Dance of Shadows by Yelena Black

Rating: WARTY!

I have to announce up front that I rated this novel as 'warty'. It was a really great plot idea which was tragically let down by really lousy execution.

There's a Dance of Shadows book trailer here which is quite frankly so pathetic that it ought to be titled Dance of Sad-sack. It's largely in B&W and tells us nothing but how desperately publishers are these days to get attention! Books are not movies and this business of desperately trying to mash-up the two is doomed to failure! Unless someone comes up with something really cool...something out there...something truly adventurous.

Slightly more entertaining is that the hardback edition of this (and perhaps the paperback too, if there is one) has a "BB Live" function attached to it. You can download an app, point your phone at the book's cover, tap the screen, and see a representation of the cover come alive on your device. It's cute, and better than the book trailer, but it's not really that impressive. I have to wonder where they think they can go with this!

Anyway, let's get to the real thing here - the printed word! Red haired Vanessa Adler is a ballet dancing wannabe who has just arrived at the the New York Ballet Academy. It's her first year there, but for Vanessa this is a bittersweet venue. Her sister Margaret, a remarkable ballerina who attended this same school, disappeared without a trace several years before. I skipped the prologue as usual and went right to the first chapter which tells the story of Vanessa's arrival. Her mom is introduced as Mrs Adler, her father is introduced (if you can call it that) as "her father", and soon they're gone. That tales care of the first criterion for YA supernatural trope!

One interesting snippet that sneaks in is that Vanessa is tall like her dad, but this begs the question: tall and in ballet? Anastasia Volochkova can probably relate to that: she has not only actually danced in The Firebird, she has been fired - for heinous crime of being 169cm (5'7") tall, and weighing 50kg (110lbs)! This is yet another example of the brutal standards we set for women, and it's all-too-often criminally different than it is for men. Do men have to wear tutus? Do they have to obsess about weight and height? Do they have to be tossed around like rag dolls? Quite the contrary: ballerinos like Carlos Acosta (who is over six feet tall), and Benjamin Millepied (who is five-ten) seem to have no problem: I don't hear that they were kicked out for being too large.

I guess it's not too much of a stretch to figure out from this that I am not an aficionado of ballet, nor much of a dancing or musical fan in general for that matter. I do like a good story about such artists, however, as other reviews in this blog, such as In Mozart's Shadow, Dramarama, and Sister Mischief will demonstrate. Not that In Mozart's Shadow scored too well, but the other two did.

My first big problem with this novel was when the male lead grand plié'd his way directly into center stage. His name is Zeppelin Gray. I am not making this up; Yelena Black is! The hypocritical part of this is that we're told that he's "too tall to be a dancer" - but tall Vanessa isn’t!? IMO height has nothing to do with it, nor should it, so why mention it? We learn, inevitably, that his body is a chiseled sculpture which leaves Vanessa's lips trembling! Which lips this refers to isn't specified, so I guess Black doesn't have even Carey's embarrassed bravado in this regard, but at least Vanessa's lips aren't "heart-shaped" unlike the lips of another character in this novel. Shortly after this we meet bad boy Justin, the third apex of this infernal triangle, he of the delineated muscles and inevitable hair-in-face. I'm so nauseated by this Trope-l'œil that I wanted to toss this novel on the fire of the firebird at that point

Vanessa learns that the ballet the school will perform this year, quite coincidentally (not!) is Жарптица better known in the west as The Firebird, written by Igor Stravinsky, and curiously the story of a guy who wins a princess, the love of his life, helped by the firebird he's captured in exchange for letting L'Oiseau de Feu go free. The Firebird was Stravinsky's first project for the Ballet Russes, written when he was an unknown.

My prediction by then was easy: we know that Zeppelin will be playing the male lead in the ballet, Vanessa will be picked for the female lead (red hair - firebird, get it?!) and this will create huge resentment amongst her fellow ballerinas, the greatest nemesis of which is undoubtedly Zep's girlfriend, Anna Franko, evidently the progeny of a startling line of prima donnas, but there's far more to it than this. Vanessa's sister Margaret was picked to play the firebird rôle and she disappeared. My WAG was that Margaret quite literally became the firebird and that's how she disappeared. Consequently, the only way in which Vanessa will find out what happened to her sister is if she inhabits the same rôle herself.

This novel does have a few amusing quirks. These people are all fit young ballerinas/os in training, and yet they ride the elevator up to their floor?! The more senior students force the freshmen/women into a rather scary and then rather sick initiation, but this is nothing compared with the Nazi-like ballet classes. We do learn, from one of these, however, that Vanessa gets truly in the zone during a pirouette exercise in one of her classes. This is what sets her up for a freshman entirely predictably taking the female lead in the school's production of The Firebird.

Of course, there's always room for gross error in my predictions, but it seemed obvious that Zeppelin would really be the bad guy, that Justin is going to win fair Vanessa's hand, that Justin is there because he was Margaret's boyfriend, and that he's back for the same reason Vanessa is: to find out what happened to Margaret. This would explain his long absence from the school, and the reason he's now forced to take classes with the freshmen. But Vanessa thinks he's evil, and she goes on a date with Zep, of course. Next in tropeville comes the appallingly clunky but tropely inevitable instance of them being quite literally thrown together. This happens on a subway when the train takes a curve, and Vanessa, supposedly a brilliant ballerina, can’t keep her balance? Honestly? The plot sickens.

Zep takes her to a pizza place in the Village, and "The warmth of his fingers closing around hers made her legs go weak." Oh, and let it not be forgotten that she "melts" beneath his touch. Barf. Okay so the comment Zep makes regarding soda while they’re eating the pizza is really funny, but that was the only interesting thing about him in the entire novel. And how can we have a female lead who is so unheroic? How can we respect an invertebrate girl like Vanessa? Why do female authors so consistently trash their female main characters in this way? Does Black hate young girls, or just Vanessa? Does she have so little respect for her that she creates this girl in this way?

On page 145, Black has Vanessa saying to Zeppelin, "So now that you have me alone, what do you want to do with me? This is such an echo of Kitai's line to Tavi in Jim Butcher's Academ's Fury:

"Well," she murmured after another moment. "You have me, Aleran. Either do something with me or let me up." (p296)

I had to wonder if she had read that novel, but it's a pathetic echo compared with that entire scene in Butcher's novel. You can find the page in Google Books here.

Zep tells Vanessa that she's different from all the other girls he's taken out. What, the others had two heads? Six legs? No arms? I'm sorry but this is thoroughly flatulent. Zep is quite obviously an imbecile who ultimately treats her like dirt, and Vanessa is equally an imbecile if she swallows all this crap he's telling her, especially when he tells her that most girls wouldn’t be OK with going out for pizza? What planet is Black from? Every girl of the same personified Jell-O® hue as is Vanessa with him, would crawl through sewerage for the trope guy. I call bullshit on this whole thing. Through a megaphone. But guess what, Justin is no better. In fact, he's worse because he's supposed to be the good guy yet he flatly refuses to tell Vanessa-Sue a single thing that will help her. He's reduced to absurdly cryptic hints throughout the entire novel. What a complete and utter time-wasting loser.

This trope triangle was one of two real problems with this novel and it's not even the most important one. As I mentioned, the basic plot is great, but the biggest problem is how the story is being told. It started out as a story about Margaret Adler going missing, and Vanessa Adler's plan to try to discover the truth about her sister's disappearance, but it rapidly dissolved into a sad, boring love-triangle with two farcically cardboard guys, and a wet rag of a girl, and who cares about missing Margaret? For that matter, who cares about the dance when we can obsess on Zeppelin, the most worthless character ever created in the history of worthless characters?! I got this book because I was misled into believing it was about dancing, and about overcoming obstacles, and about the mystery, and I warmed to it when I thought there was a supernatural element being added to the mixture, but I've really been let down. I did read to the end of this novel, but I skimmed it for the last hundred pages, only truly stopping to read when it got interesting, which unfortunately wasn't often enough!

And what's with Messiah Anna Franko and her twelve princesses? They follow her around like ducklings, and it's truly pathetic. At least there is some sort of explanation put up for this, but I found it inadequate to explain all of their behavior all of the time. I cannot honestly believe that not a single one of them would harbor any regard for Vanessa and her skill. This was such a heavy-handed high-school cliché that it was to pathetic to tolerate and it was entirely without merit. Yes, I don't doubt that dancers, like anyone, can be childish and peevish at times. I don't doubt they have flaws. I do seriously doubt that they would all behave en bloc like this. This story had it within itself to be so much better.

Here's a word about the novel you write being inescapably yours: no matter how many beta readers you have, no matter who your editor is, it's all on you, and you need to factor that by a magnitude of ten if you self-publish. If we don't take this responsibility, we get lines like this on p296: "Joseph lashed at out at Zep...". No spell-checker is going to get that. Microsoft's sad sack of a grammar checker will not catch that. No last minute skim-read is going to find an error like that. It's all on you, the author.

Having said that this novel becomes less and less about the dance, to be fair I have to add that at least Black didn't completely forget that "It's the dance, stupid!". Most of the action, when it's not "Oh Zeppelin, where-the-hell art thou, Zeppelin?" is about a dance that Black invented for this novel: la danse du feu - 'the dance of fire' which is supposed to be a particularly difficult routine, but it's not part of The Firebird. Don't confuse this with the Infernal Dance as I initially did. Black's invention was added purely for the supernatural portion of this tale. As you can see, it sure doesn't look like this ballerina is having any trouble, nor this one with the actual firebird ballet! Note that I am not a ballerino, nor a musician, so this is only my amateur opinion, and this certainly isn't to belittle those who perform (either the music, or the dance, in) these pieces. None of it is "so easy anyone could do it".

On a lighter note, don't confuse feu with fou! There's this old joke about a guy who is learning French and he's staying in a cabin one cold night with a couple of acquaintances. One of them has to leave for a time, and she tells the man not to let the fire go out, but he thinks she said "Don't let the fool go out" and spends his time watching the other guy and ignoring the sputtering fire! But I digress!

So, once again when Zep abandons her, Vanessa goes to practice in the room where there is ash on the walls outlining the pale shapes of ballerinas in various poses from the dance of fire. Vanessa copies these poses one after another, and she sees the shapes come alive and start dancing with her. In time, they slowly disappear except for one, which she assumes is Margaret, and which continues to dance with her until Vanessa collapses. She finds herself, wilting willow that she is, carried back to the NYBA building by Zep, and she tells him what happened, but then get this: when she considers telling him her suspicions about ballerinas disappearing, she baulks at that in case he would think she's crazy! So telling him about live, dancing, wall shapes - absolutely fine; telling him about demonstrable ballerina disappearances - absolutely crazy. Okay! Got it!

I won't go into any more in order not to completely spoil it for anyone who is interested in reading this, but the ending is simply not good enough and is merely the introduction to volume two in what is destined, apparently, to be a series. If Black had ditched the instadore, that alone might have persuaded me to relent on the tedium and lack of dancing detail and perhaps rate this as a worthy read, but as it is, it's never going to get there for me. Definitely a warty read.

Daughter of Camelot by Glynis Cooney

Title: Daughter of Camelot
Author: Glynis Cooney
Publisher: Mabon Publishing
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 less detailed so as not to rob the writer of their story, but even so, it will probably still be more in-depth than you'll typically find elsewhere!

Errata in galley ebook:
p92 "There was a distant clash of a symbol..." should be "There was a distant clash of a cymbal..."
p97 "...reflecting he thick gold..." - "...reflecting the thick gold…"
p104 "…stone alter…" should be "…stone altar…"
p108 "…the horrors of loosing those I loved most." should be "…the horrors of losing those I loved most."
P110 "…as if seeking out it's own…" should be "…as if seeking out its own…"
p135 "I never knew a feeing..." should be "I never knew a feeling..."
p193 "Shall I swear and oath?" should be "Shall I swear an oath?"
P362 "My tongue felt think in my mouth…" should be "My tongue felt thick in my mouth…"

I have to remark that I found it a curious coincidence that I was reading two books about twins simultaneously (Erasing Time was the other one). This one is the "Empire of Shadows" series, book one, and I recommend it! You can download the first three chapters for free. I was unable to find this book on either Barnes & Noble or on Amazon so I have no idea how you'd actually go about buying it. I honestly think that Cooney made a mistake with the title of the novel, since there are several others already hogging that title. Another writing issue! When is it wise to change your title as opposed to determinedly going ahead with the one you set your heart on?! I'm facing this very challenge with a novel I'm trying to finish (and have been trying so to do for some time!).

But back to the twins! I felt when I started this novel that if Cooney knows her craft, it cannot be that there's no reason for twins to be featured in this novel. I had the feeling that Deidre was going to replace Rhys either because he dies or because he is captured or incapacitated, and Deidre takes up the sword without anyone knowing she's not Rhys, but I read the entire thing and nothing like that happened, so I was left wondering: why twins? The other side of that coin is of course, that it's nice to have a novel which features twins but made no big deal out of it. Perhaps real life twins would appreciate that.

Anyway, Deirdre is the daughter of a chieftain and she's a tomboy. Why did I use that term? What does it even mean? Is there such a thing as a tomgirl? A queengirl? A hengirl? A henboy? I suspect not! But we meet Deirdre sword-fighting with her brother (using safe swords, but going at it). It's their birthday shortly, and Deidre is granted a new horse as a present. This struck me as bizarre; did people really celebrate birthdays back in sixth century Britain? I somehow doubt it, but that's just my feeling. So herein lies the writing issue of the day: just how historical do you make your fiction?!

Deidre receives bad news, however. She's fourteen now and it's long past time for her to be presented at court where she fears she will die of boredom sitting in sewing circles and listening to gossip. She demands adventure, but she ain't gonna git it. Or is she?

I don’t know if Cooney did this knowingly, or if it was purely accidental, but on p79, there's a choice paragraph right at the top of the page where she writes, "…lambskin satchel…looked at me sheepishly…". I couldn't help but smile at that. If Cooney did it on purpose, then I love her dearly because it’s so sneaky. If she didn’t, then I can only reiterate that writers need to be aware not only of what they write, but also of how it will be read! (And especially how it will be read by people with minds that are as warped as mine is!)

Cooney seems to take a lot of liberties with the era in which this novel is set. I don’t know if this was deliberate or if there is some confusion about what fitted where (or if I'm just ignorant of the era!). For example, she talks about armor as though the knights of King Arthur's time were just like in the fairy tales: clad with shining silver armor, awash with gallantry and chivalry, but "King Arthur" (or whoever it was who gave rise to his legend) was little more than a warlord or a chieftain. There may have been chain-mail available in Wales at that time, but there was nothing like we saw, for example, in the TV series Merlin.

Religion, too, in that era, was a melting pot of paganism and Christianity. The latter had barely begun to creep in via the Roman occupation, which ended before the Arthurian era, and which wasn't well represented in Wales, so it was hardly likely that King Maelgwyn would have been off at a monastic retreat at that period in history. Again, that's just my PoV and I could well be wrong. One final whine: I find it odd that they have to go to the village fair to buy horses! Surely a chieftain would have his own breeding herd? He wouldn't want to be dependent upon strangers. However, you have to let these peeves go if you want to enjoy the novel, and so that's what I did!

Back to the tale, which I have to say became more and more intriguing and entertaining as I progressed. Talk of war fills the air (Sir Lancelot, among others, is fomenting against King Arthur, evidently) and Deidre discovers to her horror that she and Rhys will be separated. Rhys must travel to Camelot, whereas Deidre must accompany her sister Nia to the castle at Degannwy. Deidre is immensely resentful at this, but she's forced to adjust her attitude rather quickly. On the first night of the two-day journey they're attacked by thieves! The younger of the two knights who are supposed to be protecting them (and hardly more than a child himself) dies from his wounds. The older knight, Ioseff, who Deidre had maladroitly dissed earlier, proves himself to be a formidable opponent and the thieves are repelled, losing three of their number.

Deidre's friend Ronan shows up. He was tasked by Rhys to follow Deidre. They will be separated at the castle and he will have to reside with servants, but he doesn’t mind and Deidre is glad to have him close by. Nia gives her a gorgeous green dress which she has made for Deidre's birthday, which happens to be the very day they arrive at the castle. Deidre is shamed and embarrassed by her behavior towards Ioseff, towards her sister, and her scared behavior during the attack by the thieves. She apologizes to Nia and to Ioseff.

At the castle she realizes just how little she really knows about court life and conduct and the wider world outside of her relatively sheltered existence. And I have to interject here that "long horsy [sic] face" (or variations thereon) is a cliché that needs to die from being kicked to death by mules! On another non-sequitur, I have to remark how odd it is (not to be confused with 'oddities'!) to be reading about activities in the castle at Degannwy when I'm also listening to Kushiel's Dart on audio book, which has reached the activities in the Skaldi great hall during the "all-thing"! (Note that Kushiel's Dart is not a YA novel!

In case you're wondering, the Latin on p96 de profundis clamavi ad te domine domine exaudi vocem meam is nothing more than Psalms 130 verses 1 & 2. Note that there are no accents in Latin, so why Cooney uses them here is a mystery. It seems she wants to help with pronunciation, but if helpful is what you want to be, then why not have Deidre give the Psalm as well? You may recall if you follow this blog that I rail against slipping foreign phrases pretentiously into the text. They're useful if there is good reason, but as I said, I doubt that Catholicism would have entrenched itself so deeply into Wales in such a short time. But with regard to writing, here is a really good case where it could have worked quite well. By using the Latin and then having the character recall (or fail to recall) that it’s a psalm, it both provides a means of translation of the language, and it tells us something about the character. Note that I studied only two years of Latin, so I'm as far as from expert as you can get! Again this is all just my personal opinion!

I became somewhat disappointed in Gwen at the castle. I know she's only fourteen and a bit of a tear-a-way, but you would think she had a little more wisdom about her, being the daughter of a chieftain. At court, she is extremely foolish. She does not listen to advice and warnings, and against her older sister's stern advice, she starts flirting with one of the less reputable knights named Einion. This brings her into conflict with one of the other ladies at court - an outright bitch who evidently has the queen's ear.

On the other side of the coin, she is befriended by a woman named Sioned who recognizes a medallion Deidre wears - something which was given to her by an old crone during the visit to the village to buy her new horse. The medallion, we learn, is a talisman of a Welsh goddess called Rhiannon who is associated with a horse goddess called Epona. Sioned warns her, just as Nia did, to keep the talisman hidden at court because the King is highly Christian and she would be resented were she thought to be a worshiper of a pagan goddess.

Deidre runs afoul of one of the knights who isn't at all knightly, and consequently, she's very effectively kicked out of the castle. Sir Einion, who I detest, invites her to visit his own domain, Din Arth, since he's leaving, too. Deidre decides, based on something she overheard the night that Sir Tomas almost raped her, that her destiny is to follow Einion to Din Arth, to learn all she can about who is plotting against King Arthur and report back to her father. She sends Ronan off to relay her plans to her dad, and travels with Sioned to Einion's home, with great trepidation - and so she should considering that she addresses Queen Awel with: "Of course, Your Grace."! Nope. That form of address is reserved for the clergy. There was a time when Scots monarchs were addressed that way, but I'm not aware of any usage of that in Wales for the monarchy. Again I may be wrong; I'm hardly an expert on the Dark Ages in Britain!

On page 292, Cooney reveals herself to be yet another one among several writers I've read lately who doesn’t know that there's a difference between stanched and staunched! As frequently as I've seen that lately, it has become painfully apparent that the English language is changing under my very nose, but I refuse to use staunch in place of stanch! I will be a staunch opponent and I will stanch the bleeding of our English tongue!

The ending of Daughter of Camelot felt a bit weird for me, but it was a decently good one, as was the novel overall, despite my gripes above. (On that score, don't forget that this is a reading and writing blog so I would be doing readers a disservice if I avoided addressing topics that others might find digressive or even obsessive! As for rating this novel, I don’t do stars. A novel to me is either worth reading or it’s not (it's worthy or it's warty!). I don’t see how you can rate something, say, three-fifths worth reading! Nor do I see how someone can write a review that completely tears a novel apart (reviewing only a relatively unimportant two percent of it in the process!), but then still rates it two stars! That's just bizarre. I've read a review exactly like that on Goodreads of late (not about his novel)! But in summation, Hail And Well Met! I really enjoyed this novel and consider it a worthy read.

Erasing Time by CJ Hill

Title: Erasing Time
Author: CJ Hill
Publisher: Katherine Tegen
Rating: worthy

I detest book "trailers" but there's one here if you like them. Personally I think this one's pretty sad. There's a sequel to this novel due out in December 2013.

OTOH, I love a good time-travel novel and this one starts out rather intriguingly 435 years into the future (from the publication date of the book) in 2447. The people there live in a disturbingly changed society where there is no democracy, and where every citizen is tracked by means of a data disk in their wrist. We're told that all animals have died out, but the citizens still have meat to eat because they create it with their technology. When the twins have a ham sandwich, it tastes like the real thing, so this raises the same point made in the movie The Matrix: if all animals have died out, how could they replicate the taste of various forms of meat? Or is this extinction a complete lie, and this meat actually comes from real animals?

The remaining city states, we're told, are isolated, existing under protective domes, and are at odds with one another. This particular domed city in which the twins reside, Traventon, owes a lot to the capital city depicted in The Hunger Games in terms of fashion sense. Some of its architecture is odd. None of the stores have walls, but this begs not the question the twins ask (why does no one steal?) but a different question: why do they even have stores 400-some years from now? Why, in such a controlled society is there even money?

Another big difference is that speech has changed as much between now and then as it has between Shakespeare's time and ours, so while the spoken word isn't exactly clear, it is discernible with a bit of effort, although how this difference is presented in the novel is not done very well IMO. On the good side, organized religion has been banned as being nothing but fairy tales and a nuisance at best (but that might be a very misleading situation! More anon).

Into this world are brought twin sisters from 2012. By means of a "time strainer" they were scooped out of their present, converted into an energy stream, and reassembled in the future. The scientists conclude that something went wrong: the time strainer aimed for a scientist, whose name (Tyler Sherwood) is quite similar to the combined first names of the twins; Taylor and Sheridan. Interesting, huh? Taylor is an advanced placement student and is very much into science. Sheridan is also smart - not as geeky smart as her twin, but she is in honors English. The novel is told largely from Sheridan's perspective (fortunately from my perspective, not in first person!).

How this time-travel is supposed to work is a bit of a mystery. It's supposed to key on a person's DNA, the atoms of which vibrate at a unique frequency for each individual, which is how they lock on to someone to "strain them out", but this is patent nonsense to begin with! If Hill had said the DNA had a vibration, she would have been better served with this scheme, if still adrift, but the fact is that while genes differ between people they don't differ much, and every single gene is composed of the same small set of atoms, regardless of which person it resides in!

Taylor and Sheridan are identical twins, not clones, per se, but even clones are not completely identical. There's more to DNA than simply the codons. There's epigenetic material and there's some 90% of the genome which is junk - it neither is genetic nor does it regulate the genetic material, and so it can mutate dramatically and vary wildly even between "identical" twins. All of this is ignored by Hill. So the problem is this: since the twins, while identical, are so different in their behavior, there is clearly significant difference in the make-up of their genome, so I have to wonder how the strainer managed to latch on to both of them, especially given that the scientists can have access to only a very small amount of DNA to work with when trying to specifying exactly who to strain out of the time-stream. But let's let that go before I get a headache!

There's an interesting paradox here, too, which is what really makes time-travel interesting. The way Sheridan and Taylor are scooped up is that they're both attracted to an inexplicable ball of light in one of the rooms upstairs in their home. They would not have been in that particular place had they not seen the light (so to speak!), so if they would not have been there but for the light, and the light is caused by the portal opening where the twins are known to have been, how does that work exactly?! Yet another conundrum for any time-travel writer to solve.

But anyway, the fact is that the twins do get "strained" into the future, where they meet a younger man. His name is Echo, and he warns the two of them not to reveal that they're twins. This was the first thing which really struck me as stupid. They’re identical twins and everyone there knows that they're sisters, so why they think this twinship can be kept secret is a mystery. Why they haven't even been asked if they're twins is a bigger mystery given how obsessed this culture is with avoiding twin births. Echo advises them of this because he is a twin himself: his brother died only a month before, under violent circumstances. Twins are considered excessive in this society where all birth is regulated. Young girls are nipped in the bud so to speak: they cannot have children and all births are managed and controlled (probably by men - so what’s new?!) in order that only healthy children will be born, virus-free and protected against the savage plagues which have assaulted society in the last four hundred years.

Given the level of technology these people enjoy, it’s a mystery why they seem so strapped for things in their society (especially cures for viral plagues!), and why they can't resurrect animals! Indeed one of the twins asks this very question: if they can scoop people from the past, why not animals, and repopulate their world? She gets no answer. I found that revealing: perhaps the truth is that they don't actually need to resurrect any animals. It certainly suggests that there are big fat lies being told somewhere along the line. It's also hilarious because people have pet robots in the form of all manner of animals which never would have become pets had they been real. But this also poses a writing problem: why is it that we see animal robots galore, but no utility robots anywhere? The closest thing they have to a robot is the transportation system, but these are merely small automated cars which run on fixed tracks.

Taylor and Sheridan discover that they cannot be returned to their own time. They are prisoners: the time strainer is a one-way trip. For now, their captors have to let the twins enjoy status quo in case more information is required from them in this dedicated pursuit of Tyler Sheridan. As this novel continues, the twins' situation grows steadily more precarious. The futuristic city looks ever more like a prison camp and less like a home, and word comes down that the twins are going to be given a memory-wipe to integrate them better into this society, although Echo and his father Jeth seem to think they can short-circuit this order and erase it from the computer. How they hope to get away with that without the powers-that-be knowing that they have derailed the order is a mystery, but in the end it never comes to that.

Sheridan and Taylor begin hatching a plan to escape, and turn to one of the people working with them, Elise, for assistance, since she knows The Doctors - a group of people who might be able to help. There's bad blood between Echo and Elise, which has me wondering why he would tell them that Elise is someone who can get them out of the city. Is Echo merely setting them up? In pursuit of this escape, they request a trip to see the city - and the city walls. The whole complex lies under a dome, and the 'walls' are of the 'force-field' variety, yet we're expected to believe that they need huge support beams? I don’t get that bit at all. The relationship between Echo and Sheridan heats up somewhat as he kisses her. Sheridan is confused and she vows not to let that happen again, but it's patently obvious that she's completely deluding herself in that resolve.

On a note of propriety, this kiss was actually a form of abuse, since Sheridan and Taylor are being held under the authority of people like Echo. It’s not very kosher for someone in a position of power, as Echo is, to take advantage of his charge. But this isn't the only problem with this relationship. Echo is nothing but a YA trope male as we can tell when we're notified of this standard tedious trope trash: his eyes are startling and piercing, he has "well-defined" muscles, and he's rumored to be a bad boy. Sorry, but I call nauseous maximus on that. Echo also demands to join them when they escape, and funnily enough, Elise demands this same thing! So which of these two is going to betray them?

When we, along with the twins, learned that Echo's twin brother Joseph was shot by the Dakine, a criminal organization (shortly after it became known to Elise that Allana preferred Joseph and was going to dump Echo) my mind started working overtime, which is a real time-strain, let me tell you! A video of the shooting was recorded by a security camera, and it was while I was reading about Sheridan watching this video that it occurred to me that Echo isn’t Echo at all, but Joseph. It was Echo who was killed that night of the shooting and Joseph took on his identity! Of course, this is pure supposition, and we all know where those go when they emanate from me. Having said that however, I have to add that I was very nearly exactly right about 'Tyler Sherwood' and there is some entertainingly ambiguous writing going on when Echo reminisces about his and Joseph's past!

Another interesting thing we learn during the twins' trip through the city concerns religion. At one point Echo gives Sheridan a picture of Santa Claus. He's under the impression that this is god and he was worshiped in the past! On top of this, and despite religion being supposedly banned, the twins notice that some people have their clothes, hair, and make-up so designed as to convey a religious affiliation. One woman looks like a nun, for example, and another is espied with a red spot on her forehead in the manner employed by some Indian women. Not that the bindi spot really has any religious significance per se (if it ever truly did). At one point Sheridan notices a store which is decorated with Stars of David. I got the impression, rightly or wrongly from all of this, that the real power behind the throne in this society is religion. Or perhaps, given Taylor's proselytizing, religious groups are fighting against the status quo under the guise of being 'doctors'?

Hill offers some amusing observations on 21st century society, but there are some real clunkers tossed in with them. I have to disagree with her when she says at start of chapter 22, "High heels weren't some sort of punishment inflicted by men on the female gender." Indeed they are, when you get right down to it! It's just another example of men playing with dolls, except that in their case, the dolls are real women, not toys. I rhapsodize humorously on this topic in my forthcoming Baker Street, Ace 'tec' which I hope to have out before the end of the year. But be warned: that novel will wreck your brain.

As the twins feel the net closing in on them, their fledgling plan for escape is kicked out of the nest far too early, and they find themselves hitting the ground running. Sheridan and Elie escape, and Elise puts Sheridan into a car and sends her to a misleading location from which she's supposed to walk two miles north to the real venue - but in a domed city, how do you tell which way is North?! LOL! In the end, both twins are recaptured, but Echo (or is it Joseph?!) engineers their escape by allowing the Dakine into the mix, so now the two are still prisoners, just with a different jailer. Taylor, desperate to get free of all of this, programs the Dakine door alarm so that it sounds continuously. This forces the Dakine to eventually turn off the alarm until a fix is arranged, and this, in turn, permits the twins to escape by any exit they choose, without fear of triggering an alarm! Kewl!

The twins, of course, escape and set off towards the safe city of the "Doctors", but that's all I'm going to reveal. I liked this story well enough to finish it, so I give it a worthy rating, but I honestly don't feel any compulsion to read any sequels. It's not that enthralling. You'll have to make up your own mind, of course! Hopefully this review has given you sufficient material to get your teeth into and figure out if it's worth looking at this one for yourself.

Spera by Dialynas, Gandy, Zhao, Bosma, Tierney and others

Title: Spera
Publisher: Archaia
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 less detailed so as not to rob the writer of their story, but even so, it will probably still be more in-depth than you'll typically find elsewhere!

Credits:
Michael Dialynas woodencrown.com - artist
Meg Gandy shatterlands.com - artist
Amei Zhao ameizhao.com - artist
Sam Bosma sbosma.com - artist
Josh Tierney spera-comic.com
Additional material:
Afu Chan afuchan.com
Corey Godbey coreygodby.com
Giannis Milongiannis milonogiannis.tumblr.com - artist
Rebecca Mock rebeccamock.tumblr.com artist
Ken Niimura niimurablog.blogspot.com
Kyla Vanderklugt Kylavanderklugt.com
Jake Wyatt jakewyattriot.tumblr.com

This will be a short review compared with my usual because this is a comic book and if I say too much I'll be telling the whole story! But in short, I enjoyed this comic even though it was designed for a younger audience than I represent.

This comic book is volume three of a tale of the young rebel princesses Lono and Pira, and some friends including a fire fox (not to be confused with the web browser) called Yonder, who can also appear as a fiercely red-bearded man, and their trusty cat called Chobo which is a lot smarter than it looks. This story is very much invested in east Asian fantasy, and the crew find themselves engaged in some really weird and entertaining adventures as they try to find their place in the world, stay out of trouble, and pursue treasure. I recommend this because it’s playful and interesting, and it really knows how to take you by surprise.

This comic seems aimed at a younger audience: the lower end of young-adult, and the pubescent and older pre-pubescent children. There is a main story, which entertained me, but which I did find a bit confusing at times as to what was going on and who was doing what and why. It would probably have been easier to follow had I started at volume 1! In addition to the main story there are some supporting features - like the movie theaters used to show at one time long ago, with the main feature plus a supporting movie. I have to say that the Pira depicted in the supporting material in the 140's pages is far more appealing to me than is the one in the main story. She's feisty and sword-weilding, and cool-looking, and she's also black - and that's one thing I really became aware of: there weren't too many people of color populating this comic book. I'm not sure why that was.

But that aside, I enjoyed Spera and think it’s worth your taking a look if you have children who are the right age range, and they’re at all interested in Asian fantasy.

East of West by Jonathan Hickman and Nick Dragotta

Title: East of West
Writer: Jonathan Hickman
Artist: Nick Dragotta
Publisher: Image Comics
Rating: WORTHY!
Other Credits:
Frank Martin - colourist
Rus Wooton - letterist

DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this graphic novel 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 less detailed so as not to rob the writer of their story, but even so, it will probably still be more in-depth than you'll typically find elsewhere!

Let me preface this by stating that I am not a comic book devotee. I read them a lot when I was a kid, but grew out of them. I can still appreciate what they contribute, however, and I have to say I was quite stunned by the first page of this comic. It wasn't anything intricate or complex, but it really made an impression on me, and definitely made me want to read what came afterwards.

This 152 page comic is volume one of the story of the four horsemen, and the end of the world, but it has twists and turns that were wholly unexpected. It’s told from the perspective of a fractured, splintered USA of 7 republics, and of wild west heroes and villains set in a modern technological age. Death has split away from the other three horsemen and gone rogue! Death also is in point of fact, the only one who actually rides a horse, but it’s not equus that he rides, it’s roboticus.

Death is accompanied by two witches, a guy and a gal who are both built much more like the stereotypical comic book heroes but who do not in the least behave like them.

While the other three (non-)horsemen(!) seek Armageddon, Death is looking for something far more personal, and he's not going to let a single thing get in his way or prevent him from finding what he seeks, but even Death is surprised that what he finds is not remotely what he expected, and it comes in the form of a double-whammy to him. But in return, he's able to surprise someone with a whammy of his own, and it’s this potent interaction at the end which triggers the premise for volume two.

I’d love to taunt you with more, but comics hold far less text than novels, and to tell more would be to reveal too much of the text. Frankly, for me, it was not so much the text but the images which impressed me the most, which is how it should be, otherwise why provide images? The artwork is by a seasoned artist who has worked on X-Men and Captain America, and he doesn’t fail in providing solid and stirring graphics to augment the intriguing story. I reproduce a few images here, inadequately, and by no means at their best (for which sins I hope the authors will forgive me!), but you can see more on Dragotta's web page listed above in the credits. That's not to diss the text - which provides an engaging and inventive narrative - by any means. You can read more about Hickman by clicking on the link above or by visiting his wikipedia page.

The Exile by Diana Gabaldon

Title: The Exile
Author: Diana Gabaldon
Publisher: Del Rey
Rating: WARTY!

I decided to add some graphic novel/comic book content this month, and this is the first I will cover. I love Scotland, Karen Gillan, Stephen Moffat and all that. My own novel Saurus is set there. I'll also be reviewing two other - and new! - comics up next right after this one. The Exile is written by Diana Gabaldon, better known for her non-graphic novel output, but this one, part of the Outlander series, is really well illustrated by Hoang Nguyen and is apparently being picked up by Starz TV as a series.

Jamie Fraser is the main character, and his is hardly an original Scots name, but Gabaldon essentially took the character from Jamie McCrimmon, a fictional character in the longest running Sci-Fi series on TV, Britain's Doctor Who. McCrimmon was played by a man born in Yorkshire (the same county both my parents were born in!): Frazer Hines! It's not much of a stretch to get to that name, is it?! So note that Gabaldon hatched this whole series from an episode of Doctor Who. No problem so far, but stay tuned for a comment on this in my conclusion.

Gabaldon's character returns to the highlands after a stint of mercenary work in France, so we have the text, which is written in English, being peppered with the occasional phrase in French and also, Gaelic. Honestly? I see nothing but pretentiousness in this in the context of this specific story. Anyway, Jamie returns and is met by his godfather, although how his godfather knew he would be there at that time on that night is a mystery. Jamie tells his godfather that he has no idea what he wants to do with his life, but he doesn't want to kill anyone any more after the horrible death of a woman he had the hots for. She died (perhaps at his own hand) as he tried to shoot the guys who were trying to rape her. Of course after this, Jamie totally rejects his pacifistic stance and blithely enters upon a humongous killing spree. Jamie's a jerk.

But don't worry, his "love" for this irreplaceable woman of his past is soon to be completely annihilated by the new woman in his life - a married nurse who was somehow deposited back in time, apparently by faeries (at least we don't have to gag over the term 'fae' here, but look at that spelling!). Rest assured that being happily married and pining frequently for "Frank! Frank! Oh Frank!" is in no way a hindrance to Claire Beauchamp's glomming onto Jamie without a second thought. Along with Claire's trip through time, some evil fairy king type dude was unleashed simultaneously, and he's a very naughty boy, so hike up yer kilt, we're off and running o'er the bonnie hielands!

Not that the fairy king really does diddly in this story. Unfortunately, the story itself shamefully lets down the classic artwork. This story completely sucks, makes no sense, and seems intent upon conveying only two messages: firstly, any time you're away from your spouse, the best way to handle it is to start having sex with a complete stranger whose sexual history you have zero knowledge of and secondly, if you're ever heartbroken because you think you killed the partner of your dreams, just get your leg over the nearest available flesh and everything will be fine and dandy.

Oh, and the Brits are to be worshiped out of one side of your mouth and portrayed as the most dastardly villains out of the other, because all that any British officer ever had a mind to do in Scotland back in the 17th century was to brutally rape English women who were lost in the highlands. This novel is WARTY!

Now you will recall that I said I had a little comment to make on Gabaldon's source material for this series, and how she had no problem taking her inspiration from the BBC's long-running Doctor Who Sci-Fi TV show?? So now read this taken from her web site: "You know, I’m very flattered that some of you enjoy the books so much that you feel inspired to engage with the writing in a more personal way than most readers do. Both for legal and personal reasons, though, I’m not comfortable with fan-fiction based on any of my work, and request that you do not write it, do not send it to me, and do not publish it, whether in print or on the web. Thank you very much for your consideration." That's Gabaldon's fan fiction policy!

I guess Gabaldon is a big "Do as I say, not as I do" artist, huh? I'm not going to be reading any more of her material.

Liberator by Richard Harland

Title: Liberator
Author: Richard Harland
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Rating: WARTY!

Liberator is the sequel to Worldshaker and it’s really the same title since the name of the ship in the first volume was Worldshaker, but it has now changed to Liberator. I love that for some reason! This novel is set three months after the initial story, and whereas the original novel ended on an upbeat and happy tune, this one hits the ground running on a really sour note. I was a bit disheartened to find that sour note pervades the whole story.

The "Filthies" are now completely in charge of the Liberator, and they're spitting on the dreams of volume one, whereby everyone would live in harmony - even as they proclaim that as their goal. We’re now in a diametrically opposed position whereby it’s the Filthies who are dominant and antagonistic towards the "Swanks" - the upper deck clueless Victorians (note that this is Queen Victoria 2, and she's no longer queen, having been deposed, but she still lives aboard the ship as an ordinary citizen, along with her husband, Albert - and she's pregnant). But the real problem is sabotage; someone is quietly trying to wreck machinery on the ship, and this culminates as the story Liberator launches, with the death of one of the Filthies. It's a brutal death by means of a wrench applied repeatedly to a skull.

This Filthy was a council member (the ruling body of the Filthies, no Swanks allowed), and his loss is great. Col's sister, Gillabeth volunteers to investigate the murder, but no one is interested in having a Swank involved. Council member Shiv volunteers, promoting his admiring friend Lye to his old position, and also onto the council, which means that Riff is no longer the dominant council member, and Shiv is very powerful. Shiv then loads scores of people onto his investigative team, which he renames 'security team', all of whom wear red armbands There are two things I derived from this.

The first of these is that it’s Shiv himself who is the saboteur, and his sabotage is aimed at fomenting a surge of hatred towards the Swanks, and inciting a pogrom. Either that or it’s Lye all along, and she's using Shiv as a means to an end. The second thing this brought to mind is the French Revolution. I can see parallels between that, and how this take-over is sliding into place aboard Liberator. So here Harland has achieved the basis of a sequel - make it the same as the original but different! That is, it needs to be sufficiently like the original to maintain the audience you won from that, but it has to be different (or warped, or twisted, however you want to view it) enough that it presents a new story. So Harland began cultivating this, perhaps, in the best way (having the positions reversed from the first novel vis-à-vis the Swanks vs. the Filthies, but from that point on, he really just let it go to seed.

Aside from pure speculation, there are also several facts which we must hold in mind about this situation aboard the Liberator. An important one of these is that Lye, for reasons unknown, thoroughly hates Col, and now she is in a position of power. A second fact is that Col's status has diminished to nothing, despite the fact that he quite literally saved Riff's life and thereby enabled her to save the ship. Without his help, the revolution was going nowhere, yet he's given no credit for this whatsoever. A third, and very disturbing fact is that Riff herself is not giving Col a fair shake. She treats him like a problem rather than a partner, and this is what frankly incensed me the most!

What happened to Riff's independence, courage, and feistiness from the first novel? Here she's muted and constrained. She will not stand by Col, yet she asks that he trust her. How he can put up with her demonstrated lack of regard for him is as much a mystery as it is an annoyance. Col never was very good at being assertive, and that hasn’t improved.

Since Liberator is running low on fuel, the ship has to dock at Botany Bay in Australia to re-coal. The only thing they have to trade is valuable artifacts, ornaments and furniture from the empty rooms of those Swanks who disembarked Liberator immediately after the revolution. And they need Victoria and Albert's support to engage with the coal supplier because they apparently would not do business with the Filthies. This does lend the Swanks a certain amount of power.

One more disturbing development: the Filthies consider the library books to be artifacts and three of them, including Riff's brother, Padder, come to the library to take the books. Col and Septimus, his lower-ranking friend from book one, fend them off, but it’s clear that Padder hates Col as much as Lye does (for reasons inexplicable in this case), and the former warns the latter off of involvement with his sister. They way Col is treated it seems he would be better off jumping ship! But given the huge mess Harland has presented us with here, I must admit I am very curious about how he intends to clean it up - assuming he can and does!

But to pursue this jumping ship motif: one thing which made no sense to me at all is why any of these people, Swanks or Filthies, would even want to remain on Liberator. What do they have to gain? Harland does not even attempt to answer this, he just takes it as a given. And given how disgusted Col was with the damage which Liberator does to the environment as it tears up the land beneath it, this problem is let go as well - it's just never addressed. The answer to my question above is that the occupants of liberator have absolutely nothing to gain by staying on board and continuing to run and maintain it. Why did they not simply park it somewhere where food supplies were bountiful, disable it, and start living off the land and sea?

As long as I'm complaining(!),I have to say that the publishers really screwed-up with Patrick Reilly's end paper illustrations. These were drawn for the first book, Worldshaker (and even at that had the number of decks wrong!), but at the end of that novel, a host of Swanks left the ship, yet we're still expected to believe, according to the unadjusted illustration, that there is over ten thousand swanks and over 2,000 Filthies. Clearly, someone didn’t think, and I have to hold Harland, as the author, responsible for not setting them straight on the changes that needed to be made.

I also have to add that by about 160 pages in, I stopped really liking this story. At that point I was merely tolerating it to see if I could manage to stay on board long enough to find out where Harland was sailing with this, and the answer to that question I can now reveal is: the middle of nowhere! I honestly don't know what he thought he was doing, but Col was already quite enough of a limp rag in volume one. Harland has turned him into a big fat nothing in volume two. Why Col even stays on board is a really good question since Riff treats him like dirt! She has almost no respect for him and even less love, yet Col puts up with it all. I can't believe it's love. Infatuation maybe, but not love. Love hasn't had a chance to sprout, let alone blossom.

They screw-up badly at Botany Bay and end up in a battle with the local soldiers. The saboteur left a note pinned on a door announcing the raid, and the Filthies were in serious trouble. They win, but only because Col lets out the convicts from the prison there, who then run riot. The next thing Col knows, the convicts are in Shiv's security squad and they're carrying rifles. The security people are systematically victimizing the Swanks, and no one seems even remotely bothered by this. The revolution has come full circle, with the Filthies treating the swanks exactly like the Swanks had treated the Filthies, and because of the hand-written note which warned the Botany Bay people of the Filthies' attack, they now have even more reason to think that the saboteur is a Swank, since none of the Filthies can write (so we’re told!). At this point I'd also been forced to the conclusion that it’s Lye who's behind all of this sabotage, etc, and her motive is pure malice towards the Swanks, since she feels they have been so brutal towards her.

What the Swanks should do now is disembark right there at Botany Bay and leave the Filthies to it, yet not a one of them even thinks about this let alone suggests it as a possibility. This really tested my suspension of disbelief to breaking point. Meanwhile, the Liberator's telegraph office has been sabotaged, and the other ships: the equivalents of Liberator captained by other nations - are vectoring in on Botany Bay, alerted to the mutiny, and dedicated to taking back the Liberator. The Russians have the Romanov, The Turks have the Battle of Something-Or-Other. I forget! Sorry! The French have the Marseilleuse. Why the other nations would support the re-taking of the Liberator, given the evident rivalry between them, is yet another unsolved mystery on this voyage. The other ships are all better-armed than is Liberator. Col passes on this information to Riff, but Lye talks over him and Col eventually gives up and leaves - that is, leaves their company, not the ship.

The professor and Septimus have discovered (from reading various books in their precious library), what exactly was done to the Menials, but they're prevented from properly examining those people to see if they could perhaps help, by the callous bullying of the security forces. This means that Riff's parents could be freed, and I guessed that this would be what really gets Col and Riff back together, but at this point, I was hardly even rooting for Col, much less Riff. She's turned out to be a complete jerk, so Harland killed my interest in this romance.

I liked Riff in the first novel. I tolerated Col. I found the latter hardly more tolerable in this second volume, and I found Riff to be completely obnoxious. She treated Col quite literally like dirt and at one point "viciously" slapped him across the face; then suddenly the two of them are professing their love for each other and when Col says he loves her but he's still married to Sephaltina, Riff suddenly gives him the cold shoulder? No. I'm sorry but no sale. My spell-checker wants to change Sephaltina to 'Asphalting'! LOL! Let this be a lesson to us writers to make sure our characters names don't sound like crap to a spell-checker!

Back on track here! This entire 'romance' lacked credibility in Liberator. It was a joke, and on that note, here's a choice quote from p187: "Now he was thinking about Riff and himself…. Would it ever come good between them? How could it ever come good? It seemed like the ultimate cruelty that finally he knew he loved her, finally he knew she loved him, and still they couldn’t come together." I'll leave that for you to make of it what you will, but I very nearly laughed out loud at Harland's unintentional (I assume it was unintentional!) double-entendre!

On a much more serious note, the quote above was Col's own thoughts. This was a boy who had been raised in the highest echelons of Victorian society, and he's using a phrase like "come good"? Someone from the backwoods of North America might credibly employ a phrase like that, but no one in Victorian England of his breeding would ever use a phrase like that, much less think it. Again with the suspension of disbelief!

I've wavered back and forth between really disliking this novel, and finding it just about readable, and it's because of that, that I'm going to rate it as a 'warty'. It just did not do enough to win me back over from the dark side. At one point I almost dropped the thing and abandoned it altogether (that was right after the Riff-slaps-Col imbroglio). The story-telling was a bit too fond of deus ex machina for my taste, but the worst problem was that I found it ever harder to buy this love between Riff and Col the more I read, particularly given that her behavior towards him throughout the first half of the novel was totally unacceptable and betrayed any pretense of love. I kept on reading solely because I was curious to learn if Harland could dig himself out of this hole and he really couldn’t, although he did try, but I don’t award points for trying - not in this game! Write or write not. There is no try.

Geekomancy by Michael R Underwood

Title: Geekomancy
Author: Michael R Underwood
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
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 of any kind for this review. Since this is a new novel, this review is less detailed so as not to rob the writer of their story, but even so, it will probably still be more in-depth than you'll typically find elsewhere!

I got this one because Celebromancy was very readable and I knew others in the family would appreciate it, so now I'm reading it with my kids of an evening. Note that this isn't a YA novel per se, so each reader have to make his or her own choice (as always!) about whether to allow their kids to read it. My kids can handle this even though the material is a bit on the mature side for their age group.

This starts out with Rhiannon Anna Maria Reyes - most commonly known as Ree - working in a comic book store while she tries unsuccessfully to flog TV and movie scripts. She lives in what's come to be known as Hollywood North - a relatively small town called Pearson, to which many "Hollywood" productions have moved (so we're told). She's working the store one evening when some weird guy rushes in, requests a specific graphic novel, slaps a twenty on the counter in payment, and exits the store with velocitous extramuralization. Very shortly afterwards there's a loud boom from the alley outside the store, and Ree investigates to find the comic book shredded and no weird guy in sight.

That's just chapter one. In two, a troll appears out of nowhere.... And so it goes. Underwood parades us through ankle deep trivia (yeah, I know it ought to be ankle-deep, but since Underwood has dispensed with all hyphenation, why not I, thinks I?), which is mildly entertaining. The most hilarious part of the novel was where he overloads us on geek chic by forcing us to accompany Ree and her new friend Eastwood (about whom I know a few secrets, and you're not going to like them, but Ree, inexplicably, does. Underwood makes so many missteps with the English language here that even a very mild dose of double-entendre will have you rolling on the floor.

On a WTF note, I found the following in just a handful of screens in this portion of the novel:

• "bombasticity" I think he meant simply, "bombast", but if it was meant to be funny it was lost on me!
• "seek to find" where "seek" alone would have more than sufficed.
• "...cutting us off at this juncture..." which isn't wrong so much as weird. Given that they were wandering around in a tunnel below the sewers at the time, I think he might have found a better word. Or a better locale. This isn't an ancient city in which they live, it's a relatively small California town. It's hardly likely there would be constructed subterranean tunnels below sewer level! But what do I know?!

"Ree made a hrm sound..." reads better than what he wrote on p340 of Celebromancy: "Ree hrmed internally..." which completely failed as far as I was concerned. In fact, this whole novel failed, let's face it! I got to 55% in and kept asking myself why I was reading this when there is other material that is tempting me to start it far more than this is tempting me to continue it. I am glad I read Celebromancy first, because if I had started with this one, I would never have read it, and even though I rated that 'WARTY!' it is without a doubt, leagues ahead of Geekomancy, and that's all I really want to say on these mancies! This one is definitely WARTY!

Kushiel's Dart by Jacqueline Carey

Title: Kushiel's Dart
Author: Jacqueline Carey
Publisher: Tantor
Rating: WORTHY!
Audio Book read by Anne Flosnik

Call this an act of faith! I swapped The Girl who Played With Fire which was due back at the library, for an even longer audio book! This one is 25 disks! (no, my car doesn't play mp3!) - or about a thousand pages if it were printed. God only knows how long it will take at the rate of about one hour/day as I drive to/from work. But the faith part comes from the fact that at this point I have no idea if I'm going to like this. It sounded interesting from the blurb, but...! This is evidently book one in the Kushiel’s Legacy series.

The story is about Phèdre nó Delaunay, who starts out as a young child in the nation of Terre D'Ange (land of angels - France, but in an alternate universe)) who is "flawed" in that she has a very obvious blood red spot of discoloration in one of her dark eyes (in other words, she was hit with Kushiel's Dart). This prevents her from reaching her true potential in her guild, so her mother ends up selling her into indentured servitude to the disgraced poet, Anafiel Delaunay, who has secrets of his own and a fake name. Phèdre unsuccessfully runs away (she doesn't run far and is easily tracked down), and is now looking at entering the poet's service when she turns ten, a few months hence.

Throughout the first two disks, I kept thinking, "Why am I listening to this?" but then I would become so mesmerized by Flosnik's voice and cadence that I couldn't stop listening. So here's the deal: I make no promises! I'm content so far, but if it continues to be talking so much and apparently saying so little, I might have to revise my opinion, the poetic delivery of the prose notwithstanding! We'll see.

Delaunay buys Phèdre's 'marque' hence her name: nó Delaunay. This means he owns her until she can buy her own marque, which she cannot even begin to save towards until she comes of age and starts earning. In the meantime, Delaunay educates and trains her along with a young boy, Alcuin, who he also has in training. His plan is to use them as incidental spies. As the two of them mature, they become of interest to people from the other guilds/houses, and are rented out as sex partners to whoever wants them. Alcuin is "rented", as a virgin, for 6,000 ducats. Phèdre's price is only 4,500 ducats, but as Delaunay tells her, unlike Alcuin, she will become ever more valuable as she matures, and her price will only go up, whereas the boy's value will soon decline.

As an anguissette (a devotee of Kushiel, the punishing angel, a servant of Namaah, and a worshiper of Elua), someone who is supposed to be masochistic: unable to enjoy pleasure without accompanying pain), Phèdre is extremely rare, and her virginity, both vaginal and anal, is sold to a cruel enemy of Delaunay's by the name of Childric d'Essoms. Delaunay is willing to put up with this (and so is Phèdre) in the short term for the prospect of long-term gains if Phèdre learns anything of value. Delaunay tells her to ask nothing, and to be cooperative for the first couple of visits. It is after this that the information will flow - so Delaunay hopes, and the hope isn't misplaced, although a hot poker is - and I'm not using that as a euphemism.

Talking of which, a few words about Carey's authorship: I found it entertaining, but she has her quirks. I found it curious that she would relate all kinds of sexual deviation and peccadillo without hesitation, but then baulk at calling genitals what they were! Instead, she would use euphemisms like "phallus" and "nether lips" which struck me as utterly bizarre.

Finally, I got past the halfway point in this novel! I was still hanging in with this story even though I had, until I reached this point, really no idea at all where it’s supposed to be going. I have discovered a few quirks and points of interest to relate. Anne Flosnik's British narration is charming, but I found it really amusing that her voice for Hyacinthe, Phèdre's male friend who she met on the street, sounds almost exactly like Simon Vance's voice for Lisbeth Salander in his narration of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played With Fire. Flosnik also has a really odd way of reading in that she will frequently read the first part of a sentence in a very soft voice and then finish it up with a very slightly hoarse or growling voice. And her pronunciation of the name of the traitorous Prince Baudoin de Trevalion is hilarious. She makes the middle bit sound like Duhh!

But rough times are about to hit the house of Delaunay. Joscelin Verreuil, a servant of Cassiel, is drafted in to replace the slain Guy, also a servant of Cassiel, but whereas Guy was expelled from the order, Joscelin has barely completed his training. The evil is visited upon Delaunay due to the machinations of the very woman with whom Phèdre is cluelessly infatuated: Melisande Shahrizai.

After Melisande seduces Phèdre, she finally has sufficient funds to make her marque - that is to complete the tattoo on her back, and become a free citizen. As she is at the tattooist having the work done, Delaunay and his entire household, including Alcuin, are slaughtered, and Phèdre and Joscelin taken prisoner by the Skaldi. All of this was orchestrated by Melisande on behalf of the Duc de De-Glamor (or whatever the spelling is! That's one big problem with audio books. How do you review something when you can't look up the spellings?! I had to go on line to find these, which is a royal pain, so I'm going to simply make them up from this point onwards!

The Skaldi are modeled on Vikings, and the tribe which captured them held them only for a short time before presenting them as a gift to the Skaldi overlord, an educated, smart, cunning, and powerful man who has dreams of ruling Terre D'Ange as a king. I had a real problem with the plot here for the first time which is why Joscelin and Phèdre didn't slaughter the Skaldi in the night when they were sleeping off their daily drunken binges? They could have been done with them and escaped. Of course, that would have seriously screwed with Carey's plotting, but it could have been written around.

Because she didn't do this, we're treated to Captivity by Skaldi 2.0, wherein Joscelin and Phèdre are now prisoners of the overlord who treats them like slaves, which isn't how they were treated by their previous captors. Here, Phèdre, spying on the Skaldi council meeting, overhears their plans to invade Terre D'Ange. Now she and Joscelin plan a daring escape, which, despite bad odds and appallingly cold Skaldi winter weather, they bring off, finally making it back to Terre D'Ange, but there are traitors there, and they must tread carefully to bring their news of impending invasion to the right ears.

I haven't quite finished this novel yet, but I've given way too may spoilers here, so I am going to simply wind this review up and call this novel a worthy! It's kept my interest this far and I don't see it going so far south that I end up disliking it. Call it a vote of confidence! Having said that, I don't know at this point if I'm enamored enough of this to want to read any sequels. If I do read any more in this series, rest assured that it won't be in audio format! It takes too long to get through such a lengthy work listening to it only to and from work, and there are too many distractions on the highway which readily take precedence, meaning that I'm constantly having to jump back to re-listen to something I missed! I think I'm going to keep my audio books short and light from this point onwards!

So having now finished this novel and still happy to recommend it as I had expected to be, I decided that I can’t let it go as though it was all plain sailing and no issues! All novels have issues. The problem isn’t the issues, it’s what the ratio of issues is to absorbing and skilful writing. Readers will forgive much if the writers make it worth the readers' while to persevere. This novel had a positive ratio of quality to issues for me, and this is why I had no problem with it in general, and am happy to recommend it. Other reviewers have not found it so.

There are of course things which I did not like. The length was one, and this length, I feel was likely exacerbated by experiencing it in audio rather than on the printed page/screen. Much of the novel is occupied with long descriptions of things and events which could have been adequately addressed with less, and this seems worse in the last third than in the first two-thirds, but perhaps this was some sort of fatigue setting in?! OTOH, the last disk was a tedious one indeed, so maybe it was just that the story became boring. I skipped none of the story in the first two thirds, but I found myself hitting the skip button on the CD player quite often for the last six disks or so. I have read some reviews which complain of 'flowery' language, but that was one of the attributes which appealed to me. It was like reading poetry but without the tangled tedium of such a medium. But that style of writing seems to me to be more wisely confined to a shorter work, so perhaps it wasn't the flowery language so much as so much of it!

I have to say I found Carey's over-use of 'mayhap' to be jarring, and her use of the term 'red blood' (as if fresh human blood is ever any other color!) to be inexplicable, especially such copious use. She pretty much excelled that, though, at one point by using the phrase "wooden tree". Seriously? Some have complained about Phédre's frequent foreshadowing, but that didn’t stand out to me, given the tone of the novel in general. I found Carey's eagerness to write 'thusly', but to avoid-like-the-plague committing 'scarcely' to the page (writing the cruelly trimm'd 'scarce' instead) to be as inconsistent as it was an oddball affectation.

I know that one reviewer expended an entire review in obsessing on the sexual encounters (and it wasn't the only one which focused on those). Those encounters took up perhaps one or two percent of this novel! For any reviewer to agonize over those and completely ignore the other ~99% of the novel is inexplicable to me and says far more about the reviewer than ever it does about the novel which the reviewer failed to properly review! What a disservice to the novel and to reviewing. It seems that, for some reason, this particular reviewer was mesmerized into thinking the sexual scenes were intended to be a cheap thrill! Weird, huh?

The fact is that people behave this way sexually in the real world, and especially so in Carey's world for good reason because that was the nature of the story, and it was tied inextricably to the religious aspects of the story. Sexuality and religion go back a long way, as do sado-masochism and religion. Nothing new there. So are such disingenuous reviews advocating, in their fumbling manner, that the novelist mustn't write about naughty things or cruel things? Perhaps I should downgrade Kushiel's Dart for featuring sword-fighting? I mean really, how dare the writer portray people being hurt? Some were even cut or stabbed, and some (gasp!) lost their lives! This must never be allowed to happen in a fantasy novel. Clearly Carey is a sadistic brute to write about fighting and stabbing; it didn’t turn me on at all, and I should have based my entire review on that brutality and dismissed the novel as unworthy for no other reason!

Fortunately for Carey, for writing, and for reviewing, I am neither that shallow nor that blinkered. I hope the majority of other reviewers share at least those traits with me.

Celebromancy by Michael R Underwood

Title: Celebromancy
Author: Michael R Underwood
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
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 of any kind for this review. Since this is a new novel, this review is less detailed so as not to rob the writer of their story, but even so, it will probably still be more in-depth than you'll typically find elsewhere!

Errata in galley ebook:
P42 "Pprofessional' should be "professional" or "Professional"
P106 "…roast.Her…" should be "…roast. Her…"
"I know what I don’t know what I'm getting into." should be perhaps "I know when I don’t know what I'm getting into."?
P219 "firs-floor" should be "first-floor"
P242 "She hustled home assembled some war tools…" would better read with a comma: "She hustled home, assembled some war tools…"
P271 "I'msupposed" should be "I'm supposed"
P340 "Ree hrmed internally…" ???
P348 "She'd heard a few cinemancers swear that they magical buck went way further with Blu-Ray…"
P374 "He slipped a hand from the strugle…" should be "He slipped a hand from the struggle…" (or maybe strudle?!)

Here's a choice quotation: "Around midnight, Ree got a call on her phone." On what else would she get a call?! Just asking!

Celebromancy is book 2 in the Geekomancy series. I didn't realize this, so please note that I haven't read book 1 (although that's in progress!). I advise you to do this if you're just starting on this series, because it seems to me that it will clarify a few things. At least I hope it will since I already bought the ebook for Geekomancy (it's very reasonably priced, and cheaper at Amazon than at Barnes & Noble as of this writing).

This title initially appealed to me from simply reading the title! Obviously, I wasn't going to fall for it just based on a title any more than I would if based just on a cover, but after I read the author's (publisher's?) description I decided it had to be worth a try. Like a new apartment, I felt good about this location, but the apartment itself can sometimes be a disappointment if the place you're moving into turns out to be a real dump. This one didn't - at least as far as I read initially! It was well-furnished and comfortable, and I felt at home quickly. First hurdle cleared! Unfortunately, the other hurdles became increasingly higher and higher.

The premise for the story is that of magic, but not in the traditional sense. You know that feeling you get when you read a really good novel, or watch a great TV show or see an inspiring movie? Well Underwood has taken that emotional magic and formalized it into a real magical power which you can derive from watching a video (and from other sources - more anon). If you enjoy a movie, it empowers you, and with whatever it is you were watching, and you can then draw on that store of magic and use it yourself. If you want to solve a mystery, you watch a Sherlock Holmes video. If you want to climb buildings, watch Spider-Man! How I wish this premise were true! I’d be one of the most powerful and talented people on the planet with my love of novels, movies and TV - that's what this blog is all about! So yes, initially, I felt quite at home here; it was another 'why didn’t I think of this first' moment, a big swallow and off it flies.

Having not read the first book in the series when I started this one, I first took the female protagonist to be a Celebromancer, but she's a Geekomancer. The difference will become clear shortly. What bothered me about this is that when Underwood introduces a new character, he follows their name with their stats, as though they're a player in a card game or a role-playing game! This was both annoying, confusing, and apparently misleading. For example, when the main character, Ree is introduced, she appears thus: Rhiannon Anna Maria Reyes (Strength 10, Dexterity 14, Stamina 12, Will 18, IQ 16, Charisma 15, Geek 7, Barista 3, Screenwriter 2, Gamer Girl 2, Geekomancer 2), but none of this means anything! She's supposed to be a Geekomancer, yet her Geekomancy score is pathetic, even after the first novel!

Aside from those minor irritations, the novel impressed me to begin with. It was believable within its framework, it was initially realistically told, and it was entertaining. I liked the main character at the start, too. My problem with the stats suffix to the name was never resolved. I still have no idea what they really mean having finished this novel. I mean, on what scale are these scores issued? If the maximum is twenty, a score of 18 on your 'Will' is really good, but if the maximum is a hundred, then you're pretty much a complete pawn! Perhaps hardened gamers will instantly clue in what these are supposed to convey, but for the rest of us, we're left in the cold, and that's not a good way to treat your guests if you want to sell novels. I'm neither a game card player nor an online gamer, so I ignored the stats, and it cost me nothing. So here's my point - if the info conveys nothing and the reader can safely ignore it, then what's the point of it?

So how does this magic work? Well, Rhiannon - aka Ree - can watch a scene from (for example) Castle and absorb skills from the experience, which she can then turn around and re-employ to aid her in her endeavors, but the skills wear off rather quickly. Frankly, I can think of far more empowering shows than Castle, but each to her own! I started out liking that show, but it quickly became so formulaic and tedious that I couldn’t stand to watch it any more, especially with the dysfunctional relationship between Castle and Beckett which was taken way too far, and the unresolved and boring quest to find Beckett's mom's murderer. Find something new already!

This show evidently has quite the opposite effect on Ree however, and she uses this to her benefit. She has succeeded in getting her spec script accepted by Jane Konrad, who was once a big star. Jane was Ree's idol during her teens, when Konrad was a teen herself, but she's fallen onto slim times of late. Her DUI's and other drunken behavior have not helped. Lindsay Lohan's checkered history was more than likely an inspiration for this character.

Ree not only has a helping of hero-worship going on here for Jane, but there's also a real physical attraction, and when Jane invites Ree out to dinner and offers her a choice of clothes to wear from her own wardrobe, Ree realizes this could be a hellishly slippery slope she just stepped onto. Not only is this new show which Ree has created going to be Jane Konrad's last big chance at resurrecting her career (her production company is poised to go bust if this fails), if she and Ree become an item and then suddenly they're not, what will that do to Ree's career, to say nothing of her mental state, even if Jane's takes off?

Although Underwood was smart enough to start this novel out with no prologue, which is always a big plus with me, there are chapter quotes which are just as annoying. What I call a chapter quote is some quotation which may be a real one or not (in this case they're faked), which appears at the start of a chapter. I routinely skip these with the same disdain I employ in skipping prologues, but in this case it was harder to do because the quote was pretty much in line with the text and had no quote marks or special font to make it stand out very much from the regular text. This font problem occurred elsewhere, too: the description on the back of Ree's personal chair on the movie set had a font which was bizarrely small. Instead of it appearing in-line with the text and looking normal, the tiny block capitals really jumped out and not in a good way. It almost looked like he had super-scripted the phrase REE REYES WRITER. But maybe that's me! Maybe the actual novel will be different from the galley.

So I found it peculiar that the author included quotations at the start of the chapters, which contribute zero IMO, but then gives us nothing at all regarding what these character evaluations/scores mean in the big picture! Given the excessive name-dropping (TV shows, bands, songs, games, movies, etc.) throughout this novel, it seems that the reader is expected to understand all of this or die trying! This novel appealed to me originally, and I'm not exactly an adept in the gaming world, so I have to ask: why not open it up more, and let a wider audience participate by offering a tid-bit of explanation here and there? Otherwise geekdom is simply turned into snobbery.

Anyway, Ree has a lot of fun with Jane at the club, but she notices weirdness pervading the air. She does light battle with one creature (with a light saber - another example of the magic. Her toy light saber, in her hands, becomes real. A game card, torn in two, can give her the power which the card would have given to a card-playing gamer). Even that battle, however, doesn’t prepare Ree for being woken up that night next to Jane who is screaming in the throws of a nightmare. Nor does it prepare her for discovering that whatever Jane is fighting off is real, it's in this world, yet it's invisible and tough as nails.

It turns out that another actress, Rachel McKenzie, has apparently put some sort of curse on Jane. Jane is a Celebromancer: she can draw real power from her fans, and this power makes her even more appealing, drawing yet more power, but Rachel's curse, born of jealousy, distorts Jane's power and warps it back on her with these nightmarish attacks. Jane never was a drunk. She was being assaulted by animal-like chimeric demons. Now it’s up to Ree to track down the source and fix this.

Ree impersonates a news reporter to try and learn something directly from Rachel, but it's a complete waste of time, and I have to wonder why this scene was even written - unless it was to convince me that Rachel is a red-herring. Jane, meanwhile, is not doing well. She calls Ree to come over that night to stay with her - not for anything intimate, but just for company, and Ree accepts this offer, but you and I know where that resolve's going don't we?!

And that's plenty of detail to whet your appetite! The rest of this review will be generic observations and commentary, the first of which is that writers might want to actually read what they write and spare some thought to IAN (Inadvertent Absurdity Nuance). Here’s one that particularly struck me on p299:

The small woman turned in place, letting Drake through before she left.

"Drake, right?" Cole said, extending a hand.

Turned, left, right?! That's a bit much to read in two consecutive sentences with a straight face - unless the author intended to be giving inane direction with his writing! Another example of this confusion occurred on p322, where we learn that first, the attacking supernatural gorillas were in "snicker-snack" range; then they were "out of measure"? What does "out of measure" actually mean in this context (or even snicker-snack for that matter!)? Is this just another way for him to say 'out of range' without actually repeating those words? They were either in range or they were not. And repeating himself inanely is not something Underwood avoids like the plague, as this example on p323 shows: "That left only one gorilla left." So please, a bit better writing and a lot better editing would be appreciated.

On a different note, Drake's lingo is not only grammatically stupid, it's really annoying. I don’t know what Underwood was trying to do with him. Whatever it was, for me he failed - and now he's nudging Drake and Ree together. I don’t want to read about the two of them as an item, I really don't. These are relatively minor concerns when taken individually, but when you're reading for enjoyment, and you're hit with one thing of this nature after another, it seriously detracts from the quality of the reading experience.

Underwood channels Charlaine Harris pretty well, too. I mean, do we really need to know the precise ingredients that went into the pizza they ate? I don't. I call pretentious bullshit on that one. I have no time for snotty novels which insist upon conveying the minutiae of every outfit the characters don, and every meal in which they partake, every vintage bottle of wine they consume. Ian Fleming was the master of this kind of trash chic and it turns me off. I really don’t care what they're wearing or what they eat unless it's critical to the plot. I do care what they think about in relation to what’s going on, and how they react to it. Why some people feel a need to emulate Fleming's snobbery is a mystery.

Then there's the lack of credibility in the magic! At one point in the novel, after an assault by some guerrilla gorillas, a dragon attacks Ree, and it’s twenty feet up in the air so she concludes that she can’t take it on with the light saber - but she's supposed to be channeling a Jedi isn’t she? Jedi can can jump spectacularly and throw a light saber to good effect. Is she not geek enough to know this? Even if she's not a full-on Jedi, she can throw, can’t she? This lack of anything approaching a schematic for how and when this magic works, really let the story down for me. A little more rationale (within the framework of the story) would have been much appreciated, but Underwood's random use of magical powers which have no inherent logic with regard to when it works or doesn’t, or how powerful it might be, or even what the internal rule-book is, does not help at all to endear the novel to me.

On this same note, Ree starts powering up for her ritual with Jane, and she says she has three to five hours to do this, but we've learned that the power she gleans from DVDs, etc., lasts only for about three hours before it fades to nothing, so what’s the point of powering up five hours before she'll need the power? She can’t usefully watch videos more than one at a time! And this was also where the mistyped sentence from my errata derived: "She'd heard a few Cinemancers swear that they [sic] magical buck went way further with Blu-Ray…". Why? Why does Blu-Ray go further? Again, no explanation let alone a rationale. And why video and not audio? Why can’t they use music to "magic up"? And why not literature, if they can use comic books?

So to wind this up, I was rather disappointed in it, for the reasons given. This was merely a galley ebook, but it wasn't in great shape - it gave me the impression it had been rushed out for no good reason. That alone obviously isn't enough to condemn the novel, but it seems indicative to me of the author's approach to the story overall: sloppy and uninvolved. I started reading this enthusiastically, enjoying it despite some reservations, but it went downhill too far for my taste, and it wasn't that great of a story or that great of a set of characters to persuade me to hang in there for the ride. I ended-up up-ended, skimming a lot of pages towards the end just because they were boring. I really didn’t care about two Hollywood stars who each thought that they were better than the other. I mean, how petty is that? I can’t take that seriously, and I can’t bring myself to side with either one of them, much less empathize or feel sorry for them. I really can’t.

The ending was entirely nonsensical. The local production in which Jane and Ree are involved somehow fails because of all the supernatural pressure put on it (especially from the big finale), but there's no real explanation given as to why it can’t pick itself, dust itself off, and start all over again, as the song would have it. Here's a dance clip from that same movie! I once saw a bumper sticker which said, "Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did, but she did it backwards and in heels". I've never forgotten that!

Ree and Jane are talking like they have to start over from rock bottom scratch, and it’s gonna be tough. For goodness sakes, this is the age of the Internet and Indie films. Jane is so clueless that she never heard of webisodes? I can’t get with that at all especially in a novel of this nature! The fact is that there's absolutely nothing whatsoever stopping them from going ahead and making a web series, yet they both sit around moping about how it’s all over!

You’d think they couldn't top that, but Ree manages it! Twice! To begin with, she has the chance to go to Hollywood and pursue her career as a screen writer there, and she turns it down flat. My guess is that in book three, which I don’t intend to read, she'll still be griping about how her career isn't getting off the ground. I'm sorry, but I don’t want to read any more of her self-pitying comments on that score! Her other problem was that she's still pining for Eastwood. Now I haven't finished reading Geekomancy as I write this, so I can't offer personal testimony yet, but from what I've read of his conduct in Geekomancy I don't see that anyone in their right mind would want anything to do with Eastwood. much less pine for him. The fact that Ree does means I don't want anything to do with her.

I finished reading this on a Monday and it was a real Monday, so I have no doubt that my irritation from other sources played into my assessment somewhat, but this alone tells me that it’s not a worthy novel, because if it had been really good, it would have pulled me out of the minor irritation I had brewing, and taken me somewhere else. It failed. For that alone, I'd have to rate this as a warty, although I'd never claim that there couldn't be varieties of deep geek who might like bits of this novel. I even liked bits myself. Just not enough bits.