The Heretic by Joseph Nassise

Joseph Nassise’s THE TEMPLAR CHRONICLES series features a modern-day Knights Templar organization that battles the supernatural bad guys of the world. Its hero, Cade Williams, is a member of the Templars but has an uncanny reputation among the order for his psychic abilities. The Heretic is the first in the series and revolves around a cabal of sorcerers who is attacking Templar commanderies, slaughtering the members, and desecrating the cemeteries in search of a holy relic. Cade and his unit are assigned to the problem. The Heretic could be described as urban fantasy by way of a paramilitary/religious thriller. As is apropos for a thriller, The Heretic includes a lot of action and tough-guy heroics. There’s also a great deal of gore, so the weak of stomach need not apply… The Heretic is not a horrible book; it just isn’t for me. It could be a 3-star or 4-star book for a very different type of reader. This is a novel about manly men stoically getting the job done, with little in the way of stylistic or emotional frills. If that appeals to you, give this book a try. But for my own part, I must confess I like my frills. Read the rest.

Infernal Devices: A Mad Victorian Fantasy by K.W. Jeter

George Dower’s father was a watchmaker, but he didn’t just make watches. Some of his special customers knew he was a genius with all sorts of gear work. When his father died, George inherited the watch shop. Unfortunately, he didn’t inherit his father’s genius. He can sometimes manage to fix a customer’s watch if he sees that a part has worn out, or something else obvious is wrong, but that’s about it. He’s completely flummoxed when a strange brown man brings in something he’s never seen before — something George’s father made. George has no idea what this infernal device does, but when he agrees to help, he’s soon embroiled in a wild adventure that involves a secret London district with fishy-looking citizens, the Royal Anti-Society, the formidable woman who heads up the Ladies Union for the Suppression of Carnal Vice, a robot doppelganger, and a man and woman who speak 20^th century American slang. George is starting to realize that his father may have been involved in some rather shady business. Read more »

Dark Victory by Michele Lang

Magda Lazarus has killed Adolf Hitler’s pet wizard, the Staff, but not before the Staff stole a fragment of the powerful Book of Raziel and used magic to reconstitute a corrupted version that is now in the hands of the Reich. Dark Victory begins as the invasion of Poland is imminent, and Magda is trying to decide on her next course of action. In the early chapters, it seemed that Dark Victory wouldn’t be as compelling as Lady Lazarus. Magda’s decision-making process is a large part of the problem… The book becomes impossible to put down once Magda finally starts to act! … After the first few chapters, Dark Victory is a good read, in which Magda grows in her magical abilities and faces hard choices and horrific situations. I continue to be interested in what happens to her and her loved ones, and to what extent the course of history will be changed by her actions. LADY LAZARUS is a trilogy and will conclude with Rebel Angels, which I look forward to reading. Read the rest.

Eyes Like Leaves by Charles de Lint

Charles de Lint wrote Eyes Like Leaves in 1980, but he didn’t publish it then. In 1980, he explains in the foreword, he had written two “alternate world” stories and one contemporary fantasy; de Lint thought that a third alternate world fantasy would typecast him, and he didn’t want to be restricted. Thus the book languished for thirty years before being brought out… Shifting points of view make for a very choppy read at times, especially when de Lint throws in italicized flashbacks. Seeing how rough the technique is, I was reminded how much de Lint has perfected the mosaic technique in later books. As always, though, de Lint’s story is filled with music, elegant prose and clever turns of phrase… In the forward, de Lint says that although he went through the manuscripts and made grammar changes, he did not change the plot. I enjoyed the book and I think the classic Good versus Evil plot still holds up, but Eyes Like Leaves is most interesting as a look back at a gifted writer’s beginnings. Read the rest.

Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice

There are two major traditions when it comes to vampire fiction. In the first and older conception of them, they are out-and-out monsters, demons lusting after mortal blood from beyond the grave. Examples of this would include Stephen King’s ‘Salem’s Lot or the original Dracula to some extent. The second tradition humanizes vampires, focusing on the men and women they once were rather than the supernatural beings they have become. Interview with the Vampire is of the latter camp, one I admit I have had little patience for in the past. Anne Rice won me over, however, with her fascinating study of the impact immortality and the supernatural might have on the mortal mind, as well as her startlingly poignant prose and elegant narrative style… This is excellent vampire fiction. Recommended to any fans of the genre, and most who are curious and don’t mind a bit of a slower-paced read. Read the rest.

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson

Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon is a lengthy historical fiction set during both World War II and the late 1990s with much of the action taking place in the Philippines. In the 1940s, Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse, colleague of Alan Turing, is hired by the U.S. Navy to help break Axis codes. Meanwhile, Marine Sergeant Bobby Shaftoe, who’s too enthusiastic and courageous for his own good, doesn’t realize that his troop’s job is to make it look like the U.S. hasn’t broken the codes, but just happens to always be in the right place at the right time. Waterhouse and Shaftoe know each other only superficially, but their descendants, who’ve noticeably inherited some of their traits, meet in the 1990s storyline. Randy Lawrence Waterhouse is a systems administrator who’s trying to set up an electronic banking system in the Philippines. There he meets Doug and Amy Shaftoe, a father and daughter team who are doing the underwater surveying for Randy’s Internet cables. Randy and the Shaftoes eventually realize that they share a secret heritage and together they set out on a massive code-breaking treasure hunt… Cryptonomicon won the Locus Award in 2000 and was nominated for both the Hugo and Arthur C. Clarke Awards that year. Pretty big accomplishment for a book that’s not even science fiction. For readers who haven’t tried one of Neal Stephenson’s books yet, Cryptonomicon is a good place to start. Read the rest.

Kindling the Moon by Jenn Bennett

… To me, one of the most important aspects of urban fantasy is characterization. The series I follow religiously are usually the ones where I want to spend as much time with the characters as possible! Jenn Bennett succeeds wildly in that regard. Cady is a relatable character with a good mix of toughness and vulnerability. She has to deal with some heartbreaking situations in this story and it’s easy to sympathize with her. Her love interest, Lon Butler, is enigmatic and standoffish at first, and acts like a jerk sometimes, but is likable at his core. Lon’s teenage son is simply adorable. And the three of them in the same room together have a great dynamic with lots of warmth and humor. The secondary characters are interesting too, especially a young female adversary of Cady’s who I suspect we’ll be seeing more of… I really liked Kindling the Moon and look forward to spending more time with Cady and friends. Book two, Summoning the Night, is scheduled for release in April 2012… Read the rest.

Shadows West by Joe R. and John L. Lansdale

Reading a screenplay is a different experience from a novel or short story. A screenplay strips the story down to dialogue and action, with some visuals. There is no interior monologue or author philosophizing, or at least, not much. It can be refreshing. Joe R. Lansdale, who has written crime novels, mystery, dark fantasy and horror, provides three screenplays for the interested reader in Shadows West. Two of the trio were written with his brother John Lansdale, who used to write for Tales from the Crypt. All three are Westerns, all three feature the living dead and all three have the scatological analogies and sardonic humor Lansdale does well… If you decide to read Shadows West, I recommend taking a break between each screenplay. Read something completely different as a palate cleanser. I think this book will suit Lansdale completists and would actually be a helpful gift for that film student in your life. For me, I think I’ll just rent the adaptation of Joe Lansdale’s novella, Bubba Ho-tep. Read the rest.

Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card

… Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card was published in 1985 and was based on a short story that Card wrote in 1977. The novel won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards. The focus is on Ender’s psychological drama as he is raised by indifferent parents (they know he’ll be taken away at an early age), tortured by a cruel brother, separated from his beloved sister, and cast without a friend into a highly competitive and often hostile environment where he’s expected to rise to the top. During all of this, Ender wonders if he will be responsible for saving Earth, or destroying it. There’s a lot resting on Ender’s little shoulders and the tension never lets up. At times Ender becomes whiny and emotionally overwrought, but who can blame him?… Read the rest.

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms garnered a lot of buzz in 2010 and 2011, and rightfully so. N.K. Jemisin’s debut novel takes a fresh look at gods and humans. She creates a suspenseful story along the way… I really liked The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. The ending is emotionally and dramatically right, and plausibly sets in motion the subsequent books. Jemisin’s writing is smooth and goes down easy. The book was a quick read for me and I appreciated how, even with a first-person narrator, Jemisin managed to maintain suspense, since Yeine’s life is believably in danger from the opening paragraph. If you are looking for an engaging and different fantasy, check this one out. Read the rest.

Black Trillium by Marion Zimmer Bradley, Julian May, Andre Norton

At first glance, Black Trillium looks like an interesting project: three leading female authors of speculative fiction — Marion Zimmer Bradley, Julian May and Andre Norton — writing a book together. After having read it, I don’t think the result is a resounding success… The idea behind Black Trillium may have been interesting and the world is certainly unusual, but that is not enough to save this book from being a disaster. If you are attracted to it because the book has three female protagonists (rare these days, even rarer in 1990 when the book was first published) or because of the names of the authors, think again. I never seriously considered putting it down, as the story progressed at a fair pace and the book certainly isn’t a punishment to read, but when you get right down to it the plot itself is substandard. I really can’t recommend Black Trillium to anyone. Read the rest.

Toads and Diamonds by Heather Tomlinson

I have always loved the Charles Perrault fairy tale called simply “The Fairies.” A girl goes to a well to draw water for her family and is approached by an old, threadbare woman who asks for a drink. The girl gladly gives her water. As a reward for her kindness, the woman (actually a fairy, disguised) gives the girl a gift: for every word she speaks, a flower or a jewel shall fall from her lips. The girl returns to her stepmother, who is astonished at the gift and resolves to send her own daughter to the well. That daughter is rude to the fairy, who this time appears as a wealthy old woman (thereby foiling the mother’s instructions to treat a threadbare old woman with kindness). The fairy therefore rewards the daughter with a different gift: for every word she speaks, a toad or a snake will fall from her lips… Heather Tomlinson has written her own, more modern — and foreign — version of this fairy tale in the young adult novel Toads and Diamonds… It’s easily appropriate for children as young as eight years old, but sufficiently sophisticated that a teenager is likely to enjoy it as well. And for those of us who enjoy fairy tales retold, it is good reading no matter our age. Read the rest.

Medicine Road by Charles de Lint

Some fantasists develop gritty, realistic alternate worlds that draw in the reader. Some swoop us away on flights of gorgeous prose. Some create detailed and intricate magical systems to delight the puzzle-lover and game-player in us. And some, like Charles de Lint, create with character, tone and authorial voice an experience that invites us into the story-telling circle, suggesting we pull up a chair next to the fire, grab a schooner of ale, and settle back to hear the story. Medicine Road is one of de Lint’s most inviting adventures. Set in Arizona, the book follows what happens when desert magic meets the magic of the British Isles… This short novel, under two hundred pages, is sweet and enjoyable, filled with characters we like and understand… Read the rest.

Sisterhood of Dune by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson

Sisterhood of Dune is the latest installment by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson in the add-ons to Frank Herbert’s classic DUNE series. To be honest, I gave up on the series after The Battle of Corrin — the third book in the opening LEGENDS OF DUNE group — after it continued a downward spiral from a solid if not inspiring book one (The Butlerian Jihad). I wish I could say Sisterhood of Dune recaptured my interest, but unfortunately I found many of the same problems that caused me to give up the earlier series… If you’ve liked the earlier books, my guess is Sisterhood of Dune is not going to feel much different and so you’ll probably enjoy its plot-driven story despite the flat characterization and style and the somewhat mechanical collection of the necessary pieces to put together the original Dune story. If you’ve tried the earlier ones and didn’t care for them, Sisterhood of Dune isn’t going to be an improvement. And if you’ve never dipped into the DUNE world at all, then grab the original, which is a true must-read classic that more than earns its status. Sometimes we should leave well enough alone. Read the rest.

Shadow City by Diana Pharaoh Francis

At the end of Crimson Wind, Max gave herself up to the demigod Scooter to save Horngate. In Shadow City, the third HORNGATE WITCHES novel, we find out what Scooter needs Max for, and also what happens at Horngate while she’s gone. Diana Pharaoh Francis has split the narrative into two points of view from the beginning: Max’s and that of her maybe-lover, Alexander. This split enables her to show both storylines in alternating chapters. Unfortunately, one of these storylines is much more riveting than the other… The two threads weave together at the end for a big battle royale with high stakes. If our heroes win, Scooter survives; if they lose, they all die or are enslaved. There’s a strong sense of tension going in, but unfortunately, once battle is joined, it’s not nearly as tense or wrenching as the earlier climactic battle at Horngate. What does work really well are the emotional aspects of the story… These interpersonal developments kept me reading even when aspects of the plot had me frustrated… In the end, I didn’t find Shadow City as enjoyable as Crimson Wind. I hope the next book features more of Horngate and of the magical apocalypse. Read the rest.

All Tomorrow’s Parties by William Gibson

… Gibson’s fans know that you don’t read his books for a fast-paced straight-forward plot. Gibson’s brilliance is in creating ideas, settings, technologies, and especially, vivid characters you can’t easily forget. Even minor characters are memorable when he gives them extensive backstories and names like Silencio, Boomzilla, Playboy, and my favorite, Praisegod Satansbane. Gibson’s “post-post-industrial” settings are fascinating. All Tomorrow’s Parties, and its two related BRIDGE trilogy books, Virtual Light and Idoru, take place in a future ruined California which has been divided into Northern (NoCal) and Southern (SoCal) states. Much of All Tomorrow’s Parties is set on and around the decaying San Francisco Bay bridge which is now stacked with ramshackle plywood dwellings and vendor stalls. That’s an unforgettable image. Cool tech is also to be expected in Gibson’s novels, and you’ll definitely find some in All Tomorrow’s Parties… Read the rest.

The Bride Wore Black Leather by Simon R. Green

The Bride Wore Black Leather starts off with John Taylor walking along Nightside’s streets on the way to his office, a place he rarely goes. At first I thought that Simon R Green was taking his time because this is the reportedly the final NIGHTSIDE novel. As the chapter progressed, though, I realized that John Taylor the character was saying farewell, as he leaves behind one aspect of his life and moves into unfamiliar ones, first as Nightside’s new Walker, or agent of the shadowy Authorities who run the place, and secondly as a husband and father. Nightside, where it’s always three a.m., where dimensions, realities and timelines intersect and collide, where for a price you can have your heart’s desire or your worst nightmare and they are often the same thing, will never be the same for John after tonight… The Bride Wore Black Leather has everything I expect from a NIGHTSIDE book. Taylor is the Sam Spade for the twenty-first century, willing to stare down an angel, a demon or a god. Nightside has the meanest of the mean streets, and John Taylor is right at home there. Sunnyside? Not bloody likely. Read the rest.

Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America by Robert Charles Wilson

Robert Charles Wilson’s novel Julian Comstock is set in a vastly changed 22^nd-century USA — after the end of the age of oil and atheism has resulted in disaster. Technology is mostly back to pre-20th century levels, and the population has been vastly reduced due to social upheaval and disease. Society has become fully class-based, divided into a Eupatridian aristocracy, middle-class lease-men, and indentured servants. The country — which now stretches across most of the North American continent — is involved in a lengthy and brutal war with the Dutch over control of the recently opened Northwest Passage.

In this setting we meet the novel’s extraordinary hero, Julian Comstock, the nephew of the dictatorial president Deklan Comstock. Julian is a free-thinker with a deep interest in the apostate Charles Darwin (whose heretical theories are anathema to the Dominion of Jesus Christ, one of the three branches of the government with the president and the senate). Julian is forced to flee his country hide-out with his friend Adam (the amazing narrator of the novel) and Sam Godwin, who is Julian’s mentor since his father died in battle — his father being Bryce Comstock, army commander and brother of the president, who was sent into a hopeless conflict by Deklan, fearing his brother’s growing popularity would endanger his own tyrannical rule. Read more »

Lady Lazarus by Michele Lang

Lady Lazarus by Michele Lang is a historical fantasy set just before the beginning of World War II, in a slightly skewed version of our world. What makes it skewed is that in this alternate history, magic exists and plays a major role in world events. For example, Hitler’s werewolves are literal here… Lady Lazarus has plenty of action but often strikes an elegiac tone rather than that of a thriller. Magda narrates the events of 1939, but is writing them down in the year 1945, and she strongly implies that not all of her loved ones will survive to the end of the series. She mourns a lost world, too, in the form of the cafes of Budapest. Lang paints an elegant setting, embellished with curls of coffee-steam and cigarette smoke, that would be right at home in an old movie; in fact, I realized at several points that I was picturing people and places in black and white. It wasn’t for lack of vivid description — quite the contrary! — but because it fit the mood Lang evokes. This elegant world is dying as the Third Reich advances, and we keenly feel its loss along with Magda… Read the rest.

Sixty-One Nails by Mike Shevdon

You know it’s going to be a bad day when, first thing, someone steps in front of a moving subway train right next to you; and next, when you have a major fight with your ex-wife about your daughter, it’s hard to believe things will get any better. When the third thing that happens is you have a heart attack and die, it can’t really get any worse, can it? But maybe it can get better. Maybe you can come back to life with the aid of a passerby. Things might get confusing in the immediate aftermath — why is the old lady who came to your aid so intent on making sure you don’t get to a hospital? How did she manage to transport you from the back of an ambulance to a grassy plain and back again? And why is she calling you “Rabbit”? It must be hard, after decades of a normal life, to find that you are not entirely human. When you get that information on top of the morning you’ve already had, well, that’s the stuff novels are made of. And it’s quite a beginning to Mike Shevdon’s first novel, Sixty-One Nails… Even when Shevdon finds his historically fascinating plot, though, the pace remains a serious problem. There is a fine novella hiding inside this novel… Read the rest.

Songs of Love and Death by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois (editors)

George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois have collected a nice batch of all-new stories from an all-star cast in Songs of Love and Death. The theme is “star-crossed lovers,” and as you might guess from the title, each tale is a love story, and many are death stories, too. Some are sad, some are sexy, and one or two are slightly sappy. Overall, I enjoyed the collection… Brilliance Audio has a very good production of Songs of Love and Death which is read by a small cast of narrators… There were a few weak stories in Songs of Love and Death, but some excellent ones, too. Don’t miss the stories by M.L.N. Hanover, Robin Hobb, Neil Gaiman, Jacqueline Carey, Tanith Lee, Peter S. Beagle, and Diana Gabaldon. Fans of the DRESDEN FILES should not miss Butcher’s story. Read the rest.

Percepliquis by Michael J. Sullivan

Royce and Hadrian, the former professional thieves collectively known as the Riyria, along with their companions, are on a dangerous quest to recover an ancient horn that has the power to stop the merciless onslaught of the elves. They will discover that their world, Elan, has a deadly secret history and that many key people are not who they are thought to be. Percepliquis is the grand conclusion of the RIYRIA REVELATIONS. What started out as a straightforward fantasy adventure in The Crown Conspiracy has evolved into a full-blown epic in Percepliquis. Mr. Sullivan accomplished this so discreetly that I didn’t even realize how complex the story had become until I cracked open this book. The exciting escapades of two partners in crime have grown to be a world-encompassing high fantasy conflict, complete with many characters who have their own backstories and subplots. That’s not to say the sheer fun of it has been sacrificed… Percepliquis is everything that the end of an epic should be and more. Read the rest.

Indigo Springs by A.M Dellamonica

… The dialogue alone in this book reassures us that we are in the hands of a pro. Two things stand out: the descriptions of the “spirit water” and the depiction of the three main characters. Astrid, Jacks and Sahara are vividly realized and interact like real people, even if we don’t have physical descriptions of them. Their history, strengths and flaws are revealed in a convincing manner. Dellamonica’s use of a “frame” story and narrative flashbacks to create a how-did-we-get-here sense of urgency is not completely successful, at times throwing off the pacing and turning a potentially strong ending into a mere sequel set-up. Overall, though, this is a different approach to fantasy, and a suspenseful, compelling read with characters I care about. I certainly will seek out the second book when it is published in the spring. As a bonus, Indigo Springs has an exquisite and intriguing cover. Read the rest.

The Battle of Corrin by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson

One steps into the LEGENDS OF DUNE series not expecting the achievement of Dune, an unfairly high standard, but a good read with maybe some flashes of Dune‘s complexity of character, plot, and philosophy. The first book of this trilogy, The Butlerian Jihad, failed in the latter two areas but the plot was a good enough read to overcome those flaws. The second book, The Machine Crusade, was a step backward, with the same weak characterization, but this time not balanced by a strongly told story. The Battle of Corrin, unfortunately, continues the downward trend… If this were book one, I’d definitely recommend against starting the LEGENDS OF DUNE trilogy. But chances are, if you’ve reached Battle of Corrin, you’re going to read it no matter what, just to finish the series and see those connections to later DUNE books. So all I can say is don’t expect much, don’t feel bad about skimming, and have a good book set aside to dive into when you’re done; you’re going to want to recapture a good read quickly… Read the rest.

Three Days to Dead by Kelly Meding

… I should have enjoyed Three Days to Dead, but I didn’t. The writing is well done, the audio production (Tantor Audio) I listened to was excellent, and there is plenty of tension and suspense, but the plot is not as exciting as its premise, and there is nothing unique or particularly fascinating about the world building. What I disliked most about Three Days to Dead, though — and this is the clincher — is that I just didn’t like Evy. She’s the typical nobody-ever-loved-me-so-now-I’m-a-snarky-bitch-who-kicks-ass heroine. I don’t like these types of characters, or the sarcastic banter they think is funny, which is why I read very little paranormal urban fantasy with female leads… the reason I picked up Three Days to Dead was that I wanted to read something narrated by Xe Sands. Indeed, her narration was superb and she’s the only reason I stuck with Three Days to Dead until the end… Read the rest.

Oracle’s Fire by Mary Victoria

Note: When this review was written, this book was not yet available in the US.
The third and final book in Mary Victoria’s CHRONICLES OF THE TREE trilogy, Oracle’s Fire is a worthy conclusion to the story started in Tymon’s Flight and Samiha’s Song, wrapping up the multiple storylines and giving closure on all the characters. Although the trilogy is classified as fantasy, it veers more toward science fiction what with its distinct lack of swords and sorcery, and use of religious sects, rudimentary technology and mystical visions to shape Mary Victoria’s imaginary world. However, the trilogy’s most unique feature has always been its setting. Perhaps set some time in the distant future (or even in an alternate dimension) the entire story takes place within the roots and branches of a colossal tree. Much like Yggdrasil, the World Tree of Norse mythology, this tree is not simply mountainous, but universal. The characters’ entire culture and society is built around the significance of that which they live on, and the Tree makes up the crux of the story as various factions fight for its future… Read the rest.

Finch by Jeff VanderMeer

Finch, by Jeff VanderMeer, is an intricate, immersive fantasy novel with grace notes of detective noir and even espionage thriller. VanderMeer’s setting, the city of Ambergris, is one he is very familiar with and he uses specific detail to paint the city, decaying rapidly under the assault of its fungal overlords, vividly for the reader… This is the third book in a series that began with A City of Saints and Madmen, but it stands alone… After I finished Finch, I immediately ordered A City of Saints and Madmen. I may never look at a shitake mushroom the same way again, but I recommend Finch. Read the rest.

At The Edge of the Universe, we review mainstream authors that incorporate elements of speculative fiction into their “literary” work. However you want to label them, we hope you’ll enjoy discussing these books with us.

Alan Lightman is a physicist and a writer who often merges the scientific and the artistic in his work, both fiction and non-fiction. His newest novella, Mr. g: A Novel About the Creation, is perhaps the logical outgrowth of his unique blending of science and transcendence, doing exactly what he says in the title — telling the story of the universe’s creation from beginning to end (and perhaps beginning again).

“As I remember, I had just woken up from a nap when I decided to create the universe. Not much was happening at that time. As a matter of fact, time didn’t exist.” Thus begins both the novella and the universe and you can see at once the playfully modest voice of our omniscient, omnipresent narrator, who from the void creates time and space, then universes, stars, and planets, and then life itself, which bursts out in magnificent and surprising variety. Even more surprising is the appearance of Mr. Belhor, seemingly Mr. g’s equal in thought and ability to travel. It is Mr. Belhor whose conversation convinces Mr. g to let things unfold without his intervention or prediction and as his creation grows, Mr. g learns the act of creation changes even the creator. If Mr. g is God, he is the Deist version: the god who creates then steps back wholly and lets the world unwind according to the rules he set down from the start.

If Mr. g is the primary, unknowable cause, the rest of the creative act flows along the most modern scientific tracks. When Mr. g makes matter, we get “Electrons and muons and taus, top quarks and bottom quarks, squarks gravitons . . . W and Z bosons” and so on. We get a scientific explanation for when and why light began, even as Mr. g tells us tongue-in-cheek, “and I decided that these things were good.” Later, in definite non-King-James-Bible language, these particles formed pockets that “oscillated and vibrated in response to the electrical attractions and repulsions between them . . . unleashing a flood of polarized photons.” That isn’t to say there isn’t poetry here as well, however, for these photons “create a display far more spectacular than the evanescent veils of the void. There were cascades and blooms of light, spiraling helices.” There is also near-perpetual music, art, and beauty, joy and love. And, as Mr. Belhor argues, inevitably there is also grief and sorrow, death and cruelty, suffering and murder. And there is poetry as well in this and in Mr. g’s response to it, along with the reactions of his Aunt Penelope and Uncle Deva.

Mr. g is a slim book, which is as it should be, and it’s hard to imagine carrying the conceit much farther. To be honest, there are a few places where it lags just slightly, mostly in the scientific sections, which at times feel a little too textbook-like and as well a bit prescriptive. In other words, if one is familiar with modern day physics/cosmology, nothing in those sections is surprising and it all comes in familiar order and fashion. On the other hand, the less scientific half of the book is filled with pleasant and playful surprise, such as Mr. g having an aunt and uncle. This isn’t to say the science shouldn’t have been included; it just needed to be integrated more smoothly.

I also would have liked to see more of Mr. Lightman’s imagination play out in the variety of worlds and inhabitants. We do get a few glimpses of strange planets and peoples, such as a planet that cuts off the hands of all its females (with the females’ full cooperation) and another whose inhabitants have wholly separated body and mind. These are thought-provoking excursions and I would have loved to have seen more of them. Though perhaps Mr. Lightman felt it would have smacked too much of his earlier well-deserved classic, Einstein’s Dreams.

Mr. g doesn’t rise to the level of that novella, but it is a subtle, playful, thought-provoking book with moments of quiet beauty, one that respectfully mingles science and faith and offers up the answers science has provided most recently as well as the questions it cannot.

Context by Cory Doctorow

When you consider the entirety of Cory Doctorow‘s creative output, it’s actually a bit surprising that the first title in his bio (on his own site) is “science fiction novelist.” After all, if you add up the amazing amount of blog posts, magazine articles, newspaper columns, speeches and various other non-fiction he produces, I’m pretty sure that they would add up to more words per calendar year than his fiction, and in terms of visibility it’s quite possible that more people have seen his name connected to a blog post or newspaper column than on the cover of a novel.

Adding some balance to Doctorow’s bibliography, Tachyon Publications just released Context, his second collection of essays after 2008′s Content. Fans of the author will know what to expect, and for readers who are only familiar with Doctorow’s novels, this book is a great place to start and get to know one of the 21st century’s most interesting and prolific minds. Read more »

The Dragon DelaSangre by Alan F. Troop

Peter DelaSangre is a dragon. Yes, he looks human; that’s because dragons are shapeshifters. And he appreciates a lot about the human race, including such things as television, music, and women — but he probably appreciates the way they taste most of all. Because for dragons, humans are prey, and nothing else will really do, at least not in the long run. Alan F. Troop’s protagonist in his first novel, The Dragon DelaSangre, is therefore not a likeable character. It’s quite a challenge for a first-time novelist to make the bad guy his first-person narrator. Troop can’t quite pull it off, though it has to be granted that The Dragon DelaSangre is a unique approach to dragons. These are not Anne McCaffrey’s useful dragons, nor the dragons that knights are wont to confront: they are not particularly wise, they have no mercy, and they are by no means a mode of transportation. Certainly, despite Peter’s odd fascination with the race, they are not even close to being human… Read the rest.

The Bitter Seed of Magic by Suzanne McLeod

Up until this point, reading Suzanne McLeod’s SPELLCRACKERS series has often been an exercise in frustration. The novels were often confusing, but were well-written enough that I couldn’t dismiss them and always felt there was huge potential for the series. With book three, The Bitter Seed of Magic, McLeod finally strikes the right balance between clarity and obfuscation. The Bitter Seed of Magic focuses on the curse laid on the lesser fae of London by the sidhe queen Cliona. The curse is introduced earlier in the series, but McLeod recaps it in the prologue, a refresher for which I was grateful. Among other things, it has blighted the lesser fae’s fertility, which causes problems for Genny Taylor as the various fae races see her — specifically, impregnating her — as the key to saving their people. The other main plot thread, though the two are linked, is a series of murders of female lesser fae. Genny investigates these crimes and learns more about the messy history of Cliona’s family tree and how it relates to the curse… Read the rest.

The Machine Crusade by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson

As everyone knows by now, this isn’t Dune. The first LEGENDS OF DUNE prequel, The Butlerian Jihad, wasn’t, nor will The Machine Crusade be. The problem isn’t that The Machine Crusade doesn’t match up well against Dune, it’s that it doesn’t match up well against its predecessor, The Butlerian Jihad, which itself was mostly solid rather than excellent. The Machine Crusade is a bit of a step backward for this series. As in The Butlerian Jihad, characterization continues to be pretty shallow, with several characters once again making transitions of behavior that really haven’t been earned by the story. And some characters are simply skimped on. The prequel problem of predictability due to simply filling in the design you’re aiming at is more on display here than in book one… The Machine Crusade suffers from a common middle book syndrome — it serves its purpose as a bridge to book three and that’s about it. There is little spark here, just a lot of concrete. You’ll have to read it to get to The Battle of Corrin, but don’t feel bad if you decide to skim a bit here and there.

Star of the Morning by Lynn Kurland

….Lynn Kurland is an established romance writer whose books often contain ghost lovers or time travel. Star of the Morning, first of the NINE KINGDOMS series, is a foray into a traditional fantasy setting, and the romance actually takes a back seat to the magical quest. Kurland is a capable writer who is able to give the reader needed information, create amusing and dramatic dialogue, and, mostly, move a story along. Kurland has given some thought to her magical system here and even though it’s not fully developed it is plausible and internally consistent. The book was a pleasant read that fell just short of making me want to read more… I think fans of a milder type of romance novel will thoroughly enjoy this book. There is a good magical story here. The book created an enjoyable few hours for me, but I like a romance that has more spark and is grounded in real conflicts, and I would have liked the quest to be a little harder. This series is not for me, but I will have no problem offering it to my romance-reading friends who want to expand their horizons with a traditional fantasy. Read the rest.

FanLit welcomes guest reviewer Rob Weber of Val’s Random Comments. We hope you enjoy Rob’s reviews as much as we do!

Walking the Tree by Kaaron Warren

Walking the Tree is the second novel by Kaaron Warren. Previously, my only experience with Warren was her short story in Lavie Tidhar’s The Apex Book of World SF, which I thought one of the weaker pieces of the collection. The concept of Walking the Tree appealed to me a lot, though, so I decided to give it a try. It is an interesting book in many ways, but not without a few structural problems. The novel is set on the island of Botanica. The island is huge, but almost all available space is taken up by one gigantic tree. Around the base of the tree, small scattered communities of people known as Orders live on whatever the tree and the ocean provide. To prevent inbreeding and provide an understanding of the wider world for their children, a five-year journey around the tree (did I mention it was a really big tree?) is part of their upbringing. They are accompanied by a select group of healthy, intelligent women who are supposed to find a place in the world that is right for them (and mate as far away from home as possible). The entire group is referred to as a school and the process is known as Walking the Tree… Read the rest.

Among Thieves by Douglas Hulick

Douglas Hulick’s Among Thieves has been highly praised by three of my fellow reviewers and is featured in our Favorite Books of 2011 list, so when I saw that Tantor produced it on audio last month, of course I had to try it. As I expected, it did not disappoint, yet I didn’t love it as much as Greg and Robert did. I have to agree almost completely with what they said about this fun fantasy adventure, though. My lower rating merely reflects my personal taste for this type of tale… I will certainly be picking up his next TALES OF THE KIN, Sworn in Steel. I’ll be listening to it on audio because I was very pleased with Kirby Heyborne’s narration. He did a great job with all the characters, both male and female, common and aristocratic. You can sample and purchase Among Thieves in downloadable audio format from Tantor or Audible. Last I checked, it was less expensive at Tantor unless you’re going to use an Audible credit. Read the rest.

The Butlerian Jihad by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson

As one would expect, Dune prequel The Butlerian Jihad, by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, doesn’t match the original but it’s unfair of course to compare this work (the single book or the entire trilogy) to the original DUNE series, which well deserves its place in science fiction history. One of the ways to somewhat neutralize the natural temptation of readers to compare is to delve so far back into the history of DUNE that you are working from an almost clean slate, which is what Andersen and Herbert do with their newest prequel trilogy, set several millennia previous to Dune‘s world. If it doesn’t hold up to the original, how does it stand as its own novel? The answer is not bad, but not great… Read the rest.

First novels by new authors are like surprise packages that come in the mail: you don’t know what you’ll find inside, not really, even if there was advance hype. Sometimes you find something so unappealing you wonder that anyone could have thought it was for you. Other times you get a teenaged sociopath who’s fighting hard not to become a serial killer despite his deep-seated wish to create dead bodies, and then you know you’ve got Dan Wells’s I Am Not A Serial Killer.

This funny, sad, scary novel stars John Wayne Cleaver, who notes himself that his name seems to be made for a serial killer: John Wayne, the first two names of John Wayne Gacy, who raped and killed at least 33 young men and boys in Chicago during the 1970s, and cleaver, a potential murder weapon. Never mind that he was actually named for a western movie star; this feels like fate to John. Especially since his father is named Sam, making him the Son of Sam. That he lives over a mortuary and has been helping embalm bodies since he was seven is just the icing on the cake.

John has all sorts of rules to keep himself from killing people. He has a best friend he pretty much hates, and he forces himself to pay compliments to people who anger him. There’s a monster he keeps behind a closed door in his mind, and he intends to never let him out. The occasional school paper on Jeffrey Dahmer is just to intrigue teachers and let off a little steam. It helps that he has a good therapist, even if his diagnosis is antisocial personality disorder.

All is going fairly well until an actual, practicing serial killer comes to Clayton County and people start dying in an especially gruesome manner. John finds out who the perpetrator is, and begins looking for ways to stop him, using all his own serial killer skills to do it. It makes things a lot more difficult for John to keep his monster caged, because it requires John to break quite a number of his rules. But his obsessive knowledge of serial killers and their backgrounds and methods gives him the perfect tools to catch a killer no one else would suspect.

This book reminded me a fair bit of the DEXTER novels by Jeff Lindsay in the way they speak of the killing part of a serial killer as a separate entity with which the protagonist shares brain space. But the similarity ends there. John is a troubled teen who truly does show all the signs of a serial killer, including the MacDonald triad, three traits shared by ninety-five percent of serial killers: bed-wetting, pyromania and animal cruelty. Wells writes some excruciatingly familiar scenes to anyone who has ever been a teenager that are even more excruciating because of John’s, um, disability: talking to a girl at a school dance, dealing with the school bully, helping out an elderly neighbor. He has a real flair for his material, both the killing part and the typical teenage part. All of it is written in clear, straightforward, first-person prose. The reader cannot turn the pages fast enough.

Surprisingly, Wells brings the supernatural into his story. I am not sure why he made this decision, and have been trying to decide whether it is a flaw. I’ve been uncertain ever since reading the book whether the notion of the supernatural was a means by which John dealt with the serial killer (i.e., it was easier to think of him as a demon, not human, and therefore someone it was okay to hunt and kill; it was part of John’s psychosis to make him an “other” in his mind) or whether the killer really was a demon (John’s mother witnesses events that seem to confirm the killer’s demonic nature). Most murder mysteries can be forgotten within moments of reading the last paragraph. This one sticks with you.

One note: this book seems to be aimed at a teenage market. I think it’s probably fine for those who are about fifteen and up, but it’s not something I’d give to a precocious 10-year-old who is reading at a young adult level. It’s a little too intensely violent – which is probably why older teens will love it.

If you like this book, there’s more of John Wayne Cleaver in Mr. Monster and I Don’t Want to Kill You. I’m looking forward to getting to these two books after the fun of Dan Wells’s first outing. Perhaps they will explain more about John’s world, in which the supernatural coexists with the natural; or about John’s psychosis, which turns normal people into demons so that John can deal with them. Either way, I’m eager to see what comes next.

Hidden by Kelley Armstrong

Upon receiving a review copy of Kelley Armstrong’s Hidden, I realized that I had only read a few books in her influential WOMEN OF THE OTHERWORLD series — and that the ones I had read weren’t the ones starring werewolf couple Elena and Clay. However, I had no trouble becoming engrossed in Hidden and understanding what was going on. Elena is unusual in Armstrong’s universe; she’s the only known female werewolf. She and Clay are married and raising precocious four-year-old twins, Kate and Logan. The children show signs of potentially becoming werewolves as they mature. Elena and Clay both had troubled childhoods and have never really experienced a traditional family Christmas, and this year they’re determined to create one for the twins. But their idyllic trip to rural Ontario is soon disrupted by a murder mystery… Read the rest.

Zoo City by Lauren Beukes

The main character of Lauren Beukes’s Zoo City is a former freelance journalist named Zinzi December. Zinzi is cool, intelligent and carries some big mental baggage. Despite her flaws, you will love her almost immediately… The South African setting is unique, and I was completely immersed in the world. Beukes paints a hip and gritty view of Johannesburg that is totally captivating. Her writing is sharp with detail, but never overburdened with description… My experience with Zoo City was one to be remembered… Beukes is a gifted writer. Her abilities with description and dialog alone put her in a special category. Zoo City is a clever and unique piece of fiction, and a fantastic addition to the Angry Robot library. I listened to Zoo City on CD from Brilliance Audio. The narration is done by Justine Eyre. Justine does a wonderful job giving life to the characters, and I highly recommend the audio version of this book. Read the rest.

The Castle in the Attic by Elizabeth Winthrop

The Castle in the Attic is a warm story about a boy, an old toy castle, and a much-loved housekeeper. William does not want his babysitter, Mrs. Phillips, to leave him and return to England. William swears he will do anything to keep her with him (absolutely anything). But when she gives him her old miniature stone castle and its lone knight, William fears there will be no way to keep her around. Until the knight comes to life.

The story of William and the Silver Knight is nothing if not heartwarming. William is a very kind boy and loves his housekeeper very much. She has been there his whole life, and he does not want to let her go. In the castle in his attic, he meets the Silver Knight: not a metallic toy but a very real (very tiny) knight. The spell that was cast on him had been broken, and the Silver Knight (Sir Simon) wants to go back to his world and reclaim his kingdom. Read more »

Shade’s Children by Garth Nix

Garth Nix published Shade’s Children in 1997. Shade’s Children is a complete book, not part of a series. It reads like a really well-made B movie. It isn’t terribly deep, it doesn’t take itself too seriously, just provides a decent action adventure. In the near future, a cataclysmic “Change” made everyone over the age of fourteen disappear. The children have been captured and live very short lives in Dorms. On their fourteenth birthdays, the Overlords who now rule earth come and take them away to become part of the Meat Factory; a Parts Department for their fighting creatures — Screamers, Trackers, Wingers, Myrmidons and Ferrets. Every one of these monsters is engineered; part magical, part machine and part human. There is a rumor that some fourteen-year-old girls are forced into a breeding program and may live to be eighteen, but we never see that. The Overlords use their creatures to fight battles in some sort of elaborate sporting event. There is a trophy given to the winning Overlord… Read the rest.

At The Edge of the Universe, we review mainstream authors that incorporate elements of speculative fiction into their “literary” work. However you want to label them, we hope you’ll enjoy discussing these books with us.

I really wanted to like Felix J. Palma’s The Map of Time. It has so many elements that usually appeal to me: nested narratives, multiple plot strands, authors as characters, parallel or alternate histories, internal resonances of image and theme and character, metafictional aspects, a mystery or two. And there were certainly parts of the novel I responded to, but overall, it left me feeling underwhelmed and unengaged.

Most simply and most concretely, it just felt way too long. My version comes in at just about 600 pages and I could have easily been happy had it been missing 200 of them. Because the dragging sense of reading a book that is longer than it needs to be colors the entire reading experience past a certain point, and tends to be cumulative, it’s hard to say just how much more I would have enjoyed the book with that one basic change. I’m guessing a substantial amount; it would have been a much more engaging and enjoyable read, though I believe it still would have left me wanting.

Beyond the length issue, I never really connected to any of the characters on a level beyond their mechanical movements through the plot. Part of this is because of the book’s tripartite structure, which means we spend time with some characters and then leave them behind. But I’ve read similarly structured books without this issue arising and certainly I’ve felt more engaged, though less often, with short story characters with whom I spend much, much less time. Here, very few of the characters struck me as particularly memorable or compelling, the exceptions being Joseph Merrick (the “Elephant Man”), whom we see only very briefly in a scene that was for me by far the most affecting one of the entire novel; and Marie Kelly (Jack the Ripper’s last victim), whom we also see for only a brief all-too-short time, and all too briefly in her own words. The other partial exception was H.G. Wells. I say partial because there were times when the character came alive for me as a fully realized person and especially as a writer — and those moments were almost mesmerizing. But as with the others, they were too few and too far between.

The plot is captivating at the start and through much of it, and, as mentioned, would probably have been so throughout had the book lost about a third of its pages. By the mid-point I was starting to feel things lag and by the latter third I was chafing at the bit to finish, not out of a need to know but simply to get to the end. I did enjoy the book’s structure and movement, but not on this scale.

I appreciated the novel’s musings regarding the power of story and words, the essence of time and memory and imagination, the power and place of deception/delusion (imposed from without or within) in human lives and loves, even if some were a bit familiar, and the many allusions that are scattered throughout the book. The prose, though it rarely wowed me, was consistently smooth and precise and it had its shining moments.

If I could pop into H.G. Wells’ machine and go back and convince Palma’s editor to cut 200 or so pages, I’d love the chance to “reread for a first time” this book, as I think I’d enjoy it so much more. But as it is, it strikes me as a clever book a little too clever for its own sake, invested a bit too much with cleverness and not enough with blood and emotion, and a book whose love of its cleverness led it to a self-indulgent length. There’s a lot to enjoy in its 600 pages, but not enough to justify that length, and that tips The Map of Time into the not recommended category. Which is just too bad.

Ghosts in the Snow by Tamara Siler Jones

The police procedural isn’t just for the mystery genre any more. Frequently, fantasy writers are combining mysteries with magic in order to produce hybrids that provide all the fun of both genres in a single novel. Tamara Siler Jones accomplishes this feat in her first DUBRIC BRYERLY novel, Ghosts in the Snow… It’s fun to read about forensic techniques in a medieval setting, as this book is something like “CSI” set in the Dark Ages… Ghosts in the Snow is the first in a series, and won the Compton Crook Award in 2005. As far as I can tell from Jones’s blog, the series is continuing, even though the most recent book was published in 2006. Jones’s books are not for the faint of heart, as some gruesome crimes are described in necessary (that is, not gratuitous) detail. As a lover of mysteries and thrillers as well as fantasy, I found it enthralling. I’m looking forward to reading the other two books that have been published to date, Threads of Malice and Valley of the Soul. Read the rest.

Faith by John Love

Three hundred years ago, a strange and seemingly invincible alien ship visited the Sakhran Empire. Exactly what happened is unclear, because the events were only recorded in the Book of Srahr, a text only Sakhrans are allowed to read. After the ship left, the Sakhran Empire went into a slow but irreversible decline.

Three centuries later, the Sakhrans have been assimilated into the larger interstellar empire known as the Commonwealth, when suddenly the strange, immensely powerful ship returns. The Commonwealth dispatches an Outsider, one of only nine in its ultimate class of warships, to stop this inscrutable enemy.

John Love’s stunning debut novel Faith is the story of this confrontation. Read more »

Darkness Falls by Cate Tiernan

Darkness Falls is the second in Cate Tiernan’s IMMORTAL BELOVED trilogy. In Immortal Beloved, the first book, we met Nastasya, a burned-out immortal seeking enlightenment and redemption at the pastoral River’s Edge community. Darkness Falls continues her story, and book three will be titled Immortal Light. Darkness Falls has the polar opposite of middle-book syndrome. Nastasya has a fantastic character arc here. She went through a huge amount of growth in Immortal Beloved, but all of that is tested in this book. Nastasya and River’s Edge suffer a spate of ill luck, and she begins to think she is inherently, irredeemably evil and has unwittingly corrupted River’s Edge with her darkness… near the book’s end, Tiernan gives us a tantalizing hint of a shadowy villain on the horizon, one that Nastasya has never even heard of before but who may be affecting the lives of all immortals. I can’t wait to see what happens in Immortal Light. Read the rest.

The Simulacra by Philip K. Dick

Philip K. Dick is one of those authors who I often enjoy reading for his peculiar ideas, cool technologies, bizarre plots, and neurotic characters… The Simulacra juggles a huge set of characters and several subplots which at first seem unrelated but which Dick successfully brings together into a coherent whole by the end of the novel, which is not necessarily a guarantee with PKD. The whole thing is chaotic, zany, creative, funny, and contains Dick’s usual undercurrent of frenzied paranoia. With so much weird stuff going on, I thought that a plot disaster was imminent, but Dick pulls it off. The Simulacra ends at the climax, though, and a sequel would probably have been well-received. I listened to Brilliance Audio’s version of The Simulacra, which was read by “Golden Voice” and “Voice of the Century” Dick Hill. Mr. Hill, who is always superb, handled all of those characters and that madcap plot with ease. And you should hear him play a jug. Read the rest.

Debris by Jo Anderton

Tanyana is a talented and celebrated architect. She’s one of the elite, someone who can control “pions,” allowing her to manipulate matter with a thought. She’s high up in the air, working on a towering statue, shaping the raw matter around her into art, when suddenly she finds herself under attack by strange, uncontrollable pions. When she regains consciousness after a horrible fall, it becomes clear that she has suffered more than just physical injuries: she’s lost the ability to see pions and can now only see “debris,” a sludgy byproduct of pion manipulation.

In an instant, Tanyana’s charmed life comes to a grinding halt. While unconscious and recovering from her injuries, a tribunal has already found her guilty of negligence. Against her will, she is fitted with a strange powersuit and assigned to a team of debris collectors. Before long, the once-proud architect finds herself reduced to poverty, trudging through the poorest parts of the city with her team to gather the filthy debris in a constant race to make quota. Gradually, she learns more about the true nature of her suit, the history of pions and debris, and the true cause of her fall. Read more »

Broken Angels by Richard K. Morgan

… Where Altered Carbon was a neo-noir mystery, Broken Angels is military science fiction. Still, Broken Angels has the same dark, edgy feel as that first TAKESHI KOVACS novel. The technologies that Mr. Morgan first explains in Altered Carbon continue to be a key element of this series. Technological and scientific advances that should improve quality of life only grant those in authority more power over the masses. Science has defeated death, but immortality has made human life into little more than an abundant commodity. That life is cheap is a heavy theme throughout the story. Landscapes littered with dusty colossal industrial hulks, oppressive corporations, ultra-deadly military weaponry, globe-encompassing war, and weird alien relics are all elements that serve to create a grim far-future for mankind… The biggest hurdle Broken Angels may have is that it’s just so dark that many readers may find it depressing. However, this reader didn’t have any of those problems… Read the rest.

Let the Right One In, by John Ajvide Lindqvist, is a bleak and chilly horror novel that evokes classic Stephen King works like Salem’s Lot. Lindqvist is a Swedish writer and the book is set in a planned community in northern Sweden, called Blackeberg, in 1981. The novel follows several different point of view characters as the events that will change the community forever begin to unfold.

From the beginning, Lindqvist wants the reader to understand Blackeberg.

“It was not a place that developed organically, of course. Here everything was carefully planned from the outset. And people moved into what had been built for them. Earth-colored concrete buildings scattered about the green fields.”

Part of the atmosphere of the novel, and its bleakness, stem from the ideal vision of Blackeberg, created in the 1950s, and the dreary reality of it in 1981, with high unemployment, a nanny-state government, and understandable paranoia about the Soviet Union. The book introduces a group of drunks who congregate at a Chinese restaurant; a young hoodlum-in-training whose mother is engaged to a policeman; a boy with a fractured home life and a strange, haunted man, Hakan, who is the guardian and jailer of the young girl named Eli.

The heart of the story, though, is the boy, Oskar, and his blossoming friendship with Eli. Oskar lives in one of the housing complexes in Blackeberg with his mother. His father, who is an alcoholic, lives far away. Oskar has become the target of the school bullies. His mother is overprotective in the ways that don’t matter — always telling him to wear his hat — but she has no idea what her son is really confronting. Oskar keeps a scrapbook of serial killers, shoplifts to feel some sense of power, and indulges in more and more violent fantasies. Then a boy is killed in the forest not far from Blackeberg, and serial killers become a reality for him.

Oskar meets Eli, the strange little girl from next door. She can brave the cold with only a thin, short-sleeved sweater; she is incredibly athletic; her way of speaking is strange, as if she doesn’t know modern slang or current events. She is home-schooled by Hakan, a man she identifies as her father. He is not her father. He is the man who killed the boy in the forest, and is planning to kill more people and drain them of blood — blood Eli needs in order to survive.

Eli was twelve years old when she was transformed into the thing she is, and she must always depend on someone to travel with her, protect her while she sleeps during the day and bring her blood. It is a precarious existence. As horrifying as Eli’s nature is the window into her relationship with Hakan, who harbors fantasies of sex with young children and believes that he loves Eli.

When Hakan is unable to bring her blood, Eli hunts on her own, killing one of a group of barflies. Hakan disposes of the body, but the other alcoholics suspect something is wrong and begin to investigate.

Oskar is more focused on his own problems. The hazing and bullying he endures is growing worse. Lindqvist writes about bullying as well as King did in several of his books. At the beginning of Let the Right One In, Oskar humiliates himself in front of his tormentors, squealing and grunting like a pig, to avoid a beating. There is no rational reason for the attacks on Oskar. He has just been chosen, and his former friends have drifted away from him. Eli, though, tells him to fight back, and Oskar begins to get stronger.

One of this novel’s strengths is the depiction of the various facets of Eli’s nature. She is a child. She tells Oskar that she even though she has been alive for more than two hundred years, she always feels twelve. She is not maturing. Her friendship with Oskar seems genuine, but we have also watched her bargain with and manipulate Hakan. We also see her hunt. To nourish her, the blood she consumes has to come from a live human body, not animal blood, not blood from a dead person. If Eli does not break the neck or otherwise destroy the body, the person whose blood she drank will become what she is. Eli can fly and has retractable claws that allow her to scale buildings. She is a monster, but we have empathy for her.

The most tragic story arc in the book is that of Lacke, one of the drinkers, and Virginia. Virginia is a truly innocent victim, and the lost opportunity between these two damaged souls is heart-breaking. Eli is interrupted when she feeds off Virginia, and over the period of a day Virginia transforms. This allows Lindqvist to show the reader the mechanics of his vampire. Virginia’s resolution, once she understands the truth, is terrifying and heroic.

Young practicing criminal Tommy and his sparring match with his mother’s fiancé, the pious control-freak policeman Staffan, add another level to the book.

“Tommy’s mom grabbed him by the elbow and whispered, ‘Why do you say things like that?’

‘I was just wondering.’

‘He’s a good person, Tommy.’

‘Yes, he must be. I mean, with prizes for pistol shooting and the Virgin Mary. Could it get any better?’”

The heart of the book, though, is the sweet friendship between Eli and Oskar. Even when he knows what she is, Oskar stands by her. And when he confronts the bullies and the attacks on him escalate, Eli is the only one he can count on.

This is a horror novel, and there is no way it can end well. In spite of that I was rooting for Oskar and Eli to survive, even though their futures, if they did, would be grim and hellish. The real horror here, beautifully captured, is the sense that Oskar and Eli live lives of complete isolation. Oskar’s life is the difference between the ideal and the reality of Blackeberg.

Ebba Segerberg translated the edition I read, but I never felt like I was reading a translation. The English prose is assured and vigorous. This is an unusual version of a vampire story. Let the Right One In is as dark as a winter solstice night in a Norrland forest.

The Clockwork Rocket by Greg Egan

The Clockwork Rocket, which is the first volume in Greg Egan‘s brand new hard science fiction trilogy ORTHOGONAL, is a book with three different but equally important focal points. On the one hand, it’s the story of a young woman who also happens to be a very alien alien. On the other, it’s a novel about a planet — a very alien planet — on the cusp of tremendous social change. And, maybe most of all, it’s a book about a universe with, well, alien laws of physics. Greg Egan successfully weaves these three threads into one fascinating story, but be warned: if you don’t like your SF on the hard side, The Clockwork Rocket may be a tough ride for you. Hard as it may be, it’s worth sticking with it, though. Read more »

The Mischief Monster by Bruce Coville

…In The Mischief Monster, Edward, Moongobble, and their friends try to return a mischievous monster princess named Snelly to her home in Monster Mountain. As usual, there’s a surprise twist at the end. The plot of The Mischief Monster is cute and funny and my girls loved the story. Though I’ve been recommending Full Cast Audio’s versions so far, I can’t do so for this installment. The voice used for Snelly, the titular character of The Mischief Monster, is piercingly high-pitched. This is supposed to be cute and she’s supposed to sound like a brat, but it’s so effective that it soon got on my nerves. Even my daughters were annoyed by Snelly’s voice. If you’ve enjoyed the previous MOONGOBBLE AND ME books, you’ll be happy with The Mischief Monster. I just suggest reading this one in print. My 2.5 star rating reflects my disappointment with the audio version, but my daughter Tali said she’d give it 3.5 stars. Read the rest.

At The Edge of the Universe, we review mainstream authors that incorporate elements of speculative fiction into their “literary” work. However you want to label them, we hope you’ll enjoy discussing these books with us.

The Glister by John Burnside

Reading The Glister by John Burnside was like opening a perfectly crafted wooden box and finding inside a set of components, nested into cognac-colored velvet. Some components were made of finely worked gold and brass; some were polished wood; some were ethereal blown glass; some were made of jewels and bone. Usually, components like these fit together to form a whole: a telescope, a kaleidoscope or a theodolite. Try as I would, though, I could not get the components of The Glister to merge into one coherent whole. Each piece looked beautiful in its velvet nest, but they did not combine to create a larger form.

The Glister is a literary thriller, or perhaps literary horror novel, about an isolated Scottish town that has been poisoned on many levels by the toxic chemical plant that it grew up around. There is a paranormal aspect to the story, and, at ground level, so to speak, a mystery about teenaged boys that go missing, usually one every two years.

Burnside is a master stylist. It is completely intentional that the title makes you think simultaneously of “glisten” and “blister.” Open the book almost anywhere, at random, and you will fall headfirst into rich, vivid prose, whether it is the description of the poison wood, of the morally compromised constable’s garden of atonement, or of the kitchen in the house where Leonard, a bitter fifteen-year-old boy, lives. Burnside’s concept of the “chemical plant” that has blighted the land is exquisitely rendered. The voices of Leonard and the constable, Morrison, are pitch-perfect.

Burnside has a strange and wonderful idea here, and when he is merely exploring it — describing the ruins of the chemical plant, cataloguing the many physical, psychological, and spiritual symptoms that the townspeople face, and even inventing the strangely mutated (or perhaps alien?) animals that inhabit the poison wood — the book is compelling. It is the plot elements that trip him up. He sets up a fine horror mystery with the death of a teenaged boy in the opening pages, and tells us that every two years or so another boy, a boy about Leonard’s age, goes missing. Missing is not the same as dead, and one overarching mystery about the book is why people do not leave this poisoned town and its poisoned land. There is a hint that they can’t. Are the boys, then, finding a way out? Or is it more sinister than that?

Perhaps there is a mortal agent taking the boys. Perhaps there is a supernatural element at work. Perhaps it’s both. Instead of sprinkling the breadcrumbs for the reader to follow, Burnside prefers to explore the tainted lives of other people in the village of Innertown (the wealthy homes on the hill, presumably above the poison, are called Outertown. Great economy.). The book crackles with energy when Leonard reminisces about his loved/hated mother, who left them when his father got sick, or when he gets entangled with one of the local gangs of kids, or when he visits the old plant by himself. It is bland when we are forced to spend time in the head of Morrison’s mentally ill wife, for example.

Burnside drifts from one plot element to another; the disappearances, the deterioration of Leonard’s dad, the gang; and then brings everything back to the plant and wraps it up with a series of explanations and a dramatic, if ambiguous, ending. Plainly he had some idea where he was headed the whole time, but he does not connect his ending to the previous events in the novel. Plot points are dropped or just fade away. There is an act of violence against the town loner. Where are the consequences of that act? How does it tie into Leonard’s final realization and his visit to the heart of the plant? How does what happens to Morrison provide balance for what we’ve known about him from the first pages? And what does it mean for Alice, his wife? Where did Elspeth go? Was she killed? Did she hitchhike out of town? The connections in the book are dream-connections, the connections of image and theme, very much in the literary tradition, and they make, ultimately, for disappointing storytelling.

John Burnside is an award-winning poet, and that side of him shows here. He seems to approach a novel the way a master cabinetmaker might decide to build a house. Cabinetmakers work with wood better than anyone; they understand seams and joins. They don’t always understand load-bearing walls, the importance of a foundation, or cutting a roof.

I got to my three-and-half-star rating by a strange route. I gave The Glister four and a half stars for language, and two and a half for plot. Then I averaged. I am drawn by the dark, frightening and seductive concept of the “the Glister.” This idea might have played out better as a series of connected short stories.

Child of Fire by Harry Connolly

… Harry Connolly’s Child of Fire is the first in a series of urban fantasies known collectively as the TWENTY PALACES series. There are three novels published to date, plus a prequel available only as an ebook, with no further books planned, unfortunately; according to Connolly’s blog, they just didn’t sell as well as hoped, despite considerable support by the publisher. I liked Child of Fire so much that I immediately got hold of all the other novels in the series — and I’m hoping that the ebook of the prequel sells well enough to make it worth Connolly’s time to keep going. These are urban fantasies of a different flavor, with a male protagonist (as opposed to the usual leather-clad young female) who has been around the block a few times. Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett seem to be Connolly’s influences, rather than Charles de Lint and Laurell Hamilton, which is all to the good… Child of Fire moves fast and never lets up. Anyone who likes a heavy dose of mystery mixed in with his or her fantasy is likely to find this novel engrossing and enjoyable. Read the rest.

Theft of Swords by Michael J. Sullivan

The first thing you should know about Theft of Swords is that it’s not a fine dining experience. This book is not the literary equivalent of going to a fancy restaurant and getting one of those huge plates that are mostly empty except for a tiny stalk of asparagus artfully drizzled with a delicate sauce. Instead, it’s more like sitting down hungry and getting a big, tasty burger you can just grab and sink your teeth into. (Vegetarians, please substitute for the vegetarian equivalent of a big, tasty burger. I’ve been trying to think of one, and I can’t. A veggie burger just doesn’t feel the same.) In other words, this book is straightforward. It’s huge. It’s low on subtlety but high on enjoyment. It is (and I fully realize this is not proper Literary Theory terminology) juicy… Read the rest.

Little, Big: or, The Fairies’ Parliament by John Crowley

… there’s not much action or excitement in Little, Big… It’s a slowly meandering family history, somewhat like a soap opera. It’s full of “little” intimate details and doesn’t open up so that we can see the “big” picture until the very end… What kept me reading this long meandering often depressing story was the magnificence of John Crowley’s prose, which was beautifully read by the author himself in Blackstone Audio’s recent production. Truly, I know few authors who compare and I often found myself sighing with delight at a metaphor or turn of phrase… Little, Big was nominated for all the major awards in 1982 and won the World Fantasy Award. Indeed, it’s a remarkable achievement and is one of the most beautifully written books I’ve ever read. Little, Big will not appeal to all readers, but fans of Catherynne M. Valente, Neil Gaiman, and Patricia McKillip will be totally charmed by John Crowley’s writing style and should put Little, Big on the top of their TBR stacks right now. Read the rest.

Empire State by Adam Christopher

Angry Robot is one of those publishers you just have to keep an eye on, because they come out with some unique, surprising fiction. Their books tend to defy genre conventions and often are impossible to classify. To mess with our heads even more, they then stick weird little filing instructions on them, such as “File Under: Fantasy [ Aztec Mystery | Locked Room | Human Sacrifice | The Dead Walk! ]” for Aliette de Bodard’s Servant of the Underworld, or “[The Mob & Magic | Ancient Secrets | Zombie Wizardry | Bet Your Life]” for Matt Forbeck’s Vegas Knights.

So when Angry Robot announced Adam Christopher’s Empire State and mentioned a Prohibition-era parallel universe in the book description, deftly combining two topics I dearly love, I couldn’t wait to get my copy. (And if you’re wondering, this one says: “File Under: Science Fiction [ Pocket Universe | Heroes or Villains | Speak Easy | Loyalties Divided ]”.) Unfortunately, Empire State didn’t entirely live up to my expectations, but there’s still a lot to love about this intriguing debut novel. Read more »

Leaves of Flame by Benjamin Tate

Leaves of Flame is the follow-up to Well of Sorrows by Benjamin Tate (pen name of Joshua Palmatier) and while it isn’t quite as good as its predecessor, since Well of Sorrows was one of my favorite reads last year, that’s a pretty high bar to meet. The sequel has more issues in terms of pacing and organization, but still remains a good novel and its latter third or so is especially strong. And it certainly avoids the dreaded “bridge book” syndrome…  Leaves of Flame does what any good second book should: ends with me wanting more and as soon as possible. Read the rest.

The Postmortal by Drew Magary

It’s 2019, and the cure for aging is here. By sheer accident, scientists have identified the gene that causes aging. After receiving “the cure,” people can still get the flu, or cancer, or get murdered or die in car accidents, but the actual, biological aging process is halted so their bodies can theoretically keep going forever. The Postmortal is the story of John Farrell, a young estate lawyer who receives the cure early on and witnesses its effects on society firsthand.

The Postmortal is one of those old-fashioned science fiction novels that takes current — or at least very near-future — society as a starting point, adds one big scientific breakthrough, and then extrapolates its effects. Read more »

The Ballad of Ballard and Sandrine by Peter Straub

Ballard, a wealthy businessman, and Sandrine, his much younger lover, are cruising down the Amazon River in a mysterious yacht. The crew is never seen, blank-eyed natives watch the boat from the river’s shores, and there seems to be a dangerous predator in the river. The dimensions of the yacht don’t make sense, the delicious food is unidentifiable, and it’s not clear how long Ballard and Sandrine have been on the boat.

Presumably, they’re taking a vacation somewhere out of the reach of Ballard’s clients and Sandrine’s husband, but as the story goes on, it seems that they’re also moving through time as they travel down the mighty river. We see the couple at various ages during the trip, always appearing a little uncomfortable with their feelings of disorientation and déjà vu.

Add to this eerie situation the unusual and revolting sexual fetish that brought Ballard and Sandrine together, and you’ve got quite an unsettling little horror story.

The Ballad of Ballard and Sandrine is only 96 pages long, making this a novella that can easily be read in an evening. Straub succeeds in alarming the reader right from the start — why is Sandrine lying naked on a cold trenched metal workbench? The flutter in my stomach never went away and it only intensified as further disconcerting and indecipherable discoveries were made.

There is some beauty in The Ballad of Ballard and Sandrine — they’re floating through the lush Amazon, after all — but these glimpses are too brief to alleviate the disturbing feelings of imminent doom. I love the idea of a time-travel yacht trip down the exotic Amazon River, and I would have even enjoyed the terror if it hadn’t been for the aforementioned sexual fetish. It’s intricately linked to the story and the plot relies upon it, but it was too much for my delicate senses. Less sensitive readers are more likely to enjoy The Ballad of Ballard and Sandrine.

Guenevere: Queen of the Summer Country by Rosalind Miles

The literary world is crammed full of books surrounding Arthurian lore — so many, in fact, that it could very well be a genre of its own. The problem, however, is that because the main events, characters and storylines are already set out in the mythology, authors cannot tamper with them… at least not too much. This poses the challenge of presenting the familiar story in an original way, and the latest trend seems to be taking a character and telling the story through their point of view. In Guenevere: Queen of the Summer Country, Rosalind Miles has done this with the titular character… I couldn’t help but feel that Miles had read Marion Zimmer Bradley‘s more popular novel The Mists of Avalon and decided to take Bradley’s version of a pious, simpering Guenevere and make her a “strong woman.” The result is not a success… Read the rest.

The Fountains of Paradise by Arthur C. Clarke

The latest scheme dreamed up by Dr. Vannevar Morgan, a materials engineer, is either pure genius or pure crackpot: He wants to build an elevator to space. He’s discovered a new material that he thinks is strong enough to withstand the gravitational and climatic forces that would act on such a structure and he’s found the only place on Earth where it’s possible to achieve his dream: the top of the mountain Sri Kanda on the equatorial island of Taprobane (pronounced “top-ROB-oh-knee”). Unfortunately, this mountain is the sacred home of a sect of Buddhist monks who are not willing to budge unless one of their prophecies is fulfilled. Read more »

At The Edge of the Universe, we review mainstream authors that incorporate elements of speculative fiction into their “literary” work. However you want to label them, we hope you’ll enjoy discussing these books with us.

IQ84 by Haruki Murakami

In Tokyo, in 1984, a young woman in a taxi on her way to an important appointment is stuck in gridlock on an elevated highway. After getting some cryptic advice from her cab driver, she walks across several lanes of stopped traffic and makes a perilous climb down a safety access stairway to the surface streets, where she can catch a train to her destination. When she reaches those streets, she is in a different world.

Or is she?

Haruki Murakami’s 900-page IQ84 is the story of a woman, Aomame, a man, Tengo, and nine months in their lives. It is an epic literary fantasy about alternate realities. It is, with its emphasis on fiction and creating fiction, meta-fiction. And, maddeningly, it is extremely difficult to write about without spoilers.

While Aomame tries to make sense of the changes in the world around her, Tengo Kawana, who teaches math at a “cram school” and writes novels on his own time, gets roped into a scheme by a clever and unscrupulous editor, Komatsu. Tengo, who agreed to judge a literary contest, has discovered a short novel called Air Chrysalis, written by a seventeen-year-old girl. Air Chrysalis is a brilliant, imaginative and original fantasy. The writing, however, is awful. Komatsu has Tengo rewrite the novel, working closely with Fuka-Eri, the author, whose real name is Eriso Fukayama. Tengo soon discovers that Fuka-Eri is a very strange young woman, and then some disturbing facts emerge. First of all, Fuka-Eri is the daughter of the founder of Sakigaki, a spiritual community in the mountains that seems very much like a cult. Secondly, Fuka-Eri says that her story, about a girl who is put into solitary confinement for an infraction of the rules, encounters the Little People and helps them weave an air chrysalis, all really happened. It happened in a world where there are two moons.

Cults — or at least non-standard belief systems — make up a large part of IQ84. Aomame was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness, but repudiated the religion when she was ten years old. The long reach of Sakigaki, with its wholesome organic vegetable business and its sinister treatment of the prepubescent girls called “shrine maidens,” touches every aspect of the book.

Another big theme in the book is physical violence against women. Aomame, a physical fitness trainer and athlete, has a close relationship with a wealthy widow who runs a safe house for battered women. The widow’s daughter was in a violent relationship and died mysteriously. Aomame’s best friend, who was also in an abusive marriage, committed suicide. Later, another friend of Aomame, Ayumi, is found dead in a “love motel,” the victim of bondage sex gone wrong. Another woman with an historical connection to a main character died much the same way. [SPOILER: Highlight text if you want to read it] In fact, the death of Ayumi almost seemed like a plot glitch. Happening where it does in the book, it seems to relate to Sakagaki, but no connection is ever made. [end SPOILER].

Woven through everything, however, is the reality shift and the question of what caused it. Shortly after we discover that there are two moons in Air Chrysalis, Aomame sees two moons in the sky. Later, Tengo sees two moons. Still later, the sinister investigator, Ushikawa, does too.

The Little People can’t be real. They must be figments of a disturbed young woman’s imagination, mustn’t they? When another girl, younger than Fuka-Eri, escapes from Sakagaki, she also mentions the Little People. Surely this is some kind of a screen memory for trauma, isn’t it? Just when I thought I knew where the story was going, Murakami changed direction with the effortless grace of a gold-medal ice skater, and upset my expectations.

A wonderful as IQ84 (published as two separate books in Japan) is, at 900+ pages, it is longer than it needs to be. Repetition is explained by the fact that the duology was published over time, and Murakami needed to remind people about what had gone before. Some of the day-to-day details could have been limited, though, and some sections, while wonderful, just go on too long. The duology is long but at the end, at least one good-sized story question is not completely answered for me.

I will also be interested to see whether other readers think there is a breast fixation in this story. Aomame, who is in peak physical condition, thinks every single day that her breasts are too small. She’s thirty. I think she’d be over this by now. She and Ayumi compare their breasts, and when Ayumi worries that hers are too big, Aomame reassures her that they are “perfectly ordinary.” (Ouch!) Murakami is at pains to tell us at least four times that the seventeen year old Fuka-Eri’s breasts are large and well-shaped. Tengo obsesses about an early memory, perhaps his first memory, of his mother’s breasts. SPOILER STARTS: This memory ushers in a mystery that is never explained. SPOILER ENDS. This constant focus may have a purpose, especially since the “air chrysalis” is compared to a womb more than once, and two invented words, maza and dohta, sound a little bit like the English words for “mother” and “daughter.” On the other hand, this could be a complete linguistic coincidence.

I can get over the breast thing, though, because there is so much else here, so many levels, so many humorous and serious insights about life, art, thought, memory and fiction. After Tengo begins to search for Aomame, he tries to locate the local branch of the Society of Witnesses, because he remembers that she used to be one. He is unsuccessful.

“At the end of this struggle, Tengo concluded that they probably didn’t want anyone contacting them. This was, upon reflection, rather odd. They showed up all the time. They’d ring the bell or knock on the door, unconcerned that you might be otherwise occupied, be it baking a soufflé, soldering a connection, washing your hair, training a mouse to do tricks, or thinking about quadratic functions — and, with a big smile, invite you to study the Bible with them. They had no problem coming to see you, but you were not free to go see them (unless you were a believer, probably). This was rather inconvenient.

Later in the book, Aomame reflects on the nature of her dreams: “All that remained were small, random images. She slept deeply, and the dreams she did have came from a very deep place. Like fish that live at the bottom on the ocean, most of her dreams weren’t able to float to the surface. Even if they did, the difference in water pressure would force a change in their appearance.”

Murakami muses on the character of the goblin-like private investigator Ushikawa: “Sentiment and a sense of justice were Ushikawa’s two weak areas.”

For much of the book, though, Tengo and Aomame use popular movies, short fiction and novels to describe their predicament. Realizing that Air Chrysalis describes the world she is currently in, one she has nicknamed IQ84, Aomame thinks, “‘In other words, I am in the story that Tengo has set in motion. In a sense, I am inside him — inside his body,’ she realized. ‘I am inside that shrine, so to speak.’” She immediately makes a connection to the old science fiction movie Fantastic Voyage.

After a discussion with Komatsu about “reality,” Tengo reflects, “But a narrative takes its own direction, and continues on, almost automatically. And whether he liked it or not, Tengo was a part of that world. To him this was no longer a fictional world. This was the real world, where red blood spurted when you slice your skin with a knife. And in the sky in this world there were two moons side by side.”

Aspiring writers, or anyone who loves to see how a writer uses language, should pay special attention to Chapter 7 of Book 2, to see how Murakami uses Raymond Chandler-like prose and timing to create an ever-tightening noose of suspense. In Chapter 9 of Book Three, a night of karaoke with three nurses turns eerie when Tengo accompanies one of them home, and it is worth reading twice also, just to see how he does it.

A book about writing is dependent on its words, maybe even more than other stories, and the English translation by Jay Rubin and Philip Gabriel is beautifully done with only a few odd moments, like the difference in the use of the word “taciturn” between Book One and Book Three.

With its focus on various levels, with interiors and exteriors (safe houses, wombs, chrysalises, and ladders) IQ84 reminds me the most of Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, although the resolution is completely different. Murakami’s short novel After Dark also brushes up against some of the same themes that are explored in detail here. The detours Murakami takes us on — the “town of cats,” the genuinely frightening subplot about a cable fee collector, the development of the character of Ushikawa — are fascinating.

I found the book rich and very dense, and it’s the first book in a while that took me several weeks to read. I had to walk away from it every so often. It’s a book that will stay with me, even with its flaws. At the end, whatever is left unexplained — and much is — Tengo and Aomame have reached a believable resolution. Is the cab driver from Chapter 1 right or wrong in his advice to Aomame? That’s a question you’ll come back to, after you’ve read IQ84. And you’ll want to check the night sky, just in case, and count the moons.

Left Hand Magic by Nancy A. Collins

In Left Hand Magic, Nancy A. Collins delivers a satisfying follow-up to last year’s Right Hand Magic. Tate Eresby, a trust-fund baby turned avant-garde sculptor, is still living in the rich setting of Golgotham with her Kymeran lover, Hexe. But new troubles are brewing in Golgotham. A magazine spread has made Golgotham a hip hot spot for human tourists, and racial tensions are growing between these tourists and Golgotham’s magical natives… Left Hand Magic is a fun read. I read it in one day and greatly enjoyed it. And with the greater amount of agency given to Tate here, it’s superior to the first installment. Readers who like their urban fantasy worlds intricately built and fleshed out in rich detail will enjoy the GOLGOTHAM series. Read the rest.

Breadcrumbs by Anne Ursu

Breadcrumbs, by Anne Ursu, is a lovely yet sharply and at times painfully realistic coming-of-age tale, made all the more enjoyable for its many winks and nods to well-known works of children’s fantasy such as THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA, THE WIZARD OF OZ, and most prevalently the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen. It’s a fairy tale in the true old-fashioned sense rather than the more recent Disney versions — one full of wonder but also an equal amount, if not more, of danger and sorrow, and it ends not with “and they lived happily ever after” but “and they lived…”…Breadcrumbs is a book for young readers, and I think it will appeal to a broad range of that age group, from the younger set of 9 or 10 to the upper teens. But it will as well appeal to those who have never forgotten the highs and lows of that in-between age and those of us who grew up on those great works of children’s fantasy will find lots of places were we’ll nod and smile as if at an old friend caught in passing. Read the rest.

The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss

… The Name of the Wind was what I consider a perfect epic fantasy, combining the timeless quality of a fairy tale with the believability of a legend gone to myth. Patrick Rothfuss’ writing is dramatic without being overly so, his prose is beautiful, and his language feels archaic while still remaining easily understood. There is no denying he’s a natural-born storyteller. That said… Considering how long it took for this book to be finished, I expected better… The story’s progress has slowed to a snail-like pace. If a third of this book was removed, it would’ve been better for it. Countless pages are spent on mundane and repetitious threads, while more exciting events are summarized in just a few sentences. When I finally got to the end, I was relieved that I hadn’t spent any more time with this tale… To give credit where it’s due, there are some moments of exceptionally gifted writing in The Wise Man’s Fear. Nonetheless, when I look back at my reading experience, what I recall most is boredom. Read the rest.

All About Emily by Connie Willis

… Connie Willis’s new novelette All About Emily (only 96 pages) blends Broadway and science fiction — something I don’t think I’ve ever seen done before — and it works. It was fun to explore Manhattan’s Theater District and to learn about the history of the Rockettes and Radio City Music Hall while thinking about robotics, identity, ambition, and what it means to be human. The plot of All About Emily moves quickly, never lags, and kept me thoroughly entertained for the couple of hours that it took me to read the book. Willis’s characters, who manage to become surprisingly well-developed in such a small space, are delightful — I was completely engrossed in their story. All About Emily is the first of Connie Willis’s novelettes that I’ve read, though I own several more of them. I hope to get to them soon, and I’m going to rent All About Eve this weekend. Read the rest.

Seed by Rob Ziegler

About a century from now, when Rob Ziegler’s excellent debut novel Seed starts, climate change has caused a new Dust Bowl in the Corn Belt, resulting in major famine across the United States. Most of the surviving population leads a nomadic existence, migrating across the ravaged landscape in search of habitable, arable land. Decades of war, resource depletion and population decline have left the government practically powerless. Gangs and warlords rule the land.

The only thing staving off full-blown starvation is Satori, a hive-like living city that produces genetically engineered drought-tolerant seed. Its population is a mix of transhuman Designers, Advocate warriors and “landrace” Laborers. When one of Satori’s Designers leaves the fold and goes rogue, the desperate U.S. government sends the ex-military Secret Service Agent Sienna Doss to track her down. Read more »

City of Light & Shadow by Ian Whates

Ian Whates’ City of Light & Shadow is the third novel in the CITY OF A HUNDRED ROWS series. The series title refers to Thaiburley, a city of rows built on top of each other. The lowest rows are plagued by gang violence while the well-intentioned leaders at the Heights do their best to keep order. The previous novel, City of Hope & Despair, relied on its supporting cast of assassins and gang leaders to drive the plot forward. Here, the plot has become considerably more epic… The shift from the local to the grandiose is not uncommon — or even unexpected — in the third installment of a series. However, I have found Whates’ focus on the smaller details to be the best part of this series… Regardless, Whates has a knack for world building, and although I found the plot of City of Light & Shadow a disappointment compared to the previous two novels, it packs a lot of punch for action fans and it does offer a heck of an ending. Read the rest.

Bedeviled by Sable Grace

… Ascension was a fun light read and Bedeviled continues in that vein, with plenty of action and sex, and the book delivers major movement on both the fantasy and romance plot threads. This time, though, I found that some issues nagged at me. I’m not sure if they’re more prevalent in Bedeviled than in Ascension, or if I simply glossed over them in book one because I was drawn in by other aspects of the novel. Here, there are several problems that affected my enjoyment of the story. First, the writing doesn’t flow as smoothly this time… The second problem is Kyana’s abrasiveness… Finally, Bedeviled just feels like it needs more fleshing out… Again, the Sable Grace duo provides plenty of plot movement, and so far I plan to keep reading the series because I’m interested in where this post-apocalyptic-Greek-gods scenario is headed. However, the series will need some fine-tuning if it is to continue to hold my interest. Read the rest.

The Demi-Monde: Winter by Rod Rees

… The Demi-Monde: Winter has an entertaining premise and I’ve been looking forward to reading it since I heard about it more than a year ago. Unfortunately, I could not finish it. One problem is that the writing is not engaging; it is merely utilitarian and, though it often attempts to be witty, it usually doesn’t succeed. The second problem is that there is a lot of information about the world dumped on the reader at the beginning, so the plot takes a long time to wind up. The biggest problem, though, the one I couldn’t get past, was the outrageous beliefs of the Demi-Mondians and the way these are presented. All of their ideas (mostly radical racism and sexism) are ideas we’ve heard before, which makes sense because the people who tend to rise to the top in the Demi-Monde are the Earth’s former tyrants, but their beliefs are conveyed in such a ham-fisted manner that, lacking any subtlety, they become cartoonish… Read the rest.

The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow by Cory Doctorow

When we meet Jimmy Yensid, the hero of Cory Doctorow‘s novella The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow, he is aboard his giant mecha and hunting down a wumpus in the abandoned city of Detroit, until he comes under attack from a rival group of mechas. The resulting action scene is spectacular — and really made me want to dig out my ancient Mechwarrior games — but as you’d expect from Doctorow, there’s much more going on than meets the eye.

Jimmy is a transhuman boy, genetically engineered to be as close to immortal as you can get. The wumpuses are ravenous mechanical monsters who consume any non-organic matter they find and recycle it into arable soil. Meanwhile, Jimmy’s father is actually trying to preserve Detroit, the last standing city in the United States, as a historical artifact. Read more »