Category: Books

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While You Were Gone by Amy K. Nichols

Be careful what you ask for…

I was mildly interested in the mirror image story from the other Duplexity novel. This one tries the star-crossed thing with much less interaction, making it a greater strain to believe.

If you enjoyed the first book, this one is an enjoyable continuation. If the first seemed like a stretch, this doubles that feeling. But it’s a quick read with a mostly charming, balanced pair of POV characters. The biggest problem comes from the social strata differences–the governor’s daughter circulates in very different circles, and it strains credulity when they cross paths. (Well, even more than the “wrong universe” thing would make you think!)

Anyway, for me it was fine because it was quick, but I doubt I’ll reread either of the pair.

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EXHeroes by Peter Clines

A fun mashup of heroes and zombies, just like the back of the book says. The heroes are pretty heroic, and the zombie plague is horrific and fits the setting.

It’s a well written apocalypse, with a collapsed society and tightened boundaries that felt realistic. The book falls into a focus on the supers, with everyone else more an abstraction–people to save, protect, but not really interact with.

I’m mildly curious about other books in the series.

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The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley

A good book, with complex relationships and characters. It’s sci-fi, with an interesting subtle power and a good look at its consequences.

The POV characters were well chosen and engaging, and interacted well once they met. The story is mostly about that friend with powers–and it works.

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The Stillness in the Sky by Starla Huchson

While this is sub-titled “A Flipped Fairy Tale”, and it begins with elements that resonate with Jack in the Beanstalk, this is a full novel that’s done with the initial premise by 1/3rd of the way in.

It turns out that where the book goes next is great; the book is a solid fantasy novel, and even the parts that overlap the traditional myth get twisted a bit. It’s never predictable, even when it’s on “fairy tale rails” to start; there’s often a bit of a twist to the fable. The rest of the book does flow out of the beginning–it’s not like the beanstalk is tacked on–but it delves into corrupted talents, a romance, wanderlust, a relationship with a long absent mom, and more.

It’s really well written and fun. I’ll pick up more of her flipped fairy tales going forward.

(I bought the book at Zappcon, where she gave out a tin of tea matching the book’s name with the book purchase. Her tea blend was also tasty.)

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Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway

A pretty good story after a slow start. It has two POVs that are strictly separate for the first half of the book.

Joe is well drawn; he feels authentic but a bit dull for a long while. Edie begins odd and through flashbacks becomes interesting–but also over the top. Eventually Joe goes over the top (of course someone who was peripherally involved in crime as a kid and hasn’t done anything with it in 10+ years proves to be a great criminal now, cold).

The book felt slow to start–not with events, but with bloated prose and stylistic observations of everything. At 25% slimmer, or a quicker pivot into the action and criminal underworld, it’d have been a book that I’d recommend. As it is, I don’t mind having read it, but probably won’t read it again.

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Armada by Ernest Cline

A book that overtly acknowledges and plays with the tropes of “kid plays video games, recruited to pilot a space ship and save the world”. I liked it, but didn’t love it–much like Ready Player One, really.

I suspect that Jennifer will appreciate it more; I’ll be sure to pitch it to her.

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Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi

Very well written, without fantasic elements. It’s a good look at whiteness and passing and how powerful and subtle its effects are.

Boy, the first POV character, is a runaway from New York in the early 1950s. Her problems are an abusive dad and trying to relocate with pluck as the main skill in your quiver. She develops interesting relationships with her fellow boarders, who are similarly vibrant characters. The double dating market was interesting, as were some of the part time jobs and other employment that Boy navigates.

Near the middle, we start getting a bit more from Snow, Atrutro’s daughter. It moved the fastest. skimming over the differences in life after she moves in with Clara and restarting mostly when Bird is old enough to write.

Bird’s birth is the big shock that reorganizes the family. The book follows bird pretty closely and does a good job with its young protagonist. We see Boy as a mom and can understand what’s going on in the background, even though Bird’s understanding is much more limited.

The tangle of relations all comes to a head at the book’s end. We even get the return of ratcatcher and navigate a strange new normal. The end raises hope of resolution and reconciliation… but leaves its form to our imagination.

I must have heard about it on NPR some time ago. It was very well written and a grounded introduction to race at the boundaries.

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Honor Harrington #5 and 6 by David Weber

Flag in Exile (book 5) and Honor Among Enemies (book 6).

Still solid entries in the universe. Honor’s role is smaller in each of these books; more scenes are from eleswhere in the universe. The “elsewhere” elements in both books are heaviest up front, making it draggier to finally reach Honor’s part of the book.

Flag in Exile follows Honor’s forced retirement after her duel with Pavel. She’s not retired for long; this book is (partially) about her time running Greyson’s navy. But it’s even more about Greyson politics… it’s well handled, with a big fight, but much of the drama is political and scheming.

Honor Among Enemies returns Honor to Manticore’s navy and a much more intimate command. Several other ships from other forces are developed, including “good men undone by good deeds”–which was great applied to an enemy.

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The Fold by Peter Clines

A great book, very hard to put down. I whomped through this, barely able to put it down the first night–and way too late.

It starts off as a mystery, kind of, and very focused on science and analysis. There are brief bits of action every so often, but it’s mostly about people putting their heads down and working together (though with specific restraints) to solve a problem and separately, to solve the little mysteries that have accumulated.

The book remained interesting, even through one of the big reveals at the middle of the book was anticipated–because I remembered an excellent book that was intriguingly parallel on the technology front.

[Spoilers await, so I’ll put what follows below the more tag.]

Continue reading “The Fold by Peter Clines”
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Now That You’re Here (Duplexity, Part I) by Amy Nichols

This is a book about normal teens in a glitzy but almost normal version of Palo Alto. It felt like a privileged high school world, a little exceptional (very skilled scientists teach at high school, because), but without telepathy or magic.

It’s actually about teens in two parallel universes; one as I mentioned above (a slightly glitzier near future cutting edge Arizona of our reality off 10 degrees) and a second, totalitarian America, also Arizona, much further askew. The book alternates chapters between Danny and Eevee; Danny from totalitarian America, and Eevee from almost our universe. Very early, something happens that switches Danny’s consciousness; so now totalitarian world Danny’s mind is in almost normal world.

From there, it’s a very interesting mashup. Part of it is a little sigh inducing–it’s a romance between our main characters. Very surprising to the characters, unfortunately not surprising as a reader.

The investigation into the “jump” between worlds is interesting; since it’s carried on by teens, it’s stripped down and long on hypotheses, but they can’t investigate a lot of lines of research, even on a Palo Brea teen’s budget. Speaking of which; I really enjoyed Eevee and Warren’s background–it felt fraught and authentic, with the unspoken assumptions that come from complete familiarity.

All in all, I liked it and am interested in the flipside book, While You Were Gone. Now That You’re Here is very much a YA book, including the limited perception of the world of adults–so it might feel a bit “simple” if that’s a peeve of yours.