vN by Madeline Ashby

Rating: WARTY!

Subtitled "The First Machine Dynasty" this book proved to be part of a series, which I didn't fully realize to begin with since there's nothing on the cover saying "WARNING: This is the first book in a series!" BEWARE!" The 'vN' is from (John) von Neumann, a Hungarian mathematician, and relates to the self-replicating robots which are the main characters in the novel. The two most important of these are Amy and Javier, both of whom are on the run. Javier is pregnant, which begs the unanswered question as to why there are genders with the robots and given that there are, why the males are having the babies. Apparently both genders can have babies, but no females do - at least in what I read, which was about fourth-fifths of this, before I gave up out of lack of interest and frustration with the story not making a whole lot of sense.

The robots are much more organic than we typically envision them, being able to consume plastics and use the materials to grow and when they have an abundance of this 'food' they can create a new, but smaller version of themselves in a sort of parthenogenesis. Amy is infamous for eating her own grandmother, but rather than make her pregnant, all this did was to incorporate her grandmother into Amy's psyche and not to any positive effect, so Amy effectively becomes schizophrenic. How this worked was never explained. Neither was it explained why she didnlt become pregnant from it.

A lot of stuff isn't explained, Amy has a human father but exactly how he was her father isn't gone into. There are areas like this just as there are areas in the text which lack a little something. At one point Javier is tickling Amy and she asks, "Can you try the back of my knee? My dad is ticklish there." But just a couple of lines later Javier is saying, "I can't really get the bottom of your feet if you're standing on 'em, can I?" - it's like the author forgot which part of her he was supposed to be tickling. Later I read "...Is she" followed on the next line by "No it's not that." which means there was zero punctuation at the end of that first time. I don't know of it was meant as an interruption - in which case there ought to have been ellipsis or a dash or something - or if the author simply forgot to add a question mark.

Those were very minor issues, but they didn't help when I was already disliking the novel for its rambling and disjointed approach to story-telling, and its lack of any explanations for how things worked or why they worked that way. It was like the author simply wanted to gloss over this stuff, and have us buy into this world without even offering a pretence of it making any sense, and it rendered the world incomplete and lacking authenticity as well as leaving problematic holes everywhere. I can't commend a book that's had so little attention given to its anatomy as this one has.

The Hero Chronicles: Secrets by Tim Mettey

Title: The Hero Chronicles: Secrets
Author: Tim Mettey
Publisher: Tim Mettey
Rating: WARTY!

This novel I've had in my reader for a while, putting it off for items more urgent, but it’s time to get this read. Another reason for putting it off is that this novel violates several of my conditions for reading a novel (most of which materialized after I'd added this one to my list!). First of all the title incorporates not only the word "chronicles", but also the word "hero", both of which I've sworn-off in novel titles (along with 'cycle' and 'saga'!). Secondly it’s first person PoV, which is a big no-no for me since it’s all "Me!" all the time: "Hey lookit me!" "Hey forget that, pay attention to what I'M doing!" and "No one is more important than Meeeee!"

It’s so self-indulgent and irritating, and it’s a rarity in my experience to find such a novel that's written well enough to be worth expending my time on - not when there are so many other novels and life is short! I'd much rather read something easy on the mind than something which requires fortitude and gritted teeth just to scan the text!

This novel also has sound effects incorporated into the text. Even for a middle to upper grade novel it’s a no-no. The school bell doesn’t ring, it goes "DING!DING!DING!DING!" without any spaces in between. How annoying! The the main character is equally annoying. When the bell rings for recess, he doesn’t take his turn, but hurries to the front of the line. And this is just on the second page of this thing. The school apparently experiences an earthquake, and suddenly it’s five years later and we’re in chapter two. Kudos to the author for actually putting the prologue into the body of the novel. It’s the only way you'll get me to read a prologue! I'm guessing some super villain or other comes out of the earthquake, but I haven’t read that far, so it’s only a guess.

Nick the hero is now living with his aunt Cora. Cora's only defining qualities are that she's slim and beautiful, because who wants a smart woman who might be overweight? Let’s not ever tell young children that smarts are more important than looks. And while we’re at it, who wants a woman with integrity and good humor? No one. Don’t ever tell young kids that. The hell with integrity, industry and accomplishments! Let’s not have kids growing up thinking those things are of value. Nope! Keep it superficial!

This author evidently thinks that all young kids need to know is that women should be slim and beautiful - like a magazine model - because no other woman is worth anything, let's face it. That's what all-too-many writers want us to believe, sadly enough, and that's evidently what this writer apparently wants young kids to grow-up learning. Personally, I don’t buy it, but that's the way it is. Maybe I should start keeping a tally, as I read, of how many strikes this novel garners for itself? Naw! I never read that far.

Cora and nephew are moving to a new home. I like the way Cora specifies that they'll be leaving at 5am sharp in the morning, so that he doesn’t get any ideas that they'll be moving out at 5am sharp in the afternoon…. It’s not a spoiler to reveal that he's a superhero and this could well be why they're moving so frequently. The how and why of this isn't immediately explained, but he at least has super speed, so here comes the next trip-up.

Alex and Nick decorate an older guy's car with bologna, because that's unquestionably the best way to have a really fun night, and when the older guy starts looking for the culprits, Alex proves that he can run faster than a Mustang - which in the end crashes injuring the guys. How christian is that?! He runs right into the kid he's rescuing - at speed - and takes him along so they won't be caught, but the writer is in dire need of a lesson in physics and biology, because he simply doesn’t get it (that's what too much religion will do for you!). Don’t worry, the writers in The Flash TV show don't get it either.

It doesn't matter how much of a super hero you are, the laws of physics still apply, and ordinary people still have the same biology. If you run at sixty miles an hour and pick-up a by-stander in order to rescue them, then their body is going to go from zero to sixty instantly, and you're going to break their neck or give them some serious whiplash and compression injuries at least. That's not much of a rescue.

This novel started out middle grade and moved to young adult, but the tone never changed from middle-grade. Worse than this, instead of telling us a story about the super hero powers, we got a story of the main character playing football - in tedious detail. What happened to the super hero? I guess football is more important. This story felt far more like author wish-fulfillment than ever it did a real story, and I cannot in good faith recommend it.