THE GENOME – Sergei Lukyanenko

Posted by Daniel on November 1, 2019
Posted in: SF/FANTASY. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

Ummmm … okay, where do I start?

We’re some time in the far future.  There are two kinds of people … “naturals” and “speshes” – those with special abilities that help them navigate through a modern world.  Alexander Romanov is a pilot of extreme ability as he is able to communicate directly, mentally, with his ship.  But this spesh ability comes at a cost … he is no longer able to love. He now has a mysterious assignment for which he needs to put together a team, a crew, who will trust him even if he doesn’t give them much information.  Along the way, he encounters a teen girl who is an assassin spesh but she might just be more than that, which would make her unique even among speshes.

The first part of this book was moderately interesting and I thought I’d be in for a pretty fun ride.  I liked the idea of the speshes – even if it isn’t the most unique of science fiction themes.

But the book didn’t go anywhere!  We spend more than half the book with Alexander acquiring his crew and his defending his hiring of the teen girl (with whom he spends some intimate time). And there is a murder, very late into the book, at which point it almost becomes a mystery-in-space novel.

I was reminded, as I looked through my highlights and notes after finishing, that in his dedication Lukyanenko writes: “The author is fully aware that many will deem this novel cynical and immoral. …”  While I didn’t get a sense of cynicism and the immoral could be found in his treatment of women throughout the book, this was almost wishful thinking – daring us to be offended by his work.  But not for the right reason.  I was offended because I didn’t go anywhere with this story.

I do often wonder, at books like this, how much of this comes down to the translation and how much of this comes down to different expectations in literature from the prevailing society. Perhaps the Russian readers of sci-fi would find this immoral and cynical.

Mostly we spend time hashing and rehashing the nature of speshes and the relationship between Alex and Kim (the young fighter spesh). And this just becomes so odd.  When we are introduced to the character of Kim we see that she is clearly able to defend herself (it’s what she was trained for!) and yet she needs to be protected and loved by Alex … who is incapable of love!  It’s an interesting theme, but I don’t need almost 500 pages to get it.

Looking for a good book?  Unless you are really interested in reading Russian science fiction you probably want to pass on The Genome by Sergei Lukyanenko.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

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The Genome

author: Sergei Lukyanenko

series: Геном #2

publisher: Open Road Media Science & Fantasy

ISBN: 1497643961

paperback, 496 pages

THE VANISHING BOX – Elly Griffiths

Posted by Daniel on October 31, 2019
Posted in: MYSTERY, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

This is my second venture into Elly Griffiths’ Magic Men Mystery series.  It’s a clever gimmick, combining magicians and the WWII era.

Max Mephisto and his daughter Ruby are headlining at the Brighton Hippodrome, the largest theatre in the city.  It’s a real coup for the aging magician to get a gig like this. Also performing on the same bill, though, is a tableau act with nearly naked women as living statues, recreating famous works of art. It’s daring and risque and not nearly as classy as an act should be at the Hippodrome. Things get even worse when girls go missing and are later found dead, killed and then set up into tableau poses.

I generally like what I’ve read in this series – it’s clever, well thought through, and generally a pretty smooth read. But for those of us who enjoy something just a little bit meatier, it’s also just a tad dull.

For the most part, this is a cozy mystery. This is a genre I’m typically not excited about – I don’t read mysteries to try to figure out who dunnit, but for the thrill of the hunt. The hunt here is interesting and methodical and I absolutely love the background of these characters.  The magician angle is interesting and the living portraits or tableau act is fascinating.  I know that living tableaus were somewhat popular a decade or so ago, here in the U.S., but I’m curious if there was such a thing in Britain in the 1950’s.  If there was, I can imagine the outrage and scandal it might have caused to have women naked or nearly naked in the name of ‘art’ for men to ogle.

This is the sort of series that I might pick up if I’m wandering a bookstore looking for something to read.  I wouldn’t be disappointed, but I wouldn’t be actively seeking out each new book in the series.

Looking for a good book? The Vanishing Box by Elly Griffiths is a serviceable mystery with great characters and settings but just lacks a little something extra that could make it really engaging.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

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The Vanishing Box

author: Elly Griffiths

series: Stephens & Mephisto Mystery #4

publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

ISBN: 0544750292

hardcover, 358 pages

SCHOOL FOR PSYCHICS – K. C. Archer

Posted by Daniel on October 29, 2019
Posted in: SF/FANTASY, Uncategorized, YA. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

Teddy Cannon is a smart, intuitive young woman. So much so that she’s been banned from many of the casinos in Las Vegas. Yet the rigors of getting an education and earning an ‘honest’ living never really sit well with Teddy.  She’s always been good at reading other people at the poker tables and that’s where she’s most comfortable. When she is discovered in a casino and about to be forcibly run out, a stranger intervenes.  A stranger who is looking to recruit Teddy.  Teddy, it seems, is not just good at reading people … she’s actually psychic.  The stranger runs a school for people like Teddy, training them to develop their skills and work for a branch of law enforcement set out to help people in a way that only someone like she can.

School has never been her ‘thing’ and she knows it will be a challenge, but the fact that there are others with special abilities, is encouraging and Teddy decides to give it a try.  But there are secrets at the school that Teddy begins to uncover that will continue to change the way she sees those who are supposed to be her friends.

I really had a lot of fun with this book right at the start.  Author K. C. Archer gives us a slightly stereotypical YA female protagonist, but Teddy isn’t a mooning little girl who develops passionate crushes on the cute guy in the book … well, that’s not entirely true.  She does do precisely this. The difference here is that this isn’t the heart of the story.  This is a little side action which sometimes feels included just to have all the bases covered for the YA audience.

Te introduction of Teddy and her introduction to this school for psychics is really well done.  It is engaging and exciting and we get a good feel for the struggles that Teddy faces as she learns about her abilities.  The friends, students, and instructors we meet along the way are nicely fleshed out and this takes on a very nice tone such that it feels quite believable.

But then we get into a new plotline.

Teddy learns some things that muddy her views on the school and those around her.  This new storyline is clearly devised to build a larger story arc that will encompass multiple books.  But somehow this new development is not nearly as interesting as what we were getting in the early stages.  And while it becomes a definite YA novel with a group of students taking on the adults in their world, which is a fairly common trope in YA, it also becomes less believable.   It was definitely a head-smacking moment when the students managed a crime against, and inside the building of, the FBI.

There’s a lot of fun here, and I am intrigued, but at the end of the book, I wasn’t as satisfied as I was during the early chapters.  How the stories play out in future books will decide the fate of this series, since the characters and the premise are definitely interesting.

Looking for a good book? School for Psychics by K. C. Archer is an adventurous YA fantasy that has a lot going for it, but falls just short on delivering a strong story.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

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School for Psychics

author: K. C. Archer

series: School for Psychics #1

publisher: Simon Schuster

ISBN: 150115933X

paperback, 368 pages

SWEDE HOLLOW – Ola Larsmo

Posted by Daniel on October 28, 2019
Posted in: HISTORICAL FICTION, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

Gustaf and Anna Klar take their three children and leave Sweden for America in 1897.  Their arrival in New York is not the smooth venture they hoped for as Ellis Island is devastated by a fire just after their arrival.  Conditions in New York City also prove challenging to the immigrants with work hard to come by, especially for a man who doesn’t speak the language. And so the Klars move once more, this time to Minnesota, encouraged by someone they befriended on the ship crossing.

They settle in an area known as Swede Hollow. This is a rough community of Irish, Italian, and Swedish immigrants scrabbling for day job that might bring in a few pennies. It is not the sort of life that one easily puts behind them, but the Klars persevere and look forward, not back.

There were a number of reasons that this book appealed to me, mostly having to do with my own heritage. I felt that the struggles that the Klar family went through were not that unusual for immigrants (not then, not now). Imagine, then, how hard things must have been in order to leave the known life for something so uncertain.

Here is the one moment, however, that I felt was unnecessary … creating a dramatic reason for leaving Sweden. As evidenced by books such as The Emigrants by Vilhelm Moberg, and some of our own family stories, life in Sweden was extremely difficult and the challenges of raising enough funds to take a dangerous journey across the ocean for the possibility of a better life outweighed the conditions at home. They didn’t need the kind of motivation that the Klars had.

The hardships endured feel very real, but I really liked how author Larsmo instilled a stoic sense of perseverance among the family.   They never say out loud “keep your chin up” or motivate one another – it is just who they are. It’s a very familiar sense to many of us who grew up in a Scandinavian-heritage household.

I couldn’t help but make comparisons, as I was reading, to the previously mentioned The Emigrants (and succeeding novels) by Moberg. There are many of the same themes here detailing the struggles of Swedish immigrants in the late 1800’s. I would hope that anyone who might find one of these books interesting would go on to read the other.

This is not a story about the location ‘Swede Hollow’ as much as it is a story about people – the people who made up Swede Hollow … those who persevered and those who struggled continuously.  It is well worth reading.

Looking for a good book? Swede Hollow by Ola Larsmo is a book of historical fiction detailing the immigrant plight and struggles to make a better life in Midwest America at the end of the 19th century.  It is a valuable read.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review.

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Swede Hollow

author: Ola Larsmo

translator: Tiina Nunnally

publisher: University of Minnesota Press

ISBN: 151790451X

hardcover, 312 pages

THE BITTERROOTS – C. J. Box

Posted by Daniel on October 25, 2019
Posted in: MYSTERY, Uncategorized, WESTERN. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

I had not read any C. J. Box books before going into this, but a librarian friend recommended Box based on my enjoyment of the Longmire novels by Craig Johnson. And I’m glad she did.

The Bitterroots is either the fourth book in the Cassie Dewell series or the fifth book in the Highway Quartet series … or both.  I can’t quite figure out what Goodreads is trying to tell me. However, it was somewhat apparent through the course of the book that private investigator Cassie Dewell had a history – that she’d previously been involved in other cases that readers had access to.  Sometimes this was pretty strong as we’re led to believe that at least one of these cases might be coming back to haunt her. But despite this, author Box does a great job of providing us with a story that is solid and complete with these hints of previous stories.

Cassie Dewell is a former cop turned P.I. As a single parent, she is also trying to find a way to spend more time with her teenage son when an old friend contacts her and asks for a favor.  The friend, Rachel Mitchell, is a defense attorney with Mitchell-Estrella law firm. Rachel’s latest client is Blake Kleinsasser who’s been accused of molesting and sexually assaulting the fifteen-year-old daughter of his younger brother. As a former police office, Cassie doesn’t like defense attorneys too much and the evidence against Kleinsasser is overwhelming and Cassie just wants the pedophile put away.  Mitchell convinces Cassie that if Cassie can verify all the evidence then Kleinsasser will be urged to take a plea deal instead of defending his claims of innocence.

Early on Cassie is warned that the Kleinsasser family is highly dysfunctional and control nearly all of the town. She also learns that Blake, the eldest son who stood to inherit the most, was disowned by the family when he left for the East Coast to make his own fortune.  That the family isn’t happy about his return visit would be putting it mildly. That they don’t trust his reappearance would be closer to the truth.

Even though Cassie is looking to confirm the evidence and allegations in order to put Blake away for the rest of his life, her investigation appears to rattle some of the locals and soon she is a target for the Kleinsasser-controlled police and some unidentified attackers.  Against her own instincts and wishes, Cassie begins to feel that Blake may have been set up.

I love the character of Cassie.  She’s knowledgeable and strong but also a worried parent, trying to balance of life with her dangerous career and looking after a teen boy (that alone can be a challenge!).  Character can really make a difference in a mystery like this and Cassie is one of the better ones I’ve come across!

The supporting characters mostly stand out, unique (I had some trouble remembering which Kleinsasser’s were which) and came across as real people and not just stock characters for a book.

The story moves along swiftly with the mystery unfolding at just the right speed to keep the reader interested and in the know.  There’s plenty of action and danger and there are some twists and turns along the way, which is always fun in a book of this sort.

There was one moment of the investigation that changed things for Cassie late in the story, which was suggested or hinted at early on.  But the suggestion (and bit of evidence) was obvious enough for me, even then, to want to pursue that line of research.  I felt that someone with Cassie’s abilities would have, or should have, jumped onto that line of investigation. But of course, if she had, the book would have been over much sooner.  Still, it did detract just enough for me

Overall, I really enjoyed this and would look forward to another C. J. Box book.

Looking for a good book? The Bitterroots by C. J. Box is a delightful Cassie Dewell mystery that is quick to read, with a strong central character, and a mostly well-developed mystery.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

* * * * * *

The Bitterroots

author: C. J. Box

series: Cassie Dewell #4; The Highway Quartet #5

publisher: Minotaur Books

ISBN: 1250051053

hardcover, 310 pages

THE BODY LIBRARY – Jeff Noon

Posted by Daniel on October 23, 2019
Posted in: SF/FANTASY, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

First we had Franz Kafka, writing early in the 20th century, then we had Philip K. Dick and Harlan Ellison some fifty years later keeping readers on edge and on their toes with fiction that shattered our perception of reality.  And now we have Jeff Noon.

John Nyquist has a mystery to solve.  He wakes up in a room to find a dead body near him. But finding the killer might be the easiest part of navigating in the city where everything is just part of a larger story.  Literally.  And I mean, literally.

I had been impressed with the first book in the series, A Man of Shadows, and looked forward to this volume, but I couldn’t come close to imagining how deeply inventive this was going to get.  I knew, though, that I was in for a wild ride as I read the last paragraphs of the opening chapter:

“They’re moving,” she said. “The words are crawling on his skin.”
Marcus didn’t believe her at first; he thought she must be mistaken. But he knelt down at Andrea’s side and saw the truth, and he felt sick. Neither of them spoke for a while. The only sound in the library came from the pages of the books as they rustled on the shelves.
All the empty pages.
Among them lay a man covered in stories.

If part of what makes for a fun, adventurous read is, as Bruce Coville once said, the “Cool Things Per Page” quotient, then this book jumps right to the head of the pack. From words moving on skin – a person literally part of a story – to the idea that “the pages of a book can be burned and the smoke inhaled … it has an effect on the reader,” to ‘Alphabugs’ – “they make their nests out of paper … the paper has to have words on it, and then the larvae hatch out and they eat the words.”

But no matter how great or creative an idea is, there still has to be character and story and Noon has that here in spades as well. Nyguist is a Sam Spade in an Alice in Wonderland world. We have no doubt that he will succeed in his goal, but the journey here is everything and this journey is about stories (“In this city you’re nothing unless you’re in a story”) and Nyquist has to sort out not only the murder but the stories surrounding him as well. “I don’t know where I am,” he says at one point. “I don’t know what story I’m in.” Together, Nyquist and reader will figure it out.

I haven’t enjoyed this kind of a read – speculative fiction – in a long time (other than the previous Nyquist volume) and it was an absolute delight to be here.

Looking for a good book? To use the words of one of author Jeff Noon’s characters from the book itself, “The Body Library is a novel, a book, and a rather special one at that.”  If you miss reading creative fiction of the sort that was produced so well by authors like Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Harlan Ellison, or Philip K. Dick, then you must read Jeff Noon’s The Body Library.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

*All quotes from an Advanced Reader Copy and may not reflect the final, published version of the book.

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The Body Library

author: Jeff Noon

series: John Nyquist #2

publisher: Angry Robot

ISBN: 0857666738

paperback, 384 pages

THE SISTERS MEDEROS – Patrice Sarath

Posted by Daniel on October 21, 2019
Posted in: SF/FANTASY, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

Once one of the wealthiest merchant families in Port Saint Frey, the Mederos family are now disgraced. Sisters Yvienne and Tesara Mederos are convinced that something, or someone, sinister has been at work to bring down the The House Mederos and they are determined to restore the family name and the riches due, and exact revenge. But their plans take off too well and move on beyond their control and they may be forced to take actions that they themselves find reprehensible. But Tesara is holding on to a secret thought that perhaps it was her fault – her magic – that resulted in the loss of the family’s fleet.

I was really drawn into this book quite well early on. These characters are strong and independent and I really liked that. I found the characters to be quite real and interesting, which is usually important for me to be pulled into a story.

Our setting is (or appears to be) around early 1800’s Italy and the fact that we have these strong women taking action and not needing to rely on men to finish things for them, or to open the way for them, is really refreshing. They each have skills that they use to get them what they want (and it isn’t just feminine charms).

But while I liked this book at the start it really wore down.  I felt that the story drew on and on, repeating itself and this bored me. Rather than a story unfolding, revealing information gradually along the way, we get a big dose of information early, and then we wander around for awhile before getting back into the story.

I was a bit frustrated by Tesara’s magic.  I never quite figured out if this is something rare in this world, or common. And we don’t really learn anything about the source of her magic – is this inherited? A gift?

There was enough here to have me interested and want to read more, but not enough here to have me offer up a recommendation.

Looking for a good book? The Sister Mederos by Patrice Sarath starts out well and offers strong female characters, but the story wanders and doesn’t really hold the reader’s interest.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

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The Sisters Mederos

author: Patrice Sarath

series: Tales of Port Saint Frey #1

publisher: Angry Robot

ISBN: 0857667750

paperback, 368 pages