I am still trying to figure out why the publishers keep changing books names.... In this case the same book got published as Undone in USA and Genesis everywhere else. Both names kinda work but Genesis is the one that suits better in some ways.
Getting both her series together, Karin Slaughter had moved Sara Linton in Atlanta, where she is trying to survive after the disaster that happened in Grant County. The story is dark and ugly so if you do not like seeing what people can do to other people, just find another book. But in the same book the author managed to add friendship, love and enough feelings to make you believe in good. The first 2/3rd of the book are really good - fast-paced, logical and highly readable. The last 1/3rd is weird - in places it feels rushed, in places it just feels like someone either forgot to write a piece or an editor deleted a piece of an earlier part of the book so the whole thing just comes unexpectedly. But even like this, it's an interesting book.
It probably helps if you had read the previous books but all the needed back story is in the book, in the proper places to make sense so it is not mandatory. Which makes the book even better - before it I had read only one book (from the Grant County series) so I was worried a bit before this one. Turned out not to be a problem. However - if you are planning on reading all the Grant County books and you do not like spoilers, do not read this one first.
It's a crime story - women get killed, women get abducted, the GBI (Georgia Bureau of Investigation) is there. But under the surface it is a story for the bad and good in people, for the choices someone makes, for the bad things that can happen and for the lives of people which seem to have lost almost everything. I am not sure which part was better - the actual story that was running or the background with all the strange relationships and fears.
The characters are interesting - Will and Faith make such a partnership that made me smile even in this ugly story; Amanda is just hilarious in most places and effective in the rest; Sara is ... interesting (and I will probably be tracing down more books about her - she seems like a ghost in the better part of the book and the for the rest, she seems to try to make a full appearance). And then there is Angie. I kinda understand the back story and all but I still do not understand her at all. And while Will at least makes a strange but likable character, Angie is just... weird (and I will probably pick up the first two books from the Atlanta series also - hopefully they will give me some idea why everything happens in the way it does with her...)
I will be interested to see where this story goes after this. 3 and a half stars out of 5 for this one and I definitely found a new author to keep an eye on.
Getting both her series together, Karin Slaughter had moved Sara Linton in Atlanta, where she is trying to survive after the disaster that happened in Grant County. The story is dark and ugly so if you do not like seeing what people can do to other people, just find another book. But in the same book the author managed to add friendship, love and enough feelings to make you believe in good. The first 2/3rd of the book are really good - fast-paced, logical and highly readable. The last 1/3rd is weird - in places it feels rushed, in places it just feels like someone either forgot to write a piece or an editor deleted a piece of an earlier part of the book so the whole thing just comes unexpectedly. But even like this, it's an interesting book.
It probably helps if you had read the previous books but all the needed back story is in the book, in the proper places to make sense so it is not mandatory. Which makes the book even better - before it I had read only one book (from the Grant County series) so I was worried a bit before this one. Turned out not to be a problem. However - if you are planning on reading all the Grant County books and you do not like spoilers, do not read this one first.
It's a crime story - women get killed, women get abducted, the GBI (Georgia Bureau of Investigation) is there. But under the surface it is a story for the bad and good in people, for the choices someone makes, for the bad things that can happen and for the lives of people which seem to have lost almost everything. I am not sure which part was better - the actual story that was running or the background with all the strange relationships and fears.
The characters are interesting - Will and Faith make such a partnership that made me smile even in this ugly story; Amanda is just hilarious in most places and effective in the rest; Sara is ... interesting (and I will probably be tracing down more books about her - she seems like a ghost in the better part of the book and the for the rest, she seems to try to make a full appearance). And then there is Angie. I kinda understand the back story and all but I still do not understand her at all. And while Will at least makes a strange but likable character, Angie is just... weird (and I will probably pick up the first two books from the Atlanta series also - hopefully they will give me some idea why everything happens in the way it does with her...)
I will be interested to see where this story goes after this. 3 and a half stars out of 5 for this one and I definitely found a new author to keep an eye on.
Welcome in Scotland in 1865.
Inspector Allerdyce is one of the people in the Edinburgh's police force that cares for his work and is more than unhappy when he is pulled from the day-to-day work to search for a missing husband. Of course it is not a John Doe - it is the Duke of Dornoch and he is not exactly the faithful husband that everyone believes him to be. And this is how starts this Victorian story. What follows is a mix of murders, schemes and Scotland during the reign of Queen Victoria. The veterans of the wars in India and Crimea are back home, a huge number of families are sent to Canada and not everyone survived this trip and the gap between the poor and the rich is bigger than ever. And this is the background in which the story takes place.
Sim manages to recreate the Scotland of these times although some of the ways to tell the back-stories are almost unbelievable -- it just sounds as too much of a coincidence someone to have been in India, to have lost a brother in Crimea and his father to have died on the ship to Canada. The stories are fascinating, it's just the whole bundling that does not really work for me. The trip that Allerdyce makes out of the city is a nice touch, allowing us to see the same territories which history we already heard about. And the occasional look into the families of the time (both the one of the Inspector and of his sergeant) adds a layer of credibility of the story and of the fascination of the whole world.
The book starts really slow and it takes a while to actually start moving in some normal speed. For most of the book it is an engaging book. Until the very end - the end, the reason for all that is happening just falls flat. I was prepared to believe anything but not this. It does make sense, it just does not fit the story - at least for me. I even would have preferred the last letter to have been skipped entirely and the reasons to have been left to the imagination of the reader.
A few notes for the physical representation of the book: Snowbooks produce a gorgeous cover again. However the first sentence of the description at the back of the book gives up the surprise what happens after about 100 pages in the book. Not that it is so bad but I would have preferred not to know it.
3 stars out of 5 for the book and if the author ever writes another book for the Inspector, I will check it.
Inspector Allerdyce is one of the people in the Edinburgh's police force that cares for his work and is more than unhappy when he is pulled from the day-to-day work to search for a missing husband. Of course it is not a John Doe - it is the Duke of Dornoch and he is not exactly the faithful husband that everyone believes him to be. And this is how starts this Victorian story. What follows is a mix of murders, schemes and Scotland during the reign of Queen Victoria. The veterans of the wars in India and Crimea are back home, a huge number of families are sent to Canada and not everyone survived this trip and the gap between the poor and the rich is bigger than ever. And this is the background in which the story takes place.
Sim manages to recreate the Scotland of these times although some of the ways to tell the back-stories are almost unbelievable -- it just sounds as too much of a coincidence someone to have been in India, to have lost a brother in Crimea and his father to have died on the ship to Canada. The stories are fascinating, it's just the whole bundling that does not really work for me. The trip that Allerdyce makes out of the city is a nice touch, allowing us to see the same territories which history we already heard about. And the occasional look into the families of the time (both the one of the Inspector and of his sergeant) adds a layer of credibility of the story and of the fascination of the whole world.
The book starts really slow and it takes a while to actually start moving in some normal speed. For most of the book it is an engaging book. Until the very end - the end, the reason for all that is happening just falls flat. I was prepared to believe anything but not this. It does make sense, it just does not fit the story - at least for me. I even would have preferred the last letter to have been skipped entirely and the reasons to have been left to the imagination of the reader.
A few notes for the physical representation of the book: Snowbooks produce a gorgeous cover again. However the first sentence of the description at the back of the book gives up the surprise what happens after about 100 pages in the book. Not that it is so bad but I would have preferred not to know it.
3 stars out of 5 for the book and if the author ever writes another book for the Inspector, I will check it.
Meet Bruce Wayne - a rich man with a dark secret and James Gordon - a troubled cop that tries to always do the correct thing in a world where the truth and justice are forgotten.
Miller's Batman origin story is dark but it does show a Batman in the making - all the mistakes of the new but at the same time all the principles of Batman that had been seen through the years. And shifting the reason for him being Batman from the revenge is a good thing - yes - his parents are there and their death had happened but it is not the only reason for what he becomes... even if it is still a motivator.
The story is following the lives of the two men that will become friends - Gordon and Batman (with a few cameos of Harry Dent) but it's not as easy as someone would expect. And from both stories, I was more interested in Gordon's - his reasons for the things he was doing, his personal tragedy and his attempts to fit in a new place... and to change it. Batman's story served more as a background and this is what made this graphic novel exceptional - not making Batman the main character but making him the main reason for everything.
The only parts that just did not work for me were probably when Gordon suspected that Bruce was Batman and Bruce's handling of all the questions and the situation as a whole. It sounded like something out of a children's comics... which is not always bad but just did not work here.
But the book is a great introduction to Batman, James Gordon and the mess called Gotham City.
Miller's Batman origin story is dark but it does show a Batman in the making - all the mistakes of the new but at the same time all the principles of Batman that had been seen through the years. And shifting the reason for him being Batman from the revenge is a good thing - yes - his parents are there and their death had happened but it is not the only reason for what he becomes... even if it is still a motivator.
The story is following the lives of the two men that will become friends - Gordon and Batman (with a few cameos of Harry Dent) but it's not as easy as someone would expect. And from both stories, I was more interested in Gordon's - his reasons for the things he was doing, his personal tragedy and his attempts to fit in a new place... and to change it. Batman's story served more as a background and this is what made this graphic novel exceptional - not making Batman the main character but making him the main reason for everything.
The only parts that just did not work for me were probably when Gordon suspected that Bruce was Batman and Bruce's handling of all the questions and the situation as a whole. It sounded like something out of a children's comics... which is not always bad but just did not work here.
But the book is a great introduction to Batman, James Gordon and the mess called Gotham City.
How would you search for descendants of someone these days? Obviously the answer is to test their DNA. How would a Valkyrie search for people that have the blood of Odin in their veins? Well - according to van Eekhout there is no reason the answer to be different. This is how the book starts - with the Norse Code project which uses the modern science to perform one of the oldest selections -- the search of the soldiers that will participate in the last battle. (Technically it starts with the Odin's ravens but more about them later).
Even though the project name is the name of the book, it's not a story about it. It's a story for two families. No, it's not a cheesy saga of the lives and deaths of a few generations. The patriarch of one of the families is Odin; all members of the other one (the sisters Kathy and Lilly) had died before the story told in the novel. This does not stop the sisters from being the main characters in the book though.
Everyone knows how Ragnarök is supposed to start - Höðr (spelled Höd here) needs to kill Baldr and this would start a long chain of events leading to the end of the worlds. And van Eekhout does not play with this - he just uses the Norse mythology as a nice playground for his story. And then the worlds go through the motions, as predicted, as expected. What all the predictions had not accounted for is a Valkyrie that wants to save her sister from the world of Hel and a son of Odin that does not exactly agree with Ragnarök – nothing to do with the fact that he is not supposed to live after this (or is it?).
The novel is following three different groups of characters which paths lead them to each other and apart from each other. The first party consists of Hugin and Munin (the already mentioned ravens); the second includes Kathy (which dies and becomes a very upset Valkyrie before the start of the novel and Hermod (one of Odin’s sons), a dog and at least for a while the Valkyrie’s helper; the third one consist of people that do not exactly agree with being shoved into Hel’s world and is led by Lilly – the second dead sister and the main reason for Kathy to be so upset. And of course – there is one of Odin’s sons in it also.
The ravens are used mostly as a way to show the reader things that the rest of the people in the novel could not know or see. Although the parts told from their viewpoint are some of the most original ones – their perspective and understanding of things is strange and interesting. But the real human characters – gods, dead people, Valkyries and so on – are the ones that carry on the story. Because the main question in the story is clear from the very beginning: “Can Ragnarök be stopped after it had started once? “ The answer is surprising and no, it’s not one of those “and everyone lived happy after this” story. But it is not a pessimistic story either – the author had managed to find the middle ground. And the answer that emerges at the end is not to this question but to another one: “Why does Ragnarök have to happen”.
The only problem that I had with the novel was that it was uneven in places – started good, went downhill, then returned up… and then did it a few more times. There were no parts that are unreadable and there were no parts that were really boring – it was just loosing the speed here and there – not the speed of the action itself but the speed of the story telling; it sounded as if the author got tired but needed to finish this sequence and then after getting his coffee, the speed had been picked up very easily.
It is a must read if you are interested in the Norse mythology (although if you do not like authors bending the mythology and its heroes, you better do not touch it – the author does change some features to fit better to the story). But even if you had never heard of any of the Gods, the back stories are in the novel - light enough not to bother someone that knows it; strong enough for someone to understand what is happening.
(Need to do some counting to figure out which number is this novel in my 2009 novels reading).
Even though the project name is the name of the book, it's not a story about it. It's a story for two families. No, it's not a cheesy saga of the lives and deaths of a few generations. The patriarch of one of the families is Odin; all members of the other one (the sisters Kathy and Lilly) had died before the story told in the novel. This does not stop the sisters from being the main characters in the book though.
Everyone knows how Ragnarök is supposed to start - Höðr (spelled Höd here) needs to kill Baldr and this would start a long chain of events leading to the end of the worlds. And van Eekhout does not play with this - he just uses the Norse mythology as a nice playground for his story. And then the worlds go through the motions, as predicted, as expected. What all the predictions had not accounted for is a Valkyrie that wants to save her sister from the world of Hel and a son of Odin that does not exactly agree with Ragnarök – nothing to do with the fact that he is not supposed to live after this (or is it?).
The novel is following three different groups of characters which paths lead them to each other and apart from each other. The first party consists of Hugin and Munin (the already mentioned ravens); the second includes Kathy (which dies and becomes a very upset Valkyrie before the start of the novel and Hermod (one of Odin’s sons), a dog and at least for a while the Valkyrie’s helper; the third one consist of people that do not exactly agree with being shoved into Hel’s world and is led by Lilly – the second dead sister and the main reason for Kathy to be so upset. And of course – there is one of Odin’s sons in it also.
The ravens are used mostly as a way to show the reader things that the rest of the people in the novel could not know or see. Although the parts told from their viewpoint are some of the most original ones – their perspective and understanding of things is strange and interesting. But the real human characters – gods, dead people, Valkyries and so on – are the ones that carry on the story. Because the main question in the story is clear from the very beginning: “Can Ragnarök be stopped after it had started once? “ The answer is surprising and no, it’s not one of those “and everyone lived happy after this” story. But it is not a pessimistic story either – the author had managed to find the middle ground. And the answer that emerges at the end is not to this question but to another one: “Why does Ragnarök have to happen”.
The only problem that I had with the novel was that it was uneven in places – started good, went downhill, then returned up… and then did it a few more times. There were no parts that are unreadable and there were no parts that were really boring – it was just loosing the speed here and there – not the speed of the action itself but the speed of the story telling; it sounded as if the author got tired but needed to finish this sequence and then after getting his coffee, the speed had been picked up very easily.
It is a must read if you are interested in the Norse mythology (although if you do not like authors bending the mythology and its heroes, you better do not touch it – the author does change some features to fit better to the story). But even if you had never heard of any of the Gods, the back stories are in the novel - light enough not to bother someone that knows it; strong enough for someone to understand what is happening.
(Need to do some counting to figure out which number is this novel in my 2009 novels reading).
I do not seem to get the time or in the mood to write the reviews of everything that I read. So I will keep posting longer reviews when I can and when I have what to say but I will also try to post weekly (or so) lists of what I read with a few words about it.
Steal Across the Sky by Nancy Kress - a science fiction novel that starts as one of the best books I had read lately and then looses its steam and never picks it up again. Ten thousands years before the start of the book (which is in 2020), a race that calls themselves the Atoners had wronged the humanity in a way they do not want to explain. What becomes clear very soon is that they had taken some people from Earth and put them on other planets - 7 pairs of planets. Pairs... so that a blind experiment can be performed - and now they want witnesses to go to these planets and witness something. And this stealing turns out not to be the big thing that they had done. The part of the book that was following one of these witnesses' teams was the most interesting part - Kress manages to build two very different human societies and to show how our own society deals with change. Then the witnesses come back on Earth and the books goes downhill. It keeps it up for a while but it just drags and drags. It leads to how the Atoners atone for what they had done... except that in the aftermath of what happens, most of the book becomes irrelevant... and some part remain unexplained. Or maybe the first parts put the bar way too high - if it was put just in a few pages, I might have liked the rest a lot more. But I somehow wish the book had kept strong to the end.... (Number in my list of 2009 year novels that I had read this year: 6)
The Witnesses Are Gone by Joel Lane is a horror novella which is based on a short story by an unknown author. Martin moves in an old house and finds some video cassettes. And decides to watch one of them (haven't he ever watched a horror movie?). It turns out to be from a French director - Jean Rien. And this guy turns out to be the mystery of the century - he is mentioned in some movie magazines and his films are rumors about but it looks like anyone involved with them disappears or worse and most people prefer not even to believe that he exists. And Martin starts on a crusade for searching the films and the director that lead him around the world, almost shatters his life and finally manages to shatter it... Maybe it had been a coincidence, maybe not. The title of the novella is the title of a film which a lot of people had heard about but noone had seen. And at the same time a warning for what will happen if someone tries to find the secret. Or is all this the same thing? It was a nice story about a man finding the meaning of life... and at the same time something just did not work for me - it was following the genre standards so closely that it was clear where everything will lead... if not the details on how.
Turn Coat by Jim Butcher is the 11th book in the Fantasy series The Dresden Files. Somehow this series remains strong even after so many volumes. Which is not a bad thing considering that this is one of my favorite series. But back to the book. Harry manages to get himself in the middle of the biggest possible mess (again) when Morgan (yes, the same Morgan that was always around to chop Harry's head if he missteps) shows up on his door, hiding from he White Council. In case you had not read the novels or cannot make the connection - Morgan IS the White Council in some ways. But this time he is convicted for killing another member of the White Council - and not just any one of them but a Senior member. And Harry decides to help (which is not surprising - this is Harry after all). The White Court shows up a lot, working with Harry for a change and almost everyone tries to figure out who had framed Morgan. the rest just want to find and execute him. By the end of the book, the Black Council is still a secret (and most of the big guys still claim that there is no such thing as a Black Council... so some other ones start thinking about a Grey one...), a major character in the book dies, another one is so changed that in some ways is better to be dead and the Blue Beetle is still up and running - even if it spends most of the book towed by the police. So now starts the big waiting for the next book.... (Number in my list of 2009 year novels that I had read this year: 7)
Started Hand of Isis by Jo Graham in Sunday and so far the book keeps my attention. It is a well-known story - Cleopatra's story had been told way too many times. But the narrator and the author's style makes the book more than readable. More about it when I finish it but so far I have the feeling that I might have found a new author I want to keep my eyes on.
Steal Across the Sky by Nancy Kress - a science fiction novel that starts as one of the best books I had read lately and then looses its steam and never picks it up again. Ten thousands years before the start of the book (which is in 2020), a race that calls themselves the Atoners had wronged the humanity in a way they do not want to explain. What becomes clear very soon is that they had taken some people from Earth and put them on other planets - 7 pairs of planets. Pairs... so that a blind experiment can be performed - and now they want witnesses to go to these planets and witness something. And this stealing turns out not to be the big thing that they had done. The part of the book that was following one of these witnesses' teams was the most interesting part - Kress manages to build two very different human societies and to show how our own society deals with change. Then the witnesses come back on Earth and the books goes downhill. It keeps it up for a while but it just drags and drags. It leads to how the Atoners atone for what they had done... except that in the aftermath of what happens, most of the book becomes irrelevant... and some part remain unexplained. Or maybe the first parts put the bar way too high - if it was put just in a few pages, I might have liked the rest a lot more. But I somehow wish the book had kept strong to the end.... (Number in my list of 2009 year novels that I had read this year: 6)
The Witnesses Are Gone by Joel Lane is a horror novella which is based on a short story by an unknown author. Martin moves in an old house and finds some video cassettes. And decides to watch one of them (haven't he ever watched a horror movie?). It turns out to be from a French director - Jean Rien. And this guy turns out to be the mystery of the century - he is mentioned in some movie magazines and his films are rumors about but it looks like anyone involved with them disappears or worse and most people prefer not even to believe that he exists. And Martin starts on a crusade for searching the films and the director that lead him around the world, almost shatters his life and finally manages to shatter it... Maybe it had been a coincidence, maybe not. The title of the novella is the title of a film which a lot of people had heard about but noone had seen. And at the same time a warning for what will happen if someone tries to find the secret. Or is all this the same thing? It was a nice story about a man finding the meaning of life... and at the same time something just did not work for me - it was following the genre standards so closely that it was clear where everything will lead... if not the details on how.
Turn Coat by Jim Butcher is the 11th book in the Fantasy series The Dresden Files. Somehow this series remains strong even after so many volumes. Which is not a bad thing considering that this is one of my favorite series. But back to the book. Harry manages to get himself in the middle of the biggest possible mess (again) when Morgan (yes, the same Morgan that was always around to chop Harry's head if he missteps) shows up on his door, hiding from he White Council. In case you had not read the novels or cannot make the connection - Morgan IS the White Council in some ways. But this time he is convicted for killing another member of the White Council - and not just any one of them but a Senior member. And Harry decides to help (which is not surprising - this is Harry after all). The White Court shows up a lot, working with Harry for a change and almost everyone tries to figure out who had framed Morgan. the rest just want to find and execute him. By the end of the book, the Black Council is still a secret (and most of the big guys still claim that there is no such thing as a Black Council... so some other ones start thinking about a Grey one...), a major character in the book dies, another one is so changed that in some ways is better to be dead and the Blue Beetle is still up and running - even if it spends most of the book towed by the police. So now starts the big waiting for the next book.... (Number in my list of 2009 year novels that I had read this year: 7)
Started Hand of Isis by Jo Graham in Sunday and so far the book keeps my attention. It is a well-known story - Cleopatra's story had been told way too many times. But the narrator and the author's style makes the book more than readable. More about it when I finish it but so far I have the feeling that I might have found a new author I want to keep my eyes on.
Palimpsest by Catherynne M. Valente is one of those strange novels that we just need a new genre for. It is somewhere between poetry and prose, between fantasy and dreams. Palimpsest is a city where you can go only if you make sex with someone that had been already there and the city marks its people by putting a tattoo on their bodies. And these tattoos are controlling what you can see from the city - you need to be in contact with someone that have a part of the city on their skin in order to be able to go to this place. And the city is real and unreal at the same time - people see their dreams coming true there but at the same time anything that happens there remains valid even after they leave the city and come back to the real world. And the internal logic of the city allows everyone that wants to move permanently in the city - as long as they find the rest of their group (the first time you go to the city, you get connected to 3 more people that had entered almost at the same time and you feel anything that happens to them in this dreamy town) and convince them to emigrate. The novel is the story of one such quarter and their struggle to understand what happens to them and how to remain in Palimpsest forever.
Sei is from Japan, obsessed with trains and the city manifests itself as a non-stop journey in a train which is not exactly train; in a world where trains are alive; November is a Californian girl that deals with bees... and it's not a surprise that the city will show her the other woman, in the other reality that deals with insects; Oleg is a locksmith from New York who had lost his sister before even being born and regardless of it, he still sees her ghost; Ludovico is an Italian master of books binding. Some of them meet unknown people, some of them just go to bed with their halves. But the result is the same - they receive Palimpsest's tattoos and enter the city. Every one of them had lost something - a parent, a sister or a wife and every one of them have their own lives and dreams. And in the world of Palimpsest some of those dreams come true.
Each part of the book contains 4 chapters - going through the life of each of the characters - in the real and in the dreamy world. Even when they get together, this structure is not changed. And every part becomes shorter and shorter and the suspense just builds on. And the city is cruel and alive.
The language in the novel is so poetic that the sex descriptions and the cruel things have their own ring to them - in the same way Dante's creations sound poetic and scary at the same time.
That was the first novel by Catherynne M. Valente that I had read and I liked it. I am not sure that the novel needed the descriptions of the sex that lead to going to Palimpsest, as poetic and matter-of-factly it was and the novel would not have lost anything by not having it. But that's the author choice... and I will probably read some more novels by her - I loved the language and the imagination.
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Number in my list of 2009 year novels that I had read this year: 5
Sei is from Japan, obsessed with trains and the city manifests itself as a non-stop journey in a train which is not exactly train; in a world where trains are alive; November is a Californian girl that deals with bees... and it's not a surprise that the city will show her the other woman, in the other reality that deals with insects; Oleg is a locksmith from New York who had lost his sister before even being born and regardless of it, he still sees her ghost; Ludovico is an Italian master of books binding. Some of them meet unknown people, some of them just go to bed with their halves. But the result is the same - they receive Palimpsest's tattoos and enter the city. Every one of them had lost something - a parent, a sister or a wife and every one of them have their own lives and dreams. And in the world of Palimpsest some of those dreams come true.
Each part of the book contains 4 chapters - going through the life of each of the characters - in the real and in the dreamy world. Even when they get together, this structure is not changed. And every part becomes shorter and shorter and the suspense just builds on. And the city is cruel and alive.
The language in the novel is so poetic that the sex descriptions and the cruel things have their own ring to them - in the same way Dante's creations sound poetic and scary at the same time.
That was the first novel by Catherynne M. Valente that I had read and I liked it. I am not sure that the novel needed the descriptions of the sex that lead to going to Palimpsest, as poetic and matter-of-factly it was and the novel would not have lost anything by not having it. But that's the author choice... and I will probably read some more novels by her - I loved the language and the imagination.
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Number in my list of 2009 year novels that I had read this year: 5
If you like Archer because of his portrayal of the contemporary politics and society or because of his mostly fast moving plots, this book will disappoint you. If you like the way he builds his stories and his way with words, you will probably love it. If you had never read anything by him - do not start with this book if you want to use it as a sample of Archer's writing.
Paths of Glory is a novelized biography of George Mallory – one of the most popular British mountaineers of the 1920s and one of the first people to attempt to climb Mount Everest. It had never been proved one way or another if he managed to step on the summit -- and I had never understood why people think that pursuing the truth for Mallory’s attempt jeopardize or is a disrespect to what Tenzing and Hillary achieved in 1953. Even if Mallory and/or Irvine managed to step on the summit, they never returned and it cannot be counted as the first real climb to the top of the world. And even if it can be counted as the first person on the summit – how exactly searching the truth can be a problem? Anyway – back to the book.
( Read more... )
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Number in my list of 2009 year novels that I had read this year: 4
Paths of Glory is a novelized biography of George Mallory – one of the most popular British mountaineers of the 1920s and one of the first people to attempt to climb Mount Everest. It had never been proved one way or another if he managed to step on the summit -- and I had never understood why people think that pursuing the truth for Mallory’s attempt jeopardize or is a disrespect to what Tenzing and Hillary achieved in 1953. Even if Mallory and/or Irvine managed to step on the summit, they never returned and it cannot be counted as the first real climb to the top of the world. And even if it can be counted as the first person on the summit – how exactly searching the truth can be a problem? Anyway – back to the book.
( Read more... )
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Number in my list of 2009 year novels that I had read this year: 4
"A Mosque Among the Stars" is a themed anthology which idea is to collect stories that portray Islam or Muslim characters in a friendly light. The goal is a good one but there was a chance the editors to fall into selecting stories that either make no sense to anyone outside the religion or that are trying to push the message too hard and forgetting that this is supposed to be SF anthology. Well - neither happened. The anthology contains 12 stories and their involvement with the topic varies from stories that cannot work without the Islam elements to stories where it seems like one of the characters is made a Muslim just so that the story can fit the anthology. But the overall quality of all stories is pretty good.
The anthology opens with the previously published "A Walk Through the Garden" by Lucius Shepard. The story is set in Iraq, during the war and the main characters are American soldiers which end up in something that looks like the Muslim hell on Earth. The author provides kind-of-explanation for how this had been possible which keeps the story in the science fiction realm, at least the part of it that allows for hell and heaven to exist. I am not sure I liked the beginning and I almost gave up on the story but the things started working at one point and I finished it. And the 10 things at the end were almost hilarious -- especially considering the much darker tone of the story.
And while the first story was set in nowadays Iraq, the next one - "Squat" by Donna McMahon - is set in the future and out of the planet. Mike is a guard/crew on a off-planet jail facility where a young boy is just about to be executed. Except that the boy's guilt is not really proven so Mike decides to try to save him. What follows is a heart-breaking and at times surprising account of how these men that are used to seeing anything need to make their choice between following the laws of men and following the laws of humanity. The Muslim character here is one of the other men on the station - the only one that carries on all executions. And because of it he is generally ignored by the rest of the crew (even though he also seems to be the only Muslim so maybe at the beginning of the stories there are two reasons for him being ignored). It is one of the stories that would have worked regardless of the religion or race of the story - any good guy would have suited the story in the same way - and I would have loved the story in any way.
And after the two longish starting stories, the third one - "Organic Geometry" by Andrew Ferguson - is the shortest one in the whole anthology. What is the connection between cricket and weapons? Interested? Read the story if you want to find out the answer - it is short enough and saying anything else will spoil the story. I have never been interested in cricket so I was happy that the story was short enough and did not have so many sports references. It was again one of the stories where it was not that important what the religion of the main character is although it did add an additional meaning of the story. But still - the message would have been there regardless of the religion and race.
The next story - "Synchronicity" by Ahmed A. Khan - confused me a bit. I generally do not like stories where things happen by accident - or as if someone from above guides some people. In most stories it sounds as a sloppy writing and an easy way for an author to build a story. I did feel the same here for most of the story but when I finished it, it somehow worked. It was so unrealistic (if you see a friend pour a glass of water over their head, would you call a doctor (friend or not) or will you just ask the friend what is wrong with them)? The story is built as a bunch of separate interrelated stories from the past and the present that get connected to the end. Definitely not my type of story even if it was masterfully built. But at the same time it was the only story where the faith (and not the religion or anything from the sacred books) was playing a major role (invisible in most of the story but felt in a lot of actions and occurrences) so it fitted the anthology perfectly and complemented it.
What follows is the first story set in the past of our own world - "Cultural Clashes in Cadiz" by Jetse De Vries. This is also one of the stories that relied on the Muslim setting using it exactly as it had been without trying to present it in a good light. What it does is to give the standard facts (or parts of them) but without the bias that is so often found in the works about the Moorish-Christian wars. We see the story from two different view points - the Moorish rulers and the Castile and Leon king and that is what makes it interesting. Add a few time-travelers (that on top of this see their own younger selves from another storyline), a few inventions that have no place in this era and this continent and a guy called Leonard that the travelers try to stop. The name threw me off and I was sure I know who this guy is - I never actually thought that there will be a second Islam connection after the fact that the story was practically set in the Islam culture. So the real reason for the actions of Leonard caught me by surprise and I loved it. It is probably one of the best stories.
And if you think that this anthology will not have a fantasy story, you will be wrong. "Servant of Iblis" by Howard Jones is the only one that is pure fantasy and this one is set even more into the Muslim culture (and it is the only one that tackles something from the mythology and not from the sacred texts. It is a detective story and the protagonists are hired to try to figure out an efreet occurrence (I cheated and googled the word -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ifrit). It is crucial for the story to understand the Islamic mythology if you want to figure it out before the detective but even without having an idea, some of the things were obvious and the rest were explained pretty well. The story had some English sense to it - where most of the story is used to explain what is happening and how normal it is and the real mystery turns out to be part of real life. It was an enjoyable story and as it seems it is not the only one for this detective so I might try to find out some more of it.
And after these stories set it the Islamic world came one more where the religion did not really matter - a good guy would have played the part regardless of the religion in "The Weight of Space and Metal" by Camille Alexa. Making Jabril Muslim and having the story in this anthology allowed the author not to tell us some of his good characteristics but this is pretty much where the religion plays any part. This and the fact that this gives Jabril a good reason to be in a special room. The story itself is about the crew of a mission to Mars that carries the first woman and how having her and a generally good guy on board influences the other two crew-members. It's a story about what people would do when they do not understand the other and it does explore some of the worse parts of the human conscience quite masterfully.
And after the somewhat cruel space story, comes the lyrical "Miss Lonelygene’s Secret" by C. June Wolf. Set in the future of Earth when people can find their significant others using the science and their genes, And Miss Lonelygene is the person that makes this possible. But not everyone uses her services - the Muslim world is as closed as it had always been. And she falls in love with someone from this world - in the old fashioned way. And this is what the story is about - how someone that had made so many people happy can be happy herself. It was a beautiful story. But I am not sure how it fits in this anthology -- although the Muslims seem to accept some of the technology advances, they still seem to live in their own world. And did I mention that the story has something like a ghost also?
And after the Moors in Iberia, we see one of the other popular premises set in the past - the slaves story "Recompense" by Pamela Kenza Taylor. A young sailor, Jeremy Hawkins, decides to become part of he crew of a slave ship so he can win some money so he can marry. But he finds out that he does not really have the stomach for it - and then a strange ship shows up - and things start getting really strange for the crew. Because this new ship captain believes in the old "eye for an eye" and at the same time believes that the good people deserve happiness - after they prove to be worthy of it. It is a nice story again but is "eye for an eye" the principle in the Islam? Yes - they were good to Jeremy but only because he was good. If the idea was to show that if you do good, you receive good - it worked. But the other part was kinda strange in this anthology. But then it sounded real. So I guess this is why it is here.
And then almost at the end of the book are two very short (not shorter than the cricket story though) stories. The first one - "A Straight Path Through the Stars" by Kevin James Miller - is about a first contact with a very strange civilization -- and is the world ready for such a contact. The story fits into the anthology beautifully - but if I explain how, I will ruin the surprise. And no, it is not the main characters even if one of them is Muslim even if he and his actions and words also add a lot to the overall spirit of the story.
The second one - "Emissary" by G.W. Thomas - is the funny piece in the anthology. It is first contact story again but very different from the previous one. There is no choice here - the aliens are landing and are sending a message that seems to be saying that they are not making a first contact now. And everyone struggles to find out what they mean so that they can decide if they should evaporate the ship or congratulate whatever shows up there. The Muslims here are just the good guys, could have been anyone else. As long as someone has knowledge in the history of SF. I did not crack the code although it was really clear once it was spelled (and it was an easy one). Nice and funny story.
And at the very end of the anthology came the longest story - "For a Little Price" by Tom Ligon. It was also the third story that I really loved in this anthology (together with De Vries's and McMahon's stories). It is one of those strange stories that start with the end - we understand from the very first page that a Muslim guy had tried to hijack a space ship. In the same way the terrorist take planes these days (and the story is written before 2001). We have two different viewpoints - one of them highly technical - one of the people in the crew of the ship, and the other one - the voice of one of the terrorists. Not the sweet "I was trying to be part of the bad team so I can sabotage it" but the real story of a boy that had been brainwashed in the name of something that has nothing to do with the real religion. A grown-up man that understands how wrong all had been but also knows that he had lived with these ideas. The author builds a believable story - which is also chilling - because if in the future people can brainwash other highly educated people in the name of something, will this world survive?
A nice anthology even though I would have preferred to see more stories set in the Muslim culture than ones that had been using the religious guys as good guys and not using the whole culture that comes with it. But as a whole, it was worth the reading.
The anthology opens with the previously published "A Walk Through the Garden" by Lucius Shepard. The story is set in Iraq, during the war and the main characters are American soldiers which end up in something that looks like the Muslim hell on Earth. The author provides kind-of-explanation for how this had been possible which keeps the story in the science fiction realm, at least the part of it that allows for hell and heaven to exist. I am not sure I liked the beginning and I almost gave up on the story but the things started working at one point and I finished it. And the 10 things at the end were almost hilarious -- especially considering the much darker tone of the story.
And while the first story was set in nowadays Iraq, the next one - "Squat" by Donna McMahon - is set in the future and out of the planet. Mike is a guard/crew on a off-planet jail facility where a young boy is just about to be executed. Except that the boy's guilt is not really proven so Mike decides to try to save him. What follows is a heart-breaking and at times surprising account of how these men that are used to seeing anything need to make their choice between following the laws of men and following the laws of humanity. The Muslim character here is one of the other men on the station - the only one that carries on all executions. And because of it he is generally ignored by the rest of the crew (even though he also seems to be the only Muslim so maybe at the beginning of the stories there are two reasons for him being ignored). It is one of the stories that would have worked regardless of the religion or race of the story - any good guy would have suited the story in the same way - and I would have loved the story in any way.
And after the two longish starting stories, the third one - "Organic Geometry" by Andrew Ferguson - is the shortest one in the whole anthology. What is the connection between cricket and weapons? Interested? Read the story if you want to find out the answer - it is short enough and saying anything else will spoil the story. I have never been interested in cricket so I was happy that the story was short enough and did not have so many sports references. It was again one of the stories where it was not that important what the religion of the main character is although it did add an additional meaning of the story. But still - the message would have been there regardless of the religion and race.
The next story - "Synchronicity" by Ahmed A. Khan - confused me a bit. I generally do not like stories where things happen by accident - or as if someone from above guides some people. In most stories it sounds as a sloppy writing and an easy way for an author to build a story. I did feel the same here for most of the story but when I finished it, it somehow worked. It was so unrealistic (if you see a friend pour a glass of water over their head, would you call a doctor (friend or not) or will you just ask the friend what is wrong with them)? The story is built as a bunch of separate interrelated stories from the past and the present that get connected to the end. Definitely not my type of story even if it was masterfully built. But at the same time it was the only story where the faith (and not the religion or anything from the sacred books) was playing a major role (invisible in most of the story but felt in a lot of actions and occurrences) so it fitted the anthology perfectly and complemented it.
What follows is the first story set in the past of our own world - "Cultural Clashes in Cadiz" by Jetse De Vries. This is also one of the stories that relied on the Muslim setting using it exactly as it had been without trying to present it in a good light. What it does is to give the standard facts (or parts of them) but without the bias that is so often found in the works about the Moorish-Christian wars. We see the story from two different view points - the Moorish rulers and the Castile and Leon king and that is what makes it interesting. Add a few time-travelers (that on top of this see their own younger selves from another storyline), a few inventions that have no place in this era and this continent and a guy called Leonard that the travelers try to stop. The name threw me off and I was sure I know who this guy is - I never actually thought that there will be a second Islam connection after the fact that the story was practically set in the Islam culture. So the real reason for the actions of Leonard caught me by surprise and I loved it. It is probably one of the best stories.
And if you think that this anthology will not have a fantasy story, you will be wrong. "Servant of Iblis" by Howard Jones is the only one that is pure fantasy and this one is set even more into the Muslim culture (and it is the only one that tackles something from the mythology and not from the sacred texts. It is a detective story and the protagonists are hired to try to figure out an efreet occurrence (I cheated and googled the word -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ifrit). It is crucial for the story to understand the Islamic mythology if you want to figure it out before the detective but even without having an idea, some of the things were obvious and the rest were explained pretty well. The story had some English sense to it - where most of the story is used to explain what is happening and how normal it is and the real mystery turns out to be part of real life. It was an enjoyable story and as it seems it is not the only one for this detective so I might try to find out some more of it.
And after these stories set it the Islamic world came one more where the religion did not really matter - a good guy would have played the part regardless of the religion in "The Weight of Space and Metal" by Camille Alexa. Making Jabril Muslim and having the story in this anthology allowed the author not to tell us some of his good characteristics but this is pretty much where the religion plays any part. This and the fact that this gives Jabril a good reason to be in a special room. The story itself is about the crew of a mission to Mars that carries the first woman and how having her and a generally good guy on board influences the other two crew-members. It's a story about what people would do when they do not understand the other and it does explore some of the worse parts of the human conscience quite masterfully.
And after the somewhat cruel space story, comes the lyrical "Miss Lonelygene’s Secret" by C. June Wolf. Set in the future of Earth when people can find their significant others using the science and their genes, And Miss Lonelygene is the person that makes this possible. But not everyone uses her services - the Muslim world is as closed as it had always been. And she falls in love with someone from this world - in the old fashioned way. And this is what the story is about - how someone that had made so many people happy can be happy herself. It was a beautiful story. But I am not sure how it fits in this anthology -- although the Muslims seem to accept some of the technology advances, they still seem to live in their own world. And did I mention that the story has something like a ghost also?
And after the Moors in Iberia, we see one of the other popular premises set in the past - the slaves story "Recompense" by Pamela Kenza Taylor. A young sailor, Jeremy Hawkins, decides to become part of he crew of a slave ship so he can win some money so he can marry. But he finds out that he does not really have the stomach for it - and then a strange ship shows up - and things start getting really strange for the crew. Because this new ship captain believes in the old "eye for an eye" and at the same time believes that the good people deserve happiness - after they prove to be worthy of it. It is a nice story again but is "eye for an eye" the principle in the Islam? Yes - they were good to Jeremy but only because he was good. If the idea was to show that if you do good, you receive good - it worked. But the other part was kinda strange in this anthology. But then it sounded real. So I guess this is why it is here.
And then almost at the end of the book are two very short (not shorter than the cricket story though) stories. The first one - "A Straight Path Through the Stars" by Kevin James Miller - is about a first contact with a very strange civilization -- and is the world ready for such a contact. The story fits into the anthology beautifully - but if I explain how, I will ruin the surprise. And no, it is not the main characters even if one of them is Muslim even if he and his actions and words also add a lot to the overall spirit of the story.
The second one - "Emissary" by G.W. Thomas - is the funny piece in the anthology. It is first contact story again but very different from the previous one. There is no choice here - the aliens are landing and are sending a message that seems to be saying that they are not making a first contact now. And everyone struggles to find out what they mean so that they can decide if they should evaporate the ship or congratulate whatever shows up there. The Muslims here are just the good guys, could have been anyone else. As long as someone has knowledge in the history of SF. I did not crack the code although it was really clear once it was spelled (and it was an easy one). Nice and funny story.
And at the very end of the anthology came the longest story - "For a Little Price" by Tom Ligon. It was also the third story that I really loved in this anthology (together with De Vries's and McMahon's stories). It is one of those strange stories that start with the end - we understand from the very first page that a Muslim guy had tried to hijack a space ship. In the same way the terrorist take planes these days (and the story is written before 2001). We have two different viewpoints - one of them highly technical - one of the people in the crew of the ship, and the other one - the voice of one of the terrorists. Not the sweet "I was trying to be part of the bad team so I can sabotage it" but the real story of a boy that had been brainwashed in the name of something that has nothing to do with the real religion. A grown-up man that understands how wrong all had been but also knows that he had lived with these ideas. The author builds a believable story - which is also chilling - because if in the future people can brainwash other highly educated people in the name of something, will this world survive?
A nice anthology even though I would have preferred to see more stories set in the Muslim culture than ones that had been using the religious guys as good guys and not using the whole culture that comes with it. But as a whole, it was worth the reading.
"Montgolfier Winter" by Alasdair Stuart [Hub 76 - 22 Feb 2009] is one of the rarely seen science fiction stories in Hub. The story is set in the far future - Fountain had been bought by the Church and then sold to the Alexandria Institute when the Church had figured out that this world is much better organized than Earth and what they had always thought as the best God's creation is much worse than the ecology of this new planet. The story starts when the Institute decides to give up on the planet also and to shut down the colony. Fountain is a strange world - the winter is a month long and during it the whole surface does not receive even one beam of sunlight. The gigantic trees are covering most of the surface and every one of them produces a seed - the bigger the tree, the bigger the seed. When the winter comes these seeds cut their tethers and fly above the ground and in the atmosphere, blocking the sun and helping the dark that covers the planet for a month. The local birds feed from the seeds, the local animals feed with the local birds and the ecosystem seems to be working in every logical way. Dr Matt Curran has a theory of his own but is not ready to tell anyone. So he decides to prove it... and this is where the story really begins (although the rest of the people on the planet have no idea why he is doing it). And through a few episodes from the past, we get a lot of back story of the worlds and the relationships between the main characters. The end of the story proves that this planet is even more fascinating than anyone though.
It is a nice world, the ecosystem is interesting and I would love to see more stories set there. I was a bit annoyed from some facts being thrown in the story without any previous hint that were the main reason for what was happening. But other from this - I liked the story.
And from a planet somewhere far away from there and a time set in the deep future, "Hidden Underneath" by Malin Larsson [Hub 77 - 01 Mar 2009] returns to the mundane New York with a very short story where a cab driver is getting more and more annoyed from his customers. But this mundane setting is just the setting for the story - the real story is less than 5 lines long and is at the very end and it is a creative one. Had you ever wondered where the urban legends for the alligators in the sewers of New York had come from? Larsson has an explanation in these last lines. And it makes sense in a strange way.
And while the previous two stories were set in a specific place, "Gravestones" by Mari Ness [Hub 78 - 08 Mar 2009] could be happening anywhere - as long as there is a graveyard. It's a very short piece, about something talking and singing in the graveyard. And the children that hear them are terrified. But not from what you would expect. I laughed at the end of this story - it was so unexpected and ridiculous that it made it a really good humorous story.
"SBIR Proposal" by Richard K. Lyon [Hub 79 - 15 Mar 2009] is a letter from the government to a lawyer that had just started to handle his late brother's cases. As it turns out, a proposal had been sent by the brother from the name of a strange corporation and now the government sends their answer, making sure they explain everything so that the answer does not seem like something written by a mad man. Because this corporation does not have even one human in their drafts. And no - there are not aliens in this story, nor there are any robots.I was smiling while I was reading about all the extra points the proposal had won because of some of the laws. And the last sentence in the letter, the PS. put the whole story in a whole different perspective.
And "Hush a Bye" by Beverley Allen [Hub 80 - 22 Mar 2009] is a short tale about what a woman can do so she can sleep when her husband does not want to go see a doctor for his snoring and is it really a good idea to trust what you read on a website. Well - she does not kill him just to stop him snoring... but what she does is in some ways worse.
It is a nice world, the ecosystem is interesting and I would love to see more stories set there. I was a bit annoyed from some facts being thrown in the story without any previous hint that were the main reason for what was happening. But other from this - I liked the story.
And from a planet somewhere far away from there and a time set in the deep future, "Hidden Underneath" by Malin Larsson [Hub 77 - 01 Mar 2009] returns to the mundane New York with a very short story where a cab driver is getting more and more annoyed from his customers. But this mundane setting is just the setting for the story - the real story is less than 5 lines long and is at the very end and it is a creative one. Had you ever wondered where the urban legends for the alligators in the sewers of New York had come from? Larsson has an explanation in these last lines. And it makes sense in a strange way.
And while the previous two stories were set in a specific place, "Gravestones" by Mari Ness [Hub 78 - 08 Mar 2009] could be happening anywhere - as long as there is a graveyard. It's a very short piece, about something talking and singing in the graveyard. And the children that hear them are terrified. But not from what you would expect. I laughed at the end of this story - it was so unexpected and ridiculous that it made it a really good humorous story.
"SBIR Proposal" by Richard K. Lyon [Hub 79 - 15 Mar 2009] is a letter from the government to a lawyer that had just started to handle his late brother's cases. As it turns out, a proposal had been sent by the brother from the name of a strange corporation and now the government sends their answer, making sure they explain everything so that the answer does not seem like something written by a mad man. Because this corporation does not have even one human in their drafts. And no - there are not aliens in this story, nor there are any robots.I was smiling while I was reading about all the extra points the proposal had won because of some of the laws. And the last sentence in the letter, the PS. put the whole story in a whole different perspective.
And "Hush a Bye" by Beverley Allen [Hub 80 - 22 Mar 2009] is a short tale about what a woman can do so she can sleep when her husband does not want to go see a doctor for his snoring and is it really a good idea to trust what you read on a website. Well - she does not kill him just to stop him snoring... but what she does is in some ways worse.
Hub did not publish a new issue for a while after the first one for the year but they came back on the last days of January and are keeping their weekly(or so) schedule since.
In "Behind Glass" by Simon Strantzas [Hub 73 - 30 Jan 2009] Hawksley had lost everything - his girlfriend, his job, the money that helped him survive. And he has to accept the work that the new owners propose him - even if the new company location is inconvenient and the work is less prestigious. And the new offices seem strange. But it is nothing compared to what he will find later. It is a horror story - from the ones that start slowly and the story builds with every action to end at the end with a chilling final. Without even explaining what happens - leaving the reader's imagination to fill the blanks and scare itself.
The next story - "The Astronomer of Baghdad" by Matt Keefe [Hub 74 - 09 Feb 2009] - is also a horror story but very different from the previous one. It open in the year 312 in Baghdad where Masood receives an unexpected guest. The stranger, who introduces himself as Ghaali, tells a story about a hidden treasure which only Masood can find with his astronomical knowledge. And the astronomer falls for it. But who is this guest and what will the treasure bring to Masood? It's clear from the very beginning that the things will not finis well for our main protagonist... but he survives, in a way. The end of the story explains anything that had not become clear through the story and achieves this without actually explaining a thing. It's a good story - sounds like one of the Arabian Nights' stories with a dark edge added to it.
And after the magical (in the style of the Arabian Nights) world, the story in the next issue - "A Little Mystery" by Len Bains [Hub 75 - 15 Feb 2009] - gets us to something that could have been our own world, except that people can do some extraordinary things. Or have them. The story-teller has a ring that enables him to see what people are, what they think and what their secrets had been. But is this really as good as it sounds? Just when he wonders this, a salesman shows up at his door. And the things get interesting - in more than one way. It's a nice and short story - about the unexpected and surprises and it does make you ask yourself if you would want to have the ring or you would prefer to be surprised now and then.
In "Behind Glass" by Simon Strantzas [Hub 73 - 30 Jan 2009] Hawksley had lost everything - his girlfriend, his job, the money that helped him survive. And he has to accept the work that the new owners propose him - even if the new company location is inconvenient and the work is less prestigious. And the new offices seem strange. But it is nothing compared to what he will find later. It is a horror story - from the ones that start slowly and the story builds with every action to end at the end with a chilling final. Without even explaining what happens - leaving the reader's imagination to fill the blanks and scare itself.
The next story - "The Astronomer of Baghdad" by Matt Keefe [Hub 74 - 09 Feb 2009] - is also a horror story but very different from the previous one. It open in the year 312 in Baghdad where Masood receives an unexpected guest. The stranger, who introduces himself as Ghaali, tells a story about a hidden treasure which only Masood can find with his astronomical knowledge. And the astronomer falls for it. But who is this guest and what will the treasure bring to Masood? It's clear from the very beginning that the things will not finis well for our main protagonist... but he survives, in a way. The end of the story explains anything that had not become clear through the story and achieves this without actually explaining a thing. It's a good story - sounds like one of the Arabian Nights' stories with a dark edge added to it.
And after the magical (in the style of the Arabian Nights) world, the story in the next issue - "A Little Mystery" by Len Bains [Hub 75 - 15 Feb 2009] - gets us to something that could have been our own world, except that people can do some extraordinary things. Or have them. The story-teller has a ring that enables him to see what people are, what they think and what their secrets had been. But is this really as good as it sounds? Just when he wonders this, a salesman shows up at his door. And the things get interesting - in more than one way. It's a nice and short story - about the unexpected and surprises and it does make you ask yourself if you would want to have the ring or you would prefer to be surprised now and then.
This was the last issue of the Irish magazine for 2008 and contains 8 stories and 2 interviews (with Ellen Datlow and Alastair Reynolds) .
"Off the Map" by Steve Rasnic Tem is a strange story about a family and their strange vacations - if you cannot afford to go abroad then make the abroad come to you. Which sound like a very good idea if you are an adult but if you are a kid, you might not be that happy. I liked most of the story even though I wondered what does such a story do in a genre magazine. The end did not work for me at all. It had some type of supernatural element but either I did not get it or it was just strange.
"Partial Recall" by Sean Day is more a horror story than anything else. Some type of a plague had wiped out the human population - apparently at the same time and everyone is still lying and rotting on the streets. Except that some of these people are revivable (no surprises here) and they do not rot. The story is following one of the first (and probably the only one for a while) revived person - Iris while she tries to save more people. The revival is happening using some type if machine that she does not understand (and which had been given to her from some dogs which do not really see but we will hear some things about them). The story has its nice moments even if it was a bit too long... I could have gone without some of the middle parts that were just dragging and dragging. And the story felt a bit unfinished - it was the journey of Iris but I hoped to understand something for what happened to the people, who the dogs are and why Iris had been chosen....
"Dress Rehearsal" by Michael Furlong was... chilling.And even less speculative fiction than Tem's story. Kilsby starts the story as a small girl that need to loose her daddy and dog after her parents split. She tries to find some sense of security in the things of her recently deceased grandmother - which death and coming funeral might have been the trigger of the whole situation. But while the story runs, we see her loosing much more... and some of the looses are her own doing even if she does not realize what she is doing. The story was hearth-breaking even if it was silly at times - why the guy had the mask for example? It just made no sense -- Kilsby would have gone with him if he did not have it...
"Larry's Shrine" by Kim McDougall is about a photographer who does not seem to be able to do a picture for a very long time. The story is written separated in days, counting the days in which he cannot find even one think to take a picture of. And then something strange happens - he finds by chance an old letter from an old love interested and it seem to start a long series of other letters that change his life in a strange way. It is at the very end of the story where it becomes clear what was happening. It made sense... but I still do not think that I liked it much - it's just not my type of story I guess.
But the next story - "The Man Who Couldn't Die" by Claude Seignolle - is one of my favorite stories in this issue. It's short and if it had been any longer, it would not have worked as well. Is the eternal life a work of the Devil or is there another explanation? Obviously it's another reason and it is a surprising one. Except that I did not understand why people would think it's the Devil when it seems like they should be knowing the truth. Anyway - a good story overall.
"Beauty" by Fred Jonhston is the story of an Englishman that moves to France and finds something which is not exactly what he expected. Old stories and supernatural occurrences are showing up one after the other to build the story. A bit longer than I wish it was, with a pace that was really going slow... even when the story that was told was asking for a bit faster one. But even with this, it is a good story. Not my favorite in this issue but it was not that bad really.
"Gladstone" by Dermot Ryan starts with Oliver Grady sitting in some type of a mental institution and trying to write in a notebook what is on his mind. Except that he does not write even a word and instead of this he remembers an old birthday of a another boy when he had seen an illusionist that had been something more than just tricks. The name of the story comes from the type of bag the illusionist had been wearing. It's a nice account of the feeling of a boy that had never been part of the "liked ones". I am not sure why we needed the parts for the adult Oliver though.
And at the very end of the issue came my favorite story - "On the Rock" by Colin Harvey. Joseph Maertens is sent to a planet to write a report for it. He will fall in love, will change his life because of something that he sees and we will find a lot about him. But even if the story centers around him, it's about the world he is writing a report about and the universe it exists in. Because the humans are not the only sentient creatures on this planet... and even if the humanity had been careful for such things when creating colonies, the circumstances had forced them to make the colony before realizing what happens. And this other life seem to be hostile... or is it? It's a beautiful world and what we saw from the universe around it also sounded interesting. And the creatures - Solani - are alien. And it takes a foreigner to actually figure out what is happening and why - being too close to the problem, the locals cannot really see some things. I hope that we will see more stories about this world.
Overall it was a nice issue - even if I did not like some of the stories, they were nicely done (most of the parts anyway) and the last story was one of the most enjoyable stories I had read lately.
"Off the Map" by Steve Rasnic Tem is a strange story about a family and their strange vacations - if you cannot afford to go abroad then make the abroad come to you. Which sound like a very good idea if you are an adult but if you are a kid, you might not be that happy. I liked most of the story even though I wondered what does such a story do in a genre magazine. The end did not work for me at all. It had some type of supernatural element but either I did not get it or it was just strange.
"Partial Recall" by Sean Day is more a horror story than anything else. Some type of a plague had wiped out the human population - apparently at the same time and everyone is still lying and rotting on the streets. Except that some of these people are revivable (no surprises here) and they do not rot. The story is following one of the first (and probably the only one for a while) revived person - Iris while she tries to save more people. The revival is happening using some type if machine that she does not understand (and which had been given to her from some dogs which do not really see but we will hear some things about them). The story has its nice moments even if it was a bit too long... I could have gone without some of the middle parts that were just dragging and dragging. And the story felt a bit unfinished - it was the journey of Iris but I hoped to understand something for what happened to the people, who the dogs are and why Iris had been chosen....
"Dress Rehearsal" by Michael Furlong was... chilling.And even less speculative fiction than Tem's story. Kilsby starts the story as a small girl that need to loose her daddy and dog after her parents split. She tries to find some sense of security in the things of her recently deceased grandmother - which death and coming funeral might have been the trigger of the whole situation. But while the story runs, we see her loosing much more... and some of the looses are her own doing even if she does not realize what she is doing. The story was hearth-breaking even if it was silly at times - why the guy had the mask for example? It just made no sense -- Kilsby would have gone with him if he did not have it...
"Larry's Shrine" by Kim McDougall is about a photographer who does not seem to be able to do a picture for a very long time. The story is written separated in days, counting the days in which he cannot find even one think to take a picture of. And then something strange happens - he finds by chance an old letter from an old love interested and it seem to start a long series of other letters that change his life in a strange way. It is at the very end of the story where it becomes clear what was happening. It made sense... but I still do not think that I liked it much - it's just not my type of story I guess.
But the next story - "The Man Who Couldn't Die" by Claude Seignolle - is one of my favorite stories in this issue. It's short and if it had been any longer, it would not have worked as well. Is the eternal life a work of the Devil or is there another explanation? Obviously it's another reason and it is a surprising one. Except that I did not understand why people would think it's the Devil when it seems like they should be knowing the truth. Anyway - a good story overall.
"Beauty" by Fred Jonhston is the story of an Englishman that moves to France and finds something which is not exactly what he expected. Old stories and supernatural occurrences are showing up one after the other to build the story. A bit longer than I wish it was, with a pace that was really going slow... even when the story that was told was asking for a bit faster one. But even with this, it is a good story. Not my favorite in this issue but it was not that bad really.
"Gladstone" by Dermot Ryan starts with Oliver Grady sitting in some type of a mental institution and trying to write in a notebook what is on his mind. Except that he does not write even a word and instead of this he remembers an old birthday of a another boy when he had seen an illusionist that had been something more than just tricks. The name of the story comes from the type of bag the illusionist had been wearing. It's a nice account of the feeling of a boy that had never been part of the "liked ones". I am not sure why we needed the parts for the adult Oliver though.
And at the very end of the issue came my favorite story - "On the Rock" by Colin Harvey. Joseph Maertens is sent to a planet to write a report for it. He will fall in love, will change his life because of something that he sees and we will find a lot about him. But even if the story centers around him, it's about the world he is writing a report about and the universe it exists in. Because the humans are not the only sentient creatures on this planet... and even if the humanity had been careful for such things when creating colonies, the circumstances had forced them to make the colony before realizing what happens. And this other life seem to be hostile... or is it? It's a beautiful world and what we saw from the universe around it also sounded interesting. And the creatures - Solani - are alien. And it takes a foreigner to actually figure out what is happening and why - being too close to the problem, the locals cannot really see some things. I hope that we will see more stories about this world.
Overall it was a nice issue - even if I did not like some of the stories, they were nicely done (most of the parts anyway) and the last story was one of the most enjoyable stories I had read lately.
I rarely listen to fiction. I prefer to read the story - if I listen to it, I am hearing the voice and the understanding and emotion of the reader and my understanding might be different. But Escape Pod is publishing some original fiction so now and then I check for new stories and if a name, author or extract interests me, I do not really have a choice, do I?
Origin Story is obviously a superhero story. The part printed on the Escape Pod page and the name of the story make it more than clear. In the aftermath of the successful films based on comics lately, these stories seem to be showing up more often than you can find a mushroom after rain... So this was not so unexpected but something in the few published lines sounded different so I gave it a try. And never regretted doing it.
Origin Story is a love letter to the comics genre. The premise is not that original, nor is the history. What makes this story different is not what it says but how it says it and what it does not say.
The story is told with the voice of the brother of a superhero who is doing an interview. Whom with will come clear towards the end of the story. And for most of the story, we hear how the Aerialist (which is the name of the hero) had become a superhero. And every single line in this story, every action reflects what had happened in the story of most of the superheroes - from the Golden Age, through the Silver Age and all the way to today's reincarnations. From the superheroes that were relying only on what they had through all the gadgets to the ones that change their physical appearances so they can be what they want to be. Almost anything that had been said was getting in my mind a comics or a hero or an episode from one of the long running titles. The Multiverse, the parallel worlds, superheroes stuck in some other times and places, changes in the continuity that makes some people non-existent and at the same time being there - if you had been keeping an eye on the comics of DC or Marvel, all these are triggering memories. The story of a whole industry in a story of a single person. The final twist came as a surprise - thinking about it I should have expected it - this is where the story of comics went so it was normal the story to get there.
I am not sure if this story will work that well for someone that is not a comics fan. I cannot ignore what I know or to stop all the associations that come from it. I really liked it. It was like meeting again all the superheroes I had ever read about, reminding me of things I had long forgotten. A little magic to get you back in time.
The story can be heard here
PS: And after listening to the story, wait to hear also the song at the end (or fast forward to it). It's really a nice piece of music.
Origin Story is obviously a superhero story. The part printed on the Escape Pod page and the name of the story make it more than clear. In the aftermath of the successful films based on comics lately, these stories seem to be showing up more often than you can find a mushroom after rain... So this was not so unexpected but something in the few published lines sounded different so I gave it a try. And never regretted doing it.
Origin Story is a love letter to the comics genre. The premise is not that original, nor is the history. What makes this story different is not what it says but how it says it and what it does not say.
The story is told with the voice of the brother of a superhero who is doing an interview. Whom with will come clear towards the end of the story. And for most of the story, we hear how the Aerialist (which is the name of the hero) had become a superhero. And every single line in this story, every action reflects what had happened in the story of most of the superheroes - from the Golden Age, through the Silver Age and all the way to today's reincarnations. From the superheroes that were relying only on what they had through all the gadgets to the ones that change their physical appearances so they can be what they want to be. Almost anything that had been said was getting in my mind a comics or a hero or an episode from one of the long running titles. The Multiverse, the parallel worlds, superheroes stuck in some other times and places, changes in the continuity that makes some people non-existent and at the same time being there - if you had been keeping an eye on the comics of DC or Marvel, all these are triggering memories. The story of a whole industry in a story of a single person. The final twist came as a surprise - thinking about it I should have expected it - this is where the story of comics went so it was normal the story to get there.
I am not sure if this story will work that well for someone that is not a comics fan. I cannot ignore what I know or to stop all the associations that come from it. I really liked it. It was like meeting again all the superheroes I had ever read about, reminding me of things I had long forgotten. A little magic to get you back in time.
The story can be heard here
PS: And after listening to the story, wait to hear also the song at the end (or fast forward to it). It's really a nice piece of music.
At the beginning of this year I decided to do 3 things which are connected to what and how I read
1. Read 720 stories - 170 read so far so this one is going quite good. I changed this resolution a bit so now it is 720 stories, at least 365 of them being genre stories written (copyright/first publishing/whatever) in 2009. Not unachievable and I think I will be over 720 at the end of the year.
2. Read 52 novels published in 2009 - no reprints - just new fiction. Had read a total of 3 so far, started a fourth so this one is going quite badly. But it is the beginning of the year and I am still going through 2008 year materials... so I might have some chance. And I am getting books a month or more after they get published (international mail is fun) so it takes time to have any 2009 year books at all.
3. Write at least a few lines for anything that I read. This one I am failing. Badly. It helps me organize my own thoughts for the books and helps me remember what I thought about it when I read it. I still have some notebooks from years ago and I have more fun going through them than rereading some of the books...
So guess it is time to get to doing all these things... My usual problem is time - when I have the time, I am usually away from the books and I hate writing a review if I do not have the book to check spelling of names and places. Or I just decide to go and read something instead of writing.
I used to have three piles of books around me - the ones I had read, the ones I am still to start and the ones that I had started (and this group have more stories collections and anthologies than anything else). They are not piles exactly - they are a number of boxes and my single shelf but I prefer to think of them as such. Now I have a forth one - read and not reviewed. And this pile will need a new box very soon which means that I either need a bigger box or to start getting things out of there.
1. Read 720 stories - 170 read so far so this one is going quite good. I changed this resolution a bit so now it is 720 stories, at least 365 of them being genre stories written (copyright/first publishing/whatever) in 2009. Not unachievable and I think I will be over 720 at the end of the year.
2. Read 52 novels published in 2009 - no reprints - just new fiction. Had read a total of 3 so far, started a fourth so this one is going quite badly. But it is the beginning of the year and I am still going through 2008 year materials... so I might have some chance. And I am getting books a month or more after they get published (international mail is fun) so it takes time to have any 2009 year books at all.
3. Write at least a few lines for anything that I read. This one I am failing. Badly. It helps me organize my own thoughts for the books and helps me remember what I thought about it when I read it. I still have some notebooks from years ago and I have more fun going through them than rereading some of the books...
So guess it is time to get to doing all these things... My usual problem is time - when I have the time, I am usually away from the books and I hate writing a review if I do not have the book to check spelling of names and places. Or I just decide to go and read something instead of writing.
I used to have three piles of books around me - the ones I had read, the ones I am still to start and the ones that I had started (and this group have more stories collections and anthologies than anything else). They are not piles exactly - they are a number of boxes and my single shelf but I prefer to think of them as such. Now I have a forth one - read and not reviewed. And this pile will need a new box very soon which means that I either need a bigger box or to start getting things out of there.
Have you ever heard of the Minutemen? I had not until "Fantasy and Science Fiction" published a story about them. The story turned out to be part of a novel which Del Rey and the author decided to provide electronically for free a few months before the publication date. The story was interesting enough (and I am yet to get to writing the review for the issue that contained it...) so I picked up the novel to see if I might like it. My expectation was to have a novel talking mainly for the minutemen and their battles and could not have been more wrong. And this was a pleasant surprise.
If you had not heard about the minutemen, you might want to check this before reading the novel but it's not really needed. It just adds a new layer of understanding of the whole situation. And it would be a good idea if you know something about the Boston Tea Party and it's consequences.
I will try to write with as little spoilers that I can but there will be some spoilers....
The novel opens in April 1775 in Boston where we meet the main protagonist Proctor Brown who had traveled to the big city in order to meet his sweetheart's father. The meeting is more than predictable - the father is a rich businessman, the boy is about to inherit a small farm and is as away of the world of the rich men in Boston as possible. Think of any such meeting in the world literature and you would be right -- including with the warning of the father's attitude when he finds out that the young man has some plans for expansion). But even though it is predictable, it serves its purpose - we see Boston as it had looked like back in these days, we see what Proctor believes in and we get to see something from the conflict that is starting between the locals and the English soldiers.
But this opening chapter does not introduce only Proctor. Another character, that will reappear a few times in the novel and that will be a reason (or an excuse - depending on how you look at it), also shows up for the first time - Major Pitcairn. He looks like an ordinary officer - except that Proctor sees something different and a demonstration proves that he had been right - there is something magical around the major. And apparently there is also something on Proctor - because he is the only one that can see it. One of the people that had been with the officer tries to give a logical explanation of what he had seen - and even though Proctor does not believe it, a reader might. If they had not read the story first. Because our hero is something like a witch -- with limited powers and with not so much knowledge about what he is.
What follows is a classical battle story - for the English soldiers trying to break the militia and the militia not really allowing it. That was the part that had been separated as a story and which gave me some expectations of what the novel will be. I had already read it once (as a story) and I did reread it in the novel - I knew exactly what will happen and I still liked reading it. The magical part of the story was a small part of the whole of it and the battle scenes sounded realistic enough... but I am no specialist. It was fun to read so it worked. And it started the real story - by the actions of Proctor and by what happened(or did not happen) to Pitcairn
But once it finishes, there are not so many battles(short of one more towards the end) and these battles are just a framework around the story.
Because the story is about Proctor and his witchcraft. The revolution around him is just the setting where we see all of it and gives him a quest to follow that allows him to show his full (or is it the full?) potential.
Most of the witches in these days are hiding their powers, making sure that noone finds out what they can do, making sure that they do not end up burned or hanged. That's one of the reasons why Proctor manages to make a tone of errors early in the novel and all the good guys need time to be convinced that he is playing on the same side as they are. It just would not have shown the true character of the guy if it was not for it. It was nice to be read but I wish it was a bit shorter and it did not require so many deaths to convince everyone what should have been clear to anyone living in the real world. Except that it turns out that our second protagonist had not really lived in the same world - it is not a parallel reality or anything but it is a way the witches had found to allow them to learn about their abilities and still not to get killed. And not everyone is what they look like. I loved the way the witches had found to make sure that they help the people with abilities. It is a popular way to help people that need to be saved from something nowadays but I am not sure if it had been popular or even happening back in these days - I am almost sure it was not so it was a really nice way to incorporate a comtemporary concept in a historical novel without it sounding out of its time. Even if this had been a valid way to deal with them, I still think it is a great way to tie up the different parts of the novel.
The story has a traitor that is presenting themselves as someone loyal (and of course it is not who everyone suspects even though once it is revealed, everyone remembers that they should have known from some early signs), there are zombies (that DID surprise me – I did not expect zombies more than I expected to see a space ship (no space ships in the story)) , ghosts, cursed people, a bad witch that together with her group tries to control the world... and a couple of very resourceful young people - our protagonists. Some of the story is heartbreaking, even cruel – I am not sure why so many people had to die (and I am not talking about the soldiers). It made some choices easy for Deborah (our second protagonist) but she would have made the same choices even if some of these deaths had not happen. However - they did and the world she had used to live into is shredded to pieces. And she does not even need to make the choices.
The part of the story that was in the farm was probably one of the best parts of the whole novel - and probably the most original. At least for me. The slow revealing of who is who and what they do there is building the suspense in unexpected ways and makes the novel different from most of the fantasy books - not with having the witches in one place or with teaching them - but the whole concept and the reasons for most of the actions there.
The journey to Boston that follows is almost expected and the final battles (both on the magical field and on the real battlefield) are a nice closure to the novel -- the magical one leaving enough open doors for the next novels and the real one closing the sequence started at the beginning of the novel. Both final battles are somewhat predictable (one of them because I did not think that this will end up being an alternative history novel where the wrong people win during the revolution; the second because it was a nice crafted magical duel (of a kind) where the bad forces wanted to use someone that had to stay alive so he can help in the real battle. And it took me by surprise who the bad witch turned out to be - no clues in the text before it, not even a small hint to put someone in the right direction (or I missed them).
I enjoyed the novel and the changes of speed during the whole of it. I am not sure if most of the fantasy readers will really like the zombies scenes - most of the ones I know do not care for zombies at all but they kinda made sense and they were what allowed Proctor to see what is happening later on. Or so it looked like.
The historical part of the novel was fascinating and I liked some of the small explanations (the difference between militia and minutemen for example) and some of the hints. I read some things about the period after I read the short story (I got interested and I usually like history so it looked like a good reason to look up some facts) so the novel was amusing. I wish the publisher had added a map with the places they were talking about or going through - it might be easy for an American to judge distances and what they are talking about but I got lost a few times (and did not want to look up at an external map)
As I whole I liked the novel and I am expecting the other 2 novels from the trilogy. I hope that there will be less predictable parts than the first book even though I expect to enjoy them even if they do.
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Number in my list of 2009 year novels that I had read this year: 1
Jupiter is a small UK science fiction magazine which is around for more than 5 years - no advertisements, no glossy covers (short of the anniversary issue last year) - the cover actually looks like the pages of magazine itself - black and white and on the same paper (and even like this with impressive covers), stapled and so on. It's the last magazine you would think to be professional and you would be wrong. And honestly - I like it just as it is.
Every issue has a separate title - one of the moons of Jupiter with the numbering of the issues being the same as the number of the moon which is used as a name. (What will Mr Redman do when there are no more moons names to be used? Last time I checked there were only 63 which means that in 10 years either the astronomers should find another one or the naming convention should be changed.) The current one is Kalyke also known as Jupiter XXIII.
The first issue for 2009 contains 6 stories and as in any issue there is none that can be defined as anything different from Science Fiction.
The issue opens with "The Weight of Shadows" by Lee Moan where a young woman, Ellie Parker, is keeping an orphanage on the Saturn's moon Janus. The children there belong to one of the tribes - watusi and the world around them is in the middle of a civil war. The back story of the world and of Miss Ellie is shown in all possible ways - and even when it is in the middle of the real story, it does not disturb or bore. And the children of Janus, although different, are still children and the choices everyone makes have their consequences. And some of them can be deadly. The end of the story could be considered expected from some of the earlier actions but the story could have gone in any way. I, for one, loved the way it ended.
And from Janus, we move to the London of 2052 with "The Darken Loop" by Huw Langridge. The story starts with a very mundane setting of a young woman arriving with a train on the London Waterloo station and going to a job interview (and I actually smiled at it - the second part of last week, I was catching a train at the very same station every morning) and decides to make a detour and get herself a coffee. And with this introduction, we head up for the real story - a conscious AI, time travel(in a way) and parallel worlds. Add to this love and betrayal and it starts to shape up. Beautifully crafted, all the way to the end which repeats the beginning... or does it?
And after London, we return back to the Saturn moons in "Thicker Than Water" by Ian Sales - except that this time it is Thetys. Gina is the commanding officer of the people that guard the moon and her crew captures a pair of Titans (people from the moon Titan). Something bad had happened in the past and most of the other worlds, including Earth, had shielded themselves... and Thetysians are protecting something on the moon... that everyone else wants. Thus the Titans that try to get to the surface. And while we are following the fate of the Titans, Gina needs to finally understand who she is... and to make some tough choices. The world is well-built and the story flows naturally (even considering the luckiness at some moments). And short of the last 2 paragraphs (the last one being just a sentence), I loved the story. I am almost sure what the very end was about (there was something like a warning for it earlier in the story) but I am not sure it had to be there at all... It's almost amusing that both stories on Saturn moons were about family and tough choices concerning them... and yet they were totally different.
And if you are tired from traveling, let's stop on Earth for a while with "The Rule of Law" by Elaine Graham-Leigh, shall we? Or at least something that might be Earth... even if they call it Terra and it is somewhere in the future. We are not alone in the galaxy and (what a surprise) there is a war in space. The surprise though is that the terrans are keeping out of the war's way. The story flows backwards - the real end is what starts the story and then we get what lead to it. Which did not make it a boring read in any way. Marcella, the caption of a small ship, is contacted by Sherenka, highly ranked individual from one of the exterrenial races, Gargarin. It's not only unexpected, it is not considered as a possibility before this, nor anyone ever expected the request that Sherenka makes. And this request starts a series of events that lead to the end of a war, the end of more than one empire and back to the start of the story and the choices that some people need to make. We never see anything about the second race but we learn more than enough about the Gargarin and their way with a race they conquered once. I would love to read more about these worlds...
And if you did not like the Earth in the previous story, the one in "Notes from the Apocalypse" by Michael Pepper is even darker. The Big Event happened (noone ever says which one... but it had been destructive enough). People die, people run even though they have nowhere to run, the bad times showing the worst in some and the best in others. And 4 people traveling together - an old man, a 10 years old girl, a small and fat guy and the narrator. Searching a way to survive and why not a better place. The partial back stories and their travel is showing a devastated world (and still no hint of what had happened exactly). And then comes the end... which is so open to interpretations that I would expect it to have more explanations than readers. I would love to know what the author thought though....
And at the end of the issue, almost as an afterthought came "The Bridge of the Compass Rose" by John Rogers - the shortest and the most emotional story in the issue. Great work by the editor for placing the story at the end of this issue... Written in the "you" form that usually annoys me, it seems to be the right form for it. It's the type of stories that I usually dislike and rarely even finish. But something here is different - it's dreamy and at the same time packed with the actions of the past; the past and the future are so tangled with the now and here that in some moments it's hard to separate them. And the end.... which was full of hope and at the same time as sad as an end can get. The whole story is a line of emotions... and even though it can be described with a sentence, I prefer not to - it's short enough as it is.
Every issue has a separate title - one of the moons of Jupiter with the numbering of the issues being the same as the number of the moon which is used as a name. (What will Mr Redman do when there are no more moons names to be used? Last time I checked there were only 63 which means that in 10 years either the astronomers should find another one or the naming convention should be changed.) The current one is Kalyke also known as Jupiter XXIII.
The first issue for 2009 contains 6 stories and as in any issue there is none that can be defined as anything different from Science Fiction.
The issue opens with "The Weight of Shadows" by Lee Moan where a young woman, Ellie Parker, is keeping an orphanage on the Saturn's moon Janus. The children there belong to one of the tribes - watusi and the world around them is in the middle of a civil war. The back story of the world and of Miss Ellie is shown in all possible ways - and even when it is in the middle of the real story, it does not disturb or bore. And the children of Janus, although different, are still children and the choices everyone makes have their consequences. And some of them can be deadly. The end of the story could be considered expected from some of the earlier actions but the story could have gone in any way. I, for one, loved the way it ended.
And from Janus, we move to the London of 2052 with "The Darken Loop" by Huw Langridge. The story starts with a very mundane setting of a young woman arriving with a train on the London Waterloo station and going to a job interview (and I actually smiled at it - the second part of last week, I was catching a train at the very same station every morning) and decides to make a detour and get herself a coffee. And with this introduction, we head up for the real story - a conscious AI, time travel(in a way) and parallel worlds. Add to this love and betrayal and it starts to shape up. Beautifully crafted, all the way to the end which repeats the beginning... or does it?
And after London, we return back to the Saturn moons in "Thicker Than Water" by Ian Sales - except that this time it is Thetys. Gina is the commanding officer of the people that guard the moon and her crew captures a pair of Titans (people from the moon Titan). Something bad had happened in the past and most of the other worlds, including Earth, had shielded themselves... and Thetysians are protecting something on the moon... that everyone else wants. Thus the Titans that try to get to the surface. And while we are following the fate of the Titans, Gina needs to finally understand who she is... and to make some tough choices. The world is well-built and the story flows naturally (even considering the luckiness at some moments). And short of the last 2 paragraphs (the last one being just a sentence), I loved the story. I am almost sure what the very end was about (there was something like a warning for it earlier in the story) but I am not sure it had to be there at all... It's almost amusing that both stories on Saturn moons were about family and tough choices concerning them... and yet they were totally different.
And if you are tired from traveling, let's stop on Earth for a while with "The Rule of Law" by Elaine Graham-Leigh, shall we? Or at least something that might be Earth... even if they call it Terra and it is somewhere in the future. We are not alone in the galaxy and (what a surprise) there is a war in space. The surprise though is that the terrans are keeping out of the war's way. The story flows backwards - the real end is what starts the story and then we get what lead to it. Which did not make it a boring read in any way. Marcella, the caption of a small ship, is contacted by Sherenka, highly ranked individual from one of the exterrenial races, Gargarin. It's not only unexpected, it is not considered as a possibility before this, nor anyone ever expected the request that Sherenka makes. And this request starts a series of events that lead to the end of a war, the end of more than one empire and back to the start of the story and the choices that some people need to make. We never see anything about the second race but we learn more than enough about the Gargarin and their way with a race they conquered once. I would love to read more about these worlds...
And if you did not like the Earth in the previous story, the one in "Notes from the Apocalypse" by Michael Pepper is even darker. The Big Event happened (noone ever says which one... but it had been destructive enough). People die, people run even though they have nowhere to run, the bad times showing the worst in some and the best in others. And 4 people traveling together - an old man, a 10 years old girl, a small and fat guy and the narrator. Searching a way to survive and why not a better place. The partial back stories and their travel is showing a devastated world (and still no hint of what had happened exactly). And then comes the end... which is so open to interpretations that I would expect it to have more explanations than readers. I would love to know what the author thought though....
And at the end of the issue, almost as an afterthought came "The Bridge of the Compass Rose" by John Rogers - the shortest and the most emotional story in the issue. Great work by the editor for placing the story at the end of this issue... Written in the "you" form that usually annoys me, it seems to be the right form for it. It's the type of stories that I usually dislike and rarely even finish. But something here is different - it's dreamy and at the same time packed with the actions of the past; the past and the future are so tangled with the now and here that in some moments it's hard to separate them. And the end.... which was full of hope and at the same time as sad as an end can get. The whole story is a line of emotions... and even though it can be described with a sentence, I prefer not to - it's short enough as it is.
The last story for last year is Willpower by Jason Stoddard. In the far future, the humanity seem to have found a way to deal with the homeless and the ones that do not seem to be able to deal with their life - they receive a place to stay and all needed as long as they take the willfare jobs. Michael Delgado is one of these people and he really need a new job... And while scanning the pages (and these ads are really funny - together with his own comments to them), he founds a very strange one - someone posts his space mission as a wellfare job. On top of all, Michael has an old game interface in his head that he cannot remove because he does not have the money. And the game had been based on Burrough's work... And guess where the space mission is going to?
But will everyone like the idea of Michael going to Mars and what it will take to make him decide not to take the job? A well-crafted story for what a man is capable of when he pursues a dream and what the world may turn out into. And the picture it builds is believable and in some ways a place that I would love to live into - it seems that there is enough humanity left in this future - if not in everyone and in most of the people that we see in the story, at least in most people that we only hear about.
And after this beautiful story, the first story for the year Roots by Mark Ward is quite different. It's much more technical, the future it shows is darker and less to my liking. Some people are genetically (or otherwise) changed and they fight the bad guys. Some people can relive the lives of other seeing through their eyes and the privacy seem to be a forgotten good. Ingrid is one of these people and we follow her while he tries to capture a well known villain and what she lives through while doing it. Nicely done, the technical details were there without killing the story.
It is about the choices someone makes (and does not make) and what it takes to be a human being; what love means in the far future and is the technical progress really what we want to follow that far. The story is interesting enough - just a bit too chaotic I think - it could have made a better shorter story with some parts being removed or longer with some expansions. Overall a nice story.
Both stories can be read at the site of Futurismic: Willpower and Root
But will everyone like the idea of Michael going to Mars and what it will take to make him decide not to take the job? A well-crafted story for what a man is capable of when he pursues a dream and what the world may turn out into. And the picture it builds is believable and in some ways a place that I would love to live into - it seems that there is enough humanity left in this future - if not in everyone and in most of the people that we see in the story, at least in most people that we only hear about.
And after this beautiful story, the first story for the year Roots by Mark Ward is quite different. It's much more technical, the future it shows is darker and less to my liking. Some people are genetically (or otherwise) changed and they fight the bad guys. Some people can relive the lives of other seeing through their eyes and the privacy seem to be a forgotten good. Ingrid is one of these people and we follow her while he tries to capture a well known villain and what she lives through while doing it. Nicely done, the technical details were there without killing the story.
It is about the choices someone makes (and does not make) and what it takes to be a human being; what love means in the far future and is the technical progress really what we want to follow that far. The story is interesting enough - just a bit too chaotic I think - it could have made a better shorter story with some parts being removed or longer with some expansions. Overall a nice story.
Both stories can be read at the site of Futurismic: Willpower and Root
The year starts with "Celadon" by Desirina Boskovich. In the far future humans (and other races) had conquered the stars and even the planets that they have are not enough. So they are searching new ones again, place where they can have children and live. Celadon seems like such a planet and as it seems it has no local life so the humans take it for themselves. But one they a 6-year old girl start seeing another world and to shift between them - and this other world looks so familiar and no different at the same time. But 6 years later the real truth is finally revealed and the settlers need to face the consequences. And the second world turns out to be something unexpected (except that the story has enough clues to make sure that it is not out of the blue). Building both worlds at the same time - is done smoothly enough and the story runs in both worlds. It's a nice and dreamy tale about humanity and choices that a mother need to make and the end, although a bit unexpected, was logical - it was just closing the cycle and somehow answering why all this was happening.
The second story for the year "Teaching Bigfoot to Read" by Geoffrey W. Cole was heart-breaking. There are people leaving on the Moon and the kids there are no different than the ones here. Most of the story is said with the voice of a 9-years old boy who shows the life on the Moon in his mails to Bigfoot. Noone answers him but he keeps writing it and shows the harsh reality that he lives in. The last two letters were the ones that made the story really heart-breaking - the love that is too late, the guilt and the hopes that never die...
Two nice stories and a good start for the year for Clarkesworld.
The stories can be read on the magazine site: Celadon and Teaching Bigfoot to Read
The second story for the year "Teaching Bigfoot to Read" by Geoffrey W. Cole was heart-breaking. There are people leaving on the Moon and the kids there are no different than the ones here. Most of the story is said with the voice of a 9-years old boy who shows the life on the Moon in his mails to Bigfoot. Noone answers him but he keeps writing it and shows the harsh reality that he lives in. The last two letters were the ones that made the story really heart-breaking - the love that is too late, the guilt and the hopes that never die...
Two nice stories and a good start for the year for Clarkesworld.
The stories can be read on the magazine site: Celadon and Teaching Bigfoot to Read
Fantasy is one more online magazine that publishes a new story every Monday.
The first story for this year "Leningrad" by D. Elizabeth Wasden is strange. The first three parts are set during (or just before) the Siege of Leningrad during the WWII; the last one is in Kuibyshev where Shostakovich escapes. The composer has a bust of Beethoven which seems to be talking to him and being an inspiration. Sounded interesting enough but for some reason the story delved almost into madness. Just not my type of story at all.
The second one "The Moon, A Roman Token" by Darren Speegle was very close in voice to the first one. No composers this time - just Heike and her doctor returning to Trier where she had been born. And then followed the memories and the dreams... most of them unrelated to the story. If there was anything magical or even surreal in this story - I missed it. Even if the boy had been a walking statue - it's still a stretch to think of it as fantasy...
As a whole a strange start for Fantasy... As stories both are well written.. but they are just too weird.
The stories are here: Leningrad and The Moon, A Roman Token
The first story for this year "Leningrad" by D. Elizabeth Wasden is strange. The first three parts are set during (or just before) the Siege of Leningrad during the WWII; the last one is in Kuibyshev where Shostakovich escapes. The composer has a bust of Beethoven which seems to be talking to him and being an inspiration. Sounded interesting enough but for some reason the story delved almost into madness. Just not my type of story at all.
The second one "The Moon, A Roman Token" by Darren Speegle was very close in voice to the first one. No composers this time - just Heike and her doctor returning to Trier where she had been born. And then followed the memories and the dreams... most of them unrelated to the story. If there was anything magical or even surreal in this story - I missed it. Even if the boy had been a walking statue - it's still a stretch to think of it as fantasy...
As a whole a strange start for Fantasy... As stories both are well written.. but they are just too weird.
The stories are here: Leningrad and The Moon, A Roman Token
It's one of the stranger issues of Hub - instead of one story it has 4 flash fiction stories (or short short stories). I like short shorts when they are well done -- there is nothing more powerful than the words not said in text but understood by a sentence or a word.
In "Quartermaster" by Steve Cooper a plasma sheet is about to destroy a planet and hundreds of ships show up to try to save as many as they can. The story is set on one of these ships and the premise is interesting enough but it is the last sentences that carry the strength and the horror of the story... together with the irony of a name written on a box.
The second story "Day Trippers" by Ellen Allen introduces the reader to Bleaklow Moor - a place which look harmless but which is a hell for whoever the old God decides to take for his bride. But the locals know enough about it... and this time they will be around or so they hope. It might have been obvious half way through the story what will happen but there were enough surprises to keep someone interested to the end.
And as nice the first two stories were, the third ("The Girl in the Rose-Tinted Glasses and the Man in the Mirrorshades" by D J Muir) was... weird (and both sets of glasses are mentioned a lot). I think it was a tale for the end of the summer and the change of the seasons but it could have been anything else...
And the last of the stories "The Harvest of the Machines" by R.J.Smith was back to nice. The storyteller and his people had lived a long life in the relative simplicity of the old times. Until houses start showing up from the ground and the machines are everywhere - cleaning, working the fields and doing any other work. But had it been good or bad news?
The issue is on the Hub's site - www.hubfiction.com/ and can be read or downloaded as a PDF file directly from here Hub_72.pdf
I start to worry a bit that there is no new issue of the magazine since this one... but let's see if they will be back again.
In "Quartermaster" by Steve Cooper a plasma sheet is about to destroy a planet and hundreds of ships show up to try to save as many as they can. The story is set on one of these ships and the premise is interesting enough but it is the last sentences that carry the strength and the horror of the story... together with the irony of a name written on a box.
The second story "Day Trippers" by Ellen Allen introduces the reader to Bleaklow Moor - a place which look harmless but which is a hell for whoever the old God decides to take for his bride. But the locals know enough about it... and this time they will be around or so they hope. It might have been obvious half way through the story what will happen but there were enough surprises to keep someone interested to the end.
And as nice the first two stories were, the third ("The Girl in the Rose-Tinted Glasses and the Man in the Mirrorshades" by D J Muir) was... weird (and both sets of glasses are mentioned a lot). I think it was a tale for the end of the summer and the change of the seasons but it could have been anything else...
And the last of the stories "The Harvest of the Machines" by R.J.Smith was back to nice. The storyteller and his people had lived a long life in the relative simplicity of the old times. Until houses start showing up from the ground and the machines are everywhere - cleaning, working the fields and doing any other work. But had it been good or bad news?
The issue is on the Hub's site - www.hubfiction.com/ and can be read or downloaded as a PDF file directly from here Hub_72.pdf
I start to worry a bit that there is no new issue of the magazine since this one... but let's see if they will be back again.
Both stories in the first issue of Beneath Ceaseless Skies for the year have a shape-changer as one of the main characters. But this does not make the stories sound similar.
In "Snake in the Glass" by LeKestra men and the handful that had survived had been in exile - hiding their powers and trying not to bring any attention to them. Therese is a not-so-powerful witch that is trying to keep a low profile and just to help the villagers which had accepted her as one of their own. The story opens with her talking with a trader who as it seems always have something magical to sell and this time he has a snake in a glass ball... ( I almost stopped reading the story at this point - I am afraid of snakes and I prefer not even to read much about them - and although the title was having the snake, it does not always mean that there will be real snakes - however - I decided to give the story a chance). Therese seem to have my feelings about it because she refuses to take the snake and sends the trader to another mage up in the mountains. And in the middle of the night a young man, a shape-shifter tries to break into her house and the relations between the magicians and the shifters are not exactly good. As it turns out the snake had been something much more sinister than Therese thought. And here is where the real story starts -- Therese decides to help the young man (what a surprise... ) and they go on a quest to find the snake and to find out who is killing all the shape-shifters very slowly... and inhumanly.
The only thing that irked me in this story was the repetitious saying by Therese that she is a fool ( and probably the fact that anything anyone deduced turned out to be true but then this was not that unexpected).
And while the shape-shifter in the first story was the reason for the whole story, the one in the second story - "Sand-Skin Man" by - is just a helper - but an important one. The story is told with the voice of a young man, Simon Waters, from Allora who is trying to find and kill another man called Reynolds.... who had killed someone that the protagonist loved. The travel had led him to Daomi - a faraway country which sounds a lot like Africa. As the story open Simon is ill and a lion is stalking him. When he wakes up, a young man from Daomi is helping him and it takes very shortly to figure out that the man and the lion are the same. And Simon sees his revenge coming close... while trying to give to Mbuna what he wants the most.
The description of the lives of both men is fascinating, as is the pure friendship that is born between the two so different males is believable and the choices that Mbuna does are more than logical.
Both stories can be read on the webzine site: Sand-Skin Man and Snake in the Glass
In "Snake in the Glass" by LeKestra men and the handful that had survived had been in exile - hiding their powers and trying not to bring any attention to them. Therese is a not-so-powerful witch that is trying to keep a low profile and just to help the villagers which had accepted her as one of their own. The story opens with her talking with a trader who as it seems always have something magical to sell and this time he has a snake in a glass ball... ( I almost stopped reading the story at this point - I am afraid of snakes and I prefer not even to read much about them - and although the title was having the snake, it does not always mean that there will be real snakes - however - I decided to give the story a chance). Therese seem to have my feelings about it because she refuses to take the snake and sends the trader to another mage up in the mountains. And in the middle of the night a young man, a shape-shifter tries to break into her house and the relations between the magicians and the shifters are not exactly good. As it turns out the snake had been something much more sinister than Therese thought. And here is where the real story starts -- Therese decides to help the young man (what a surprise... ) and they go on a quest to find the snake and to find out who is killing all the shape-shifters very slowly... and inhumanly.
The only thing that irked me in this story was the repetitious saying by Therese that she is a fool ( and probably the fact that anything anyone deduced turned out to be true but then this was not that unexpected).
And while the shape-shifter in the first story was the reason for the whole story, the one in the second story - "Sand-Skin Man" by - is just a helper - but an important one. The story is told with the voice of a young man, Simon Waters, from Allora who is trying to find and kill another man called Reynolds.... who had killed someone that the protagonist loved. The travel had led him to Daomi - a faraway country which sounds a lot like Africa. As the story open Simon is ill and a lion is stalking him. When he wakes up, a young man from Daomi is helping him and it takes very shortly to figure out that the man and the lion are the same. And Simon sees his revenge coming close... while trying to give to Mbuna what he wants the most.
The description of the lives of both men is fascinating, as is the pure friendship that is born between the two so different males is believable and the choices that Mbuna does are more than logical.
Both stories can be read on the webzine site: Sand-Skin Man and Snake in the Glass
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