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Space Opera on TV: Defying Gravity
Description from Hulu.com:
The Fire King by Marjorie Liu
The Premise: The heroine of this story is Soria, a woman with an extraordinary ability to pick up languages. It’s always been the case since she was a child, and people call her a prodigy. They don’t realize that it’s magic, and that the mere presence of a fluent speaker is all she needs. It was a useful gift when she was with the Dirk and Steele agency, but after the loss of her right arm, Soria had a falling out with them and left. Unexpectedly, the agency makes another appearance in her life: they want her to go to China, and speak to Karr, a mysterious shape-shifter who speaks no known language.
This is a Dirk and Steele novel (#9?), but you don’t have to read this series in order to enjoy the book. I had only read book 1 before this.
Read an Excerpt
My Thoughts: The first part of the book had me hooked on the characters and wanting to learn their back story. First: a heroine who recently lost her arm?! From what I could tell it happened about a year before this story starts, and Soria’s still recovering from it (feeling it’s ghost, being aware of people’s reactions). I was burning with curiosity about what happened and why Soria blames herself for it. Tantalizing hints were dropped like breadcrumbs, but it wasn’t enough to figure out the whole story. I had to wait until Soria told it.
Likewise Karr’s story is mysterious as well. How in the world is he alive after three thousand years in a tomb? Then, what is he? At first I thought he was feared because he was so strong and killed a few people when he woke up, but that wasn’t the only reason. The cover of the book is a little deceptive – it has a lion on it. I thought he was a lion shapeshifter. Nope, not quite.
The book has a bit of a romantic suspense quality to it mixed with the paranormal elements. Both protagonists are cautious about each other (Friend or foe? Are my instincts right?), but they also have to deal with complex plots surrounding Karr and what people want with him. The romance was about equal to the suspense and action. It progresses at a natural rate, and by the time the two say their “I love yous” it’s a given. I thought that although Karr is over 3000 the age difference didn’t count because he’d been “dead” most of the time. The romance was nicely paced. Although it did a lot of things I expected, I did like how communication is explored in their relationship.
The plot was complex enough for me to like it. There were some not quite black or white parts to the characters and some surprises. By the end of the book things made sense, but I had to think it over a bit, which isn’t a bad thing. On the other hand, I felt like I’d wake up in the middle of the night saying “a-ha a plot hole!”, because I had a nagging feeling at the end of the book, but it’s been a few days and that didn’t happen yet. There very minor things like how Soria could make braids with one hand or how Karr and Soria’s mental connection worked, but not enough to really bug me while I read. I guess the biggest problem I had was that the protagonists kept getting helped out by others. I would have like to see more of them working together to get out of jams, because I liked seeing them interact.
One of my favorite parts of the book was the setting – in northern China and Mongolia. The non-American setting, where the reader is really aware of life in another country, not just aware the book is set there and nothing else, is refreshing. I particularly enjoyed reading about the ger of the Bhatukhan people (I wanted to sleep in one!)
Overall: I like the writing style, the setting, the characters. The romance progressed at a nice pace, and although it goes through some familiar phases, their bond of communication was intriguing. I had only minor quibbles on the plot (see above). I don’t read as much paranormal romance as I do urban fantasy, so my reading in this genre is limited, but I thought this one was well-done.
Buy: Amazon | B&N
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Around the web: Soulless cover art
Look familiar? I was surfing the web and discovered Clockwork Couture, A Fine Steampunk Clothier, and their photoshoot for the Victorian 2 piece Traveling Suit ($320) was used for the cover of Soulless by Gail Carriger: “A high Chinese colar and cuffs adorned with black lace, along with small matching fabric-covered buttons, accent the long-sleeved bodice of our 2 piece, khaki satin lined, taffeta suit which is completed by the full-length skirt with attached bustle and train.”
You can see more details of the umbrella in the original picture, but I love the color of the suit on the book cover, plus the darkening of the model’s skin because the main character, Alexia Tarabotti is supposed to have an Italian complexion. I also love the London background that Orbit books added. I reviewed Soulless over here: vox | wordpress | LJ
Anyway: cool. 🙂
Naamah’s Kiss by Jacqueline Carey
Jane Austen in Scarsdale Or Love, Death, and the SATs by Paula Marantz Cohen
Ten upcoming movies based on books (in order of release)
1. The Time Traveler’s Wife based on the book by Audrey Niffenegger, comes out August 14th.
2. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, based on the book by Judi Barrett (illustrated by Ron Barrett), comes out September 18th.
3. Where the Wild Things Are, based on the book by Maurice Sendak, comes out October 16th
4. The Road, based on the book Cormac McCarthy, comes out October 16th
5. Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant, based on the series by Darren Shan comes out October 29th
6. New Moon, based on the second book by Stephenie Meyer comes out November 20th
7. Fantastic Mr. Fox, based on the book by Roald Dahl, comes out Thanksgiving (November 26th)
8. The Lovely Bones, based on the book by Alice Sebold, comes out December 11th
9. Sherlock Holmes, based on the books by Arthur Conan Doyle comes out Christmas
10. Alice in Wonderland, based on the books by Lewis Carroll, comes out 2010
Ariel by Steven R. Boyett
I heard of this book through the Hidden Gems Forum of paperbackswap. Someone had posted about this book as a Gem from their childhood and said it was a story about a boy and his unicorn in a post apocalyptic landscape. I was intrigued. This excellent review at Lost Books cinched my wanting to read it. Unfortunately this book was hard to find because it was last published in 1984, and I had to set up an alert for it to find it at a decent price used. That’s why I’m glad it’s being republished this year, August 25th.
This review is based on what I recall from reading it last year.
The Premise: Pete is a high school student in Florida when suddenly technology stops. Planes fall out of the sky, cars and electricity stop working. Riots begin, and Pete is cut off from his parents who work too far away from his home or school to easily walk. Civilization tumbles into its lowest form – pure chaos and everyone for themselves. Mythical creatures begin to appear, such as Ariel, a unicorn who befriends Pete. To survive Pete and Ariel journey from town to town, and living off the land for food and shelter.
My Thoughts: The narrator of the book is Pete, but the title of the book is Ariel. This is significant, because the relationship between the two of them is the driving force behind the book. In the first part of the book we see how they met and then how the two of them learn how to live off the land by going to libraries and reading. At first things are fine, but Pete is human and fallible. He wants to show off about Ariel. While there are other relationships between man and mystical beast, it isn’t at the same level where they are equals. So things change when other people learn of their relationship, which a now self-serving society wants to exploit.
Pete has to grow up in order to protect himself and Ariel. But he’s also growing up in other ways, which affect Ariel. I found him an imperfect character, not always saying or doing the smart or right thing. Sometimes he was meaner than he needed to be. This went along with the sometimes harsh nature of the book. There’s violence, bad people, terrible things happen. But good things happen too. Ariel is a good thing. There are also people willing to help them out, and Pete makes a few friends and learns some self defense and other skills from them.
One thing I wanted to note is that the writing is really well done. One of those authors where you just forget you’re reading, you’re so caught up in the story that you don’t even notice the words, you’re too busy watching what’s going on in your mind’s eye. I had visions of endless walking and desolation but with the company of friends. Even Ilona Andrews (who has her own version of our world without technology in the Kate Daniels series) is a fan.
Overall: The book really leaves an impact, even a year later I feel a bit haunted. It’s not really young adult although Pete starts off as a teen when the book begins; there are some violent and sad things that happen here which are described rather matter-of-factly. There’s a mixture of both hope and loss after reading Ariel. I plan to read Elegy which is the sequel to Ariel, thirty years later. Elegy comes out November 3rd.
Lord of the Fading Lands by C. L. Wilson
The Premise: This story is set in Celiera, where Ellysetta Baristani (an orphan picked up by a woodcarver and his wife) lives. Ellysetta is a good girl, who is considered plain and with low marriage prospects who is unfortunately being courted by the creepy butcher’s son, Den. Thankfully for Ellysetta, when the Fey visit Celiera from the Fading Lands, Rainier vel’En Daris Feyreisen, the Tairen Soul, King of the Fading Lands, declares that Ellysetta is his shei’tani (truemate). Obviously Ellysetta is more than she seems and so begins their courtship. Meanwhile, the Mages of Eld, who caused the death of Rain Tairen Soul’s first wife over a thousand years ago, have been waiting to come back into power. They will do all they can to destroy all that is good and are interested in who Ellysetta is.
My Thoughts: I wasn’t sure I’d like this book when I started it. It was only because I’d seen so many good reviews that I thought I really needed to keep an open mind and try it before I made a decision. One of my fears was the idea of the “truemate” or soulmate in the book. Usually I am not a fan of this and I find that it shortcuts a lot of the romance, making it more about the immediately physical than a slow mental buildup. I was pleasantly surprised that this book doesn’t actually do that. While there’s the idea of the shei’tani and the shei’tan, the shei’tani has to accept the bond first, so there was a courtship. I was glad that the soulmate concept was done a little differently. Although you know these two will eventually be together, at least the concept wasn’t used as an excuse to completely skip the process of falling in love.
Unfortunately, although I liked the handling of the soulmate concept, the romance/courtship didn’t do it for me. I think it was a combination of reasons. First the age difference. Rain is centuries older than Ellysetta. Of course,he didn’t act older at all, so it should have worked, but I kept hearing his age repeatedly, and it kept throwing me because it wasn’t just 20-30 years. It was over a thousand years. Then I just couldn’t get into the courtship, like how Ellysetta is at first both scared and yet attracted to him. This is an example of how the courtship never got past the superficial for me, that just Rain’s presence or looks can cause such a response, but there’s no real meeting of the minds. The biggest problem I had was with the two main characters. Rain and Ellysetta never felt fully developed, so I couldn’t connect to them and thus couldn’t connect to the romance. This is how I saw them:
- Rain – he’s over one thousand years old and he has anger management issues. I understand that this is explained by the heartbreak he had over watching is wife die, something that was so painful he scorched the world, killing many many people, an event forever remembered in poetry and art. And then he has to contend with the “bond madness” because of finding his “truemate”. However, this struck me as dramatic rather than romantic. His emotions are always extremes, and his considerable powers means no one really puts him in his place for it. I had a hard time with his being King yet having no diplomatic skills whatsoever from his 1000+ years of experience.
- Ellysetta – she’s the ingénue with a lot of Mary Sue traits. OK I can see some readers liking her, but I can’t seem to get past how overly idealistic she is. She’s pretty, but doesn’t think so: “Her mouth was too wide, she acknowledged critically, her lips too full and too red”, her height “too tall to be considered feminine” and so on and so forth. On top of this, other females are often jealous of the attention she gets as the new Feyreisa, and try to tear her down, but are always thwarted. The Fey can see her purity and kindness, and they would be honored to die for her. There is nothing wrong with any of this, but I yearned for more depth in her character. The biggest flaw I could see was a fear of her own power, but even this was made idealistic. Although she denies that her powerful magic abilities exist, she manages to heal the soul of one of her bodyguards, Bel, so that his “heart weeps again”, which earns her his undying devotion.
Unfortunately there were other things I didn’t like. I think the problem is I grew up reading fantasy. When I look at the fantasy aspects in this book, and even though the world building is OK and the writing flows very well (although I found the dialogue overwrought), I saw a lot of things that I had seen before. There were a lot of fantasy clichés, like the epic battle between Good and Evil, the orphan raised by a poor family who is more than they seem, and a magical animal with a bond with a main character. I’m not saying I won’t like a fantasy if it has one or more clichés, it’s in the way a book handles them. In this case I wasn’t wowed.
Overall: This is one of those books where I’m a little surprised: I didn’t like it. It was very close to being a DNF. I found it very hard to connect to but I was encouraged to keep going and so I did. After a certain point I figured I may as well read it all so I can say I honestly gave the whole book a try. Many people loved this book, obviously things that bothered me were seen differently by others. I see so many good reviews (a few from people I usually agree with!) that I question my sanity. I recommend looking at the other reviews I’m linking below today and make up your own mind.
Other reviews:
Geektastic – Stories from the Nerd Herd edited by Holly Black and Cecil Castellucci
Geektastic is an anthology of geek related stories. According to the charming Editors’ note, the idea was formed after Comic Con, where, in line for a burrito, Holly Black and Cecil Castellucci discussed what would happen if “you were a Jedi and you woke up with a Klingon in your bed” (the first story in this anthology). It’s a fun concept, and this book has different varieties of geeks represented. Although some stories have me thinking the idea was better than the realization, it was cool to see how many big names in the YA genre have geek cred.
Throughout the anthology are one page comics illustrated by Hope Larson and Bryan Lee O’Malley about geeks like “How to Hook Up at the Science Fair”, “What your instrument says about you” and “Top Five Words or Phrases You Need to Know in Klingon” – these were amusing and nice breakpoints between stories.
Really quick reviews follow (My favorites were by David Levithan, Lisa Lee, Wendy Mass and Cassandra Clare):
1) Once You’re a Jedi, You’re a Jedi All the Way by Holly Black and Cecil Castellucci: A Jedi and a Klingon wake up together in the same hotel room. Overall: OK. Funny and cute in a very geeky way. I enjoyed picturing the melee described here, but seems to focus more on Jedi vs. Klingon than their story.
2) One of Us by Tracy Lynn: A cheerleader tries to learn more about her football player boyfriend’s interests in geeky things by taking “lessons” from the the high school Genre and Nonsense Club – This one was like a primer into geekdom as each member of the club highlighted a particular aspect. Chock full of geek references, maybe too many, but ends nicely.
3) Definitional Chaos by Scott Westerfeld: A gamer responsible for bringing Con money to a hotel in Florida gets saddled with his crazy ex-girlfriend on the trip. The story seemed to focus on the idea of alignment, both in games and offline, and I found that aspect hard to connect to. This one took me a while to read because I kept putting it down.
4) I Never by Cassandra Clare: A girl and her friend who role play online as their favorite characters meet some other players of The Game in real life. Of course online characters differ greatly from their real life ones. A bit of a predictable Liking the Wrong Boy story, but ends up rather sweet.
5) The King of Pelinesse by M. T. Anderson: A boy discovers his mom gets love letters from one of his favorite fantasy authors and takes a trip to meet him. Um.. rather weird and somewhat creepy and sad. I’m pondering if this is saying something about certain fantasy authors or if it’s revealing the negative side of geekiness. Not sure.
6) The Wrath of Dawn by Cynthia and Greg Leitich Smith: A girl named Dawn attends a Buffy screening where people interact with the movie much like people do with Rocky Horror, and objects to the way the character Dawn seems universally despised. My reaction to this was “Eh”. I’m not sure why, but it didn’t move me.
7) Quiz Bowl Antichrist by David Levithan: A gay teen is part of his school’s quiz bowl team and butts heads constantly with the team leader while harboring a crush on another teammember. Told in the first person, this teens sarcastic observations had me chuckling. There were also some painful situations. This was probably my favorite short story.
8 ) The Quiet Knight by Garth Nix: Tony, a loner kid spends his time live action roleplaying as the Quiet Knight, and wondering what the Quiet Knight would do helps him come out of his shell. This was alright, sweet, but short.
9) Everyone But You by Lisa Lee: Felicity has just moved from Ohio to Hawaii, going from her High schools’ MIss Pep to No one she feels out of place and invisible. This is another growing pains sort of story and another one of my favorites. I also liked the details of Hawaii that the locals know about.
10) Secret Identity by Kelly Link: Written as a letter from a teenaged girl to someone named Paul Zell. She alternates between writing in the first and third person about herself, but I figured she met him online in a game called FarAway and they were to meet in real life at a New York City Hotel but he doesn’t show. This is a confusing story which was almost a DNF, but it did get better once I realized she was serious about the superheroes in the lobby and ignored the changing POV. In the end it left me wanting to know who Paul Zell really was, but I didn’t like the shifts in POV at all.
11) Freak the Geek by John Green: Two best friends, outcasts in a all girls high school are the targets for a school tradition to haze two geeks for a day. A nice friendship story, with I think a lighter dusting of geekiness. Left me with a warm fuzzy. One comment: Pokemon? I thought that was only a fad in the nineties?
12) The Truth about Dino Girl by Barry Lyga: Katherine loves dinosaurs and spouts off knowledge about them to her best friend Sooz, an artist in the making, but lately her obsessive nature has a new target – an unattainable guy with a perfect girlfriend. An illustration that evolution can favor the little guys too, but I thought Katherine’s “revenge” was hypocritical and crossed a line.
13) This is My Audition Monologue by Sara Zarr: A monologue by Rachel Banks arguing why she should finally get a part as cast in the latest theater production and not be shuffled off into the crew. Rambly, embarrassing, ambitious, geeky, desperate and defiant all rolled into one. I liked and disliked it for those reasons. I wonder if she got a part.
14) The Stars at the Finish Line by Wendy Mass: The narrator, Peter, has had a crush on Tabitha Bell since they were in grade school. When she declares her ambition of being an astronaut when she was nine, so does he, and the rivalry began. Eight years later, Peter still has his crush and Tabitha still thinks he’s her biggest competition. Astronomy geeks, very cute. Another favorite.
15) It’s Just a Jump to the Left by Libba Bray: Leta and Agnes have been friends for a long time and friday night at the Rocky Horror Picture Show is their thing. Unfortunately things don’t always stay the same. Agnes gets a boyfriend and Leta feels left behind. This gave off a very nostalgic, teens-in-the-seventies vibe. I thought it had interesting things to say about geekiness and it’s relationship with identity, friendship, and coping with life. Liked it.
SciFiChick has 3 copies of Geektastic she’s giving away (contest ends August 22nd)
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