Category: READING

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When The World Was Flat (and we were in love) – Review

Posted on by Claire

17568923Author: Ingrid Jonach
Genre: YA sci-fi
Publisher: Strange Chemistry
Date: January 2013
Source: Net Galley
Buy the Book – Goodreads

Lillie is your average small-town-Alaskan high-school student. Crackpot hippie mother not-withstanding, Lillie’s life is pretty normal until she starts dreaming of her own death, every single night.

Then new guy Tom strolls into school; he’s handsome, rich & British, a swoon-worthy combination if there ever was one.

But he is also strangely familiar, Lillie instinctively knows things about him she couldn’t possibly know. Do they really have some kind of weird connection, or is a simple teenage crush making her read way too much into Tom’s every word or gesture?

The beautiful cover and intriguing title should give you an idea of the lyrical, atmospheric flavour of the book. It doesn’t lack in sass either, with Lillie’s opinions and descriptions rendering the small town and its inhabitants in vivid detail. I was particularly impressed with the expert portrayal of teenagers, which hit just the right notes of frailty, bravado and cruelty in turn. The parade of couchsurfers moving in and out of Lillie’s living room never failed to provide comic relief.

The revelation of a supernatural aspect to the plot came fairly late, allowing the high-school drama to take front and centre stage for the first half of the book. That’s a relatively large portion of the story which is solely dedicated to Lillie’s everyday life, as well as that of her family, friends, frenemies, and even the town.

This early focus allowed the reader to immerse in Green Grove sufficiently to understand exactly how devastating an impact the later reveals could have.

One initially very sympathetic character turns suddenly sinister shortly after the central crux of the story is finally revealed, and the reader feels this twist all the more cruelly for this attention paid the character in question early on.

The lack of a supernatural plot-twist before the mid-point also provided its own little pinch of suspense. There is a certain amount of meta at play; when you pick up a book from a genre publisher, you expect some kind of science-fiction or fantasy element.

Yes, the weird dreams could just be dreams, except the reader knows they’re not. I spent the first half of the book wondering, at the turn of every page, is this next one the page I’ll find out?

By the time Lille finally gets told what is going on, the seasoned genre reader will have probably guessed the most likely answer (I did), but Jonach builds on the beloved sci-fi concept and creates a beautiful, multi-layered hidden fantasy world. There is almost a bit of cognitive dissonance between the high-school drama and high-concept sci-fi portions of the story, but if you enjoy both genres, like I do, you will love both halves equally.

I read this book on holiday and I must say it was close to the perfect summer read for my taste – a fun, witty story, with enough emotional resonance to make me root for a happy ending, none of the unnecessary sap I always dread from romances, and a decent grounding in sci-fi without any arduous info-dump. It feels great sometimes to step back and read a story not about the end of the world, but the tearing apart of someone’s little world, which is just as dramatic when it’s done well.

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The Shambling Guide to New York City – Review

Posted on by Claire

ShamblingGuideAuthor: Mur Lafferty
Series: The Shambling Guides #1
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Orbit
Date: January 2013
Source: Own copy
Buy the Book – Goodreads

Zoe’s last job was a train wreck. She’s back in her home town of New York City, desperate for a new start, but running out of cash fast.

So when she finds an ad for a seemingly-perfect job as a travel guide editor, she’s not going to let the excuse that ‘she’s not the right type for the job’ and ‘wouldn’t fit in with the team’ stand in her way. Sheer determination wins her an interview in a dilapidated theatre and dinner with her potential new boss.

It turns out the job is to write a guide book for New York’s visiting monster population. The boss is a vampire, and the payroll includes zombies, an incubus and a death goddess. Zoe has to come to terms with the existence of another world, hidden in plain sight in her city, and learn to deal with her new co-workers often-disturbing feeding habits. When the balance between humans and coterie (monster is an offensive term) starts falling apart, Zoe is caught in the crossfire.

The Shambling Guide to New York City is an absolutely delightful almost-debut from RPG writer, Escape Pod editor and podcaster extraordinaire Mur Lafferty, whose career I’ve been following for some time. This is not her first published work (she has self-published the Heaven series through Kickstarter and her novel Playing For Keeps came out from Swarm Press in 2008) but it is her best yet.

She presents us with a rich supernatural underground to New York City, full of hilarious anecdotes and smart tweaks to reality (the MoMA’s closed galleries are really hired out by visiting demons who are too big to fit in human-sized hotels) told through excerpts from the book Zoe is writing. As a protagonist, Zoe is made even more likeable because she shows real strength of character, even as she has to accept her weaknesses in dealing with an overwhelming situation.

After her engrossing and thought-provoking novella Marco and the Red Granny, Lafferty gives us another kick-ass elderly woman to love and cheer on in the hilarious and irreverent Granny Good Mae. The rest of the varied cast of characters is also handled perfectly so that the reader even likes the brain-eating zombies. This is also a very funny book, Lafferty’s humorous touch is spot-on throughout and her dry observations on the human or coterie conditions made me snort out loud several times.

In short, I can’t wait for the second instalment in this series, The Ghost Train to New Orleans, and you should all go read The Shambling Guide to New York City, out in UK and US bookshops now. You can also go to Mur’s website to listen to a chapter of the audiobook for free every week.

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Unread Books Guilt

Posted on by Claire

Turns out I have to move in a few months’ time.

This coming on the heels of my New Year’s Resolutions to read more and discover new authors made me reconsider all the tsundoku I’ve been doing for years.

What is ‘tsundoku’ you ask?

Award-winning author Lauren Beukes tweeted about this fantastic Japanese word. Surely we need a word for that in English, right?

Tweet Lauren Beukes

I’m very, very guilty of buying books that sound great and adding them to my ever-growing collection of books that sound great. Of course I read some and I start even more, but many remain unread. Inevitably, I forget that they’re there and just buy some more.

Now that the terrifying prospect of piling all of my beloved books into boxes once again looms on the horizon, I know I’ve got to do something drastic. I hate the idea of downsizing my bookshelves, but how dumb is it that some of my books came with me from France four years ago, were subsequently moved twice, are about to move a third time and I have not read them yet?

On my To-Read List for the next few months:

booksFor The Win and Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow
I ordered a couple of Doctorow’s books after reading his novel Little Brother, which I absolutely adored.

Druide by Oliver Peru, Gagner La Guerre by Jean-Philippe Jaworski
When I visit my parents, we always end up visiting the nifty, giant independent bookshop in the next town over from them. This never ends in small purchases.

Elantris by Brandon Sanderson, Partials by Dan Wells
I’m a regular listener of Writing Excuses, the weekly writing advice podcast Sanderson and Wells are hosts on, so I was curious to read more of their work and keen to support them.

The Demon’s Watch by Conrad Mason
A YA debut with cross-dressing and pirates, with a sequel out in a few months! Must get to reading this one.

Also on the list: China Mieville’s Kraken, William Gibson’s Neuromancer, Mark Haddon’s A Spot of Bother, Neil Gaiman’s American Gods and Anansi Boys, Joseph D’Lacey’s Meat, Lazette Gifford’s Writing Science-Fiction & When It Changed, and anthology of essays on Sci-Fi.

I can’t be the only one with a book-buying problem. Let me know, what’s in your stack of unread books and how do you plan to tackle it?

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The Hobbit: Then and Now Again

Posted on by Claire

When my brother and I were small, my mother read us The Hobbit, and then the Lord of the Rings before bedtime.

If the goal was to get us to sleep (as she claimed it was), then it failed rather tremendously. We got fired up at the story and us pleading for ‘One more page!’, ‘Two more!’, ‘To the end of the chapter, pleeease!’ became a nightly occurrence.

I started reading under the covers with a flashlight, thinking I was sneaky.

However, I don’t doubt for a second that her ulterior motive was to get us wildly hooked on stories for life, and in this she was very, very successful. We became unrepentantly voracious readers and though she did have to spend rather a lot of money on books, I think she was quite pleased with herself on that front.

The Hobbit is one of the first stories I can remember being told, but I hadn’t heard it in a very long time, nor ever read it on my own. When Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings came out I read the trilogy for myself (in French, as well as chosen passages in English), but for some reason, I never did the same with The Hobbit.

So I decided to splash out and get the audiobook for The Hobbit in anticipation of the first film. I also got the new starter set of table-top miniatures from Games Workshop, because I do like things which are tiny and paintable. Also goblins are cool. I have goblins now.

About the audiobook, first I was really annoyed with Audible.com for splitting the book into two parts, each priced at one full credit. As a subscriber, I pay about $15 a month for one credit, which normally buys me one full book. As in one full Connie Willis or Frank Herbert book. Brandon Sanderson’s The Well of Ascension is 29 hours long, and it was one credit. The Hobbit’s audiobook is ‘only’ 11 hours long, making each part among the very shortest audiobooks I own.

I ended up paying for the two parts of the book with dollars rather than credits. I do get a subscriber’s discount, so it was only about $18, but that is quite steep for a regular book, and it is more than I already pay monthly as a subscriber. Yes, Peter Jackson is making three movies and we’ll have to shell out for a 3D ticket each time, but at least there I can see the added value (sets, costumes, props, makeup, etc…). I trust I’ll get something breath-taking for my money, whereas as good as this audiobook was, I really don’t see anything that qualifies it to be pricier than Dune, which is more than twice as long.

Grating pricing strategy aside, I truly enjoyed the book. I didn’t remember most of the story, so I had a lot of fun rediscovering it. The premise for Bilbo accompanying the dwarves was a bit silly (there are thirteen of them, so they need a fourteenth of their company to avoid ill luck) but I was excited enough to just roll with it.

I enjoyed Bilbo’s character very much, particularly his food-related pragmatism (I think I may be a Hobbit at heart) and the difficult decision he makes throughout. I found him a lot more relatable than Frodo, probably because he is able to retain a sense of humour at this point. The ring later spoils him a bit too, as seen in that really creepy scene in the Fellowship when Ian Holm’s Elderly Bilbo wants to keep the Ring for himself.

Rob Inglis’ narration was top-notch, his voice and accent suited Tolkien’s grand use of language perfectly. I am a total sucker for his old-fashioned turns of phrases and his omniscient, fourth-wall-breaking point of view. Inglis also did all the songs wonderfully. A lot of people seem to complain about the songs throughout The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings, but they’ve always been a special treat for me, especially in the English versions. The low chorus of the dwarves in the trailer for An Unexpected Journey gives me goose bumps every time.

So, on the whole, I’m very happy that I took the time to rediscover the book before going to see the film. And I am so, SO VERY EXCITED for it!

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Boneshaker

Posted on by Claire

Briar Wilkes, daughter of a folk hero and widow of the criminal mastermind responsible for the zombie plague, embarks on a rescue mission when her teenage son Zeke sneaks into the walled city of Seattle.

Briar & Zeke must navigate the underground labyrinth Seattle has become, decide who they can afford to trust, and stay alive long enough to find each other & get back home safely.

Cherie Priest’s Boneshaker came up first when I searched ‘Steampunk’ on Audible. I’ve been trying to read and watch more Steampunk lately, to get a better idea of the genre hopefully some inspiration for The Paradise Swarm.

I remembered hearing very positive feedback about Boneshaker on a couple of podcasts I follow, I really loved the cover, and saw that Wil Wheaton was one of the narrators. That’s pretty much all it takes to make me click ‘Add to basket’, Wil Wheaton is a damn good narrator, and did I mention the cover?

The story is extremely engaging from the beginning, Briar’s very relatable motivation to find her son brings urgency and tension to the narrative, and the cluelessness displayed from Zeke’s point of view only reinforces it. This is the book for you if you want to read dual point of views, deceiving appearances and partly unreliable narrators done right.

There is a great other-wordly dimension to the setting throughout, plus a rich and intriguing lore, supported by airships, gas masks, pirates, mechanical body parts, evil geniuses and zombies galore.

The cast of secondary characters was impressive, and I especially loved the moments when neither the reader nor the character knows who to trust for certain.

I was especially struck by the feeling of imminent danger that was ever present throughout the book from the setting and environment. Most of the action takes place in tunnels underneath the city, as the simple act of going above ground is so dangerous. The idea that walking in the street is such a deadly enterprise particularly inspired me to ramp up the tension and danger in my own writing.

I am now waiting impatiently for my next Audible credit so I can buy the sequel, in which we follow an airship captain.