What a magnificent read! A rich mix of characters, political intrigue, and family drama, Jade City kept me engaged from the first page to the last.
ThWhat a magnificent read! A rich mix of characters, political intrigue, and family drama, Jade City kept me engaged from the first page to the last.
The story takes place in the city of Janloon, called "Jade City" by foreigners, and the only home of a very special form of "activated" jade that grants the people who wear it supernatural powers-- if they can avoid the psychological side effects. Traditionally, only the Kekonese, the native people of Janloon, could wear and use jade, but with the Espenian foreigners' creation of a drug, "shine," that mitigates the worst of the side effects, foreigners have an increasing interest in Janloon's jade supply. Although the city is nominally run by the king and his council, in actuality, it is run by the clans, whose fearsome Green Bone warriors skirmish throughout the city and whose weathermen control the commerce. With the patriarch of the No Peak Clan drifting into grumpy senility and the ruthless Mountain Clan progressively ambitious, tensions are becoming increasingly strained within the city. With new drugs on the streets, foreign intervention, and the clans at each others' throats, Janloon is poised on the brink of chaos.
The story follows the four family members at the top of the No Peak Clan: Kaul Lan, the cautious leader of the clan under the shadow of his formidable father; Kaul Hilo, the reckless Horn of the Green Bones; Kaul Anden, a precocious cousin trying to overcome his family's tragic history; and Shae, once a fearsome Green Bone warrior in her own right who renounced the family to live abroad and has now returned and is trying to start over as an ordinary jadeless citizen. With clan instability threatening all of Janloon, each member of the family is tested to their limit.
The story proceeds at a measured pace, fully fleshing out its main characters, from the certifiably crazy Hilo to the reckless yet analytic Shae. Anden's arc, in particular, is a wonderful setup for a sequel that I can't wait to get my hands on. If you're looking for constant adrenaline rushes and fight scenes, this probably isn't the book for you; to me, it sits more on the side of political intrigue and character development than rollercoaster ride. I think what stood out most to me was the worldbuilding, especially the parallels to our own history. The story takes place several decades after some sort of world war in which Kekon did not take part, but in which it was invaded by its neighbors. Now that it has opened its borders to foreigners, its culture and way of life is at risk by the insatiable greed of its industrialized neighbors. It's a surprisingly rich world, and one I can't wait to visit again. Count me in for the sequel!
~~I received an advanced reader copy of this ebook from the publisher, Orbit Books, in exchange for my honest (if terribly delayed!) review.~~
I cannot decide if this was the perfect book at the perfect time or the worst possible book at the
"A world has ended, and only tomorrow remains.”
I cannot decide if this was the perfect book at the perfect time or the worst possible book at the worst possible time. And I don't know if it really matters. All I know is that as I watch the world I thought I knew fall apart, The End of the Day was a difficult and emotional but also an oddly cathartic read. It is an anguished, strident call to see the value of humanity, to see all people, even those who devalue others, as people. And if there's one thing we all need to remember right now, I think it is the maybe broken, maybe imperfect, but ultimately precious humanity that we all share.
The End of the Day is one of those books I think of as "stealth literature." Like basically all of the books written under the Claire North nom de plume, the story takes place in the real world, but with one fantastical element added: the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and their Harbingers, are acknowledged and visible figures within the world. Death has an office in Milton Keynes from which he hires Charlie to be his Harbinger of Death. Superficially, the premise sounds like a cross between Mort and Good Omens, but the whimsical setup allows North to examine death and change and above all, what it means to be human while still indulging in some amusing flights of fancy and plenty of entertaining and often prattling dialogue.
Charlie's job is to travel around the world, to talk to those chosen by Death, to bring them a gift, and to honour life:
"When you’re the Harbinger of Death, the thing that matters more than anything else, is seeing people. Not corpses, not killers or victims or soldiers or criminals or presidents or anything like that. You have to see…people. People who are afraid. People who have lived their lives, in their ways. You are the bridge. Death stands behind you, but you look forward, always forward, and humanity looks straight back at you."
I admit I was underwhelmed at first. I miss the lighthearted absurd fanciful creativity of the Matthew Swift series, but this crept up on me, slowly, gradually, ponderously, until I found myself with tears in my eyes. The story is episodic, almost picaresque, a meandering tune that slowly builds into a powerful crescendo.
I read this book with a lump in my throat as I saw photos of the Idlib gas attack, as the news broke about America's decision to bomb Syria while refusing to take its refugees, as the US deported its first DREAMer, as America's climate change policy began to be dismantled, as another church was bombed in Egypt, as budget slashes to arts and culture and history and science were declared, as the US dropped the "mother of all bombs" on Afghanistan, as pollsters waffled about France's potential election upset, as graphic videos were shown of the terrorist attack in London, as the 300th person this year in the US was killed by police, as Trump and Kim Jong-un posture and threaten their way towards possible annihilation. I read this book as I feared the end of democracy in my country, as I wondered if perhaps the idea of democracy had merely been a shared delusion, now shattered. As I read about war in Syria and warmongering in America and racism and hatred and genocide and death, death, death, about the ending of one world after another, I felt, as one character puts it:
"I look and all I hear is the beating of the drums and all I see is a world in which not to be one of us is to be something else. The scientist was right, reason is dead; the dream is dead; humanity has changed into something new and it is brutal."
But that hopelessness, that depression, that dehumanization, brought on as it is by compassion fatigue or news fatigue or bitterness with a world that deviates from our expectations-- that is not the point of the book. Despite all the death and misery, despite the failed battles and broken people, I think, at its core, this story is about seeing the humanity in each of us, even in those of us who do not see the humanity in others. Sure, there are a few cultural missteps, a few tone-deaf moments (if you've read it, I'm thinking in particular of the Baltimore section). But at its core, the book is a celebration of a humanity, a desperate cry to all of us to see the humanity in one another and to build a more compassionate future.
"This is my city, my country, my home, this is my life, my battle, my war. This is my struggle to be seen as a person, to be human, this is my human body, this is my human life, this is my everything, this is my all, this is … [...] One day we will build Jerusalem."
Who would I recommend this book to? I'm honestly not sure. Don't go into it looking for an adrenaline rush, an amusing romp, or a tidy plot. But I found it poignant and cathartic and deeply meaningful. I don't know what it will be for you, but for me, it was a reminder of all the worlds that end, for good and ill, and that while I feel powerless, I am part of endings and beginnings, big and small, and have the power to change them, if only the tiniest bit.
"The world … no … a world is ending, and I was called to witness, yes? I was called to witness because I am part of the ending. My actions … I am the change. I am the future, and it is fitting, I think, that I should see the past too, yes?"
So for me, this book was about remembering the past, remembering the humanity in all of us, remembering to see people as people, not as something other. I don't know what it will mean for you, but there's only one way to find out.
~~I received this ebook through Netgalley from the publisher, Redhook Books, 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.~~
The Stars are Legion is a gorgeously crazy book. No matter how much speculative fiction you've read, I'll bet you've never read anything like it beforThe Stars are Legion is a gorgeously crazy book. No matter how much speculative fiction you've read, I'll bet you've never read anything like it before. It was my first book by Hurley, and it won't be my last. The writing is gorgeous, deeply embedded with metaphor and allusion. (It's so very quotable that I'm physically pained to be unable to include any quotes at present at the publisher's request.)
If I were forced to categorize the book, I'd say it doesn't quite fit into fantasy or scifi and instead belongs to their parent genre, speculative fiction. Don't go into this book expecting hard scifi. No, the idea of jumping from planet to planet in a matter of hours wearing nothing but a sprayed-on suit and dragged around by a living shuttle doesn't exactly work in terms of Newtonian physics, nor does a planet composed of layer upon layer with an outer layer of tentacles. Just go with it. The sheer breadth of imagination is staggering, from cephalopod cannons to recycler monsters to disturbing funerary feasts to fungal forests to sentient boats to so much more.
Like Ancillary Justice, it is a story told entirely with female pronouns, but unlike the Radch, the world Hurley creates is genuinely feminine, each member of each world capable of giving birth, yet sex and procreation are entirely separated. Themes of reuse and rebirth and cannibalism and closed systems, of wombs and maternity and birth, of agency and freedom, of memory and identity, are beautifully woven into a backdrop of complex characters, dizzyingly hallucinogenic imaginings, and wild, vivid, often repulsive creativity. I can't write much because I don't want to spoil anything, but if you're looking for a genuinely unique read, look no further.
~~I received an advanced reader copy of this book through Netgalley from the publisher, Saga Press, in exchange for my honest review. Thank you!~~
Given the circumstances, perhaps it's not surprising that Hope Arden's disability never made it into the DSM:
"Do you want to destroy Perfection?"
Given the circumstances, perhaps it's not surprising that Hope Arden's disability never made it into the DSM: while she can interact with the world, from everyone else's perspective, it is always for the first time. As soon as people are distracted from her presence, they forget her, their minds conveniently substituting new Hope-less memories and explanations. And then Hope gets to meet them all over again. As she puts it:
First impressions-- my life is about making a good first impression. When one attempt fails, I will go away, and reinvent myself, and return to try again. Though first impressions may be the only thing I have, at least I get to practise until they're right.
Naturally, Hope's career and relationship options are somewhat limited. As she notes:
Things that are difficult, when the world forgets you: •Dating •Getting a job •Receiving consistent medical attention •Getting a loan •Certificated education •Getting a reference •Getting service at restaurants Things that are easy, when the world forgets you: •Assassination •Theft •Espionage •Casual cruelty •Angst-free one-night stands (w/condoms) •Not tipping
Perhaps unsurprisingly, she ends up embracing a career as a thief, drifting through life, choosing score after score, often to settle some petty spite of her own. No matter how incompetent her heists, she never gets caught because all she needs to do is distract her captors for a few minutes to erase her presence. But then Hope encounters Perfection, and her unmemorable life is irrevocably changed.
Perfection: a brand new lifestyle app. Give it your schedule, your access, your health stats, your bank accounts, your total attention, and in return it will optimize your life, shaping a new perfect you. Touched by the tragedy of a woman who fails to satisfy Perfection, Hope finds herself set on a course to destroy it.
The Sudden Appearance of Hope is a book out of left field. As the names may have indicated, subtle the book is not, but it makes up for its directness in pure passion. I suspect that reader enjoyment will be heavily predicated on tolerance for pretty anvilicious "message" books. Plus, I had to love the gleeful mileage North got out of double entendres with Hope, Perfection, and more. I'm already a fan of Kate Griffin/Claire North, so perhaps unsurprisingly, I found North's heavily descriptive, almost stream-of-consciousness style utterly captivating. At moments, it's also just plain funny, particularly in the lists that Hope continually writes for herself.
For me, the book's major weakness was the characters. I never really felt connected to any of them, which may have been something of a blessing, as North is as casually brutal to them as she is to the sidekicks in the Matthew Swift series. Perhaps some of my sense of alienation came from Hope's condition. As one character says of her,
It's a peculiar thing, but I find emotion, when it comes to you, rather hard to engage with [...] Instead of feelings, I find with you there are only facts.
She is, naturally, a drifter, herself oddly disconnected from the world. Despite her many heists, she spends most of her time simply drifting, and more often reacts to situations with blind flailing rather than planning. As she puts it:
Having no one to define the limits of me, I have to define myself, otherwise I am nothing [...] I don't know what my destination is, but I keep on travelling, surrounded by other people's stories, absorbing them, and in their way, though they are not me, they become me. I am just… travelling.
(view spoiler)[This was clearest in her efforts to stop Perfection and Byron. What on earth was her plan? She disagreed with Byron and sought to stop her, but had no plan of her own except, apparently, blindly hoping for the best. And that also seemed to be the sum of her plan to stop Byron. (hide spoiler)] With a character who cannot be remembered, development of relationships is effectively impossible, and for me, this led to a sense of alienation from the other characters, a perspective that Hope seemed to share. As she says towards the end of the story of one of the major characters: "How strange to think of her as something human."
Unsubtle it may be, but my favourite part of the book was the way North uses Perfection and Hope's condition as a lens to examine the feedback loop that is human interaction with the world. Some of the more memorable quotes:
Perfection is derived by a consensus of society, Perfect-- to perfectly fit the mould.
Alone, you can lose yourself, or you may find yourself, and most of the time you do both.
Shall we break down the truth, the bitter, unloved, bloody-nosed truth? Tell me, in a world where wealth is power, and power is the only freedom, what would desperate men not do to be heard? [...] The internet gave us all the power of speech, and what did we discover? That victory goes to he who shouts the loudest, and that reason does not sell.
The Sudden Appearance of Hope is a unique story, and I'd have a hard time describing its perfect audience. However, if you're intrigued by an unusual character and a thought-provoking dialogue about the way society shapes us, Hope is well worth a look. As she says,
I think there has to be a moment when you turn round and permit yourself to be defined by the world that surrounds you.
~~I received this ebook through Netgalley from the publisher, Redhook Books, 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.~~
Mike Carey has a real genius for making me care about characters that I don't want to care about. No matter how unprincipled or corrupt they are, no mMike Carey has a real genius for making me care about characters that I don't want to care about. No matter how unprincipled or corrupt they are, no matter how destructive their decisions, no matter how foreordained their fates, I end up empathizing with them despite myself. In Fellside, he exploits this talent more ruthlessly than ever before.
Fellside is a very different book than anything else I've read by Carey. Yes, like 90% of his other books, it involves ghosts. Yes, like several of his most recent books, it's in some ways a story about stories, with the narrative woven in and around the life stories of the characters. But Fellside is darker, grittier, and grimmer than any book that came before. Much of this has to do with the cast of characters. The narrative switches between the perspectives of a convicted childkiller, a corrupt guard, a viciously sanctimonious nurse, a pliable and defeated doctor, and more. And the worst of all of it is that I ended up caring about almost all of them, aching as they made destructive choice after destructive choice. (view spoiler)[Jess was the worst. She made so many stupid decisions, from going with the armed guard to failing to shut Devlin into the prison. I was shocked by the ending, partly because I thought life would, for Jess, be harder than death, and a more bittersweet ending. I was also a bit fascinated by Alex: although he is at the center of the story, in some ways, he's the eye of the maelstrom: we end up knowing no more about him than we did at the opening of the story. (hide spoiler)]Fellside deals punch after punch to the gut, then somehow transforms itself into something heartwrenching but also bittersweet and oddly beautiful.
I can't describe much of the plot; I don't want to even give my usual blurb for fear that details will lessen the book's impact. While there is an overall mystery, it isn't the driving force behind the plot. Instead, the story is composed of smaller arcs and the slow complex entangling of the characters' lives. While I did guess the solution to the mystery, the ending took me utterly by surprise. Most of the narrative is an exploration of morality through the microcosm of Fellside prison. Some of my favourite quotes:
“The facts are in the outside world. You can verify them with your senses or with objective tests. The truth is something that people build inside their heads, using the facts as raw materials. And sometimes the facts get bent or broken in the process. [...] Justice? Justice is even more problematic than truth. It’s an emergent property of a very complicated system. [...] It’s neither an ingredient in the pie nor the pie itself. It’s the smell that rises up out of the pie if you’ve cooked it right. We don’t aim for justice, Ms Moulson. We perform our roles and justice happens."
"Doing time, she thought inconsequentially. As though time were a drug. If it was, she might have dosed herself more carefully."
"The dead were dreams that dreamed themselves alive. Maybe the living were too. Another time for that."
Fellside itself is startlingly different than Carey's other works. While I'm not quite sure its audience is a perfect match for fans of The Girl with All the Gifts or The Steel Seraglio, if you're in the mood for a uniquely dark, peculiarly gripping story, Fellside is well worth a look.
~4.5
~~I received this ebook from the publisher, Orbit Books, in exchange for my honest review. Thank you! 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.~~
"It's not in the facts we live, but in the memories."
House of War and Witness was suspenseful in a unique way: from the outset, I could predict how th
"It's not in the facts we live, but in the memories."
House of War and Witness was suspenseful in a unique way: from the outset, I could predict how the story would end, who would live and who would die, yet even so, I found myself thoroughly engrossed, the plot made no less suspenseful by an outcome foreseen. (view spoiler)[The ghosts, Magda in particular, make Drozde's eventual fate clear from the outcome, when they talk about what she always says and say it's so good to see her "like this...this is a special time, and it's so short."(hide spoiler)] While the setting is very different, thematically, it reminded me strongly of Steel Seraglio: like Seraglio, it is a story about storytelling, the greater plot fueled by smaller tales.
The story starts gently enough. A regiment of Austrian soldiers is sent to a rural village on the border of Austria, ostensibly to shore up support for Archduchess Maria Theresa, but also to ensure that the village does not change its allegiances. Another regiment had been posted to the village, but had disappeared, and the frail and rather ineffective Lieutenant Klaes is tasked with discovering unearthing the secrets that the village is concealing. Drozde, a camp follower and mistress of the regiment's quartermaster, Sergeant Molebacher, sets out to make the old mansion that the regiment will use as a home base livable. Although Drozde is used to ghosts--she has seen them all her life-- she is shocked by the number and vividness of the spirits inhabiting the old house. As the ghosts begin to share their stories with her, tensions between the regiment and the village begin to mount, and the true natures of the characters are revealed.
The larger plot naturally wraps itself around the stories of the town, for Drozde's very business is stories. While she receives protection and legitimacy by selling her body, most of her earnings come from the daring and raunchy puppet shows she puts on for the regiment. As she thinks:
"Of all the stories she told, the most important was the story that her stories were indispensable. Without that, she was just a grown woman who'd never put away her dolls."
Chapters told by ghosts and townsfolk intersperse sections told from the perspectives of Drozde and Klaes, and these tales both break up and propel the main plot. Not all of the storytellers are good people; as one puts it:
"This is a story about choices, and I'll never know whether the choices that were made were right or wrong."
All of the stories are vivid and varied, ranging widely over time and tone, yet many are unified by a common theme: that of violence stemming from possessiveness and control. The repetition of choking fear, of victimization, of violence against women, can make for a difficult narrative, and I was often frustrated by the obtuseness of the characters and their inability to realize the dire and damaging nature of their situations. (view spoiler)[In the opening pages, Drozde's coquette puppet is damaged, her face scratched and nose broken. Molebacher tells her she should be more careful with her things, and yet she doesn't pick up on the obvious threat. (hide spoiler)] For me, the true stifling agony of the book was the invasive sense of powerlessness shared by the protagonists. As one character thinks,
"That was life, in small [...] you spent it grubbing desperately for the physical things that would prolong it. For food mainly, and then if you were lucky enough to be fed, for shelter. And all the time in between you spent dreaming of places you couldn't go and things you could never have. You used it up trying to fit yourself into the spaces that would work, instead of unfolding yourself into the space that was yours and then seeing where that took you."
Even though many of story's scenes are comic, the other overarching themes are often dark and intense. Apart from the choking aspects of possessiveness and powerlessness, it deals with the corruption of authority, the construction of an enemy, and the definition of duty. Yet even here, the characters' lack of agency reverberates. Within the hierarchical structure of the military, there are stringent limits to what one man--or woman-- can achieve. As one character tries to explain to another who seeks to choose "the path that leads to the least bloodshed":
"That's not in your power to choose."
Yet despite poignancy and tragedy, the story is ultimately uplifting: their agency may be limited, but indirectly, they have the power to change the world. Even when all choices appear to be blocked, the characters find a way to move the world around them instead. The House of War and Witness is a story that glories in the power of stories, and I was utterly captivated.
~4.5
~~I received an advanced reader copy of this ebook through Netgalley from the publisher, Diamond Book Distributors, in exchange for my honest review. Thanks!~~
I really wish I could say that I loved this book. It started out so well. A mysterious sonic boom in Lagos, Nigeria? A rushing wave that swallows threeI really wish I could say that I loved this book. It started out so well. A mysterious sonic boom in Lagos, Nigeria? A rushing wave that swallows three strangers brought together by fear? An alien presence that has arrived upon the shore? I was hooked from the first page. But all too soon, my enthusiasm had disintegrated.
I can't decide if the core of my issues with the book was the plot or the characters. Okorafor set up a diverse cast. I particularly appreciated the subplot involving Black Nexus, a LGBTIA group. However, all too many of the characters fell back on tired tropes, such as the evil, scheming, prideful, wife-beating Christian minister who serves as one of the major antagonists. The main characters, in particular, felt like little more than ciphers who served to push the plot along. Adaora, Anthony, and Agu felt particularly wooden to me, a set of ill-defined catalysts rather than full-blown characters. Okorafor tended to spell out their reactions and actions first, then explain their reasoning with a bit of backhistory that wasn't provided until after the reaction, increasing my sense of disconnect from the characters. It was fortunate that their emotions were spelled with an "X loves Y" level of directness, because I honestly wouldn't have predicted their emotions or reactions from any intrinsic understanding of the characters themselves. I am hard pressed to think of a romance that involved less chemistry between the characters, either in friendship or love.
I think that the core problem is that there are so many ideas in this book, so many different paths for the plot to take, that none of them are given full justice. Social justice is a theme throughout the book, yet the plot threads supporting it quickly divert into another story before petering out altogether. Domestic abuse also makes an appearance, yet I found the resolution not only disatisfying but thoroughly distasteful. I found some of the events in the book really creepy, yet no one actually in the story simply accepted the offered explanation--if any-- and moved forward without question or analysis. With an impending alien invasion, I'd expect an interesting exploration of morality and imperialism, particularly given some of the aliens' actions that I found to be disconcerting and morally questionable. With characters given supernatural powers, I'd expect some sort of backstory that explains how the supernatural can touch reality. With sentient roads eating cars and figures from Nigerian myth, folktale, and religion stepping into the scene, I'd expect a deeper grounding and backstory of the mythopoetic, and the ways in which it interacts with the aliens. Unfortunately, these types of events simply happen in the book, stripped of explanation and exploration of consequences and causes. The overarching theme of the book is change, yet the causes and ramifications of change are barely explored.
In the end, I think the moment that really stuck in my mind was a scene where a bunch of African-American college students discuss events in Nigeria, trying to determine if they're real or not. They conclude:
"You think it's some Orwellian shit? [...] Look at the 'stars' of the show. They black. Even the heroes are black. You think they gon' spend they money to put somethin' together that looks this real and actually allow black folks to star in it? Real Africans? And then set it in Africa?" He guffawed with glee and shook his head. "Naw, man, not gonna happen. This shit real. That's the more likely scenario."
Lagoon is a promising story with a lot of interesting and powerful ideas. I just wish that Okarafor had limited her scope to a few of them and given them the time and attention they deserve....more
"Please allow me to introduce myself… No. Strike that. Period stop backspace backspace bloody computer no stop that stop listening stop dictating end e
"Please allow me to introduce myself… No. Strike that. Period stop backspace backspace bloody computer no stop that stop listening stop dictating end end oh I give up. Will you stop doing that?"
Meet Mo, a.k.a. Dominique, employee of the UK's super-secret black-ops magic organisation (they call it the Laundry), wife of Bob Howard (a.k.a. The Eater of Souls), bearer of a psychotically evil soul-sucking bone violin, and combat epistemologist. When Mo takes a trip to do a little glad-handing with the Deep Ones (aka BLUE HADES), she thinks she's finally going to get a bit of well-deserved R&R. But before she knows it, a tiny mistake has landed her neck-deep in trouble, and even worse, in bureaucratic paperwork. In Mo's world, the end is nigh, and all hell is beginning to break loose. As the barriers between our world and the Elder Ones of the Dungeon Dimensions break down, more and more people are gaining magical abilities. Magic is rationalized in the context of culture, and given the superhero craze, suddenly there are a disturbing number of people running (or flying) around in Lycra suits that may not precisely flatter them. And a series of mistakes leave Mo in charge of a brand-new superhero ops organization tasked with stopping the superhero singularity. To make things worse, there's a new supervillain Mad Scientist on the loose, and he he's leaving behind messages of the "Tremble, Fools, Before It is Too Late!" variety, and worst of all, the messages are printed in Comic Sans.
I suspect that the most divisive part of the book will be the change in narrators from Bob to Mo. Personally, I strongly preferred Mo to Bob. She's introduced to us in the midst of an unjustified attack of jealousy, but once she gets past that, I really warmed to her. I've grown a bit tired of Bob, and Mo's spiky, sarcastic, vibrant personality revived the series for me. I also wasn't too surprised by their marital issues; intentional or not on Stross's part, I've never sensed any chemistry between Bob and Mo. (Since much of the series is a Bond spoof, there are quite a few obligatory Bond girls, and Bob doesn't really think of Mo when she's not around.) While the previous books in the series don't really defy their Bond roots in the sexism department, I thought Stross did a pretty good job with his female characters here. He even has a wonderful riff on the Invisible Middle-Aged Woman syndrome. (Sure, there's the obsession on Bob's past partners, but Mo's Bechdel test failure moment is actually called out in-book.) The plot itself is rather measured, dealing mostly with Mo's struggles to get her fledgling superhero team going. I'm pretty sure anyone who has dealt with bureaucracy will find it amusing. For me, however, the ending was a bit of an off note. (view spoiler)[
If I understand matters correctly, the combined incompetence of Mo and the Laundry causes thousands of deaths. If the Laundry knew what was going on--and the conversations with the SA certainly suggests that--why not go after the organization? They're not all-powerful. They're not even magic. Surely a bit of explanation, shock and awe, or, in the worst case, deaths would have solved matters. Also, I know I'm a pedant, but I'm a bit weirded out by the oath bit. We (the barbarian Americans) also have the "lawful" bit, but for us at least, "lawful" means that it has to pass the legislature and be part of the law--just because an executive said so wouldn't make it right or true. Firing upon unarmed civilians without cause is kinda not cool with the UCMJ. So what about an immoral order by a superior officer makes it lawful? And how on earth was there not a witchhunt against Mo? She was shown on live TV to be killing a mass number of people with an enchanted weapon she was known to own, and, presumably, control. I pretty much do consider Mo and the Laundry culpable, and that assessment includes the mitigating factors.
And Mo made everything worse. She deduced nothing. She solved nothing. She acted as the puppet of everyone around her. She didn't even withstand Lecter and ends up requiring rescue. Again. Granted, that's what always seems to happen to Bob as well, but given the context, it was somehow worse here.
The other thing that really, really pissed me off was the ending, when Mo meets up with Mr Patronising Git, aka Dr Armstrong. In the last paragraph of the book, he responds to her valid concerns that (a) she did more harm than good, (b) she's worn out with it, and (c) the Laundry is an untrustworthy organization with a patronising speech in which he pretty much directly calls her hysterical. And she apparently takes it.
There are moments in the book when Stross's gender biases surface. Mo spends a lot of time jealously obsessing over Bob and the women who knew him, and there's quite a bit of the catfight vibe in the opening. I found it rather irritating, but sure, maybe some women are like that. But Stross's complete ignorance of a serious hotbutton is just a step too far. There's a proud and ongoing tradition of dismissing women as hysterical or overemotional. It's so common that these days, it's part of bias training. Yet the book ends with this arrogant git calling her overemotional and telling her she'll "calm down" and "regain her center" and think better of it all? Really? And you're going to end the book with that?
I would have loved to give this book five stars. Up until the ending, I really thought it would happen. But between the too-neat cop-out and the blind sexism of the last paragraph, the end left a bad taste in my mouth. (hide spoiler)]
As always, Stross is absolutely hilarious, and this time, you don't need a computer science degree to get in on the jokes. Some of my favourite quotes:
"Yes, she's a blood-sucking fiend. But she's also a superbly competent administrator and has an MBA which I think you'll agree makes up for a lot of sins."
"Scientific research is a bottomless money pit. You can approximate Doing Science to standing on the Crack of Doom throwing banknotes down it by the double-handful, in the hope that if you choke the volcano with enough paper it will cough up the One Ring."
"Despair, dismay, disorientation, and delusion: the four horsemen of the bureaucratic apocalypse."
Unfortunately, though, I don't really think it's possible to read this without the context of the previous books. I skipped only one (#5, The Rhesus Chart) and found myself quite bewildered by the references to recent events. I can't imagine how hard it would be to read this without some knowledge of the Laundry, the Eater of Souls, and CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN. However, if you're looking to give the series a try, I think you can start with #2 (The Jennifer Morgue) or #3(The Fuller Memorandum)--I did.
**Note: quotes were taken from an uncorrected advanced reader copy of this ebook and may not reflect the final version. However, I believe they speak to the spirit of the book.
~~I received an advanced reader copy of this ebook through Netgalley from the publisher, Ace Books, a Penguin Random House imprint, in exchange for my honest review. Thank you!~~...more
I always look forward to Strahan's "Year's Best" anthologies because he tends to gather a lot of very unique stories that stretch the traditional ~4.5
I always look forward to Strahan's "Year's Best" anthologies because he tends to gather a lot of very unique stories that stretch the traditional boundaries of fantasy and scifi. Several of the authors have appeared in every Strahan anthology I've ever read, while others are new voices. Overall, it makes for a unique, riveting collection, and one of the best yet.
As always, K.J. Parker's contribution was amongst my favourites. In "I Met a Man Who Wasn't There" takes place in a world where magic is illegal, supposedly nonexistent, and basically gives you "the power to do anything, anything at all, so long as you don't want to do it." The dialogue is sharp, witty, and hilarious:
"In order to learn from me," he said, "there's something you need to do. Most people won't do it. A great many people simply can't. Unfortunate, but there it is." "I see," I said. "Do what, exactly?" His face was blank, open and totally sincere. "You need to pay me one hundred and seventy-five thalers," he said.
And while the whole story is comedic, it still manages moments of insight:
"Because that's what people do, whenever some powerful new thing comes along. If we'd all been born in darkness and someone invented the Sun, the first we'd know about it was when someone used it to burn his way into the First Consolidated Bank."
"Collateral" by Peter Watts was for me, the most memorable story in the collection. A near-future bombshell, it tells the story of a cyborg whose battle software goes haywire. Since the software works off human instincts before they can even reach conscious thought, where is the guilt or blame in actions taken with "preconscious intent"? The story explores how our emotions play into our definition of morality, and how in some ways our humanity dictates our definition of morality. I still can't get the ending out of my mind.
"Do you know what morality is, really?" Becker looked coolly into the other woman's eyes. "It's letting two stranger's kids die so you can save one of your own. It's thinking it makes some kind of difference if you look into someone's eyes when you kill them."
Alice Sola Kim's "Mothers, Lock Up Your Daughters Because They Are Terrifying" was another absolute favourite, a laugh-out-loud, no-holds-barred portrayal of growing up as a Korean adopted teenage girl. But these teenage girls decide to do a little magic to see if they can contact their mothers. It's hilarious and creepy and bittersweet and incisive all at once:
"This is one problem with having another set of parents. A dotted outline of parents. For every time your parents forget to pick you up from soccer practice, there is the other set that would have picked you up."
The author is definitely now on my to-read list.
"Tawny Petticoats" by Michael Swanwick was another favourite from an author new to me. It's just pure, straightforward fun, a heist with a twist that takes place in an imaginative alternate New Orleans where manual labour is done by the zombies. It's both comedic and suspenseful, with a delightfully tongue-in-cheek irony that was almost Oscar Wildean (Wildesque? Wildeish?) in flavour:
"Corruption is a necessary and time-honored concomitant of any functioning government, and one we support wholeheartedly."
The tone of the stories alternates wildly. "The Long Haul" by Ken Liu takes place in an alternate reality where the Hindenberg never exploded and zepplins sail the sea air. Weaving together themes of culture clash and loneliness, marriage and language, it is as soothing and thoughtful and airy loneliness and space and marriage, culture clash, building language, as soothing and remote as a zepplin ride in the sky. "Shadow Flock" by Greg Egan is equally acute, yet with a tense, dark mood: it's a heist story in a near-future world where monitoring is ubiquitous and inescapable.
"If they can see everywhere, and reach anywhere, how are you going to protect us?"
I always say that anthologies have something for everyone, and this also means that not every story will work perfectly for each person. Even so--and most unusually for me-- there were no stories in the collection that I actively disliked. Every story in the collection is unique, and the sheer variety of the collection kept me engaged. Although perhaps rather too many of the writers were familiar to me, I found several new authors for whom I'll definitely be on the lookout. Overall, it’s a thoroughly enjoyable collection, and a great antidote for anyone suffering from Hugo woes. If you’re looking for a way to find some new authors to read, this may be the collection for you.
~~I received an advanced reader copy of this ebook through Netgalley from the publisher, Rebellion: Solaris, in exchange for my honest review. Thank you!~~
This book is over six hundred pages, so my full review is even longer than usual. The rest is over at BookLikes....more
Have you ever had your entire experience of a book ruined by the ending? This is one of those books.
I'm a strong fan of Jonathan Kellerman's Alex~2.5
Have you ever had your entire experience of a book ruined by the ending? This is one of those books.
I'm a strong fan of Jonathan Kellerman's Alex Delaware series. Kellerman plus golems? What could possibly go wrong? I'm glad you asked.
First, however, I’ll give objectivity--or at least more measured subjectivity-- a try. The Golem of Hollywood is a bizarre pairing of two narratives: that of Jacob Lev, a burned-out, alcoholic, Hollywood detective, and Asham, the sister of Cain and Abel. (Yes, that Cain and Abel.)
Jacob Lev isn’t faring well. Dealing with the repercussions of his mother’s bipolar disorder caused Jacob to lose his faith, which has not made things any less tense with his rabbi father. He gave up all hope of academic success when he dropped out of Harvard after his mother’s suicide to care for his vision-impaired father. Now a policeman, Jacob has been downgraded from homicide to traffic. And now the beautiful woman that he managed to pick up at a bar has walked out on him. But when he is brought in on a case for “Special Projects,” things begin to take a peculiar turn. Jacob is told to investigate a murder in which the victim’s head seems to have been squeezed off the body. Stranger still, the only clue is the Jewish word for justice burnt into the wood near the man’s head. When mysterious women, cryptic clues, and strange bugs start appearing everywhere, Jacob is left wondering whether he’s beginning to lose his vision, his mind, or both.
Asham’s sections are interpolated throughout the book. When the story starts, Asham is forced to choose which brother to marry. Told in third person present, it is a bizarre, nonsensical, anachronistic retelling of some familiar stories, but not necessarily in a bad way. In fact, it reminded me a bit of a midrash, as I think was the intent. I never really understood the basic morality within midrashim, either.(view spoiler)[ The whole narrative is like one giant anachronism. So apparently Cain managed to develop every invention and innovation that, in reality, it took thousands of years to develop? And everyone is already chill with that? And then there’s Asham’s reactions to things. She always thinks of her family and her world in terms of a larger, more sophisticated one, with well-worn traditions and customs. Where does the idea of “marriage” come from? How can she know anything about kids? She’s seen, what, one of them? How is she comfortable with the idea that there are other humans about in the first place, let alone her ability to recognize a city, a market, a tower, a slave..? The list goes on and on. (hide spoiler)]
How are the narratives intertwined? Well, due to an extremely unsubtle prologue, you’ll figure it out early enough to be dead bored with the eventual “solution.”
The book is definitely interesting, and I enjoyed the way in which various Jewish beliefs and stories were woven into the story. One of the most fascinating tales that the story touches upon is that of Judah Loew ben Bezalel, the supposed creator of the golem. The language games, too, were intriguing; for example, it is rather fitting that “justice” and “charity” not only share a root in Hebrew, but “charity” is the feminized form of the word.
At the same time, the plot itself is something of a mess. Dual narratives are never easy, and balancing a hardboiled police procedural with an utterly fanciful and unbiblical retelling of Genesis is not an easy task. Because the reader is privy to more information that Jacob receives, the situation becomes clear to the reader while Jacob is still flailing about blindly. Some plot threads left dangling while others are tied up in the most artificial way possible. There are also a lot of twisted sexual elements, starting with the whole “incest between Asham and her brothers” bit and moving on from there. (view spoiler)[ The most memorable case of the former, to my mind, is the “Mai won’t have sex with me” bit. Clearly there must be a physical reason rather than an emotional one. Obviously it’s because her remaker decided to stick her knot up her vagina. Why on earth would that occur to anyone as a convenient spot for such a thing? Oh, right. Plot convenience.
Everything relating to Mai is screwy. She makes it so Jacob’s penis is a weapon of death that makes women’s eyes roll up in the backs of their heads. She causes bugs to come out and bite every available aspect of them. That’s just weird. And seriously twisted. And utterly unnecessary for the book. (hide spoiler)]
The ending is--and I’m sorry, but the language really is necessary to convey my emotions--seriously fucked up. (view spoiler)[ We spend the whole book seeing Sam as an almost angelically patient, unselfish man, always willing to give, always ready to forgive.
So we’re supposed to be okay with the idea that Sam faked the death of his wife, to the point that he was able to get a death certificate, got a rabbi for the funeral, lied to all their friends, put up a fricking tombstone? And at the same time, somehow enrolled her in assisted living under an assumed name? What, precisely, is the assisted living using for documented medical history? Did he get it forged? And given he put her into a substandard slum home (which he did--the book is pretty clear on that), how is he paying for it all?
But even if we leave aside the (overwhelming) logistical issues, what kind of person does that? What kind of person fakes his wife’s death so that he can lock her up in a substandard nursing home? What kind of person lies to all of their friends, forcing them to deal with the grief and her to deal with the isolation? What kind of person lies to his son and leaves him for over a decade with the unbearable, unresolvable guilt, the creeping certainty that his neglect caused her death? What kind of person pulls a mentally fragile woman out of her home and forces her to leave behind literally every possession she ever owned? What kind of person, other than a textbook abuser, isolates his wife from everyone she ever knew so that he becomes her only link with her sense of self? That kind of person doesn’t just fail to be “good.” That kind of person is basically a sociopath destined to burn in hell for all eternity. Or possibly longer.
And none of that meshes with the character of Sam that we see in the rest of the book. Mind you, I don’t think the authors actually thought through any of this. I think they just wanted to slap on a happy-but-still-bittersweet twist, and completely failed to think through the ramifications. I actually can’t imagine a more ridiculous, ill-fitting, wooden, and insensitive ending. Congrats for that, I guess. (hide spoiler)]
I’ve actually read both Jesse and Jonathan Kellerman. While I’m a fan of the latter, I only barely pushed my way through one of the former’s books. Maybe it’s my bias speaking, but the weird, illogical, twisted elements here reminded me more of Jesse than Jonathan. Honestly, if you’re a fan of Jonathan Kellerman but not Jesse, I’d strongly recommend giving this one a miss.
Cross-posted at BookLikes, which also has additional links and spoilers that I was too lazy to copy over....more
TRIGGER WARNING: The book's themes include self-harm and suicide, with several vivid scenes.
When her life falls apart, Diane Butler succumbs to the iTRIGGER WARNING: The book's themes include self-harm and suicide, with several vivid scenes.
When her life falls apart, Diane Butler succumbs to the impulse to seek out her mother's support. Her desperation coalescing into impulsivity, Diane hops on a plane to Dzibilchaltun, Mexico, to seek out the famous archaeologist mother that she hasn't seen since the age of fifteen. But Diane's mother, Elizabeth, has her own problems. She has long been accustomed to seeing shadows of the past; as she says,
"I do not live entirely in the present. Sometimes, I think that the ghosts of the past haunt me. Sometimes, I think that I haunt them. We come together in the uncertain hours of dawn and dusk, when the world is on the edge between day and night."
She is used to watching the figures of long-dead students and pioneers wander the Berkeley campus, to passing by ancient Mayans who haunt the ruins of the pyramids in her current excavation at Dzibilchaltun. But for the first time, one of her shadows has been able to see and speak to her as well. The long-dead priestess of a long-abandoned goddess has promised to show Elizabeth a great secret about the ruins, but at a price. Even as Diane begins to wonder if she is losing her grip on reality and following her mother's descent into madness, Elizabeth is forced to reconsider her own life, her acceptance of her reality, of the shadows of the past that haunt her. Now, as the days move inevitably towards a new Tzolk'in in the Mayan calendar, both women must come to grips with the past before it shatters their lives. As Elizabeth warns,
"Do not look for revelations in the ancient ruins. You will find here only what you bring: bits of memory, wisps of the past as thin as clouds in the summer, fragments of stone that are carved with symbols that sometimes almost make sense."
The Falling Woman is a dreamy, ponderous, darkly atmospheric work, richly embellished with history and archaeology. It reminded me sharply of the Gothic works of Barbara Michaels. Like Michaels' works, the book revolves around the unearthing and piecing together of the long-dead past, using archaeology as a metaphor for more contemporary excavations. Murphy's descriptions of the site and the ancient Mayans are richly detailed and constituted one of my favourite aspects of the book. Her descriptions of the past are elegant and lyrical, brushed with insight:
"In 1568, the Spanish had quarried stones from the old Mayan temples and used them in a new church, building for the new gods on the bones of the old."
I loved the descriptions of Mayan culture, the comparisons against our own:
"We find the Mayan pantheon peculiar. By our standards, suicide and human sacrifice are unacceptable. We tend not to notice the peculiarities of our own culture. We accept the thousands of children who wear braces to correct their teeth, yet we consider the Maya odd for filing their teeth to beautify them. Each culture defines its own idiosyncrasies and then forgets it has done so."
What would the Mayans--or even the women of the eighties--think of us, we who inject toxic bacteria into our faces to paralyze the muscles, who straighten and die and curl our hair in some places and shave and bleach and tear it out in others, who undergo surgical procedures to suck the fat from our stomachs and implant silicone bags in our breasts? As Elizabeth says,
"A society defines what is normal and what is crazy--and then says anyone who challenges the definition is crazy."
At the same time, I found the discussion of moral relativism a little facile, and the events of the book make it uneasy and contradictory. Elizabeth warns about the perils of applying modern morality to ancient cultures, but seems to forget her own strictures as soon as she starts considering specifics rather than generalities.
The book is strongly feminist, an exploration of gender and roles that is bound to its time and its own cultural background. Elizabeth saw her marriage and escaped it, leaving her child behind, a contentious choice at that time. Marriage, and her husband's attempts to force Elizabeth into conformity, is portrayed as a stifling entrapment, a cage, a destruction of self. The ancient ghost of Zuhuy-kak was a strong woman who represented a female goddess at a time when the invasion of the Toltecs pushed the Mayan culture towards patriarchy. As she explains ruefully,
"I was mad because I said words they did not wish to hear, because they could not control me, they could not drag me along like a tethered dog. And so they said I was mad."
The Falling Woman is thoughtful and open-ended, yet never quite manages to escape the fetters its own time. Perhaps because I'm used to the cut-and-dry wrap-ups of detective fiction, I felt that the plot never quite crystallized into clarity, leaving a series of dangling threads and ambiguous subplots. Like most of the supernatural gothic suspense that I have encountered, most of the book is devoted to slowly intensifying a pervasive sense of foreboding by juxtaposing commonplace events with ambiguous omens. The Falling Woman is an atmospheric and elegant work, a meticulously researched exploration of Mayan culture, a thoughtful exploration of feminism. For Diane and Elizabeth, disrupting the rubble of the past may only undermine the future.
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.~~
~2.5 I recently had a conversation with a non-native-speaker in which I tried to explain that American phrases are not the sum of thei**edited 11/27/13
~2.5 I recently had a conversation with a non-native-speaker in which I tried to explain that American phrases are not the sum of their parts, and, in particular, that (a) telling a woman that she "really gets around" does not imply admiration of world travel, and (b) to "put out" doesn't mean "put" plus "out." He complained that speaking with Americans was extremely difficult: they speak fast, use colloquialisms, try to turn every remark into a joke based on some obscure reference or other, and are constantly waiting to throw in The Dreaded Pun. He said he found that the best policy was to smile, nod, and hope that the inexplicable laughter wasn't directed at him. After reading this book, I have gained a new sympathy for his point of view.
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