Washington-Post-blog-sqt-fantasy-sci-fi-girl

Funny story. Even though I get so many books for review, I still have an insatiable need to acquire every book I think I might enjoy. One book I've had my eye on is Fade to Black by Francis Knight and I've been planning to buy it ever since I put it up as a Waiting on Wednesday selection. Despite appearances I don't actually ask for many review copies. I am, however, on a lot of mailing lists... So, as you may have already guessed, after I purchased my copy of "Fade to Black" yesterday, I unexpectedly got another copy in the mail from Orbit Books.



So, giveaway time!





Fade to Black by Francis Knight





**Contest Closed**

Waiting on Wednesday is a blog meme hosted by Jill over at Breaking the Spine to spotlight upcoming books.



This week's WoW selection is:

Bronze Gods (An Apparatus Infernum Novel) by A.A. Aguirre



Danger stalks the city of steam and shadows.

Janus Mikani and Celeste Ritsuko work all hours in the Criminal Investigation Division, keeping citizens safe. He’s a charming rogue with an uncanny sixth sense; she’s all logic—and the division’s first female inspector. Between his instincts and her brains, they collar more criminals than any other partnership in the CID.

Then they’re assigned a potentially volatile case in which one misstep could end their careers. At first, the search for a missing heiress seems straightforward, but when the girl is found murdered—her body charred to cinders—Mikani and Ritsuko’s modus operandi is challenged as never before. It soon becomes clear the bogeyman has stepped out of nightmares to stalk gaslit streets, and it’s up to them to hunt him down. There’s a madman on the loose, weaving blood and magic in an intricate, lethal ritual that could mean the end of everything…



I'm intrigued by this title for a couple of reasons: first, A.A. Aguirre is a pseudonym for the husband and wife team of Ann and Andres Aguirre-- and after loving the books written by the husband/wife team of Ilona Andrews, I'm all set to expect good things from this pairing (especially since Ann Aguirre already has a track record as a pretty good writer); secondly, Steampunk! (I know it's everywhere these days, but I still love it).

Sometimes,
Science Fiction is at its best when it’s at its most basic: setting the
future on a tangent and jumping it forward. I think by now, most of
humanity has come to understand that we can not and will not predict the
path that politics and technology will take in the future. Joe
Kimball’s Timecaster
is one book that I don’t think tries- which, for the record, is a good
thing. Rather, several tangents are selected- some that are problems in
the world, some that are ways of fixing them, and some that are just
ideas that could go either way or neither- and then put on fast forward
by about 50 years. This is all a perfectly viable strategy, as far as
Sci-Fi goes, and something that I think speaks a lot louder about Timecaster than its plot does.
 

In order to get the essential information out of the way, Timecaster
is a Sci-Fi Action Mystery novel. It features around a detective- one
of two left on the force- in a dystopian society where violent crime is a
thing of the past. I mostly call bull on this, because there will
always be people who don’t care about getting caught and will slug a man
who looked at their wife in broad daylight, but I can look past that
easily enough in context. As will always happen when new forensics
techniques are discovered in Sci-Fi- in this case the titular
timecaster, a camcorder that can be tuned back in time to when the crime
was committed- somebody has come up with a way to circumvent it and
frame somebody. Our hero Talon Avalon spends the novel trying to avoid
getting caught by his former allies (and his
friend-turned-rival-turned-enemy) and find a mass murderer, all while
trying to deal with his own faltering marriage.
 

While going through its plot- which has plenty of action, and plenty of gratuitous sex- Timecaster
looks at things such as libertarian views of drug use, practical
solutions to limited fossil fuels, and what the criminal element would
look like in a “Big Brother” society. Included in this was an off-hand
remark that apparently, the only fiction on paper worth any money in the
2060s’ black market (paper books are, as a rule, illegal as a waste of
fuel) are books written by Joe Kimball. By the way, despite having an
established thriller-writing persona to fall back on by the name of J.A.
Konrath, he chose to use (and write under) a brand new pen name. More
on this later.
 

I
mentioned marital problems, and you’re going to want to know if it
detracts from the action at all. I’m not going to lie, yes… in little
ways. It’s never made to be a major plot, and it detracts from the story
in the same way as the murder of Thomas and Martha Wayne distracts from
any Batman story. In essence, the plot between Victoria and Talon helps
to shape the story, giving you a framework to look at scenes such as
Talon’s rape by numerous female nymphomaniacs, which could alternately
be viewed as tedious or heinous. The conflict lies in Talon’s struggles
to accept Victoria’s profession as an “SLP”, short for “State-Licensed
Prostitute”, who has emotionless sex with numerous wealthy men but has a
heart only for him. Oh, and the friend-turned-rival-turned-enemy I
mentioned? They competed for Victoria’s love after the friend (the only
other remaining Timecaster in Chicago) discovered her. Talon won, and
their friendship became a thing of the past. Apparently, it’s become a
pot of simmering rage in the back of Teague’s mind, and he’s just been
waiting for a legitimate reason to beat the crap out of his former
friend.
 

Damn.
I seem to have left myself with two segueways at once. Would you like
to hear about “SLP” or about Teague’s motives to frame Talon? Well, one
ties into how this novel is interesting, and one is a minor irritation,
so I suppose I’ll talk about the interesting one first. There are three
things that novels do with mysteries. One is to give you a mystery that
it is physically impossible to solve; after all, the plot is holding its
cards close to its chest, and gives you just enough evidence to show
you how brilliant it was in retrospect. Sort of like Hannibal Lecter
does in Silence of the Lambs. This is acceptable, but not
when a book passes itself off as a mystery. It verges between being a
legitimate way of keeping the suspense and being a cop-out, from an
author who’s afraid the audience is smarter than they are.
 

The
second method is, of course, preferred, especially for any book that
plays up the idea of focusing on a solvable mystery. For the record, Timecaster
doesn’t exactly do that- certain clues are left out for Talon to come
to a certain conclusion, but circumstances are working very much against
him all the while. This second method is for everything to be
completely solvable, as long as the reader is paying attention. This is
harder to write, if you want to maintain suspense, but ultimately it
helps a reader who’s paying attention get more involved in the story and
is no worse than the other two method for the reader who’s given up and
let the protagonist solve the mystery. It’s this method- or at least,
the illusion of using this method- that causes the need for red herrings
to appear. It’s unfortunate that this cliché has grown so prominent
that the first person indicated is almost never even remotely related to the actual crime any more.
 

The third method, for the record, is the one that Timecaster uses- all of the elements to solve the mystery are presented
to you, sure, but you’d have to make some pretty hefty leaps in order
to put them together. When you hear someone referring to the ending of a
story as “Why didn’t I think of that?” this is more often than not going to be the case. I believe Scooby Doo was fond of this one. This is fair, depending on the focus of the piece; not the best for a legitimate, mind-bending, Hardy Boys style mystery, but not a poor method of managing a more involved piece- such as an action-thriller.
 

Actually,
what I said is not entirely accurate. Because when the “Category 3”
mystery and its villain are gone… there’s another chapter or two left.
And some more stakes. In fact, there’s a whole nother book, which I
imagine was entirely essential in order to sell a new “Sci-Fi” pen name
from an author who was already writing under two different names, one of
them specializing in thrillers, a category this book could certainly
fit into. In fact, this novel apparently has some relation to Konrath’s
other works, and I appreciate the fact that it was subtle enough for me,
as a first time reader, not to be aware of that until I looked the
author up online.
 

I
promised to talk about the acronyms, and I will.  This is both a clever
act on behalf of Konrath/Kimball, and a source of annoyance.  Because
of the rising use of acronyms over the past fifteen to twenty years
thanks to the internet and text messages, Timecaster
has extrapolated that to include numerous acronyms in everyday
conversation.  As a rule, I don't mind this.  After all, SOB, POS, and
ASAP have already been incorporated into everyday conversation.
 However, when expressions such as “WTF” enter into the vernacular, it's
clear that this is only in the novel in order to minimize use of a word
that does
appear in the novel.  If you're still not sure what my complaint is,
try alternately reading out the acronym and saying the words that it
replaces out loud.


For the first book under a new name, Joe Kimball could certainly do worse than Timecaster.
It’s got an engaging mystery, plenty of action, and enough Sci-Fi
experimentation to keep a genre fan itching for more. The sequel has
already been published, and I can only hope that there’s enough meat to
make that novel as good as this one. It’s not the epic novel of our
time, but for a short, fun, read, Timecaster would not be a poor choice.

Every year I seem to find a new urban fantasy series to love-- and this year is off to a great start with My Life as A White Trash Zombie by Diana Rowland.



Angel Crawford's life is in a full scale, white trash downward spiral. Already a high school dropout and an unmotivated stoner, it doesn't seem like things can get any worse; until she wakes up in the hospital after being told she suffered a drug overdose. Unfortunately for Angel it's an all too possible explanation for an evening she can't remember.



But things quickly go from bad to weird when Angel receives a strange note telling her that a job awaits her at the local coroner's office and, if she finds herself with some weird cravings while carving up dead bodies, she should heed them.



I had such a strange aversion to giving this series a try when it first came out. I suppose it had something to do with the cover (though the "brains" tattoo is sheer genius) and the notion it gave me that I couldn't possibly relate to a white trash zombie. But I seriously underestimated the talent of Diana Rowland and the awesomeness of Angel Crawford.



The beauty of My Life as A White Trash Zombie is that Angel Crawford doesn't want to spend her whole life as a loser and when she's given an opportunity to change her life, she grabs on to it with both hands-- though being a zombie is hardly a conventional way to get ahead. Most zombie books are, understandably, horror novels that focus on the traditional notion that zombies are shambling, unaware monsters that are driven by their insatiable hunger for brains. Angel is somewhat like the zombies we all know (and I'll try to avoid being too spoilery here) in that her need for brains is a serious motivator in her worldview. But Rowland comes up with a plausible, if a little scientifically simplistic, explanation for the existence of zombies without the unstoppable mindlessness of the walking dead we all know and love. (Though the cause is really fleshed out, so to speak, in book 2)



The cool thing about My Life as a White Trash Zombie is that it's a book about second chances and a heroine who learns to rely on herself (and not a romantic interest for a change) to turn her life around. Being turned into a zombie does act as a shortcut in helping her resist the pitfalls of addiction that have plagued Angel for most of her young life and she's well aware of it. But rather than take anything for granted, or even feel sorry for her strange new life, Angel makes the most of her odd circumstances and proves to be a clever, likable lead character.



The only slight critique I'd have for My Life as a White Trash Zombie is the plot device that has Angel floundering around for a good portion of the book not knowing what precisely is going on. Normally, in a book like this-- in which a character is transformed from a normal human into a supernatural creature-- there would be a mentoring process of sorts that ushers the main character through the transition period. Angel only gets a vague, uninformative note. And the most frustrating thing about that aspect of the story is that it's totally illogical--and it's what makes the book so darn good.



Because Angel has to figure out what's going on all by herself, she quickly learns to trust her own instincts and not look to anyone to bail her out of trouble. And when a romantic interest does turn up (one with a strong savior complex to boot) Angel is quick to assert her independence.



The other thing I really loved about My Life as a White Trash Zombie is that Angel is forced to confront the bad choices she made in the past. It's true that her life has not been a fair one, but she isn't the kind of person to dwell on the unfairness of her circumstances-- she owns the crappy parts of her life that she's responsible for. Predictably, Angel runs into quite a bit of prejudice because of her sketchy past and criminal record, but she also learns that hard work and general likability earns quite a few allies and for every bump in the road there is someone who will help you get over it.



But don't let this review give you the impression that the whole book is some kind of Oprah-style, feminist story of empowerment. There might be that aspect of it (though I certainly wouldn't characterize it as Oprah-styled in any way) but it's also a fast-paced urban fantasy with plenty of action, humor (though no gawd-awful snark) and brain munching goodness. The only reason I focused so strongly on the angle of the story that shows Angel's increasing independence is because female characters like this are too rare in UF and YA books these days. It's amazing to me that so many women write so many female characters that can't seem to function without a man to bail them out-- but Angel Crawford isn't one of them. I'd recommend this book on the merits of its entertainment value alone, but Angel is truly a character to fall in love with.



4 out of 5 stars.

Waiting on Wednesday is a blog meme hosted by Jill over at Breaking the Spine to highlight upcoming books.



This week's WoW selection is:



White Trash Zombie Apocalypse by Diana Rowland


Date: July 2, 2013

Publisher: DAW

Pages: 320

Lights, cameras... zombies!

When a zombie movie starts filming in town, things get crazy, and white trash zombie Angel Crawford suspects it’s not just the plot of the movie that’s rotten. With zombies both real and fake roaming the streets, it’s up to Angel to fit all the pieces — and body parts — together to save herself, her town, and quite possibly the human race.



I was so biased against trying this series when it first came out, but it has become one of my absolute favorites. If you like light urban fantasy with an awesome heroine, definitely pick this one up. Plus, you must admit, that's a pretty cool cover. ;)

Sometimes, I just get the urge to look up a random horror movie. This
has provided some of the greatest moments in my cinematic life like Haute Tension, and has also provided absolute garbage like Night Shadow.
Given my obvious predilections for Science Fiction, more often than not
I’ll open up a Sci-Fi horror over another random movie, which led me to
this… interesting… piece of work. To this end I give you Dracula 3000. This film (no relation to the better known Dracula 2000)
is one of the most ridiculous movies I have ever watched. It starts off
innocuous enough, with a salvage team in the year 3000 coming across an
apparently abandoned ship transporting what amounts to a mausoleum, but
it quickly devolves as Dracula reveals his true ability: to make
ridiculous stereotypes into ridiculous stereotype vampires.




Let’s start with the characters. After all, we get such gems as
Humvee, who I guess is supposed to be a truck. He is alternately called
“Humvee” and “Hummer” which is either supposed to be some kind of joke,
or simply an innocent nickname written by a writer with half a clue. The
reason I say “half a clue” should become apparent shortly. Humvee,
played by Tommy Lister of “Friday”, is essentially the big, dumb black
muscle that the NAACP would likely prefer to be abolished from film and
whom a good number of rappers would still like the world to see them as.
Humvee’s purpose is to yell, break things, and be sensible by
comparison next to his friend 187.




You can get your groans out of the way now.




The only small, very, very small bit of redemption to this character
is that, despite his name, he’s not some sort of trigger-happy gangster.
Rather, Coolio (yes, that Coolio) plays an addict constantly looking
for his next fix. This character makes Tyrone Biggums of the Chappelle
Show look subtle. Oh sure, the stereotypical skinny black man whose only
goal is his next fix might seem subtle enough, but wait until you see what happens when he becomes a vampire- the only
human that is transformed into a vampire in this film. Everything about
this character is over the top and ridiculous, and it would be
hilariously cheesy if I didn’t find this character so offensive.




Next comes Abraham Van Helsing, whom I suppose at times is expected
to be the main character. If his name isn’t a dead giveaway, this
character is the descendant of the famed vampire slayer. He discovers
this after the resident intellectual (the movie can’t be bothered to
make him interesting, so I can’t be bothered to figure out his name)
runs a Google search on “Vampires” and discovers that information about
them is fairly widespread.




Next we get Dracula. Er, Count Orlock. Well, I guess that’s one thing
for this film- it canonically links Nosferatu and Dracula by making
Orlock an alias of Dracula’s. If this has been done before, I stand
corrected, but as stands I find this the most positive and creative
thing about this film. Less positive and creative is the fact that
Dracula turns exactly one human into a vampire, and that person in each
of his forms has more screen time than Dracula/Orlock. At least if this
film was titled “Blacula 3000” it would have been more transparent as to what it was really going for.




Our final character is just as big of a mess as the others. Aurora is
initially presented as a red herring, an attractive female offering to
Dracula in the traditional sense. She disappears offscreen with Dracula
the first time he appears, and returns with a wealth of knowledge about
the Count and his origins- all of the information he would want
his victims to know. After a long, drawn out bit of half-assed
interrogation, it is revealed that Aurora is an android- an undercover
officer investigating the crew, in fact. Naturally, Humvee wants to kill
her for this, but Van Helsing is intelligent enough to realize that a
superhuman machine who can not be turned into a Vampire is a pretty
useful asset when vampire killing is essential to your immediate
survival. Ignoring for the time being the fact that the film ends with
her announcing herself a retired pleasure bot and offering herself to
Humvee, in my opinion the use of Aurora is a major misstep in setting up
any kind of menace in Dracula.




Let me go into more detail about what happened. As I said, Aurora
disappeared with Dracula and returned, spouting facts about Dracula’s
past. She is interrogated, the men around her (the only other female
cast member having been killed shortly after 187 became a vampire)
outraged at the possibility of her consorting with a vampire or becoming
one. Van Helsing goes as far as to roughly grab her and examine her
neck, looking for bite marks, of which there is none. Clearly
conflicted, Aurora pauses before revealing her true identity as an
android and undercover agent. Helsing is scornful; apparently, there has
been a romance brewing between the two of them, although that in itself
is only very scarcely examined. The two go on to a room filled with
coffins, opening each one with the intention of killing any surviving
vampires. They reveal one, despite the fact that Dracula needed blood to
be able to regain physical form (most of the coffins are filled with
sand) and the fact that he told Aurora that he was the last of his kind.
Aurora hesitates with her stake, clearly struggling with brutally
killing even such an enemy as this, before Van Helsing takes it from her
hand and drives it through the female Vampire’s heart (perhaps of note,
this is only the second living female we’ve met in this film, and the
third individual in the film to be killed).




Now imagine this: after opening the last coffin, Van Helsing realizes
that Dracula is hidden somewhere aboard the ship, and they split up,
armed to find him. Van Helsing meets up with the man who is doing the
research, while Aurora meets up with Humvee in order to search another
section of the ship. Once Aurora and Humvee are isolated from Van
Helsing by both sound and sight, however, their dynamic changes
entirely. Aurora reveals herself to be Dracula, famous for his ability
to shift his form even in terrible films, which is the true reason why
she returned to the group unscathed. She reveals this to Humvee, but it
is already too late- he is already in Dracula’s grip, and will soon be a
far more fearsome vampire than the one he killed earlier.


It’s that kind of critical thought and truly examined mythology that
this film lacks. Sure, there are connections to classical Dracula lore-
the names I mentioned being obvious ones, but every name barring only
Humvee and 187 is borrowed from the original novel. Unfortunately, to
someone inclined to do the research, these are the only connections to
Bram Stoker to be found here, and to someone watching the film casually
on TV, there is even less connection to be seen. Based on the plot and
the character personalities, I find it most likely that these
connections appeared in the script for the sole reason of someone saying
“I don’t know what to name this character- let’s try looking up
‘Dracula’ for ideas”.




The setting of this world is equally… I’d call it unimaginative, but
I’m not exactly sure whether or not imagination is involved in
introducing planets named “Transylvania” and “Comptonia”- the first
being the home of vampires, despite their having been to Earth before,
the latter being a planet where marijuana and easy women can be found in
massive quantities. Perhaps one of 187′s favorite mind-altering
substances wrote the script?




I find the most interesting social statement of this film,
intentional or not, to be the fact that none of the characters have ever
met a living person who believed in any sort of religion. It’s unlikely
to find that kind of detail in a film unless the writers truly believe
religion to be a foolish, outdated concept themselves, yet I find no
other elements of recognizable Atheist ideology (the most recognizable
and expected being Communism) in this film, nor do I find the kind of
critical thought that would imply the author to be in the Stephen
Hawking school of “too smart for God” Atheism. Perhaps I am merely
reading too far into this, but I was rather surprised when such a point
was made of this (“I supposedly had a Grand-uncle who believed in God”)
not to continue on with any sort of spiritual, scientific or political
follow-up.




I’m really not sure who the target audience was. By having some
fairly known actors in this film, it almost seems to have some attempt
at mainstream appeal, or even to be an urban comedy. At the same time,
the characters Humvee and 187 are, if not necessarily racist, still such
blatant and offensive stereotypes that I could hardly imagine any black
actor in the 2000s being willing to play them. This film just seems to
be an attempt to use up a budget as quickly as possible in a manner that
is neither Sci-Fi, horror, nor entirely truly film. I can’t say I
recommend anybody go out of their way to watch this film, which leaves
it firmly in the category of 1/10.

I have randomly selected the winner of the copy of "Six Gun Tarot" by R.S. Belcher that I had up for giveaway.



 And the winner is: Kim Papke; McKinney, Texas



 Congrats Kim! The book is on its way.

Waiting on Wednesday is a blog meme hosted by Jill over at Breaking the Spine to highlight upcoming books.



This week's WoW pick is:

Trickster (The Ustari Cycle) by Jeff Somers


Publisher: Pocket Books

Date: February 26, 2013

Pages: 384


Praised by the Guardian for stories that are “exhilarating . . . powerful and entertaining,” Jeff Somers returns with a darkly original urban fantasy series featuring a cadre of mages operating just under the radar of human society.

Magic uses blood—a lot of it. The more that’s used, the more powerful the effect, so mages find “volunteers” to fuel their spells. Lem, however, is different. Long ago he set up a rule that lets him sleep at night: never use anyone’s blood but your own. He’s grifting through life as a Trickster, performing only small Glamours like turning one-dollar bills into twenties. He and his sidekick, Mags, aren’t doing well, but they’re getting by.

That is, until they find young Claire Mannice— bound and gagged, imprisoned in a car’s trunk, and covered with invisible rune tattoos. Lem turns to his estranged mentor for help, but what they’ve uncovered is more terrifying than anybody could have imagined. Mika Renar, the most dangerous Archmage in the world, is preparing to use an ocean of blood to cast her dreams into reality— and Lem just got in her way.

If I haven't returned your email request for a book review, *this* is why.

A Memory of Light (Wheel of Time) by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson




Since 1990, when Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time® burst on the world with its first book, The Eye of the World,readers have been anticipating the final scenes of this extraordinary saga, which has sold over forty million copies in over thirty languages.

When Robert Jordan died in 2007, all feared that these concluding scenes would never be written. But working from notes and partials left by Jordan, established fantasy writer Brandon Sanderson stepped in to complete the masterwork. With The Gathering Storm (Book 12) and Towers of Midnight (Book 13) behind him, both of which were # 1 New York Times hardcover bestsellers, Sanderson now re-creates the vision that Robert Jordan left behind.

Edited by Jordan’s widow, who edited all of Jordan’s books, A Memory of Light will delight, enthrall, and deeply satisfy all of Jordan’s legions of readers.

The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass.

What was, what will be, and what is,

may yet fall under the Shadow.

Let the Dragon ride again on the winds of time.