Chasing the Skip

One of the hardest things about being a reviewer is not letting yourself fall into a routine. By that, I mean only reading one type of book, or only reading books you are positive you are going to like. I think it is something most reviewers struggle with when we get sent a pile of novels to read. Hmm, do I choose the Steven Erikson epic...or a novel about fairies in historical London. For me, the choice would seem obvious--Erikson. However, I think it is healthy as a reviewer to read outside your comfort zone. Often times the results are astounding. Reading outside my comfort zone is how I discovered Marie Brennan (fairies in historical London) and Robert Jackson Bennett. It's how rediscovered that elves can be OK with James Barclay, and that YA can be entertaining.

A little while ago I was sent a review copy of Janci Patterson's debut YA novel, CHASING THE SKIP. Normally I would have given this novel directly to one of my reviewers who would be more in the target audience, but I decided it was time for me to read outside my comfort zone again. Why? Because I'm always trying to broaden my reading and become a better reviewer.

Guess what happened? I ended up enjoying the novel. As a reviewer, I love when I take a risk that is rewarded like this.

CHASING THE SKIP follows the PoV of Ricki, a teenage girl who is now stuck on the road with her estranged father. Oh, and her dad is a freaking bounty hunter. As an adult guy reading a book targeted at young females, this immediately gave me a character I could root for. I cannot overstate how important this is for a new author trying to gobble up as many readers as possible.

The novel picks up with Ricki's mother having left nearly a month earlier. Her mom does this from time to time. She just leaves. Ricki will go and stay with her grandmother, but she gets abandoned on a fairly regular basis. This time though it is a lot longer than usual. Enter Ricki's dad. He has virtually stayed out of his daughter's life until recently. Now, the two are on the road together as Ricki's father is on the tail of another "skip"--the term used for parole evaders. As this is a YA novel, it comes as no surprise when the new "skip" is a teenage boy. He's easy on the eyes and slightly mysterious.

I know what you are thinking. This really doesn't seem like the type of story I would normally enjoy. You're right, of course. So let me tell you exactly why I did end up enjoying this novel.

First, CHASING THE SKIP reads extremely fast. I read it in one sitting, before bed, without much effort. It was a nice, easy read that I never felt any desire to stop reading. I think this was because Patterson's writing was very smooth. The story is told in First Person, which helps the reader understand exactly how confused and conflicted Ricki is. This is essential in a novel like this. Additionally, the ease of reading the novel can easily be attributed to how focused it was. There is no wasted space in CHASING THE SKIP. Everything is done with reason and direction--something I feel many YA novels lack.

Ultimately, CHASING THE SKIP is about the relationship between a teenage girl and her father. I think this is why I liked this novel. To me, as a reviewer and reader, the characters are what make any novel work. The setting can be a tad "meh", and the plot can be familiar...but if the characters and their relationships are interesting, then I am able to sit back and enjoy what I am reading. Over the short space of this novel, we get to see tremendous character growth both with Ricki and her father. THAT is what kept me reading. THAT is what made me glad I read this novel.

Now, I'm not going to ruin the ending for you, but I will say that it all felt natural and in-character. It was a tense moment, and paced extremely well. As a father myself, I found the resolution of the father's character arc to be satisfying in every way, and oddly found that I was picturing Ricki in much the same way her father was.

I am not the target audience of CHASING THE SKIP. Not even close. But it is easy for me to recognize and well-written, well-paced YA novel with realistic and relatable characters. What does this tell me? If a guy so far removed from the target audience and be thoroughly entertained by CHASING THE SKIP, then all those YA readers out there are really going to love it. Janci Patterson's debut is well worth your time.

Recommended Age: 12+.
Language: Hardly any.
Violence: Some tense situations, but nothing crazy.
Sex: Nope. Some crude references, but this is a clean novel.


Are you a YA reader who wants a little less genre-fiction? Want to grab this novel? Here is your link:

CHASING THE SKIP

The Broken Universe

Do you guys know who Paul Melko is? No? Then let me introduce you. Paul Melko is great. He writes good, funny, quick-paced Science Fiction novels. I love them. There are times when I’m in the mood for some heavy Hard SF. There are times when I want Weird Fantasy. Then there are times when I want just a fun Science Fiction read that makes me smile as I read it. Paul Melko writes those.

THE BROKEN UNIVERSE is actually a sequel to his novel THE WALLS OF THE UNIVERSE which in turn was a novel length version of his Hugo nominated short fiction story (also called the "The Walls of the Universe"). Instead of just telling you what the THE BROKEN UNIVERSE is about, I’m also going to tell you the set up for THE WALLS OF THE UNIVERSE and why this is such a fun place to be in. In a way, this review will serve as a review for both novels.

THE WALLS OF THE UNIVERSE is a story about Johnny Rayburn. One day Johnny--who works on his parents' farm and is saving up for college--runs into himself. This is another John from another universe who has a device that can skip between universes. Trusting himself, Johnny uses the device to check out another universe. What can the harm be, he can always skip back right? Wrong. The device can only move the wearer forward to the next universe and not back to the previous one. The novel follows the two Johns. One who is trying to understand the device so he can get home and get revenge on being swindled of his life. And the other is an imposter John who starts to try and build a life in the (to him) new universe.

It’s a great book. The characters are fun and easy to relate to. The prose is neat and concise. It’s the type of book that you read and suddenly realize you’ve been reading it for a couple hours.

I won’t give away the ending to the THE WALLS OF THE UNIVERSE or much about THE BROKEN UNIVERSE. Let’s just say that the story escalates beyond what is happening to two Johnnys in this multiverse. There are powers at work and several factions that also know about skipping from one place to the next.

Both books are just plain fun. There’s a nice balance of big ideas and grand schemes mixed in with smaller human moments and actions. The solutions that are come up with in some cases aren’t brilliant mind bogglingly complex schemes, but rather simple elegant solutions that feel real.

Surprisingly the stuff I enjoyed most about the books were the small things, the relatable bits. I’m usually a sucker for a good space opera and weird stuff, but here I found myself wanting to read about these characters and how these ordinary people would deal with extraordinary circumstances.

THE WALLS OF THE UNIVERSE and THE BROKEN UNIVERSE are both great starter SF books (THE WALLS OF THE UNIVERSE was featured in our SF 101 post). If you know someone who wants to give the genre a shot this is as good a way to introduce it to them as any I’ve found. Read them yourself while you’re at it.

Age Recommendation: 14+ maybe. Things get a little more complicated and confusing in Broken Universe.
Violence: A few not very detailed scenes.
Language: A smattering of words, not much.
Sex: Referenced, and not much.


Here are your links to grab these:

THE WALLS OF THE UNIVERSETHE BROKEN UNIVERSE

Flesh & Bone

Jonathan Maberry makes it all look so easy, doesn't he? Book after book is released with his name gracing the cover, and we all snatch them up greedily. Why? Because a Jonathan Maberry novel never disappoints.

FLESH & BONE is no different.

The third novel in the Benny Imura series continues a short time after the events of the second novel, DUST & DECAY. Before I go on, I should mention (in case you have yet to begin this fantastic series) that the Benny Imura series is YA following a small group of teenagers living in a world after the zombie apocalypse has happened. As the first novel, ROT & RUIN, closes, the group of teens sees a jumbo jet flying in the sky. This incident pushes them to go out into the wild to find it.

Like the previous novels, FLESH & BONE follows Benny Imura, Nix, Lilah and Chong. In my review of DUST & DECAY, I said that it felt like that novel was more like an alternate ending to the first book more than a true sequel. I enjoyed the novel, but I still wanted more. I wanted more details. I wanted to see more of the world. I wanted new and different dangers. FLESH & BONE does all of these things, and Maberry literally starts throwing them at you from the first page.

It turns out that in the Rot & Ruin (the name for the wilderness in this series), there is a strange death cult growing in numbers. They go from place to place, settlement to settlement, and...free...people from their existences.

Oh, and there are zombies out there. Lots and lots of zombies. And they are acting far different than usual.

The great thing about this novel, apart from the refreshing plot, is the emphasis on character growth and relationships. Each of these characters have been through a lot, and it isn't until this novel that they really begin to deal with the emotional fallout of the terrible experiences they've participated in. It really becomes a question of loss, and how these characters deal with it.

The villains of FLESH & BONE are very entertaining. To me, Maberry is fantastic at portraying each villain as a unique character with unique motivations. It would be easy, especially in a YA novel (as we've all seen so many times), to make the villains flat and boring. Many authors seem to think that villains in YA novels don't need to be fully developed, and don't develop them. Maberry's villains come to life on the page. Sure, sometimes they are a bit over-the-top, but they are always developed.

As for new characters...well, I can't say much without ruining the surprise. Let's just say one of the new characters introduced brings a whole different light to the series.

FLESH & BONE may actually be the darkest of the Benny Imura series. The toil on the characters is high, and Maberry doesn't pull punches when putting his characters in danger.

I've read a lot of YA lately, and still I find Jonathan Maberry's Benny Imura series sits towards the top of it all. His knack for writing action and character drama makes all his works highly entertaining.

Recommended Age: 13+.
Language: Hardly any.
Violence: Yup. Nothing insane, but some of the situations are pretty terrible.
Sex: Nope.


Here are your links. You should be reading this series:

ROT & RUIN
DUST & DECAY
FLESH & BONE

In the Lion's Mouth

I'm just not getting it. Science Fiction. I hate the fact that I sometimes sound like a broken record, but there's just so little SF out there that I've read to prove me wrong that I just can't help but feel jaded. The up-side is that as long as it's well-written, I'm not going to rip into too much, because if there's one thing that is consistent and good about these books, it's the prose.

IN THE LION'S MOUTH by Michael Flynn is the third installment in his most recent space opera series featuring the inimitable Donovan Buigh.  I wasn't very keen on the second, UP JIM RIVER, but I decided that to be fair, I had better read the first, THE JANUARY DANCER, before diving into this one.  Unfortunately, I needn't have bothered, for I just found more of the same:  a beautifully-written story with a swiss cheese of a plot that ended with me asking, "What was the point of that?"

The story this time around is framed by an agent of the Shadow, Ravn Olafsdotter, and is relayed to Donovan's daughter, Mearana, and his sometime lover, the Hound Bridget Ban, by Ravn because Donovan has, for reasons known to Ravn, gone missing.  Mearana and Bridget are eager to find Donovan, and so they abide the Shadow's presence in their home, instead of instantly killing her as an enemy, and settle down to listen to Ravn's words.

Ravn spins a tale that is varied and complicated.  Told from the point of view of Donovan, instead of through Ravn's eyes (don't ask me how this works--Donovan already has so many people in his head though that it didn't bother me too much that Ravn was, technically, now another one).  Donovan has chosen to return to Commonwealth space, and finds a civil war brewing, in which he becomes somewhat involved.

Similar to JANUARY DANCER, none of the details of the story seem to matter, as the tale jumps from one setting to the next with little to no connection other than through the vague intricacies of the Shadows and Hounds, the two major powers, of known space.  In the end, it is not the story that matters, but the unknown motives of Ravn in telling the story in the first place.  In this way, IN THE LION'S MOUTH was very much like the other two books in the series.  This similar structure was what had led me to the same final question each time:

What was the point of that?

In this case, it seems to be to elicit a particular response from a person of interest.

And that's all.

Sorry, but I just can't get behind that.  Despite the awesome writing, despite the cool history and universe that Mr. Flynn has developed here, despite the way in which--for very small periods of time--he grabs my interest in full by the characters or the world or the events of the story (before, in my opinion, quickly throwing it all down the drain), I have come to the conclusion that this is all nothing more than what I've come to expect, in general, from Science Fiction.  If you, like me, would rather enjoy both the beginning, middle, and end of a story, would rather read about awesome characters and powerful stories, why don't you try some of the Science Fiction authors we love instead.  After this read, I'm definitely going to be heading back that direction.

Recommended Age: 16+, though you should probably recommend something they'll enjoy better
Language: Very little
Violence: Gets pretty gory in the various deaths described
Sex: A handful of references.

Interested in this series?  Find it here:

THE JANUARY DANCER

UP JIM RIVER

IN THE LION'S MOUTH

Hidden Things

I've been on a bit of an urban fantasy kick of late. So much of the genre is about gritty, inner city vampire staking that HIDDEN THINGS by Doyce Testerman registered to me as an original. HIDDEN THINGS isn't urban fantasy so much as a modern rural fairytale. It features folkloric fantasy creatures (dragons and satyrs instead of vampires and werewolves) and tells a moral story. I found this novel approach endearing and as a result I quite liked HIDDEN THINGS despite some flaws.

Calliope's partner has been declared dead. The police are investigating the matter and suspect foul play. Calliope knows little of the case Josh had been working but refuses to accept that he is gone for good...because she has a message on her answering machine from him that was taken two hours after his alleged demise. Now Calliope must travel to Iowa in search of answers with hopes of finding her ex-lover/best-friend/business-partner. The only clue she has is a warning, "Watch out for the hidden things."

Iowa! Surely nothing magical happens in Iowa! What a great setting for an urban fantasy novel! I love it. This isn't your typical, shades of gray, dreary detective story. This is a dustland fairytale, heartland noir of the Springsteen variety. And it mostly works. Because lets be honest, the genre needs a change of scenery. And with all that nothingness out there it seems completely reasonable that trolls and goblins could hide from the information age. It's a sly use of setting and I'd love to give Testerman a high-five for taking advantage of the Mid West.

Calliope Jenkins is an almost immediately likable protagonist. How could you not be with a name like Calliope? She is one badass chick. A disagreeable and scathingly sarcastic female private investigator with confrontation issues. What's not to love? So Calli can be a bit prickly on the outside but she's no Amazonian on a warpath. She is very human. HIDDEN THINGS is filled with brief flashbacks that fill out the details of Calli's past, particularly her relationship with Josh. In any other book the surplus of flashbacks could have been too much but here it works. Her's is a sad past and Josh's even more so. The relationship between the two of them is convincing.

Calliope's guide and companion on her journey to the Hidden Lands is none other than a hobo demon clown. Yeah, you read that right. Vikous might just win an award for Most Sympathetic Creepy Clown in the history of literature. The relationship between Calli and Vikous starts off on rocky ground (poor, poor Vikous) but grows into an unexpected bond.

Vikous is but one example of the monsters that hide amongst us in plain sight. Much that once was is now lost, as Vikous says, "...there's nothing magical in this world anymore - that's the nature of the people who control it." What magic is left is all about knowing how the world goes together, what pieces fit where, and how to rearrange it a bit. Calliope takes all the supernatural stuff like a champ. On one hand this is great. Readers don't have to endure a lengthy denial period, rolling their eyes the whole time as the protagonist struggles to comprehend the nature of the world they really live in. On the other hand she almost seems a little too accepting given some of the awesome and terrible things she experiences.

This leads to another of the few problems I had with HIDDEN THINGS - there's not enough exploration of the fantastical elements. There is a Stephen King influence to this story, but a more streamlined and less pretentious Stephen King. Testerman tells a tale in 300 pages that would have taken King 1000 pages (and a completely unsatisfactory ending) to tell. And for the most part I applaud the economy of prose. The problem is that there is enough material here to fill out a much longer story and delve into some of the deeper details that are underdeveloped. Some of characters (Walker for example) and concepts need more and the story is engaging enough that Testerman could have easily pulled off extra exposition. My last complaint is that as subtly creepy and satisfying as the last chapter is, after reading the epilogue I couldn't help but feel that Calliope hadn't solved the case so much as come upon the answer. For a fan of detective fiction this was a bit of a bummer.

Then again, maybe HIDDEN THINGS isn't so much about the fantastical. The human element is the driving force of the story. You could cut out the magic and still have a powerful story about maturing and relationships and change. HIDDEN THINGS is a modern day fairytale, complete with a moral message that I won't spoil for you. I'm glad I read HIDDEN THINGS and I would like to see Testerman return to Calliope and Vikous in the future.

Recommended Age: 15+
Language: There is cursing, not overdone per se, but there are F-bombs.
Violence: There's a little bit but nothing gruesome.
Sex: Nope, just a little bit of innuendo.

Want it? Get it here.

I would recommend listening to the album “Rise Ye Sunken Ships” by We Are Augustines or “Sam’s Town” by The Killers to get in the mood while reading this.

The Isis Collar

Celia's life hasn't been easy since she was turned into an abomination in BLOOD SONG--not quite human, but not quite vampire, either. At the same time her siren abilities manifested, giving her supernatural skills she only wished she had in a profession (bodyguard) that needs all the advantages she can get.

Be careful what you wish for.

THE ISIS COLLAR starts out with a bomb at an elementary school. Someone really despicable wants to cause a pandemic with a magical necrosis that essentially turns people into zombies. Despite a tip-off, Celia couldn't stop the bomb and is infected, but her vampire side is having trouble beating the infection. It becomes a race against time to find the source of the bomb and an antidote--for herself and for those even less resistant to the disease.

Like before, Celia is a great protagonist with the right amount of attitude and kick-butt skills, who's still a girlie at heart. I enjoyed Celia's romantic entanglements that she can't seem to resolve through no fault of her own. She attracts these men not because she's a fair maid in danger, but because she's a good person trying to do the right thing, who takes her friendships seriously, and is the kind of woman you want fighting in your corner. However, by this point in the series the cast is a little unwieldy. There are new characters with ties to people Celia knows, there are several people from previous books, and even more with back story--all of this would make new readers feel lost.

For some reason Tor never sent DEMON SONG (boo! And I wanted to read it!), although they sent the first two in the series, BLOOD SONG and SIREN SONG . Either way THE ISIS COLLAR is a bit of a letdown after the clean writing of books 1 and 2. We're caught in subplots carried over from previous books that interfere with the pacing. There are also some seemingly random events that matter later in the story, but aren't explainable and still feel random. Heck, we don't even know what the Isis Collar is until the last quarter of the book and it's the title! Adams tries to tie everything together, but the novel still felt like a random sequence of events, making the pacing a little off, even if there was consistent forward movement.

It's less the plot than it's the characters and the setting that will keep readers hooked. It's a world of vampires, sirens, mages, witches, demons, and everything in between. It's a world that's familiar to us and yet very, very different. Adams adds fun details to this world, such as the Isaac's store, where Celia gets her gear altered to hide her guns, but to also purchase magic charms, a special brand of spray holy water, and anything else a girl would need to defend herself from the supernatural.

If you liked the previous books, ISIS is more of the same: same Celia and friends, same pacing and exciting storyline. If you haven't read any, start with BLOOD SONG. As for the series, despite its flaws, its interesting characters and engaging setting is what will keep me reading in the future.

Recommended Age: 16+
Language: A handful of harsher language, but still average for Urban Fantasy
Violence: Plenty of danger from bombs, demons, witches--with the zombie descriptions being the grossest part of the book
Sex: Innuendo and references without detail

The books in The Blood Singer Series:
BLOOD SONG
SIREN SONG
DEMON SONG
THE ISIS COLLAR

Endurance

I like being proven wrong. Well, let my qualify that statement, because I hate being told that I'm wrong.  I do, however, enjoy being surprised by finding out for myself that something is not the way that I thought it was. After reading several short stories and a novel by Mr. Lake, I'd pretty much written him off as someone that I wouldn't enjoy reading any more of.  So having this book land in my pile was an interesting experience to say the least.  As with my most recent foray into Science Fiction, I of course felt obligated to read the first book in the series before I read this one. 

ENDURANCE is the second book in the "Green Universe" authored by the prolific Jay Lake.  I had previously read the first book in his "Mainspring Universe", MAINSPRING, and was less than enthused by what I found.  In essence, great writing, interesting characters, a decent--if slightly wandering--plot, with a horrible lack of an ending.  It is a tribute to Mr. Lake's prose and storytelling ability that he made me forget about that final point when I dove into GREEN and subsequently with ENDURANCE.

The main character of both novels is Green.  Her tale begins as she is sold at a very young age by her father to a foreign man from far across the sea.  She knows neither why her father has sold her, nor where she is bound--only that she doesn't want to leave her home, her family, or her Ox, Endurance.

Catch that reference?  Uh huh.  So did I.  Don't worry about it too much though, as it didn't make very much difference.

GREEN covers the tale of her life as she grows from youth to young woman within the confines of the Pomegranate Court where she is being groomed to be a trophy wife for the nobility of the cities of the Stone Coast.  The abusive teaching methods of her instructors, and her secondary, more lethal Pardine (cat-woman) instructor, mold Green into a woman that is both proper and deadly.  A wicked combination that some would like to exploit.  I loved the book right up until the end, when it took a serious turn into left field.  On Amazon, I found a wide array of reviews all across the board.  After thinking about it for a while, I came to the conclusion that the book was amazing, but lacked any kind of foreshadowing to support the ending.  I didn't necessarily hate what happened.  It was seriously just unexpected.  Despite the title of the second book.

ENDURANCE picks up pretty quickly from the end of GREEN, and deals with several of the political entities that Green interacted with in the first book as they converge upon her at the same time for reasons unknown.  Where GREEN was very intimately structured around Green and her life and growth, ENDURANCE becomes very wrapped up in how all these other various parties influence her choices.  She also has to deal with the consequences of several of the choices she made in the previous story.  One of those choices, has to do with her Ox, Endurance.

This was perhaps one of the facets of the story that I most enjoyed.  Seeing direct consequence to Green's ignorant and/or poor choices impact her life in this book solidified her character for me. Lake does a really good job with Green's character and the way that she interacts with the world around her.  It's so easy to get caught up in this story, and indeed that happened very easily for me.

It wasn't until I finished the book and stepped back that I got annoyed.  Because after all this story, do you want to guess what happened at the end?  Yup.  Big fat orange right over the first baseman's head. Another big "boo" from left field.  I was seriously annoyed. Again? Really? Argh! How am I supposed to like a book that doesn't have a decent ending? If the whole book is bogus, okay, fine. I'm not expecting anything amazing. But good book + a wth ending? How am I supposed to respond to that?  Reminded me of the frustration I had at the ending of PERDIDO STREET STATION by Miéville.  Then again, maybe I'm just jaded.  Fool me once, and all that jazz.

Reading these books has given me one thing though:  a realization that Mr. Lake is getting better.  I mean, he moved from the total lack of any ending at all to an ending that I completely didn't expect or understand.  The sad thing is that he has everything else that a great fantasy novelist needs!  So many ideas and skills to weave these tales that readers like me love to read.  If you can enjoy a book with a poor ending, seriously pick this one up.  If you're more of a reader like me, I'd give the guy another few passes or so.  He'll get it eventually.  Well, hopefully.  I really hope he does because this guy could be one of the greats.

Recommended Age: 18+ (GREEN), 14+ (ENDURANCE)
Language: Very little, but pretty strong at times
Violence: Physical violence, but relatively little blood or gore
Sex: A few strong scenes and references (GREEN) and a few references (ENDURANCE)

Interested?  Take a trip to Lake's Green-land:
GREEN
ENDURANCE