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| 4.13
| 45
| Aug 22, 2017
| Aug 22, 2017
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it was ok
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~2.5 I've been procrastinating on this review for months, to the point that I've even been avoiding all of Goodreads. No matter how it looks, I don't e ~2.5 I've been procrastinating on this review for months, to the point that I've even been avoiding all of Goodreads. No matter how it looks, I don't enjoy writing negative reviews, particularly of series that I previously enjoyed. I really wanted to like The Dark Interest. I've relished the rest of the series: I like the magic system that Sloan sets up, the affectionate familiarity with the city of Baltimore, and I even enjoy disliking jerkish antiheroic protagonist, Dorian. The series has routinely gone in directions I didn't experience, often leading to the tarnishing and darkening of Dorian's character. I've found it fun because it's so unexpected. Sure, there were some rough elements, some moments that made me wince, particularly in the first book. But this book took it to a whole new level, and in ways that can't simply be dismissed as a jerkish protagonist's warped perspective. Fair warning: because some of my issues with the book are major aspects of the plot, there may be spoilers from here on out. In recent years, Baltimore has been central in a nationwide struggle over race, police brutality, and equal justice. In 2015, following the death of Freddie Gray in police custody (and Tyrone West in 2013), the city erupted into mass protests that led to a declaration of emergency, enforced curfew, deployment of the National Guard, dozens of fires, and hundreds of arrests. For years afterwards, national news was riddled with stories of mass demonstration, civil unrest, and arrests of protesters. Despite it all, all six police officers associated with the tragedy were acquitted or had charges dropped against them. More recently, Baltimore police have been arrested for racketeering and caught on the bodycams they thought were turned off planting evidence to incriminate suspects. Long story short, like many cities in the US, a conversation on equal justice is an inescapable part of the reality of the city. In The Dark Interest, Sloan brings up that conversation, but in the most tonedeaf way imaginable. A riot erupts when the story starts, and Dorian being Dorian, his major concern is whether his restaurant will be destroyed or whether the riots will generate "a vibrant dinner rush." . Much of the subsequent plot involves the Baltimore riots, without ever quite saying as much. More specifically, he appropriates them as a plot point and attributes the anger to supernatural forces: "Even though all of this was very real, this uprising wasn't a natural process. Long in coming though it may have been, this violence was engineered. Angry, ancient forces were pushing this city over a tipping point it might not pull back from." "That's what this Summer of Blood is all about. Don't you see it? They're cranking up the heat."I'm generally uncomfortable with this sort of twisting and belittling of history, but when the wounds are still so raw and the struggle is still ongoing? There are tragedies it is utterly unacceptable to appropriate, conflicts that it is repugnant to twist and debase and minimize and devalue. America's current conversation about race and justice is one of them. The problems with this book don't stop there. Much of the story involves the "Jokomo Gang," a Black gang from New Orleans "displaced by Hurricane Katrina" . The members are described as "into drugs and guns" . Their brand of magic is described by Dorian as follows: "It's not African voudou. It's Louisiana flavor, which blends lots of horrible shit from the Catholic Church, Santeria, and basically anything else the Dark Choir decided to toss into that gumbo pot."The practitioners are termed "Reckless dabblers. They stir up primal beings that rage unrestrained and unstewarded into our world."The leader, Lasalle, is called a "wannabe crime lord" , "a hoodlum" , "an outright criminal" , and the "lead thug" . Lasalle is portrayed as a slow-witted, surly, angry, immature Black man who Dorian actually castigates a "acting like a child." Just in case you're in any doubt about the dog whistles going on here, Dorian later casually accuses the gang of "Get[ting] their free ride in Baltimore." When the gang confronts Dorian, questioning him about his recent actions, the "good cop" protagonist appears to "save" Dorian by harassing and belittling them without apparent cause, going so far as to refer to them as "boys": "You boys raising a ruckus out here?" If you don't understand why referring to African-American men as "boys" is toothclenchingly offensive, I'm happy to point you to some references. But in the book, this is portrayed as a heroic rescue against a gang of "your basic street thug[s]" . At another point, Dorian ends up in a police station and assumes that everyone else behind bars-- all African-American-- are "probably wondering what a man like me was up to in a police station." (emphasis mine). (view spoiler)[Things began less than optimally when Dorian stops a kid--poor and African-American, naturally-- from committing a theft, and they have a conversation in the author's attempt at dialect. It went downhill from there. I was mystified when Dorian jumped to the conclusion that the kid from the intro was running with the Jokomos-- the only thing I can imagine is he assumes all Black kids are muggers and gang members and all of "them" stick together. There is absolutely no other reason to think that. And of course, naturally, a Black kid is the mugger. Of course, there were other things that pissed me off about the book. Dorian has always been a jerk, and his level of jerkhood in this book is over the top. He decides he deserves to run the city because he can trust no one else. He has no principles other than self-preservation. He decides that he "had to betray Choi" to save himself. Why not just take consequences for his own actions rather than destroying someone else's life? At the very least, he shouldn't pretend he was forced into that choice-- he could have chosen to accept responsibility. (hide spoiler)] I wanted to like this book. I really did. And actually, even though it infuriated me, I found it interesting to explore the perspective of a character so imbued with white privilege that his only thought during a mass protest against police brutality is whether he'll get a dinner rush. But what I have real trouble with is the unexamined nature of much of the prejudice; the thoughtless, caustic nature of the white privilege that imbues it. Maybe if you understand what this book is going in, you can get past all this, but I couldn't. That doesn't mean I won't give the next book a try; I'm constantly fascinated by how far down Dorian can be dragged, and the ending is a zinger. Okay, that's all from me. At least now you know why I've been procrastinating and avoiding Goodreads for these last few months. ~~I received this ebook through Netgalley from the publisher, Curiosity Quills Press, in exchange for my (depressingly) 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.~~ Cross-posted on BookLikes. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Sep 2017
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Sep 22, 2017
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Sep 21, 2017
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Paperback
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| B01JZ6SIVM
| 3.61
| 1,080
| Mar 14, 2017
| Mar 14, 2017
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it was amazing
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I can never quite articulate why I find all of Emma Newman's books so utterly enthralling, but I'm pleased to say that Brother's Ruin is no exception.
I can never quite articulate why I find all of Emma Newman's books so utterly enthralling, but I'm pleased to say that Brother's Ruin is no exception. Compared to some of her other more serious works such as Planetfall, I found this little novella a pure escapist pleasure. The story takes place in an alternate Victorian London where magic battles it out with the Industrial Revolution. Those born with the gift of magic must renounce their lives and instead dedicate their lives to the nation. Families are punished for hiding their magically gifted children, and paid for having their children taken by the mages. Charlotte has been hiding her magical gifts from her family and fiancee, but that's not her only secret: she is also a talented and successful illustrator. Hiding who she is, protecting her ailing brother, and surreptitiously aiding her family's finances, she thinks she is keeping it all together until the mages arrive at her doorstep. It's an interesting world: although the books themselves are radically different, the general idea of magic practitioners as powerful pawns required to serve the desires of their government reminded me a bit of Myke Cole's Shadow Ops series. Given that in this case, mages rival the nobility in power and they don't appear to be enslaved, I'm not really sure I accept that they would give up all sense of private life out of pure duty for their country, but I'll be interested to see where the story goes. The alternate London is well-researched and has sly references to real historical events; for example, Charlotte's fiancee mentions that he has been mapping out cholera outbreaks to help out his peculiar friend John Snow. The book explores Newman's familiar themes of agency and feminism, and there's also what I'm pretty sure will end up as a budding romance. I read the whole novella in one sitting and I can't wait for more. My major complaints: (1) that it's a novella instead of a full novel, and (2) I don't yet have a sequel in my greedy hands. If you're a fan of Victorian magic or steampunkery, Brother's Ruin is well worth a look. ~~I received an advanced reader copy of this ebook from the publisher, Tor.com, in exchange for my honest review. Thanks!~~ Cross-posted on BookLikes. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Mar 17, 2017
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Mar 17, 2017
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Mar 17, 2017
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Kindle Edition
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| 9781620072011
| unknown
| 4.22
| 89
| Dec 19, 2016
| Dec 19, 2016
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really liked it
| "It's going to be fine. Assuming we survive."Alright, this proves it: Dorian Lake is a trouble magnet. All the man wants to do is train his new appre "It's going to be fine. Assuming we survive."Alright, this proves it: Dorian Lake is a trouble magnet. All the man wants to do is train his new apprentice and find his dislocated soul, and maybe make a living from his job as a hex-maker and his new gig as a bar owner. But fate--or knowing Dorian, it's probably karma-- just refuses to cooperate. Instead, he finds himself promising to help out his apprentice's brother with a nasty curse and finds himself embroiled in a nasty string of mysterious jinxes that threatens to bring the Presidium-- the governing body of American magicians-- right down on his head. As he puts it: "The Presidium's about to go on a tear. Last time that happened, we got the Red Scare. Before that, Manifest Destiny."Oh, and the demon he sold his soul to before it went walkabout is asking for a new deal while there's still time to make one. If you're addicted to urban fantasy and looking for a Dresden Files analogue, then in some ways, this could be a good fit. There's a less-than-thriving magic business, a basement where magical experiments are conducted, a young and attractive apprentice that the narrator has an exasperating tendency to salivate over, and even the extreme overuse of a few catchphrases. (Ever since I read the Dresden Files, I've winced every time I've read "arched an eyebrow" or "shambled." In the Dark Choir series, on the other hand, there are far too many "sniffles," "grumbles," and "smirks," usually when words with a neutral connotation are more appropriate.) On the more entertaining side, both have a protagonist who eschews technology because of magic's ability to "put a whammy on electronic devices", and even a detective from "Special Investigations," a unit I'm pretty sure exists only in Canada and the world of Harry Dresden. I found Wren, this series' answer to Charity Carpenter, a lot more likeable. There are also many distinctive worldbuilding, from the far more secretive Presidium to the practice of geomancy to the weird world of the stregha. This book, in particular, greatly fleshes out the shadowy Presidium, dipping into an enjoyable early American alternate history. However, despite all of the similarities, I found the tone radically different, both darker and more (intentionally) morally ambiguous than anything the Dresden Files can serve up. To start with, the magic of Dorian's world is a hell -- if you'll pardon the pun-- of a lot nastier. The powerful stuff ranges from chaos magic to Netherwork -- curses powered by the demonic "Dark Choir" -- to scary forces channeling the nastier aspects of nature. Dorian's magic is primarily hexwork based on what he blithely describes as "karma." Don't get me wrong; it still has its fun and silly moments--my favourite involved the magical properties of smiley faces-- but all of that moral ambiguity add a hell of a lot more suspense to the brew because the reader is left genuinely concerned about whether Dorian will slide off the moral event horizon. I found the plot itself somewhat problematic because of its tendency to completely drop subplots at arbitrary moments, but this additional moral suspense kept me simultaneously engaged and frustrated. (view spoiler)[I don't even know what to make of the Presidium plot--it seems insane to me, but hey, I think the ringleaders probably were insane-- but I was quite irritated by the way the Ches/Ricky subplot was completely dropped. After Ches leaves, I think Dorian only mentions her a few times, and he doesn't seem even remotely preoccupied with her fate. (What a jerk.) Also on the list of "wtf, Dorian?" moves was bringing Edgar along on the suicide mission. (hide spoiler)] Both Dorian and his allies take actions that made me cringe, and I still don't know where the series is heading, or just how much of an antihero Dorian will become. It's something of a refreshing change from cookie-cutter UF. When combined with a mystery I found utterly perplexing, all of this made the book nearly impossible to put down. As for Dorian himself, he's still pretty much the guy you love to hate, but what I really appreciate about this series is that it is so very self-aware of the protagonist's flaws. The other characters continually confront Dorian with his general entitled, self-obsessed, obnoxiousness. They call him out in the way he talks down to everyone, the way he believes he deserves to win, the way he demands loyalty of others long before he grants it to them, the way he stumbles into situations he doesn't take the time to understand. One asks: "Why do you make everything about you when it isn't? And when it actually is about you, you make it about everyone else."So sure, Dorian is annoying and seriously flawed, but the novels don't try to convince us otherwise, which makes all the difference. Plus, there are the side characters. As in previous books, I have significant issues with the way women are characterized: they're all pretty much seductresses, naifs, or in the rare cases they do manage to gain power, they're depicted as animalistic. But hey, that's a criticism that is pretty much innate to the genre. Series staples Edgar and Wren make an appearance, as does Ches, the rather conflicted character of the last book, and Julian Bright, ex-politician-assistant and current bar owner. One character I was quite happy to see again was Reed Malosi, the guy Dorian kept calling "Penn State", and he has a much more central role here, and I love his character even more. In the increasingly overcrowded world of urban fantasy, J.P. Sloane adds some new elements. Despite much of the standard machinery, from a struggling business to a sexy apprentice, Dorian himself is unique, both in his own unabashed flaws and the risk that he'll genuinely go Dark Side. Although I don't say this often, I suspect the Dark Choir series would be quite difficult to read out of order, so if this book sounds intriguing, I'd suggest checking out The Curse Merchant first. If you're looking for a new UF series, the Dark Choir series is worth a look. I don't know where this series is heading, but I'm definitely in for the next book. ~~I received an advanced reader copy of this ebook from the publisher, Curiosity Quills Press, in exchange for my honest review. Thanks!~~ Cross-posted on BookLikes. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Feb 06, 2017
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Feb 13, 2017
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Feb 06, 2017
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ebook
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| B019B6QB06
| 4.20
| 402
| Sep 06, 2016
| Sep 06, 2016
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really liked it
| "You gotta save the world for the right reasons, Paul."I've said it before and I'll say it again: Ferrett Steinmetz's Flex series is one of the mo "You gotta save the world for the right reasons, Paul."I've said it before and I'll say it again: Ferrett Steinmetz's Flex series is one of the most imaginative and unique urban fantasies I've encountered. The trilogy takes place in a world where people's passionate, obsessive belief actually has the ability to warp reality to match their internal vision. As the book puts it: If you believed with a diamond-hard conviction the universe should act in a certain way, sometimes it did. You didn't mean to make it do anything, it just… shuffled out of the way.Someone with an unhealthy obsession with gaming might become a videogamemancer, causing bullets to bounce off skin or magicking portal guns out of thin air or causing people around them to patrol in repeated loops. An edumancer might actually be able to teach anything to anyone and make them remember every word. But 'mancy comes at a cost. When the universe is bent into an alternate system, it rebounds with flux: concentrated bad luck that targets the 'mancer and causes their greatest fears to come true. And when 'mancy stands off against 'mancy, as happened in Europe, reality can be so horrifically distorted that it can be breached, opening a door for creatures from the Lovecraftian Dungeon Dimensions. If any of this sounds interesting to you, check out Flex , the first book in the trilogy. From here on out, there may be spoilers for the previous books. In some ways, Fix was a satisfying book. I love series that end, that resolve their plot arcs rather than dragging out character development and conflicts infinitely. As Steinmetz notes in the afterward, Fix is indeed the end of the trilogy, and I appreciated the sense of closure. However, at the same time, Fix was extremely difficult to finish. The previous books may have been dark, but Fix repeatedly verges on utter despondency. I believe that pacing is a delicate feat of acrobatics: if everything's too safe and easy and achievable, there's no suspense. However, when things are too hard and hopeless, where all of the protagonists' moves just make everything worse and worse, then there's nothing to keep the reader engaged and it's all too easy to give up and put the book down. Unfortunately, I think the first 75% of Fix falls neatly into the latter category. The protagonists--the people I've rooted for, admittedly with mixed emotions, for two previous books-- push so far past the moral event horizon that I felt alienated from them and just wanted it all to end. I kept putting down the book, coming up with any excuse to read something else. I had to force myself to take it up again and again. One of the things I've loved about these books is the protagonist. Paul is a bureaucromancer. He believes in laws and rules and order with so much passion that his faith actually bends reality. Needless to say, he's a bit on the OCD side. As someone who is compelled to turn the doorknob repeatedly in multiples of five when leaving the house to make sure it's really locked (not kidding about multiples of five, sadly), this makes Paul a very empathetic and relatable character for me. An example of why I love him: Back in the days before Paul had fallen hopelessly in love with Imani, he would find himself seized by shameful urges in his dates' apartments [...] college dorms so cramped they were practically spooning; Paul laced his fingers together to avoid temptation.Paul's singlemindedness has always made him something of an antihero; after all, in the initial book, he's willing to sell drugs to gangsters to save his daughter and in the second book, his actions against the villain left me horrified. However, in this book, his descent is so abrupt that it wasn't possible for me to empathize or even comprehend his actions. Instead, I was left feeling disconnected, unable to empathise with Paul or see him as anything other than a villain. 'Mancers were always set up to be antiheroes. Their steadfast certainty means that they see the world in an inherently rigid and inaccurate way; after all, that's how they do magic. In this book, Steinmetz really examines the consequences of this rigidity. In some ways, I loved this introspective aspect and the ways it explored Paul's motivations and the repercussions of his actions, but it was also heartbreaking to watch him do some truly terrible things. (view spoiler)[I was already feeling alienated by his lack of concern for the other 'mancers; burning down the home was the last straw. And that left his mass murder spree for me to suffer through. Even apart from the whole Unimancer thing, it really bothered me that he cared only for his daughter's life, not for the scores of 'mancers in his safehouses who were put into danger and subsequently captured by his recklessness. He didn't even spare them a guilty thought. (hide spoiler)] I forced myself again and again to pick up the book, and I'm glad I did. I love how the book continued to develop Imani and Aliyah's characters. I love that we finally get to see breach-torn Europe. I love that we learn more about the Unimancers and their system. And I also love the way Valentine's romance develops through the story. Without any spoilers, I found the ending profoundly satisfying and also sweet * . If you've read the other books in the series, then I don't need to recommend Fix to you--you're going to pick it up anyway. If you haven't, and the idea of an OCD paperwork-loving 'mancer protagonist sounds like fun, you should definitely take a look at Flex . As for me, I'm excited to find out what Steinmetz has in store for his readers next. ~~ I received this ebook through Netgalley from the publishers, Angry Robot Books, in exchange for my honest review. (Thank you!) Quotes are taken from an advanced reader copy and while they may not reflect the final phrasing, I believe they speak to the spirit of the book as a whole.~~ Cross-posted on BookLikes. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jul 08, 2016
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Jul 24, 2016
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Jul 08, 2016
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Kindle Edition
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| 0356505340
| 9780356505343
| 0356505340
| 4.23
| 6,551
| unknown
| Jun 23, 2016
|
really liked it
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Danger is looming, and it threatens to be "A fate four point two degrees worse than death."When Alex Schwartz took a lucrative job developing high fre Danger is looming, and it threatens to be "A fate four point two degrees worse than death."When Alex Schwartz took a lucrative job developing high frequency trading algorithms, he had no idea how literal his transformation into a bloodsucking vampire was going to be. In the world that Stross creates, higher mathematics open a gateway to Other Dimensions haunted by Lovecraftian beasties, including the V-symbiotes that invaded Alex's brain and gave him PHANG Syndrome (Person of Hemophagic Autocombusting Nocturnal Glamour), which, sadly, isn't yet covered by the Equality Act. Acclimatizing to his new job in the Laundry, the super-secret magical equivalent to MI5, is never easy, but Alex entered the trade at a particularly difficult time: as the number of humans and computers increases, intrusions into the Dungeon Dimensions become increasingly common. As Alex learns, "Training for the end of the world is an ongoing part of the job."Right now, most of the Laundry is focused on CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN, the apocalyptic eventuality where magical saturation causes Cthulhu and Azathoth and all their friends to converge upon Planet Earth. However, The Nightmare Stacks takes a break from the looming threat of GREEN to focus on a NIGHTMARE of quite a different colour. While the previous book took on superheroes, this one combines James-Bond-style shenanigans with yet another geeky fandom. I can't tell you which--spoilers--but I can say that the results are vastly entertaining. The Nightmare Stacks is a bit of a departure from the other books in the series because it has barely a mention of Bob Howard, arcane sysadmin and protagonist of most of the rest of the books. Personally, I was thrilled to get a new protagonist. Alex is a bit of a passive nebbish nonentity, but I found him rather more likeable than the Bob of recent books. The protagonist-- and NIGHTMARE-- switch makes this an ideal starting book for anyone interested in the series. (Apparently it depends heavily on The Rhesus Chart, but as I've not read it--it's the only Laundry book I skipped--and I got along fine, I think this would be entirely readable without the context of the rest of the series.) I did find the narrative style a bit odd, however; we're told this is Alex's journal, yet most of the story, including the Alex-POV sections, are told in third person. I admit to being a bit mystified by that. Alex, our hapless protagonist, has more on his mind than PHANG Syndrome. His new employers are sending him to the last place on earth he wants to be: Leeds, his childhood home, where he's Doomed to be dragged back into the infantilizing maw of his family's expectations."Alex's interactions with his family are so utterly cringingly awkward that they induced sympathetic winces from me, as did his amusing attempts to flirt with his love interest, who takes the MPDG thing to a whole new level. "Alex's experience of dating is similar to his experience of string theory: abstract, intense, and entirely theoretical due to the absence of time and opportunities for probing such high-energy phenomena."I thoroughly enjoyed the parts of the book that focused on the amusing mundanities of Alex's life, but like many of Stross's book, at some point, the content switched over to extremely graphic and disturbing scenes of battle and slaughter. I've never quite figured out if all the gore was intended to be funny. I certainly don't find them so, but the scenes are liberally swathed in dramatic irony and Stross is peculiarly detached from the slaughter. I suspect the familial scenes and war scenes will appeal to vastly different audiences, and that plenty of other reviews will be complaining about the aspects of the book that I adored. I find Stross reliably hilarious and The Nightmare Stacks was no exception. I adore urban fantasy and the way it mashes together the banalities of life with a genre-savvy take on traditional fantasy. Along with explaining how a salt circle traps mages and describing the intricacies of governmental PLAN PURPLE PEOPLE EATER, this book involves perhaps the most unique usage of a selfie stick I've come across. If you find Stross's unique combination of magic, maths geekery, Rube-Goldbergian bureaucracy, and bumbling spycraft as entertaining as I do, The Nightmare Stacks is definitely worth checking out. ~~I received this ebook through Netgalley from the publisher, Berkley Publishing Group, in exchange for my honest review. (Thanks!) 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.~~ Cross-posted on BookLikes. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jun 23, 2016
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Jul 08, 2016
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Jun 23, 2016
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Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 0425269655
| 9780425269657
| 0425269655
| 3.74
| 776
| Mar 29, 2016
| Mar 29, 2016
|
really liked it
|
There's something really badly wrong with me. An example: I'm at the climax of a horrifically graphic battle scene where Jim Schweitzer, ex-SEAL and c
There's something really badly wrong with me. An example: I'm at the climax of a horrifically graphic battle scene where Jim Schweitzer, ex-SEAL and current super-zombie on the run from a secret government cell, is desperately trying to protect his wife and child from magic-wielding mercenaries who have come to take him back or take him down. Schweitzer's wife is fighting for her life, but another mercenary has her in his sights. Schweitzer acts. In the sudden silence, he gazes at the body of the man who tried to rip lightning out of the sky and use it to fry Sarah. And my brain immediately goes: He's dead, Jim. But here's the truly amazing thing about Javelin Rain: even with my brain inserting lyrics from "Star Trekkin" at inopportune moments, the book still managed to be nail-bitingly suspenseful, gut-wrenching, horrific, sad, and bittersweet in turn. One of the things I love about Myke Cole is that when it comes to magic, he doesn't do pretty and he doesn't do nice. His zombies are no exception. Unlike the rest of the Operators in Gemini Cell, Schweitzer may still have his mind, but his face is sheet metal stretched over skull, his eyes are glowing silver orbs shining out from empty sockets. His body shows marks from all previous battles, carelessly stitched and duct-taped to hold it all together. Death has irrevocably changed him. ( It's life, Jim, but not as we know it. ) Throughout the story, Schweitzer struggles to come to terms with the fact that while consciousness remains, his life is over. He can never be a father to his son, never take him to soccer practice, never take his wife out to dinner. Even as he risks all to protect them, there are heartbreaking moments where even his loved ones treat him as the monster he is in so many ways. Javelin Rain is a little bit hard to characterize in terms of plot. It's a second book, a "things fall apart" book, in which Schweitzer sets himself in direct opposition to Gemini Cell. It's a fugitive's story, a chase, a series of desperate last stands. But it's also a love story. An increasingly creepy, violent love story, because the longer Schweitzer stays dead, the more of his humanity he loses. If you read my reviews, you probably know by now that I don't do romance, but love stories aren't necessarily romances. They're not about passion; they're about commitment, about compromises, about trust, about two alien people trying to create something together. Throw in the fact that one member of the couple has veins of glycerol and is steadily losing his last vestiges of humanity, the other has a small child with a bad case of poison ivy, and they're both on the run from a relentless military black ops military organization, and the love story really takes on a unique flavor. As one character puts it, "Magic is like cancer. You don't ask for it, and it changes everything." Schweitzer and Sarah's story is not the only plot running through the book, but it was definitely my favourite. Perhaps half the pagetime is from the perspective of other members of Gemini Cell, including Eldredge, the chief scientist of the cell, and Jawid and Dadou, the sorcerers responsible for creating zombie beings like Schweitzer. I found the Jawid/Dadou subplot deeply and troublingly problematic. Jawid, the only Muslim character in the book, is a naive simpleton who parrots repressive religious dogma and wants nothing more than to own a wife and family. Religious simpleton characters irritate me in general, and to have Jawid the only Muslim character in the story left a bad taste in my mouth. Dadou, who has a history of abuse and sexual assault, uses her own sexuality to cynically dominate those around her, mostly because her higher command orders her to do so, something that isn't really dealt with in the story. I wanted to empathize with her, and certainly her story is tragic, but she makes it awfully difficult. My other major complaint with the story is that a bunch of major plot elements didn't make sense. (view spoiler)[Let's see: (1) Why on earth would binding zombies into living beings make them more obedient? As far as I can tell, the Obedient Zombie Track Record is nil: one of them is running operations, one of them ran away, and the rest run wild. Why would an intelligent zombie be biddable? Wouldn't it have everything it wanted already? Equally, why would such a living zombie be "reliable, a known quantity", a "puppet"? (2) On the same note, if Dadou really had the power to grab Sarah out of the soul-cyclone, then she already had complete power to make Silvers and to make living zombies. From the first book and from this one, we know the major problem is that the souls that come out of the vortex are just too strong. Yet if she really has the power to pick and choose, she could choose a weak soul, weak enough to be defeated by the Silver. (3) On that note, the Soul Vortex. When I read it, I couldn't accept the vortex as the only end in the narrative because it's so damned depressing. Plus, harking back to Dadou's ability to yank anyone and everyone out of the whirlpool, it would mean that literally anyone could be used after death. Including Dadou. Do I smell a sequel? Personally, I'd rather the vortex be a single stop on the way to eternity, or eternal nothingness. (4) Why on earth would Eldredge give up the knife? Surely it would be better spent protecting Patrick, because: (5) If Sarah really wanted release, why couldn't she just go? Wasn't staying the hard part? It's not like the merc wanted her there. From what we know of the whole shared soul bit, leaving is easy. It's staying that's hard. So why didn't Sarah leave rather than be bait? (hide spoiler)] Schweitzer lived his life around the SEAL motto, "So others might live." But in this book, all of that starts to fall apart: we find out more about the Gemini Cell, their leadership, and their belief that they don't "have the luxury of ethical struggles." Gemini Cell suffers a bit from Second Book Syndrome. For one thing, I really don't think it can be read without the first book. For another, I can actually summarize the entire book, which demonstrates its simplicity. At the same time, it's an interesting step in the Gemini Cell saga, and there were plenty of shocking twists. Sarah underwent significant character development, and I find her one of the more interesting members of the cast. Javelin Rain also satisfied one of my biggest concerns with Gemini Cell. Schweitzer no longer sees himself as a sanctified paladin. He seeks to protect only his family by any means necessary. As he puts it: "He didn't want to hurt anyone, but if he was going to be a monster, then he may as well be one to protect his own."As always, the sequel is automatically on my to-read list. I'm dying to find out how Schweitzer's saga ends, not in least because hyperintelligent zombies don't make an appearance in the later Shadow Ops books, and I'm awfully curious about why. If you have any interest in creative, gritty, and graphic military urban fantasy, you definitely need to check out Cole's Shadow Ops. ~~I received an advanced reader copy of this ebook through Netgalley from the publisher, Berkley Publishing Group, in exchange for my honest review. Quotes are taken from an advanced reader copy and while they may not reflect the final phrasing, I believe they speak to the spirit of the book as a whole.~~ Cross-posted on BookLikes. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Feb 22, 2016
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Feb 27, 2016
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Feb 22, 2016
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Mass Market Paperback
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| 042527599X
| 9780425275993
| 042527599X
| 4.13
| 924
| Jan 05, 2016
| Jan 05, 2016
|
it was amazing
| "The streets is hungry."It's official: Daniel José Older is now on my authors-to-watch list. I first encountered Older through his YA book, Shadowshap "The streets is hungry."It's official: Daniel José Older is now on my authors-to-watch list. I first encountered Older through his YA book, Shadowshaper. While Shadowshaper is a rich, vibrant story, Bone Street Rumba is right down my alley. I love urban fantasy, underpowered protagonists, and political skirmishes in the magical world. Add to that a set of complex, interesting characters, a gritty plot, and some seriously creepy roach dudes, and I was sold. TL;DR: Half-Resurrection Blues (Bone Street Rumba#1) just became my first book purchase of the year. The story is narrated by Carlos, a half-dead agent for the Council for the Dead and the protagonist of the previous book, Reza, a driver/hitter for a local gang, and Kia, a mischievous teenager who works at a botánica and finds herself pulled inextricably into the center of events. There's a reason why Kia is on the front of the cover (and have I mentioned i loved the cover?) instead of Carlos, who is pretty much worse than useless for the whole book. One of the reasons I picked up the first book is that I'm rather interested to see what Carlos was like when he was actually effective and didn't just spend all his time angsting and moping. Kia, on the other hand, is a lot of fun. I loved her constant banter with Carlos: "I smile. “Things will go much easier for you when you realize that I know everything.” "We’ve been through this already, C, and we don’t have time to go through it again. If you leave me behind, I’ll do something stupid like follow you all by myself and get killed and then you’ll feel guilty. Let’s save ourselves an argument we both already know I’m gonna win.”She has some interesting depths as a character, from a traumatic childhood experience to her insight while navigating a biased world. The politics of Midnight Taxi Tango are less overt and more nuanced than Shadowshaper, but all the more interesting and effective for it. One of the subplots involves Capoeira, which, as the instructor notes, "Is how my people survived European domination in Brazil [...] It is a martial art disguised as a dance, but it is also a dance disguised as a martial art. Why? Because we were not allowed to train to fight. We had to disguise our training as dancing, yes? We had to become clandestine warriors in a system that did not believe we are human, yes? Maybe this is something you can understand today, or maybe not."Kia's perspective illuminates the pervasive racism she experiences: "I’d never been to this neighborhood before. Maybe driven past once or twice with my dad, but it was all white folks, and the feeling of don’t belong, don’t belong hung heavy in the air, like all the molecules wanted me to leave too."She perceives, and is angered by, the constant assaults on diversity surrounding her, from the white policeman who feels it is acceptable to harass her on the street to her realization that she, as a black woman, can get shot for carrying a sandwich, let alone a ghost-killing knife. One of my favourite moments was her reaction to a conversation between a group of white teenagers in the botánica: "Kenny, what’s this mean, a love potion?” Another aspect where I felt this book improved upon Shadowshaper was the humor. Midnight Taxi Tango was constantly, quotably funny. Carlos, Reza, and Tia each have their own unique narrative flair, and while I loved them all, the dialogue and situational humor tickled me to death; for example: “So you brought the demon-child assassin to my house and locked him into the bathroom across from the girl he’s trying to kill?” My whisper is more like a strained cough. I feel like I've been saying this a lot lately, but while I felt like the plot was a bit of a mess, I just didn't care. (view spoiler)[One of the aspects that I think was really underdeveloped was Jeremy. Because seriously, what makes a person decide that being a nest for a colony of creepy roaches is a desirable career plan? I know the implication here is that to an imperialistic ideology, power of any variety makes any sacrifice worthwhile, but given the glimpse of Jeremy that we get from Gio and Kia, this didn't really fly for me. How did the beautiful, laughing, dancing boy that so entranced Gio come to the decision that roach master was the way to go? Was it a sacrifice to save Gio, or something he really wanted? I also would have liked to see a confrontation between Gio and Jeremy. I felt their broken romance was thrust aside, and it would have been interesting to explore it. (hide spoiler)] Like Shadowshaper, Midnight Taxi Tango is a complex, vibrant, refreshing change from cookie-cutter urban fantasy. Add to that a set of villainous magical roaches--and who doesn't find roaches creepy, particularly when they crawl into your mouth or peel off your skin-- and a constant barrage of banter and situational comedy and I was utterly sold. Count me in for the sequel. And the prequel. And anything else Older has in store. ~4.5 ~~I received this book through Netgalley from the publisher, Berkley Group Publishing, in exchange for my honest review. Quotes are 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.~~ Cross-posted on BookLikes. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jan 14, 2016
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Jan 31, 2016
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Jan 14, 2016
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Mass Market Paperback
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| 0545591619
| 9780545591614
| 0545591619
| 3.76
| 10,608
| Jun 30, 2015
| Jun 30, 2015
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really liked it
| "Who gets to study and who gets studied, and why? Who makes the decisions, you know?"Shadowshaper brings richer cadences to a familiar tune. Many aspe "Who gets to study and who gets studied, and why? Who makes the decisions, you know?"Shadowshaper brings richer cadences to a familiar tune. Many aspects are familiar to readers of urban fantasy and young adult: a secret world of magic, a naive heroine who discovers her own unique powers, and burgeoning romance. However, Older describes a fuller, more vibrant city than the standard cookie-cutter urban fantasy fare: the mixing and clash of cultures, mutual distrust with interloping police, stark contrasts in race and socioeconomic status huddled side by side, and deepening tensions over gentrification. One of the central themes of the story is the line between respect for other cultures and appropriation. Cultural heritage pervades the very magic of Shadowshaper: while the mechanism may be newer, the magic itself embraces tradition. With the magic of a shadowshaper, street art can literally come to life. Shadowshapers can paint forms that spirits--ghosts of the departed as well as other more elemental forces-- can inhabit. But recently, something has been going wrong: shadowshapers are disappearing or losing their minds, murals are losing their vibrancy, and haints are stalking the streets. Sierra Santiago may be new to the world of shadowshapers, but she soon finds herself an integral part in the race to save them. Somehow, her hunt hinges upon finding a white academic who disappeared while studying the shadowshapers and their traditions. And this itself becomes one of the key questions of the book. As one character puts it, "Who gets to study and who gets studied, and why? Who makes the decisions, you know?"In one of my favourite discussions of the issue, Sierra's friend decides to turn the tables: "If this Wick cat do all this research about Sierra's grandpa and all his Puerto Rican spirits, I don't see why I can't write a book about his people. Imma call it Hipster vs. Yuppie: A Culturalpological Study."(view spoiler)[When Wick first appeared on the scene, the single white man in the photograph, I was intrigued: I wondered if Older was going to explore the ways in which an academic coming in and absorbing and then judging people could go so terribly wrong. It was intensely satisfying, if predictable from the first scene, for the villain to be the embodiment of the hubris of appropriation. It's not a message that is often voiced, but it is one that desperately needs to be spoken. Older doesn't pull his punches: “Your abuelo was responsible for the destruction of the shadowshapers. I’m trying to save them. You don’t understand any of this, Sierra. This is not your world.”(hide spoiler)] Sierra is a New Yorker of Puerto Rican descent, and much of her own teenage angst deals with her discomfort over societal stereotypes, racism, and sexism, even from her own family. Her aunt, in particular, criticizes her "nappy" hair and her interest in a Cuban boy, warning her to stay away from boys who are "Darker than the bottom of your foot." From one of my favourite scenes: "Once when she was chatting with some stupid boy online, she described herself as the color of coffee with not enough milk. [...] The worst part about it, the part she couldn’t let go of, was that the thought came from her. Not from one of the teachers or guidance counselors whose eyes said it again and again over sticky-sweet smiles. Not from some cop on Marcy Avenue or Tía Rosa. It came from somewhere deep inside her. And that meant that for all the times she’d shrugged off one of those slurs, some little tentacle of them still crawled its way toward her heart. Not enough milk. Not light enough. Morena. Negra. No matter what she did, that little voice came creeping back, persistent and unsatisfied.Racism isn't simply something Sierra experiences from her family; it's all around her, accosting her from the media, from her family, from the second looks she gets walking in the "gentrified" parts of town, from her own eyes when she looks in a mirror. And her journey towards self-acceptance is learning to push back against those who wish to mold her into their ideal, to see herself as enough. As she tells her aunt: I don’t care about your stupid neighborhood gossip or your damn opinions about everyone around you and how dark they are or how kinky their hair is. You ever look in the mirror, Tia?"Shadowshaper is easily one of the most interesting and meaningful YA books I've read in years. If you're a fan of urban fantasy, young adult fiction, or simply books that embrace vibrant diversity, Shadowshaper is well worth a look. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 24, 2015
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Jan 10, 2016
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Dec 24, 2015
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Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 1444762753
| 9781444762754
| 1444762753
| 3.63
| 8,599
| Apr 10, 2014
| Apr 10, 2014
|
liked it
|
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 three 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 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 |
Notes are private!
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1
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Oct 21, 2015
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Dec 04, 2015
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Oct 21, 2015
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Paperback
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| 1616961716
| 9781616961718
| 1616961716
| 3.74
| 4,364
| Jul 21, 2014
| Aug 12, 2014
|
it was amazing
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~4.5 I encounter quite a lot of episodic hard-boiled urban fantasy, and one constant source of entertainment (and aggravation) is wondering what happen ~4.5 I encounter quite a lot of episodic hard-boiled urban fantasy, and one constant source of entertainment (and aggravation) is wondering what happens to the minor characters after they are abandoned by the camera. Take the television show Supernatural. After the Winchesters roll out of town, what actually happens to Screaming Girl #1 who loses her father/boyfriend/girlfriend to an angry pumpkin man or psychotic razor-hands or grabby ghost? Or what about the bystanders who were unlucky enough to have a car on the street during Harry Dresden’s rampage in Dead Beat? (Imagine the insurance claims.) Or all those unfortunate churchgoing ladies in Mike Carey’s Vicious Circle? Certainly anyone who ran into a fey from the October Daye series would require counselling, but what, exactly, would one tell one’s therapist? We Are All Completely Fine explores the lives of the survivors of supernatural situations, but in a less absurdist fashion than other sorcerous self-helpers that I have encountered. The story begins from the perspective of Harrison, a nihilistic ex-monster-hunter, as he vacillates outside of a psychologist’s office, not quite ready to step inside and join a newly formed group therapy. Harrison might not have much faith in therapy, but then, this is a rather unique group, for each member has been touched by the preternatural: an apparently self-possessed but inwardly tormented housewife, an elderly man still fixated upon a childhood trauma, a young man who retreats into a world of his making, and a silent, enigmatic girl with haunted eyes. The novella is a little unusual in everything from perspective to structure. We Are All Completely Fine starts each chapter in first person plural, spoken as if by an unidentified member of the group, then switches to third person limited. I’ve only seen this style a few times, but I think it adds an interesting effect here, strengthening the sense of the group as a sentient entity in its own right. As one might expect, much of the novella is simply the slow unravelling of the characters’ stories. The psychological aspect is thoughtful without ever becoming pretentious, and I loved the occasional glints of humour. While some of the characters never quite became three-dimensional for me, others came to life. One of the surprisingly empathetic characters, to me, was Stan, the elderly amputee who lost so much that he turned his victimhood into his identity. He is a talker, but he uses his words, his stories and complaints and pleas for attention, as a shield. Unsurprisingly, my favourite of the bunch was the taciturn, saturnine, guilt-ridden, self-destructive Harrison. Harrison’s interaction with the psychologist are constantly entertaining: "She believed that people were captains of their own destiny. He agreed, as long as it was understood that every captain was destined to go down with the ship, and there wasn't a damned thing you could do about it."I was also amused by Harrison’s origin story, which involves a seaside town called “Dunnsmouth,” a name rather reminiscent of the classic “Innsmouth.” Given the basic premise, it’s unsurprising that the author opted for something of a kitchen-sink’d Lovecraftian magic, but there were a few creative touches that I adored. I was a little dissatisfied with the ending, which seemed too neat in some areas and slightly plotholed in others, but I think much of this was due to the constraints imposed by the length. In fact, the biggest drawback, in my opinion, was that it was a novella rather than a novel, but at least the short length meant that I was able to enjoy a reread. I would love to revisit the characters and world, and I have high hopes of a sequel (pretty please?). We Are All Completely Fine will not be a good fit for everyone; after all, its major theme is coming to terms with horror-movie-style trauma. There are some graphic scenes and extensive discussions of mutilation, and I’d definitely slap a trigger warning on it. However, if you’re looking for something a little different and with a psychological bent, I’d definitely recommend it. Excerpted from my review on BookLikes. **Note: Quotes are taken from an uncorrected proof and may therefore not reflect the final manuscript. They do, however, provide wonderful examples of the charm and mood of the book as a whole.** ~~I received this ebook through NetGalley from the publisher, Tachyon Publications, in exchange for my honest review. ~~ ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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not set
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not set
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Jul 01, 2014
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Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 0765328550
| 9780765328557
| 0765328550
| 3.73
| 2,350
| May 01, 2014
| Jun 10, 2014
|
it was amazing
|
There's something about a heist. Maybe it's that peculiar combination of recklessness and calculation, that absolute guarantee of unforeseen circumsta
There'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.~~ Excerpted from my review on BookLikes ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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not set
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May 11, 2014
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May 11, 2014
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Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 1620074796
| 9781620074794
| 1620074796
| 4.04
| 220
| Mar 05, 2014
| Mar 07, 2014
|
liked it
|
In a future where adbots chase after an endless stream of hovercars, where bionic enhancement has become commonplace, where telekinesis is an accepted
In a future where adbots chase after an endless stream of hovercars, where bionic enhancement has become commonplace, where telekinesis is an accepted skillset, where any food that isn't based off of the ubiquitous OmniSoy is a luxury, Kirsten Wren still manages to be an oddity. Kirsten is a psyonic in the police force's Division Zero, the psych squad. Her rare talent allows her to look into others' minds and wield literally mindblowing blasts of psionic energy, to see into the astral plane and interact directly with the ghosts that inhabit it. Rarest of all, Kirsten can do more than simply see ghosts: she can deal out damage. When Division Zero starts getting reports of android "dolls" going crazy with no evidence of hardware or software failure, Kirsten is sent to take a look. What she finds will take her on a path that will lead to vengeful spirits, corporate espionage, paid assassins, and some seriously narrow escapes. My favourite aspect of the book was definitely the worldbuilding. The world is drawn with sparse, broad strokes: we know that Mars is settled, that there's some kind of war going on between a massive corporate conglomerate and what's left of the united states, that huge areas of the mega-cities were abandoned to fall into dangerous and disreputable Dark Zones, that towering city-structures caused the Beneath, the city under the city, to become the home of mutant humans and apocalyptics. I would have loved to understand more of the political climate, to see more of the underpinnings of the world, but I liked its wide scope. I really loved the little details such as the in-apartment auto-laundry machines and the restaurants perched atop the skyscrapers whose offerings consisted entirely of imaginatively reconstituted OmniSoy. Cox's imagined future has a multitude of rich detail, from the stint packs that can heal on command to the digital sticks used as money to the smart mattress gels that change shape and temperature to accommodate a body. Despite the immersive worldbuilding, I had some difficulty getting into the book. Cox has a rather grating tendency to fall into infodumping, mostly of the "As You Know" variety. For example, the book starts out with a conversation between Kirsten and an old friend who proceed to have a long, awkwardly revelatory conversation about Kirsten's talents and background as well as the current structure of the world. While I understand that Cox is trying to avoid direct exposition, having people "tell" in a set of artificial conversations isn't quite the same thing as "showing." This infodumping led to a vague dissatisfaction because the characters' tendency to discuss and debate their own culture made them feel a bit like outsiders in their own society. While I looked forward to more details about the world, most of the infodumps centred on Kirsten's history. Unfortunately, I also found Kirsten herself somewhat irritating. She has an impressively tragic past, but in my opinion, tragedy is not a substitute for personality. Kirsten is a slight blonde with beautiful "sapphire" eyes and a figure that is displayed to advantage by her skintight black uniform, and Cox never lets you forget it. Cox certainly put a lot of effort into writing an indisputably female character: despite the urgent situations around her, Kirsten spends a lot of time "hugging," "pouting," and "sulking," and also emotes and cries at the drop of a hat. She appears to think about men at least once every seven seconds and sizes up every Y-chromosome she meets for desirability; at the ripe age of twenty-two, she is already bemoaning her inability to catch a man and her inevitably single future. Even though the main character is female, the book came terrifyingly close to failing the Bechdel test, mainly because Kirsten's friend Nicole is even more appallingly "man-mad" than Kirsten. The two spend most of their conversations giggling about men, discussing "tits and asses" (yes, in those terms), and bemoaning the fact that men tend to stop sexually harrassing them as soon as they discover the women are Division 0. Take Kirsten's reaction to crude come-ons: "That's hot. Pure girls are the best." [...] The "tits and ass" jokes, are, in fact, ubiquitous throughout. As far as I could tell, most of the "humour" appears to be derived from the impressive amount of sexual harassment that Kirsten and other women receive from their male counterparts. Given that we encounter several women who are in positions of power, plus the fact that bionic enhancements would remove any disparities in strength, I found the entrenched sexual harassment to be unrealistic as well as utterly unamusing. Kirsten's attitude didn't improve matters. Given that she thinks that "It's harassment only if you don't want it, and they don't stop when you tell them to get lost."I surmise that someone is in need of basic sensitivity training. The ghosts also felt like a missed opportunity. The general idea is promising: ghosts with unfinished business stick around. They will either vanish into a place of light or be dragged off by the shadowy Harbingers. While this setup provides a lot of interesting directions, most of the discussion centres around a somewhat sophomoric philosophical discussion of religion. Because of her background, Kirsten is vehemently anti-religious and takes the bisected world of bright light and horrible dark to be "proof" that there is no god. Not only did her self-righteous, narrow-minded attitude do nothing for her likeability; the standard light/dark duology constricted an interesting idea into a rather heavy-handed and pedestrian religious debate. The plot itself is fast-paced, with plenty of adventures, attacks, and ghostly encounters. Kirsten spends most of her time with her partner Dorian, and I liked both his character and their dynamics. Certain awkward phrasing, such as "He sent a belaboured face at the ceiling" pulled me out of the narrative, but in general, I think the fast pace and heavy action made the book an enjoyable read. Unfortunately, the pacing meant that many of the world's most intriguing aspects were left unexplored. For example, I think the droids had a lot of potential, but internal inconsistencies lessened their appeal. In Kirsten's world, self-aware droids are able to gain citizenship and failing to repair a seriously broken droid is considered murder. Leaving aside the fact that failing to provide medical assistance to humans isn't considered murder unless you're a doctor, these same dolls are casually spoken of as objects to be bought and sold, as tools "on the market." All the dolls we see, even the self-aware ones, are utilized as tools by their owners rather than people, which seems inconsistent with the descriptions in-text. I was struck by certain similarities to a video game: the plot is action-filled, convoluted, and has a heavy dependence on concatenations of coincidence. At the same time, there was at least one twist I really enjoyed. Overall, I really admired the breadth of imagination that went into the worldbuilding, and I think the interesting ideas and large scope did much to offset some technical flaws. While my issues with Kirsten and some aspect of the plot decreased my enjoyment in the story, if you're in the mood for a cyberpunk adventure with a lot of action and creativity, it's definitely worth a look. ~~I received this ebook through NetGalley from the publisher, Curiosity Quills, in exchange for my honest review.~~ Excerpted from my review at Booklikes. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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not set
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not set
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Apr 19, 2014
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Paperback
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| 1612184588
| 9781612184586
| 1612184588
| 4.28
| 7,705
| Feb 18, 2014
| Feb 18, 2014
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really liked it
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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 and
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 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." 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--" 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?"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?"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.~~ Excerpted from my review on booklikes. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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not set
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not set
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Mar 02, 2014
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Paperback
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| 0385339151
| 9780385339155
| 0385339151
| 4.06
| 183,403
| Oct 31, 2006
| Oct 31, 2006
|
liked it
|
**edited 11/28/13 "Personally, I'd never had any desire to save the world. Decorate it? Yes. Save it? No."So says MacKayla "Mac" Lane, a blissful **edited 11/28/13 "Personally, I'd never had any desire to save the world. Decorate it? Yes. Save it? No."So says MacKayla "Mac" Lane, a blissfully blonde, beautiful, buxom bartender Barbie from Georgia. Of course, that was before her sister is murdered, left alone to die in a dingy alley on the other side of the world. Reeling from grief, Mac embarks on an ill-judged journey to Dublin, and her life of cheerful banality utterly disintegrates. Suddenly, the continued availability of Iceberry Pink nail polish is no longer the biggest worry of her world. For when Mac reaches Dublin, she discovers that fairies are real and that she is one of the rare humans who can see through their glamours. With her new vision, the world is a more frightening place: predators suck the life and soul out of unsuspecting humans, terrifyingly beautiful beings attack humans with deadly allure, and a mysteriously knowledgeable man seems to have his own subtle schemes for Mac. ...And that's all I'm going to post here. The rest of my (rather verbose) review is posted over here at Booklikes. Why? Because I strongly disapprove of GoodReads' new policy of censorship. (The link brings you to a summary of The Story So Far, which has facts and links so you can make up your own mind about the GR débâcle.) ~2.5 ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Sep 10, 2013
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Sep 14, 2013
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Sep 10, 2013
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Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 0345515579
| 9780345515575
| 0345515579
| 3.66
| 16,641
| May 25, 2010
| May 25, 2010
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liked it
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None
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Notes are private!
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1
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not set
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not set
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Aug 26, 2013
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Mass Market Paperback
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| 0425197549
| 9780425197547
| 0425197549
| 4.02
| 149,712
| Oct 1993
| Aug 03, 2004
|
it was ok
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**edited 12/15/13 As this is one of the trope-makers for the urban fantasy genre, it was quite interesting to read. Even I found the worldbuilding fasc **edited 12/15/13 As this is one of the trope-makers for the urban fantasy genre, it was quite interesting to read. Even I found the worldbuilding fascinating. However, I did not enjoy it, and, as usual, I'm going to work off my ill humour by enumerating precisely why. With all my complaints, I do not exactly regret reading this. Hamilton's influence is visible throughout almost all of the books in our current urban fantasy genre, from the Dresden Files (Jim Butcher explicitly acknowledges his debt to Hamilton) to Kate Daniels to Rachel Morgan. Due to my failure to sympathise with the protagonist and the story's rather unsettling fascination with rape themes, I was unable to enjoy the book on its own merits. However, if you're a more easygoing reader than me and are interested in seeing the birth of many of the themes that echo throughout UF, take a look. Due to my disapproval of GR's new and highly subjective review deletion policy, the rest of my (rather verbose, quote-filled, and exceedingly cranky) review is posted over here at Booklikes. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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not set
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not set
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Aug 26, 2013
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Paperback
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| 1453254676
| 9781453254677
| 1453254676
| 4.02
| 20,937
| Apr 15, 1988
| May 22, 2012
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really liked it
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None
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Notes are private!
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1
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not set
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not set
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Aug 18, 2013
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ebook
| ||||||||||||||
| 0446616419
| 9780446616416
| 0446616419
| 3.68
| 33,280
| Nov 01, 2005
| Nov 01, 2005
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liked it
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None
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Notes are private!
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1
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not set
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not set
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Aug 04, 2013
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Mass Market Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 0446576921
| 9780446576925
| 0446576921
| 3.74
| 1,704
| Mar 12, 2013
| Mar 12, 2013
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really liked it
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None
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Notes are private!
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1
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Feb 19, 2016
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Mar 2016
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Aug 04, 2013
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Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 1937007588
| 9781937007584
| 1937007588
| 4.44
| 59,445
| Jul 30, 2013
| Jul 30, 2013
|
liked it
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**edit 11/26/13 It's hard to imagine a worse familial situation than being married to two men and, due to an unfortunate concatenation of circumstances **edit 11/26/13 It's hard to imagine a worse familial situation than being married to two men and, due to an unfortunate concatenation of circumstances, being simultaneously pregnant with both of their children. Add in a psychotic father who wants you dead and you really have a party. So how do Kate and Curran get themselves involved with this interesting family? In Kate Daniel's world, panacea may not cure all ills, but it does help with loupism. With Julie's best friend in dire need, Curran, Kate, and most of their gang head off to Europe to try to get their hands on the magical medicine in exchange for guarding the pregnant woman from her loving relatives. ... Due to my disapproval of GR's new and highly subjective review policy, the rest (of my long, rather cranky review) is posted over here at Booklikes. Now knowing that panacea has at least a little basis in previous worldbuilding, call it ~3.3. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Aug 18, 2013
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not set
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Jul 07, 2013
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Mass Market Paperback
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my rating |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| 4.13
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it was ok
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Sep 22, 2017
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Sep 21, 2017
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| 3.61
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it was amazing
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Mar 17, 2017
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Mar 17, 2017
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| 4.22
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really liked it
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Feb 13, 2017
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Feb 06, 2017
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| 4.20
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really liked it
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Jul 24, 2016
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Jul 08, 2016
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| 4.23
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really liked it
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Jul 08, 2016
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Jun 23, 2016
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|||||
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| 3.74
|
really liked it
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Feb 27, 2016
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Feb 22, 2016
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|||||
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| 4.13
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it was amazing
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Jan 31, 2016
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Jan 14, 2016
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| 3.76
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really liked it
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Jan 10, 2016
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Dec 24, 2015
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| 3.63
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liked it
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Dec 04, 2015
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Oct 21, 2015
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| 3.74
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it was amazing
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not set
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Jul 01, 2014
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| 3.73
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it was amazing
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May 11, 2014
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May 11, 2014
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| 4.04
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liked it
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not set
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Apr 19, 2014
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| 4.28
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really liked it
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not set
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Mar 02, 2014
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|||||
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| 4.06
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liked it
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Sep 14, 2013
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Sep 10, 2013
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|||||
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| 3.66
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liked it
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not set
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Aug 26, 2013
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|||||
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| 4.02
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it was ok
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not set
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Aug 26, 2013
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|||||
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| 4.02
|
really liked it
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not set
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Aug 18, 2013
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|||||
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| 3.68
|
liked it
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not set
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Aug 04, 2013
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|||||
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| 3.74
|
really liked it
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Mar 2016
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Aug 04, 2013
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|||||
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| 4.44
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liked it
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not set
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Jul 07, 2013
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