Tag: science fiction

Arctic Rising

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> book reviews

Tobias Bucknell’s Arctic Rising is a near-future science fiction techno-thriller that leads the cast, and the reader, at a breakneck paced tour of a thawed Arctic. Unfortunately for our heroine, she’s on this tour because someone really is out to get her. Fortunately for the reader, figuring out who turns up a grand scheme that keeps the reader guessing until the very end.

It’s also kind of a pre-apocalyptic story of eco-terrorism. What do I mean by pre-apocalyptic? The apocalypse hasn’t happened, yet, but if events in this story go pear-shaped, well, you can definitely see the apocalypse from here.

Anika Duncan begins the story as an airship pilot for the United National Polar Guard. The UNPG has airships patrolling the waters of the Arctic Circle to check for drug smuggling and occasionally nuclear waste dumping. Why? Because airships (read blimps) are cheap on fuel and fossil fuels are expensive and running out. Why are they needed? Because the Arctic Ice Cap has melted, and all that ocean is pretty empty. There’s nobody looking. Nuclear waste, as we already know, is a pain to get rid of. Dumping it in deep water no one is watching is cheap.

But when Anika’s gear pings a radioactive hotspot on the ship below her, she sets of a chain reaction of events much bigger than she could ever have imagined. The crew of the unidentified ship brings out heavy artillery and brings down her ship. Then they ram the debris. Crash landing in the Arctic Ocean is a fast way to die of hypothermia.

Anika’s co-pilot makes it to the hospital, but dies of his injuries. Anika did a better job getting her survival suit zipped up, so she is okay physically, but someone tries to run her off the road. And that’s only the first attempt on her life. Her house is blown up. She’s arrested by men who have no identity.

A friend —  who wants to be her girlfriend — smuggles her out. Anika’s friend Vy is a criminal, but Vy has connections. Right now, Anika needs friends in low-places just to figure out what is going on. But the more she discovers, the crazier things get. And the more collateral damage piles up around her.

Somebody wants to terraform the Earth, to turn back the global warming clock. They’ve even found a way to do it. But there are a lot of powerful people and corporations who like things just fine the way they are, and don’t want to change. They’re willing to let the future take care of itself.

Some of those people have found a nuke. Anika and her friends are caught in the middle. At Ground Zero.

Escape Rating A-: This is one of those books where you just saddle up and hang on for the ride. The story is all about the thrills and chills, and it has plenty.

Something about this story that ties into reality is the opening of the Northwest Passage. In the 1800s, explorers searched, and died, seeking the fabled Northwest Passage over the top of Canada from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific. The story of Sir John Franklin’s Expedition is especially interesting, because they found mummies from some members of the party in the 1980s.

The Northwest Passage is opening. Bowhead and gray whales have managed to make the crossing from the Pacific to the Atlantic through the Passage for the first time in centuries. A cruise ship sailed through the Passage in 2006 and a commercial freighter in 2008.

The other neat, funny, cool thing was the portrait of the new Arctic as the really, really last frontier, the place where everyone gets to be an extreme individualist. I lived in Anchorage for three years, and Bucknell’s portrait of the new Arctic was Alaska taken several steps further. Which totally worked.

Arctic Rising is one of those books where you read it and you keep thinking that things can’t get any crazier for the main characters, and yet, they do. And it just makes you want to keep reading even more!

Past Tense

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | book reviews

Nick Marsh’s Past Tense is almost two books in one. The first half of Past Tense is science fiction/horror, and it’s pretty much of a sequel to Marsh’s first book, Soul Purpose (reviewed here). The main purpose of chapters 1 through 44 (or I through XLIV) is to provide a reason for the rest: the marvelous time travel feast that gives Past Tense its name.

The present day bits about the vet Alan Reece and his friends George and Kate, who saved the world from a Lovecraftian-Cthulhu-monster type takeover in the previous book, serve as introduction. The world is going to hell in a handcart again. Alan is not just seeing monsters, he also keeps slipping sideways into a world where Cthulhu seems to be running the place. And this is NOT GOOD.

He’s also being stalked by a couple of guys in ill-fitting suits and rather poor hygiene. When they finally catch up with him, their explanation floors him. They are like him, except from other “Soul Plains”. They are Conduits, with a capital “C”, and so is Alan.

And they are on Earth to help Alan save it, again. Because that last time Alan saved the Earth, he caught the attention of something nasty, and it wants to spoil things at the Soul Plain level, where only Conduits can fix things. Earth wasn’t even supposed to have a Conduit yet, so Alan is special.

About the poor hygiene thing. The other Conduits are just borrowing the bodies of people from Earth. They don’t quite know how to operate the equipment, so to speak. They get the language and general movement, well mostly, but the nuances of hair combing and tooth brushing are pretty much beyond them.

But they can show Alan how bad the problem is. The creature has no physical existence, except what he borrows. But on the Soul Plain level, he consumes Conduits, kills them, and steals their power. And he wants Alan. But he also want the entire Soul Power of the Earth.

The 21st century didn’t work for him. He was drawn to it because that’s where Alan was, but the 21st century doesn’t believe in much anymore, not on a superstitious level. This being needs to be worshipped to manifest. People need to believe in him. So he’s gone back into Earth’s past.

And that’s where the second “book” comes in. The creature has manifested in Britain, during the late period of the Roman occupation, in a fort on Hadrian’s Wall. In order to stop him, Alan has to go back to that same period to stop him from changing whatever piece in history he changed to trigger the wrong turn in history.

Alan has to occupy someone else’s body, just as the other Conduits do. Alan’s spirit, or soul, or Conduitness, or whatever, travels back and occupies the body of a medicus, a surgeon, on the Roman frontier in Britain at around 177 A.D. This glimpse into the life in Roman Britain is absolutely fascinating.

Even better, although worse for her, one of the creature’s minions mistakenly believes that Kate is the Conduit and sends her back to the same place and time. Kate occupies the body of a slave girl.

Between Alan and Kate, they are able to observe Roman life from top to bottom.

Their mission, which they must accept, is to prevent the assassination of the future emperor Commodus. Bastard that Commodus was, his place in history was necessary in order for the Roman Empire to fall at the appropriate time.

The only way they may be able to accomplish this seemingly impossible task is to convince a loyal and rational Roman Centurion that his commander is already dead and that his best friend is a time traveler. Can they do the impossible in time?

Escape Rating B+: I am of two minds. The set up with the part in the 21st century at the beginning, was necessary, but I wanted more of the part in the past. I adored the story once it moved to Roman Britain. Alan’s perspective on life in the fort really shone. It was so ironic that he found his place in life nearly 2,000 years before his birth. And he knew it couldn’t last.

And Kate, trying so hard to hold up at the absolute bottom of society’s ladder, reminding Alan that his current privilege rested on the backs of people like her, on slavery.

The historic bits reminded me a lot of Judith Tarr and Harry Turtledove’s excellent Household Gods. This was a marvelous book about a woman whose spirit travels back to live on the Danube frontier of the Roman Empire at the same time period as Past Tense.

There’s a slight hint of the Star Trek Original Series episode City on the Edge of Forever in Kate’s relationship with Lucius the centurion. She wants to save him, to the point where she writes herself a message the second they get back to the 21st century, which she already knows she will find and read at the beginning of this adventure, but he will still attack first and die. And it’s necessary to save the future. And she grieves.

For more of my thoughts on Past Tense, take a look at Book Lovers Inc.

 

What’s on my (mostly virtual) nightstand? 2-19-12

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | Virtual Nightstand

One of my favorite Heinlein quotes is “Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get”. Which is probably a signal for me to stop writing about the weather. It is what it is.

I have an overly full nightstand this week. And as usual, it’s my own fault. I’ve always collected books. I see so many I want to read, then I forget that egalleys have either deadlines or the permission timebombs.

And then there are these other fascinating books over here…

But the ones I’m supposed to read are over in this corner. So without further ado, here is my pile of upcoming reading.

There were two books from Carina Press that I couldn’t resist. Synthetic Dreams by Kim Knox looks like SFR of the cyberpunk persuasion. Science fiction romance is always a draw for me, and this looked interesting, and I confess, short.  The other is Under Her Brass Corset by Brenda Williamson.  With a title like that, it had to be steampunk. Based on the cover image, this may mix steampunk and pirates. Sounds like quite a ride!

I get most of my egalleys from NetGalley, but I am also able to get a few from the other egalley service, Edelweiss. Sarah MacLean’s latest book, A Rogue by Any Other Name, is one of the first I was able to get from them. It’s her first in a new pre-Victorian series, The First Rule of Scoundrels, and it looks like fun.

C.E. Murphy is one of my favorite urban fantasy authors. I love her Walker Papers series. The only problem is that I can’t remember where I left off. Raven Calls is book seven. I’m sure I’ve read the first three, but after that I’m fuzzy about where I left off. I sense a marathon Walker Papers session in my future and I’m looking forward to it.

Speaking of marathon reading sessions, one of the other books I have coming up is The Traitor in the Tunnel, the third book in The Agency series by Y.S. Lee. The Agency is a YA mystery series about a girl named Mary Quinn who works undercover for the all-female detective unit operating out of Miss Scrimshaw’s Academy for Girls in Victorian London. I’m fascinated enough by the premise to be willing to read all three books, so I have A Spy in the House and The Body at the Tower as well as Traitor. They sound delicious.

On Twitter last week Tobias Bucknell was asking for reviewers who would be interested in taking a look at his upcoming science fiction novel, Arctic Rising. It’s about the effects of the melting of the Arctic Ice Cap, global terraforming on Earth, and corporations who want to take advantage of the opportunities. It’s a science fiction techno-thriller, and it’s set in Alaska.  I asked if I could have a copy, and he sent me one. Cool! Or warm. Both.

Last and absolutely not least. I have been reviewing ebook romances for Library Journal for quite a while now. It’s neat to say I’m a Library Journal reviewer, and it probably helps me get egalleys at both NetGalley and Edelweiss. I applied to also review for Library Journal the magazine in December, and now I’m officially a reviewer for the print magazine too.

I received my first assignment this week. I got a print galley of Dark Magic by James Swain in my mailbox along with a very detailed set of instructions. Ironically, this is a book I had requested from NetGalley, so I also have an electronic copy. I have about the same amount of time to write my review as I do when I receive an assignment from my editor for an ebook, about 10 days. But the lead time on the print magazine is way longer. The ebook reviews are usually for books that are about to come out any day now. Dark Magic has a publication date of May 22, but my review is due to my editor on February 28.

And with all these books on my “plate” I can stop thinking that Celebrity in Death is coming out on February 21. If I’m still awake at midnight, I don’t think I’ll be able to resist the impulse to dive right into it. Some escapes are just too tempting!

Tomorrow will be Dreamspinner Press’ spin at Ebook Review Central. Don’t you just love Mondays?

 

 

Prehistoric Clock

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews

Prehistoric Clock by Robert Appleton is a steam-powered adventure story of the Jules Verne school of adventuring. Not to mention the Jules Verne era of scientific knowledge. But as an adventure story, it’s definitely great fun.

Prehistoric Clock is Victorian-inspired steampunk, so it is set in an alternate British Empire on which the sun has not set, and does not look likely to. The year is 1908, but it is definitely not our 1908. The world is powered, not just by steam, but also by an energy called psammeticum. Great airships rule the skies. And the secretive scientific gents (and a few ladies) of the Leviacrum Council, are the ones who really run the Empire.

Two seemingly unrelated events collide, rather spectacularly. Lieutenant Verity Champlain has promised the loyal crew of the Empress Matilda that she will get them to London, even if it’s a place that she barely remembers and that most of them have never seen. The Empress is an airship of the British Air Corps, and she has been ordered to London from her base in Africa. Her orders are to “protect the pipeline at all costs”.

Lord Garrett Embrey is in London, standing before a Star Chamber within the deep recesses of Grosvenor House. The supposedly “august gentlemen” are Government bureaucrats, but Embrey knows they are merely puppets of the Leviacrum Council. It has only been 18 months since his father and uncle were convicted of trumped-up charges of treason, and these same “gentlemen” have manufactured evidence against him as well.

Embrey whisks the forged letters away from the blackguards and flees the premises, one step ahead of the steam-powered Black Maria dogging his steps. He has a yacht at the marina, and he’s planning to leave England, hopefully for good. Now he knows there’s nothing left for him.

Professor Cecil Reardon manages to fool the Leviacrum Council’s inspection one last time. As soon as he has ushered their harridan of an investigator, Miss Polperro, out the door, he stops caring. All of his supposed work for the Council has been a grand hoax.

The Leviacrum Council has been building two great Leviacrum Towers, one in London, and another on the Benguela Plateau. Verity Champlain’s airship came from Benguela. Garrett Embry’s family was sacrificed on the altar of secrecy because they asked questions about that tower.

Cecil Reardon was supposed to be working on methods of harnessing Leviacrum power, in anticipation of a great event. Instead, he worked on something of his own. As soon as Miss Polperro left his factory, he flipped the switch on his Time Clock, in hopes of returning to the time before his wife and son died.

Professor Reardon’s invention works spectacularly but not accurately. London is cleaved in two. Big Ben is carved through the middle, and time is symbolically, as well as literally, shattered. The district surrounding Reardon’s factory is transported, not just a few decades back in time, but centuries, back to the Cretaceous period. Dinosaurs roam the earth.

Some humans survive the transition to this world of adventure. The Professor is at the epicenter. Unfortunately for him, Miss Polperro and her band of Inquisitors are trapped within the cone of transferrance. Verity Champlain’s airship is dragged out of the sky by the storm the time slip produces.

As for Garrett Embry, he is caught just barely inside the blast range with the young son of an ice cream truck driver. The boy’s father was killed in the separation. To Embry, the brave new/old world is a much better adventure than the trial he barely escaped, even with pterodactyls swooping out of the sky at every turn.

But the intrepid band of time wanderers cannot survive long in the terrifying past. The Professor must find a way to reverse the time clock’s trajectory, but he will only have one opportunity to get it right. And only if the dinosaurs don’t eat them first!

Escape Rating B: Jules Verne and H.G. Wells would be so proud! Prehistoric Clock reads very much like something of the Verne school of adventure writing, and there is a definite nod to Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth at the end. Of course the Clock itself is a time machine of the Wells’ persuasion, without the Eloi and Morlock, but Wells’ time traveler doesn’t suffer the same sad backstory as motivation as Professor Reardon.

The truly fascinating character in Prehistoric Clock is Verity Champlain. A female airship officer wasn’t usual, but her crew did not merely respect her, but found her so compelling that they gave her a particular honorific title, Eembu. It means “trousers”. Meet her and you’ll find out why.

The ending is open enough that there could be a sequel. I sincerely hope so.

Soul Purpose

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews

There must have been a generation of veterinarians who thought it would be just like James Herriot’s practice is All Creatures Great and Small. Herriot probably has a lot to answer for. Alan Reece, the vet in  Nick Marsh’s Soul Purpose (and its sequel, Past Tense) certainly didn’t expect that his practice would mostly be either mind-numbingly boring or involve being called in the wee hours in the morning because something horrible to a poor cow in a cold and mucky barn. And the middle-of-the night calls are always in barns. And always about cows.

But our story begins when Alan’s middle-of-the-night farmer call involves a perfectly normal birth–of a completely transparent calf. The calf is transparent, but its organs are quite visible through the skin. The farmer is also quite visibly certain that something is not right, but is too shocked to give his fears a name. Alan can’t believe his eyes, so he does something both stupid and brave, which turns out to be typical of him. He touches the transparent calf–and it becomes a normal calf.

By the next morning, after almost no sleep (not atypical of mornings after Alan has been on call) Alan wants to forget the whole thing. The farmer calls and says he doesn’t want to mention the visit again. Ever. And Alan is more than agreeable to that.

There are a couple of problems with this plan. One problem is that the transparent calf was not either Alan’s or the farmer’s imagination. It really happened. And the force that caused it, well, let’s just say it more than noticed Alan’s intervention. And now, it’s noticed Alan. In fact, there’s a voice talking to Alan, and Alan is trying to pretend that he’s not hearing it.

But Kate brings in her cat Roger, and Kate can see the person or force behind that voice. Kate has always been able to see souls, and now, she sees lots of them surrounding Alan. Kate has another problem. Kate’s a physicist, and she’s been running computer models on the new ion accelerator that’s scheduled to start running in Kent in a week or so. Her models show that the ion accelerator will bring about the end of the world. Really. Scientifically.

And that’s just what the voice in Alan’s head is predicting.

There’s one other person involved in this. George is Alan’s housemate. George works for a magazine, Mysterious World. Mysterious World covers paranormal phenomenon, and usually everything that George finds is a complete bust. Until he goes to see a strange fireplace at a pub, and guess what? The fire is transparent!

Escape Rating B: This is a hilariously snarky genre-bender. It has elements of horror, but also some urban fantasy and science fiction thrown in. Alan and his friends are terrific fun, so I’m really glad there’s another book. I want to see how they do now that they know each other. And how everyone puts their life back together, since they totally chucked everything in this one. But all in a very good cause.

I did figure out who the bad guy was way before the end.

Did Trevor (Kate’s ex) have to caricature every stereotype of the male librarian, and was it necessary to launch into a “why Alan fears libraries and librarians” in the middle of the book? Really? Can librarians possibly be as scary as demon worshipers and zombies? (And yes, this question is relevant in context)

There’s a nod to P.D. James’ Children of Men, or at least I saw one. YMMV. Some bits even reminded me of the classic horror videogame Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem — not an exact correlation, but I wasn’t sure of that until the end.

If Ford Prefect had picked up a vet instead of Arthur Dent, this is the sort of horrific journey that might have resulted. And if this reference makes sense, you’ll have fun on this trip.

Cinder

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews

Cinder by Marissa Meyer is a retelling of the Cinderella story with a YA/cyberpunk twist. And it’s a pretty good retelling at that. I just think it would have been a better story if it didn’t try so hard to be sure it stepped on each and every base on its way around the story.

Cinderella is always a second-class citizen. In Meyer’s variation, Cinder is second-class because she is a cyborg. Cyborgs are considered less-than-human by those who have been fortunate enough not to have lived through catastrophic accidents such as the one that cost Cinder her hand and her foot at age 11.

But Cinder does not remember the traumatic accident, or anything about her early life. And the man who might have told her is dead. Linh Garan adopted her and left her in the care of his wife Adra just before his death. Garan was an inventor; he liked to tinker with things. He may have adopted Cinder to tinker with. He might have done something to her internal processes. But no one knows, least of all Cinder.

Adra hates and resents Cinder, while at the same time greedily taking every credit that Cinder earns as a gifted mechanic. Adra is entitled to retain all of Cinder’s earnings, forever. Adra is Cinder’s guardian, and Cinder’s earnings are the only thing keeping the household out of the poorhouse. The household, of course, contains not only the nasty stepmother Adra, but Cinder’s stepsisters, Peony and Pearl.

This Cinderella tale has been transplanted in time and place. We are still on Earth, but it is a future, post-apocalyptic Earth, after a dreadful Fourth World War first devastated, then finally united humanity under an Imperial Commonwealth. Cinder lives in the Eastern Commonwealth capital of New Beijing. The moon was not just settled, but broke away from the Earth pre-WWIV and created its own government. The Lunars have become not just a separate government, but in some ways, a separate race, because they have the capacity to manipulate bio-electric energy to a point that seems like magic. It’s a LOT like the Force in Star Wars, and too many of the Lunars mostly act like the Sith. The Lunar Queen and Emperor Palpatine would probably have a lot in common, if they didn’t try to kill each other on sight.

Prince Kai brings his personal android to Cinder at her stall in the market to repair. He says it’s because it was his teaching android when he was growing up, and he’s emotionally attached to it.

Cinder, who shouldn’t have the neural circuitry to swoon, practically swoons over Prince Kai. She is able to suppress her reaction. What she isn’t able to suppress is her knowledge that he is lying. There is something important about the little android, and it isn’t merely an emotional attachment.

Kai lets something slip, he is doing research on leutmosis, the deadly plague that is sweeping the world. It is 100% fatal. Cinder wonders if his android contains some of his research.

The research that Kai might or might not be conducting becomes even more important to Cinder when her stepsister Peony contracts the deadly plague. Peony was the only person who truly cared for Cinder, and now she is gone. And in her rage, Adra signs Cinder over the government as a test subject. Cinder, as a cyborg, has no rights at all.

Once Cinder is tested, the truth of her origins begins to be revealed, not to Cinder, but to others who have been searching for her desperately. Nothing in her life has been as it has seemed.

But Cinder is going to the ball.

Escape Rating B-: The cover of this book is awesome. The book has its moments but I figured out the big reveal very, very early on. It’s better if the surprise remains a surprise as long as possible. Instead, everything was telegraphed miles ahead of time.

I loved the scene where Cinder drives to the ball and shows up in all her grease-stained glory to try to rescue Kai, but I saw it coming miles away.

And, as many other reviewers have noted, what does Kai look like? He’s never described. Ever. There’s a rule somewhere that all brides are, by definition, beautiful. Is there a corollary that all princes are handsome? Therefore there’s no requirement that they be described? Is he blond? Does he have black hair? Brown eyes? Blue eyes? Swoon-worthy is just not a sufficient description.

And I still want to find out what happens next. I want to see that Lunar Queen get what she deserves. Ring-side seats for that show would be very nice indeed.

Science Fiction Reading Challenge

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | reading challenges

The 2012 Science Fiction Reader Challenge is hosted by Working for the Mandroid. I love the name of this blog. There are some blogs I’ve discovered with really terrific names, and this is one.  (Confessions of a Toxic Friend is another, but totally different focus)

Back on topic, Working for the Mandroid is running the Science Fiction Reader Challenge this year. Being related to Science Fiction, it is not simply a “read 20 books and you’re done” type challenge. Oh, no.

The geek girl running Working for the Mandroid has very specific science fictional categories I have to read in to fulfill this challenge.  Aren’t you curious?

YA/MG (Young Adult/Middle Grades) Science Fiction
Adult Science Fiction
Hugo Winner
SF Classic (Pre-1950’s)
SF Modern Classic (1951-1992)
Steampunk
Robots/Cyborgs/Androids
Spaceships/Aliens
Time Travel/Alternate History/Parallel Universe
Apocalyptic/Dystopia/Utopia
Cyberpunk
Mad Scientists/Genetic Testing/Environmental Disaster

Thank goodness the Mandroid provides links to references for all of these. I have ideas for some. I even have books already lined up for some. But there are a couple I’m going to have to go hunting for. And for anyone thinking that the Steampunk here and the Steampunk challenge overlap just a teensy bit, the answer is, heck yes! And why not? It’s allowed.

12 for 2012: My most anticipated books in 2012

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | book reviews> books> ebooks

It’s very difficult to figure out what books I’m looking forward to most in 2012. I mean when I started to look at lists, I realized that most of what I was anticipating were the next books in series, or new books from authors I already knew. But when I looked at the list of my best reads from this past year, most of them turned out to be authors who were new to me. It’s a puzzle, isn’t it?

This doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy the series books that I read. I certainly did. But it’s the discoveries that turned out to be the most memorable. Maybe that’s because they were such surprises.

Just the same, these are the books I am planning to stalk NetGalley for review copies. And if I can’t get a review copy? Well, then I’ll just have to buy a copy and review it anyway. There’s even a reading challenge about reading one book a month just for fun!

But the books I’m looking for in 2012 are…drumroll, please!

When Maidens Mourn by C.S. Harris will be the next book in her Sebastian St. Cyr historical mystery series. What Angels Fear is the first book, and St. Cyr is a detective of the amateur and aristocratic variety. He should be the hero of a Regency romance, and in other circumstances, he might have been. But his service in Wellington’s army has left him much too tormented for that. His personal life makes him a tragic hero; the demons that drive him make him an ideal detective, if only to keep him from becoming a criminal. March can’t come soon enough on this.

Celebrity in Death by J.D. Robb. This is Eve Dallas’ 34th outing. I’ve read all of them. Usually in one sitting. I still can’t figure out how she does it, but Robb/Roberts does it really, really well. This book means there will be one warm night in February.

Restless in the Grave by Dana Stabenow. I think I will always have a fondness for Alaska stories. Heck, I still tell Alaska stories, and it’s been 6 years now since I left Anchorage. But living in Alaska is something that changed my perspective, probably forever. The situations Dana writes about in her novels are always a tiny bit familiar, even the ones set in the Bush. Because Alaska is possibly the world’s biggest small town, and there weren’t six degrees of separation, there were three at most. Even for cheechakos like us. Dana writes damn good mysteries, but I always read them for a taste of the place we almost called home.

Master and God by Lindsey Davis. I love Davis’ Marcus Didius Falco series. The whole idea of a hard-boiled detective operating in Imperial Rome has always been utterly delicious. And Falco’s wife Helena Justina is made of awesome. Master and God is not a Falco book. It’s historical fiction set in the same time period. Davis wrote one other work of historical fiction set during the Falco period, The Course of Honor. I read it years ago and it was fantastic. If Master and God is half as good, it will be well worth reading. Come to think of it, I hope people re-discover The Course of Honor. It was incredibly good and I don’t think it got half the attention it deserved.

The Bride Wore Black Leather by Simon R. Green. This one has been teasing me every time I look at Amazon. The recommender can figure out I want to read this, so it sorta/kinda looks like it’s available, but it’s not. January 3, 2012. Come on already. For those fans of the Nightside, John Taylor is finally going to marry his long-suffering (in more ways than one) girlfriend, Suzie Shooter. He just has one last job to finish up before he meets her at the altar. But no job in the Nightside is ever easy, especially not for John Taylor.

Redshirts by John Scalzi. This sounds like it’s going to be really cool. And really, really funny. And yes, the redshirts in the title are those redshirts. Like in Star Trek. The ones that always get killed at the beginning of the mission. What happens if a bunch of them figure it out? And decide that they are not going to let it happen to them? This sounds like something only Scalzi could possibly do justice to. In June, we’ll all find out.

An Officer’s Duty by Jean Johnson is the next installment in her series, Theirs Not to Reason Why. I loved the first book, A Soldier’s Duty (reviewed here), and I can’t wait to see where Johnson next leads her time-travelling heroine, Io, in her quest to save the human race from utter extinction. July 31 is way too far away for this one.

Copper Beach by Jayne Ann Krentz. I knew that someday the Krentz was going to link the Victorian era Arcane Society of her Amanda Quick novels to her contemporary Jones & Jones psychic investigations to her futuristic romances under her Jayne Castle pseudonym. I read them all, but the links make for an added twist that I love. In January Copper Beach starts a new subseries, Dark Legacy.

Crystal Gardens is the start of a second subseries, Ladies of Lantern Street, that Krentz is starting in April under her Amanda Quick name. That means it’s a Victorian era story, at least for the first book. All of the Arcane Society books, both contemporary and Victorian, have been excellent romantic suspense.

Tangle of Need by Nalini Singh is the 11th book in her Psy-Changelings series, and the first to be published in hardcover. Although her Archangel series hasn’t wowed me, the psy-changeling books have never failed to please. I only wish that the release date was earlier than May. And I wish the US version had a better cover. The UK cover is awesome. (UK on left, US on right.)

Dragon Ship by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller. I want to go back to Liaden. I want to catch up on the books in between (there are several) that I haven’t read, and I want to finally find out how things are going. Liaden is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, space opera science fiction romance universes of all time. Dragon Ship is due Labor Day. I think I have enough time to get caught up. It will be so worth it.

This last book is an absolute flyer. It sounds really cool, but who knows.

The Yard by Alex Grecian. What if, after Scotland Yard failed to capture Jack the Ripper, they started a Murder Squad? 12 detectives specifically charged with investigating the thousands of murders in foggy, grimy, crime-filled London. How much luck would they have? When one of their own is murdered, the Yard’s first forensic pathologist is put on the track of the killer. I love historic mysteries, and this sounds very, very cool. In May, I’ll find out.

 

These are the books I’m looking forward to this year. I wonder how many will end up on my “best books of 2012” list.

What are your most anticipated books for 2012?

11 for 2011: Best reads of the year

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | best book lists> book reviews> books> ebooks

2011 is coming to a close. It’s time to pause and reflect on the year that is ending.

There’s a lovely quote from Garrison Keillor, “A book is a present that you can open again and again.” There’s a corollary in this house about “not if the cat is sitting on it” but the principle still applies. The good stories from this year will still be good next year. Some of them may even have sequels!

These were my favorites of the year. At least when I narrow the list down to 11 and only 11. And even then I fudged a bit. Read on and you’ll see what I mean.

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (reviewed 12/1/11). This book had everything it could possibly need. There’s a quest. There’s a love story. It’s a coming-of-age story. It’s an homage to videogaming. There are pop-culture references to every cult classic of science fiction and fantasy literature imaginable. There’s an evil empire to be conquered. I couldn’t have asked for more.

Omnitopia: Dawn by Diane Duane (reviewed 4/22/11). On the surface, Omnitopia and Ready Player One have a lot in common. Thankfully, there is more than meets the eye. Omnitopia takes place in the here and now, or very close to it. The world has not yet gone down the dystopian road that Wade and his friends are looking back at in Ready Player One. On the other hand, any resemblance the reader might see between Worlds of Warcraft mixed with Facebook and Omnitopia, or between Omnitopia Corp and Apple, may not entirely be the reader’s imagination. Howsomever, Omnitopia Dawn also has some very neat things to say about artificial intelligence in science fiction. If you liked Ready Player One, just read Omnitopia: Dawn. Now!

The Iron Knight (reviewed 10/26/11) was the book that Julie Kagawa did not intend to write. She was done with Meghan, her story was over. Meghan is the Iron Queen, but what she has achieved is not a traditional happily-ever-after. Victory came at a price. Real victories always do. Meghan’s acceptance of her responsibility means that she must rule alone. Ash is a Winter Prince, and Meghan’s Iron Realm is fatal to his kind. The Iron Knight is Ash’s journey to become human, or at least to obtain a soul, so that he can join his love in her Iron Realm. It is an amazing journey of mythic proportions.

Dearly, Departed by Lia Habel (reviewed 10/18/11) is a story that absolutely shouldn’t work. The fact that it not only works, but works incredibly well, still leaves me gasping in delight. Dearly, Departed is the first, best, and so far only YA post-apocalypse steampunk zombie romance I’ve ever read. I never thought a zombie romance could possible work, period. This one not only works, it’s fun. There’s a sequel coming, Dearly, Beloved. I just wish I knew when.

Debris by Jo Anderton (reviewed 09/29/11) is the first book of The Veiled World Trilogy. It’s also Anderton’s first novel, a fact that absolutely amazed me when I read the book. Debris is science fiction with a fantasy “feel” to it, a book where things that are scientifically based seem magical to most of the population. But the story is about one woman’s fall from grace, and her discovery that her new place in society is where she was meant to be all along.

A Trick of the Light by Louise Penny (reviewed 09/19/11). If you love mysteries, and you are not familiar with Louise Penny’s work, get thee to a bookstore, or download her first Chief Inspector Gamache mystery, Still Life, to your ereader this instant. Louise Penny has been nominated for (and frequently won) just about every mystery award for the books in this series since she started in 2005. Find out why.

I love Sherlock Holmes pastiches. (This is not a digression, I will reach the point). I have read all Laurie R. King’s Sherlock Holmes/Mary Russell books, some more than once. I almost listed Pirate King (reviewed 9/9/11), this year’s Holmes/Russell book instead of Trick. But Pirate King was froth, and Penny never is. A regular contributor to Letters of Mary, the mailing list for fans of the Holmes/Russell books, recommended the Louise Penny books. I am forever grateful.

The Elantra Series by Michelle Sagara (review forthcoming). I confess I’m 2/3rds of the way through Cast in Ruin right now. I’ve tried describing this series, and the best I can come up with is an urban fantasy series set in a high fantasy world. I absolutely love it. It’s the characters that make this series. Everyone, absolutely everyone, is clearly drawn and their personality is delineated in a way that makes them interesting. There are people you wouldn’t want to meet, but they definitely are distinctive. It’s also laugh-out-loud funny in spots, even when it’s very much gallows humor. I’m driving my husband crazy because I keep laughing at the dialog, and I can’t explain what’s so funny. I would love to have drinks with Kaylin. I’d even buy. But the Elantra series is not humor. Like most urban fantasy, it’s very snarky. But the stories themselves have a crime, or now, a very big problem that needs solving, and Kaylin is at the center of it. Whether she wants to be or not.

If you are keeping score somewhere, or just want the reading order, it’s Cast in Moonlight (part of Harvest Moon), Cast in Shadow, Cast in Courtlight, Cast in Secret, Cast in Fury, Cast in Silence, Cast in Chaos, and Cast in Ruin.

The Ancient Blades Trilogy by David Chandler consists of Den of Thieves (reviewed 7/27/11), A Thief in the Night (reviewed 10/7/11) and Honor Among Thieves (reviewed 12/21/11). This was good, old-fashioned sword and sorcery. Which means the so-called hero is the thief and not the knight-errant. And every character you meet has a hidden agenda and that no one, absolutely no one, is any better than they ought to be. But the ending, oh the ending will absolutely leave you stunned.

Ghost Story by Jim Butcher (reviewed 7/29/11) is 2011’s entry in one of my absolute all time favorite series, The Dresden Files. And I saw Jim Butcher in person at one of the Atlanta Barnes & Noble stores. Ghost Story represents a very big change in the Dresden Files universe, where Harry Dresden starts growing into those extremely large boots he’s been stomping around in all these years. If you love urban fantasy, read Dresden.

Turn It Up by Inez Kelley (reviewed 8/10/11 and listed here) is one of the best takes on the “friends into lovers” trope that I have ever read. Period. Also, I’m an absolute sucker for smart people and witty dialogue, and this book is a gem. “Dr. Hot and the Honeypot” pretty much talk each other into a relationship, and into bed, while they give out sassy advice over the airwaves on their very suggestive and extremely successful sexual advice radio show.

My last book is a two-fer. Break Out (reviewed 8/4/11) and Deadly Pursuit (reviewed 12/6/11) by Nina Croft are the first two books in her Blood Hunter series, and I sincerely hope there are more. This is paranormal science fiction romance. Like Dearly, Departed, this concept should not work. But it absolutely does. And it gets better the longer it goes on. If you have an urban fantasy world in the 20th century, what would happen if that alternate history continued into space? Where do the vamps and the werewolves go? They go into space with everyone else, of course. And you end up with Ms. Croft’s Blood Hunter universe, which I loved. But you have to read both books. The first book just isn’t long enough for the world building. The second one rocks.

I stopped at 11 (well 11-ish) because this is the 2011 list. I could have gone on. And on. And on. My best ebook romances list was published on Library Journal earlier in the month. LJ has a ton of other “best” lists for your reading pleasure. Or for the detriment of your TBR pile.

Ready Player One

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> book reviews

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline is a veritable tour de force of storytelling. This dystopian near-future novel is absolutely fantastic science fiction of the cyberpunk school, but it is also an intense commentary on modern society, with more than a dash of nostalgia and a slap upside the head, for anyone, absolutely anyone, who spends their life looking back at their “glory days” instead of living their real life in the now. A lesson that does not just apply to geeks and video gamers.

James Halliday was dead, to begin with. So this is not his story. But it is. Because Ready Player One is about the fight for the world he created, and the company he left behind. And James Halliday left himself as the ghost in his own machine. Until someone solves the ultimate riddle in the ultimate quest, and proves themselves worthy of becoming his heir.

Wade Watts is just one of many players in the OASIS in 2044, when every player receives Halliday’s last message. And Wade embarks on that ultimate quest. Not in pursuit of worldly glory, but because the real world seriously sucks, and the OASIS and the quest for Halliday’s ultimate “Easter Egg” is the only good thing Wade and a whole lot of other people, have.

What is the OASIS? Think of Facebook and World of Warcraft and Everquest and Second Life and every massively multi-player and multi-user everything you’ve ever heard of on serious steroids. And why does the Wade’s real world suck? We can see it from here. If we make all the wrong decisions about everything, like global warming actually happening, and the recession not ever going away and unemployment going up instead of down and the global economies getting worse…well, we could easily end up in the world of Ready Player One. Unfortunately it isn’t much of an imaginative stretch.

But the story is about the quest. Halliday left instructions. And tied them up very tightly, with lots of lawyers. James Halliday loved the 1980s. (Beats me why, the fashion sense was absolutely horrendous.) However, that was when video games got their start, and when Halliday went to high school. And before the world started going to hell in the proverbial handcart. He was obsessed. Halliday buried three keys inside the world of the OASIS, and whoever found those three keys, and the gates that they opened, and solved the riddles they unlocked, would inherit his company, Gregarious Solutions, which was worth mega-billions.

The race was on. It took five years to find the first key. Wade Watts, in the person of his avatar, Parzifal, was the first. Along the way, Wade made friends with another gate hunter, or ‘gunter’ known as ‘Aech’ (i.e., just the letter ‘H’). They never met in person, only in chat rooms on the OASIS. Wade developed a major crush on a female gunter blogger named ‘Art3mis’ — well, he hoped she was female. On the OASIS, a person could be anyone, or anything. And Wade grew up. When Halliday died, he was just a kid; by the time he found the gate, he was a senior in High School. OASIS High School, of course. Even school was on OASIS.

And that was part of what Wade and his friends were fighting to protect. Gregarious Solutions offered OASIS education free, and OASIS access free to anyone. There were paid add-ons, but basic access was free, and it was the only escape from the decaying world outside. Everyone conducted their business and their pleasure in the OASIS. But naturally, there was an evil empire, trying to win Halliday’s contest in order to take it over and turn every transaction into profit. Once Wade found the first key and cleared the first gate, he became a target.

Wade’s quest, and his fight to keep the OASIS out of the hands of the evil ‘Sixers’, proceeds at a breakneck pace. The story is not just a quest story, but a thriller, also a marvelous coming-of-age story and absolutely a love story.

Escape Rating A+: First, this is simply a terrific story. There is a tremendous amount going on, and it is all fun and it keeps going at the speed of the fastest roller-coaster imaginable. There is a nostalgic aspect for anyone who even remembers the 1980s or 1990s, because every video game, TV show and movie gets mentioned at least once. But that’s only part of the fun.

This is a quest story. It’s not really about the video game, although that part was very cool. It’s about saving OASIS. It’s about solving the puzzle so that the world is saved from the big, bad evil dudes. And they are very, very evil.

It’s also about second chances. Halliday made himself a ghost in his own machine. He programmed his avatar in so he can speak with his ‘heir’. On the one hand, he makes sure that whoever picks up the reins is versed in the same minutiae that he was. On the other hand, the advice he gives about not living totally inside the computer is very good advice. Which Wade takes to heart.

I listened to this book. The performance was by Wil Wheaton. I would have to also give the performance an A+ rating. Because the book contained a lot of references to the 1980s and 90s, Wheaton was a perfect choice for the reader. There is a reference in the text to the actor being voted in as OASIS user representative, and my husband and I both wondered how many ‘spit takes’ that had taken, but he was the right choice for that reason. In this alternate future. Wheaton so would have filled that role! The book contains a tremendous number of footnotes with citations for all the references,  in the audio, those work better. Wheaton read them as asides, and they flowed in seamlessly. We took a longer way home to be sure we’d finish the book before we got to the house, he was that good!