Elitist Book Reviews

Roen Tan is a truly ordinary guy. He's got a software-coding job he tolerates, his roommate is smarter and better-looking than he is, he visits the bars on weekend, could use a gym membership, and can't bring himself to asking out that cute co-worker for a drink.

Until one fateful day when Tao, an alien stuck on Earth for thousands of years, is forced to find a host body ASAP--he cannot survive long in Earth's toxic environment--and Roen is it. This event changes Roen's life completely as he is thrown into a war between aliens, with his own life in the crosshairs. He must train while his identity is still unknown, or else risk dying and sending Tao on to another host.

THE LIVES OF TAO follows Roen's training and brings us up to speed on the Quasling's secret war among the humans. While humans were barely a thought, the Quaslings were stranded on Earth and were key in human development; sometime during the Middle Ages, they broke into factions, their differing philosophies of human development the reason. You can blame WWI and WWII on their struggle, and even events such as a the Spanish Inquisition. You'd think that beings who have lived for thousands of years would know better.

Personally I think this is more a guy book. I'm sure there are some women who'll enjoy it, but I found THE LIVES OF TAO goofy, campy, and boring. Chu tries to make Tao sound wise, but it doesn't come across naturally--like a high school kid trying to sound wise without having really lived it.

The prose was pretty utilitarian. There was enough description to get by, but the emotions felt tacked on, as though his editor told him to add some in before the final draft, or else Roen would have felt like a robot (he still kind of did). Roen has conversations with Tao in his head, but I couldn't always tell the difference between this and what he does say out loud, so that was awkward and confusing. It's easy to compare Chu with other Campbell Award nominees, such as Max Gladstone, and look at a couple pages of only the prose--it's easy to see that Chu has a long way to go before his prose loses its awkward choppiness.

Roen himself wasn't a very exciting guy. Not that he had to be exciting, but he didn't have much more than a standard personality. I guess that was the point, kind of like the T.V. show Chuck, how the regular guy ends up becoming an agent. But TAO falls flat. Does he have any hobbies? Interests? The secondary characters fare even worse, with Roen's roommate a mere caricature, his girlfriend woefully undeveloped, and even Tao the wise one himself felt bland.

The story is ok, even a little fun what-if. And I understand the point of the story as Roen deals with his new-found knowledge as well as the new military life that doesn't suit him at all. But it was so boring. I just didn't care about Roen doing another tai chi training, or splurging on pizza because of a rough workout, or his crush on trainer Sonya (the host of another alien). It all felt like a meandering lead-up to what should have felt like an exciting, explosive ending, except that his description of action is a perfunctory and bland recount of what fist went where.

My biggest gripe is what the entire story ends up revolving around: Tao forces himself on Roen, who ends up having to train and completely turn his life around for some alien with unknown purpose. How's Roen supposed to know Tao is actually the good guy? Roen ends up becoming a solider in a war he didn't sign up for and for which he's woefully inadequate, no matter how much training he gets. Just doesn't seem like something a nice alien would do to some poor shmuck.

Read THE LIVES OF TAO and vote for it if it's better than the other stuff on the Campbell Award Nominations list, but I doubt it is.

Recommended Age: 14+ pretty safe stuff for your teenage boys
Language: Not much
Violence: A fair amount, but not gruesome
Sex: Vague references

Find this book here:

THE LIVES OF TAO

Stranded on an alien space station when she's left behind by her colony ship, Tula is never able to contact them again. She must now learn to survive as a lone human among less than friendly aliens. Tula prepares for the day when she can have her revenge on Brother Blue, the man who left her behind, and who was responsible for the disappearance of the colony ship.

She begins to think she will never get off the station until one day, three years after being stranded, three humans arrive and are stranded themselves.

TIN STAR is easy to read, the prose smooth and surprisingly gentle for the subject matter. We are introduced to the station, the aliens, and the politics in an almost off-hand way. Not like they're unimportant, but that Tula's real attention is somewhere else--so explaining the details of the world she lives in and those who populate it take second fiddle. As a result the world-building feels incomplete and at times it's hard to truly visualize Tula's surroundings as the story progresses.

Tula is clever, but also isolated. Stranded as a girl, she spends her teenage years having to depend on her own self for survival. She learns how to communicate with the aliens in ways that they understand--even becoming friends with a few of them--and how to use trade to get what she needs. Since the book is told from her PoV we're limited to understanding the secondary characters, especially the aliens, and as a result their actions don't make sense until explained after the fact. This makes character interactions sometimes feel contrived, and it's those very interactions upon which a credible conclusion rely. (Hint: the ending, while exciting, wasn't exactly credible.)

The prose and forward movement of the story hides deeper problems. I found the same issue in THE 5TH WAVE (EBR review): the narration was so smooth and confident it was easy to accept the events and behaviors as real. Until you stopped to think about them, that is. The one thing THE 5TH WAVE did well that TIN STAR doesn't is the emotion. Tula talks about events so blandly that it gives readers too much distance. For example we know she wants revenge on Brother Blue...but do we ever really feel her rage?

I didn't hate this book. It was still an interesting read, and YA readers who are new to Sci Fi may find TIN STAR a good introduction to the genre without being overwhelmed. But just warn them that not all Sci Fi is this bland.

Recommended Age: 14+
Language: None
Violence: One vague fight
Sex: None

Find this book here:

TIN STAR

I harp a lot about how infrequently I find good Science Fiction.  I know it. Give me a megaphone and let me crow it from the rooftops.  I have no shame. Give no quarter, I say.  That is my opinion and I stand by it absolutely.

Still... it's nice to occasionally find that someone out there is listening.

A DARKLING SEA is James L. Cambias's debut novel.  It's got new planets, human explorers, and aliens. The thing is a perfect setup for conflict and struggle, but it's also a place to let our minds wander a little bit.

A sparsely-populated human research facility is located on the ocean floor of the ice-covered planet of Illmatar where a team of scientists have come to study the local population of aliens.  The only issue is that there is a no-contact policy in place, agreed upon by the governmental agencies of Earth and the alien planet of Shalina.  So, of course, the book starts out with some idiot in the facility deciding to go and do something stupid that violates the single-most important mandate of the mission. His motive:  greed.  Of course.  What else is there that matters in situations like these?  In the process he finds out that the Ilmatarans are nowhere near as primitive as they look and sets up the main conflict of the story.

The best aspect of this book was the world-building for the Ilmatarans. (Think very large, sentient, lobsters and you won't be far off.) The author spends a lot of time developing their societal structure, and morality; their lives and their language; their world and their ignorance of the wider universe.  He does this through POV characters of the Ilmataran race.

Now, I know that a lot of you probably just turned and ran away screaming because of the whole alien POV thing.  I have to admit that it was a huge red flag for me at first, because I've seen that done sooooo poorly sooooo many times.  In this case, the author actually does a pretty decent job of them though.  It was a risk, and in my book it paid off, because he was able to keep the alien species just familiar enough to make them sympathetic while still throwing in their obvious differences from humanity.  In fact, the development of the Ilmatarans pretty much over-shadowed the development of either of the others.

The second alien species, the Sholen, felt almost cartoonish in comparison, as there is only very little in the way of actual world-building development for them.  To put it as simply as possible, the Sholen were like oversized cougars with a heightened sense of sexual dominance and unified purpose. Although, in comparison to either of these, the humans in the story weren't much more than stick figures, with a limited array of personalities and emotional variance.  Some of the difficulty that I had with the characterization of each of these species probably had something to do with the fact that nearly the entire book was relayed with a very formal-sounding style of speech.  This worked just fine for the Ilmatarans, and even mostly for the Sholen, but it made the humans sound stilted and imaginary, and led to even the very-different alien species ending up sounding very similar in nature.

The pacing of the book was kind of hit-and-miss.  It started out great, with the initiation of the conflict happening right at the beginning.  That was a great way to start the book.  Just, BANG!  But afterward, things slowed down considerably.  The middle half of the book was where most of the Ilmataran development was, mostly portrayed to us through the eyes of two POV characters, Broadtail and Strongpincer.  While the scientists on the research facility continue their research, hoping for the best, these two Ilmatarans roam around the underwater world of Ilmatar and show us the scene.  Even after the Sholen show up (which we knew they eventually would, given the breaking of the contract at the beginning of the story), things stay very slow and circumspect, with very little tension to be had.

Once the final conflict does begin though, things pick up and get moving, culminating in the eventual, if long-in-coming, conflict foretold at the outset.  In this, the author has done a great job of making a promise and then delivering on it. I was pleased to see that.

For Science Fiction, it had enough in it for me to like it, and it's definitely better than most of the SF I find out there, especially given the fact that it's a debut novel. It was great to see some of the things I did in here.

Recommended Age: 16+
Profanity: A moderate amount of all sorts
Violence:Quite a few deaths, but most of the details are glossed-over
Sex: Numerous references of alien and human sex and some mild discussion

Your link:  A Darkling Sea

Thousands of years in the future humans have created an inter-planetary empire, and they've done it by using powerful starships to take over human and alien planets. While the starship officers are human, the crew is comprised of ancillaries, people who resisted empire annexation of their home planets, taken into custody and stored for future use. An ancillary's mind and identity is wiped when they're hooked into the ship's central AI--in essence, an ancillary is the ship.

Breq used to be an ancillary to the starship Justice of Toren, but is the only survivor. The separation from her ship is sometimes disorienting for her, but at the same time what she learned while an ancillary has made her deadly. And she plans to use that ability to seek revenge for what was taken, even from the Lord of the Radch herself.

Ann Leckie takes her time telling Breq's story in ANCILLARY JUSTICE. We're told in parallel the current story (the quest) and past events when Breq was an ancillary (the why for the quest). The result is a slow narrative as Leckie attempts to reveal piece by piece the whole sordid story and the politics surrounding it. The prose is clean with the feel of Le Guin or other writers of that era, without being overbearing. The writing doesn't draw attention to itself, but I still found myself stepping back to study what Leckie was doing because it seemed so effortless yet evocative.

While the second half of the book moves quicker that the first, it's still slow, and that will put off more action-oriented science fiction readers. The plot is straightforward, but it's the deliberate pace of the story that will deceive you into thinking it's more complicated than it really is. So what's the problem causing this tepid pacing? It's Breq's navel-gazing.

ANCILLARY JUSTICE tries to be a space opera, but first-person narration focuses the story so pin-point small on the PoV narrator that there's not a lot of room left to help readers understand the true scope of events. Don't get me wrong, I was utterly fascinated with Breq's story, what she was, or rather what she had been, and how that defines her. How she misses what she once was and doesn't seem to wonder who she was before she was an ancillary. But it is this very character-oriented story that will frustrate readers because Leckie hints that there is so much more, but can't give it to us because of the limitations of the narrative.

And what else is there? There are many different worlds. There are aliens. There are AI ships and an ever-expanding empire--and don't forget the ancillaries. There's the Lord of the Radch, who has cloned herself in order to rule said empire, and is in effect immortal...yet also at war with herself. There is a sort-of caste system. There is some gender bending (the Radch language uses "she" for male and female) that drove me crazy but at the same time was also oddly liberating--it kept me focused on what made these people tick beyond their gender, which can influence how we see even fictional characters.

There's early buzz for this book, putting it on the short-list for awards season. Certainly ANCILLARY JUSTICE was different in a lot of good ways, and written by a lady with serious writing chops. But at the same time you can't compare her to a Lois McMaster Bujold or an Ian M. Banks, obviously, because Leckie is starting out and Bujold/Banks (and others too numerous to mention here) are firmly established in the genre, and have even broached the same issues Leckie has. But where Leckie is scratching the surface, Bujold/Banks have been digging in the trenches for years and have shown us consistently the wonder and awe of the universe. Whether Leckie deserves the buzz is yet to be seen, because right now ANCILLARY JUSTICE isn't enough to stand on its own.

Recommended Age: 16+ more for comprehension than content
Language: Maybe five instances
Violence: A handful of instances, and while blood is referenced there is little detail
Sex: None

Find this book here:

ANCILLARY JUSTICE

I swear, I don't have a man crush on Daniel Abraham. Neither does anyone else here at EBR...

...OK that isn't entirely true.

Look, the dude is awesome. Whether he's writing Urban Fantasy under the name of M.L.N. Hanover, or straight-up Fantasy as Daniel Abraham, he's equally good. Same goes for James S.A. Corey, which is the name for Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck working together while writing Science Fiction. I don't want to sound like I'm giving all the credit to Abraham for the works of James S.A. Corey. I'm not. Ty Franck is doing his part, and absolutely killing it. I mean...geez.

I'm gonna open up here. I just don't like Science Fiction that much. I keep trying, and trying, only to find the same things that bother me. Shallow characters. Over-reliance on neat technology. Assuming the reader has a PHD in Theoretical Physics. Ignoring basic Physics that even an idiot like me can see through.

The pair that makes up James S.A. Corey somehow understand my pain, and those that share it.

ABADDON'S GATE is the third novel in The Expanse, and while it has many of the issues of the typical middle book of a series, it is still far-and-away one of the best SF series on the market today.

This newest novel follows Jim Holden and the crew of the Rocinante as they join a massive flotilla going to investigate the gate opened by the protomolecule at the end of CALIBAN'S WAR. Before I go on, I have to warn anyone reading this:

DON'T READ THIS REVIEW IF YOU HAVEN'T READ THE 2ND BOOK IN THE SERIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!(yes, extra "!'s" added for extreme emphasis)

That's your warning. Don't cry to me if you ignore it.

So yeah. Freaking Detective Miller is BACK!!! Kinda. Maybe. Is it actually him? That's a big part of the mystery of this book. Holden teaming up with a Miller that only he can see to figure out what the protomolecule was up to when it opened the gate. As is usual in the series, a whole separate group of PoV characters is introduced, who each have a huge role to play in the story.

This is where I had my biggest issues with the novel...though they really aren't that huge. By the end of each book in the series, I become used to the PoV characters outside of the crew to the Rocinante. It usually takes a while. So when they don't show up in the next novel, I lose a bit of that continuity. Same thing happened when I started ABADDON'S GATE. I just had a hard time with the new characters. Only this time I never really got over the newness of them. One seems to solely exist to show how religion and faith have progressed. The other to serve as a villain of sorts for much of the novel (though her agenda felt forced). I think my reactions are partly based on my brain saying, "Don't bother getting attached. They will be gone in the next novel anyway." Not gonna lie; to me it's a problem.

But aside from that, I don't really have much to complain about. In fact, one of those characters I'm bugged about still managed to bring in two of the elements I found most interesting in the novel: religion and faith. I'm a religious guy, and I tend to be bothered a bit by the casual dismissal of religion in 90% of SF novels. It isn't just that it isn't present, but that the authors seem to go out of their way to make it seem like anyone who does believe in any sort of religion as an idiot--including the reader. That isn't the case here in ABADDON'S GATE. Corey seems to take a realistic look at how religion and faith could continue to be a valid and inspiring parts of people's lives, regardless of how far in the future we are. The novel also has the characters tackling very hard religious issues. I have to hand it to the authors, and thank them. Thank you for not taking the easy way out.

And this is why I am so impressed by this novel, and all the others that Abraham writes. It's the attention to detail in all forms. I don't know what his or Franck's personal philosophies are. But I like that, regardless, they seem to be handling them all with respect and with care. Why is this important in storytelling? Because it makes every character that much more believable. Their varied fictional mindsets are real and distinct within the context of the story. The attention to detail here is what set this novel and series apart from all other SF.

Now, as to the story itself, and what is through the gate the protomolecule opens...well. Let's just say it opens this universe up infinitely. The series name "The Expanse" suddenly has more meaning than ever before. ABBADON'S GATE is, in essence, a transitional novel. The scale and the stakes have been increased dramatically. I can't wait to see where we go from here.

ABBADON'S GATE isn't perfect. That's OK. It still adds awesome stuff to, in my mind, the best on-going SF series out there right now.

Recommended Age: 16+
Profanity: Seems like it was more than usual.
Violence: This one was pretty violent in a few parts. As usual, it was handled extremely well.
Sex: Nothing detailed.

Here are your links. Buy them for yourself and all your friends:

LEVIATHAN WAKES
CALIBAN'S WAR
ABADDON'S GATE

THE FICTIONAL MAN by Al Ewing was not an easy book to read. The main character Niles Golan is a jerk. He's spent his entire life in denial of his own faults (of which there are many) and now that he's alone and miserable he's finally beginning to understand why.

In Niles' world cloning technology exists, but there's too many legalities involved in making clones from real people. The workaround is "fictionals," which are people created from tubes that are the live embodiment of fictional people, for example Sherlock Holmes. Imagine what it would be like to see James Bond in real life--or at the least playing himself in a movie.

But if fictionals aren't real should they be able to have a relationship with real people? Will their wiring allow it? How would real and fictional people interact? What would life be like for a fictional--never growing old, always being stuck being a certain way?

Niles doesn't consider himself a "realist," or a person who considers fictionals to be second-class citizens. His best friend is a fictional (Bob Benton, the Black Terror!), he hired a fictional life coach since his last therapist was so ineffective, and at the bar he often visits sits a woman he stares at who's a fictional (maybe). But as the story progresses it becomes painfully obvious that Niles does have an issue with fictionals, the question is how long will it take him to realize it for himself?

Because Niles is not a very sympathetic protagonist, and he stumbles around his life without any purpose other than his own self-aggrandizement, I had a hard time caring about where the story went. Sure the premise is interesting, and Ewing presents it in a very close-up, visceral way that makes the reader think about prejudice in general and the stereotypes involved. And sure Ewing can tell a story about a very flawed man in a very flawed world where rose-colored glasses were long ago thrown down and ground under foot. But, ultimately this book wasn't for me, because...well, I happen to like roses and nice people and protagonists I want to root for.

Set in an alternate current-day Los Angeles, THE FICTIONAL MAN revolves around Niles' movement as he attempts to come up with a movie pitch based on a remake. But Niles finds layer after layer of background inspiration, and he's compelled to uncover the mystery. Among the mystery are Niles' memories, self-narration, visits with his ex-wife and friend Bob, and so on--all of it together, it's all just so weird. This is an uncomfortable book to read, and it doesn't help that the steady pace is slow and pedantic. The prose is great, very clean and smooth, and it's obvious Ewing's skill with words. Doesn't make the story less weird, though.

So if you like weird stuff with seriously flawed characters and a subtext asking what being "real" really means...then THE FICTIONAL MAN is for you.

Recommended Age: Adults only
Language: Frequent
Violence: Some punches thrown but that's about it
Sex: Lots of references and details

Find this book here:

THE FICTIONAL MAN

Do you hate movie trailers that essentially tell the whole story of the movie? You get three minutes of whiz-bang cool that makes you want to shell out the cash to go watch it, only to end up finding out that what you saw in the trailer was, in fact, the entire movie condensed down to three minutes? Grumble. This book was exactly like that. Read the back cover of this one, read the book, and then tell me I'm wrong. No wait, I've already done all that. Check it out.

TUNNEL OUT OF DEATH is a standalone book written by Jamil Nasir, an author who is probably more well-known for his short fiction than his novels. This is, however, his fifth novel, and at this point I'm going to assume that most of what he's written is science fiction. The covers of his previous books and his work in this one tend to make me believe that. The setup I got for the novel, provided for by the blurb on the back of the book, sounded fairly decent. It's something along the lines of:

Heath Ransom is a former police-psychic turned machine-enhanced “endovoyant” private investigator that is asked to find the soul of a woman, Beverly, that has been cut loose from reality. As he's searching he comes across what appears to be a rip in reality, a black hole of sorts, that leads him to find the woman, but drops him into the middle of a war between secret, ruthless, government agencies and a non-human entitiy known as “Amphibian”. Their battlefield is a multi-level reality that Heath learns to navigate, finding along the way that everyone around him may not be humans at all but instead super-realistic androids. The result threatens not only Heath's sense of reality, but his sanity as well.

Conspiracies, multi-level reality, playing with the line of one's sanity. Not bad. It was enough to at least get me interested. I didn't get very far though before I had some serious issues with the way things were going.

The first was a serious lack of understanding or introduction. Strike one. The first chapter of TUNNEL is a conversation between Ransom and a doctor who is trying to tell Ransom something, but Ransom isn't interested and leaves the meeting prematurely. The second chapter is the conversation between Ransom and a married couple, relatives of the woman whose soul has gone missing, in which they bribe him to do the job (despite the fact that he has no experience in searching for people's souls) with loads of cash. Why?  Because, the story has to start somewhere for crying out loud. Then, in chapter 3, we're immediately thrust into the alternate reality, ethereal universe that Ransom can access via some funky Fringe-like setup: wires, sensory deprivation, drugs. No rules are ever established, so we don't know what to expect, and have to just take it on faith that the author is leading us somewhere that we want to go. Tripping through the author's disjointed imagination.

It quickly became apparent that there would be little to no characterization. Strike number two. We get a couple paragraphs, maybe, about the main character. Nothing of substance though. Thus, Ransom becomes this cardboard character with no obvious motivations, other than finding this lost woman's soul, as he wanders through scene after scene of what is described as the woman's “boundary dream,” which from what I understood was kind of like a conglomeration of the stuff that flashes before your eyes just before you die. The secondary characters are much the same. Movement and decision with no justification or even clear reasoning as to why they're doing what they're doing.

And then we get a Noah's ark event (aka: complete wipe of the story). After finding Beverly, the Ransom story line skips several years in which Ransom is living the life of another person: a pool boy, actually. This was the first time I really realized that the author had no idea what he was doing in relation to the story, and my expectations of the book took a serious slide. Fast-forward a bit more, Ransom has learned to navigate himself between his real life and this alternate pool-boy life, and we see Noah wave to us again as he floats by a second time. Another bundle of years pass and by manipulating the future, Ransom becomes filthy rich. It happens about as quickly as I've just explained it there, too. Ohmigosh. Strike three. It is at this point though that Ransom starts to see that perhaps the reality he's living isn't the one he thinks it is.

Ah ha! Now can we find out what's going on?  Is the government manipulating him? Is this non-human Amphibian (whom only really makes an appearance once, despite sending his goons in to mess things up a couple times) in charge? Who cares, says the author. Instead, the story is forgotten and what we get some dubious pontification on the reality and transition of death, random references to God and/or eternity, and we're done.

But he's finally figuring out that reality isn't what he thinks, I say. I finally got to the end of what was in the book teaser.  Now what? What about the conspiracy? What about the mutant goons of Amphibian? What about Beverly being connected to it all? Eh. Peanuts. Why worry about all that boring story stuff when you can instead take an about face and listen to the author blather on about what death might be like? That's so much more important! Strike...err. Is that four or five? I've lost count.  Anyhow.

It stands to reason that there IS a reason why this book was published. I can't for the life of me figure out what that was though. It seems to me that anything that drops its whole premise this blatantly should be sent back to the drawing board. So much wasted time. Even if you love any and all science fiction, I highly doubt you'd even want to give this one the light of day.

Recommended Age: 16+
Language: Infrequent but spans the range of possibility
Violence: Some of the violence is fairly graphic, but most of it involves androids/machines
Sex: Several scenes with low to moderate detail

If you're looking to get rid of some cash...

TUNNEL OUT OF DEATH

Jarra lives on Earth. But what sounds normal to us doesn't to those who live in 2788, when man has since left Earth for other worlds, thanks to the invention of portals. Unfortunately, not every human's immune system can handle what the universe has to offer. One in every thousand born can't survive on other planets and must return to Earth within hours of birth or they die. Jarra's parents sent her to Earth right after she was born and haven't been a part of her life since.

The year Jarra turns 18, she decides to do something risky: apply for a non-Earth university's archeology program. The first year requires time spent on Earth for practical history studies, during which Jarra plants to fool the class into thinking she's normal--it's hard to not be resentful when the rest of humanity thinks you're a Handicapped 'ape.'  In the process she unexpectedly learns that norms aren't so bad after all...and that she could even come to love one of them.

Right from the start of EARTH GIRL, you're struck by Jarra's first person PoV voice--smart, young, and maybe a little crazy. Most obvious of all is her issue with being stuck on Earth in a day and age when it's considered a freak of genetics. She's tired of it and just crazy enough to pull a stunt in a bid to vent her frustrations.

In the meantime, we watch her interactions between her diverse set of classmates. It's obvious from the start that she loves history and it's no accident she choose this area of study. There are a lot of details about the way the class's archeology digs work--in particular here it's the abandoned New York City--it's not uninteresting and shows a lot about Jarra and her classmates. It can get infodump-y at times because there's a lot Edwards wants to tell you about this bright future for humanity, but she does her best to be concise and interesting.

Jarra felt believable as an 18-year-old young woman trying to find her way and struggling to understand her own identity. She can be a know-it-all (maybe a little too smart), silly, a show off, shy--and she even withdraws into a make-believe reality (this part is a little contrived). Her relationship with potential love interest Fian is sweet and even a tad complicated (the best kind). The other characters are a little shallow, but recognizable.

The plot is very straightforward, if sometimes bumpy as Jarra causes trouble that has to be worked around. The end felt a little rushed, but was still satisfying. Despite its problems, EARTH GIRL's themes of prejudice is handled with finesse, making it accessible to a YA audience.

Recommended age: 15+ for sexual innuendo
Language: None
Violence: Non-human caused peril
Sex: Referred to mostly as innuendo; implied

If you're tired of dystopia, this would be a fun diversion. Find it here:

EARTH GIRL

In some ways I really wish we could do two reviews of THE HUMAN DIVISION by John Scalzi. I recently got the book in the mail and read through it in a few days. It was fun and fast-paced, and like most of Scalzi’s writing it was filling with that humor, action and suspense that makes him so darn readable to many people out there. The thing is, the book was released in two separate ways and written as a kind of experiment in publishing.

For the first four months of the year Tor released one short story a week in a serial format from Scazli based in his best selling Old Man’s War universe. You could pay to read that particular piece of the story and enjoy each story on its own merits, or you could pay a fee up front to receive each short story as they were released each week.  You could alternatively wait until mid-May to buy the book in hardcover and get all the short stories put together and in chronological order (that’s what I did).

My question then is, did it work?

I can only speak about THE HUMAN DIVISION as a whole, because that’s how I read it. Also, I’m a fan of Scalzi’s OLD MAN'S WAR universe having read each book in the series at least once. What I’m saying is, this book was designed for someone like me. I like the series, I know the characters and feel of it already. So, I’m gonna review it (spoiler alert, I liked it), but I wish I could see a review of someone who come into it cold, never having read Scalzi before and reading each short story a week at a time in pieces.

The book, despite being a series of short stories pulled together tells a larger tale over the course of the novel. This was the intention to begin with and the challenge. The larger narrative deals with the aftermath of THE LAST COLONY (and ZOE'S TALE which tells the same basic story from a different perspective). Basically the setup is this. The Colonial Union is made up of the humans who have either emigrated away from earth to settle new planets, or have volunteered to be soldiers for the Union. They are trying to expand humanity across the galaxy--or cosmos or what have you--by claiming new planets and settling them or taking them over from other alien races (of which there are many). Humanity therefore isn’t on good terms with A LOT of other races and wars ensue. The other races meanwhile have formed a group, called the Conclave, to try and work together instead of fighting. The Colonial Union doesn’t want to be part of it. Earth meanwhile is pretty clueless about all of this. All they know is that the Colonial Union takes some of them for soldiers and others for colonies and no one ever comes back. That is until the Conclave shows up on Earth and gives the earthlings the choice to join them. This then is the human division in THE HUMAN DIVISION. Which way will Earth go? Will they side with the Conclave, or the Colonial Union who has kept them in the dark for so long?

Most of the book takes place in the view point of characters within the Colonial Union. I won’t go more into it here as part of the fun of each story is the setup of the characters and situations, and then the resolution. Each story is quick and fun, and taken as a whole they do an admirable job of telling that greater story of what will the Earth do. Were there some stories that didn’t hold up as well as others? Probably, but to me they were just pieces to give me a better picture of the grand story going on. The big problem I had with the novel that I can say for sure, is that its strength (being made of fun segmented short stories) was also its weakness for me. It’s hard to build up to a BIG PAYOFF at the end when each short story has a minor resolution of its own. In the end it felt like I was on a fun ride but without some of the highest highs or lowest lows. It was fun but it wasn’t able to really resonate with me because of the nature of it.

It was still a fun read and certainly a must buy for Scalzi fans out there (like me). Heck, someone who has never read Scalzi before go buy it and let me know what you think. I’m anxious to see if it works for you as well.

Age Recommendation: 14+
Language: There's some language here or there. But not too bad.
Violence: Not too much. Some action scenes but nothing too violent.
Sex: Referenced, never shown.

Here are your links:

OLD MAN'S WAR
THE GHOST BRIGADES
THE LAST COLONY
ZOE'S TALE
THE HUMAN DIVISION

Wow. Just...wow.

One of my biggest disappointments when the 2013 Hugo Award nominations were announced was the absence of Ian Tregillis' THE COLDEST WAR from the ballot. Don't get me wrong, I was absolutely thrilled that EBR was nominated, but not seeing Tregillis' name on the list for Best Novel was a huge bummer. His Milkweed Triptych is one of the most enjoyable and clever series on the market right now, and a Hugo Nomination would have made a huge and well-deserved impact on his exposure. Why am I bringing this up? Not out of bitterness, I assure you. I want all you readers to understand just how much I and everyone at EBR loved THE COLDEST WAR.

NECESSARY EVIL absolutely crushes its predecessor. It is better in every way, and stands as one of the best novels I've read since founding Elitist Book Reviews. It will be on my Hugo ballot for 2014, and it should be on your ballot as well.

Now it's time to get detailed, but I have to start with a warning. From this point on there will be spoilers of the prior two novels, BITTER SEEDS and THE COLDEST WAR. I hate including spoilers, but in order for me to point at what makes NECESSARY EVIL so awesome, I need to talk about the prior novels. If you haven't read the prior two novels you should follow these instructions:

1) In a separate window, open Amazon.com.
2) Add BITTER SEEDS, THE COLDEST WAR and NECESSARY EVIL to your cart.
3) Buy the books.
4) Bookmark this page, and return after you have read the series. Close this page without reading further.

Upon return:
5) WELCOME BACK!!! Awesome right? Now, tell all your friends how incredible Ian Tregillis is.
6) Reread the series. Because why not?

OK, the spoilers start here.

So, THE COLDEST WAR ends with the Eidolons destroying everything. They hate humans, and Raybould Marsh gave them the key they needed to enter the world and end all human existence. Well, at least in THAT timeline. Marsh has been sent back in time to create an alternate timeline where the Eidolons don't break through.

To me the brutal failure of the main characters, and how they caused their own destruction, is what made THE COLDEST WAR such an impressive novel.But with that success came a whole lot of worries. How could Tregillis possibly up the proverbial ante?

NECESSARY EVIL starts with Gretel. We never got to be in her head. We never got to see her machinations from her own PoV. In this book we see how she tampers and manipulates. We really are shown just how obsessed she is with Marsh, and how not even her brother truly matters in this grand scheme she has. Her whole goal is to create a timeline where she doesn't die. It's a simple goal, yet completely believable. So often the goals of literary villains have no substance behind them. Not so here. Gretel's maniacal obsession with making sure she lives is written perfectly.

Following this stunning introduction to the novel, we get one of two versions of Raybould Marsh. We get our Marsh--the one from the destroyed timeline--sent back in time to 12 May, 1940 when everything originally went insane. It is here that Tregillis does some clever writing. This Marsh is told using a First Person PoV. The other Marsh--the young one in this new timeline--is told in Third Person Limited. Wondering which Marsh we are seeing is never an issue for the reader. What is more, we see the major contrast between the two Marshes and just how different they actually are.

All the other characters are back. Klaus. Will. Liv. All the other German super-humans. All the other Milkweed participants and warlocks. My only slight let-down came in terms of Klaus. He was my favorite character by the end of THE COLDEST WAR, so to see him so sparingly used in this novel made me a little sad. He got his ending in THE COLDEST WAR (and it was perfect), but still. He felt like a bit of an afterthought here.

Remember all those times that Will and Marsh saw that old, scarred guy? We finally got the obvious payoff in NECESSARY EVIL. Having read a lot of novels in my day, I appreciate how well Tregillis set all this up within the first novel.

Now, I can't get into the details of this specific novel. Let's just say that it is brutal, and the novel is aptly titled. Both Marshes and Will have to do some pretty horrible things to try and set the timeline right. You'd think that it would be hard to shock the readers with atrocities committed by these main characters, but Tregillis pulls it off masterfully.

The ending to NECESSARY EVIL is not totally happy. It can't be. If this series has touted one philosophy, it is that every action has consequences. I'll admit that at first I was bit shocked by how Tregillis wrapped it all up. But the more I thought about it--and I'm still thinking about it--the more I LOVED it.

If you like Science Fiction, this is the series for you. If you like Alternate History, this is the series for you. If you like Urban Fantasy, yes, this series is also for you. If you just like well-written novels with well-made characters and an expertly crafted story, then this series is for you.

NECESSARY EVIL is the perfect conclusion to what is now one of my favorite series ever.

Recommended Age: 17+
Profanity: Some, and it can get strong. It's on par with the rest of the series.
Violence: These novels have never been action-packed, but when there is violence to be had, it is always shocking, and awesomely written.
Sex: Nothing detailed. There is one almost-scene, but it isn't remotely sexual due to context.

If for some reason you ignored all my previous advice to buy these novels before reading this review, here are your links:

BITTER SEEDS
THE COLDEST WAR
NECESSARY EVIL

While the majority of the books in the Vorkosigan Saga are from Miles' PoV, there are other characters who are just as loved. One of them is Ivan Vorpatril. And after years of fans clamoring for his story, Bujold delivers. But do you have to be a fan of the series to enjoy this book? Nope.

Unlike Miles, Ivan doesn't seek out the adrenaline-rush of adventure and mayhem. He's happy being a desk jockey for the Ops admiral without any ambition above that; he's glad that the throne of Barrayar recedes further away from his inheriting it as his cousin Emperor Gregor's children grow up; the only thing that would make him happier is finding a willing woman at the local bar.

While on Komarr for a routine two-week military audit, Ivan is visited by Byerly, undercover Imperial Security agent who, knowing Ivan's luck with the ladies, asks for help keeping track of a woman on the run. Despite being suspicious of Byerly's motives, when Ivan sees a picture of Tej his concerns are set aside, and decides he's willing to help a lady in distress. Ivan thwarts a kidnapping attempt and takes Tej and her handmaiden to his flat to keep them safe until Byerly can smooth things out. Unfortunately the local authorities get involved and in order to protect the women, Ivan and Tej perform a quick and private wedding ceremony.

The rest of the book is about the fallout over what Ivan calls his 'accidental' wedding. I'm pretty sure Bujold was on a Diet Coke IV drip the entire last 3/4 of the book because the writing has this semi-hysterical pitch to it. Sure the story may not have Miles involved, but just because he isn't there doesn't mean that strange things won't happen. Poor Ivan, he only wants a quiet life, but there are too many people who are interested in his personal happiness.

Ivan was determined to be a lifelong bachelor; however, now he is finding that maybe married life isn't too bad. Tej isn't like the other women he's dated. Tej grew up on Jacksons Whole, where anything goes, and if you aren't a ruthless businessman/woman then you won't survive. Her parents' business is taken over by a competitor and have sent bounty hunters after her. Tej couldn't care less about business, but she loves her family and fears them dead. When Ivan appears in her life she's intrigued, not only because he's tall and handsome, but because he couldn't be more different from her family if he tried.

If you liked A CIVIL CAMPAIGN in which Miles courts Ekaterina, this is your kind of book, with romance, fun characters, and an interesting setting. Bujold does a great job with not only the characters in the story--especially Ivan and Taj's romance--but also the relationships between the family members. I have, however, heard complaints about CIVIL because it was such a departure from the rest of the series. Bujold does her best to make CAPTAIN VORPATRIL'S ALLIANCE balance out more action with the relationship aspect. How? Remember Tej's business-minded family? Well, in order to take their business back, they need capital, and descend on Barrayar and their new son-in-law with less than altruistic intent. Hilarity ensues. Poor Ivan.

CAPTAIN VORPATRIL'S ALLIANCE is a fun book. It isn't groundbreaking, it doesn't tell us much new stuff, and gives enough background so that new readers won't get lost. There are some fun science-y things and her prose is as slick and entertaining as usual. But, ultimately, this book is about relationships: with family and friends, and how romantic relationships happen when you least expect them.

Recommended age: 16+
Language: Not much, if any
Violence: Some tussles and stun guns, but no blood
Sex: Implied and referenced, but without detail

Find this continuation of Lois McMaster Bujold's fantastic series:

CAPTAIN VORPATRIL'S ALLIANCE

(This book is set about four years before CRYOBURN - read that review here.)

You think $4.00 gas is bad? Try five times that. Try rationing. That's what life could be like starting in about two years with Edward M. Lerner's Crudustrophe in ENERGIZED.
Lerner poses a big "What If?" What if suddenly and catastrophically all of the Middle East's oil supply was snuffed out? What would it be like living in a world where energy was in short supply? Would alternative energy be enough to fill the gaps?

And what if there were some people who actually liked it that way?

The story in ENERGIZED mostly revolves around Marcus Judson, NASA engineer on the Powersat One--an enormous solar power satellite that is in constant view of the sun, and then beams that energy to Earth in the form of microwaves, where it's then distributed to the already strained U.S. power grid. Marcus is just trying to do his job convincing people that, yes, they do want a giant series of solar panels in the sky; and, no, the microwaves beamed down aren't going to fry you. We hope.

Unfortunately, there are some called Resetters who believe it would be better to just abandon the desperation of alternative energy and go back to the good ol' pre-industrial days. Such as Dillon Russo, whose venture capitalist company on the outside appears to want to help new businesses with alternative energy, but secretly hides a Resetter and Gaia Mother Earth theology.

Then there's Valerie, the astronomer, whose space telescope is pretty worthless with a huge powersat in the way, and calls NASA to complain. They send Marcus. Queue love story. There are a few other interesting PoV characters, but those three are the ones to really pay attention to. And for the most part Lerner does pretty well with them. They're consistent and their motives are pretty obvious. But they aren't the kind of characters you'll grow to love. Well, maybe a little affectionate.

Lerner sets up the story pretty well, even if the first half of the novel feels rather slow, and the story is heavily enough foreshadowed that very little came as a surprise. I had a hard time getting through the character positioning as well as all the science mumbo jumbo--so much work to get everything just right for the climax. Once we hit about 2/3 of the way, the story finally takes off and everything that went before begins to come together.

While the characters and the plot were serviceable, they lacked pizazz. And yet I still liked what Lerner did with the story. I love the "What If" ideas in the book, how he presents them, and works around them to make a fascinating thriller of a story. Really, it's the Powersat One that's the main character of the book. Everything revolves around it, how it works, what it's capable of, the problems it presents, and the sacrifices people make to either destroy or save it. ENERGIZED is worth reading if you like exploring the ideas and the "What If."

Recommended Age: 18+ for comprehension
Language: A handful
Violence: References to mass killings, and some on-screen deaths, but not much blood
Sex: Referenced only

Sound like ENERGIZED is for you? Find it here:

ENERGIZED

I’ve often talked with my wife about how our lives have changed.  We remark on how improvements in technology have changed our day-to-day lives in such significant ways that our kids live totally different lives than we did twenty years ago.  Having those types of discussions has led me to wonder what a person who was born one hundred or one hundred and fifty years ago would think about us today.  Would they even recognize what we do as a normal life?  Would they understand most of what is going on around them?  How would they deal with or understand things like computers, the internet, ipods, phones, or video games just to name a few?

Why do I bring this up, you ask?  Because reading THE FRACTAL PRINCE by Hannu Rajaniemi made me feel like that person from the mid 1800’s coming to today.  I felt like someone who had been thrust into a world that I didn’t and almost couldn’t understand.  And I say that not as a bad thing.  I’m not gonna lie to you, this book was a tough read, especially at first.  Terms are thrown around and I had to make sense of them myself until the context of it gave me foundation for what the terms meant.  Still, I eventually figured this world out and it was a world full of wonders and problems.

I’ve tried writing down a synopsis of what this book is about several times.  And as much as I read it and think I understood THE FRACTAL PRINCE, I’m having a heck of a time trying to sum it up in only a few paragraphs.  The terms in the book that got in my way at first make it hard to tell you about some of the concepts.  You don’t know what those terms mean or why they should matter to you.  In fact the whole novel is so centered on this technology far far in the future that I’m just gonna give up.  Instead I’ll give you the synopsis from Amazon:

“The good thing is, no one will ever die again. The bad thing is, everyone will want to.”

A physicist receives a mysterious paper. The ideas in it are far, far ahead of current thinking and quite, quite terrifying. In a city of “fast ones,” shadow players, and jinni, two sisters contemplate a revolution.

And on the edges of reality a thief, helped by a sardonic ship, is trying to break into a Schrödinger box for his patron. In the box is his freedom. Or not.

Jean de Flambeur is back. And he’s running out of time.

See what I mean? If that synopsis doesn’t help you much, don’t worry.  It didn’t help me either.  This is not an easy book to tie down with a few sentences.  And I don’t think it’s supposed to be.

In the end the problem I had writing about this book is the problem I had with the book.  It seemed so in love with the technology that it failed to tell as compelling a story as I would have liked.  I can think back on it and remember some of the events and even some of the characters, but the problem was that all of that was so overshadowed just trying to figure out and understand the novel. It makes Rajaniemi's follow-up to THE QUANTUM THIEF (which I liked well enough - check out the review here) a tough book to flat-out recommend. 

I certainly enjoyed reading it and I loved the sensation of seeing a far-future that was so utterly alien.  That sense of wonder in my opinion is the reason to read the book.  The story was secondary to it.  If you like those big ideas and that scope and imagination then I would say THE FRACTAL PRINCE (and it's predecessor) is for you.  If you want a rip roaring yarn that’s hard to put down because you just HAVE TO KNOW what’s going to happen next, then I might give it a pass.

Age Recommendation: 16+  It just seemed rather complicated
Violence: Not much that I recall
Language: A bit here and there
Sex: A weird sci-fi-type scene at the beginning, not too graphic but certainly there

Want to give these novels a shot? Here are your links:

THE QUANTUM THIEF
THE FRACTAL PRINCE

I can't stop smiling. It's been far too long since I've read a good Science Fiction novel. Once my go-to genre, Science Fiction has taken a back seat to Fantasy of late. Charles E. Gannon's FIRE WITH FIRE absolutely falls under the definition of good Science Fiction. It is a novel that has reminded me just what it is that I love about the genre and it has ensured that I will be following Gannon's work closely in the years to come. FIRE WITH FIRE sets a great many things in motion, signaling the start of what I assume will be a sweeping SF epic.

Here is the Amazon description:

2105, September: Intelligence Analyst Caine Riordan uncovers a conspiracy on Earth’s Moon—a history-changing clandestine project—and ends up involuntarily cryocelled for his troubles. Twelve years later, Riordan awakens to a changed world. Humanity has achieved faster-than-light travel and is pioneering nearby star systems. And now, Riordan is compelled to become an inadvertent agent of conspiracy himself. Riordan’s mission: travel to a newly settled world and investigate whether a primitive local species was once sentient—enough so to have built a lost civilization.


However, arriving on site in the Delta Pavonis system, Caine discovers that the job he’s been given is anything but secret or safe. With assassins and saboteurs dogging his every step, it's clear that someone doesn't want his mission to succeed. In the end, it takes the broad-based insights of an intelligence analyst and a matching instinct for intrigue to ferret out the truth: that humanity is neither alone in the cosmos nor safe. Earth is revealed to be the lynchpin planet in an impending struggle for interstellar dominance, a struggle into which it is being irresistibly dragged. Discovering new dangers at every turn, Riordan must now convince the powers-that-be that the only way for humanity to survive as a free species is to face the perils directly—and to fight fire with fire.

And that is just the beginning of the beginning. FIRE WITH FIRE is a first contact story overflowing with espionage, politicking, diplomacy, and problem solving. Given the complexity of the novel, Intelligence Analyst Caine Riordan makes for a suitable protagonist. I appreciate Caine's prior background in journalism, as it speaks of his experience following leads and exposing hidden agendas. It also brings Caine into conflict with his superiors. Caine is a Boy Scout. He has made a career of airing the dirty laundry of the powerful and influential. Now he finds himself working behind the scenes, going from straight-arrow to cloak and dagger. Caine is also a polymath, making him a jack-of-all-trades. He's not nearly as suave as James Bond, but he is three times as resourceful. 

Caine does exhibit moments of reluctance during his service of the Institute of Reconnaissance, Intelligence, and Security or IRIS for short. IRIS is responsible for his thirteen year long nap, and though Caine supports the Institute's mandate to protect Earth from exosapient invasion he detests their methods. Caine suffers from a short term amnesia of the 100 hours before being placed under cryo-sleep. Corcoran and Downing, the spy masters of IRIS, use this as leverage to get Caine to do their bidding. Corcoran and Downing are Machiavellian in their processes but they are not unsympathetic, especially later in the novel when it becomes apparent what they have sacrificed to protect their species. After all, "Sometimes adopting the methods of your adversaries is the only effective strategy..." Opal Patrone, another recipient of long term cryo-sleep, also becomes an asset of IRIS. Her military history marks her as an ideal bodyguard for Caine, whose actions place a target on his head.

It's worth noting that all of the characters in FIRE WITH FIRE are strong and dynamic. They aren't particularly deep but they do display multiple dimensions. The characters act and react to ever-evolving circumstances but none of them ever feel like spectators. Still, it's not the characters that make FIRE WITH FIRE such a fantastic read. Gannon obviously knows his stuff. I'm not afraid to admit that I was glad for my Kindle's dictionary function while reading. That's not to say that there are loads of incomprehensible words or science. This isn't space opera but it's not quite Hard SF either. There is an exploration of scientific concepts, particularly the Wasserman Drive, but FIRE WITH FIRE is more of a thriller than anything else.

Gannon delves into the economics of interstellar trade, the politics of planetary colonization, struggles between government and corporations, the consolidation of power, and the complications of first contact. Exosapient diplomacy is the best part of the novel and in this way FIRE WITH FIRE is reminiscent of another favorite of mine, THE COURSE OF EMPIRE by Eric Flint and K.D. Wentworth. There are moments of thrilling action, including narrow escapes and botched assassination attempts, but the real excitement comes from the human-alien interaction.

"You came here expecting a tea party and found yourself in a diplomatic death match."

It's not long after the Earth unifies under the World Confederacy that it gets an invitation to participate in the Accord, a democratic council of alien states. What at first appears to be a friendly invitation soon takes on a sinister light as the human ambassadors realize that the council might not be so unified, leaving humanity in an unenviable position. The communication between the different races is awesome. Each race has different mannerisms, culture, and motivations. It takes quick thinking and collective brain power for the human ambassadors to maneuver through the pitfalls that come with walking into such a FUBAR scenario.

FIRE WITH FIRE is a building block in the foundation of Gannon's Science Fiction epic. This could be read as a standalone novel but I don't see why anyone would want to. There are big, big things on the horizon as the book closes. Some questions are answered (quite satisfyingly I might add) and even more questions are posed. Once Gannon starts the ball rolling, there's no stopping the momentum. I am ecstatic to have found a new SF author worth following and I eagerly await the sequel.

Recommended Age: 16+
Language: Some, not too heavy.
Violence: Some, nothing too graphic.
Sex: Suggested.

Want it? Buy it here.

Michael Vey is not your average teenager. Ever since he was a kid, he could produce an electric shock. Kind of like a walking Taser. Only with hormones and acne.

His mom is paranoid about what would happen if people found out about his abilities. She gave up a good job at a California law firm to move them both to Idaho in order to keep him safe from anyone who might notice. But in high school Michael is noticed for other reasons: he's kinda scrawny, his best friend is the brainiac nerd at school, and he has Tourettes (the kind with tics when he's nervous, not the swearing kind). So of course the poor kid is bullied.

And this is where the story opens. The bullies have pushed Michael beyond his limit and he shocks them. The only problem is there's a witness: Taylor the cheerleader. After witnessing Michael using his talent, to his amazement she takes a sudden interest in him. When Ostin does some creative research about what happened when Michael was born, they suddenly discover that other, scarier people have an interest in him, as well.

Richard Paul Evans' writing is fairly straightforward and moves at a steady clip. MICHAEL VEY is definitely a departure from Evan's more sentimental stories (i.e., THE CHRISTMAS BOX), but like his other work the plot is predictable. The dialogue is frequently tedious (how many times do you have to include "Hello" and "Goodbye" and "How's it going?") and Evans tends toward the sappy/corny.

The villains--even the principal, who has some pretty odd dialogue--are stock characters without much meat to them beyond being an evil for Michael to overcome. Even the secondary child characters had more depth than the bad guys did. Michael himself is likable enough as the PoV character, with his goofy friend Ostin a convenient side-kick, and the beautiful Taylor as the potential romantic interest. Pretty standard fare.

Where the book redeems itself are the themes of friendship and doing what's right even when it's hard. The squeaky-clean style and the moral problems MICHAEL VEY addresses is what will appeal to parents; the kids will like seeing Michael save the day, not to mention the idea of kids with superpowers. My teenage daughter liked it and is eager to read the second, but I'm not a fan of Evans' writing style.

Recommended Age: 10+ (some scary scenes may bother more sensitive children)
Language: None
Violence: Kidnapping, torture, and even an on-scene murder (without detail)
Sex: None, it's mostly teenage crushes without being crass

Find the start of this new series here:

MICHAEL VEY: THE PRISONER OF CELL 25

PATHFINDER, the first book in Orson Scott Card’s Pathfinder series (of which RUINS is the second book), kind of blew me away (read my review here). I am a big fan of Card’s older work. ENDER’S GAME is a classic. I loved the rest of the Ender series, (the Shadow series not so much) and I loved both WYRMS and TREASON. But I have had a hard time getting into his work lately. This series however feels like a bit of that Old Card coming through.

The plot, for those of you who haven’t gotten on board, follows Rigg a boy who can see paths, the paths that humans have traveled in and how recently. To some extent it lets him see the past, who went where and when they did it. I’m gonna get all spoilery of the first book in a second so if you want you can just jump down to the bottom of the review where I will tell you if this is a good book or not (hint: it is).

The first book, PATHFINDER, ends with Rigg having found his sister, who can manipulate time as well, though in different ways, and together with her, his friend Umbo and two ex-soldiers Loaf and Olivenko have crossed the barrier between their land and the land bordering it. RUINS deals with Rigg and his pals exploring some of the other lands that make up the planet Garden. The scope of the series is almost immediately widened and a bigger view of where the series is going as a whole is brought to the forefront. I thought maybe Card would spend this book dealing with just the one one new place and the problems that the new Wallfold faces, but I was wrong. Card wastes no time moving from one place to the next, and indeed even one time to the next. It was difficult at times seeing the characters go back and forth in time. The group would travel forward and backward in time to see certain events or bypass various obstacles. There was a lot of it and at times I wasn’t sure WHEN the book was happening. It didn’t matter. The story unfolded pretty smoothly and was a fun quick read.

During the book as Rigg and his friends go from land to land (called Wallfolds in the book), the group would discover something new, something that those particular inhabitants had spent the last ten thousand years cultivating and exploring. As I was reading I had an uneasy sense that I’d read that before. Card is plagiarizing someone else’s idea I thought. Then I realized where I had read the idea before. It was in a previous Orson Scott Card book called TREASON (an excellent book, one of my favorites of Card’s writing). The idea is still cool here and going from place to place to see what each different set of people had created or discovered was one of the joys of the book.

That being said, I think I enjoyed the idea a bit more in TREASON. The book was shorter, more action packed and to the point. That’s not to say that RUINS wasn’t a lot of fun (it was). Just that particular idea seemed better used in that shorter work.

RUINS is still a lot of fun. At a time where I had almost given up on Card’s work he comes out with this Pathfinder series to remind us all of why we liked him in the first place. This series isn’t destined to be another ENDER’S GAME. But then what is? RUINS is still fun and worth your while.

Age Recommendation: I dunno, whenever they want to read it I guess. The time travel stuff can be a bit confusing and the two boys Rigg and Umbo, are immature and make a few rude jokes, but nothing really offensive here.
Language: Not really
Violence: Nothing I recall was too bad
Sex: Maybe mentioned but nothing to get upset about.

Want to give this series a try? Here are your links:
PATHFINDER
RUINS

I don't know if I can accurately describe just how excited I was to dive into this book. Mark Hodder's Adventures of Burton and Swinburne were some of the most amazing books that I read in the last few years. Major anticipation in this corner. So the fact that this book was nothing like I thought it would be, AND ended up being Science Fiction, AND I still really liked it says something impressive about Mr. Hodder and his burgeoning array of great stories.

A RED SUN ALSO RISES, to all appearances, is a stand-alone novel in the same vein as Hodder's previous trilogy and definitely a not book that you'd find Arthur Krystal picking up at your local bookstore. Go ahead and check out the very fine book cover and tell me that it doesn't make your mind just go, SPROING! Seriously great artwork there. And the story ain't half bad either!

Inside, we delve into the life of Aiden Fleischer, a priest struggling to make the connection between playing the part of a man of the cloth and actually being one in truth. In short order, a woman comes into his life, Miss Clarissa Stark, and the both of them are soon romping around an alien planet, filled with the weird and strange lifeforms of Mr. Hodder's supreme imagination and trying to understand just what kind of world they've been thrown into. Massive bag aliens, and hybrid wolf aliens, and aliens erupting from other aliens-aliens. Seriously wild stuff.

The background is built upon many aspects of the history of our world, introduces a very large change, and then flies into the speculative stratosphere. Unlike Hodder's previous books, RED SUN was very much enamored with two foci that I see as being highly important to Science Fiction: exploration of the unknown and the exploration of God. An overwhelmingly large portion of the book was devoted to these two ideas, and yet they were all wrapped up and woven throughout the tapestry of the over-arching story so well that they frequently disappeared amongst the strata. A good thing in my book.

The downside was that the development of these aspects overtook a few of the other very important pieces of the story. Those being characterization and direction. Fleischer's character is well-drawn during the beginning of the book. Inner-torment over his priestly duties and his understanding of God and the presence of evil in the world (by way of a Jack the Ripper cameo) paint the conflict within Fleischer very well. Once the new venue made a showing however, the book made a pretty large shift. The adventure portion of the story took hold, and consequently the direction of the plot also became a bit more nebulous. This did make the story drag a bit in parts, especially toward the middle, but the end made for a rip-roaring mash-up where all the cards finally came tumbling out of Mr. Hodder's hand. I really liked how it all turned out.

I think Hodder's fans will like this new adventure, especially those whose tastes tend more toward the realm of Science Fiction. It's a relatively short read with a interesting premise, logical plot progression (peppered with wandering exploration), and a satisfying ending that will remind Hodder's readers of all the things they love about his work. Definitely one to add to the old bookshelves.

Recommended Age: 18+
Sex: Inclusion of sex without any scenes or real description
Violence: Themes surrounding Jack the Ripper. Quite grisly and violent in sections.
Profanity: Very low.

Find the book here: A Red Sun Also Rises

Like the hair in your panna cotta, or the blow fly in your bisque, a bad salesman will most often destroy the goodness that surrounds it, no matter how much of that goodness may be available. At least, it will often destroy the idea of large-scale goodness for me. This single idea represents one of the most important reasons why I just couldn't bring myself to love this most recent read. And yet, I will often pull the fly out and eat the soup anyhow. I mean, who can resist a good soup!

KOP KILLER, by Warren Hammond, is the third book in his Kop series, but is handled well-enough that it has little problem standing on its own. The story is set on the planet of Lagarto, where the long day and night cycles make for some interesting dynamics, and nearly every inhabitant living there understands that their lives can sink no further than this.

Juno Mozambe is a waste of a man. His wife is dead. He's lost his job with the Koba Office of Police (KOP), where he and his now dead partner ran the joint with a pair of fists dirtier than septic tank cheese balls. Now all he has left is his wits, a few of his old connections, and his drive to see KOP taken down. So he's hired a few cops that are still on the beat and still dirty as he is and starts a business as a thug for hire. But things are never as simple as they seem, and very soon Juno is juggling more pins than he has hands.

This book really has a lot going for it. It's dark, gritty, and fast-moving. Right from the get-go we have a large number of characters with history that shapes the way they interact with one another. Juno is strong and driven toward a single goal, and the frenetic pacing of the novel never once lets you rest. It's part police procedural, and part dystopian science fiction, but all punch and kick and scream. The largest hit to its karma, though, comes through the poor sales of Juno as a “bad guy”. From the very beginning he's out to let everyone know just how terrible he really is, and yet the way that he thinks about and responds to the various situations in which he finds himself made me think of him more as weak and scared and often incompetent.

Also despite his rock-solid driving force at the beginning, as the end of the book gets closer his driving force wavers all over the place: from destroying KOP, to setting up a new leader for KOP, to avenging the deaths of several people, to killing someone that is even worse than he is, to... It soon got very confusing why he was doing anything that he did, other than the fact that one event led him to next and the next and finally to the end.

The second bad sell was the alien planet bit. There's very little to no atmosphere or detail contained in the story to give the impression that these events are actually happening anywhere other than Earth. Yes, there's a long day/night cycle. And a spaceship blasts off into the sky once. And he eats four different gecko tacos that dribble hot sauce onto various parts of his anatomy. But still. It was a tough sell for me.

And yet, despite these fairly large flaws, I liked the way that things played out. Hammond's prose isn't amazing by any stretch of the imagination but it's strong and connective. It pulls you along, and relays a story that is twisted, and strange, and ultimately engaging, even if it's not perfect. Reminded me quite a bit of the little Richard K. Morgan I've read, though I've seen that comparison bandied about a lot lately.

Sound decent? If it does, give it a whirl. It's probably a book for you.

Recommended Age: 18+
Sex: Numerous, strong references throughout
Violence: Very high. Gory, bloody, and descriptive
Profanity: Frequent. Strong. Sometimes distracting.

Want it? Here's your link!

KOP Killer

The description of MIND STORM by K.M. Ruiz would have you believe that is a story about Threnody Corwin, a soldier-slave of the Earth government. Well, it is and it isn't. As it turns out Threnody is really more of a supporting character than a primary protagonist. The story is really about Nathan and Lucas Serca and a family feud that has the potential to burn the world to cinder. MIND STORM is what you get when you take the hard-edged, dystopian Science Fiction of Richard K. Morgan's Takeshi Kovacs novels and spice it up with some psychic powers.

More than a century has passed since the Border Wars and the Earth is still in the throes of recovery. Much of the world is uninhabitable due to nuclear warfare and the populace is segregated by registered humans with clean genetics, the unregistered with "trash" DNA, and psions. Those fortunate few with a sparkling bill of health use the psions to enforce the law. Threnody Corwin is one such psion, a high-classed agent of the Stryker Syndicate with the ability to control electric with her mind. In the face of shifting alliances and with an iron-core of duty, Threnody must fight to secure a future for life on Earth.

Ruiz's vision of the future is a bleak one to say the least. Prejudice against gene-trash isn't only rampant but encouraged. The World Court has enslaved those with psionic powers and impels them into service with the threat of excruciating death. On top of this the government is less concerned with restoring the planet than it is with fleeing to the comfort of another world. It turns out that this authoritarian government isn't the only force in play, the Serca Syndicate has been secretly pulling the strings for decades. Behind the facade of human politician, Nathan Serca operates the infamous rogue psions known as Warhounds. Nathan is about to enact his own plans for survival at all costs, even if it means sacrificing his own family. The only person who can possibly stop him is his son Lucas.

Regardless of the book description, Nathan and Lucas are the main characters. Nathan is ice to the core, willing to sacrifice his own flesh and blood to further his agenda. Lucas is no basket of sunshine and flowers himself. He has no problem sacrificing others to meet his needs either, but his end goal is considerably brighter. Threnody and the others are just pawns of these two super powered sociopaths. More character development will be required before Threnody can outshine the others as a protagonist but the foundation is there to build upon.

This all makes for a great set-up but is hampered by some indelicate world building. I am pretty ambivalent about info-dumps. I prefer world building that is integrated seamlessly into the fabric of the story but I can stomach dense downloads of information when handled properly. Ruiz avoids the cardinal sin of massive amounts of exposition, but the info-dumps she does incorporate are indelicate and unwieldy. The world she has created has the gritty vibe of a Richard K. Morgan novel but lacks the little details. A lot of the explanation behind the Border Wars is unnecessary, readers could connect the dots without a load of exertion. While Ruiz details the life of the wealthy elite as well as the duties of psions of the Stryker Syndicate, there is a lack of focus on the gene-trash humans at the bottom of society. Later in the novel the Salvagers are introduces as allies of Lucas, and though they exist on the fringes of a crumbling civilization it never becomes apparent that they live much differently from the psions. Other than saying "ain't" the vocabulary of the Salvagers is identical to that of the World Court justices. An opportunity was overlooked to establish the world and culture that the psions are trying so desperately to rescue and create a striking contrast between the privileged and the less fortunate.

The psions, on the other hand, are a very well rounded creation. A lot of reviews propose that MIND STORM is X-Men meets Bladerunner. That's a fair enough comparison, though I see a lot more Bladerunner than X-Men. Critics overuse the X-Men comparison when it comes to books that involve super powered individuals (I, admittedly am in error of this as well). Yes, this book does have people that can control electricity/fire/gravity with their mind but it is all fairly grounded and limited by the world of the book. Ruiz also introduces some capabilities of mind powers that I had never considered, such as a sort of mind-radar that tracks the location of others with psychic abilities. The combat is brutal. There is no shortage of collateral damage. The psions carry conventional weapons to supplement their abilities but these prove little use when brought to bear against skilled opponents. What I appreciate is all the ways in which the psionic powers interact and negate each other. There are some grisly stalemates brought on by the nature of the powers and the ranking of the individuals.

MIND STORM has rough edges. The characters need to fill out, and the world building needs to be smoothed but I still read this book in two days, eager for more of that bloody psion on psion goodness. All the pieces are here for a dystopian science fiction thriller of epic proportions. Ruiz just needs to refine her craft and I am confident that the sequel TERMINAL POINT will be a big improvement.

Recommended Age: 16+
Langauge: Absolutely
Violence: Duh! Why else would you have mind powers?
Sex: None

Want it? Buy it here.