Book Review: Ascension: A Tangled Axon Novel by Jacqueline Koyanagi
Posted on July 13, 2013 2 Comments
Ascension: A Tangled Axon Novel by Jacqueline Koyanagi
With thanks to NetGalley and Masque Books for the opportunity to read an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Alana Quick is a sky surgeon, as evident by her long locs. She loves ships as one loves a significant other and has lost a few of the latter because she places her work first and foremost in her life. But she’s never actually left her homeworld in one. There is little money in her line of work, but she loves it too much to ever consider doing anything else and she refuses to sell out to Transliminal, the reigning corporation that offers promises of magic and money – and the potential cure for Alana and her Aunt Lai’s debilitating muscle disease.
When a ship arrives seeking Alana’s sister Nova, Alana obeys the ship’s summons and leaps on the opportunity to stow away in hopes of proving herself worthy of joining the ship’s crew. Captain Tev is understandably mad about this, but since they still need her sister, Tev allows Alana to remain on board. A catastrophic event following their retrieval of Nova turns ship and all onboard into hunted criminals who must get to the heart of Transliminal to both clear their name and achieve their initial goals.
In her bio, Koyanagi describes a desire to write books featuring atypical heroes and social structures. One review complained about the dearth of male characters. This isn’t Y: The Last Man, Vol. 1: Unmanned where all but one male has died off. There are male characters, they just don’t have prominent roles in the story. Fiction presents an opportunity for writers to venture far beyond the stereotypes and prejudices of reality, yet so often, we keep seeing white male-centric books with the occasional, lovingly described token people of another race and/or gender. Although I’d prefer to see greater equality over all, I can definitely forgive a writer who chooses to defy the standards and present a female dominated world without needing an explanation for it.
In keeping with Koyanagi’s atypical protagonist, Alana and several other characters are queer, but I was more intrigued by the incorporation of Alana’s disease. Considering her line of work and how reliant she is on her body as much as her mind, the cost of her medication, her desire to get treatment for herself and her aunt and the limited supply of medication adds an interesting twist to how the crew reacts to her needs, and the constant pain make her work difficult at times.
There were certain elements of the story, particularly the Tangled Axon and her crew, that reminded me of series like Sol Bianca and Firefly, so I wasn’t surprised by one of the big reveals. I did like the way everything forged together, particularly with Nova. This is Alana’s story, told from her PoV, but, considering the title of the book, Nova’s part to play is pretty significant. Koyanagi drops hints at this through long speeches from Nova that perhaps could have been more subtly strung throughout the story.
This is also a love story, as hinted at in the blurb. Alana’s attraction to Captain Tev is rivaled only by her attraction to the Tangled Axon and since Tev loves her ship just as much, it’s not hard to see where things are going. The path there is a bit long, but it allows for a lot of character development as Alana attempts to learn about her new crew.
The love story, the ascension, the quest – all come together in an ending that perhaps tries too hard to preach its point with all the shiny, but this is only a minor complaint and not enough for me to dislike the author for wanting to deliver her messages with a little bit of soul glow.
Koyanagi develops an interesting world. Each planet has unique traits that she describes with care. However, there is little overall to explain some of the elements of the world, such as “the breach” or how all this came to be. The latter didn’t bother me too much, though. If this takes place far into human future, I don’t think it completely necessary to dwell on exposition as to how everything came to be as it is, especially if that history does not really influence the story. And if this is just a galaxy far away and long ago, then even better.
As for the main character, I can’t say that I really liked her as a person, but I did find her interesting and very human. I like that she makes a lot of irresponsible mistakes and wasn’t simply accepted into the crew just because her skills proved her worthy. I like the way her obsession with engineering helps her to overcome her constant pain and she’s never defined by or limited because of it.
There are a lot of really great ideas in this book and I definitely appreciate the refreshing take on certain elements within the genre. This was a very ambitious undertaking for a first novel. There is room for improvement in terms of pacing and extraneous wording in descriptions, but overall, a worthy addition to the science fiction universe.
Book Review: The Human Division by John Scalzi
Posted on July 12, 2013 1 Comment
The Human Division byJohn Scalzi
Back when I first started getting into reading more sci-fi, John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War series was a great starting point. The books had just the right mix of space travel, aliens and futuristic technology, but were still light enough not to intimidate a relative newcomer to the genre. Now they still rank among some of my favorite books of all time.
So when I found out about Scalzi’s new serialized novel based on the Old Man’s War universe, I became all excited and got set to pick up the new episodes every week from January to April 2013. Unfortunately, I discovered that I am very impatient when it comes to having to wait to find out what happens next, and I’m as bad with books as I am with TV shows when it comes to keeping up with weekly installments. For the latter, I’d much rather buy the complete DVD/Blu-ray box set with all the extras at the end of the season and do a marathon all at once, so I essentially decided to do the literary equivalent with The Human Division.
It will help to have read the previous books in the series, especially The Last Colony, since what happens in The Human Division is the direct result of the drastic events that occur the end of that novel. As such, this review may contain minor spoilers for the books that came before.
For a couple hundred years, the Colonial Union has happily taken advantage of Earth, keeping the planet’s population in the dark while farming it aggressively for colonists and soldiers in the name of human expansion across a hostile universe. Last we saw, John Perry has basically blown the cover off that whole operation. Thanks to him, the people of Earth now know the truth.
Angry and betrayed, Earth considers an invitation from a political alliance made up of 400 alien races — also known as the Conclave, bitter rivals of the Colonial Union. The CU, currently aware of their precarious position, begins to play things more carefully, making every possible effort in politics and diplomacy. An unknown entity, however, may be sabotaging all their efforts.
Being a serialized novel, this was a great mix of thirteen narratives which all come together to tell an overarching story. Some served to push the plot forward while focusing on the main characters, while others acted more as filler but were still invaluable in providing the necessary background information required to follow the story. Like any anthology-type book, there were some episodes I liked more than others, but on the whole they were all very entertaining and enjoyable.
Some highlights for me include Episode 1: The B-Team, the story which serves as an introduction to our main characters, Ambassador Abumwe, Captain Coloma, Hart Schmidt, and Harry Wilson. Wilson, of course, I was glad to see because he’s someone we first met in Old Man’s War, one of John Perry’s friends in the group they’d dubbed the “Old Farts”, so it was nice to be able to catch up with him. This story was also one hell of a start.
Also Episode 2: Walk the Plank, which a one-off short told in transcript form and was a punch in the gut. This just goes to show while John Scalzi’s a funny guy and a delight to read, his stuff’s not all fun and games; he’s also very capable of writing poignant scenes that can fill you with dread. Walk The Plank also reaffirmed my decision to read this novel only after it was complete, as it was a drastic shift from the first episode and I would have been left very confused that week.
Then there were the episodes like #7, The Dog King which were lighter, more humorous and closer to what I expect when I think of Scalzi’s works. There were also pleasant surprises like Episode 10: This Must be the Place which I found heartwarming and quite meaningful. And of course, the final episode Earth Below, Sky Above which was all action all craziness, and had me on the edge of my seat. John Scalzi gets to flex all his writing talents with this diverse collection of stories.
Basically, if you’ve followed the Old Man’s War series up to this point, you really can’t afford to miss this. It continues the story, but the serialization format also made this an incredible experience. Admittedly, I had initial doubts about it, fearing that the novel being presented as individual episodes would make it feel too disjointed, but that was not the case at all. In fact, I actually really liked it. Either I’m just not as bad as I thought at handling serial novels, or John Scalzi is simply really good at pulling this off. It’s probably both.
Like I said, you can get the full-length novel now which includes all the episodes as well as a couple extras, and personally, I so much prefer reading it this way. It appears Scalzi’s been signed on for a second season too, so I’m ecstatic that the adventures in the universe of Old Man’s War will continue.
Review Bites
Posted on July 11, 2013 2 Comments
Water Witches by Chris Bohjalian
Scottie Winston’s wife, sister-in-law, and daughter are all dowsers or “water witches,” meaning they can divine the location of water sources. He finds himself at odds with his family when he lobbies for a ski resort that wants to move into the drought stricken town and use the river to make snow for the resort.
This was an okay book. I was expecting a little more magical realism, but what I got was more of a conservative versus liberals, environmentalist versus non-environmentalist stuff. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I thought I would learn more about dowsing. Now there are some real juicy tidbits in this story like Patience’s belief that a man can’t be a dowser because only women are connected to fluid and to the earth. But mostly it was just a book about differing political/environmental stances.
Blood and Snow by RaShelle Workman
The vampire queen choses a new host body every thousand years. She’s chosen Snow White, a girl who’s spent most of her life being teased about her fairytale name, to be that girl. Snow White is bitten by The Hunter and becomes a being that’s neither human nor vampire.
Ugh, from the seven close male, rich friends living nearby to just EVERYTHING, I was annoyed by this. I know many people enjoyed this, but I’m not sure this story is for me. I think I’ve just moved beyond the phase where I would’ve really appreciated something like this. It managed to do every single thing I hate about some YA novels, but the premise was interesting, which is about its only saving grace right now with me. I’m putting the rest of these books (novellas really) on the bottom of my TBR pile where I will wait for the day I feel compelled to continue this story. Hopefully, later parts will make me forgive this part because it has potential, but this was not it for me.
The Last Werewolf by Glen Duncan
Jake is the world’s last werewolf, and he just turned 201-years-old. Don’t let the years fool you, though. Jake has aged well over the years. Sex and a good diet will do that for a werewolf. However, after finding that he’s the last werewolf after hunters killed the only other remaining wolf, Jake begins to think about how lonely life is and maybe the time of the wolf is over. He decides that he’ll choose his own death. However, there are people who are intent on keeping Jake alive for differing reasons.
I thought the book was well written. But it was a real struggle to get through for me. I had pretty much had to force myself to finish this because I hate quitting books, especially when they’re not technically terrible. The language and style was exceptional, but I found myself spending so much of the book saying, “Can we get to the point, Jake?” which is so rare for because I tend to love rambling and wordiness in books. Jake is like that guy who gets caught up in his own romantic ruminations and obviously likes the sound of his own voice, and you just groan, roll your eyes, and start tapping your watch. I was just tired of him, literally worn out from reading all his thoughts, by the 8th chapter, and after that, the story would get good, but then pull back. I don’t know what this book was trying to do to me. With that being said, I don’t know if I’ll be reading the second book or not right now.
Tigerheart by Peter David
This is a retelling of Peter Pan, called The Boy in this story. Actually, this is the story of Paul Dear, a young boy who desperately wants to go to Anyplace (Neverland) to find something to help his mother who is miserable after the death of his one week old sister. However, his story is strongly tied to The Boy and Anyplace since he needs both to achieve his goals, and in some part of himself, Paul believes that he may actually be The Boy or some manifestation of him.
This was an audiobook listen narrated by Simon Vance. Yeah, you know I love the guy. Even though I’d listened to one book he narrated before this. This book made me realize how consistent and talented he was with his reading, and it helps that he was reading an imaginative retelling, which I love. I enjoyed this book more than I thought I would. I was a little apprehensive at first that I might find it too juvenile for my tastes, but that wasn’t the case at all. Peter David managed to make this book feel like a child who is on the cusp of adulthood. It was both naïve and worldy, innocent and experienced. It was truly an amazing, whimsical story with tones of darkness.
Mom Note: I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this for younger children even if the tone, wording, and pacing “feels right” for younger children. This book is about children and told in that genial tone reserved for children’s books. It’s not necessarily a story that’s “bad” for younger audiences, but they wouldn’t understand the nuances in the story that require some level of maturity to already have been achieved. Examples of this include when the narrator mentions that Paul, being a child, would not understand a woman’s figure or why they might not have wanted to be as “round in the hips” as Fiddlefix (Tinkerbell) or when the narrator notes that The Boy shares with grown men the inability to decide if he wants the significant non-mother female figure in his life, Gwennie (Wendy), to be his mother or his lifemate or when the narrator refers to maturity as “the destruction.” So, for any parent/guardian/adult figure thinking this might be great for a younger audience, it’s not. It’s a book about children, but it’s not necessarily a book for children. I’d say early teens, maybe even kids as young as 11-12, would better handle a book like this one.
Mogsy: A Book That Makes You Happy
Posted on July 11, 2013 Leave a Comment
John Scalzi’s books generally make me happy. I can always count on them to make me laugh (the man can write gruesome death scenes at the hands of merciless aliens and still make them heeeelarious) and they often end well.
A re-imagining of H. Beam Piper’s Little Fuzzy, Scalzi’s Fuzzy Nation stars Jack Holloway the independent contractor who discovers a rich seam of valuable jewels on Zarathustra, but then discovers the planet may be home to a race of sentient “fuzzys”. These creatures are tiny, furry, cuddly, and ridiculously adorable…how can anyone not feel happy after reading this?!
Book Review: The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater
Posted on July 10, 2013 5 Comments
The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater
Every now and then, a book attacks me and holds on tight and when I finish with it, it refuses to let me go. That’s the case with the first book in the Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater, whom I declare to be my new favourite author. I came to this conclusion not far in, primarily because of her unique way of moulding her characters and settings, bringing everything literally to life. (Yes I know what “literally” means. I use it within the context of the story and the magic of Cabeswater.)
I’ve written off some authors because they obsess with describing everything with pretty metaphors that leave the plot behind. Here, the plot and characters are swept along in a river of descriptions that don’t so much use adjectives or comparisons, but exclusions – descriptions of what the character is not – or things they do or collect that define them. And most often, their actions, gestures and reactions. Because of this, her characters and places always give me a sense of movement, or in the case of Ronan, movement that could come at any moment. By far my favourite character, Ronan is a bundle of venom, poised like a sharp-clawed cat about to strike at any moment. Yet, Stiefvater also gives him the perfect amount of vulnerability and harsh truth to make him more than just the bitter character that should be detested or pitied.
Sometimes I got so wrapped up in her depictions that when I shook myself from their hypnotic power, I was afraid that I’d been carried away and missed what was going on. But nope. Everything was still clear and enticing and as the mystery deepened, I was pulled right along with it.
This is the story of Blue Sargent, a young adult with the ability to strengthen the psychic powers of the women around her, but lacking in those abilities herself. From a very young age, her fate – her curse – was revealed to her: true love’s kiss would bring the death of that person. (Sorry Disney.) Blue does not stress over this destiny until she meets Gansey’s spirit on the Corpse Road, and later meets Gansey himself, who turns out to be one of the dreaded Raven Boys of Aglionby Academy.
This is a young adult book and before I scare some of you away with the seemingly obvious sickly sweet romance plot, allow me to assure you that this is anything but the case. First of all, I really liked the maturity with which Steifvater presents the young adults in the book. The writing style is respectful of the teens Stiefvater writes about, as well as those who might be reading, while still appealing to me as an adult.
Secondly, there’s Gansey himself. He’s a young man born into generations of privilege to the point that he doesn’t understand how his offers of money to those less fortunate can be taken as deeply offensive. He has a good heart and his mind functions on a strong sense of right and wrong and of concrete evidence, even when dealing with the unknown, such as his obsession. Somewhere along the way, I equated Gansey to Bruce Wayne (sorry, Gansey) for the way he gathers those in need to him and they all look to him for command, if not support, and how he can shift into his rich boy persona to handle a situation, but his true self is the one obsessed with finding ley lines and the secret of a dead king.
Gansey and Blue are destined to meet, obviously, but I loved the way everything wrapped together. Nothing was extraneous or added to mislead. And when new elements popped up, they were shocking, culminating in a tense ending. Or rather, the beginning. This is the first in a the Raven Cycle and the end of The Raven Boys works like a fantastic door, opening onto all sorts of new mysteries that I’m really excited to find out about. But as if I needed more motivation, the very last line ensured that I will be grabbing book 2 as soon as I can.
Kickstarter Goodies: Hollow World
Posted on July 10, 2013 Leave a Comment
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| Hollow World art by Marc Simonetti |
As you know, I’m always looking out for interesting and/or promising fiction projects on Kickstarter to back. Earlier this year in March, one of my favorite fantasy authors Michael J. Sullivan decided to crowdfund his science fiction fantasy cross-genre novel Hollow World, so naturally I pledged my support. Ultimately, the project was not only fully funded, but the Kickstarter campaign ended up being a resounding success as well, at more than 1000% funded.
Yesterday, the stretch bonuses and other goodies starting coming in, and I just wanted to share. First is a signed 24″ x 36″ poster of the gorgeous image above. Luckily, my work requires that I always have a bunch of frames just lying around, so I quickly slapped that baby into one of them and hung it up by my own personal nook in the gamer cave. My Boba Fett bobble-head stands guard over it now.
Then there are the bookmarks — 6 all together, and all of them signed on the back as well.
Given the vast numbers of posters and bookmarks sent out to Hollow World backers, I imagine poor Mr. Sullivan’s writing hand must be cramping something fierce by now. But I love my Kickstarter goodies, and I can’t wait to read this book!
Cover Lover: Becky Cloonan
Posted on July 10, 2013 Leave a Comment
The sure sign of a good book or graphic novel cover is when it immediately makes me click the buy button. That’s what happened during my recent Comixology raid when I stumbled onto Becky Cloonan‘s haunting and beautiful trilogy. This is Cloonan’s first self-published project. I’m glad I judged it by its cover!
Audiobook Review: American Gods by Neil Gaiman
Posted on July 10, 2013 1 Comment
It has long been a shameful secret of mine that I’ve never read a Neil Gaiman novel. Sure, I’ve read his Sandman comics and a few of his short stories, but somehow, the opportunity to read a full-length novel of his has never come up, despite the fact that books like American Gods and Neverwhere have been sitting in my Kindle gathering metaphorical dust for like, oh, I don’t know…the past two or three years.
That’s why this summer I made it a point to lose my Neil Gaiman virginity, and decided to give the honor to American Gods first of all because it is considered one of his “classics”, and second of all because the Tenth Anniversary Edition of the book I owned also had the added benefit of an audiobook Whispersync bundle deal, which I’d picked up as well. As it turned out, this worked out for the best.
And now I have the hefty task of actually trying to describe what American Gods is about. The book begins with the introduction of Shadow, a man coming up on the end of his three-year prison sentence and looking forward to get back to his life. Days before his release, however, he gets news that his beloved wife was killed in a car accident, along with his best friend. Freed from prison now but with his life in tatters, Shadow agrees to work for a mysterious stranger he meets on the way home, a man who calls himself “Mr. Wednesday”.
Shadow travels across America with Wednesday, meeting his new boss’ unusual friends and colleagues, and here’s where things start to get cryptic and mystical. Wednesday and his peers turn out to be incarnations of the Old Gods of ancient mythology, whose powers are waned since the rise of modern life and the technological era, these aspects themselves manifesting as the American “New Gods”. Everything Shadow thought he knew has been turned upside down. Nothing is as it seems; legends and myths are real, secrets are everywhere, everything is connected…and war is coming.
You ever read a book where you know very early on that it’s not the kind for you, but you end up enjoying it a lot anyway, because it’s just so beautifully written and profound? This was definitely one of those for me. I’d known what I was in for, of course; like I said, I’ve had some experience with Neil Gaiman’s style of writing and know that his stuff is often allusive and metaphysical, surreal and abstract in nature.
In other words, totally not my thing at all. And thematically, the book turned out to be exactly as I’d expected. By all rights, I shouldn’t have liked it, but I did. Wow. And now I finally understand the reason it’s considered a contemporary masterpiece, and why Mr. Gaiman has so many fans.
Recall how I said I also had an Audible copy of American Gods, and that’s actually how I read this novel, going back and forth between the ebook and the audiobook. I wanted to bring this up because I feel the excellent production quality of the latter definitely bears mentioning. Sometimes, great voice actors can bring the words to life, and that can also certainly make me enjoy a book much more than I normally would. The Tenth Anniversary version I had included a full cast featuring excellent narrators, which made it all the more engrossing, not to mention Neil Gaiman himself narrated some sections of the novel as well as the foreword, afterword, and other extras.
This edition is also the newly updated and expanded version with the author’s preferred text, so I definitely appreciated the chance to read this book in a state that’s closer to what it’s meant to be. One thing I think everyone agrees about Neil Gaiman is that you can count on him to be original and innovative, and the uniqueness of the themes and ideas in American Gods unquestionably reflects that. The extras included in this version really tied everything together and provided a lot of insight into this intellectual work of art — because yes, after having experienced this book, I definitely consider it art.
Comic Review: Nightwing, Vol. 1: Traps and Trapezes by Kyle Higgins
Posted on July 9, 2013 Leave a Comment
Nightwing, Vol. 1: Traps and Trapezes by Kyle Higgins
Comic Review: Batman, Vol. 1: The Court of Owls by Scott Snyder
Posted on July 9, 2013 Leave a Comment
Batman, Vol. 1: The Court of Owls by Scott Snyder
He can no longer profess to know the city more intimately than anyone else after the Owls are revealed to him. The Owls push him to the brink of his mental and physical capabilities, believing him to be broken once he escapes. Batman may have won a small battle against them, but there’s still the war to consider. Per usual, Batman loses himself in this one-man stand against injustice that he doesn’t seem to realize or care how his actions are affecting those around him. The way he treated Dick near the end of the story just broke my heart a little, especially since there’s almost nothing Dick wouldn’t do for him. However, I know that will pan out to be part of some great Batman scheme no one knew about in the end.
Everything about this made me draw parallels against Batman R.I.P., even down to the feelings it brought out for me, but I did enjoy this story. I never get tired of stories that push Batman to his limits and try to deal with the fine line of madness that he often seems to tread.
The BiblioSanctum 