Friday Reviews, one day late, 10/1/2011

It's still Friday somewhere, right? No? That's no how that works? Ok, sorry, I'm late. There was this disc of Hustle, see, and ... never mind.

Three books this week.

Adrian Burgos, Jr - Cuban Star


This is the story of Alejandro "Alex" Pompez, owner of the New York Cubans, one of the founding teams in the Eastern Negro League of baseball. Burgos is trying to do a couple of things with the book. On the one hand, he is trying to tell the story of a deeply complex individual. Pompez was, in addition to being a team owner and promoter, a moderately big wheel in the Harlem numbers game - an illegal lottery which was hugely popular in the 1910s and 20s (and beyond, no doubt.) Pompez was also a big supporter of Latino rights in an era before Latino rights (or Latinos, as such) existed. He crossed boundaries of race, class, and legality, and operated in a number of different worlds with a high level of comfort and skill. He was, in short, a fascinating guy, well deserving of having his story told.

At the same time, Burgos is attempting to redeem Pompez. When Pompez was inducted into the Hall of Fame, there was a huge outcry, because of his involvement in illegal gambling. Burgos argues that most of the Negro league teams were founded on some sort of illegal gambling, because they couldn't have made a profit otherwise. If what Burgos says is true (and I have no reason to doubt it), then denying Pompez entry into the Hall of Fame on the grounds that he engaged in gambling (unrelated to the game of baseball, it should be noted) is tantamount to denying the entire Negro League entry into the Hall of Fame. Which would be wrong on a number of levels. Defending Pompez, then, is a noble goal, and well worth doing.

The problem is, Burgos doesn't do a good job of either thing. The book is poorly organized. Each chapter covers a specific time period, but within each chapter, Burgos wanders from period to period. In one paragraph, he'll be writing about Pompez' childhood; in the next, Burgos will be discussing the views of a Cuban patriot from a decade earlier, and in the next paragraph, Burgos will be recounting Pompez' involvement in Cuban identity politics from a decade on. The whole thing doesn't hang together well. It's like Burgos did a lot of research on his topic, and is so excited about sharing it with his readers that he can't get his facts in a proper row. It's very disappointing.

I got two chapters into the book, and started the third. I announced that I would give it a last chapter to get into some sort of rhythm. And then, the book got left in the car, and I was too apathetic about it to go and find it. (The car was in the driveway, so finding the book wouldn't have been a big deal.) When I discovered that I had, in fact, brought the book inside, I couldn't be bothered to continue with it. Not a good sign.

Cherie Priest - Hellbent


This is the sequel to Bloodshot, Priest's new series of vampire caper novels. In the last book, Raylene was hired to steal some medical records, and ended up with a huge mess involving the US government. The book ended with a lot of loose ends. Raylene ended up with an interesting group of folks living in and around her Seattle warehouse (full of ill gotten goods).

This book tells a pair of stories, linked only by Raylene's involvement. The stories are told concurrently. On the one hand, Raylene has been asked by one of her regular clients (an aquisitions guy at an auction house in New York) to "acquire" a box of very rare baccula - penis bones. These baccula are from extremely rare creatures - werewolves, djinn, griffins, etc. They will fetch a very high price from the right client, as they are useful for amplifying magic. As is often the case in a caper novel, the acquisition of these baccula becomes exceedingly complicated, with a mentally ill sorceress getting involved.

The other story is a somewhat more straightforward story of vampire politics. Ian, one of the cast of characters acquired by Raylene in the last book, gets a call from his old House in San Francisco. They need him back; the "judge" has died (head of the House), and Ian is next in line. For reasons that I won't go into (because they would spoil the first book), Ian can't got back to San Francisco, and so Raylene goes instead to see if she can't sort things out. It turns out that the Atlanta House (known for its random and sudden violence, and considered quite powerful) is involved. Which is interesting - the ex-Navy SEAL drag queen's sister was involved with the Atlanta House, and is now missing.

Priest does a good job of not letting one story get in the way of the other, and weaves them together into a satisfying whole by the end of the book. Everyone comes away from the experience with part of what they wanted going into the experience, and noone is entirely happy with their cut - this is also typical of a caper novel. The humor in the novel (most caper novels, in my experience, have a strong dose of humor) comes largely from Raylene's self-deprecating snark. I can see how some readers might find this a little off putting, actually. I don't think I could read several of these books in quick succession - Raylene's voice could easily become grating. In single book doses, however, it's amusing.

Priest has become very good at working deep ideas into typically shallow genre novels, and this book is no different. Priest explores ideas of mental illness in our society, contrasting Raylene's self-diagnosed OCD with the schizophrenia of the sorceress, and considering how their mental issues have affected who they are and the lives they live. Priest suggests, as always, that it is possible to tell a good story AND have a strong social conscience. More - she shows that by combining story and social conscience, both become stronger and more effective. It's this sensibility which makes Priest a must-read, regardless of what she's writing. More, please!

Eoin Colfer - Plugged


This is Colfer's debut adult novel. It's billed as a crime caper novel, and I think that's actually a false billing. A caper novel should involve some sort of overly complicated scheme to steal something. It should involve some sort of "crew" organized to engage in this theft. At some point, the plot should go off the rails. Everyone should finish the novel with a piece of what they went in looking for. Potentially, humor should feature. This is not a caper novel. It is a light noir novel, and it's a very good light noir novel.

The book tells the story of Daniel McEvoy, formerly of the Irish Army. McEvoy saw service as peace keeper in Lebanon, two tours of duty which leave him with some interesting neurosis. He has since found himself in Cloisters, New Jersey, where he works as a bouncer/door man for a sleazy nightclub/casino. McEvoy finds himself trapped in a horrible mess when the club hostess he has a tendre for is found dead outside the club. As he attempts to find out what happened, he is quickly embroiled in several plots involving a small time mobster, a dirty cop, a clean cop, a lawyer with pretensions of criminality, and his upstairs neighbor, who things McEvoy is her husband.

So, what makes something noir? As far as I'm concerned, a noir story (stoiry?) features a character, almost always male, who finds himself increasingly in over his head in a situation not under his control. The hero will have a tendency to use violence to move the plot forward. The principle character is often a detective (not in this case), trying to get to the bottom of a mystery so that people will stop trying to kill him. His investigative style tends to be "bust some heads, ask some questions, then go looking for more heads to bust." Sort of the "What Would Batman Do?" approach to solving a mystery. The hero should spend at least a little time unconscious. In the end, the protagonist might solve the mystery (or have it solved for him), he might end up in a better situation than he began in, or he might be dead. This book definitely qualifies. It's "light" noir because there is a heavy dose of humor here - noir fiction is often fairly unrelenting in its gloom, and this is not. There's plenty of blood and violence, but McEvoy maintains a fairly light tone throughout.

The only problem with this book is the marketing, frankly. The cover tag is "If you loved Artemis Fowl ... It's Time to Grow Up." I think that was a mistake. The less attention called to Artimis Fowl, the better. I think, if your previous experience with Colfer is his Artemis Fowl (which are YA) books, and you expect this to be like those, you will be shocked and disappointed. The jacket matter suggests that the book has "extreme raunchiness" (from the Kirkus Review) - and I think that's probably only true if you are expecting it to be like Artemis Fowl. For a noir novel, the raunchiness is entirely appropriate, and not extreme in the slightest. Ideally, perhaps, Colfer should have published this under a different name (perhaps "Eoin Colfer, writing as Serious McNoir", or something of that nature, to both use the known name and distance the novel from it). In the end, it's a good book, and well worth a look - but it's neither Artemis Fowl, nor is it raunchy.

Friday Review Post, 7/15/2011

Four books this week. Man, I was a reading machine this week! I discovered a secret - if I take the baby outside, she will roll and play happily much longer than if she's on the floor in the living room. Plus, since I have to sit and watch her, there's not a lot else I can do while I'm outside with her. So, reading time! (Also, hanging laundry and such.)

Patrick Rothfuss - A Wise Man's Fear


This is the second of Rothfuss' King Killer Trilogy. The second, and much awaited, I should say. I have decided that this book could kill its readers in at least 3 different ways. 1) It could fall off of a high shelf and cave in their head. 2) a reader could trip over it and fall down the stairs. 3) It could induce the reader to stay up long into the night several nights running, thus impairing the reader's judgement, and thus resulting in some sort of fatal kitchen accident.

From that, one might gather that the book is quite large (which it is - massive!) and that it is the sort of book that you don't want to stop reading, even though it's midnight, or one, or two in the morning. And that would be true. The thing is, when the book is described, it's hard to imagine why that would be the case. Kvothe, the principle character (and the narrator) has been presented as someone who, when making their role playing character, took all of the backgrounds. He's a gypsy (Edema Roh - but, basically, a gypsy), he's an orphan, he's been a beggar, he's a bard, he's a magician, he's a sword fighter and a monk ... He's the youngest person ever to be accepted at the University (where people learn to be arcanists - magicians), he startles his professors, he struggles his way through adversity - this book shouldn't work. But it does. It works on a lot of levels.

First, Rothfuss presents us with a highly sympathetic character. Kvothe isn't super-capable; Rothfuss shows him trying, and failing, and learning, and trying again. He's not unnaturally bright, either - he falls into a lot of the traps that the average 16 year old falls into, especially in re: women. Plus, Kvothe is narrating the whole story from his retirement (more or less), so we get a wry view of his youthful escapades, and that's good.

Additionally, Rothfuss has Kvothe wrestle with some fairly weighty stuff; justice, revenge, mercy, love, the relationship between men and women in society. At one point - I really liked this, incidentally - Kvothe spends some months with a group of, basically, monks, where he learns (to the best of his limited ability - there's a whole chapter of him being beaten up by a 10 year old girl, because she's been practicing since she could walk, and he hasn't) a particular style of fighting. As he leaves the society, he learns that the society firmly believes that men are utterly extraneous. The society is entirely sex-positive - there is no social taboo against sex - and so women periodically get pregnant. When Kvothe suggests that sex leads to pregnancy, they laugh at him; his society, they suggest, believes in man-mothers, but this is clearly absurd. Sex is fun, yes, but pregnancy just happens, and men have nothing to do with it. I dunno, when I describe it, it sounds kinda silly - but it works in the book.

Above all, this book is about stories. It is about telling stories, about how stories start and spread and change. It is about the struggle between truth and rumor, and how rumor becomes truth. I think this is why I like the books - I'm sucker for a discussion on stories.

There were two bits I didn't like. Twice, Kvothe skips over stuff - there's a trial, and he says "it was boring, I don't want to talk about it, let's skip to the next bit where I'm amazing." Later, he uses a single paragraph to sum up a difficult passage between the University and where he's been sent to get a job for a year - there were pirates, and a storm, and he got mugged, so he arrived with rags and his lute case. Kvothe's (and, one assumes, Rothfuss') position in both cases is that fully describing those events would have made the book even longer, and we, the readers, don't really need to know what happened there. Still, it felt a little awkward.

A final caveat - I've spent some time thinking about whether you could start the series here - and I don't think you can. I mean, you can probably pick up the narrative, but the first book was equally massive, and so you'll miss a lot of the back-story. I do think the books are worth picking up if you haven't read them yet. They're full of adventure and humor and wonder and sword fighting and danger and such, and they're a surprisingly quick read, for all that they're huge. Just, you know, don't operate heavy machinery after your second late night, and try not to put your copy up on a high shelf, or near the top of the stairs, and you should be fine.

A slight digression - I have several young (early 20s and younger) who have taken to abusing the term "Epic." Ok, it's not just them - suddenly everything is "Epic." So, I've begun insisting that something can't be epic unless it involves at least one god and/or classic epic poetic form (Hiawatha is clearly an epic, but no gods.) The problem I have is this - can I describe these books as an epic? I don't think I can, given my own definitions - I may have to revise them.

Neve Maslakovic - Regarding Ducks and Universes


This one was odd. First, it's set in San Francisco, about 10 years into the future. Sort of. In 1986, the universe bifurcated, but in such a way that transit between the two universes is possible. From the split point (Y day - because prior to that point, the universe was a single thread, but it diverged into two separate threads, like a Y), the two universes have gone in separate directions. In Universe A, the Golden Gate Bridge collapsed in an earthquake - in Universe B, it did not. Oh - also, the universe prior to 1986? Not, actually, our universe - the big California Gold Rush was not until 1855 in that universe (in our universe, it was 1849; hence the Miner '49er with his daughter, Clementine).

So, anyway, Felix is a writer for a kitchenware company in Universe A. He is also trying to write a mystery novel. Shortly after his 35th birthday, he receives a picture from his great-aunt (who has died) which suggests that Felix was born before Y day, not after, as he had originally believed. This means that he has an alternate in Universe B - Felix B - who might, conceivably, also be writing a mystery novel. Or, worse, have already written it, in which case Felix A is wasting his time. So, the action of the novel focuses on Felix A travelling to Universe B to see if his alter has written a mystery novel, or is further along in the process than Felix A. This is illegal - unless your alter specifically requests it, there should be no contact between the two. So, it's an odd story. And it just gets odder from there - Felix ends up mixed up in a scientific study of the divergence point, and the whole thing spirals into confusion and complication.

Despite this set up, the story is really quite good. Yes, it's complex and complicated; yes, there's a lot of mad cap dashing around, trying to find clues that are at least 35 years old. Felix A finds that someone is trying to kill him - could it be Felix B? Possibly, Felix A falls in love (it's unclear). Maybe ducks can create universes (that's also unclear). Could there be a Universe C, or D? The whole book is a puzzle, but not the sort of puzzle where the author is clearly messing with you. It's a comfortable puzzle, a puzzle that the author asks you to help her unravel as you both muddle along - as all three (or four) of you; the author, and you, and Felix and Felix - muddle along through the complexities. So, it was odd, but fun.

Hilari Bell - Trickster's Girl


This is also set in the mid-near future. Ecologically, things are starting to get better - but they got worse first. There's a reference to the Florida Islands, and a suggestion that, if water levels drop a bit more, they might be a peninsula again. Additionally, some bio-terrorists released a tree disease in the Amazon to blackmail the world governments for money. They got the money, released the counteragent - and the disease spread anyway.

Into this mess, Bell tosses Kelsa Phillipps, who's father, a biologist and ecologist, has just died of cancer. Kelsa encounters a young man who claims to be Raven, the Native American Trickster. He does some things (changing into a raven, mostly) that finally convince her that he isn't lying. Then he convinces her that the issue with the trees is because people don't believe in magic, and so the ley lines are all messed up, and so Kelsa must help him fix them. They set off (Kelsa, reluctantly) on a quest to Alaska to heal ley line nodes.

Over all, the story was cute, but not very deep. Bell has some fun updating technology - maglev cars; really tight security around and within the United States - and playing it off against classic fairy tale magic. The plot is pretty linear -  Kelsa and Raven get chased by some scary bikers, and Raven lies and misrepresents facts a lot. Kelsa learns something about herself and the world, which is the point, I guess. Still, after Rotfuss and Maslakovic, there wasn't much to sink my teeth into.

Also, I didn't like the relationship between Kelsa and Raven. As I say, he lies a lot. There's a strong stalker vibe from him, too - Kelsa spends a lot of the book worrying about that, but travels with him anyway. Which, I suppose, is the point of a Trickster - you end up better off at the end of the interaction, but the transit from the beginning to the end is circuitous and often confusing. Still - it was odd to see in a YA novel; "he's a stalker, and I'm not sure he's not going to rape and kill me (possibly in that order), but I'll travel with him (without mace or anything, even) and see where it goes..." I would have liked some sort of justification for that, I think.

In the end, I didn't not like the book, which is fairly faint praise. It was a nice change of pace. I'll probably read the second half, if I see it.

Cherie Priest - Bloodshot


Raylene is a vampire. She is also a burglar; a very good one. She's also full of snark, which is delightful. I really like Raylene as a character, and will happily read more of these books.

A little plot - Raylene is hired by Ian Stott, a vampire, to retrieve some paperwork. Ian was captured by the US military and subjected to experiments that have left him blind. He wants Raylene to secure his records so that he can get the assistance of a doctor to fix his eyes. As Raylene begins to look into the case, she finds that it is far more complicated that originally thought, as government agents descend upon her and make her life ... interesting. Throw in some parcour/parkour (which is hella cool - I wish I was in better shape, because it looks like fun!) enthusiasts, and the result is a pretty solid book.

It's also, fairly clearly, an establishing book. We're being introduced to a series of characters who will be in the next book, and the book after that. Lots of juicy character description - this is either good (because it means that the characters are already deep and real) or bad (because there's nowhere to go but down), but I'm inclined to view it as a good thing. Priest also establishes a long term antagonist which will provide plot for at least the next book, and probably the book after that as well. That is ... mostly good. As expressed in a much earlier post, I'm not keen on books that don't end. I'm not a fan of "...to be continued." As I approached the end of the book, it became clear that we (the readers) were being set up for a "... to be continued," and I read on with trepidation. Priest skirts that - the story resolves in this book, and it's mostly satisfactory, but there are serious loose ends. To stretch the TV analogy - this episode concludes, but a future episode will required a prologue - "previously on ..."

Beyond that, a very good book. Solid narrative. A delightful snarky voice in Raylene (who is clearly over-confident, but also really very good at what she does). Some interesting musing on what makes someone human. Priest really plays with that - vampires as a metaphor, perhaps - and drives it home with the fact that one of the characters is an ex-navy SEAL and a drag queen, which places him/her in an interesting social space. If he is socially accepted, how about vampires? If vampires are socially accepted, what about her? Surprising depth, and a nice cap to a week of (mostly) deep, chewy books. I will definitely pick up the next one of these.

Friday Reviews, 11/26/2010

I should confess that I am under the influence of rather too much turkey at this point. I hope all of you had lovely Thanksgivings, and ate just enough of the things you enjoy eating at this time of year. I hope you took the opportunity to do some reading, as well - I know I did. This week, my review features zombies, war, police detection and zombies, war and police detection all at once. Also, cyclopses. Ready?

Cherie Priest - Dreadnought


Ms. Priest has begun to make a name for herself in the steampunk genre. This is her second book in what she is calling her "Clockwork Century" series, a series of books set in an alternate history in which the US Civil War started just a little later, and so involves technology just a little better, and has thus lasted a lot longer. Also, there are zombies. The war provides the backdrop to this book - it has raged for at least a generation, such that boys and girls born after the beginning of the war are now old enough to participate in the war. Mercy Lynch, a nurse in a Confederate hospital, receives bad news about her Union husband, and then troubling news about the father who abandoned her family when Mercy was just an infant. This precipitates a long voyage across the continent by air ship, steam ship, and train. The only train she can get onto leaving St. Louis for the West Coast is pulled by a heavily armored Union locomotive named the Dreadnought. While on the train, she encounters some interesting characters, including a Union scientist who believes he has a solution to the war. It involves zombies. Right and justice prevail over warmongering and the undead hoards, but this prompts some thought for me.

Recently, Charles Stross has posted a screed attacking steampunk as a literary movement. His objection is grounded in two points - first, that the genre, or sub-genre or whatever it is within the speculative fiction realm, is too everpresent. That is perhaps justifiable - there does seem to be a trend towards tossing a zepplin and a steam powered robot at an otherwise perfectly good novel and calling it steampunk. His other point is that the genre (or sub-genre, or whatever) glorifies the Victorian era, with all of the darkness and excess of Victorian era imperialism. This, I think, seems to miss the point - and the zombies in Ms. Priest's books (which come under special condemnation - "gas induced zombies are not Science, now are they, Ms. Priest?" - I paraphrase) really seem to illustrate the point.  Yes, the "steam" in steampunk points to the Victorian era, when mechanization, especially of factories, was rising quickly. Yes, that factorization (if that's a word) marked the era, and every era after it, forcing (western) societies to take a certain path and other (eastern?) societies into a particular role (subjugation, mostly) - but the "punk" in steampunk rejects the standardization that those factories imply. A single example: aesthetically, yes, steampunks tend towards brass and brown, but, most importantly, they tend towards do it yourselfishness - not one size fits many off the rack fashion, but one size fits one tailor made clothing. The characters in Dreadnought fight against the zombies, against the standardization of modernism, against the uniformity of war and empire and conquest. Steampunk is, at its best, a celebration of the individual - and isn't that the basis for most speculative fiction? Indeed, isn't that why we read it and love it, those of us who do? So, Cherie Priest, keep on with your gas induced zombies and heavily armored trains and zepplins in the weird west, please, and I will continue reading about them.

Connie Willis - Blackout and All Clear


Although published as two works, these really constitute a single, very long, novel. Willis writes a wide variety of things, but she tends to be known for her time travelling books, like these two. The underlying premise - at some point in the future, time travel is developed.  After it becomes clear that the technology cannot be used to alter the past, it is abandoned by governments seeking to improve their situation and instead used by university history departments to get a real grasp on the past. Through several works, Ms. Willis has developed the principles of her version of time travel - what are the risks to the participants; where are the loop holes in the rules, and how far can they stretch; and, above all, how can these elements intersect to make for good stories? And they do make for good stories, because another thing Ms. Willis is known for is her skill as an excellent story teller.

Time and time again, Ms. Willis has returned not only to the theme of time travel, but to an exploration of World War Two in England - a fascinating topic. This two part novel is a tour de force, covering the war from a wide variety of angles, and bringing in stories about ordinary people doing extraordinarily heroic things. It is a story about heroes, and about love (Ms. Willis got her start in writing romance novels, and some of that shows here - but the really good sort of romance novels, not the kind you would ever sell to a used book store). The story is also about mystery novels, and about chaos, and about history. The plot is twisted, and the chronology is also twisted (which doesn't help), and Willis uses her characteristic dialogue to excellent effect. An element of many of Ms. Willis' stories is the way in which her characters talk over and under each other, accidentally using language to prevent communication. Sometimes this is a little frustrating, often it is amusing, and occasionally it is heart breaking, or leads to heart breaking conclusions. One thing you can fairly expect from a Willis novel is a happy ending, although it is often bitter sweet. This pair of books is no exception.

One thing - this is LONG. Plus, once you start, it's very hard to stop - the pace is inexorable. Clear a weekend, because you won't get much sleep.

Laurie King - To Play the Fool
(recommended by my wife, who reads.)

If you've been reading these posts, you know about Laurie King - she writes the Sherlock Holmes post WWI novels. This is two or three books into her other series, the Kate Martinelli series. This series is set in present San Francisco, and focus on police detective Kate Martinelli. My wife has been enjoying the Holmes books, and there's a cross over between the two detectives (which is odd, since these books are set in the present), so she started the Martinellis, and she handed this one to me, so I read it. It was exceedingly good. Martinelli investigates the death of a homeless man. The prominent suspect is a Holy Fool - a sort of itinerant monk who speaks entirely in quotations (from the Bible, from Shakespeare, from Gilbert and Sullivan, from all over). He's not crazy, he's part of a movement which seeks (or sought, he seems to be the last one) to expose meaning in the world through acting as if they lack meaning. In the context of Shakespeare, the fool in King Lear serves as a model - through foolish acting, the fool can speak truth to power. The Fools seek to do the same in our modern world, to mixed effect.

I found this book fit very nicely with the rest of what I was reading. The Fools (or, well, Brother Erasmus) act as a foil for the dehumanizing effects of modern life, and so the theme fit with Dreadnought. Erasmus, and Martinelli, are heroes because of their dogged devotion to their personal cause, and so the theme fit with the Willis as well. Plus, King writes very nicely, and I appreciated that too. A surprisingly deep, and deeply satisfying, novel. Unconditional recommendation.

James Knapp - State of Decay


A debut novel for Mr. Knapp, this book features war, zombies, and police detectives. The war seems to be some sort of endless extension of the War on Terror (this is never really stated, but rather broadly implied - if we are entering into a forever war, then Knapp has described the outcome in his mind) and the zombies are the troops used to fight the war - the revivors, the re-animated corpses of those too poor or too insignificant to avoid being pressed into posthumous service. There are two ways to avoid being made into a revivor - one is to rise to the top of society as a scientist or engineer or businessperson. The other is to volunteer for pre-humous service - one way or another, service in the cause is guaranteed.

The novel follows a group of characters from various stratas of society as they work their way through life in this brave new world. A police detective struggles to make sense of a series of killings, an FBI agent deals with a zombie smuggling ring (for cheap labor, and also cheap thrills - some people like to pay for sex with revivors, it seems), a confused woman has visions of people asking her for help, and a lower class woman makes her living as a professional wrestler. Together, they unravel a complicated conspiracy, involving the zombies (naturally) and the government (sort of), and a shadowy group of shadowy people who are trying to run the world.

That description makes the whole thing sound cheap, doesn't it? It's not - this is quite well written, the characters are strong, the plot was strong, and the whole thing was quite enjoyable. Now, what remains to be seen is if Mr. Knapp will attempt a sequel - I think that will be a mistake, frankly - or is able to go off in an entirely different direction, either loosely within this setting, or somewhere else. That book would be worth reading, I think, and I'll keep my eye out for it. (edit - I note that State of Decay is the first of a trilogy - I won't go out of my way to avoid the second book [The Silent Army - out now], but I'm not putting it on my library reserve list.)

Rick Riordan - Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters


This is the second of the Percy Jackson books. I picked up the first one when the movie came out, and it was fun. This one was better than the first - fewer points where I wanted to shake the characters and shout "how could you miss that plot point, are you STUPID?!," but still not a hugely deep novel. The premise of the series - the Greek gods continue to exist and have limited influence upon the world, mostly through their half-deity offspring. Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades have taken a vow (post WWII) not to have kids anymore. Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades are the three big gods, and their offspring tend to have bigger and less intended consequences in the world (like World War Two). When I tell you that Percy (Perseus) Jackson is the son of Poseidon, you will begin to see how well the Greek gods tend to keep their promises, even to each other. The teen children of the various gods struggle against re-imagined monsters of myth (Hydra is responsible for commercial franchises, for instance), and the whole thing is a fun romp, just not all that deep.