[Review, Part 2] "Walking the Tree" by Kaaron Warren

Title: Walking the Tree
Author: Kaaron Warren
Genres: Fantasy
Softcover: 525
Publisher: Angry Robot Books, February 4th 2010
Standalone/Series: Standalone
Copy: Review copy from the publisher

Blurb:

Botanica is an island, but almost all of the island is taken up by the Tree.

Little knowing how they came to be here, small communities live around the coast line. The Tree provides them shelter, kindling, medicine – and a place of legends, for there are ghosts within the trees who snatch children and the dying.

Lillah has come of age and is now ready to leave her community and walk the tree for five years, learning all Botanica has to teach her. Before setting off, Lillah is asked by the dying mother of a young boy to take him with her. In a country where a plague killed half the population, Morace will otherwise be killed in case he has the same disease. But can Lillah keep the boy’s secret, or will she have to resort to breaking the oldest taboo on Botanica?

Available from: Amazon - US - UK | B&N | BookDepository

---

In the first part of my review [HERE] I talked about the plot and pacing of Walking the Tree, without saying much about the worldbuilding. This post will solely focus on the Botanica as a social organism, functioning in an unusual geographical situation. The pacing issues I mentioned in the first review and the repetitive model of the school’s walk find their purpose in the purely anthropological aspect of the novel.

The rhythmic and little altering pattern [walk – welcome feast – customary 30 day stay – sex with the settlements’ men] offers a control sample, establishes the accepted tradition. As the school visits each new settlement Warren layers new elements over this pattern and the reader spots the variables, those tiny differences in seemingly similar people. Considering the issue with overpopulation all settlements are modestly populated and even one distinct trait impacts the social structure of the settlement. They can be caused by the natural resources or cultural developments.

For instance, opposed to almost all settlements the people in Ailanthus have an adversarial relationship with the Tree, because unlike other settlements the Tree grows closest to the sea, thus stealing the land from the people. In Cedrelas, because the Tree produces fruit that makes wonderful wine, people drink and party all night to forget their problems, sleeping through the day. The men in Douglas are violent and there is segregation of the sexes unlike any other settlement. At the same time the people in Rhado are cruel and arrogant, because they have perfected the art of cooking.

Speaking of food, Walking the Tree is a novel about food. Whenever I cracked it open, I felt immense hunger at all the feats, catalogued in great detail. On Botanica, cooking’s an art form and constitutes the islander’s creativity to spawn diversity, when all they have to work with is fish for meat and the few vegetables, fruits and nuts.

Of course, I can’t ignore the small details, which contribute to the overall effect of reading a documentary rather than fiction. Different version of the Myth of Creation, the Death of the Tree, different attitudes towards strangers, prejudices, lore, relationship with the Tree, phobias and all of the other small and invisible details, which suspended my disbelief throughout the novel.

Warren deconstructs our understanding of society – millions occupying the same space, but at the same time remaining utterly indifferent towards each other and so disconnected from our place of origin, nature – and has created a society, subjugated to the whims of a giant Tree. It is a smart reversal of roles, considering how trees disappear due to deforestation and Earth is in imbalance. On Botanica, people have to life according to the Tree’s cycle, but they also live in balance with the Tree. The islanders function in nature’s cycle and don’t parasitize. It’s a certain kind of utopia, albeit some imperfections in the islanders themselves.

Before I conclude my review, I’d like to comment on how Walking the Tree will resonate a lot more with female readers than with male ones. Although the settlements have male Elders to decide who is allowed to walk and male Tale-tellers, the women are the ones to walk the Tree. Apart from the right to travel, women are the ones who choose the men they will sleep with, a rarity in both real and fictional cultures. It is a woman, who discovers the truth about the ghosts inside the Tree and it is a woman, who redefines the world anew. But perhaps most literally, Walking the Tree is the representation of a woman’s journey into womanhood.

[Review, Part 1] "Walking the Tree" by Kaaron Warren

Title: Walking the Tree
Author: Kaaron Warren
Genres: Fantasy
Softcover: 525
Publisher: Angry Robot Books, February 4th 2010
Standalone/Series: Standalone
Copy: Review copy from the publisher

Blurb:

Botanica is an island, but almost all of the island is taken up by the Tree.

Little knowing how they came to be here, small communities live around the coast line. The Tree provides them shelter, kindling, medicine – and a place of legends, for there are ghosts within the trees who snatch children and the dying.

Lillah has come of age and is now ready to leave her community and walk the tree for five years, learning all Botanica has to teach her. Before setting off, Lillah is asked by the dying mother of a young boy to take him with her. In a country where a plague killed half the population, Morace will otherwise be killed in case he has the same disease. But can Lillah keep the boy’s secret, or will she have to resort to breaking the oldest taboo on Botanica?

Available from: Amazon - US - UK | B&N | BookDepository

Cover Comment: I’m more than partial with the novel’s concept and therefore with the cover itself. Vegetation and the color green excite me. I admit I’m not an active outdoorsman, but I can’t help but smile whenever I see either –usually both – and what Greg Bridges here is very beautiful. Notice how incorporeal the Tree looks. Considering how the Tree affects the lives of the islanders and acts as the fundamental deity and central figure in the cumulative core of Botanica’s culture. I think this is more of a technical decision to allow more light and better contrast for the school. It still fits though, because ultimately the Tree is a god for the islander. And deities are more often than not incorporeal.

Review: What Kaaron Warren did with Slights – one of my top 2009 novels – applies here as well, if not twice as much. Warren wrote a story, which could not fit any genre, because it is bigger than any genre definition to hold it down. Warren couldn’t have written this novel. To it felt as if she planted seeds of ideas in ash from burnt pages and manure from leather, then watered it with ink and let the story grow roots. Then a stem. Then veins that wind around the reader, blossoms that digest his mind body, dissolve his mind and absorb his soul into its core. Walking the Tree is too organic to be called a story. Warren birthed a world as realistic as it is fantastical. Warren birthed life.

If by any chance there are faults in this book, I don’t think I would have spotted them – apart from minor pacing issues during the middle. My thoughts on the book will mostly consist of why Walking the Tree resonated so heavily with me, unlike any book in the past two or so years [I’m excluding Vandermeer’s Monstrous Creatures as it is a non-fiction collection].

Warren cross-pollinates a simple written language with complex and heavy laden information about the different settlements on the island, captured in vivid and potent imagery. The best examples are when Lillah maps every settlement on her map, summarizing her stay in a few, but well chosen words. In a sense, Lillah captures the essence of each place she visits and it were those tiny bits at the end of every visit – also acting as chapters – that made this all the more worthwhile of my time. Here are my favorite excerpts:

In her mapping, Lillah told the Tree: Jasmine smelling far too much, clever oiling from the flower, clever thinking brain using fear of spiderwebs, danger for those who have caught child.

Here, the Tree grows Jasmine, the leaves are dark and the Bark is oily.

---

In her mapping, Lillah told the Tree: the stories are true about these men; they are bred cool but dive for sea sponges. They say they tell true stories but is it truth to terrify us? Do we need to know such truth? And why do they want to steal what would be freely given?

Here, the Tree grows bitter fruit and rich, perfumed flowers. The leaves are pale green and huge, the Bark run through with more insects than I can count.

---

In her mapping, Lillah told the Tree: Pandana broken legs, fish so good you eat too much trap the teachers let them go.

Here, the Tree grows cruel pictures, awful babies and pawpaw. The leaves are blood red and the Bark weeps.

In this part of the review, I won’t speak about the worldbuilding, because I’ve too much to say there – probably more than it’s needed – so I’ll talk more about plot, pacing and the school as it travels around the Tree. Walking the Tree doesn’t have a plot per se or at least it has a string of short term goals, which is why I maintain my opinion that Kaaron Warren doesn’t write a fictitious tale, but documents real people and real occurrences. The beginning preoccupies the central character Lillah with preparations for her evaluation of whether she will or won’t be allowed to join the school as a teacher and walk the tree. This is where I fell in love with the prose, the direction of the story and effortless exposition of an entire world.

It’s during the actual journey, when I had small issues keeping my enthusiasm as strong as it was in the beginning – although I still loved it – and it had a lot to do with Lillah’s goal being largely to function as a trustworthy teacher, find a lover and continue her people’s tradition. I grew tired of the repetitive construction of these visits, even though they provided nuances to keep the reader’s interest. Here is the right moment to mention that Walking the Tree isn’t for everybody as it grows in every direction and then wander, always exploring and winding.

There are several spikes that jar the reader to attention. The sudden appearance of a ghost and the men in Douglas and rescuing Morace from receiving the treatment being just a few, but I did not detect any definite direction. Through the bulk of the school’s journey Walking the Tree functions more as a travelogue rather than as a novel, which isn’t fatal, but different. The transition to this state is natural and the switch from Lillah’s preparations to meet her Elders’ requirements as a teacher to Lillah’s journey – a journey for the sake of the journey as well as for soul searching – barely registers.

This sort-of aimless approach can be attributed to characterization as well. Walking the Tree features an extensive cast of main, secondary and episodic characters. I can’t say that what it’s a character driven – or plot driven – novel, since Warren manages to spotlight everybody, but does so only fleetingly. Only when their appearance’s important to Lillah’s growth, when they happen to be near her or when they are central to an unusual event. It’s a much more true to the story approach, but it also reduces characters to names on the page. Today’s market is pro character and character driven novels climb to the bestseller chart, so this touch-and-go merry go round can be off putting for some. Personally, I indulged in the worldbuilding.

Where Warren truly impressed me is how he crossed over from this nomadic fantasy into the territory of science fiction / post-apocalyptic as Lillah explores the inside of the Tree and then learns the true nature of it as well as of their whole island. This is a spoiler area, so I won’t be doing any sharing.

Next Part: In the next installment I’ll stop on the anthropological aspects of Walking the Tree, explain why this is a feminist novel and talk about food. Yes, food.

REVIEW: The Reapers Are The Angels by Alden Bell

Hardcover: 302 pages
Publisher: Tor (3 Sep 2010)
ISBN-10: 0230748643
ISBN-13: 978-0230748644
Reviewer: Cara
Copy: Bought online

From the inside cover:
God is a slick god. Temple knows. She knows because of all the crackerjack miracles still to be seen on this ruined globe...

Older than her years and completely alone, Temple is just trying to live one day at a time in a post-apocalyptic world, where the undead roam endlessly, and the remnant of mankind who have survived, at times, seem to retain little humanity themselves.

This is the world she was born into. Temple has known nothing else. Her journey takes her to far-flung places, to people struggling to maintain some semblance of civilization - and to those who have created a new world order.

When she comes across the helpless Maury, she attempts to set one thing right. If she can just get him back to his family in Texas then maybe it will bring redemption for some of the terrible things she's done in her past. Because Temple has had to fight to survive, has done things that she's not proud of and, along the road, she's made enemies.

Now one vengeful man is determined that, in a world gone mad, killing her is the one thing that makes sense...

I was initially resistant to reading The Reapers Are The Angels because I don't like zombies. There, I've admitted it; the very mention of the undead is enough to put me off any book or film that mentions them. However, I decided to face my prejudice as this book has been highly praised by many of my peers. Reading reviews by other bloggers indicated that the undead zombies in Alden Bell's novel are an incidental, background feature rather than the main event and so I settled down with a mug of hot chocolate and started to read.

What soon becomes clear is that this is a post-apocalyptic tale centred around Temple, a fifteen-year old girl. She has been born into this world and knows nothing of what came before. Indeed, the events that created this bleak and decaying landscape are not described and, to a certain extent are not relevant either to the story or to Temple's life. We meet her living alone in an abandoned Florida island lighthouse, surviving on what fish she can catch and scavenged plants. When she finds a man washed up on the beach, back broken, jaw missing, yet still squirming and moving in the sand, Temple recognises him as a 'meatskin' or undead and knows her sanctuary is no longer safe. After smashing his head in with a rock, she packs up and leaves for the mainland. This is her life, forever moving on, avoiding the meatskins, also referred to as slugs. Is she heading for some unknown destination or running away from her short past? Within the first two chapters there are many questions about Temple that keep me reading, looking for answers to why a teenage girl is alone in a hostile and dangerous environment.

For the most part Temple is travelling alone across southern America, haunted by a past that is hinted at throughout but only fully revealed towards the end of the book. When she meets Maury, she tries to seek her own redemption by helping him get to his family in Texas. But she is also being pursued by the enigmatic Moses Todd, a man intent on killing her in revenge for something she has done. While both of these characters provide the plot structure, The Reapers Are The Angels is more of an exploration of how humanity survives in a destroyed world, using the character of Temple as the focal point. And this is what irritated me... for an illiterate and uneducated girl, Temple had too much knowledge, too much poetic lyricism. Amidst the stark and desolate world she inhabits she finds beauty in unusual places. She is a philosopher of sorts and this did not work for me. Neither did the fact that she was able to find food and drink in deserted service stations and stores that were fit for consumption - how would this be possible after twenty-odd years?

"She takes the rest of the box [of peanut butter crackers] and a twenty-four pack of coke, some bottles of water, three tubes of Pringles, a few cans of chilli and soup, and some boxes of macaroni and cheese."

There were several similar examples of current society norms throughout the book that jolted me out of the whole post-apocalyptic scenario and undermined the credibility of the book.

It is fair to say I was disappointed in The Reapers Are The Angels. For me, it did not live up to the hype and I found I was making unfavourable comparisons to other, better books such as The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I also did not like the style of writing, where the dialogue was undifferentiated from the descriptive prose and mostly written in a heavy southern accent

"She takes one and puts it in her mouth to show him.

Mmmm. I ain't had bingberries in I don't know how long . That Albert, he may have been a scoundrel all told, but he knew how to raise himself some crops, didn't he? Go on, eat one." 

Overall I felt I was being expected to suspend my disbelief just a bit too far and that Temple was almost superhuman in her ability to do what she had to do to survive. Temple was an intriguing character, however, I did not really engage with her and it was only the fact that I had agreed to review this book that kept me reading to the end. The Reapers Are The Angels has not changed my mind about zombie novels and it is unlikely that I will choose to read another in the near future.

Rating: 5/10

[Review] Zoo City by Lauren Beukes [Part 2]

Title: Zoo City
Author: Lauren Beukes
Genres: Urban Fantasy
Copy: 364
Publisher: Angry Robot Books, September 2010
Standalone/Series: Standalone
Copy: ARC from Angry Robot

Blurb:

Zinzi has a talent for finding lost things.

To save herself, she’s got to find the hardest thing of all: the truth.

Available from: Amazon - US - UK | B&N | BookDepository

Cover Comment: I don't particularly like the US cover. Sure the colors are great and the photo manipulation clever, but truth is that it doesn't do anything for me. It lacks the same WOW effect the UK cover has and that is that.

Review: In yesterday's review I briefly touched upon the plot of "Zoo City", since any coverage is spoiler-risky, and expanded on the world-building aspects of the book, Zinzi December as the driving force behind the novel and pacing. In this post I'll talk about Johannesburg as an active protagonist, the inclusion of animals as support cast, themes and bonus tidbits.

Urban Fantasy, as I understand it, is a genre, in which the city acquires an expanded role. From a setting the city becomes a protagonist, who influences the story. The series I have read in the genre use 'urban' as an indicator the story will take place in a modern setting. Beyond that the city remains a prop and nothing else. In "Zoo City" Johannesburg comes to life and shows its different faces such as Jozie and Joburg. It's a city of many names, of many moods, of many faces. Considering how "Zoo City" follows the noir tradition, it's important to establish how Johannesburg can be both generous and merciless:

The urban sprawl thins out as the road deteriorates; kitmodel cluster homes, malls and the fake Italian maestro-work that is the casino give way to B&Bs, stables, ironwork furniture factories and country restaurants. The hawkers selling giant plastic mallets and naïve Tanzanian banana-leaf paintings and the guys handing out flyers advertising new townhouse complexes get increasingly pushy as the spaces between traffic lights grow longer. A grizzled bush mechanic sits under a corrugated-iron leanto, rolling a cigarette and looking out for customers attracted by the badly hand-painted sign propped up outside advertising exhaust fittings.

At the same time, Johannesburg is Zoo City, home to the 'animalled'.

People take their animals out for fresh air or a friendly sniff of each other’s bums. The smell of cooking – mostly food, but also meth – temporarily drowns out the stench of rot, the urine in the stairwells. The crack whores emerge from their dingy apartments to chat and smoke cigarettes on the fire-escape, and catcall the commuters heading to the taxi rank on the street below.

While dangerous, it still offers protection:

On my way home, the dull crackle of automatic gunfire, like microwave popcorn, inspires me and a bunch of other sensible pedestrians to duck into the nearby Palisades shopping arcade for cover.

Another way "Zoo City" becomes alive is through the 'shavi'. I'm skeptical towards animal characters. It's easy for animals to become deux ex machina especially when they display outside the norm for their species behavior. A bird perched on the shoulder, faithful dog and highly amiable squirrel. Animals can fly, are faster than humans and smaller. Thus it's easy for them to save the human protagonists in the 'nick of time'. The 'shavi' are animals that grant their masters supernatural abilities and display their own distinct personalities.

Deus ex machina is written all over and yet you don't see animals saving humans in dumb or predictable ways. Animals have limitations and I think the reason Beukes gave Zinzi a sloth has more to do with sloths being passive and useless. It's why Zinzi's gift is also not of great use in combat. Zinzi has to rely on herself and not on something given to her. It's a similar situation with other characters and their 'shavi'. Beukes features a mongoose, a poodle, a handicap vulture, a scorpion, a bunny, a butterfly. Animals without fighting capabilities.

"Zoo City" isn't only a murder mystery, it's a book about Africa. You can sense that in the heavy use of African slang. On one hand, the slang creates authenticity and adds a pop to the story, separates it from the rest and gives "Zoo City" authenticity. Then again, I could barely grasp any of the African words, only what the contrast hinted. Thankfully, Beukes knew where to restrict herself so that the novel remains accessible to outsiders. Beukes discusses muti, the African traditional medicine as well as the ritualistic murders practice.

As a book about Africa, "Zoo City" handles themes typical for Africa. To me the social dynamics between the normals and the animalled recalls the apartheid system, which was the status quo until not that long ago. However, here the segregation is based not on race, but on whether the individual is an aposymbiot or not. The whole novel deals with Zoo City's forceful isolation from the rest of Johannesburg. There is obvious discrimination. Zoos are denied job positions, services and even entrance to certain establishments. It's as if there is a city within the city, which the majority pretends not to exist.

A truly spectacular novel.

Verdict: 'Zoo City' the novel for the adrenaline junkie. Gripping from page one, it rockets through a rollercoaster plot. Beukes never stops the action and delivers a page-turner seemingly without a fault. Substance, setting, characterization. It's all there. You can't go wrong with this one.

Reviews I've seen: [if there are reviews I have failed to mention link me up in the comments]

Speculative Book Review
Red Book Review
Kamvision
Dark Fiction Review

[Review] "Zoo City" by Lauren Beukes [Part 1]

Title: Zoo City
Author: Lauren Beukes
Genres: Urban Fantasy
Copy: 364
Publisher: Angry Robot Books, September 2010
Standalone/Series: Standalone
Copy: ARC from Angry Robot

Blurb:

Zinzi has a talent for finding lost things.

To save herself, she’s got to find the hardest thing of all: the truth.

Available from: Amazon - US - UK | B&N | BookDepository

Cover Comment: I'm having an illicit affair with Zoo City's UK cover. It's wild, it's more than dangerous. The cover represents the novel. It's black and white for the noir. The title is a collage of the city's landscape and the shavi of the characters. Very dynamic and alive considering how monochromatic the color scheme is.

Review: I can't start this review without nitpicking the worldbuilding, because it is the crux of the story. Without it, there would be no story. Beukes alters only one thing about reality, but it has a global effect. Every human to commit a grave sin becomes attached to animal and develops some sort of supernatural talent. As a result, the 'animalled' are regarded as sort of subhuman species, because their animals distinguish them as grave sinners, which have no place with the innocent and pure normal people. Notice my sarcasm, but I'll dig into the social dynamics in "Zoo City" later.

Most reviewers instantly go to Phillip Pullman, when discussing the concept of the 'shavi' [the animals]. It can't be helped since Beukes drops his name at some point. I don't think there are many touching points between the two worlds. For one, Pullman's daemons are the manifestation of a person's soul, the good and the bad. Beukes 'shavi' represent their master's sins and nothing else, a sort of divine Scarlet Letter that can't be hidden from the world and society.

Again, unlike Pullman, the 'shavi' grant their aposymbiots [another word for animalled] an ability [in Zinzi's case the ability to track lost items]. If these people are sinners, then who would empower them and why? Corrupted people abuse power as Beukes shows in her novel. Is it a divine balancing act? An attempt to diminish the sting of marked? Or is it a prompt to change through using this power for good? Perhaps it's all about survival.

There are no answers, but I also don't think readers need the answer. Rarely in life do we find anything explained to make sense to us. Why should we expect fiction to spoon feed us explanations.

What I do think deserved to be explained a lot earlier is the concept of the Undertow, a process of the utmost importance for all 'animalled'. The Undertow gets mentioned almost in the beginning of "Zoo City" and until page 181 I had to figure out what exactly it was. The following excerpt might spoil the fun for those, who have yet to read the novel, but the Undertow only adds to the mystery of this world:

Current scientific thought tends toward an understanding of the “Undertow” as a quantum manifestation of non-existence, a psychic equivalent of dark matter that indeed serves as a counterpoint to, and bedrock for, the principle of existence.

Zinzi December isn't one of the questioning types. The novel isn't focused on the world, but on survival. Now there Zinzi is proficient. She works with what she has and that's no smooth sailing when she has a Sloth attached to her back. In order to survive, she takes up small jobs finding lost items. She participates in 419 scams and her background isn't a pretty one too. Former druggie. Former journalist [never to have a decent reputation] and a current manipulator.

You get the picture. Zinzi isn't a wholesome person. Yet, I couldn't help but care for her or laugh with her, fear for her and applaud her for every new scheme she devised. Zinzi's the adhesive that holds all the elements together. Anything less of this character, stretched between her conscience and what she is willing to do for her survival, and "Zoo City" would have flopped.

Zinzi is the ultimate Bad Girl that is so Good, an archetype popularized in Urban Fantasy and turned into a cliche as soon as the genre boomed. Where other 'Bad Girls' fail with a wide assortment of weapons, martial arts skills and physical force, Zinzi succeed for she's a McGyver when it comes to manipulating others. Her strength comes from within, stems from her spirit's resilience, from her resistance to become her sins. At the same, Zinzi is as vulnerable as any human being living in these circumstances.

And this whole package is enhanced through Beukes' prose:

Yellow light slicing across my pillow like a knife would be the appropriate simile, but it feels more like a mole digging its way into my skull through my right eyeball. There is a boy in my bed, or at least I think it’s a boy. It’s hard to judge gender by the back of someone’s head. But I have my suspicions, based on the sandy curls and the snippetsof last night that my brain is starting to defrag.

Plot-wise, "Zoo City" is a merry-go-round, if merry-go-rounds had rocket engines strapped for maximum velocity that is. It blasts off as a simple task to find a missing ring, then gets upgraded to a missing person's case and at the last stretch involves a high body count. It's a very intricate whodunit noir with secretive clients, frame-ups and scandals ready to pop out in the open.

From this vague summary above, I take it you've figured out how fast-paced "Zoo City". Written in present tense and in first person point-of-view, the book can be described as extremely caffeinated. The present tense in general doesn't allow the narrator to skip any moment in the narrator, unlike the past tense. At the same time, Zinzi's exclusive first person account guarantee's an uncut director's version of what's happening. The combined effect is an adrenaline saturated story.

While Beukes knows what she's doing with the pacing and still delivers a multi-layered story, I'd say that at certain points I needed a break. A short pause to catch my breath. It never came. From one odd or dangerous situation Zinzi flies into another and I needed to sprint after her.

For some people this may not be an issue, but to me it felt unnatural. One scene that I thought was somehow completely without purpose [though I'm open to other opinions] was the sewer chase. I understand how it adds another aspect to Beukes' story in terms of setting, but it felt somehow random and disconnected from the general plot.

Next Part: Tomorrow I'll focus on Joburg and the 'shavi' as active characters, the themes and African culture [though the last in a very modest way].

[Review] "A Festival of Skeletons" by RJ Astruc

Talking about A Festival of Skeletons without mentioning the cover would be a bit like committing a crime. Look at it closely. Step back and then look again. I think that the cover does a great job of summarizing the plot, representing the novel’s core idea and setting the proper expectations.

Yes, this will be a hilarious tale of a fugly redhead midget in a pink dress [among other fashion choices], a predatory merwoman, a fat kitchenhand, a sour policewoman, and a few maniacs for colour. Yes, there will be undead. Yes, I bet my spleen that you’ll laugh.

The team at Crossed Genres surprised me with the decision to publish a novel, but having read R. J. Astruc’s mind-bending dark comedy, I can agree as to why. Fantasy needs new faces in the humorous section. Perhaps it speaks poorly of me, but when I have to think of humorous fantasy, I recall only one name: Terry Pratchett. Now, I’ve read in several reviews how Astruc is compared to Pratchett. While Atruc’s Kamphor can compete with Ankh-Morpork in its absurdity and while Astruc uses biting humor to criticize aspects of the modern society, I’d say that Astruc has an entirely different voice:

[The Rest of this review you can find at Innsmouth Free Press]

[Review] 'The Case of Charles Dexter Ward' by H.P. Lovecraft [Part 2]

Title: The Case of Charles Dexter Ward
Author: H.P. Lovecraft
Genres: Horror
Softcover: 128 pages
Publisher: originally by Weird Tales in 1941; my translation is from 2007 by Publishing Group Bulgaria
Standalone/Series: Standalone
Copy: Bought it myself

Blurb: Incantations of black magic unearthed unspeakable horrors in a quiet town near Providence, Rhode Island. Evil spirits are being resurrected from beyond the grave, a supernatural force so twisted that it kills without offering the mercy of death!

Available from: Amazon - US - UK | B&N | BookDepository

Cover Comment: I’m showing the cover of the most recent re-release of The Case of Dexter Ward [2008], which certainly is superior to its Bulgarian counterpart. Despite the easy to look at color combination, the cover doesn’t fail at its task to announce that the novel is horror and that it promises to be creepy. Also, I believe this cover art to be brilliant, because it is public friendly. If by any chance you read this in the park [in the bus/train] people won’t raise their eyebrows in disgust had this cover been with skulls or dead people. Everyone is happy.

Review: In the first part of my review [HERE] I discussed the first two chapters and touched upon the physical qualities of the text, the narration and the worldbuilding. Now, I’ll focus more on the plot, characterization and then speak about the themes.

Lovecraft considerately stalls the story with build-up and exposition. The first two chapters serve as blueprints for Ward and Curwen as characters. Chapter three continues in the same manner and maps out Ward’s transformations. But this process remains far from clear and reveals nothing to the reader. Supposedly, Ward experiments with far from normal materials and succeeds. At this point my patience stretched to the point I was not sure whether I could continue reading the novel as nothing really was said up straight. What are the purposes of the experiments? What triggered the changes in Ward? Why were bodies missing from the local graveyard? What was that smell in the library?

Thankfully, chapters four and five stopped with the irking foreshadowing and hinting and did their best to get to the heart of the mystery that Charles Dexter Ward had become. Lovecraft still manages to forbid the reader a full-frontal exposure by switching POVs between Charles, the family doctor, Mr. Willett and Charles’ father. In these chapters the Ward family becomes progressively worried about Charles’ health, so they begin an investigation of their own [but I have to say that the mother figure is passive and suffers from nerves throughout the book]. It’s discovered that Charles’ research lab, built in a bungalow as far away as possible from the family home, is inconspicuous, but the true horror is underneath the bungalow in a labyrinth of tunnels and chambers with alters inside.

SPOILER ALERT: Dr. Willett discovers that Charles performs rituals to raise spirits and gain knowledge. This process is coordinated with other necromancers all around the world, which have managed to cheat death once. At this point I stopped complaining about the book being a bit too mysterious for its own good and drooled as revelation after revelation happened on the page. While I’m in the spoiler section, I’ll mention how Lovecraft delivers a mighty twist I didn’t see coming. Turns out that the mysterious Dr. Allen, with whom Charles worked in the bungalow laboratory, was actually a resurrected Curwen. It was Curwen who killed Ward and then assumed his identity. By now this sounds a bit like a session of playing “Clue” with your friends and in retrospect, I should have seen this coming. For starters, Lovecraft underlines how much Charles resembles Curwen and Curwen’s portrait has been given a sort of sentient presence; much like in Dorian Gray. Ward’s contradictory behavior at the time of his death and the library as the place of murder [I mentioned the smell, now didn’t I?] function as small details that add flavor to the story, but de facto act as clues. < END SPOILER|

I won’t discuss the ending, for it is quite satisfying and has to be read. Willett’s confrontation with Ward in the asylum, which leads to the mystery depicted in the first chapter, is brilliant as a resolution. I will however stop to comment on Lovecraft’s rationalization of the fear of the unknown. Lovecraft suggests that we as a species demand for everything to have a logical explanation and that humankind has an image of how the world works. Now what can strike more fear in the hearts of men [once again I do refer to the male gender, because there were no female characters] than coming up against a process or an event, which we cannot fit in the model we have created for the world. It is through knowing this fear that Lovecraft manages to incorporate the supernatural into his tale.

In The Case of Dexter Ward the characters that represent intelligence and knowledge [despite shown as a formless mass] the psychiatrists fear expanding their horizons and are depicted as conservative. They represent how comfortable humans can be with their definition of reality and the world. Keeping in mind that there might be something else they can’t explain or even fathom is ridiculous for them. They fear that unknown, because they are powerless without answers. On the contrary, Dr. Willett faces that fear and overcomes it, because he keeps an open mind and works with what he has despite the impossibility of the situations he finds himself in.

Despite being a horror story about necromancers, mutated creatures and summoning rituals, The Case of Dexter Ward is at its heart a cautionary tale about knowledge. The necromancers’ goal is to achieve dominance through vast and unending knowledge. The narcotic dependency on knowledge, the constant thirst for it and the immoral methods for acquiring it are results of our need to explain things. I think Lovecraft’s message is that some things are better off left unknown as opposed to prodded lest they bite back.

What the Library Says: The library is pleased. The library senses a new re-print soon enough. The library is certain the novel will have an excellent shelf life.

Reviews I’ve seen: [so far none. If you are a book blogger and have a review of this book, tell me and I will link it for you]

[Review] 'The Case of Charles Dexter Ward' by H.P. Lovecraft [Part 1]

Title: The Case of Dexter Ward
Author: H.P. Lovecraft
Genres: Horror
Softcover: 128 pages
Publisher: originally by Weird Tales in 1941; my translation is from 2007 by Publishing Group Bulgaria
Standalone/Series: Standalone
Copy: Bought it myself

Blurb: Incantations of black magic unearthed unspeakable horrors in a quiet town near Providence, Rhode Island. Evil spirits are being resurrected from beyond the grave, a supernatural force so twisted that it kills without offering the mercy of death!

Available from: Amazon - US - UK | B&N | BookDepository

Cover Comment: The shady, out-of-focus image that you’re seeing is the Bulgarian cover for this novel, which is a miserable cross between drawing and photo manipulation. My edition carries the novel The Case of Charles Dexter Ward as well as the novella Herbert West – Reanimator, which I think is why my book is called ‘The Re-Animator’. I never could find an image with better resolution and my copy is stashed somewhere I can’t find, so you can’t see how bad the cover actually is. Apart from trying to be current in design and failing at it, this is by far one of the better covers Bulgarian designers can produce. However, there is a lot on the cover that makes me cringe. Formatting the company name as the text the hunched man is so focused on writing is plain wrong as well as adding the title ‘The Call of Cthulhu’ in red, right lower corner. I wanted to comment on the cover to explain why SFF genre is not thriving here with original Bulgarian covers. It’s simply not eye-candy at best.

Review: The Case of Charles Dexter Ward is my first foray into Lovecraft and his demented fantasies, which I was more than convinced that I would love. My only regret so far is that my official christening is done through a translation and not in the original language, because I’m a firm believer that the original language holds more power over the reader. Even so, I found The Case of Charles Dexter Ward to be properly horrifying at the right places and interesting as a whole.

The novel is divided in five chapters, of which I will cover the first two and speak about the mechanics of the storytelling, the prose and worldbuilding. The story opens with ‘Conclusion and Prologue’, which introduces us to the setting [Providence in Rhode Island], presents the story [the sudden psychological and pathological degradation of the eccentric amateur-historian Charles Dexter Ward] and then the mystery [his disappearance from the asylum, where he has been treated]. From then on this brief section outlines the life of Charles: his childhood passion for history and genealogy, then his rapid changes from the harmless eccentricity to causing dread as well as his metamorphosis, where his interests shift from history to the modern world.

The interesting thing about Lovecraft is his heavy reliance on prose and omission of dialogue altogether. In his On Writing Stephen King speaks of Lovecraft’s inability to craft dialogue, which would explain the complete absence of it at large and also why when used, it’s done so in a sparing manner. I can’t judge that weakness, but it shows a great skill to labor one story without such a key component. What contributed to the success of this storytelling model is the documentary feel to it. Lovecraft has meticulously noted down a detailed timeline with a great many inserted opinions from different people and sources. The combined effect is one of omniscience based on the accumulated accounts and that this story can be nothing but true.

In the second chapter, ‘Past and Nightmare’ Lovecraft dedicates sixty pages to piece together the past of Joseph Curwen, Ward’s mysteriously discovered relative. Lovecraft charts his arrival to Providence, his accession as a successful trader, his shrouded in mystery hobbies and the communal outrage towards his activities, which results into an expedition of 100 men and his supposed murder.

Even though Curwen is deceased, he’s relevant to the story as it’s his legacy that acts as a catalyst for Ward’s transformation. It’s why Lovecraft goes at great length to flesh him out. Joseph’s story is sewn together from excerpts from letters, journals, registers and old newspapers. I could sense how passionate Lovecraft was while adding these details and this investigative approach to his research.

Where Lovecraft shines with his worldbuilding is with Providence. His narrative is littered with small sidetracks; perhaps two lines or even a phrase to add a small, inconsequential bit or trivia. Whereas modern horror often thrive in isolation; encapsulated in a house, a cottage, a flat or in a day, a week, a month and often exclude the city and society as characters. Here it’s the opposite. The reader is not only whisked away into the past to read of Joseph’s story, but to read of Providence as well.

Last but not least, I’d like to speak of Lovecraft’s horror. It’s widely known that the quote: ‘The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.’ belongs to Lovecraft and he practiced what he preached. In chapter two, I was chilled at several places without really getting direct answers. Joseph’s farm, the experiments he conducts there and the townsfolk expedition remain shrouded in secrecy with only hints and indirect accounts as to what unholy things transpired.

I found this both intriguing, annoying and dread inducing. The modern reader [horror lover] is accustomed to full frontal, visual attacks, high-definition and uncensored in rendition of gore, blood and deformity. Lovecraft shifts the focus from sight to hearing and smell [rarely relying on sights and when horrors are described the account is secondary] and remains vague at large in his descriptions. The mixture of awareness that something horrid is transpiring and the fact that these events are unrestricted by any dimensions is truly potent.

The reader can fill out the blanks with his/hers own personal phobias, thus amplifying the fear. Because where one fears snakes, another might love them, which can be said about pretty much everything. Scaring a lot of people with a plethora of different terrors is a challenge, especially to the modern jaded horror fan. Lovecraft’s technique is successful, because the fear of the unknown is still a primary fear.

Next Part: In the next part, I will pay more attention to the plot of the novel and later discuss the themes in the story. I warn you that tomorrow’s plot discussion will have only one spoiler but it’s the crux of the mystery, so you better watch out for my sign.

NOTE: Hope you enjoyed this a bit improved method for reviewing novels. I welcome all sort of feedback.

[Book Review] The City and The City by China Miéville

The City and The City got me thinking of Istanbul situated as it is between two worlds, Asia and Europe. And it has much in common with the cities in China Miéville award winning novel. Located at an undisclosed location on the Balkan the two cities Besźel and Ul Qoma lies intertwined and sometimes even occupying the same place. Besźel is rundown and its people wear grey or colorless clothes, the building are dull concrete and they are still recuperating from tyranny. Ul Qoma is the opposite with a booming economy, progress and colorful people. Much like I imagine how life in Instanbul is when you compare the poor with traditional upbringings to a secular European upper class, both living in different worlds in the same city ignoring and maybe not noticing each others.

In China’s world children are thought from young ages to ignore ‘the other city’ until it becomes instinctive. They even have a special corps ‘Breach’ that handles cases when people by mistake or intent breach the mental veil between the cities. ‘Breach’ is a force in itself outside the ruling councils of either city.

I fancy China was indeed thinking on Istanbul when he wrote this story. You might even go further META into the way we behave in today’s society, living inside our own ‘bubble’ of ‘reality’ ignoring the people outside it, even if they live in the same city, state, planet as we do. That’s the setting.

The plot starts as a classic murder mystery that unravels into something significantly larger. The body of a murdered young woman is found in an Alley in Besźel and out protagonist Inspector Tyador Borlú of the Extreme Crime Squad is assigned the case. He quickly becomes convinced that a breach has been committed so the case takes him into the other city where he develops a friendship with his counterpart there. The contrasts between the two worlds are made clearer by the two partners own lack of knowledge about each other’s cities.

This is my first China Miéville novel and I found it very accessible and easy to read. This is not really the usual science fiction for me. I prefer technology and space related science fiction. I still found this an entertaining and fun read. The murder mystery in itself might have been enough for a worthy novel but here the setting add both dimensions and intrigue to the story.

I can tell you I found The City and The City to be a great book, maybe even a future classic. It might not be for everyone, it seems to have a hate it or love it impact on people. I loved it but it was not the book on top of my Hugo vote (nor was the other winner).

Reviewer: Ove Jansson

Copy: Hugo voter package

Rating: 9/10

Information

Title: The City and The City

Author: China Miéville
Genre: Alternative Reality
Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: Del Rey 2009 | Macmillan | Pan

Order from: Amazon US | UK | B&N | sfbok

New York Times bestselling author China Miéville delivers his most accomplished novel yet, an existential thriller set in a city unlike any other–real or imagined.

When a murdered woman is found in the city of Beszel, somewhere at the edge of Europe, it looks to be a routine case for Inspector Tyador Borlú of the Extreme Crime Squad. But as he investigates, the evidence points to conspiracies far stranger and more deadly than anything he could have imagined.

Borlú must travel from the decaying Beszel to the only metropolis on Earth as strange as his own. This is a border crossing like no other, a journey as psychic as it is physical, a shift in perception, a seeing of the unseen. His destination is Beszel’s equal, rival, and intimate neighbor, the rich and vibrant city of Ul Qoma. With Ul Qoman detective Qussim Dhatt, and struggling with his own transition, Borlú is enmeshed in a sordid underworld of rabid nationalists intent on destroying their neighboring city, and unificationists who dream of dissolving the two into one. As the detectives uncover the dead woman’s secrets, they begin to suspect a truth that could cost them and those they care about more than their lives.

What stands against them are murderous powers in Beszel and in Ul Qoma: and, most terrifying of all, that which lies between these two cities.

Casting shades of Kafka and Philip K. Dick, Raymond Chandler and 1984, The City & the City is a murder mystery taken to dazzling metaphysical and artistic heights.

[Review] The New Iron Man Anime Series

I discovered the Iron Man anime by pure chance and had to watch it. There are plenty of reasons why the Iron Man character is perfect for a Japanese anime adaptation. For starters, Japanese excel at stories about people mounting various mechanical suits or machines that later on transform into humanoids. Let's think of Gundam, Voltron and the Mighty Morphing Rangers [though that example is a bit of pushing-my-luck]. On the same techno wave there is Megaman and Astro boy.

It's a definite that Japanese animators know their mecha and they don't waste their time. In the first episode, Tony Stark engages in a beautiful aerial scene and then into heavy combat with a suit gone rogue and then an alien-looking mechanical beast. The quality of is beyond all my expectations and the anime is stunning to watch. You can see for yourself. Here is the opening sequence, which pretty much sets the tone for the series:



On a different level, I don't think this anime will work for Westerners. Tony Stark loves his women, his liquor and a good boast. I haven't read enough of the comic series that feature him as a lead [I'm generally not interested in him as a character], but Stark's everything that the Japanese aren't. Most of their anime and manga production feature a lead, who wants to achieve something morally good and has no dark flaws such as alcoholism. Perhaps the lead will be too nice, too shy or too modest aka character traits that Tony Stark is far from. And this shows... His flirts are almost innocent. He's passive and well it's like watching Stark, but on sleeping pills. However, I don't want to sound like a mad fanboy [considering that I'm not] and do think that it will be interesting to see how the Japanese will re-invent Stark.

[Review] Servant of the Underworld by Aliette de Bodard

Title: Servant of the Underworld

Series: Obsidian and Blood book 1
Author: Aliette de Bodard
Genre: Aztec Fantasy
Paperback: 432
Publisher: Angry Robot (2010)

Copy: bought it myself
Reviewer: Ove Jansson

Order from: Amazon US | UK | B&N | sfbok

Year One-Knife, Tenochtitlan the capital of the Aztecs. The end of the world is kept at bay only by the magic of human sacrifice. A Priestess disappears from an empty room drenched in blood. Acatl, High Priest, must find her, or break the boundaries between the worlds of the living and the dead.

Aliette De Bodard is the hottest rising star in world SF and Fantasy, blending ancient crimes with wild imagination. This is her debut novel.

FILE UNDER: Modern Fantasy [The Aztecs / Locked room mystery / Human sacrifice / Destroy the Gods]

It is very refreshing to read a fantasy that takes place outside the ordinary western settings with elfs, orcs and traditional magic. Aliette have found her culture and settings in central American pre-colonization Aztec country. This is a mystery investigated by Acatl, High Priest for the Dead. In many respect it reminds of traditional mystery novels but the settings are the sacred city with its priests, worshipers, warriors, pyramids, temples, cults and living gods.

Blood magic place a major part in the magic here, you have to give a little to make it work. Blood and cutting is something Acatl is doing all the time but he does get weak of blood loss from time to time. Magic also involves the gods but there is a very pragmatic view on the gods and their willingness to help, it is more of a negotiation than the traditional christian/other religions submit to your god kind of worship that I find entertaining.

There is the traditional peeling of the onion of deception and intrigue before the story turns to its cataclysmic and cosmic conclusion. Acatl is a very good detective and I feel I learned a lot of the Aztecs by reading this book. Some of the names are a bit hard to pronounce but that never stopped me before. The plot is captivating and the characters came to life to my inner eye.

Some people might have a problem with names they can't pronounce but these are historically correct Aztec's ones not like some science fiction novels I read with arbitrary made up names I can't pronounce.

This is a great book if you want to try a different kind of fantasy set outside the traditional western or Japanese settings. It is very much a standalone book but it is part of a trilogy. I enjoyed it very much and I will buy the sequel Harbringer of the Storm when it is released in January 2011.

Rating: 9/10

[Review] Darkship Thieves by Sarah A. Hoyt

Title: Darkship Thieves

Author: Sarah A. Hoyt

Genre: Space Opera

Paperback: 384 pages

Publisher: Baen

Copy: bought it myself

Reviewer: Ove Jansson

Order From: Amazon US | UK | B&N

Athena Hera Sinistra never wanted to go to space. Never wanted see the eerie glow of the Powerpods. Never wanted to visit Circum Terra. Never had any interest in finding out the truth about the DarkShips. You always get what you don’t ask for. Which must have been why she woke up in the dark of shipnight, within the greater night of space in her father’s space cruiser, knowing that there was a stranger in her room. In a short time, after taking out the stranger—who turned out to be one of her father’s bodyguards up to no good, she was hurtling away from the ship in a lifeboat to get help. But what she got instead would be the adventure of a lifetime—if she managed to survive. . . .

For being the daughter of a seacity ruler Athena Hera Sinistra, our protagonist picked up an amazing skill set while going rampage through military schools, instructors, reformatories, madhouses and ballet school.

It helps a lot when she wakes up with an unknown man leaning over her aboard her father's space cruiser. She succeeds in subduing him and flees the ship half naked in an escape pod. In a desperate attempt to escape her pursuers she heads into the dangerous power-tree forest and crashes into a dark ship. She is rescued by the pilot.

She have run into the Darkship Thieves of legend.

This is a really mesmerizing book, I started reading and after a few pages I was in the world Sarah A. Hoyt created experiencing it from the slightly disturbed mind of a captivating young woman. Athena Hera Sinistra is as much a handful as her name, but it is a handful easy to love as a reader.

The book reminds me of old Space Opera classics like the Skylark series but with much better characterization and world building.

24th century Earth has outlawed all bio-engineering since the revolt against the super engineered sterile Mules that ruled humanity. All Mules and their bio-engineered servants where killed but legend has it a few escaped in a spaceship. Earth civilization is centered around the seacities, each ruled by a Good Man with dictatorial powers, and Daddy Dearest is one of them.

The Darkship Thieves home, Eden is quite different but I won't ruin the surprise for you.

At the core of the story is the morality of bio-engineering and cloning humans.

I first learned about Sarah A. Hoyt from The Big Idea article about Darkship Thieves on John Scalzi's blog Whatever and found it quite entertaining that the Big Idea started with Sarah being annoyed. But it wasn't until I read a rant Blame It on the Girls on Darwin's evolutions I started to suspect I found a new favorite author. And I was right. Now I can't wait to read more by Sarah and any sequel to Darkship Thieves would be on the top of my list.

I love Darkship Thieves and Athena the strong heroine, you will too.

Other blog reviews of Darkship Thieves:
- by Ella Drake 13 things she enjoyed with Darkship Thieves

Rating: 9/10

[Book Review] Terminal World by Alastair Reynolds

Title: Terminal World

Author: Alastair Reynolds
Genre: Futuristic Steampunk

Audiobook: 19h 45 m
Naration: John Lee
Publisher: Tantor Media

Hardback: 496 pages
Publisher: Gollancz (March 2010) | ACE (June 2010)

Order from: Audible | Amazon US | UK | B&N

Copy: bought by me

Reviewer: Ove Jansson

Spearpoint, the last human city, is an atmosphere-piercing spire of vast size. Clinging to its skin are the zones, a series of semi-autonomous city-states, each of which enjoys a different - and rigidly enforced - level of technology. Horsetown is pre-industrial; in Neon Heights they have television and electric trains ...Following an infiltration mission that went tragically wrong, Quillon has been living incognito, working as a pathologist in the district morgue. But when a near-dead angel drops onto his dissecting table, Quillon's world is wrenched apart one more time, for the angel is a winged posthuman from Spearpoint's Celestial Levels - and with the dying body comes bad news. If Quillon is to save his life, he must leave his home and journey into the cold and hostile lands beyond Spearpoint's base, starting an exile that will take him further than he could ever imagine. But there is far more at stake than just Quillon's own survival, for the limiting technologies of the zones are determined not by governments or police, but by the very nature of reality - and reality itself is showing worrying signs of instability ...

This was a surprise for me, Terminal world is different in tone from what I can remember from other works by Alastair Reynolds and the futuristic steampunky setting is something else to. I think steampunk is the new black. From what I read lately a lot of writing talent goes into the new brass genre.

Terminal world is something unusual, an earth that consists of zones that appears to have different natural laws. And the protagonist is an undercover angel on the run from the Celestial Levels. I find I like the world here with its zone sickness when you pass from zone to zone; the different levels of technology in each zone and the whole mystery how the world came from what we have today to what it is here.

I listen to this in audio-book version well narrated by John Lee for Tantor Media but it was the story that caught my interest and made me finish it in a few evenings of listening. The pace is quick and the settings keep changing as the true scope of the mystery becomes revealed. The characters are compelling and their relationships twists to keep us in suspense but I also find I want to know more about them than I am given. The book is well contained and the ending gives good closure but there is more to explore in this world which makes me hope Mr Reynolds will return here.

Terminal World is steam punk with 'real' science and a brilliant explanation will be given by the end of the story. I am still thinking about the characters and the big idea here, two weeks after finishing the book.

Rating 10/10

[Review] Earth Strike by Ian Douglas (Star Carrier 1)

This is a high octane military space opera set about 300 years into the future. It follows the Star Carrier CVS America and Lieutenant Gray, one of the pilots. Ian Douglas (a pseudonym for William H. Keith) is following a familiar pattern with this new Star Carrier series I recognize from his Star Marine series - Humanity is set against a galactic empire, this time ruled by the elusive and mysterious Sh’daar.

Title: Earth Strike

Series: Star Carrier 1

Author: Ian Douglas

Genre: Military Space Opera

Paperback: 368 pages

Publisher: Eos 2010

Excerpt: page 1-65

Order from: Eos | Amazon US | UK | B&N

Copy: brought by me

Reviewer: Ove Jansson

The first book in the epic saga of humankind’s war of transcendence

There is a milestone in the evolution of every sentient race, a Tech Singularity Event, when the species achieves transcendence through its technological advances. Now the creatures known as humans are near this momentous turning point.

But an armed threat is approaching from deepest space, determined to prevent humankind from crossing over that boundary—by total annihilation if necessary.

To the Sh’daar, the driving technologies of transcendent change are anathema and must be obliterated from the universe—along with those who would employ them. As their great warships destroy everything in their path en route to the Sol system, the human Confederation government falls into dangerous disarray. There is but one hope, and it rests with a rogue Navy Admiral, commander of the kilometer-long star carrier America, as he leads his courageous fighters deep into enemy space towards humankind’s greatest conflict—and quite possibly its last.

The plot is similar to the Star Marine series. Humanity is set against a vast galaxy spanning empire this time with different kinds of alien in it. The war has been going on for some thirty years by the time this story begins. The star carrier CVS America and her task group attack and evacuate a Marine contingent under siege by the Turusch, an alien race subservient to the Sh’daar from a planet thirty-seven light years from earth. The Marines have captured two Turusch soldiers and they are the task forces real objective, since no live Turusch have ever been captured before. It is a nice believable battle and really good introduction to the characters.

After their mission they return to Earth and we get more than a glimpse into life of the twenty-fourth century. World building is good even if Ian’s usual stereotypes shine trough a bit. Politicians and Civilians are stupid and don’t know what to do.

The Turusch launch a surprise attack on earth that America and her crew has to repel.

Characterization in Earth Strike is even better than in Semper Human (The last book in the Star Marines series that came out last summer). Lt Gray has a complex and believable background in the Manhattan swamps, beside him you also gets to follow Rear Admiral Koenig point of view. The alien Turusch are also quite interesting and they have names like Tactician emphatic blossom at dawn and their psychology is also interesting with different minds the Mind Below , the Mind Above and the Mind Here in dialog with each other. The Sh’daar reminds behind the scene so far, but I guess we will learn more about them later in the series.

Earth Strike is a solid uncomplicated military science fiction I would recommend to all readers of military SF. It is also an excellent book to start the with if you haven’t read anything by Ian Douglas before. Characterization and storytelling have never been better in any of his books, the lore part is still second to the first star marine trilogy but we are just starting out in this new universe and not even the humans here know better.

The next Star Carrier book Center of Gravity (EOS | Amazon US | UK | B&N) will be published in February 2011 and might cover a strike at the aliens forward base.

Rating: 8/10

REVIEW: Orgasmachine by Ian Watson

Orgasmachine by Ian Watson
Paperback: 192 pages
Publisher: NewCon Press (2 April 2010)
ISBN-10: 1907069151
ISBN-13: 978-1907069154
Copy: Bought online
Reviewer: Cara

Synopsis:
Forget Stepford Wives; this goes way beyond anything seen in Stepford.


The Three Laws of Feministics:

1. Your body is not your own; it belongs to another. Therefore you may not damage it nor, through inaction, allow it to be damaged.
2. You must obey all orders given to you by your owner (or in cases of loss of ownership, by any man) even if such orders conflict with the First Law.
3. You may not injure any man, nor through failure to comply with the Second Law, cause him displeasure and mental injury.

Women as chattels, as customised sex slaves; bodies freakishly modified to their owners’ dictates, personalities preset to order. Welcome to the world of the Orgasmachine.


But Jade and Mari escape their masters and dream of revenge, of revolution, of freedom.

Originally written in 1970, after Ian Watson spent three years living and teaching English in Japan, Orgasmachine was eventually published in 2010.

I must confess, I spent much of my time reading this book with my jaw hitting the floor! There were numerous exclamations of “WTF?” and at one point I considered abandoning Orgasmachine thinking it couldn’t get any more bizarre and extreme, but I continued on to the end and I am glad I did. Make no mistake, this is most definitely an adult novel as the sexual content is about as explicit as it gets. But if you are looking for titillation, this is not the book for you. Instead Ian Watson describes an overtly misogynistic society, where women are purely sex commodities, to be bought and discarded at will, used and abused in all manner of disturbing ways, and denied even the most basic of human rights.

Orgasmachine begins in an offshore island facility; here women are ‘grown’ in bottles, genetically modified to custom specifications, and, once they reach maturity, refined by plastic surgeon. Their personalities are developed according to their future owners requirements. Here we meet Jade, she of the giant cerulean eyes and the central character, who is leaving the island for the city, into the care of her owner. She makes her farewells to Hana, her closest friend, then her dormitory companions, all of whom will make the same journey across the water to the city beyond.

“Lili the hermaphrodite, Mari the girl with fur and claws, Sue and Susan the Siamese twins who live back to back like two playing cards, Una and Remi the twin lesbians almost narcissistic in their devotion to each other, and Cathy the executive girl, one of whose prosthetic breast conceals a drawer, empty now but intended for cigarettes or small cigars, while the other holds a rechargeable battery which makes her nipple glow red-hot for use as a lighter when the breast is squeezed.”

The introductory chapter gives us some idea of just how warped and bizarre this futuristic society is, yet we are lulled into a false sense of security as the girls harbour romantic notions of being wanted and cherished by their owners, having been created for these unknown men. Once in the city, we find that how these girls are treated is even more disturbing than their genetic modifications. The degree of cruelty and degradation experienced by Jade and her friends defies belief. Hana, the mute, sensitive girl with six breasts that lactate aphrodisiac milk, is taken to a ‘fuckeasy’ bar, where she is fitted with a brass collar and chain, then a brass chastity belt with a coin-operated unlocking mechanism… Mari, the tiger-girl is caged with wild animals… Jade is obliged to dress in the skin of a different girl each night. Just when you think it cannot get any worse, another depraved scenario is revealed and the horror is chilling. Orgasmachine describes the abyss of male sexual behaviour within a society that does not consider women to be of any value or worth. Women die and are replaced, they are discarded without a thought for their welfare, they are punished, mistreated, abused without consequence. This is the ultimate in misogyny and it is painful to read, knowing that in our own society today there are women who undergo similar treatment.

But there is hope. Towards the end of the book, when I was beginning to despair of the relentless cruelty, some of the women escape their sexual slavery and end up in a roller derby team. Here they find respite from the cruelty and degradation and instead have some degree of freedom and independence. It is here that the revolution begins. Mari, Carmen and Jade question the lives they have been forced to lead and rebel against the society that sanctions and legitimises the abuse of all women.

While reading Orgasmachine I thought about how women are treated in our own world; from the total oppression of the Taliban regime, the trafficking of East European women into UK brothels, the highly sexualised imagery prevalent in our media. Yes, Ian Watson’s vision of a future society was extreme to say the least, but is our own culture any better? We live in a society where girls aspire to be glamour models (with Jordan as their role model), where the newspapers are full of reports of rape and domestic violence, where women are stoned to death for alleged adultery. Sex is glamourised in the media, yet women are vilified for being single mothers. Double standards are everywhere – where is the outcry over the men who don’t take responsibility for their children, or the reluctance of men to frequent brothels where East European or Asian women are forced into prostitution? Orgasmachine is a very disturbing book that left me with a lot to think about in terms of the world I live in, and for that I think it was worth reading, bizarre and extreme as it was.

REVIEW: Storm Front by Jim Butcher

Storm Front by Jim Butcher
Book 1 of The Dresden Files series
Paperback: 342 pages
Publisher: Orbit; UK edition (1 Sep 2005)
ISBN-10: 1841493988
ISBN-13: 978-1841493985
Reviewer: Cara
Copy: Bought online

Synopsis:
Lost items found. Paranormal Investigations.
Consulting. Advice. Reasonable rates.
No Love Potions, Endless Purses, or
Other Entertainment.


Harry Dresden is the best at what he does – and not just because he’s the only one who does it. So when the Chicago P.D. has a case that transcends mortal capabilities, they come to him for answers. Because the everyday world is not as ‘everyday’ as it seems. It’s actually full of strange and supernatural things – and most of them don’t play well with humans. That’s where Harry comes in. Takes a wizard to catch a – well, whatever it is the police are having trouble with this time.


There’s just one problem. Business, to put it mildly, stinks. So when the police bring him in to consult on a grisly double murder committed with black magic, Harry’s seeing dollar signs. But where there’s black magic, there’s a black mage behind it. And now that mage knows Harry’s name. And that’s where things start to get… interesting.


Magic. It can get a guy killed.

Storm Front is the first in The Dresden files, a series based on Harry Dresden’s adventures as a wizard Private Investigator in modern day Chicago. The series is now at twelve books, with number thirteen due for release in 2011.

Take one Private Detective, add some self-deprecating humour, a measure of cynicism, a good amount of personal honour, and mix well with plenty of magical ability. The result is Harry Dresden, star of the show. Trading heavily on the tradition of hard-bitten American PI’s, Jim Butcher brings us a dark detective novel in the vein of Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Mickey Spillane et al. Only in this book, we have magic to add another dimension to the genre.

Harry Dresden is the only wizard PI in the Chicago area and, in a world where supernatural beings live alongside humans, albeit under the radar, he should be a busy man. But he is not and the resulting lack of finances adds to his problems. For he is under the watchful eye of the White Council, on a kind of probation supervised by the Warden, Morgan, who is watching and waiting for Harry to step out of line so he can kill him. Although a bit of a loner, Harry has a few allies… there is Karrin Murphy, director of Special Investigations at the Chicago Police Department, who calls him in to consult on a particularly gruesome double murder, the central plot in Storm Front. There is also Bob, a spirit of air who lives in a specially prepared skull in Harry’s basement who remembers things, like spells and is rather keen on sex - possibly because he can't get any, being a spirit! To complicate things further, Harry has an unfortunate effect on technology… nothing works when he is around, so no computers, high-tech gadgets, or even a reliable electrical supply. Harry is an old school detective, but one who has strong magical abilities.

I thoroughly enjoyed Storm Front. It has a distinct noir-ish feel, lifted by some very dark humour. Harry is the principle protagonist, everything is told from his point of view in the first person. This gives us good insight into Harry’s motivations and especially his personal code of honour. And while he is a prickly character, it is not hard to like Harry who has plenty of attitude and a tendency to wind people up! He is working alongside the Chicago PD to find out who killed a leading gangster’s henchman and his regular escort by magically exploding their hearts from the inside. His investigations lead him to make an enemy of Bianca, a vampire madam, and also of Johnny Marcone, Chicago’s crime boss. With the suspended death sentence hanging over him from the White Council, Harry has to tread very carefully indeed if he is to solve the murders, knowing that they were committed by a powerful mage tapping into the blackest magic.

It is fair to say that Harry survives this adventure, as there are 12 more books in The Dresden Files series, but how he does this… well I would recommend you read Storm Front to find out for yourself! If you like dark humour, a good whodunit and lots of magic you will not be disappointed. On the strength of Storm Front, I have order the next 2 books in the series and I look forward to reading more about Harry Dresden.


Rating 8/10