Books Received April 2012

Descriptions, with one exception, are from the Indigo website.

Erebos by Ursula Poznanski.  I've read this one. My review for it will appear on SF Signal first, then here a bit later. It was a fantastic read, and while it's marketed as YA, adult readers will enjoy it too.

An intelligent computer game with a disturbing agenda.

When 16-year-old Nick gets a package, he wonders if it will explain the behavior of his classmates, who have been secretive lately. The package contains the mysterious computer game Erebos. Players must obey strict rules: always play alone, never talk about the game, and never tell anyone your nickname.

Curious, Nick joins the game and quickly becomes addicted. But Erebos knows a lot about the players and begins to manipulate their lives. When it sends Nick on a deadly assignment, he refuses and is banished from the game.

Now unable to play, Nick turns to a friend for help in finding out who controls the game. The two set off on a dangerous mission in which the border between reality and the virtual world begins to blur.

This utterly convincing and suspenseful thriller originated in Germany where it has become a runaway bestseller.

Girl Genius: Agatha Awakens, Omnibus 1 by Phil and Kaja Foglio

Girl Genius, the multiple Hugo Award-winning steampunk webcomic by Phil and Kaja Foglio, now collected in hardcover!

The Industrial Revolution has become all-out war! Mad Scientists, gifted with the Spark of genius, unleash insane inventions on an unprepared Europe. For centuries, the Heterodyne family of inventors kept the peace, but the last Heterodyne disappeared twenty years ago, leaving their ally Baron Klaus Wulfenbach to maintain order with his fleet of airships and army of unstoppable, if not very bright, Jaeger Monsters.

At Transylvania Polygnostic University, Agatha Clay dreams of being a scientist herself, but her trouble concentrating dooms her to be a lowly minion at best. When her locket, a family heirloom, is stolen, Agatha shows signs of having the Spark in a spectacular, destructive fashion and captures the attention of the Baron-and the Baron's handsome young son, Gilgamesh.

Swept up to the Baron's Airship City, Agatha finds herself in the midst of the greatest minds of her generation, as well as palace intrigue, dashing heroes, and an imperial cat. Agatha may be the most brilliant mind of her generation and the key to control of the continent, but first, she just has to survive.

Songs of the Earth by Elspeth Cooper

The Book of Eador, Abjurations 12:14, is very clear: Suffer ye not the life of a witch. For a thousand years, the Church Knights have obeyed that commandment, sending to the stake anyone who can hear the songs of the earth. There are no exceptions, not even for one of their own.

Novice Knight Gair can hear music no one else can, beautiful, terrible music: music with power. In the Holy City, that can mean only one thing: death by fire-until an unlikely intervention gives him a chance to flee the city and escape the flames.

With the Church Knights and their witchfinder hot on his heels, Gair hasn't time to learn how to use the power growing inside him, but if he doesn't master it, that power will tear him apart. His only hope is the secretive Guardians of the Veil, though centuries of persecution have almost destroyed their Order, and the few Guardians left have troubles of their own.

For the Veil between worlds is weakening, and behind it, the Hidden Kingdom, ever-hungry for dominion over the daylight realm, is stirring. Though he is far from ready, Gair will find himself fighting for his own life, for everyone within the Order of the Veil, and for the woman he has come to love.

  Quarantine: The Loners by Lex Thomas

It was just another ordinary day at McKinley High-until a massive explosion devastated the school. When loner David Thorpe tried to help his English teacher to safety, the teacher convulsed and died right in front of him. And that was just the beginning.

A year later, McKinley has descended into chaos. All the students are infected with a virus that makes them deadly to adults. The school is under military quarantine. The teachers are gone. Violent gangs have formed based on high school social cliques. Without a gang, you're as good as dead. And David has no gang. It's just him and his little brother, Will, against the whole school.

In this frighteningly dark and captivating novel, Lex Thomas locks readers inside a school where kids don't fight to be popular, they fight to stay alive.

Skylark by Meagan Spooner (synopsis from Amazon.com)

Vis in magia, in vita vi. In magic there is power, and in power, life.

For fifteen years, Lark Ainsley waited for the day when her Resource would be harvested and she would finally be an adult. After the harvest she expected a small role in the regular, orderly operation of the City within the Wall. She expected to do her part to maintain the refuge for the last survivors of the Wars. She expected to be a tiny cog in the larger clockwork of the city.

Lark did not expect to become the City's power supply.

For fifteen years, Lark Ainsley believed in a lie. Now she must escape the only world she's ever known...or face a fate more unimaginable than death.

Bookwork Blues: Special Needs in Strange Worlds Month

This month Bookworm Blues is hosting a themed month on disabilities as portrayed in science fiction and fantasy.  It's a fantastic topic, one that's avoided because, as she mentions in her introductory post, "...how many people are either afraid to talk about it because it’s a sensitive issue, or can’t think of anything to say because no one has brought attention to it before".

I had the idea a year or more ago to do an endcap with books containing protagonists (or important secondary characters) with disabilities.  I eventually discarded the idea because I couldn't think of a way to display the books without sounding... less than polite about it.  Both in terms of titling the display, but also by having one in the first place.  It's the kind of thing that gets pushed aside for pc reasons, but also because as a society we try not to talk about things that make us uncomfortable.

Now I wonder why I was so afraid to bring attention to books that showcase - or at least bring attention to - those with disabilities.  Thankfully I didn't toss my list.  In fact, I've added to it.  I'm hoping to expand it some more and post it some time this month.

Thank you Sarah for creating a theme month that addresses this sensitive topic.

New Author Spotlight: Anne Lyle

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 Anne Lyle! Her debut novel is The Alchemist of Souls published by Angry Robot Books.

Here's the cover copy...

When Tudor explorers returned from the New World, they brought back a name out of half-forgotten Viking legend: skraylings. Red-sailed ships followed in the explorers' wake, bringing Native American goods--and a skrayling ambassador--to London. But what do these seemingly magical beings really want in Elizabeth I's capital? Mal Catlyn, a down-at-heel swordsman, is seconded to the ambassador's bodyguard, but assassination attempts are the least of his problems. What he learns about the skraylings and their unholy powers could cost England her new ally--and Mal his soul.

Check out her book if you're a fan of Elizabethan style alternate history:

• Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner (Spectra)
• The Sword of Albion by Mark Chadbourn (Bantam)
• Triumff: Her Majesty's Hero by Dan Abnett (Angry Robot)

Mr. Foley

This is a short video we stumbled across a few days ago.  Interesting, and rather creepy.

A darkly funny but nightmarish scenario, a man wakes up in hospital with a group of sound artists soundtracking his life. Mr Foley is an award winning short film directed by Dublin directing duo Mike Ahern & Enda Loughman aka D.A.D.D.Y.

Movie Review: Nosferatu, A Symphony of Horror

Director: F. W. Murnau, 1922

IMDB listing

Pros: very creepy vampire, atmospheric, ending is different from the book (so it's a surprise), good soundtrack (in the restored version)

Cons: drags in the middle, supporting characters have little purpose, tinting made time of day difficult to determine

review contains mild spoilers

restored 2006 under the direction of Luciano Berriatua (including newly translated title cards, reconstructed score, variously tinted frames)

Real estate agent Hutter is sent to Transilvannia to arrange the sale of the house across from his in Wisborg, Germany, to Count Orlok.  The Count turns out to be a vampire, Nosferatu.  The sudden rise in deaths in Wisborg is blamed on the Plague, believed brought by the Count's ship.

The filmmakers were unable to get the rights to Dracula, but that didn't stop them from modelling their film very closely on the book.  Aside from the names, the movie follows the book almost exactly until Count Orlok arrives in Wisborg.  The action here (Act V) is truncated and ends very differently from the book when Ellen (the Mina character, played by Greta Schroeder) discovers how to defeat the monster.

The first Act is devoted to setting up Hutter (Gustav V. Wangenheim) and Ellen as a couple very much in love.  This is important as later in the film their connection saves Hutter's life.  It also makes the ending more profound. 

The Count, played by Max Schreck, is terrifying.  His head is bald, his nose large and crooked and when he shows up as the vampire, his ears become pointy, his teeth sharp and his torso, arms and fingers elongated.  Even his silhouette is terrifying.  This film contains the iconic vampire image of the Count rising from his coffin - though his arms are outstretched here, rather than crossed on his chest as later films use. 

The use of the plague to explain the deaths was, I thought, rather clever.  I was disappointed that Professor Bulwer (the Van Helsing character) didn't have much of a role.  In fact, they could have left him out completely and nothing would have changed.  The same can be said for some of the other supporting characters.

The restored version I watched had a fantastic reconstructed score (which helped set the mood and add to the creepiness) and distracting tinted frames.  I'm not sure if it was due to the tints or the photography, but title plates had to explain when it was night time, as you otherwise couldn't tell (and yellow tints made it look like afternoon).  In a film wherein the antagonist is only out at night, knowing when it's day and night is rather important.  It makes me curious how the film was originally released (as the tinted frames used were taken from different preserved versions of the film).

The movie drags a bit in the middle, but on the whole is an enjoyable retelling of Dracula.

Fantasy Fatigue

Going along with yesterday's unfinished book post, I've realized something recently that greatly disturbs me.  I'm a fantasy girl.  I've been reading predominately traditional fantasy for 20 years.  And I'm getting tired of it.

I suspect I've just read too many fantasy novels in my life.  Even books and authors whose work I love (and there are many) just don't interest me right now.  I've got several series that I enjoy that I simply can't bring myself to read the next book of.  And that despite the fact that I know I'll like the books when I read them.  I'm just getting too much of a 'been there, read that a dozen times already' feeling.

I've been reading a lot more science fiction in the past year or so and I believe this is why.  I'm not as familiar with the tropes, so when I read something that's been done a thousand times it still feels fresh and new to me.  My husband has a great collection of books (mostly hard SF and space opera, which I rarely read, even when I read SF) that I'm looking forward to reading.

What does that mean for this blog?  After I'm done my current batch of books I'll be doing a LOT more SF reviews.  I expect to read a lot of older books, classics and books in subgenres I haven't touched on much so far.  I won't ignore fantasy, but I feel I need a break from it for a few months at least so I can rediscover my love for the genre.  And all its tropes. 

Unique - And Literal - Book Launch

Kevin McGill, author of Nikolas & Company: The Merman and the Moon Forgotten, launched his book into space, as part of his book launch on April 20th.

And took a video of it.



He's having a contest to win a Kindle Fire - all you have to do is guess how far away from the launch site the book landed.  Learn more about the book here.