In the months since the Moon was dislodged from its orbit, civilization has continued to fall into chaos and ruin. Now, as the point-of-view characters from the first two books in the series meet and fall in love, we see that things can always get worse. What could have been an uplifting conclusion to a trilogy is instead a rather bleak, depressing installment in the ongoing saga, where no character is safe and hope is a near-vanished luxury. Though compelling and richly-detailed, this book’s a real mood-killer. Hopefully the sun will come out if the series continues.
Archive for category Science Fiction
Orphaned as a baby, raised by the Order of Engineers as their only female apprentice, Fever Crumb has been trained to think in a rational, scientific manner. However, her new assignment – to aid the archaeologist Kit Solvent on his attempt to uncover the secrets of Auric Godshawk, infamous former overlord and unspeakable genius – challenges the way she sees the world, and reveals long-hidden truths regarding her own origins. As the mysteries unfold and a city erupts in flames and chaos, Fever will be forced to set forth to claim her destiny. This post-apocalyptic steam punk adventure serves as a prequel to Reeve’s Mortal Engines setting, and sets the stage for no-holds-barred action and nifty concepts.
Ever since the Return, the dead have hunted the living, swelling their ranks with their victims. When Gabry and her friends break the rules and leave the safety of their home, tragedy strikes, and Gabry’s life is torn apart. Now, to atone for her mistakes and save her friends, Gabry must defy the authorities and journey into a forest where she’ll either find death, or the long-hidden truth about her family and her own origins. Either way, there’s no turning back. This dark fantasy, set in a zombie-infested future, is atmospheric, compelling, and unforgettable. While acting as a sequel to The Forest of Hands and Teeth, it stands alone without a problem.
Teen wizards Kit and Nita have been tasked with uncovering the buried secrets of Mars, but when Kit accidentally activates an ancient artifact, the planet comes to life in unexpectedly mysterious ways, challenging everything they ever believed about the red planet. With the fate of two planets at stake, our heroes and their allies will be stretched to their limits to find a suitable solution. Straddling the fence between science fiction and fantasy, beautifully-written and morally complex, featuring a rich cast of engaging characters and some thought-provoking twists, this installment proves that even after nine books, this series is still going strong.
Following a bizarre lab accident, computer technician Jack Fletcher and his flighty sister Hallie are literally blown into another world. They wake up aboard the airship Tesla, commanded by the dynamic Octavia Pye, a red-haired, corset-wearing ray-gun wielding firebrand who captures Jack’s heart and libido from the second he sees her. Once Jack comes to terms with his new surroundings, he’s thrilled; a steampunk aficionado whose life has always taken unexpectedly strange turns, this is a world he was born to inhabit. Now he’s living the good life, traveling by airship, fighting pirates and saboteurs, romancing Octavia, and dealing with international intrigue. Just toss him a pair of goggles and he’s all set.
Octavia’s not sure what to make of her weird new stowaway, who seems way too fascinated by her corset and keeps muttering things about goggles and steampunk … whatever that is. He’s not a spy, and possibly not a raving lunatic (much) and there’s a distinct chemistry between them, and while she can’t afforded to get distracted, she’s allowed a little fun, right? They’ll have to rely on one another if they want to prevent an assassination attempt which could spark a war. Oh, and as for Hallie? When she’s not catatonic, she’s losing her grip, running away, or getting in trouble. Never mind her. She’s just there for the sequel.
Steamed is … interesting. As billed, it’s a comedy steampunk romance from the prolific and talented Katie MacAlister, her first real stab at this particular subset of science fiction. She wastes little time in setting up her male lead and thrusting him into an alternate world, and wastes little more time in making sure he and the female lead meet and start to doing what romantic leads do. Everything else – the traveling, adventures, action, airship piracy, assassination attempts – is just window dressing for the romantic entanglements of Jack and Octavia. (I’m serious: Jack’s sister really is excess baggage for much of the book, and if there’s not a sequel where she gets her own man, I’ll eat my hat.)
Based on the premise and setting, I wanted to like this book a lot. But I can’t help but feel something was lacking. In a word, it’s shallow, with very little extra thought given to fleshing out the history and details of the setting, beyond what’s needed for the immediate moment. You get the feeling that if you turn the corner too quickly, you’ll find the actors catching a quick smoke while waiting for the next show. In fact, the entire book has an oddly fetishistic tone to it; you’ve got all the trappings of steampunk with very few of the complexities. Airships, corsets, ray guns and weird mechanical widgetry don’t embrace the true depths of steampunk, but rather the easiest outward manifestations. Were it not for the passages told from other points of view, it would be all too possible to interpret this book as a hallucination brought on by the explosion in the first chapter, all conjured up by Jack’s subconscious and some toxic smoke. Certainly, he gets everything he could ever want, including the hot redhaired airship captain and the chance to play pirate.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that, mind you. I mean, sign me up for the same thing. But still, it was odd to read through this and come away feeling as though I was missing something. Admittedly, there’s some real chemistry between the leads, and the intimate scenes have a real spark to them, and there’s plenty of good-hearted humor to be found along the way – all hallmarks of MacAlister’s writing and to be expected – so not all is lost.
The final verdict? Steamed scratches an itch and fills a niche I didn’t realize existed, but it nonetheless comes off as flighty and superficial, preferring to leave the subtleties and complexities for other endeavors down the line. It’s great popcorn reading, but could have been so much more.
The superhuman revolution has begun. With the disruption of the system that was secretly brainwashing the extrahumans of Corp-Co and turning them into obedient superheroes, the superhumans who once protected the Americas of the future have turned to terrorizing it. Only a mere handful stand ready to defend the innocent and rein in their rebellious brethren. Chief among those valiant defenders are Joan “Jet” Greene and Callie “Iridium” Bradford, once best friends and now bitter enemies, separated by past events and grave philosophical differences. Working with Jet are the few Corp superheroes who still believe in justice and order. Allied with Iridium are a pack of infamous villains … including her own father, a hero turned villain. Maybe a dozen against hundreds, while the cities burn and the people fear for their lives. Worst of all, the sociopathic Doctor Hypnotic is on the loose, ready to turn his mind control abilities loose on an ill-prepared world.
Meanwhile, a generation ago, the fabled heroes of Team Alpha come to prominence, and then one by one suffer tragic fates, their lives and loves and losses setting the tone for the modern day. The parents and mentors of the current generation, their experiences play no small part in the events of today.
Picking up where Black and White left off, Shades of Gray expertly weaves together the threads of past and present to create a generational saga of superheroes and villains, and the all-too-human emotions which rule them. It’s all here: the rise and fall of Team Alpha, the tragic moments which created the stalwart hero Jet and the unyielding villain Iridium, the secret origins of the movers and shakers of an extrahuman world. Complex and intricately-plotted, filled with quiet moments of characterization and loud moments of superhuman battles, this is definitely one of the better attempts to translate the four color action of the comic books into prose form. It’s mature and thoughtful, without sacrificing excitement and ambition.
Kessler and Kittredge make for a hell of a team, their styles meshing flawlessly as they put together this fully-realized futuristic society with its multitude of conflicts both personal and public. The only discordant note would be a series of vignettes inexplicably told in the present tense, featuring characters whose plotline doesn’t quite synch up with the rest of the book until the very end. The tense change, at odds with the style used for the vast majority of the story, is somewhat jarring.
There’s both a real sense of completion at the end of this book, and the potential for continuation; if this is all the two plan to write in this universe, it’s about as solid a story as you can get, but there’s plenty of room to expand on what we’ve already seen. I certainly wouldn’t mind further entries, perhaps focusing on other characters, other times, or other situations. Shades of Gray, when taken together with Black and White, is pretty much an ideal comic book story, and would translate perfectly back into the medium which inspired it. This book gets five capes out of five.
In an attempt to cure cancer and the common cold, scientists accidentally sparked something worse: a virus which turns its victims into mindless, ravening zombies. Twenty years later, the hungry dead are just a fact of life, one to be avoided when possible, dealt with when necessary. It’s a world of paranoia and danger, constant blood tests and intense personal security, where human contact is minimalized in favor of staying indoors, and where blogging has achieved a new level of popularity and legitimacy.
Enter Georgia (George) and Shaun Mason, intrepid siblings about to take on the job of their lives. She’s a hard-edged journalist with an eye for the news, he’s a thrill-seeking adrenaline junkie who pokes zombies with a stick for the delight of his audience. And they’ve just been accepted as the official campaign bloggers as Senator Peter Wyman makes a run for the White House. Even in the year 2040, with vast parts of the world considered uninhabitable due to zombie infestations, some things never change. Especially politics.
But as George and Shaun, along with their poetry-writing, technogeek companion Buffy, take to the road with the rest of Wyman’s team, they discover that not everyone wants the Senator to land the party nomination. Someone wants them all dead, at any cost. In finding out who’s behind the campaign troubles, assassination attempts, security leaks and zombie attacks, the Masons may get more than they ever bargained for.
Combining zombies, politics, epidemiology, pop culture, blogging, humor and horror, this is one hell of a series opener. Grant (the open pseudonym for urban fantasist/artist/songwriter Seanan McGuire) knocks the ball out of the park with Feed. The worldbuilding is solid, the tone is believable, the character voices ring true, and the twists and turns prevent predictability. The author knows her zombies, and has done an exemplary job of grounding them in reality and envisioning a world that goes on despite their existence. The human spirit may be bruised, but in the Masons, it’s certainly not broken. Of course, after the events of this book, with several threads left open for further exploration, the next in the series can’t come quickly enough.
Eddie Drood, aka Shaman Bond, is back, and this time he’s about to meet the competition. Following the events of the Hungry Gods War, he stepped down from running the Drood family, content to once again act as a field agent, kicking ass and taking names in a never-ending quest to protect humanity from a host of terrors. For him, a typical day involves going undercover with a band of misfit mercenaries to prevent them from killing the ravens at the Tower of London, thus robbing England of its symbolic power. Little does he realize, upon the messy completion of that insane little job, that it’s just a warm-up for his next gig….
It seems that Alexander King, the notorious Independent Agent, greatest secret agent and adventurer of the latter half of the 20th century, is finally feeling his years and is ready to retire. And King wants to leave it all, his treasures and trophies and a lifetime of secrets, to one worthy individual. To that end, six have been chosen. The foxy Honey Lake, CIA operative. The treacherous Blue Fairy, representing the Fae Court of Shadows Fall. The beautifully exotic Lethal Harmony of Kathmandu (call her Katt). The unflappable Walker, famous for keeping peace in the Nightside, where anything goes and nothing is impossible. King’s own grandson, Peter, who’s graduating from industrial espionage to the big game. And Eddie Drood, representing the far-flung, obscenely-powerful, often-terrifying Drood family. Their mission: to investigate the truth behind five of the world’s greatest mysteries, and bring back proof. Winner take all, rules be damned.
The game will take them from the misty lochs of Scotland to the frozen wilds of Siberia, from the haunts of Bigfoot to the shores of Faerie, from the peaks of the Swiss Alps to the deserts of the American Southwest. But the secrets they’re disturbing were buried for a reason. Who will be the first to fall in this deadly game, and who will be the last man or woman left standing? Think you know the answers? Think again; in the world of a secret agent, everything is suspect. Game on.
Ah, Simon Green. With just a fraction of the insane energy and mad glee he throws into any one of his books, I could rule the world. Here’s an author who’s not afraid to cut loose, kick over the speakers, and throw himself off the stage in a moment of passion. Part of why I keep coming back for more is because I know exactly what sort of over-the-top tale of adventure, intrigue, mystery and magic I’m in for. In The Spy Who Haunted Me, the third in the Secret Histories, Green throws Eddie Drood into a series of dangerous encounters. Forced to ally with people who will likely stab him in the back, facing off against demons, ghosts, aliens, psychic nightmares, elves, poor Eddie is pushed to his limits. Due to the nature of the plot, this is a rather episodic book, with our cast catapulted from one location to the next, their numbers steadily dwindling for assorted reasons. Part spy games, part Ten Little Indians, it’s a hell of a romp. Some segments are weaker than others – one involves a lot of sitting around and telling stories – but the stronger portions help to balance it out nicely. I won’t go into details, save to say that once again, Green inspires a “I wish I’d thought of that” reaction in me, more than once.
One aspect of this series that I find particularly interesting is that Green uses it like a needle, to help sew together his other works. By this point, through overlapping locations, characters, or concepts, just about everything he’s done fits together, from the fantasy of the Forest Kingdom, to the space opera of the Deathstalker books, to the urban fantasy of the Nightside and the Secret Histories. Here, we actually get a full-on major crossover with the Nightside in the form of Walker, a constant thorn in Nightside protagonist John Taylor’s side. Events from Shadows Fall are briefly referenced as well, and perpetual cameo Leo Morn of Drinking Midnight Wine fame wanders through at one point. It’s a brave author who finds ways to make it all fit in the same universe, and Green does the best he can. (Though a perceptive reader will still find cracks where things don’t quite mesh up, leading them to wonder just how certain timelines work out between series. Also, a character who died in the previous book is name checked as alive and well here, and I don’t recall any miraculous resurrections…)
As big a fan as I am of Simon Green, I’ll admit that he could be better at times. His overuse of certain stylistic quirks dips dangerously far into the realm of self-indulgence, and he’s been known to lift and reuse entire paragraphs from book to book when the opportunity arises, usually when describing people or places. As a result, his work occasionally feels padded when it could be tightened, and an underlying sense of shortcut repetition creeps in after a while. But even so, no one delivers a story quite like he does. Green’s books always, without exception, leap to the head of my reading list whenever a new one shows up on my doorstep. I thoroughly enjoyed The Spy Who Haunted Me, and I’ll cheerfully recommend it to anyone who wants some wide-screen, no-holds-barred, big ideas and snappy execution thereof, urban fantasy adventure.
In the city of Bigtime, New York, superheroes and ubervillains are a common phenomenon, sightings of them almost routine. With costumed stalwarts such as the Fearless Five, Johnny Angel, Swifte, or even Granny Cane prowling the streets to keep them safe from all sorts of dangers, it seems like you can’t walk a block without tripping over one four-color character or another. Bella Bulluci knows this all too well; her brother is the current Johnny Angel, motorcycle-riding champion of justice, and thanks to his recent marriage to Fiona “Fiera” Fine, pyrokinetic member of the Fearless Five, Bella’s been tripping over superheroes left and right. Literally. Bella’s got her own superhuman power, an uncontrollable ability to manipulate probability for better or worse, and it’s been making her life miserable for as long as she can remember, with things breaking, burning up, or exploding at the most inopportune times. Bella wants as little to do with the superheroic life as possible, preferring to focus on her career as a fashion designer and occasional would-be artist. But what she wants is not what she gets, when the museum gala she’s planning runs into a few snags. Before she can blink, she has the teleporting playboy of Bigtime, Debonair, wooing her, and the vicious ubervillain known as The Hangman threatening her, with a priceless gem up for grabs.
Now poor Bella is right smack in the middle of the life she never wanted, struggling with a fast-growing attraction for the enigmatic Debonair, who’s definitely not all he seems to be. He’s got the hots for her, but what bizarre secrets is he hiding? And how can Bella ever bring herself to trust a superhero, when that lifestyle got her father killed and has brought her nothing but misery? Who is The Hangman, and what do he and his partner Prism want with the fabled Blue Sapphire? Can Bella overcome a lifetime of antipathy for superheroes, and her own uncontrollable powers, to help save Bigtime from possible destruction? Even with the help of the Fearless Five and Bigtime’s resident explosives expert, Bella’s going to be in for the adventure of a lifetime . . . and quite possibly a love affair like none she ever imagined. Will Debonair stop stealing paintings long enough to steal her heart?
Jinx is the third in Jennifer Estep’s surprisingly entertaining series about Bigtime, a city where comic book action goes hand-in-hand with romance and adventure. While the overall tone is somewhat light-hearted, it’s quite clear that Estep takes her comic book conventions quite seriously, borrowing all of the great tropes to flesh out her setting. From the prolific use of double initials for the main characters (Bella Bulluci, Devlin Dash, Sam Sloane) to the gizmos, gadgets and secret hideouts, Estep invokes old-school superhero comics, all the while avoiding any direct parallels to the big-name superheroes — no Superman, Batman, or Wonder Woman analogues to be found here. Speaking as a comic book fan, I could very easily see this setting work as a comic series. It may come off as a little hokey, even satirical, with characters such as Halitosis Hal, Cap’n Freebeard and his Saucy Wenches, or Granny Cane roaming the streets, but it’s fun and charming in its earnesty, and it holds together at its core. What more can you ask for a setting that juggles the double requirements of superhero comic books and romance happily-ever-afters?
The characters themselves are sympathetic and suitably complex. Bella’s a flawed heroine with some real issues to work out, but we get to see her change, grow, and work past or through them in the course of the story, even if it’s much like throwing someone in the deep end of the pool to teach them how to swim. What’s important is that her character is honest, and we can feel the pain and emotional struggles she deals with, from the loss of her father to her hatred of the superhero life to her hate/fear/uneasy acceptance of her power, to the conflicting feelings she experiences whenever Debonair is around. Debonair himself is a mixed bag of confidence and insecurity, charm and eagerness, style and image, and as we learn, he’s definitely got a lot going on below the surface. The chemistry these two exude when together is almost tangible, and Estep’s really given us a couple worth rooting for. This being a romance, and one with a comic edge to it at that, it’s pretty obvious what’s coming a lot of the time, especially where the ending is concerned. Luckily, even though some things are telegraphed from fairly early on, there are a few surprises that will likely catch even an experienced reader off guard.
I’ve loved this series so far, and have grown quite fond of the setting and the characters. Jinx is quite enjoyable, a worthy installment to the Bigtime Books. Estep demonstrates an admirable adeptness at blending genres, respecting the demands of superhero comics and romances without missing a beat, all the while maintaining a sense of humor. I hope the next book isn’t too far behind.
Who is Captain Freedom? From his humble beginnings as an impressionable sidekick named Liberty Bill, to his glory days as savior of the world, to his forced retirement and subsequent adventures, this tell-all book, recounted in his own words, peels off the mask to provide an intimate look at one of the world’s most popular (and merchandisable) heroes. We learn all of his dirty secrets, from just how he first became a sidekick, to how he earned that role as top-billed hero in his own right, to how he saved the world multiple times, and how it all came crashing down around him. From adopting a sidekick to finding his father, from the dreadful cat-tossing incident to his foray into politics, no subject is too personal, or too embarrassing. Captain Freedom may be one of the world’s greatest (and commercialized) superheroes, but under the costume, he’s only human (half-alien) and vulnerable like the rest of us. This is his story, and you’ll never look at superheroes the same way again.
Robillard, best known for his humorous contributions to sites such as McSweeneys and Cracked, turns his sights onto the post-modern superhero in his first novel, and the final product is something akin to an updated version of Robert Mayer’s SuperFolks. The heroes and villains of this world are far more interested in commercial deals and licensing packages than one usually expects of such people, and there’s a fair amount of bureaucracy involved in the whole thing. From academies where would-be heroes and villains are trained, to the tests which determine one’s future in the business, to the strange influence the comic book companies have upon the characters they portray, to the desperate way both heroes and villains go looking for archenemies, this is a world where fame and fortune take precedence over sacrifice and responsibility.
There’s an inherently quirky, goofy, surreal charm to the world inhabited by Captain Freedom and his friends and enemies. It’s irreverent and silly, made all the more so with the knowledge that these people, however exaggerated, are acting just like real people with powers would, looking to cash out, looking for fame, looking for that perfect nemesis to complete their lives. On the flipside, it’s hard to take the story that seriously. Often, it seems like there’s very little beneath the surface, as though Robillard’s going for the humor and provoking our laughs by pointing at the hero’s flaws and foibles. I get the feeling that if logic was applied to the setting, it would collapse under the weight of its own inherent absurdity. So one has to tread lightly and accept that this is a work of humor and satire first and foremost, a pisstake on the superhero genre as a whole. Perhaps that’s one of those obvious conclusions, but still, it’s worth pointing out. Captain Freedom is a heck of an entertaining read, and those looking for a more profound tale will do better to keep moving. This spandex-wearing crusader for justice is a flawed, neurotic individual one step away from a VH1 reality show and desperate to avoid that fate at all costs . . . which ultimately makes him just like every other celebrity, only with the ability to punch comets.
I liked Captain Freedom, but found the absurdist humor and its blatant mugging for laughs to fall short of my own laugh reflex most of the time. It entertained, even amused, but didn’t quite stir me to anything more profound, so take from that what you will.