating along, experiencing the world and seeing the characters interact. It was only when I’d pull out and come back from la-la land that I could realize exactly what was going on in the story and consequently put two and two together. As such, the world is fairly fleshed-out, the characters well-done, but the actual progression of the storyline difficult (at best) to follow.

Essentially, the story reads like a mystery novel minus the process of finding the clues, set in a story bent on world-building the heck out of the galaxy. The first 80% of the book deals with the two protagonists (which each have their bundle of flip-flopping point-of-view time) as they move from one world to the next, finding the next clue (notice there’s no mention of the "finding process" here) as to where Bridget Ban might have gone, or what she was doing before she disappeared. There’s a nice, large info-dump about each planet and its history and its inhabitants (and sometimes, strangely enough, their eating habits) before finally moving into what’s actually happening to the people we’re trying to care about. They find the next clue, though about half the time one character or the other just comes back with it after wandering around on a hunch, and then move on. Kind of anti-climactic that way.

There was one point in the book that I actually started understanding what this was all, possibly, supposed to be about. This happened within about 20 pages, in a single section inside the last 10% of the book. We finally get something that starts to make sense, that starts to look exciting. An interesting question is raised--which is what any story, science-fictional or not, should do--but then it’s all left behind, and the climax of the anti-climactic story is left to wallow in its anti-climactic stagnancy. At least it was consistent.

There were a number of things that I didn’t understand going into this book. The first was the fact that this is apparently a sequel to THE JANUARY DANCER (not mentioned anywhere on the book, but the ship January Dancer is mentioned a few times in the book, and I’m no dummy). The second was that it was possible to find writing that was so well put-together that it could actually inhibit the story experience. First time for everything, I guess. The third and final thing that I didn’t understand was just how far out on the made-up word scale a science fiction book could go. (And here I will give you a not-so-humble reminder of xkcd's opinion on this matter.) Of course the author is sure to point out all his work to future-mangle actual words from present-day languages, so these aren’t really made up words. Whatever.

So what do I think about this one?

It’s science fiction. Nuff said.


Recommended age: 14+, though why you’d want to bore any of them with this is beyond me
Language: Maybe five words worth
Violence: A few people die and there are some implicit threats spoken
Sex: Little, mediocre, fertility analogies to a planet

Michael Flynn’s LiveJournal


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Lord of the Changing Winds

7:00 AM Nikki

By chapter two of LORD OF THE CHANGING WINDS I began to worry that Rachel Neumeier would make me suffer through new-author syndrome: the first fifty pages stiffly sets up a predictable story, using too-formal prose, repetitive descriptions, and clumsy world building. But I kept reading, because despite a not very illustrious beginning, the prose has some delightful metaphors and turns of phrase that spoke to the author's cleverness with words.

Griffins take center stage here--this isn't another dragon story (thank heavens, no). These are not your standard mythological creatures, they have their own magic, which is tied closely to fire and the desert. But they're at odds with the humans they must share the land with, as griffin fire magic is the antithesis of human earth magic. They are a species without the sensibilities of humans, and as a result there's little possibility for living peaceably.

Enter Kes, the timid younger sister of a small town's horse breeder. The griffins, having been ousted from their desert by the cold mages in another country, have taken residence in the mountains, terraforming the landscape into a desert to better suit them. When a stranger visits the town asking for help, Kes goes with him and discovers that he's a griffin mage; she agrees to help heal the wounds of the fleeing griffins, and her life is changed forever.

In the capital, the Lord of the Delta, Bertaud, friend to the king, is sent as emissary to the griffins with the hope that they can be convinced to return to their desert. But he doesn't anticipate the antipathy between the species and risks starting a war.

Then there's the neighboring country who wants to invade and take the mountain passes and port towns for their own use--and will use the griffins' presence to their advantage. You see? Fairly predictable. Just from this description you could probably outline the entire novel. You already know how it's going to end.

Kes and Bertaud as the main characters are flat. Today Kes would be diagnosed with Asperger's, a form of autism; and while it was interesting to see her cope with the situation, her character was muddled and inconsistent, with an unsatisfying progression. Bertaud's struggle to understand what's happening is the most compelling part of the characters' development, and I enjoyed watching it play out, unfortunately he still lacked depth. King Iaor should have been more interesting than he was, but Neumeier's attempts to show his character are awkward. Most most annoying? The motivations of the enemy king/mages are so cliche they're boring. The most fascinating characters are the griffins, but the problem with them is neither of the PoV characters are griffins, which is a pity because as the 'star of the show' they could have used even more face time to give the readers a deeper understanding of their culture and they way they think.

There are other flaws. For example, the two main PoV narratives can be confusing when they speak of a non-PoV character's emotions and motivations, making it feel like the author is switching PoV characters within a scene. And I swear this is not a petty complaint because it's such an obvious no-no: using 'almost' or 'he wasn't sure how he knew that but he did' descriptions. I mean, really. Using vague 'almost' descriptions gives the writing an unnecessarily passive tone, and 'he wasn't sure' only makes the PoV characters sound indecisive and wimpy. She does it a lot, and I'd give examples but that would just make you grind your teeth. There are other problems with how Neumeier handles the armies, distances/scale, time frames, differences in countries (they almost felt like a couple of states in the U.S. in terms of proximity, homogeny of culture, etc), naming conventions. It's apparent that Neumeier is still settling into her craft, because these are mistakes experienced authors don't usually make.

Yet, LORD OF THE CHANGING WINDS is still an entertaining read...because of the griffins. If you're a fan of Anne McCaffrey, Robin McKinley, or Andre Norton you'll see their influence in Neumeier's writing. It has much the same straightforward storytelling, use of mythological creatures, and lyric writing. She integrates the magic into the culture and world: all humans have some form of earth magic, usually manifesting as an 'affinity' to a kind of animal, whereas others are strong enough to become mages; on the other end of the spectrum the nature inherent in fire affects the griffins and their behavior.

This book dipped over the edge from like into mediocre as a result of the predictable plot and other problems with characterization and style. But, despite its flaws, LORD OF THE CHANGING WINDS has a great wealth of potential. Neumeier is building a world with a good foundation on its creatures and magic with a promise of greater things to come in the sequel.

Recommended Age: 12+
Language: Mild.
Violence: Moderate, some battles and blood, but even then it's not very graphic.
Sex: None.


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Passion Play

7:00 AM Nikki

Teenage Therez lives a life of luxury, her father a successful merchant. But business has its own politics and her father must 'sell' her in marriage to further his ambitions. Rather than marry a cruel older man Therez runs away, but is she running away to a worse fate?

PASSION PLAY starts out cliche enough, but readers will learn quickly that Beth Bernobich doesn't pull any punches. Therez is a girl with no knowledge of the world, and as a result is too trusting. She purchases a seat on a caravan traveling to the capital where she hopes to earn her own living. However, everything does wrong en route and she very quickly she turns from innocent girl into distrusting woman.

She escapes, and after much hardship arrives at a city and lands a position in a brothel--but as a scullery maid. This opportunity will further change her life more than she can guess.

Told from Therez's refined PoV, the prose is smooth and crisply descriptive, while also moving the story steadily forward. Therez's growth from girl to woman is painful and disturbing, but she faces her problems and refuses to run away from them again--she's already learned that running away isn't necessarily the best solution. She makes new friends, including the common sense Kathe, and discovers an advocate in her employer Lord Kosenmark, a lord exiled from court. But Therez is too clever for her own good and becomes involved in Kosenmark's intrigues--which are dangerous, even if they are for a just cause.

Therez starts the story at fifteen years old, and this short book covers two years of her life. But what starts as a coming-of-age romance turns into a political story. The turnabout wouldn't have bothered me if the political aspects had been more immediate instead of referencing people we never see and countries that mean little other than a foreign language I have to learn. Because of intrigue via letters and couriers and secret meetings, not a whole lot actually happens and by the abrupt ending I wondered what I was supposed to have learned. I really hope I don't have to retain all that for the sequel...

Remember how Therez starts out the book at fifteen? And only gets to seventeen? Strangely enough, Lord Kosenmark relies on her cleverness and honesty, and uses her advice more than once. I wasn't really clear on how old he was (in his thirties?), but seeing this hardened courtier listen seriously to a teenage girl--a girl half his age, whose sole 'experience' in life was to read books and pick out dresses--is what really makes this book a fantasy.

PASSION is set in a kind of Renaissance Europe, where magic plays a small role, and isn't used for much other than as a convenience; Bernobich only scratches the surface, hinting that we'll learn more later in the series. Religion is referenced but there's little depth to it. Many questions are raised during the book yet by the end remain unanswered. And while the main characters are intriguing, other than Therez they don't experience much growth. All of these problems are the result of a too-short book and limited PoV for an ambitious world and large cast. Oh and I can't forget my petty complaint: the love story aspect got pretty sappy by the end.

Bernobich wins points for beginning a realistic story and creating an interesting group of characters beyond the usual stereotypes. However, the political intrigue grows burdensome and by the end it feels like she's running out of steam, simply moving the story along to set up for the books that follow. These problems, however, can be repaired in the sequels, all the elements are there if Bernobich will use them--and if she does there's potential here for a compelling series.

Recommended Age: 16+ for sexual content.
Language: A handful of instances early in the book, as well as crude language.
Violence: Minor.
Sex: Yes, and it's detailed. Don't forget, either, that Therez ends up working in a brothel.

PASSION PLAY is the first of a projected five-book series.


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