Mini-Review: Year Zero by Rob Reid

Year Zero by Rob Reid was published in 2012 and is a fun, satirical SF book about the music industry. While I’ve seen a few comparisons to Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, I think that really doesn’t stack up, as Year Zero really aims to tap into musical nostalgia of the late 1970s and 1980s. Think something more along the lines of a combination of John Scalzi’s Agent to the Stars and Cline’s Ready Player One with music.

The ultimate premise is rather goofy where a galactic society of advanced alien species discover the music of Earth, becomes crazy addicted to it, and incurs unimaginable debt to humanity due to piracy and copyright laws in the music industry. Reid actually pulls it off with an appropriate amount of humor and just enough reality to keep things grounded.

And of course it is full of nostalgia with music references everywhere.

But, Year Zero is also a satire where humor doesn’t always distract from the acrid bitterness of Reid himself. Reid has a long history in the real world in technology and music, where he was essentially the founder of the first musical streaming company – Rhapsody. From this point of view, the bitterness and anger of Reid’s experience as a tech entrepreneur somewhere between the rampant piracy of the Napster era and the mega music corporations and their legal teams.

I keep saying bitterness because it literally drips from this book. I think it’s safe to say that Reid holds true contempt for lawyers and executives of the music industry and the politicians that they own(ed). I really hope that writing this book was therapeutic for Reid and that he has managed to move past all this, because man…the bitterness. Note: judging from the bio of Reid on his webpage and the description of his latest SFF novel, After On, the therapy of writing is an ongoing project.

Anyway, there is just enough humor and nostalgia keeping the bitterness from taking over the book. It’s fun and gets in a few really great shots (such as the Bill Gates cameo), and some really fantastic music references.

So…looking for satirical science fiction full of musical nostalgia? This book is absolutely for you. And it’s pretty fun for the rest of too.

By Rob Reid:

Year Zero: Amazon

After On: Amazon

Other books mentioned:

Agent to the Stars by John Scalzi: Amazon

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline: My Review, Amazon

Mini-Review: Breath of Earth by Beth Cato

Geomancer

By day I am a mild-mannered engineering geologist and by night I read fantasy and science fiction once the rest of the house has gone to bed. So…the word geomancer is the only part of the description of Breath of Earth by Beth Cato that matters. Once I read that word I knew that I had to read this book. I was not disappointed.

Blah Blah Blah. Yeah, I’m a geologist and this isn’t the first time I’ve written a review where that is the lens through which I (at least initially) view a book and focus my review. Magic derived from the energy of the earth, specifically in the form of the earthquakes – sign me up. Set in San Francisco at the time of the infamous 1906 earthquake – keep it coming. Throw is a provocative look at the society of the time, a view not from the ‘winners’ of society, but from those that the winners oppress – excellent.

I have read (and reviewed) The Clockwork Dagger by Cato and it can clearly be seen that Breath of Earth is its decedent. ‘Victorian-type/regency’ society with a young woman on the outside, a bit naïve to the world and thrown into a serious situation. Plus, a dashing young man who both saves the day (and is saved by her) complicating things. A woman who struggles to break the chains society has placed on her. A woman who awakens to her own power within. I enjoyed The Clockwork Dagger, and Breath of Earth takes that solid foundation and improves it, adds experience, and has geomancers (hey, I would never claim objectivity in a review).

How does the geology stand up? Frankly, it doesn’t matter. It’s not gotten into. The alternative world that Cato creates is one where most of the myths of origin of nature are true to some degree. There are magical creatures in the world – unicorns, selkies, etc. There are giant magical beasts that live in the earth where earthquakes happen. And a select few people have magical powers of various sorts. As a fan of fantasy, as a fan of myth, as someone who has a great curiosity of other cultures and how they came about, I found Cato’s approach to be wonderfully creative and simply a lot of fun. And there are geomancers.

Another fun aspect of Cato’s alternative world is her rewriting of political powers. It is a world of great superpowers, often at war with each other, in various states of conquest and rivalry. Wars are cold, hot, and just waiting to happen. Geomancers play their role, so do other magical people, dirigibles and other ‘steampunk’ engines of war. The US is aligned with Japan, currently bent on destroying China, the British have an empire focusing on the conquest of India, the Russians are out there and others. Being set in San Francisco, the main players are the Chinese, Japanese, and Americans in this (partial) exploration of some dirtier realities of actual history.

So, whether you are looking for a super-powered woman of color coming finding her power and kicking ass, a bit of a Victorian/regency Romance, an interesting alternative history of San Francisco, or the awesomeness of geomancer, I strongly recommend Breath of Earth. And I am very much looking forward to the sequel – Call of Fire. Bring on more geomancers!

Blood of Earth Trilogy

Breath of Earth: Amazon

Call of Fire: Amazon (Will be released in August)

Roar of Sky: Forthcoming

Mini-Review: The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman

I love books, which really isn’t much of a surprise coming from someone who has a blog about books. So, it’s not much of a stretch for me to love libraries too – after all, they are huge collections of books, and I do have my daydreams of one day having a perfectly snobbish private library for all of my books, but I digress.

So…fantasy stories about libraries…I’m rather predisposed to liking them. The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman is just that, a fantasy adventure centered on a great library where librarians have magical powers that they use to cross between worlds to collect books. Yes, there’s a greater struggle across all the worlds between order and chaos, full of fantastical beings that fall on various ends of that spectrum – chaotic fae, orderly dragons, etc. But it all comes back to magical librarian doesn’t it?

The story is pretty basic…a mid-level librarian is assigned a new apprentice and a new task that should be pretty straight-forward. Collect a book in a mildly chaotic world and bring it back. Of course it turns out to be more complicated, of greater importance and way more dangerous than anticipated. There are mixed loyalties, betrayals, mysterious origins and all that jazz. Even a nice hum of romantic tension is thrown about as it mingles with Victorian-style propriety and modern ideas of sexual freedom.

This is Cogman’s debut book, and it sometimes reads as such with a bit too much exposition and pacing difficulties. But then I can forgive pacing issues when librarians are the stars – how many librarians have you known have a tendency to go off on a tangent right in the middle of the search for that precious book?

I quite enjoyed The Invisible Library and heartily recommend it for a bit of bookishly fun diversion. I haven’t yet made it to the sequels, though the beckon from the shelves of my want-to-be library.

The Invisible Library: Amazon

The Masked City: Amazon

The Burning Page: Amazon

Mini-Review: Long Black Curl by Alex Bledsoe

Long Black Curl by Alex Bledsoe is the third Tufa book which is a ‘series’ of interconnected novels that all really stand on their own with independent stories. Of course the reader familiar with the other books in the series will experience things at a deeper level.

Anyway, as evident from my reviews of other Tufa books, I really, really enjoy them, and Long Black Curl is no exception to this trend. It always surprises me that I don’t read more Mythic Fiction – books that loosely fall into category of Mythic Fiction seem to connect with me at a deeper level, bringing me a much more holistic and satisfied reading experience. Not merely entertaining or escapist and not really the sort of book that makes me feel like I’m a better person for having read it, but books that truly connect, books that awaken deeper awareness of myself.

Bledsoe’s Tufa books are about an exiled faerie clan who settled in the Appalachian Mountains long before humans came along. These stories tell how the Tufa people interact with the modern world around them and show how they are connected to their land and their music at deeper levels than the people around them. While set within the modern world, they bring the reader back in time, reminding us of the deeper connections to nature and the land around us. For the Tufa, music is the vehicle that this connection is founded within.

Long Black Curl is specifically about two exiled Tufa who have lost their ability to sing. These exiled exiles are cursed in a fundamentally horrific form of suffering for their people, further complicated by their means of surviving in the modern world – both work in the music industry. This forms the back bone for a story of revenge, loss, and redemption. A large part of the success of this story works because of duality of the modern world and the ‘other’, timeless world of the Tufa, and it’s an approach that I am especially fond of.

I love the Tufa books because they really embody Mythic Fiction in a way few books achieve. The emotions invoked are full of mystery, darkness, fear, love, and a whole host of other primal emotions for us all. While I believe that it’s the connection to nature that leads me to back to Mythic Fiction, the vehicle of music to form this connection is fully realized in these books. This is a very tough balance to achieve as it’s quite easy to nerd out on the music without ever creating the deep emotional connection that is really necessary¹. Charles de Lint is another author I who can achieve this balance and I rank him and Bledsoe at the top of a short list of authors who do.

Long Black Curl is another wonderful addition to the collection of Tufa novels by Bledsoe and another reminder of how much I enjoy these books.

The Tufa Novels

The Hum and the Shiver: My Review, Amazon

Wisp of a Thing: My Review, Amazon

Long Black Curl: Amazon

Chapel of Ease: Amazon

Gather Her Round: Amazon (Forthcoming)

¹For an example of a Mythic Fiction book where the bridge of music between the modern world and something other never quite works out an fails to achieve the emotional connection needed, see The Crow of Connemara by Stephen Leigh (I’ll eventually get to writing a full review for it).

Mini-Review: Willful Child: Wrath of Betty by Steven Erikson

Willful Child: Wrath of Betty by Steven Erikson is a sequel Willful Child. Therefore, I recommendthat you stop now and read the review I wrote for it as I think it’s valuableto have that perspective before getting to what I write below.

If anything, in the two years since I wrote that review, my thoughts on Willful Child have only grown stronger. I think it is a superb satire of far more than just Star Trek, but read the review for that. I’ve come to realize that while the humor of that book is certainly coarse and inappropriate, that plenty of people ‘get it’ and therefore see what Erikson is doing in the book. All this adds up to me being very happy to read the sequel.

Unfortunately, I was largely unimpressed. Of course, I enjoyed a lot of what Erikson was doing with the book and how he plays with both time travel and parallel-dimension issues. I particularly found the gender-swap / parallel world parts to be well done and timely given so much of what’s going on. And of course, it’s hard for someone like myself to not be immensely amused by the comic-con sequence. Really, Wrath of Betty is worth reading for those two parts regardless of my overall disappointment.

Where does my disappointment come from? It’s all in the timing. Wrath of Betty continues the satirical directions from Willful Child, with a strong focus on the consumerism and rampant capitalism of the Western world. And this is unfortunately where it misses. Often the most effective satire works because it feels particularly timely to what’s going on in the culture it targets. Generally consumerism and capitalism are perfect elements for satire to target, but at least for me, it misses the elephant in the room for a satirical book published in 2016. I am speaking of the big issues we all see too much of right now – from Brexit to the US election and the idiot who will remain nameless, and war and refugees, etc. etc. A satire focused so much on consumerism simply doesn’t stick with me right now – it feels off topic, especially since reality is so primed for good satire (though admittedly, Brexit and the US election are often plenty satirical without any help at all).  

I do think that the focus on consumerism and capitalism in Wrath of Betty is likely to be more timeless and therefore would have more staying power than the satire I wanted to read. But, it remains that I simply couldn’t enjoy things as much as I wanted to. Yes, I realize that due to just how it works writing a novel, that Wrath of Betty was largely written well before reality jumped the shark, but that intellectual knowledge doesn’t really help my reaction to the book.

So, while I think Wrath of Betty is a worthy follow-up to Willful Child, it didn’t work well for me. However, it may well work for you.

Willful Child: Amazon, My Review

Willful Child: Wrath of Betty: Amazon

Mini-Review: Wake of Vultures by Lila Bowen

I live in the West and I have a soft-spot for the ‘weird west’, at least when it’s done well. So, I was intrigued by Wake of Vultures by Lila Bowen – it sounded like something different … something weird and west in all of the best ways. Not only was I not disappointed, but it far exceeded my expectations.

In my mind I have so many good things to say about this book, but I love this elevator pitch from the author herself:

It’s Lonesome Dove meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer with a biracial, genderqueer heroine.

SOLD!

Honestly, I’d throw in a comparison to Preacher as well, not for anything specific, but these two just feel like they get each other. Note: that Bowen quote is from The Big Idea:Lila Bowen, which absolutely worth a full read if you’re wondering about this book.

It’s the voice of Nettie Lonesome that stands out perhaps most of all. She’s caustically witty, sarcastically ignorant, and delightfully direct. Reminiscent of the strong voice of Karen Memory by Elizabeth Bear, to throw yet another comparison into this review.

Nettie’s journey of self-discovery and struggle with her identity brings the depth to Wake of Vultures, but what I want to emphasize is the wonderful, weird fun of the book. It’s a menagerie of fantastical beasts in the scrub-lands of the West, mixing mythologies with a dark, cynical tinge wrapped in just enough humor. It’s a perfect setting for some monster hunting fun: vampire bordellos, sirens at the bar, chupacabra roaming the range, harpies circling above, werewolves on a warpath, and a band of monster hunting rangers on the prowl.

Wake of Vultures is a fun read full of weird, even horrific, adventures in a re-imagined West. I thoroughly enjoyed it and enthusiastically recommend it. Also…it’s only the beginning of The Shadow series, with a sequel, Conspiracy of Ravens, coming in October, 2016, and more books planned for the future.

The Shadow Series:

Wake of Vultures: Amazon

Conspiracy of Ravens: Amazon

Mini-Review: Los Nefilim by T. Frohock

In Los Nefilim, T. Frohock imagines a world where angels, demons, and their human hybrids (nefilim) live and act mostly unnoticed in the world. The focus is on Barcelona in the 1930s and Diago, a unique nefilim with both angel and demon blood. Diago’s family is threatened as angels and demons battle for the future of the world in the face of oncoming war.

Magical battle, torture, betrayal. Yes these things occur and are important. But the soul of the book is in love and relationships. A son and his estranged father, the son a father of a son he does not know, lovers, friends. Add time and betrayal. The sum is greater than the parts where the past must be addressed to accept the present, to know oneself and finally submit to the love all around. To fight without quarter for the ones that are loved. This is Los Nefilim, historic context with consequences for all of humanity, but played out at a personal level.

The foundation of this powerful story is a poetic prose, dark and moody, yet infused with color and music as it embodies hope, love and loyalty. Yes, there is a lot of conflict in that last statement, as is appropriate in a story full of internal and external conflict. It’s the grounded, devoted love that keeps it all together.

As you have probably guessed by now, I really enjoyed Los Nefilim. It’s beautiful, moving, filled with suspense. It kept me up at night because I could not put it down. I want to read more of Diago, Miquel, Rafael, Guillermo, and others. It’s historic urban fantasy, not quite alternative history, and it’s a powerful portrayal of love and family.

Additionally, it’s worth noting that the main family unit at the heart of Los Nefilim is two male partners. The relationship is genuine, heartfelt and simply lovely. I await the day when focus on a same-sex couple is not noteworthy and commonplace, but we aren’t there yet, and it’s books like Los Nefilim that will get us there.

A few logistical notes: Los Nefilim is in reality a print collection of 3 novellas that were initially published electronically: In Midnight’s Silence, Without Light or Guide, and The Second Death. The reality is that the three independent novellas seamlessly work as a traditionally structured novel. Read it as a serial, collection, or single work – it doesn’t matter. But I certainly recommend that you read it.

Los Nefilim: Amazon

In Midnight’s Silence: Amazon

Without Light or Guide: Amazon

The Second Death: Amazon

Mini-Review: Broken by Susan Jane Bigelow

A woman is so broken by life, not only has she adopted the name Broken, but she is incapable of escape – because there is essentially nothing she can do to die. She picks a fight, she heals before death. She tries to commit suicide – it won’t take, she heals after the attempt. The healing is pain. The pain is the only part of life she ‘enjoys’. Folks…this is the backstory, this is where it begins. And of course, Broken is a superhero and there was a time when she could fly.

Broken by Susan Jane Bigelow is extraordinary in its portrayal of superheroes, or extrahumans, as they are called in Bigelow’s books. Everyone loves a label, so let’s call this post-superhero literature. This is the maturation of superheroes in popular culture, and it was originally published in 2011 (and now republished by The Book Smugglers Publishing), so a few years before the current height of superheroes in pop culture had been reached.

It’s a few decades into a dystopic future where the US was on the losing side of a global war. Extrahumans, each with a superpower or two, have become a tool of the government, both hated and loved, but hated more and more. A new government has taken over, much more authoritarian, and full of parallels to groups like the Nazis, or even to the troubling groups in visible in today’s politics. A baby is born – prescient extrahumans have seen a future where things get better, seemingly infinitely better. They have also seen a future where he makes it much, much worse. It falls to a young teen, an unregistered extrahuman who sees countless possible futures when he looks others in the eyes – even his own eyes in the mirror, where he has seen his own death too many times. He finds Broken and together they try.

As positive as I am above, I must admit that dystopic books are not something I read often – it’s just not my thing. I imagine it’s a result of just where I am in life, how hard it is, and how damned stressed out and depressed I am much of the time. I simply cannot enjoy books where that sort of world dominates, where all too real situations dominate, where hope tastes of ashes. I suppose that’s why I like my SFF extra fantastic, where things are unreal and metaphoric as opposed to a version of reality that’s all too real. Call me a dreamer or escapist. So, generally, I avoid the whole dystopian thing.

Given these preferences of my reading, it’s hard for me to say that I enjoyed reading Broken. It’s hard, bad things happen, and hope is scarce, though always present in the background. It’s just not my thing. However, I can see the brilliance of the concept and the success of the execution. Broken is an incredible novel, both timeless and perfectly timed to the now. While I would probably argue that dystopic SFF is becoming overdone to the point of dulling its impact, the genre is primed for the concept of post-superhero fiction. And there’s much more to be said than I get into here. It’s done so well that I just might read the other books of the Extrahuman Union series, knowing that they aren’t my thing. Because as good as Broken is, I’m very curious to see what comes next.

The Extrahuman Union Series

Broken: Amazon

Sky Ranger: Amazon

The Spark: Amazon (forthcoming)

Extrahumans: Amazon (forthcoming)

Mini-Review: Mystic by Jason Denzel

Author Jason Denzel is best known for running the Wheel of Time fansite, Dragonmount, and in 2015, he published his debut novel, Mystic. Fans who know Jason (and I’m one, going back to my days spending untold of hours on Wheel of Time message boards), probably expect Jason’s novel to be world-spanning, epic fantasy adventure in the same vein of Wheel of Time. They would be wrong.

Mystic takes a different, more focused approach. This book is an origin story, almost a prequel to a series that hasn’t been published yet. It’s not (well, mostly not) the story of an epic journey to save the world. Mystic is the story of a young woman’s (Pomella) journey, her personal struggles against a severely stratified society, and her own baggage from that society. It’s the journey of a young woman breaking barriers and learning her magic. It’s heartwarming, sweet, with a good bit of misguided teenage action. In this, it’s a classic YA book with a good bit of cross-over appeal.

Yes, there is a threat, a threat that could have dire consequences to the world. But the threat feels almost contrived – it really was a placeholder, something to pitch the growth and struggles of Pomella against. In this way, the book is more about her own internal struggles than the external struggles around.

This internal, almost small-scale focus is both the strength and weakness of Mystic. The fan base Jason is chasing after is most likely expecting a sprawling epic that stand on the shoulders of 1990s era big fat fantasy. They may bounce off of the modest page count and ‘lower stakes’ journey of a young woman. That would be unfortunate, as the story is well told, even as it shows many of the signs of an author still in development rather than full command of their skills.

I enjoyed Mystic, and I look forward to reading what Jason does with this series in the future. However, it does not really cover any new ground. That’s not (necessarily) a bad thing – not every book can or should be groundbreaking, but in a time when so many exciting things are happening in the world of SFF books, this is the sort of thing that could fall through the cracks. Or maybe it’s the sort of book that could really take off due to its accessibility. It’s hard to say.

Mystic: Amazon

Mini-Review: The Builders by Daniel Polansky

The Builders by Daniel Polansky is at its basic, a novella about a bad joke. No, I won’t give you the punchline or even tell you what the joke is – knowing that it’s there, you’ll figure it out. And the suggestion that book is about a bad joke is in no way my saying that the book is a bad book – it’s quite the opposite, but it does help frame the story. Appreciation of just where this book comes from makes it all the more enjoyable, as for example, a Quentin Tarantino movie is.

“Revenge is a dish best served cold”

The Builders begins with this idea at its core, and the story is very much full of references not only to revenge tales, but also to variations of small teams at war and/or criminal gangs on a mission. I will not list them – they are legion – and I suspect many a reader will come up with their own, and those may or may not align with the ideas of Polansky as he wrote it all.

The mysterious Captain begins the story by recruiting his team, or more correctly, getting the old gang back together for one final mission to redress their last failed effort. We know one of the crew was a traitor, of course we do not know who. We can only suspect that it’s all only the beginning.

The Captain’s crew is a mixed group of the most unlikable sort – assassins, artillery, demolitions, snipers, etc. – but one and all, they are killers. Some of them get along, some hate everyone, the Captain holds them together, and for all that it may only be due to the blood they have spilled together. Or that the Captain is the meanest, most dangerous of them all.

And I suppose that I should mention that all the characters are anthropogenic animals whose personalities, instincts, and deadliness often correspond with their species. The mysterious, deadly Captain who all fear – he’s a mouse. His crew has a weasel, badger, rat, mole, salamander, owl, and possum. One of them may be French. They are up against the likes of an ermine, armadillo, cat, snake, fox, skunk, and legions of rats.

Personalities may be large, but the prose is minimal, dark, and dripping in morbid, gallows humor. There is bombastic boasting, dark grumbling, and the flash of knives in the dark. The final, suicide mission is told, blood and gore abound, betrayal, victory, and death. Who lives, who dies? Does it mean anything? Was it cold enough? Was it worth it…was it worth anything?

Who has the final laugh?

Will it be you dear reader, will you get the joke?

The Builders: Amazon

Mini-Review: Swords and Scoundrels by Julia Knight

Swashbuckling!

It’s a word that I initially wanted to avoid at all costs for this review as I suspect that it’s probably used in just about every review of Swords and Scoundrels by Julia Knight. But, the more I thought about it, I came to conclude that it’s a word that should be fully embraced.

Swashbuckling – it just roles off the tongue. It’s fun to say. It’s one of those words.

So…let’s take a look at what it really means to swashbuckle and be a swashbuckler.

Swashbuckler: a swaggering swordsman (swordswoman), soldier, or adventurer; daredevil

Well, yes, this covers the 2 main characters (a sister and brother duo) in Swords and Scoundrels. It covers it really well, each having different aspects of a swashbuckler. But, it’s really this definition below that I think captures the book.

[to] Swashbuckle: engage in daring and romantic adventures with ostentatious bravado or flamboyance.

That definition above is Swords and Scoundrels in a nutshell, though with some very important caveats. As I said, the book is about a sister/brother duo, each embodying different swashbuckling aspects in different ways – one traditionally flamboyant and one a fair bit darker, though no less a swashbuckler for that darkness. It’s the duality in many ways that has brings more to Swords and Scoundrels than the traditional swashbuckling adventure, offering swashbuckling commentary and even subversion of swashbuckling. Throw in a fantasy setting, large-scale clockworks, a magician or two, and nice bit of populism to add depth, and Swords and Scoundrels is the perfect swashbuckling tale. And as the book is the first in the Duelist Trilogy, there are 2 more presumably equally swashbuckling adventures to follow – excellent!

Swashbuckle!

The Duelist Trilogy

Swords and Scoundrels: Amazon

Legends and Liars: Amazon

Warlords and Wastrels: Amazon

Note, this review joyfully uses a variation of swashbuckle 15 times!

Mini-Review: Updraft by Fran Wilde

Updraft by Fran Wilde was released with a fair bit of critical fan-fair in 2015 and I read it a few months post-release based largely on that the good word of many of those I follow in the blogging world. My thoughts on the book are somewhat mixed, though I believe that to be largely a result of relatively high expectations I had from reading other reactions. 

In short, I liked the book, I really enjoyed the turns the plot takes, a few of the surprises that are thrown about, and the more political machinations. Where I struggled a bit is with the whole flying thing and the general weirdness of the world.

It’s not that I don’t like a good, weird world of fantasy, it’s just that I was never completely sold on it. I’ve seen the comparisons to this book and worlds created by the likes of China Miéville and I just can’t take things that far. Yes, Miéville creates some very weird worlds, but those creations aren’t questioned in my reading of them, just marveled at. And the very weirdness of those creations usually serves an important point in the thematic goals of the writing. It’s not Wilde doesn’t do these things with her world, it’s just that it didn’t completely work for me. I understand that keeping the origins of these mysteries is key, and I also get that this is fantasy, so fantastic and unexplainable things are around. But it still didn’t gel the way I would have like to see.

However, I don’t want to dwell on these, as they didn’t really bother me all that much. I did like the book. I am looking forward to reading the sequel. And I’m happy to recommend the book to readers at the blog here. Updraft is a coming-of-age story, it is the story of a child seeking information about a parent, there are secrets, and what I enjoyed most is that it’s a story about a moment of upheaval in a society that can and will likely end in a very different place. Plus, living bone towers and people flying around way above a distant, fog-covered ground – it might not have completely worked for me, but is still sounds pretty awesome.  

Updraft is the first novel in a planned trilogy in the Bone Universe. The second novel, Cloudbound is forthcoming in September, 2016.

Bone Universe

Updraft: Amazon

Cloudbound: Amazon

Mini-Review: The Red by Linda Nagata

The Red by Linda Nagata is a fun, action-packed take on near-future military science fiction. And it’s best that you go into it with as little advance knowledge as possible (as I did). So, while this isn’t going to be a long review by any means, if that’s the approach that you would want to take, know that it’s a book that I very much enjoyed and enthusiastically recommend that you read, but you shouldn’t read what I have to say below.

Still with me?

OK, what I really like about The Red is that it ambushes the unsuspecting reader. The book starts out as a fairly typical, near-future military science fiction book. It has a bit of mechanized armor, some cool cyber-integration, and it has a lot of fair bit of deeper messaging about the dangers of a military-industrial complex where the private billionaires have taken all decision making related to war from the people, important discussion on the toll all this takes on soldiers with some drug addiction thrown in, and some interesting ideas about criminal-justice, consequences and such. There’s also a nice bit of romance where an old love comes in conflict with all the complications of life and military. Plus it throws in a good bit of terrifying Texas independence crap (note, I was born and raised in Texas, but managed to escape nearly 20 years ago).

All of that makes for a great, fun book that has just enough message to make it extra interesting.

But The Red throws in a big twist. The protagonist apparently has some really accurate instincts that protect him and the soldiers around him. So much that there are ‘jokes’ about it being messages from God. We eventually learn that this instinct is a message from the outside, but it appears to be coming from some form of AI that lives in the internet and can access the soldier through his integrated skullcap, and the top minds in the military have no idea how this is happening. Now an AI itself isn’t such a different thing in military science fiction, even when combined with all the cool stuff above. But what I really enjoy about this particular AI is that it appears to be a marketing program that has ‘evolved’ and that the goal seems to be about improving things and people’s lives. Because, after all, happy, successful people spend more money. This makes for a really cool contrast to cynicism of everything else going on in the book and makes a great read into a truly memorable book.

The Red is the first book in a trilogy, so things don’t move all that far, and I fully expect that there are more twists to come in the future books and resolutions are not exactly what one would expect – that’s called good writing, and after reading The Red, it’s what I would expect to continue in to the other books of the trilogy.

Anyway, to bring this around full circle, The Red is a great book, the rest of the trilogy is out there and it’s criminal that I haven’t read them yet. So, both of us need to get reading.

The Red Trilogy

The Red: Amazon

The Trials: Amazon

Going Dark: Amazon