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

General’s Legacy: Part One: Inheritance. Outstanding Fantasy with Complete Characters, Plot, Setting, Emotion and Style

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The  General’s Legacy: Part One: Inheritance by new author Adrian Hilder is just the ticket for those of us who love well-written fantasy with real people, rich settings, solid plot.  I’ve lost my tolerance for books that hit on one or two of the five cylinders – plot, people, setting, style, emotion – but miss the rest.  Inheritance is a wonderful surprise, full of rich characters, vivid descriptions, fast-moving plot, good dialogue and a balance of suspense, magic, romance, determination, fear, loathing.

Setting

Have you noticed many new books completely skip the setting?  Reading them vs. reading Hilder’s Inheritance is like watching today’s miserable kids’ cartoons vs. the richly detailed Disney or Bugs Bunny cartoons from the 1940s-60s.  Hilder makes us feel the rich spring air, the steep mountain paths and old castle towers by spending just the right amount of time staging the scene.  We can easily feel our legs turn to mush along with Cory when he runs up and down the 5 towers, can feel the heat from the fire and smell the nasty odors from the tanneries polluting the lake.

Recently I read yet another Modesitt story that had way too much detail, too many words describing soggy breakfasts or dusty roads.  In Modesitt’s novels I read the words but don’t feel them, don’t smell the horses or feel the rain.  In comparison Hilder hits just the right balance.  Too much time on setting and we forget the story, too little and it’s gray instead of color.

Plot

Hilder starts the book off 15 years ago at the General’s climatic battle to save the country of Valendro from bloodthirsty neighbor Nearhon and starts every chapter with a synopsis of battles that the General won over his long career.  Now the General is dead and grandson Cory must pick up and go on.

The plot is complex with plenty of action, some romance and leavened by orchestra concerts and Council meetings.  Again Hilder balances the need for action with the fact that action is most vivid when it contrasts with the daily routine.  We are alongside Cory and his brothers as they work with their father, the King, to govern Valendro during peacetime when the biggest conflict is which city should get the road upgrade first.  We are still with Cory when he confronts the deadliest enemy.

There are a couple small plot questions that related to the magic, such as why the Nearhon wizard Magnar didn’t strike sooner, but nothing bothersome.  I don’t look for detailed discussions of the magic systems in fantasy novels, suffice it that the magic exists, that it has some limitations and costs, that it can be reasonably consistent.  Hilder delivers this.

Character

Most of the main characters are multi-dimensional, well-developed.  I found the ladies sufficient but not quite as interesting as the men.  For example, Julia’s father has not been able to win arguments with her, but we don’t see her as quite that strong of a person.  Don’t get me wrong, Julia is well developed, just not quite as thoroughly.  We get hints that there is far more to Julia than a pretty face, music and horses.  I’m hoping book 2 shows more of her character.

The enemy wizard Magnar doesn’t appear in the novel many times, but when we does we notice and we remember!  He’s not a cardboard villain, but a person obsessed with magic and exploring its depth and breadth all while walking a tight rope with the king of Nearhon.

Style

Hilder does a bang up job telling the story through side vignettes and dialogue.  Some dialogue is internal, as when Sebastian wrestles with his frustration at not knowing much about diplomacy or Cory struggles to not be overwhelmed with his responsibility.

The pacing is also solid.  We go fast, then slow down a bit, then speed up zoom zoom!  A few places I had to go back to re-read to make sure I inferred correctly what happened because Hilder tended to skid right through some major plot events.

Emotion

I like books that make you feel.  Authors do this in part by creating characters that feel like real people, like friends you want to meet, and partly by the dialogue and plot.  The vivid setting and scene staging help too.  This was the most emotional book I read since Naomi Novik’s Uprooted (see review here), and like Uprooted, Inheritance has the horrible sense that failure meant that everything failed, a dash of romance, determination, and the characters’ fierce joy in accomplishing what they must.

Overall

I enjoyed Inheritance and look forward to reading the second book, The Whiteland King.  I rarely give 5 stars but will do so with Inheritance.  Solid writing, first rate characterization, fun plot, vivid setting rate a 5 from me!

The Last Star – Finale to Compelling 5th Wave Series

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Sometimes You Don’t Need to Know the Answers to Know What to Do

First the bad news.  Author Yancey never answers the questions of what the aliens were doing, why they invaded Earth, why they killed off so many, why they were so consistently cruel.  For the good news, most of our main characters survive and the tiny remnants of civilization remain.

Characters

Yancey developed his main characters, Cassey, Ringer, Ben, Evan and Sam, in the first two books and does very little to further them in The Last Star.  We do see Ringer developing tentative alliance with Cassey, and all the older characters keep trying to figure out what is going on, the alien’s plan and purpose.

The three main human characters, Cassie, Ben and Ringer, are confused and torn, angry and frustrated.  This feels real.  I don’t understand Ringer’s attitude towards Cassie, a little contemptuous until the end, but it fits her overall sense of superiority.  Ben is realistic, never quite sure of himself, never quite hopeful, never ready to give up, looking for people to love.

Evan is the saddest character, neither fully alien nor fully human.  Sam is stubborn.

Writing Style

The 5th Wave flows very well.  We have a start and an end and events and characters move one into the other.  The Infinite Sea takes a very different approach with mostly new characters and tone.  The Last Star is jerkier with pacing issues and diversions that don’t add much.

Yancey uses multiple points of view in The Last Star which gives more background and depth but also makes it less even.  The first POV character is the priest Silencer whom we re-encounter later as a 3rd party.  A few of the POV switches are disjointed.

The mood changes over the course of the series.  The 5th Wave characters are sad, frightened.  Cassie was terrified of being the last human and horrified that she had killed the crucifix soldier but we ended hopeful because Cassie and Evan ally and plan.   The Infinite Sea is darker as we see depths of cruelty and misery, but the characters are determined and will fight back.   The Infinite Sea has a sense of hopelessness in the beginning that changes; in the end we once more see hope albeit with sadness, loss and worry.

Plot Problems (Spoilers)

The ending is a bit too tidy.  In part it satisfies because we see hope for the future, a seed of family, community, learning.

Evan tells Ben there are more military bases than just the one in Ohio, and they also had been training kids to kill.  Evan takes his personal mission to clean up all these bases, killing thousands of indoctrinated kid soldiers.  The novel stops with Evan walking into the sunset, off to kill people while Ringer and Ben create a family and teach trust the hard way.

(Spoiler) The bomb requires one to breath in order to activate, which means the mother ship must have air.  Hmm.  If aliens are incorporeal why is there air?

(Spoiler)  Aliens embedded the program/personality/augmentation into Evan when he was in his mother’s womb, then activated it when he hit puberty.  At least some of the other Silencers and military leaders are adult humans.  Were they embedded as adults?  Or were their alien personalities (real or artificial) formed earlier?  If earlier then where was the mother ship all this time?

(Spoiler)  The Silencers expect to be evacuated before the aliens bomb every city and town on Earth.  Vosch tells Ringer that there are only 12 of the evacuation pods and none of the Silencers are going to the mother ship.  (Vosch lies all the time so we cannot know whether this is true.  It is true that he has a pod.)  So what are the Silencers going to do?  If they die in the bombardment then the 5th wave is done; if they lived then they too are betrayed.  Evan believes the Silencers would move to destroy the remaining bases but I don’t see the connection.  If I were a Silencer and my ticket home got torn up I’d fade into the background and be human.

(Spoiler)  Vosch has Evan’s character mind wiped, then reloads only the alien part with the result that alien Evan is solely a killer, no shred of personality or anything else.  Does that tell us the aliens are just killers?  Nothing else?  From a plot perspective, how did Ringer and Ben figure out which of the 10,000 plus personalities to reload?

There are other too-neat or unrealistic plot issues, but mostly they don’t get in the way of a solid book.

What Were the Aliens Doing?

Option 1.  Destroy Trust to Destroy Civilization

Ringer ends up believing the aliens are trying to reduce human populations and permanently twisting us to never trust, never again come together as community, never again build civilization, never again take over the earth and destroy other living creatures. Vosch hints at this with her although he never came out and agreed.  Destroying trust to destroy humanity while leaving a few humans alive is certainly one possibility, but it doesn’t make sense.

True, the aliens used unbearably cruel methods to kill the survivors of the first four waves.  They are betrayal itself, first of all the people who died, then of their children/soldiers and weaponized toddlers; even their Silencers are to be betrayed by abandonment and bombardment.

But consider this.  If you do not yourself witness small groups dying because they brought a booby-trapped child inside their home, would you still learn the lesson to trust no one?  I suppose if everyone who does trust dies, then the remaining survivors may have less innate tendency to trust and form communities (assuming there is some genetic factor behind trust).  But overall I don’t see this working.

I don’t believe the no-trust rule would settle permanently into our collective hearts.  People are hardwired to form families, to reach for something more than themselves, to build communities.  We need trust to have children, trust to form families.  Small families turn into larger family groups, then tribes, then hello civilization.  We could end up with Stone Age family group sizes but I don’t see how this could end up permanent.  The aliens would have to re-teach the lesson every few hundred years.

Last, for a group that supposedly venerates life they sure kill a lot of people.

Option 2.  Keep a Small Number of People for Hosts, aka Kill the Humans and Take Over

Evan believes that he is an alien personality downloaded into a human host.  He discusses the aliens’ origin and names with Vosh and is convinced that his purpose was to kill enough humans for the aliens to take over Earth.

This option makes more sense to me than number 1, although it begs the question how the aliens would operate without bodies and why they needed a planet if they were pure thought.

Option 3.  Aliens are Killers First Last and Always

Vosh strips out the human Evan leaving only alien Evan.  That stripped Evan is a killer, nothing else, no goal other than to kill everyone he can.  If this is typical alien mind, then the aliens are here to kill.  Perhaps they are just plain evil.

Option 4.  Something Else

It’s possible the entire story is a lie, that the aliens do in fact have bodies and are in fact trying to kill off everyone so they can take over the planet free of annoying humans.  Or something else, pick your favorite.

Ultimately

In the end it doesn’t matter why the aliens did what they did.  We don’t know and that’s probably Yancey’s purpose here.  The characters wouldn’t know.

If the purpose were to destroy trust – permanently – then Ringers and Ben’s determination to live with trust, to form community, to regain civilization would be the answer.  And if the purpose were to take over Earth, then Ringer and Ben’s nascent community and others with like minds would be bulwark against that takeover.

We don’t need to know the answer to enjoy the novel and the series, and the guessing adds to the sense of sorrow and terror that Cassie and Ringer and Ben and Sam and Evan would feel.

Overall

I can’t give The Last Star 5 stars, mostly because it doesn’t flow as well as it should and because the characters don’t change much.  It is otherwise enjoyable and thought-provoking.

4 Stars

Obsidian Son – Great Sounding Fantasy, But What A Bust

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I don’t usually review books I don’t finish.  Since I read 5 to 10 books a week and review only a couple, I put most effort into books I like or ARCs.  I’m making an exception for Obsidian Son, the first novel in a four-part series by Shane Silvers.  Obsidian Son sounds so good and has great reviews on Amazon, a fun premise, neat cover.  It’s all there, everything except the book itself.

The story starts off with our hero, Nate Temple, wizard, bookstore owner, super rich young fellow and recent orphan, sneaking up on the Minotaur to engage in a bit of cow tipping.  He gets smeared with cow dung, arrested, interrogated by the police, released.  When he gets home to have a drink with his two best friends he simply tosses his coat into the laundry basket and makes drinks – without washing up.  Sorry, that was hard to take.

The main character is a sophomoric jerk with an overabundance of ego and a nasty attitude about women.  (Quote:   “To women and careers and the men who ride them.”)  Yet this same character hasn’t asked his office manager for a date because he might get turned down.  Yeesh.

Author Silver has way too heavy a hand with foreshadowing.  Even without getting past the first quarter of the novel I could tell that Temple’s mysterious client is himself a dragon (he smelled like rocks and snakes), that Temple’s friend Peter was somehow corrupted by someone magic (since he had on a new bracelet and suddenly had magic abilities), that Temple will discover his parents’ company used magic as much as technology.  So on.  Really, how much more obvious can someone be, yet Temple, who is supposed to be super smart never notices and never even asks his buddy Peter where he got magic?

The author clearly has little to no understanding how people who have money actually use it, or what the consequences might be of flinging Aston Martin cars around to one’s friends.  The main character thinks nothing of driving through red lights, speeding down urban streets and doing donuts to stop his flashy new car in front of his friend.  Does anyone really think that having a fancy car means he doesn’t have to share the road?  This is when I decided to pull the plug and delete Obsidian Son from my reader.

The last point is the blasphemous use of the name Jesus.  This is the name of God’s only begotten Son, not some casual throw-away interjection.  The author tossed a couple of these in the mix too.

Overall, 1 star.  Did not finish and do not recommend.

Excalibur Rising – What Happens When a Crime Boss Wants a Sword?

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Author Eileen Enwright Hodgetts has a unique answer to why the legend of King Arthur is so strong yet we have little to no historical evidence the man existed.  (Best theories put him as a war leader fending off the Saxon invasion, not as a larger-than-life heroic king of all Britain.)  Her answer?  The king ruled in an alternate Britain around the 1100s and his knights slid through into our world to quest and run off their wild oats.

The novel Excalibur Rising picks up today, when an English historian offers an acquisitive Las Vegas crime boss the chance to purchase King Arthur’s legendary sword.  The boss assigns his curator, Marcus, a former television treasure hunter, to verify the details and get the sword if it’s authentic.  That starts a whirlwind of murder, trips to Florida, England, environmental protests, kidnapping, car chases, and semi-psychic tracking.

 

Characters

The main characters are Marcus and Violet, the semi-psychic that the mob boss contacts to help with the search.  Both are well written. We meet Marcus first and he’s about what you would expect from a man once famous, now slightly on the seedy side.  His television show is long gone as is his money and most of his self-respect.  He has not contacted his ex-wife or children in years and lives in his boss’s casino hotel.

Violet is pretty but plump, not at all active and lives in Key West with her brother and sister.  All three were adopted and no one knows anything about Violet’s background.  Violet’s brother is a wannabe actor and adds a lot of humor and snark to the story.  Violet herself is pretty greedy – that Conch house eats money! – and can often find recent history just by touching something.  She wants the mafia boss’s reward.

Despite initial reservations and distrust the two join forces before the meet a whole crowd of extra characters, some nasty, some nice and all too many dead.

Mordred (or his latest descendant) makes an appearance and is the same conniving, greedy, care-for-nobody that we all detested in the original Arthur stories.  His evil minions are alive and well and join to terrorize the people in their version of Albion.  King Arthur himself is the central point of the novel but appears only at the very end.

Plot

The author is telling a fantasy and writes well.  She sets her plot to move fast, from Las Vegas to London to northern England to Wales, picking up people and clues along the way.  The book moves fast enough that it’s easy to suspend disbelief, although after Marcus once more said there was no evidence for King Arthur whatsoever I wanted to raise my hand and point out the Saxon invader theory.  (As a theory it explains a leader, but none of the knightly trappings or round table or any of the Grail quest.)

Overall

I thoroughly enjoyed Excalibur Rising, in fact it was a very pleasant surprise to read a book as well-written with so many engaging characters.  It sets up for a sequel at the end, but can be read and enjoyed as a standalone.

Excalibur Rising is right between 4 and 5 stars.  It’s not quite there to get 5, but better than many 4 star novels.  I eagerly look forward to reading the sequel.

Note the links to Amazon are commission links.

Reclaim by J. A Scorch – Alien Invasion

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I admit it.  I’ve a weakness for stories about aliens invading Earth, provided they are reasonably well-written, with interesting characters and a modicum of believability.  Reclaim by new Australian author J. A. Scorch fits the bill.  Reclaim has its weaknesses, namely some implausible character interactions, but it is well-plotted and full of likable people, all fighting to have a home and a future for humankind.

Plot and Writing Style

One real problem everyone who writes about desperate-humans-fighting-alien-invaders (DHFAI for short) has is the basic issue of why would there be many human survivors at all?   And why wouldn’t the huge invader ships orbiting Earth simply blow them away?  Lots of writers assume that the survivors are tiny remnants and the invaders simply haven’t gotten around to them yet.  (Think Independence Day.)  Scorch took the challenge of devising a reasonable answer, which the Earth forces are likewise trying to discover and exploit.

Reclaim is a fast read, clear and easy to follow.  There weren’t an weird names nor did Scorch spend much time detailing all the wondrous weapons which all too many writers like to do.  He combined narration and dialogue to tell the story

Characters

The story splits between two brothers, Teve in the united Earth army near the remnants of Los Angeles, and Bradley, a fighter pilot from the Mars space navy.  Scorch alternates viewpoints, with Porter giving us a bird’s eye view of the overall war plus the Martian response and dedication, and Teve sees the on-the-ground mess and desperation.

Both characters have good friends and fellow fighters who are close comrades and the interplay between these gives the novel its life and moments of humor.  Scorch uses dialogue to tell the story and show us the people involved.

Moments of Implausibility

Books like this have to be carefully and tightly plotted to feel real; it’s a tough challenge to write about Earth being conquered by aliens while still allowing for life and resistance and a story.  If you read this type of novel you know the wince feeling you get when something truly stupid glares through.  Reclaim had a couple of small wince moments.

Porter has to crash land into his carrier, towed by his wingman and flung through the door.  Porter and his wingman both joke that the Mars higher ups would probably rather they had blown up than caused the dings and dents on the hanger.  That didn’t feel right.  Given the fact over 70% of humanity is dead, and that it takes years of experience for a pilot to be as good as Porter, I had to believe the higher ups would far rather keep him and others alive.

There were several comments along similar lines, suggesting the Mars leaders were perfectly happy to throw people and ships at the invaders’ ships orbiting Earth, even accepting 90%+ losses for what appeared small gains, dropping packages off to Earth and getting updates back.  (I could understand they would accept almost any loss if it meant destroying the invaders’ ships.)

There were similar scenes in the Earth-based forces, where the Teve’s commander seemed willing to throw people away.  These seemed more realistic because the losses were mainly newbies. This same commander also threw a tantrum when Teve was not able to achieve the impossible.

There were incidents between Brad and his superior officers that didn’t feel right either, especially when he was punished for questioning the strategy to throw everybody and everything at the invaders, knowing that left Mars essentially defenseless in the event of failure.

My one complaint with the plot is the ending.  There are plenty of set up moments to point us in the direction Reclaim goes, including Teve’s supplier of Diazepan and his fascination with alien tech, the general prohibition on touching the alien’s constructs.  Nonetheless the final ending seemed like a bit too pat, and a bit of a sideways jerk, not quite right.

Overall

I will surely read the second book in the series since I enjoyed Reclaim and am a sucker to find out just how Scorch intends to free the Earth and hopefully maintain the unity between Earth and Mars and among the Earth countries.  Reclaim was one of the better DHFAI novels with an ambitious premise, rather good writing and interesting people.

4 Stars

The Return of Sir Percival – A Different Arthurian Romance

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King Arthur is dead.

The Knights of the Round Table are dead.

The Table is broken.

There is no leader left and Albion is disintegrated.  The dream of a united kingdom is dead.

Queen Guinevere has fled and all have deserted Camelot.

Morgana enslaves Britain’s people, conspires with murderous Saxon war chiefs and seeks the head of Merlin the wise.

The Return of Sir Percival is no ordinary Arthurian romance, no mere retelling of the rise and fall of a magical realm.  Instead author S. Alexander O Keefe bases his story on the historical invasion of Celtic/Roman Britain by the Saxons and sets it after Camelot falls and King Arthur dies at Cammlan.  In this retelling Guinevere was not unfaithful to Arthur; Morgana and Merlin were from the Eastern Roman Empire and bitter enemies and Morgana seeks revenge, power, wealth and status.

People

Morgana is a critical character, here a vicious, scheming, malevolent woman. Arthur and his kingdom defeated Morgana at the battle of Cammlan, but lost overall when no strong leader emerged to keep the British people united.  Instead the kingdom devolved into small pockets, some ruled by thugs like Ivarr the Red, others by family and clan groups, others more or less left alone.  Morgana seized the lucrative silver mines and allied with the Saxon invaders who will turn on her the minute she is unable to pay them off.  Morgana is a noblewoman from Byzantium, related to the Emperor, and is in Britain at his behest (and also from a well-founded fear she would be killed if she returns).

It’s hard to show the character of someone as despicable as Morgana without making them cardboard, and O’Keefe does his best to show Morgana is motivated by more than spite and hatred.  She doesn’t like the northern climate and longs to return home to the Empire but dares not leave without securing the Emperor’s goals.  Characterization is moderately good.

Capussa is a great addition to the story.  He is a Numidian ex-gladiator friend of Sir Percival who joins him on his return home to Albion. Capussa is an excellent military strategist and helps Percival in battle but his biggest contribution is that of wry humor.   We don’t get to know Capussa as a person particularly, but he is a fun character.

The other main characters, Sir Percival, Merlin and Guinevere are interesting and enjoyable to read about but we don’t get to know them well.  In all fairness to the author it is difficult to show the characters of people that we think we know so well from legend, especially since O’Keefe discards much of the romantic trappings.  In this novel Guinevere was never in love with Lancelot; instead she and Percival were good friends on the verge of falling in love when Percival honorably left Camelot, first to build the northern defenses, then for his Grail quest.

Story Line

The plot here is excellent, very well thought-out, enjoyable and interesting.  O’Keefe based his ideas on actual situations to build a story that felt plausible yet was aligned with the romantic Camelot legends.  For example, early Britains did mine silver (and gold) and the Eastern Empire would have coveted the mineral wealth.  Britain was quite civilized after 300 years of Roman occupation, with good roads, some literacy, some sense of national identity.  It would be easy for the Eastern emperor to covet such a pleasant territory and its riches.

Writing Style

Author O’Keefe published a thriller, Helius Legacy, before he wrote The Return of Sir Percival.  He shows himself to be a careful writer, creates clear sentences and narratives.  The book moves a little slowly in parts, most in the beginning, and picks up the pace.  O’Keefe alternates between Morgana, the Saxon leaders and Percival for his main points of view which helps us keep the sense of time and urgency.

One weak point that I’d like O’Keefe to improve is the setting.  He did a good job on the back story and used Capussa and Merlin to help tell the story of what happened to Percival and to Albion, but the physical descriptions were weak.  Stories like this with scenes that depend on our sense of place need more vivid descriptions.  I lost track a few times where the characters were.

Maps would have helped.  It’s not necessary to have the action take place in the real-life locales – this is a fantasy – but something to show us about where Guinevere took refuge relative to London and about where Morgana ruled in her castle would have helped.  I wondered several times why Morgana didn’t take bolder action to follow up upon Arthur’s death and Albion’s disintegration, and knowing about where the various power centers were would have cleared that up.

Overall

This is the first of a planned series and I expect to read the subsequent novels.  I grew up reading imaginative Arthurian fantasy by T. H. White and Mallory and found most later novels set in the same legend (such as Mary Stewart’s The Crystal Cave) were disappointing.  The Return of Sir Percival uses the legend as backdrop and asks “What if?”.  What if Arthur’s kingdom wasn’t completely dead?  What if Guinevere was faithful and alive and ready to help lead people back to a unified Albion?  Setting the novel seven years after the fall of Camelot helped position this as a separate tale – and a good one.

4 Stars.  If I were rating solely on the imaginative use of the story I would give this 5 stars.  Overall execution and characterization were slightly less.

I received an advanced reader copy for free from NetGalley in exchange for a review.

 

 

Quick Reviews of 10 Free Books Fantasy and Science Fiction

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Anytime I get books – whether from the library or by purchase – I get a mixed bag.  Some will be good, some so-so, and some are real stinkers.  What about free books?  Is there any reason to download an ebook that doesn’t cost you anything?  Well, yes, sure.

Why do authors offer their books for free?

  • They are new and need someone – anyone – to read and hopefully review their work
  • They want you to read the first book in their series so you continue on to buy the sequels
  • They know the value of marketing and offer free samples

I’ve found several authors via BookBub, for example C. Gockel who writes enjoyable contemporary novels about Loki and his fellow Asgardians, and Raymond Weil who writes novels about aliens invading Earth.  Our library has neither author.  In both cases the first book was free and I followed up buying several more.

All that said, I don’t expect a lot from a free book and when it opens up a new author I’m delighted.

Let’s look at the ones I read this last week from Instafreebie and BookBub.

The pick of the litter was Amateur Grammatics: A Comic Fantasy Novellete by Kevin Partner.  I didn’t expect much with this – funny is extraordinarily difficult to do well – and was happily surprised by the interesting characters, creative and ingenious plot and setting.  Even the odd speech (not quite a dialect but not standard English either) worked.

Rubbish With Names An Interstellar Railroad Story was a freebie from Felix R. Savage by way of his newsletter that I didn’t find on Amazon.  It was OK.

The Trilisk Ruins (Parker Interstellar Travels Book 1) by Michael McCloskey is the first of a series offered for free on Amazon.  I’ll review this in more detail in a separate post as it was good, worth reading albeit with some unbelievable moments.

Return by J. A. Scorch was an excellent short novella about the aftermath of an alien invasion.  His first book in the alien invasion is Return which I’m reading now.  Perhaps this is his first book, period, because I cannot find him on Amazon.  Or perhaps his one-word titles are hard to find given the umpteen other books with the same name.

Carrie Hatchett’s Christmas from J. J. Green was cute.

Mage Lessons was a sample only.  Quite good but not something I wanted to spring $5 to read in full.  If author Ilana Waters offers any of the series for free I will certainly get it.

Not Alone by Craig A Falconer had thi intriguing cover, unfortunately was so-so, similar to Close Encounters of the Third Kind with a heavy dose of public relations shenanigans.

Special Offers by M. L. Ryan had a fun-sounding blurb and was OK, possibly quite good with serious editing to remove fluff like breakfast menus.  I skimmed the middle third.

Felis Catus by A. J. Chaudhury had a white cat on the cover, how could I resist?  This was a novella with uneven quality set in India.

Melanie Karsak’s Chasing Christmas Past: An Airship Racing Chronicles Short Story Prequel featured a whiny character I detested.

Most likely of the 200 or so books I recently got there will be 20 good to very good books and maybe another 50 or so that are worth reading.

Review: That Thing Around Your Neck – Short Stories by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

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The first story in this collection, “Cell One”, is set solely in Nigeria, time not given but likely in the last 20 years.  I read this as part of December’s A Season of Stories and it is unforgettable.

As in most of the other stories, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie tells Cell One through the eyes of a young woman, sister to trouble-making Nnamabia, the brother her parents favor and cosset.  Both young people attend a Nigerian university that is frequently beset by violence as cults (gangs) of young men attack each other, often resulting in murder.  The police arrest and jail Nnamabia after a fatal attack and his sister and parents visit him in jail every day via a 2 hour drive.

“Cell One” reaches its emotional height by how matter of fact the sister narrates the events, from shake downs by the highway police to shake downs and bribes in the jail to the endless beatings and humiliation.  The brother tries to spare the life and dignity of an older man who is imprisoned because the authorities cannot find his son; the guards beat this older man daily and the brother risks his own life to try and stop it. We do not know what happens after, whether the brother grows up after this or slides back to being the favored child who gets away with stealing from his own mother.

That Thing Around Your Neck includes several stories set in both America and Nigeria.  One of my favorites is “Imitation”, about a Nigerian wife, Nkem, whose husband is a Big Man back home.  He moved her and their children to America while he spends 50 weeks a year back home.  When the wife discovers he is bringing his mistress to their home in Lagos she decides to move everyone back to Nigeria, standing up to her husband for the first time ever.  I enjoyed the character Nkem and her combination of realistic expectations (of course her husband strays) with determination to have a real marriage and family life.

Several stories showed how both Americans and Nigerians may have nutty ideas about each other, making overly sweeping generalizations about behavior and culture.  One example was “Jumping Monkey Hill” where Edward, the literature seminar leader gently refuses to believe one author’s work is truly African, stating “how African is it for a person to tell her family that she is homosexual?”.  In “The Arrangers of Marriage” the new husband seeks a lighter-skinned Nigerian wife, then has her use only her middle name, Agatha, and tries to turn her into an American, cooking American food, speaking American English.

Many of Adichie’s characters are away from home, are lonely, horribly lonely even when surrounded by people or married.  The stories are good because we connect with the people.  Adichie uses the short story form well, focusing on people’s feelings, their fears and longing, telling stories with small plots and big characters.

5 Stars

Gilded Cage by Vic James – Excellent Fantasy Set in Alternate England

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Gilded Cage by Vic James will be released on Valentine’s Day, 2017.  This is an excellent novel with a rich backstory and detailed world building, interesting characters and plenty of plot.  Don’t go by the blurb for this novel which make it sound like YA fantasy with teen romance and devoid of original ideas.  It has plenty of themes that adults will enjoy:

  • Slavery.  No, not based on race but on sheer power and ability to dominate.
  • Revolution
  • Peace and prosperity based on a grotesque social compact
  • Power

Gilded Cage postulates an England where Charles I died when overthrown by Skill users, men and women from certain families who have immense mental abilities.  The Skilled can heal themselves, raises entire buildings, adjust the minds of others and kill.  The Skilled didn’t only kill Charles, they abrogated all political power to themselves and now call themselves Equals.

Unskilled people, commoners, live ordinary lives, marrying, having children, raising families, going to school, working, saving, enjoying life, retiring.  Except that everyone – truly everyone outside the 300 or so Skilled families – must spend 10 years as a slave.  The slaves have zero rights, are legally not people.  Some serve the Skilled as unpaid servants while most live and work in slave towns.  Food, shelter, clothing are minimal and work is long and brutal, 12 hours 6 days a week.  Slavery is nothing like our community service and no one comes out the same as they went in.

Backstory – Slavery

James built a detailed and richly thought-out world.   Consider her treatment of slavery, a repulsive idea in any context however configured.

The slavery concept as executed in the novel is unique.  The Equals could  have forced everyone to work 1 week a month for 41 years, which would be about the same total as 10 years all at once.  But if you think about it, a 1 week per month routine would quickly become just a duty, onerous, unpleasant, but not soul-shattering.  To make their power and position absolutely, unequivocally clear, Equals force the 10 years.

When do you do your 10 year slave days?  Young so you have the rest of your life free (if you aren’t killed or maimed)?  At 55 so you can enjoy 35 years of adulthood first?   Alone or with a spouse?  With your children? It’s a horrible choice and there is no good answer.

The Equals also were smart to leave commoners alone to live normally outside the 10 year slave days.  They could have made everyone permanent slaves but that would have been unwise for economic and security reasons.  The commoners are the prime market for the goods that slave towns produce, and the guards and managers are all free people.

I wondered too about the guards, especially the sadistic bullies.  You would think that word would get around and they would be paid back when they too eventually had to serve their days, even if they went to a different slave town.

Anytime an author establishes a framework so carefully structured that readers think about the economic and political (to say nothing about moral) ramifications we have the makings of a great fantasy.  Once the author sets up the structure then she must create characters and a story that are equally vibrant.  James has done that here.

Characters

James does an excellent job showing us the characters, especially Skilled brothers Gavar and Silyen, one expected to pursue political leadership and the other scheming and exploring his Skill, Gavar’s repulsive fiancee Buoda, commoner Luke and would-be revolutionary leader Dr. Jackson.

She uses small details to show us the people.  For example, Bouda wants to force anyone who is unemployed long term back into slavery and can’t understand why her perfectly logical idea was not adopted.  That tells us about Bouda.  We see people interacting, many interesting minor players and some take risks and some do not.

Gilded Cage stands alone as an excellent, thought-provoking novel but it is also set up for sequels.  It is character-driven with several minor characters positioned for larger roles in the next books as conflicts are primed to start.  I expect we will see more of Luke’s older sister Abi as she escapes at the novel’s end, heartsick at Luke’s fate and from leaving Gavar and Silyen’s UnSkilled (but still noble) brother.  We will see more of Daisy, Abi and Luke’s young sister and her charge, Libby, Gavar’s illegitimate baby daughter who may provoke Bouda to ill-advised cruelty.

I Want to Know More – Skill and Equals

It’s clear that some Skilled can steal Skill from others, some do so unknowingly, and that some are overly fond of humiliating and hurting others.   Gavar’s father mentions he enjoyed his time using “special techniques”, i.e., using Skill to force commoners’ minds or torture.  He expects Gavar to do the same and seems to have almost no normal familial feelings beyond pride.

The man who founded Gavar’s family is the one who killed Charles I in an agonizing, extended execution.  That man’s son established the Equal leadership and set the Skilled as the only ones who lead and govern.  These people are repulsive, but there are hints that some may be rethinking their role.

Silyen wants to learn everything he can and he has more than his share of power, possibly stolen from his UnSkilled brother.  And what about Libby?  Does she have Skill?  Can she play a role to reconcile the commoners and Equal?

Overall

Vic James has given us a fascinating novel with a genuine plot, world and characters.  She balanced writing a solid story with setting up sequels and I hope to follow her through her next novels.

5 Stars

I received an advance copy from NetGalley in expectation of a review.

Juliet’s Answer – Contemporary Memoir of Love and Loss by Glenn Dixon

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Juliet’s Answer weaves three stories into one memoir by a Canadian English teacher who answers letters posted to Juliet in Verona.  The letters speak of love, loss, questions, heartbreak and loneliness and most writers only want someone to listen.  The ladies (and one man, our author) who answer the letters don’t try to solve problems or cure misery, they simply acknowledge the writer’s heartfelt cry.

Three Stories

Glenn Dixon volunteers in Verona because he too has a decision to make, whether to continue to hope that the woman he loved for many years will finally turn to him as more than a friend or look elsewhere.  Dixon tells this first story in small vingettes scattered through the book.

Dixon teaches Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet to high school students to capture their attention and get them to think.  He believes that the characters’ ages – so close to those of his students – will help them see the play as real, not as yet another boring book to read in class and then forget.  Dixon explores Verona while there and visits the sites where the real people behind Shakespeare’s story lived and died and are buried.  He puzzles why Juliet’s story so resonates that even today people write her letters of grief and want.  That is the second story.

The third story is Dixon’s students.   As Glenn teaches his students the play he too learns about love and loss and his students are perceptive enough to realize this.  Others get interested in the play (despite their aversion to classical literature) and are fascinated by the two young lovers.

One student, a 16 year old Moslem girl, cries quietly in class.  Dixon worries about her – she is an excellent student who wants to go to college – and discovers her father is pressuring her to marry a much older man, drop out of school and forego her plans for college.  Glenn and the other teachers are a bit flummoxed as they simultaneously want to respect her family’s culture yet protect the girl and help her realize her dreams, not her father’s dream.  They tactfully help and the girl is able to resolve the problem with her father.

Writing Style

Juliet’s Answer is subtitled “One Man’s Search for Love and the Elusive Cure for Heartbreak” and it is a biography/memoir.   Author Dixon writes of extremely personal matters, his feelings for the woman he wants, his despair because she sees him only as a friend, his uncertainty answering some of the letters, his drive to teach and educate his students, to help them grow up.  I don’t know whether any of the characters are masked or are included under their real names.

Dixon writes in an easy, unaffected manner.  This is hard to do with such a personal, emotionally difficult topic!  Had this been a YA fiction we would have had drama and heartburn, not Dixon’s quiet misery and sense of loss.  Juliet’s Answer was a far better book with its adult style and realistic sense of intimacy.  (I would like some of the breathless, over-the-top YA authors to read this and see how to treat love and loneliness so we can feel right along with the characters.)

Overall

I enjoyed Juliet’s Answer, especially the sections where Dixon is teaching his students.  I was never a big fan of the Romeo and Juliet story but Dixon made it lively and helped his students understand how Shakespeare wrote such that we still read him 400 years later.

The book could have been painful to read with its self-revelations; we could have felt as though we were tromping through Dixon’s life and heart, but he did a very good job maintaining a sense of privacy even when sharing personal feelings.

The ending seemed a bit out of character and not as satisfying as the rest of the stories but it still worked and brought the book to its conclusion.

4 Stars

I received an advance copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.