Mini-Review: The Deaths of Tao by Wesley Chu

The Tao books by Wesley Chu are the perfect spy thrillers for a generation where science fiction is mainstream and dominates pop culture. They are action-packed, full of intrigue, both political and personal, witty, funny, and wrap it all up in alien possession. And of course who could be a more perfect choice for a heroic spy than an overweight, single, gamer in a dead end job?

The Deaths of Tao is the second book of the series, which is in part a trilogy, though it has expanded with a ‘coda’ novella and now a new series set in the world. The Lives of Tao began the series (my review) with a bang and The Deaths of Tao follows up a typical middle book does. Things go dark, it gets bad, really bad. Lack of hope bad. And in the end…well a tiny bit of hope gets thrown in just as a huge and unexpected curveball is thrown in to the mix. And Chu makes this all work without losing the witty, slightly irreverent voice that somehow makes a spy-thriller about alien-possessed people who secretly control the world something that isn’t just believable (in a fiction sense), but is a lot fun to read.

Go forth and read. And believe. And have fun.

Tao Series

The Lives of Tao: My Review, Amazon

The Deaths of Tao: Amazon

The Rebirths of Tao: Amazon

The Days of Tao: Amazon

Io Series

The Rise of Io: Amazon

Mini-Review: Zero World by Jason M. Hough

Some background information that you probably won’t care about:

A small sample of those hundreds 

(thousands?) of books waiting to be 

read.

I’ve seen a fair bit of buzz around the books of Jason M. Hough, particularly his first trilogy (The Dire Earth Cycle) which is a form of military science fiction that I’ve just never found myself in the mood for, even though I have full trilogy collecting dust on a bookcase. Anyway, I had that privilege to meet Jason when he visited Arizona last year and converse over a beer or two (I’m still rather unhappy that I had forgotten his books to get them signed). So, I will be completely honest, I read his book because we had beers together – yes, I had copies of his books and yes, they seemed like fun books to read. But the distinguishing feature that made me read his book over the hundreds of others I have lying around my office was that I met him in person and enjoyed our conversations. And it didn’t hurt that in an earlier conversation that I had with Brian Staveley, Brian had very positive things to say about Zero World. Yes, book tours matter. Yes, there are sometimes ‘perks’ to being a blogger. And yes, I hope to meet Jason again, converse over more drinks, and hopefully I’ll remember to bring books for him to sign.

The (mini) review:

Zero World intrigued me initially because it sounded like a fun and interesting take on a spy thriller in a near-future science fiction world. Basically, and Asian James Bond in the future. And initially, that is exactly what Zero World is – a fun and interesting take on the spy thriller where our spy/assassin has his memory wiped after every mission. There are some interesting bits about the whole memory reset process, the moral ambiguity that comes from being a successful assassin with no memory of his actions, and of course just who is the ‘god’ voice in this assassin’s head and what are their motivations. This, and our assassin gets a physical boost in speed, strength, and healing through some nice chemical enhancements.

But, even though all of that is more than enough for its own story, it gets bigger. Before long, this near-future SF book becomes ‘portal’ SF to a parallel world, with things ending up in a near Space Opera scope, though we still see it all through our Bond-like assassin. Then we begin to see things through the eyes of another spy from the parallel world. With the broadening of the scope comes a broadening of exploration – our assassin questions his morals, his goals, his purpose. In parallel we learn to question the motivations of others, particularly those in power. The further up the proverbial tower of power, the worse things seem to be. In this respect, Zero World is a fresh take on old ideas.

But, don’t let me get too deep here, because I run the risk of skipping over the true strengths of this book. It’s the pacing – a lot of things happen fast. This is about 3 books in 1, and it works. Zero World keeps the adrenaline flowing, the mind begging to know what comes next, and it won’t let you go to sleep. This is entertainment. This is fun. And I can’t wait to see what comes next.

So, as usual, no plot summary here. And as is (sadly) becoming more and more common with my reviews, it’s rather short and doesn’t dig in as I like to do. But, in the end it doesn’t matter. In the end, a review is an opinion, and in my opinion, Zero World is great book written by a great guy.

Zero World (Amazon)

The Dire Earth Cycle

The Darwin Elevator (Amazon)

The Exodus Towers (Amazon)

The Plague Force (Amazon)

Mini Review: The Lives of Tao by Wesley Chu

If you regularly follow this blog, then you know that I can be a bit … delayed in my reviewing (and if you’re new, howdy and now you know). I’ve made no secret that I’m just busy and it can be hard for me to keep up. But I do keep up, just slowly. So, my reviewing these days runs roughly 3 months behind when I finish a book – unless it doesn’t, because some reviews beg to be written more immediately, but the muse is a finicky seductress, and I digress.

Anyway, my rambling does have a point and that is that I was very happy to see Wesley Chu win the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer at the 2015 Hugo Awards. And that has inspired me to finally get around to my ‘review’ of his debut novel, The Lives of Tao.

Honestly, I don’t have a lot to add to the narrative that you’ll find out there, so details here are intentionally sparse. I will simply say that this book is tons of fun. It’s a (sort-of) weird book about alien possession and international espionage, about secret organizations that actually control the world, and even the evolution of humanity and its civilization. Or maybe it’s about a loser in a go-nowhere tech job. That description alone is enough to probably bounce a number of readers and probably the reason that The Lives of Tao found its home with Angry Robot publishing which is known for taking chances on books that the big publishers can’t envision a market for. But, don’t fall for the trap – this book is too much fun to pass up.

If you love the idea of near-immortal, body snatching aliens controlling everything, where one takes over the life a forgettable geek and turns him into an uber spy and international man of mystery – this book is for you. And if you like the sound of some of that, but the rest seems a bit too far out there…read it anyway. This book is fun. It’s well written, it is damn near impossible to put down, and it always leaves you wanting to read more and more. It’s awesome y’all – it’s the stuff that wins awards. It’s a summer read, a beach read, or hell, it’s a great read for tonight.

Get the point? Read it. And, there are sequels. Plus another trilogy is forthcoming. All is good.

Tao Trilogy

The Lives of Tao: Indiebound, Book Depository, Amazon

The Deaths of Tao: Indiebound, Book Depository, Amazon

The Rebirths of Tao: Indiebound, Book Depository, Amazon

Io Trilogy

The Rise of Io: Forthcoming

Time Salvager: Indiebound, Book Depository, Amazon

Mini-Review: Hurricane Fever by Tobias S. Buckell

I have something to admit that is likely not a surprise to anyone who pays attention to what I read and review here at the blog (but let’s face it, how many people are actually paying attention to that). I’m rather limited in what I read – it’s mostly fantasy, and generally some form of second-world fantasy. Yes, I read some SF in there, some urban fantasy, some historical fantasy, some thrillers, and a few books that are either all or none of those and find themselves described with trite phrases like ‘transcends genre’. I say this because even though we in the SFF world certainly claim Tobias S. Buckell as an SFF author, some of his latest books are much more thriller/adventure/spy books that have as much in common with the books of Clive Cussler and Tom Clancy, and those fall outside of my typical sphere of reading. But that doesn’t mean that us SFF fans shouldn’t be reading those books – especially anyone who is looking for some form of near-future SFF that actually presents a very possible future that doesn’t immediately become overly post-apocalyptic.

Hurricane Fever is Buckell’s second book about a not-to-distant from now world where climate change has changed everything. His first book of the vein, Arctic Rising (my review), follows a young UN pilot who becomes wrapped up in a global conspiracy. In Hurricane Fever, Buckell focuses on a secondary character form Arctic Rising, the Caribbean spy, Roo, who is forced out of retirement and becomes wrapped up in a global conspiracy. Yes, these books are full of the typical spy thriller tropes that we’ve all come to love, and there are not a few jabs poked at those that have popularized that genre, most obviously James Bond.

The difference is that Hurricane Fever (and Arctic Rising) are very smartly written. They feature non-standard protagonists doing things just as well as the white guys. The future world is eerily possible – the socioeconomic, political and military possibilities presented are scarily likely. Seas have risen, balances of power have shifted, the weather is crazy, and drones change everything. This is the future.

And it’s shown through the lens of a good, old-fashioned, shoot’em up spy thriller. Smart and fun. It doesn’t get much better than that.

Arctic Rising: My Review, Indiebound, Book Depository, Amazon

Hurricane Fever: Indiebound, Book Depository, Amazon

Mini-Review: Bones of the Earth by Michael Swanwick

Sometimes worlds do actually collide. While my alter-ego on the internet (who I colloquially call Neth) is well known in certain areas of the internet, I do have a real world identity that includes me being a trained geologist. While it’s not the cliché that many would think, I do love dinosaurs. Neth loves what he’s read from Michael Swanwick and when Swanwick writes about dinosaurs in Bones of the Earth (Indiebound, Book Depository, Amazon) worlds collide.

 

In many ways, Bones of the Earth is Jurassic Park written by a much more likeable author. They both involve dinosaurs, they both involve science fiction (genetic engineering in Jurassic Park and time travel in Bones of the Earth), and they are both something of a thriller in nature easily adaptable to the likes of Hollywood. My instinct is to call Bones of the Earth a smart person’s Jurassic Park, though I admit that this is likely due to my dislike of Crichton and doesn’t really reflect what I actually thought of Jurassic Park the first few times I read it (I loved it back in the ‘90s).

 

Regardless, Bones of the Earth is an intelligent mash-up of dinosaurs and time travel where paleontologists are presented with an opportunity to study actual living dinosaurs in their actual habitat. As expected, it follows the rubric of presenting a few somewhat crazy ideas as scientific possibilities in a thoroughly entertaining manner. Where Bone of the Earth does distinguish itself is in the people. This book is as much a story of how people and their personalities interact with others and in time – after all, time travel often presents the opportunity for a younger self to interact with an older self. And time travel paradoxes are always fun.

 

Bones of the Earth is fun and I very much enjoyed it. Swanwick is a very good author and everytime I read his books I wander why I’m not reading more of them. The book is probably best summed up in the simple equation below.

 

Dinosaurs are cool. Time travel is cool. Dinosaurs + time travel = really, really cool.

 

Review: City of Dark Magic by Magnus Flyte

One thing that enjoy in life is the opportunity to travel, see the world, meet the people, eat the food, and drink the beverages (not necessarily in that order). I’ve been lucky enough in life that I’ve gotten to experience a lot of travel in many parts of the world. While it would be difficult to ever pick a favorite place, or even a favorite type of place, I will say that Europe is high on that list. And the part of Europe I’ve spent the most time in is central and eastern Europe, specifically the Czech Republic and Romania. So, when I saw that the  urban fantasy thriller that’s earning a bit of buzz, City of Dark Magic by Magnus Flyte (Indiebound, Book Depository, Amazon), is set in Prague, I thought that it was a book I’d probably enjoy.

 

City of Dark Magic starts with its author – Magnus Flyte, whom the description makes out to be a rather mysterious rogue of man who took the publishing world by storm. In truth, Magnus Flyte is the pseudonym for writers Meg Howrey and Christina Lynch, a much less interesting truth than tongue-in-cheek mystery of the description. And this is a telling framework for the book itself.

 

I could write up a description of what the book is about, but really I think the best thing to do is take a brief 2 minutes to watch the book trailer below. It sums up the plot of the book well enough and again, sets a framework from which to judge the book itself.

 

 

Did you watch it? Good. First, were you intrigued to read the book? Did you laugh out loud? Did you stop in disgust 20 seconds into it? I really can’t understand how anyone thought this book trailer was a good idea. It’s laughably bad and its tone does more to mock the book than I can possibly do in the course of this review. Maybe I’m just not the core audience they were trying to attract with this trailer, but the best reaction to this trailer I can imagine is that ‘it looks so terrible that it might be kind of good’. That may work for something like Dude Where’s My Car, but a book that isn’t a satirical joke but a legitimate attempt at a magical suspense thriller in the vein of urban fantasy and paranormal romance? Bad idea. [EDIT:  and if this book actually is supposed to be satirical joke, then it completely failed in my opinion]

 

I wasn’t expecting a SFF masterpiece with this book, but at worst I was hoping for a fun urban fantasy and travelogue of Prague that would have me fondly reminiscing about my times there. At best I was hoping for a suspenseful and scholarly feeling book with an immersive atmosphere – such as The Historian or Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. Unfortunately, it was far worse than my hopes. Instead of some minimally entertaining thriller in the darkly magical setting of Prague, City of Dark Magic is little more than a 'gritty' version of Disney’s Princess mythos – and that description makes it sound more interesting than it actually is. And by gritty I mean sex, often from behind, in public and involving religious monuments – truly you would think the author of this book really is a man rather than two women.

 

The set-up for the plot is a formulaic wreck that checks pretty much all of the boxes. An attractive young women with a checkered past who is extraordinarily brilliant [check], an eccentric and even more brilliant mentor [check], who is killed in mysterious circumstances [check], a rich benefactor emerges [check], an all expense paid trip with salary to boot to someplace darkly exotic [check], where she meets a prince [check], who was a drummer in a rock band before he was a prince [check], she uncovers an evil government conspiracy [check], and travels in time [check], … I refuse to go on, but could.

 

Somehow, I continued the book, though I very nearly stopped reading it many times. I’ll be honest, it does improve a bit once the plot gets rolling. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not good unless you’re a Hollywood blockbuster writer, but it’s at least tolerable (helped out by the setting).

 

As a travelogue for fond memories it unfortunately didn’t quite measure up – with Prague being such an interesting place, their descriptions come off as flat. Almost as if they haven’t ever been to Prague, walked its streets, or talked to any Czechs over half a dozen beers. But they at least had a good map and got it right with the cab driver.

 

The historical connection to Beethoven was also a relative failure of the novel. In the beginning I could have sworn the author was some Princeton graduate mentally masturbating bragging about all they learned about the real Beethoven. But even the authors got bored with that and very nearly forgot about it. City of Dark Magic could never decide if it wanted to be a magical/historical mystery or a contemporary government thriller – as a result, it’s neither and the result is an unfocussed mess.

 

In this review I go into detail on (un)reliability of blurbs and I find that a blurb is yet another telling truth about this book. The big blurb for City of Magic doesn’t come from an author or even a critic, but a pop culture icon.  

“This deliciously madcap novel has it all: murder in Prague, time travel, a misanthropic Beethoven, tantric sex, and a dwarf with an attitude.”

-Conan O’Brien

 

Really now. Combine O’Brien’s blurb with the book trailer above and you didn’t need to read this review to know that you shouldn’t waste your time with this book. Which is unfortunate, because I do love Prague. 

Review: Arctic Rising by Tobias Buckell

As a geologist, as a concerned citizen, as a parent of 2 young children, I’m horrified by the (lack of) actions of my country regarding global warming. It’s happening, it’s real – it’s a problem that society needs to deal with. And as much of an issue as it is, it’s surprising how little it’s been explored in fiction, particularly near-future science fiction. Arctic Rising by Tobias Buckell (BookDepository, Powell’s Books, Indiebound) does just this in an intelligent, fun and action-packed fashion. It is near-future science fiction, it is a techno-thriller where the world has warmed, the seas have risen, the Northwest Passage is ice-free, and money and power are not far behind.

The thawing of the arctic seas has opened the lands and waters to economic exploitation. Lands once buried in ice are rich in minerals. The seas have some of the last remaining oil and gas in a world past peak oil. The rising power and influence of the ‘Arctic Tiger’ nations has a global shift in power in an increasing unstable world and new a melting pot of opportunity. And a ‘green corporation’ has risen as the most powerful corporation on earth with a goal of reversing the climate trend, a goal at odds with economic boom of polar waters.

Anika is a young UN pilot patrolling the polar waters. She and her partner find a positive reading for radiation on a passing ship. Their airship is shot down with a surface-to-air missile. Anika survives only to find herself at the center of a conspiracy quickly spiraling out of control.

Thrillers are generally good, fun reading, but not necessarily a place to expect the best writing. The writing is usually adequate, but it’s the story and the action that dominate. In Arctic Rising the story is action-packed with compelling characters and it’s got quality writing. This is a smart thriller – Buckell has done his research. And for a book that set in a time reacting to the consequences of global warming, it’s not the didactic global warming research you may think of. The United States military has done lots of contingency planning based on what could happen in the future due to global warming – Buckell takes these studies and uses them to create a convincing story through the eyes of middling UN pilot of a new socio-economic order of nations and corporations battling it out in the arctic. There are spies, there are mercenary soldiers, there is a criminal underworld. There’s torture, redemption, hopelessness, nano-technologic wonders and an errant nuclear bomb.

All of this is told from the viewpoint of Anika, an unlikely character to be at the heart of a thriller. Buckell could have stuck to the tried and true protagonist – a white American guy from the coast, or even a nice white American girl from the Midwest. Instead, Buckell looks to his own mixed routes as an immigrant from the Caribbean and chooses a female protragonist who is from Nigeria. The perspective of Anika as someone from the developing world and her interactions with an independent spy, Roo, from the Caribbean are a fascinating touch. The lingering effects of colonialism are present, the distrust of the big developed nations and their corporations is palatable and the repeated jabs to the presentation of international espionage from James Bond are hilariously sharp.

Equally refreshing is the inevitable love story subplot. As the story progresses, Anika develops a potential relationship with an underworld boss. Only as cliché as this could be, Buckell throws expectations a curve ball with Anika being a lesbian. The story could have easily been told with a traditional man-woman love story, but instead it’s a same-sex romance. And the best part – it’s just there. This isn’t some big statement and it doesn’t control some critical part of the thriller plot. The romance just happens to be same-sex, and it’s presented as being as normal as apple pie. I look forward to the day that such a romance is normal enough to not merit mention in a review like this.

And Anika is wonderfully strong protagonist. She’s tough and vulnerable. She’s conflicted about her feelings for Vy and what she owes a criminal boss who has seemingly selflessly helped her so much. She has an interesting past as a pilot and was even something of a child soldier. She’s a victim and a survivor. But she doesn’t lay down and take it, and she doesn’t rely on a rescuer – to the best of her ability she stands up to take as much control of the situation as possible.

OK, this is my soapbox paragraph, so if you’re not interested in how I see this sort of novel as important to getting the message out to the public about the reality of global warming, just move along to the next paragraph and be thankful that even though Buckell writes about a world changed due to global warming, he never actually gets on a soapbox (though plenty of interesting statements populate the novel). Arctic Rising is just the sort of fun, intelligent fiction that needs to permeate through pop culture to help educate society on the reality and potential of global warming. When people see enough of it, they will slowly come to accept it’s real and something needs to be done. We see the shift in climate, we see the last refuge of the polar bear and we hear the regret of the loss of a hometown to rising seas. And I love that ‘the other side’ that Buckell presents is the very real truth that there will be at least some economic opportunity that results from global warming (access to new minerals and other natural resources). That and the big bad environmental corporation and its vision of saving the world. This is the sort of alternative view that should be shown, rather than climate denialsts, which to me is like giving equal time to those that believe the earth is flat.

Tobias Buckell has written an intelligent, fun and even poignant thriller in Arctic Rising. It’s set around a likely future that should warn us of the consequences of global warming, yet most of its focus is on the new opportunities that arise and the Bond-like escapades of Anika as she tries to figure out who shot her out of the sky and why. This is what a thriller can be and I highly recommend it.

Review: The Edinburgh Dead by Brian Ruckley

The Edinburgh Dead by Brian Ruckley (Book Depository, Powell's Books, Indiebound) is a significant departure from the epic fantasy trilogy that brought Ruckley to the attention of fantasy fans. Set in 1828 Edinburgh, a historic detective tale morphs into something darker and more sinister as Ruckley brings 19^th Century Edinburgh alive in his best work to date.

Adam Quire is a war-hardened veteran and an officer for the newly-formed Edinburgh police. A particularly gruesome death doesn’t add up and Quire’s investigation leads him into puzzling and dangerous ground that points to the pillars of Edinburgh society. And then it gets personal and Quire releases the talent he keeps at bay – a talent for survival and extreme violence.

The Edinburgh Dead is the first book by Ruckley that I’ve read since his debut Winterbirth (Book Depository, Powell's Books, Indiebound). I found Winterbirth to be on the mediocre side and haven’t been inspired to finish the trilogy (though I do plan to eventually). In The Edinburgh Dead I immediately noticed that Ruckley’s writing has improved significantly. His descriptions are powerful and set the mood well – early 19^th Century Edinburgh comes alive through his words. We see the intellectual powerhouse that Edinburgh has become – we also see the dark underpinnings that props up that distinction. There is privilege and there is everyone else. Lives are hard and dangerous – and there is the ever present need for more bodies to dissect on the cities medical stages.

The Edinburgh Dead is a true blend of many genres into one coherent and very well told story. It’s historic fiction, it’s a hardboiled mystery bordering on noir, it’s gothic horror, and it’s an urban fantasy supernatural thriller. Often when such cross-over happens, one still dominates or the combination doesn’t quite fit as well as it should – with The Edinburgh Dead it’s seamless – a natural blend.

The real strength of The Edinburgh Dead is the setting and the way in which Ruckley draws the reader into the dark and dangerous streets of Old Town. Edinburgh comes to life through the broken, beaten and resourceful Quire, a sinister life beneath the glamour of enlightenment. The relatively slow and steady pace continually builds towards the end – a perfect balance that resists the urge to rush. The only real fault is that Ruckley at time over-indulges with his descriptions, particularly in the latter half of the book where the mood has already been set.

The Edinburgh Dead is told mostly from the point of view of Quire and his personality dominates the book. This both good and bad – Quire is a powerful personality and vividly reflective of Ruckley’s 19^th Century Edinburgh, however there are a few minor characters who could have been brought out more. If the book had been told entirely from Quire’s point of view, this flaw would have been less noticeable, but increasingly as the novel moves forward we see bits and pieces from other points of view to fill in the blanks of the evolving mystery.

All in all The Edinburgh Dead was refreshing change of pace from Ruckley and a very good historical gothic mystery horror urban supernatural thriller. I hope that Ruckley continues in this direction with more surprises to come.

Mini-Review: The Chamber of Ten by Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon

I picked up The Chamber of Ten by Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon (Book Depository, Powell’s Books, Indiebound) just before travelling to Europe for work. It is the latest book in Lebbon and Golden’s loose series of The Hidden Cities and is set in Venice where an archaeological team unearths something important and unexpected. At the same time an ancient dark magic is unearthed, plunging the archaeological team into chaos and threatening to destroy the city. Yes, the description reads a lot like a Dan Brown knock-off or a bad Hollywood thriller, but books like this often capture the setting very well, and this is what I was looking for. I was hoping that that an interesting portrayal of Venice would help excite me for my own upcoming European adventures.

Unfortunately I was rather disappointed. The Chamber of Ten jumps immediately into action without taking much time to introduce its characters, including the city of Venice, which fails to ever emerge as a character of its own. The result is even harder with the human characters that get thrown into seemingly dangerous scenarios before the reader cares enough about what could happen to them. This all results in a big disconnect between the reader and the story.

Thankfully the story itself emerges as something interesting enough to capture the imagination and attention. By about half-way through the book I started to get really sucked into the fast-paced supernatural thriller and I only quit reading late into the evening with reluctance. Foremost in my rejuvenated interest beyond the high-octane thriller pace, were tantalizing hints about the history of Venice. Unfortunately, these hints were never realized with revelation.

While The Chamber of Ten is a bit of a breath of fresh air in the world of urban fantasy – there’s not a werewolf or vampire in sight – but is suffers under the generic feel of feeling like a Dan Brown imitation. The prose is a bit better that Dan Brown, but the storytelling is not. I think traditional SFF fans won’t find it terribly interesting and traditional thriller fans won’t buy into the speculative aspects of the story. This seems to leave The Chamber of Ten without an audience. 5.5/10

Review: The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell & Dustin Thomason (Audiobook)

With my recent move came a longer commute that I make once or twice a week. To fill in some time and arrest the static, I have begun picking up the occasional audiobook. The first book I grabbed is the Da Vinci Code knockoff, The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell & Dustin Thomason and read by Jeff Woodman (US, UK, Canada), thinking that mindless entertainment goes well with driving. I was wrong.

The Rule of Four follows four roommates at Princeton University. Starting with typical college antics, a conspiracy revolving around one roommate’s (Paul) research into an ancient Roman book slowly develops. Paul’s best friend, Tom, the narrator of the story, struggles with his past, his girlfriend, and his future as Paul’s research heats up and becomes deadly serious.

I intentionally used a rather cliché phrase to close the above paragraph – as it’s entirely appropriate for any description of this book. To put things bluntly, if I were reading this book, I would have been shocked if I lasted more that 50 pages. The book is simply that bad. The best way to describe things is that the authors attempt to show off for the entire book. The first half is dominated by silly, nostalgic college stories with the overwhelming feel of how ‘cool’ the authors were for attending Ivy League institutions. Even the authors attempts to forgo this problem only serve to reinforce it – the modest origins of two of the roommates and the token black guy for the third – the fourth is your stereotypical Wall Street banker’s son. Beyond the sickening feeling of how awesome college at Princeton is, the authors make darn sure that the reader is aware of their historical brilliance and literary prowess. Several times I found myself exclaiming ‘Oh God’ as I listened and I even decided I’d rather endure the interspersed static of 80s and 90s pop music or NPR stories I’d already heard than listen to one more minute of the book.

The story itself was cliché, utterly predictable, and populated with characters that I couldn’t find any interest in. Only the isolation of a long drive allowed me to continue. The ending, while definitely not a surprise, does work out well, but it is far from redeeming the rest of the book.

Another aspect of an audiobook is the presentation by the reader, Jeff Woodman. In this case, the reader only seems to reinforce the weaknesses of the book. He insists on making sure each character has a unique voice, and the result is damn near offensive – especially for the token black guy. When not offensive, it is certainly annoying. The main two characters come across as whiney wimps that I really just wanted to hit and the rest are nearly as bad. As mentioned above, the silence of the void (or bad 80s music) was often preferable to listening to this book.

My expectations were low to begin with, and those low expectations served me well since the book was even worse than I had imagined. I can’t recommend The Rule of Four for reading and I certainly can’t recommend the audio version. 2/10

Review: Mirrored Heavens by David J. Williams

The year is 2110 and the world a hellish reflection of today – global warming has wrecked everything, the environment has been all but destroyed with places like the Amazon nothing but a polluted wasteland, and humanity has endured and multiplied. The US has evolved into a near-fascist state controlling the Western Hemisphere; a Russo-Chinese government dominates the east, with a neutral Europe in the middle. A fragile peace emerges after a long cold war and an unknown terrorist organization strikes at the heart of the world order.

Mirrored Heavens (US, UK, Canada) tells its story through the eyes of the soldier-agents of David J. Williams’ world – following three arcs to the conclusion. Each arc generally focuses on a pair of individuals, each similar with a high-tech agent (razor) working with a high-talent physical force (mech). The razor hacks into the cyber-world known as the zone and the mech blows things up. Each pair follows a mission of sorts, fights for survival and understanding, leaving a staggering body count in their wake.

Williams’ take on a post-cyberpunk military sci-fi presents an interesting perspective – near enough in the future to be relative, far enough to be a shadow of what we know today. The political and environmental realities represent today’s worst-case scenarios and the world is decidedly not a better place. But, Williams doesn’t get far into it – this is the Hollywood-video game version, all action, all octane, and things blow up. Depth is hinted, but not realized; characters created, but who can trust those creations when their very memories were probably invented by those in charge to fit the circumstances necessary. Trust no one, believe nothing, and carry a big stick. It’s a strange combination of left-leaning ideas, right-leaning violent response, terrorism, and government betrayal and corruption.

Utilizing this made-for-Hollywood script of all action and little depth, Williams manages to sneak in some interesting ideas with a subtle (and exaggerated) allegory to 9-11 and various reactions, with a seeming nod towards conspiracy theories. While I would have loved to see this aspect further explored, it certainly wouldn’t fit well with rough ‘em up, shoot ‘em up approach taken.

The prose is serviceable, the characterization adequate (at best) and the action nonstop. In fact there is so much action, and detailed description of it, I became somewhat desensitized to it – which is big word for bored. While the plot was fun and interesting (and has a few good twists along the way), the all-out focus on action assaulted me to the point of not caring. I could easily put the book aside and not pick it up for ages – in stead of being an addicting page-turner, it often found use as a coaster.

David J. Williams’ debut novel hits the ground running and never slows down. The cover blurbs speak true and untrue – they praise the action and vision of the future, but calling this a next-generation Neuromancer (US, UK, Canada) goes too far. Mirrored Heavens should especially appeal to a younger audience addicted to Hollywood and video games and its marriage of military sci-fi and a post-cyberpunk world. In the end Mirrored Heavens is a forgettable book that may be a fun way to pass the time for those who need a break from gaming and their home theatres. 5.5-6/10

Review: Neuropath by Scott Bakker

Scott Bakker’s series, The Prince of Nothing (review), hit the SFF world with critical acclaim and a cerebral approach to epic fantasy. Bakker jumps genre in Neuropath to the realm of psychological and techno-thrillers and the same approach of intellectual depth without sacrificing the entertainment value of reading. Neuropath succeeds at both with its weighty implications of cognitive science and a suspenseful thriller plot.

Thomas Bible and Neil Cassidy have been arguing since college as only the closest of friends can – specifically The Argument that is founded in cognitive science about the root of consciousness and free will itself. Thomas, now a professor at Columbia University, has moved on to a family life complete with an ex-wife and 2 kids. In a drunken evening Neil reveals to Thomas that he has been covertly working for the NSA in neuroscience, making unimaginable leaps in neurosurgery and cognitive understanding without the hindrance of ethical constraints. Thomas is horrified when he realizes that the Neil is essentially a rogue agent elevating The Argument to a new level and now one of the FBI’s most wanted.

For a thriller, Neuropath takes a slower pace – the entire book occurs over the course of about two weeks with only a few bursts of action. The real action occurs internally and in verbal sparring as The Argument is laid out repeatedly and the horrors of Neil’s plan become more visible, if not more clear. The appropriate twists occur along the way, calling the anticipated conclusion into question – and the conclusion itself provides the perfect ending for Bakker’s Argument, if not for a reader’s sense of mind.

Thomas and Neil’s Argument is the point of the book and Bakker’s Argument as well – an Author’s Afterward lifts the veil of fiction to the reality of modern cognitive science. Simply said (and I’m sure not very accurately said), The Argument is that consciousness and all that goes with it (such as free will) is an illusion that our brains trick us into believing. This delusion drives the actions of humanity and its many short-comings. The real kicker is that our brains’ ability to rationalize almost insures that we will never allow ourselves to believe The Argument. Neuropath lays out The Argument, all of its disturbing implications and horrific potential.

Fans of philosophy and deep intellectual debate will eat up The Argument as it consumes them – I lost a bit of sleep and have brought its implications into many a conversation since reading Neuropath. But Bakker suffers some of the flaws of a fire and brimstone preacher relentlessly pounding his point into the reader’s head. This righteous repetition eventually becomes tiresome, further encouraging rationalization of The Argument – of course I think that Bakker in all his efforts to convert the reader to the truth of The Argument is as frightened of its implications as the rest of us.

If you read other reviews and commentary of Neuropath, words like disturbing and horrific abound. The physical act of arguing The Argument does in fact horrify. At no point can I actually say that the book is overtly graphic, but Bakker brings the reader to the brink and lets them imagine the rest – which, at least in my case, does lead to horrifically graphic scenes. The direct assault on common moral code and the human condition drives the reader’s reaction and the truly disturbing horror invoked. However, for those that have followed the building buzz, disappointment may be the result of repeatedly hearing how horrific and disturbing Neuropath is.

With Neuropath Bakker succeeds in having his cake and eating too in this intellectually stimulating techno-thriller. It’s not a book for everyone, but does work on multiple levels and will be a book to talk about. 8/10

Related Posts: Scott Bakker Answers Questions Five, Review of The Prince of Nothing Trilogy, Review of The Darkness That Comes Before, Review of The Warrior Prophet, Review of The Thousandfold Thought

The Traveler by John Twelve Hawks

The Traveler refuses to be pigeon-holed into any one genre – it is equal parts spy novel, adventure, techno-thriller, science fiction, fantasy, secret history, and ass-kicking chic-lit. And as a sum of these parts it should satisfy fans of each and all.

Maya has been raised by an elite warrior class known as the Harlequins – but their kind are dying, having been systematically hunted and exterminated by the Tabula, a secret organization seeking a world order. The Harlequins are the sworn protectors of Travelers – mystics, healers, and leaders of mankind who have the ability to travel between the dimensions of reality and are the true enemy of the Tabula their desired world order. The last known Traveler is long dead and Maya seeks a normal life as an ordinary citizen. Her father begs her help on a mission, seeking a pair of brothers who just might be Travelers. The Tabula are wired into the world’s surveillance systems and secretly pull the strings behind most world powers and they know.

Maya is a truly fascinating character who is wonderfully presented. Conflicted, hurt, lonely, and deadly – this isn’t the life she wanted. The other ‘good guys’ are equally interesting and rounded, while the ‘bad guys’ seem just a bit too cliché and uninteresting.

Though the summary above sounds rather SFF, the framework of The Traveler is all spy and techno-thriller. The standard approach to introducing a heroine and her environment is taken, but written with skill enough to not matter – after all, this is a book for the masses, and we’ve come to expect certain things.

The constant and complete surveillance of the world created, where governments seek to control and eliminate true freedom, makes this book the 1984 of a post 9-11 world. Personal freedom is assaulted and destroyed, and the visionaries, the most human of us all, hunted to extinction. The underlying views are neither subtle nor preachy, and they are certainly exaggerated to an extreme that is all the more scary because it rings true. Secret organizations seeking to rule the world aside, the implications and truth sink in and would make the Lone Gunmen cry.

The Traveler garnered lots of attention, maintaining a presence on the international bestseller lists when released in 2005. The attention was largely focused on the paranoia of the book and the author himself, whose identity is not publicly known and who advocates a life ‘off the grid’. Of course if you aren’t interested in all that nonsense mentioned above, it is a very good action-adventure-spy-techno-thriller written with more skill than one usually finds.

The Traveler picks and chooses from numerous genres and delivers a truly entertaining book, meaty with paranoid echoes of the real world. The first entry in the Fourth Realm Trilogy is followed by The Dark River, which I look forward to reading, and you should too – 8/10.

Keeping It Real by Justina Robson

Multidisciplinary Studies is a buzz term often heard in the realm of higher education. Essentially referring to exactly what it sounds like, it is often praised and criticized by many people, though it’s generally agreed that it is an important part of dealing with our modern, integrated and global world. Genre-bending in the term most often used for a book that seems to fit into more than one existing genre category. Referring to Keeping It Real as genre-bending is not good enough – this book is multidisciplinary.

In Keeping It Real, the near-future Earth as we know it has suffered a catastrophic event – the explosion of a quantum bomb. The affects of this are not what we would generally associate with the explosion of a bomb, such as widespread physical destruction, but the breakdown of dimensional barriers separating parallel worlds that humans were unaware of. The worlds of elves, faeries, elementals, demons, and the dead have been revealed and uneasy integration has begun.

Lila Black is a human agent recovering from extreme injuries suffered at the hands of elfin agents. As a result she has been remade into a human-cyborg, a unique, powerful, and fully integrated super spy. Her new assignment is to guard an eccentric rock star elf under threat from his own kind in a conspiracy of unknown dimensions.

Keeping It Real has been called a book for the twenty-first century and I can see why. A gadgety, techno-punk feel prevails in a story with rock concerts, groupie parties, motorcycle chases, sex, shifting loyalties, and explosions. Ass-kicking female protagonists have become hot sellers, and Agent Black fits the typical mode of a damaged soul struggling to deal with her past as it’s confronted in the present – same story, different setting. In this aspect, Keeping It Real neither succeeds nor fails, it just is.

The flow of the book is somewhat uneven as Robson struggles with her hard sci-fi roots and comes across a bit bi-polar while inconsistent characterization never allowed me to fully care about Lila and the most intriguing characters are essentially ignored. Until the final 100 pages, I was never fully committed to this book and it was too easily set aside; however the final 100 pages generally rocked in spite of continued unevenness.

Keeping It Real is the first installment in the Quantum Gravity Sequence, with the second installment, Selling Out coming to the UK in June. It stands on its own well, as it contains a complete story arc, but leaves overarching questions unresolved – I’m comfortable with not knowing where the story will go next. In the future I hope to see more development of the secondary characters as they were simply more interesting than Lila.

Keeping It Real succeeds as a techno-punk romp through fantasy and science fiction while not quite achieving full integration elsewhere. For me, it scores a 6.5 out of 10 – this book will really appeal to some people while leaving others behind.

Related Posts: Review of Mappa Mundi

Bangkok Tattoo by John Burdett

Detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep of the Royal Thai Police returns in Bangkok Tattoo to guide the Western (particularly American) mind through the underbelly of Bangkok as he did in Bangkok 8. Told from a distinctly different point of view, we see the culture clash of East vs. West in a hardboiled crime thriller that hits on some of the most poignant issues facing the world today.

In addition to his role as a trusted detective and gifted linguist under the service of the ever brilliant, entertaining, and corrupt Colonel Vikorn, Sonchai also serves as papasan in the Old Man’s Club – a brothel run by his mother and financed by Vikorn. The star performer, Chanya, of the club has murdered a farang (Westerner to us) who turns out to be a CIA agent. Realizing what is coming, Vikorn and Sonchai cover up the details of the murder in a web that soon spins out of control as Muslims from the south are eventually implicated while Chanya’s past in America is slowly revealed.

The murder mystery forming the backbone of Bangkok Tattoo is improved over Bangkok 8, but still nothing I’d call extraordinary. As with Bangkok 8, the true genius of this book is Sonchai’s unique vision of Thailand as it is shared with the reader. Biting criticism and humorous sarcasm are inserted as he recounts events to us, a Western audience. The West’s misunderstanding of the East and short-sightedness following the tragic events of 9-11 are revealed in a world of apparent moral ambiguity beyond our comprehension. As I said in my previous review, I’m in no place to say if Burdett gets it right, but feels like he does.

Fans of mystery and those seeking an adventure through a strange and real world in Southeast Asia should look no further than Bangkok Tattoo. While it is a sequel, it stands nicely on its own. Take a trip through the back alleys of Bangkok, through whore houses and tattoo parlors, into the Muslim south, on a Buddhist journey with a voice unlike anything you’ve heard before. Bangkok Tattoo scores 8.5 out of 10 – highly recommended.

Related Posts: Review of Bangkok 8 and Bangkok Haunts (at FantasyBookSpot)