Jacob and I went to LibertyCon in Chattanooga, TN this June! (This article is WAY LATE because life.) Anyway, LibertyCon is notable for being more reader- and author-oriented than other conventions in the area…which means that I ended up coming home with approximately 90,000 books to read and likely review.
I am already exhausted just thinking about that. (Since this article is late: still exhausted.)
First on my pile was Baker’s Dozen: 13 Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories by Scott W. Baker.
First off, the cover does this book a real disservice. I love its visual pun, but nothing about a carton of a dozen plus one eggs screams sci-fi, and had I not encountered the author at a signing, I’m pretty sure I might never have picked it up.
I’m glad I did, though, because it’s a fun sampler platter of short stories. Baker divides the anthology into Space Opera, Urban Fantasy, Near Future SF, and Zombies. The best stories are found later in the book, but overall it was worth the $8 print cost.
Admittedly, I was a little underwhelmed by several of the early stories. While the point of a short story is, of course, to be short, a lot of the early entries in this anthology feel too short. Either they end just when they feel like they’re getting started, or the end brings a dark, abrupt twist that makes the story feel abbreviated.
Really, though, this complaint stems from the fact that I wanted to see more of each featured world. “Chasers,” a space opera about pilots who race to refuel spaceships, had the potential to be one of my favorites and could have expanded into a great action drama, but succumbed to one of the aforementioned dark, abrupt endings. “Ten Seconds,” a contemporary fantasy about a bullied child who can see ten seconds into the future, was another that, while ending happily, also ended just as I was getting excited to continue it.
When your main complaint about an author’s writing is that you want more of it, though, it’s not a bad thing.
In this anthology, Baker is at his best when he’s writing quirky humor or putting fantastic spins on modern settings. “Faerie Belches,” about a child who, well, hears fairies belch, is a fun read with some interesting twists. (Given the stories’ similarities, I pictured the characters from “Ten Seconds” and “Faerie Belches” belonging to the same universe and kind of hope that the author will turn this into a complete children’s novel.) “Excuse Me,” about a man who travels back in time every time he farts, is amusing for its concept alone, while “ZFL” is a hilarious look at a zombie football game from the perspective of its commentators.
There’s intriguing drama in many of the late stories, too, though, and I think a lot of these could support complete novels as well. “Secondhand Rush” was a particular favorite; it follows a man who performs daring, even foolish stunts, all for the purpose of selling the digitized memory of performing them to disembodied human minds stored in computers, which is straight up cool even before you consider that the man suffers Multiple Sclerosis (and all the conflicts that implies). “Thinking Out Loud” is an intriguing multi-point-of-view look at a psychic experiment being performed on prisoners; “How Quickly We Forget” is a haunting look at the actions of a memory-removal technology company; and “Call Me Z,” while humorous in places, is largely a look at what happens when a zombie fanboy (in a world where zombies can be domesticated) encounters his first zombies.
The contents of Baker’s Dozen may be too short for my taste, but the volume’s best stories and the sheer variety of material included make it worth a try. Recommended!
The Sons of Liberty – Book Review
Two escaped slaves get superpowers, team up with Ben Franklin, and wreak havoc on their corrupt former owner. This tells you all you need to know about The Sons of Liberty.
This graphic novel, penned by Alexander and Joseph Lagos, is more National Treasure than history class, which is probably why it’s one of the most fun comics that I’ve read in a while.* Graham and Brody begin as slaves under the cruel Jacob Sorenson. When Sorenson’s son attacks Brody, Graham’s act of defense puts them both on the run, where they encounter Benjamin Franklin’s crazypants son, who has been electrocuting animals and, increasingly, slaves in effort to see what effect it has on their bodies. In this case, superpowers! (DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME.) The boys proceed to befriend Ben Franklin, who gives them work in his print shop, and Quaker abolitionist Benjamin Lay, who teaches them the African martial art of dambe and suggests that they use their newfound powers to right the wrongs slavery has inflicted upon the country.
Normally I’m irked by historical inaccuracy in books, but I make a gleeful exception for this one. After all, via Authors’ Note, the writers are pretty blatant about the historical inaccuracy (see again: superpowers), and most of the relevant inaccuracies are so ridiculous that they’re instantly noticeable. For example, while Benjamin Lay was truly eccentric and loudly anti-slavery (as depicted in the book) he also had a hunched back (as also depicted in the book), which logically seems like something that would interfere with the learning of most martial arts (not depicted in the book). William Franklin, too, is such an exaggeratedly despicable character that it’s hard to see anything that he does as historically-based (other than his strained relationship with his father, which was accurate). Such exaggerations permeate the book, from the fictional slave hunter who outfits his dog collars with foot-long spikes to a terrifyingly huge Hessian character who has no problem scalping a person with his bare hands. These are all the things of over-the-top action movies, which make it easier to suspend disbelief for this particular tale.
Graham and Brody, however, are decidedly non-exaggerated characters, which is what makes the story work so well. Most of the problems that they face in the story are problems that would be faced by any runaway slave—having to evade slave hunters, trying to find food without being conspicuous, worrying about the friends and family they left behind, etc.—and even once they acquire their powers, they react as one would expect teens in their situation to act—terrified at first, and then WHOA THESE POWERS ARE AWESOME. Surprisingly little of the story centers around their powers, too, but this is far from a flaw. Between Lay’s abolition efforts, Franklin’s conflict with William, William’s own several duplicities, and both of Graham and Brody’s conflicts (that is, hiding from Sorenson while learning to use their powers), there’s more than enough to keep the reader interested.
The writing itself zips between each storyline quickly, but never feels rushed. Dialogue is particularly well-handled, with several characters possessing their own unique styles of speaking. The art, too, is energetic, with smart use of color, expression, and character design, even if the lineart beneath the color occasionally looks too quickly-drawn. (It’s far from bad, but every now and then a character will look off-model. It’s not frequent enough to interfere with the reading experience, though.)
Ultimately, The Sons of Liberty is more concerned with entertainment than education. Considering that this was its goal in the first place, it does it with panache—so much so that it might even make readers interested in the true history behind the story! At its heart, it’s an exciting fantasy romp through pre-Revolutionary America, and highly recommended.
***
*No offense to history teachers. Mine were magnificent, but I’ve had several teens refuse historical fiction because they say their history teachers ruined it for them.
11 Doctors, 11 Stories – Book Review
The history of Doctor Who spans 50+ years of TV broadcast, radio plays, print publications, video games, and several spinoff series, which means that there are lots of places for newbies to dive in, and not all of them are easy starting points. For those first approaching Doctor Who through print, the short story collection 11 Doctors, 11 Stories is one of the best ways to do it (and is also a fine read even for established Whovians.)
For the uninitiated, Doctor Who follows a Time Lord known as The Doctor as he travels through time and space, usually with one or more companions, but always with the aid of his trusty Sonic Screwdriver and intermittently trusty TARDIS (a.k.a. iconic-blue-police-box-slash-time-and-space-traveling-machine). As a Time Lord, he cannot die, but rather regenerates into a different form whenever death-like circumstances require it.
He might also be the most powerful being in any of the series’ universes, simply because he can speak total BS and use it to world-rendingly save the day: He’s been poisoned? No prob, he’ll just eat some walnuts and ginger beer and then burp it out in a cloud of magic Time Lord smoke. The day generally looks hopeless? Give him some complicated space-and-time-pseudo-science babble and a random mundane object and THAT MESS IS FIXED. The Doctor Who canon never formally acknowledges this superpower, just as it never acknowledges the fact that the time-traveling structure of the series renders every bit of tension that happens null and void when you even try to think about it. That said, its consistency is a hot mess, but it’s also a fun, whimsical, and refreshingly optimistic series, and that alone makes it worth a try.
As of this writing, the series has moved up to its Twelfth Doctor (well, Thirteenth, but that’s a tale for a decided Whovian), which is one reason why this anthology is such a good starting point. Each story in the collection follows a different one of the then-eleven Doctors and thus provides a good series primer. The stories themselves have impressive pedigrees for the YA sci-fi and fantasy crowd, coming from the pens of Neil Gaiman, Patrick Ness, Eoin Colfer, Philip Reeve, and others, which gives the anthology the added benefit of exposing readers to some of the finest writers in this genre, all in one place.
Unfortunately, this pedigree doesn’t always equal absolute goodness. The first two entries are easily the anthology’s weakest. Eoin Colfer’s First Doctor opener “A Big Hand for the Doctor” suffers from a bland, action-oriented plot. Action has never been one of Doctor Who’s strengths, considering that the Doctor’s favorite battle strategies consist of running or distracting enemies until he can drop a convenient plot bomb. There is no plot bomb in this story, either, which makes it seem like a huge waste of the infinite BS possibilities of the Doctor Who universe. The story also features a lot of random, misplaced elements that feel like they belong in another story, sometimes because they literally do; the Gnommish language from Colfer’s Artemis Fowl series makes an inexplicable appearance, and a late story twist credits the Doctor’s adventure with the creation of another classic, beloved story that, in the context of this adventure, is also inexplicable. Overall the entry reads like Colfer forgot that he was assigned to write the thing and so turned in the first draft that he scrawled out, which is disappointing because 1) when he’s writing in his own worlds, Colfer is one of my favorite writers, and 2) the story could have been pretty cool if fully developed. As for the Second Doctor, I literally remembered nothing about Michael Scott’s “The Nameless City” when I sat down to write this review (two days after reading it).
Fortunately, the rest of the anthology vworps in like the TARDIS on a good day and saves everything. BSery aside, the real strength of the Doctor Who series is its ability to craft clever, quirky storylines around whatever random props the BBC had lying around its lot at the time. Obviously, a book does not have the same type of budget limitations as a TV series, but the stories in this anthology are written in keeping with the series’ rag-and-bone spirit.
Marcus Sedgwick’s Third Doctor tale “The Spear of Destiny” is a prime example of the series’ strengths. I mean, it’s got museums, Vikings, uniquely Whovian explanations of how certain historical events really went down (you know, time magic and stuff), and plenty of well-placed twists. You can’t really go wrong with that, and it doesn’t.
Philip Reeve’s “The Roots of Evil” only adds to the momentum, setting its adventure on a space-station-that-is-really-an-enormous-complex-sentient-populated-tree-that-exists-solely-to-kill-The-Doctor (Fourth, in this case). It’s in this story and the previous that the collection begins to actually feel like a genuine entry into the Doctor Who canon, combining the series’ distinct eccentricity (All the alien names are elaborate commentaries on The Doctor’s intended fate) with a thoroughly fascinating, whimsical setting.
These elements all cumulate in Patrick Ness’ Fifth Doctor tale “Tip of the Tongue,” which may be the best entry in the anthology. In this tale, Truth Tellers have become all the rage in World War II-era Maine. These devices speak absolute truths about the people at whom the wearer directs them, which, predictably, leads to all sorts of unpleasantness. However, most of the entry’s conflict comes not from the fantastical elements, but the tensions that are inherent in its main characters being, respectively, biracial and a German Jew in a time period that was especially unfriendly to both. The story manages a delicate balance of quirk and respect for the darker elements of history (and those who suffered them), which is a mark shared with some of the finer episodes of the TV series.
Richelle Mead’s “Something Borrowed” gives readers a break from the serious, taking the Sixth Doctor on a romp through a planet modeled on the ridiculousness of Las Vegas. The fact that it involves an alien Las Vegas wedding and mini-pterodactyls tells you all you need to know about the colorful wackiness of this one.
Malorie Blackman takes readers back to the serious with the intriguing “The Ripple Effect,” in which the Seventh Doctor accidentally re-writes the universe (yep) and must decide whether to leave it as is or revert back to the original universe. This decision is complicated by the presence of the Daleks; in the original universe, the Daleks are an indiscriminately murderous race (which, after Classic Who, becomes partly responsible for the annihilation of the Time Lords and thus a whole lot of dramatic Last Time Lord angst). However, in this new universe, the Daleks are so docile and benevolent that they give lectures about bad manners! Most of the tension in this story comes from the Doctor himself, who can’t fathom a universe with such Daleks, and it’s interesting to watch his moral dilemma unfold.
After this, Alex Scarrow finishes up the Classic Who with his Eighth Doctor tale “Spore,” which is easily the creepiest piece in the collection. Much of what makes it cool can’t be revealed without revealing spoilers (and thus reducing the creep factor), but the twists behind all the creepiness rendered it another of my favorites.
The anthology enters the New Who timeline with Charlie Higson’s “The Beast of Babylon.” This story is notable for assigning the Ninth Doctor an unexpected sort of companion, and also for a clever twist that ends up setting it inside the first episode of the re-imagined TV show. Higson’s depiction of the Doctor is spot-on, too; the Ninth Doctor’s voice clicked effortlessly into my head the moment he first spoke in the story. (Not that the previous Doctors don’t sound like themselves; I’m simply not familiar enough with Classic Who to comment on the accuracy of those depictions.)
Derek Landy takes the Tenth Doctor into literary territory in “The Mystery of the Haunted Cottage,” plunging the Doctor into a mysterious world constructed around his companion’s favorite childhood book series, The Troubleseekers. Despite revolving around a fictional series of books, the story has the same charm as the TV series’ literature-related episodes (even if the reveals are a little underwhelming) and Landy’s writing style is well-matched to the Tenth Doctor’s personality.
Finally, Neil Gaiman finishes the anthology with the Eleventh Doctor story “Nothing O’Clock.” Here, a dangerous race known as The Kin has escaped from a defunct Time Lord prison and is up to no good on 1980s Earth. The story borrows from current showrunner Steven Moffat’s tendency to take mundane things and make them terrifying—in this case, people in amusing masks, innocent questions, and selling a house. Its twists and world building rank it among the best (i.e. most coherent) Eleventh Doctor tales, and the writing, being Neil Gaiman’s, is the most charming in the anthology (if you like Neil Gaiman, as I do).
As a whole, then, the anthology more than overcomes its underwhelming start. Whether you’re an established Whovian or a noob who still abbreviates the show as Dr. Who (DON’T), 11 Doctors, 11 Stories is definitely worth reading.
Soul Eater Cosplay: Eruka Frog
Moving a long drive away from my seamstress mother led me to stop mooching off her sewing skills and finally teach myself how to sew. This is the result!
I chose Eruka Frog from Soul Eater as my first genuine sewing project because of the simplicity of the costume. Pattern-wise, it comes down to a polka-dotted sundress, long sleeve T-Shirt, tights, and boots, three of which can easily be purchased and used as-is*. However, her distinctive frog hat is also a must, and having never made a hat before, I wanted to tackle that, too.
*supposedly. I had a hard time finding white boots that weren’t cheap costume boots, but I assume they exist somewhere.
For the dress, I used Simplicity pattern 2176 and patterned cotton cloth. The pattern itself required minimal alterations, but the cloth I chose ended up presenting some small problems: The relative transparency of the polka dots made any seams behind the dots visible upon close examination, and of course, by the nature of patterned cloth, it was nearly impossible to make the polka dots flow seamlessly from piece to piece.
After the costume was finished, I happened upon several tutorials that suggested beginning with black cloth and painting the polka dots on once it was finished. Should I ever remake this costume, this might be the approach that I’ll take.
After the dress came the hat, which was loads of fun to make!
I used a combination of tutorials to guide the design. Shironotenshi’s at DeviantArt was the main one. I deviated from it some in that I used orange broadcloth instead of stretch cotton (for the main hat), Free Form Air instead of Sculpey (for the eyes), and that I didn’t use spray adhesive (for the internal batting) but rather sewed everything together after stuffing the upper portion.
I used broadcloth because it was cheap, and I (correctly) anticipated making many mistakes until everything came together nicely.
Free Form Air I used because I had it lying around anyway, and also because it is a very light material that was less likely to weigh down and disfigure the hat. It’s also easy to sand, which enabled me to get a nice, round, eye-like shape with minimal effort. And while we’re on it, to mold the eyes, I just plopped the stuff in a 2” wide PVC pipe cap, stuck in some .25” O-rings, and let it dry. (Should you want to do this, note that you’ll want to line the cap with something like plastic wrap to prevent the Free Form Air from sticking to the mold.)
When it came to determining the size of the brim, I found the earlier tutorials too vague, so I switched to this one, which helped me determine the brim size using the magic of math!
The hat was easily my favorite part of the project. Ultimately, a combination of incorrectly estimating the size of my head and having to make an extra seam (and thus lose .25”) ended up making it a little too small, but overall I think it came out quite well.
The costume debuted at a local con earlier this year, but is not as finished as I intend it to be. About a week before the con, I remembered that I hadn’t secured any white boots, so I attempted to convert an old pair of black leather boots. This ended disastrously, thus necessitating an emergency shoe change.
From now on, I’ll listen to tutorials when they tell me not to use regular spray paint on leather boots.
Because of some admittedly amateurish mistakes, I’ll likely remake parts of the costume in the future (bigger hat, more accurate polka dots on the dress, etc.). However, for the first project I completed entirely on my own, I was quite pleased with the result.
In the future, I hope to add boots (of course), Eruka’s suitcase, and possibly a Tadpole Jackson prop.
Thief’s Covenant – Book Review
Once she was Adrienne Satti, an orphan with a rags-to-riches story. Now she is Widdershins, a thief with a sharp blade, a sharper wit, and help from a secret god living in her head. But now something horrid, something dark, is reaching out for her, a past that refuses to let her go…
So declares the back of Thief’s Covenant by Ari Marmell.
I first encountered this title when researching books that read like video games, and after reading it, am surprised that it took me the effort of research to actually find out about it. It’s a title that has appeal for a wide variety of audiences. Fans of historical adventure, low fantasy, kick-butt heroines, good old-fashioned sneakery, and playing stealth games solely to climb on things will all find something to like in this novel.
The most perfect audience for Thief’s Covenant is the teen who just wants to play Assassin’s Creed but has a book report due tomorrow that hasn’t even been started yet. It’s quick, it’s witty, and its combination of stealth tactics, action, and political intrigue basically render it Assassin’s Creed with a girl.
Widdershins herself deserves to rank among fan-favorite heroines like Graceling’s Katsa and pretty much every Tamora Pierce heroine. She’s quick-witted, adaptable, determined, and in no way is she going to let the powers that be step all over her. When both the Davillon City Guard and Finders’ Guild (that is—ha—thieves’ guild) start harassing her for (mostly) unfounded reasons, she decides to show them both by stealing an item from a visiting dignitary—not because she actually wants the item, just to show that she won’t be so easily contained. Her very nickname suggests opposition, “widdershins” meaning “counterclockwise.” Of course, as exemplified by the aforementioned adventure, her determination sometimes (read: often) translates into headstrong recklessness. Widdershins frequently gets into trouble without the aid of any force but herself. For readers, this isn’t a bad thing. It’s fun to watch her fall into exponentially worsening trouble because it means she’ll have to do something equivalently clever to get out of it, which she frequently does.
She’s also too busy running from the City Guard, Finders’ Guild thugs, other people who generally want her dead, and oh, demons, to have time for a romance, which is a refreshing change from other heroines whose goals are complicated by the two hot guys vying for their attentions.
Her relationship with the god in her head, Olgun, is fascinating, too, as is the entire concept of religion in this setting. Davillon’s is a faith centered around a Pact of 147 acknowledged gods, from which families and organizations choose to take as household deities and official patrons. The gods are active in the city, visible through tangible boons granted to worshippers; Widdershins’ in particular helps her thievery in subtle ways. These gods also regulate the behavior of the city; organizations with patron gods of the Pact can’t openly attack one another without violating the Pact, which is why the City Guard can’t take on the Finder’s Guild without resorting to sneaky methods (or otherwise starting a war). The resulting tension, combined with a plot involving the history of Widdershins’ personal god, makes this religion one of the most interesting pieces of world-building in the book.
The writing itself is another strength of the novel. The prose is peppered with amusing, ironic wit, and the style balances the derring-do and drama quite well, never becoming too over-the-top or too melodramatic. Also, despite being the first book in a series, the story functions as a standalone, and thus is a welcome departure from the cliffhanger endings favored by other YA series starters.
For squeamish readers, it’s worth noting that the novel opens in the midst of carnage involving a ton of murdered bodies that have been hacked into such fine pieces that the characters can’t figure out which body parts belong to which victim. However, that is by far the worst of the violence in the book, and most that occurs is pretty standard for a book of this type.
Overall, Thief’s Covenant is a solid start to a promising series. I look forward to reading more!
***
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Department 19 – Book Review
From book jacket: When Jamie Carpenter’s mother is kidnapped, he finds himself dragged into Department 19, the government’s most secret agency. Fortunately for Jamie, Department 19 can provide the tools he needs to find his mother, and to kill the vampires who want him dead. But unfortunately for everyone, something much older is stirring, something even Department 19 can’t stand up against…
I read Department 19 at the frequent recommendation of one of my regular teens at the library. His enthusiasm for the series, combined with the first entry’s shamelessly and splendidly Expendables-like cover, led me to expect the best in ridiculous action movie-style epicness. Unfortunately, the book never truly lives up to the anticipated epicness, but it’s still a pretty fun read for readers who are willing to put up with its flaws.
Department 19 follows the classic Teenager Discovers Dark and Awesome Family History and Suddenly Has An Important Coming of Age Adventure plot. In this case, unbeknownst to his family, Jamie’s father was secretly a member of the titular vampire-hunting organization, and his family’s relevance in the organization ensures him an eventual place in it, as is Department 19 tradition. First, though, he has to rescue his mom and earn that place.
The novel is basically an entertaining read. It’s rarely short on action, there are plenty of fun vampire-hunting gadgets and codenames for things (The series’ main weapon is called a T-Bone because it’s a big stake GET IT? xD ), and the story’s world is derived from classic monster literature (Department 19 itself was founded by the main characters in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and Jamie’s partner/bodyguard is Frankenstein’s monster).
Its flaws are mainly found in its structure and characters. One would expect a novel with a cover like this to explode to a start and never really slow down; however, despite most chapters involving an action scene of some sort, the novel’s momentum takes a long time to build, and even then never hits a healthy stride. A lot of this is due to the fact that the novel is actually composed of several different stories taking place in different time periods—Jamie’s storyline, the founders’ and founders’ descendants’ storyline, Jamie’s father’s storyline, and a few random other storylines. None of the stories are necessarily uninteresting, but the way in which they’re interwoven slows the pace down a lot. Sometimes the amount of information gained from the non-Jamie chapters is so insignificant, too, that I wondered why the author chose to revolve a whole chapter and action scene around something that could have been conveyed in a single expository paragraph. A few chapters and even a few characters are introduced in detail only to have no impact on the story whatsoever! Also, most of the characters, while Action Movie Cool, are not very engaging on an individual level, and many of their decisions seem very noodly in logic. Characters switch allegiances and drop plot twist bombs out of nowhere, and near the end it happens so frequently that parts of the climax just make you go WHUT. But then vampires start attacking, and the high octane combined with the fact that these vampires explode gloriously (goriously?) when staked provides enough distraction to carry through the end of the novel.
Another major flaw is that the novel stretches suspension of disbelief a little far. One expects to suspend at least a little disbelief in stories like this, but Department 19 expects readers to believe that, despite his father being somewhat reviled in the organization, Jamie can sass and faux-tough-guy his way into getting Department 19 officers to give him the resources needed to help fight the vampires who kidnapped his mom. The organization does, but it’s in an “UGH, OKAY,” kind of way, which strikes me as highly unrealistic even in a setting like this. I can’t think of any functional government organization that would willingly, much less begrudgingly, bestow crazypants anti-vampire weaponry on a teenager who 1) didn’t even believe that vampires existed until yesterday, and 2) is not very good at acting tough or competent in the first place. Especially when he is stupid enough to run to the aid of a hot vampire girl and not expect her to try to tear out his throat (which also happens). Yet somehow, the novel also expects readers to believe that, after a mere 48 hours of training, Jamie can nearly ace a testing simulation that provides a challenge even to seasoned agents.
Pacing and believability flaws aside, though, Department 19 is ultimately an entertaining read. When taken as individual units, the chapters actually read pretty quickly, and though there were points when I became exasperated with Jamie’s silly heroics and the useless detail, I never stopped enjoying the book. I just wish that it had been written more efficiently.
Black Hole Sun – Book Review
Durango is a sixteen-year-old soldier with souped-up symbiarmor and a sassy AI planted in his brain. He once held a position of prestige in the Regulator forces of Mars, but has since been disgraced, reduced to a dalit—an outcast—surviving solely on small mercenary jobs. He’s just what the people of Fisher Four have been looking for. Children have been disappearing from this forgotten mining colony, taken as tribute by the Draeu, never to return. The Draeu are cannibals. They believe a treasure is hidden in the dead tunnels of Fisher Four’s mines, and they’ll do anything to get it. The miners are just as desperate to keep them out. They’ll even hire a dalit.
Black Hole Sun by David MacInnis Gill is an amusing, action-packed sci-fi romp through the dystopian dusts of Mars. Readers have seen stories like it before—Some have compared it to Firefly because of its (very) vague Western flair and the snappy interactions between its characters—so it doesn’t break any new ground, but that doesn’t stop it from being a fun read. The banter that flows between Durango and his AI, Mimi, and later the davos (squad) that he assembles keeps the story flowing at a jaunty pace. The story itself is heavily plot-focused, which makes it great for readers who just want a straightforward adventure, as opposed to loads of eccentric world-building and science-babble. There is just enough setting detail to make the world of futuristic Mars interesting, but it never gets bogged down in itself. It doesn’t even dwell very much on its dystopian elements—they’re just a part of the setting, which is refreshing, considering how heavy-handed dystopian reads can be about their settings’ injustices. Durango isn’t interested in overthrowing injustice, anyway, but just finishing up this job, and the scale that this lends to the novel is another of its refreshing parts. It’s cool to meet a hero who’s not out on an epic quest to save the whole solar system.
For the kind of novel that it is, its weak points are few. There’s not much in the way of character arcs, but the characters themselves are fun enough to read that it doesn’t matter. Some of the reveals are predictable, and the whole mechanic behind Durango’s disgrace—that, when a davos leader is killed in battle, his soldiers are expected to commit honorable suicide to follow him (Obviously, Durango didn’t)—is somewhat silly. Granted, it fits in with the Regulators’ strict adherence to their Tenets and their Viking-like interests in Valhalla and Beautiful Deaths, but on a basic level, a tradition like that is simply a waste of valuable soldiers.
Overall, though, Black Hole Sun is a space adventure well worth its quick read.
The Order of Odd-Fish – Book Review
In the pre-Adventure Time days, there was no easy way to describe James Kennedy’s The Order of Odd-Fish. After all, how does one simply describe a book that is equal parts the snap-quick grotesquerie of Roald Dahl, the cracked-out madness of every late-late-night cartoon, and even the bizarre randomness of a select band of comedy anime? There is no simple way to cover all that. Or at least there wasn’t. Not before Adventure Time. But now I can say this about The Order of Odd-Fish:
This book reads exactly like Adventure Time, and it is a glorious, glorious thing.
From the back cover: Jo Larouche has lived her thirteen years in the California desert with her aunt Lily, ever since she was dropped on Lily’s doorstep with this note: “This is Jo. Please take care of her. But beware. This is a DANGEROUS baby.” Soon worsening circumstances lead Jo and Lily out of California forever—and into the fantastical world of Eldritch City. There Jo learns the scandalous truth about who she really is, and she and Lily join the Order of Odd-Fish, a colorful collection of knights who research useless information. Glamorous cockroach butlers, pointless quests, obsolete weapons, and bizarre festivals fill Jo and Lily’s days, but two villains—one quite silly and one more demonic than you can possibly imagine—control their fate. Jo is inching closer and closer to the day when her destiny will be fulfilled, and no one in Eldritch City will ever be the same.
Odd-Fish is a book unlike any book that I’ve ever read. It shares similarities with the whimsical worlds of Roald Dahl and Norton Juster’s The Phantom Tollbooth, but takes the absurdity inherent in such worlds and turns it up to eleven, with hilarious results. It might actually be the most hilarious book I’ve ever read.
The amazing thing about Odd-Fish, though, is not that laugh-out-loud moments occur; it’s that they continue, and they keep continuing until you start wondering how much funny can possibly fit into a book and then realize that you’re still on the same scene, and there’s, blissfully, more to come. It’s not typical funny, though. I’ve read humor books that have literally kept me laughing from page to page, but these books all tackle rather normal topics—the humor and quirks of day-to-day activities, for example. Nothing in The Order of Odd-Fish is remotely normal. It is totally and utterly nonsensical and absurd and wonderful and I love it. It is a novel in which the main characters include a Russian colonel with digestion so sensitive it’s semi-conscious, a four-foot-tall talking cockroach who likes fancy purple suits, a Chinese millionaire who wants to be as evil as he can because he’s already done every good thing in the world that he can possibly do and is bored with it, a celebrity prankster terrorist (Just read the book), and a regular girl who is not as regular as she seems—a combination stranger and more eclectic than anything seen even in Eldritch City. It’s a setup so mad that, by all accounts, it shouldn’t work. But it does. Even when it’s using an idea that we’ve already seen (which is rare), it works, and it works brilliantly.
The book’s only significant shortcoming is, fittingly, as odd as the story itself. Odd-Fish is at its best for the first few hundred pages, when it’s simply a string of bizarre adventures involving Jo and her friends. Nearing its end, though, it decides that it needs to settle down and grow an actual plot. The conflict and climax that result are still entertaining, but they don’t have the spirit of the first chunk of the novel, which is disappointing.
Still, fans of the absurd are bound to find a favorite in this novel. The Order of Odd-Fish has a place of honor on my bookshelf, and I eagerly await James Kennedy’s next work, The Magnificent Moots, whenever it finally releases.
Pacific Rim: Tales from Year Zero – Book Review
One movie reviewer commented that the Pacific Rim movie watched like a sequel to a previous movie that the filmmakers forgot to make. This was possibly due to its quick prologue, which summed up the movie’s tagline (“To fight monsters we created monsters”) via disaster montage and then fast forwarded to the present of the movie’s story.
The graphic novel prequel Pacific Rim: Tales from Year Zero by Travis Beacham aims to fill the gap left by that prologue. As audience goes, it’s primarily for readers who think Pacific Rim was the best use of Hollywood resources EVER, but also agree with that reviewer in that the film could have used a bit more character development and backstory.
For those who are unfamiliar with Pacific Rim, here is its premise: Enormous monsters called Kaiju have come to earth through an inter-dimensional rift and plan on wiping out humanity because plot. Lacking any effective defense, humanity builds giant robots called Jaegers to fight them, and then they wail on each other for two hours. There is more to the story than that, but ultimately it comes down to “GIANT ROBOTS VS. GIANT MONSTERS,” and if you’re looking for more than that, Pacific Rim: Tales from Year Zero is not for you.
As the graphic novel’s title suggests, its story begins when the first Kaiju attacks and proceeds to cover the development of the first Jaegers, along with the emotional tumult that the characters go through when creating them. Overall, it’s a better-than-average book. For a story that moves as quickly as it does, it manages to pack in a lot of good character moments, with some of the most memorable characters being those who don’t even get that much page time (Not to say that they’re characters that will be memorable beyond the book—because they won’t—but they’re neat while they’re in the story). When characters from the movie eventually show up, their actions and dialogue are consistent with those of their movie selves. This is even true of fan-favorite Stacker Pentecost, the subtle bada** whose appeal in the movie was so intrinsically tied to Idris Elba’s performance. The art is a bit higher-quality than one would expect of a simple movie tie-in—stylish, with a few really good, high-action panel arrangements—but nothing spectacular for the reader spoiled on most recent comic art. It’s a quick read, and worth it if you already like Pacific Rim. However, how much you like the graphic novel itself will depend upon your reaction to this final point: There’s almost no Jaeger vs. Kaiju action in this thing.
This is logical, since the Jaegers only barely exist at this point in the story’s chronology, but readers who were hoping for continuous giant-monster-face-punching action like that seen in the movie will be sorely disappointed. The few combat scenes that exist are well-illustrated, which somewhat makes up for the general lack, but ultimately, Pacific Rim: Tales from Year Zero is more interested in its characters than its Kaiju. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In fact, I didn’t notice the lack of action until I’d finished the book, I was so distracted by everything else. Still, it’s a bit jarring in retrospect, since so much of the movie’s appeal rests in its over-the-top action sequences.
Ultimately, though, Pacific Rim: Tales from Year Zero is a good little read. It’s not likely to be remembered, even by the movie’s most enthusiastic fans, but it’s a fun way for a fan to spend an hour while wishing for Pacific Rim 2.
Future Diary, Volume 1 – Book Review
Yukiteru Amano is a perpetual bystander. Since he prefers not to interact with other people, he occupies his time by keeping a cell phone diary of random goings-on that occur around him. Oh, and by hanging out with his imagined friend Deus ex Machina, the God of Time and Space…who, Yuki finds, is not so imaginary after all. Seeing that Yuki could use a bit of excitement in his life, Deus decides that a game is in order. He gives Yuki and eleven anonymous people the ability to know the future via cell phone diaries—Future Diaries—and then baits them with this challenge: The last one remaining will inherit his position as the God of Time and Space. Yuki must now fight for his life.
Future Diary Volume 1 by Sakae Esuno reads like it wanted to rank on the same tier as Death Note and Eden of the East, but could never get itself together before the artist’s production deadline. It follows a similar structure as the aforementioned epic mysteries, giving common people extraordinary and morally complicated power and then forcing them to use it while combating unknown forces that are out to end them. However, the suspense that rose so perfectly in those series falls flat here, mostly due to disappointing characters and too-easy information reveals.
Yuki is not engaging as a protagonist; he doesn’t do much with his life and doesn’t think he’s worth that much anyway, which doesn’t give him much to strive for, which in turn makes him an irritatingly passive main character, even when his life is at stake. His eventual companion Yuno Gasai is far more proactive in the story, serving as his defender—but only because she has an obsessively stalker-like interest in him, going to such lengths as triggering an enemy bomb to blow up a school full of people who refused to defend him. And yet we’re supposed to be sympathetic to these characters.
Most of the twists in the story come without much effort, too. Yuki doesn’t even have to work to find out that Yuno is the second Future Diary holder—she just pops up and reveals the fact to him. Most of the others in this volume do the exact same thing, which makes the anonymity of Deus’ setup seem rather useless. Deus himself is not especially useful in the story, either. He disappears totally once the game is fully explained, which makes me wonder if the writer didn’t just toss him in as an excuse to get the mayhem rolling and give the characters something to fight over.
If anything, the basic concept of the Future Diaries is neat. The participants don’t all receive the same information about the future; rather, their information comes through a filter based upon the kinds of information they kept on their phone before Deus’ game. Yuno’s unsurprisingly specific Yukiteru Diary only updates information about Yuki’s future, while another character’s Criminal Investigation Diary updates information about crimes, and another’s Escape Diary about the possibilities for escape in any situation. Yuki’s Random Diary contains the broadest picture of the future, but is rarely about his future, since he never wrote about himself in his own diary. These gaps in information alone could have played into a grand thriller of a plot, but they don’t even come close to doing so, much like the rest of the comic.
Future Diary is a paragon of squandered potential. It could have been a fantastic psychological thriller, but unfortunately, lost itself in unlikable characters and half-done everything.
Airman – Book Review
Conor Broekhart was made for the air. Born in the middle of a hot air balloon crash, he has ever since sought to reenter the atmosphere. As the student of a French aeronautics expert, not to mention a family friend of the king of the scientifically-curious Saltee Islands, he’s in a perfect position to make his dream of inventing a powered flying machine come true—until he’s framed for a murder that rocks the Saltees to their core. Imprisoned in the unforgiving dungeons beneath Little Saltee, Conor must now face despicable prison guards, manipulate dangerous gang members, and keep himself alive, all the while trying to escape. For he holds a secret that could change the fate of the Saltee Islands, and a certain murderous marshal doesn’t want it to be heard…
Eoin Colfer’s Airman is a fun, adventuresome romp through 1800s Ireland and the air beyond.
While the novel can appeal to readers of historical fiction, it is better read as an adventure scientist tale a la Indiana Jones. Attentive readers can learn a lot about the science and early history of powered flight from the story,but Airman is most interested in taking its readers on a daring journey from the depths of inhumane dungeons, into the atmosphere itself, and everywhere in between. It’s the kind of story in which the best scientists know how to swordfight, plans are secretly recorded on dungeon walls in bioluminescent moss, and gangs of spunky, witty street urchins are effortlessly assembled to aid the heroes. Which is to say, the stuff of Hollywood movies rather than history class. Still, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The novel succeeds at many other elements of the adventure scientist subgenre, with energetic action scenes and a memorable cast of colorful, properly exaggerated characters, even if some of the characterizations are obvious. (One character is named Bonvilain. Guess whose side he’s on.)
The only thing that I truly disliked about the story was its approach to the history of its setting. In Airman, the Saltee Islands are an itty bitty group of islands off the Irish Coast that became a sovereign nation because a king, in a supreme act of royal sass, decided to put a complaining subject in his place by forcing him to rule over the useless plot of land. This promptly came back to bite said king, for massive amounts of diamonds were then discovered in the Saltees, and since the new king was awesome, he used this newfound wealth to create a utopia, where poverty was minimal, people lived happily and scientific innovations were always welcomed and encouraged. In reality, the Saltee Islands are one big HA HA NOPE. A quick visit to the islands’ website, http://www.salteeislands.info/, reveals that the only interesting things that the Saltees ever did were be a bird sanctuary, have some pirates, and trick ships into thinking they’d be fun to ram into. Which are all neat in their own ways, but not Benevolent-Ruler-Diamond-Mining-Utopia neat. But then again, this does fit Airman cleanly into the same genre of fiction where biblical artifacts can melt faces off Nazis, so historical accuracy isn’t really a requirement.
Overall, Airman is an entertaining read, especially for readers who are looking for a fun bit of historical escapism. Fans of historical fiction and adventure will definitely find something to like in it. For similar reasons, steampunk fans may also want to give it a try. (Even though it isn’t steampunk, its historical period and energetic approach to science echo elements of the best steampunk titles.)
Lizzie Newton: Victorian Mysteries, Volume 1 – Book Review
Lizzie Newton is equal parts Agatha Christie and Sherlock Holmes, a budding mystery writer who does more than write mysteries—She solves them, too. No one wants to believe this of her, though, because this is the Victorian era, after all, and women don’t do that sort of thing. This is why Lizzie must hide her talents behind a masculine pen name and send her deductions through her lawyer-in-training fiancé, Edwin. But this doesn’t stop her from traipsing onto crime scenes as she sees fit, prodding corpses, and showing up everyone who thinks she’s wrong with a cute grin and the power of logic and science.
I didn’t expect much of Hey-jin Jeon’s Lizzie Newton: Victorian Mysteries Volume 1 simply because I’d never heard of it before. Now that I’ve finished it, I can’t help but wonder why. It’s a true gem of a comic.
What’s most impressive about Lizzie Newton is the number of things that could have gone wrong in the comic compared to the number of things that it did very well. The illustration on the cover—wide-eyed Lizzie, smiling sweetly in a frilly dress—led me to expect the adventures of a vapid girly-girl who stumbles clumsily but adorably into her solutions because that’s what happens in manga where the protagonist is a cute girl. Lizzie is anything but. While she is absent-minded, it’s in an intellectual way—She’s so distracted by the thrill of solving a mystery that it never occurs to her that it is NOT OK to poke her finger into the bullet hole in a corpse’s head before the police even arrive to investigate the scene. And though she is, for all appearances, a cute Victorian lady with limited practical sense, there’s a real brain behind that bonnet, and a personal collection of books and scientific equipment to back it up. She’s a perfect combination of “feminine” cuteness and “masculine” logic, without being an exaggeration of either. Her relationship with Edwin is also refreshingly positive. Edwin himself is a capable (as opposed to amusingly bumbling) companion. Though he does, of course, become exasperated with Lizzie’s absent-mindedness, he’s ultimately supportive of her investigative hobbies and does what he can to make Lizzie’s discoveries known—in her name. In fact, in addition to portraying a female protagonist who is productively interested in science (as opposed to using science for comedic, explosive effect), the comic makes a notable effort to say, “You know that famous male scientist who discovered that thing? Yeah, half of that work was done by an un-credited woman” (in this face, Ada Lovelace, who wrote the language for the Analytical Engine that preceded Charles Babbage’s unfinished Difference Engine). Yet none of these feministic elements are ever preachy. Lizzie Newton is definitely a Girl Power/Girl-Who-is-GASP-Interested-In-Science book, but it’s more interested in its amusing characters and the details of its plot to dwell on the social concerns that it brings up.
Plot-wise, it’s an interesting whodunit, though the process Lizzie follows to solve the mystery is more interesting than the mystery itself. I never really cared about who may or may not have killed whom in the story, but that was mostly because 1) they were background characters anyway, and 2) the rest of the comic is more interesting.
The art in the book is also worth a mention. The detail that artist Ki-ha Lee puts into costumes and settings is reminiscent of Yana Toboso’s Black Butler, as is the occasional tonal shift between dark, dramatic illustration and funny chibis. In fact, I’d go as far to say that this manga is what Black Butler would be if it involved a detective and an actual point. Tonally, the two are almost identical (even if their stories are ABSOLUTELY dissimilar). The care put into the artwork also recalls Kaoru Mori’s Emma, which was noted for its artist’s obsessive interest in Victorian details, even if her character designs were a bit blah. Lee’s designs lean more toward Toboso’s distinct, expressive characters. Either way, the artwork is lovely and enough reason, on its own, to read the book.
Lizzie Newton: Victorian Mysteries, then, is an excellent manga for readers who enjoy a good mystery with wonderful art, a dash of scientific investigation, and a sneaky lot of girl power spunk. (Note: The back of the book claims that it also contains “a spot of Jane Austen,” which it doesn’t, unless you count the fact that Lizzie shares a name with one of Austen’s protagonists. Also Jane Austen was Regency, not Victorian, so GET YOUR LITERARY PERIODS STRAIGHT, MARKETERS. Anyway, regardless, Austenites are likely to enjoy it because frilly dresses and pride-and-prejudice-smackdowns and stuff.)