Sarah Chorn's Blog, page 77

Not A Review | Defenders – Will McIntosh

About the Book

When Earth is invaded by telepathic aliens, humanity responds by creating the defenders. They are the perfect warriors–seventeen feet tall, knowing and loving nothing but war, their minds closed to the aliens. The question is, what do you do with millions of genetically-engineered warriors once the war is won?

A novel of power, alliances, violence, redemption, sacrifice, and yearning for connection, DEFENDERS presents a revolutionary story of invasion, occupation, and resistance.

512 pages (paperback)

Published by Orbit

Published on May 13, 2013

Author’s webpage 

This book was sent for me to review by the publisher.

—

Dear publishers,

2014 is killing me. I seriously think this year will melt my brain with all the awesome that has crossed my doorstep. Publishers, you guys are doing the impossible. You keep putting out these books that just absolutely alter me on some sort of fundamental level. They make me live incredible lives, and look at the world around me, and my relationship to it, completely differently. They speak to me and move me. They leave me gasping and short of breath and leave me a different person than the one who started the book. I’ve pumped out more Not-A-Review’s this year alone than I have in any of my previous years running this website, and all for good reasons. Something must have been in the water recently that triggered some intense and fantastic creativity in authors, and publishers are gobbling it up and mailing all the results to me.

Thank you for that.

And damn you. Do you guys have any idea how much sleep I’ve lost due to you?

Ah, the life and times of a reviewer…

—

I reach a point with some authors where I have to stop reviewing their books. It gets to be impossible, either because I always love them or always hate them. With these authors, neutrality is an absolute impossibility. Usually it takes quite a few books to reach that point, but Will McIntosh has officially crossed that line with the second book of his that I’ve read, Defenders.

Last year I was astounded with Love Minus Eighty, a book that I still think about quite frequently. McIntosh set himself up to be one of those rare writers who knows how to explore the depth and scope of the human psyche, and how all of that relates to the world around us all. I expected something impressive with Defenders, but what I got was something that I didn’t expect at all.

Defenders is told with the same basic style of Love Minus Eighty, from different, but specific perspectives from a few select characters. I appreciate the fact that this style of story telling really allows the writer (and thus, the reader) to really flesh out and fully explore all the dirty details that make up each character. Defenders few perspectives really allows readers to get a much more intimate understanding of a complex situation than we’d otherwise get. This proves to be the very thing that makes Defenders as much of a mind trip as it is an exciting, fast paced read.

The back cover blurb is a little misleading, as it makes the reader believe that the war is over and now we are reading about how humanity (and the aliens and etc.) clean up the mess. That’s not really the case. The novel opens during one war, and then quickly moves to another, and then another. The interesting thing is that all of these wars are reactions to assumptions and misunderstandings. No one is trying to understand anyone else, they are all just reacting. And this is really where the novel gripped me. Defenders is incredibly fast paced, and very action packed, and full of emotion that absolutely grabs your heart. It’s raw and real and bloody and visceral, but it is so much more. Often the thoughts and beliefs are directly opposite of the actions that those same people undertake. Those actions, and all the levels of thought and personal experience that go into that action is just as fascinating as the war itself, and often that’s where the true adventure and exhilarating experience of Defenders lies – all of the levels.

Love Minus Eighty was obviously a deep book, full of emotions and self-exploration. Defenders is a little more deceptive about how deep it is. While there are some themes that are absolutely obvious (and absolutely interesting for so many reasons), like the philosophies that the Defenders themselves develop as a result of how they are created and treated – there are others that are quite a bit more subtle. This makes Defenders one of those books that is nicely balanced between the deeper notes and the more obvious fast-furious-fun plot themes. It’s also a book that I can read over and over again and glean new details and ideas each time.

That’s what is so damn great about this novel. There’s so much here that readers will love. Tight SciFi with realistic future developments abound. There’s more than enough action (but never too much, always just right). The characters are easy to love and sympathize with. But what’s even better is that it is true to form McIntosh. There is just so much here to love and enjoy. This book asks some of the most important questions that a book can ask, and it forces readers to analyze our human nature and our relationship to each other, reactions, actions, assumptions, beliefs, in some very uncomfortable ways that really resonate.

I read a lot of books.

A lot of books.

Tons of books.

I read constantly.

And it is so damn rare that I read a book that rocks me to my core this powerfully. Defenders is just as profound, just as moving, and just as powerful as Love Minus Eighty, but completely and totally different. Defenders has a very different feel than I expected, but it thrives from it. McIntosh has this way about his writing that just does it for me on every conceivable level. I love and hate his characters in equal measure, which is so realistic to how I approach humanity in general. The situation(s) are grand and huge, and surreal, but the epic scale of events in Defenders just makes everything that is happening so much more powerful, and the themes that McIntosh toys with that much more intense. The tiny details are incredible; the thought that is put into this novel is astounding.

Honestly, this is one of those books that kind of pisses me off because I only get to read it for the first time once.

 

This book is too good to rate.

Guest Post| More Kids, Please by Stephanie Saulter

Stephanie Saulter really needs no introduction. The woman absolutely blew my mind with Gemsigns, a book I’m still thinking about and can’t wait to re-read (and also packed full of incredibly important subjects). I’m just about dying to get my hands on Binary, the second book in that series. When I asked if she’d be willing to write a post for my dusty website, and she actually said yes, I just about passed out. She’s an incredibly busy woman, so taking the time to write something for Bookworm Blues is beyond thrilling. I’m also so absolutely envious of the brilliant mind that can write such a captivating book…

So, without further commentary on my part, let me clear the stage for the brilliant writer herself.

About the Author:

Stephanie Saulter writes what she likes to think is literary science fiction. Born in Jamaica, she studied at MIT and spent fifteen years in the United States before moving to the United Kingdom in 2003. Stephanie blogs unpredictably at stephaniesaulter.com and tweets slightly more reliably as @scriptopus. Gemsigns is her first novel. She lives in London.

GEMSIGNS will be published in May 2014 by Jo Fletcher Books (an imprint of Quercus). It is the first book in The ®Evolution Series.

More Kids, Please

By Stephanie Saulter

Over the past few weeks I’ve been busily responding to interview requests and writing a steady stream of guest posts, mostly relating to the release of Gemsigns in the US. I had a similar experience a year earlier, when it was first published in the UK and Commonwealth, and I’m reminded what an interesting exercise it can be to answer questions about your own work. The process of examination and analysis always throws up things I either hadn’t spent much time thinking about previously, or in some cases hadn’t realised at all.

In the case of Gemsigns, I’ve always known that the novel was to a great extent me writing a book I wanted to read; a book that contained the kind of story and characters I wasn’t finding elsewhere, and ignored or upended tropes that I was tired of seeing. The inclusion of a small child, Gabriel, as a central character was part of this; I was aware of my own annoyance at reading endless science fictional futures populated by women and men in the prime of life, but containing absolutely no children. Often not even a passing mention of them. If they are there it’s usually just to provide a bit of background – a little added texture – for an adult character. All these stories about ‘the future’, filled with heroic grownups fighting for and forging ahead into ‘the future’, with barely an acknowledgement of, y’know. The Future.

So I put little Gabriel at the heart of my story, and I gave other characters conversations about children, and memories of children, because a human society that doesn’t have kids at its heart feels completely artificial to me. But it’s only been fairly recently, while unpacking other aspects of the book and answering questions about other characters, that I’ve realised how unusual it is for a novel aimed at adults to have a child character with actual agency. Even when they’re not merely wallpaper, they still generally serve no more purpose than as a device for the adults to respond to: The Magical Child who needs to be protected, The Demon Child who should be feared, The Adored Child who is worshipped, The Endangered Child who must be rescued, and, occasionally, The Mystifying Child who exists to illustrate some aspect of adult incompetence.

Now, the Gabriel storyline does contain some of these elements; but he is very definitely not a prop. He’s a person. He has his own history and personality and point of view. His actions are crucially important in the narrative (not, let me be clear, solely by virtue of triggering adult reaction, but in their own right). And I’ve been looking at my shelves, trying to identify other novels that contain child characters of equal narrative significance in works that are not packaged as children’s books.

I’ve found a handful*: Dandelion Wine, Ender’s Game, The Poisonwood Bible, Lord of the Flies, Let the Right One In. Even so, most of those are about children primarily interacting with other children and not with grownups – as though they are destined always to inhabit different worlds in fiction. The Ocean at the End of the Lane, maybe, although something about the construction of that – an adult recovering lost memories of his childhood – leaves me with the slippery feeling that it’s the adult perspective which is prioritised, not the child’s. I took a long hard look at Lolita – but that is definitely a book in which the child is completely objectified by the adult perspective. Also, I don’t want to drift north into adolescence. This is about the absence of characters who are still clearly and unequivocally kids, but who have personhood and agency and are important players in adult narratives.

Think about your own narrative. Whether or not you have kids, you’ll certainly remember being one. Didn’t you have constant interactions with the adults around you? Didn’t you think thoughts and have complex feelings and cause things to happen? Weren’t you a person then too?

Where is that person, in the books that you read now?

There’s another child character in Binary, the sequel to Gemsigns; and there will be yet another in the third book of the ®Evolution, Gillung (none of which, let me stress, are ‘children’s books’). I promise you that I did not plan this: there was no conscious intention to have a kid in every book, tick tick tick. It’s happening organically, and that tells me something: the exclusion of children as agents in adult narratives is one of the fictional conventions that feels false to me. It also tells me that I’m still writing the books I want to read, set in a future I can envisage happening. Without children that future – any future – is unimaginable.

***

*A double handful if I include Charles Dickens, who was brilliant at portraying the full depth and richness of humanity at all of our stages of life. I’d argue that one of the reasons we’re still in awe of his ability to illuminate the human condition is because he understood that a society’s moral worth can be revealed through this most crucial question: how does it treat its children?

Books I’m Eyeing

Wow. Another crazy week for Bookworm Blues.

First things first, I have another giveaway going. Click here to find out what it’s all about and how to enter.

My interview with Elizabeth Bear on the Adventures in SciFi Publishing podcast went live. Click here to listen.

Special Needs in Strange Worlds has a fantastic guest post from author Alex Hughes. Check it out. 

I Not-A-Reviewed The Goblin Emperor. Tor is really publishing some amazing things this year.

Speaking of Special Needs in Strange Worlds, I just did an interview on Tuesday night with the fantastic people at the Hide and Create podcast about my column, and about disabilities in literature. It was a great opportunity, and I truly enjoyed talking to them. Very nice men, and a very cool podcast. I’ll let you know when it goes live.

I was also told that my Special Needs in Strange Worlds column was talked about on the diversity panel at the PIkes Peak Writers Conference. Then I was later told by an author who attended that my name was mentioned quite a bit at that conference. My ego exploded. That was so incredibly cool to hear, and it is so very, very nice to know that the dialogue I am trying so hard to start, is starting.

I just received an email saying that Elizabeth Bear’s post for Special Needs in Strange Worlds was the fourth most popular post in the month of April on SF Signal. Bravo, Elizabeth, and thanks so much to everyone who is spreading the word, and making my column a success. It really, really means a lot to me. I also have to thank the authors and other people who are participating in my column. It wouldn’t be anything without you guys.

So that’s about all there is that is newsworthy.

Reading wise, I haven’t read a ton recently, which is completely abnormal for me. I’ve been so busy with the Shattered Worlds project that I just haven’t had as much time as I wanted. I could have read a bunch today, but I decided to plant flowers with the two-year-old instead. It was worth it.

However, I have read some. I’ve started reading The Boost by Stephen Baker – a social scifi that I am really enjoying. I re-read Green Rider by Kristin Britain. I read this book years and years ago, and I remember feeling pretty “meh” about the first book in the series, but I got really into the series with each consecutive book. I’m pretty “meh” about Green Rider, but I’m going to keep going because sometimes comfort fantasy is exactly what the doctor ordered. I also am just about done with The Revolutions by Felix Gilman. I have to admit, I’m struggling with this one. Not because of the story or the writing (both of which are excellent) but because I have some sort of allergic reaction to all things Victorian. I finished Sparrow Hill Road by Seanan McGuire. I have to admit, I went into this one expecting absolutely nothing. Ghost stories have never done it for me. I find them about as interesting as zombies (which is really, really uninteresting). However, McGuire hooked me. She has this way with words… even if I thought the book was horrible (which it wasn’t. This damn thing is amazing), I’d have read it for the writing alone. Wow. Just wow. This woman has some serious talent.

Here are the books I’m Eyeing this week. 

Camelot Burning – Katheryn Rose 

Discovery blamed on: A Fantastical Librarian

About the Book

By day, Vivienne is Guinevere’s lady-in-waiting. By night, she’s Merlin’s secret apprentice, indulging in the new mechanical arts and science of alchemy. It’s a preferred distraction from Camelot’s gossipy nobility, roguish knights, and Lancelot’s athletic new squire, Marcus, who will follow in all knights’ footsteps by taking a rather inconvenient vow of chastity.

More than anything, Vivienne longs to escape Camelot for a future that wouldn’t include needlework or marriage to a boorish lord or dandy. But when King Arthur’s sorceress sister, Morgan le Fay, threatens Camelot, Vivienne must stay to help Merlin build a steam-powered weapon to defeat the dark magic machine Morgan will set upon the castle. Because if Camelot falls, Morgan would be that much closer to finding the elusive Holy Grail. Time is running out and Morgan draws near, and if Vivienne doesn’t have Merlin’s weapon ready soon, lives would pay the price, including that of Marcus, the only one fast enough to activate it on the battlefield.

Adaptation – Melinda Lo

Discovery blamed on: Bibliotropic

About the Book

Reese can’t remember anything from the time between the accident and the day she woke up almost a month later. She only knows one thing: She’s different now.

Across North America, flocks of birds hurl themselves into airplanes, causing at least a dozen to crash. Thousands of people die. Fearing terrorism, the United States government grounds all flights, and millions of travelers are stranded.

Reese and her debate team partner and longtime crush David are in Arizona when it happens. Everyone knows the world will never be the same. On their drive home to San Francisco, along a stretch of empty highway at night in the middle of Nevada, a bird flies into their headlights. The car flips over. When they wake up in a military hospital, the doctor won’t tell them what happened, where they are—or how they’ve been miraculously healed.

Things become even stranger when Reese returns home. San Francisco feels like a different place with police enforcing curfew, hazmat teams collecting dead birds, and a strange presence that seems to be following her. When Reese unexpectedly collides with the beautiful Amber Gray, her search for the truth is forced in an entirely new direction—and threatens to expose a vast global conspiracy that the government has worked for decades to keep secret.

Dealing with Dragons – Patricia C. Wrede

Discovery blamed on: Fantasy Review Barn

About the Book

Cimorene is everything a princess is not supposed to be: headstrong, tomboyish, smart – and bored. So bored that she runs away to live with a dragon – and finds the family and excitement she’s been looking for.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Knife of Never Letting Go – Patrick Ness

Discovery blamed on: Mithril Wisdom

About the Book

Prentisstown isn’t like other towns. Everyone can hear everyone else’s thoughts in an overwhelming, never-ending stream of Noise. Just a month away from the birthday that will make him a man, Todd and his dog, Manchee — whose thoughts Todd can hear too, whether he wants to or not — stumble upon an area of complete silence. They find that in a town where privacy is impossible, something terrible has been hidden — a secret so awful that Todd and Manchee must run for their lives.

But how do you escape when your pursuers can hear your every thought?

 

 

 

What books are you eyeing?

Cover Spotlight: Anton Strout (+GIVEAWAY)

First things first, today is a crazy busy day in the world of all things bookish for me. So, before I get onto the real meat of this post, let me show you a few other things that are going on today.

1. I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to interview one of my favorite authors, Elizabeth Bear, on the Adventures in SciFi Publishing podcast. Give it a listen here.

2. A new Special Needs in Strange Worlds is posted, featuring a guest post by author Alex Hughes. She was kind enough to write a little bit about how she created a character with an addiction problem. Check it out here.

3. I not-a-reviewed The Goblin Emperor. Check it out here.

Now, onto business.

I don’t typically post stuff like this, and I don’t typically post giveaways for books I haven’t read yet, but I broke my own rules for this series. I’ve heard a lot of good things about Strout, and I’ve heard about this series, so I figured it was time to take a chance on something new.

—

Urban Fantasy author Anton Strout is pleased to announce the third and final installment of his Spellmason Chronicles, INCARNATE, coming to readers’ bookshelves and e-readers on September 30th from Penguin/Ace Books. Like the two previous books in the series, ALCHEMYSTIC and STONECAST, the book will focus on spellmason Alexandra Belarus, who has the ability to give stone life-like qualities, and Stanis, the centuries-old gargoyle who has sworn to protect her. At the end of STONECAST, readers were left at a point of high tension with lots of questions still unanswered. INCARNATE promises to deliver answers by way of a fast-paced adventure with all the action and snarky humor Strout’s fans have grown to love.

HITTING ROCK BOTTOM

When Alexandra Belarus discovered her family’s secret ability to breathe life into stone, she

uncovered an entire world of magic hidden within New York City—a world she has accidentally thrown into chaos. A spell gone awry has set thousands of gargoyles loose upon Manhattan, and it’s up to Lexi and her faithful protector, Stanis, to put things right.

But the stress of saving the city is casting a pall over Lexi and Stanis’s relationship, driving them to work separately to solve the problem. As Stanis struggles to unite the gargoyle population, Lexi forges unlikely alliances with witches, alchemists and New York’s Finest to quell an unsettling uprising led by an ancient and deadly foe long thought vanquished.

To save her city, Lexi must wield more power than ever before with the added hope of recovering a mysterious artifact that could change her world—and bring her closer to Stanis than she ever thought possible…

Born in the Berkshire Hills, Strout currently lives in the haunted corn maze that is New Jersey (where nothing paranormal ever really happens, he assures you). He’s the author of the Simon Canderous urban fantasy series and the Spellmason Chronicles, both for Ace Books, as well as many short tales published in anthologies by DAW Books.

In his scant spare time, Strout is a sometimes actor, sometimes musician, occasional RPGer, and the world’s most casual and controller smashing video gamer. He currently works in the exciting world of publishing, which he assures is as glamorous as it sounds.

Follow Anton Strout on Twitter and visit his website to learn more about his work.

You can find the Spellmason Chronicles on Amazon.com and other online booksellers.

ALCHEMYSTIC

STONECAST

INCARNATE

Click on the cover for more information about this book.

As a nice bonus to all you fine folk out there, Strout is offering up one copy of the first book in this series, Alchemystic, to one lucky winner. 

Here are the rules: 

1. To enter, leave a comment under this post. 

2. Contest is open to U.S. residents only (Sorry, rest of the world). 

3. You have until midnight Mountain Time on Wednesday, May 7 to enter.

4. A winner will be randomly chosen and contacted on Thursday, May 8. 

Good luck to all who enter! 

Not A Review: The Goblin Emperor – Katherine Addison

About the Book

A vividly imagined fantasy of court intrigue and dark magics in a steampunk-inflected world, by a brilliant young talent.

The youngest, half-goblin son of the Emperor has lived his entire life in exile, distant from the Imperial Court and the deadly intrigue that suffuses it. But when his father and three sons in line for the throne are killed in an “accident,” he has no choice but to take his place as the only surviving rightful heir.

Entirely unschooled in the art of court politics, he has no friends, no advisors, and the sure knowledge that whoever assassinated his father and brothers could make an attempt on his life at any moment.

Surrounded by sycophants eager to curry favor with the naïve new emperor, and overwhelmed by the burdens of his new life, he can trust nobody. Amid the swirl of plots to depose him, offers of arranged marriages, and the specter of the unknown conspirators who lurk in the shadows, he must quickly adjust to life as the Goblin Emperor. All the while, he is alone, and trying to find even a single friend… and hoping for the possibility of romance, yet also vigilant against the unseen enemies that threaten him, lest he lose his throne – or his life.

This exciting fantasy novel, set against the pageantry and color of a fascinating, unique world, is a memorable debut for a great new talent.

446 pages (hardcover)

Published on April 1, 2014

Published by Tor

Author’s webpage

This book was sent for me to review by the publisher.

—

Oh, Tor, you guys are killing me this year. This is the second book you’ve published in 2014 that is getting not-a-reviewed. That has to be some sort of record. And the thing is, this is honestly one of the hardest (scratch that, this is the hardest) not-a-review or review I’ve ever written. I’m having such a hard time articulating how I feel about this book, and the impressions it left me with.

I will give it my best college try. Forgive me if this comes out a little too rambly and … well, you’ll see.

It took me a few tries to get into The Goblin Emperor. The immediate dialogue style when I started the book caught me off guard and was a little off-putting. However, I got over that really, really fast. I mean, like two pages later, fast. The Goblin Emperor is addictive. It’s like that candy that you just can’t get enough of, and you keep going back for more and more until the whole bag is gone.

Yeah, it’s like that.

The Goblin Emperor is amazing for a ton of different reasons, from the incredibly likeable, relatable protagonist, to the truly awe inspiring world building. I’m a reader who enjoys the details. I enjoy the nuances, and I like to see all of the small thing that make the one big thing seem that much more real and vivid to me, and this book is packed full of that. From characters, to the world, to the plot, The Goblin Emperor is full of the delicious details that I love so much.

The Goblin Emperor is a tale of court intrigue, and also a bit of a coming-of-age story set against a richly realized, incredibly unique world. Maia is a character that I almost instantly loved, because he spoke to me on such a personal level. He’s a young man who is out of his depth, thrust into a situation he is too naive to really understand. He has no friends, and no guide, and there is plenty of treacherous cultural and political waters for him to navigate.

So far this sounds just like any other political intrigue novel, right? Well, it isn’t. Not at all. Maia is a half-goblin, and there are elves aplenty among the nobles and commoners. But nothing about any of these tropes is what you’d expect of goblins or elves. The elves aren’t particularly beautiful or wise, and the goblins don’t drool or smell bad. Addison really humanizes these fantasy tropes, and I truly appreciate her for it.

Maia is just a brilliant character. I don’t even know how I can summarize how incredible he is. He’s so well rounded, and his obvious status as an outsider will speak to all of us on different levels. We can all relate to Maia’s outsider status. Watching him embrace who he is. He is a layered character, and his genuine struggle to do the right thing was truly heartwarming in a genre that is embracing the bloody and dark.

There is nothing wrong with bloody and dark, and I truly do enjoy my books with a darker, grimmer edge. However, there’s something really wonderful about reading a book that is uplifting and positive in the face of so much negative. The Goblin Emperor left me with a sort of warm, fuzzy, hopeful feeling that I haven’t felt after reading a speculative fiction book in a long time. This is one of those books that reminded me that there is genuine goodness all around me, and I appreciate Addison for that. I think we are at a point in speculative fiction where a book doesn’t seem to get serious consideration unless plenty of people get gutted, and Addison just proved that doesn’t have to be the case, nor should it be.

Don’t get me wrong. This isn’t a Mister Roger’s Special. There is plenty here that is dark, challenging, and hard to face, but Addison does it with grace, and the sheer loveable goodness of Maia, and the genuine feel to him really balances the darker notes perfectly. There is a lot of complexity here, and it takes some time to get a feel of the world, culture, and politics, but it is a joy to unravel and untangle. The mystery is so well done, and end up being nearly as important as the internal struggles that Maia faces.

I don’t really know what to say. I’m truly struggling with writing this review purely because this book was so painfully brilliant. I can’t find the words to tell you how amazing it is without spoiling something (anything, really). There is just so much packed into these pages. The plot is incredible, but it is dwarfed by the sheer awesome of Maia and the world that Addison has crafted. If you’re interested in deft, detailed character and world building, look no further. This is one of those books that doesn’t divide, it brings people together. Case and point, I mentioned on Twitter that I am having a hard time writing this review because the book was just so amazing. My email and my Twitter has officially been flooded by people I’ve never even heard of before agreeing with me. It’s kind of incredible how many people, from how many different walks of life have read this book and been touched by it.

I can’t say anything other than that, and that’s, perhaps, the best compliment I could pay it. There is no argument here. The Goblin Emperor is pure genius. It is absolutely touching, and moving on a profound level. This book left me with hope burning deep inside. I’m going to keep it, and cherish it, and read it when I need something astounding to turn to. Maia, in so many ways, is a reflection of all of us, and Addison is a giant for writing such an incredible book.

 

This book was too good to rate /5 stars

 

Fury – Charlotte McConaghy

About the Book

When emotions are erased from the world, creating a civilization of mindless drones, only those with fury can survive.

On the same day each year Josephine Luquet wakes naked, shivering and covered in blood that is not her own. Under the cold gaze of the blood moon she is someone else entirely, but when dawn breaks her memories flee and she is left with only an icy horror, a burning fury. Amid a sea of drones, she alone hasn’t been cured.

It will be the same each year: atrocities forgotten, truths hidden and pieces of herself left to die.

Until Luke.

He isn’t like the other drones. With secrets whispering behind his eyes and a hunger for all things Josephine, he is the only one determined to help her discover the truth before the next blood moon rises.

But time is running out. Is Luke willing to risk his life to be near her? Does he truly understand what violence she is capable of?

Raw and full of passion, Fury is a story of love in a dystopian world, and how much we are willing to forgive in the struggle to remember our humanity.

348 pages (kindle)

Published on March 25, 2014

Published by Momentum Books

Author’s webpage

This book was sent for me to review by the publisher.

— 

One of the best things about reviewing books is taking a chance on something new, something I’ve never heard of before, and having a huge, satisfying payoff from that chance. The thing is, with all the books that fly in my house each week, it is impossible not to take those chances, and I am so glad. My literary horizons are always expanding and changing depending, and it is such a treat.

Fury is a book I took an absolute chance on. I’m not big on dystopian-feeling novels, and I’m kind of sick of the dog-eat-dog-look-at-how-far-we’ve-fallen stories. From the back cover blurb, Fury seemed to be everything I really don’t like right now. So why did I take a chance on it? Sometimes an idea is so powerful that it haunts me. The idea of society having emotions removed reminded me a bit of Divergent (in some mild ways) but with a more adult feel, and more focused on that one aspect of our human experience. I was captivated. I wanted to know more.

McConaghy is an Australian author who, quite honestly, I’ve never heard of before I read this book. She writes the kind of books that I typically don’t pay much attention to – urban fantasy and fantasy with a hard romantic edge. Due to the fact that we tend to fly past each other in the genres we prefer to read and write, it’s no small wonder I haven’t really heard her name before.  However, she’s written quite a few books. Fury is just the start of a new series (The Cure) that she is working on. This isn’t some untested author, she’s tried and true, and her prose proves it.

Fury is set in a dystopian world, somewhere in the near future, where the main issue facing humanity has been pinpointed as the emotion of anger, and steps had been taken to rid humanity of this emotion through the “cure.” The idea this novel is based on is very well thought out, and incredibly unique. McConaghy takes steps to show just how emotion, and the lack of it, can have long lasting, and far reaching impacts. It is interesting to see just how humanity changes when one emotion is taken away from the spectrum. People don’t just stop feeling anger, but their reactions to situations is vastly different than what we’d expect, due to that lack of an emotion.

Into this mix is a small group of hidden individuals who haven’t been cured, and secret police forces who search these people out. Our protagonist, Josephine, has an interesting situation that kind of throws a cog into the wheel of how this futuristic society runs. There is a mystery where she is trying to find out the reason for her situation, while she also tries to stay one step ahead of the people who are trying to find her and “cure” her. Her life is hard, and her jaded, almost bitter voice is a testament to that. Nothing comes easy for her, and her plight is incredibly real. It is easy for readers to sympathize for her, and her plight.

The perspectives change, though they stay with a primary few. They all, for the most part, have unique voices so readers won’t suffer from confusion. There’s some romance, which is really well done and seems to add to the plot rather than distract from it. Fury starts with Josephine getting questioned by a psychologist, which is a type of storytelling that either works or absolutely fails. It was rather brave for McConaghy to tell the story this way, as it deals with timeline issues, which can be confusing, and it also seems to make the plot more complex than it really needs to be. However, the author, for the most part, pulls it off. While I’d usually say that this way of telling the story would make things more complex than they needed to be, in Fury, the book ended up being much more complex than I expected, and this way of telling the story actually kept up with the plot nicely.

There are some books that hook me for the prose alone, and others that hook me for the characters. Then there are the few books that absolutely hook me because the premise the book is based on is so absolutely thought provoking. This is one of the ladder kinds. Fury surprised me. I went into it expecting an adult version of Divergent, and I came out of it absolutely surprised (but the good kind). This book is thought provoking, and well written. The ending is a little predictable, but the pace is breakneck, and the plot is absolutely absorbing. Josephine is a character that keeps you guessing, and McConaghy’s writing is tight, and filled with just the right amount of description.

Fury is the first book in a trilogy, and I cannot wait to read more of it. It’s a fast, fun story, but also an absolutely fascinating look at the raw power of emotions.

 

4/5 stars

Books I’m Eyeing

This week has been absolutely insane. I’m working six days straight (one more day… one more day…. one more day….) AND I had my first deadline (which I hit… barely…) for Shattered Worlds. I submitted my bit in its roughest form, but that’s okay. At least I did it, and I still have time to polish it up. Due to the deadline, my website was kind of quiet these past few days. However, I pulled double duty over on SF Signal. So please check out the amazing guest post by Daryl Gregory on Special Needs in Strange worlds. And, I was in a mind meld. We talked about books that profoundly moved us. 

I haven’t really read that much this week (see the deadline bit above) but I have read a little bit, and I’m planning on really attacking these books over the weekend.

Sparrow Hill Road by Seanan McGuire is really doing it for me. I’m not that big on ghost stories, but this one is incredibly interesting, as it is told from the ghost’s perspective. It also happens to be the kind of book that I’d read even if the plot was pure crap (which it’s not) because the writing is so absolutely astounding. I keep wishing I had 1/16th of McGuire’s talent with prose.

Last week I went to the library and picked up The Archived by Victoria Schwab. After I read Vicious last year, I really wanted to explore more of what she’s written. I absolutely love her style, and even though I’m only two chapters in, I’m already in love with the concept. I have high hopes for this one.

The Oversight by Charlie Fletcher is one of those books that grabs you almost instantly. I’m not as far into this one as I want to be, but it’s because I’m not really letting myself sit down and read it too much. I lose track of time because I get so absorbed. Totally worth reading. I am hoping to have some one-on-one time with this one on Sunday.

So, onto books I’m eyeing. These are the books that other websites have featured and caught my attention. This is my way of giving a nod to the other websites out there who have amazing content, and deserve all your attention.

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The Dead Ground – Claire McGowen

Discovery blamed on: A Fantastical Librarian

About the Book

A stolen baby. A murdered woman. A decades-old atrocity. Something connects them all.

A month before Christmas, and Ballyterrin on the Irish border lies under a thick pall of snow. When a newborn baby goes missing from hospital, it’s all too close to home for forensic psychologist Paula Maguire, who’s wrestling with the hardest decision of her life.

Then a woman is found in a stone circle with her stomach cut open and it’s clear a brutal killer is on the loose.

As another child is taken and a pregnant woman goes missing, Paula is caught up in the hunt for a killer no one can trace, who will stop at nothing to get what they want.

 

Company Town – Madeline Ashby

Discovery blamed on: Civilian Reader

About the Book

Meet Hwa. One of the few in her community to forego bio-engineered enhancements, she’s the last truly organic person left on the rig. But she’s an expert in the arts of self-defence, and she’s been charged with training the Family’s youngest, who has been receiving death threats – seemingly from another timeline. 

Meanwhile, a series of interconnected murders threatens the city’s stability – serial killer? Or something much, much worse…?

 

 

 

The Empire of Time – David Wingrove

Discovery blamed on: The Speculative Scotsman

About the Book

There is only the war.

Otto Behr is a German agent, fighting his Russian counterparts across three millennia, manipulating history for moments in time that can change everything.

Only the remnants of two great nations stand and for Otto, the war is life itself, the last hope for his people.

But in a world where realities shift and memory is never constant, nothing is certain, least of all the chance of a future with his Russian love.

 

 

Peacemaker – Marianne de Pierres

Discovery blamed on: Rob’s Blog ‘o Stuff

About the Book

When an imaginary animal from her troubled teenage years reappears, Virgin takes it to mean one of two things: a breakdown (hers!) or a warning. Dead bodies start piling up around her, so she decides on the latter. Something terrible is about to happen in the park and Virgin and her new partner, U.S. Marshall Nate Sixkiller, are standing in its path…

Virgin Jackson is the senior ranger in Birrimun Park – the world’s last natural landscape, overshadowed though it is by a sprawling coastal megacity. She maintains public safety and order in the park, but her bosses have brought out a hotshot cowboy to help her catch some drug runners who are affecting tourism. She senses the company is holding something back from her, and she’s not keen on working with an outsider like Nate Sixkiller.\

 

 

What books are you eyeing this week?

Interview: Daryl Gregory

A little while ago, I read Afterparty and lost my mind about how amazing it is. Daryl Gregory is a true peach. He is incredibly busy, and even after I told him that I might happen to be the worst interviewer on the face of the planet, he let me bug him with some questions anyway. Please check out this interview, and give the man some serious props for putting up with me.

And while you’re at it, go buy a copy of Afterparty. You won’t regret it.

My mind is still blown.

Read more about Daryl Gregory, and his book(s) here. 

Onto the interview!

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First things first, what do you do when you aren’t writing?

I have a half-time programming job that helps keep a roof over our heads. I write code in the morning, then head off to a coffee shop to write every afternoon. There are a few psychological benefits to not quitting the day job. One, I don’t need to sell to eat, so I don’t have to take work-for-hire jobs unless I really want them—like the Planet of the Apes comic, which I enjoyed tremendously.

What is your writing background? Were you always a writer or did you have an “ah ha” moment of awakening that led you down this road? 

I’ve wanted to be a writer since about 30 seconds after I learned to read. I wanted to be inside books, and writing them turned out to be the easiest way to do that.

On your website you say that you are an author of “genre-mixing novels.” After reading Afterparty, I have to agree with that. Do you consciously set out to “genre-mix” or does it just happen? What appeals to you about blurring the lines like that?

Genre-mixing is my natural inclination. Growing up, I read all kinds of stories—fantasy, science fiction, horror, crime, adventure, historicals—and those books were all having sex with each other in my head. I consider my own stories to be their strange babies. Of course they’re confused. It didn’t help that some of my favorite novels crossed genre boundaries. Afterparty couldn’t have been written without Zelazny’s Lord of Light.  Fortunately for me, as both a reader and a writer, there’s more of that kind of thing going on. I feel very lucky to be writing at a time when there’s an audience for these kinds of stories.

You’ve won a ton of awards and received a lot of recognition for your novels and short stories. Does your success ever surprise you, or is that something you get used to over time? 

Well, I would say that I’ve lost a ton of awards. I think my first novel lost three different awards to Jeff Ford. Now, Jeff’s one of the finest prose stylists of our time, but what’s infuriating is that he’s also one of the nicest guys in the world. How is that fair? If I’m going to lose that often to a single writer, at least make him hate-able.

But yes, I have won a couple things, and I’ve been short-listed for end of year lists by organizations like Publishers Weekly and Library Journal. That’s very gratifying, and I haven’t taken any of it for granted. I’m from the Midwest, which means that you grow up knowing that as soon as you feel proud of any accomplishment, a tornado will wipe out your house.

There is one thing that surprises me every time it happens, however, and makes me get all verklempt: when a writer I respect says, I read your story, and it was good. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.

You write comics as well as novels. These two forms of literature are vastly different, so I assume writing and creating them are vastly different. What are some of the ways writing a comic is different than writing a novel? How are they similar? 

Telling a story is telling a story, so that doesn’t change whether you’re writing a novel or telling a ghost story around a campfire. But the form of comic writing is so different, and fortunately I had friends who were ace comics writers. Matt Sturges and Chris Roberson coached me through writing to the tight structure of a 22-page comic. But the most important lesson amounted to “Write less.” Let the art do the work.

Afterparty absolutely captivated me. One of the reasons why was because the “near future” you set it in was so absolutely realistic and believable when compared to the world we live in. Did you have a method to your madness when creating things like the chemjet printers, the cigarette smuggling business and the like?

Here’s the trick about writing near-future SF: It’s just mainstream fiction about the present, with enough new ideas so that it won’t feel quaint in a few years. Almost all the tech I invented was either possible now in principle, or possible when combined with a couple other existing technologies. Take the chemjet printers, which allow people to “print” designer drugs onto rice paper. I just took 3D printers, replaced the plastic source material with foil packs full of precursor chemicals, and assumed that the open source community would take care of inventing new recipes.

I’m glad you brought up the cigarette smuggling. In the novel, there’s a scene where First Nations people are smuggling cigarettes across the St. Lawrence river from reservations lands in upstate New York. None of that is made up, and is happening every day, right now. I did add the idea of replacing live boat drivers with remote controlled drone boats — but that’s not very far-fetched either.

The trick when introducing new tech into the story is to not point to it too strongly and make a  big thing out of it. It’s part of the world, so you mention it and move on. Readers will fill in the gaps, and because they’re doing the work, it feels like part of the world.

One of the major issues that fuels Afterparty is regarding the side effects of drugs and medication. This is a really heavy theme throughout the book as it causes mental illness, and seriously alters a person’s life. What kind of research did you do when you were creating these drugs and their effects?

I’ve been reading about neuroscience and for years now. Many of my short stories are about quirks of consciousness, and some of the big questions, such as, Why are we conscious at all? Do we have free will? And how do our emotions affect rationality?

When I started writing Afterparty, I knew I needed to know more about psychoactive drugs, their affects on the brain, and the way the brain reacts in withdrawal. Fortunately, I found a few good books, and a host of sites online. There’s a community of people interested in smart drugs and designer drugs.

I’m interested in what modern day inspirations you used as jumping off points for Afterparty.

For this book, I wasn’t thinking about things in the modern day as a jumping off point. The book is set in the modern day, with only enough science fictional invention to allow me to talk about what I wanted to talk about, and to make my plot work.

The morals are fairly blurred in Afterparty. You really set up a scene where social evolution made drugs accessible, and along with that comes the religion and morals that alter to make way for the easily accessed drugs. Many drugs were created with good intentions and ended with disastrous results. Some people take advantage of that, and some don’t. You’ve really created a fascinating and complex moral gray zone. I wonder is that a reflection of how you see society now? A complex array of constantly evolving grays? Also, regarding the merging of drugs and technology, is this the path you see humanity on? 

Another advantage of writing about the very near future: I don’t think I invented much as far as the accessibility of drugs or the moral universe in which we would all be using them — that’s all here, right now. And it is a gray zone, in the ways you’ve pointed out. Drugs save lives, but can also be abused. I think we’re not on the path to using drugs as technology; we’ve been using drugs as “modules” to augment ourselves since we discovered peyote and beer.

Mental illness is a strong theme throughout the novel, and you keep that mental illness and the characters who struggle with it, incredibly realistic despite their struggles. They aren’t defined by their mental illness, but it certainly is part of them. What kind of research into mental illness did you do when you wrote this? Did you ever struggle with not letting the psychological disorders overpower the characters?

This is one of the benefits of being married to a psychologist—and hanging out with shrinks! For years I’ve been very interested in the neurochemical aspects of the mind, and have done a lot of reading on my own, but this topic is just in the air in my house.

You bring up an interesting point about not letting the disorder overpower the character. You just have to write “person first”—Lyda’s a person with (unusual) problems, she’s not just “a schizophrenic” or “an addict.” I think if you write out of love and empathy, you avoid most of the problems of reducing the disability to some kind of plot function.

Afterparty really focuses quite a bit on the connection between science and religion. It is impossible not to have the two tied when the protagonist has an angel nearby almost constantly. Science and religion are both topics that people tend to not want to talk about around the dinner table. Are you worried about how such weighty, hot button topics would affect readers?

I wasn’t worried about the readers–hot button topics are why we read! No, I was worried about my mom. My parents are devout Christians, and my mom reads everything I write, no matter how weird it gets. She knows I’m her strange child. But I was afraid that this time I’d written a book that she wouldn’t want to tell her friends about.

That said, I hope my mother (and her friends) read to the end, because my take on religion is more nuanced than just “it’s all in your head.” (Well, I believe it is, but it’s more complicated than that.) I think the numinous—the religious feeling that tells us that we’re all connected—is true in a philosophical sense. We are connected. But that impulse may also be an excellent survival mechanism that we’ve evolved for good reasons.

Maybe this is a stupid question, but the name “Lyda Rose” is also the name of a song in The Music Man. So, of course I have to ask, why did you pick that name? And are there meanings or interesting parallels with all the names in your book or just hers?

Lyda’s name popped into my head early on, and then it was simply her name, and I couldn’t shake it. I was in that musical in seventh grade, and I still have most of the songs memorized. So in the book, Lyda’s name is an annoying inheritance from her mother, who was a fan of Broadway musicals. I don’t think any of the other names have special meaning. Most were picked for their sound and rhythm, like “Edo Andersen Vic.”

Afterparty is such a deep, thought provoking book I am having a hard time narrowing down what questions to ask you. I always try very hard not to ask this question, but I think your book merits it. When people read your novel, what knowledge or thought do you want them to walk away with? 

“Thought-provoking” is both the adjective and final result I’m looking for.  Will readers keep thinking after they put down the book? I’m not trying to leave them with one specific idea in mind, except perhaps this: you’re brain is lying to you all the time, so be on guard.

What other projects are you working on that I can look forward to?

In August 2014, Tachyon Publications will be publishing a novella in book form called We Are All Completely Fine. It’s about five survivors of supernatural horror—each of them a Last Girl or Last Boy—who go into small group therapy together. Then, of course, they find out that their stories aren’t over, and are connected in mysterious ways.  Then next year Tor is publishing my first YA novel, a Lovecraftian book with a light touch.

So, two horror books that aren’t really horror, because I love the monsters too much. My first novel was about “demonic” possession, my second about genetic freaks of the Smoky Mountains, and my third was about the nicest living dead boy in the world, so I guess this is a psychological issue I’m working out.

 Are there any final thoughts you want to leave with readers?

If after reading this interview your lying brain is telling you to try out Afterparty, maybe you should think twice about that.

Thank you so much for your time!!

It was a pleasure.

Science Fiction and the Human Condition

I really almost hate writing think pieces because I always feel like an idiot when I do. However, sometimes a thought brews in my brain and I have to “write it out” to see where it goes. This post is a result of that. 

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Recently I’ve been reading a rather shocking number of books that focus on, or toy with, the idea of what makes us human. How do we interact with each other? How do our ideas and inventions affect us both short term and long term? I love books like that because they make me think, but it seems like I’ve read more books in that arena this year than I have any other year.

Speculative fiction is a fertile playground for toying with progressive, and introspective ideas. There are a lot of reasons for this, but when your imagination is the limit, it is hard to keep your feet on the ground. What other literary genre can be filled with elves, aliens, cryogenically frozen people, and all of the moral, legal, and political issues all of those races and situations thrust upon societies? None. That’s pure speculative fiction, baby, and that’s why I love it so much. Speculative fiction takes us out of what we know, and puts us into worlds and situations that are completely foreign. As readers, it is our job to sink or swim, to navigate the treacherous waters of uncomfortable moral questions, and figure out what is right and wrong on our own terms.

Applying all of that to the world we live in, now that’s the real challenge.

An interesting paradigm shift is happening right now. Our technology is catching up to our imaginations. Science fiction isn’t so far in the future anymore. Afterparty, by Daryl Gregory, a social science fiction book, takes place in the near future. Love Minus Eighty, one of the best science fiction books in the history of the universe (IMO, of course) takes place in a more distant future, but much of the technology directly reflects on the technology we know and use today, like Facebook and Youtube. These ideas, these things that fill our days, aren’t so strange anymore. We don’t have to imagine it, because it is all around us. Interstellar travel? No, we haven’t sent men to Mars yet, but notice, there is a ‘yet’ in that sentence. It’s not too far away. We have satellites that have gone further than any man-made object has ever gone. We are finding Earth-like planets almost daily. A mission to Mars is just a matter of time.

This is making an impact on science fiction. We’ve put men on the moon, and can talk to people across the world from us in a matter of seconds. People meet, date, and fall in love virtually. We can watch countries getting blown to bits live. Technology isn’t just developed, it is being developed and we are living in an age when the far future and all the possibilities it contains isn’t too far away anymore. Speculative fiction is reflecting that. Technology is part of us, and it is opening up a whole can of worms, worms that are wiggling their ways onto books by the hundreds.

Are cyborgs human? Read Cinder by Marissa Meyer to really get an insiders look into that topic. It’s not such a weird issue anymore, especially when you consider all the people (myself included) who have non-human parts in their bodies to keep them functioning at a normal level.

Want to explore the morality of cryogenics and social media? Check out Love Minus Eighty by Will McIntosh. When you consider the voluntary erosion of our privacy from social media outlets and the study into the science behind death, Love Minus Eighty is a very poignant and timely novel.

Space exploration is changing. NASA has lost a bit of funding over the years. Interested in reading more about how privatization of the space industry could affect it? Read Mars, Inc. by Ben Bova.

Curious about our pharmaceutical industry, technology, and easy access? Afterparty by Daryl Gregory will rock you to your core.

Want to read about global issues like rising oceans, a hotter earth, mass human migration, and the ability to bring soldiers back to life – and all the moral issues that are contained there? When We Wake by Karen Healey.

The list could go on and on. And those are just books that I’ve read this year, and not even all of them that I could list. Not even a fraction. More and more science fiction authors are wandering into social SciFi territory. It is a fascinating playground and I am loving every second of it. Our world is evolving. Never before has technology and society been so absolutely intermixed, and near-future scifi books are reflecting that. People are looked up on Facebook before they are called for job interviews. We post pictures of our dinner online. Our world is just as tactile as it is virtual, and science fiction seems to be truly exploring where those two realities converge.

Science fiction has an incredible ability to make us dream, to wonder what if, to look into a future that doesn’t exist and make us see just how we could (or shouldn’t) bring it about. It is a genre that is rooted in the present, and expands it into a future that may or may not be glorious. The marriage of our society and all its positives and negatives, with technology, is irreversible, but it is ripe fodder for science fiction authors to play with. SciFi authors can get their readers to look at  their intricate relationship with the world around them and just how technology and relationships, choices and decisions, affect it. Not just in a future far, far away, but tomorrow as well. SciFi seems to be a perfect genre for exploring the human condition, and I am deeply grateful to the authors who are making us all look at our relationships with each other, and with the societies and world we inhabit.

I am so glad social SciFi is becoming a bigger trend. I hope it lasts.

A Hearty Congratulations!

Every year this happens. The short list is announced and I go into hiding for a few weeks until the hubbub dies down. Every year there is a controversy, and every year there are long, long discussions about why so-and-so is on there (what an asshole) and so-and-so isn’t (who is the absolute ideal of perfection in every sense of the word). Let’s decry the system! Damn the man!! Public shaming ahoy!

Why do awards have to make us so ugly?

Perhaps I am a believer in what goes around comes around, and that’s why my threshold for these events and the discussions that circle around them are so low. Don’t worry, kids. It will sort itself out. You reap what you sow. Life is too short to spend any bit of it angry or resentful if you don’t have to.

The truth is, those people on that shortlist are there for a reason. Whatever that reason might be, it worked. They produced something impressive, they had fan support, raw talent oozes from their pores, they rigged votes. Whatever it is that they did, they did it better than I could do it. Whether we appreciate their skill and finesse is up to each of us individually.

Agree or disagree with the short list, but respect the people on it who have worked hard to get that far. I consider many of them friends, and I am beyond thrilled that they have risen so high. I am proud of them. I recognize their work as being some of the best, the ideal I aspire toward. Some of the podcasts, books, and websites have pulled me through very dark, dark times, uplifted me, and gave me hope and strength when I didn’t think I had any. They took me away from myself when I was broken and fighting, and that’s a rare gift that I can’t put a price on.

I am very proud to be in such a vibrant, thriving community, and I am thrilled that this community is passionate enough to have such strong debates. Speculative Fiction fans don’t take anything lying down, and I respect that about all of us. What a joy to be a member of such a passionate group.

I don’t, however, understand why that passion has to come at the cost of others.

Congratulations to those on the short list. You worked hard to be there, and I admire you all for your contributions.