2011 Nebula Awards Nominees Announced

The list of nominees for the 2011 Nebula Awards have been released. I'm always interested in who is up for Best Novel.

• The Native Star, M.K. Hobson (Spectra)
• The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit UK; Orbit US)
• Shades of Milk and Honey, Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor)
• Echo, Jack McDevitt (Ace)
• Who Fears Death, Nnedi Okorafor (DAW)
• Blackout/All Clear, Connie Willis (Spectra)

I have read The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, but was not impressed. Connie Willis wrote one of my favorite books of all-time, Doomsday Book, which won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards. Blackout/All Clear is something of a sequel to that book, and I have just begun Blackout.

BOOK REVIEW: DAN SIMMONS' Hyperion Cantos

Dan Simmons is the author of the four classic novels Hyperion, The Fall of Hyperion, Endymion, The Rise of Endymion which together are sometimes referred to as the Hyperion Cantos. Simmons himself explains why it took four boks to essentially contain two stories when he said "this so-called epic actually consists of two long and mutually dependent tales, the two Hyperion stories combined and the two Endymion stories combined, broken into four books because of the realities of publishing." 

All of the books were nominated for various big-name speculative fiction awards, with most of the books winning at least one.

Below I will review each of the four works which make up Dan Simmons' Hyperion Cantos.

Hyperion 
The first book of the series won the Hugo and Locus awards for the year it came out, despite being just the first half of a gigantic novel. Hyperion sets the tone for the entire series by introducing all the main characters through various background stories each given in its own chapter. They are, in order, The Priest (Lenar Hoyt), The Soldier (Fedmahn Kasad), The Poet (Martin Silenus), The Scholar (Sol Weintraub), The Detective (Brawne Lamia) and The Consul. They are known as Pilgrims, because they have traveled to Hyperion in order to encounter the only known supernatural being in this technologically advanced universe, The Shrike.

Dan Simmons uses these stories to paint a picture of a vibrant, intriguing universe. The Hegemony of Man is the name of a 200-plus confederation of worlds that have been colonized by humanity, connected by farcasters, portals which allow instantaneous travel between planets, facilitated by the TechnoCore, an artificial intelligence. Through a similar technology, called the fatline, there is also instantaneous communication between planets. Even in this gigantic collection of planets, Hyperion, is (in)famous because it is the location of The Time Tombs and the Shrike. The Time Tombs are bizarre artefacts that appear to be moving backwards in time. The Shrike is a terrifying creature that can appear anywhere at any time to inflict an excruciating death; he is known as the Lord of Pain.

Hyperion is an astonishing accomplishment. He has created fascinating, well-rounded characters and dropped them into a rich, realistic universe set in the far future. Additionally, he uses the formal structure of the book to  show off his ability to write in different styles and genres.The stories of the seven travelers include a love story, a horror story, a noir detective thriller and a fantastical tale of a father's love for his daughter. This is just one measure of complexity of this fine novel.

Title: Hyperion
Author: Dan Simmons
Length: 481 pages.
Publisher: Spectra.
Date: February 1, 1990.

OVERALL GRADE: A-.

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: B+.
WRITING: A.

The Fall of Hyperion

The second book of the series is The Fall of Hyperion, which begins immediately after the first book Hyperion concludes. In my opinion, this book is even better than the first book, which is an instant classic. Instead of repeating the stylized format of Hyperion, the sequel uses a more familiar direct structure to present a tale of interstellar war intertwined with the stories of what happens to the seven pilgrims introduced in the first book.

The book introduces, and is centered around, the character of Meina Gladstone, the Abraham Lincoln-like leader of global humanity, who in the 29th century number 130 billion on over 200 planets. Gladstone is like Lincoln, Golda Meir and Winston Churchill all rolled up in one. As CEO of the Senate, Goldstone is the leader of the Hegemony of Man, who are being attacked by a huge force of ships which are presumed to come from a faction of humanity which has embraced biological manipulation known as the Ousters. Gladstone is a very compelling character, and we get to see what it would be like to be the leader of a great civilization under the extreme duress of war.

However,  The Fall of Hyperion contains a lot more tricks up its sleeve. We get more information on the cruciform that was introduced during Father Lenar Hoyt's story in the original Hyperion. It appears to be a device which is indestructible, and when attached to a human being, makes that person immortal, because as long as there is some biological matter attached to the cruciform, it can regenerate the original host in approximately 3 days. The implications on religion, especially Catholicism are profound, and The Fall of Hyperion delves into those, while still unfolding the fates of the original Pilgrims (at least those who survived the first book). Not all the Pilgrims survive the second book, and the sacrifices and choices that Meina Gladstone has to make in order to "save" humanity will take your breath away.

Title: The Fall of Hyperion
Author: Dan Simmons
Length: 528 pages.
Publisher: Spectra.
Date: November 1, 1995.

OVERALL GRADE: A/A-.

PLOT: A.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A-.
WRITING: A.

Endymion


Endymion begins with one of the great lines in science fiction: "You are reading this for the wrong reason." These words are written by Raul Endymion, in the 31st century, nearly 300 years after the events depicted in Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion. Raul was born on Hyperion, and is a 27-year-old outdoorsman who finds himself sentenced to death after killing an odious businessman. After being rescued from this fate, Raul is sent on an impossible quest by the last surviving Pilgrim from the first book.

Endymion is a road trip movie writ large, combined with a chase thriller and a religious fable. We discover that after the resolution  of the war in The Fall of Hyperion the Church has become the most powerful political force in the human Universe, as they use the cruciform as a bribe to gain complete fealty to The Pope and the Church Hierarchy by the vast majority of humanity. However, the Church is being challenged by She Who Teaches, also known as Aenea. Raul's impossible quest involved rescuing Aenea from the Time Tombs and The Shrike and keeping her safe from the Church forces who wish to do her harm. Aenea is the 13-year-old daughter of  one of the original Pilgrims, who have (mostly) been dead for multiple centuries at this point.

The Church forces are led by Father Captain de Soya, who is a pretty interesting character. Through his eyes, we get to see the inner workings of the Church, from the point of view of a true believer who is willing to die (and be resurrected) repeatedly in order to fulfill the mission his superiors have assigned him.

Another interesting aspect of Endymion is the re-appearance of The Shrike, and the new ambiguity we are presented about its motives and actions. We begin to see it as more than just a killing machine, since it seems to have some kind of odd attraction (and protective attitude) to(wards) Aenea. Aenea is another example of one of those all-knowing children we have seen before (Alia in Frank Herbert's Dune, anyone?) whose messianic destiny has been pre-ordained (somehow she will become The One Who Teaches).

The story is primarily told from the perspective of Raul, and although Aenea seems to know what will happen in the future, the future can be changed by current events, and so she often acts in ways that frustrate Raul (and by extension the reader). That being said, Endymion is an excellent follow-on to the first two books in the series, and nicely sets up the action for the series' conclusion in The Rise of Endymion.

Title: Endymion

Author: Dan Simmons

Length: 576 pages.

Publisher: Spectra.

Date: November 1, 1996.

OVERALL GRADE: A-/B+.

PLOT: A-.

IMAGERY: B+.

IMPACT: A-.

WRITING: A-.

The Rise of Endymion
The Rise of Endymion is the final book in Simmons' classic Hyperion Cantos. Although this entry is the weakest book of the four, it is still a compelling read and really just suffers in direct comparison to the other superlative works in the collection.


The Rise of Endymion is the most philosophical (and somewhat didactic) of the books. It focuses more o the story of Aenea and the conflict between her as the new messiah and the intransigent Catholic Church which has been headed by Pope Urban (formerly Father Lenar Hoyt) for multiple centuries. It's not to say that the other books lack Deep Thoughts, but it is in The Rise of Endymion that Simmons really makes his ideology clear. He is clearly opposed to organized religion but also promotes some form of Zen-Buddhism.

The strengths of The Rise of Endymion greatly outweigh the weaknesses I have mentioned here. These strengths include the description of the space battles, the characterization of Raul and the heart-rending ending. Some people have a real problem with the character of Aenea. I question their obsession with her because I re-read the Hyperion Cantos in 2010 after leaving the books on the shelf for at least a decade (although I did acknowledge they were some of my all-time favorite SF reads) and the main things that had stayed with me was The Shrike, the cruciform and the perfidious depiction of the Church--I had completely forgotten about the characters of Raul and Aenea.

One review I found while researching my reviews said about Aenea:

Aenea has become the most annoying character in the series. She denies being a messiah, but she speaks in koans. She can glimpse the future, but refuses to tell anyone anything about it. She doesn't say anything about why. She is ultimately secretive and holds back a lot of what she knows. There are parts of the book where characters ask her questions where her answers could save them, make their lives easier, etc., and she point-blank refuses to reveal anything, or begs to put off answering until "the right time." All this clichéd and cryptic messianic behavior is just far too ridiculous for me. Frank Herbert was far superior at handling characters who could see the future. Dan Simmons' "the One Who Teaches" is sadly reduced to a mystic know-it-all.

This is a pretty harsh assessment in an overall mixed review ("a work that will engross and absorb at times, and at others irritate and frustrate"). I am more positively inclined towards the book, and the series overall. Many people think the first book is the best, I actually think the second is slightly better, but I would recommend that any science fiction fan who is interested in reading the best the genre has to offer to take the time to complete the entire Hyperion Cantos.

Title: The Rise of Endymion

Author: Dan Simmons

Length: 720 pages.

Publisher: Spectra.

Date: July 1, 1998.

OVERALL GRADE: A-/B+.

PLOT: A-.

IMAGERY: B+.

IMPACT: A-.

WRITING: B+.

BOOK REVIEW: Paolo Bacigalupi's The Windup Girl

 

Paolo Bacigalupi's The Windup Girl is regarded as some as the most celebrated science fiction debut novel of all time. It was published in 2009 and has won the Nebula award, tied for the Hugo award for Best Novel, the John W. Campbell Award, and the Locus Award for Best Debut Novel.

The Windup Girl is considered an excellent example of a new genre of speculative fiction called "biopunk." Biopunk is a new term derived from cyberpunk science fiction and generally involves detailing the dangerous impacts of the biotechnology revolution on the near-future development of mankind. Bacigalupi had already made a notable name for himself by writing multiple award-winning short stories which contain many of the same themes which appear in this debut novel.

Similar to my experience with the other 2010 Hugo Award-winner for Best Novel, The City & The City, I really wanted to like this book but my actual experience of reading the book was less enjoyable than the enthusiastic reviews would have lead me to expect.

After reading the very first chapter I told my Other Half, "I don't think I'm going to like this book as much as the critics did."

My main problem with the book was my lack of connection with any of the main characters. Those were: Emiko (the eponymous windup girl of the title; she is a genetically modified humanoid--known as New People-- who has been engineered for absolute obedience); Hock Seng (a formerly very successful Chinese industrialist who is a refugee from an ethnic purge of Chinese people in Malaysia; he is known as a "yellow card" in Thailand due to his questionable immigrant status in the country); Anderson Lake (a secret representative of the multinational corporation AgriGen known as a "calorie man," he is currently the owner to Hock Seng's operations manager at a factory which produces "kink-springs";) Jaidee and Kanya (they are two "white shirts" who are employed by the Environment Ministry as somewhat arbitrary enforcers of strict environment regulations).

One of the central threads of the novel's plot is a political power struggle between General Pracha, the head of the Environmental Ministry, and the head of the Trade Ministry, Akkarat to control the city of Bangkok. The other main thread involves how (and whether) Emiko the windup girl will survive her dismal and desperate existence in Thailand. When we meet her, she is basically a sex slave who is being abused nightly for the entertainment and pleasure of men by another female employee. Because of her nature, Emiko can't refuse any request or order, regardless of how depraved or humiliating it is. Hock Seng is scheming to steal the plans for a revolutionary kink-spring in his boss Anderson Lake's safe in order to restart his career. Jaidee and Kanya (who is a secret mole for Akkarat) are pawns in the power struggle between Environment and Trade.

The most notable aspect of The Windup Girl is the alternate-history world view that Bacigalupi presents. In his vision, there has been an environmental catastrophe (Bangkok is literally under sea level, but is being protected by huge sea walls). Additionally, multinational corporations have their own private armies and regularly release genetically modified produce whose seeds can dominate and make sterile the indigenous produce of other nations. The currency of this new world is "calories." Most electric energy appears to be generated by kinetic energy, by turning "kink-springs" which can translate motion into power used to run machines. Of course, humans and animals get their energy to move from calories they eat. So, the corporations that control food production now control the world. It's an engaging and fascinating vision and Bacigalupi conveys it well. It's all the other aspects of a good book which seems to have eluded him: interesting (possibly sympathetic) characters in unusual situations with compelling conflicts and motivations. I was interested in the milieu the characters were in, but could care less what happened to the careers.

The primary defect of the book is the character of Emiko, the windup girl. It is just insupportable to re-create gender-based subordination in the form of what is essentially a real, live sex doll and not expect some people to object. Bacigalupi basically punts on the implication of his characterization of Emiko, even when he compounds it by layering on a Japanese name and explicitly giving her a bac story of being  a discarded plaything of a Japanese businessman who left her in Thailand because he didn't feel it was worth it to pay for Emiko to travel back to his country.

The way the stories are left somewhat unresolved makes it very likely that there will be a sequel to The Windup Girl but I doubt it will be a book I will feel is worth my time.

Title: The Windup Girl.
Author: Paolo Bacigalupi.
Length: 361 pages.
Publisher: Nightshade Books.
Date: September 15, 2009.

PLOT: B.
IMAGERY: B+.
IMPACT: B+.
WRITING: A-.

OVERALL GRADE:  B+ (3.33/4.0).

BOOK REVIEW: Peter F. Hamilton's The Evolutionary Void

 

Peter F. Hamilton's The Evolutionary Void is the third (and final) book in the British science fiction grandmaster's Void Trilogy which started with The Dreaming Void and The Temporal Void. I was looking forward to reading this book very much and even purchased the hard copy on Amazon.com months prior to its official publication.


Hamilton is well-known for his long, intricately plotted, hard sci-fi space operas which are peopled with a dizzying number of characters. The Evolutionary Void is no exception, and it is even more complicated than his other books because it is not only the culminating work in the Void Trilogy, it also follows his earlier Commonwealth Saga books Judas Unchained  and Pandora's Star.

The Evolutionary Void picks up exactly where The Temporal Void concluded. There are multiple storylines which are instantaneously resumed which requires the reader to get up to speed very quickly. In fact, it is probably impossible to read and enjoy this book without reading the first two books (The Temporal Void and The Dreaming Void) first, and relatively recently.

The main story lines are bifurcated into action that takes place either inside or outside the Void, a spatial anomaly which can potentially expand to eliminate the known Galaxy. Inside the Void, the main character is Edeard the Waterwalker who lives in the curiously exogenous city-state of Makkathran which possesses a pseudo-feudal political structure with very limited technology but is populated with humans having telekinetic and telepathic powers. Outside the Void, 1200 years have passed since the exciting events depicted in Hamilton's Judas Unchained  and Pandora's Star. Many of the main characters from those books (Paula Myo, Ozzie Isaacs, Nigel Sheldon, Gore and Justine Burnelli and Oscar Monroe come to mind) are still around, and if you haven't read the previous duology then the reader will miss some nuances of these characters' interactions. The people outside the Void know about the goings on inside through Dreams which are shared in the gaiasphere, a galactic-wide network where properly equipped humans can share their emotional states (invented by Ozzie, of course!) with everyone. Only two people have ever been able to dream about events happening (or that have happened?) within the Void: Inigo (The First Dreamer, around whom a powerful religion called Living Dream has been formed) and the unknown Second Dreamer, who is only identified (and publicly exposed after a multi-planet manhunt) as an average Commonwealth citizen named Araminta. Araminta is a great creation, again demonstrating Hamilton's deft approach with female characters; just as Paula was the heroine of the first series, Araminta is the heroine of the second.

For someone whose reputation is built (deservingly so) on his depiction of action-packed, explosion-filled space battles and mind-blowing, futuristic technology, Hamilton does a surprisingly compelling job of telling what is essentially a fantasy tale inside the Void involving Edeard. The fantasy bits are the best part of the Void books, in my opinion. Hamilton's actually used this device of interlaced chapters of fantasy and hard science fiction before, in Fallen Dragon, and it works very very well. In fact, when the fantasy section becomes somewhat irrelevant due to an ill-chosen plot device I will not give away here, the science fiction story did not hold my attention nearly as well as my previous interest in Edeard's story and as a result I lost interest in The Evolutionary Void. This really surprised me, but it's undeniable that at some point I was just simply confused and slogging through the out-of-the-Void story, anxiously looking forward to catching up on Edeard's story inside-the-Void. When all I could look forward to was whatever Paula, Araminta, Oscar or Inigo would do next, my attention and interest flagged.

This is not to say that The Evolutionary Void is a bad book; Hamilton is an incredibly ambitious author and I think he just tried to do too much in one ridiculously large novel. (Really, the three Void books are clearly just one gigantic tale that due to the constraints of the publishing industry had to be released as three separate volumes.) This is also not surprising because Hamilton's masterwork, The Night's Dawn Trilogy, which is hands-down the best science-fiction trilogy ever written, was released as no less than 6 different books when really it is one gargantuan tale. I have to confess even reading that work one can get lost, but there the problem was that one had too many plot threads and characters one cared about. Reading the Void trilogy we have precisely the inverse problem: too few characters we care about--even characters that we had previously cared about quite a bit in the earlier duology. Of the new characters, only Araminta and Inigo are really fully drawn, with the primary villain of the piece recycled from the earlier series (The Cat). I think there was just one more hook (mystery, romance, comedy, horror) which if it had been included would have greatly strengthened my overall evaluation of this final book, and by extension the entire series. I have read both The Night's Dawn trilogy and Judas Unchained & Pandora's Star twice in their entirety; I believe I would rather re-read those than the Void trilogy (although I will probably give The Evolutionary Void another read, just for completeness).

There is still a lot of science fiction out there I have not read, such as Hamilton's own Misspent Youth, which is a standalone novel set around 1500 years before The Void Trilogy. If any of it is as creative and compelling as this sub-par (by his superlative standards!) Hamilton novel, I will be happy indeed.


Author: Peter F. Hamilton.
Title: The Evolutionary Void 
Hardcover: 704 pages.
Publisher: Del Rey. 
Date: August 24, 2010.

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: B+.
WRITING: A-.

OVERALL GRADE: (3.583/4.00) B+/A-.

BOOK REVIEW: Alastair Reynolds' Chasm City

British science fiction master Alastair Reynolds has very quickly become one of my favorite authors and Chasm City is a big part of that. Although it is not formally in the Revelation Space trilogy of Revelation Space, Redemption Ark and Absolution Gap, it is set in the same universe as those other books, like The Prefect and his short story collection Galactic North.


Specifically, Chasm City is located on the planet Yellowstone, which once featured the most advanced human civilization in Reynolds' Revelation Space universe; the planet and its environs are mentioned frequently in Revelation Space and Redemption Ark.

The main character of Chasm City is Tanner Mirabel, or at least we the reader think it is. One of the themes in Reynolds' work that I have noticed is the idea that the narrator doesn't not always know their own identity. In other words, the threat of subversion of one's individual identity is always a possibility. Tanner arrives on Yellowstone from another planet called Sky's Edge in order to kill Argent Reivich, whom he believes killed the woman he loved (who just happened to have been the wife of the crime boss Cahuella who hired Tanner to be his chief of security). This storyline appears to be a pretty straightforward revenge tale.

The second, more intriguing story is about Sky Haussman, the original colonist of Tanner's home planet Sky's Edge, who in the intervening centuries since the planet's colonization has become revered as a near God-like figure by some but a Machiavellian mass-murderer by others. Tanner has been infected with a bizarre virus which causes the infected to bleed stigmatically from the palm and to dream obsessively about the life story of Sky Haussman and the sad, bizarre tale of how Sky's Edge was colonized.

There are multiple other subplots, which are also well-written and fascinating. One of the most memorable involves a bizarre extra-terrestrial  creature which is part plant and part reptile called a hamadryad which Cahuella is obsessed with capturing and confining in his private zoo/garden. Another subplot involves a subculture in Chasm City which revolves around a particular drug called "dream fuel." This dangerous substance allows users to avoid the devastating effects of the Melding Plague (a nanotech virus which destroys all machines at a cellular level, including nanomachines that most advanced humans possess during this era and which shows up in the other Revelation Space novels).

Chasm City is the most ambitious and intricately plotted of Reynolds novels, and, in my opinion, the most successful. The threads come together in a surprising way. I thought I had figured out the secret twist about two-thirds through the novel but there was a twist on the twist which completely floored me.

Any lover of well-conceived speculative fiction who has an appreciation for other genres (especially hard-boiled detective fiction) will not be disappointed by taking the time to read Chasm City.

Author: Alastair Reynolds.

Title: Chasm City.

Length: 704 pages.
Publisher: Ace.
Date: May 27, 2003.

PLOT: A+.
IMAGERY: A.
IMPACT: A.
WRITING: A+.


OVERALL GRADE: A+/A (4.15/4.0).

BOOK REVIEW: Tana French's Faithful Place

Tana French's Faithful Place  is the sequel to her mystery novels The Likeness and In The Woods (see MadProfessah's A/A+ review).

Unlike other popular mystery writers like Ian Rankin, Julia Spencer-Fleming  or Sue Grafton, Tana French does not just ave one main protagonist in her murder mystery novels. Since Faithful Place is her third book and all three of her books share in common that the main character works for the Dublin Police Department, people have started calling her books the Dublin Murder Squad series. Her first book In The Woods featured Rob Ryan as the main character, while The Likeness featured Ryan's partner Cassie Maddox as the main character while her third book  Faithful Place features Cassie's former boss Frank Mackey. It's an interesting gimmick, "chaining" her novels together by switching point-of-view by promoting formerly supporting characters in one novel to main character status in the next.

This is just one signal French is sending that her books are not your everyday mystery novels. French has an amazing gift for characterization and dialog. Some reviewers think her latest book is her best one to date, despite all the awards won for her debut book. I was more impacted by her second book, probably due to the fact that Cassie is her most attractive protagonist of the three.

I've previously stated that In The Woods is about the intense, emotional platonic relationship formed between a man and a woman who work together, while The Likeness is about the intense emotions which arise  between adults who have formed a relationship like a  surrogate family. Well, Faithful Place is about the intense emotions which always exist between siblings who have grown up in a dysfunctional family headed by a violent alcoholic father and an emotionally vicious mother.

This family is the one that Frank Mackey bailed out of at age 19 when he was stood up by his sweetheart Rosie Daly after they had made plans to run off to England and start a life together. He decided to leave his vaguely criminal, financially depressed and depressing neighborhood named Faithful Place on his own and never looked back.

Twenty-two years later Rosie Daly's suitcase shows up and Frank is drawn back to his old neighborhood and the remnants of his family and acquaintances who still live there. This being a murder mystery, bodies do start to show up, which shatters Mackey's world forever. Because of obvious conflicts of interest, Mackey is banned from working on the case but as we already know, rules and regulations are not his strong suit. So, he convinces a young, earnest "floater" policeman named Stephen Moran to be his eyes and ears into the official investigation while he uses (and abuses) his multiple emotional and familial connections to the crimes to get closer and closer to the devastating truth. 

Title: Faithful Place.

Author: Tana French.

Length: 400 pages.

Publisher: Viking Adult.

Date: July 13, 2010.

OVERALL GRADE: A/A+ (4.07/4.0).

PLOT: A+.

IMAGERY: A.

IMPACT: A.

WRITING: A.

BOOK REVIEW: Joe Abercrombie's The First Law Trilogy

I first learned about Joe Abercrombie from Amazon.com, which suggested the author for people who like Patrick Rothfuss. I bought the first one at a local independent bookstore in Glendale, Mystery & Imagination Bookstore (238 N. Brand Blvd, Glendale, CA 91203, 818-545-0206) who had also turned me on to Rothfuss' The Name Of The Wind in the first place.

Abercrombie is another hard-core fantasy author like Rothfuss, with swords, wizards, duels, kings, sieges and hand-to-hand combat. Lots of hand-to-hand combat.

Although the three books are really three parts of one very long, engaging story each book also has its own story arc which allows them to be read independently (although probably not out of order).

The Blade Itself
The first book in the series introduces the trilogy's main characters, namely San dan Glokta (the heartless inquisitor and former expert swordsman who was caught and tortured by the enemies of The Union and left a crippled, bitter man), Jezal dan Luthar (the reigning expert swordsman who also happens to be a handsome, self-centered twit), Bayaz (who may or may not be a great wizard of antiquity come back to life) and Logen Ninefingers (a brutal, uncivilized Northman who has such a deadly and violent reputation his name alone makes strong warriors nervous) and The Dogman (who is currently leading Logen's band of Northern barbarian killers in his absence). Abercrombie plays with many familiar cliches of epic fantasy, often turning them on their head with obvious relish to the laugh-out-loud delight of the reader. As first books in a trilogy go, The First Law does a good job of setting up the future action while still containing enough tension and thrills itself to be a worthy read.

Before They Are Hanged
The second book is about three main story lines: Glokta is trying to save himself and the city of Dagoska while under siege by the savages from the South who openly defy The First Law (Thou Shall Not Eat The Flesh Of Men), Bayaz is leading a band of misfits to the end of the world on a quest to find an object of power to save the world from the so-called Eaters, and there is a gigantic clash of armies in the North which signals war is coming to the Union sooner rather than later. Again, Abercrombie walks a fine line between tweaking epic fantasy conventions and following them to the letter. The main strength of the book is his characterizations, which he supports by letting the reader see the internal dialogue of many of his characters which at first blush seemed to be very unprepossessing. However, once you see the world and situations (literally) through their eyes it puts a more positive spin on their actions, even when they are behaving badly. Before They Are Hanged suffers slightly from being the middle book in a trilogy, but very slightly. For me, part of that was due to the bigger role the strong female character of Ferro Maljinn plays  in this section of the story.

Last Argument of Kings
Abercrombie takes the final book and resolves all of the storylines from the second book (most of the main ones are actually resolved by the end of the second book); he also develops his characters to places the reader was almost certainly not expecting. I don't want to give away any spoilers (read the books yourself, they are well worth the time, especially if you are a fan of epic fantasy) but some of the characters that we generally believed were "bad" end up becoming "good" and some of the characters that we thought were "good" do some very bad things indeed. Besides characterization, Abercrombie's great skill is in writing fight scenes that make the reader believe one is particpiating in hand-to-hand combat or the hart of a battle right there with the characters. He really outdoes himself in that regard in Last Argument of Kings, and that alone probably makes the last book the best of the series. As before, Abercombie's main goal is to upend reader's expectations, of genre, character and story and he succeeds on many levels. That being said, there's a fourth book set in the Universe of the First Law trilogy books called Best Served Cold which I really have no interest in reading. I'm invested in these characters and have many unanswered questions, mainly "what happens next?" and "Where the heck is Logen Ninefingers?"

Author: Joe Abercrombie.
Title: The Blade Itself (The First Law, Book 1).
Length: 531 pages.
Publisher: Pyr.
Date: September 6, 2007.

OVERALL GRADE: A- (3.66/4.0).
PLOT: A.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: B+.
WRITING: A-.

Author: Joe Abercrombie.
Title: Before They Are Hanged. (The First Law, Book 2
Length: 543 pages.
Publisher: Pyr.
Date: March 25, 2008.

OVERALL GRADE: B+ (3.50/4.0).
PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: B+.
IMPACT: B+.
WRITING: A-.

Author: Joe Abercrombie.
Title: The Last Argument of Kings. (The First Law, Book 3)
Length: 639 pages.
Publisher: Pyr.
Date: September 23, 2008.

OVERALL GRADE: A/A- (3.75/4.0).
PLOT: A.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A-.
WRITING: A-.

BOOK REVIEW: Tana French's In The Woods

I was completely unaware of Tana French's Edgar-award winning first novel In the Woods until a friend of mine who knows I like mysteries told me I had to read it. I'm very glad of the recommendation. Having read every single one of Ian Rankin's Inspector John Rebus novels I was delighted to find a new mystery author.

The two have some similarities, in that they are both British authors who set their books in their respective countries' biggest city (Rankin in Scotland's Edinburgh and French in Ireland's Dublin). French's books are less centered around a specific main character but instead are more emotionally focussed narratives.

For example, In the Woods is the story of Rob Ryan and Cassie Maddox, two Murder Squad detectives who are investigating the horrific murder of a 12-year-old girl named Kary Devlin. The body was found in the very same woods a then-12-years-old Rob had been found 20-years before covered in blood with no memories while the two best friends he entered the woods never seen again.

In the Woods at its core is a story about the powerful bonds of friendship. The friendship between Rob and Cassie is lovingly depicted, from Rob's perspective as the narrator. The complications of a friendship between a straight man and straight woman are acknowledged and even emphasized in some ways. The other friendship that anchors the novel is the friendship between the young Rob (then called by his middle name Adam) and his two best friends, which is depicted in nostalgic flashbacks.

It becomes clearer and clearer as the novel progresses that the resolution of the recent Devlin murder involves some deep secret buried within the creepy Devlin family but that more importantly, regardless of that resolution, the lack of resolution of the old crime is weighing increasingly heavily upon Rob's psyche. In the end, Rob becomes a quintessential "unreliable narrator"  but there are other, more serious ways that Tana French breaches the contract between reader and murder-mystery author which makes In the Woods an unforgettable and thrilling read.

Author: Tana French.

Title: In the Woods

Length: 429 pages.
Publisher: Viking Adult.
Date: May 17, 2007.

OVERALL GRADE: A/A+.
PLOT: A.
IMAGERY: A+.
IMPACT: A.
WRITING: A.

BOOK REVIEW: Alastair Reynolds' The Prefect

Despite never having heard his name before a year ago, British science fiction writer Alastair Reynolds has turned into one of my favorite authors.

In the space of about 8 months (December 2009 through July 2010), I have read five of his novels, all of which are set in his Revelation Space universe. Those books are (in the order I read them) Revelation Space, Redemption Ark, Chasm City, Absolution Gap and The Prefec.

The Revelation Space universe is at least as interesting as Peter F. Hamilton's Confederate and Commonwealth universes. The two British authors have similar ideas: humanity is flourishing hundreds of years in our future, we have met a few aliens and technology (especially in computing) has advanced in particular ways. Both universes feature a way for humans to "cheat death." In Hamilton's, a memory cell which contains the entire personality can be backed up and then inserted into a cloned copy of the original person, and people can generally select their age, sex and overall physical appearance. In Reynolds' universe a back-up of the personality can be made and then installed in either an "alpha-level" or "beta-level"simulation which runs on a computer. Alpha-level simulations are controversial, they are considered independent entities in their own right; beta-level simulations are more common and are more likely to be replications of the original human personality they were based on.

Reynolds' stories are darker, more cerebral and intricately plotted with secrets within secrets to be revealed to the reader during the execution of the plot. Hamilton stories are usually more straight-up swashbuckling military space operas, thrilling adventures that greatly entertain. Hamilton is still my favorite writer, but Reynolds gives him a run for his money!

A theme of Reynolds' work is the inclusion of complicated choices (often between multiple, equally bad scenarios) that his characters have to make and his obsession with identity and misdirection. Oftentimes a central question in the books is discovering the solution to a central mystery, and several times that mystery involves the "true" identity and motives of a central character.

The Prefect is set in a time period between the events of Revelation Space and Chasm City, set in the Glitter Band, a group of 10,000 human-made habitats set in orbit near the planet Yellowstone in the Sky's Edge star system. The title character is Tom Dreyfus, who is a member of Panoply, which is basically the police force for the 100 million people who live in the Glitter Band. Panoply officers are not allowed to carry guns, because their mission is to insure the process of democracy in the band, which occurs through nearly continuous electronic plebiscites of the populace. However, The Prefect at its core is really a standard detective novel, which I like because I am also a big fan of mysteries. It is reminiscent of Reynolds' best book to date, Chasm City, which also revolves around the work of a cop.

It is also a hard sci-fi novel. The book has profoundly altered humans known as Ultras, another group of altered humans known as Conjoiners, space battles, sentient computer programs and a possibly alien entity known as The Clockmaker.

If you like "hard" sci-fi and the work of authors like Hamilton, Reynolds and Neal Asher, you will almost definitely enjoy The Prefect. I did!

Title: The Prefect.
Author: Alastair Reynolds.
Length: 416 pages.
Publisher: Ace.
Date: June 3, 2008.

OVERALL GRADE: A.

PLOT: A+.
IMAGERY: A.
IMPACT: A-.
WRITING: A.

BOOK REVIEW: The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest

The third (and final?) book from Steig Larsson is The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, which follows in the footsteps of the publishing sensations The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played with Fire.

The books are set in Sweden and revolve around the character of Lisbeth Salander, one of the most celebrated anti-heroines in all of fiction. Salander is a boyish-looking, multiply pierced, very short woman with an eidetic memory and world-class computer hacking skills.

The other main character of what is now known as the Millennium trilogy is Mikael Blomkvist. He is a crusading investigative reporter, 40-something and devastatingly attractive to women.He is clearly a proxy for the author, who was editor-in-chief of an alternative magazine in Sweden for years before dying suddenly of a heart attack shortly after delivering the manuscripts for the first two books.

Both The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played with Fire are intensely suspenseful novels that became blockbuster bestsellers in Sweden and around the world. They have been turned into Swedish-language films with a major Hollywood version on the way.

The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest is a fitting third chapter in the Millennium trilogy but is not the best book of the series (it's hard to choose between the first two books but  I think I'd have to give an edge to the second one for sheer suspense, although the plot and atmosphere of the first is compelling). Although familiar themes of misogyny and little guys fighting the big guys crop up again in Hornet's Nest, for some reason it's not as gripping as the first two novels even though the stakes involved get higher and higher. This is probably primarily because the book has no central mystery any longer, it devolves more into a police procedural combined with a courtroom thriller. These are not bad aspects, but they are not exactly the same elements which made Dragon Tattoo so enthralling. For the first time I noticed the somewhat leaden dialogue, as well as the multiple shifts to first-person narrative, often to secondary characters.

Overall, I'm glad I read the trilogy and would heartily recommend to anyonje who likes mystery or suspense to read either of the first two. I really can't imagine anyone having done that not completing the entire series, despite the diminished return of the third book.

Author: Stieg Larsson.
Title: The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest.
Hardcover: 563 pages
Publisher: Knopf.
Date Published: May 25, 2010.

OVERALL GRADE: A.

PLOT: A+.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A.
WRITING: A-.

BOOK REVIEW: Paul McAuley's Outer Series

The Quiet War	Gardens of the Sun

Paul J. McAuley's The Quiet War and Gardens of the Sun are the first two books in what I will call "the Outer series" although it is not clear if there will be more. In researching authors like Alastair Reynolds, Iain M. Banks and Peter F. Hamilton the name Paul J. McAuley (and Ian Whates) came up.

The Quiet War and Gardens of the Sun tell the story of an Earth which has undergone severe climate change which has led to vast political upheaval. There are now only three political superpowers: Greater Brazil (basically South America and North America), Europe and Pacifica (China and India). Humanity has split into multiple strains, with colonies on Mars, the Moon and the Outer Planets. During the last war, the Mars colonists attempted to arrange for an asteroid to hit the Earth so the Chinese re-directed a comet to land on their colony and successfully re-directed the asteroid so it missed our planet.

Animosity between people still on earth and the people in outer space persist decades after these events, especially since the Outers as they are called, have taken to genetically adapting themselves to low-gravity conditions, using bio-engineering in ways that people on Earth find morally offensive. After almost ruining the planet with pollution in the 20th and 21st centuries, the people of Earth in the 23rd century are busily cleaning up their world and attempting to reverse the damage. They look upon any meddling with nature with suspicion.

Both Gardens of the Sun and The Quiet War are chock-full of the details of living in low and zero gravity, combined with a plot that features intricate, internecine political intrigue.

Overall, I would not say that these McAuley books are in the same league as the works of Hamilton or Reynolds, which are long, suspenseful, totally engrossing works of space opera. They are worth reading, however, and a reasonable diversion but not a substitute for hard science fiction, if that is where your tastes lie.

Title: The Quiet War

Author: Paul J. McAuley

Length: 405 pages.
Publisher: Pyr.
Date: September 22, 2009.

OVERALL GRADE: A-/B+.

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: B+.
IMPACT: B+.
WRITING: A-.

Title: Gardens of the Sun

Author: Paul J. McAuley

Length: 411 pages.
Publisher: Pyr.
Date: February 2010,.

OVERALL GRADE: A-/B+.

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: B+.
IMPACT: A-.
WRITING: B+.

BOOK REVIEW: Vonda McIntyre's Dreamsnake

At a local used bookstore in Glendale I finally got my hands on a copy of Vonda McIntyre's Dreamsnake, one of the rare works of speculative fiction to have won the Nebula, Hugo and Locust award. I often read these books and Dreamsnake is one of the few books that is double Hugo-Nebula winner that I have not read yet. The others are Lois McMaster Bujold's Paladin of Souls and Arthur C. Clarke's Fountains of Paradise.

Most double winners are classic books, that deserve to be re-read over and over again. Connie Willis Doomsday Book, Frank Herbert's Dune, David Brin's Startide Rising and Issac Asimov's The Gods Themselves fall into that category. Interestingly, recently I tried to re-read Ursula K. LeGuin's The Dispossessed and I could not get through it. A few years ago I finally read Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama and was surprised at how painful it was to get through it.

So, I really did not have high expectations for Dreamsnake. However, I was pleasantly surprised.

Dreamsnake is about a Healer named Snake who uses snakes to heal people. The book mentions repeatedly that she uses the rare dreamsnake to help people who have serious (potentially fatal) illnesses, by either curing them or easing their transition to death. What's curious is that during the course of the book, Snake heals several people without a dreamsnake, and in one case even loses a patient despite not having one of the alien serpents at hand.

One of the key features of Dreamsnake is its depiction of a very different society. It is primarily agrarian, with almost no technology and very curious cultural practices (like not wanting to tell acquaintances your "true name" and a completely different view of contraception). One of the most interesting aspects of the book is the completely laissez-faire approach to sexuality. Most adult relationships are in partnerships of three, usually two women and one man or two men and one woman.

A drawback of the book is the somewhat stilted nature of the prose. The sentences are very short and not very lyrical in nature. I'm not sure if this is because the book is over thirty years old, but I suspect that much be a factor. Another weakness of the book is the central character Snake. As depicted, she is not a very likable person and was very hard for this reader to identify with. She is moody, cranky, unattractive and uncertain. She is also brave and dedicated to helping others, almost to a fault.

The story resolves itself in the end in a somewhat unsurprising manner, with Snake finding love and companionship and a solution to dealing with the lack of dreamsnakes on her world. Overall, I'm glad that I finally read the book but I would not classify it as a classic of the form like most Hugo-Nebula winners.

Title: Dreamsnake.
Author: Vonda McIntyre.
Length: 319 pages.
Publisher: Dell.
Date: June 1979.

OVERALL GRADE: B.

PLOT: B+.
IMAGERY: B.
IMPACT: B-.
WRITING: B.

BOOK REVIEW: Peter Brett's The Desert Spear

I discovered Peter V. Brett's The Warded Man thanks to the Marc Chitty's Walker of Worlds blog. It is one of the best fantasy novels that I have read since the amazing, near-perfect The Name of the Wind (read my A+ review) by Patrick Rothfuss.

The Warded Man (see my A+/A review) creates a fantastic world where the night belongs to demonic creatures who terrorize and kill any humans or animals who are unlucky enough to be outside unprotected by wards. Wards are special symbols which when written on a surface magically can protect it from demons. Humanity is basically trapped behind warded gates and windows in an era which has almost no technology (no electricity, no internal combustion engine, no machinery period). There is some medical knowledge and society has a basic agricultural and feudal nature. Life expectancy is in the fifties.

However, as with most meaningful works of fiction, the emotional impact is centered around the characters. The first book introduces us to Arlen, Leesha and Rojer. Arlen becomes the first person in his village who wants to fight the demons and devotes his life to destroying as many demons as possible, searching for the fabled (and long-lost) "fighting wards" which can not be used defensively to protect the bearer but also offensively to kill demons. Leesha is the brilliant apprentice to Bruja, the town Healer and through her eyes the reader gets to experience the politics of gender in a patriarchal, small-town society. Rojer is an orphan who saw his mother and father killed by demons but was taken in by an itinerant musical entertainer. Rojer becomes a talented musician despite having a mangled hand that he received from the demon who killed his parents.

The Desert Spear is the second book in what is now called The Demon Trilogy. It is primarily set in Krasia. a dry land far in the desert, where through insane bravery and a warrior culture of machismo every night the people of the desert lure demons into a maze and kill them in hand-to-hand combat or trap them in pits where they are destroyed when the sun rises in the morning.

Much of the second book takes place in Krasia, following the main character Ahmann Jardir, who had a minor role in the first book. This time his entire backstory from youth is given (a similar practice is used in the first book for the main characters of Arlen, Leesha and Rojer). Also like in the first book, here, too, we get an interesting look at cultural norms, this time a quasi-Muslim society. I thought some aspects of the society were slightly derivative of Frank Herbert's Dune but overall the Krasia-set chapters were as interesting as the stories following our now-familiar favorites from the first book. We are also introduced to Renna, who is a girl from Arlen's hometown who goes through a horrific ordeal and eventually follows him down the path of being a singular opponent of demons.

One (slight) downside of the books for me as a gay reader is the way that homophobia and sexism of the Krasian society is depicted, especially through the character of Abban, who although it is clear that he is straight, is perceived as a "lesser man" by all other Krasians. At some point the author does make it clear that being gay is not looked down upon in Krasian society. In the North, where Rojer, Leesha and Arlen live much of the plot and dynamics of the characters revolve around the presumed (and confirmed) heterosexuality of everyone. I would have liked to see a more nuanced approach to sexuality in The Desert Spear since Brett does an excellent job of depicting and deconstructing gender hierarchies quite well in both books.

A new feature of the second book is some scenes from the viewpoint of the demon, at least one demon in particular, "mind demons" who happen to be "coreling princes." This forebodes an interesting component of the story, which will be resolved in the third installment, apparently title The Daylight War and scheduled for release in 2012.

Title: The Desert Spear.
Author: Peter V. Brett.
Length: 608 pages.
Publisher: Del Rey.
Date: April 13, 2010.

OVERALL GRADE: A/A+.

PLOT: A+.
IMAGERY: A.
IMPACT: A.
WRITING: A.