An Embarrassment of Riches

Changlings and Zombies - by Heidi

Seanan McGuire is a new author who I've really been enjoying. Her first book, Rosemary and Rue was published September 2009. She was awarded the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer by the 2010 World Science Fiction Convention. Her first series (up to book 5 now) is about a character called October Daye.  In this urban fantasy universe the different types of fae beings may decide to pass as humans, take a human lover and have mixed species children. When the children figure out that that mom or dad really is different the children are given the changeling's choice.  They may go to faerie and leave their human life and parent behind forever or stay human, forget and live out their mortal life with their human parent.  Either way, the changeling loses one parent and the human parent is left wondering why they're suddenly bereft of a partner.

October Daye was still quite young when she had to make the choice and in crying out for her fae mother left her human father behind forever. Now a part of the fae world, where changelings are very distinctly second class citizens, October has to make her own way.  She tries to hide in the human world at first but is forced deeper into fae when an important countess is murdered.  The dead countess binds October to investigate, forcing her to resume her position in Faerie.

Seanan McGuire, writing as Mira Grant, has also started a zombie urban fantasy series which isn't to my tastes but got to the final ballot for the 2011 Hugo Award for Best Novel.  That's actually pretty impressive for someone that's only been published for 2 years. The first book in the Newsflesh series is Feed. I'm also really looking forward to the first book in her new series Discount Armageddon: An Incryptid Novel.

Dirigibles, Steampunk, Demons, Oh My! by Heidi

I do so love a good debut or two. Farlander by Col Buchanan, the first in a new series, introduces a steampunk world with basic pistols, dirigibles and acid rain pollution along with the standard fantasy trappings. There's a corrupt and evil empire and an order of assassin monks, the Roshun, who will sell the wealthy and paranoid an amulet. If the person wearing and bonded to the amulet dies by anything other than natural causes the monks will provide blood vengeance. The murderer will die and no other person will need to start a blood feud. Given how often everyone seems to expect the services of the Roshun to be needed, those that purchase an amulet aren't really being all that paranoid. Farlander isn't absolute perfection - there's a little new novel roughness. For example, there's never any doubt that the evil empire is Evil... and enjoying it. But it is interesting, fast-paced and fun. Find out what happens next in the recently released book two: Stands a Shadow.

I recently read J.M. McDermott's second novel Never Knew Another.  There are children of demons whose blood and sweat corrupts the very ground. Touching one will sicken and eventually kill any human.  The demon-sired children are being hunted down by a priestly order of skin-walkers, wolfish even in human skin. It is death to aid a demon and death to be a demon - even if all you want to do is hide and not hurt anybody. The wolf priests find it necessary to burn down contaminated buildings or even entire sections of town to purify the corruption. They count the resulting human pain and loss as no more than a minor pity. The humans still have their lives after all. The church will see they don't starve or freeze to death, so even if someone loses everything, they are at least alive, and not spreading the demon sickness. 

It's a little different for the genre. The writing style is meant to convey the not-quite-human perspective of the wolf priestess. The author seems to be aiming for literary fantasy. It's very fast paced: I was 100 pages into it the first time I sat down with it. It's the first in a series and I'm really looking forward to book two. The author's first book, Last Dragon, came out in 2008 and I'm putting a hold on that first unrelated stand-alone title just on the strength of writing in this book.  

ElecTRONic - by Steve Recently I've been on a bit of a way back kick for my movie tastes. No, not WAY way back. But back far enough to see how films from the 80s have held up over time. I grabbed a copy of the original Tron and plunked down to watch it last week. By today's standards, the graphics and computer animation seems clunky. It was 1982 after all! But what's interesting is that it actually holds up over time. And while it didn't gross much at the box office (the arcade game actually made more money than the film), it quickly became a cult favorite.

Two of the film's biggest fans have a bit of a cult following of their own, the duo known as Daft Punk. I've written of my love for them before, but what's great is that they came up with the musical score to Tron's sequel, Tron: Legacy. Sure, the sequel has better graphics, but the score is a glimpse into the true capabilities of Daft Punk. Working with an 85-piece orchestra, they were able to give the sequel the appropriate futuristic electronic funk for which they are so well known.

An animated series called Tron: Uprising is scheduled to premiere in 2012. Let's hope it will stand the test of time as well as Tron, the first.

Up With Chuck - by Heidi I love an action show; give me explosions and I'm a happy camper. So when someone recommended Chuck to me, I was willing to give this action/comedy/science fiction show a try.

Chuck, the title character, is introduced as an underachieving slacker with some personal issues that he's not working out, thanks in part to his sister's well-meaning enabling. Chuck's old college roommate arranges to have a "sufficiently advanced technology" computer downloaded into Chuck's head. Chuck's brain is loaded with all the intelligence that the National Intelligence Agencies have, and their physical database is blown up.

If Chuck sees or hears something that's in the database, he has a flash of intelligence on the topic. Suddenly Chuck's an 'asset', with 'handlers' -- and the too-tall bumbling nerd (with all the athletic skills you'd expect in a computer repairman who spends his free time playing video games) is stuck in a string of spying expeditions, scared out of his wits.

Then Season Two rolled around...and I really fell for the show. Chuck grows as a person, his sister and friend change, his handlers become three dimensional. Plus, Chuck is a decent human being who really wants to do the right thing and cares about his family and friends. The writers made me care, and I want this character to get a happy ending!

Lastly, I'll deny being a sucker for a romance with my final breath, but there may be a pretty decent love story somewhere in there. I might possibly want her to have a happy ending, too.

Move Over Zombies - the Robots are Coming - by Alison and Rachael

You know it’s only a matter of time - already your computer corrects you when you make a typo or reminds you to take your vitamins. Pretty soon they’ll be sentient, and when they wise up and start taking a look at the mess mankind has made of the planet they might come up with a highly organized plan to fix it - a plan includes getting rid of the species that mucked everything up in the first place. That’s the premise behind Daniel H.Wilson’s Robopocalypse.

In a not so future world, just about every manufactured thing includes a computer chip. Your car has a computer, your vacuum cleaner has a computer, the building you live in has a computer that regulates the light and the heat. Companion robots help with all aspects of your life. It's a wonderful world until a master computer surpasses its maker and becomes sentient. It determines that mankind is a species that has become an infestation. Linking itself to all the computers in the world, large and small, it begins to direct a plan of human annihilation. Suddenly crossing the street or walking through an automatic door becomes a life and death matter.Wilson's familiarity with robots comes from his work as a robotics engineer. The book is slated to be made into a film in 2013, with Stephen Spielberg directing.

Wilson's work is thrilling stuff, comfortably on the side of fiction. A more optimistic view of the rise of our robot overlords is found in the nonfiction work The Singularity is Near by Ray Kurzweil. His view is that soon (yes, soon) the ever-doubling power of computer chips will lead to computers solving problems that are beyond humanity's grasp. And humanity will cross into a new reality.

So is it the fight of our lives, or nanobot-enabled immortality? Either way, I'm not ready.

Got Fuzzy? - by Heidi

Ages ago, H. Beam Piper wrote a series of books that began with Little Fuzzy. They're showing their years: you know it's an old book when the hero is seen smoking. As a kid, I loved reading these ancient and battered paperbacks from my local library. As an adult I hunted down the omnibus for my own collection and still love them. The first book in the series is actually out of copyright so you can download and read it for free from the public domain books via Library2Go.  Under the weathered quaintness of them is just this spark - you forgive the out-dated tech. What comes through is the bright hope and the good side of human nature. Sometimes it's just nice to relax with a book where it's clear who the good guys are. They are, forgive me, I can't resist... warm and fuzzy novels.
Apparently I'm not the only closet fan of this series. John Scalzi wrote Fuzzy Nation for himself as a "reboot" of the original. It wasn't until he finished that he got permission to publish it from the Piper estate. He wrote that if he hadn't gotten the go-ahead, he would have just kept the book he wrote for his own pleasure. So, in a way, this book is fanfic... but by a top-notch writer.  In the last five years Scalzi has collected a generous handful of Hugo award nominations and has won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer.

Scalzi is best know for a string of military science fiction novels that are anything but warm and fuzzy, so I was curious to see what he would do. Fuzzy Nation won me over to the point that I finished it in one sitting.

The plot-line is similar to Piper's original. Humans have moved out into the stars. While we've meet a few less technologically advanced intelligent species we're almost alone. Jack Holloway is a prospector on a planet with no native intelligent life living in the wilderness (which has lots of huge toothy carnivorous threats) when a tiny, cute, furry biped turns up in his cabin. The tiny, physically helpless and non-threatening critter is too clever to be just a dumb animal. Jack has to figure out if it's a sapient being but still an animal or if it's actually a person. Human laws in this universe say that if there's no intelligent life we can take what we like from a planet. If there is intelligent life then the planet belongs to the native intelligence and we can't interfere. Here's where the two books diverge. Piper's tells an adventure story centered on exploring this world. Scalzi presents a courtroom drama with a take on what we, both as a species and as individuals, would do if we found cute, helpless, and intelligent life sitting on a nice rich new world.

China Mountain Zing! - by Rachael Is there anything as sweet as discovering a new author?

I found one this month, Maureen McHugh, and I have Jo Walton to thank for it.
 
In her blog post revisiting the 1993 Hugo Awards she mentioned one of the nominees, China Mountain Zhang, with an adamant "It's wonderful" that intrigued me.
 
I grabbed it. I loved it.
 
The time is the near future -- after a Second Great Depression, China dominates the world. The US has gone through it's own Cultural Revolution -- a 'Cleansing Wind' -- and has settled down into Socialism. But economics and ideology are not the focus, they are only the background of the characters' lives.
 
The main character is Zhang Zhong Shan. He pretends to be things that he is not: 100% Chinese (he is half Hispanic), straight (he is gay). At the beginning he is not honest with himself, he does not know what he wants, and he is hard to like. But with the finest shown-not-told writing, McHugh brings him from being to a boy to being a mensch. I grew to love him, to be excited for him as he learned new things and began to be capable of making the world better. And as I learned to love him I gained understanding of why he had been the person he was: ashamed, torn, young.

In short, "It's wonderful."

Shades of Milk and Honey, + a chat with the author on Twitter - by Amy I read Pride and Prejudice in high school and college, thankful I had put it behind me. Slumped at a desk with pink-streaked hair and dirty Converses, a marriage plot among ladies of class fell short of resonating with me as a reader. So when someone suggested I read Shades of Milk and Honey—promoted by its publisher as Jane Austen, with magic—I had my reservations. Flash forward one week to me forgetting to feed my grandmother (sorry, Grams)  and missing MAX stops with this book in hand.

Mary Robinette Kowal has won scads of sci-fi and fantasy awards for her short fiction—Hugo, Nebula, Locus, you name it. After reading Shades of Milk and Honey, it’s easy to see why. Her style is easy, her sentences agile, and her dialogue witty. And if there were a few “shews” and “La!’s” thrown in, well, I might have even enjoyed them.  

Shades of Milk and Honey is a story of two sisters, one born with stunning looks and the other born with a stunning mind. Jane Ellsworth is the neighborhood’s best glamourist, expertly conjuring scents, sounds and images that enhance the family home. Jane fights her attraction to a very eligible neighbor, Mr. Dunkirk, while her younger sister loses herself in a maze of feelings for the same man. Their sibling rivalry is full of bitterness, and jealousy, but also moments of kindness. Jane struggles to tame her own passions while keeping a watchful eye out for her sister—and fails, spectacularly, among secret rendezvous and sensational duels.

Kowal’s debut is a light, absorbing read—a perfect choice to enjoy in the Portland sunshine, while it lasts. Be on the lookout for our upcoming Twitter chat with the author on Aug. 11th, from 12-1. Please join the conversation!

New Moon Rising - Elizabeth Moon - by Heidi

I should have started reading the newest series by Elizabeth Moon much sooner. In the late 80's Moon wrote a trilogy called The Deed of Paksenarrion. In a fantasy world, a sheep-farmer's daughter, a big sturdy girl, joins the local Duke's military to avoid an unwanted marriage. She rises to become a paladin and to see that lord chosen as a kingdom's heir. I liked that trilogy quite a bit. I've even held onto my yellowing paperbacks all these years. In the decades since, Moon has written a number of military science fiction novels that just didn't catch my interest, though they've been popular and well received. Recently Moon has gone back to the world of The Deed of Paksenarrion with the start of a new trilogy.  

You don't need to read the first series to enjoy Oath of Fealty, the first in this new trilogy. It has been twenty plus years since I read the original books and I had no trouble falling into this new story. Paks, the heroine of the first trilogy is only a secondary character in this trilogy.

In Oath of Fealty, after the duke, Kieri Phelan, is discovered to be the heir to a neighboring kingdom, he leaves his former holding under the care of his captains, one of whom will be named the new lord in his place. The kingdom Kieri is leaving is in turmoil after the assassination of the king, leaving an untried young prince about to be crowned. To add further to the machinations, the assassin of the young prince's father was one of his other dukes. Now the crown prince must question the traitor's entire family to find how far their service to an evil god and blood magic has spread. That leaves only one reliable person to whom the lands might be entrusted: an aging captain of Kieri's who was cast out of the family as a girl for refusing to practice blood magic. I really need to get my hands on book two, Kings of the North, in short order because the end of Oath of Fealty left me wanting more.

Fantasy with a Side of Assassin - by Heidi Ken Scholes is an Oregon author of a five volume series titled the Psalms of Isaak (Lamentation, Canticle and Antiphon; Requiem and Hymn are still forthcoming). While this series has all the trappings of traditional epic fantasy he's really describing a post-technological society that has collapsed into near barbarism; the "magic" is all that remains of technology. While I normally don't enjoy audio books, the first is well worth listening to. It's a great production with different readers for each character's chapters.

Long ago there was a great civilization ruled by wizard kings. After a great war the world was destroyed by fire, disease and madness. Now much of the world is a terrible wasteland filled with rubble. Legends of the world before the destruction abound. One character tells another that there's a green place on the moon because one of the wizards went up there and created a great garden in which to live (and might be there still...). There are mechanical servants, dug out of the rubble and repaired and little mechanical birds act as message bearers.

We're introduced to this world when the city of Windwir is destroyed by a "great spell" that consumes everything in a blast of noise, wind, light and fire. The only survivor is a boy waiting for his mentor on a hill far outside the city. The blast is so powerful that it knocks him senseless. Windwir had a great library run by an order of monks, an archive of all the knowledge of the ancient world. The monks went out into the wastelands to scavenge old papers or bits of technology. They carefully doled out this knowledge in order to maintain power. A steam engine here, a bit of medicine there, some books to this king and some to that merchant lord; the weapons were never let out into the world.

The destruction of the library creates a power vacuum. The lords jockey for power and the remaining scraps of knowledge. There are also two competing sets of prophecies and in the finest human tradition the two factions are merrily slaughtering each other. Each chapter is told from the perspective of one character, so we hear from the stripling boy who survived the destruction, Rudolfo, a lord of one of the kingdoms, and a mechanical servant who is self aware enough to go by a name instead of a number. The world is well developed and the characters interesting. It's a great read for anyone who likes a lot of politics and power struggles (best served with a side of assassin.)

2010 - The Year in Fantasy - by Heidi

While I've already named a number of good books in earlier entries (and you really should go put a hold on the first book in the Dresden Files), I didn't cover them all by any means. Here are a few more titles that you shouldn't miss from 2010.

Steven Brust has been writing books in the Jhereg series since 1983. His latest, Iorich, brings the total number of volumes to thirteen. Vlad Taltos, is a thief...and an assassin....and a gang boss running drug dealers, prostitutes and engaging in other illegal activities. He's also a witty and likable underdog. He's an amateur chef owing to a childhood spent in a restaurant (don't read Dzur if on a diet) and loyal to his friends. You can't help but like a character who you'd want to see in jail for life if he were a real person. Brust's writing style has improved over the last 27 years but all the books are slim and quick reads. The first books in the series are available as omnibus volumes starting with The Book of Jhereg.

Speaking of main characters who really should be facing the hangman's rope instead of being protagonists, try The Conqueror's Shadow by Ari Marmell. The story could be summed up as "what happens when the Evil Overlord retires...". Corvis Rebaine cut a bloody swath across the world and was known as "the Terror of the East". Now he lives quietly under an assumed name, with his wife and children in the middle of nowhere. Obviously that's not going to last or it would be a boring book.

N.K. Jemisin published her first two books this year. I've already praised her debut novel The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. Her second book The Broken Kingdoms is also very good. Ohree, a blind artist who can only see magic, takes in a strange, homeless man on a charitable impulse. This lands her in the middle of a conspiracy. Someone is murdering the godlings that live among mankind and leaving the desecrated bodies all over the city. Ohree's guest is somehow entangled in the mess.

Lastly, gentle reader, peruse Gail Carriger's Parasol Protectorate, a steampunk urban fantasy series set in an alternate Victorian England with vampires and werewolves. Alexia Tarabotti is a young lady of good family who is far too firm willed and practical to be appropriate in a lady of breeding. While not great classics of literature these three volumes are pleasing diversions for any lady of discerning tastes.

Following Kage Baker - by Rachael

There are only four of authors I "follow", eagerly awaiting each new book. I even have alerts set up in the 'Books in Print' database available through the library – as soon as any of them have a new book announced, I get an email. They are: Kate Atkinson, Connie Willis, Laurie R. King, and Kage Baker. 

I remember my discovery of Baker very distinctly. I read the review of her first novel, In the Garden of Iden, in Library Journal in October 1997, which summarized the plot as follows: “The initial assignment for 18-year-old Mendoza, transformed into an immortal cyborg by the 24th-century Company, is to retrieve from Renaissance England an endangered plant that cures cancer. Posing as a Spanish lady accompanying her doctor father, she falls in love with the mortal Nicholas Harpole, secretary to the owner of Iden Hall and its exotic gardens. Amidst the raging Catholic/Protestant powerplays revolving around the English throne and the fervent religious bloodlust of common folk, Mendoza is torn between her task and her love.” Immortality, time travel, and the Reformation! I was highly intrigued. The next week I saw a copy on the new book shelf, and a love affair began. Oh, the highs and lows as I followed The Botanist Mendoza through centuries of pining over Nicholas (and his Company-fabricated reincarnations). Oh, the horrendous cover art. Before it was over, The Company series spanned nine novels, two short story collections, and four novellas. I loved Baker’s characters, and while I occasionally had serious problems with her plot choices, I was passionate about everything she wrote.

Her other series has no name, and is usually referred by the title of the first book, Anvil of the World. Each of these humorous, original fantasies stands up well on its own. My favorite is House of the Stag, which chronicles the life of the half-demon Gard from outcast among the extremely-peace-loving Yendri, to slave held by evil magicians, to his adulthood as Master of the Mountain – loving father, devoted husband, feared by the entire continent.

There will be no more 'alerts' for Kage Baker. This year we lost her.

The library’s stock of In the Garden of Iden had dwindled down to one copy, but it was recently reprinted and more are on the way. Don’t let the cover art scare you.

What We're Reading Now

Shane is reading Star Wars. Republic Command, Order 66, by Karen Traviss, about an average day in the life of a clone trooper.

Shane is a page at the Hollywood Library.

What We're Reading Now

Amy is reading Bruiser, by Neal Shusterman. It's about a boy who has the gift, or curse, of being able to experience another person's pain.

Amy is a youth librarian at the Hollywood Library.

Of Holes in Time and Unwanted Visitors - by Heidi

Have you ever felt like a little vacation from reality? Primeval is a British science fiction show that didn't get the attention it deserved compared to Dr.Who and Torchwood. I will say Primeval doesn't require any deep intellectual commitment on the viewer's part. Actually, it would be best if you can forget to think at all while watching this. It's all light and fluffy fun, something you can enjoy and relax with. Okay, light fluffy fun that involves the occasional person being eaten by dinosaurs. But sometimes part of the fun is guessing who is going to scream horribly and die tastefully off screen.

I didn't see Primeval while it was on the air, but I'd heard good reviews so when I saw the library had the whole series I decided to put the first volume on hold. I had the second on hold before I finished the first DVD. There's a decent story arc, the characters are enjoyable, and the writing and acting is solid. It was funny in parts, tugged on my heartstrings in places and even surprised me a time or two. The special effects are a bit spotty, so if you can't stand CGI dinosaurs and the occasional funky cartoonish background, this isn't for you. But if you can forgive or even enjoy the dinosaurs, giant insects and future predators, it's good fun.

The story? Holes in time have appeared, allowing dinosaurs, mammoths and monsters to roam through modern day England. The holes lead to the distant past and not distant enough future. Various villains are seeking to use the holes to further their agendas. Our heroes run around trying to close the anomalies and get the monsters back on the far side, all while trying to figure out what's causing them to appear in the first place. The extras mostly run and scream. Sometimes the extras even run fast enough. Our heroes are fairly archetypal: there's the professor/team leader with some truly grim relationship issues; the action hero/gun boy (someone has to shoot the monsters); the feisty, clever girl (if there's only one female lead in a genre show she must be gutsy, smart and cute); and the socially inept, klutzy, technical genius (because someone has to be comic relief). Despite the archetypes I really liked a couple of these characters. They felt right for the show and the character interactions were enjoyable.
    Now that I've watched the whole thing in rapid succession I was happy to read that they started filming series 4 and 5 in March 2010 and will be airing the 13 new episodes in 2011. I'm also glad I watched it on DVD. I won't have to wait as long to see what happens next. Like U.S. science fiction shows, it had the 'is it canceled/is it not?' drama we all know and loathe. Fortunately, the viewers of this show aren't getting left up the timeline without a plot.