As a huge fan of both hardboiled/noir and science fiction, Adam Christopher's Ray Electromatic series has been a guaranteed hit with me. Raymond (get As a huge fan of both hardboiled/noir and science fiction, Adam Christopher's Ray Electromatic series has been a guaranteed hit with me. Raymond (get it?) is the last of the robots from an aborted attempt to replace various public sector jobs with a silicon workforce. Still supposedly with the "Electromatic Detective Agency," his programming has been altered by the amoral supercomputer Ada (get it?) to transform him into a robotic killer-for-hire. Every twenty-four hours, his magnetic tapes run out and his entire memory is removed and wiped clean. Any book involving a robot running around in a trenchcoat and trying to solve a hardboiled mystery pastiche is bound to go over well with me, and Killing is my Business is no exception. This story, which involves a mafia boss, a mad scientist, government agents, and secret plots galore, is as entertaining as it is wacky and engrossing.
One of the things that makes this series so unique is the tension between Ray's hitman programming and his innate desire to be a good detective. He is simultaneously brutal and naive, and the longer he goes before his memory is erased, the more human he becomes. Then there's the tension and hope as his clock runs out, and the sudden shock of the newly-hard, cold, memory-erased Ray. it's a very unique take on the "tarnished knight" and chiaroscuro aspects of hardboiled detective fiction and noir. If any of this sounds intriguing, then the Ray Electromatic series is well worth a look.
~~I received an advanced reader copy of this ebook through Netgalley from the publisher, Tor Books, in exchange for my honest review. Thanks!~~
"This seemed to be my lucky night for going undercover, which was something I rarely did on account of the fact that I was not only a robot but the la
"This seemed to be my lucky night for going undercover, which was something I rarely did on account of the fact that I was not only a robot but the last robot, which tended to make me stick out in a crowd just somewhat."
Robot noir? Just those words and I'm already a fan. Raymond (get it?) is the last robot in Hollywood. Intended to replace the human police, general robophobia left Raymond a lone and lonely robot, his only friend the profit-obsessed supercomputer Ada, these day he makes his money as a hitman (hitrobot?): "Private detective by day. Private killer by night." Raymond's newest job is a dancer at a club--doesn't matter who or why she is wanted dead, just that someone is willing to pay for it. But when Raymond finds himself within a web of instincts, his detective instincts take over.
Christopher's noir pastiche is pretty perfect. Femme fatales and fast-talking gangsters abound. Fast-talking gangsters abound, and there's the standard noir sexism and proliferation of femme fatales, despite a near-but-not-quite-successful subversion of the trope.(view spoiler)[I'm thinking here of Athena, where she turns out to be the gangster (epic) but then Raymond spends all his time feeling sorry for the boyfriend. What, no sympathy for the wives of all those male gangsters? (hide spoiler)]But what was most important to me was that he has the patter down perfectly. It's hilarious. Some of my favourites:
"I thought it all went rather well against my chassis , which was bronzed and the color of those sculptures by that guy who did sculptures in bronze."
"Being a hit man— hit robot—is an interesting business. It requires a certain level of what I like to call not being caught. There were ways to avoid that particular outcome and I liked to think I was pretty good at a few of them. I had several advantages in my favor. I didn’t leave fingerprints, for a start."
Despite the comedy and all of the noir spoofiness, there are also some really interesting elements I'd love to see Christopher expand upon. Raymond has been reprogrammed--by Ada-- to be a hitman. As he puts it:
"A little adjustment and I was invited to the party. Which was also fine. Because I was programmed to think it was fine."
His personal memory is constrained to a short tape reel that is overwritten when he returns to Ada, which reminded me a bit of Person of Interest. And how did Ada become the ultimate evil scheming femme fatale in the first place? I'd love to better understand her background and how she interacts with her clients.
Overall, it's a great little novella, and I'm looking forward to another adventure with Raymond the Robot. The plotting is tight, the story moves fast, and the ending manages to be both somewhat ambiguous and, to me at least, entirely unexpected, which was fun. If you're looking for a short punch of scifi noir, Standard Hollywood Depravity is well worth a look.
I received this ebook through Netgalley from the publisher, Macmillan-Tor/Forge, in exchange for my honest review. Quotes were taken from an advanced reader copy and while they may not reflect the final phrasing, I believe they speak to the novel as a whole.
Hallinan really gets classic hardboiled, from the grey morality to the colorful phrasing. Also, the adventures with ancient DOS are kind of hilarious.Hallinan really gets classic hardboiled, from the grey morality to the colorful phrasing. Also, the adventures with ancient DOS are kind of hilarious. However, given the unthinking racism, sexism, and homophobia, I'd have put the time period as the '70s, not the '90s....more
"Only a lunatic would live on the Moon. The Moon is a dead rock--eighty-one quintillion tons of dead rock. It's been dead for nearly four billion years
"Only a lunatic would live on the Moon. The Moon is a dead rock--eighty-one quintillion tons of dead rock. It's been dead for nearly four billion years. And--inasmuch as a dead rock wants anything--it wants you dead too."
So opens The Dark Side, a bold, brash, larger-than-life adventure with the aforementioned lunatics on the dark side of the moon. Exploding goats, discussions of democratic murder, bouncing chases across rooftops--bouncing because of the lower gravity, of course--, men with bowie knives popping up to interrupt informants as they open their mouths to tattle on the villain, rough terrain vehicle chases across moon craters… this book's got it all.
In some ways, The Dark Side reminded me of Douglas Adams, if Douglas Adams decided to borrow plot points from Guillermo de Toro and James M. Cain. Like Hitchhiker's Guide, the tone of the book is conversational, repeatedly breaking the fourth wall with explanatory asides to the reader, apparently with the assumption that the reader is a prospective tourist to the moon. The whimsical and punny character names-- Q.T. Brass, Johnny D-Tox, Dash Chin, Prince Oda Universe, etc-- reminded me of Adams as well.
However, there is one sharp difference: the level of gore. Since Purgatory started life as a penal colony, the number of immoral characters isn't much of a surprise, but the details of some of their atrocities are still horrifying. Don't get attached to the characters of The Dark Side because in almost every case, here's what's going to happen: the character will be introduced, be humanized (or possibly dehumanized) through a backstory, and then suffer a grisly fate. All within a few pages. Rinse and repeat. Sure, Adams has a pretty high death toll in Dirk Gently and Hitchhiker's Guide, but Adams' deaths are comparatively gentle and mostly happen offscreen, with a whale and a pot of petunias suffering some of the most graphic on-page deaths. (I still feel badly for the whale.) Like Adams or early Pratchett, I think O'Neill is using death as comic relief, but it's something I have difficulty appreciating, particularly since the deaths are often wincingly, breath-catchingly graphic. Unfortunately for me, I don't find death--even the death of sperm whales falling towards a planet--all that funny.
At the same time, O'Neill really, really gets the hardboiled/noir vibe. He's got the cheerfully immoral city, the almost admirably egotistical gangster kingpins, the enigmatic femme fatales, the sly wit, and the jaded but earnest detective. Example quintessential hardboiled quote:
"He's come to trust the droids implicitly. It's an illusion, of course, because he knows very well that robots can be programmed to betray, but in his experience humans are always programmed to betray."
Our protagonist, Damien Justus--pronounced like "Eustace," although no one on the moon seems to believe him-- has just been transferred to the city of Sin, part of Purgatory, on the dark side of the moon. (They tell it like it is in Purgatory. Motto of the city: "There's nothing better than living in Sin.") On his first day of work, he gets a bombing, and while no one on his team seems all that bothered, Justus quickly realizes that the murder may be tangled up in something much, much larger: a conspiracy that will put him in the middle of a power struggle between mob boss Fletcher Brass and his daughter, QT Brass. All too soon, Justus is fencing with the Brass family and their shared "art of preemptive candor" while dodging bullets, escaping hits, and investigating an ever-increasing pile of bodies. Even as Justus remains mired in Sin, a psychotic android is on its way to the city, swiftly internalizing Fletcher' Brass's "Brass Code" into its new moral system:
"Never bang your head against a wall. Bang someone else's."
If you're in the mood for a crazy, colorful, flamboyant noir space adventure, The Dark Side may be for you.
~~I received an advanced reader copy of this ebook from the publisher, Simon & Schuster, in exchange for my honest review. Quotes were taken from an advanced reader copy and while they may not reflect the final phrasing, I believe they speak to the spirit of the novel as a whole.~~
“Satrine Rainey walked to the Inemar Constabulary House carrying a lie.”
Yep, from the first sentence, I was hooked.
The TL;DR version: I enjoyed th~4.5
“Satrine Rainey walked to the Inemar Constabulary House carrying a lie.”
Yep, from the first sentence, I was hooked.
The TL;DR version: I enjoyed this book so much that I’ve already purchased Maresca’s other book. If you don’t happen to know me, I basically don’t ever buy books. So that’s about the strongest affirmation I can give.
So why was this book so much fun? To start with, I absolutely adore high-fantasy detective fiction, especially if the world feels solid and yet distinct from our own. The world that Maresca creates definitely fits the bill. While the story itself doesn’t directly involve major politics or war, the issues are there, and they’re casually mentioned by the characters. It does a ton to give the world a grounded, solid feeling. At the same time, there’s plenty of fantasy elements. Some people are born with innate magical abilities, which tend to surface around their teens. Mages quickly become part of mage circles, which are a combination of a school, a fraternity, a union, and a religion. Saying that relations between the law and the circles are tense is an understatement, and someone like Minox--an Uncircled mage who also happens to be a policeman--ends up on everyone’s bad side.
Characters are everything to me, and I loved the diverse characters that Maresca created. The story is told from the perspectives of Satrine Rainey, a brand new constable, and Minox Welling, her unwilling partner. Satrine is a refreshing change from the typical unattached naive female protagonist. She joins the constabulary under false pretenses: after her policeman husband suffers from a terrible injury, she has to support her family in any way she can. Since the only positions open to her have ridiculously low salaries, she tricks her way into a position as constable, third class. She may not have earned her position rightfully, but she certainly works at it--she climbs into sewers, climbs onto roofs, engages in hand-to-hand combat, and appears to be an adept at her world’s equivalent of Parkour. Throughout the book, she has to balance all this with her troublesome kids and her invalid husband.
I liked Minox even more. Already an outcast due to his uncontrolled magical abilities, Minox’s personality doesn’t assist in his ability to win friends and influence people. He’s obsessive, precise, and intense, and follows rigid schedules, with an elaborate vocabulary and an almost complete inability to grasp humor or figurative speech. Dialogues with Minox tend to go like this:
“If you weren’t half crippled I’d knock you in your rutting head.” “I assure you, I am at most a quarter crippled,” Minox said.
...and I’m pretty sure he’s completely serious. He appears to have difficulty judging others’ expressions--while he is able to distinguish others’ emotions, he does so through classifying changes in facial muscle or posture. He likes rules. A lot. I think he’s adorable. Basically, I’d say that he has every characteristic of AS (Aspberger’s Syndrome), and I really warmed to his complex character.
I was completely hooked by the plot. As soon as Satrine joins, she and Minox are sent out to investigate a ritualistic murder of a mage. All too soon, it becomes clear that there’s a serial mage-killer on the loose, and tensions between the constabulary and the Circles are about to explode. While I spent the whole book guessing, if there is a fault to find with the book, it’s the mystery itself. It is actually unguessable until the end because basically all of the important pieces of information are withheld. (It’s especially aggravating because I can think of several ways the relevant facts could have been snuck in unobtrusively.) There are also a few details that don’t fit with the final solution. But given the interesting worldbuilding and strong and complex characters, I just don’t care. I adored the interactions between Satrine and Minox. It was great to see a male-female protagonist duo just be comrades, with no romantic entanglement in sight. One aspect that made the story so satisfying was the way the plot touched tangentially on a wide variety of issues from affirmative action to family expectations to rebellious daughters. While the mystery solution is perhaps less satisfying than I could wish, I’m impatient to know more about the plot threads that Maresca left open. Interesting characters, intricate worldbuilding, and a mystery that kept me hooked? Count me in for the sequel. It can’t come soon enough.
*Note: I originally gave this 4 stars, but I enjoyed it so much that I ended up rereading it, and that is enough to bump it up to a 4.5, which I round to 5 on GoodReads.
~~I received an advanced reader copy of this ebook through Netgalley from the publisher, Penguin Group. Thank you!~~...more
Murder, intrigue, and digital human freight. For me, speculative-hardboiled genre melds are a deeply satisfying blend of the familiar and the alien~4.5
Murder, intrigue, and digital human freight. For me, speculative-hardboiled genre melds are a deeply satisfying blend of the familiar and the alien. Hardboiled is an incredibly restrictive, trope-driven genre: there’s the jaded hero, the mean streets, the femme fatales, the plot that tangles together threads of aristocrats and gangsters and conspiracies that are rooted in the apex of society. Speculative fiction--and science fiction in particular-- is all about the alien, the different, the forward-thinking, the utterly mindblowing. And Morgan’s world combines both with an utterly addictive flair.
Eight years after he dies from a gut shot while committing grand larceny, Takeshi Kovacs wakes up in someone else’s body and on someone else’s planet. Originally sentenced to decades of “digital human storage” incarceration, Kovacs is not thrilled to discover that Earth plutocrat Lorenz Bancroft has purchased his parole, re-housed his mind in a new body “sleeve,” and made him an offer he can’t refuse: solve Bancroft’s murder and be rewarded with riches and freedom, or submit to incarceration on the inhospitable and unfamiliar earth. With his elite Envoy training, Kovacs assumes the case won’t be too hard to crack, but all too soon, the complicated web of intrigue sucks him into the gritty underworld where the new forms of life that altered carbon promised have been twisted and subverted in ways not even the jaded Kovacs could have imagined.
Morgan’s world is phenomenally immersive. Bay City (apparently San Francisco and surroundings) is simultaneously familiar and alien, with street vendors luring in pedestrians with mindcasts, autonomous hotels desperately seeking visitors, red light districts promising everything real and unreal, and airborne traffic that practically becomes a parking lot during rush hour. Morgan has a gift for bringing his world to life through detail; for example, while Kovacs tends to use a lot of similes, he often likens the futuristic concepts to ones equally unfamiliar to the reader. His explanations of the similarities serve to bring both sides of the comparison to life for the reader while augmenting his world.
The book itself is action-packed to the gills. Kovacs goes up against mobsters, mad scientists, ritual fighters, angry cops, and even a psychotic zen killer-for-hire. Morgan’s descriptions are so vivid that I was left wincing and cringing during several scenes. There is also a lot of graphic (and in my opinion, uttery gratuitous and quite boring) sex, from the prostitution ring that Kovacs has to infiltrate to his moments of passion with the women he encounters. I also suspect that this book has some of the highest density of profanity of any book I've read, so fair warning. Kovacs is a wry, witty, and sympathetic narrator, and he certainly seeks to be a tarnished knight, yet there’s also something terrifyingly inhuman about his ability to shut off all empathy and compassion. According to Kovacs,
"When they make an Envoy, do you want to know what they do? They burn out every evolved violence limitation instinct in the human psyche. Submission signal recognition, pecking-order dynamics, pack loyalties. It all goes, tuned out a neuron at a time; and they replace it with the conscious will to harm ... that's what an Envoy is.[...] A reassembled human. An artifice."
If a core aspect of humanity is the way we view the people around us, then Kovacs’s description of himself is apt. Throughout the story, Kovacs rages against those who believe they have the right to decide who is important and who is a “necessary sacrifice.” Through Kovacs’ flashbacks, the reader also sees the inhumanity of politics and war, and the ways in which lives become statistics which in turn become costs and profits:
The only problem they had [...] was in drawing the fine differences between war--mass murder of people wearing a uniform not your own; justifiable loss--mass murder of your own troops, but with substantial gains; and criminal negligence--mass murder of your own troops, without appreciable benefit. [...] With every passing hour the distinctions, which at one point I'd been pretty clear on, grew increasingly vague.
Yet when Kovacs switches on his Envoy mode and divests himself of compassion and empathy to wreak havoc, is he any different? (view spoiler)[Kovacs sees the meths as inhuman because they believe they have the right to choose who is important and who is not, and who should be sacrificed and who should be saved. Yet he does precisely the same thing:
"You say you're going to break the law, but no one gets hurt. That's right?" "No one who matters," I corrected gently.
The only difference is in their definitions of “who matters.”
"What choice should they have made? Not to be born on that particular world, at that particular time?" ... "I was young and stupid," I said simply. "I was used. I killed for people like you because I knew no better. Then I learned better. What happened at Innenin taught me better. Now I don't kill for anyone but myself, and every time that I take a life, I know the value of it."
Sure, Altered Carbon is a gritty, funny, vivid, breakneck, adrenaline-filled hardboiled escapade, but it’s also a glimpse into a future where death is not the end, where the mind can be torn away from its flesh, and where life must be redefined. Kovacs and his world start with the assumption that the self--one’s humanity, or personality, or soul--can be saved to a disc and decanted into a new body “sleeve.” But as Kovacs is forced to face the repercussions of the myriad ways in which a person can be warped and deconstructed, this easy definition is subtly challenged. How much of ourselves are our memories? Our bodies? In a world where the mind and body are simply altered carbon, what is the value or the meaning of a life?
Pull on new flesh like borrowed gloves And burn your fingers once again.
I picked up Miami Blues because the author is supposedly one of the core members of the hardboiled/noir canon. I'm noBook Reaction (not a full review)
I picked up Miami Blues because the author is supposedly one of the core members of the hardboiled/noir canon. I'm not sure what I was expecting; Philip Marlowe in Miami, perhaps.
In actuality, Miami Blues focuses mostly on the perspective of the antagonist, a two-bit sociopath, during his post-prison spree in Miami. While his rampage starts with an accidental (and ridiculously improbable) death, the killer immediately settles down to make some money and find a Bonnie to his Clyde. The detective, Hoke Mosely, is a colourful character, but doesn't get much pagetime. Willeford seems far too fascinated by the brutal violence of his villain.
There's nothing wrong with Miami Blues, but it wasn't a good fit for me. I don't enjoy books that are told from the serial killer's perspective. My type of noir always has a "tarnished knight," and Hoke doesn't quite fit the mold for me. A lot of the book focused on the villain's attempt to abuse and shape a young woman into his helpmate, and no matter how questionable her own motives, I didn't enjoy reading about the violence against her.
I also was simply unable to get past the first death in the story: a young man who dies of shock after his finger is broken. Sure, maybe it's possible, but it's just so darned improbable, not to mention ridiculous....more
There’s nothing quite so clarifying as a gun to the head. After Dorian Lake manages to disarm his disgruntled ex-client, he takes a long, hard look at There’s nothing quite so clarifying as a gun to the head. After Dorian Lake manages to disarm his disgruntled ex-client, he takes a long, hard look at his life, and he doesn’t like what he sees. Ever since he broke up with the beautiful Carmen, it’s as though he’s been in a fog. He has lost touch with his friends, avoided his club, neglected his tenants, and let his main business--charms and hexes-- collapse into decay. Dorian is determined to reinvent his life, starting with a brand new wealthy, influential, and highly political client. But when a woman stumbles up to his door after selling her soul to a necromancer, Dorian suddenly finds himself bartering with necromancers, being tracked by the Presidium, and considering some seriously dark roads that he promised himself he’d never take.
One of the dangers of reviewing books about snarky supernatural detectives--and one I’m always happy to fall into, to the chagrin of several commenters-- is comparing every urban fantasy to the Dresden Files. In this case? Alienated mentor who died in a peculiarly gruesome fashion? Check. Constantly over-exoticised seductive Hispanic love interest? Check. Clear-cut in-universe distinction between “good” practitioners and “bad” ones? Check. Self-important, self-righteous, vaguely threatening governing magical body? Check. Shop selling magic, operated out in the open within a masquerade world? Check, although I don’t think it’s in the phone book. But The Curse Merchant really isn’t just yet another Dresden Files clone. Plus, the story takes place in Baltimore. A charmworker in Charm City? Priceless.
Although the story may start out like any other such urban fantasy, it soon swoops into rather new territory, at least in my experience. In Dorian’s world, there are two main forms of magic: “karmic”-powered hexes and curses, and the even darker arts of Netherwork. Netherwork, magic derived from ancient and malevolent beings that Dorian refers to as the Dark Choir, is paid for in a variety of ways, including human souls. And thus the gentle art of soul-mongering, with which Dorian is about to become all too familiar. When you dig too deeply into Netherwork, the shadows start hunting you.
Dorian Lake isn’t quite the standard protagonist. For one thing, he’s a complete dick. Although he fulfils the standard impoverished supernatural detective schtick, he was born an upperclass silver spoon twat, and he hasn’t lost his snobbery. He can be demanding, jealous, and needy, and he cries at the drop of a hat. Despite his self-righteous complacency, I found his particular brand of magic to be downright low-level evil. Personally, I think the whole “karma” and “Cosmos” business is a crock. In the opening scene, we discover that he, with the help of karma and the cosmos, gave a woman an eating disorder at the behest of her ex-boyfriend. His main business consists of such unsavory hexes, yet he still considers himself to be a “good guy.” Like all self-proclaimed “good guys,” he’s a pretentious, self-righteous prick, and I experienced a somewhat Schadenfreude-laced glee as his karmic kicks start coming. All the same, in a weird way, I rather liked him. He's considered a jerk within the novel, so my reaction was probably intended. I definitely enjoyed his narrative voice, and my disapproval of Dorian only heightened the relish of his situation. In my view, Dorian is a bad guy, but he’s an interesting one.
Despite the upperclass protagonist, The Curse Merchant really captures the heart of hardboiled/noir. It’s rather like a Lawrence Block novel garnished with supernatural shenanigans. However, the book also reflects some of the less savory aspects of the genre. The few non-white-male characters tend to be casually stereotyped and exoticised. Carmen, Dorian’s ex-girlfriend, is constantly exoticised, her personality and choices often labeled by gender and race, e.g. “her Latina pride” or her “typical pissed of Latina posture.” The Arabic and African-American characters are as heavily stereotyped as the rest.
The Curse Merchant is a romp, an adventure, packed with deliciously ironic twists and turns. It’s not precisely introspective, and it’s not going to leave you with any deep thoughts to ponder, but it’s a fast and fun read. Best of all, it terminated with an ending that I definitely didn’t expect, and it left me cackling.
So, Dorian, even though I think you’re an asshole, even though I pretty much think you deserve everything you get, count me in for your next adventure, because I can’t wait to see what happens next.
Excerpted from my review on BookLikes, which contains additional comments and spoilers that I was too lazy to copy over.
~~I received this ebook through NetGalley from the publisher, Curiosity Quills Press, in exchange for my honest review. ~~...more
First, the disclaimer: I listened to this on audio, mostly while out biking with rain beating on my helmet, so my recollections way off. However, the First, the disclaimer: I listened to this on audio, mostly while out biking with rain beating on my helmet, so my recollections way off. However, the audio has been reclaimed by Overdrive, so that's just how it's going to be.
J. K. Rowling has a true gift for creating compulsively readable books. I loved the Harry Potter books growing up, and I think the Strike series shows that Rowling can do hardboiled just as well as she can do children's fantasy. It doesn't hurt that Rowling seems to focus on topics she feels strongly about. The first book dealt with the monstrosity of fame. This book is all about the publishing industry, and Rowling certainly has a lot to say. Drunken editors, conniving agents, overweening authors, delusional SPAs... this book has them all in droves. As always, the cast is colorful, even if Rowling's portrait of them is less than charitable.
At the same time, despite all the graphic disturbing novel-within-a-novel content that I could really have done without (one reason not to listen to this on audio: those passages are a lot harder to skim or skip), the plot of The Silkworm reminded me strongly of an Agatha Christie mystery, and despite my deep and abiding fondness for the queen of Golden Age mystery, that is not a compliment. (view spoiler)[Seriously? We're going with the "mannish" career woman twisted by her inability to get a man? What century are we in here? That bit at the end, with Liz all vulnerable, her fatal weakness of being insufficiently attractive exposed? Really? (hide spoiler)] I thoroughly enjoy the relationship between Robin and Strike, but in all honesty, I wish they'd keep it platonic. It's obviously not going to stay that way; the clearest indicator is the way in which Rowling continues her work of villifying Matthew. In the first book, Matthew was just a bit stiff, proud, and unempathetic, but I had hope that he might develop into a rounded character. In Silkworm, Rowling is no longer doing her audience the courtesy of giving them a choice of who to sympathize with. Matthew has been flattened into a vain, obsessive, jealous, vindictive, emotionally abusive villain. He pretty much exists solely to create conflict and to act as a foil for Strike. Robin's continued relationship with him is intensely frustrating and depressing. As a reader, I only sees his jealous, spiteful, controlling, emotionally abusive side, so Robin's fondness for him is utterly mystifying to me. (view spoiler)[All the same, I was kind of on Matthew's side for Robin's jaunt into the country. Can you imagine your SO leaving you alone to deal with the death of your mother while (s)he joyrides away into the country? Why wasn't she with him at a time like that? (hide spoiler)] I've read the next one already, so I know where this is going, but treating this book in isolation, I wish Rowling didn't make it quite so clear that she despises Matthew.
Anyway, despite a few flaws, The Silkworm is an entertaining continuation of a captivating series. I'm looking forward to more cases with Strike....more
Inspector Malone’s day isn’t starting out well. Not only has she been landed with a new partner--a flamboyant ex-actor, no less-- but she’s just been Inspector Malone’s day isn’t starting out well. Not only has she been landed with a new partner--a flamboyant ex-actor, no less-- but she’s just been called in on a perplexing new murder case. Homicides may be everyday fare for the Metropolitan police force of Recoletta, but this case is something of an anomaly. For one thing, the victim is a mild-mannered historian, and it is hard to imagine a less high-risk career. For another, the victim was a whitenail--a member of Recoletta’s upper-class--and his death shatters the illusion of impervious privilege that the aristocracy holds so dear.
Centuries ago, shortly after the unspecified “Catastrophe” that destroyed the aboveground world, houses and streets were dug deep belowground, slowly crystallising into modern-day Recoletta. The world of sunlight may not be dangerous these days, but a fondness for wilderness rambles is still considered an embarrassing-- even potentially scandalous-- peculiarity. Civilization may have been driven deep underground, but human nature remains the same. Recoletta is run by the Council, a cabal of whitenails who hold absolute power over the city. All but the most inoffensive of pre-Catastrophe books have been censored. In this stifling, stultified atmosphere, the murder of an aristocrat is as risky as an open flame in a petroleum distillery. As Malone will discover, the death of a whitenail is only the opening in what promises to be an explosive plot.
The Buried Life was an enjoyable read, lighthearted for the most part, and based around an interesting worldbuilding conception. The society has a Victorian flavour, but one of the greatest aspects of the dystopian future scenario is that the world can use bits and pieces from various cultures and time periods without ever triggering anachronism- driven irritations. I also really liked the idea of an underground civilization, and rather wished that the book had delved more into the stifling atmosphere. What are the “streets” that the characters walk through actually like? How tall are the tunnel ceilings? I would have also loved to know more details of the Catastrophe and the origins of Recoletta itself; hopefully the next book will flesh out a few more of the details. How did people create a world under the earth, and why? How did they dig it out? And where did they put all the dislodged earth, anyway?
The characters, too, are reasonably likeable. Other than the pair of investigators, the other major point-of-view character is Jane Lin, a rather naive seamstress who keeps accidentally stumbling into crime scenes. I wasn’t particularly invested in Jane’s adventures, possibly because many of them involved her obsessions over a handsome and dangerous rake. However, I quite adored the hard-eyed and unimaginative police officer and her theatrical partner. With Malone as his straight-woman, Sundar manages to inject quite a bit of humour into the narrative. For example, here’s Sundar’s rationale for joining the police force:
"I came from a four-year career in the theatre." Malone's eyebrows shot up and her lips tightened. "Why the career change?" Sundar stopped fidgeting. "Too much memorization. I'd gotten into it for the improv."
Or take an instance of Sundar’s investigative brilliance at work:
"He or she was strong and agile enough to overpower a seventy-year-old man. And right-handed. There were no hair fibers, snatches of clothing, or foreign materials on the corpse or at the scene which could help us identify the attacker." "So it was a naked bald guy," Sundar said.
The playful humour is visible in other areas as well. One of my favourite moments is when the seamstress Jane is introduced to three rather elderly high-society ladies with a tendency towards cutting (sorry, I had to) commentary: Lady Myra Lachesse, Madame Francine Attrop, and Madame Lucinda Clothoe.
Despite its whimsical Victorian veneer, Recoletta is a world of dark greys, in more ways than simply the literal one. As the story proceeds, the tone drops more and more often into a darker mood. While the story begins as a routine mystery, it quickly develops into something else entirely. While I enjoyed this, I think the twistiness and cleverness of the actual detective aspect suffered somewhat from the shift, as it led to a certain amount of exposition and plot-motivated character stupidity. All the same, I think the worldbuilding was my favourite aspect of the book. You can't lose with Victoriana, and I loved the little unexplained details; for example, I'm betting the aristocracy are "whitenails" because they didn't have to dig. It's all the more fun for remaining unexplained. While the mystery is, in a sense, wrapped up in this book, the story itself doesn’t really draw to a conclusion, and instead seems to set the scene for the next book in the series. The story sets up a promising storyline and an interesting world, and I’ll be curious to see how the things develop in the city of Recoletta.
**NOTE: Quotations are taken from an uncorrected digital galley and are therefore provisional. Quotes will be corrected when the book is released.**
There's something about a heist. Maybe it's that peculiar combination of recklessness and calculation, that absolute guarantee of unforeseen circumstaThere's something about a heist. Maybe it's that peculiar combination of recklessness and calculation, that absolute guarantee of unforeseen circumstances and impressive feats of resourcefulness to combat them, that fast-paced and adrenaline-pumping game of strategy and deception. Whatever the cause, heists have a bone-deep magic all their own.
For Daniel Blackland, it all started with a kraken spine. He was a young child when he received his first taste of osteomancy, fed a scalding combination of kraken essence and magic by his sorcerer father. In the chaos of the Third Purge, Daniel lost his home and family, but he didn't lose his taste for magic. Ever since, Daniel has made a living on the streets of Los Angeles as a trickster and thief, content with anonymity, his only ambition to leave the city that consumed his father's bones. But despite Daniel's carefully nurtured inconspicuousness, when an opportunity comes up to rob the Hieromancer's secred ostemantic storehouse, the chance is too tempting to resist. Together with his offbeat group of friends, Daniel begins to plan one of the most audacious heists in LA's checkered history. Unfortunately for Daniel, his anonymity is coming to an end. Gabriel Argent, agent of the Hierarch, may not be known for his ambition, but he is not lacking in intelligence. When Gabriel discovers a small incongruity in a standard sweep for magic, he puts together the clues that lead to Daniel's identity. But Gabriel jumps to a conclusion that makes stopping Daniel imperative: that Daniel is after a far greater score than mere treasure: the Hierarch himself.
California Bones transports the reader to an alternate reality whose occasional similarities to our own only heighten the alien nature of this fractured, stultified land. In general, I don't tend to favour alternate history-- it usually seems to be a somewhat lazy way of minimizing the need for worldbuilding while still allowing for alternate history-- so my acceptance of the book's world speaks to its breadth of creativity and imagination. Close to a century ago, the Hierarch proclaimed himself ruler of the kingdom of Southern California. Northern California and the United States expressed violent dissatisfaction, but the Hierarch emerged victorious, and Yankee bones were embedded in the walls as decorations in the Hierarch's underground labyrinths. The Hierarch's internal rule was no less brutal: purge after purge of osteomancers followed his ascension, including the death of Daniel's father during the third purge, the Night of Long Knives. Now, Los Angeles stirs with undercurrents of discontent, but is stifled and paralyzed by the threat of the Hierarch's osteomancy.
In this Los Angeles, gondola buses struggle along the canals of Ventura and Santa Monica, for in this city of angels, all of the city's transportation network was built in the image of Venice. In this version of the La Brea tarpits, the unearthed skeletons take on additional significance:
The La Brea Tar Pits was a place where the skin of the world broke open to reveal the magic underneath, and the life-sized plaster mammoth sculptures emphasized a very important message: Do not fuck with tar."
While outwardly as crowded and chaotic as our own LA, these streets are patrolled by the Hierarch's garm dogs and human hounds who are constantly on alert for the barest sniff of unauthorized magic. Criminals risk the wrath of the LAPD and LA's Strategic Magic Assault Command squad (SMAC). Street hawkers sell dubious concoctions that they proclaim to be grade-A powdered hydra or firedrake tooth, while purposeful wraiths go about their masters' business with single-minded devotion. The city's charm, too, is a little more brutally artificial: Disney's paradise and Hollywood's charms are built upon addictive osteomantic drugs. Yet the core of LA remains the same, a steely glitter that can only partially conceal the ugly struggle for notoriety and power and fame that lies submerged underneath the glamour.
The novel is short and fast-paced, yet rich in detail. The writing is deceptively simple and spare, leavened with a wry wit and an occasional heart-wrenching poignancy. The writing is so visceral that I nearly dry-heaved at some of the scenes, and so visual that the city streets and canals come to life. Most of the humour is built upon absurd situations and light dialogue, but also through repetition and understatement; for example:
"The jar was coated in finely ground firedrake scales, the only substance known to withstand seps venom, but even so equipped, there were a lot of ways he could screw this up. Spill the venom and it would eat through the jar, the worktable, the floor, the foundation, the fabled dragon heart at the center of the earth, and probably shoot up in an acid geyser on a quiet residential street in China. So, you know, thought Daniel, don't spill the acid."
Osteomancy is a brutal, voracious art: to gain the powers of an ancient and powerful creature, an osteomancer must ingest the animal's bones and absorb its essence. Consuming kraken spine grants the osteomancer power over storms and the crushing darkness of the ocean deeps. Cerberus wolf gives the sorcerer fast reflexes and inhumanly acute senses. Essence of sint holo gives the osteomancer the power to confuse those around him so that he becomes invisible. I loved the way in which osteomancy is portrayed as a non-renewable resource pilfered from the earth and jealously guarded, so intrinsic to everyday life that without it, the city would grind to a stop. Osteomancers are the ultimate in rapacious consumers. The lure of bone is as relentless as the struggle for power, and failure can be costly: the most expedient way of gaining magic is by devouring another osteomancer, body and bones.
Both Daniel and Gabriel struggle against this consumer-driven world in their own ways. Both have gone to great lengths to remain as ordinary and inconspicuous as they can, but their origins inevitably drag them back into the cut-throat world of politics and osteomancy. For Daniel, the struggle is even more difficult, because to succeed, he must also take advantage of his friends, another, subtler form of cannibalism:
"Daniel was still a thief, which meant he took things and used things he had no rightful claim to, because that was how he and his friends survived."
California Bones is a brief and hectic adventure; a glimpse of a richly-detailed world of grey morality, mean streets, and brutal magic. Even through the imaginatively altered world that osteomancy engenders, it captures the atmosphere of L.A. noir, a James M Cain-like caper with cannibalistic sorcerers. Yet it also manages to touch lightly upon deeper themes: the dangers and lures of power, the complexity of dependence upon non-renewable resources, the use and misuse of friends. I can't wait for the sequel.
**NOTE: Quotations are taken from an uncorrected digital galley and are therefore provisional. Quotes will be corrected when the book is released.**
~~I received this ebook through NetGalley from the publisher, Macmillan Tor-Forge, in exchange for my honest review.~~
Someone is trying to send Nate Garrett a message, and since it's Nate, they're sending it with blood. When Nate receives a call from an old friend andSomeone is trying to send Nate Garrett a message, and since it's Nate, they're sending it with blood. When Nate receives a call from an old friend and arrives to find the friend rather messily murdered, he knows something is up. When the mysterious killers follow up with a well-placed bomb, it begins to get a little personal. Nate soon realises that the people after him have some connection with a case he closed over thirty years ago, a case that happened to involve both the magical powers behind Avalon and the pocket-dimension kingdom of Shadow Falls. Since that case left everyone involved either dead or imprisoned, Nate is left with more questions than answers, but he's still ready to enter the fray with aplomb:
"You don't know what game they're playing." "That's okay ... I plan on cheating anyways."
Although With Silent Screams is actually the third book in The Hellequin Chronicles, it was my first entry into the series. I can therefore say with assurance that the book works perfectly as a standalone. The set-up is a little like a cross between Kevin Hearne's Iron Druid and Jim Butcher's Dresden Files; like Atticus O'Sullivan, the protagonist of Iron Druid, Garrett is an ancient being living in a modern world. Like Harry Dresden, Garrett is an extremely powerful magic-wielder with a preference for wind and fire. However, McHugh is far more adept at constructing a millenia-old inhuman protagonist. Unlike Atticus, Garrett doesn't pepper the book with endless pop-culture jokes, and while his phrasing is modern, it is British rather than American. Garrett also has far fewer scruples about killing his enemies than most of the urban fantasy protagonists I follow. As he explains,
"Like humans, some [sorcerers] have trouble taking a life and some don't. I fall into the latter. I'm not psychotic or evil or anything so damn melodramatic, I just don't have the luxury of second-guessing myself. If someone is coming to attack me or the people I care about, it's them or me. Simple. If they want to push something to that degree and they threaten a life, then theirs is now forfeit. ... if taking a life means people I care about are safe, then I don't think twice about it."
Nate holds true to his claim. He has a tendency to divide people into "good" (aka "on his side") and "bad" (aka "not on his side"), and exhibits very little guilt about gruesomely dispatching the "bad" folks. Despite my general dislike of amoral protagonist, I thought it worked surprisingly well, especially given that Garrett is a 1600-year-old Hellequin. Early on, I realised that it was rather like reading a book with Kincaid from the Dresden Files as the protagonist. I have a weird fondness for Kincaid, and that carried over to Garrett. Part of the attraction was Garrett's sardonic and often black-tinged sense of humour:
"There is nothing you can do--" I blasted him in the chest with a jet of air [...] walked over and grabbed his shirt, dragging him upright. I head-butted him, destroying his nose. He dropped to the ground as blood streamed down onto his shirt." "Don't say that," I told him. "I'll take it as a personal challenge."
The magical world was only sketchily defined, but I found several aspects of it quite satisfying. As far as I could determine, most magic-wielders are either sorcerers or alchemists. I found alchemy, which provides the ability to alter or transform various materials by touch, to be rather ill-defined and highly variable in power from moment to moment. Nate, too, showed huge volatility in power level; in one moment, he's taking out a house of monsters; in the next, he's being dominated by a novice. However, there were plenty of aspects I enjoyed, such as the casual mentions of historical figures. For example, representatives from the magical world are always sent to have a "first meeting" with new leaders. Teddy Roosevelt apparently seriously considered shooting the magical representative, Nate desperately wanted to kill Henry VII (he liked Richard III and thought he didn't deserve all the bad press, and, as he says,
"Charles II was an interesting one--I'm pretty sure he was either drunk or stoned for the entire meeting."
The plot itself is enjoyable, if rather impressively gory. Initially, the chapters alternate between the present and flashbacks of the previous case, and I thought the device worked well. I also could have done without a certain amount of vampire-fueled wish-fulfillment and a discussion about "man cards" and "acting like girls", but all of that was definitely in character for Garrett. While there is some amount of mystery, Garrett has a frustrating tendency to fail to ask the obvious questions, so he usually finds the answers by stumbling into trouble. Garrett's version of thinking ahead:
"Do you have a plan?" "Sort of [...] I plan on getting out and killing the whole fucking lot of them."
Most of the story is a series of non-stop battles. Most of the protagonists I follow are either low-power or exceedingly eccentric, so I found the more straightforward magic fights a refreshing change. I found Garrett's battle style, especially his use of flame and air, to be very reminiscent of Harry Dresden, so if you're looking for something similar, this series is definitely worth a closer look. Garrett also spends basically no time agonizing about the death he causes:
"Will you kill them all?" "Yes," I said honestly. "Every single one of the bastards involved in this deserve to die." "Maybe killing isn't the answer. Maybe you need to show force a different way? [...] I just don't want to think about you having so many souls on your conscience." "My conscience is clear," I assured him. "I won't give these people a second thought."
If you're interested in action-packed urban fantasy and you're tired of angst and guilt, then The Hellequin Chronicles may be a good fit. As for me, I'm off to dig up the first in the series.
~~I received this ebook through NetGalley from the publisher, 47North, in exchange for my honest review.~~
As an ex-military private detective, Jeremy Stake is used to strange missions, but he's about to embark on one of his most peculiar jobs yet. Stake haAs an ex-military private detective, Jeremy Stake is used to strange missions, but he's about to embark on one of his most peculiar jobs yet. Stake has a mild form of Caro turbida, a mutation that gives him the ability to shift his form to mimic any human. He has been hired to act as a doppelganger for a felon who wants to skip out on his sixth-month jail sentence in the Trans-Paxton Penitentiary, a high-security prison locked away in a pocket dimension outside a major city. However, he soon discovers that the standard risks of jail life--boredom, bad food, and navigating life amongst the gangs that control the majority of the prison--are the least of his worries. Someone--or something--is systematically murdering the inmates, causing them to explode into a welter of blood and particles. If Stake can't figure out what's behind it, he may very well be next.
Red Cells is a fast, fluffy read. I finished it in a little under an hour, and I thoroughly enjoyed the ride. I'm a sucker for anything vaguely hardboiled, and Thomas is definitely working off those tropes, but with all the added fun that comes from a soft-scifi backdrop. In Stake's world, "muties" (mutants) and various humanoid alien species are common, half the prison staff are robotic, and bizarre pale ghostlike creatures haunt the transdimensional space. However, while I greatly enjoyed the exuberant scifi scenery, I felt that the story could benefit with another round of revisions. Don't get me wrong--it's competently written and doesn't suffer from typos or grammatical errors. The stylistic weaknesses were more a tendency towards Tell-Not-Show and Instant Paraphrase. I also think the plot could do with a little more cohesion and the characters a bit more dimensionality. To me, Red Cells seems slightly uncomfortable as a novella; while the structure is that of a short story, it lacks the short story's fast punch and tight plot, but the character development and complexity one expects from a novel is also absent.
All the same, I felt that Thomas made good use of the hardboiled tropes, including a few chuckle-worthy favourites; for example:
"I'd like to talk to them, if I can think of an excuse to go to the infirmary." Null nodded, then turned to Billings. "Break his nose."
Overall, I enjoyed Red Cells; Thomas is very good at building up suspense and the story's lighthearted, often amusing antics were a nice change from the more serious books I have been reading. I also think the idea of a chameleon detective is both promising and entertaining. With its snarky conversations, action-packed plot, and gratuitous gore, Red Cells reminds me a bit of a TV episode: fast, silly, and fun.
There are two things that put Sound and the Furry into my Five Stars for Being So Good At What It Set Out To Be category. (1) In terms of capturing thThere are two things that put Sound and the Furry into my Five Stars for Being So Good At What It Set Out To Be category. (1) In terms of capturing the canine mentality, it's the best hardboiled detective story written from a dog's point of view that I've ever read. (2) I'm pretty sure it's about the only hardboiled detective story written from a dog's point of view that I've ever read. ...rest of review is here
If you, like me, have been watching the recent US government shutdown with a mixture of horror and incredulity, you may have been wondering why on earIf you, like me, have been watching the recent US government shutdown with a mixture of horror and incredulity, you may have been wondering why on earth Congress decided to shut down government rather than (a) wrangle out the budget crisis months ago, or (b) accept (at least provisionally) the laws already passed that instituted Obamacare. I think I've found the reason. I believe that the entire Republican branch of Congress secretly created a bookclub in which they read and discussed Flashback. Dreading Simmons' prognosticated Obamapocalypse, they figured it would be far better to see what would happen if the government shut down instead.
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