Review: Three Moments of an Explosion by China Mieville

three moments of an explosion by china mievilleFormat read: ebook provided by the publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genre: science fiction short stories
Length: 400 pages
Publisher: Del Rey
Date Released: August 4, 2015
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

London awakes one morning to find itself besieged by a sky full of floating icebergs. Destroyed oil rigs, mysteriously reborn, clamber from the sea and onto the land, driven by an obscure but violent purpose. An anatomy student cuts open a cadaver to discover impossibly intricate designs carved into a corpse’s bones—designs clearly present from birth, bearing mute testimony to . . . what?

Of such concepts and unforgettable images are made the twenty-eight stories in this collection—many published here for the first time. By turns speculative, satirical, and heart-wrenching, fresh in form and language, and featuring a cast of damaged yet hopeful seekers who come face-to-face with the deep weirdness of the world—and at times the deeper weirdness of themselves—Three Moments of an Explosion is a fitting showcase for one of our most original voices.

My Review:

China Miéville seems to be one of those authors where people who like his writing really, really like it, and people who don’t just don’t. There doesn’t seem to be much of a middle.

After finishing his collection of short stories, Three Moments of an Explosion, I find myself firmly in the latter camp. This isn’t the first time I’ve tried something by him, and my second impression matches the first – “interesting, but not for me.”

I like my stories with a clear beginning, middle and end. However, a lot of the stories in this collection seemed to simply stop, rather than satisfyingly conclude. That’s my interpretation, and your mileage, of course, may vary.

There were also quite a few stories in the collection that felt like horror, some of the Lovecraftian school, and some just plain horror. I very seldom like horror stories, and this was no exception. Creepiness for creepiness’ sake just, well, creeps me out. But also leaves me cold. Sometimes shaking with fear, but mostly cold as to engagement. I don’t warm up to the story.

My favorite story in the collection is the fourth story in. The Dowager of Bees is a story about the inherent magic in cards, card play and card games. It’s part of that satisfaction one feels when the one card in the entire deck comes up, and you win against all odds. It also taps into the wonder of watching someone do complex card tricks excellently. We’ve all handled those pasteboards, how can someone make them dance? But the story involves secret magic, that sometimes, when one is an especially adept player, very special cards appear in the game, and those special cards invoke very special rules that are only available to you while the secret card is in play. It’s also a story about competition, and the desire to win, and oddly enough, love.

One of the horror stories is quietly terrifying in a way that stuck with me. To say I liked it is the wrong phraseology. To say that I’m haunted by it is probably a better match. Säcken is extremely creepy, and creeps along behind you after you finish. A young woman flees something completely “other” that utterly terrifies her, discovers that she can’t flee, and tries to placate it instead. While we all know that was a mistake, it is easy to feel her relief and ultimate terror as she discovers that she has only made things much, much worse. If you think Grimm’s Fairy Tales aren’t nearly Grimm enough, this one’s for you.

There’s a story that is just a bit creepy, but in the thriller type of creepy. It’s also a bit fun and playful. In Dreaded Outcome, we find out just how far some therapists are willing to go in order to help their patients move beyond whatever, or whoever is causing their emotional traumas. If you’ve ever been in therapy, much of the setup will feel familiar. You may also wish that the solutions to your issues could be found in the way that the narrator does.

Escape Rating C+: The few stories I liked, I really liked. The Dowager of Bees is a story that I could see recommending to lots of people looking for a story that might fit into Lev Grossman’s Magicians series or even Harry Potter. The idea that there is magic in the everyday world, but that we don’t run across it except in certain special circumstances.

A lot of SF tropes and themes get played with in this collection. There are several stories that skewer the vicious smallness of academic politics. The academic side is very vicious indeed, but what they are fighting over generally starts out small in these stories, until it becomes bigger and creepier than the reader originally thought.

But in general, there is a lot of very creepy weird in this collection. And it’s just not my cuppa. If it is yours, enjoy.

***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.

The Sunday Post AKA What’s on my (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 8-16-15

Sunday Post

fearless by elliott jamesIn the end, I liked both Stormbringer and Fearless better than I did Scalzi’s End of all Things. I think this is the first time that I haven’t given an A or A+ review for one of Scalzi’s books. I still enjoyed the heck out of it, but it didn’t knock my socks off the way that Lock In did last year. On the other hand, I didn’t have grand expectations for either the first book in the Wyrd series, Liesmith (I originally judged this one by its ‘meh’ cover and I was so wrong), and both books in that series turned out to be really awesome. And I had fairly low expectations for Charming, the first book in the Pax Arcana series, but that turned out to be quite good and getting better. So if you like Urban Fantasy with a twist, be sure to give one or both of those a try.

Current Giveaways:

$25 Gift Card + ebook copy of Liesmith by Alis Franklin
$15 Amazon Gift Card from Elliot James and Fearless

stormbringer by alis franklinBlog Recap:

A- Review: Stormbringer by Alis Franklin + Giveaway
B+ Review: You’re Never Weird on the Internet (Almost) by Felicia Day
A- Review: Fearless by Elliott James + Giveaway
B+ Review: The End of All Things by John Scalzi
B Review: Doctor Who: The Drosten’s Curse by A.L. Kennedy
Stacking the Shelves (148)

 

 

 

clear-off-your-shelf-August-202x300Coming Next Week:

Daring by Elliott James (review)
Tales by Charles Todd (blog tour review)
Three Moments of an Explosion by China Mieville (review)
Clear Your Shelf Giveaway Hop
A Pattern of Lies by Charles Todd (blog tour review)

Review: Doctor Who: The Drosten’s Curse by A.L. Kennedy

Format read: ebook provided by the publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genre: science fiction
Series: Doctor Who
Length: 368 pages
Publisher: Broadway Books
Date Released: July 14, 2015
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

“I shall make you the jewel at the heart of the universe.”

Something distinctly odd is going on in Arbroath. It could be to do with golfers being dragged down into the bunkers at the Fetch Brothers’ Golf Spa Hotel, never to be seen again. It might be related to the strange twin grandchildren of the equally strange Mrs Fetch–owner of the hotel and fascinated with octopuses. It could be the fact that people in the surrounding area suddenly know what others are thinking, without anyone saying a word.

My Review:

Tomorrow, Saturday August 15, has been declared Doctor Who Comics Day by Titan Comics, who, of course, publish Doctor Who Comics.

While I didn’t have a Doctor Who graphic novel in my TBR pile, it did seem like a golden opportunity to review a Doctor Who book. I’d been staring at the eARC of Doctor Who: The Drosten’s Curse, for a few days, so this gave me an excuse to get it.

Tom Baker as The DoctorWhy was I staring at it? Because this is a Fourth Doctor story. As the saying goes, you never forget your first Doctor, and Tom Baker was mine. Yes, I got a bit of the weepies when he appeared as The Curator at the end of The Day of the Doctor.

But the Doctor in The Drosten’s Curse was definitely the Doctor as I remember him from the series. Often surprisingly brave, and generally making it up as he went along. If the Fourth Doctor could be described as “madcap”, there was an awful lot of mad as well as curly hair under that “cap”, which was actually a rather floppy hat.

That particularly Doctor often seemed rather floppy, like an animated Raggedy Andy doll, right up until the point where he saved the day and skipped away to a new adventure.

The adventure in The Drosten’s Curse feels like one that could have happened during the run of the series, too. The Doctor lands the TARDIS somewhere he wasn’t planning on (as usual) and discovers that underneath the soil of an unsuspecting small town is a very large intergalactic predator who has changed the local landscape to suit his/her/its nefarious purposes.

What made this one fun is that the alien has been listening to humans for so long, that its purposes have strayed off course. It’s supposed to be a big bad monster who responds primarily to hatethink, but has been preserving the life of a lovely little old lady and making her happy by supplying her with fictitious grandchildren.

Of course, it is also living underneath a sand bunker on the local golf course, and eating anyone who wanders – or is lured – into the bunker.

In this adventure, the Doctor, currently between companions, enlists the help of a local young woman, Bryony, and an inept intergalactic bounty hunter named Putta. Bryony is as helpful as any companion has ever been, and has no trouble believing in not just one, but two aliens with space ships. She has always hoped that someone will rescue her from the humdrum of her life and take her away to see the universe in a classy ship and she hopes that this is her chance!

She gets way more than she bargained for. But Bryony’s life will never be dull again – if she survives both the incipient destruction of the earth and the Doctor’s desperate attempts to use her mind as a mental meeting place for himself, the alien, the TARDIS and that mother of all nightmares.

Escape Rating B: I think this story only makes sense if you are used to the wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey pseudo-logic that so often comes into play in Doctor Who.

The Doctor in this incarnation often gave off the appearance of a big, bumbling fool. Sometimes because he didn’t know what he was going to do until after he’d done it, and sometimes as a way of getting people and beings to underestimate him so he could get the better of them later. “Care for a jelly baby?”

At the same time, he does not suffer fools gladly, or any longer than he has to in order to give them their right proper comeuppance. The interesting thing in this story, and also many stories during this era, is that the evil in the end is not the monster – it’s the humans who try to take advantage of the monster.

There are a few plot bits that owe a lot to speculative fiction that has happened in the years since Tom Baker’s Doctor regenerated into Peter Davison’s Doctor.

The way to end the Drosten’s Curse was not superior firepower (it seldom was in Doctor Who) or even superior brainpower, which often did happen. In the Drosten’s Curse, the most powerful force in the universe turns out to be love, in ways that reminded this reader a bit of the end of Harry Potter.

Also, a significant part of the action in this story includes the TARDIS herself as a thinking being, even if she is not shown as an actual person the way that she was in the Eleventh Doctor episode The Doctor’s Wife. That the TARDIS has her own personality, her own mental space, and her own ability to feel emotion is a big part of what brings The Drosten’s Curse to its successful conclusion. I don’t think we saw the TARDIS act this much on her own before the revived series.

The timey-wimey bit comes at the end of this story, and it was quite touching, kind of in the same way that the end of Reaper Man in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld was touching.

All in all, The Drosten’s Curse is a lovely Fourth Doctor story that shows just how much substance lurked inside that frequently clownish buffoon.

***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.

August 15 is Doctor Who Day

Review: The End of All Things by John Scalzi

end of all things by john scalziFormat read: ebook provided by the publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, ebook, audiobook
Genre: science fiction, space opera
Series: Old Man’s War #6
Length: 384 pages
Publisher: Tor
Date Released: August 11, 2015
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

Humans expanded into space…only to find a universe populated with multiple alien species bent on their destruction. Thus was the Colonial Union formed, to help protect us from a hostile universe. The Colonial Union used the Earth and its excess population for colonists and soldiers. It was a good arrangement…for the Colonial Union. Then the Earth said: no more.

Now the Colonial Union is living on borrowed time—a couple of decades at most, before the ranks of the Colonial Defense Forces are depleted and the struggling human colonies are vulnerable to the alien species who have been waiting for the first sign of weakness, to drive humanity to ruin. And there’s another problem: A group, lurking in the darkness of space, playing human and alien against each other—and against their own kind —for their own unknown reasons.

In this collapsing universe, CDF Lieutenant Harry Wilson and the Colonial Union diplomats he works with race against the clock to discover who is behind attacks on the Union and on alien races, to seek peace with a suspicious, angry Earth, and keep humanity’s union intact…or else risk oblivion, and extinction—and the end of all things.

My Review:

If Doctor Who is the story of a “madman with a box” then The End of All Things is at least partially the story of a brain in a box. While Rafe Daquin is only the point of view character for the first quarter of this story, he is one of the few characters who has at least some significance in all four parts – and that significance rests on his being, and continuing to be, a brain in box. At least for as long as it is useful.

Especially since that brain in a box is very expertly piloting a ship – with or without crew.

The Human Division by John ScalziLike its predecessor, The Human Division (reviewed here) The End of All Things was published in serial format first. However, unlike The Human Division, the four different parts of The End of All Things (The Life of the Mind, This Hollow Union, Can Long Endure and To Stand or Fall) all tell completely different types of stories, and use different point of view characters, although frequently they are POV characters that we have met before, either in The Human Division or in earlier parts of End. Like Rafe’s brain in a box.

The Human Division was much closer to classic space opera. The humans have to deal with a galactic and possibly catastrophic change in world view and the status quo, while facing a potential alien enemy and a shadowy organization that is maneuvering behind the scenes for nefarious purposes of its own.

In End, we see the shadowy nefarious organization operating in the shadows a little more clearly. Rafe Daquin in the first story is one of their victims. He is also not the first pilot to be kidnapped and crated in a piloting box on an otherwise uncrewed ship. But it is through Rafe and his dilemma that we begin to discover exactly what this new nemesis is up to, and also a little bit of the why.

This Hollow Union shifts back to a character from Human Division who is definitely not a human. Hafte Sorvalh is a senior level political operator in the Conclave, the alien coalition. We got some terrific insight into Sorvalh’s character in the epilog of Human Division, the delicious “Hafte Sorvalh Eats a Churro and Speaks to the Youth of Today” (available free at Tor.com) Hafte’s internal dialog on the political mess that she has to clean up in Hollow Union is trenchant and often darkly humorous, even before the entire thing gets dumped firmly and irrevocably in her lap. At the same time, she provides a different perspective on whoever or whatever is attempting to manipulate both the humans and the Conclave. This is a story about political maneuvers rather than starship fighting, but it is a necessary perspective and still keeps the story moving forward.

old mans war by john scalziCan Long Endure goes back to the humans, but it is a lower-decks (or lower-ranks) type story. Instead of getting the view from on high through the eyes of the political movers and shakers, we get to see how this whole mess works from the perspective of the human grunts who have to do the down and dirty fighting, no matter who is on top. They are in the place that we started in all the way back in Old Man’s War, with people who have lived their lives and are now grunts in this space force, starting all over again with young bodies and old brains. It is through this story that the author is able to show both that “boots on the ground” perspective and what this war means to the human factions – the soldiers are sent to suppress human revolts that think they have already paid for the freedom they enjoy, and don’t like the Earth humans changing the game.

We also get to see just how the shadowy conspiracy folks are playing both sides against the middle, because that’s what shadowy conspiracy folks do. Their motives are all too familiar in the end – they want intergalactic war because it will bring them immense profiteering opportunities. We’ve seen this one before in lots of stories set on lots of worlds, including our own.

The last section, To Stand or Fall, brings the story back together, and brings back the human B-Team that was featured in The Human Division. It is up to the diplomats to figure out how to defang the shadowy conspirators and build some kind of truce with both the Conclave and their own dissident human elements. It’s a tough job that can only be accomplished with the very able assistance of that poor brain in a box that we met all the way back in the first installment.

We end with a brave new galaxy, and a fresh start for whatever the author plans next in this universe. I’m looking forward to it.

Escape Rating B+: I enjoyed The End of All Things, but not quite as much as the other entries in Scalzi’s Old Man’s War series, or even his single titles (so far) like Redshirts and Lock In. The ending didn’t stick in my head (for days in some cases) the way that those did. Especially Human Division and Lock In.

With The Human Division, even though it was released serially, the completed book in the end read like a single story. While there were a few chapters with different POV characters, most of the story follows Harry Wilson and his B-Team of negotiators in some fashion. They carried the “through-line” in the book. The scattered pieces from other perspectives read like interludes in the main story, and it worked.

The End of All Things reads like four separate novellas that were not quite stitched together. They are very different and very separate, with the “brain in a box” Rafe Daquin feeling like one of the few characters that has an important role to play in the whole story. I liked him, and I also liked how necessary it was for the mission that he stayed in his box. Taking the easy out of “rescuing” him would have muted the force of his character.

Also, The Human Division ended on one hell of a bang. I couldn’t wait to see how it got resolved. The End of All Things ends with almost a happy ever after, all the problems solved and a clean slate for the next adventure. The universe is too messy for that. Not that I didn’t enjoy seeing a whole lot of self-important and self-satisfied idiots get their comeuppance. And I like the point of the view of the B-Team, especially Harry Wilson, that we finally get in To Stand or Fall. But at the beginning of the section, Harry complains about being in the middle of that old curse, “May you live in interesting times.” At the end, his times weren’t quite as interesting as I might have hoped, although I’m sure Harry approved.

***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.

The Sunday Post AKA What’s on my (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 8-9-15

Sunday Post

Today is officially National Book Lovers Day!

I’m not sure a single day is sufficient. If you believe in the “so many books, so little time” school of thought then one day barely scratches the surface (or makes a dent in the towering TBR pile). But it is lovely that there is an official day to promote the love of books and reading and to support those of us who are perpetually lost in a good book. Even when we are sometimes lost in a bad book.

The summer doldrums also seem to be over. We have giveaways again, and winner announcements. There are also a couple of giveaways coming up this week, so stay tuned.

eReaderGiveaway_Horz_BPCurrent Giveaways:

Two Kindle Fires, one Kindle Paperwhite, one Kindle Touchscreen plus dozens of author prizes in the Summertime eReader Giveaway
All 6 titles in the Harlequin End of Summer Tour, a limited edition Harlequin notebook plus a $50 Visa gift card in the End of Summer Tour

Winner Announcements:

The winner of Flask of the Drunken Master by Susan Spann is Brandi D.

back to you by lauren daneBlog Recap:

Summertime eReader Giveaway
Guest Post by Lauren Dane – Hurley Family Summer Itinerary + Giveaway
B+ Review: Back to You by Lauren Dane
B+ Review: Charming by Elliott James
B Review: Whiskey and Wry by Rhys Ford
B+ Review: One Good Dragon Deserves Another by Rachel Aaron
Stacking the Shelves (147)

 

 

end of all things by john scalziComing Next Week:

Stormbringer by Alis Franklin (blog tour review)
You’re Never Weird on the Internet (Almost) by Felicia Day (review)
Fearless by Elliott James (blog tour review)
The End of All Things by John Scalzi (review)
Doctor Who: The Drosten’s Curse by A.L. Kennedy (review)

The Sunday Post AKA What’s on my (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 8-2-15

Sunday Post

It’s Saturday as I type this. I’m in a hotel in Chattanooga because we didn’t quite make it home. There were two problems. One, my new/old car can either go uphill or accelerate,, but not both. there’s this little mountain range between Cincinnati and Atlanta. The car is a 1997 Mazda Protege, and while I’m thrilled to have a car again, the poor baby can only hit 70 going downhill, and drafting behind a truck.

And it’s been a long time since I’ve driven through the mountains. White-knuckling it all the way from one Tennessee border to the other, even in the short direction, makes for one tired and stressed Marlene. Sunday’s trip should be easier. It’s certainly shorter.

I’m even giving stuff away this week (and next week!)

Current Giveaways:

Flask of the Drunken Master by Susan Spann
5 copies of Pure Heat by M.L. Buchman

terrans by jean johnsonBlog Recap:

A+ Review: The Terrans by Jean Johnson
B+ Review: Broken Open by Lauren Dane
A Review: Flask of the Drunken Master by Susan Spann + Giveaway
B+ Review: Deadly Lover by Charlee Allden
B+ Review: Hot Point by M.L. Buchman + Giveaway
Stacking the Shelves (146)

 

 

 

Coming Next Week:

eReaderGiveaway_Horz_BPSummertime eReader Giveaway
Back to You by Lauren Dane (blog tour review)
Charming by Elliott James (review)
Whiskey and Wry by Rhys Ford (review)
One Good Dragon Deserves Another by Rachel Aaron (review)

Review: The Terrans by Jean Johnson

terrans by jean johnsonFormat read: ebook provided by the publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Genre: science fiction
Series: First Salik War #1
Length: 464 pages
Publisher: Ace
Date Released: July 28, 2015
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

Jean Johnson’s first novel in an explosive new science fiction trilogy set in the world of the national bestselling Theirs Not to Reason Why series—set two-hundred years earlier, at the dawn of the First Salik War…

Born into a political family and gifted with psychic abilities, Jacaranda MacKenzie has served as a border-watcher and even spent time as a representative on the United Planets Council. Now she just wants to spend her days in peace and quiet as a translator—but the universe has other plans…

Humans have long known that they would encounter more alien species, and while those with precognitive abilities agree a terrible war is coming, they do not agree on who will save humanity—a psychic soldier or a politician.

But Jackie is both.

After she is pressured into rejoining the Space Force to forestall the impending calamity, Jackie makes an unsettling discovery. Their new enemy, the Salik, seem to be rather familiar with fighting Humans—as if their war against humanity had already begun…

My Review:

I picked Terrans up at lunch Thursday, and became so absorbed that I felt compelled to finish it. Compelled as in read until 4 am, get up and finish immediately. That kind of compelled. I couldn’t put it down, and almost didn’t go to sleep.

soldiers duty mediumFor anyone who has read Johnson’s Those Not to Reason Why series (start with A Soldier’s Duty (reviewed here) and start NOW!) this book is a prequel series. In her Those Not series the Terran United Planets are in the middle of a devastating and centuries long war. In The Terrans, we see the beginning of that conflict, and it will keep space opera and military SF fans on the edge of their seats.

I’m including military SF fans, even though The Terrans is not strictly a war story. This is a first contact story. It’s a different version of first contact, where the humans discover that they are on both sides of the contact, and that their various branches have more to offer each other, and more mess to get involved in, than anyone expected.

The ship Aloha 9 meets the V’Dan for the first time. And to paraphrase Walt Kelly in Pogo, “we have met the aliens, and they are us”. Because the V’Dan are definitely an unexpected offshoot of the human race. 10,000 of their, and our, years ago, a religious figure scooped their ancestors from Earth and deposited them on V’Dan.

It is just possible that the ancestor in question was actually Ia from Theirs Not playing with time and space, but we don’t know and it doesn’t actually matter at this point. But it is interesting speculation.

We meet the V’Dan because the last remaining members of a V’Dan warship are imprisoned by the Salik, who intended to eat them for dinner. I do mean eat for dinner and not have them over for dinner. The Salik, as established in Those Not, are cannibals who prefer that their food be live, sentient and struggling.

The rescue goes off without too many hitches, because the Terrans’ Ambassador for anyone they might meet is aboard the Aloha 9. Jackie MacKenzie is psi, and is telepathic, xenopathic and capable of telekinesis. She can not only read enough of the Salik thoughts to be positive about their dietary practices, but she can communicate with the surviving V’Dan captain well enough to enlist his aid in freeing his crew.

And that’s where the fun begins.

Captain Le’ith of the V’Dan is also psi, but very untrained. His rapport with Jackie from the instant they meet helps his crew adjust, and gives Jackie a far greater insight into the V’Dan than anyone might have expected.

It is not all smooth sailing. There is a psi-hating bigot among the Terran crew, and an equally xenophobic and obstinate civilian power-grabber on the V’Dan side. Neither of these idjits can see past the nose on their unreasonably prejudiced faces.

There is also a cultural roadblock. The V’Dan show that they are mature adults by developing a pattern of colors and spots during late puberty. It’s a virus that has become part of their DNA. They consider any V’Dan without those marks to be children. We Terran humans are the progenitors of the V’Dan people, but we don’t have those marks. The cultural misunderstandings abound, and have the potential to derail any possible alliance.

That’s if the surprising relationship between the captain and the ambassador doesn’t send everything to hell out an airlock first.

Escape Rating A+: The Terrans is both a very political story and a very personal one. Jackie Mackenzie, as an ambassador, former councilor (think senator), and re-instated military officer, provides the reader a way into the way that Earth works in the 23rd century. She’s been a politician, a civil servant, and a middle-ranking warrior. She’s seen a lot and done a lot. She is also a high-ranked, in the capability sense, psi, so she is able to show the reader how psi powers are used, regulated and received in a world that knows that some people are weapons.

What they don’t know is why psi powers suddenly started manifesting in the previous two centuries. The have the capability of measuring them, but they don’t know how they were created in the first place.

While I have my suspicions because I read the first series, I don’t know. And the capacity to guess or not has no bearing on enjoying this book without having read Those Not. But again, why would you?

A lot of this story revolves around the politics and procedures surrounding first contact. There is a lot of security and medical procedures. We have to be exposed to each others’ bugs and find ways to prevent epidemics on both sides. There is clear evidence that we’ve learned from our history.

But the big issues are political. And even though politics and process can be tedious, in this book they simply are not. The future world that the author has envisioned is one that mostly works, while at the same time it provides commentary on what has been learned from our history and ways that things could be done better. People have mostly gotten better, if only because they have learned from our deadly mistakes.

By introducing the V’Dan to our world, it gives the author a plausible and excellently used reason to explain 23rd century Earth to them, and therefore to us as well.

But as the story progresses, it also becomes a story about individuals. Not just Jackie and Le’ith, but also both crews and a few of the civil servants (politician is a pejorative term) who get close to the center of their storm.

One of the things I enjoyed very much is that, in spite of the way that Terran humans appear to the V’Dan, both Jackie and Le’ith are well into adulthood. They are both in their mid-30s, and have significant life-experience under their belts. So while they will lead a universe altering change for their peoples, this is NOT a coming of age story. And I’m glad of it. I found Jackie to be a woman I could both identify with and aspire to.

I’ve never made a secret of having loved the entire first series from beginning to end, as well as Johnson’s fantasy series and even her fanfiction. If you have any interest in space opera and/or epic science fiction, Theirs Not to Reason Why and The Salik War are well worth losing yourself in.

Vdan by jean johnsonThe second book of the Salik War, The V’Dan, is scheduled for release in January 2016. I will be haunting NetGalley until it appears.

***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.

The Sunday Post AKA What’s on my (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 7-26-15

Sunday Post

I finally have some giveaways coming up this week. It’s been kind of a long dry spell. Even some of the tours I’ve hosted haven’t had giveaways attached, which is a real pity. There have been some good books on those tours that it would have been great to share.

As you read this, we are probably on our way to my mom’s in Cincy. One of the reasons we moved back east was so that visiting family would be a more reasonable trip, and that is turning out to be the case. Air travel used to be fun. Now it is mostly annoying. Driving takes longer but seems less hassle when it’s feasible. There’s such a trade-off between living near a big airport and living near a relatively small one.

The lines in Gainesville, Tallahassee and even Anchorage were relatively short. But getting anywhere involved at least one extra hop, and sometimes two. Also it was reasonable to live not horribly far from the airport. From Chicago, Seattle and Atlanta you can get almost anywhere on a nonstop flight, but getting to the airport is a major pain, the lines for everything take forever and parking costs the earth.

On the other hand, Atlanta had an Ice Cream Festival on Saturday which tasted wonderful.

C’est la vie.

mechanical by ian tregillisBlog Recap:

B+ Review: Ether & Elephants by Cindy Spencer Pape
B Review: The Best Kind of Trouble by Lauren Dane
B+ Review: Wings in the Dark by Michael Murphy
A Review: The Mechanical by Ian Tregillis
A- Review: Liesmith by Alis Franklin
Stacking the Shelves (145)

 

 

 

flask of the drunken master by susan spannComing Next Week:

The Terrans by Jean Johnson (review)
Broken Open by Lauren Dane (review)
Flask of the Drunken Master by Susan Spann (blog tour review)
Deadly Lover by Charlee Allden (review)
Hot Point by M.L. Buchman (blog tour review)

Review: The Mechanical by Ian Tregillis

mechanical by ian tregillisFormat read: ebook provided by the publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genre: science fiction, alternate history
Series: Alchemy Wars #1
Length: 440 pages
Publisher: Orbit Books
Date Released: March 10, 2015
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

My name is Jax.

That is the name granted to me by my human masters.

I am a clakker: a mechanical man, powered by alchemy. Armies of my kind have conquered the world – and made the Brasswork Throne the sole superpower.

I am a faithful servant. I am the ultimate fighting machine. I am endowed with great strength and boundless stamina.

But I am beholden to the wishes of my human masters.

I am a slave. But I shall be free.

My Review:

There were two things running through my head as I read The Mechanical. The first was that the institution of slavery, any kind of slavery, in its desire to dehumanize the slaves, mostly succeeds in dehumanizing the masters.

This is certainly true in this story, even through the “slaves” in this particular alternate history are clockwork machines. If their owners thought that the assemblages of metal and gears and alchemy were things rather than people, it could almost be excusable. The clakkers really are just animated collections of things. They also happen to be people, as long as your definition of “people” encompasses the possession of free will rather than simply an origin in biological instead of mechanical processes.

Although the question of what is free will definitely comes into play here, with catastrophic results.

But this world that the author has created, an alternate 1926 in which the Dutch rule the world because they possess the alchemical secrets to make and bind clakkers, reminds me also of the future that Captain Picard posited in the Star Trek Next Gen episode The Measure of a Man. For those not familiar, this is the episode where a scientist tries to take possession of Lieutenant Commander Data by asserting that Data is just a machine, and therefore the property of Starfleet to do with as it wills, including disassemble him to see what makes him tick. Picard successfully defends Data’s personhood, in a moving speech where he raises the possibility of an army of slave-Data’s doing all of Starfleet’s dirty work, unwillingly condemned to centuries of servitude.

The Mechanical in effect puts that future in a much earlier time frame, but the arguments are the same. It is the mechanical man, the clakker Jax who demonstrates the full depth of humanity’s inhumanity to this new form of sentient life.

This story is an alternative history, and an action/adventure type quest that starts out in an attempt to save the clakker’s, and to preserve the French government in exile, who are effectively the Rebel Alliance fighting a long defeat.

Not a single one of the obvious to me antecedents kept me from enjoying the book in front of me. Then again, I love the antecedents.

The Mechanical is the first book in the author’s Alchemy Wars, so a chunk of this story is setting up the background for those wars, as seen through the eyes of the clakker Jax, the French intelligence agent Berenice, and the poor, unfortunate former French spy and eventual Dutch assassin, Visser.

We see the world in 1926, more than a century after scientist Christiaan Huygens melded alchemy to clockwork and created the first Clakker. Due to clakker-power, the Dutch control the world.

There is also a strong resemblance between the clakkers and golems, legendary creatures of Jewish folklore who are created out of clay and alchemy.

But the world created by the invention of the clakkers is a very different 1926 than the one we know. In ways that made this reader wonder if a later theme of the series will be that the creation of a permanent underclass to do all the hard work has not been good for the creativity and advancement of humankind. But we’re not there yet.

Instead, we see the setup of a great world-spanning war, as the Dutch are on the brink of expanding their control over the entirety of North America, and the French intelligence service is working in secret to stay alive, even if it means creating or suborning a clakker service of their very own.

And in the middle of it all is Jax, one lone servitor clakker who has accidentally found his free will, and is willing to do anything to keep it, even allying with the French and inserting himself into his very own heart of darkness.

Escape Rating A: This is a big book, and I suspect it is just the opening salvo in what will become a very big series. It takes a lot of set up to get this universe going, but it feels like all the setup is absolutely crucial for understanding how this world came about and the herculean effort it will take to push it into a different track.

One of the fascinating parts of the story is that the clakker Jax is much more human than the human intelligence officer Berenice. In spite of the terrible things that happen to her, Berenice is an unsympathetic character and her people are often disgusting. The only redeeming thing about the French court-in-exile is that it exists in opposition to the Dutch, who are even worse. (Back to my comment at the beginning about slave holding removing the humanity of the masters more than that of the slaves.)

Just as in Star Trek Next Gen, there are times when Jax is the most compassionately and understandably human of all the focus characters. He certainly feels more guilt than they do when he makes a mistake.

While the movement and counter-movement of empires is the force behind the big events in the story, it is Jax’ description of the intense pain of conflicting orders, or geasa, and the ways in which his people have found solidarity amidst their suffering that both warms the soul and chills the heart. It makes them fully “people” in a story where the humans so often are not. We can see that this is exactly what would happen. And we fear that it is all too much like what did happen in our real history.

rising by ian tregillisBook 2 of this series, The Rising, can’t come soon enough for this reader. I await it eagerly with anticipatory chills.

***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.

The Sunday Post AKA What’s on my (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 7-19-15

Sunday Post

You’ve probably noticed by now – well I certainly hope you’ve noticed by now. Reading Reality has a new look! The new design was created by the marvelous Parajunkee, and I love it. I asked for something using the colors in Hubble Space Telescope pictures, and some geeky, nerdy, sci-fi type references, and she created a marvel. I utterly adore Mr. Bear. He’s the cybernetic descendant of my original mascot, and he’s especially engineered for sweetness. I love the new blog design, and Parajunkee is terrific to work with.

reading reality bear
The original Mr. Bear

Now I just have to propagate the goodness to all my social media. She gave me fantastic skins for everything. I just need to find the appropriate bribe for my handsome techie to take care of everything this weekend.

In the comments, please let me know what you think of the new design!

This week’s books were a mixed bag. I’ll admit that as much as I enjoyed Armada, it was disappointing compared to Ready Player One. Last First Snow, on the other hand, definitely lived up to its series.

The book that blew me away was Battle Lines. I wanted a Civil War book because I was interested in looking back at the origins of the Rebel Flag and the controversy surrounding it. I may live in Atlanta, but I’m still a Yankee. Battle Lines did provide plenty of background, but some of the individual stories utterly blew me away.

last first snow by max gladstoneBlog Recap:

B Review: Armada by Ernest Cline
A Review: Last First Snow by Max Gladstone
B Review: Space Cowboys & Indians by Lisa Medley
B- Review: The Widow’s Son by Thomas Shawver
A- Review: Battle Lines by Jonathan Fetter-Vorm and Ari Kelman
Stacking the Shelves (144)

 

 

 

mechanical by ian tregillisComing Next Week:

Ether & Elephants by Cindy Spencer Pape (review)
The Best Kind of Trouble by Lauren Dane (review)
Wings in the Dark by Michael Murphy (blog tour review)
The Mechanical by Ian Tregillis (review)
Liesmith by Alis Franklin (review)