Ryan
In which Kate and Daniel go to Hell, on a mission from God.
Along the way, they visit the underworlds of several different religious systems, come to terms with where they've come so far, and learn more about the true nature of the mission that YHWH charged them with in the first book.
You really don't want to read this until you've read Heaven, the first book in the series, but I'd say this one was a more enjoyable read. It seemed a lot more focused, and Lafferty finishes it off with the most interesting of cliffhangers; I'm very curious to see where she takes the story next.
All Kate Kane ever desired was to serve her country with honour. And she was on her way to doing that, too - until she was asked, she told, and she became separated from the US Army. After that she became lost for awhile, until the Bat found her. The Bat gave her a chance to serve again, to don a uniform and fight evil.
This was a pretty enjoyable read. Kate's Batwoman is the antithesis of everything I ever disliked about Batman, and the JH Williams artwork is gobsmackingly beautiful. The only downside is the first arc is fairly dependent on reading what had come before (which I hadn't, so I had to visit wikipedia to figure out all the prophecy/”Religion of Crime” stuff).
Still, a good read if you're into crimefighting vigilantes.
Mozart's Blood is a story very much in the vein (if you'll pardon the pun) of Rice's Vampire Chronicles series - it presents a vampire, Octavia Voss, who is a tortured soul that ponders the morality of the taking of human life, and who is introspective and reflective of the long, preternatural life that she's lived.
The twist to this that makes Mozart's Blood worth checking out is that Octavia is a soprano, as is author Louise Marley. This adds a certain level of complication for Octavia, given that operatic audiences eventually start to notice when their singers don't age, and also adds a delicious level of subtext to the book. I found myself enjoying the backstage drama and description of an opera in progress significantly more than the preternatural elements (including a rather forced-feeling connection to Mozart that gives the book its name).
It's decadent, it covers a lot of thematic material that other vampire stories have covered, but I would say that this is still an essential read in the canon of any fan of vampire fiction.
Stephanie Plum is a down-on-her-luck Jersey girl who decides that becoming a bounty hunter is preferable to getting evicted. And she decides to learn how to bounty hunt by going after the top prize first - a cop on the lam who's been accused of murder.
This was a lot of fun to read! Quickly paced, with a lot of humour, and Stephanie's a nice, refreshing break from the world-weary, misanthropic sort of characters I usually encounter when reading this type of book.
The one thing I didn't like about the book was Joe Morelli, the cop that Stephanie is hunting down/falling in love with. And when I say “didn't like”, I mean I wanted a piano dropped on his smarmy, good-looking head.
In Brave Men Run, Matthew Selznick looked at the Donner Declaration, where it was revealed that metahumans walk among us, and how that declaration affected a young man named Nathan Charters. This sequel/supplement doesn't feature Nathan at all, but is set in the same world, and looks at the impact that the Donner Declaration has on the lives of different people in the months following it.
Two things stood out to me when reading this book. The first is the sheer collection of talent in the book: I know they're not all necessarily well-known outside of podcast/new media circles, but you've got Lafferty, Axelrod, Lowell, and Hutchins all in one book? Amazing. Especially as, while each leaves their own distinct mark on the story they've written, there's an overall feeling cohesion to the universe that they're working in that unifies the stories.
Secondly, this is a really good collection of character-driven fiction. Superheroic powers are involved, but they never take centre stage, and the stories are all more about how these people are affected by the powers they receive (for good and ill). It's refreshing to read something in this genre that focuses in that direction.
“Superhero Fight Club” is one of those stock storyline that always sounds like a good idea, but rarely if ever lives up to the promise of it. So I was kind of relieved when Armstrong introduced it, but then quickly moved away from it, using a series of suspicious deaths at the fight club as an excuse to look at the family dynamics of the Winterbourne/Cortez family. I'm a big fan of Paige and Lucas, so that was right up my alley, but I can't see this being of interest to someone who's not already sold on the characters.
I'm always sort of drawn to Boba Fett stories, because I've never quite understood why Star Wars nerds find the character so appealing. I'm not sure that giving him daddy issues and a smartassed brother/nephew* really makes the character any more interesting, but I guess fans of the character might enjoy this. For me, though, the beautifully-painted artwork was the only saving grace.
*family relationships become complex once clones get involved.
Halfway through the Vorkosigan saga now!
This was a very interesting collection of two novels and a short, written years apart from each other but which take place near each other inside the series chronology, and which have some very similar thematic elements.
Cetaganda features Miles and his cousin Ivan on a diplomatic mission to attend the funeral of Cetaganda's Empress. Miles being Miles, he of course gets caught up in a web of intrigue and murder while there.
Ethan of Athos contains no Miles at all - rather, it focuses on Ethan, a representative of an all-male planet who has to replace a shipment of frozen ovaries that his society needs for the next generation to be born. Along the way, he gets ... caught up in a web of intrigue and murder.
Both novels were very fun reads, but for fairly different reasons. Cetaganda because Miles is an absolute treat of a character, a whirling dervish of chaos and quick-thinking who defies all expectations of him. Athos was fun, though, precisely because Ethan is so different from Miles - he's not a tactician or spy, so seeing him awkwardly work his way through a Milesesque scenario provided a refreshing take on the series and helped me appreciate Miles more (even though he's entirely absent from the novel).
The main connection between the books, though, is that while both of them focus on societies defined by their technology (gene manipulation in Cetaganda, uterine replicators in Ethan), the technology itself isn't the focus, but rather how those societies, and their members, are changed by them, while still remaining fundamentally human. Both are very interesting thought experiments, but the action setting of them help avoid them from getting bogged down or overly philosophical.
(Note: apparently the newest edition of the New X-Men series is numbered differently than the old ones. Vol 5 is the “Riot at Xavier's” story now, not the “Assault on Weapon Plus” one).
Since the beginning of the X-Men, the backdrop of Xavier's school has always been there. But it's always been little more than a backdrop, a place to gather a group of teenagers together and run them through the Danger Room between missions. Morrison really moves beyond that, and this volume focuses heavily on the student body of Xavier's, as students and as people rather than as potential superheroes.
Which brings us to young Mr. Quetin Quire, the “Kid Omega” that is central to the Riot at Xavier's. It's easy to see him as a villain, as a Magneto-in-training who will exist to oppose Xavier's dream. But really, he's just a kid, a teenager who is scared and shaken up, and who doesn't get any support from the adults in his life, the teachers that are too busy being X-Men to notice this kid flailing around until it's too late. Until he's formed a gang, and turned to drugs that have started destroying his mind and his X-gene. Until he's become a villain, someone to be punched at and hit with laser beams. Morrison's accomplished a sublime critique of the super-hero in this volume, one that's easy to overlook when focusing on the flashier aspects of mutant culture that he's created in the book.
Chew is the story of Tony Chu, a special agent of the US Food and Drug Administration. What makes Tony a special agent is that he's a cibopath; that means he gets psychic impressions from anything that he eats, and can see the history of the food, where it came from, etc. In a world where avian flu has killed tens of millions of people, and the USFDA's been given wide-reaching powers to ban the consumption of poultry as a result, it's a handy power to have.
This was a fun, fast-paced read that built from an interesting premise in surprising ways. Layman tells the story in a dark, humourous way that prevents it from becoming too gross or bizarre.
Plot: six teenagers start classes at Morning Glory Academy, and quickly start to learn secrets about themselves and the school.
The mysteries of Morning Glories are definitely enticing: Is there anything connecting the students, other than sharing a birthdate? Why are members of the staff trying to kill them (or, at least, making them think they want to kill them)? Perhaps most importantly, what are the things in the basement? There have been some comparisons made to Lost, in terms of how these mysteries are laid out for later followup, and how certain reoccuring phrases (such as “The Hour of our Release Draws Near”) show up in unexpected locales. They're definitely the kind of sci-fi mysteries that draw me in, and I'm curious to see what happens next with them.
The downside, I would have to say, is the characterization. There's a big cast here, but we're given little to differentiate them from one another (the art isn't a big help here, either, as everyone has the same, plasticy look to them). Also, there's a lot that happens to the kids in this volume, and they seem to take it all in stride. I think the story would be stronger if it were slowed down a little, and we got to learn more about the characters in between those moments.
Sometimes you can see the guilt that people carry around with them. You don't know what they did - or sometimes even just what they think they did - but it's obvious from their posture and body language that there's something dark in their past. In Zoo City, Lauren Beukes takes that idea to a supernatural extension: people's past sins become visible as animal companions that follow them around, and which cause them psychic trauma if they become separated. Zinzi, our protagonist, has a sloth.
More importantly, though, Zinzi has two special abilities: she's really good at finding things, and she's really good at writing emails in which she pretends to be deposed Nigerian royalty. She uses both of these to grift her way through life, which is how we meet her at the beginning of the book.
There's a blurb on the cover of this book that has William Gibson declare it as “Very very good”. It seemed an odd choice before I read the book - I don't doubt Gibson's interest in it, but it's “urban fantasy” and he's oh-so science fiction, so it seemed odd at first. Having read the book, it's not odd at all: Beukes is clearly influenced by Gibson's street-level style and his attitude toward technology. What she does better than Gibson, though, is create a good sense of place throughout the story. The Johannesburg suburbs that Zinzi travels through - both “Zoo City”, the slum for animalled people that she lives in, and the ritzier neighbourhoods that she travels to in her quest for redemption.
Zoo City is a slick, funny, exciting novel that stands out as one of the best pieces of fiction I've read in the past few years. It left me looking forward to what Ms. Beukes has planned next.
I love Gail's writing, and she's telling a good story, about survivor's guilt and pulling yourself up from tragedy. I found it difficult to connect with the story, however; maybe this was because of the controversy surrounding Babs' return, or the new 52 in general, but I couldn't really get into it.
One of the things that make small presses an interesting part of the publishing world is that, because there are less people involved with them, they tend to have more of a unique style. I'm not sure what a “Random House book” is, or a “Penguin book”, but if you tell me there's a new Apex horror book out, I have a rough idea of what I'm getting into, stylistically.
Apexology is a good example of what the “Apex style” is - the twenty-odd stories here cover a lot of different sub-genres and nooks and crannies of the horror fiction that Apex publishes in their monthly magazine, but all have that Apex style of mindful transgressive dark fiction that the magazine's become so well known for.
Punk rock and professional wrestling have more in common than fans of either tend to like to admit (CM Punk aside, of course). Both are considered low-brow forms of entertainment, both originated as American cultural idioms, and both have somewhat cryptic, jargonistic cultures that can be hostile to outsiders. And both, of course, have fanbases that are extremely passionate about them.
In Death Match, Jason Ridler weaves his way deftly through both worlds, as his protagonist, Spar Battersea, watches his best friend die in the ring and has to find out how and why that happened. It's a fast-paced, energetic story full of interesting, idiosyncratic personalities, as well as some good doses of dark humour and action. If you're a fan of either punk rock or pro wrestling, this one's a lock - if not, it might take you a bit to pick up some of the terms and cultural touchstones that are involved, but it's still an entertaining read.
I have to give this one a split rating - four stars if you're already a fan of Bone, and Gram'ma Ben, and the Great Red Dragon, and want to see the tragedy of how that epic tale began, after getting some of it as backstory in Bone. If you haven't read Bone, I'd say this is more of a two-star read.
And that, in a large way, is the problem with prequels, isn't it? They always feel limited in the audience they serve (even moreso than sequels do), and the story feels like it matters less. You know that everyone is going to make it out relatively unscathed, and you also know that this story isn't the real story, but rather an expanded-upon footnote from the story the author really wanted to tell.
Still, though, this had dragons and rat creatures, so I enjoyed reading it.
This was a fantastic read. You'll come to this book, most likely, for the novelty of a non-Eurocentric fantasy story, one that draws instead from the tradition of The Arabian Nights and western Asian/Persian cultural heritage.
You'll stay for the wildly engaging characters, especially the grizzled, cynical old ghul hunter Adoulla Makhslood, and for the beautifully-written prose.
Throne has all the makings of a modern fantasy classic, one that manages to be refreshingly upbeat while still carrying a serious story, and blends strong character development and a well-built fantasy world with lots of exciting sword and sorcery action.
I'm of two minds on this. On one hand, it was a fun zombie horror story that was fairly self-aware and tongue-in-cheek, in the style of something like the Scream films, and that is something I often enjoy.
At the same time, there was a lot that I didn't like here, although I think that might be because I'm too close to the subject material to be objective– I've loved both zombies and Star Trek for most of my life by this point, and “What would happen if zombies attacked at a con?” conversation is one I've had with friends, and as always, the version of the story that exists can never be as perfect as the version of the story that's in your head. Also, I found the characters to be somewhat caricatures – or, at least, they didn't represent the Star Trek fans, and con goers, that I know, in any way.
So, three stars. Can be a fun distraction as long as you try not to think about it too hard.
Sports teams can, for better or worse, become symbols of their home cities, their success and losses seeming to match the course of the town and its people. Sometimes it can go even farther than that, with one player represending a team, and that team representing an entire nation. What happens, then, when the business side of that sports team kicks in, and decides it's worthwhile to sell/trade that player to one of their most hated rivals?
Part historical look at the end of the Oilers' dynasty of the 1980s, part philosophical look at the impact of sport on collective psychology, Gretzky's Tears looks back at The Trade, recasting those in it as the cast of Julius Caeser. Only, instead of killing Gretzky/Caesar, the backstabbing antics of Brutus Pocklington send number 99 to a sunny dreamland where he makes millions upon millions of dollars and completely revolutionizes the way they look at hockey in that sunny dreamland.
If you're not convinced of Gretzky's (semi)divinity when you start the book, you're likely not going to be very interested in this. But it's a good read for those with fond memories of the Oilers dynasty.
Fantastic read. Advances the main plot (the 14th Tommy Taylor book is revealed! Will it live up to the hype of the series?), balanced with some worldbuilding that both tells more about the shadowy cabal that and trying to ruin Tom's life, and asks more questions about them. Tells the origin of a character through a Choose Your Own Adventure story, which seems like a gimmick but also can work as a commentary on the grammar of modern comics and/or the relationship between subjectivity and ‘canon'. Has characters revealed to be multiple people, depending on how one looks at them.
It might be that I haven't been reading many comics lately, but this really hit the spot for me.
Continuing directly from the events of [b:Convent of the Pure 6284926 The Convent of the Pure Sara M. Harvey http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1266615948s/6284926.jpg 6468961], Labyrinth features half-Nephilim warrior Portia Gynoy as she ventures into the underworld to rescue her ghostly lover, Imogen, from damnation.It look me a little to warm to this one - I thought the relationship between Portia and Imogen was one of the strengths of the first book, so to have Imogen mostly absent here felt a little unusual. Once I was able to accept the story on its own merits, though, I found it to be an fun, visceral, sensual adventure story. The plot is an old story (one of the oldest, really), but but Ms. Havery tells it well enough that you stay entertained throughout, and it fits the novella length perfectly.
Machine Man tells the story of Charlie Neumann, an engineer who loses a leg in a mechanical accident. He's fitted with a prosthesis, and like any good engineer would, Charlie starts to note ways to improve it. Give it gyroscopes. And wi-fi. Make it good enough that the biological leg that's paired with the prosthesis looks downright ... Neanderthal.
Machine Man takes a wonderfully dark, comic look at the idea of Transhumanism, by looking at what sort of person one would have to be to go to the lengths of replacing functional body parts with artificial ones in the interest of self-improvement (while Charlie's initial amputation is the result of an accident, he soon begins “creating” accidents that lead to further surgeries being required).
One of the things that absolutely terrified me about this book was how logical Barry manages to make Charlie's line of reasoning seemed. Maybe I've been primed for it because earlier this year I went in for a consultation on LASIK surgery, but the idea of using surgery to make yourself ‘better' seemed to be not-entirely-insane.
While being terrifying, it's also often hilarious - there were a few points that I found myself laughing so hard that I had to put my ebook reader down because I couldn't continue. It's very similar to the type of corporate absurdist humour Barry used in Company, so I'm sure anyone familiar with his work would appreciate it.
One thing that felt like a bit of a letdown was the ending of the novel. The opening 3/4 of the book are this wonderful, quirky, unusual sort of book, but the ending feels like a standard sort of sci-fi novel fight scene. I've seen other people negatively compare the ending to Robocop, which I think is a little unfair (partially because Robocop is an excellent film, and partially because it and Machine Man are completely different takes on the same genre). With an ending that was more in line with the feel of the rest of the book, this would have been an absolute classic; as it is, I can only call it “highly recommended”
I listened to the podiobook of this two years ago and gave it 3 stars; rereading it in print, though, I had some more thoughts and enjoyed it more.
Friends Daniel and Kate die, and go to heaven. Not all is right in Heaven, though, so they're sent on a mission from God to go through different heavens and find out what's what. On their travels, they encounter a few different pantheons of gods, and kinda sorta start a few Apocalypses on their way.
Lafferty captures the voices of both protagonists fairly well - they're inexperienced early-twentysomethings and sound like it - and there's a light-hearted, humourous tone to the story that prevents the somewhat-serious topic of life after death from getting bogged down.
Lawson is a Fixer, which you could assume from reading the name of this series of books by Jon Merz. What that means, though, is that he's responsible for maintaining the Balance between the human and vampire worlds; the vampires are terrified of what will happen if word gets out they exist, so they have people like Lawson to eliminate any vampiric threats of exposure. Threats like Cosgrove, a serial killer who wants to overthrow the Balance and watch the world burn.
Overall I'd call this a fun read. Lots of pulpy elements, written like a summer action movie, and with a fair amount of humour. At the same time, though, it falls into cliche at times, and has some issues with pacing. If your interests fall at the intersection of “vampire horror” and “spy/espionage”, it might be worth your time, though.