Archive
Book Review: Shadrach in the Furnace by Robert Silverberg (Audiobook narrated by Paul Boehmer)
Summary:
After a giant volcanic eruption led to chaos and the virus wars, the world came under a one world government led by Genghis Mao based out of Mongolia. The virus wars also led to everyone being infected with organ rot, a condition that simply spontaneously starts whenever it feels like it. Only those working close to the government get the antidote. Shadrach Mordecai, an African-American, went straight from Harvard Med to being the personal doctor for the world dictator. He has implants that allow him to monitor Genghis Mao’s health through his own body, plus he is overseeing the three projects pursuing a way to keep Mao alive forever. But when Project Avatar, which would involve implanting Mao’s brain into a new body, loses its prime candidate, Shadrach realizes his position as aid to Mao might not be keeping him as safe as her previously believed.
Review:
One of my all-time favorite books, The World Inside (review), is by Robert Silverberg, so I decided I should start working on reading all of his writings. So when I saw this Silverberg book on Audible, I immediately knew where my June membership credit would be going.
There are quite a few things that make this piece of scifi stick out. First, out of the four main characters, three are people of color. Shadrach is black, Mao is obviously Mongolian, the head of Project Avatar is Native American (Navajo, I believe), and the head of the project seeking to put Mao into a robot body is headed by a white European woman. It’s an incredibly diverse cast that I really enjoyed. Plus, Shadrach gets it on with both Nikki Crowfoot and Katya (Native and European, respectively). There’s also the fascinating fact that Mao, who previously only wanted a Mongolian body, is totally into the idea of putting his brain into the body of strong, young black man. You could read this one of two ways: either as a scifi slave narrative (Mao owning Shadrach’s body) or as a progressive future where skintone doesn’t matter but the leaders still manage to be totally evil.
The scifi in the book is incredibly strong. Silverberg obviously did his brain and infectious diseases research. It was akin to reading abstracts from medical journals when Shadrach was talking about the various medical things going on with Mao’s body and with organ rot in the general population.
Religion is dealt with in an interesting manner. Most people seem to be more religious. Even the “secular” government workers follow the new religion, whose name I can’t remember I’m afraid, that involves monks and taking hallucinatory drugs. It’s obviously an idea of a futuristic religion born out of the 1970s in which it was written, but it works within the imaginary future it exists within.
Central to the novel is Shadrach’s struggle with the Hippocratic Oath. He is sworn to repeatedly save the life of an evil dictator who is willfully withholding an antidote to organ rot from the general population. It’s obviously an intense moral dilemma and the scifi setting helps the reader look at it with less emotion than if, say, we were talking about a modern setting wherein Shadrach was working for a neo-Nazi or something.
One thing that does date the book is that Silverberg made the choice of giving an exact year for when all of this is going down, and that year is 2012. I did find it an odd bit of serendipity that I just so happened to pick up this book in 2012. In a sense, then, for the modern reader it’s more like reading an alternate history. What *would* have happened if a huge natural disaster had occurred in the 1990s? Whereas in a book like 1984, it’s still the same book for modern readers as for the original readers (you just ignore the date), here the date actually has an impact on the reading of the story. The reading is different now than it probably was for people in the 1970s, but it still works. Just in a different way.
I did feel the pacing is a bit off in the book. It’s a bit up and down. There were a couple of moments earlier in the story that had the intensity level of almost a climax, whereas the climax feels….less climaxy. It took some of the tension out for me, even though I was pleased with the ultimate ending. This did make it ideal for an audiobook, though, since it was easier to come and go from it as I had time to listen. Related to the pacing issue, although most of the book is third person Shadrach’s perspective, there are a few chapters that are first person Mao’s perspective. Those threw me a bit. I’m still not sure how I felt about them. I honestly think it would take a second read in print to get a real vibe for that dynamic.
Speaking of the audiobook, the narrator, Paul Boehmer, does a phenomenal job. He gets many different accents spot on without ever seeming to be racist. He also does a great job differentiating between who is speaking and thinking and what have you. He also did an admirable job narrating the sex scenes. The tonality of his voice is spot on for the intimacy and excitement. I would gladly listen to another book he’s narrated.
Overall then this is an interesting piece of scifi that was originally written as futuristic and now reads as alternate history. It features a diverse, three-dimensional cast and provides a great setting for the moral dilemma of helping those who would harm others. I recommend it to fans of scifi that addresses moral issues.
4 out of 5 stars
Source: Audible
Book Review: The Mount by Carol Emshwiller (Bottom of TBR Pile Challenge)
Summary:
Charley is an 11 year old Seattle and wants to be the best mount there is for his owner, Little Master. He eats his dry cakes, practices on the go-round, and behaves well. Little Master mostly likes their lessons. His ears wiggle, so Charley knows he’s giggling. But one day Wilds attack the village. They say that people are meant to be people, not mounts for Hoots. But the Hoots say the mounts were made for them, see how the primate species are perfectly designed for riding? It’s all very confusing for Charley.
Review:
It doesn’t take much guess-work to figure out how this wound up on my TBR pile. It’s a rather obvious allegory for animal rights, although instead of apes enslaving people like in Planet of the Apes, it’s an alien species with cat-like ears and weak legs enslaving humans. The concept is a good one, but the execution fell short for me, which is sad, because I wanted to love it.
The structure of the book is problematic. The first chapter is from the perspective of an entirely random Hoot who we never see again. Ever. We also never see his mount again. This is just weird. The rest of the book is told from the first person perspective of Charley, except for one random chapter narrated by his father. I don’t mind switching perspectives, but there should be some sort of consistency about it, and we should have at least a vague idea who the character in the new perspective is.
I also found myself completely baffled by Charley. In spite of being enslaved by the Hoots, he still wishes to use a bit one day and other things that drive his father nuts, and one cannot help but agree with his father. He never seems to really learn better through the book either. He persists in loving his Hoot and being a mount for his Hoot. That doesn’t work as an allegory for animal rights or slavery.
Emshwiller does show how teenage boys clash with their fathers very well, however. Charley’s relationship with his dad, Heron, is well fleshed-out and intriguing. They want to connect and love each other but struggle with how, exactly, to do that when they are so different yet so similar. Looking back, this relationship is what kept me reading. It shines in spite of the other oddities in the book.
I won’t spoil it, but the ending bothered me as well, and I found it profoundly confusing. In fact, I’d say for the book as a whole I am simply left perplexed by it. I feel like I missed something or didn’t quite get an accurate picture of the world they are living in or something.
Overall, it’s a very different take on humans being enslaved by another species, but its execution is rather disappointing. Recommended to readers with a marked interest in scifi depictions of human slavery.
3 out of 5 stars
Source: PaperBackSwap
Book Review: Claws and Saucers by David Ellroy Goldweber
Summary:
An alphabetical guide to scifi, horror, and fantasy movies made between 1902 and 1982.
Review:
One thing I have learned from the two movie reference guides I’ve received for review since starting this book blog is that movie reference guides are not for me. Frankly with things like, oh, the internet, they’re just not useful the way they were back when I was in undergrad and professors wouldn’t accept IMDB as a reference in your English paper comparing books to their movie versions. But I digress.
Putting on my librarian cap then why does this reference guide get 2 and not 3 stars? (3 indicating not for me but maybe for others). It frankly bothers me how not academic it is. It essentially reads as a list randomly assembled by some random dude down the road, not a professor of the history of film or a film critic or anything like that really. This would be great for a blog, but not for a serious reference book. Additionally, maybe the print edition is better, but the ebook version is badly formatted and contains none of the pictures promised in the blurb.
The book basically then is your neighbor yammering in alphabetical order about random movies he selected from the early 1900s with all of the natural individual prejudices and caveats that go along with that. There’s nothing academic about it, and when push comes to shove, it’s something that would be better off as a blog than a book. I will give it this though: the title and cover are excellent.
2 out of 5 stars
Source: Netgalley
Book Review: Haunted by Glen Cadigan
Summary:
Mark is an Iraq War vet with PTSD, so he counts himself lucky when a Gulf War vet gives him the chance to be a security guard at an office tower. Unfortunately, he’s the night watchman, and he doesn’t seem to be alone in the tower.
Review:
This is a unique, sympathetic story idea that is not as well-executed as it deserves.
Mark is ultimately a well-rounded character, but it takes too long to get to know him in this novella. Since it is in first-person narrative, he has the option of holding off on telling us about his PTSD symptoms and how they affect him. While a soldier would certainly most likely be more stoic in a traditionally masculine way, it gets in the way of the reader understanding where Mark is coming from and empathizing with him. He *tells* us that his PTSD makes his life difficult, but we don’t really ever see it.
Because this is a first person novella, this problem with the characterization gets in the way of the strengths of the scifi/fantasy plot, which is honestly fairly unique. I was glad I got to the end and saw the surprise reveal, but I certainly wasn’t expecting such a good twist from the rest of the book.
Essentially, the scifi/fantasy element of the book is strong, but the characterization at the center of the first person narrative is weak. Although Mark is a soldier, Cadigan shouldn’t be afraid to let us see the vulnerability of his PTSD. Recommended to fans of a unique ghost story looking for a quick read.
3 out of 5 stars
Source: Kindle copy from author in exchange for my honest review
Counts For:
Publication Announcement: Waiting For Daybreak
Hello my lovely readers!
I am pleased to be able to say my first full-length novel, Waiting For Daybreak, is now available on Amazon! After the first 90 days, it will also be available at Barnes and Noble and Smashwords.
What is normal?
Frieda has never felt normal. She feels every emotion too strongly and lashes out at herself in punishment. But one day when she stays home from work too depressed to get out of bed, a virus breaks out turning her neighbors into flesh-eating, brain-hungry zombies. As her survival instinct kicks in keeping her safe from the zombies, Frieda can’t help but wonder if she now counts as healthy and normal, or is she still abnormal compared to every other human being who is craving brains?
I do hope you will give it a shot.
If you have a book blog and would like to participate in the upcoming blog tour, just let me know!
*confetti*
Book Review: Grey by Jon Armstrong (Audiobook narrated by Macleod Andrews)
Summary:
In the near future capitalism has entirely taken over, and the world is ruled by a few families….and their corporations. People from all walks of life are also completely obsessed with fashion. Michael Rivers is the heir to the River Corporation and is being sent on worldwide-aired dates with Nora, the heir to another company. Just when they are about to announce their engagement, however, a freeboot shoots at Michael leaving the families blaming each other for the incident. Michael refuses to accept his father’s demands that he marry a different woman, however, and his quest to figure out a way to Nora leads to some deep dark scandals hid on all levels of the company.
Review:
I have to say that this is the first time I was sorely disappointed by a read I originally discovered via Little Red Reviewer’s blog. I was intrigued by the idea of fashionpunk, which is what this book is supposed to be. Fashionpunk is a new genre. Think scifi with a heavy focus on fashion. It’s unfortunate that the fashion aka world setting was the best part of the book.
Armstrong richly presents the near future he has imagined. People’s tendencies to reflect their world views via their fashion choices is completely exploded in this world. Michael identifies as a Grey. He wears only shades of grey and chooses everything from what bands he likes to what restaurants to eat in based on the grey fashion’s magazine. Every other type of fashion is similar. Even the Rivers security team are referred to by the type of clothing they wear–the Satins. I know! This sounds awesome and delicious to be in, and it was. But…..the story, you guys. The story.
This book’s plot is like the Kardashian show if it was written down and entirely sympathetic to Kim Kardashian. I know, right? Even reading that sentence is painful. It’s not that I’m saying someone wealthy can’t be a main character, but it helps if some aspect of them is sympathetic, and Michael is just not. He’s whiny and wimpy and sooooo obsessed with inane things and his “love” of Nora completely squicks me out. It reads more like an unhealthy obsession than star-crossed lovers. And he never really changes! No matter what he learns or what happens he’s still the same Michael by the end as he is at the beginning. There’s just….no character development. No underdog to root for. No nothing. I liked seeing Michael’s world, but I really would have preferred to wander off and follow the life of the director or a chauffeur or even the inane girl he goes on a date with who has pink fur growing out of her skin. See what I’m saying? Someone with a more interesting perspective. The problem with Michael is that grey truly is the best way to describe him. He’s dull and annoying. Like a grey, rainy day.
So why did I continue listening to it and finish it so quickly? The audiobook narrator, Macleod Andrews, is completely brilliant. It was like listening to a one-man show. He somehow managed to breathe some life into the dull plot. For that I thank him, and I also will be checking out what else he’s narrated on Audible.
Overall, the concept of fashionpunk that Armstrong has worked out is intriguing and makes for a visually and culturally rich world. Unfortunately, I found his plot completely unappealing. Perhaps people who enjoy the lives of the rich and famous would feel differently, however.
3 out of 5 stars
Source: Audible
Book Review: Three Messages and a Warning: Contemporary Mexican Short Stories of the Fantastic edited by Eduardo Jimenez Mayo and Chris N. Brown
Summary:
This collection gathers 34 contemporary Mexican short stories featuring fantasy, scifi, and literary, clearly a wide range.
Review:
For me this collection was very hit and miss, and alas even the hits weren’t that wonderful. Part of the issue is there seems to be no rhyme or reason behind the order in which the tales are presented. It feels as if 34 completely random stories were selected with the only thing they have in common being Mexican authors. I generally prefer a short story collection to have a more universal theme or play upon similar tropes, but there is none of that here. The stories range from young boys hunting iguanas to figuring out how to dispose of a body to a trophy wife on vacation in Las Vegas to a pact with the devil. It was a bit of an exhausting collection to read. That said, I’d like to highlight a couple of my favorites that kept the read from being an entirely troublesome experience.
“Hunting Iguanas” by Hernan Lara Zavala both gives a glimpse into country Mexican life, which isn’t something we get to encounter very much, and provides commentary on colonization.
“Lions” by Bernardo Fernandez was particularly delightful for an animal rights activist to read. In a time of budget cuts the less attractive animals of the zoo are let loose in the city park and gradually take over. Delightfully tongue-in-cheek.
“The Nahual Offering” by Carmen Rioja features a disturbingly prophetic dream by a tribal woman. It is a great example of the beautifully grotesque.
You can see, though, that I was only able to pick out three short stories from a collection of 34 to highlight as particularly enjoyable to me. The collection simply lacks a universality of theme or talent.
Overall this collection is an interesting peek into contemporary Mexican writing, although it does seem the editors could have done a better job in selecting what to include. Recommended to those with a marked interest in modern Mexican writing.
3 out of 5 stars
Source: LibraryThing EarlyReviewers
Friday Fun! (Cool People I Follow!)
Hello my lovely readers! I don’t have too terribly much to update you on today since I managed to get bronchitis “with a touch of strep” and have been down for the count all week. I am on antibiotics now. They are a beautiful beautiful thing. Anyway, so since my life this week has mostly consisted of laying around with a fever watching Big Bang Theory and Battlestar Galactica on repeat, I thought I’d do something different today and let you guys know about a few unique folks I follow in my GoogleReader that you might want to check out.
ANZ LitLovers LitBlog is a book blog I just recently discovered that focuses in on the literature of Australia and New Zealand. The instant I saw the title of the blog I went, “Wow, duh, what a gap in my reading!” She has a great page featuring a listing of must read ANZ lit titles.
Joe’s Blog is one of the few author blogs I follow (as opposed to authors who happen to have book blogs. I follow a few of those). Joseph Robert Lewis is an indie author whose books are available as ebooks, and he is a smart dude. Not only does he write scifi/fantasy/steampunk with a feminist slant out of a desire to write the types of books he wants to be available for his daughters to read, he’s also a really giving guy. He has a great section of advice for fellow writers looking to self-publish and maintains a great relationship with his readers (um, including me). His blog itself is an awesome mix of posts on what inspires his scifi/fantasy/steampunk worlds, his own life, and musings on writing. Oh, also, he came up with this awesome idea for a series co-written by a bunch of authors who have never met before all set in the same universe, and he’s actually pulling it off. The dude is creative and productive. Check him out, even if his books aren’t your genre.
Native Appropriations is run by fellow Boston gal, Adrienne, who is a member of the Cherokee tribe and currently studying for her PhD. Her posts discuss representation and appropriation of Native American culture in American pop culture and media. Her posts are thought-provoking and eloquent. Seriously, get rid of your People Magazine and Cosmo subscriptions and read what this smart lady has to say instead.
No Meat Athlete is run by a male vegan who also is, you guessed it, an athlete. He primarily runs marathons, but his posts feature great information for any type of athlete or fitness fan who is plant-based. I particularly found his post 7 Secrets of Post Work-out Recovery super useful for this plant-based weight-lifting lady. He’s also going to be doing the Boston Marathon. Yeahhhhh!
Finally, for everything vegan from vegans in the news to animal rights to product reviews, definitely follow Vegansaurus. They are my go-to site for sane animal rights coverage (unlike PETA *cough*). They also feature real life help this one situation here this one time if you can shout-outs that help me feel connected to the animal rights community. (Like one time we all got together to help a gal get her pup needed surgery, because, you know, who actually has insurance for their pets?) Between that, the cookbook reviews, the recipes, the products, and the news bits, it’s one of my favorite news sources.
I hope you all found some new reading material. Happy weekends!
Book Review: The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell (Series, #1) (Bottom of TBR Pile Challenge)
Summary:
It is the year 2060, and the Jesuit priest Emilio Endoz has been found on the planet Rakhat by the second Earth ship to travel there. Found in a whorehouse and killing a native inhabitant in front the UN members’ eyes, they nonetheless strap him into his original spaceship and send him back to the Jesuits. There he is treated for his horrifying wounds and through a series of flashbacks and current conversations with the various Jesuit committee members assigned to his case, we slowly see how everything that started out so right went so horribly wrong on Rakhat.
Review:
It may have been a while since it made it onto my tbr shelf, but I still have a crystal clear memory of why I acquired this book. I entirely blame Little Red Reviewer, who just so happens to be the only other female scifi fan who book blogs that I’m aware of. (Feel free to enlighten me to more in the comments). Her review that religion is there but in a questioning way that honors the tradition of scifi made me give this book with a Jesuit priest and mission at its core a chance. I’m glad I did.
This is a first contact story that takes the all-too-infrequent route of Earth finding the inhabited planet first and sending a mission to them. There’s so much more than that that makes this book unique, though. The future Earth just barely has the technology to make it to Alpha Centauri, and only the most tech-savvy are aware of it. Thus, we’re not an incredibly advanced civilization making first contact, just one slightly more so than Rakhat. I’d say a fair comparison might be late 19th to early 20th century earth to early to late 21st century Earth. It’s a short span of difference. Additionally, Russell made the intriguing choice of the first contact being run by missionaries, instead of a political unit. When you think about it, it makes perfect sense. Who tended to be first to the New World? Religious groups. Who can organize themselves quickly and have vast finances? Religious groups. Having first contact be missionaries makes so much sense that I’m shocked I didn’t think of it first.
That said, thankfully this book is not a love letter to organized religion or mission work. It is instead a complex, scientific, and anthropological study of the human condition, the difficulties of vastly different cultures meeting, linguistics, and much more. At its core it is all about why does god (if there is a god) let evil happen, especially to good people who are serving him? These issues are more easily addressed and made further complex by having agnostics, non-practicing Catholics, and a Jewish woman members of the mission team. The non-believers are about at even numbers with the priests. In fact, the deeper into the book I got, the more it tore at my heart-strings. Varying types of questioners are represented, and of course it’s possible to identify with many of them, particularly for a reader who once was religious but is not anymore. There’s the priest who is secretly gay, the Jewish woman who was wounded terribly by war but comes to learn to love again, the Father Superior who thinks he may be seeing the formation of a real live saint, the priest questioning the very existence of god, and the agnostic who wants to have the beautiful aspect of faith that she sees in those around her.
This book reads, it sounds a bit odd to say, almost like an agnostic’s prayer. Of course agnostics don’t pray, but if they did pray, the pain and wondering and intelligence found in this book would all be there.
We are, after all, only very clever tailless primates, doing the best we can, but limited. Perhaps we must all own up to being agnostic, unable to know the unknowable. (page 201)
The problem with atheism, I find, under these circumstances…is that I have no one to despise but myself. If, however, I choose to believe that God is vicious, then at least I have the solace of hating God. (page 394)
People more into science than the questioning human spirit will find plenty for themselves as well. The science of linguistics is astoundingly well presented. The way the two “sentient” species on Rakhat have evolved is also incredibly well thought-out and realistically drawn. The problems of poverty and war on earth are briefly explored too.
All of these things said, I do feel it took a bit too long to get things set up and moving. Granted, I tend to be a bit of an action-focused reader, so others may not have a problem with that. It was still a draw-back of the book for me though.
I sort of feel like I’m not doing the experience of reading this book justice. Suffice to say if you’ve ever questioned whether or not to have faith and love your big questions to be wrapped in well-thought-out scifi, this is the book for you.
4 out of 5 stars
Source: Better World Books
Counts For:
Book Review: Nova by Samuel R. Delany (Bottom of the TBR Pile Challenge)
Summary:
Lorq von Ray is the head of one of the biggest corporations in the galaxy that for years has worked hand-in-hand with the Red corporation, currently headed by incestuous brother/sister partners Prince and Ruby. But now internal fighting between the two has made von Ray determined to find his corporation’s own supply of Illyrion, normally supplied by the Reds. He’s heard rumors you can fly through the center of a nova (an imploding star) and survive and that Illyrion is inside. He gathers an unlikely crew in a race against the clock to gather the fuel.
Review:
I really wish I could remember what made me acquire this book. The cover was nothing special, and the summary on the back said approximately diddly-squat about the actual plot (unlike my own). Supposedly this book took years and tons of research into the Tarot and the Holy Grail, yadda yadda. Fine. All I know is that it was boring as fuck with a plot like it was written by a fifth grader.
One of my updates on GoodReads said, “Reading this book is like going to the dentist,” and I still think that’s the most apt review of it. The plot drags, which is shocking for such a short novel. We learn an astonishing amount of backstory about the Mouse, who is a minor character, but not a ton about Prince and Ruby Red, who are far more essential to the plot. We don’t learn the backstory for the plugs everyone wears until the book is almost over, when plugs are key to the story. A set of black twins work on the ship with one mysteriously albino for no apparent plot reason, and they operate as one person finishing each other’s sentences. Their whole characterization really bumped my racism button. Yes, I know this is an old book, but still. We also have the annoying novelist member of the crew, who is such an obvious Mary Sue it’s painful. And I don’t throw around the term Mary Sue willy-nilly. Come on. The guy is a novelist trying to write a Holy Grail book. *blinks*
The amateurish exposition consists mainly of long speeches by various characters. The plot saving device of a miracle machine that can fix almost all wounds appears part-way through the story. The whole thing would get maybe a C from me in a creative writing class. Maybe.
The only thing that keeps this book from one star is that it does, in fact, have a plot and is readable. Of course, I can’t for the life of me figure out anyone who would want to read this if they knew what they were getting themselves into.
2 out of 5 stars
Source: PaperBackSwap
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Opinions of a Wolf 