Book Review: Terminal Point by K. M. Ruiz

*  Note, this is a review for the second book in the series and as such contains spoilers for the previous book.

Pros: lots of action, powerful characters had limitations, complex plot gets resolved

Cons: hard to believe just how much Lucas's group achieves with so little rest and time to heal from previous injuries

This is the second volume of the Stryker Syndicate duology that started with Mind Storm.  The action starts directly where Mind Storm ended, with Lucas and his group heading to the Arctic while their actions in Buffalo cause problems for the Strykers, the Warhounds and the World Court.  The World Court continues their preparations for leaving the Earth, even as Lucas undermines their efforts.

This is a quick moving book with a lot going on.  Lucas pushes his people on mission after mission, which, considering the amount of damage they take each mission gets a bit hard to believe.  On the other hand, it makes the psions less uber powerful, so the fights have more of a challenge to them.  Indeed, I really liked the fact that psions as powerful as Lucas and Jason had limits to their abilities.  I also liked how lower powered psions could link their abilities, making their enemies powerful as well, even though they're not as highly ranked.

There's non stop action in this book, with so many missions and so many plot threads that all come together in a final, climactic battle that no one, neither psions nor the humans around them, is left unscathed.

If you like post-apocalyptic societies and characters with super powers, you'll love this duology.

Book Review: The Office of Mercy by Ariel Djanikian

Pros: thought provoking ending, didn't read like a dystopia but ended like one

Cons: protagonist is very naive and makes some questionable decisions

Natasha Wiley lives in America-Five, one of several enclosed cities set up by the Alphas to protect the people from the evils of the outside world: suffering and death.  She works in the Office of Mercy, whose job it is to end the suffering to the tribespeople living outside their walls, by giving them a quick, merciful, death.

But she starts to doubt her mission and the 'wall' she's been taught to keep up between herself and the humans living outside.  She empathizes with them, and when she comes face to face with some tribesmen, she makes choices that forever change her life and the lives of those around her.

This book was problematic for me in that I had certain expectations about what was going to happen, given that it's a dystopian novel, that the author didn't follow.  The bad thing about this was that I spent a lot of time thinking about how I would have done things to elicit the response I thought the author was going for rather than enjoying the fact that this dystopian novel was going in directions I couldn't predict.  Looking back on the book after finishing it,  it followed the dystopian conventions, just not in a way that's easily recognizable while you're in the middle of it. 

Natasha is a complex individual.  She's learned the propaganda of the inside and has helped 'sweep' (ie kill) tribespeople in the past via the intelligence she's gathered on them.  However, her upbringing has left her surprisingly naive with regards to the tribespeople.  Despite watching them on screens in the Office of Mercy she doesn't seem to understand how difficult life outside really is.  And while her sheltered upbringing does make it understandable that she not comprehend how people relate to each other in a war like situation, some of her decisions are still frustrating to read.  Instead of understanding them as separate people with their own motivations and drives, she projects her own desires on the tribespeople, something she's been very specifically trained to avoid doing, and makes decisions based on faulty reasoning.  Indeed, she makes decisions that lead to consequences she never considered possible.

Part of me wanted Natasha to get away with her plans, as ridiculous as they seemed, so she could have a happy ending.  And part of me wanted to see her come face to face with the consequences of her actions in a true coming of age style ending.  Because I wasn't sure what the author was up to, the conclusion took me completely by surprise.  In retrospect all the clues were there, but my uncertainty with regards to what message the author was trying to get across made the ending more exciting.

In the middle of the book Natasha falls in with a group of malcontents in the community who also believe the sweeps should stop.  I found it interesting that rather than portray these people as freedom fighters in her eyes, they came off as crackpots.  Even when she was working with them.

There are several discussion possibilities for this book with regards to how people are portrayed and how/if we project our own beliefs on them rather than seeing them for who they are.  I was surprised that a group with the opportunity to brainwash their citizens so easily (as propaganda does to the young) would end up with so many malcontents without some sort of outside force giving opposing views.  Do people question their beliefs if they're not faced with a reason to?  Under what circumstances?

The book uses several conventions from both post-apocalyptic and dystopian novels.  The ending packs a punch though some of Natasha's decisions are hard to swallow and may turn off readers who want a grittier read. 

Book Review: The Scarlet Plague by Jack London

Pros: doesn't use dialect/guttural speech you're told the characters are actually speaking, good post-apocalyptic story, lots of description, good attempt at extrapolating future of telephone and air travel, cites 2012!

Cons: second half of the story especially is racist and has class overtones

Professor James Howard Smith tells his 3 grandsons about the plague that destroyed civilization in 2013.

Note: I read this on vacation just a few days before the US presidential election.  It was with a sense of shock that I came to this passage early in the book.  The professor is walking with one of his grandsons and mentions money, which the boy doesn't understand.  He remembers that he has a coin and shows his grandfather.  The old man looks closer to see the date the coin was minted, prompting the following speech:

"2012," he shrilled and then fell to cackling grotesquely.  "That was the year Morgan the Fifth was appointed President of the United States by the Board of Magnates.  It must have been one of the last coins minted, for the Scarlet Death came in 2013..."

According to London then, the world won't end in December 2012, we've got one year more before a plague decimates the world population.

The characters in the book, we are told, speak a guttural, clipped language.  Only the grandfather uses any refined speech, and that only when he's deep into reminiscence of the past.  Thankfully London doesn't write the book in dialect.  He gives a bit of it at the beginning for colour, but not enough to annoy the reader, and the longer the book goes on the less you see of it.  

The story is interesting, plausible given current populations and the speed with which this particular plague kills.  The decline of language and banding together of the remaining people into clans is very believable.

While London tries to extrapolate what the world of 2012 will look like, he's coming from a time (1915) when airplanes are in their infancy, the Hindenburg disaster hasn't happened and telephone communication is just beginning.  In other words, he's completely wrong, but you have to give him credit for trying.  I imagine steampunk affictionados would have enjoyed his mix of planes and airships.

London's prose is highly descriptive, giving the reader a real sense of place and time.  Unfortunately part of that time includes the racism of his own day.  In the first half of the novel it's easier to ignore, as the character in question isn't described physically, only his negative character traits are brought up.  But towards the end of the tale it becomes clear that this horrible person has dark skin and is 'lower class' than the white woman he enslaves.  For modern readers the language he uses really kills an otherwise great post-apocalyptic story.  I found a few parts towards the end painful to read due to this issue.

It is well written, and, given the referencing, 2012 seems the right time to read it.  But be aware of the content before you crack this open, and if you don't like other books of its period for their racist references, give this book a pass.

The book is in the public domain and can be downloaded for free from the Gutenberg site. If you like paper, HiLoBooks has reprinted The Scarlet Plague as part of their Radium Age SF series.

David Brin on The Postman +

Orbit Books has posted a fantastic talk by David Brin about his novels, specifically The Postman, The Earth and his new book, Existence.  I had to read The Postman in university and really enjoyed it.  If you've seen (or heard of) the movie, do yourself a favour and pick up the book.  You can find his website here.

New Author Spotlight: Leah Bobet

New Author Spotlight is a series designed to introduce authors with 3 books or less in the different SF/F subgenres.

Today's spotlight shines on Leah Bobet!

Her debut novel is Above published by Arthur Levine Books.



Here's the cover copy...

A gorgeous urban fantasy about dangers outside and in.

Matthew has always lived in Safe, a community hidden far beneath the pipes and tunnels of the city Above. The residents fled to Safe years before to escape the Whitecoats and their cruel experiments, and now Matthew is responsible for both the keeping of Safe's stories and for Ariel, a golden-haired shapeshifter, and the most beautiful girl he's ever seen.

But one horrifying night, an old enemy murders Safe's founder, Atticus, and the community is taken over by an army of shadows. Only Matthew, Ariel, and a handful of friends escape Above. Now they not only have to survive in a sunlit world they barely know, but they must unravel the mystery of the shadows' fury and Atticus's death. It's up to Matthew to find a way to remake Safe, not just for himself and his family, but for Ariel, who's again faced with the life she fled, and who needs him more than ever before.

An urban fantasy and a love story, Above is the breathtaking debut of an extraordinary new voice.

Check out her book if you like stories where teen protagonists are forced underground:

• Shade's Children by Garth Nix (HarperCollins)
• Unwindby Neal Shusterman (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers)
• Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs (Quirk Books)

Cool New YA Dystopian and Post-Apocalyptic Novels

While I was looking for the youtube videos for yesterday's post, I saw this book trailer as one of the pre-video ads.  Intrigued, I looked up the book and it sounds pretty awesome.  The book is Starters by Lissa Price, out March 13th.

HER WORLD IS CHANGED FOREVER

Callie lost her parents when the Spore Wars wiped out everyone between the ages of twenty and sixty. She and her little brother, Tyler, go on the run, living as squatters with their friend Michael and fighting off renegades who would kill them for a cookie. Callie's only hope is Prime Destinations, a disturbing place in Beverly Hills run by a mysterious figure known as the Old Man.

He hires teens to rent their bodies to Enders—seniors who want to be young again. Callie, desperate for the money that will keep her, Tyler, and Michael alive, agrees to be a donor. But the neurochip they place in Callie's head malfunctions and she wakes up in the life of her renter, living in her mansion, driving her cars, and going out with a senator's grandson. It feels almost like a fairy tale, until Callie discovers that her renter intends to do more than party—and that Prime Destinations' plans are more evil than Callie could ever have imagined. . . .

Another book I've been waiting to read that has a great book trailer is Dan Wells's Partials.

The human race is all but extinct after a war with Partials, engineered organic beings identical to humans, has decimated the population. Reduced to only tens of thousands by RM, a weaponized virus to which only a fraction of humanity is immune, the survivors in North America have huddled together on Long Island while the Partials have mysteriously retreated. The threat of the Partials is still imminent, but, worse, no baby has been born immune to RM in more than a decade. Our time is running out.

Kira, a sixteen-year-old medic-in-training, is on the front lines of this battle, seeing RM ravage the community while mandatory pregnancy laws have pushed what's left of humanity to the brink of civil war, and she's not content to stand by and watch. But as she makes a desperate decision to save the last of her race, she will find that the survival of humans and Partials alike rests in her attempts to uncover the connections between them, connections that humanity has forgotten, or perhaps never even knew were there.

Article 5, by Kristen Simmons, is sitting by my chair, waiting for me to finish my current book so I can pick it up.

New York, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C., have been abandoned.

The Bill of Rights has been revoked, and replaced with the Moral Statutes.

There are no more police-instead, there are soldiers. There are no more fines for bad behavior-instead, there are arrests, trials, and maybe worse. People who get arrested usually don''t come back.

Seventeen-year-old Ember Miller is old enough to remember that things weren't always this way. Living with her rebellious single mother, it's hard for her to forget that people weren't always arrested for reading the wrong books or staying out after dark. It's hard to forget that life in the United States used to be different.

Ember has perfected the art of keeping a low profile. She knows how to get the things she needs, like food stamps and hand-me-down clothes, and how to pass the random home inspections by the military. Her life is as close to peaceful as circumstances allow.

That is, until her mother is arrested for noncompliance with Article 5 of the Moral Statutes. And one of the arresting officers is none other than Chase Jennings…the only boy Ember has ever loved.

And last but not least is Above by Leah Bobet.

Matthew has always lived in Safe, a community hidden far beneath the pipes and tunnels of the city Above. The residents fled to Safe years before to escape the Whitecoats and their cruel experiments, and now Matthew is responsible for both the keeping of Safe's stories and for Ariel-a golden-haired shapeshifter, and the most beautiful girl he's ever seen.

But one horrifying night, an old enemy murders Safe's founder, Atticus, and the community is taken over by an army of shadows. Only Matthew, Ariel, and a handful of friends escape Above. Now they not only have to survive in a sunlit world they barely know, but they must unravel the mystery of the shadows'' fury and Atticus's death. It's up to Matthew to find a way to remake Safe-not just for himself and his family, but for Ariel, who''s again faced with the life she fled, and who needs him more than ever before.

Too many books to read, too little time...

Book Review: Mind Storm by K. M. Ruiz

Pros: lots of psionic action, complex post-apocalyptic world, political intrigue 

Cons: little character development, repetition

Roughly 250 years after the nuclear war that destroyed the world, humanity is still picking up the pieces.  DNA clean humans run the World Court, governments and businesses, while unregistered humans struggle to survive.  Out of the radiation fallout rose a new race, those with psionic abilities.  Those the government controls with an implanted kill switch are called the Strykers Syndicate.  They fight against unregistered psions and a well organized group called the Warhounds.

Nathan Serca is head of the Serca Syndicate and unknown to the World Court only one of two triad psions.  The other triad is his eldest, now renegade, son, Lucas.  For two years his other children have been unsuccessful in tracking and killing Lucas.  Nathan's patience is running out as important plans come to fruition.

Meanwhile Lucas is amassing a team of psions to help him with his own plans.

The action is plentiful and varied, showing the various powers off.  While relegated to a handful of powers (telepaths, telekinetics, teleporters, empaths, pyrokinetics, psychometrists, precognitives and elctrokinetics), the characters use their powers in creative ways.  The limit on their powers (the more they use them, the sooner they die) was a nice touch.  

Action scenes are offset by political intrigue between several groups of players, all of whom think they know everything that's going on, none of whom actually do.

The world is realistically complex and detailed: from the towers and bunkers where rich humans live to the slums of the poor and uninhabitable deadzones.  The characters are a mix of colours and nationalities, denoting the chaos and integration after the Border Wars.

Give the number of characters it's impressive that there was never any confusion as to who the reader is following at any given time.  Having said that, there's little opportunity to get to know characters, so the reader is constantly told things about each character with no opportunity to see the truth of these statements in their actions.  The book takes place over a short period of time, making character development a moot point.

As with James Knapp's Revivors trilogy, you have to pay close attention to what's going on.  Ruiz repeats several important points which, given your frame of mind, are either helpful or irritating over time.  Similarly, if you liked the action and spunk of Those Who Walk in Darkness by John Ridley, you'll love Mind Storm.

This is the first book of the series and is ultimately merely set-up for what comes next.  But what a set-up!

Like X-Men, only more brutal.