If someone asks me, hey Justin, show me how to do Urban Fantasy and/or Steampunk well. I'd show them this novel. Link for full review.
http://www.staffIf someone asks me, hey Justin, show me how to do Urban Fantasy and/or Steampunk well. I'd show them this novel. Link for full review.
Long story short... it's excellent, but suffers from some pretty serious pacing issues in the early going. Fantastic finish and some truly poignant scenes throughout....more
Contrary to the article that graced this blog last week, I have been known to choose a book to read (or not read) based on genre. Usually I do it to avoid things I know I won't like, as opposed to trending toward things I know I will. For example, I hate paranormal romance and dislike most urban fantasies (because they masquerade as paranormal romance). Over the weekend, I made a choice to read an Urban Fantasy book specifically because I realized I should practice what I preach. With that in mind I read Jennifer Safrey's debut novel Tooth and Nail, from Night Shade Books.
Gemma Cross's boyfriend is running for congress. She used to be a professional pollster, but now she's retired to support her boyfriend's ambition. To keep herself busy she's rededicated herself to boxing, a childhood love and lifetime hobby. Her life is perfect, until a magnetic young woman shows up at her gym offering her the job of a lifetime. See, Gemma is half faerie - specifically half tooth faerie. Get it? Tooth and Nail. As a hybrid of fae and human, Gemma is destined to defend the Olde Way, the memory of an idyllic life that pre-dates humankind. To bring back the Olde Way, the fae collect innocence, which is -- not surprisingly -- encapsulated in the baby teeth of children. Someone is threatening that process, and Gemma is the only person who can stop it.
Before I go any further let me be clear, this is an utterly ridiculous premise. How ridiculous? Like John Travolta insisting he's straight, ridiculous. Ok, maybe not that bad. But, Tooth and Nail is about the tooth faerie saving the world, an idea I thought put aside for good after the movie starring the Rock. Unlike the movie, I'm pretty sure Safrey isn't going for tongue in cheek comedy (unless I'm really dense), instead opting for a serious take on (I feel silly even saying it) the mystical being that replaces teeth with small change. Some readers just won't be able to get past that, and I wouldn't hold that against anyone. That said, and believe me this is hard to say, I really enjoyed it. In fact, I enjoyed it so much I read it in one sitting.
Perhaps I was predisposed to like Safrey's novel. Set in Washington DC, in the midst of a Virginia Congressional election, the book moves through a lot of my circles. Even a boxing gym in Chinatown, where one actually exists, is rendered with a touch of familiarity. Safrey deftly captures the paranoia of a political race, and the mindset of most candidates as they have their life picked apart. There's even a blogger called the D.C. Digger. Trust me when I say, there are plenty of those in the real world. Added to this perfect (for me) milieu, are dynamic and effective characters, a distinct lack of overt romance, and a well designed plot, making Tooth and Nail everything I want from my urban fantasy (that I almost never read).
The novel focuses on three primary points in Gemma's character that ultimately drive the narrative. First, that Gemma isn't some trophy wife, who will sit on the sidelines while her man makes laws. Second, being a tooth fairy isn't exactly what she had in mind. Third, filling that role is a lot more than she bargained for, jeopardizing her life, her boyfriend's career, and the way she relates to the world at large. To the first point, I think a lot of the novel's success is predicated on Gemma being a real woman with... AGENCY. I've been waiting to use that term ever since Liz Bourke wrote her review of Theft of Swords.
Gemma doesn't wait around for men to solve her problems. She isn't overly beautiful, or stereotypical in any way that I've come to recognize females in fantasy novels. Sure, she gets weak in the knees at the sight of a set of six-pack abs, but that comes across more realistic than gratuitous and for an urban fantasy novel, Tooth and Nail spends very little time developing romantic tension. Safrey instead develops tension by challenging her characters and their mores, asking them to exist in real space, not some contrived romantic or supernatural boondoggle. That's not to say there aren't some contrived scenes (there are several), but they are the exception as opposed to the rule.
For those who read this blog regularly and/or converse with me on Twitter, I'm sure this review is somewhat staggering. Tooth and Nail is radically divorced from what I typical read or enjoy. Tying it back to my article from Friday, that's the beauty of reading without preconceptions. The truth is there are good urban fantasies and paranormal romances, just as there are epic fantasies and space operas. It's unfortunate that I'll read very few because of how they're defined by the marketplace.
I'm glad to have read Jennifer Safrey's debut and I'd love to hear from anyone out there with ideas for novels I might enjoy off my beaten path. ...more
Hitchers is my first exposure to Hugo award winner Will McIntosh. Somehow I missed his debut novel, Soft Apocalypse, last year. I'm terrible about keeping up on short fiction, but his 2009 Hugo Award winning short story, Bridesicles, was just recently optioned for a feature film. He's also signed a book deal with Orbit to write a novel based on it. Clearly, I've been missing out and Hitchers confirms it.
A tight novel, Hitchers is a fast paced horror story built on the premise of the dead coming back to life. When an act of terrorism unleashes anthrax on Atlanta, killing hundreds of thousands, cartoonist Finn Darby begins blurting things in a strange voice beyond his control. Countless other residents of Atlanta are suffering a similar bizarre affliction. Either all of Atlanta is suffering a psychological break or the dead have returned to possess the living.
Called hitchers, the voices aren't particularly happy and Finn has it worse than most. His voice sounds like his grandfather -- Tom Darby, creator of the long-running newspaper comic strip Toy Shop. And Grandpa isn't terribly happy about the changes Finn has been making to the strip. Naturally, the quest is to get rid of the hitchers and get life back to normal. The mechanism accomplishing this functions like a mystery thriller as Finn and his friends discover the how and why behind the supernatural event.
While McIntosh is executing a simple plot, with more than few contrivances, the strength of the novel is in the emotional and philosophical content. Often communicated through clever interior art in the form of the Toy Shop comic strip, Hitchers discusses the ties that bind people together, and the only thing guarantees to sever them -- death. For Finn, these ties relate to both his grandfather and his dead wife, but also to the rest of his family who are harried, even from the grave, by the Santini like figure of Tom Darby. It all works in McIntosh's capable hands, resonating on every level.
As I read, I was reminded of the television show Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. It was a show about making a sketch comedy show (Saturday Night Live look-a-like), but they never actually showed the comedy sketches. It deflated the product. Hitchers shows the product (Toy Shop) and it makes the whole story pop. Finn and Tom Darby are cartoonists whose conflict stems (at least superficially) from their difference of opinion on the artistic direction of a comic strip. Finn, in particular, is portrayed with such familiarity that I imagine McIntosh has sat at an easel to ink a few frames himself. All in all, the strips are a small part of the overall product, but I can't overstate their importance to the novel's veracity.
I did mention some contrivances earlier in the review, and for some they may detract from the story. Tom Darby is borderline unbelievable in his unabashed selfishness. Finn, and his buddies, always seem to find the people they need to find in convenient fashion. The conclusion to the hitcher problem is one that's as old as the first ghost story. In the moment, I didn't find any of these to be disruptive to my enjoyment of the novel, and McIntosh's skill as a story teller never ceased to stand out.
Based on what I've read about Soft Apocalypse I'm not sure that its proponents will immediately feel the same about Hitchers. The speculation is grounded in the supernatural realm, painting a disturbing view of the afterlife that will give readers something to muse about long about after the final page. He suspends reality more than extrapolating it to a logical conclusion, which seems to me a very different kind of novel. Nevertheless, it demonstrates tremendous range, and given the subjects of his new two-book deal with Orbit, I expect McIntosh to continue to push those boundaries.
Long story short -- if Will McIntosh were a blog, I'd be making sweet love to his RSS feed. Wait... that didn't come out right. ...more
Heard of this one? Probably not. It's been pretty under the radar for book due out in less than three weeks. Seriously, go Google it. Now try the author's name. What'd you come up with? Not much, I bet. All I could find was an erudite i09 piece and the corresponding Amazon.com and Nightshadebooks.com pages. The Goodreads.com page doesn't even have cover art for crying out loud. All of that goes to say, more people need to be talking about Faith. Jove Love's debut is tremendous science fiction that blends literary traditions with space opera and all the various subgenres therein.
The basic premise is that 300 years ago an unidentified ship visited the Sakhran Empire and left it devastated. One Sakhran recognized the ship for what She was and wrote the Book of Srahr. When they read it, the Sakhran's turned away from each other, sending their Empire into a slow but irreversible decline. They called Her, Faith. Now She's back, threatening the human Commonwealth and the only thing standing in Her way is the Charles Manson.
Aegrescit medendo. A latin medical phrase that means, 'The cure is worse than the disease,' is appropriate here. The Charles Manson isn't the Enterprise. It's an Outsider, one of the Commonwealth's ultimate warships, crewed by people of unusual ability -- sociopaths whose only option is to serve or die.
I mentioned the Enterprise because the main plot is somewhat reminiscent of the Star Trek model. Deep space encounters, prolonged stand-offs, failed diplomacy, synthesizing the unknown, and eventual escalation of force are all eminently present in Faith. The bridge of the Charles Manson, where the vast majority of the novel takes place, has a captain, a first officer, an engineering officer, a pilot, a weapons officer, and all the other parts normally associated with a Federation Starship. Of course, Captain Picard wasn't a sexual deviant (notice I didn't say Kirk!) and Commander Riker wasn't an alien with claws for hands.
In many ways Faith is a satire of the model Gene Roddenberry exemplified in his iconic series. To boldly go where no man has gone before was the mantra of the Enterprise, a ship that was the Federation's representative to all sentient life throughout the galaxy. The Charles Manson is the ship the Federation would send in when a Romulan Warbird took a dump on the Enterprise. It's the ship their embarrassed to have, unwelcome in every port, but tolerated for the service only they can offer. Love gets into the muck with each of his deviants, connecting them one by one to the reader, never redeemed but always compelling.
Not just a delinquent Star Trek novel, Faith is also a psychological journey akin to that of Captain Ahab in Moby Dick. On the Charles Manson, Aaron Foord is Ahab, an unrelenting, obsessive, and meticulous task master who drives himself and his crew to the limits to defeat Faith. And Faith, an enigmatic and worthy opponent who Foord both loathes and adores, is the white whale. To someone whose read Melville's classic, many of the concepts that the whale represents are likewise present here. By the novels conclusion Love has melded the space opera with the literary, providing a resolution to the conflict while initiating a conversation with his reader about metaphysical concepts at home in Plato's Cave.
If the novel has a weak point, and I'm not sure it does, it's that some of the early chapters -- incredibly well done in their own right -- seem unrelated to the main narrative. This phenomenon leads to somewhat rhetorical beginning that doesn't engage at the same level as the time spent on the Charles Manson bridge. There are also moments where Love delves into some of the more scientific details or finds himself caught in a logical loop. For a novel that ends with more questions than answers, the fact that these explanations. both scientific and subjective, were allowed to slow down a brisk novel seemed a strange choice.
Given that it's the first 2012 novel I've reviewed, I'm hesitant to be as glowing as I'd like to be about Faith. How can I call it one of the best debuts of the year? I don't suppose I can. I'll have to settle for this: John Love's debut is on par with Dan Simmons's Hyperion in its quest to pose questions and attempt to answer them. It may not measure up to Simmons's classic space opera in terms of pure storytelling, but I have little doubt that the currents of the novel will ebb and flow in mind for years to come. Not bad for a debut no-one's talking about. ...more
Really interesting read, but not a super great narrative. I'll write it up later.Really interesting read, but not a super great narrative. I'll write it up later....more
Religion is a touchy subject matter, isn't it? Focusing on subjects of faith and belief can easily become unhinged. Preaching or flippancy are equally likely and this is especially true when the a novel is told from only one sect's point of view (in this case, Christian). I've been caught unawares by 'Christian fiction' masquerading as fantasy a time or two and I pretty well irks me every time, although erotica masquerading as Urban Fantasy is worse. It's not that I'm trying to avoid all things Christian, I'm just saying I want to know what I'm getting into beforehand. Thus I approached Miserere, Teresa Frohock's debut novel, with some trepidation.
I shouldn't have worried. Miserere while grounded in Christian myths isn't really about religion. Frohock is just more overt in her use of forms and traditions than the average fantasy novel. Go pick up any epic fantasy and there are sure to be dozens of ideas pulled from the Bible. The very notion of the prophesied savior is about as close to a Jesus Christ parallel as it gets. Instead of covering up her use of religious myths by changing the names and places Frohock just goes with it, grounding her story and world in a familiar form that is instantly recognizable even to antireligionists (which is actually a real term, who knew?).
In a city ruled by Hell's vicars, exiled exorcist Lucian Negru has been crippled and imprisoned by his sister, Catarina. Sixteen years ago, he deserted his lover in Hell to save Catarina's soul. Instead of salvation, she wants Lucian to help her fulfill a dark covenant with the Fallen Angels by opening the Gates of Hell into Woerld, Heaven's first line of defense in the war for Earth's souls. Knowing the evil in what she asks, Lucian flees, lamed but not broken, to the last place he thought he would ever go back to - the Citidal, home of God's chosen warriors. Rachael, the lover he spurned, will judge him, holding his life in her hands.
War between Heaven and Hell, angels and demons, with mortals caught in between makes Miserere something like a sequel to John Milton's Paradise Lost/Paradise Regained written with modern understanding of character and plot. While the novel itself is a fairly tight story of redemption for Lucian and salvation for Rachael, there is a larger arc at play that hints at some final conflict between the Fallen and God's Kingdom. Very traditional in narrative voice and structure, Frohock utilizes several points of view from the limited third person. It's briskly paced and never lets up the tension. The bad guys turn stomachs and the good guys are all that holy warriors should be albeit with a surfeit of chinks in their armor.
All of that sounds pretty run-of-the-mill of the mill now that I actually write it and that's wrong because Miserere is anything but run-of-the-mill. A tight plot, an interesting world, and something much like the Dan Brown knack for the religious 'what if', makes Miserere an absolute pleasure to read. From the moment Frohock revealed her world as one grounded in our own, she captured me, driving forward with a desire to fit all the pieces together. How does Woerld work? What purpose does it serve? How do people get there? She doesn't answer all the questions, thankfully leaving many unanswered even as the novel came to an end.
I say thankfully because any exposition would have only served to drag down the carefully cultivated pace. Miserere is a first installment and I appreciate Frohock's patience - show me now, tell me later. This is a mantra becoming more and more prevalent in fantasy especially among this year's crop of debut authors, perhaps most notably those coming out of Night Shades New Voices Program. I've read 8 of them (out of 15) so far and all seem to have made a commitment to telling a story first, a fact I think 'big fat fantasy' forgot somewhere in the early 90's. At times it can make me page flip to figure out whether or not I missed some explanation, but when choosing between pace and story or didactics and world building I'm going to choose the former every time (as long as the latter is sufficient).
All that amounts to Miserere being a very, very good novel, but I feel compelled to hold back from calling it a great one. And the reason is quite simple - Frohock never asks why. As her characters undergo trials and tribulations not one, even the most tortured, asks: why is God putting me through this? Why should I serve a God who would steal me from my home, kill my brother, and pit me against the hordes of Hell? My one true love betrayed me and sent me to Hell, why shouldn't I turn my back on all that's holy? None of these kinds of questions are asked, or answered, and I think the novel is worse off for it.
Still, I absolutely devoured it. Finished in two nights of reading, Miserere is a tremendously successful fantasy novel. Frohock's characters are interesting and fleshed out, with decades of history behind them. She puts them in a setting that is as strange as it is familiar striking a beautiful balance between the fantastic and the mundane. I don't hesitate to call it one of the best debuts I've read this year (although that list is getting long) and I highly recommend it regardless of genre predilections.
The next installment, Dolorosa: A Winter's Dream, is supposedly due out next year and will pick up right where Miserere left off. However, it appears the author is currently working on The Garden, an unrelated novel set in 1348 on the Iberian Peninsula. In either case, I'm eagerly looking forward to Teresa Frohock's future work....more
My self imposed hiatus on Night Shade Books failed miserably this past weekend when I couldn't resist their latest novel, Seed by Rob Ziegler. I was going to try to take a few weeks away from Night Shade to get at some of my rapidly overwhelming back catalog. While I did finish Diving Into the Wreck and started Midnight Riot and Shadow Prowler, they all fell to the side once I dug into Seed. Zeigler's novel is as haunting as it is believable.
Much like Night Shade flag bearer The Wind-Up Girl (Bacigalupi), Seed is a near term science fiction novel that centers around the impacts of climate change and over population on the world's environment. The Hugo Award winning Wind-Up Girl focused on Thailand, but hinted at the problems ongoing in America. In many ways Seed could be that story of America. That's not to say it's derivative of Bacigalupi, but there's certainly similarities in tone and texture to the world playing to the current fears that Earth is reaching 'critical mass'.
Seed is set at dawn of the 22nd century, the world has fallen apart and a new corporate power has emerged: Satori. More than just a corporation, Satori is an intelligent, living city in America's heartland. She manufactures climate-resistant seed to feed humanity, and bio-engineers her own perfected castes of post-humans. What remains of the United States government now exists solely to distribute Satori product.
When a Satori Designer goes rogue, Agent Sienna Doss is tasked with bringing her in to break Satori's stranglehold on seed production. In a race against genetically honed assassins, Doss's best chance at success lies in an unlikely alliance with a gang of thugs and Brood - orphan, scavenger and small-time thief scraping by on the fringes of the wasteland - whose young brother may be the key to everything.
What struck me most about Seed is the poignancy. Right away Ziegler jumps into Brood's nomadic life as he migrates from Mexico to the Mid-West with the imminent arrival of summer temperatures. With his special-needs brother, Brood lives just on the edge of survival. His imperative to protect crackles with emotion and his willingness to do anything to survive is heartbreaking. These threads continue into other parts of the story from the Satori lamenting the loss of their defective sibling to Agent Doss remembering her crippling childhood. Beyond the characters the world itself is bleak and desolate. Ziegler capably takes the small kindness of a drink of water and makes it a seminal moment of compassion.
Despite this being an 'American' novel Ziegler does a great job of integrating Hispanic culture into the pastoral fiber of the country. A pretty good amount of the dialogue is in Spanish often laced with Mexican slang. Elements of Hispanic culture are prevalent in the migrants and in many ways makes Seed not only a glimpse into the future of climate change and overpopulation, but a glimpse at the integration of culture on America's horizon. Juxtaposing this is the Satori which is so disturbingly self-interested and antiseptic as to be reminiscent of William Gibson's cyberpunk corporations.
My only real complaint stems from the lack of scientific underpinning to Satori. For a post-apocalyptic novel the science fiction felt very magical (not in the Arthur C. Clarke sense) in large part because Ziegler never takes the time to ground any of it in science. While he introduces the brains behind it all, they're never given the opportunity to expound upon how or why it all works. In that sense the novel 'reads' more like a fantasy than science fiction, something I believe is becoming a trend in the post-apocalypse sub-genre. Instead, Seed never lets up in its pace, keeping a constant tension throughout that eschews any need for exposition.
As a narrative, Seed is a multi-view point third person novel that I believe stands alone and should continue to do so. Interestingly, I realized none of what I liked about it had much do with the actual prose. I didn't find myself highlighting passages or even taking note of particularly nice turns of phrase. This isn't a negative. Rather than flowery descriptions or particularly evocative metaphors, Seed compelled me forward with... wait for it... a great story. And a great story told well.
Seed is Rob Ziegler's debut novel and another very good one from Night Shade's 2011 crop of new authors. Reading this review it might seem that this is a slow and morose novel. It's not at all. Woven in between scenes of migration and self-reflection is tons of action that culminates in a conclusion that's both explosive and cathartic. This is one you don't want to miss.
Seed is due out in the U.S. on November 1 (here). Follow the author on Twitter @Rob_Ziegler...more
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