Recent Favorites: A Darker Shade of Magic & Rat Queens

Do you ever find that your luck with reading choices comes in streaks? Sometimes you’ll have a long string of less-than-awesome reads, and other times it’ll be one homerun after another? I’ve been having more of the homerun experience with a surprising number of the books I’ve read lately, and thought I’d share some of the ones that were especially fantastic.

This book is probably the best thing I’ve read so far this year. You know that feeling when you start a new book, and only a few paragraphs in you find yourself feeling like you’re sinking into a feather bed and the writing wraps around you, and you know, you just know that you are in for a damn good read? That deep certainty from just the first few sentences that the author is going to lead you through a wonderful story, wonderfully written, and your inner critic knows it’s okay to shut off? That doesn’t happen terribly often for me (my inner critic is particularly noisy), but that is exactly how I felt with this book. Just a few pages in, and I knew it was going to be a favorite.

Ah, but what is it about? Well. Kell is an Antari, a magic user from a place called Red London, with the rare ability to travel between parallel worlds. His home of Red London is a city where magic flourishes, and he travels with messages from its rulers to the rulers of the other Londons, such as White London (scary, violent magic London) and Grey London (boring, no-magic London, the London of our world during the Regency). There used to be a Black London, but…well. Not anymore. In addition to his cross-dimensional messenger duties, Kell also moonlights as a smuggler, illegally bringing artifacts from one London to another. Naturally, this smuggling (which he considers more or less benign) eventually gets him into trouble, with monarchy- and multiverse-shaking consequences, which he must deal with, with the help of a thief named Lila from Grey London…

The jacket blurb for this book is a rare one that actually accurately captures both the plot and the tone of the story it provides a preview for. Here ‘tis:

“Kell is one of the last Travelers—magicians with a rare, coveted ability to travel between parallel universes, connected by one magical city.

There's Grey London, dirty and boring, without any magic, and with one mad king—George III. Red London, where life and magic are revered—and where Kell was raised alongside Rhy Maresh, the roguish heir to a flourishing empire. White London—a place where people fight to control magic and the magic fights back, draining the city to its very bones. And once upon a time, there was Black London. But no one speaks of that now.

Officially, Kell is the Red Traveler, ambassador of the Maresh empire, carrying the monthly correspondences between the royals of each London. Unofficially, Kell is a smuggler, servicing people willing to pay for even the smallest glimpses of a world they'll never see. It's a defiant hobby with dangerous consequences, which Kell is now seeing firsthand.

Fleeing into Grey London, Kell runs into Delilah Bard, a cutpurse with lofty aspirations. She first robs him, then saves him from a deadly enemy, and finally forces Kell to spirit her to another world for a proper adventure.

Now perilous magic is afoot, and treachery lurks at every turn. To save all of the worlds, they'll first need to stay alive.”

A very unique, creative fantasy, with elements of darkness, a bit of swashbuckling attitude, well-drawn characters in a beautifully conceived world, and plenty of action and emotion. I could ask for nothing more from a book. It was the kind of book where I became visibly annoyed when people would interrupt me reading it, and I had to plot my reading cannily, lest I arrive at work too tired to function after an all-night reading bender. So much fun, and so good. READ IT.

Rat Queens has been on my radar for quite awhile, but, not willing to fork over cash for a graphic novel without previewing it first, I’ve had to wait for the library to catch up with my TBR list. Alas, the library still doesn’t have a physical copy of the book, but they do have the first volume available on their streaming service, Hoopla. And once I started reading that first book, I didn’t put it down (or, er, close out my browser window) until I was finished.

The story follows an all-female band of fantasy adventurers, but with some seriously (and hilariously) modern twists. De facto leader is Hannah, a rockabilly elf magic user; Violet is a dwarven fighter (and a hipster, because she shaved her beard before it became cool); Betty is a flower child, drug-experimenting smidgen (vaguely hobbit- or gnome-esque) thief; and Dee is an atheist cleric of a religion (cult?) that reads a little like a Lovecraft/voudou smash-up. I mean, an atheist cleric! That’s hilarious!! XD

The town where they live kind of hates them, because they get drunk and raucous and destructive when they’re not off fighting big monster-y problems. They have foul mouths, a loose interpretation of what is, strictly speaking, legal, and varied amorous pursuits. They get into fights with each other, and have secrets from each other, and love each other all the same. In short, they’re girls you’d probably want to hang out with.

The writers and illustrators subvert the tropes of the genre through a distinctly modern lens, to hilarious effect (I burst out laughing at Hannah’s arcane cell phone and the nagging from her parents), but not at the expense of the genre—it is clear that the people behind Rat Queens love fantasy-adventure, sword and sorcery stories, and honor that genre by pushing its boundaries. The second volume deepens the storylines begun in the first outing, and begins revealing some serious backstory, while not losing any of the humor that makes it such a delight.

So, while probably not for the faint of heart or those offended by the F word, I absolutely loved it. I can’t wait for the third volume to come out (later this month!). This is a series that I would actually consider buying each comic as it comes out, rather than waiting for the trade paperbacks.

Have you had any outstandingly good reads lately? Already read these, or plan on adding them to your TBR? Let us know in the comments!

A Darker Shade of Magic, by V.E. Schwab
Published by Tor Books (2015)
Read in March-April 2016; Hard copy from library

Rat Queens Volume 1: Sass & Sorcery, by Kurtis J. Wiebe & Roc Upchurch
Published by Image Comics (2014)
Read in February 2016; Digital streaming from library

Rat Queens Volume 2: The Far Reaching Tentacles of N’Rygoth, by Kurtis J. Wiebe & Roc Upchurch
Published by Image Comics (2015)
Read in February 2016; Bought it

Genre-ally Speaking: Lock In, by John Scalzi

Title: Lock In
Author: John Scalzi
Publisher: Tor Books
Publication Date: August 26th, 2014
Read: June 2014
Where It Came From: Paper ARC from BEA*
Genre: Sci-Fi-Mystery-Thriller
Rating: 4 Threeps

It’s been over a month since I read Lock In (tore through it in a matter of days, in fact), so this review probably won’t go into specifics as much as I usually do. And I think that’s a good idea for this book—part of the joy of reading it is trying to puzzle out the threads of the mystery for yourself as the stakes for the characters increase and the tension ratchets up. But first, let’s talk plot!

Chris Shane is a new FBI agent, working a murder case in the D.C. area with his partner Leslie Vann. It sounds like the beginning of your usual crime thriller, but here’s the sci-fi twist: The world Shane and Vann live in is one that has been shaped by a flu-like virus that swept the globe 25 years previously. Most people who catch the disease just experience mild flu-y symptoms, but 1% of the infected—which doesn’t sound like much, but amounts to millions of people in the US alone—end up “locked in.” That means they are in their bodies and fully conscious, but are unable to move, respond, or make use of those bodies beyond just being, well, alive. The world has changed in many ways to deal with the situation and accommodate victims of Haden’s syndrome (they’re called Hadens for short), such as with the development of the Agora, an online space for Hadens, and the creation of robot-like devices their consciousness can inhabit to move around in and interact with the physical world. Another salient point—some non-Hadens have the ability to be an Integrator, or someone able to let a locked in individual inhabit their body for a time and experience the world as the non-locked in do.

So, back to Shane and Vann—they are working on a Haden-related murder case, and it looks like an Integrator is their prime suspect. This complicates the situation in ways I’m sure you can imagine. Was the Integrator himself the perpetrator? What if he was integrated with a Haden at the time? Surely there must be safeguards against that…? Hmmm… As they trace the trails leading out from the murder in many directions, the mystery expands to encompass politics and greed on a much larger scale, while also focusing down on those caught in the crossfire of the hidden players in the game.

I quite enjoyed Lock In. Shane is an engaging narrator, and his first-person voice propels us through the story. In typical Scalzi fashion, it is a very smooth, fast-paced reading experience, with writing that feels effortless and pages that fly by. The world is certainly different from the one we inhabit now, but it’s still similar enough as to be very recognizable—no flying cars and vacation jaunts to outer space here, but rather a vision of a near future that has been altered by something easily conceivable (like, y’know, a huge epidemic we are ill prepared for), but that humans are adapting to. People keep on keeping on, doing normal human things, both good and bad. I also love how the story conveys the far-reaching effects of the murder and the plotting behind it, since it is certainly something with consequences for the entire world, but also narrows in on the effects on a very personal level for the main characters and other people involved.

Some of the things that really stood out to me in Lock In:

• The pacing. This is probably one of my top awesome things in the book. Scalzi really nailed it, creating a reading experience that is relaxed enough for you to be able to process all the information coming your way, but still be a page-turning thriller that keeps you guessing what lies beyond the next chapter. From reading the jacket copy you know Chris Shane is an FBI agent, but then on page two you find out he is a Haden—boom, first surprise (which may then cause you to consider your pre-conceived notions you didn’t realize you had about characters, as it did for me). Also wonderfully paced was the information about who Chris Shane is—he is the narrator, so it’s difficult for him to hide things from the reader, but since his background is so obvious to himself, he is able to sort of obliquely think around certain details of his life, with the result being that we know he is somehow famous, but we don’t know why. Scalzi teases us with it as we wonder why the heck everyone knows who Chris Shane is, and the suspense and anticipation that build leading to that reveal is pretty damn great.

• The humor. The trademark Scalzi humor was definitely present in this book, but at the same time it didn’t seem like quite as much of a focus or its own character as it is in some of his other books. And that is in no way a criticism—just an observation. Like in Redshirts, or the funny bits in Old Man’s War--they have a style of writing and kind of witty, punchy humor that I have come to associate with Scalziness, and Lock In feels a little different. Humor is still very much present in it and very recognizably Scalzi, but it comes through the filter of Chris Shane and his situation in this world. For me, it’s a new facet of Scalzi funniness, and I like the versatility it demonstrates.

• The twisty-turniness. The whole situation with Hadens, Integrators, and threeps (the machines Hadens can use to function in the physical world) quite brilliantly lends itself to all sorts of twists and surprises in the mystery as you try to figure out and predict who precisely is involved, and why, and with what motivations, and where they are, and WHO they are, and what are they doing, and—well, you get it.

• The smooth-like-buttah reading experience. I already went into this a bit, but the ease and speed with which I tore through Lock In is really a testament to the skill behind the writing. To create an entertaining, suspenseful, and emotion-tugging mystery that’s this much fun and speed-inducing to read is an art.

The only part I had questions about involved some of the details of the climactic scene. Without getting into spoiler territory, there were some scientific-technological aspects that I, with my not super techno-savvy skills, tried to follow through mentally to their ends, and I wasn’t sure I was completely clear on it all by the time the scene wrapped up. But it didn’t have a negative effect on my enjoyment of the book as a whole—it merely gave me ideas of questions I could ask Scalzi if I ever see him at Phoenix Comicon again. :) Overall, I really enjoyed the book—it is both sweeping as a thriller on the grand scale, and also affecting on the micro scale of individual human interactions and emotions. It's a good one for Scalzi fans and sci-fi fans, of course, but I’d also recommend it to general thriller and mystery audiences; I think it’s definitely a book with crossover appeal. (…there may not be any semi-colons in Lock In, but I thought there needed to be at least one in this review!)

*As ever, much as we are grateful for the copy, our review is uninfluenced by its source.

Phoenix Comicon 2014: Angry Robot Preview Panel

In my lap around the exhibitor hall on Thursday evening, I stopped by all the publisher booths to say hi and make an effort towards the whole networking thing. Though they didn’t have books to give away like the others, the people at the Angry Robot table were super nice to me as a blogger (the nicest, in fact)—very friendly and happy to tell me what they’re all about, which books of theirs I might be interested in, get me signed up on their mailing list, etc. I told the man I was chatting with that I had heard about them via a recent episode of the SF Squeecast podcast, and was surprised to find out I was speaking to none other than Mike Underwood, who had been on that particular podcast episode and is also the author of Geekomancy, which I have yet to read, but have heard only good things about! We talked a bit about their YA imprint (called Strange Chemistry), cover design, and some of their authors who were in attendance at the con, and I promised to come back later to pick up a few of their titles. Which I did!

Because they were so nice to me and so many of their books that I’d perused sounded intriguing, I decided to check out their preview panel the next morning. It ended up being the only publisher preview I was able to fit in my schedule, and it was perfect as a nice, low-key-yet-entertaining chaser after the fun-yet-also-a-bit-on-the-terrifying-side Improbable Dystopias panel I had attended the hour before. The panel consisted of Lee Harris (Senior Editor), Mike Underwood (North American Sales and Marketing Manager), Chuck Wendig (Blackbirds), Wesley Chu (The Lives of Tao), Danielle Jensen (Stolen Songbird), and Jay Posey (Three). Here’s a bit of Angry Robot 101 from the panel:

• Launched initially in the UK, with their first books hitting the shelves in July 2009
• Humorously self-described as a publisher of “SF/F/WTF?!”
• Has three different imprints: Angry Robot (Science fiction, fantasy, and the aforementioned WTF?!), Strange Chemistry (YA), and Exhibit A (Mystery/Crime Thrillers)
• They publish their books simultaneously worldwide, so if you’re looking forward to a book coming out, you don’t have to wait months for it to become available in your country after its debut in the UK
• They publish e-book, paperback, and audio (where possible) formats on the same day
• They offer e-book subscriptions where you can pay one flat, discounted price and receive monthly downloads off all e-books released during the period of your subscription (pretty neat idea, eh? You can get more info on it here!)
• They also have a nifty e-book and paperback bundling program called “Clonefiles.” It’s a simple yet brilliant idea—you buy the paperback, you get the e-book version free. Lee Harris stated, “It makes absolute sense. I don’t understand why everybody isn’t doing this, because the readers want it and it costs next to nothing to provide that service.” Hear, hear!

Mr. Harris then turned it over to the authors on the panel to talk a bit about themselves and their books. Chuck Wendig talked about his various works, such as the Miriam Black series and the Mookie Pearl series, as well as his blog at TerribleMinds.com, where he talks about writing (Lee Harris gave Terrible Minds a whole-hearted endorsement, too). Wesley Chu introduced us to his Tao series and may have let slip a few spoilers for the published volumes, but was careful to keep a tight lid on anything related to the third volume in the series, out this December. Danielle Jensen, the sole representative of the Strange Chemistry YA imprint, discussed Stolen Songbird, the first book in a trilogy that debuted in April. Opera divas! Trolls! Underground cities! (You can see why I purchased that one.) Lastly, Jay Posey told us a bit about his Legends of the Dustwalker series, and also a little about his work on video games and as a screenwriter.

The panel was then turned over to Mike Underwood to share with us some upcoming and buzz-worthy Angry Robot books. Here are some of the ones I thought sounded exciting and will be adding to my TBR list:

Arriving: 6/24/2014

In a land riven with plague, inside the infamous Walled City, two families vie for control: the Medicis with their genius inventor Leonardo; the Lorraines with Galileo, the most brilliant alchemist of his generation.

And when two star-crossed lovers, one from either house, threaten the status quo, a third, shadowy power – one that forever seems a step ahead of all of the familial warring – plots and schemes, and bides its time, ready for the moment to attack...

Assassination; ancient, impossible machines; torture and infamy – just another typical day in paradise.

“A great adventure for anybody who likes The Lies of Locke Lamora, or if you like the Romeo and Juliet story,” said Mr. Underwood, also noting that it’s got some of the fun flavor of Assassin’s Creed 2.

Phoenix Comicon 2014: Improbable Dystopias?

The first panel on my schedule on Friday was “Improbable Dystopias?” (“A look at dystopian fiction—what makes some worlds believable, and others not?”), featuring authors Janni Lee Simner (The Bones of Faerie), Jason Hough (The Darwin Elevator), Laini Taylor (Daughter of Smoke and Bone), Pierce Brown (Red Rising), and Seanan McGuire/Mira Grant (Feed and Parasite). They probably also could’ve called it, “Most Terrifying Panel of the Con.” Seriously, the takeaway from this one is that WE ARE LIVING IN A DYSTOPIA RIGHT NOW! When I left the panel I had a strong urge to purchase hand sanitizer and not eat chicken for awhile. But in all seriousness, it was a great panel—lots of ideas, lots of audience interaction, and lots of time spent digging deep into many different aspects of the theme. As usual, I arrived 10 minutes late, but made it there in time to catch the tail end of some discussion of utopias giving rise to dystopias. Seanan McGuire then brought up the idea that there are also dystopias that didn’t start out as utopias, but rather as a frantic bid to fix things. She built on the idea by saying that if you want to see how a dystopian future could come to pass, you should go to the airport and have a look at TSA—lots of people doing what they’re told, in a pretty arbitrary way. She noted that over the course of 15 years, we’ve gone from being able to walk up to the gate to meet arriving friends and family, to getting manhandled by strangers, having our liquids thrown away, being subjected to the radiation box, etc. “What do we do when they start putting in those steps where the TSA takes over the buses? Who’s going to stand up and say no, I’d rather risk terrorism than have TSA agents at the Greyhound station?” she asked.

Laini Taylor also thought the airport example was a good one. She mentioned how when she’d been at the airport recently, she’d flashed back to the scene from The Pianist (“unfairly, exaggeratedly,” she added), when people are being herded out of the ghetto and they’re going along with it simply because they didn’t believe anything extreme could happen. Pierce Brown also had an airports-as-the-beginnings-of-dystopia story, mentioning how when he’d been sitting in the airport to fly to Phoenix, he was listening to the broadcast and realized that it sounded like something straight out of Total Recall or Robocop—“Due to increased security measures…” It was like all the sci-fi movies he grew up with in the ‘90s are real!

The panel agreed that as things escalate incrementally, you’re afraid to say anything about it or rock the boat. Janni Lee Simner added, “Dystopia gets out of control when we believe in the illusion of safety,” which I thought was a really compelling, and scary, idea. Talk then turned to the concept of the “boiled frog dystopia.” Apparently, if you try to put a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will jump right out. No surprise, right? It’s not going to tolerate that. But if you put it in a pot of room temperature water and slowly turn up the heat, it will allow itself to be boiled alive because it won’t notice the tiny incremental changes in the water around it. (How this was all discovered, I do not want to know.) Seanan thought that these kinds of dystopias are the ones that feel the most realistic to her—the situation where something bad has happened, be it a bio attack or a terrorist attack, and we put in all sort of new measures that help us feel a little safer, and now we’d feel unsafe without those things. And if people want to look like they’re doing something about terrorism, they have to do something more extreme and go a little bit further, because you can’t dial it back. People would start to feel unsafe, even though their state of safety would be the same as it was before.

Phoenix Comicon is coming!

Hot on the heels of Susan’s exciting BEA adventures (over 100 books hunted down?! Day-yum, girl! You show ‘em how it’s done!), I will be heading to Phoenix Comicon this Thursday through Sunday. I’m really impressed with their books and author track this year—lots of authors from across all the subgenres of SFF, many of them super highly acclaimed, and more publishers in attendance than last year! To say I’m excited would be an understatement. You can find the full run-down of guests and programming here, but here are some of the people and events I’m most looking forward to:

Patrick Rothfuss!!! Arguably one of the most famous names in the pantheon of modern fantasy writers, I was jaw-drop shocked to see he would be coming to Phoenix. So amazing!!! I’ve been hearing about him since The Name of the Wind first came out, but I didn’t get around to reading his books until fairly recently. He made it onto my list of early 2014 favorites, and I hauled ass to finish up the second (and most recent) book in the Kingkiller series last week, because I wanted to be able to attend his panels spoiler-free. Mission accomplished! I’m interested in hearing him talk about Kvothe and his world, and also about upcoming projects like the Bast short story coming out in the Rogues anthology later this month and the Auri novella dropping in the fall.

Scott Lynch!!! As if Pat Rothfuss alone wasn’t reason enough to attend to PHXCC, yet another of the most popular fantasy authors of our age will be there! Again, I’d been hearing about how great he is pretty much since The Lies of Locke Lamora first came out, and, again, I was slow to get around to reading it. When I saw he’d be at the convention I tracked down a copy to read in preparation, and it was AWESOME. Clever con artists pulling off the heist of a lifetime in a Venice-flavored setting? Yes, please! The book is seriously non-stop action and crackling writing—I pretty much read for two days straight because I couldn’t put it down. I haven’t read the sequels yet (it took all my strength of will to read a book by another convention guest rather than diving straight into Red Seas Under Red Skies), but I am so so SO excited to meet the guy whose brain produced this series! Richer and cleverer than everyone else!!!

In the realm of awesome YA authors, Laini Taylor will be attending! The WordNerds book club read Daughter of Smoke and Bone a couple years ago, and I think I was the one who enjoyed it most out of our group. I love lyrical writing and vivid imagery, and those are both things Laini Taylor excels at. I saw her at my local indie bookstore when the second book in the trilogy, Days of Blood and Starlight, came out, and she was very personable and a lot of fun. Though I haven’t gotten to that one or the final installment of the trilogy (out a couple months ago), it’s going to be interesting to hear about her thoughts on YA and writing during panels like “Improbable Dystopias?” and “True Natures, Hidden Identities in YA Fiction.” I know I’m probably courting spoilers by going to those without having finished the series, but I’m feeling BOLD, I tell you!

And a big hooray for Seanan McGuire!!! Yet another awesome, awesome author. I nommed all seven books in her Toby Daye series in about two weeks. Slightly shameful on my part, but that just goes to show how completely addictive they are! I’ve been describing that series to friends as “Holly Black for grown-ups!” By which I just mean they’re well-written and engaging urban fantasy about the fae. Holly Black’s and Seanan McGuire’s writing styles and narrative voices are very different, but their books are similar in that a) they involve faeries, b) their writing is very evocative, and c) they’re FANTASTIC. Seanan McGuire also writes horror under the name Mira Grant, but I haven’t made it that far through her back catalogue yet. It’s only a matter of time, though! It’s always so nice to a find a new-to-you author you really enjoy, and even better when they have a ton of books for you to work your way through.

Catherynne Valente, another lyrical writer I adore, is coming back to Phoenix as well! Her writing is so poetic and deeply rooted in myth and folklore, and I absolutely love it (her first Fairyland book was my #1 read of 2013!). She’s another one I’ve caught on tour at my local indie book shop, and I remember she had all kinds of interesting thoughts and opinions to share with the audience (though she did not manage to diminish my affection for A Wrinkle in Time). It’s going to be fun to see her during the live recording of SF Squeecast (a great nerdy SFF podcast, if you haven’t checked it out) and at a panel with female authors talking about Doctor Who.

There are plenty of other famous, up-and-coming, and otherwise popular authors on the PHXCC guest list as well. Any of these books look familiar?

I was super into Charlaine Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse books for awhile (y’know, the ones they adapted into the TV show True Blood). Jim Butcher is hugely popular and famous, though I’ve somehow never tried out the Dresden Files (just grabbed the first one with my credit at a used bookstore, though!). I’m currently trying to read Pierce Brown’s debut novel, Red Rising, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to finish it by the time the con rolls around. Can you believe there are going to be even MORE authors in attendance beyond those represented here? Like I said, the books-and-authors track is truly impressive this year.

Oh, and Paul & Storm will be playing a concert there with guest appearances by John Scalzi, Pat Rothfuss, and Seanan McGuire. You may know them from this hilarious song exhorting George R. R. Martin to speed it up on the Song of Ice and Fire front:

All in all, it’s shaping up to be an epic weekend. I’ll be reporting on panels and such like I did last year, so keep an eye out for that. Who would you be most interested in seeing/hearing about at Phoenix Comicon this year? Are you a fan of any of the authors attending? Hit the comments and let us know!

All author photos are from the Phoenix Comicon website, and all book cover images are from Goodreads.

Book Review: Casebook, by Mona Simpson

Title: Casebook
Author: Mona Simpson
Publisher: Knopf
Publication Date: April 15, 2014
Read: April 2014
Where It Came From: Library
Genre: General fiction
Rating: 3.5 Relocated Pets

The Quick and Dirty:

Miles starts eavesdropping on his mother as his parents' marriage dissolves and his mother starts to plan a future with her new boyfriend. Despite putting it on my WANT IT NOW list in early April, and despite quickly reading it, it's not one I'm planning to add to my bookshelf. I found the narrative structure distancing, and the characters and plot unsettling.

The Wordy Version:

Casebook sold me with the basic outline of the plot: a child narrator snoops through his mother’s papers and emails, and through that he learns dark secrets of the adult world. I am often drawn to youthful narrators who are unreliable storytellers due to their pre-adult understanding of the world. (Out of the half dozen or so I’ve read, I can only think of one instance when I absolutely hated the child narrator I was reading.) Plus, spying! Questions about privacy! In short, you can see where my enthusiasm for reading started.

And for the most part, Casebook delivered. Miles begins his tale as a nine-year-old just beginning to hear unhappy undercurrents in his parents’ marriage, and in his early teen years gradually unravels the mystery of his mother’s new lover, Eli. By the final third of the book, he is recovering from learning too much information secretly. The suspense of whether Miles’s parents will catch him snooping and whether Miles will find something wrong with Eli makes the book difficult to put down.

Certainly it provoked questions about morality. Miles and his best friend, Hector, listen to hours of telephone calls that his mother makes, and rarely feel that they are crossing boundaries because they are convinced that Eli is hiding something important. To what extent they are justified in their snooping by their belief that someone else is even more wrong is an issue that the characters in the book never seem to fully realize. To his credit, Miles does stop to debate whether it is right to tell his mother any information he has gained through spying, and whether it will embarrass her too much. He later wonders about two lies he tells Eli, which is also rather moral, but by highlighting his worries about the lies Miles’s glossing over the issue of spying on his mother seems strange. This isn’t a real problem—moral questions are more for readers than for characters, and Casebook provides ample material for the subject.

I didn’t fully love the book, though. The narrative conceit is that this is an explanation of the influences for a famous graphic novel written by the friends. Hector has added a few footnotes to Miles’s manuscript, giving us foreshadowing for Hector’s life and calling some of the story elements into question, like the descriptions of the two friends. For me the framing device was a little distracting. Child narrators are so unreliable by nature that it seemed needlessly convoluted to me to add a second layer of unreliability, and to suggest that the book was written years after the conclusion of the Eli investigation. Fortunately there are only a few footnotes by Hector to keep the doubly distancing concept in my mind. But despite any amount of distance the narrative could make, I was too disturbed by the shady actions of the characters to feel many feelings other than relief to have reached the end and sadness for basically every character’s life.

BEA 2014 Anticipation!

It’s summertime, and that means fun! (And also constant sunscreen and AC, in my case. Fun, right? Come visit the glorious American Southwest!) Much like last year, early summer means some exciting doings in RTET-land—Susan will be attending Book Expo America in NYC again, while I will be covering the book and author track at Phoenix Comicon. Susan is planning her galley-grabs and author visits for BEA, and it looks like there will be the standard convention problem of so much to do, so little time! We’ve been following the info coming out of various publish-y sources to keep up-to-date on what will be available there. Looks like there will be a lot of highly anticipated books up for grabs! Here are some of the ones I’ve been eagerly awaiting or recently had brought to my attention and think sound cool:

“Fifteen years from now, a new virus sweeps the globe. 95% of those afflicted experience nothing worse than fever and headaches. Four percent suffer acute meningitis, creating the largest medical crisis in history. And one percent find themselves “locked in”—fully awake and aware, but unable to move or respond to stimulus.

One per cent doesn't seem like a lot. But in the United States, that's 1.7 million people ‘locked in’...including the President's wife and daughter.

Spurred by grief and the sheer magnitude of the suffering, America undertakes a massive scientific initiative. Nothing can restore the ability to control their own bodies to the locked in. But then two new technologies emerge. One is a virtual-reality environment, ‘The Agora,’ in which the locked-in can interact with other humans, both locked-in and not. The other is the discovery that a few rare individuals have brains that are receptive to being controlled by others, meaning that from time to time, those who are locked in can ‘ride’ these people and use their bodies as if they were their own.

This skill is quickly regulated, licensed, bonded, and controlled. Nothing can go wrong. Certainly nobody would be tempted to misuse it, for murder, for political power, or worse….”

I enjoy John Scalzi very much, so I’m looking forward to his newest. It sounds a little claustrophobic, but also like an interesting change up from his other stuff I’ve read (the Old Man’s War series and Redshirts). I’m looking forward to giving it a go!

“ ‘Miss Rook, I am not an occultist,’ Jackaby said. ‘I have a gift that allows me to see truth where others see the illusion--and there are many illusions. All the world’s a stage, as they say, and I seem to have the only seat in the house with a view behind the curtain.’

Newly arrived in New Fiddleham, New England, 1892, and in need of a job, Abigail Rook meets R. F. Jackaby, an investigator of the unexplained with a keen eye for the extraordinary--including the ability to see supernatural beings. Abigail has a gift for noticing ordinary but important details, which makes her perfect for the position of Jackaby’s assistant. On her first day, Abigail finds herself in the midst of a thrilling case: A serial killer is on the loose. The police are convinced it’s an ordinary villain, but Jackaby is certain it’s a nonhuman creature, whose existence the police--with the exception of a handsome young detective named Charlie Cane--deny.

Doctor Who meets Sherlock in William Ritter’s debut novel, which features a detective of the paranormal as seen through the eyes of his adventurous and intelligent assistant in a tale brimming with cheeky humor and a dose of the macabre.”

While “Doctor Who meets Sherlock” sounds like an awesome hook that is probably doomed to set the expectations bar much too high, I am most definitely interested. Historical supernatural is my jam! (Or one of my jams, at least.)

“Children can have a cruel, absolute sense of justice. Children can kill a monster and feel quite proud of themselves. A girl can look at her brother and believe they’re destined to be a knight and a bard who battle evil. She can believe she’s found the thing she’s been made for.

Hazel lives with her brother, Ben, in the strange town of Fairfold where humans and fae exist side by side. The faeries’ seemingly harmless magic attracts tourists, but Hazel knows how dangerous they can be, and she knows how to stop them. Or she did, once.

At the center of it all, there is a glass coffin in the woods. It rests right on the ground and in it sleeps a boy with horns on his head and ears as pointed as knives. Hazel and Ben were both in love with him as children. The boy has slept there for generations, never waking.

Until one day, he does…

As the world turns upside down, Hazel tries to remember her years pretending to be a knight. But swept up in new love, shifting loyalties, and the fresh sting of betrayal, will it be enough?”

The blurb for this one is both intriguing and cryptic, and you know what? It doesn’t matter. The blurb could just say Bobloblaw’slawblog and I would be down. Holly Black is always, ALWAYS an instabuy.

“THE ACCIDENTAL HIGHWAYMAN is the first swashbuckling adventure for young adults by talented author and illustrator, Ben Tripp. This thrilling tale of dark magic and true love is the perfect story for fans of William Goldman’s THE PRINCESS BRIDE.

In eighteenth-century England, young Christopher ‘Kit’ Bristol is the unwitting servant of notorious highwayman Whistling Jack. One dark night, Kit finds his master bleeding from a mortal wound, dons the man’s riding cloak to seek help, and changes the course of his life forever. Mistaken for Whistling Jack and on the run from redcoats, Kit is catapulted into a world of magic and wonders he thought the stuff of fairy tales.

Bound by magical law, Kit takes up his master’s quest to rescue a rebellious fairy princess from an arranged marriage to King George III of England. But his task is not an easy one, for Kit must contend with the feisty Princess Morgana, goblin attacks, and a magical map that portends his destiny: as a hanged man upon the gallows….

Fans of classic fairy-tale fantasies such as STARDUST by Neil Gaiman and will find much to love in this irresistible YA debut by Ben Tripp, the son of one of America’s most beloved illustrators, Wallace Tripp (AMELIA BEDELIA). Following in his father’s footsteps, Ben has woven illustrations throughout the story.”

Okay, again with the setting-expectations-way-too-high thing with that reference to The Princess Bride, but color me charmed by the cover and the title. I’ve been burned by Tor Teen books in the past that sounded awesome and ended up tepid, but this one sounds too fun to pass up.

“Finn Easton sees the world through miles instead of minutes. It’s how he makes sense of the world, and how he tries to convince himself that he’s a real boy and not just a character in his father’s bestselling cult-classic book. Finn has two things going for him: his best friend, the possibly-insane-but-definitely-excellent Cade Hernandez, and Julia Bishop, the first girl he’s ever loved.

Then Julia moves away, and Finn is heartbroken. Feeling restless and trapped in the book, Finn embarks on a road trip with Cade to visit their college of choice in Oklahoma. When an unexpected accident happens and the boys become unlikely heroes, they take an eye-opening detour away from everything they thought they had planned—and learn how to write their own destiny.”

I’ve never read any of Andrew Smith’s books before, but I’ve heard great things about both Winger and Grasshopper Jungle. I haven’t read much contemporary YA lately, but this sounds like it could be a good introduction to the author.

“Clariel is the daughter of the one of the most notable families in the Old Kingdom, with blood relations to the Abhorsen and, most importantly, to the King. When her family moves to the city of Belisaere, there are rumors that her mother is next in line for the throne. However, Clariel wants no part of it—a natural hunter, all she ever thinks about is escaping the city’s confining walls and journeying back to the quiet, green world of the Great Forest.

But many forces conspire against Clariel’s dream. A dangerous Free Magic creature is loose in the city, her parents want to marry her off to a killer, and there is a plot brewing against the old and withdrawn King Orrikan. When Clariel is drawn into the efforts to find and capture the creature, she discovers hidden sorcery within herself, yet it is magic that carries great dangers. Can she rise above the temptation of power, escape the unwanted marriage, and save the King?”

I’ve talked about this one before, and my excitement remains undiminished. If I had to choose only one book coming out of BEA to read, this might edge out Holly Black to take the prize. I am THAT psyched about it!

“From the #1 New York Times bestselling author Scott Westerfeld comes a smart, thought-provoking novel-within-a-novel that you won’t be able to put down.

Darcy Patel has put college on hold to publish her teen novel, Afterworlds. With a contract in hand, she arrives in New York City with no apartment, no friends, and all the wrong clothes. But lucky for Darcy, she’s taken under the wings of other seasoned and fledgling writers who help her navigate the city and the world of writing and publishing. Over the course of a year, Darcy finishes her book, faces critique, and falls in love. Woven into Darcy’s personal story is her novel, Afterworlds, a suspenseful thriller about a teen who slips into the ‘Afterworld’ to survive a terrorist attack. The Afterworld is a place between the living and the dead, and where many unsolved—and terrifying—stories need to be reconciled. Like Darcy, Lizzie too falls in love…until a new threat resurfaces, and her special gifts may not be enough to protect those she cares about most.”

Scott Westerfeld is another favorite author of mine, and this novel sounds really different and intriguing. Is it just me, or does anyone else get a whiff of foreboding from the blurb…? Eh, it’s late. I’m probably imagining it.

“Match wits with Lemony Snicket to solve thirteen mini-mysteries.

Paintings have been falling off of walls, a loud and loyal dog has gone missing, a specter has been seen walking the pier at midnight -- strange things are happening all over the town of Stain'd-By-The-Sea. Called upon to investigate thirteen suspicious incidents, young Lemony Snicket collects clues, questions witnesses, and cracks every case. Join the investigation and tackle the mysteries alongside Snicket, then turn to the back of the book to see the solution revealed.

A delicious read that welcomes readers into Lemony Snicket's world of deep mystery, mysterious depth, deductive reasoning, and reasonable deductions.”

This one technically already came out in April, but it’s being featured at BEA, too. It sounds like just the sort of thing my younger self would’ve loved, and I imagine my current self would have fun with it, too.

“Aaron Becker, creator of JOURNEY, a Caldecott Honor book, presents the next chapter in his stunning wordless fantasy.

A king emerges from a hidden door in a city park, startling two children sheltering from the rain. No sooner does he push a map and some strange objects into their hands than he is captured by hostile forces that whisk him back through the enchanted door. Just like that, the children are caught up in a quest to rescue the king and his kingdom from darkness, while illuminating the farthest reaches of their imagination. Colored markers in hand, they make their own way through the portal, under the sea, through a tropical paradise, over a perilous bridge, and high in the air with the help of a winged friend. Journey lovers will be thrilled to follow its characters on a new adventure threaded with familiar elements, while new fans will be swept into a visually captivating story that is even richer and more exhilarating than the first.”

Journey was a wonderful wordless picture book, and I think this next one will be just as lovely. I love Becker’s beautiful style of art, and how perfectly he can tell a story with fun, emotion, and humor with just pictures.

Hooray for BEA! Hopefully Susan will be able to snap up one or two of these while dashing around the Javits Center this coming week, and then we can read and chat about them. Any of these sound good to you? What are your most anticipated books at BEA?

Romancing the Rubric: Georgians vs. Vikings

Though it may turn out to be futile, I am dogged in my pursuit of a 2014 Reading Bingo blackout. The square I most recently had in my sights was “a book you could bring up at a bachelorette party,” which led me to some fantastic (read: not fantastic) romance novels found in the truly gargantuan collection of such at my local digital library. (It also occurs to me that my co-blogger and I are possibly the only weirdos in the world who think that book discussion at a bachelorette party is a thing that actually happens.) I found many that were enticing, but settled on these two for starters (and also because they had copies available for immediate download):

“Reynaud St. Aubyn has spent the last seven years in hellish captivity. Now half mad with fever he bursts into his ancestral home and demands his due. Can this wild-looking man truly be the last earl's heir, thought murdered by Indians years ago?

Beatrice Corning, the niece of the present earl, is a proper English miss. But she has a secret: No real man has ever excited her more than the handsome youth in the portrait in her uncle's home. Suddenly, that very man is here, in the flesh—and luring her into his bed.

Only Beatrice can see past Reynaud's savagery to the noble man inside. For his part, Reynaud is drawn to this lovely lady, even as he is suspicious of her loyalty to her uncle. But can Beatrice's love tame a man who will stop at nothing to regain his title—even if it means sacrificing her innocence?”

(Note: This book is the final volume in a quartet, but I was able to follow everything just fine without having read the previous three.)

So…let’s talk about this. Aside from some deplorable French in the early pages, it had a really promising start. Beatrice seemed like a heroine with a good head on her shoulders—level-headed, not afraid to stand up for herself, has a cool book-binding hobby, and affection for her family. Reynaud was also interesting—after years of captivity by Indians in the colonies, he has returned home ready to claim his place as Earl of Something-or-Other, while dealing with some understandable PTSD issues. He may be rough and quick to temper, but he is also loyal to his friends and takes up the mantle of responsibility for those he considers in his care.

The writing is smooth and engaging, pulling you along into the story, and I really enjoyed it for the first half of the book. Beatrice’s awkward position between her uncle the current earl and Reynaud the should-be earl created good tension—she feels Reynaud deserves the earldom, but is worried how her uncle will take having their current lifestyle revoked, and is torn between her loyalty to him and her attraction to Reynaud. Reynaud, for his part, is simultaneously trying to solve the mystery of who betrayed his military unit 7 years prior that resulted in his capture by Indians, and trying to prove he is sane enough to retake the earldom (he thinks marriage will help his cause, and that Beatrice would be a convenient match). The side characters and plots were also engaging, with Beatrice’s friend Lottie dealing with marital strife in what had originally been a love match, and her childhood friend Jeremy, crippled in war and in poor health.

Then things took a turn for the worse. Reynaud’s hardened, though still-mostly-respectful character morphed into a coerce-y, take-advantage-y blob, which I’m sure you can imagine did stellar things for the romance. Beatrice’s best friend from childhood has just died and she’s inconsolable with grief? I know JUST the thing to cheer her up—roughly divesting her of her virginity while she’s grief-stricken and in no state to be making important life decisions! That’s romantic, right? Or at least sexy? Jeez. I mean, I know most people don’t read bodice-rippers because they actually want to have their clothes literally torn off their bodies during their own intimate encounters, but there is a line between titillating and distasteful, and that scene was firmly in the latter category. Ugh.

It was mostly downhill after that. Everything that made Beatrice cool to begin with sort of faded away until she was mostly, “Oh! I love him, but he doesn’t love me!” without much of her original personality intact. Reynaud continued on his path of domineering selfishness and disrespect, largely dismissive of Beatrice’s concerns and opinions both in and out of the bedroom. I think there was only one sex scene that showed genuine, mutual tenderness.

The two get married well before the climax of the story, but don’t realize how the other person feels about them (in Beatrice’s case) or that what they’re feeling is indeed love (in Reynaud’s case) until the end of the book. I guess that was supposed to be the emotional payoff, but I didn’t really buy it. Everything else gets tied up, too—the earldom situation is handled to everyone’s benefit, the mystery of the betrayal in the colonies is solved, and the subplot involving Lottie and her husband is resolved without much actually happening. Even the writing, which was quite good to begin with, became less so as the book went on, with inconsistencies and convenient resolutions to many of the conflicts. All in all, I was disappointed that a story that had started off so strongly devolved into something less compelling with an often uncomfortable relationship at its heart.

Clearly, a romance rubric was in order.

“Dangerous warrior Ivar Gunnarson is a man of deeds, not words. With little time for the ideals of love, Ivar seizes what he wants--and Princess Thyre will not become the exception to his rule! Mysterious and enchanting, Thyre rouses Ivar's desire the moment he lays eyes on her. With Viking factions engaged in a bloody feud, Thyre is yet another captive this hardened warrior conquers--but to be king of Thyre's ‘heart’ will entail a battle he has never engaged in before…”

This book kind of ended up being the inverse of the previous one—largely bad writing, but the relationship at the heart of it was actually kind of sweet. The tender moments between Thyre and Ivar were really the only times I was able to get caught up in the reading—the rest of the time the writing was so flawed that I found it difficult to take the book seriously.

That plot blurb from GoodReads does a pretty crappy job of explaining the (admittedly somewhat convoluted) plot, so I’ll try to sum it up with a bit more detail. Thyre lives with her stepdad and half-sister in a viking kingdom called Ranriken. Her mother, Sainsfrida, is dead, but was actually a princess of Ranriken once upon a time. Back then, something happened and the king (Sainsfrida’s brother, I believe) sent her as a hostage to the ruler of a nearby viking kingdom called Viken. The princess eventually got knocked up while at the Viken court, and was rescued by her friend Ragnfast and taken back to Ranriken. The Viken ruler supposedly told her to kill the baby if it was a girl and send it back to him if it was a boy, and the princess’ brother/king was upset that she got knocked up by an enemy and exiled her to live in the boonies with Ragnfast and illegitimate baby Thyre, whom she did not kill. AND THAT’S JUST THE BACKGROUND INFORMATION.

So Thyre’s mom is dead, and she’s living with Ragnfast and her dopey half-sister. Thyre pretty much runs the steading, and then one day some Viken trader/warriors wash up on her shores after a storm. They’re supposed to show the sailors hospitality while they fix up their ship, and shenanigans ensue, with the result being that their leader, Ivar, claims Thyre as his concubine and takes her back to Viken with him. This part is not actually as creepy as it could be—after Ragnfast commands the sister to sleep with Ivar (which is apparently part of the whole hospitality thing), Thyre tricksily plots with her to switch places to a) protect her sis, who has sworn herself to another man, and b) have a say in who she herself sleeps with before she’s married off to the abusive neighbor. Ivar, for his part, realizes it’s not the sister, preferred Thyre anyway, and was set to just sleep. Like I said, convoluted, but it actually kinda made sense in the context of the story.

So Ivar and Thyre continue to alternately vex and beguile each other as they head back to Viken together with the rest of the crew. There’s a plot involving people from Ranriken trying to rob the Viken on the high seas, and another with Thyre deciding whether or not to reveal her true identity to both Ivar and her father, the ruler of Viken, and yet another with Thyre being antagonized by the Viken ruler’s current wife. Thyre and Ivar are forced to marry, though neither of them really minds, even if they haven’t confessed their true feelings to each other yet. Somehow the high seas attack has endangered Thyre’s family and the steading, and she sneaks on Ivar’s ship when he sails back to help them. All plots points swirl in convergence as Ivar and Thyre realize they love each other, save Ranriken from her uncle’s evil rule, and ease tensions between the two kingdoms!

Whew. This one clearly had a lot of other-plot going on in addition to the romance, which became problematic for me due to the shoddy writing. The writing issues were distracting to the point that I lost a lot of interest in even trying to follow the story and the conversations people were having (seriously, most of the time characters spoke to one another it felt like an exchange entirely of non-sequiturs). Dialogue that didn’t flow, research into the time period not smoothly incorporated, side characters who were flat or whose motivations were difficult to follow…there was a lot that made my inner editor’s fingers twitch toward the red pen.

And yet, I will give credit where it’s due—the majority of interactions and moments shared by Thyre and Ivar were sweet. Thyre is fiery and doesn’t take crap from anyone, and Ivar is alpha-male without being a dick about it. He is respectful of her and appreciates her for who she is, and Thyre feels/treats him in the same way. There were some moments when one or both of them would have a less-respectful thought about the other after some clash of their personalities or wills, but these seemed out-of-character from everything else we knew about them and I ignored them as writing wonk.

One thing that would hit me every so often while reading was how much I would rather be reading the story of Thyre’s mom, Ragnfast, and what went down at the Viken court all those years ago. Did Sainsfrida and the Viken king love each other? What about her friendship with Ragnfast, which was strong enough to compel him to rescue her alone? And then the two friends ended up married (forced by the Ranriken king, but married nonetheless) and exiled, so did they come to love each other eventually? This sounds like a much more absorbing story. I need answers!

Overall, I can’t really say I recommend it, but I felt surprisingly less twitchy about the writing problems than usual, thanks to the central relationship that managed to develop with tenderness and respect, as well a bit of fire and personality conflict. This one’s romance rubric, for comparison purposes:

(Apparently I was so irritated by rubricking these less-than-awesome books that I forgot how to spell “healthy.”)

So which book comes out on top in a battle between good writing/uncomfortable relationship and bad writing/better relationship? Per the incontrovertible rubric, it looks like in this case it’s too close to proclaim either a definitive winner. To Desire a Devil gets a nod for (mostly) smooth writing, while The Viking’s Captive Princess takes the cake (well, maybe just a bite of it) for a relationship that was (mostly) more pleasant to read about, but neither gets my full endorsement.

To Desire a Devil, by Elizabeth Hoyt
Published by Vision (2009)
Read in May 2014; from the library

The Viking’s Captive Princess, by Michelle Styles
Published by Harlequin Historical (2009)
Read in May 2014; from the library