Review of The Cloud Roads by Martha Wells
Sep
22
2011
The Cloud Roads
by Martha Wells
300pp (Paperback)
My Rating: 8/10
Amazon Rating: 4.7/5
LibraryThing Rating: 4.19/5
Goodreads Rating: 4.15/5
 

The Cloud Roads is the first book in the Books of Raksura series by Martha Wells, author of the Nebula nominated novel The Death of the Necromancer. The second volume, The Serpent Sea, is scheduled for release in January 2012. Thanks to a brief Twitter conversation with Martha Wells, I discovered that she is working a third book even though it hasn’t been purchased by the publisher yet.

When Moon was very young, his mother and siblings were killed, leaving him all alone. Since then, he’s never met anyone else like him: Moon has two forms, one with wings and one without. He’s lived among various groundling communities, but he’s never really found a place to belong. Even if he manages to be friendly with others, he still always has to hide what he truly is. If the groundlings see his winged form, they confuse him with the bloodthirsty Fell and no longer want anything to do with him.

Over the years Moon has learned the hard way how to best blend in with the other groundlings, by doing things such as always accepting food and hunting away from the others. For a time, he’s been living with the Cordans where he lives in a tent with two women, one of which he has formed a relationship with. However, one night his lover follows him and sees his other form without his knowledge. She sneaks some poison that only works on Fell into his tea. When it has an effect on him, the Cordans leave him to die.

Fortunately, Moon is rescued by Stone, a shapeshifter just like him who has been scouting for others like them. He informs Moon that he is part of a race known as the Raksura and offers him a place with his court.  Moon accepts, but he doesn’t know the dire straits the Raksura of Indigo Cloud Court are in, nor does he realize just how important he may be to them. As the Raksura are simultaneously fighting threats from both within and without, Moon undergoes a more personal battle: whether or not he can truly find a place to belong with the other Raksura.

The Cloud Roads is a book that does what a good fantasy book should do – transports one to a completely unique world but adds plenty to relate to through its characters and themes. It is a rather simple story, and the line between the good side and the evil side is drawn more clearly than I normally like. In spite of that, it really appeals to the part of me that does want to see  justice and goodness prevail. That’s largely because it does have a main character in a position the average person can easily empathize with – someone who has tried all his life to fit in and failed, someone who just wants a place to belong. Moon’s inability to find these most basic social needs made it easy to want to see him succeed.

From the very first chapter, I was on Moon’s side and wanted him to find happiness. It was so sad that he didn’t know where he came from and had to learn how to hide who he was from others to just not be shunned. Even so, he was still always different and it was so unjust that these other races were so prejudiced against that. When he lived with the Cordans, he helped them gather food for the group and never hurt anyone. Yet the moment one of them learned he was different, fear took over and they wanted him eliminated. It was just that easy – one chapter about Moon’s situation ending with him in peril and I was hooked. Soon Moon learned more about who he was and it was a novel about discovery, identity, learning to trust, and forming relationships in addition to the adventure of going up against the Fell.

Aside from the more character-focused themes, the major plot is about the Fell threat and how to counter it. The Fell are a winged race who are rightly feared by all other races – and Moon and some other Raksura are often confused for them, which is a big reason Moon has to hide his winged form.  On the way home to the Indigo Cloud Court, Stone brings Moon to another colony only to find the Fell have destroyed it. When they arrive at Stone’s home, they find the Fell have visited them as well and are suspicious of their queen for speaking with them. The Fell are very evil, and this is why the two sides seem so black and white. While they have a justifiable motivation for their behavior toward the Raksura, they are still very despicable in general and do not seem to have any good qualities. Since there will be at least one more book, I’m hoping they will gain more dimension later. If not, I still don’t think it’s a bad thing given the context of this novel and the way it makes one want to see what’s right prevail. It also helps that the Fell are not human so it may not be necessary to attribute human qualities to them, although the other characters we are introduced to do seem more dimensional than the Fell.

While many elements aren’t particularly complex – the villains, the writing, and the plot – this novel does have an intricate world comprised of many different races. It’s known as the Three Worlds for the realms of the sea, the earth, and the sky and it’s populated by a variety of intelligent species. This novel mostly delves into the Raksura as learned through Moon’s eyes for the first time, but there are hints of other things that will hopefully be talked about more later (like the relations between the Fell and the Raksura and the sky creatures I assume inhabited the mysterious floating islands). The Raksura are a rather interesting race with a very defined social structure based purely on biology – when a new Raksura is born, it’s obvious what role he or she will have based on its appearance and its shapeshifting forms. This includes everything from soldiers to queens and their male consorts. It’s not all clearly defined, though – such as the details of the queen/consort relationship, which is another significant part of this novel.

In general, I thought a lot of the simplicity worked for this novel, but there were some times I thought potential conflicts were resolved too easily. At times, suspicion could be cast on a member of the group with good reason and it was often very quickly dismissed as a non-issue. Although I didn’t want to see Moon treated with distrust, I did think it would have made sense for him to be greeted with more of it than he was as an unknown Raksura. Also, while the characters were likable and had very sympathetic qualities, I didn’t feel that any of them had a lot of depth, even Moon. He was in interesting situations with his position with the new Raksura and he had problems that were easy to relate to, but he didn’t have a lot of distinct personality.

The Cloud Roads was an engaging, absorbing novel. In a lot of cases, this kind of simplicity doesn’t work, but this is a case where it does. The rich world works to counterbalance the lack of complexity in writing, plot, and characters. Furthermore, it’s just a good story that tugs on the heartstrings. Once in a while it’s refreshing to read a book with a clear good side and a well-meaning main character to root for, and The Cloud Roads is one example of a book that both does this concept very well and adds some originality with the world-building.

My Rating: 8/10

Where I got my reading copy: I bought it.

Read an Excerpt

Other Reviews:

Guest Post by Cinda Williams Chima: Thieves as Heroes
Sep
20
2011

Today I am pleased to have a guest post by Cinda Williams Chima, author of the Seven Realms series and the Heir Chronicles. I’m especially glad to have her as a guest because I’m a new fan of hers. As mentioned in yesterday’s review of The Demon King, her first Seven Realms book, I had a great time reading it and found her story and characters very engaging. I’m quite glad I have more books in the series to look forward to!

The Demon King by Cinda Williams Chima The Exiled Queen by Cinda Williams Chima The Gray Wolf Throne by Cinda Williams Chima

And now, I turn this post over to Cinda Williams Chima!

THIEVES AS HEROES

One of the viewpoint characters in my Seven Realms series is 16-year-old Han “Cuffs” Alister, streetlord of the Raggers—a gang of thieves and divers (pickpockets) in the Ragmarket and Southbridge slums of the mountain city of Fellsmarch. Han takes his street name from the silver cuffs around his wrists. He’s worn them as long as he can remember—they don’t come off.  So the astute reader knows from the start that there’s something magical going on.

Though Han is a successful thief, widely feared and respected, he’s smart enough to know that streetlords don’t live to see twenty. As The Demon King opens, he has decided to go straight. But he finds out that isn’t easy.

Han Alister

I have an affinity for thieves—the literary kind. Bandits, tricksters, pirates and hucksters abound in fiction—as they do in real life, I guess. What’s interesting is that they are so often the heroes in stories and songs.

The first Robin Hood ballads and tales were recorded in 14th century England. France birthed the famous poet-thief Francois Villon in the 15th century. Captain James Hind, a 17th century British thief, was styled as the “royalist highwayman” in popular pamphlets of the day. Supposedly, he targeted Parliamentarians, while leaving the poor alone.

Neither did I ever wrong any poor man of the worth of a penny: but I must confess, I have (when I have been necessitated thereto) made bold with a rich Bompkin, or a lying Lawyer, whose full-fed fees from the rich Farmer, doth too too much impoverish the poor cottage-keeper…

After the Restoration, French-born highwayman Claude Duval worked the roads in and out of London. He was born into a royal family whose lands and titles were confiscated. Polite and well-spoken, fashionably-dressed, he was quite the ladies’ man. One tale has it that he returned a victim’s purse when his wife agreed to dance with him along the wayside. His memorial inscription reads:

Here lies DuVall: Reder, if male thou art,
Look to thy purse; if female, to thy heart.
Much havoc has he made of both; for all
Men he made to stand, and women he made to fall.[1]

William Powell Frith Claude Duval

The Child ballad, “Henry Martin,” is based on the life of Andrew Barton, a privateer. The fact that he had a letter of marque from the Scottish crown didn’t save him when he was captured by the British. He was beheaded for a pirate.

Victorian novelist William Harrison Ainsworth romanticized 18th Century highwayman, Dick Turpin, who frequented York in Britain and was hanged at Tyburn for a horse thief.

Dick Turpin Jumping Hornsey Tollgate

The traditional Irish ballad, “The Newry Highwayman” is a typical in its treatment of thieves:

I’ve never robbed any poor man yet
Nor any tradesman caused I to fret
But I robbed Lords and their Ladies fine
And I carried their gold home to my heart’s delight

Outlaws of the American west are often portrayed as romantic figures—as in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Jesse James, and Billy the Kid. During the last century, many Americans seemed to be rooting for bank robbers like John Dillinger, Bonny and Clyde, and Pretty Boy Floyd.

Most of these real-life thieves look better from a distance. In real life, thieves often steal from those who can least afford it, because they have ready access to the poor.

So what are some common tropes of literary thieves and their stories?

  1. The ruler/government/nobility/police are corrupt, brutal, dishonest themselves. Many thieves of legend turn to thievery when they’ve been pushed beyond their limits by despicable officialdom
  2. They have noble blood. All evidence says that the historical Robin Hood (if there was one) was likely a yeoman. And yet, legend gives him a royal heritage and a role in supporting the rightful king (Richard.)
  3. They steal from the rich and undeserving.
  4. They give to the poor (possibly including themselves.)
  5. They are well-dressed, courteous, and well-spoken.
  6. They follow a code of honor of sorts.
  7. They are handsome (men) or beautiful (women)
  8. They are smart, strategic, bold, charismatic—and very good at what they do
  9. They often dance on the legal borderline—and they often have powerful friends in need of their skills

Why do we love thieves? Thieves appeal to the rogue in all of us, because they live by their wits, often making fools of their more powerful adversaries. Through thieves, we can vicariously stick it to “the man.”

Thieves can get into forbidden places, ferret out secrets, and take risks that we wouldn’t take ourselves. Perhaps we all have a streak of larceny in us. We’re all rule-breakers at heart.

The Seven Realms series is a transformation story—Han Alister the wizard thief is transformed into someone who can interact with and outwit bluebloods. It turns out that the skills he learned on the mean streets of Ragmarket serve him well as he navigates the treacherous Gray Wolf Court.

In this excerpt from The Gray Wolf Throne former streetlord Han Alister is giving an assignment to Cat Tyburn, who used to run the streets with him.

 
“Are you just trying to get rid of me?”

Han shook his head. “I wouldn’t send you if it wasn’t for a reason. I want you to go back to Ragmarket, and get set up there again, like you said. See if the heat’s died down. It should have—the Bayars have other things to think about and last they knew I was in Oden’s Ford.”

“What do you mean, get set up?” Cat asked.

“I know you said everybody’s dead, but see if somebody didn’t get overlooked, if you can get a crew together again.”

Cat stared at him. “You want us out diving pockets and charming locks?”

“Maybe. Eventually. Certain pockets and certain locks. But I need rum divers and dubbers, coves that can amuse the law. More important, I want quality, people we can trust.” He jerked his chin toward his pile of belongings. “Take my purse and give whacks out of that. I expect we’ll be in the city inside of a week. Leave word under the clock at the market, and I’ll do the same.”

Cat sorted through his things and held up his purse. “You sure you want me to take all of this?”

Han nodded. “The clans’ll be good for more.”

“You want me to say who’s streetlord?”

Han thought a moment. “Tell them my street name’s the Demon King. Say I’ve got uptown connections but nasty enemies. Tell them not to come in if they’re quivery.”

About the Author:
Cinda Williams Chima has authored two best-selling fantasy series: The Heir Chronicles (The Warrior Heir, The Wizard Heir, The Dragon Heir) with two books forthcoming; and the Seven Realms series (The Demon King, The Exiled Queen, and the newly-released The Gray Wolf Throne) with more forthcoming. You can find information about her tour for The Gray Wolf Throne and other upcoming events here http://cindachima.com/Events/events.htm.

More information and excerpts from each book are available on her website, www.cindachima.com. Help for writers can be found under Resources/Tips for Writers, including a document called, “Getting Started in Writing for Teens.”

Chima blogs at http://cindachima.blogspot.com/, where you’ll find rants, posts on the craft of writing, and news. Visit her Seven Realms and Heir Chronicles pages on Facebook.

Review of The Demon King by Cinda Williams Chima
Sep
19
2011
The Demon King
by Cinda Williams Chima
528pp (Paperback)
My Rating: 7.5/10
Amazon Rating: 4.4/5
LibraryThing Rating: 4.42/5
Goodreads Rating: 4.3/5
 

The Demon King is the first book in the Seven Realms series by Cinda Williams Chima.  It is followed by The Exiled Queen, and the third book The Gray Wolf Throne was just released last month. The Crimson Crown, the fourth and final book in the series, is scheduled for release in fall 2012.

Han used to be a very successful leader of a street gang known as “Cuffs” for his silver armbands, which he cannot remove and has had ever since he can remember. Now he’s trying to make a more honest living performing tasks such as collecting plants to sell and running errands for others. It’s not enough to provide for himself, his mother, and his sister – and it’s not enough to escape his past, especially when a bunch of his old rivals from when he was a streetlord are brutally murdered. The Queen’s Guard knows all about Cuffs and his reputation and are all too eager to pin the crimes on Han.

However, Han is beginning to wonder if an amulet in his possession is cursed, especially after learning it used to belong to the Demon King of legend. He acquired it when his friend from the clan, Fire Dancer, and he confronted some wizards who were trespassing on clan land. When one of them threatened them with the amulet, Han ended up taking it from him so he wouldn’t use it against them later. Fire Dancer had advised him to leave the amulet behind, but Han couldn’t bear to lose such a powerful, valuable object. Ever since that day, his luck seems to have gotten worse and worse.

Meanwhile, Raisa, the heir to the queendom, is nearing her sixteenth birthday when she will be old enough to marry. Considering her mother is still fairly young and should have many years ahead of her to rule, Raisa doesn’t plan on getting married anytime soon. Yet her mother has other plans for her and Raisa is realizing more and more that her mother is not as she remembers her – which is bad news for the queendom.

While it is largely setting up the rest of the series, The Demon King still manages to be an absorbing book with engaging characters. It did have a slow start and it wasn’t until about 30% of the way through that it fully drew me in, but once I reached that point I couldn’t put it down. There was one afternoon I had been planning to just read a couple of chapters, but I reached that point and ended up spending the whole afternoon just reading this book. It’s not a complex book or one that’s terribly original, but it doesn’t matter since it’s a well told story. Cinda Williams Chima is one of those authors who can take familiar concepts, add a bit of polish with some unique details, and then create character perspectives that give it an added shine.

The Demon King does utilize a lot of common fantasy character tropes – the commoner who is special in some way, the brave and reckless princess, and the very unsympathetic villain. In spite of that, the two main characters are both very sympathetic and compelling. I particularly loved the contrast of their two viewpoints.

Han is so poor his family worries about their next meal, and he knows  the way of the streets. Though Han, we get to see the life of the common people and the clans. It was really easy to like Han, and I related to him immediately with his plight of reforming himself but being unable to escape his reputation and trying to provide for his mother and sister. He’s charismatic and a little bit roguish but not to the point where he’s despicable – he has a reason for anything he does and he never does anything so horrible that he’s unlikable. Han was easily my favorite of the characters, and he was also the one who had a more exciting plot.

Raisa, on the other hand, is the heir to the throne, and it’s from her perspective that we see court life and the wizards. It did take me longer to warm up to Raisa than it did Han, but eventually she won me over. In spite of being royalty, it soon becomes clear that Raisa is not without problems as well. Raisa was the one who underwent the most character development as she began to learn more about the parts of the queendom she’s been isolated from all her life – and begins to discover the way the world really works for the average person.  She yearns to be free and able to make her own choices instead of being constrained by living the life required of a future queen. These wishes gave her more dimension than the somewhat typical adventurous princess she began as, especially as she made an effort to become a better, more informed person.

Han and Raisa’s stories each show a different piece of the puzzle and overlap. Although they don’t spend much time together in this book, their meeting was very memorable, and I’m hoping they’ll spend much more time together in the next book!

Unfortunately, most of the secondary characters are more one dimensional, in particular a lot of the those present at the queen’s court (other than the Captain of the Queen’s Guard and his son who were great additions to the cast of characters). This may be part of the reason I had difficulty warming up to Raisa at first – Han got the more interesting characters to interact with since the people of the clans were better characters. Since Han and Raisa both were good characters, the lack of great secondary characters was not a big deal, though.

I loved the way the history of the world was revealed and how it affected the present. Due to one wizard’s power, there are rules in place about what wizards can do – they can’t marry the queen, they can only use magical items with limited power, and they are not supposed to set foot on the land belonging to the clans. As a result, some people also are prejudiced against wizards, especially those who do not see them all the time in the queen’s court. This all ties in with the story of the Demon King and the amulet Han acquires, and it ends with some revelations that should make the rest of the series interesting, even if some of them were predictable.

The Demon King seemed like an introduction to the world and characters that are important to the series, especially with most of the major events happening close to the end. Even so, it’s an immensely entertaining book on its own despite a slow start. Cinda Williams Chima has created an all-around gripping fantasy story with strong main protagonists and a well-realized world. I’m looking forward to seeing what happens in future installments.

My Rating: 7.5/10

Where I got my reading copy: Review copy from a publicist.

Read Chapter One

Other Reviews:

Stop by tomorrow for a guest post by Cinda Williams Chima discussing thieves as heroes!

Review of Hard Spell by Justin Gustainis
Sep
13
2011
Hard Spell
by Justin Gustainis
416pp (Paperback)
My Rating: 2/10
Amazon Rating: 4.3/5
LibraryThing Rating: 4/5
Goodreads Rating: 4.01/5
 

Hard Spell is the first book in a new series by Justin Gustainis, the Occult Crimes Unit Investigation series.  There is a second book in this urban fantasy series in progress, Evil Dark.

The supernaturals (or “supes” for short) were not a regular occurrence in the United States until after World War II. When the American soldiers came back from fighting overseas, many of them returned as vampires or werewolves and the supernatural started to become more widespread in America. As traveling by plane became more popular, many more of the supernatural moved to the US and their numbers continued to grow.  The supernatural were more prevalent in some places than others, and many of them gathered in Scranton, Pennsylvania, due to its ley lines. This keeps Stan Markowski busy at his job in the Occult and Supernatural Crimes Investigation Unit: he’s called in to take care of everything from goblins on meth robbing a liquor store to demon summoning rituals.

One night Markowski and his partner Karl Renfer are assigned to check out the scene of a murder. A wizard was gruesomely killed, but whoever did it raided his safe yet left a rather substantial amount of cash behind. Markowski wants to know what exactly the murderer was after since it obviously wasn’t money, especially since the dead man had obviously endured a lot of torture before giving in. He enlists Rachel, the department’s witch, to perform a necromancy to find out what happened from the victim himself, but this goes awry. This becomes the least of their problems as vampires are methodically murdered, and Markowski and Renfer learn more about the potential of the stolen object. Can they stop this ambitious vampire/wizard murderer from attaining his ultimate goal before it’s too late?

Hard Spell was not my cup of tea. This book and I had a rocky relationship from the very beginning since the jokes struck me as very cheesy and overdone, meaning I was rolling my eyes far more than I was laughing. It tried very hard to be funny and show how modern it was, and this just fell flat for me. If not for this, the handling of female characters, and some clumsy writing, I probably would have found it an unoriginal but vaguely entertaining book, especially because it did improve toward the end. Unfortunately, the later improvement wasn’t enough to make me want to pick up the next book and I didn’t find it particularly enjoyable to read.

This is another urban fantasy where werewolves, vampires, witches, wizards, goblins, and all kinds of magic lives among us in modern times (although the fact that AOL came up made me wonder just how modern it was). It’s also another one featuring a main character working for some sort of paranormal investigation unit dedicated to dealing with keeping order with all this magic around. It also has a rewritten history including details such as Martin Luther King having a dream including supernaturals and naturals living together peaceably – and perhaps being a closet supernatural himself since he was killed by a silver bullet. It seems like very standard urban fantasy with a few different historical details, but nothing about it seemed terribly unique to me.

The main aspect that sets it apart from other urban fantasy books I’ve read is the tone of the writing. Markowki’s narrative is very coarse with a very specific brand of humor. As a whole it’s also full of foul language, which one may or may not have a problem with. That doesn’t bother me personally from a moral viewpoint, but it did bother me just because it appeared to be going out of its way to include bad language. In general, it seemed to be trying much too hard to find outlandish expressions or “clever” phrases to include.  Here’s a couple of examples of what appeared to me as trying too hard so you can judge for yourself if you’ll have some of the same issues (language/sexual content warning ahead):

 

Scranton’s got a “live and let unlive” relationship with the supernatural, just like everyplace else. [pp. 1]

…I started into my eggs-over-greasy… [pp. 163]

She was looking at me as if I’d just suggested we have three-way sex with a goat some night. A really old, smelly goat. [pp. 55]

I heard Karl mutter under his breath, “Well, fuck me to Jesus with a strap-on dildo.” [pp. 46]

It’s littered with modern day references, which your mileage will also vary with.  Personally, I rolled my eyes about the adult video store where they came across Werewolves Gone Wild and The VILF Next Door (“VILF” of course stands for “Vampire I’d Like to Fang”). Even aside from that, I thought it spent too much time trying to drive home the point that this was modern. It included far more description than is necessary for things like IM chatting with a vampire and searching Google for information on a book called the Opus Mago. The Google search scene told me how many results there were, that many of them dealt with music or some penguin, and that he then put quotes around “Opus Mago” to get better results. It’s enough for me to know Markowski was searching for information on the book; I really don’t need to know the details of how he conducted his Google search. Similarly, there was a part where he checked his voicemail that included the entire part at the beginning about which number to press to perform certain actions. While it is very much a part of what Markowski is doing as a first person narrator, it still seems like clumsy writing to me – it’s enough to know what was said in the voicemail without knowing what number will delete a message. Also, the beginning is just one big infodump about how the supernatural got to America and why they are especially attracted to Scranton, Pennsylvania.

Furthermore, I was bothered by the treatment of female characters in the book. I’ve been going back and forth on whether or not this is justified since I really did get the impression that Markowski viewed these women with respect for their abilities and competence at their jobs. However, in spite of being told about their competence, the more prominent female characters do end up being damsels in distress – one ends up as a vessel inhabited by evil, one is kidnapped, and one is held hostage. As a somewhat standard crime noir tale, this book probably isn’t trying to buck any gender trends, but if you are looking for a novel with heroines that act like the match of the guys, I suspect you’ll be disappointed with this one. It’s implied that these women are strong, but it didn’t do much to back up that claim.

This didn’t bother me nearly as much as the way Markowski always seemed to comment on the female character’s body/attractiveness unless she was a relative. I suppose this is normal for a straight, single male, but the way it was done just seemed unnecessary, and like many things in this book, over the top. For instance, there’s a character in the office by the name of “Louise” who is called “Louise the Tease” behind her back because she wears tight clothing. Aside from that, she’s supposed to be a genius, but there’s far more focus on her style of dress, especially because we’re briefly told she’s intelligent without really being shown that she is. Markowski thinks of her as “Louise the Tease” instead of simply “Louise.” Another woman, Heidi, couldn’t be introduced without being privy to the fact that Markowski wonders “if her supe-proof vest had to be custom-made to accommodate those formidable breasts” (pp. 268).  This is probably just to seem in keeping with the cop character type and one who’s not that young, either – after all, Markowski thinks of  his partner in his early 30s as young and is old enough to have an adult daughter. Yet the number of times these types of comments were made got to be too much and it didn’t make me feel any better about the portrayal of women in this book.

This book is heavier on the urban fantasy/mystery aspect than characterization, although Markowski is given more depth through some revelations about his past. He’s not the sappy type, though, so some of the more touching moments are glossed over. It’s very much about the action – at least when it’s not focusing on the riveting Google search or voicemail scenes.

Hard Spell just wasn’t a book for someone with my taste. The story was somewhat entertaining on its own later in the book, although it was a somewhat generic urban fantasy/mystery combo. It’s not very character-oriented, plus it was dragged down further by lame jokes, objectified female characters, and just all around over-the-top expressions and descriptions.  They may seem like nitpicky little things separately, but there were certainly enough of them quite frequently that they added up, especially since aside from them I found this book mediocre at best. However, I just collected links to ratings on the other sites I always include at the top and I just noticed I seem to be the only person who didn’t like it, so perhaps you will.

My Rating: 2/10 (I was torn between a 2 and a 3, but I decided that any book that made me stop reading and rant at my husband as much as this one did should be a 2)

Where I got my reading copy: Review copy from the author.

Read an Excerpt

Other Reviews:

The Leaning Pile of Books
Sep
11
2011

There were no review copies this week, but I had to of course get a book for National Buy a Book day. How could I not after last year when I bought my favorite book of the year on that day (Elfland by Freda Warrington)?

Aftermath by Ann AguirreAftermath by Ann Aguirre

This is the fifth book in the Sirantha Jax series, and I really enjoy these books so I had to get the latest one since it just came out! These are space operas with a bit of romance (more in some books than others) and they are a lot of fun to read with a lot of action and lovable characters. The last one broke my heart (and creeped me out at times – there were parts that made me really wish I hadn’t read it during a week when my husband was out of the country and I was all alone). I’m looking forward to seeing what happens next!

The previous books in the series are as follows: Grimspace, Wanderlust, Doubleblind, and Killbox. They are available in mass market paperback and ebook format.

DEAD HEROES GET MONUMENTS. LIVE ONES GET TRIALS.

Sirantha Jax has the right genes—ones that enable her to “jump” faster-than-light ships through grimspace. But it’s also in her genetic makeup to go it alone. It’s a character trait that has gotten her into—and out of—hot water time and time again, but now she’s caused one of the most horrific events in military history…

During the war against murderous, flesh-eating aliens, Sirantha went AWOL and shifted grimspace beacons to keep the enemy from invading humanity’s homeworld. The cost of her actions: the destruction of modern interstellar travel—and the lives of six hundred Conglomerate soldiers.

Accused of dereliction of duty, desertion, mass murder, and high treason, Sirantha is on trial for her life. And only time will tell if she’s one of the Conglomerate’s greatest heroes—or most infamous criminals…

Review of Embassytown by China Mieville
Sep
10
2011
Embassytown
by China Mieville
352pp (Hardcover)
My Rating: 2/10
Amazon Rating: 3.9/5
LibraryThing Rating: 4.02/5
Goodreads Rating: 3.93/5
 

Embassytown is the latest book by China Mieville, who is perhaps best known for his novel Perdido Street Station.  He’s written several books in the speculative fiction genre, some of which have won major awards, including the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the Hugo Award, and the World Fantasy Award. Embassytown, a science fiction novel, came out in hardcover and ebook formats this year and will be released in trade paperback in January 2012.

Since I’ve heard a lot about China Mieville and thought the premise of Embassytown sounded really interesting, I was thrilled when I got a copy through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program. Unfortunately, I found it a struggle to get through and it ended up taking me forever to read it. If this had been a book I bought myself to read and felt no obligation to complete for review, I would never have finished it.  Since the reception to this particular novel has been very mixed, even with fans of Mieville’s other books, I still want to try Perdido Street Station – but if I thought this was supposed to be a good representation of his novels I never would have wanted to pick up another one.

Toward the beginning, it really did interest me and I was expecting to have a good time reading it.  While it was confusing at times, that’s not a dealbreaker for me since I enjoy being thrown into a strange world and experiencing it firsthand. Reading about the early life of the main character, Avice, was a fascinating look at life on another world with some great details. She showed us what it was like to live on a planet where the humans couldn’t breathe the air and the games the children played, trying to see who could get the farthest outside the boundary in which they could breathe safely. Their society, which involved children being raised by many adults they viewed as their “mums” and “dads,” intrigued me as well.  Avice’s early life also introduced the mysterious Hosts, aliens who requested Avice herself to act out a simile and become a part of Language forever. She readily agreed and was taken to act the part of what was shortened to “a girl ate what was given her.” This was actually a somewhat brutal event since the long version specifies a girl in pain, but Avice glosses over her bruises, seeming to considering it an honor and one she found far more strange than intolerable. As a part of Language, Avice does become some sort of superstar, even later gaining groupies among the Hosts who find the expression she performed particularly valuable.

For a little while, the novel alternated between the past and the present before continuing with the present day. This also kept me fairly interested, although I found the present parts a bit hard to fathom without the rest of the context.  The past, which told a lot of how Avice met her husband and returned to her home planet, was easier to read and gave more of the background.  Scile, whom Avice married, was fascinated by the Hosts and quite captivated to learn Avice had become a part of Language. For a time, I was eager to see what ended up happening and learn more about these aliens and their Language.

That soon changed and I was thoroughly disappointed and really didn’t like this novel, to be completely honest. For the most part, I was mind-numbingly bored as the book dragged on and on and became more and more pointless. It didn’t seem to be so much a story as an examination of ideas on language, which could have been interesting except it seemed to be trying much too hard to appear clever without really forming a basis for the concepts involved. Avice, whose perspective I had found so delightful earlier on, also became tedious as she had no personality and was mostly just a window through which we saw events. She did end up having some importance to how it ended, but she still never really became a living, breathing character that one could triumph and sorrow with. Actually, all the characters were flat and dull, although I did find the aliens less so just because they were so inhuman and, well, very alien. By the end, I didn’t care about anyone or anything in the book, which was a shame because it did seem so promising early on.

The basic concept revolves around the Language of these aliens, who only understand sounds to be a form of communication if they’re spoken simultaneously and has “soul.” In order to communicate with them, the humans created ambassadors, two people with a bond allowing them to speak in unison to the aliens. Once it gets going, most of the plot revolves around what happens when an ambassador comes along who is like a drug to these aliens to the point where they become hooked on his speech. It’s about how they resolve this and the changes they must undergo in order to once again become a functional society. Also important to the plot is the fact that these aliens evolved to the point where they could not tell a lie. In order to be able to use figures of speech such as similes they needed to have the event they wanted to speak of happen, which is why Avice acted the part of “a girl ate what was given her.” On occasion, they had a festival of lies in which the aliens got together and attempted to do things like state an object was a different color than it actually was.

While this is all interesting on its own, I really think that a novel containing all these central ideas needs to flesh them out much better than this one did. Much of the book focuses on the fact that the aliens act in unusual ways, but the “hows” and “whys” are completely ignored. What happened to cause the aliens to be unable to lie in the first place? How did they come to the conclusion that they needed similes in their language since it was mentioned they started performing similes with objects even before the humans came? What made them realize they were missing something without being able to use similes and metaphors when they were all alone? If the aliens could describe what they needed to have acted out to add a new simile to Language in the first place, why couldn’t they just talk about it? While I love this as an ode to the beauty of language and the desire to have imagery – and that these aliens wanted to add some artistry in their speech and choreographed these displays to use for making their points – it seemed like an idea that really needed to be a lot more detailed. Without more of a foundation, this premise just seemed far-fetched and there for no more purpose than to illustrate a point, not to tell a well-executed story with well-integrated ideas.

Embassytown started off strong in the earliest pages when it introduced the titular place.  It has an alien world that feels very different from planet Earth, populated by aliens that are as alien as that name implies they should be. There is the occasional turn of phrase that also made me see glimpses of some great writing. I also really have to admire the love of language expressed through the central idea.  In spite of all those things and a strong beginning, I was just tired of it by the end, though. It prattled on and on, and the characters were dull. Also, for such an idea-centric novel it didn’t flesh out the central idea of Language enough to be a concept I could believe in, leaving me with more questions about just how exactly this was supposed to make logical sense. The positive aspects are easily outweighed by the negative ones, especially because the more I read the more I disliked it (and the same goes for when I reread much of it over the course of writing this review).

My Rating: 2/10

Where I got my reading copy: ARC from the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program.

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