Friday Review, 7/22/2011

Before I review my two books this week, I would like to make an observation. Right now, in most of North America, it is damn hot. Damn hot varies, depending on where you are, but, here in Upstate New York, not a place known for being sweltering, it has topped 100 F (that's 38 C, for those of you in the civilized world), and that's damn hot.

Many people do not have the luxury of air conditioning when it is damn hot outside. Heating in the cold is far more common, and generally viewed as a human necessity, but air conditioning is a luxury. My family has decided that, since we only really need A/C two or three days a year, we aren't going to buy a window unit for the house, so I am part of that group of people who does not have A/C when it gets damn hot. One of the places people like me go (and take their kids to) when it gets damn hot is the library. Because it's free. Because it's full of books, and we like to encourage our children to read. And, obviously, because most libraries are air conditioned - it's good for the books if a fairly steady heat and humidity is maintained in the library. This is a good reason to support your local library - it provides a shelter from the heat for folks who don't have or can't afford air conditioning when it's damn hot.

Ok. Book reviews.

This week, I re-read a book which I've had on my shelf (or in a box somewhere) for at least ten years. It's an older book, but it's really good, and you've probably never heard of it.

Julie Czerneda - In the Company of Others


Ten years ago, give or take, my wife and I were running a small student convention in Virginia for the second year in a row. We had decided that we would invite authors that we were interested in listening to, since we could only really guarantee that the two of us would show up for the panels. In our hunting, we discovered Jule Czerneda. Her background intrigued us - she had hard science credentials, and everything about her books suggested that she took a very hard science approach to her science fiction. Also, she had co-authored a middle school curriculum which used short works of science fiction to teach students basics of science. So we invited her. And she was awesome; both as an author and as an author guest. If you are running a convention, I seriously recommend her, she's lovely.

In the Company of Others had been released fairly recently prior to the convention, and was, I believe, nominated for a Nebula award or a Hugo - I'm not sure. Either way, she chose to come to our convention rather than attend the award ceremony. Others was her fifth book, and her first stand alone novel - the previous four were parts one and two of two separate trilogies. It's a serious slab of a novel as well, and it realistically took me about a week to read - it's dense.

The plot. At some point in the distant future, humanity has terraformed several distant planets to relieve crowding on Earth. Before settlers can put down on the planets, however, it becomes apparent that something is seriously wrong - advance scouts die suddenly. The sudden death is traced back to the presence of Quill on the planets - a non-sentient creature which deep-space explorers like to keep as pets. Quill are ribbon like critters that bond somehow with a specific person and cause them to remain calm, or tranQuill, hence the name. The Quill bond with a specific genetic pattern - once bonded, they cannot be given away, except sometimes to a direct child of the owner. Prior to the terraforming, they were regarded as expensive (because difficult to get) novelties, but not dangerous. After the terraforming disaster, they become monsters.

Complicating the situation is the fact that Earth released settlers to orbiting way-stations before the planets were ready to receive them, and are now unwilling to accept the settlers back on Earth. This results in severely over crowded stations, and a great deal of hostility from the station dwellers towards Earth.

A generation has passed since the initial disaster. Our hero, Aaron Pardell, lives on one of the stations. As our book begins, a science vessel from Earth has arrived - the head of the mission, Dr. Gail Smith, is looking for Aaron. Aaron thinks he knows why - he has an odd medical condition. If people touch him, both he and the other person experience extreme pain, often to the point of unconsciousness. I think that's all I can say without offering spoilers.

Stuff I liked - the science is really hard here. Scientists engage in science, not technobabble.

- The people are real, too. They react in reasonable, and sometimes unreasonable, ways, and basically behave like real people. Czerneda presents characters in considerable depth, both as individuals and as a collective - secondary, tertiary, even unnamed characters in the book have personalities. This is clear - in the end of the book, Czerneda includes a cast of characters. There are names for people who do not even have "speaking" parts in the book - people who, in the movie credits, would be "third man from the left in the lab scene." Czerneda gives them names, and the care she takes there shines throughout the novel, which is one of the reasons it so dense.

- There's a really hot love scene in which neither participant touches the other at all, and no genitals are exposed. It's steamy, yet totally understated. One of my professors back in undergrad - actually, I don't know that I ever had him as a professor, come to think of it, but he was in the department - wrote fiction. At one event, he suggested that sex scenes in novels tended to be either vulgar or farcical, I believe the exact phrase was "like a banana on the front of a suit of armor". This love scene is neither, and it's brilliant.

- Julie Czerneda is a Canadian, and she peppers her works with little Canadian references. In this book, the space craft are often named for Canadian cities - the one that comes to mind is a freighter named Mississagua, which is a city outside of Toronto, Ontario.

Stuff I didn't like - it's long? And kinda dense? And I stayed up late last night finishing it.

Final thoughts - Julie Czerneda is a fantastic person and author, and her books need a much much wider audience. If you like really good science fiction, you totally owe it to yourself to check her out.

Alex Bledsoe - Dark Jenny


While I was at the library yesterday, I grabbed this one off the new book shelf. I do this thing at the library where I let the older kid run wild wander sedately through the kids' section seeking books for herself while I sit with the baby and read part of a book I've grabbed. Sometimes, I'll pick up a graphic novel and read it all the way through, and then not bring it home (unless I think my wife would like it, in which case I'll bring it home for her).* My eldest has picked up on this habit, and she will often read the books she is bringing home before she puts them in the library bag - so she often reads her books three and four times before they go back. She's totally my kid. :)

Anyway, Bledsoe is an interesting author. This is the third of the Eddie LaCrosse novels. Eddie LaCrosse is a "sword jockey" - a guy who you can hire to do some strong arm stuff, or to look into a messy mystery type situation - a sword for hire, if you will. In short, he is a hardboiled private eye - but in a narrative setting involving knights and dragons and magic and swords and such. This particular book blends an Arthurian milleu with the hard boiled PI trope - it's very much "you got your hard boiled PI in my Arthurian romance", "no, you got your Arthurian romance in my hard boiled PI."

Eddie is at the bar on a hard winter's night when someone shows up with a box for him. Not a box, a coffin. The coffin points Eddie to an old case involving Marcus Drake, king of Grand Bruan, and head of the Knights of the Double Tarn. (Marcus is, of course, the Arthur figure.) He recounts the tale to the rest of the bar patrons, and a sordid tale it is. The story features murder, treachery, and villainy. It also features beautiful women (who aren't what they seem), strong men (who aren't what they seem), knights in shining armor (who aren't what they seem) and useless over dressed nobles (who are exactly what they seem).

There is quite a bit of violence in the book, much of it brutal, little of it really graphic, but some of it a little disturbing. Some of the violence is directed at women. The hard boiled PI genre is not kind to women - women are either dangerous man-traps or virtuous damsels in distress (and much more often the former) - but Bledsoe softens that a little. His female characters have some depth to them, and reasonable motivations for what they do. Still, I think it would be safe to argue that there's some serious misogyny in this book, and the genre in general, so you have been warned.

Something that bugged me a little that has nothing whatsoever to do with the writing - the cover has this matte coating on it that makes it feel almost like it has been rubberized. It's really odd. I don't know if that's the original covering, or if the library added some sort of coating to protect the cover - I suspect the former, but I couldn't find a copy today at Barnes and Noble (they have air conditioning too!) to confirm. Anyway, it felt really weird in my hands - I got used to it as I read the book, but every time I pick it up, it strikes me again.

The short review - It's a quick read, it's very very smart, and it's good in lots of ways, and disturbing in some other ways. It's also rubbery for some reason.

*You know what that means (besides the fact that I forgot to include the footnote last night)? That means a) I still read comics (not that there's anything wrong with that) and b), I read more books than I tell you all about. I don't know if that makes me evil or benevolent.

Hickey of the Beast Wdnesday, 7/20/2011

(linkage)

Chapter 19

You know, Buffy has it kinda easy, in that Giles is there to tell her how to deal with monsters (except when he's not, because that's the complication de jour). Connie is trying hard to piece together what to do with her new found ability, which isn't all that useful, it turns out.

I could've been talking to fairies, dammit. Or turning into a magic warrior in a sailor uniform and saving the world with crystal tiaras. Instead, I got gray men and red lines. If this stuff did run in my family, there were a whole bunch of people who weren't getting Christmas cards ever again.

It's clear that silver has a negative effect upon the incubus, and it's clear that Connie can see the incubus feeding while she's asleep - but if she's not sleeping in the same room as the feedee, how can she stop the incubus? What follows, in the chapter, is somewhat awkward from Connie's point of view - delightful to see a heroine not immediately on top of her game! Plus, I like that Izzy has considered the real world aspects of her character's lives - how will a school react to sudden "illness"? How will the students react to the sudden emotional and spiritual stress that an incubus will place on them (especially since they don't know it's an incubus!) Good stuff - can't wait to see where this goes!

Library Monday, 7/18/2011

Hey! It's a Monday! And I'm posting my Library post! How odd is that?

Three books this week.

Pierre Pevel - The Alchemist in the Shadows


This is the sequel to last year's The Cardinal's Blades. Pevel is the premier fantasy author in France. I believe I reviewed The Cardinal's Blades  - yes, indeed I did! Here it is, December 10. So, not exactly last year. Anyway, it's swashbuckling musketeers and dragons and magic, and I'm quite looking forward to it. Additionally, the cover art is made of good and win, see?

Kady Cross - The Girl in the Steel Corset


So, the book claims to be part of "The Steampunk Chronicles," and I'm a sucker for Steampunk. It's also part of the Harlequin Teen publication, which is intriguing. I'm not expecting depth from this book, but it looks like fun.

Simon Brett - Blotto, Twinks and the Ex-King's Daughter


This one also looks fun - it's part of the Felony and Mayhem collection, and the back matter suggests that readers who like "the Golden Age of mystery, P.G. Wodehouse, and Simon Brett" will like this book. Well, this is the first Simon Brett book I've ever seen, so I don't know about that, but, like Mr. Meatloaf says, 2 out of 3 ain't bad - maybe I'll like Simon Brett when I'm done. At any rate, it's got an upper class twit (Blotto) and his intelligent sister (Twinks) solving a manor house murder with the assistance of Blotto's valet and (back matter again) "a really swell car." I think it will be tough for this book to miss, frankly.

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 review delayed

It's late. The review is started - I'll finish it tomorrow.

An Interesting Thing for Thursday

N.K. Jemisin, author of The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, a book which, when I saw her Big Idea over at John Scalzi's Whatever, I did not think I wanted to read, has written an interesting blog post about the roles of women in fantasy (and, as she says, everywhere else, but for now, fantasy). I think you may find her blog post interesting, and, having read it, I think I may find her novel interesting. To which end, I have put a hold on it - I'll let you know when I pick it up!

Hickey of the Beast Wednesday, 7/13/2011

(Linky!)

Chapter 18

A critical meeting of Connie's Scoobies - but Connie has to be both Buffy and Giles, because she's the one with the vampire knowledge. Only, maybe it's an incubus? Connie, Autumn and Jenny reject the idea of an exorcism, because it seems silly, and, anyway, who would do it?

Father Donnell was Springden's Catholic chaplain.  ...  He also looked like an accountant and had a thick South Boston accent. 

"The powah of Christ compels you!" said Jenny. "Now go pahk your cah..." 

"I think you have to do exorcisms in Latin," I said, "and I bet he doesn't have the accent there." 

"Bet he does. ..."

 Basically, the girls conclude that they don't know enough about what's going on to accurately and effectively address the situation, and yet they feel the situation needs addressing, because this thing - vampire, incubus, whatever - probably needs to feed regularly, so it'll be back.

This is chapter 18 - we're coming to the end of the rising action, so I'm expecting some sort of narrative climax soon, before this story turns a corner and we head into the home stretch, as Connie and her friends figure out how to deal with the monster. It's been a fun ride thus far, and I anticipate only good things for the last third of the book...