BOOK REVIEW: The Last Girl (Maeve Kerrigan, #3) by Jane Casey

I love Jane Casey’s Maeve Kerrigan series (as you can see from my reviews of The Reckoning and The Burning)!! The Last Girl is the third book in this British police procedural murder mystery series with a strong but definitely not perfect female protagonist. As I have said many times, what makes a strong genre book in my opinion, in addition to a compelling main character, are interesting and well-rounded secondary characters. We know it’s a genre book; there’s gonna be some horrific crime (usually a violent murder or three) and our hero is part of a team who is trying to catch the perpetrator or perpetrators while surviving/avoiding/managing interpersonal dynamics of the team members or familial/relationship drama (or both!). We return to these genre books not for the crime-of-the-week but because we are engaged with the characters due to our familiarity with their foibles.

Casey gets it. Her DS Maeve Kerrigan is at times frustratingly obtuse (especially when it comes to the relationship with her boyfriend Rob, another policeman) and is also very good at her job, despite her boor of a boss/partner, DI Josh Derwent. But as the reader we can both root for and rail against Maeve (sometimes in the same chapter!)

The mystery/crime in The Last Girl is particularly heinous. A mother and teen daughter are viciously attacked and killed in the living room while the daughter’s twin sister swam in the pool. The father was attacked (not fatally) in the upstairs bathroom. It turns out the family dynamic was a nightmare, starting with the father/husband who is a defense attorney whom the police had come across before in multiple cases and is a huge *ssh*le. But, that doesn’t mean he’s guilty, does it?

This third book in the series has a relatively surprising ending with a fair number of red herrings tossed in front of the reader for good measure. The longer arcs (Maeve’s increasingly serious relationship with Rob, the return of her dangerous stalker/peeping Tom, Maeve's professional career trajectory at the London Metropolitan Police Murder Squad) are becoming more significant than the resolution of this book’s crime. But that just makes me want to spend more time with Maeve, in the next book. Soon!

Title: The Last Girl.
Author: Jane Casey.
Paperback: 384 pages.
Publisher: Minotaur Books.
Date Published: May 21, 2013.
Date Read: April 13, 2020.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★½☆  (4.5/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A- (3.67/4.0).

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

BOOK REVIEW: The Institute by Stephen King

The Institute is the sixth book by Stephen King that I have read in the last few years. I am not a fan of supernatural or horror but every now and then the prolific King does step out of those genre boxes and write books in other genres that are more aligned with my reading interests: science fiction, mystery, and suspense/thriller. Regardless, King is very, very good at what he does, and The Institute is another example of that.

The premise of the story is that there are people who are born with high levels of an enzyme/hormone called BDNF that is correlated with telekinetic and telepathic ability. For some unexplained reason, there’s a group of people who monitor high-BDNF kids and at some point (before they are adults) they kidnap them, murder their families and bring them to a secluded, prison-like facility called “The Institute.” One glaring omission in the story is that no explanation is given for why The Bad Guys only capture kids (especially since the kids' ages vary from 8 to 16, which any parent or teacher would tell you is like grouping dogs and spiders into the same collection). The obvious reason for why the author has made this choice is that it serves King’s desire to accentuate the depth of evil of the antagonists in the story and enhance the reader’s empathy for the protagonists.

The main character in The Institute is Luke Ellis, a 12-year-old super-genius (he has been admitted to MIT *and* Emerson College and intends to attend both simultaneously). Luke is awesome and King does a great job (I think) of telling huge swaths of the story from a pre-pubescent white American boy’s perspective. When Luke gets to The Institute he meets Kalisha, Nick, George, Iris and Avery, who become the core group of children at the center of the story. The main villain is Mrs. (Julia) Sigsby, who runs The Institute with a firm, unsympathetic gloved fist, along with countless adults who have become inured to the mental and physical torture of the many kids that they “care” for.

Some/most of the adults have been told the reason for The Institute’s existence and are true believers in its mission, which they believe is to save the world from nuclear holocaust by exploiting the special powers these kids possess. However, we the reader don’t learn that information until very late in the book, and it is one of the key questions: Are the adults involved with The Institute evil or mercenary? How can any end justify these means?

The Institute does a very good job of raising thought-provoking questions and presenting interesting themes about the nature of evil. If you believe the kidnap, torture and murder of hundreds of people would save the lives of billions of people, would you do it? What if the people in question are children aged 8-16? How certain would you need to be that the deaths of billions are being prevented? How, exactly, does one implement a system of torture/total control of children? What kind of person participates in such a system? And on the flip side, how does one protest/resist when suddenly thrust into an unfair, violent system, especially if you’re just a kid? Will the good guys actually win in the end?

It’s a bit of a cliché at this point because so many of King's written works have been adapted into award-winning blockbusters (e.g. It, Carrie, Misery, The Outsider, The Stand, Pet Sematary, etc) but The Institute reads like a screenplay for a movie (a particular action-packed one!) I think this is because King’s writing in The Institute is so evocative and visually stimulating while the plot is suspenseful and thrilling. I look forward to watching (the inevitable) movie adaptation!


Title: The Institute.
Author: Stephen King.
Paperback: 561 pages.
Publisher: Scribner.
Date Published: September 10, 2019.
Date Read: December 31, 2019.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★½☆  (4.5/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A (4.0/4.0).

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

BOOK REVIEW: The Testaments by Margaret Atwood

Since the televised adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale became a viral sensation it was inevitable that The Testaments, which is a sequel to the book the show is based on would also have a significant cultural impact. Margaret Atwood, the author of both books and consultant on the show, is the creative source of the terrifying alternative history in which the United States becomes a theocratic, patriarchal, authoritarian state named the Republic of Gilead.

I haven’t read the original The Handmaid’s Tale book but like many other people I have been mesmerized by the television adaptation and fascinated/horrified by the subtle (and not so subtle) connections between its depiction of the fictional Gilead and the current United States. It actually works out fine to read The Testaments without having read its predecessor, since the first season of the show essentially covers most of the main plot points of the original book. The Testaments is timed exquisitely well as it covers events that happen roughly 15 years after the end of the third season of the show, which aired on Hulu earlier this year. Important characters from the show play central roles in the book, especially Aunt Lydia (who in the show was played with alarming gusto and chilling commitment by Ann Dowd, who won a Best Supporting Actress Emmy award after Season 1 in the process). The lead character in the show, June/Offred, played by Elizabeth Moss (who also won an Emmy for her Season 1 portrayal) is barely a presence in The Testaments (while it's my understanding that Offred was the main character in the first book).

The structure of The Testaments is that it is presented as three first-person accounts of three women whose lives are dominated by experiencing life in Gilead. It’s supposed to be a secret to new readers who these authors are, and the experience will be different for people depending on whether they are simply readers of the first book, consumers of the television show or both.

Regardless of your prior experience with the previously produced materials, The Testaments is powerful stuff. The central horror of what Atwood has created is how fundamentally plausible the existence of Gilead is. As she herself says (in the author’s note at the end), all events depicted in the book or the show have been documented to have happened in human history, at some point. So one major strength of this alternative history novel is its verisimilitude. Another strong point is the characterization of Aunt Lydia, Agnes and Daisy. The book allows the author to provide the internal monologues of the characters, which is where it has an advantage on the show. (The show has the advantage of visual depictions of the people and events that occur in the books.) This is especially effective in the case of Aunt Lydia, a woman whose role in Gilead is to encourage/coerce/cajole other women into not rebelling against Gilead's murderously violent patriarchal society. Lydia in the show is an unmitigated villain, while in the book her status is far more nuanced. (For people who have only watched the show this will come as an incredible and somewhat unbelievably radical change, but in the end I was convinced that it was possible Aunt Lydia could secretly be working against Gilead. I hope that the show gets to depict the events of The Testaments. I am convinced it would win Dowd another Emmy.)

Overall, The Testaments is an effective, cautionary tale to read. Its depiction of theocracy, autocracy and patriarchy are chilling, and chillingly familiar. These descriptions are of situations/ideologies that are dependent on the perspective/politics of the viewer/reader. However, for most, I believe that the central question of “(How) could it happen here?” will stick with you long after you have finished reading the last page. It well deserves all the accolades and awards it has won (including the 2019 Booker prize) and will win.

Title: The Testaments.
Author: Margaret Atwood.
Paperback: 419  pages.
Publisher: Chatto & Windus.
Date Published: September 10, 2019.
Date Read: December 13, 2019.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★½☆  (4.5/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A- (3.92/4.0).

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

BOOK REVIEW: Recursion by Blake Crouch

Blake Crouch is the author of multiple, best-selling, mind-bending thrillers; his atmospheric novels in the Wayward Pines trilogy were adapted into a television show for Fox. I enjoyed his previous book Dark Matter (2016) but have not read any of his other work.

The buzz for Recursion (2019) is even higher than for Dark Matter so I was greatly looking forward to reading it. Not much is given away in the blurb (“A breath-taking exploration of memory and what it means to be human.”) but it was clear to me even before I started that the story must have something to do with time travel.

Crouch has a very direct, visual and propulsive writing style. At times this book reads like a screenplay instead of a novel. The story develops very quickly and moves ahead even faster. The main characters are Barry Sutton, a NYPD detective, Helena Smith, a neuroscientist, and Marcus Slade, a billionaire investor. Slade invests in Smith’s nascent technological invention, a way to map, store and transfer memories.

The book switches into high gear when Slade hijacks the development of Smith's technology, turning it into a world-altering device. This is where Crouch fundamentally loses me. The thing Smith has invented allows a person not to recover their memories, instead it allows them to go back in time to the moment when that memory was created. (In order to do so they have to use Smith's memory-mapping technology and then die immersed in her device, which produces huge amounts of a brain chemical which spurs the person in the tank to alter reality itself to conform with their saved memory.) Crouch never uses the term “time travel” but that is really what Recursion is about at its core. It is uni-directional time travel, only back in time. Eventually, when the time traveler lives long enough to get back to the time when the timeline was split EVERY PERSON IN THE WORLD suddenly becomes aware of the events in the removed timeline (the timeline the time traveler was from) as “false memories.” They also have sudden nosebleeds and a sudden splitting headache. This is where Crouch completely lost me and I ceased to enjoy the book. It’s so obvious at this point that the impact on world events would be so extremely significant that what happens from that point in the story on just devolves into nonsense.

What kept me going was my investment in the characters of Helena and Barry. I was also somewhat curious how Crouch would write himself out of the pretzel plot he had created. For awhile it seemed like he actually would let it spiral out of control but in the end he resolved it satisfactorily.

In fact I wouldn’t be surprised that when Crouch was writing the book he “saw” the final scene in his mind’s eye first and the entire book was written to get there. It’s a great scene in the context of what went before but it was not enough payoff for me.

Title: Recursion.
Author: Blake Crouch.
Paperback: 336 pages.
Publisher: Crown.
Date Published: June 11, 2019.
Date Read: November 26, 2019.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★½☆☆  (3.5/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: B (3.0/4.0).

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

BOOK REVIEW: Velocity Weapon (The Protectorate, #1) by Megan O'Keefe

Velocity Weapon is the first book in a new space opera trilogy called the Protectorate written by Megan E. O'Keefe. Since space opera is my all-time favorite I had placed this book on my TBR (to be read) list a while ago and recently moved it to the top and I'm very pleased that I did.

The story in Velocity Weapon is told in multiple timelines and in multiple locations simultaneously. The primary plot follows Sanda Greeve, who wakes up in a life preservation module apparently 200 years after her last memory which was of the beginning of a war between two human societies that have colonized the planets Ada Prime and Icarion. Sanda awakes naked and missing part of a leg on a sentient Icarion warship  called The Light of Berossus capable of accelerating up to 8% of the speed of light and interstellar travel. The second timeline takes place 2 years after the start of the Prime-Icarion war and features Biran Greeve, Sanda's younger brother, who is also Speaker of the Keepers of Ada Prime. Keepers are people who are selected to serve as the keepers of the secret of Ada Prime's greatest technological achievement: the construction of Casimir gates which allow instantaneous interstellar hyperspatial travel. The third timeline takes places some 3500+ years before the first two, depicting the dawn of the Prime area, in which Alexandra Halston, the billionaire CEO of a globe-spanning corporation called Prime who created the very first Casimir gate (after discovering a curious artifact possibly of alien origin) and is credited with humanity's colonization of interstellar space.

The main characters in the book are the artificial intelligence running the warship The Light of Berossus (who likes to be called Bero), Sanda, and Biran. There are multiple other important characters as well: Tomas Cepko, a spy who is hired by Biran (at the usurious price of 90% of all his future earnings!) to try and find Sanda and rescue her; Jules, a small-time criminal who comes across a mysterious cache of military-grade tech that puts everyone she knows in danger while simultaneously providing her with possibly super-human powers of recovery and reflexes and whose connections to the other main plots are mysterious and unclear; Sanda and Biran's two dads Graham and Ilan.

One of the very appealing aspects of Velocity Weapon to me is the author's clear and consistent approach to (re)presenting a diverse and inclusive cast of characters in this space opera. Sanda and Biran are two straight characters who have been raised by a gay male couple that they love very much. One of Jules' main contact is a non-binary character named Arden who is described by all the other characters using the pronouns they and them. The description of most of the characters makes it VERY clear that they are not white (there's an explicit back-story exposition that most of the people in both Ada Prime and Icarion can trace their heritage back to the country of Ecuador on Earth). If that wasn't enough, there are multiple examples of descriptions of the skin tones of characters which are compared to various shades of brown (e.g. coffee with milk, coffee without milk, etc) and most people's hair is dark and curly.

Overall, I was very impressed with Velocity Weapon. As the blurb says, it is an "epic of intergalactic politics, war and rogue A.I." This is right up my alley, and I am confident that readers who like the work of Peter F. Hamilton, Alastair Reynolds and James S.A. Corey will enjoy this first book in The Protectorate as much as I did. I am eagerly awaiting the following books in this series!

Title: Velocity Weapon.
Author: Megan E. O'Keefe.
Paperback: 544 pages.
Publisher: Orbit.
Date Published: June 11, 2019.
Date Read: November 4, 2019.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★★  (5.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A (4.0/4.0).

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

BOOK REVIEW: Age of Legend (Legends of the First Empire, #4) by Michael J. Sullivan

I have been a huge fan boy of Michael Sullivan’s work ever since I discovered his Riyria books a few years ago. I’ve read both Riyria trilogies (I think the later one, with Theft of Swords, Rise of Empire and Heir of Novron is absolutely brilliant).

So I was very psyched when he announced he was writing a new 5–part series called “Legends of the First Empire” set thousands of years before the events of the Riyria Revelations and Riyria Chronicles. The great thing about Sullivan is that he completely writes out a series before he publishes the first book so there’s no angst wondering if the series one is hooked on will actually be completed.

The new series is very different from his Riyria books. Instead of revolving around two main characters (Hadrian and Royce) the new books have multiple primary characters: Persephone, Raithe, Brin, Arion, Suri, Mawyndule, Malcolm and Nyphron. The books tell the stories of how Fhrey (long-lived, magical elves) and Rhunes (short-lived, technologically unsophisticated humans) interacted with each other way in the past. This provides real-time perspectives on events which are viewed as legends or fairy tales in the later Riyria books.

In my opinion the second and third books (Age of Swords and Age of War, respectively) have been the best of the series so far, in my humble opinion. Sullivan has not shied away from ending the lives of some of the characters in the series we have gotten to know over the course of multiple books. This means that one never is really sure that any of your favorite characters are safe, which heightens suspense and builds dramatic tension.

In Age of Legend the war that began in the previous book between men and elves (and that one would have expected to be a massacre and rout in favor of the Fhrey ends up surprisingly to be something of a stalemate due to the Rhune's much greater numbers and ability to counter elven magic with human ingenuity and innovation.

We are now into Book 4 of a 6-book series so the end of the story is approaching. The primary animating plot point is trying to figure out “what and who” Malcolm is and realizing that his plan for humankind is probably their greatest hope, because he has demonstrated he can see the future and the past pretty clearly. The problem is that his plan is dangerous and involves treating things and people who are legends in old wives’ tales as real. And there’s that whole suicide and visiting the underworld thing.

Anyway, there’s a reason why the 5th book is called Age of Death (But it is still very curious why the 6th and last book is called Age of Empyre). Book 4 ends with a number of our most important characters facing mortality head on. Presumably this will all be resolved in the next book. Some people have complained that Book 4 basically ends on a cliffhanger, which is true, but even so I felt that there was enough story in Age of Legend to satisfy me and I'm looking forward to the last two books coming out in 2020!


Title: Age of Legend.
Author: Michael J. Sullivan.
Paperback: 480 pages.
Publisher: Grim Oak Press.
Date Published: July 9, 2019.
Date Read: October 26, 2019.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★☆  (4.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A- (3.67/4.0).
PLOT: B+
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A-.
WRITING: A-.

BOOK REVIEW: Heads of the Colored People by Nafissa Thompson-Spires

I was only supposed to read two stories, “Belles Lettres” and “The Necessary Changes Have Been Made” in order to decide which should be included in a collection of texts that address race, white supremacy and (mis)representation of Black people in the media. While both of these stories are good (and "Belles Lettres" is particularly trenchant) they imbricate race with so many other issues that I felt the primary point would’ve been lost or “diluted.” So I continued reading the collection and when I got to the title piece knew I had found what I was looking for. The first story “The Heads of Colored People: Four Fancy Sketches, Two Chalk Outlines, and No Apology” also weaves in other issues (police shooting, intraracial dynamics, Blerd culture) with multiple depictions of Black masculinity that I found quite compelling. The only other story which I felt could have satisfied my requirements is “Fatima The Biloquist.” I love that we get to see multiple depictions of Fatima in various stories in the collection. I connected with this  particular story because it does such a clever job of discussing racial representation in the context of class, phenotype and language. However, the standout stories in this collection (for me), apart from the aforementioned “Heads of the Colored People” and “Fatima The Biloquist” were “Suicide, Watch” and “Not Today, Marjorie.” When I reached the last paragraph of “Suicide, Watch” I burst out laughing so loudly my husband laying next to me said “What happened?” Even when I recounted the story I couldn’t stop giggling at the brilliant premise and payoff of that story. "Suicide, Watch" is worth the price of the entire collection. Many of the stories are about unlikable people or people in uncomfortable situations and not every story is great or memorable. (But one of the joys of short story collections is that if you don’t like what you’re currently reading, it will be over pretty soon.) Some of the more memorable stories may be ones I didn’t particularly like, such as “This Todd” and “The Subject of Consumption.” Overall, I would definitely recommend the collection as a whole and I know I am going to be anticipating reading what Nafissa Thompson-Spires writes in the future. Title: Heads of the Colored People. Author: Nafissa Thompson-Spires. Paperback: 203 pages. Publisher: 37 INK/ Atria. Date Published: April 10, 2018. Date Read: April 21, 2019. GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★½☆  (4.5/5.0). OVERALL GRADE: A/A- (3.83/4.0). PLOT: A-. IMAGERY: A. IMPACT: A-. WRITING: A.

BOOK REVIEW: Raven Black (Shetland Islands, #1) by Ann Cleeves

This is the first book in Ann Cleeves’ Shetland Islands series starring Inspector Jimmy Perez. The Shetland Islands are remote, sparsely populated islands north of Scotland and west of Norway that are part of the United Kingdom.

Raven Black begins with the discovery of a dead teenaged girl named Catherine. Almost a decade earlier another young girl named Catriona had disappeared and her body was never found. In both cases, a mentally challenged bachelor named Magnus Tait had been one of the last people to see the victim. Many people on the islands shunned him and there was a widespread belief he had gotten away with murder because no body had been found. When Catherine’s body is found they expect him to be arrested immediately.

Inspector Jimmy Perez is not so sure. The cases have some similarities but a lot of differences also. Both girls were parts of families who had moved to the Shetlands from “down south.” Both girls were considered independent and “high spirited.” Catherine was considered very intelligent by her teachers and popular in school. Ann Cleeves tells the story using first-person accounts from very many characters, including Catherine, her best friend Sally, Jimmy, Magnus and several others.

Raven Black is an atmospheric, psychological thriller about the effects of a violent crime in a very small community where everyone knows everything about their neighbors. However, newcomers arrive fairly often and try (and often fail) to be integrated into the community. Jimmy himself is from the community and went to the same schools as the murder victims but his family is from an even more remote island and they are clamoring for him to come home and stop this “police foolishness.”

The killer of the two girls (and the abductor of a third girl, another strong-willed outsider whose name begins with C) is revealed at the end, and it came as a complete and utter shock to me. That’s not that unusual as murder mystery novels go. However I think to maintain my interest in a series I need to be invested in the main character/detective and be intrigued/interested/amused by their sidekicks/colleagues. Jimmy Perez basically works alone. The setting of the book, in this remote small community IS the companion character. Sometimes if the setting is very unfamiliar that can provide a source of interest. Also one can be interested in a setting which is also very familiar. 

Unfortunately, Raven Black did not fully engage my interest. I’m somewhat surprised by this because I know the Shetland Islands mysteries have been adapted into a very popular BBC TV series. However, I doubt I’ll be continuing. There are so many other detective series I’m interested in making progress on, like Jane Casey’s Maeve Kerrigan, Val McDermid’s Tony Hill/Carol Jordan and (of course) Stuart MacBride’s Logan McRae. Life’s too short to wade through books one does not connect with.

Title: Raven Black.
Author: Ann Cleeves.
Paperback: 374 pages.
Publisher: Minotaur Books.
Date Published: May 29, 2007.
Date Read: September 30, 2019.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★½☆  (3.5/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: B+ (3.33/4.0).

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

BOOK REVIEW: In The Clearing (Tracy Crosswhite, #3) by Robert Dugoni

This is the third book in the Tracy Crosswhite series by Robert Dugoni. In The Clearing was a nice change of pace from the previous entries, which involved a serial killer in Book 2 (Her Final Breath) and the solving of her own sister’s decades-old did appearance in the excellent Book 1 (My Sister's Grave).

Here we again have a cold case which is central, about a young Native American girl whose body was found floating in the river forty years ago but the young deputy who investigated the case never believed was a suicide. His daughter becomes sheriff and brings the case to Tracy. This is after Tracy catches a complicated case where both the estranged wife and the troubled son admit to shooting the husband/father in a domestic disputes during a bitter divorce.

Surprisingly, it is the cold case which occupies more of Tracy’s time in In The Clearing. The girl who died was well-liked and was loosely connected to four star football players who despite playing for a small-town high school team had gone on to win the state championship the next day. Tracy pounds the pavement and finds leads and clues left by the original investigator.
Eventually Tracy solves both mysteries, using insights gained by seeing how relationships in families (especially parents and children) can be warped by self-interest and ego.

Overall, I’d say this third book was a bit more formulaic of a police procedural than the first two entries in the series, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. In the first two books the story lines are so emotionally charged and Tracy endangers herself do recklessly that it became a little exhausting to read. The romance/relationship with Tracy’s boyfriend Dan is nice and realistic. One drawback in the structure of Book 3 that there is much less interaction between Tracy and her Seattle Police Department detective colleagues, which is a shame. However, as a solid, suspenseful, nicely plotted and well-executed mystery, In The Clearing lives up to this description.

Title: In The Clearing (Tracy Crosswhite, #3).
Author: Robert Dugoni.
Paperback: 479 pages.
Publisher: Orbit.
Date Published: May 17, 2016.
Date Read: September 7, 2019.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★☆  (4.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A- (3.67/4.0).

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

BOOK REVIEW: The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell

I have been procrastinating reading The Sparrow for a very long time. I have been curious about this 1997 book because of the over 50,000 ratings on Goodreads with an average well above 4.0/5.0 (53,447 at 4.17 as of 9/1/19). I was aware of the acclaim and many plaudits (The Clarke, Tiptree and BSFA awards) it had received and was intrigued by a blurb which describes a first-contact mission organized by Jesuits and reviews which mention that the book will be loved by “believers and non-believers” alike. I’m here to tell you that I seriously doubt the last assertion is true. While I do appreciate the overwhelmingly positive reviews for The Sparrow and though I have multiple reasons for not enjoying the book as much as the average reviewer, my disappointment was not rooted in religion but science, i.e. not my lack of belief in God or a higher power but my inability to suspend belief about (micro)biology. 

My review of The Sparrow is not intended to be a negative one; the writing is excellent, the plotting brilliant (the two time lines set in 2019 and 2059 are devastatingly executed). The structure of the story is such that we see the events leading up to discovery of the existence of intelligent life, the details of the preparation and journey to their planet, and the meeting between humans and aliens on the planet of Rakhat in the Alpha Centauri system. All of that is well done and quite compelling, if a little unbelievable due to the notion it would be spearheaded by the Society of Jesus in the 21st century. However it is the second, future time line (after the ultimately catastrophic and tragic events of the first time line) which really elevates The Sparrow; it transforms the book into a moral mystery novel, because the reader is constantly trying to reconcile the main characters’ behavior in the early time line with how they are (achingly slowly revealed) in the later time line. That dramatic tension alone may be enough for some readers to satisfy and thrill them. Sadly, for me it wasn’t, although it did provide me with enough energy to complete the book.

The primary source of my dissatisfaction for The Sparrow is not (entirely) based in its attempt to make one of its central plots revolve around the faith (or loss of faith) of a handsome Jesuit priest, Father Emilio Sandoz, the main character of the novel. I simply was unable to completely disregard the likely existence and presence of microscopic pathogens on an alien planet. When the humans meet the aliens they interact with them like they are “First World” colonists visiting “Third World” lands on Earth. There’s no breathing apparatus, concern that flora and fauna that is alien may also be deadly. It’s such a fantastical and facile choice that it took me out of the story so dramatically that I was unable to return. I was very surprised by this choice because there are so many examples in classic science fiction where the dangers of alien microbiology are key plot points (The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells, Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson, Children of Ruin by Adrian Tchaikovsky are just a few that come immediately to mind.) It is very possible that I may be one of the few readers that feel this way. 

In fact, I would barely call The Sparrow a work of science fiction. It’s aims and contexts are sociological, anthropological and philosophical, not scientific. (Of course there exist works of science fiction which share some or all of these aims.) That’s fine, but that’s not the reason why I read science fiction. "Science" is right there in the name! The Sparrow completely ignores vast segments of scientific knowledge in pursuit of telling a particular story. (I would explicitly name microbiology and engineering as areas the author, or at least the text, seems to deliberately ignore.) I am somewhat curious about the sequel, Children of God, and will probably read it at some point. However, even though Father Sandoz's story arc in The Sparrow  is compelling and life on Rakhat is intriguing I’m also in no hurry to return there any time soon.

Title: The Sparrow.
Author: Mary Doria Russell.
Paperback: 416 pages.
Publisher: Ballantine Books.
Date Published: May 27, 2008 (First Published 1996).
Date Read: August 28, 2019.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★☆☆  (3.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: B+/B (3.16/4.0).

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

BOOK REVIEW: The Reckoning (Maeve Kerrigan, #2) by Jane Casey

The Reckoning is the second book featuring Detective Constable Maeve Kerrigan by Jane Casey. Kerrigan is a London police detective investigating major crimes like murder, kidnapping and violent assault. 

Maeve is one of the few women in her murder squad, and this impacts almost everything she does. In The Reckoning she is paired with DI Josh Derwent, a super macho detective who has a mysteriously long history with her boss, DCI Godley. The case that they are looking into in The Reckoning involves the brutal murder of three men who “have form” (i.e. are listed in police files because they have either been charged or convicted) for sexually molesting children, i.e. registered pedophiles. Surprisingly, early on Kerrigan and Derwent discover the person(s) responsible for these pedophile murders: a crime boss named John Skinner who Godley and Derwent have had serious run-ins with before. However this is not the end of the mystery but the beginning of another. Skinner leads the police to an even more heinous series of crimes, starting with the disappearance of his 16-year-old daughter after she attended a pop-up nightclub at a warehouse.

Meanwhile, while Maeve is involved in trying to solve these crimes she is getting to know the only other female member of the murder squad, Liv Dwyer. Dwyer is paired with Maeve’s former boyfriend/love interest DC Rob Langton who Maeve is in an on/off relationship with. Maeve moves into a new housing situation (a large house converted into six apartments where she doesn’t tell her roommates what her job is and where her male flatmates seem a bit too interested in making her feel welcome to the neighborhood). Things get even weirder when police find a video of Maeve on an underground website doing things which makes it clear she is being videostalked by a creepy, secret admirer. The website is run by the same people who are the promoters for the night club where the 16-year-old disappeared.

Overall, The Reckoning is a very well-done British police procedural with a suspenseful plot and a very strong set of supporting characters. There’s a fair amount of time (almost too much) spent on Maeve’s romantic relationship with Rob which distracts from the primary story but since I like both characters it didn’t cause me to lose interest or detract from my overall engagement with the book. I really look forward to reading the rest of the books in the series although I do hope they settle the Rob-Maeve connection one way or the other very soon!

Title: The Reckoning.
Author: Jane Casey.
Paperback: 373 pages.
Publisher: Orbit.
Date Published: October 1, 2011.
Date Read: July 30, 2019.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★★  (5.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A- (3.67/4.0).

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

BOOK REVIEW: Children of Ruin by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Children of Ruin by Adrian Tchaikovsky is the long-awaited sequel to the brilliant, award-winning Children of Time. Both books have several elements in common. For example, both books are centered on the development of non-human intelligences, the societies they form and tell the story of what happens when these intelligences interact with other extant intelligent life in the Universe. Time is another central element of both books, as the time scales on which the creatures evolve from being non-sentient beasts to full-fledged tool-using civilizations are quite long. Both technological advances and technological collapse also play significant roles in both books.

Children of Time was one of my favorite 5-star reads of the past few years so I was thrilled when I learned a sequel had been written. Although above I have spent a fair amount of time describing the many similarities the two books share, Children of Ruin is also different from its predecessor in multiple aspects. 

The sequel is more complex in many ways. Instead of a primary conflict between two species, Children of Ruin features multiple 2-way and 3-way conflicts between various species, primarily because we are introduced to not one but two new sentient alien species, although it takes awhile for the reader to realize that is what’s going on. As with Children of Time, one of the novel (and exciting) aspects of the books is that for wide swathes of the story, humans aren’t really one of the intelligences involved in the conflicts. Instead it is their “children” who have been guided/led/uplifted to sentience who are the primary characters in the story. That is not to say that humans, or as the book says, “Humans” (indicating the remnants of humanity who have somehow escaped the collapse of Earth civilization and are now coexisting in symbiosis with one of humanity’s uplifted “children”), are not integral participants in the plot, because they are.

Due to the multifaceted nature of the inter-species conflicts in the book, communication and especially translation, is a key component of the plot. This is obviously difficult, especially between alien species engaged in first contact meetings and the author depicts the challenges well. The part of the book which I found disappointing (I think because I doubted their verisimilitude, which I know is a crazy thing to say in a science fiction book which posits multiple non-human animal intelligences as space-faring beasts!) was the depiction of artificial intelligence and virtual reality/cyberspace. I’m not sure why this was the case since these events occur so far in the future that computer technology could/should be so advanced as to resemble magic but my mind balked at the depiction of computer-mediated spaces that seemed magical or unconstrained by rules. This is somewhat of a minor quibble because the vast majority of the story is about the multiple conflicts between the uplifted intelligent animals and the newly discovered alien intelligences. It must be said that those conflicts are riveting and the resolutions are suspenseful and the paths to their conclusion are twisty and surprising.

Overall, I would say that Children of Ruin is a worthy successor to Children of Time, with aspects that are both superior and inferior to the first book. Happily, there are more of the former than the latter. But since my overall view of Children of Time was that it was a near-perfect standalone science fiction first-contact, alien civilization novel, this makes my overall review for its sequel less enthusiastic in comparison. However, Children of Ruin is still a significantly strong science fiction space opera, about multi-species conflict and alien contact and one I hope gets a sequel!

Title: Children of Ruin (Children of Time, #2).
Author: Adrian Tchaikovsky.
Paperback: 608 pages.
Publisher: Orbit.
Date Published: May 14, 2019.
Date Read: August 5, 2019

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★½☆  (4.5/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A- (3.67/4.0).

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

BOOK REVIEW: A Memory of Empire (Teixcalaan, #1) by Arkady Martine

A Memory Called Empire is the debut novel from Arkady Martine. It is a space opera, set on a planet called Teixcalaan which is at the heart of a large, multi-planet empire. The main character is Mahit Dzmare, the new Ambassador to Teixcalaan from Lsel, a small space station which is trying to maintain its independence  from the galactic powerhouse and survive its relative proximity to a colonizing force. As soon as Mahit arrives on Teixcalaan she discovers that the unfortunate, accidental death of her predecessor, Yskandr Aghavn, was probably not as "accidental" or "unfortunate" as it appeared at first sight. The central tension in A Memory Called Empire is Mahit's unfamiliarity with and attraction to Teicxcalaani culture, language and society. She has two specific tools that are intended to assist her in becoming acculturated and successful in her ambassadorial tasks: a cultural liaison from the Ministry of Information named Three Seagrass and access to the memory/thoughts of the previous ambassador Yskandr via an implanted device in her head. Unfortunately, almost immediately after her arrival on Teixcalaan, her implant fails and she loses access to Yskandr and his years of experience and knowledge. So the book begins as a "fish out of water" story. Mahit's sense of unease and unfamiliarity is mirrored by the reader, who is also being introduced to the entirely foreign world of Teixcalaan. However, Mahit has an advantage because she's been preparing for her ambassadorial posting for years, studying Teixcalaan and as a Lsel Station resident has been exposed to Teixcalaani cultural products her entire life. For the reader there are many aspects of Teixcalaan that are strikingly unusual, starting with their names, which typically have the form of "Number" combined with "Significant Noun." For example, the current Emperor is named Six Direction. It's appropriate that Ann Leckie has provided a rave blurb for this debut novel, because there are several ways that her Imperial Radhch novels resemble A Memory Called Empire. Teixcalaani names provide no information about the gender of the person they are denoting, and are so different from what we readers are used to that it can make distinguishing and identifying with the characters difficult. Teixcalaani culture is technologically advanced and its language is very different from ours; the use of poetry is central and ubiquitous. The culture is very hierarchical and highly ordered, with the Emperor being uniformly venerated but not worshiped. One of the key moments in the book involves Mahit and Three Seagrass (who is a highly skilled amateur poet herself, a prized ability in Teixcalaan) quickly forced to come up with a short poem that can be distributed widely to alert important observers (specifically a powerful frenemy named Nineteen Adze) the perilous and parlous status of our heroes as Teixcalaani society begins to fray at the edges. Eventually Mahit (and the reader) becomes more familiar with Teixcalaan as the outlines of the plot (pun intended!) become clearer. There is an ongoing struggle to become the next Emperor (even though the current ailing one has publicly named three co-equal heirs Eight Loop, Eight Antidote and Thirty Larkspur) while the former and current Lesl ambassadors have important roles to play in resolving the situation. As one would expect, there is political instability which is sourced in the leadership struggle for control of the empire and Mahit is smack dab in the middle of it, along with her companions Three Seagrass and Twelve Azalea. The author resolves the conflict in a way that is quite surprising and rather satisfying. Overall, I would say that A Memory Called Empire is a fantastic, intensely creative debut novel which science fiction enthusiasts who liked Leckie's Radhch and Herbert's Dune novels will almost certainly also enjoy. In my humble opinion, a bit too much of the "action" of the book is literally intertextual and involves subtle interpretations of things said (and not said) for me to connect viscerally with the novel in an entertaining or emotionally engaging way. However, I fully appreciate the difficulty of the accomplishment and applaud the author for its successful execution. This is the first book in a trilogy and I suspect I will read the rest of the books, because I want to find out what happens with Mahit Dzmare and spend more time on Teixcalaani space. So as a story, t A Memory Called Empire must be considered a success.

Title: A Memory Called Empire (Teixcalaan, #1).
Author: Arkady Martine.
Paperback: 462 pages.
Publisher: Tor Books.
Date Published: March 26, 2019.
Date Read: July 27, 2019.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★½☆  (4.5/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A- (3.67/4.0).

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

BOOK REVIEW: White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo

White Fragility is a short but affecting read; it is revelatory, informative and inspirational. The author provides insight into the myriad ways that white people respond to discussions about race and white supremacy. This excerpt (from page 2) basically encapsulates the primary thesis of the book: Socialized into a deeply internalized sense of superiority that we are unaware of or can never admit to ourselves, we become highly fragile in conversations about race. We consider a challenge to our racial worldviews as a challenge to our very identities as good, moral people. Thus, we perceive any attempt to connect us to the system of racism as unsettling and unfair moral offense. The smallest amount of racial stress is intolerable--the mere suggestion that being white has meaning often triggers a range of defensive responses. These include emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt and behaviors such as withdrawal from the stress-inducing situation. These responses work to reinstate white equilibrium as they repel the challenge, return our racial comfort, and maintain our dominance within the racial hierarchy. I conceptualize this process as white fragility. The author Robin Diangelo uses the words "we" and "ours" in this quote and throughout the book to be explicit and forthright about her positionality as a white woman discussing racism. I imagine White Fragility would be very difficult for white people to read this book without experiencing some of the reactions that the author describes above. In fact, the author recognizes this and spends a significant amount of time in the book speaking directly to white readers of the text, to attempt to modulate and potentially forestall these reactions. I have to imagine how white readers will respond to reading about the ubiquity and resilience of white supremacy because I am not a white person.  Despite this fact, the experience of reading White Fragility as a non-white person is an exciting experience. My primary feeling was one of admiration (at the thoughtfulness and precision of the language of the book and the cogent and contemporaneous nature of the ideas included) and amazement (at the sheer number of "secrets" revealed and taboos broken about discussing race, anti-blackness and white supremacy). While it is well under 200 pages, White Fragility provides numerous resources for facilitating the process of getting white people to talk about racism, such as the pages of footnotes at the end of the book providing evidence for claims made in the text, as well as "Books, Articles and Blogs" for the reader to continue their education on the subject(s) of race, racism and white supremacy. Additionally, there are very useful lists included in the book which distill and highlight some of the key concepts. An example is this list of the functions of white fragility (found on page 122): Maintain white solidarity Close off self-reflection Trivialize the reality of racism Make white people the victims Hijack the conversation Protect a limited worldview Take race off the table Focus on the messenger, not the message Rally more resources to white people Another strong aspect of the book are the particular chapters devoted to "White Women's Tears," "Anti-Blackness," and "The Good/Bad Binary." Overall, White Fragility is a tour de force explication of why it is so difficult to have conversations about racism and (therefore begin) the process of dismantling white supremacy. In the end, I found the book somewhat depressing because it makes the prospect for improved race relations in the United States appear to be unlikely by analyzing and enumerating what would be entailed in producing such a future. With that said, the problem is not with the book, which does a great service to us all by illuminating and elucidating ideas and actions about race and white supremacy, but with us, the reader(s). RATING: FIVE STARS.

Title: White Fragility: Why It's So Hard For White People To Talk About Racism.
Author: Robin Diangelo.
Paperback: 462 pages.
Publisher: Tor Books.
Date Published: March 26, 2019.
Date Read: July 27, 2019.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★½☆  (4.5/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A- (3.67/4.0).

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