Book Review: The End of All Things by John Scalzi
Posted on August 21, 2015 15 Comments
A review copy was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
The End of All Things by John Scalzi
Genre: Science Fiction
Series: Book 6 of Old Man’s War
Publisher: Tor (8/11/15)
Author Information: Website | Twitter
Mogsy’s Rating: 4 of 5 stars
I won’t lie, Old Man’s War is probably one of my favorite books of all time. I’ve always been more of a Fantasy reader, and around the time that book came out, my Science Fiction reading was pretty much limited to Star Wars novels and the occasional Star Trek title thrown in. However, Scalzi’s sense of humor along with the rollicking space action and adventure in these books really helped me along, showing me that there’s a lot more to the genre than just hard science and media tie-ins. I’ve followed the Old Man’s War series ever since, and all the books have brought me no small amount of entertainment.
So it was with great excitement when I heard that a sixth novel will be coming out in 2015, a direct sequel to The Human Division. And like The Human Division, the plan was for The End of All Things to again be serialized, except the proportions will be changed. Instead of getting sixteen episodes, this time we’ll only get four, but each part will also be longer, so they’ll be more like novelettes.
If The Human Division taught me anything, is that I don’t mind the serialized format. There’s a certain kind of pleasure to be had, watching a bunch of self-contained little parts come together to form one complete, coherent whole. And if anything, the smaller number of episodes as well as their greater length improved the overall flow of the story in The End of All Things. It was a good book, and a worthy addition to the series. The only real downside is that this would make a poor jumping-on point for new readers. So if you’re fresh to the Old Man’s War universe, you probably wouldn’t want to start here; there’s a lot of history you’ll be missing, and not least because this book deals with a lot of the consequences of events from the last few installments. I recommend starting from the beginning, because you’ll definitely want to know all the details – and because it’s amazing.
Below you’ll get my thoughts on each episode as well as a more detailed analysis.
THE LIFE OF THE MIND
This is the story of how our main protagonist and narrator Rafe Daquin became a brain in a box.
Yep. The Life of the Mind embodies everything I love about the Old Man’s War series. Missing ships. Kidnapped pilots. A mysterious organization conspiring and gathering strength in the shadows. Daquin finds himself entangled in this mess, but even when he is captured by aliens and forced to do their bidding, his first instinct is to fight back and find a way out of his predicament. The fact that he doesn’t have a body anymore and is just a mass of brain tissue hooked up to a ship computer is just a setback. Just another problem to be solved.
The protagonist’s personality and attitude made this one a winner. In the face of overwhelming odds, his optimism was infectious, even if it was sometimes driven by the desire to stick it to the alien Rraey. You know within the first few pages that he makes it out okay, but the conclusion to this section was still oh so satisfying. A really great intro episode to this novel that sets the tone and starts thing off with a bang.
THIS HOLLOW UNION
We switch focus in this one, following Hafte Sorvalh, the Chief Advisor to the head of the Conclave, General Tarsem Gau. She’s probably the second most powerful being in the universe, but as she reminds us, being second isn’t always all that it’s cracked up to be.
I admit to feeling slightly disappointed when I realized this would be a more political story. But after some major twists, I changed my mind. This might not be my favorite episode, but it’s undoubtedly the most important; something huge happens that will throw the entire Conclave into disarray and the ripples will be felt across the galaxy.
CAN LONG ENDURE
Can Long Endure was probably my least favorite episode, but it also showed a very different point of view. In this story, the focus shifts yet again, this time on a group of Colonial Defense Force soldiers who are now busy scrambling from planet to planet, stomping out the sparks of rebellion before they can catch fire and spread. But the will of a huge administrative entity like the Colonial Union is one thing. What about the lives of its soldiers with their boots on the ground, carrying out orders from on high?
This episode lacked the scope of the previous two, perhaps, but it was also the most “human”. It’s a very intimate look into the mind of a CDF officer Heather Lee, just another grunt doing her duty for the good of the CU. But she’s her own person too, and the costs of her government’s decisions are beginning to open her eyes to some ugly truths. And it’s time for Heather to make her own choices.
TO STAND OR FALL
This final episode brings the story to a conclusion. There’s a marked difference in tone from the beginning of the novel, in stark contrast to Rafe Daquin’s snarky attitude and spirited narration. Instead, a certain gravitas surrounds the story, which is fitting I suppose.
In this story, we see the return of several familiar faces here, including a couple beloved personalities. We are also presented the resolution to the problem posed by the shadowy organization calling itself Equilibrium. Given all the build-up, this finale should have been epic and glorious. Unfortunately, we didn’t quite get that. That’s not to say it wasn’t a good ending, because it was. I just couldn’t help feeling it should have been more.
This final episode was not what I expected, but it did its job nonetheless. To Stand or Fall was a punchy and cleverly executed conclusion to The End of All Things, as well as a pretty solid offering as the latest piece of the story to the Old Man’s War saga thus far.
More on The BiblioSanctum:
Review of The Human Division (Book 5)
Book Review and GIVEAWAY: Forbidden by Cathy Clamp
Posted on August 20, 2015 7 Comments
*** Be sure to check out the end of this review for details on our US giveaway of FORBIDDEN by Cathy Clamp ***
A review copy was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Series: Book 1 of Luna Lake
Publisher: Tor (8/18/15)
Author Information: Website | Twitter
Mogsy’s Rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
As someone who was totally new to Cathy Clamp’s work, I was very excited about the opportunity to read Forbidden, book one in a new series set in the Sazi universe. A “reboot” of sorts, the novel takes place ten years after the events at the end of The Tales of the Sazi, featuring a new story and new characters – a fresh start, essentially, and a perfect jumping-on point for a newcomer like me.
Indeed, there’s not much you need to know before starting this series, and any required knowledge is helpfully provided by the author. For example, I found it interesting that the two protagonists of Forbidden actually first appeared in the original series as relatively minor characters. According to Clamp’s afterword, the heroine Clarissa Evans (who goes by Claire Sanchez here) was in Moon’s Fury as one of the young victims of a child abductor. All grown up now and an agent of the Wolven, Claire is being sent to investigate a string of missing children cases in the remote town of Luna Lake.
For obvious reasons, the mission hits a bit close to home, and Claire finds herself struggling to deal with unpleasant memories on top of trying to figure out the complex hierarchy of her new pack. The community at Luna Lake is unlike anything she’s had to deal with before, on account of it being a former refugee camp for displaced Sazi and lost orphans. Shapeshifters of all sorts live together here, including owls, falcons, bears, cougars, and of course wolves like Claire herself. On her first day, she meets another wolf named Alek, a Sazi orphan who grew up in Luna Lake after being adopted into a family of owls. Sparks fly between them immediately – both the good and bad sort – but whatever attraction or differences they have between them, solving the mystery must come first…before it’s too late for the missing kids.
Right away, I was captivated by the magic of this world. There are all sorts of Sazi, like those who can turn into wolves, big cats, birds of prey, snakes, etc. There were also the little things that charmed me, like the fact they can talk in their animals forms, or use food smells (most often desserts, I find. Or maybe I just notice them more because of my sweet tooth) to identify the emotional states of other Sazi.
I was also amazed by the social dynamics of Luna Lake. You don’t have to be familiar with the Sazi series to understand that it’s a very special community. The bird shifters aren’t big fans of the cats, the cats don’t much like the wolves, and the wolves can’t stand the smell of the birds, but at Luna Lake all the groups manage to live in relative harmony because that’s the only way to ensure survival. For Alek and other Sazi like him who were adopted by the Williams, the town is literally one big family. Even though he is a wolf, Alek is a big brother to owls, eagles, bobcats, other wolves and more, and there’s this sense of solidarity and togetherness about Luna Lake that gave me all the warm and fuzzy feels. Yet, there’s also a cost to that peace. Over the years the pack has developed a way to identify their “omegas”, and these low ranked individuals are treated poorly and forced to do all the dirty jobs in town. It made me feel really unsettled and angry towards Luna Lake’s leaders and those townsfolk who turn a blind eye to this blatantly unfair and broken system.
Be aware too that while Forbidden is described as an Urban Fantasy mystery, in some ways it actually reads more like a paranormal romance. Claire and Alek’s relationship is often the focus of the story, and the mystery elements of the plot are in truth not that substantial. To really get into the story, you would need to buy into the chemistry between Claire and Alek, and that was perhaps my problem; I didn’t feel like I got a chance to know either of them very well before they were thrust together, and right on the heels of them falling in lust came the obligatory plot contrivances to introduce conflict between them. I also found Alek too self-absorbed for my tastes and Claire too much of a “special snowflake”, which all made it harder for me to care about their developing relationship. That said, I’m not a big reader of PNR so there may be a lot genre norms and nuances that I’m not accustomed to, so feel free to take my opinion on the romance with a grain of salt!
The world of the Sazi does have the benefit of being fully fleshed out and realized though, from all the groundwork that has been established by the original series. Just this little taste of it has gotten me hooked, and I find myself wanting more. Certainly if you have a love for stories about shapeshifters, you need to check this one out for the many different kinds of creatures alone. Recommended for urban fantasy/paranormal romance readers and fans of strange and beautiful magic.
***
FORBIDDEN GIVEAWAY
Interested in the book? Now here’s your chance to win it. The publisher has very generously offered The BiblioSanctum an opportunity to host a giveaway for one print copy of Forbidden. With apologies to international readers, this giveaway is US only. To enter, all you have to do is send an email to bibliosanctum@gmail.com with your Name and valid Mailing Address using the subject line “FORBIDDEN” by 11:59pm Eastern time on Sunday, August 30, 2015.
Only one entry per household, please. Entrants must be 18 or older. The winner will be randomly selected when the giveaway ends and then be notified by email. All information will only be used for the purposes of contacting the winner and sending them their prize. Once the giveaway ends all entry emails will be deleted.
So what are you waiting for? Enter to win! Good luck!
Tough Traveling: Major Discoveries
Posted on August 20, 2015 6 Comments
The Thursday feature “Tough Traveling” is the brainchild of Nathan of Review Barn, who has come up with the excellent idea of making a new list each week based on the most common tropes in fantasy, as seen in (and inspired by) The Tough Guide to Fantasyland by Diana Wynn Jones. Nathan has invited anyone who is interested to come play along, so be sure to check out the first link for more information.
This week’s tour topic is: Major Discoveries
While often the people of Fantasyland seem stuck in a time warp occasionally a major discovery can shock the land into changes. Be they new lands, new peoples or new technologies fantasyland thrives on having something to jump start the next age.
Wendy’s Picks
Kushiel’s Dart by Jacqueline Carey
Her parents cast her away. People viewed the mote in her eye as an imperfection and her penchant for a pain an aberration. But Anafiel no Delauney recognized Phedre for what she truly was: god-touched. And so it was that Phedre, the only known anguisette, was set upon her destiny.
Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence
Death, fire, and the truth about the history of the Broken Kingdoms. Jorg Ancrath discovers it all on his journey from prince to emperor in Mark Lawrence’s series.
Dragon Age: The Last Flight by Liane Merciel
By the time players get to Thedas, they learn that, sadly, the griffons have long since died out. Here we learn why. But we also learn that maybe they aren’t as extinct as we thought. Told you so, Wynne.
Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater
Blue and the Raven Boys have been searching for the secrets of Cabeswater for three books now, but when they finally find it, it’s not exactly what they expected it…
Comic Stack 08/19/15 – King #1 by Joshua Hale Fialkov (writer), Bernard Chang (Illustrator)
Posted on August 19, 2015 6 Comments
Genre: Dystopia, Science Fiction
Publisher: Jet City Comics (August 19, 2015)
Author Information: Website
Tiara’s Rating: 3 of 5 stars
Full Disclosure: A review copy of this book was provided to me via Netgalley. I would like to thank the publisher for providing me this opportunity. All opinions expressed from here forward are my own.
King is the last human on earth. At least, we think he is during the course of this book. Humanity had been living on an apocalyptic earth for the last 300 or so years they’d existed until all humans eventually died with the exception of King. Now, King survives in a terrifying landscape along side various mutated creatures that now roam the earth. These creatures are both intelligent and barbaric, seeming almost human in their day to day endeavors, even if daily life is tinged with weirdness. Despite being the only human left, King has a job working for a reclamation agency which has him scouring the land in search of something called the “Seed of Life,” which will purportedly make life better for everyone on earth.
I try to take it easy on first issues that I read because it’s hard to say where a story might (or might not go) in the future. This is one of those books that could turn out amazing or it could fall off the cliff and tumble over into the deep end. I want to get this out of the way first. The art was amazing. I can’t say that I’ve ever read anything that Bernard Chang illustrated, but this book was an excellent mash-up of the beautiful and the ugly. It’s very vivid with most of the colors, but these colors are used to paint this decaying, exotic earth that King belongs to.
This was an interesting start to King’s story, if nothing else, and the ending of this issue piqued my interest with the introduction of a new character. This may be a little too weird for some people depending on tastes. We learn a little about what happened to humanity and meet the various oddities that King faces in his day to day life. Some part of this story is written with so much finesse and some parts of this story feel like Fialkov is trying a bit too hard, especially with some of the slang, which felt too much like “cool kid” talk. (However, I tried to be forgiving because King’s world is upside down.)
I did expect a little more diversity in character behavior being as there are no humans aside from King, and we’re treated to anecdotes about how intelligent these creatures are but they’re still very, very violent. Most of these creatures just felt human and a little on the trope-y side, such as the hybrid duck creature in a motorcycle gang who confronts King and makes derogatory remarks about him only being one species. However, this series has potential. I can see it in the book. I’m interested enough to keep cautiously going with this series, and honestly, it’s still better than 90% of the mainstream comics I’ve been reading lately. Fingers crossed that this turns into something special.
Despite what I’ve been told, there are no cheetah ladies trying to mate with King in this particular issue, but there are tentacles and that makes it all worthwhile. Tentacles always factor into my final rating.
Waiting on Wednesday 08/19/15
Posted on August 19, 2015 14 Comments
“Waiting On Wednesday” is a weekly meme hosted by Breaking the Spine that lets us feature upcoming releases that we can’t wait to get our hands on!
Mogsy’s Pick:
Dreaming Death by J. Kathleen Cheney: February 2, 2016 (Roc)
At the moment I’m working my way through the books of J. Kathleen Cheney’s Golden City series, so I am no stranger to her incredible talent for storytelling and crafting imaginative worlds by combining culture and history with magical and mythological elements. Her upcoming novel Dreaming Death is the beginning of a new series called Palace of Dreams, and it sounds just as tantalizing and beautiful.
“In the Novels of the Golden City, J. Kathleen Cheney created a “mesmerizing” (Publishers Weekly) realm where magic, history, and intrigue combine. Now, she presents a new world ruled by psychic talents and fatal magic…
Shironne Anjir’s status as a sensitive is both a gift and a curse. Her augmented senses allow her to discover and feel things others can’t, but her talents come with a price: a constant assault of emotions and sensations has left her blind. Determined to use her abilities as best she can, Shironne works tirelessly as an investigator for the Larossan army.
A member of the royal family’s guard, Mikael Lee also possesses an overwhelming power—he dreams of the deaths of others, sometimes in vivid, shocking detail, and sometimes in cryptic fragments and half-remembered images.
But then a killer brings a reign of terror to the city, snuffing out his victims with an arcane and deadly blood magic. Only Shironne can sense and interpret Mikael’s dim, dark dreams of the murders. And what they find together will lead them into a nightmare…”
Audiobook Review: The Alchemist and the Executioness by Paolo Bacigalupi, Tobias S. Buckell
Posted on August 18, 2015 2 Comments
Genre: Fantasy, Novella
Publisher: Audible Studios (July 7, 2010)
Narrators: Jonathan Davis (The Alchemist), Katherine Kellgren (The Executioness)
Length: 5 hrs and 36 mins
The Alchemist and the Executioness is actually two novellas told in a shared universe. This started as an audiobook, but now you can buy both stories in digital print format separately. In this world, magic is banned. Every time someone casts a spell, poisonous, thorny bramble vines appear in random places. These brambles continue to grow and sprout as magic is used, strangling and destroying whole nations. Despite this threat, brambles continue to appear. Magic continues to be used, and the punishment for using magic is death. However, for some, the threat of death is worth the use of magic. These stories explore both sides of the tale and both share a common theme of the things we’d do for the ones we love.
The foreword starts with Tobias S. Buckell stating that while he’d been editing one of his stories he listened to a discussion by Maureen McHugh about women’s roles in genre fiction, mentioning all the young, nubile heroines we get when strength comes from women of all ages. Specifically she asked: “Where are the middle-aged heroines?” This along with an art exhibit he visited where one of the pieces featured an executioner inspired him to look into a genre he doesn’t normally write in (fantasy) and craft a story that tries to give us a heroine who fits this bill. (Check out our past Tough Traveling that explores this theme with many women listed.)
I’ve recently crossed some excellent heroines in fiction who aren’t younger than their mid-20s such as Lois McMaster Bujold’s Dowager Queen, Ista, from her Chalion series and M.C.A. Hogarth’s adventurous space captain, Reese Eddings, who is only 32 (not middle-aged, but still rare to see). And it would be a great disservice for me not to mention Commander Shepard from the gaming series Mass Effect for those of us who play(ed) Shepard as a woman. Shepard begins the series at 29-years-old and end the series in her 30s still kicking all kinds of ass. If I talked about movie/television heroines, I could go on and on. So, this story was certainly high on my interest scale.
While the title of “Executioness” grabbed my attention because how many female executioners–not assassins or rogues, but actual women who publicly execute people at the behest of their government–do you see in a fantasy setting of any age to act as their executioner, to set aside their feelings and punish those deemed guilty by their rulers, to be the feared face of their rulers’ wrath to the public? Finding out the heroine of this story is a middle-aged woman trying to feed her children, a woman who took up her father’s position, made it even more compelling.
Paolo Baciaglupi’s foreword talks about how once they decided to take this adventure on together, which was a new frontier for them as they’re both science fiction writers, they started focusing on “fantasy to what purpose.” What kind of world would require they have an executioner? What sort of ruler beheads its criminals and for what offenses? And I guess for most readers that’s a fairly simple question because we know that those in power like their executions for just about any offense. However, I suppose the medium (short-story) meant they had to think a little harder about that. They have to give these questions more weight because they’re not writing sprawling stories that allow them time to play around with these ideas.
The Alchemist follows a father, an alchemist, who wants to eliminate the bramble through scientific means while keeping his daughter, who is suffering from a wasting cough, alive. The Alchemist is both idealistic and cynical in his pursuits. He thinks that his experiments for destroying the bramble will make him a hero to his family and the country. However, he underestimates the greed of the government that runs their city, which shows him that their interests are going to align with whatever course keeps them in power.
The epic fantasy short story format has always been a curious thing to me because in my mind it seems like it would be much harder to write short stories in a typical epic fantasy universe because you don’t get to have the level of storytelling and world-building those types of stories require. I can’t say that I’ve read too many short stories in that setting that didn’t already have a series it was attached to, such as having various books with short stories set in Westeros as companions to GRRM’s A Song of Ice and Fire series, short stories where the readers are already familiar with the world and are only meeting new faces or getting another side of a story.
Both narrators did an exceptional job with their respective stories. Jonathan Davis is one of my favorite narrators, so I knew I’d be pleased with his narration. He never fails to deliver for me, and this story is no exception. I’d first listened to Katherine Kellgren while listening to The Queen of the Tearling, and while I didn’t think she was a horrible narrator, her narration of that book came off a little strange. I’d commented in my review that I thought she’d probably be a fine narrator if she wasn’t doing that weird half-screaming thing she did while reading Tearling, and I was right.
Both of these stories would’ve best benefitted from a longer story. It would’ve been interesting to explore this world more, to find out if the alchemist eventually crossed paths with the executioness, what would become of the magic, etc. There were a few little inconsistencies that popped up between the two stories, but I figured most of this could’ve been explained away if these had been longer stories. I won’t dwell on them here.
The Alchemist worked better in this short format than The Executioness. Despite wanting to see more of the story, it felt more complete than The Executioness and achieved its narrative better. With The Executioness, you’re not getting exactly what you think you are… at first. You think you’re going into a story where a woman is an established executioner, where maybe her sex is commented upon but she’s carved out her role. That’s not really the case in the beginning. It wasn’t a bad story. I still enjoyed it more than I enjoyed The Alchemist, especially later parts of the story, but part of me wonders what kind of amazing story this would’ve been if there had been more meat. It captured the spirit of what can fuel the pain and need for vengeance in a person well. In any event, I applaud the effort of both writers to write outside their comfort zone.
Book Review: Zer0es by Chuck Wendig
Posted on August 17, 2015 18 Comments
A review copy was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
Genre: Science Fiction
Series: Book 1 of Zer0es
Publisher: Harper Voyager (8/18/15)
Author Information: Website | Twitter
Mogsy’s Rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
Readers are taken on a wild ride through the dark side of the internet in what might be Chuck Wendig’s most ambitious novel to date. Exploring the world of hackers, cybercrime and artificial intelligence, Zer0es is a sci-fi thriller featuring the largest cast he’s ever written, as well as a scope that spans the entire nation. As a fan of the author, I knew I had to check this one out as soon as I learned about it, and by the by, I also found reading it to be an enlightening experience given how different it is from his past work I’ve enjoyed. It was easy to spot areas where Wendig played to his strengths and conversely those areas where he may have been out of his comfort zone. Any way you look at it though, this was an interesting one.
Zer0es basically makes for fabulous popcorn entertainment, like a summer Hollywood blockbuster in book form. In fact, as strange as it sounds, all I could think about was the movie Now You See Me as I was making my way through the first handful of chapters – not that the film bears any similarity to the book’s story at all, other than the fact both feature a group of extremely talented individuals (in NYSM, street magicians; in Zer0es, hackers…though to a computer programming and coding noob like me, hacking might as well be magic) who are brought together by a mysterious benefactor. No, what struck me was the similar tone of both movie and novel, exuding a vibe meant to provide both fun and entertainment to the consumer experience. You know those kind of stories.
Still, what I really want to talk about in this review are the characters. This group of five hackers calling themselves “the Zeroes” – Chance, Reagan, Aleena, DeAndre and Wade – held the key to my experience of this book, and were often at the center of what I loved and what I didn’t love about it. In a general sense, the type of Hollywood blockbuster energy that came off the story wasn’t so very different from what I got off of the characters either – to a one, they were intelligent, charismatic and witty, delivering line after line of cleverly constructed dialogue like they were all reading off a written script. Wendig is a master of dialogue writing after all, and he has a very distinct and droll sense of humor that’s unmistakable when you see it; it is this talent of his that made me fall in love with his protagonists Miriam Black or Mookie Pearl in their respective urban fantasy series.
In a book like Zer0es though, I think the biggest challenge was to make each of the five hacker main characters stand out, and the results came out mixed. Wendig crafts very compelling characters, and I can’t deny that all of them are memorable and unique in their own way. At the same time though, Zer0es is probably also the most “mainstream” book I feel the author has ever written, complete with an improbable yet wildly enjoyable premise that’s heavy on the edge-of-your-seat action and suspense. In keeping with this, the characters also have a very “Hollywood-movie-like” feel to them, despite efforts to give them convincing backgrounds and personalities. In many ways, they remain as archetypal as the hacker roles they are pigeonholed into – the bombastic no-filter-between-her-brain-and-her mouth Reagan is of course the professional online troll, for example, and the libertarian hippie gun-loving conspiracy theorist Wade is naturally the aging cipherpunk who still prefers to do things the “old-school way”.
Still, while the characters may be thinly-written, they were still a lot of fun to read about. The five of them have mass audience appeal, perhaps precisely because they play to reader expectations. Of course, the downside of clichés is that it also makes it harder to care about the characters. I readily admit to having trouble engaging with any of them at the start, which was absolutely not helped by the fact all of them came off as arrogant, snarky snobs who were too smart for their own good (but like I was saying, when you’re playing to the hacker stereotype, all that is most likely by design). Of all of them, Reagan was especially off-putting (again, by design) and I never grew to like her, though by the end of the book I did develop a soft spot for Wade, partly because he showed the most leadership but also mainly because he’s someone very different from a lot of Chuck Wendig’s other characters. This is the first time I’ve seen him juggle this many characters in a novel, and even though the balance wasn’t perfect, there was an undeniable thrill to reading all the different POVs.
Then there was the story. For a novel of this length, I blew through it relatively quickly. Like Wendig’s other books, the prose was smooth, easy to read, and the narrative was extremely addictive. As someone who knows completely zip about hackers and hacking, I was thoroughly captivated by the premise, though someone with greater knowledge in networks and cyber-security might find it overly simplistic. Regardless of who you are though, some suspension of disbelief is most definitely required especially once we move into the second half of the novel and the plot starts getting involved in some really insane and out-there theories. But hey, isn’t that what I signed up for? Hollywood blockbuster, remember.
All in all, while Zer0es probably isn’t my favorite book by Chuck Wendig (that distinction still belongs to The Cormorant, third book of his Miriam Black series) I still feel that it’s a bold move in the right direction. It’s always exciting to see one of my favorite authors do something different, and this was an unexpected delight indeed. Well played, Mr. Wendig. I hope to see more of the Zeroes in the future.
Graphic Novel Review Bites
Posted on August 16, 2015 10 Comments
Pathfinder Volume 3: City of Secrets
With thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Pathfinder is an RPG some of my friends play but I have yet to try it out. In fact, I’ve only just dipped my toes into tabletop gaming, starting with DnD so that I can check this off my geek cred check list. But I have read Pathfinder comics before and loved the characters, which is why I jumped at the chance to read more about them here. Our intrepid heroes are, in many ways, the typical fantasy characters, but the comic does its best to break some of the races and classes out of the tropes they have been pinned to. This book once again pays particular attention to Merisiel, the elf rogue with the questionable past. Her loyalties always seem to be in question–though it’s usually Merisiel herself asking those questions. Meanwhile, Kyra has found herself in a city that hunts down clerics like her and murders them as heretics. She has no fear of them, but perhaps she should. And finally, the other notable plot line follows Ezren, the sorcerer who has only just come into adventuring in the later years of his life.
This was a fun read, even if it only gave a cursory eye to the plot lines mentioned above. It apparently is connected to another issue of the comic book series which delves more into the adventures of and relationship between Merisiel and Kyra and likely gives the (slightly predictable) twist ending in this book more of an impact.
I am quite fond of the art and colours in this book. It’s very focused on bright and lively primary colours, with sharp, well defined lines that really help the characters as well as their vibrant personalities stand out.
Low, Vol. 1: The Delirium of Hope
With thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of this graphic novel in exchange for an honest review.
Remender opens the story by informing the reader of his struggles with negativity and that, with the help of therapy, he eventually learns to be more hopeful. Low is very much the result of this new outlook, and, during the first few pages, Stel positively gushes hope inspite of the reality of the situation. This takes places far into the post-apocalyptic future where a few remaining humans inhabit the depths of the ocean. There is little hope that the surface will be inhabitable again, and even less hope that they will live much longer since breathable air is running low. But Stel is all about the sun coming out tomorrow. Initially, this gets a bit tedious, though thankfully the light, humourous banter between Stel and her husband offsets the over abundance of ridiculous positivity. Thankfully and realistically, Stel’s outlook falters somewhat when a training session with her family results in the death of her husband and kidnapping of her daughters. The story then leaps a bit into the future with Stel hoping that her estranged son will help her get the girls back.
The premise is interesting. We don’t often get to see post-apocalyptic from beneath the ocean. That alone piques my curiosity, and, once Stel’s sunny disposition settles into something more palatably rationale (she’s not crazy… just annoying), I found myself wanting to know more about this world and the fate of mankind. If only to understand just who the bad guys are supposed to be in this scenario and find out why anyone would be resisting the concept of, you know, air.
Tocchini’s art work is very dramatic. There is a lot of monochromatic colouring over top of the gritty, sketchy lines that seem to be popular these days. It’s beautiful, especially on the cover, but sometimes, it gets a little too messy and muddles an already vague story.
When you’re a villain, what could be better than having an powerful sidekick ready and eager to do your dastardly bidding? Wellllll… if said sidekick is far more powerful than she seems to be and has an unstable personality to go with that power, plans may go awry.
Ballister Blackheart’s dreams of becoming a hero were shattered the day he bested his best friend at the academy and an subsequent “accident” cost him his arm as well as his status. Now, Sir Goldenloin, once friend, is Blackheart’s greatest foe, but, as we see in the panels of their first confrontation, there’s more to their relationship than it seems. In fact, friendship, loyalty, and trust are the major themes weaving their way through this funny but poignant story. Stevenson crafts a dark but quirky and amusing tale of betrayal and corporate shenigans, forcing the questioning of good versus evil and what it really means to be a hero. This is a story that can be appreciated by all ages. I enjoyed it very much and am looking forward to sharing it with my daughters.
Nothing is worse for a parent than losing a child–except losing a child without the closure of knowing where that child is lost. This is what happens when Aaron’s son Mikey vanishes into the woods. Through altering perspectives, we learn that Mikey has slipped into another world a la Narnia, but the rest of the Rhodes family remains in ignorance and, over time, Mikey’s disappearance tears the family apart, especially when no one will believe that Aaron is innocent.
Meanwhile, Mikey’s new world is anything but Narnia, with great, viscious beasts ready to eat him for a snack and a group of freedom fighters who have pegged him as the prophecied saviour of their world.
When Mikey finally does return home, he is all Conan the Barbarian, but only a short time has passed for the family. Despite the improbability that this strange man is who he says he is, Aaron chooses to believe absolutely and joins Mikey on the quest to now save earth from the bad guy from the other realm. The catch? Turns out Mikey failed in his world saving on the other side and is now a minion of the dark lord. The latter sometimes plays a bit hokey, but Aaron’s desperate faith in Mikey and his quest is heart breaking. The twist that Mikey is under the thrall of the bad guy is an interesting one, even if the delivery is a bit corny. It’s enough to make me want to see how the writer manages to pull off this little upheaval of the typical hero story.
This review was originally posted at Women Write About Comics. I am resharing an excerpt here because I love this book so much and highly recommend it.
If I catch you reading Fifty Shades of Grey, I am going to politely remove it from your grasp and hand you a copy of Sunstone instead. And if you’re into great characters and wonderful, sweet, funny romance stories that explore sexuality, then I am also going to hand you a copy of Sunstone.
To be clear, this is a story that heavily features BDSM, but I want you to set aside any preconceived notions you have about that and read it anyway. First of all, it is an incredibly beautiful, informative, and healthy exploration of sexuality that forces us to acknowledge that sex is a completely normal part of our lives which we need to stop being so damn taboo about. Now, while BDSM might be a kink for some people, that does not make it any less important as a part of sexual exploration. But the key to BDSM is something that, unlike Fifty Shades, Sunstone makes very clear: BDSM is about consent and it is about trust.
Lisa and Ally meet online and begin a friendship based on their shared kink and their respective roles as sub and domme. Their first in-person meeting has all the awkward moments that anyone on a first date can imagine, and as their relationship blossoms beyond the boudoir, it’s hard not to fall for the characters as well. Yes, this book features BDSM and erotica, but just as importantly, it is about very human characters that many of us can relate to in many ways. They explore their roles as sub and domme, but, mainly through Lisa, the story also deals with friendship, relationships, and that butterfly feeling you get in your stomach (and elsewhere) when you fall in love. Read more at WWAC
YA Weekend: Alien Child by Pamela Sargent
Posted on August 15, 2015 Leave a Comment
Genre: Science Fiction, Young Adult
Series: Standalone
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media (May 19th, 2015; originally published January 1, 1988)
Author Information: Website
Tiara’s Rating: 3 of 5 stars
Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble
Full Disclosure: A review copy of this book was provided to me by Open Road Integrated Media. I would like to thank the publisher for providing me this opportunity. All opinions expressed from here forward are my own.
Originally published in 1988, Alien Child is a young adult book that follows a human girl named Nita who is being raised by a catlike creature, Llipel, in the remains of a medical institute. Llipel’s companion, Llare, stays holed away from them in another part of the institute that she’s not allowed to access. Nita begins to believe that she’s the last surviving human on Earth as she learns more about what happened to the rest of humanity and how she, a human girl, came to exist in a world where humans no longer roam. Then, she discovers that Llare is actually raising a human boy of the same age named Sven.
This book seems typical fare for young adult books published during the 80s and 90s. I think if I’d read this as a kid, I probably would’ve liked it more. Reading it as an adult, it was a conceptually interesting read, but not the most compelling read. It felt a bit too juvenile, even for my tastes. This skews toward the younger side of young adult. We meet Nita when she’s young and follow her to her fifteenth year, and this book focuses on the issues that she goes through as she ages from precocious child to puberty. These issues are handled in ways that a child would relate to them and not in a way that could be seen as gross or inappropriate, except for maybe one scene between Nita and Sven.
The science fiction aspect of the story is where things get a little atypical. This book explores themes such as “nature vs. nuture.” It questions how would a human child behave if raised by a being that didn’t have an innate curiosity about things, who believed that all answers come in due time. As a mom of two, I could definitely see a human child being overly curious as Nita was, despite having a guardian who was cautious and patient. Honestly, I didn’t think Sargent addressed this as well as she could have. Nita didn’t really seem that much different from a child who hasn’t been raised in isolation, and she took to many things much better than you’d expect.
Sargent did a better job trying to explain the horrors of humanity to the children and what led to their destruction, questioning whether humans were even a race worth saving once the children had full knowledge of their heritage. It might not explore this as deeply as my adult mind would like, but keeping the age group this is aimed toward in mind, this is a great way to start challenging their ideas, especially what they feel the fate of humanity should be after learning something pivotal later in the story.
Twelve-year-old me probably would’ve lapped this story up, and I think it probably would be great for kids as an introduction to science fiction and perhaps as a starting point for some of those uncomfortable conversations parents eventually have to have with their kids but are not quite sure how to get there. Adult me thought this was an okay story, but can still see why this is considered a classic and brings out nostalgia among old science fiction fans.
The BiblioSanctum 