Reviews Coming Up

Hey everyone, hope you’re all well and that Friday is treating you awesomely. 🙂

As promised, here’s a quick look at the reviews I’ll be posting over the next couple of weeks – books in genres ranging from Middle Grade to Thrillers to Military SF to Epic Fantasy, as well as a couple of audiobooks.

Coming on Monday, PJ Strebor’s third novel in the Hope Island Chronicles series, starring Nathan Telford: “Silent Running”. Really enjoyed this one, so shift it (and the previous books) onto your radar.

Also coming up, Steven Poore’s excellent ‘Heir to the North’ – we are enjoying a literary age in which independently or self-published work is just as good as traditionally published, and the opening novel in Steven’s “Malessar’s Curse” is a prime example.

“The Rain Never Came” is one of the novels that has stayed with me – it’s cautionary, leans toward the tragic, and is slightly experimental.

“The Killing Lessons” is one of the best, most terrifying and nail-biting (even though I don’t bite my nails) Thrillers I’ve ever read (and listened to). Blew me away.

“Two Spells” by Mark Morrison was a cool read, despite a couple of (in my opinion) missteps, and I did enjoy it. 🙂

“The Red Wolf Conspiracy” was brilliant. I’m kicking myself that it’s taken me so long to read it. Absolutely loved it.

Gail Z Martin is building an excellent series around two brothers and their unusual gifts – I really enjoyed “Scourge”, and “Vengeance” was an excellent sequel.

So, those are the reviews you can expect over the next couple of weeks – I’ll probably not post them in the order I’ve shown them here, and there may be more reviews slipping in. See you back here on Monday. 🙂

Be EPIC!

 

Book Review: The Girl at Midnight

While this title has been languishing on my TBR pile for a while, it was still a bit of an impulse grab at the library because I saw it sitting looking pretty on the shelf and just had to take it home with me.

Beneath the streets of New York City live the Avicen, an ancient race of people with feathers for hair and magic running through their veins. Age-old enchantments keep them hidden from humans. All but one. Echo is a runaway pickpocket who survives by selling stolen treasures on the black market, and the Avicen are the only family she’s ever known.

Echo is clever and daring, and at times she can be brash, but above all else she’s fiercely loyal. So when a centuries-old war crests on the borders of her home, she decides it’s time to act.

Legend has it that there is a way to end the conflict once and for all: find the Firebird, a mythical entity believed to possess power the likes of which the world has never seen. It will be no easy task, but if life as a thief has taught Echo anything, it’s how to hunt down what she wants . . . and how to take it.

But some jobs aren’t as straightforward as they seem. And this one might just set the world on fire.

This book has been compared a lot to the beloved Daughter of Smoke and Bone series. I read the first book in that series and can see where readers may find similarities. In both books we have a pretty sassy heroine who flits about the world through magical doorways. There are mythical creatures in both series – demons and angels in Laini Taylor’s books, anthropomorphic dragons (Drakharin) and birds (Avicen) in Grey’s. To be honest, that’s where the similarities ended for me. I don’t understand why some reviewers see The Girl at Midnight as a ‘rip-off’ of Taylor’s series. It’s really not, and, to be honest, I strongly preferred The Girl at Midnight – Although Taylor wins hands down when it comes to exquisite writing, world-building, and description.

The Girl at Midnight is a little be Neverwhere-ish in that there is a hidden world operating in tandem with the human world, a world divided into the scale-adorned Drakharin and feathered Avicen. These two are, of course, at odds with each other and a human girl – our protagonist Echo – gets caught up in the middle of all the action as she goes in search of the mythical Firebird. At the mention of the Firebird, I was hoping for a stronger tie-in with Slavic folk-lore and was disappointed when the Firebird in this story seemed completely disconnected from the traditional mythology. Not that it isn’t cool in its own right in terms of the story world, but it’s a lot more Phoenix than fiery peacock from Russian fairytale.

It’s a little tricky to talk much more about this story without spoiling the plot. Suffice it to say, there was a twist, but I saw it coming from about halfway through the book. That said, it was still fun to see how the characters coped with the revelation even if it didn’t elicit quite the OMG reaction in the reader as I think the author intended.

The true strength of this novel lies in its characters, and not just the protagonist. Actually, Echo is possibly the least interesting of the lot. This book has multiple POVs, switching between various characters sometimes erratically. At first, I found this irritating because I was struggling to connect with Echo. In the end, I’m glad the author chose to give the reader personal time in the other characters’ heads because they were a fascinating bunch. I strongly preferred the chapters from the dragons’ perspective. Caius and Dorian all but stole the show, Dorian in particular who seemed to suffer the most internal conflict which made him the most interesting character even if he was relegated to the periphery. His interactions with the Avicen were some of the best scenes – particularly the snappy dialogue between Dorian and peacock-ish Avicen named Jasper. I could easily have spent the entire book in their POVs, following their story rather than Echo’s. This is both a positive and negative, I guess, because the story was meant to be Echo’s but there was so much going on with the side characters that I sometimes resented returning to Echo when I found other characters more compelling. I was particularly pleased to see the LGBT characters getting so much page time and even POV chapters of their own. Hooray for a diverse YA fantasy read!

In conclusion, I really enjoyed this book and appreciated the fact that the romance element took a backseat to the plot. I also really enjoyed the exploration of supporting characters even if the switching POV chapters sometimes felt disruptive. I think there could’ve been more nuanced world-building, but this is only book 1 so perhaps more details are coming in book 2. While I don’t find myself too emotionally invested in the protagonist, I am absolutely enthralled by the supporting characters and hope that book 2 continues to follow all the story threads presented in book 1. Ultimately, this was a fun urban fantasy read and scores 3.5/5 ink splats from me.

 

Book Review: Fledgling

I’m a little ashamed to admit that this is the first novel I’ve read by Octavia Butler. I had heard very good things about this writer and had been meaning to read her work for ages. Finally I have…

*Minor spoilers ahead – you’ve been warned*

Fledgling, Octavia Butler’s new novel after a seven year break, is the story of an apparently young, amnesiac girl whose alarmingly inhuman needs and abilities lead her to a startling conclusion: She is in fact a genetically modified, 53-year-old vampire. Forced to discover what she can about her stolen former life, she must at the same time learn who wanted–and still wants–to destroy her and those she cares for and how she can save herself. Fledgling is a captivating novel that tests the limits of “otherness” and questions what it means to be truly human.

As I’ve said before, I’m a fan of vampires, so I thought I’d kick off my foray into Butler with her vampire novel. I’ll admit I expected a little Rice-ish flair and a lot more vampiric romanticism than this book delivered. Once I got over my expectations for the novel and started reading the book for what it was, I found it extremely enjoyable and thought-provoking.

The book uses an old trick allowing the main character, Shori, to introduce the reader to Butler’s vampire world. Shori has amnesia and can remember nothing about her life as ‘Ina’ – Butler’s word for vampire. Using this memory-lapse device, the book gets away with a fair amount of exposition and info-dumping because it is actually relevant to the character and not only inserted for the reader’s benefit. This, while fascinating, did make for some slow reading at times. This book is not plot driven but rather a character study as Shori discovers her past and who she is now minus her memories. The story examines the idea that we are the sum of our experiences and what might happen when we can no longer remember those experiences, who do we become and who are we to those who remember us from before?

As the cover shows, Shori isn’t white and the story examines issues of race and racism through the lens of the vampire mindset, which made for some interesting discussions among the ethnically diverse characters, human and Ina alike. But perhaps the most interesting aspect of this story was the structure of Ina society and the symbiotic relationship the vampires form with humans, and how various vampire families feel about their necessary relationship with humans. This was the main theme of the book, the juxtaposition of otherness with humanness and what it meant for those like Shori caught somewhere in between the two extremes.

What I absolutely adored about this book was the exploration of sexuality and polyamory both within Ina society, and between Ina and human. The relationships in this story are complicated and challenge certain sexual norms. For example, within Ina culture, matings are arranged by families where bands of brothers will mate with groups of sisters. Mates share each other within this familial union and children are raised as the children of all the sisters and brothers regardless of who actually fathered or birthed the child in question. I found this arrangement fascinating especially considering that Ina would continue sexual relationships with their symbionts (specific humans chosen as companions and for nourishment) at the same time. Of course, being Ina means viewing the world a little differently and responding differently to emotions which, while still identifiable as human, are quite different from human experience. While this book explores sexuality, the view of gender remains extremely binary, with Ina society split into male and female groups except when mating is involved. How such a society would handle or accept an intersex or trans individual never came up for discussion.

Despite being about vampires, this book is not the normal paranormal fare and quite quickly establishes itself as more of a political-come-legal drama with occasional blood-drinking. This latter aspect of the book was a little disturbing at times because Shori, despite being 53 years old, is considered a child by Ina standards and is described as looking no more than ten years old by human standards. And yet, this little girl seduces and has sex with various human adults. While considered normal by the Ina community, this did make me uncomfortable especially when the adult humans react sexually around her. I tried to forget Shori was physically ten and let myself imagine an older teenager instead. Again, this is an example of how Ina and human practices differ, but it was a little difficult to read.

Because of Shori’s amnesia and her Ina-ness, I found it quite difficult to relate to Shori and become truly emotionally invested in the character who was distanced from herself and thus from the reader too. What kept me turning pages wasn’t so much my love of or concern for the character but rather my fascination with the vampires on a more intellectual level. Their history, their politics, their social structures, their law – all very interesting even if it didn’t require much emotional engagement. Consequently, while I did enjoy this book I doubt I’ll ever reread it the way I have other vampire novels like Brite’s Lost Souls. This vampire novel didn’t offer much in the way of Gothic romanticism, but was an entertaining read none-the-less. It gets 4 ink splats from me.

 

Film Review: Predestination

Time travel – my least favourite science fiction trope, and yet I seem to find myself watching films like Looper, Source Code, The Butterfly Effect etc. Of all the films featuring time travel, the only one I really enjoyed was Donnie Darko. That said, Predestination blew my mind for all the wrong reasons.

*SPOILERS AHEAD – YOU’VE BEEN WARNED

The life of a time-traveling Temporal Agent. On his final assignment, he must pursue the one criminal that has eluded him throughout time.

Firstly, the temporal agent thing has been done. Looper – the movie to which many reviewers compare Predestination – already did this, and countless novels have used the same word, or slight variations thereof, to describe the shady characters governed by an even shadier organisation that sends people flitting through time to alter or influence events, which they inevitably end up messing up or unable to alter which the movie then presents as a mind-blowing twist. *yawn* The other thing almost every time travel film gets horribly wrong is the science. While real-world physics don’t technically have to apply considering time travel is fictional – and at best, a quantum theory – I’d like to think that basic logic still applies, and yet screen writers think they can create a logic loophole by getting philosophical and meta and spouting quantum mysticism. I’m all for quantum mysticism, but not when it’s used as justification for bad science.

So in Predestination – as if the title wasn’t clue enough – we have this guy who is supposedly the product of a predestination paradox who must go back in time to stop a criminal (yawn again) from killing lots of people only to discover 97 minutes later than he can’t actually change the course of his life because ‘predestination!’ Really?? This film didn’t even attempt to provide some more profound explanation or reasoning behind what was going on. Perhaps I’ve just seen too many of these sorts of films that the ‘twist’ seemed more like an excuse than a revelation.

Dodgy science aside, the film largely describes the life and transformation of a transgender or intersex character – I say ‘or’ here because the person never actually identifies themselves as either. This is where the film will likely be lauded for being progressive and LGBT friendly and diverse, but the story contained within is pretty damn horrific!

A child identified as female at birth is raised a girl while never truly fitting in and displaying certain tomboyish traits – this is set in the 1940-70s after all so a girl having a brain is seen as tomboyish. At some point, Jane is examined and the doctors discover she is intersex. They keep this information from her. In fact, they blatantly lie to her!

Later, Jane falls pregnant and doctors perform a C-section. When Jane wakes up the new doctor reveals to her that she was, in fact, internally both male and female and that during the C-section they had to perform a full hysterectomy. And, as if that isn’t traumatic enough, the good doctor took it upon himself to start the process of sex reassignment, because Jane – now devoid of uterus – can clearly no longer be considered a woman. Jane is then forced to endure several more surgeries to finish what was started and become a man although she has never identified as a man nor ever identified as anything other than a straight cis female – other than being physically strong and intelligent (traits not common in woman obviously). This woman is entirely stripped of agency and mutilated by medical professionals without her consent! The biggest crime in this film isn’t the bombings they’re trying to stop, but this unwanted sex reassignment that Jane neither wants nor agrees to. I almost stopped watching the film, but morbid fascination kept me going, hoping they would somehow redeem the storyline.

Nope.

It only gets worse. Language like ‘freak’ is used to describe the intersex person before and after surgery and as the film progresses it is shown more and more that Jane – now John – has never had any form of agency and is simply being manipulated by said shady temporal organisation for what purpose I have no freaking idea because the film basically undoes itself in the last 2 minutes. The film is all about Jane giving her life purpose and yet the film’s purpose flies right out the window in the final scene. Sigh. I’m not even surprised. I figured out the twist – twists, there were supposed to be a few – a mile away and kept hoping the film would do something other than what I expected. More sighs.

The biggest problem I have with this film is that they used an intersex person without any consideration for gender identity or sexuality to create the predestination paradox. Jane, a straight woman who believes she is cisgender, falls in love with a man and becomes pregnant. After the birth, Jane is forced to become John, who is then manipulated into going back in time to meet Jane (an earlier iteration of themselves). Jane, forced into becoming John, is now a straight guy who falls in love with his earlier female self and even gets her pregnant. My mind boggled – not with all the time travel nonsense – but with the flippant treatment of sexual identity. It gets worse.

The baby Jane and John conceive is then snatched and taken back in time to 1945 where said baby grows up to be Jane… welcome to the predestination paradox causal loop thingie the writers think is so clever but is so messed up I can’t even! This could not possibly have worked unless person A could become person B and then impregnate themselves, so let’s just use an intersex person! What could’ve been a really cool and progressive exploration of gender identity and sexuality against a sci-fi backdrop – rarely done on the silver screen – instead turned into an absolute farce that reiterates sexist and genderist ideaology.

The rest of the movie and the resolution of the bombing subplot isn’t even worth mentioning because it honestly does little for the story or characters other than to reiterate the predestination theme ad nauseam.

I think Sarah Snook did a pretty good job of acting the parts of Jane and John and breathing life into an abused character, but that’s about all I liked about this movie. Can I give a film no splats? I don’t want to give this movie any. Nope, not even half of one. I was appalled and disappointed by this film. No stars for Predestination.

 

Film Review: Into the Woods

Who knew Chris Pine could sing? Certainly not me when I started watching the film version of Into the Woods knowing only that it starred the Cup Song girl, Meryl Streep as a witch, and Johnny Depp as an insane wonderland creature as per usual. Those were the reasons I sat down to watch, and those were the least of the reasons why I loved it!

Musicals. You either love them or hate them. I’ve met few people who are indifferent toward movies where actors spontaneously burst into song, and Into the Woods is a musical. Unlike many of my peers, I spent my childhood watching musicals. The old-fashioned kind like My Fair Lady and Showboat, Oklahoma and Camelot. While other kids were singing along to Spice Girls, I was singing full renditions of songs from Oliver and Annie! I was also part of a stage arts academy, frequently performing in musicals and Broadway-style shows, particularly all the Andrew Lloyd Webber stuff. Point is, I grew up on musicals and still have a passion for them to this day with one of my all time favorite films being Across the Universe. When my favourite SFF genre and music combine, I am truly in heaven! (I really should write a review of Repo, the Genetic Opera *makes a note*).

So, Into the Woods scored points just for being a musical, then it scored additional points for presenting a dark and sometimes off-color twist on beloved Disney characters. If you’re unfamiliar with the original Sondheim stage production, do take note that despite the innocuous looking poster and the fact that this is technically a Disney movie, this is in no way a children’s movie. Well, kids could probably watch it but they wouldn’t (hopefully) catch some of the darker and more subtle things going on in this story.

The film, like the play, is an unapologetic play on fairytale tropes, frequently teetering into parody. The premise boils down to an old adage: be careful what you wish for. In this case, the whole ensemble cast should’ve heeded that warning but of course they don’t and so we get this fantastical romp featuring Little Red (the Riding Hood part implied), Anna Kendrick as Cinderella and McKenzie Mauzy as Rapunzel. Emily Blunt plays the role of a baker’s wife who inadvertently kicks off the entire story, Meryl Streep plays the witch, and Johnny Depp has a brief but super creepy cameo as the Big Bad Wolf. Also, Chris Pine plays Prince Eyebrows, er… Charming, and did I mention this guy can actually sing?

While the plot is delightfully silly in a typical fairytale kind of way, what really pulls this whole story together is the music. The songs are fantastic! If you are unfamiliar with musicals and the musical motifs they often employ, some of the finer points of humor might escape you, but for any musical aficionados or musos in the know, the score is rife with snark and tongue-in-cheek moments poking fun at the ‘serious’ musicals. The lyrics are also incredibly clever and liberally sprinkled with innuendo. I’m a little sad they cut out some of the more violent and sexy content from the stage original, but I guess they really wanted that PG rating for the film.

This brings me to Depp’s cameo, and what has got to be the most bizarre and uncomfortable few minutes of the film. Depp is brilliant, of course, and is perfectly creepy as the wolf who hungers for more than a literal nibble on the young Little Red. I’m surprised the less-than-subtle innuendo in the relationship between Wolf and Little Red even made it into this film, but I’m glad it did because the entire story is all about re-imagining these fairytales in dark and twisted ways. No, the word I’m looking for is sinister and Into the Woods has sinister in spades even when it’s cleverly disguised with humor.

I loved this film and spent a good portion of it in stitches. The problems arose when the movie actually wanted you take it seriously and tried to throw some emotional punches. Around the 1.20 minute mark, I checked to see how much was left of the film – never a good sign. It was around about here when the story tried to take itself seriously that I wanted things to wrap-up in the unhappily ever after direction the story seemed to be headed. Nope, we got another forty minutes of story that wasn’t really necessary and the Rapunzel storyline kind of got brushed aside, which did not please me because McKenzie Mauzy was lovely and deserved more screen time. So did her prince – Charming’s little brother!

Up until the 1.20 mark this film would’ve got 10 ink splats from me, but that last half hour dragged. I actually paused to walk the dog, read email and make tea, before finally finishing the thing, and while I did enjoy the rest of the songs, the same sense of black humor and tongue-in-cheek quipping seemed to disappear, leaving the ending feel a lot more traditional considering the rest of the film. That said, this was still a fun – if a little nutty – movie that I would be happy to sit through the first 90 minutes of again. The cast sings incredibly welland the music was suitably cheesy, adding to the parody vibe.

The other glaring problem I had with the film was the lack of diversity. Is there a rule somewhere that says when re-imagining Disney stories, all main characters must be white? One might argue the setting is a pseudo-Germanic Grimm-esque world and therefore PoC are an unlikely find, but that argument holds no water considering this is a ‘re-imagining’. How about conjuring up some PoC there Disney? The lack of color is made even more conspicuous by its absence when Cinderella walks into the castle past the one and only black person in the entire film. Including the profile of a black man for all of 2 seconds in a 2-hour long movie otherwise peopled by whites, is not diversity. It’s not even tokenism. It’s… bizarre. How refreshing it would’ve been to have a pair of black princes instead of Chris ‘Captain Kirk’ Pine and his blond-haired, blue-eyed little brother, but alas, I fear I ask too much from Hollywood.

Overall, I recommend this movie to fans of musicals who don’t mind off-color humor and are looking for something a little unusual and purely for fun. This gets 4/5 ink splats from me.

 

Video Reviews – Part 1

Hey everyone, Dave here!

Yep, FINALLY, I hear you say! 😉 No worries – I know I’ve been away for a while, but I’ve figured out a way to be able to review the books I’ve read while keeping up the pace of the writing of my second novel – and this is it! 🙂

In part one of my new Video Review series, I take a look at Joe Hill’s ‘NOS4R2’ and Kate Griffin’s ‘The Midnight Mayor’ – links after the vid!

NOS4R2: Amazon US, Amazon UK, Barnes and Noble, Exclusive Books. Joe Hill’s website.

The Midnight Mayor: Amazon US, Amazon UK, Barnes and Nobel, Exclusive Books. Kate Griffin’s website.

In part two, I talk about Benedict Jacka’s ‘Cursed’, John Lange’s ‘Zero Cool‘, Andrea Sokoloff’s ‘The Harrowing‘ and Mark Lawrence’s ‘Prince of Thorns’! Again, links after the vid. 🙂

Cursed: Amazon US, Amazon UK, Barnes and Noble, Exclusive Books. Benedict Jacka’s website.

Zero Cool: Amazon US, Amazon UK, Barnes and Noble, Exclusive Books. Titan Books‘ and Hard Case Crime‘s website.

The Harrowing: Amazon US, Amazon UK, Barnes and Noble, Exclusive Books. Andrea Sokoloff’s website.

Prince of Thorns: Amazon US, Amazon UK, Barnes and Noble, Exclusive Books. Mark Lawrence’s website.

 

There we go, hope you’ve enjoyed the video – this will be how I’ll be doing things from now on, so look for my next review-video next week. 🙂

Until then, and as always,

Be EPIC!

 

Book Review: The Last Ancient

Since I haven’t had much time to read the past couple of weeks as I am currently in the process of immigrating from Finland to Sweden, I thought I’d post a past review about a book I didn’t expect to enjoy nearly as much as I did…

Around Nantucket Island, brutal crime scenes are peppered with ancient coins, found by the one man who can unlock their meaning. But what do the coins have to do with the crimes? Or the sudden disease epidemic? Even the creature? And who–or what–left them?

The answer leads reporter Simon Stephenson on a journey through ancient mythology, numismatics, and the occult. Not to mention his own past, which turns out to be even darker than he’d realized; his murdered father was a feared arms dealer, after all. Along the way, Simon battles panic attacks and a host of nasty characters — some natural, others less so — while his heiress fiancee goes bridezilla, and a gorgeous rival TV reporter conceals her own intentions.

I might never have picked up this novel had I not had the pleasure of meeting the author in person. I met Eliot Baker at FinnCon 2014 where I was first introduced to The Last Ancient during a reading session. After hearing only a few excerpts from this book, I knew I had to read it despite my reservations about the treasure-hunting pirate-type cover and the fact that I’m not usually a fan of thrillers or mysteries or crime novels – and this seemed like all three rolled into one with a dash of the fantastic. Nevertheless, I bought the book and started reading it on the train ride from from the con, and? I couldn’t put the bloody thing down!

I love mythology and this book delivers it in spades! The blurb actually doesn’t do this book justice, in my opinion – a trend I’m discovering This book is a lot less mystery thriller than it is dark urban fantasy. Baker has effortlessly woven together contemporary politics, environmental issues and economics into a story about alchemy, replete with snippets from history and a good deal of philosophy – in short, The Last Ancient is the perfect cocktail for anyone who prefers their fantasy delivered on the barrel of an automatic assault rifle instead of a broad-sword.

This is not my usual sort of read – being adult and a little too urban fantasy when I tend to prefer young adult and fantasy of epic proportions – and yet, I was enthralled from the very first chapter. I have learned so much from this book, particularly about ancient coins and numismatics, not to mention shale oil technology!

Baker’s writing is great too, delivering stunning metaphor while not getting bogged down in description. The book is ambitious though and it tries to cram a lot into its pages. I think Baker pulled it off but I can imagine some readers might find the multi-genre mash-up a little too much. The plot moves at a serious clip and if I have any complaints it’s that the ending – while spectacular – seemed a tiny bit rushed, so that by the time I reached the last line I felt out of breath and still wanting more. But when an author leaves me wanting more, that’s a job well-done.

This book seriously surprised and impressed me. I cannot wait to read more by Eliot Baker. 5/5 ink splats for this one.

 

Book Review: My Chemical Mountain

Sometime last year, I read a little known YA novel called My Chemical Mountain. To be honest, the title caught my attention because of its similarity to the band name My Chemical Romance. I wasn’t quite sold given the blurb below, but I loved the cover so thought I’d give it a try anyway.

Rocked by his father’s recent death and his mother’s sudden compulsion to overeat, Jason lashes out by breaking into the abandoned mills and factories that plague his run-down town. Always by his side are his two best friends, Charlie, a fearless thrill junkie, and Cornpup, a geek inventor whose back is covered with cysts. The boys rage against the noxious pollution that suffocates their town and despise those responsible for it; at the same time, they embrace the danger of their industrial wasteland and boast about living on the edge. 

   Then on a night the boys vandalize one of the mills,  Jason makes a costly mistake–and unwittingly becomes a catalyst for change. In a town like his, change should be a good thing. There’s only one problem: change is what Jason fears most of all.

While I have read many disaster-apocalypse novels and a good few dystopians, this was first foray into ‘ecopunk,’ in that the book explores the consequences of pollution, corporate indifference and the effects of industrial waste on the environment. This story has stuck with me not least of all because of the grim, gritty, dark world the story is set in. This is neither a true post-apocalyptic nor a real dystopian story, but rather portrays the reality for many existing industrial towns right now. This is a very scary reality indeed, albeit exaggerated for the sake of fiction, and in many ways reminded me of the Chernobyl disaster and how the surrounding area was and is still affected by radiation today. Oh how I’d love to read a novel set in that vicinity!

What I truly loved about this story, and found so refreshing, was the all-boy main cast when having a strong, female lead is usually prerequisite for any YA novel. Along with the all-male cast, the emphasis in this novel is most certainly on male friendship instead of romance, which is also rare in YA. While I did appreciate this different approach, I must admit that at times this book felt more MG than YA because it was lacking certain tropes I’ve come to expect from YA. I think this novel might appeal more to younger readers, especially boys around the 10-13 age, but can be enjoyed by adults as well. Not that who the target audience should be really matters given how engaging these characters are. There was something so charming about Charlie’s reckless confidence, something endearing about Cornpup’s righteousness and something just undeniably lovable about Jason’s compassion – these are all characters I’ll definitely have a hard time forgetting. While the plot is rather straight forward without many twists or turns, I found the boys’ struggle against their toxic environment and the corporations that govern their lives totally compelling and alarming.

If you’re looking for a short, sci-fi light read with a refreshing focus on boys, friendship and the power one individual can have against a tyrant, then I strongly recommend this book! My Chemical Mountain gets 4/5 ink splats from me.

 

Review: The Index – Book 1: Mages by Katherine Gilraine

I’ve had this book (an electronic copy) for a lonnng time. Katherine got on my case and I started reading it, but struggled my absolute ass off with the book. And not for the reasons you might think.

Mages follows a group of extremely powerful beings, Mages trapped on Earth with a High Mage who has been the cause of much anarchy, destruction and death throughout the universe.

Mages was an interesting book – the characters, and there are many, are all vivid and easy to keep track of and remember. The High Mage sometimes fell into stereotypical ways of talking and thinking but his ambiguous nature made him memorable and interesting. Some of the other main characters, the High Mage’s children, for example, were different enough that they complemented each other and were made believeable as siblings; also, the High Mage’s main adversary was a powerful, confident and humourless woman, qualities that made her easy to follow and trust.

The magic system in Mages is also interesting – the Mages have aura’s which give them their power and each Mage has different auras and different powers. They’re also able to sense auras, so they know what kind of Mage they’re dealing with. There was only one thing that I had a problem with – the Mages seem too powerful and use their powers too openly.

Now, I would tell you about the wa Katherine plotted this novel, what I liked and didn’t like, but I can’t. You see, when I converted the PDF that Katherine had sent me to a format that I could read on my Blackberry’s MobiPocket App, the conversion totally removed every single quotation mark present in the text. 😦

As a consequence, I was having to constantly re-read every single page of the novel, just to get an idea of what the characters were doing, etc. At first I thought, honestly, that Katherine hadn’t included quotation marks in the text with the dialogue, but I checked the original PDF and it definitely has quotation marks. But because of the problem (dumb bloody phone, or App, or whatever the cause was) I just couldn’t really get into the novel – I can’t tell you what the novel is actually about, or analyse the plot in any way.

I must add that this wasn’t a fault of the novel or Katherine – it’s a problem with either my phone or the program I use to convert to a format that I can read on my phone.

So what am I going to do? Well, I feel that I do need a break from the frustration of trying to figure out what’s dialogue and what’s not, so I’m going to put aside the novel for now. It’s an interesting novel, with a cool magic system and interesting characters and I will get back to it once the problems with reading on my phone are sorted out.

For the promise this novel has shown from the little I did coherently understand I’ll give it a 7,5 / 10, a score which may well increase once I can read the novel as it was meant to be read. 🙂

If you’d like to find out more about Katherine and her work, check out her website here; to order Mages, click here for Amazon US and here for Amazon UK. Check out the links above for links to her second novel – Book 2: Secrets.

Be EPIC!

 

Black Ships – Jo Graham

Black Ships

 

Yesterday evening I finished Black Ships. I had been reading it in the bath, so I set the book aside and lay back, thinking about what had just ended. Guys, if you see this book on a bookstore’s shelf, buy it and read it and get lost in it; I did, and I now know that I’ve read a book that’ll always stay with me.

 

Let me quickly put this into perspective for you: I primarily read Epic Fantasy and Hard SF (many other genres inbetween but the two above are my great loves), and I had  read David Anthony Durham’s Acacia before Black Ships; you see, since I had an idea what to expect from Jo’s book, I knew that I wasn’t going to be reading Epic Fantasy, so I didn’t expect anything like that from Black Ships.

 

But I also didn’t expect to be utterly mesmerized by the book! 🙂

Black Ships is a beautiful read, absolutely and without doubt, beautiful! Jo’s economy and elegance with words completely pulls you in – she tells the story with exactly the right amount of detail, thereby painting her landscapes and characters in effortless strokes.

 

 

You never have one of the moments where you think, ‘Huh? What’s that?’ and then have to go back and re-read a section. You also never have to skip a section – Jo never bored me, and every word that slipped in through my eyes stayed there. There were never any words that seemed out of place or wrong, where as soon as you read them, you think, ‘Okay, I wouldn’t have used that word or so many words to explain that or this.’ and her narrative style is so easy on the eyes and brain that before you know it, you’ve finished the first 100 pages and it doesn’t matter that you missed your favourite TV show or that it’s half-past 3 in the morning; but don’t misunderstand me either – I could put this book down and go do something else, but the fact that I’m trying to articulate here is that Black Ships was always in my mind. I never stopped thinking about the book or the characters or the world that Jo Graham shows us.

 

Some books that I’ve read have pride of place above the others: Pet Sematary because I read it when I was nine years old; The Reality Dysfunction because I finished that 1000+ page book in less than a week (that’s how incredible the book is) and now Black Ships because of its beauty. 🙂

 

This is one of the tiny minority of books that brought tears to my eyes, and I am proud to say that; I lived with Jo’s characters for two weeks and now that the journey is over, I am sad, there’s no doubting that. I’ll miss Gull and Xandros and Aeneas, their ancient world, and yes, I’ll even miss the Lady of the Dead. I’m purposefully not telling you what you can expect plotwise because 1) you can check out her own website for that (http://jo-graham.com/jo-graham/) and 2) I hope you discover this book the same way I did, read it for what it is and not for what you think it might be, and love it the same way I do. 🙂

 

I give this 9/10 – it’s compelling, stunning, memorable, and beautiful. 🙂

 

Jo Graham