Review: The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi + Giveaway

Review: The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi + GiveawayThe Collapsing Empire Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Series: Interdependency #1
Pages: 334
on March 21st 2017
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.org
Goodreads

The first novel of a new space-opera sequence set in an all-new
universe.

Our universe is ruled by physics and faster than light travel is not possible -- until the discovery of The Flow, an extra-dimensional field we can access at certain points in space-time that transport us to other worlds, around other stars.

Humanity flows away from Earth, into space, and in time forgets our home world and creates a new empire, the Interdependency, whose ethos requires that no one human outpost can survive without the others. It’s a hedge against interstellar war -- and a system of control for the rulers of the empire.

The Flow is eternal -- but it is not static. Just as a river changes course, The Flow changes as well, cutting off worlds from the rest of humanity. When it’s discovered that The Flow is moving, possibly cutting off all human worlds from faster than light travel forever, three individuals -- a scientist, a starship captain and the Empress of the Interdependency -- are in a race against time to discover what, if anything, can be salvaged from an interstellar empire on the brink of collapse.

My Review:

My first thought upon finishing The Collapsing Empire was “Oh…My…GOD

The second was that rolling your eyes while driving is a really bad idea, especially if you do it OFTEN. Actually I had that though much earlier in the book, when I was doing a LOT of eye rolling. The ending is far from an eye roll situation, but the advice still stands.

So i’m back to the Oh My God reaction, which I’m still hearing in Wil Wheaton’s voice as the reader of The Collapsing Empire. Which I listened to, pretty much everywhere, sometimes rolling my eyes, often smiling or even outright laughing, from the surprising beginning to the even more astonishing end.

Which isn’t really an end, because it’s obvious that this is just the beginning of a much bigger story, which I hope we get Real Soon Now, but don’t actually expect for a year or more.

So what was it?

The title both does and doesn’t give it away. The Empire, in this case the human empire that calls itself the Interdependency, is about to collapse. Not due to warfare or anything so prosaic, but because, well, science. The interstellar network that keeps the far-flung reaches of the Interdependency interdependent is on the verge of an unstoppable collapse.. So what we have at the moment is the story of the maneuvering and machinations as what passes for the powers that be, or that hope to be the powers that become, jockey for position (and survival) in the suddenly onrushing future.

And humans being humans, while some panic there are a whole lot of people who remain so invested in the status quo that they are unwilling to act because any actions upset their positions now, and they hope, very much against hope, that the predictions are wrong. Not because they really believe in their heart of hearts that they ARE wrong, but because they want them to be wrong so very badly.

Any resemblance between the Interdependency and 21st century America is probably intended – but agreeing or disagreeing with that statement doesn’t change the sheer rushing “WOW” of the story.

That story of the empire that’s about to collapse is primarily told through the eyes of four very, very different people (not that the side characters aren’t themselves quite fascinating). But as things wind up, and as the empire begins to wind down, we get our view of the impending fall mostly from these four, or people who surround them.

The first is Ghreni Nohamapeton, the most frequent source of my eye-rolling. Ghreni is a slippery manipulative little bastard, but he is about to be hoist on his own petard. Or possibly not. He thinks he knows what’s coming, and of course, he doesn’t. Or does he?

Kiva Lagos may possibly be the most profane character it has ever been my pleasure to encounter, in literature or out of it. And her constant, continuous cursing sounds a bit much in an audiobook, but perfectly fits her character. Kiva is also manipulative as hell, and mercenary into the bargain. But somewhere between the hells, damns and f-bombs, there’s a heart. Or at least the desire to one-up Ghreni that provides some of the same functionality.

Marce Claremont is about to be the bearer of very bad tidings – if he can survive being the chew toy between Ghreni and Kiva long enough to deliver his message. And even though he knows that the delivery of it means that he really, really can’t go home again. Ever.

And finally we have Cardenia Wu, the recent and very reluctant Emperox of the Interdependency. A woman who is about to experience the very extreme end of that old saying, “be careful what you wish for, because you might get it.” As a great man once said, “Some gifts come at just too high a price.” And that’s true whether you have to dance with the devil to get them, or just roll dice with fate.

Escape Rating A: I listened to this, and also have the ebook. I expected to switch between, but in the end just couldn’t tear myself away from Wil Wheaton’s marvelous reading. He does a terrific job with all of the voices, and adds even more fun to a book that was already fantastic.

But I need that ebook to look up all the names. It seems as if none of them are spelled quite the way they sound. And the ship’s names are an exercise in absurdity from beginning to end. (This aspect may be an homage to the late Iain Banks’ Culture series). But the first ship we meet is the “Tell Me Another One” which is this reader’s general response to Scalzi’s work. I want him to tell me another one, as soon as possible. But also, and as usual, everyone’s leg is getting pulled more than a bit, and not from the same direction.

Lots of things in this story made me smile, quite often ruefully. The scenario is painful, and as this book closes we know that the situation in general is only going to get worse, and possibly not get better. But for the individuals, life is going on. And the characters exhibit all of the sarcasm that this author is known for.

Some of it has the ring of gallows humor to it, and that’s also right. No one is likely to come out of this unscathed by the end, and that’s obvious to the reader from the beginning, even if not to the characters.

This is also a story of merchant empires and political skullduggery. And yes, there is plenty of commentary on that aspect to chew on for a long time, quite possibly until the next book in the series. Like so much of Scalzi’s work, The Collapsing Empire makes the reader laugh, and it makes the reader think, quite often at the same time.

Ghreni and Kiva both represent different ways in which the current systems of the Interdependency have been taken to their extreme limit. But Marce and Cardenia are the characters that we sympathize with. They are both operating against impossible odds, and we like them and want them to succeed. Whether they will or not is left to the subsequent books in this series.

And I really, really, really can’t wait to see what happens next.

~~~~~~ GIVEAWAY ~~~~~~

Because this is part of my annual Blogo-Birthday celebration, I want to share the love. And the books. John Scalzi is one of my favorite authors, and I hope he’ll become one of yours too. To that end, I’m giving away one copy of any of Scalzi’s works, (up to $20) to one lucky commenter on this post. This giveaway includes The Collapsing Empire, but if you haven’t yet had the pleasure of Scalzi, Old Man’s War is probably the best place to begin.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Review: Hounded by Kevin Hearne

Review: Hounded by Kevin HearneHounded (The Iron Druid Chronicles, #1) by Kevin Hearne, Luke Daniels
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Series: Iron Druid Chronicles #1
Pages: 292
Published by Brilliance Audio on October 28th 2014
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.org
Goodreads

Atticus O’Sullivan, last of the Druids, lives peacefully in Arizona, running an occult bookshop and shape-shifting in his spare time to hunt with his Irish wolfhound. His neighbors and customers think that this handsome, tattooed Irish dude is about twenty-one years old—when in actuality, he’s twenty-one centuries old. Not to mention: He draws his power from the earth, possesses a sharp wit, and wields an even sharper magical sword known as Fragarach, the Answerer.
Unfortunately, a very angry Celtic god wants that sword, and he’s hounded Atticus for centuries. Now the determined deity has tracked him down, and Atticus will need all his power—plus the help of a seductive goddess of death, his vampire and werewolf team of attorneys, a bartender possessed by a Hindu witch, and some good old-fashioned luck of the Irish—to kick some Celtic arse and deliver himself from evil.

My Review:

Because I love urban fantasy, friends have been recommending the Iron Druid series to me for years, and because I get perverse when people push too hard, I haven’t gotten around to it. Until now. And one of these days maybe I’ll learn to ignore that particular quirk of mine, because just like other books that friends have frequently and heartily recommended (I’m thinking of Legion and Thieftaker here), the Iron Druid series, at least on first introduction, is absolutely awesome.

Hounded is just full of the kind of irreverent snark that I expect from the best urban fantasy, while telling a great story that is anchored in the real world. And as the first book in the series, it introduced me to a fantastic character (in multiple senses of fantastic) in Atticus O’Sullivan, the last remaining druid.

Atticus claims to be 21, and looks the part, as the cover pictures indicate fairly well. But Atticus isn’t 21 years old, as he lets people assume. He’s 21 centuries old, and was born in Celtic Ireland a millennium before the Common Era began.

And all the gods are real. Not just the Celtic pantheon to which Atticus still owes some allegiance, and to some of whom he still bears some grudges. But ALL the gods of all the pantheons either existed or have existed. (If this reminds you a bit of American Gods, it does me, too).

But speaking of those grudges, one of those Celtic gods is still harassing Atticus, centuries after losing a famous sword to the Druid in an epic battle. It turns out that the Celtic god of love is actually a selfish, self-centered and manipulative arsehole. And I just insulted arseholes, but in a way that Atticus would probably have approved.

So the short version of this story is that it is all about Angus Og manipulating people and events in order to finally get the great sword Fragarach back from Atticus. The long version of the story is much, much more interesting, as it introduces us to Atticus and all the people in his world, from his werewolf and vampire lawyers (all Vikings) to his slightly dotty old neighbor, to his absolutely marvelous Irish wolfhound, Oberon, who always has his eye on his next sausage breakfast and dreams of harems of French poodles.

Along the way, we meet witches and demons, and get introduced to the gods of the Fae who still deign to mess with the lives of mortals, or at least with the life of Atticus O’Sullivan. Whether that’s for his good or his ill, or even a bit of both, is just part of the wonder of this story.

Escape Rating A: I loved this. And I can’t wait to go back. But this was such a marvelous treat, that I know I need to space them out a bit. Like Halloween candy. But even better, because no calories.

The story is told from the Atticus’ first-person perspective, something that worked particularly well in the audiobook. We hear what he hears, and we also hear what he thinks inside his own head, which is usually much snarkier than what comes out of his mouth – but not always. Listening to the book is like listening to Atticus’ own voice inside his head. It works.

One of the things that works really well is that Atticus is able to communicate with his dog Oberon. And Oberon, while slightly more intelligent than the average, is still very “doggy”. Oberon mostly lives in the now, and that’s a perspective that the 2100 year old Atticus needs to be reminded of every so often, and he recognizes it.

Also, Oberon’s comments on the events are frequently laugh out loud funny, and it’s impossible to resist smirking along with him. This can be a bit problematic if one is listening in public. Or at work.

As much as I enjoyed Atticus’ interesting blend of snark and sweet (his relationship with his elderly neighbor is precious – at least when they aren’t hiding dead bodies together) it is the action and adventure of the story that kept me on the edge of my seat, or sitting in my car waiting for Atticus to find his way out of whatever mess he’d just been dropped into. He’s been hiding in Tempe Arizona for years, and is none too happy when the Morrigan comes to tell him that Angus Og is after him yet again. But this time he decides to stand and defend the life he’s made, and it’s a marvelous tale from beginning to end.

Hexed is up next. Atticus doesn’t trust witches. And there’s a good reason. Again. Fantastic!

Review: Murder on the Ballarat Train by Kerry Greenwood

Review: Murder on the Ballarat Train by Kerry GreenwoodMurder on the Ballarat Train (Miss Fisher's Murder Mystery #3) by Kerry Greenwood
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Series: Phryne Fisher #3
Pages: 151
Published by Poisoned Pen Press on November 3rd 2015
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.org
Goodreads

When the 1920s most glamorous lady detective, the Honourable Miss Phryne Fisher, arranges to go to Ballarat for the week, she eschews the excitement of her red Hispano-Suiza racing car for the sedate safety of the train. The last thing she expects is to have to use her trusty Beretta .32 to save lives.
As the passengers sleep, they are poisoned with chloroform. Phryne is left to piece together the clues after this restful country sojourn turns into the stuff of nightmares: a young girl who can t remember anything, rumors of white slavery and black magic, and the body of an old woman missing her emerald rings. Then there is the rowing team and the choristers, all deliciously engaging young men. At first they seem like a pleasant diversion ."

My Review:

I’ve watched Phryne, I’ve read Phryne, and now I’ve listened to Phryne, and she’s utterly marvelous no matter how she is experienced.

I’m absolutely certain that the “beautiful young man” in Murder on the Ballarat Train would wholeheartedly agree. Although his roommate probably would not.

That Phryne refers to the man she seduces, vamps and ravishes in this book as “the beautiful young man” multiple times is part of the reason that the character of Phryne seems much older than the 26 or so that the author purports her to be. Your mileage about Phryne’s mileage may vary.

The story in Murder on the Ballarat Train is possibly the opposite of Murder on the Orient Express, despite the similarity in titles. While everyone on the Orient Express wanted to murder that awful man, it seems that no one on the Ballarat Train hated Mrs. Henderson enough to murder her. Not even the adult daughter she regularly picked on and railed at.

It is, however, abundantly clear that the rather elderly Mrs. Henderson did not throw herself off the train, hang herself AND beat her own body to an absolute pulp afterwards. Nor did she fill the entire first-class carriage with sleeping gas. Somebody murdered her, even if Phryne can’t at first figure out how or why.

Neither can Phryne figure out who is responsible for the young girl who was hiding in the first-class toilet on that same train. The girl herself doesn’t even remember how she got there, why she hid there, or even who she is.

Phryne has multiple mysteries to solve. She’s just certain they must tie together somehow, even if she can’t determine exactly how that might be at the outset.

And she’s equally determined that no one will either abuse the young girl, or threaten the adult Miss Henderson, every again. Not while Phryne is on the case.

Escape Rating B+: In any format, the Phryne Fisher mysteries are an absolute lark from beginning to end, in spite of any of the dark corners of Melbourne or the human heart that Phryne might be forced to invade during the course of her investigation.

And it is those dark corners that keep Phryne, and the reader, on their toes. While the series is set in the 1920s, it was written in the 1990s. As much research as the author appears to have done to make sure that Phryne’s life and attitudes are those of a woman of her time, albeit an unusual and extremely adventurous one, the issues that Phryne runs into feel as contemporary to our time as they do to hers.

There are two villains in this story, and the one she finds by accident is much more evil than the one she hunts down deliberately. And while “white slavery” was often used as a scandalous threat of whispered evil in the gutter-press, it probably wasn’t as prevalent as yellow journalists made it out to be. Phryne’s investigation has nothing of the scandalized and salacious tone one might have expected in the 1920s. Instead, her pursuit of justice is coldly calculated to extract the maximum vengeance. The mesmerizing angle speaks of the 1920s, but Phryne’s reactions feel contemporaneous both to her time and our own.

I enjoyed this method of “reading” Phryne’s story just as much as I did reading it. I will, however, make one final note about the audio performance. In any audiobook where a single narrator attempts to voice multiple characters, some characters work better than others. That problem is made more difficult in the case of Phryne, as those of us who have watched the TV show already have a fixed idea of what these characters are supposed to sound like. The narrator of Murder at the Ballarat Train did an excellent job portraying Phryne, and surprisingly a fairly good job of making the male voices sound at least OK. But for some reason my ear kept telling me that Dot’s voice was completely off.

Which didn’t stop me from enjoying the whole thing immensely. I’m looking forward to picking up the next book in the series, Death at Victoria Dock, at my earliest opportunity.

Review: Skin Deep by Brandon Sanderson

Review: Skin Deep by Brandon SandersonSkin Deep (Legion #2) Formats available: hardcover, ebook, audiobook
Series: Legion #2
Pages: 208
on November 24th 2014
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.org
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Stephen Leeds, AKA “Legion,” is a man whose unique mental condition allows him to generate a multitude of personae: hallucinatory entities with a wide variety of personal characteristics and a vast array of highly specialized skills. As the new story begins, Leeds and his “aspects” are hired by I3 (Innovative Information Incorporated) to recover a corpse stolen from the local morgue. But there’s a catch. The corpse is that of a pioneer in the field of experimental biotechnology, a man whose work concerned the use of the human body as a massive storage device. He may have embedded something in the cells of his now dead body. And that something might be dangerous…

What follows is a visionary thriller about the potential uses of technology, the mysteries of the human personality, and the ancient human need to believe that death is not the end. Legion: Skin Deep is speculative fiction at it most highly developed. It reaffirms Sanderson’s place as one of contemporary fiction’s most intelligent—and unpredictable—voices.

My Review:

Skin Deep is the sequel to Legion, and is set in the same universe with most of the same characters. Of course, most of those characters are Stephen Leeds’ aspects – the parts of his genius (and his psychoses) that he envisions as separate people that only he sees.

Like its predecessor, Skin Deep is also science fiction as mystery, and again, the science fictional element is in the case and not the setting. While the method that Stephen uses for dealing with his mental issues is unusual if not unique, there’s nothing particularly science fictional (or fantastic) about it. His aspects are, after all, all in his head.

Even if he does provide separate rooms in his mansion for each of them.

But the MacGuffin he has to find in this case is definitely SFnal. Or at least, I think it still is.

Stephen has been hired (read as slightly coerced by an unscrupulous friend) to find a corpse. But not just any corpse. In this case, it’s the corpse of a scientist who was experimenting with ways to use the human body as a computer. And like so many scientists, mad or otherwise, this one used his own body as his test subject.

Now that he’s dead, everyone wants to make sure that the code he embedded into his cells does not get into the wrong hands. Of course, there are several factions involved in the chase, each of whom believes that all the other parties constitute those “wrong hands”.

The body has disappeared. And it’s up to Stephen to locate it and make sure its secrets can’t be misused. Secrets that range anywhere from industrial espionage to a virus that causes cancer – and makes it a communicable disease into the bargain.

Everyone has an agenda. Including the assassin who has been hired to keep Stephen from finding that body – at all costs.

Escape Rating A-: In the end, I found a work task that I could do without much thinking, just so that I could finish this book. I couldn’t wait any longer to see how it all played out.

One question for readers is just what you think of Stephen Leeds’ aspects. How do they relate to both his genius and his coping skills? And just how crazy is the man, anyway? He sees his knowledge, both of technical and scientific topics and just plain people-skills, as being embodied in one or more of these hallucinations. Which means that he also believes that if a particular aspect is not with him, he doesn’t have access to the skills and abilities they represent. Even more telling, or confusing, when one of them ‘dies’ he loses all access to whatever knowledge they possessed. Or that he believed they possessed.

It sounds confusing, but it is a fascinating way of dealing with the world. Many introverts probably will wish they had an ‘Ivy’ who is a psychologist but also seems to represent what few social skills Leeds possesses.

He’s actually a really nice guy, but his ability to interact with people is more than a bit geekishly ‘off’. We all have days when we could use an ‘Ivy’ to help us interact.

One of the more fascinating bits of the story was the point where Stephen and all of his aspects retreated to the ‘white room’ to work on the case. It is easy to fall into Stephen’s way of thinking, that all of the aspects are separate individuals, when we see all of them seeming to work independently. They aren’t real. Stephen knows they aren’t real. But some of them have difficulty believing that fact. And when they are investigating things he isn’t actively looking at, or interacting with each other to the point of having romantic relationships, it’s difficult for the reader not to fall into the trap of believing that they are real.

That way lies madness.

But the fun of this story, along with the suspense and the marvelous plot twist at the end, revolve around Stephen’s search for the corpse. A search in which, of course, nothing is as it seems.

It is the first time I’ve ever read of an assassination plot foiled by a hostile takeover. But the real solution to the mystery eluded me until the very end. As it should. Skin Deep was absorbing and a tremendous amount of fun. I sincerely hope that the author returns to these characters, because I really want to see what happens next!

Review: The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison

goblin emperor by katherine addisonFormat read: audiobook purchased from Audible; ebook provided by the publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genre: fantasy
Length: 446 pages
Publisher: Tor Books
Date Released: April 1, 2014
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

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.

My Review:

I just want to squee. I absolutely adored this from beginning to end. My only regret is that it’s finished. The Goblin Emperor gave me a terrible book hangover and I did not want to leave this world.

As June is Audiobook Month, it is fitting that I started out listening to this book on a long trip, and was utterly absorbed from the very beginning. However, as wonderful as the audio was, it just didn’t go fast enough. A little past halfway, I dove into the ebook and raced to the end.

The story is one that has been told before. The emperor is dead, long live the emperor. Except that this story is not nearly that straightforward.

The Emperor of the Elves is murdered when the airship containing himself and his three oldest sons is sabotaged. He has two remaining heirs; his oldest son’s son, a boy of 14, and his disregarded and disrespected fourth son, a young man of 18. The Empire has a very poor history when it comes to minor Emperors and their regencies (no surprise there), so Maia suddenly finds himself the new Emperor. At 18, Maia is barely old enough that he will not require a regency. Whether he’s experienced enough to do the job is a completely different question.

He has no training for the job. He was raised in exile, not because he did anything wrong, but because his father hated his mother. Not that she did anything wrong either, but the previous emperor was a man who could not bear to admit to his mistakes – and marrying the Goblin princess while he was still mourning the loss of his beloved third empress and her unborn child was definitely a mistake.

A mistake for which Maia pays the price, over and over.

While somewhat knowledgeable about court etiquette and logic, at least in theory, Maia has no experience of life in the cutthroat political atmosphere of the imperial court, or even of life among the nobility. He can’t dance, he can’t ride a horse, and he has no clue how to make small talk or write meaningless letters.

Even more embarrassing, he has spent the last ten years of his life being beaten and bullied by the man who was supposed to be his guardian. Maia’s first lessons are in “emperoring up” and presenting an impassive expression in the face of everyone who tries to take advantage of his inexperience – including his former guardian.

Maia is on his own. He has had no teachers, and he has no guide to the strange new world in which he finds himself both a king and a pawn. Everyone who surrounds him has heard tales that he is unnatural, dim-witted or crippled in some way, when in fact the only things that hold him back are his youth and his ignorance. Ignorance is curable, and Maia struggles to overcome it while continuously dodging attempts on his power and his life.

Maia sometimes questions whether he will manage to outlive his youth. The reader does too.

And he never loses sight of the fact that he is only on the throne because someone sabotaged an entire ship full of people in order to take down the emperor. And who may also want to take Maia down, if one of his courtiers or relatives doesn’t get there first.

Escape Rating A+: I absolutely loved this one, which makes it difficult to review it properly. Or even improperly. As The Goblin Emperor is one of this year’s Hugo nominees for Best Novel, I am also immensely grateful that it is a real choice. I’m having a difficult time deciding between this and Ancillary Sword (reviewed here). I’m looking forward to reading Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu to see if it’s a real horse race.

Back to The Goblin Emperor. The story is one that is familiar in some ways. It is also one that it much easier to do wrong than it is to do right. Addison (now revealed to be Sarah Monette) did it very, very right.

This is a combination of coming-of-age/into-power story and political court intrigue. What makes it so good is that the author made the very insular court intrigue extremely fascinating by combining it with Maia’s coming of age story. There are no big battles in this book, but there are lots of tiny and important ones. Perhaps I should have said that there are no big army battles, because this book is not about warfare. The climax is in many ways quiet, but extremely compelling, and utterly fitting, in its quietness.

The plots come to their current conclusion, not with a bang (or a lot of bangs) but with a whimper. Maia goes from needing to tell himself that he is the emperor to fully inhabiting his role and his life, even if neither are what he wanted. They are what he has and he is determined to make the best of them. In the end, he wears it well.

Because we see this world from Maia’s often confused, sometimes frustrated, and constantly worried perspective, we feel each blow against him, whether it is political or physical or psychological, right along with him. We start out the story every bit as confused as he is about who is who and what is what. We thrill at his small triumphs as well as his big ones, because we are inside his skin. A place where we are often as befuddled as he is, but he is such a fully drawn character that we desperately want him to succeed.

Which he finally does, in his own way. As he tells himself at the beginning, he is not his father, and he will not be emperor in the same way that his father was. His way finally triumphs. We become his friends, as do many of the people around him, even though they have been taught that they shouldn’t.

And it is absolutely awesome.

Note on the audiobook version: The reader was terrific, and did an excellent job voicing all of the many, many characters in the story. Some reviewers have commented that there are a plethora of tongue-twisting names in this story, which there are. As a court intrigue, this court is fully populated with schemers and dreamers alike. While the names look almost like nonsense syllables in print, the audiobook made those names easier to follow. It also pointed out that none of the names are pronounced quite the way we expect.

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Book Review: First Lord’s Fury by Jim Butcher

Format read: audiobook purchased from audible, print book purchased from Barnes & Noble
Formats available: Hardcover, Mass Market Paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genre: Epic Fantasy
Series: Codex Alera #6
Length: 465 pages
Publisher: Ace Penguin
Date Released: November 24, 2009
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Book Depository

For years he has endured the endless trials and triumphs of a man whose skill and power could not be restrained. Battling ancient enemies, forging new alliances, and confronting the corruption within his own land, Gaius Octavian became a legendary man of war-and the rightful First Lord of Alera.
But now, the savage Vord are on the march, and Gaius must lead his legions to the Calderon Valley to stand against them-using all of his intelligence, ingenuity, and furycraft to save their world from eternal darkness.

I’ve had the hardcover of First Lord’s Fury on my shelves since it was first released. I’m astonished to see that I’ve been carting it around for three years. I think I didn’t want the Codex Alera series to end. It’s been a big sprawling mess of fun.

And that turned out to be kind of a problem. There are a lot of crow-begotten politics involved in the Codex Alera, and it took me a while to catch up to who was still backstabbing whom–while the Alerans were literally in a fight to save, not just their kingdom, but their entire species. Talk about “fiddling while Rome burns”. And an apt cliche, Alera Imperia owes a lot to Roma Imperia, including its legions.

But the Roman Empire didn’t have magic, at least as far as we know. Alera certainly does.

The center of the series has been Gaius Octavian, but at the beginning, we don’t know that’s who he is. He’s just Tavi. And that was the point. He learns to be First Lord very differently from his predecessors by growing up without the knowledge of who he is, and without the ability to furycraft, to do magic.

He works his way up through the ranks, as a furycrafter, as a legionnaire, as a man. He deals in what is, with or without power. He makes allies that someone who is used to being at the top of the heap would never think of.

The “powers that be” wish that he were anything but what he is. But then, his times demand someone like him. Because the enemy is not another race like the Alerans. They’re not human. They’re not even the Aleran’s ancestral enemies, the Canim. Who are, in truth, intelligent canines. The Alerans and Canim turn out to have common ground.

The enemy is the Vord. And they are insect versions of Star Trek‘s Borg. Just as implacable, just as absorptive  and just as deadly. They do not negotiate, they consume everything in their path.

Tavi has returned in defeat from the lands of the Canim, with the last of the Canim host as his allies, to Alera. The Canim were supposed to kill him. Instead, they’ve returned to bring down the Vord or die trying. Because if they don’t, the Vord will cover the land and there will be nothing left of people or Canim or free will. Only slaves and death.

He’s not supposed to make it. He’s not supposed to reach the last stronghold in time. There’s not enough time and too much ground to cover. But he has more power, and more allies, than anyone expects.

Because Tavi knows how to bring down a foe when they have all the power and he has none. It’s what he was trained for.

Escape Rating A-: Rating this is difficult. It took me quite a while to get back into it, because the politics are very complex. This series is meant to be read from the beginning. Start from Furies of Calderon. Everything is layered, one piece on top of another. Everything matters.

Once I got into it, I couldn’t stop. There were so many different threads, and they were all fascinating to follow. Tavi’s final maturity, in some ways, wasn’t as interesting as the other things that were going on. You knew he was going to get there in time. The only question was, how? His handling of the situation with Valiar Marcus was beautifully done, but I don’t want to spoil it.

Kitai is a terrific, absolutely magnificent example of a female warrior who is different and equal. She represents the outsider’s point of view so well. Her people are less civilized, for certain values of civilized, than the Alerans, so she is able to comment on Tavi’s society in a way that he can’t see.

The Canim are fascinating because they are not human, yet Tavi makes common cause with them. Any warm-blooded, free-thinking race has common cause with him against the Vord. How he works past ages of prejudice and war was, not just interesting, it was often slyly amusing.

The Vord, however, were just a bit too much like the Borg. Really. Plant-based Borg, complete with queen.

About the audiobook. The reader, Kate Reading was great. She voiced all of the parts, including the Canim, who have incredibly rough bass voices that must have been absolute hell to do. However, there were horns blaring at the end of every chapter that drove me nuts. I could seriously have done without the horns, but that wasn’t what made me stop the audio and switch to print. I just couldn’t stand the suspense by the last 50 pages and had to find out how it ended.

If you like epic fantasy and have somehow missed Alera, you’ve missed out on something terrific. And the series is complete, so you can read the whole thing all at once without having to wait. Treat!!!

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Stacking the Shelves (17)

This was one of those weeks when I tried to be good. Only 12 books.

Three comments. I’ve already reviewed Delusion in Death, the new J.D. Robb. Got it Tuesday, finished it Wednesday. It was terrific to see how everyone at the NYPSD is getting on, but this wasn’t one of the “great” cases in the series. I still ate it up like candy. <sigh> Now I’ll have to wait until February, 2013, when Calculated in Death comes out for my next Eve and Roarke fix.

 

Beyond Shame says it’s by Kit Rocha, but it’s really by Moira Rogers. I adore their Bloodhounds series, so when I saw that this was them, I grabbed it from NetGalley. The authors are labeling it as “dystopian erotic romance”. Obviously not intended for the faint of heart, but based on their previous work, I’m definitely interested.

 

One of the fun things about video games is hearing actors where I have no idea what they look like. Then I see someone and “wait, I’ve heard that voice before!” I finally started watching Buffy (I know, what took me so long?) and realized that Ripper’s old pal Ethan Rayne, well, I’d heard that voice before. Frankly, I’d listen to Robin Sachs read the phone book. But hearing him read John Gardner’s The Return of Moriarty is definitely perfect casting. He’s reading the Godfather of London criminals, Sherlock Holmes’ nemesis. Cool and calculating. Marvelously chilling. Oh, the book is pretty good, too. (Ironically, the video game character I first heard him voice is a good guy).

What have you added to your stacks this week? A little? A lot? Anything special?

For Review: (as always, all ebooks unless specifically stated otherwise)
Blessed by a Demon’s Mark by E.S. Moore (print ARC)
A Vengeful Affair by Carmen Falcone
The Book of the Night (Libyrinth #3) by Pearl North (print)
Provoked (The Dark Protector #5) by Rebecca Zanetti
Beyond Shame (Beyond #1) by Kit Rocha (new pseudonym for Moira Rogers)
How to Date a Henchman by Mari Fee
Need by Todd Gregory
Of Blood and Bone (The Minaldi Legacy #1) by Courtney Cole
The Dead of Winter by Lee Collins

Purchased:
Frozen Heat (Nikki Heat #4) by Richard Castle
Delusion in Death (In Death #35) by J.D. Robb
The Return of Moriarty by John E. Gardner (audiobook from Audible, read by Robin Sachs)

Ebooks in Public Libraries: Whither, Which, How

The Digital Public Library of America discussion list has kicked into high gear again, in anticipation of an in-person meeting at the American Library Association Midwinter Conference in mid-January, 2012 in Dallas, Texas.

The piece of the discussion that has caught my interest concerns the future availability of ebooks for public libraries to loan to patrons — and whether lending ebooks to patrons should be part of any public library future.

Statistics are showing double the ereader penetration in the US population from this time last year, not counting multi-function tablet (i.e. iPad) use. Libraries really don’t have the luxury to pretend this isn’t happening. The question remains what they can do about it.

The other question is, what do libraries provide? The “Big 6” publishers are increasingly skittish about providing ebooks for public libraries to lend.

  • Only Random House just plain lets libraries buy their ebooks to lend to patrons.
  • Harper Collins sells to libraries, and every time the copy has been checked out 26 times, the library has to buy it again.
  • Which puts Harper Collins ahead of Penguin and Hachette, who have both stopped selling ebooks to libraries.
  • And even further ahead of Simon and Schuster and Macmillan, who have never sold ebooks to libraries.

But back to the DPLA, which has been discussing the future of ebook publishing as it relates to libraries. There’s been a particular thread about commercial fiction and public library patrons.

The assumption that keeps niggling at me is that all the current trends will continue, and that the only changes we will see will be for the worse from the perspective of the library as institution.

My interpretation of the trendline being predicted is that the publishers will continue their unfortunate circling of their wagons, and that the lending rights that libraries have traditionally enjoyed with physical materials will disappear in the electronic age as publishers attempt to preserve their profit margins. Brilliance Audio’s scheduled January 31, 2012 withdrawal from the library download market is another step in this trend, as is the support of many, many publishers in the library marketplace for SOPA.

Publishers are worrying about their profits because those profits are based on a physical distribution model, and the physical distribution model is collapsing. And the publishers are becoming less optimistic about digital being their savior than they used to be, at least according to recent reports out of Digital Book World. So they are hanging on to every penny they can. Publishers have always feared that books borrowed from libraries have represented sales lost. But with physical books, sales to libraries were impossible to prevent.

With ebooks (and e-audiobooks) publishers don’t have to sell to libraries. So some of them are increasingly choosing not to — especially the big ones who believe that their authors don’t need libraries to help them develop a following.

But there are a lot of authors who do want their books, especially their ebooks, in libraries. I was interviewed by author Lindsay Buroker for an article on her blog about how self-published authors could get their books into their local libraries.

Self-published authors and authors who are published by small independent publishers are searching eagerly for ways to get their books into libraries. Increasingly those books are exclusively ebooks. Many of those authors would even be willing to donate a copy to their local public library (maybe not every public library, mind you, but the one in their own hometown) just to get readers.

In the print world, they used to be able to donate actual books. But in the digital world, what’s the mechanism? They don’t want to donate rights, they want to donate a couple of copies, and quite likely DRM-free copies at that, but how can they do it?

And for anyone who doesn’t think there is money in self-published authors, remember that Amazon has offered special incentives for self-published authors to make their work exclusively available through the Kindle Selects Program for 90-day periods.

This a a world that is changing faster than the “Big 6” can keep up with, which is why they are circling those wagons.

So, in this corner, we have the big publishers who either haven’t entered the library market or are sounding a retreat.

And in this corner, we have a lot of independent publishers and self-published authors who would love to enter the library space and are hungry for readers–readers that libraries know how to provide.

Libraries need  the equivalent of Smashwords for libraries. This may turn out to be something like what OverDrive will be when the big publishers have dropped out of the library market, with the addition of a method for self-published authors to donate copies or for libraries to buy copies of their work and lend it.

From a library institutional perspective, the library would miss the big blockbuster books. But we may not be able to keep those no matter what we do.  What we would get is a lot of popular content of the type that public library patrons read, popular genre fiction of all types. It would even cost less for the library than the current model. It might even be possible to have enough material so that people would have to wait forever for an ebook.

Yes, it would be different from how public libraries do ebooks now. But the future is going to be different. The question is, can we work toward making it different in a way we can have some control over? Can we have a future with a chance at a win-win?

Brilliance Audio, Amazon, and the Great Un-downloading

On January 4, OverDrive sent an email to all of its libraries with a bombshell announcement, (quoted here from Infodocket)

“Effective January 31, 2012, as instructed by the publisher, BrillianceAudio will suspend the availability of all download audiobook titles for library purchase across all vendors. This change does not affect any titles currently in your library’s catalog. You will not, however, be able to add any additional copies.”

Compared to the Harper Collins 26 checkout limit or the Penguin/Kindle “will they/won’t they” drama, the Brilliance withdrawal notice has generated only a few ripples in the pond. The tree fell in the forest, and there were surprisingly few people around to hear it.

And the voices that have spoken up have cried out against OverDrive. Before we “shoot the messenger”, let’s take a look at the message again.

The loss of Brilliance audiobook downloads is bad news for OverDrive. They license a lot of Brilliance audiobooks, and some are definitely going to be missed from library collections. J.D. Robb, Nora Roberts, Nevada Barr, Tom Clancy, Robert Crais, W.E.B. Griffin, Dean Koontz, Jayne Ann Krentz, the list goes on. These are all authors where my LPOW had long hold queues on OverDrive and licensed multiple copies, up to our maximum. And we bought physical audiobooks, and print books, and ebooks if available and every other format imaginable. OverDrive is going to miss their slices of that revenue pie. This Brilliance withdrawal is not in their interest.

So who benefits? Amazon owns Brilliance Audio. Amazon also owns Audible, which sells downloadable audio direct to consumers. (Full disclosure: Reading Reality is both an Amazon Affiliate and an Audible Affiliate)

Amazon has a track record of cutting out intermediaries wherever they can. They are offering self-published authors terrific deals in order to get agents out of the picture. They have become a traditional publisher as well, with several imprints under their banner ranging from romance (Montlake Romance) to mystery (Thomas & Mercer) to science fiction (47North) to international (AmazonCrossing).

This holiday season, Amazon tried to directly cut out local bookstores (not that they haven’t been doing an indirect job of that all along) by encouraging customers to take the Amazon “price check” app into their local bookstore and then compare the local price to the Amazon price for a $5 discount off the Amazon price. Ecosalon called this out as one of their “Most Offensive Ad Campaigns of 2011

Last but not least in the list of Amazon’s effort to remove obstacles between themselves and the direct consumer, there’s the Kindle Lending Library. Which attempts to eliminate libraries. Amazon Prime members can borrow one book per month, as long as they buy everything else.

So, if Amazon owns Brilliance, which makes audiobooks, and Amazon owns Audible, which sells downloadable audiobooks, who would be responsible for the decision to stop letting OverDrive and all other library vendors (Ingram, Baker & Taylor, 3M) license Brilliance downloadable audiobooks to the library market?

 

Amazon.

What can we do about it?

Attacking OverDrive will not help.  Amazon is a 900 lb. gorilla, if not bigger. There are very, very few entities that have been able to successfully negotiate with Amazon and come away winners. The one time I can think of is when the publishers managed to break Amazon’s lock on Kindle book pricing by withholding content. But the publishers had something that Amazon wanted, bestselling author content.

What do we have that Amazon wants? Can we use our image of “mom and apple pie” and how much we do for the public good to make Amazon see reason?

The Brilliance audio download tree fell in the forest. It’s up to libraries to make Amazon hear our message.

 

 

Ready Player One

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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