We have reached the unofficial beginning of summer. In other words, it’s after Memorial Day. I don’t care that the calendar says summer doesn’t begin for 3 more weeks, it’s summer now.
We spent last weekend at my mom’s, so what should have been last week’s winners became this week’s winners. I promise, the books are still good!
And last but not least; I reviewed John Scalzi’s novella Unlockedon Friday. Because I loved it, I included him in the tweet about the review. OMG, he retweeted. Friday was one of the highest traffic days I’ve ever had. I knew there was a reason I liked him!
A new near-future science fiction novella by John Scalzi, one of the most popular authors in modern SF. Unlocked traces the medical history behind a virus that will sweep the globe and affect the majority of the world’s population, setting the stage for Lock In, the next major novel by John Scalzi.
My Review:
Even for a novella, the publisher’s blurb for Unlockedis not just short, but also not terribly descriptive. And it doesn’t come close to doing this marvelous introduction to Lock In any kind of justice.
Unlockedcarries a more descriptive subtitle: An Oral History of Haden’s Syndrome. That’s almost descriptive enough.
Unlockedisn’t precisely a narrative, it’s more like a collection of narratives around a single event. By presenting the story as snippets from oral interviews, it gives the reader the kind of “you are there” perspective that doesn’t usually happen in fiction. It brings the reader to the center of the story, as though we were watching it as it happened, or as if it were part of our shared consciousness.
Which it is for the people involved.
The individuals don’t stand out, but what emerges is the history of how the world dealt, or would deal, with a global pandemic in the age of mass transportation and mass media, where the survivors and their families could become, not just “poster children”, but symbols for all those who suffered and are suffering.
Even after some of them have discovered that Hadens may be the best thing that ever happened to them.
There are historic parallels for this kind of disease, the 1918 Flu Pandemic and the Black Death are examples.There have been instances where the loss was so pervasive that it touched every family, the U.S. Civil War being a prime example there. But with Haden’s Syndrome, the author has created a leveling disease that cuts across all boundaries, and everyone sees the effects on the daily news.
Escape Rating A-: This is hard to rate. While I was reading, I myself was “locked in” to the narrative. It rang true as the way that things might happen, given the circumstances. It also brought me back to the questions about “the needs of the many”, and how society would handle it when the relatively small percentage affected adds up to huge absolute numbers. What would we do?
The mistakes made, and the successes discovered, followed a kind of logical progression that kept me going from one personal account to another, watching the picture unfold.
Unlocked does an absolutely terrific job of setting up the background for Lock In (which yes, I have an ARC of and could not resist after Unlocked).
Unlockedpresents an all-too-real possibility and stretches it into a future that is scarily easy to envision. If you are waiting with bated breath for Lock In, read Unlockedfirst. It makes reading Lock In a much richer experience.
And it’s GOOD!
***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.
Humble Bundle (much better known for their indie gaming bundles) have a special Doctor Who comics bundle this week. If you love the Doctor, or are curious about the comics, this is a great way to read a pretty full starting collection.
Format read: ebook provided by Edelweiss Formats available: hardcover, large print, ebook, audiobook Genre: fantasy, dystopian Series: Queen of the Tearling #1 Length: 448 pages Publisher: Harper Date Released: July 8, 2014 Purchasing Info:Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository
On her nineteenth birthday, Princess Kelsea Raleigh Glynn, raised in exile, sets out on a perilous journey back to the castle of her birth to ascend her rightful throne. Plain and serious, a girl who loves books and learning, Kelsea bears little resemblance to her mother, the vain and frivolous Queen Elyssa. But though she may be inexperienced and sheltered, Kelsea is not defenseless: Around her neck hangs the Tearling sapphire, a jewel of immense magical power; and accompanying her is the Queen’s Guard, a cadre of brave knights led by the enigmatic and dedicated Lazarus. Kelsea will need them all to survive a cabal of enemies who will use every weapon—from crimson-caped assassins to the darkest blood magic—to prevent her from wearing the crown.
Despite her royal blood, Kelsea feels like nothing so much as an insecure girl, a child called upon to lead a people and a kingdom about which she knows almost nothing. But what she discovers in the capital will change everything, confronting her with horrors she never imagined. An act of singular daring will throw Kelsea’s kingdom into tumult, unleashing the vengeance of the tyrannical ruler of neighboring Mortmesne: the Red Queen, a sorceress possessed of the darkest magic. Now Kelsea will begin to discover whom among the servants, aristocracy, and her own guard she can trust.
But the quest to save her kingdom and meet her destiny has only just begun—a wondrous journey of self-discovery and a trial by fire that will make her a legend…if she can survive.
My Review:
I don’t often carry books with me when I go out to dinner, but this is one I just couldn’t put down, all 450 pages worth. It also helped that I just saw The Hunger Games movie, so I got where the references were coming from, even though I only saw a teensy bit of resemblance.
The Queen of the Tearling is in the absolutely classic fantasy mold of young person discovers/inherits their throne and powers, and then must figure out a way to be a good ruler with not much training and nearly every hand against them.
It’s a damn good formula when it works, and in The Queen of the Tearling, it definitely worked.
Kelsea Raleigh has been raised in obscurity, not to say anonymity, out in the woods. She wasn’t quite raised by wolves, but rather by an ex-guard and a teacher. Although they’ve prepared her as well as they could, they were forbidden from teaching Kelsea anything about recent history, such as the reign of her late mother Queen Elyssa, and anything that has happened under her uncle’s regency while she was in hiding.
Carlin and Barty hid one hell of a lot of crap. Kelsea’s kingdom, the Tear, exists under the yoke of the Red Queen of Mortmesne, the country next door. And there are lots of people in the nobility who want things to stay just the way they are, because they make money and/or get privilege from the current nasty state of affairs.
Kelsea’s uncle the regent is one of those people. He wants Kelsea dead before she reaches her throne.
How bad are things? The late and not terribly lamented signed a treaty with Mortmesne granting them a title of 3000 slaves every year. There is a lot of money in that slave trade on both sides of the border.
Kelsea, after a life-threatening heart-pounding journey from her cottage to the capitol to take up her throne, disbands the slave-tithe immediately upon arrival and in a flourish of fire. From that moment on, anyone who had any involvement is out to kill her, and the Red Queen mobilizes her army.
Kelsea, mobilizes her people’s hearts and minds, an infinitely stronger force.
Escape Rating A+: The description doesn’t do this one justice. It is simply awesome, and sticks with you long after you’re done.
Kelsea is a fish-out-of-water type of heroine. It’s not that she hasn’t been educated, because she certainly has, but her knowledge is book learning rather than experience, and it can be hard to translate one to another, especially if you’re only 19 and have been isolated all of your life.
The Tear Kingdom is an absolute mess. It seems like all the officials are corrupt, and the people have given up hope of things ever getting better. There’s a saying that “the fish rots from the head down” and in Tear, the Regent couldn’t be any rottener. Elyssa was just weak and stupid, but the Regent is weak, venal, stupid and bought and paid for by the Red Queen.
The contrast between the extreme poverty of the population, and the bizarre excesses of the nobility is one of the places where the descriptions of the Hunger Games universe apply. (Of course, this could also be said for pre-revolutionary France, including the extreme hairstyles).
The tribute of slaves is also a similar point, but it is different in Queen of the Tearling. Not just because thousands of slaves are taken as war repayments, but because the slave tribute is designed to take from every age group, including children and babies. Also because the fate of the slaves is completely shrouded.
Kelsea is the point of view character, and the one that the reader needs to sympathize with if they’re going to enjoy the story. This is Kelsea’s journey from obscurity to living in a fishbowl, from childhood to adulthood, from innocence to knowledge. She makes mistakes along the way, but her heart is always in the right place. She wants to do the right thing, and not just in a fairy tale way. She knows that some things are just too far to be allowed, but that there can be mercy.
She’s conflicted because she recognizes that the right thing can have dire consequences, and still must be done anyway. She’s learning.
The book ends on an upnote, but one that clearly marks the beginning of the conflict between Kelsea and the Red Queen. I want the next book. I want to see how the war goes, with all the starting handicaps faced by the Tearling.
I also want to see more about how this world came about. It is definitely a future version of our world, but it is on Earth. It’s a new continent that rose up out of the sea. But how and when, and why did everyone leave Old America and Old Europe?
Last, there is an enigma character. At first the Fetch seems like a version of Robin Hood, robbing from the rich and living as an exile until the True Monarch arises. But from hints at the end, he is something far older, and possibly not completely human.
This story must continue!
This post is part of a TLC book tour. Click on the logo for more reviews.
***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.
For those of you interested in science fiction and fantasy, the nominations for the 2014 Hugo Awards were announced last weekend. If you enjoy the genre, purchasing a Supporting Membership in the annual WorldCon is always a bargain, even though you aren’t planning to attend the Con. Why? Because everyone who has a supporting membership gets to vote on the Hugos, and in order for the voting to be informed (or at least the possibility thereof) every supporting and attending member receives a packet of the nominated works in all categories in the ebook format of their choice. This year, in addition to Ancillary Justice, Neptune’s Brood, Parasite and Warbound, the ENTIRE Wheel of Time saga by Robert Jordan was nominated for best novel and will be included in the packet. All 14 volumes. A supporting membership costs $40 US, and it’s worth it just for the ebooks of the best novel category alone. But the packet also includes all the best Novella, best Novelette, best Short Story nominees, and etc., etc. It’s a steal.
And I hope that next year The Forever Watch is nominated. It was awesome.
If felt like more when I was downloading them. I wonder why? Not a bad week, all in all. I’ve nearly finished B.O.Q., and it looks like the start of a good mystery series.
And a friend has a story in Alternate Hilarities, so of course I had to get it!
All that is left of humanity is on a thousand-year journey to a new planet aboard one ship, The Noah, which is also carrying a dangerous serial killer…
As a City Planner on the Noah, Hana Dempsey is a gifted psychic, economist, hacker and bureaucrat and is considered “mission critical.” She is non-replaceable, important, essential, but after serving her mandatory Breeding Duty, the impregnation and birthing that all women are obligated to undergo, her life loses purpose as she privately mourns the child she will never be permitted to know.
When Policeman Leonard Barrens enlists her and her hacking skills in the unofficial investigation of his mentor’s violent death, Dempsey finds herself increasingly captivated by both the case and Barrens himself. According to Information Security, the missing man has simply “Retired,” nothing unusual. Together they follow the trail left by the mutilated remains. Their investigation takes them through lost dataspaces and deep into the uninhabited regions of the ship, where they discover that the answer may not be as simple as a serial killer after all.
What they do with that answer will determine the fate of all humanity in this thrilling page turner.
My Review:
If you threw Gorky Park, Blade Runner, one of Robin Cook’s medical thrillers and Anne McCaffrey’s The Ship Who Sang into a blender, you might come up with something like The Forever Watch–but it probably wouldn’t be half as good.
Not even if you added in elements of The Matrix and Madeline Ashby’s Suited. It’s not just that all of those elements are in The Forever Watch, but that they are melded into a single story that left me gasping in marvel at the end.
I’m having a hard time letting this one go. I’m having an even harder time figuring out how to encapsulate the experience.
The story starts with familiar concepts. Hana Dempsey is a City Planning engineer on the generational ship Noah. Her job, her entire department’s job, is to make the city more energy efficient, while still being livable, so that the ship will have enough resources to reach Canaan. In other words, the promised land.
The mission is to save the human race. The ship is over two centuries out from a destroyed Earth, and has eight centuries yet to travel. That’s a long time for hundreds of thousands of human beings to be trapped inside a flying tin can — no matter how big or well designed the can might be.
Perpetuating the human species is not even left to chance. Every woman is assigned Breeding Duty, where she spends the entire pregnancy in a medically induced coma. She is supposed to remember nothing of the process. The child might not even be hers. She’ll certainly never see him or her.
Hana Dempsey comes back from her Breeding Duty with a sense that her life is as empty as she is. Duty is no longer enough.
Her friend, Leonard Barrens, tries to help her fill that void with helping him on a personal quest. Barrens is a cop, and he’s been quietly looking into a series of gruesome and inexplicable murders that no one seems to be investigating. Instead of being looked into, or even merely filed away, all trace of these murders is being systematically wiped from the system.
Barrens needs Hana’s skills to help him hack the vast computer system, the Nth Web, in order to find whatever traces are left. His mentor was one of the victims of what appears to be a serial killer named “Mincemeat” for the way he leaves his victims, and Barrens feels compelled to discover why the evidence keeps disappearing.
Hana gets involved because she needs something to absorb her. And because she has always cared for Barrens more than she is willing to admit. In the testing enforced caste system on the Noah, the differences between a cop and a manager in the City infrastructure are huge.
Hana and Barrens only know each other because Barrens rescued her after an assault. He makes her feel safe. She makes him feel cared for. But she’s used to Barrens being there in her darkest moments, and she’s in one now. His quest gives her something to do, something to be take her out of her empty self.
And finally a way for them to reach out from beyond their society and self-imposed barriers for each other.
Until the secrets that they uncover tear not just them, but their entire world, asunder.
Escape Rating A+: I loved this book so much that I immediately started inflicting it on other people–my husband read it in one sitting (it’s 500 pages!) and now a friend has started to devour it.
The Forever Watch exemplifies some of the best of science fiction, in that as soon as you read you start thinking about the society and what might have brought the race to this sorry pass, and it drives you crazy because the way things have worked out make you uncomfortable. Yet it’s impossible to stop reading, because that same discomfort makes you desperate to figure out why this is the way that society went.
It doesn’t seem logical, and yet it all hangs together perfectly. Even more amazing, every single bit of where it seems that things make no sense within that society, are all resolved at the end, and in a way that upholds the willing suspension of disbelief.
What lengths would we go to in order to save the human race? How far do the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few? What secrets are so horrible that suppressing them is better for society than full knowledge, and who has the right to decide? How much can be justified by the cold equations of survival?
You will end up with more questions than answers, but you will not be able to get this book out of your head.
***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.
We spent the weekend at Norwescon. It was fun, but one thing I’ve noticed is that Dealer’s Rooms have gotten considerably smaller (and slightly less fascinating) since book buying over the Internet has become ubiquitous. There used to be practically acres of big book booths, and now they are few and relatively small.
I attended lots of great panels, and a couple that were absolutely fabulous; one on Medieval Women and the roles they really occupied in history, and the other about what a Heroine’s Journey would look like, as opposed to the classic Hero’s Journey we’re all familiar with. Awesome!
But now we’re back to regularly scheduled life as we know it, so here’s the Sunday Post.
The Forever Watch by David Ramirez (review) Ice Red by Jael Wye (blog tour review)
Guest Post by Marcella Burnard + Giveaway (for Nightmare Ink, previously reviewed at the Book Pushers) Dash of Peril by Lori Foster (blog tour review) Sing for the Dead by PJ Schnyder
Format read: print book borrowed from the Library Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook Genre: young adult science fiction Series: The Lunar Chronicles #3 Length: 550 pages Publisher: Feiwel & Friends Date Released: February 4, 2014 Purchasing Info:Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository
In this third book in the Lunar Chronicles, Cinder and Captain Thorne are fugitives on the run, now with Scarlet and Wolf in tow. Together, they’re plotting to overthrow Queen Levana and her army.
Their best hope lies with Cress, a girl imprisoned on a satellite since childhood who’s only ever had her netscreens as company. All that screen time has made Cress an excellent hacker. Unfortunately, she’s just received orders from Levana to track down Cinder and her handsome accomplice.
When a daring rescue of Cress goes awry, the group is separated. Cress finally has her freedom, but it comes at a high price. Meanwhile, Queen Levana will let nothing prevent her marriage to Emperor Kai. Cress, Scarlet, and Cinder may not have signed up to save the world, but they may be the only hope the world has.
My Review:
The Lunar Chronicles are marvelous and suspenseful fractured fairy tales; taking the stories that we all know and love and transporting them into a brave new future with considerably altered versions of the heroines (and heroes).
Cinder was, of course, all about Cinderella, complete with wicked stepmother and footwear difficulties. Scarlet’s version of Little Red Riding Hoodie was considerably more kick-ass than the original (see review). But Cress takes Rapunzel to new heights–her tower is a satellite orbiting the Earth! She’s so lonely that she programmed a younger version of herself into her computer systems as a companion.
Cress’ purpose on that satellite is both deadly and heartbreaking. It’s Cress’ programming skills that keep the Earthen governments from detecting Lunar ships in orbit. It’s Cress’ hacking skills that let her read the camera feeds from surveillance on all the Earthen officials.
And it’s Cress who was so desperate for approval from her keeper that she allowed the infiltration of Earth by Lunar special operatives who murdered 16,000 people, all to show that the Lunars were unstoppable.
But Cress has been left alone for much too long with only the entertainment and news feeds from Earth to keep her amused, or perhaps that to help her keep her hold on her sanity. She has come to identify with the Earthens, and to see Linh Cinder and her crew of misfits as the only hope for preventing Lunar Queen Levana’s terrifying reign.
And she’s fallen in love with the daring Captain involved in Cinder’s rescue, even though Cress and Carswell Thorne have never met. So Cress uses her programming skills to contact Cinder, to aid and abet Cinder’s continued evasion of the security forces, and to arrange for her own, much needed, rescue.
The rescue turns into a SNAFU of epic proportions. Cress’ evil keeper swoops in at the last moment, and everything goes to hell in a handcart. When the dust settles, Thorne and Cress are left on Cress’ satellite in a dying orbit, Wolf is seriously wounded, and Scarlet is captured. Only Cinder remains relatively unscathed, but it becomes her energy-sapping task to keep Wolf from going on a killing rampage at the loss of his alpha Scarlet.
Cinder still has to stop the wedding of Queen Levana to the unwilling Emperor Kai before she is crowned Empress, while the security forces of every Earthen military and all of Luna are out to find her.
First she rescues Thorne and Cress, then she musters all her available allies for one last chance to save the Emperor, knowing that she will start a war. Leaving Scarlet in the clutches of the Lunars to face a fate that might be much, much worse than death.
As the clock ticks down to doomsday, Cinder takes up the mantle of leadership that she was born to wear.
Escape Rating B+: While this is Cress’ story, the arc of The Lunar Chronicles series means that it is always Cinder’s story, no matter what else is going on. Cinder has grown a lot from the young, scared, insecure cyborg mechanic we met in Cinder(reviewed here).
It feels important that Cinder is planning to rescue her prince, and not the other way around. This is a story where the females don’t just have agency, but are generally stronger than the males. Cinder rescues Kai, Scarlet is Wolf’s alpha, and Cress, in spite of her awkwardness, is a gutsier person than Thorne.
Not many people would have kept any semblance of sanity under the conditions that were forced on Cress. She managed to keep herself together, and shake off the Stockholm Syndrome of bonding with her jailor and only contact. Her social awkwardness can be overcome, but integrity is forever.
As the story is told, the perspective frequently jumps from one part of the scattered crew to another, from Cinder to Cress to Scarlet and back again. The narrative switches can feel a bit disruptive during the sections where they are all far apart. As the action coalesces into the final plan, the fast changes add to the breathlessness of anticipation.
Poor Scarlet’s fate is still up in the air (or on Luna) but we know where the rest of the crew of leading, even if we have no idea how they’ll make it. We’re left on pins and needles waiting for the final installment, Winter.
***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.
And last but not least; I reviewed John Scalzi’s novella Unlocked on Friday. Because I loved it, I included him in the tweet about the review. OMG, he retweeted. Friday was one of the highest traffic days I’ve ever had. I knew there was a reason I liked him!
Blog Recap:
Coming Next Week:
For those of you interested in science fiction and fantasy, the 
Coming Next Week:
I attended lots of great panels, and a couple that were absolutely fabulous; one on Medieval Women and the roles they really occupied in history, and the other about what a Heroine’s Journey would look like, as opposed to the classic Hero’s Journey we’re all familiar with. Awesome!
Winner Announcements:
Coming Next Week:
Cinder was, of course, all about Cinderella, complete with wicked stepmother and footwear difficulties. Scarlet’s version of Little Red Riding Hoodie was considerably more kick-ass than the original (see 
Escape Rating B+: While this is Cress’ story, the arc of The Lunar Chronicles series means that it is always Cinder’s story, no matter what else is going on. Cinder has grown a lot from the young, scared, insecure cyborg mechanic we met in Cinder (reviewed