More Books than Time

Book Reviews - Romance, Fantasy, Science Fiction - By an Adult for Adults

Real? Or Imitation Human?

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Too often to review a book I have to get it back open, just to look up the title. Not so with The Socket Greeny Saga by author Tony Bertauski. Mr. Bertauski told me Socket Greeny was his first fiction work, and it is excellent. I have him noted as an author to follow.

The main character is seventeen but this is not YA fiction.  Bertauski grabs your heart and does not let go.  You care about Socket Greeny.  Socket finds everything and loses it:  his family, his place in the world, his friends, his identity.  At the end you still wonder what happened and what will happen next.  The book ends but the story does not, yet there is no cliff hanger, no obvious sequel.  Instead the ending brings the loose threads together and leaves us Socket.

The Socket Greeny Saga is a trilogy that flows seamlessly from one book to the next. In fact my Nook version had no separation between the books, other than a periodic “Discovery” or “Training” or “Legend” interspersed in the text there was no way to know which book was which.

The plot is interesting, especially the first book of the trilogy, Discovery. Socket Greeny and his two friends Chute and Streeter go into Virtualmode during study hall and get into trouble. Socket inadvertently triggered a time slip that causes his Mom to pick him up from school and take him to the secret training facility for the Paladins. Paladins are humans with improved abilities, especially mental abilities, who are sworn to protect humanity.

In Books one and two Socket has to come to terms with his new abilities, learn and grow and develop mental powers.  Socket’s recurring enemies, duplicated humans that look and act just like real people, attack.  Socket is able to stop the duplicates, first with his friends and then by himself.

Book three starts with Socket, now a full Paladin, taking a wormhole trip to a remote outpost. Somehow he is kidnapped on the return trip and attacked by the real, ravenous enemy that the Paladins know nothing about.
Now Socket realizes that not only must he save the Earth and all his friends and family, he must save the universe.

The book could have gotten a bit ridiculous at this point. A seventeen year old universe saver? A ravenous enemy that kills all worlds? That can come to live with one cell? Instead the book turns inward, where we see Socket’s emotional depth when he realizes he has been betrayed and nothing is what he believed.

I loved the characters, especially Socket and the grimmets. Tony Bertauski did what too-few authors do when writing YA science fiction, and explored the inner depths of people and how they reacted to the events and threats. The story was well written, interesting and fast moving. It seems authors tend to skimp on plot or character or setting or good dialogue and writing style, but The Socket Greeny Saga had all four.

Just a few minor complaints.
The ending was ambiguous. What happens next? Socket is awake now, does he stay awake? Does he drift off again?
What about the grimmets? Did they die at the end? Or did they, and their world, survive?
Why did Socket stay sane and human when others just like him did not?
The hallucinogenic sequences during the testing and training were a bit much.

But overall, this was excellent. Tony has a generous offer in the end of the Nook version to request any free E book from him. After reading The Socket Greeny Saga you can bet I quickly took him up on his offer!

Excellent and Not Just for Kids! The Paladin Prophecy Fantasy by Mark Frost

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I was up till 12:45 last night. Why? The Paladin Prophecy: Book 1 kept me up. Just a few more pages, just until we find out what’s going on.

This book could have been 539 pages of copy cat fiction, with a helping from number 4, mortal coil and a dose of harry potter. The plot uses Will, a teen hero who unexpectedly gets a perfect score on a standardized test and gets recruited for a special school. Sound familiar? Last month I read Diamond In My Pocket that had a similar starting point but dwindled to a mediocre YA fantasy. The Paladin Prophecy turns that on its head in the first 4 pages.

Will wakes up feeling a “queasy cocktail of impending doom” that takes on shape when he sees the dark sedans that seem to be chasing him on his way to school.  The book takes off from that.  We have a raft of interesting characters, including Will’s nutty roommate Nick, adults that may be just what they seem or not, a New Zealander that drives a souped up hot rod (and who happens to be dead), obnoxious bullies at school and of course other friends and roomies.

The Paladin Prophecy is listed as YA fiction but it’s not really. True, the main characters are teens and author Mark Frost glides past plot and background elements that adult novels may explore a bit. But the characters feel real and the underlying conflict is not for kids. Plus the dialogue, setting, people are richly done and the plot moves at 90 miles an hour. Which is how I found myself nearly done at 12:30 and staying up just a few more minutes to finish the ending.

You notice the “Book 1” in The Paladin Prophecy: Book 1. We ended with many loose ends:

  • Are the school headmaster, teachers and board part of the conspiracy?  Or are they good guys?  Or a mix?   The ending gives us very good reason to suspect the school is not on the side of the angels.
  • Why did Will’s roommates believe him almost at once?
  • What happened to Dave?
  • Who is “The Old Gentleman” and does he have a human analogue?
  • How did the roommates get their abilities and why?
  • Is the conspiracy really done?  (Of course not, but we need to find out!)

Book 2 is out now too, Alliance: The Paladin Prophecy Book 2, and from Amazon’s descriptions there will be at least one more.  I intend to get that one just as soon as possible!

The 5th Wave Rick Yancey Dark YA Science Fiction Alien Invasion

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What do you think of when you think “alien invasion”?  Independence Day?  Ender’s Game?  The 5th Wave will remind you of all these yet it is unique.

Alien horrors intent on destroying humanity? Check.
Young people fighting to save the earth? Check.
Now take this, multiply the drive to kill off humanity ten fold and throw in an ill-fated romance.  Unique, yes?

Really Rotten Aliens

What makes this book so good is the sheer viciousness of the alien plans and the preview we see of what the aliens will face when (if) they finally exterminate humans. The extermination plans are diabolical. First an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that wipes out all electric signals. That weakens earth’s nations and hobbles the armed forces. Then a giant tsunami that floods everywhere. That kills about 3 billion people. Then a plague to kill 97% of the rest.

That still leaves about 100 million human beings. The aliens, the Others, don’t want to hurt the planet, so they can’t drop an asteroid or set off nuclear weapons. As the book begins the Others are killing off the remnant off one by one with the fourth wave and are preparing for the fifth wave.

Spoiler Alert!!

The most evil of all their plans is their death camps. They bring in busloads of kids, reassure them, kill off about half immediately, then train the remaining half to do the killing. This is the fifth wave.  This is the part that doesn’t make much sense;  I can’t see why they would use kids and I sure didn’t understand why they blew up their own main base.

Puzzling Future Problems

The aliens will have a problem and we see glimpses of it in the main male character, Evan. You see, the aliens have no bodies. They gave their physical forms up when they left their home planet 10,000 years ago. They downloaded themselves into human minds to complete their work. Evan is one such human / alien meld and he finds being human all too tempting. He tells Cassie that most of the Others feel being human would be beneath them. Yet they must take on bodies to affect the physical world and finish the extermination.

I kept wondering what the aliens will do. If they have no bodies and they don’t want to be human, then do they continue to download themselves into human infants? Aliens die when their host body dies. How will they reproduce? If they intend to stay pure mind and not take on bodies, then why do they need to kill of humans? What use would they have for trees or animals or food?

The other point that puzzled me was the purpose of the fifth wave, human kids killing off humans. The fourth wave, Silencers or Others who look and act like humans, were effective killers. Why enlist little kids? Unless the Others were so twisted that it pleased them, I didn’t see a reason to switch from using Silencers to using fully human kids.

5 Stars but With a Catch

Overall I liked this book and look forward to a sequel. Yancey is an excellent writer who knows how to tell a story and enlist us in his characters’ lives. I felt like I was Cassie, alone, cold, frightened, driven to survive. I didn’t feel so much empathy for the second male character, Ben Parish who was at the boot camp learning to kill people. The whole boot camp section just didn’t make a lot of sense to me. In fact I put the book down for an evening because I got a little tired of it, a few too many cliches.

The first half with Cassie was excellent, 5 stars without a doubt. The second half with Ben was weaker and we had a bit too much of a miracle ending. So give that second half 3 stars for the Ben sections and 5 for Cassie.

Truly YA Fiction

Many of the YA fantasy fiction novels are classified as YA only because the characters are young. The 5th Wave is written for older teens. Adults will enjoy it as I did, but we’re more likely to look askew at the basic premise of aliens becoming human to kill off humans and we’ll be skeptical of the whole boot camp section.

If you can put aside your natural skepticism and take the book’s premise as valid you will enjoy this.

The Burning Bridge, The Ranger’s Apprentice Book 2, Fantasy, John Flanagan

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The Burning Bridge (The Ranger’s Apprentice, Book 2) is the second book by John Flanagan featuring young Will and Horace. You can read my review of the first book, The Ruins of Gorlan, here:

Review: Ranger’s Apprentice Book One: The Ruins of Gorlan John Flanagan

Book 1 was fast moving with extensive character development.  The hero and his friends are all young teens but the book shouldn’t be considered YA fantasy as the characterization, setting, theme and plot are all more adult.  This second book, The Burning Bridge has a stronger plot but the characters don’t exhibit as much interest or change during the story.

Will and Horace are sent on a mission to neighboring Celtica to request military assistance in the upcoming battle against the evil Morgarath. They discover Morgarath’s audacious plan to attack their kingdom from behind. For years their kingdom of Araluen has relied on the impassible cliffs and deep gorge called The Fissure, to protect them from Morgarath.  There is only one pass and Araluen controls it.

In fact Morgarath has enslaved miners and workers from Celtica who have built a secret tunnel and bridge to get his troops across The Fissure and attack the king where he least expects it. Will, Horace and the young ranger Gilan realize that Celtica has been attacked and its forces have retreated to the south. The young Evanlyn meets up with them after having her entire party of armed guards and her mistress killed by the semi-human Wargals. Gilan leaves them and races to inform the king that Celtica is under attack.

Will, Evanlyn and Horace are supposed to make their way back to Araluen but on the way they foll a party of Wargals herding captive Celtica miners. They are horrified to discover that Morgarath has built an enormous bridge across the Fissure and decide to burn it to prevent the surprise attack from Araluen’s rear. Will and Evanlyn are captured by mercenary Skandians while Horace escapes to warn the king.

The Burning Bridge is fast moving and fun. In some ways it’s not as good as the first book was, but it was easy to finish and enjoyable. John Flanagan created a rich environment with interesting setting and political backdrop. It’s well-written and even without the character development we saw in Book 1, The Burning Bridge is well worth reading.  There are a few scenes featuring Will’s friends Alyss that could have been eliminated to produce a tighter book, but presumably we will see more of Alyss in future stories.

I recommend it with 4 stars.

Review: The Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp YA Fiction Rick Yancey

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Take a good look at the picture on the cover.

Sword. Chunky kid. Untied shoelace. What do you think?

Yes, the hero in The Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp is a kid. Yes, he has King Arthur’s Excalibur. Yes, the villains are after him.

No. He is not a nerd, nor wimpy, nor skinny nor does he wear glasses. What he is, is an orphan with a very large head, a big husky body, not super clever, not college-bound, and he plays football only because he has to. The entire book is full of surprises like this. We have scenes that you just know how they will proceed – but then they don’t.  You have a character who seems miscast as a hero – until he becomes one.  You have ambiguous characters – until they reveal themselves.  I thoroughly enjoyed The Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp. I loved the character Alfred Kropp, loved the plot, the fast pace, the on-going mystery of the ambiguous super secret organization OIPEP.

This is a very fast read; I finished in one evening, then ran downstairs to get the sequel on my Nook.  The book combines a fun read with some serious introspection on the part of a fifteen year old self-described screw up kid.  Alfred knows he will goof and make the wrong decision but he keeps on going, determined to set right what he caused to go wrong.  Yes, there is some coming-of-age in this book; after all you can’t avoid that when dealing with a teen protagonist.  But the coming of age is well done and just sort of happens along the way.

The Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp is classified as YA fiction since Alfred is fifteen. No doubt boys will especially enjoy this but girls and adults will too.

I highly recommend this.

Sobering Read that Lingers in Your Mind – Messenger, Lois Lowry, The Giver Trilogy

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Messenger is book three of The Giver trilogy by Lois Lowry, but it stands on its own.  You do not need to read the other two books to enjoy this one.  The four main characters repeat from The Giver and Gathering Blue but the actions, plot and setting are unique.

I had not heard of Lois Lowry until I browsed our local library’s E book selection of science fiction and fantasy. Her books were always checked out. That intrigued me so I placed a hold and read them in the order they arrived, not the order of the plot sequence. In fact I read Messenger second.

Messenger is listed under teen or older teen but the concepts and characters resonate with adults.  The main character, Matt, has a unique talent to travel the dangerous Forest and at the beginning of the story, he finds another unique talent, the ability to heal.  Healing frightens Matt and drains him and he keeps it secret.

Matt’s small village has recently begun a new type of Trading, where people are no longer trading things for other things, but trading part of themselves.  This is not stated, but instead is obvious to the reader through Matt”s eyes.  Village, formerly open and welcoming to all, decides to close itself off from other refugees and the Forest becomes darker, more sinister and dangerous.

Messenger is the story of Matt’s last journey to the outside world, his friendship and love for Seer and Kira, and the timely intervention of Leader.  I didn’t find Messenger as unsettling as the first book, The Giver, but it has stayed in my mind and I expect I will remember this one for a long, long time.

Messenger is available from Amazon I got this from the Southwest Michigan Digital Library, a consortium of small area libraries.  You are likely to find Messenger in your local library or E library.

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