Showing posts with label urban fantasy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label urban fantasy. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

The Immortal Crown by Richelle Mead


Title: The Immortal Crown
Author: Richelle Mead
Publisher: Penguin
Rating: worthy


DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review.

Errata
p31 "…dropping and rolling to the ground…" should be "…dropping, and rolling on the ground…"

p98 Mead uses the word 'frequented' when she really appears to mean 'visited'.
p101 "Mae shook her head wonderingly"? Better: "Mae shook her head in wonder"
p193 "When he'd stopping their escalations before..." should be "When he'd stopped their escalation before..."

This is book 2 in Richelle Mead's Age of X series. I reviewed book one, Gameboard of the Gods a while ago, and despite finding well over a dozen errors in the advance review copy, I really enjoyed it, so I've been looking forward to reading the next installment.

I have to say that while I definitely don't think anyone will ever laud Richelle Mead of being a great literary writer (she could use a crash course in the difference between 'less' and 'fewer' for example), she does a pretty decent job in general; however, there are some fingernails-on-chalkboard moments in her writing, where she employs bastard 'words' such as, for example: 'politician-y' and 'orangey-red'. Any writer can do better than that. Note that these things appear not in a character's speech, which would have been perfectly fine because people do speak like that, but in her own narrative, which is a bit too much, since she's not telling this in first person as though she's a character herself.

This novel continues the story of Mae Koskinen, a soldier in the so-called 'Praetorian' guard - some sort of super-soldier outfit in Canada/the USA (known as the RUNA - the Republic of United North America). Mae is Finnish by descent, and a genetically healthy woman in a world where a plague has struck down much of humanity and disfigured many of the survivors. Mae is assigned as bodyguard to Justin March, a religious investigator for the RUNA government. The RUNA doesn't like religion, because in this world, there really are gods vying for a following amongst the humans, and in this volume, they appear to be gearing up for a war.

After receiving a vision via a special knife which was an anonymous gift which Mae received, she comes to believe that her niece, an eight-year-old who was lost to her family and whom Mae has long sought, is being held in Arcadia, a nation not known for it's generosity of spirit towards the female half of the population. Coincidentally, Mae has the chance to go there on official business.

This story, I should forewarn you, is over 400 pages long and it moves with a proportionately sluggish pace, which I found annoying. In addition to a decidedly more lively narrative, something else I would like to see in this series is the termination of this non-existent relationship between Mae and Justin. Not only does it not exist, it doesn't work. There's no basis for it and it's neither appealing nor realistic, so at the risk of giving away spoilers, I was rather thrilled with the ending of this volume, although I am sure it's not any kind of an ending in the long run. Going there, would take a writer with some real guts!

Perhaps I should explain. Volume one featured a quickie between these two characters before Mae knew that he was the guy she was supposed to be body-guarding (he knew who she was, but he never let on). Justin, who is being sought as a devotee by the god Odin, had a revelation that if he started getting it on with Mae, he would simultaneously be selling-out to Odin, and becoming the god's priest (read: pawn). He doesn't want that, so he rejected Mae in a rather callous way. She does not know his motivation, and simply accepts that he's that kind of a guy, but unrealistically, this does not prevent her from obsessing over him unhealthily. This causes me to seriously question Mae's smarts!

So, end of story, right? Naw! For reasons beyond human understanding (which is sadly all I'm equipped with), the two are still attracted to one another. I can see why he would be still hot for Mae - he's a lech and a womanizer and she's attractive (not that that's a requirement given the premises), but there's no reason why she should be, especially not after his behavior towards her. The problem with this relationship is not only that it doesn't exist in any romantic sense, it's that even in a romantic sense, it's non-existent.

It didn't work in volume one, but there was enough going on to render that a minor matter. Now that the pace is reduced to a limp in volume two, the interaction between the two really stands out as a pairing which needs paring. There is no chemistry; there's no tension, sexual or otherwise, and there's no reason at all why the two should be so focused upon one another in any way other than purely professional.

The first mistake Mead makes I think, in this novel (other than including the first hundred pages, that is) is after there's a attack on Tessa, Justin's young, female ward. Because of the assault, which was actually aimed (so we're told) at Justin, Mae and some of her friends at the Praetorian volunteer to watch the house. Mae also hires a dedicated, retired soldier named Rufus as a more permanent guard, and here's where the problem lies.

We're given to understand that both Justin and Mae are really shaken-up by what happened to Tessa, yet Mae hires this guy, a stranger, at his first interview, and with zero background checks! This is a guy whom she quite literally just met. That struck me as gullible at best, and stupid at worst, neither of which traits Mae has exhibited before. Just saying! It felt like bad writing to me, and I never trusted Rufus.

It was only when we got past page 100 (that is, some 25% the way in) that the story got to where I felt I could become honestly interested in it. That first 100 pages could be completely skipped and the story would not suffer for it. Also, the sections in which Tessa appears could be skipped. I liked her in the first novel. She contributes nothing in this one. If this had been a first time novel by a newbie, any competent editor would have advocated this, but once you're established, it seems that no one dare say boo to you. Go figure!

In chapter nine, they've finally arrived in Arcadia (read Alabama) and their military escort is deprived of its weaponry, yet not a single one of them raises any sort of protest. This struck me as being really dumb and unrealistic. Why did they even take their weapons with them if they were going to be robbed of them anyway? It made no sense. To me, this was poorly written. Think about it in a modern context. If the President was going to Iran, and the Iranians wanted the Secret Service guards to be robbed of their weapons, would this be acceptable? No! Then why is it here?

Worse than this was the the way the females in the party were treated. They were forced to be silent, to cover up, and to undertake menial household chores! Seriously? Could you see that happening in the real USA? No one would stand for it, least of all the women. This was entirely unrealistic and it really degraded the quality of the novel for me. Fortunately, it was right after this that things improved dramatically and turned it around for me, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to rate this novel favorably, which would have saddened me, being a fan of Mead's (at least of her Vampire Academy series!).

Mead also missed a great opportunity with Mae's magic knife. It's discovered in her possession, but instead of having her say that it's a religious artifact and daring this highly religious nation to confiscate it as such, Justin steps in and says it's his, and he's allowed to keep it. I found that completely irrational given that they'd just confiscated weapons from the military for goodness sakes! It made no sense and could have been written much better. I've seen several reviews on this novel which compliment Mead for her writing, but I don't see it as anything special. Her writing isn't outright bad per se, and she delivers on so great ideas, but there are some serious flaws in it as I've pointed out in the errata and throughout this review.

The reason I mentioned Iran above is that some reviewers also commented on the Islamophobic aspect of this depiction of the Arcadian nation - that Arcadia is nothing more than a surrogate for a slam at Islam, but while Islam does merit being pilloried for its appalling devaluation and marginalization of women, such reviewers appear to be blind to the problems of religion in general. It's not only the Muslim religion which is abusive of women: each of big three monotheistic religions, all of which share the same root - Judaism - are misogynistic and the root cause of that lies in the story of Adam and Eve.

People dishonestly pretend that Christianity is not as bad, but it is, and some sects of Christianity such as Mormonism and the bizarre Amish-style cults are worse. The more orthodox Judaist sects also repress women. Religion in general is very bad for women, so this isn't what those reviewers think it is; it's much broader than that narrow view and I appreciated Mead's tackling of this important topic.

Having said that, I also have to register some disappointment with Mead's own writing about women. It seems that all she can talk about as the women are introduced to Arcadia is how "beautiful" or ugly they are. She tries to hide this by depicting it as Justin's thoughts, but this actually makes it worse because from her PoV of developing him as a character, it makes Justin nothing but a shallow jerk, and yet we're somehow expected to root for him as Mae's beau? I don't think so! I for one am not on-board with him!

It's like even Mead thinks that women have no (or at best, limited) value unless they're beautiful, the hell with how their minds are, the hell with whether they're strong, emotionally stable, good providers, hard workers, reliable, have integrity, and so on. There are scores of criteria by which to appreciate them, yet Mead's sole criterion for which women are to be valued is skin deep, and that's it. I find it hard to believe that Mead writes like this, but let's face it, she does foreshadow this in her Vampire Academy series which is the only other series of hers that I've read, and which I actually - for the most part - like. Let me just say that I am very disappointed in her at this point in reading around page 114...!

Those problems aside, the interest for me definitely ramped-up as Mae was turned loose (figuratively speaking, that is - she was in fact extremely restricted) amongst the Arcadians. She didn't, unfortunately, "go all kamikaze on their asses" as one reviewer amusingly had hoped, but she did cut loose at one point and I appreciated that.

You can see that here, she proved herself to be strong, independent, aggressive when necessary, effective, capable, and resourceful, yet never is she appreciated for any of that - only for how beautiful she is. It's sad. Hopefully, from the way this novel ended, we'll see much more of that side of her and much less of the limp, uninteresting and let's face it for all intents and purposes other than as a love interest for Mae, completely pointless Justin in volume three.

Prior to this point, I had seriously been wondering if I wanted to finish this novel, let alone go on to read another in this series, but from that point onwards, it really turned around and became very readable. If Mead had started this novel chapter nine, and had excluded all the chapters where Tessa was involved, and excluded the pointless scenes of flirtation between Mae and Justin, this novel would have been perfect. As it was, it seemed to take forever to get through this, which isn't a good sign! However, it was worth reading in my opinion, but it's certainly not my favorite novel of Mead's.


Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Valkyrie Rising by Ingrid Paulson


Title: Valkyrie Rising
Author: Ingrid Paulson
Publisher: Harper Collins
Rating: WARTY!

Not to be confused with Ana Meadows The Stolen Valkyrie: Rising Phoenix, in many ways this is a standard trope urban fantasy: a teen girl has powers of which she's initially unaware, no one will tell her anything even when it's to her and their best advantage to tell her, she has two guys in tow, she's separated from parental oversight and control, and so on. In one other way, it’s a bit different, because unlike far too many YA novels these days, it doesn’t feature werewolves, or vampires, or angels. That doesn't necessarily mean that it’s any good!

This novel is odd in that it features a kind of double-triangle. Sixteen-year-old Elsa Overholt is the main character, and her older brother Graham is in tow, not in an incestuous way, but in an overprotective way. His best friend Tucker (seriously) has had zero interest in her, but now is suddenly all over her, but also simultaneously backing away from her because of Graham. The "flirtation" between him and Elsa is so forced and fake as to be embarrassing if it were not so fingernails-on-a-chalk-board irritatingly cheesy.

Normally Graham has been the one protecting her from guys, but now it seems that she has to protect him from Valkyries. Given that Valkyries are creatures from Norse mythology who are supposed to scour battlefields and transport those who are worthy to Valhalla (kinda like the Islamic mythology of seventy virgins and whatever), their habit of picking up hot eighteen-year-olds in bars seems a bit like slumming, but those teen boys are never seen again.

So for part of her summer, Elsa gets to travel to grandma's house in Norway. Graham comes along too, and inexplicably, so does Tucker. Fortunately for Elsa, everyone in Norway speaks perfect English - even in a remote and tiny fishing village, so there's never as language problem. Elsa claims she speaks hardly any Norwegian and then goes on to show us what a foul liar she is by showing that she more or less understands every single thing anyone says in her vicinity, so there are never any language problems.

It's no spoiler - indeed it’s patently obvious from book title, blurb and first couple of chapters that Elsa is - what Elsa? - a Valkyrie, as is her grandmother, who won't tell Elsa a fricking thing. This is where we discover that Elsa is a complete and utter moron. She obsesses over getting her grandmother to tell her exactly what’s going on, yet the very first time her grandmother comes even close to doing so, Elsa bolts for the door the first chance she gets. Does she want to know or not? And why is the author writing this so badly? I guess Elsa can’t help us with that either!

There is no mystery here. The Valkyrie girls are abducting guys. That's obvious from the first time Elsa goes to a bar with second trope guy named Kjell (pronounced Chell with a hard 'ch'). Seriously? Two statuesque valkyries enter and mesmerize the whole bar, and try to pick up Kjell. Elsa saves him, and the two valkyries - as a professional courtesy if you can handle that, let her get away with it, recognizing Elsa as one of their own, and simply leave peaceably. Ri-ight! These women only take boys - the best, the strongest, and the smartest, we're told - but we’re not told what they do with them, and no police authority seems to have any interest whatsoever in doing their job, so already we're well beyond the realm of intelligent now.

This is when Elsa decides she will have to reverse the situation on her bother Graham by protecting him, but the day after he arrives, he goes out play soccer with Tucker, and Elsa refuses to go. Some guardian! Now the boys are here, however, Paulson starts pulling trope trick after trope trick out of the YA grab-bag of tired and tedious ruses (you know the one marked 'doggedly uninventive'?) to throw teen bodies together. We learn that trope Kjell is trope-stalking trope Elsa who's supposed to be this trope powerful being, yet who quite evidently needs trope rescuing by trope guys all the time, and who is blatantly manipulated time after time by Graham, Tucker, and Kjell into bending and giving in to doing things she doesn’t want to do. She's so pathetic and so completely the opposite of the image we’re expected to swallow here: tall, powerful, beautiful, driven, dedicated Valkyrie women.

About those Valkyries (actually, it's valkyrja (plural valkyrjur but we get none of that in this authentic tale...)! In reality (that is, in mythological reality, if that makes sense) a Valkyrie (which literally means one who chooses the dead) is a female who chooses which soldiers die in battle. Of those who do die, fifty percent are taken by the valkyrie to Valhalla for Odin to rule over. The other fifty percent ends up under Freya's supervision at Fólkvangr. valkyries are associated with ravens, but also with swans and horses. The valkyries are not solely the domain of Norse mythology, according to wikipedia. Old English references wælcyrge and wælcyrie which are thought to be similar beings.

Because those old Norse names are so obscure (and unpronounceable!), Paulson does not use them, but she also, it seems, fails to try and approximate them using more familiar names. All names mean something, and in particular, older names were simply names of real world objects and events. Rose is named after the flower, April is named after the month. Melissa is named after bees (or honey, I forget which). Some wonderful examples of Old Norse Valkyrie names from wikipedia are: Geirskögul, Göll, Göndul, Gunnr, Herfjötur, Hrist, Mist, Ráðgríð, Skeggjöld, Skögul, and Skuld.

These names also mean things, like shield-bearer and other suitably militaristic (or even peaceable) themes. It would not be that hard to find a name that's appropriately warrior-like, but which sounds more modern. Paulson chickens out and names one of her Valkyrie 'Astrid', which is ultimately from áss and fríðr, and which means 'god-beautiful'. That's hardly a fierce Valkyrie name as judged by the ancient names which were given to these beings! The only one of these which she does avail herself is Hildr, which she renders as Hilda - Elsa's grandmother's name.

Tucker is an Australian term for food, and Tuck is an old British term for it, which is funny because Paulson writes, on page 236, "While Tuck was in the kitchen, foraging for food…"

The first problem which Paulson has here is that she's playing into the common misperception that valkyries were fierce warriors when in actual fact they were servants and serving girls, minions at best, in Norse mythology. The second problem is that even if we agree to gloss over this error and say, "Fine, let's go with your changes, and let's see where you take it", where she takes it is down entirely the wrong road. Instead of being a strong female character, Elsa persistently defers to others and she's constantly needy of Tucker, and at the mercy of others. Indeed, at one point, this loose-living and irresponsible guy Tucker takes charge and "trains" the Valkyrie! This tells us that Elsa is indeed a minion and not at all a fierce warrior, so either way this goes, Paulson gets it wrong. Even the cover artist agrees that Elsa isn’t ready for prime time since he puts a shadowy guy in the background ready to pick her up when she falls!

That's pretty much where I lost any hope for this novel, and indeed for Paulson herself if she couldn't see the damage she was doing to her main character by so completely subjugating her to this the trope 'love' interest. The novel was close enough to the end at that point, that I thought I should finish it just to see precisely what kind of a train-wreck it becomes, but this novel doesn't so much come off the rials as become subsumed by them.

I was so saddened that Paulson has taken what could have been a majorly kick-ass concept and main character, and has castrated the whole thing with the blunt knife of teen trope. She's taken a falcon and clipped its wings and tamed it. She's taken a wolf and put a collar on its neck and fluffy bootees on its feet and she wants us to buy it as a guard dog. That's why you've probably never heard of this novel, and that's why it’s gone nowhere. It has nothing to offer that four-score and teen other YA novels haven’t already spewed-up just as rankly.

Elsa and Tucker get to spend the night "together" in a hotel room, and Tucker lives up to his name - tucking her into bed like she's a child. I'm sorry, is this supposed to make me think it’s true love? The next day they go to a soccer game planning on yet again confronting Astrid. This would be what, the fourth ineffectual time? It’s just as ineffectual this time as the previous three ineffectual times. Here’s a serious problem: Astrid is abducting boys left, right, and center and in public, yet there's absolutely no police involvement whatsoever. When Graham is abducted, the very last thing in the world that Tucker and Elsa think of, is calling the police. They're morons. This novel is entirely unrealistic.

Here's further proof: before they go to the soccer game they spend the morning practicing shooting with a hand-gun which Tucker appropriated from Hilda's house, yet when they see Astrid taking a guy from the soccer stadium, they do nothing to stop her or confront her. At this point Elsa knows that to gain power she must defeat a Valkyrie or have one surrender to her, yet she fails to use the gun either to get Astrid to surrender or to simply take her out and end this. She's had this hammered into her head repeatedly: defeating a Valkyrie or having one surrender is the only way to increase one's own power (so much for a sisterhood!), yet she cannot get this into her thick skull no matter what. She's quite simply stupid.

This assessment is adequately confirmed when she abandons the gun for an old rusty sword she finds under the floorboards in her grandmother's house. Yeah: you had your under-aged, inexperienced ass handed to you four times, so now instead of shooting the bitch, finishing this once and for all, and getting your brother back, you're going to challenge the Über-warrior goddess to a sword fight! I guess she really doesn't care that much about her bro' after all. But who knows - new magical powers come out of her ass whenever she needs them, and they arrive without any trial, skill, or test, without build-up, training, or preamble, so why not? And about those powers? If she doesn’t become a Valkyrie until 18, from whence all this power and all these skills? It makes no sense. It’s all deus ex asinine.

Tucker is nothing but a waste of ink, tacked-on because (and with only a few much-admired and appreciated exceptions) YA writers in general don’t have the first clue how to create a female main character without making her a vestigial appendage of some trope guy. Here's how badly pervasive this is: I read one review of this novel where the reviewer said that they liked the fact that Tucker allowed Elsa to grow into her character - like she was Tucker's property and she must have his permission and indulgence before she can be all that she can be?! Maybe the reviewer didn’t mean it that way, but that's not the only time I've encountered that kind of mindset in a review - like girls are still nothing more than chattel and possessions of men. How much longer are female YA authors going to hobble their creations like this, and keep hammering this into their young and impressionable female readers that they're nothing without a guy? Criminal is what it is.

This story is so badly written that even though the valkyries have been seen repeatedly abducting guys, and Elsa hasn’t been seen doing that even once, and she has lost her own brother, this psycho moron Margit (obviously with emphasis on the last syllable) is obsessed with insulting Elsa, who never once kicks her ass or punches her out. That's the kind of worthless 'warrior' she is. She's a disgrace even to the fictional wuss of a valkyrie which Paulson has invented here. The absurd thing is that Margit then does a complete 180 and suddenly allies herself with Elsa after spewing nothing but hatred and invective the minute before. This writing is pathetic, amateur, and lacks all believability.

The really laughable thing is that Margit marshals the resources of her vigilante network: this is the worthless crew which has been romping around and maintaining radio contact with each other, and carrying guns, and which has never once stopped a Valkyrie abduction! Elsa plans on planting one of the vigilante's beacons on Astrid to track her to her lair (or is it layer cake?), but they already tried that and Elsa discovered that she couldn't follow her into the Norse realm because she's not yet a full Valkyrie. This rite of passage happens at eighteen for reasons unspecified, and at that point Elsa had not defeated a fellow Valkyrie, no had she had one surrender to her. In short, this is a waste of time and yet more bad writing, but Paulson pulls a easy win out of somewhere so Elsa can qualify. How convenient.

This novel is godawful trash, period.


Thursday, May 29, 2014

Anthem's Fall by S L Dunn


Title: Anthem's Fall
Author: S L Dunn
Publisher: Prospect Hill Press (no website found)
Rating: WARTY!


DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review.

(Note that the cover is numbered as page one in this novel, so that the novel doesn't actually starts until p5 and runs to p389). I made a good attempt at getting into this, but it just did not hold my interest, so I have to call this a DNF and not something that I can recommend.

This novel's main protagonist is Kristen, and thankfully she isn't telling it in first person, although it is initially told from her PoV. She's supposedly a genius and was signed onto an innovative project to design an artificial cell made from new proteins not found in nature (so I gathered!).

Later I learned that this is really just a regular cell, but with something added to it to make it a bit different. It wasn't very clear! Sometimes this is a good thing because it keeps the writer safe, but in this case it was so vague and fudged that it was really hard to picture exactly what this cell was supposed to be and what it wasn't!

I have to wonder about some of the biology here. Like I said, the author has fudged it enough that you can't really get sufficient purchase to argue against it! This is a smart and safe move in some regards, but it also made it really hard to see why the cell was supposed to be so ground-breaking and innovative. There was also one problem where the author suggests that cancer cells and viruses are neither alive nor dead. While I have heard that said about viruses, I've never heard it said about cancer cells, which are very much alive.

A living thing is something which intakes energy, outputs waste, respires, and reproduces. Even at the cellular level, these functions hold: they're integral parts of the cell's genetics, so I didn't get what was meant in that these scientists had created a cell if it didn't do any of these things. This is compounded by the 'revelation' on page 21, that the cell can reproduce, like this was unexpected. I'm sorry but were no genes for reproduction included in the cell's genome when it was designed? If not, then how is it reproducing now? If they were, then how is the fact that it's reproducing in any way surprising? This made no sense to me.

Kristen apparently isn't as smart as we're expected to believe here either, since she doesn't seem to grasp that the genome controls everything, but it cannot do anything for which it has no genes! If there are no cells for directing the production of higher-level structures, then the cell will not go on to develop a multi-cellular form, much less specialize such that some cells differentiate into bone, others into skin, others into neurons, etc. The cell isn't magic. It doesn't produce these things out of thin air, it produces them as directed by its genome.

So again, I don't get how these people are supposed to have created this cell from scratch, yet evidently do not have the first idea of what it can or cannot do! This makes no sense, and given how ignorant they are of what they've done or what purpose it might serve, or of what they were trying to achieve, none of the accolades they receive make any sense at all.

This cell is named the Vatruvian Cell after Professor Vatruvia, the lead scientist on the project (and cool name by the way, evoking da Vinci's Vitruvian man, of which I included a rather warped representation in my book Poem y Granite), but we're never given any indication as to what the purpose of it is: what the end result was expected to be or was hoped to be, or how this could possibly be of any use to anyone or any thing. It's considered so important that Vatruvia seems to be able to write blank checks for whatever he wants because of it, but we're never given any reason to buy that.

Scientists like genome pioneer Craig Venter are working on developing "artificial cells" so that part isn't anything new, and is certainly not Nobel prize-worthy. That was a bit off, frankly. I seriously doubt that anyone would get a Nobel prize in any of the hard sciences handed to him within a year or so of the work for which he's nominated. The prizes are usually handed-out based on the value of a new discovery, which takes some time to make itself known. Relatively few such prizes are given out purely for invention, which is really what Vatruvia did.

The idea that 'non-natural' proteins are being used seems to be what's new, but anything that can exist in nature is natural, so I didn't get in what way this was artificial (other than that humans created it). The story-telling here was far too vague. I didn't like the use of 'man' (as in 'mankind') either, on pages thirteen and nineteen. It excludes woman, and yet this novel features a woman as the main protagonist! I wish writers would use 'humankind' and 'humanity' instead, or something like that.

So this was a long-winded way to say that I was already struggling with this novel, and really not connecting with the main character. I liked even less the second main character, a know-it-all guy, who was introduced shortly after the first character and who seemed really fake to me. It seemed (and again, I didn't finish this so I can't comment on this knowledgeably, but it seemed to me that this guy's sole purpose was to provide a love interest for Kristen, which weakened her in my eyes. The hero needs some dude on hand to prop her up? She can;t go it alone? What's up with that?

Where it really went quickly downhill for me however, was in the bizarre introduction of a completely different planet, which evidently had come up with this same invention of this magical new cell, from which (I gathered) invulnerable and ruthless warriors were created. Even though the blurb had led me to expect something like this, the presentation of it in the end just struck me as bizarre and (despite the cell link) having nothing to do with the other story!

Yes, I know (or at least I guess) that these two disparate tales are going to be integrated but I just could not read any further. The second story came blundering in like a bull in a china shop, and in its frenetic thrashing around, it made little sense to me. It didn't seem to fit at all, and although I pushed on for several more chapters, I found my mind wandering and simply could not generate any honest interest whatsoever in pursuing this second story arc. Given my already waning interest in the first story, I decided to call it quits there, and start on something else instead. Life is short and novels are multitudinous! It's not worth my time to have to fight to like a story when the story itself really isn't lifting a finger to help me.


Friday, October 4, 2013

Cast in Sorrow by Michelle Sagara





Title: Cast in Sorrow
Author: Michelle Sagara
Publisher: Harlequin Luna
Rating: worthy

This is the Chronicles of Elantra Series #9. There are brief reviews of the entire series on my Novel Series page.

Normally I don't do covers because I don't care what a cover looks like; I care about the content, and the writer has absolutely no say (and no se) in what crap goes on there unless they self-publish, and even then many of them hire someone else to create the cover, so I have to ask on Sagara's behalf: which idiot writes book blurbs like the one on this back cover: "The end is only the beginning"? Seriously? Is that meant to be deep or something? This is the major advantage of self-publishing - it’s all your own. You get to say how it reads, how the cover looks, what the blurb says, Yours may be just as idiotic, but at least it's your idiocy, and not someone else's! Nuff said!

I can't begin to express how thrilled I was when I saw this one on the library shelf. I snatched it up in a spit second. Unfortunately, I couldn't start on it right away because I had two others to finish. But now I am into it, and it's like coming home. Michelle Sagara is a KICK-ASS writer who knows how to build a completely enthralling world, and she's created a serious contender for Hall-of-Fame All-Star All-Time female hero in Kaylin Neya. I will detail this in detail giving you the detailed details as soon as I've had a nap!

As accomplished and skillful a writer as Sagara is, there's still the odd occasion when she could use some editing! For example, on p335 we get this: "…why would be live as a pet?" which should, I'm assuming, be: "…why would he live as a pet?" Sad to say (and I don't recall this from earlier novels, but maybe those had it too), Sagara is yet another devotee of long moments, and long minutes, and even a long half hour! And the number of times she uses the phrase "like, and unlike" or a variant of it, is really, really annoying!

On the confusing front, I found this piece on p49: "The stairs that fronted it were flat and wide, the columns that held the roof almost the height of the trees that stood to the right and the left of the building." When I first read this, I was confused about what she was saying, and I had to read it again to get it. This interrupted the story for me. Leaving aside the interminable argument about the use of 'that' over 'which', it seemed to me that the sentence ought to read: "The stairs that fronted it were flat and wide, and the columns that held the roof were almost the height of the trees that stood to the right and the left of the building." Maybe the whole sentence should have been re-thought and split, perhaps? Yeah, it's a minor quibble, and it's her novel, not mine, but if writers are wanting to keep readers happy, an iota of extra attention to legibility can go a long way.

Another instance appeared shortly afterwards, on p55, where the first four paragraphs at the start of chapter 4 have a character speaking without offering any indication as to who it is. This is why it's a good idea to read what you've written - both at a later date, and out loud so you can get a feel for how others might perceive it. When you read out loud, you read a little differently than when you read inside your own head. Just a thought!

On p305 Kaylin grabs Teela's hand and pulls it down and then says "What are you doing?", but the speech isn’t included with the paragraph of the yanking o' the hand, so it made it seem like Teela had said it. This was unnecessarily confusing. Sagara needs to learn when to identify the speaker. Again this is something a writer should be able to catch if they put the writing aside for a period of time and then come back to it and read it out loud. This is also an advantage which comes en suite with the "tell the story as fast as you can" style of writing, where you write the whole thing off (so to speak!) in one and the hell with editing, but then go back, once it's finished, and read it through, editing as you go.

On p364, there is a real classic: "Which guttered the little bit better entirely". I have absolutely no idea whatsoever what the heck Sagara means by this. It’s not even English in any meaningful sense! But enough of this nit-picking! Let's move on.

So this story takes off where Cast in Peril left off, kinda half-way through. None of her other volumes (at least as I recall - it's been a while!) are like this: they're complete stories even while still an integral part of the series. Oh, and yes, this is a series where you really need to start on volume one to get everything that follows. The Barrani party with whom Kaylin is traveling to a ceremony in which she is to play an important part, is under attack and threats follow them, but within the first few chapters they arrive safely in the territory known as the West March where the ceremony is to be held. Kaylin will be safe until she tells the tale, but after that, all bets, it appears, are off. This writing is some of Sagara's best in her descriptions of the bizarre things which happen in the forest right before they achieve sanctuary in the Lord of the West March's property. It's fascinating to me, but this novel wasn't all plain sailing.

Having said that, I have to also add that chapters five and six are all but unintelligible in far too many places. I don't recall having this problem with Sagara's previous volumes in this series, but I pretty much read those one after another, since I was quite late coming to this series. This not only made the read pleasurable, since I had virtually no down-time between volumes, it also made it a lot easier on me in keeping track of people and events than it must have been for those people who read one novel, and then had to wait a whole year before they were able to continue the adventure. I think I had a real advantage with this flow, and this is what enabled me to enjoy the novels far better than others who had a much more staccato experience.

I know that other reviewers have expressed complaints about her poor writing - where she has a conversation start up and it's entirely unclear who is saying what and to whom. This goes back to what I said earlier about reading out loud what you wrote, and before you do that, wait a month or so. If you can't quite grasp who is doing or saying what, or why, then you know for a fact your readers won't exactly be on top of it either, and it's your fault if they're not!

Like I said, I don't recall experiencing this difficulty before, but chapters five and six in this novel are a classic examples of this problem - of the same problem I had at the start of chapter four, which I mentioned above. These two chapters also recap (after a fashion) some previous events; the problem is that it's been so long since I read those other volumes that the recaps were useless, since they were so very sparse and mentioned names and actions which I couldn't recall well (or at all!), without giving any context for those names.

In another genre, when one reads a series, the names are much more familiar and the roles those people play, much more ordinary. But I think the writer has a real responsibility to help keep the reader enlightened when taking an excursion into a fantasy world where both names and roles are pure invention and unfamiliar to the reader. Sagara fails dismally at this in these two chapters, but then she picks it up somewhat when Kaylin has to once again heal the Barrani consort - who promptly disappears during an all-out assault on Lord Lirienne's West March central (or is it central march west? - whichever it is, they're almost given their marching orders - west, right, west right, quick march - until Kaylin comes to the rescue), and by them it's almost April....

So all is forgiven because Sagara takes off again after the, ahem, bad chapters and takes it to the next level which is the one right after the mezzanine (if you're south of the border that will be the mexanine), but before you get to the sign which says "Next Level and Then Some", okay? If you reach the sign saying, "She's all that and a bag of chips" then you've gone wa-ay too far at this point. All righty then.

So, despite all the itty-bitty annoyances, Sagara puts together a pretty engrossing tale, full of amazingly imaginative scenes, and curious events, slowly but surely adding this volume to the rest in terms of stories I can say are enjoyable and addictive. I love Kaylin and An'teela, and I love especially how Sagara brings them closer as friends in this story, having each of them open up more to the other than they ever have before - but then she threatens to seriously split them apart. I'm not going to say any more on that score, but it made my skin crawl in considering that she might really do this!

So to conclude, I recommend this!


Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Gameboard of the Gods by Richelle Mead



Title: Gameboard of the Gods
Author: Richelle Mead
Publisher: Penguin
Rating: WORTHY!

DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration of any kind for this review. Since this is a new novel, this review is shorter so as not to rob the writer of her story, but even so, it will probably still be more detailed than you'll typically find elsewhere!


First, some editing notes regarding the galley copy (hopefully these will be fixed before the final version is released):
p103 "Dag had starting calling her that" probably should read: "Dag had started calling her that"
p122: "one filled with all sorts of half completed projected." I'm guessing that last word should be 'projects'. I’d also add a hyphen between 'half' and 'completed', but that's just me!
P141 "Did what he say make sense?" when it should perhaps be "Did what he said make sense?"
P157 "...thought I worry..." when it should be "…though I worry..."
P184 "...but she'd been grilled in how to be pleasant and likable..." would make more sense as "...but she'd been drilled in how to be pleasant and likable..."
P185 "...cut and dry..." would make more sense as "...cut and dried…"
P198 "...spoke legions about them..."?! That just didn't sound right. Perhaps volumes instead of legions?
P224 "Don’t record anything around her without asking me." maybe should have been: "Don’t record anything around here without asking me."?
In Chapter 19: "...but she felt more securing knowing..." should perhaps be "...but she felt more secure in knowing..."?
P305 "How much have you drank tonight?" maybe should be "How much have you drunk tonight?"
P311 "...the rest of the acquaintance over the years." should be perhaps "...the rest of the acquaintanceship over the years."?
P352 "...he reminder her." should be "...he reminded her." I think.
P400 "...her skin literally burned..." I doubt it! Metaphorically, maybe, but not literally! Picky, ain't I?
P424 "Excitable was one to put it..." should be "Excitable was one way to put it..."
P425 "Gan left at his own joke.." should be "Gan laughed at his own joke..." (it's like Mead was dictating this!)
P447 "He hadn’t really thought she'd stay on, and from that cool look on her face, she probably wasn’t thrilled that it had." Change of person doesn’t make any sense to me.
P450 "But it was the same thing Lucian had told Mae when he'd look into servitor hiring" confusion of tense? It seems like it ought to be either "But it was the same thing Lucian had told Mae when he'd looked into servitor hiring", or better, "But it was the same thing Lucian had told Mae when he looked into servitor hiring"
I notice in the ebook version, the chapters have odd case: "ChaPter instead of "Chapter"
and one more: I don't think this is an error per se, but "ArianrHood big on that kind of thing" sounds really weird!

To the review! I just started getting into this one in spare minutes here and there, and it was really hard to go with it for the first chapter, with its rather pretentious faux Roman nonsense with the misnamed Praetorian Guard which is the elite military force in the RUNA (Republic of United North America) nation. I was offered no valid reason why the nation had developed like that. It also didn't help to read constructions like this: "...would get bored of him..." or the weird contractions Mead might've used a bit too frequently and should've used less often IMO...! However, after the first few pages, I began to appreciate the story more, and started to get into it enough that these distractions didn't throw my stride.

It wasn't long before I was immersed in the fiction rather than in the writing of it! I have now finished it and wholeheartedly recommend it. This was the kind of book I've been sorely missing lately and it made me want to track down other Richelle Mead novels and read them. Unfortunately they seem to be of the young-adult paranormal romance variety and they didn't exactly trip my trigger, so I'll have to wait for the sequel to this one!

This novel however was in general well-written, had interesting multi-dimensional characters and a good plot. I loved that it was based in an atheist society and had no problem when the supernatural started invading because I was expecting it and it was done really professionally. The two main characters, Mae and Justin were believable, flawed, multi-faceted and endearing. I loved the awkward way they were forced into prowling around each other not because of some inexplicable whim of the author's but because they were written skilfully into this situation by the circumstances and by the plot. Mae in particular was one of the most kick-ass female protagonists I've encountered, especially of late and she was so welcome! If she continues to grow on me in sequels as she did in this novel, I'll have to put her up there with the all-time greats such as Molly Millions in William Gibson's Neuromancer, and Kitai in the Codex Alera series by Jim Butcher, which are the benchmark for me.

Mae is one of the best of the praetorian guard, but after a fight at the funeral of one of her fellow soldiers (for whose death, some held her to blame), she's re-assigned to the lowly task of delivery girl, taking a message to some guy in Panama City. That someone is Justin, a drunken lech who preys on women with enchanting stories of his exotic, hi-tech homeland even as he's suffering silently from his forced exile from it (he was expelled for reasons which are revealed later and which smoothly tie into the story).

Justin finds himself in an alley behind a bar, and Mae coincidentally steps in to fight off six assailants who are there to exact revenge on Justin for what he did to someone's sister. Mae doesn't realize that he's the one she's supposed to be delivering the message to, especially since he lies to her about his name. Annoyingly, Mead stops the action right there to rewind the video and show it again to us from Mae's perspective. This was not appreciated; it was like a commercial popping up unexpectedly in place of the climax to a movie scene! Fortunately for my sanity, she doesn't do this often.

But in this case, instead of the action scene I was salivating over, I was dragged kicking and screaming to what appeared to be a bizarre combination of a reminiscence mashed-up with a flashback or a change of scene, from which we're led slowly back to the fight. I skipped that portion entirely out of distaste and I have never missed it! Now back to our regular programming: finally we get to the fight, wherein Mae predictably kicks ass x6, and then Justin and Mae spend the night together! No trope-ish YA nonsense here, whereby the two main characters hate each other and then fall in love, thank Mead; in this novel they fall in bed and then they hate each other! The love scene was a cliché, unfortunately, but I'll let that slide because it turns out to be part of the over-arching story.

Next we're at a meeting where we discover the reason for Justin's imminent resurrection and the reason for Mae having to deliver him that letter: there has been a series of murders of patricians (yep, you heard me right), all without clues, except for the last one - where a hidden camera recorded what appeared to be a column of smoke which resolved into a human being long enough for a silver dagger to be thrust into the victim's heart, then the figure was gone!

Justin needs to discover who the assailant is before the next full moon when the next ritual murder is likely to be committed, and Mae, who has spent the entire meeting giving him dirty looks and hard glances, is to be his bodyguard! She resents his lie and resents this assignment. Justin agrees to return to Vancouver and take up this new job offer under certain conditions, one of which is to bring his sister to Vancouver from Alaska and the other is to take a Panamanian there as well: Tessa, a young prodigy from a family to which Justin owes his life.

I disagree with the repression of religion to the extent it's shown in this novel, but I love the fact that a writer has the guts to tell a story like this. As I said, the first few pages were a trial, and the love scene was trite, but other than that I like this novel. I was surprised to find out that Mae was Scandinavian. I'd somehow got the impression that she was of Chinese extraction, which I found refreshing, but in absence of that, I'm willing to take a story that starts out in Vancouver instead of in an almost inevitable US city! The obsession with Greek and Roman culture is a bit tiresome and it's odd, given that there are a lot of elements of Chinese and Russian communism in this world combined, rather paradoxically, with Nazi Arianism! That latter observation plays a part in the bigger story, however.

I guess I should mention that Justin hears voices in his head. There are two of them: Horatio and Magnus. Horatio is the talkative one. I had no idea for the longest time, what that was all about, but it is explained and done well. There is definitely a connection between Justin and Mae: they each harbor something beneath their physical exterior, and Mae is in denial about hers!

Mead uses Tessa in the role of the old saw of putting an outsider into the tale as a proxy for the reader. It gets a bit tedious as they pass through the airport to RUNA, but it doesn't get any worse than that, and I liked the Tessa character. Unlike Marissa Meyer in Cinder, at least Mead knows the difference between koi and coy! Lol!

Tessa is obsessing on how people look and how you tell the difference between the Romanesque patrician element and the plebeians in the populace. Why would the US suddenly go Roman? Yes, they obsessed on it when the US was put together, creating the senate and imbuing buildings with an air of faux Greco-Roman architecture, but they grew out of it. What would make them regress? This isn't explained, and it isn't just a regression, it's an obsession. We learn that all RUNA citizens (there's another word!) are supposed to have a name of Greek or Latin origin! How absurd is that? And this is supposed to be a free and much-admired nation. That seemed weird to me, and I imagine the native Americans would have something to say about that, but in what's rather a slur on them, their position isn't even touched on! The complete contradiction to this is that RUNA makes land grants to ethnic groups. This is rather a stark betrayal of the stated aim of homogenizing the populace! So this society is far from ideal.

To get through immigration control, Mae puts her hand on the glass and is read in as a citizen. That's it? This protected republic (why is it even a republic?!) lets anyone in based on hand-print alone?! Given how paranoid they seem to be, that seemed less than rational! Mae has to declare her guns which she's authorized to carry. She also declares the knife in her boot, claiming that no one expects the knife. Ri-ight - just like no one expects the Spanish Inquisition!

As they exit the airport they look up at the RUNA flag which is halved in purple and maroon (really?!), and which sports a golden circlet of laurel leaves (barf!) and the Latin motto Gemma Mundi which means "I get mine on Mondays". Seriously, it means "the jewel of the world", and it’s this motto from which they get the name Gemmans. I don't know if Mead did this on purpose, but that name sounds suspiciously like 'Germans' - as in Nazi Germany! I've never understood the juvenile pretension of employing Latin mottoes, but perhaps Mead is using this to tell us something about the stability, psychology, or strength of the Republic?

Tessa has to be 'chipped' in order not to trigger alarms everywhere she goes (that's the paranoid bit!). She gets a chip embedded in the little web between thumb and forefinger of her left hand. As this is going on, we learn that there was a Mephistopheles virus (seriously? Where did that name come from?! Mead actually does explain it: Mephistopheles is a manufactured virus.) which killed half the world's population during a period known as 'The Decline'. Some of the survivors had a syndrome with gave them asthma, infertility, and bad hair! I'm not sure Mead is where she needs to be on genetics, but very few of us are, and she's vague enough that she does okay, so I'm not going to get into it on this occasion!

Justin takes this opportunity to try and resolve things with Mae over their night together, and she promptly informs him that it was a one off and it will never happen again. The problem from Justin's PoV is that there is more to their one night stand than ever Mae could guess at. He had seen a halo of some sort around her head, which has a specific meaning to him: it tells him that this woman is very special, someone he's been expecting to meet. It should trigger a binding agreement he has made, but he rationalized his way out of accepting that she was the one, and thereby didn't trigger the binding (I don't know how that works!), but he hasn’t convinced himself. Exactly what the agreement is, we aren’t told immediately.

Mae takes them to Justin's sister's new home. Since this arrangement was made only the night before, it's truly really hard to swallow that they could have recovered her from Alaska and ensconced her in such a decent home in less than 24 hours. His sister has mixed feelings about seeing him again, and Mae beats a hasty retreat, leaving them to it, joining her praetorian buddies Val and Dag at a bar. There were learn that the praetorians can’t get drunk because of an implant, but they can 'slam the implant' and get a brief buzz if they drink multiple drinks very quickly, I guess Mead hasn't heard of higher proof drinks! Surprisingly, Mae blabs all about her secret mission. Even more surprisingly, we learn that even in this perfect, ideal, Greco-Roman society, the elite praetorians have to guard monuments. Now why is that?!

But on with the story. After a few drinks with her pals, Mae heads home and is confronted with a Finnish cosa nostra guy (Finnish mafia?! Shouldn't that be Meidän asia?!) who shows her a pic and gives her a hair sample. This is a pet project of Mae's, where she is trying to track down her niece (we learn the fascinating story later), for now we learn that price of discovering where this child can be found is a small favor, something which Mae is disinclined to do - and even more so when she later learns what this favor is!

Justin, along with Mae and Tessa takes the video of the 'smoke assassin' to a friend in Portland and leaves it with him - this is an 'only copy' original, and he leaves it unattended with someone outside the organization! That seemed to me to be plain foolishness. When a writer writes something like this, it's hard to tell if they intended it to be that way, or if they simply didn't think about what they were writing. Since I don't know Mead - that is, I haven't read anything of hers prior to this - I can't comment on it other than to than to highlight it for future consideration.

And I think that's enough deep detail for this novel, otherwise I'll be telling you the entire story and robbing Mead of the opportunity to tell it her way, which I won't do. I think I already spilled a bit more than I intended, but this story grabbed me and I loved it. It would be unnatural if I didn't want to spread the joy! I can't tell you how satisfying it was, after having been read some of the stories I've fallen into of late only to find them disappointing or so-so. This one was definitely a cut above far too many of the others and kept me coming back for more. Now I'm actually annoyed that it's over! But it's up to you to decide whether you find Mead a worth read, and I hope this helps especially since you know, if you've been following me, that I'm far from a push-over reviewer and definitely not a rubber stamp.

Don't think I had no issues with this story! It would be a rarity indeed if I didn't, but they were small enough or unobtrusive enough that they typically didn't toss me back out into reality, and after a while I became so fond of the story that I was willing to let some things go by that I might have hung up on had I liked the story less than I did.

"And the loose Greco-Roman models the country had adopted had provided a new, all-encompassing culture that everyone could be a part of." That was one which didn't ring true! A culture that favors Greece and Rome over anyone's actual culture, including native American, and one that forces its citizens to choose a name that in the majority of cases has nothing whatsoever to do with their own culture? Why would anyone come up with a system like that? That bit took the sweet SoD (suspension of disbelief) right out from under me and dropped me harshly on rough concrete. And it was glaringly apparent when Tessa started school and was subject to a level of condescension that amounted to bullying. This was an integral part of the story, so it made me annoyed, but not with the author!

I loved the Poppy character, especially in that the name contrasted with the kind of person she was, but I have to say that I found it out of place, given what we've been told about those cultural pressures imposed by the state, that Tessa's best friend in school is someone named Poppy, which isn’t a Greco-Roman name at all. How did she get to be called that? Maybe we'll find out. There's a slight oddity in the relationship between the two, revealed in this sentence: "Usually, Tessa conceded to her friend's advice..." - I'm wondering if that wouldn't sound better as "Usually, Tessa acceded to her friend's advice...", but that doesn't bother me as much as the real question here: given the extremely limited time the two of them have known each other at that point, does such a sentence make any sense at all?!

Mae drops into a detailed reminiscence about her intimate relationship with Porfirio (seriously?!). He's the fellow praetorian and sometime lover who was apparently killed due to her mistake. Again I skipped this completely and entirely and didn't miss it. I could feel a mix of nausea and boredom growing as soon as I saw that flashback coming on! This is the kind of tale where I'm really not interested in any back-story: I just want to get on with the present story! However, there is a bit that's more acceptable later, where Mae's friends Dag and Val explain to Justin just what happened, and this explains a lot of things which had been bothering me. This tête-à-tête is brought about through an interesting escapade of Tessa's!

But enough! I could ramble all day about this if you were foolish enough to let me! In short I loved it and look forward to Richelle Mead's next excursion into this territory. I hope it won't be too long.