Alvin Ng
As the second (maybe third) book I have read from the Discworld series by pre-eminent fantasy humourist Terry Pratchett, I was uncertain whether I would like this story of Death taking over from Hogfather (i.e. Discworld Santa) when the holiday's iconic fat man is unavailable. My previous Discworld experience taught me that the humour would be incredibly nerdy, clever, witty and dry, and that really excited me. However, I also knew that the writing would be very dense, not that it would be hard to understand, but that there would be a lot of detail packed into each paragraph. Plus, there would be many asides and jokes mentioned in passing that would be easy to miss. That turned out definitely to be true of my experience with Hogfather. We follow a few groups of characters, but mainly Death (the skeletal, scythe-bearing spectre that severs us from this mortal coil) himself, along with Susan (a governess by day, but Death's granddaughter by night) who is manipulated into investigating the disappearance of Hogfather and why her grandfather has taken on the mantle. Additionally, we spend a lot of time with the faculty of Unseen University (Discworld's premier wizard school) who are also bothereed by the fact that their thoughts seem to be conjuring up lesser gods all over the place, and a band of mercenaries led by an assasin named Teatime (not pronounced the way it looks, if you know what's good for you) who may be involved with what's happened to Hogfather.
As you can tell from that brief synopsis (which does not do justice to all the other characters and plot threads that run through this story), there is a lot of bizarrely hilarious fun to be expected. Thankfully, I was not disappointed in that I have not laughed out loud this much while reading for a long time. Pratchett's descriptions hit the perfect tone of colourful, wry, and sarcastic. For example, one of the mercenaries was cleverly described by this quote: “He was known to Ankh-Morpork's professional underclass as a thoughtful, patient man, and considered something of an intellectual because some of his tattoos were spelled right.” Unfortunately this kind of writing also demanded that a lot of attention and focus be paid, otherwise it became difficult to follow the plot and what was happening. Also each time one of the many (a few too many, in my opinion) quirky characters are introduced, it's not always clear who or what they are, and it takes some time to absorb. It wasn't even clear for the first half of the book what the main story arc was supposed to be. I didn't understand why we we kept cutting to Susan, or why Death was apparently pretending to be Hogfather. (Unfortunately, I know of quite a few people who gave up on this book before getting too deeply into it because they felt confused and disengaged.)
Nevertheless, by the second half, things were more focused and fell better into place (though there was still an odd chapter where the workers in a fancy restaurant cook up old boots as gourmet dishes, and I'm still not quite sure why) and the story was a bit more engaging. The final quarter had an even bigger shift in tone when, after I kind of thought the story was done, the true climax of the story took on a more mythical, primordial quality, and then (in a way that reminded me a bit of Lord of the Rings) the final final ending was actually a series of endings where we revisit each of the character groups we've seen (some of which I had forgotten) to tie things up for them. Suffice to say, this book was quite an onion.
As to whether reading Hogfather has encouraged me to dive deeper into Discworld, it definitely has. I really enjoyed meeting all these characters, who presumably recur in other volumes of the series (especially the Unseen University wizards) and the story, while being somewhat confusing, was much less confusing than The Colour of Magic (Book 1) which I read last year. The humour is right up my alley, and I really enjoy the newer Penguin audio recordings that are out there now (including the one I listened to of Hogfather). I have a few other of the Discworld favourites/classics in my library and look forward to checking them out soon.
4.5 stars
This is the third Simon Stålenhag book I've experienced this year (and I've actually got one more on loan from the library, so another review should be coming soon). I've loved them all, but sadly, I got to these books out of order. This book should have been the first one (and I already read the sequel to this, Things From the Flood). But, that's alright, because they are not really narratives; not even non-linear ones. They are mostly a series of amazing snapshots and stories of suburban life in a sci-fi-contaminated Netherlands. Stålenhag's narrators describe brief little episodes, often of precocious school-age kids, who discover scary and wondrous things in their schoolyards, neighbours' backyards or other various places in the region where abandoned and derelict technology has influenced the environment. In this first book, we learn briefly of the particle accelerator facility nicknamed “The Loop” which operated for decades under this small Dutch town of Mälaröarna, and how it led to all kinds of technology and scientific advancements. After it was shut down and decommissioned, artifacts and well as other science-fictiony effects were left behind in a somewhat mundane way.
Specifically, there are metal spheres of various sizes abandoned in random places. According to the tales, these ecospheres may have causes a couple of twins to swap minds between their two bodies; and another kid claimed that after entering a sphere to retrieve a soccer ball, he was transported to another sphere in Nevada. As well, there are mag-lev vehicles, robots (both android types as well as larger construction “spider” robots) and even dinosaurs have apparently shown up through portals in space-time to terrorize the local ice cream trucks. Part of the charm of these books (and especially this one that started it all) is how all these sci-fi concepts are not explained with background info (though there was a segment in this book describing the made-up science behind the mag-lev vehicles used at the Loop) or with a storyline. These incredible things are all presented as neighbourhood gossip or plain ol' ordinary happenings in the ‘burbs.
The second major aspect to these books are the amazing paintings, done by Stålenhag as well. Frankly, the reason why these books are so hard to get ahold of is because they are not cheap. They are essentially coffee table books with illustrations dominating the page count. The images are painted in a realistic style, in fact they reflect a kind of sci-fi variant of “magical realism”, where a couple of young kids might be playing with a two-legged robot in a rye field (controlling it remotely with a backpack). Or that aforementioned ice cream truck is abandoned on the road while two scarysauruses are sniffing around it. The paintings are beautiful and a little melancholic, but they also slip easily into the viewer's mind so that you feel like not only can you imagine these really existing, but also that maybe you know what it's like to live there. Unfortunately, because I was only able to borrow the audiobook version from the library, I didn't have access to the images in the book (I know, why did I even bother, right?) Thankfully, Stålenhag shared almost all the images on his website, so I was able to follow along there. Plus, even though this book had more of a one-to-one correlation between the painted images and the stories in the text, the images are clearly meant only to provide quick, loose glimpses to help the reader realise this world in their minds. Not everything in the images are necessarily mentioned in the text. The images do, however, an incredible job of connecting the vibe.
That being said, the written text is also really a delight to read, with a bit of humour but also some heart. The stories are very short, but even so they describe very realistic characters (mostly a few kids) who are neither pure angels or bratty devils. But even that description from me is overstating it. There is a narrator, but there's no protagonist or overall plot to this book. In the end, this is a well imagined world depicted mostly through atmosphere and some modest storytelling. This could be considered hard sci-fi, with really out-there concepts that are familiar to sci-fi fans. But it is told in such a plain, cozy and ordinary way (both through text and imagery) that you might also find yourself wondering if it's really fiction at all. Surprisingly, I found part of my mind wondering if these scenes and the world of these books could have actually existed in the 1980s Netherlands, at least until the other part reminds me that there's no way that they could ... but then again... That's really the amazing effect of Stålenhag's unique books and the subtle kind of wonder that they convey.
P.S. I almost forgot to mention the TV series adaptation that started my obsession. Tales From the Loop was adapted by Amazon Prime Video. And while the show goes way beyond what's in the book, that quiet and moody feel and the incredible yet subtle sci-fi is absolutely there. People should definitely check out the show (it's a bit slow, but it's worth it).
Any post-apocalyptic story was going to start out behind the ball for me, as I am not a fan. However, this one was written by acclaimed Canadian author Emily St. John Mandel, it's one of Barack Obama's faves, and has already been adapted for TV, so there's a lot to like even before reading it. Additionally, the apocalypse in question is a fictional “flu” that decimates the world's population and societies (this is not a spoiler, just context for the main narrative). This obviously rings relatable and hits close to home as we have all endured the COVID pandemic not long ago. Still, I think enough time has passed that a fictional analog makes a good touchstone for reflection. Ironically, if this book had focused more on the pandemic and the events that occurred after the collapse of civilization afterwards, I might have enjoyed it more than I did. Instead, the opening scene (where a fictionally famous actor dies from a heart attack as he performs King Lear on stage at Toronto's Elgin Winter Garden theatre — yes, I loved reading about locations just down the street from where I live) acts as a prelude for other interconnected pre-apocalyptic stories throughout the book. We flash back and forth through events in the life of Arthur Leander, the people in his orbit, and others connected to the events precipitating from the night of his death.
Though it's kind of artsy, the non-linear timeline of the book was more challenging than helpful. Since I expected the story of what happens after the world has ended and humanity attempts to pick itself up, I was not paying close enough attention to the pre-pandemic back-stories of incidental characters. I thought that those scenes were merely “colour” or setup for some eventual emotional payoff and that we'd be quickly shifting to the future. But between relatively short chapters, we kept jumping around in time and between different characters' lives, so that even by the end I could not tell you whether or not there was meant to be a protagonist to this book. I found this effect disengaging. If I reread the book now, I might enjoy it a lot more, and get much more from it, knowing what to expect.
The post-apocalyptic part of the book followed a traveling troupe of actors/musicians as they went from place to place performing music and plays for clusters of people. The concept is interesting. Realistically, I'm not sure that such a thing would truly exist 20 years after the end of society, but it's a great vehicle to discuss the value of art as a basic human need. Unfortunately (and again, ironically) that became less of a focus when plot elements started to get in the way. As the troupe made their way among small settlements of survivors, some familiar post-apocalyptic tropes (specifically doomsday cults and cult leaders) started to rear their heads. And though the plot became a bit more thrilling, it was easy to forget the higher-minded ideas that we had previously expected to explore.
If you're familiar with the TV series Lost, I kept thinking of that show while reading this book. With the time-jumping narratives, the character back-story focus, the crazy survival scenarios against bands of Others, they all rang a lot of bells — none of which were bad as I loved that show. (It provided plenty of great water cooler discussions in the office.) Another phenomenon from the late 90s were movies which also followed a diverse cast of characters who seemed to have no connection to each other. We follow their stories through dramatic scenes from their lives until we eventually learn how they are connected maybe by a common incident, or each character knows another character in a daisy-chain of association. I loved those movies. So, this book has so many things going for it, but it just ended up throwing me off, and while I did enjoy some of the latter parts of the story (especially one particular character named Clark) I find it difficult to understand the hype, the love, or the specialness of this book.
The creepy covers of this comic book series suggest something dark, macabre and scary — perfect for spooky season. However, what we have is a Lost style mystery box where a group of 12 individuals are invited by their mutual friend, Walter, to a luxuriously nice house by the lake. It doesn't take long before things take a turn for the weird, don't quite add up, and everyone finds out that their fun, relaxing getaway is something much more bizarre than they could have imagined. The similarities to the TV series Lost are so strong that I expected the iconic line from that show, “Where are we?”, at the end of every chapter. Popular comic book writer James Tynion IV has packed-in a lot of fun story ideas and plot ideas to make for a cool, suspenseful sci-fi story. Unfortunately, I think the story also got too jumbled and I would have preferred more straightforward storytelling to let us enjoy all of head-scratching clues, the eerie mysteries, and the inventively-designed environments.
Similar to Lost, each chapter focuses on a particular character, who provides the opening prologue that seems to be from outside the main storyline. As well, we flash back to earlier scenes of interaction between each character and Walter. Unfortunately, there are a few too many characters, and individual stories were undercooked. Despite some well-written, dramatic scenes, there was usually not enough time given to allow us to fully understand the significance. Also, though Walter himself featured in every person's flashback, it still felt like his character was poorly written. For the reader, it was perhaps supposed to be part of the enigma of Walter, who he actually is, and what his motives are for bringing everyone to the house. Sadly, when Walter's secrets were gradually revealed, I found myself liking him less and less (and maybe that's also intentional).
Though the art was good, and expressive, and the environments looked great. The visual style was also a bit too muddy and sketchy, and it was hard to really feel immersed. It always felt a bit uncomfortable to look at. There were some “effects” heavy scenes that were especially challenging, and they were somewhat disturbing (and again, I suppose that might be the point, but it didn't feel fun to look at). The visuals also made it difficult to keep track of the characters. Granted, there is a wide variety of looks, and characters didn't really resemble each other very much, because the same character kind of looked different with different expressions or angles, characters did start to blur a bit (or at least, my mind was a bit tired of trying to keep them straight). Hair colour and style, which could have been used to maintain a consistency for a character's appearance between scenes from different moments, instead it varied. Blue hair could have been used as a clue that it's the same character in the past, rather than force the reader to realize that the blue haired character had black hair in the flashback scene.
Non-linear storytelling was also challenging. There is a lot of jumping between different time periods, and even a fourth-wall-breaking opening scene at the start of each chapter. There's also a big twist midway through the series that's not easy to follow. Nevertheless, because of the chapter/issues follow a consistent format (which feels a lot like a TV episode), it was not as difficult to follow as I am suggesting. However, the net result is that readers probably need to concentrate harder in order to stay on track and not lose interest in the story. I had to read the series twice to pick up all the threads (but maybe that's just me).
There are quite a few interesting sci-fi ideas thrown around in this series, but they were underused. Often the ramifications of some special technology or an alteration of reality was used more as a trigger or reason for the characters to argue and hash out interpersonal issues. Some cool new aspect to reality at the house would be introduced, then it would be quickly overlooked or no longer mentioned. I didn't really enjoy the interpersonal dynamics or aspects to the story, so the tradeoff was not worth it for me. I kept wanting to learn more about the mysterious sculpture in the courtyard, or the effect that being at the house was having on their physical wellbeing, but instead the focus went back on to the characters and their conversations about each other. I wasn't mad, just disappointed. Silver lining, I think that in they end, the story did also explore (albeit obliquely under the guise of sci-fi) some interesting philosophical conundrums, and some bigger-picture questions such as: Who is in control of human existence? Who should be? And what that means regarding human nature.
Though most of my comments have leaned negatively, I did find this series pretty intriguing — especially all the mysteries and twists. Even though I don't think it ultimately succeeded with me, the series was quite ambitious. Its scope being somewhat contained, but in many ways it was far-reaching as well. I loved the series Lost (as I've already mentioned too often), so I was pre-disposed to love this series since it followed that blueprint in so many ways. However, the complexity of execution resulted in the story kind of stumbling upon itself and being more confounding than enjoyable. Maybe if The Nice House on the Lake is made into a TV series, it will have found its perfect medium.
3 stars
Intimately well-written word portrait from the viewpoint of a woman, captive to a literal monster (gave me Robert Browning vibes). Her anger, bitterness, desperation are clearly expressed and it made for a provocative perspective. I had mixed feelings about the surprising-yet-predictable ending but I enjoyed this dark reimagining of Beauty and the Beast.
This one was a little strange: about the last faerie, who works in a slaughterhouse, creating bizarre (and occasionally beautiful) monstrosities out of the carcass parts. I wasn't really getting the point, and it was even more odd given how the themes seem to be classic T.Kingfisher, but put together in an off-kilter, mangled way. Hey maybe that's the point! Your mileage will vary with this one. Mine was lower.
2.5 stars
2.5 stars
This one was only OK. This story about the main character's father's “hungry” ghost following her everywhere was more annoying than scary.
I much preferred her contribution to the first volume of Come Join Us by the Fire: “Don't Turn on the Lights” was a scary reimagining of the classic urban legend about the murdered college roommate.
3.5 stars
When a gigantic stone behemoth appears in the middle of Millennium Square in Coventry, UK, it's a photo op. When the stone man starts to move and walk relentlessly on its own, leaving a path of destruction in its wake, you've got an exciting sci-fi mystery. We follow reporter Andy Pointer, himself a witness at the origin point of this shocking event, as he tries to figure out why the Stone Man is here, where it is going, and why that moving monolith seems to have some kind of connection to him. The concept is intriguing and I was immediately eager to follow Andy along the Stone Man's path, but unfortunately, after the exciting opening scenes, the novel shifted focus almost entirely to the people impacted by the Stone Man. Too much of the mystery is left out (though the author claims that why the Stone Man appears and what was its purpose is clearly stated in the text). The story seems to hook the reader at the start, then pivots to the human characters with only modest sci-fi stuff revealed for the rest of the story. Events escalate a bit, and there are a few dramatic and tense moments, but overall there is a lot less plot than there should have been (which is kind of surprising).
Fortunately, the characters are enjoyable. Andy is not bad as a point-of-view character as we follow on his chase after the Stone Man. He quickly starts to feel a mysterious connection to it, along with other characters (mainly a man named Paul). They all start to feel physiological symptoms and stress. And with a quasi-psychic connection to each other and the Stone Man the mystery of the Stone Man's purpose deepens. It's kind of fun to watch the two men try to figure out what's happening (we the readers don't know any more than they do). Also, it was a nice change that when the military characters are introduced, they don't just flex their muscles and push Andy and Paul around. Brigadier Straub is actually a very smart character and she's clearly capable of making intelligent as well as sensitive decisions; and when she takes command of the situation, she doesn't become the enemy to our main characters, but a hesitant ally.
I'm not going to spoil the ending by revealing any plot details, but I will say that it was sort of a letdown, in my opinion. The story is resolved in an open-ended kind of way. It's not any kind of cliffhanger, since this book was intended to be a standalone rather than the first in a series (I guess that came later). However, there was not really a big climax, and there was no Hollywood ending with emotional fanfare or heroics. Nevertheless, one of the prominent themes of this story is heroism and what makes someone genuinely heroic. The characters do need to make some difficult, life-and-death decisions and also they struggle with their consciences and the emotional effects of their choices in a way that's deeper than your average popcorn flic storyline. Smitherd's writing is on par with many other writers of sci-fi thrillers (I want to name Blake Crouch, but I really don't like his writing), but I just wish that the original concept could have been taken a lot further and in more imaginative directions.
Not quite sure what to say about this novella. It's definitely not the kind of story I typically enjoy. The story of an unnamed boy from an underclass, the Chained, who toil in the belly of a gargantuan mining ship in space is given the opportunity to be brought up out of The Hold, and be educated at the ship's university in the upper levels among the privileged. His professor, herself a daughter of one of the Chained, follows him on a quest that tests the constraints of their constrictive society, driven by the need to rediscover human connections.
I'm describing a plot synopsis in vague, movie-poster-style thematic terms mainly because the plot is not the key to this story. The narration, though not using first-person voice, mostly favours the thoughts and memories of the characters over physical description or dialogue. it focuses on what they are thinking as the events take place. In their minds, the boy is never named, only referred to as “the boy”, the professor is mostly referred to as “the woman”. As a result, it was a bit challenging for me to stay grounded in what was going on (I found myself rereading paragraphs to orient myself) until the second half, when more “action” was described.
I liked the writing a lot, which was simple yet poetic and evocative: “Once, he said, on ancient Earth, there was a Horizon, and to gaze on it was to look neither up nor down. Look out, he said, pointing a finger. He put his hands to his ribs. He said the breath expanded the body in all directions.” I also liked how the story blurred the lines between concrete scientific concepts and mystical/spiritual ideas. In particular, there is a system of anklets applied to all of the middle-class of this society (a moderate version of the chains that were used on the lower-class slaves). The anklets have the subtle effect of linking wearers psychically/mentally with each other. There is also a character known as “the prophet” who teaches the boy about a kind of philosophy or meditation, known as The Practice, whose techniques and ideas lead the boy to tease and explore the anklets' psychic link, discovering a greater human spiritual connection as a result.
I say that the plot is not as important also because the plot is rather classic and predictable. What do you think will happen when a member of an oppressed class is given the opportunity to step above his station? (It's not Red Rising, but it kind of is.) What I enjoyed and admired about this story is mostly the lyrical prose, and how Samatar's story was able to use a modest science fiction setting to express and explore a social and spiritual message in a gentle, yet effective and urgent way.
3.5 stars
I'm not a big follower of Spider-Man, but I checked out the debut of this latest reboot for one reason: Pepe Larraz. He is my favourite comic book artist, and I was curious about what he could make of a major character that has been done so much already. I thought this issue was great. A lot of fun, with a focus on Peter Parker. Of course, the super-life is getting in the way of a bunch of job interviews. The story was OK, in my opinion – a minor mystery. It's Larraz's gorgeous, kinetic, energetic, enthusiastic art that sells me every time. I have not met a Larraz page that I have not loved. BTW, there's also a backup story (with post-credit scene) illustrated by John Romita Jr. (who's also quite serviceable, but Larraz ... ).
Jonathan Hickman knows how to write some pretty good space opera and I love how Marvel's planetary empires (and spacey characters) are being brought into the picture. Galaxy spanning political intrigue with Marvel flair. I am absolutely looking forward to finding out what happens next (and hoping to seeing more of the Shi'ar Imperial Guard).
3.5 stars
The premise of this story was super compelling: once the world hits a population of 8 billion, each human gets their own individual genie to grant them a single wish. Simple, yet compelling, right? I definitely thought so, and I was totally addicted to the story that came out of this. I wanted to know what these various characters would wish for. Plus, the creators clearly wanted to give it more thought than the cliche of having people's wishes backfire because they mis-worded them, or get twisted into payback for their innate greed. Instead, we get to see a world where people immediately get to transform reality all around them, and the conflicting wishes would cause catastrophic problems. I love it when writers really try to think through fantastical concepts. In this story, they even imagined a kind of dystopian path that the world would take, where after the world was kind of messed up by the effect of too many crazy wishes, various safe havens and enclaves would form. Sadly, that's when the story kind of lost my initial fervour. The wishes themselves kind of lost their meaning. They became commodities and objects of power in another post-apocalyptic story. It was nice to read about the characters that we'd followed since the beginning, but the timescale also started to speed up (felt like they were just trying to get to the end) and reach the final wish. At that end point I found things got a bit preachy and unfortunately I didn't find the ending very satisfying. I realize that everyone prefers a story arc, rather than jumping around vignettes of various characters exploring their wishes, but I wish (no pun intended) that this particular story had gone wider that way instead. Maybe that would have been too much also, but in the end I think this story tried to take its core concept in too many different directions and didn't quite succeed in tying them all together. Nevertheless, the genies looked cute.
3 stars
I had high expectations for Mexican-Canadian author Silvia Moreno-Garcia's acclaimed novel, but was pretty let down. Given the book's title, yes, there was everything classically gothic, but very little Mexican, aside from the geographic setting (and the occasional Spanish word). This tale of a rich city girl going out to a country mansion to rescue her married cousin after receiving a disturbing letter about her seeing ghosts and being unwell could have been set anywhere. I thought there'd be something connected to the Mexican indigenous culture, or maybe the some local mythology or folklore, but none of that was in the story. On the contrary, there was a decaying gothic mansion; rich aristocrats from England who are creepy, mean and strict; ghostly and strange nightmares; misty countryside (even in Mexico); and sickly, bedridden characters with mysterious ailments. Into that classic template, drop Noemí Taboada even though she's not a very traditional Mexican. She's a chic modern rich girl who enjoys her nightlife even more than her graduate education in anthropology.
When Noemí goes to High Place to rescue her cousin, Catalina, the story unfolds fairly predictably. There is almost no surprise. Will Noemi find something strange and creepy with the Doyle family? Will Noemí find that there is something to her cousin's delusions about ghosts? Will the Doyle family have unnecessarily strict rules about what Noemi can and cannot do? Will Noemi try to break those rules? Will something dark be secretly lurking at High Place? Will this family turn out to be more bizarre and twisted than they seem? I don't need to answer a single one of those questions for you. You can answer them yourself already.
Noemi was not a standout character. I don't think we knew her very well, despite hearing about her backstory a bit, and constantly hearing her thoughts. Being a pretty debutante, I expected her to play against trope, not be shallow, but actually possess a lot of buried strength and depth. Sadly she didn't really feel like that. Don't get me wrong, Moreno-Garcia's writing isn't bad. She was able to provide fairly vivid descriptions and painted every scene with an appropriately decaying sense of beauty, but I also don't feel she really flexed any extraordinary amount of imagination in word or idea.
The narrator was also mixed. Her performance in the characters's voices was pretty expressive, given how serious most of the characters were. Unfortunately, her English accent needed work. Plus, whenever she went into her narrator voice, she got kind of stilted and pronounced everything with an extremely even tone, I even suspected to be AI a couple of times. That really kind of flattened the mood (and in a gothic tale, the mood is half the story).
As I mentioned at the start, this novel was overall quite disappointing. I like my creepy Lovecraftian horror and my gothic tales, but this one was middling.
3.25 out of 5
While I love Mike Mignola's art style, it is also often hard for me to follow what is being depicted. Still, the creepy mystical haunted vibe is everything. Even though this is not set in the Hellboy universe, it feels remarkably similar (which is a good thing), and the quasi-Lovecraftian world-building, and the slavic folklore callbacks are always welcome. Unfortunately the stories mostly didn't work for me. There was a bit more humour than usual, and more 4th-wall breaking, that threw me off. Plus a number of the stories seemed to end in a way where I could feel like there was some kind of punchline that just eluded me. Still, didn't hate it, but wanted to love this book and didn't do that either.
4.5 stars
This is not the first comic with the premise of superheroic events taking place over real time (i.e. decades pass and characters actually age) and are set against a real historical backdrop. However, this one was really well written. I think the Fantastic Four were a great choice to be the characters we follow because they are also a family and that makes it a lot easier to follow their realistic personal relationship ups and downs over the course of the story as well. Throughout most of the story, there is the looming and pending arrival of Galactus to Earth. I think that was also a clever storytelling device. It made for a good theme concept for Reed Richards and the other FF to live their lives in reaction to over the course of decades, rather than the typical super-crisis events we find in comic book stories. It was interesting to see that life continues and is lived in parallel to these types of crises. The storytelling also had the nice touch of being narrated alternatively by one FF member after another. This really foregrounded the character stories, growth and development. The art was also really well done (for the most part): expressive faces, and dynamic action scenes. It was the perfect style for a life story format. Unfortunately, the climax was a bit of a let down (after so many issues of buildup) and there were kind of several endings (some were more satisfying than others). Thankfully the somewhat sentimental final ending was heartwarming and uplifting, leaving me with a good feeling (as it should).
I'm no expert on fantasy tropes or the subverting of tropes, but I know that I don't want that to be the focus of any story. This is more than the story of a courageous knight (who happens to be a woman) and her failed mage of a squire (who happens to be a man) taking on a dragon. The story fits very well within familiar fantasy conventions (the dragon that they pursue is ancient and has a legendary treasure within her hoard), but is told in a way that lives up to those traditions yet feels fresh, imaginative and surprising. For one thing, author Charlotte Bond adds some new horror elements to the classic story. Sir Maddileh and Petras are haunted by nightmares and hallucinations in the dragon's cave. They encounter “dragon dead” (the ghosts of dragon victims who stalk the cave like zombies) and “soot drakes” (deadly pests who infect unsuspecting travellers with toxic soot that will destroy their bodies) as they make their way deeper in. There are also many interesting magical objects, spells, and legendary tales of various mages of old woven into the story, which are a lot of fun to read about.
Even with a low page count, there are interesting backstories for all the characters — even some of the characters within the backstories have backstories. The titular Fireborne Blade definitely has its story and, by the end, Bond manages to bring many of these stories together in a clever and unique way, crafting them into an even bigger story. I love twists; and this novella contained so many surprises which I didn't expect that it kept me delighted and surprised the whole time.
The writing and the narration are also both very well done. The language is descriptive, pleasant and elegant without being flowery or pretentious. There's a good variety of voices and tones, including some guide-book-style chapters which nicely deliver world-building exposition in an engaging way. It is impressive how much of a world is built around a fairly straightforward story and a single core event. It doesn't feel only like the dragon's cave is the entire world. In fact, there is so much going on outside (described mostly in the flashbacks) that when we reach the climax, it doesn't feel like we're seeing sunlight for the first time. The narration by Helen McAlpine is great. She gives each character a varied tone, and her voice is mature enough to avoid the petulance and juvenile air that makes many female narrators skew a little bit “young adult”.
Overall, I loved this story. It was all well-crafted, very fun and satisfying. Even though I don't feel it needs to be any longer, I would love to read more from this world and this author.
4.75 stars
This story of a young trainer of rocs (y'know, those giant eagles from tales of Sinbad and Arabian Nights) was not bad. Fonda Lee is a pretty good writer and can set the scene with evocative details and description. There are a number of fast-paced action scenes as well, which are pretty thrilling. However, overall the story was a bit on the ordinary side (as tales of magical creatures fighting other magical creatures go). The story spent a lot of time either with the training/bonding aspect of the protagonist (Ester) with her bird (Zahra), or with her experience growing up and making her way as a ruhker. There was definitely a “young adult” flavour to this story not only because it spent a little time on crushes and love triangles, but mainly because the point of view was a young woman who was growing in life experience throughout the story (and naturally makes some juvenile choices along the way). I wish that there had been less time spent on the technical, falconry-adjacent, aspects of being a ruhker, in favour of more world-building beyond that profession and their manticore-hunting mandate. Even though it was clearly a familiar, Arabian-inspired world, expanding on that world in imaginative ways could have made the story a lot more interesting. Or, we could also have spent more time in mind of Ester. She experienced a lot of trauma in her backstory so it probably would have been pretty engaging to explore how she's been coping and growing all these years. How did she manage to become a successful ruhker after all the disadvantages of a troubled past? I guess the most disappointing aspect of this novella was that by the end of it, I had no real desire to revisit that world or for this story to have kept exploring deeper.
The Electric State tells the story of a runaway teenager, Michelle, and her drone robot buddy, Skip, driving across an eerie, abandoned alternate USA in 1997, where ruins of the previously thriving consumer culture can still be seen alongside massive derelict war vehicles left over from a cybernetic conflict. It's a post-apocalyptic wasteland where the zombies aren't a result of dark magic or contagion, but some kind of “neuronic” technology that linked peoples' minds and stole their souls.
The art book is filled with beautifully haunting paintings of scenes encountered by the pair on their journey towards the west coast. It's amazing how Stålenhag can make such mundane images of American highways, cars, ordinary buildings look so sad and creepy – even when monuments of high technology are injected in between. The masterful part is how the visuals and the text come together. Accompanied by the visuals, the narrative is a well-written, tragic character story. Everything that Michelle has already gone through, as told in flashbacks, is sad. But it also feels like her life was the norm and that the shiny plastic veneer of this society was easily scratched away. Despite the setup for a road trip adventure, the plot involves almost no action apart from driving from stop to stop. Stålenhag's writing is excellent at evoking a mood of decay and abandonment, and he gives Michelle's voice a feeling of weariness, even though she also feels determined against the backdrop of the rest of the world that has given up, dissipated and disappeared.
A challenge in reading this book is that it doesn't really hold your hand. The writing is subtle about when the voice or timeframe has changed (though there are typographical cues – which makes me feel bad for the audiobook readers, and they're also missing out on the visuals, which are the best part). Michelle's narration often switches between past and present without warning. Plus, the backstory of this alternate world requires some puzzling together of various snapshots (along with visual clues from the illustrations). The book is never a sunny funny read, but it also stops short of being depressing. It stirs up all kinds of feelings, especially if the reader manages to engage with Michelle and Skip's story (including the finale told only in images – which I confess I loved, but am not sure I understood completely). This is that kind of book. (4 out of 5)
I wasn't quite sure what to expect from this book, but with a title like "The Malevolent Seven", I knew it was going to be fun. Though its got mages and spells and a quest to stop evil other-dimensional beings from taking over the world, it's not your typical epic fantasy nor is it a satire of one. I want to think of it as the story of a magical X-Men, but it's actually more of a magical Suicide Squad. The main character (the whole story is narrated from his point of view) is a mercenary war mage named Cade Ombra. We join him as he is fulfilling his contract to help a particularly nasty ruler defeat his enemies with the help of a small army of mages, including Cade's best friend, Corrigan. When Cade and Corrigan are ordered to brutally slaughter the enemy forces (even after they've surrendered), the duo decide they have had enough and make tracks to pursue another commission, recruiting other wonderists (that's what they call mages in this world) along the way. As expected, things really don't go as expected and the story builds from a couple of self-serving mercenary mages to something with good vs. evil, world-threatening stakes. Nevertheless, none of the characters are snowy white good (even the ones who literally appear to be on the side of the angels -- they call them "aurorals" in this book), and ultimately, it's fun to watch an armageddon of anti-heroes.
De Castell's writing is nice and clever. Cade's attitude is dry and cheeky, and Corrigan is brazen and sarcastic. Even when the situations seem serious enough to deserve a grim tone, our heroes laugh in the face of calamity and danger. There's a scene when Corrigan (who is a thunderist, i.e. fires bolts of lightning magic) runs into another like him, he blasts her unprovoked, claiming justification because of her over-the-top name (Elena Scourge). Everyone then calls hypocrite on him, since his name (Corrigan Blight) is just as bad. The facetious tone is a little bit like something from a Terry Pratchett novel, except it's not quite as ornately clever, mostly tongue-in-cheek. Though the tone can be humourous, the subject matter is still often quite adult and dark. It is probably closer to the Dungeon Crawler Carl series (even though the plots and settings are nothing alike).
My favourite part of this story is the fantasy world-building, specifically the character designs and the variety of magic. Aside from thunderists (who wield “tempestral” magic), Cade is an infernal mage (who trade pieces of their souls to demonic beings for spells). Then almost every other mage is a different type, with different powers, coming from a different realm of magic. These “attunements” have an extremely wide variety: everything from blood magic, to auroral (i.e. angelic), to floronic (who manipulate plants and nature), to rats, bats, keys, knots, torture, to my favourite: cosmists, whose bodies are portals to a cosmic dimension. They look like a starfield, or night sky, in the shape of a person (and apparently like to wear orange striped clothing). Everyone from the main characters to each little side character, whether mage or some other kind, has an interesting profile sheet (this story might make an enjoyable video game now that I think of it). In fact, the characters are all pretty well drawn out for such a short storyline and how much happens. The main focus is on Cade, so we dive a lot deeper into his backstory, but the cast is a wonderful mix and virtually no two characters are alike.
So if you enjoy fantasy but you're interested in something other than your typical Tolkien-inspired epic, and you want to read something that is colourful, clever, facetious, and fun, this book is very much worth your time (and apparently a sequel is coming out soon. So let's get ready for The Malevolent Eight!) (4 out of 5)
It's essentially the story of a science professor whose life gets turned upside down when the multiverse of alternate realities intrudes on his idyllic family life. Think Everything Everywhere All At Once (only worse).
I didn't love the writing, which I thought tried to make everything intense by using overwrought, superlative-laden, movie poster language (Come on, protagonist, was that really the longest shower of your life?)
Also, the science in the sci-fi was pretty weak (which is only exacerbated by the fact that the protagonist was supposed to be this super-genius level scientist who is constantly trying to explain the multiverse to us, and the other characters). It would be less bad if they didn't keep reminding us that every possible thing that can happen causes branching realities to an infinite degree, and then make it so that they (and other characters) can relatively easily navigate between realities (or are really fixated on specific versions of reality).
Bottom line is that I could barely finish the book. It was pretty frustrating. Comparing Dark Matter to Project Hail Mary (which is also popcorn sci-fi), the latter was a million times better! (see, I can use superlatives too!)
Redshirts has got to be one of the most geek-friendly book titles I have encountered. The uninformed might guess that it's about wearing a certain colour of clothing, and they might be wondering why it's a single compound word. However, any sci-fi fan worth his salt knows that it actually refers to the laughable tendency for characters on the original Star Trek series who wore red uniforms to be entirely expendable and prone to being hurt or killed on away missions. So we know what this story is going to be about. The story of Ensign Andrew Dahl is clearly set in a copy of the Star Trek universe with its starship Intrepid and Universal Union as clear analogues to the starship Enterprise and the Federation. Nevertheless, Redshirts is not merely a spoof of Star Trek, but attempts to tell its own very “meta” story. When Dahl arrives aboard the Intrepid, it doesn't take him long to notice that certain people are dying on missions (and in gruesome, ridiculous ways such as “death by ice shark”), while others never get hurt or seem to recover miraculously when they do. The behaviour of certain crew members changes without explanation and other reality-defying incidents start to pique Dahl's interest, so he starts digging for answers — hopefully before he falls prey to whatever is happening as well. Because of the obvious Star Trek comparisons, we same sci-fi fans who are worth our salt can also predict quite easily what is going on, so thankfully, author John Scalzi doesn't keep that a “mystery” for long. Instead, partway into the story, the plot takes a huge “meta” twist and the fictional reality kind of wraps in on itself. I don't want to give too much away (maybe I already have), but this twist makes the story pretty interesting (a cool little variant on the time-travel story — another sci-fi staple). This plot change also comes right at the time when I was getting very confused by the various characters and their names. (I listened to the audiobook, which was wonderfully performed by Wesley Crusher himself, Wil Wheaton — How's that for “meta”? — but that made it even harder to keep characters straight since they all sounded similar until the story started to focus on a small away-mission crew instead.) The writing style is very light and humourous — and not particularly literary. In fact, we don't delve too deeply into the characters' minds or motives. There isn't even very much description. It's essentially all plot and dialogue (much like a TV script would be). In many ways, this story feels like an episode of Star Trek (or better yet, an epic, two-part episode — maybe even a cliffhanger season finale). Everything moves along rather briskly. After the end of the main story there are several long epilogues which add layers of emotion and character to this story, but it seems weird to relegate them to the post-script. It may have slowed down the pace of the plot, but I would have preferred if that kind of depth could have been a part of the main story all along. In the end, there's not much I can say about this book. It's fun for anyone who is familiar with and enjoys Star Trek and other similar space shows but for anyone outside the fandom I think there is probably not nearly as much here to hold their interest. Thankfully, though I am not a fan of the original Trek, I do enjoy everything that came after — and that includes this book. (4 out of 5)
3.5 stars
This is the fourth book by Simon Stålenhag for me this year (which is not about reading a lot, as these are coffee-table books more full of gorgeous art than text, but an indication of my adoration of Stålenhag's work). Each is set in an alternate Sweden, where imagined experiments with radical science have left behind environmental transformation and legacies of technological contamination on the local area: derelict-yet-futuristic vehicles, altered landscapes, and hazardous sites which bend natural laws. Nevertheless, the science-fiction plays as mellow backdrop and locals interact with everything in an ordinary, day-to-day fashion. To them it seems very normal, while we readers admire how extraordinary it all is.
Experienced in sequence, Stålenhag's books started out with less story, and more as narrative flashes and descriptive glimpses which built up this alternate world from loosely connected pieces. With The Electric State, there was more of a plot, and a set of protagonists who went on a quest to reach the coast. Now with Sunset at Zero Point (which was titled “Swedish Machines” in its original Kickstarter edition), we are exclusively following the story of two young men, Linus and Valter, and their relationship over a few decades. They live in the small town called Torsvik, which is on the edge of an exclusion zone which was once contaminated by the development and testing of a major weapon known as the Tetrahedron. After the failure of that work, the area was closed off and left to be managed by the company that Valter works for as a security guard. He is very interested in the heart of this zone, known as the Black Fallow, and sneaks out with the company vehicle, equipment and brings Linus along, to explore and scavenge.
The entire book is told to us by Linus, talking to Valter (so it's an oddly second-person perspective), which was a bit strange to me at first (especially when Linus would say “you said” and quote to Valter something that he said). However, I would say that it works, especially given how close the two become over the years. Most of the first half of the story foregrounds the burgeoning romantic/sexual aspects of their relationship. However, I was a bit disappointed in how much time was spent with them (and their other “horny teenager” friends) as they goof around, attend music festivals and Halloween parties. While the expression “Dude!” was never uttered, its spirit was strongly felt for most of the early portions of the book. The context of Torsvik existing on the edge of the exclusion zone and in proximity to the Black Fallow seemed to be a very miniscule portion of the story up to that point. It got me worried that Stålenhag was trying to lean more into mundane character-based storytelling and abandoning the atmospheric science-fiction aspects he is known for, after he'd hooked his readers in. Thankfully the latter third of the book was where things kicked into gear from that perspective. Information that Valter had collected from the zone led the two boys to discover something that was (in classic Stålenhag fashion) universe-altering; but in the context of this story meaningful and significant only to the people around the phenomenon: our two protagonists. Though I had doubted him, Stålenhag manages to bring something cosmic down to the level of the personal for these two characters.
As expected, in this book, Stålenhag's accompanying art does a masterful job of drawing the reader into this universe. Unlike in previous books, where the images were not necessarily one-to-one matches with what was described in the text, this time the images serve to illustrate events and scenes from the story. However, they're almost never action shots or even key moments, often depicting instead the location or surroundings before or after the main scene occurs. On the other hand, because the text focuses on Linus and Valter's story exclusively, there are a lot of similar-looking images of the landscape that the two see on their journey into the Black Fallow and, compared to previous books, less of the diverse sci-fi elements that the zone may contain (no robots or dinosaurs or stuff like that this time). Nevertheless, these vividly painted images of an imagined reality are still very immersive and do a great job of telling the story on their own, as well as with the text.
Overall, I was very engaged and invested in this story, despite how intimate the scope of it was. I would have preferred a more expansive look at the exclusion zone and what else it had done to this region, generally a more sci-fi heavy story. Still, I really enjoyed the ending and how it tied the story of the relationship of these two boys to the phenomenon in the Black Fallow. I also really like this character-driven direction that Stålenhag is continuing to develop in his books. If this story gets picked up for adaptation as well, I think it will make a great arthouse science fiction film that I would be eager to see.
Do you often feel like computers have it in for you? Do you fear that the more technology advances, the more it's going to take over our lives? I don't really share those sentiments, but after reading Daniel H. Wilson's novel Robopocalypse, I did start to look at all the gadgetry in my daily life and think about what would happen if they turned against us. In this book, the story is broken into a large number of diverse storylines and time periods all centred around the moment that a massive artificial intelligence called “Archos” takes over all the robots in the world (and in this world, civilization has advanced enough to have all kinds of different robots around). The first few chapters read like an anthology of various incidents that foreshadow the rise of the machines: from the violent attack of a domestic service robot in a frozen yogurt shop, to the creepy and threatening words of a child's electronic dolls. These early episodes set the groundwork for the rest of the novel which jumps from one character's situation to the next as humans are defeated, then rise up against the robots that threaten to destroy their entire race.
As you might imagine, there's a bit of a military overtone to a lot of the chapters. Some of the narrators are members of the military or militia, and of course the whole context of the novel is a human-robot war, so there are going to be battle scenes and battle language. Unfortunately I don't really enjoy military narration. Often writers try hard to express a military character's persona by making them very gruff, loud, or simplistic in their sense of right and wrong. There is a single, overall narrator named Cormac Wallace who comments on each of the other sub-narrators and though he wasn't originally in the military, he led the militia group who ended up defeating Archos, so his developed “roughneck”-style voice is throughout. While the other characters vary widely in demographics, one of the deficiencies of this book is that they start to sound a bit too similar in tone. The child characters don't really speak like children. Their descriptions and accounts of their remembered thoughts don't use language that necessarily fit what they're supposed to be (these narrations supposedly come from the characters either personally recounting their anecdotes or surveillance from robots who've recorded events with their sensors). The language seems like a novel, and a verbose one at that. For example, here's a gruesome account of a man being attacked by robots:
Tiberius is heaving, muscles spasming, kicking up clumps of bloodstained snow. Mist pours off his sweating 250-pound frame as the East African thrashes violently, flat on his back. He's the biggest, most fearless grunt in the squad, but none of that matters when a glinting nightmare flashes out of the swirling snow and begins eating him alive.