I was a fan of Peter Clines’ The Fold a few years ago, so I jumped at the chance to read his latest book, The Broken Room, which comes out in a few weI was a fan of Peter Clines’ The Fold a few years ago, so I jumped at the chance to read his latest book, The Broken Room, which comes out in a few weeks. Hector, a down-and-out ex-Special Ops guy, is approached by a 12 year old girl, Natalie, who has escaped from a top secret facility called the Project. The horrible experiments they’ve done on her and other illegal immigrant children there have changed her in ways that aren’t entirely clear to Hector or even Natalie yet.
But the people who run the Project want Natalie back VERY badly, and they’re sending out their forces to get her back. Natalie calls in a favor Hector owed to a guy named Tim that Hector used to work with. Tim has been dead for a few years, but somehow Natalie seems to be communicating with him. It’s all very odd to Hector, but the marker he owed needs to be honored.
So Hector and Natalie go on the run. And things get more exciting—and more strange—from there.
The Broken Room is a little hard to describe; it combines science fiction with a fair amount of horror and gore, a little social commentary on the treatment of illegal immigrants and minorities, lots of action (slowing down only for flashbacks where Natalie’s past is explained), and some weird spookiness. I would’ve liked a little better explanation of some of the weird parts, like the seed pods: an effective bit of gross horror, but the logic of them escaped me a little.
This one will stick with me for a while. It’s a solid SF thriller adventure.
Full review to come! Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC....more
Hard to put down while I read it; equally hard to believe once I finished it.
Beth Bradford is a CIA analyst who's been spending years searching for aHard to put down while I read it; equally hard to believe once I finished it.
Beth Bradford is a CIA analyst who's been spending years searching for a highly elusive Iranian spy they call the Neighbor. But suddenly she comes to a huge turning point in her life: her youngest child leaves for college; she and her husband sell their house; he announces that he's leaving her at the same time (their marriage had long been in trouble but she thought they were going to try to work things out). And worst of all for Beth: The CIA has abruptly put her out to pasture, taking her off the Neighbor case and sending her to teach new hires.
Well. Beth just KNOWS she's getting close to cracking the case and figuring out the Neighbor's identity. So she keeps pursuing the case as best she can, given that all of her access to confidential files has been revoked and her co-workers no longer even want to talk to her.
She's a stubborn woman, I'll give her that.
When Beth's suspicions turn to the wife of the family that moved into her old house and is integrating herself into the neighborhood, things start to heat up. But is Beth on the right track or not?
Overall it was a fun read with a lot of twists and turns, but I got a little tired of situation after situation with Beth sneaking around and ignoring all the rules while everyone seems to be out to thwart her. And the final revelations about what was really going on left me a bit unsatisfied.
It's a fun "beach" type read. I recommend it if you'd like a homegrown spy thriller with lots of tension and twists....more
A solid mystery set in a fascinating near-future world, where a pandemic has caused permanent "lock-in" for a substantial part of the world's populatiA solid mystery set in a fascinating near-future world, where a pandemic has caused permanent "lock-in" for a substantial part of the world's population. Their brain is still active, but they can't move their bodies at all any more - permanently. Their lives are immeasurably improved by robot bodies that their minds can inhabit, as well as human ones who can temporarily host the minds of the locked-in. They also have an active online society.
With all this going on, it's especially hard to tell who is behind some murders and corporate sabotage. Technology and ethics collide in this intelligent mystery.
Not my favorite of Scalzi's works, but I liked it and the main character, an FBI agent who is one of the locked-in, well enough that I'll go pick up the next book....more
Sophia finds life in Arcadia Gardens beautiful and luxurious and wonderful. Certainly,On sale now! Full review, first posted on FantasyLiterature.com:
Sophia finds life in Arcadia Gardens beautiful and luxurious and wonderful. Certainly, her husband rarely sleeps next to her nowadays and seems preoccupied even when he is around, but of course his work is terribly important, and he gives her so much. And she doesn’t mind all of the rules and restrictions of the Homeowners Association, who are only looking out for the residents’ best interests. The neighbors all love her and respect her husband. She’s really so very lucky. The world is theirs.
But then, for no real reason — and it’s an impulse Sophia desperately regrets later — this morning she pulls open the top left-hand drawer of her vanity. And doesn’t know what to make of what she finds in that drawer.
When a tale about a young wife keeps emphasizing how everything is SO PERFECT and she is SO HAPPY … you know things are going to go south in a big way. And the creepiness and tension keep building and you’re not sure exactly what is going on until the light blinks on in your head and you’re all, OHH, so that’s what this was building toward this whole time. But then it’s too late.
Catherynne Valente does a fascinating mashup of various stories, folktales and tropes — old tales with some current elements and a feminist spin — in this wickedly sharp novella. Comfort Me with Apples weaves in not just the Bluebeard folktale but much more that only becomes apparent as you get deeper into the story. It’s easy to get lost in Valente’s evocative, lyrical prose, but every detail is significant and even symbolic: places, objects and character names (I particularly liked Mr. Semengelof, Mrs. Palfrey and Cascavel). Even the chapter names come into play: each a different type of apple, many of which I’d never heard of before, like Black Twig and Northern Spy.
I didn’t really love Comfort Me with Apples, I think mostly because I don’t care for its troubling worldview (you'll know what I mean), but I’m in awe of Valente’s craft in this disturbing allegorical story. My two co-reviewers at FanLit really loved it - see the link above for their takes.
Thanks to the publisher for the ARC!
Content advisory: It's on the gruesome side of creepiness, and religion and (view spoiler)[and the Bible story used as the basis of this story (hide spoiler)] are given an ugly twist here....more
Madeleine Brent retro romantic suspense time again! A GR friend reminded me of this one a few days ago, and I was all, oh yeah, that one I read half oMadeleine Brent retro romantic suspense time again! A GR friend reminded me of this one a few days ago, and I was all, oh yeah, that one I read half of and then got distracted and ... never finished? Maybe I'd better fix that! So even though I have a bunch of ARCs I should be reading, here we are.
I enjoyed this one a lot! Chantal is a young woman who's a reasonably good trapeze artist with a mid-sized traveling circus, back around the late 1800s or early 1900s, with a very complicated past personal history. She was raised as a spoiled orphaned heiress through age 13, when her wealthy British family found out that there was a baby switch and her heartless uncle tossed her out. Before she could land in the orphanage they intended for her, she ran away to this circus that happened to be in the area, and they took her in.
Now she's about 17/18 and realizes that her time with the circus will be ending soon. Chantal has plans and hopes for medical school, but things are interrupted by the arrival of a mysterious stranger, a near-death experience for Chantal on the high bar (looks like someone was trying to kill her ...), and two more strangers who whip Chantal away to a brand new genteel British family. Where more drama ensues.
It's a fun read if not terribly deep. As I've said before, Madeleine Brent/Peter O'Donnell is a pretty talented storyteller if not a Great Author. Yes, it's still that same formula that Madeleine Brent books follow over and over: intrepid young British woman in exotic places and deadly peril, and usually two men who are pursuing her romantically. One of them is true love and the other is secretly a dastardly villain, but the author tries very hard to hide the ball on which man is which.
I don't think it's a coincidence that my favorite Brent books were the two I read first, before I started seeing all the plot similarities in these books. But they're quite fun reads when you're looking for a beach book kind of thing, and this one is up there with the better ones of Brent's. ...more
A friend gave me a whole set of Madeleine Brent's old historical romantic suspense novels a few years ago, and I've been gradually going through them.A friend gave me a whole set of Madeleine Brent's old historical romantic suspense novels a few years ago, and I've been gradually going through them. They invariably involve a plucky young British woman of genteel birth who finds herself either in an exotic foreign country or a highly unusual career, along with a large side helping of mystery, suspense and romance (which guy is the good guy who truly loves her and who is the secret murderer???).
In this version of Brent's formula, we have Bridget (Bridie) Chance, whose entire placid, proper Victorian life is upended when her father is killed in France in the course of trying to steal some valuable jewels. Bridie Cannot. Believe. what her father has been accused of, but no one else seems to have that trouble. And now there are detectives as well as other less savory sorts sniffing around for her father's jewel stash (there's gotta be one, right?). Bridie and her younger sister Kate are also now entirely destitute and thrown on the mercy of the world and a few unexpected friends.
The author made a weird big thing out of Bridie's overly expressive, mobile face — I'm picturing kind of a female Jim Carrey here — and so it wasn't surprising that she finds a job that takes advantage of that. It's certainly not a "proper" job for a Victorian lady, but it did make for some interesting reading.
Brent takes entirely too long to get to the exciting part of the story in this novel, but once the plot finally kicked into gear it was a very hard book to put down. In fact, I didn't put it down and whipped through it in one evening. Brent (a pseudonym of author Peter O'Donnell) isn't really a great author, but is a very competent storyteller. A reasonably fun read if you like old-fashioned romantic suspense novels....more
3.5 stars for this 1947 thriller/suspense novel, set in the mountains of Italy in the post-WWII era ... so it’s [image] The Dolomite mountains in Italy
3.5 stars for this 1947 thriller/suspense novel, set in the mountains of Italy in the post-WWII era ... so it’s a safe bet that there will be a bunch of Nazis menacing our hero. British journalist Neil Blair, recently released (demobbed) from the army, is having a hard time finding a decent job. He happens to run into his former superior officer, Engles, who offers him a job ostensibly writing a film script in an isolated ski chalet in the Dolomites, but Blair’s real job is to keep his eyes open and report anything unusual. If a usable script comes out of the trip too, so much the better.
Turns out there’s an awful lot to report. Something valuable is stashed up in those mountains in or near the chalet, and there are several different players who will stop at nothing to get their hands on it.
The Lonely Skier shows its age sometimes, with stereotypical characters. But the thriller parts are generally done well, with the exception of a scene or two that I found too hard to swallow. Still, there’s a really hair-raising chase in the snowy, foggy mountains that I won’t soon forget, and a solid ending with a good twist.
3.33 stars. Helen MacInnes is a great weaver of spy stories set during the aftermath of WWII and the Cold War era. In this 1960 novel, set in Greece, 3.33 stars. Helen MacInnes is a great weaver of spy stories set during the aftermath of WWII and the Cold War era. In this 1960 novel, set in Greece, American architect/artist Ken Strang gets involved in some plotting by nihilists and communists to cause civil disturbances in Greece and the surrounding countries. Ken's new love interest gets involved as well, causing him huge consternation.
It got a little too long-winded for me, although it kept me interested enough to read it within 2-3 days (when I should have been reading other stuff). Like MacInnes' other books, this one is very steeped in the social mores of the 50's and 60's, including everyone running around in suits and ties/dresses, and rampant sexism. Let's just say, women's liberation is just barely starting to become a thing. For a book written by a woman, it certainly took the man's point of view. That was kind of a head-shaker for me.
October 2020 buddy read with the Retro Reads group....more
$1.99 Kindle sale, Oct. 9, 2020. I'm tempted - the basic concept of no one ever remembering you at all once you're out of sight is the same as in The $1.99 Kindle sale, Oct. 9, 2020. I'm tempted - the basic concept of no one ever remembering you at all once you're out of sight is the same as in The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (though this one is SF and that one is fantasy), and I really enjoyed Claire North's The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August. But my local library has a copy of this book, so I'll probably go grab it there instead. :)...more
4+ stars for this one - my favorite so far. Rhea Jensen, private investigator extraordinaire, has cut off her maybe/maybe not relationship with her ol4+ stars for this one - my favorite so far. Rhea Jensen, private investigator extraordinaire, has cut off her maybe/maybe not relationship with her old crush Ben, joined the church (LDS/Mormon), picked up and moved to Utah. Now she's doing her best to fit into the Utah lifestyle, which ... isn't such a comfortable fit. Her next-door neighbor Ty, a hot guy who's not active in his religion any more, isn't helping matters.
Rhea is trying to leave behind the sleazy PI field of work and her old boss who thinks he controls her life, but when her best friend Kay tells her about an interesting stalking case, Rhea can't resist getting involved.
Another fast-paced detective story from Sheralyn Pratt with an LDS twist to it, and this one flowed really well for me. The stalking case was very engaging, Rhea's friends Kay and Ty are smart, edgy and witty, and the romantic tension with Ty is great. Pratt does a great job integrating religion and romance without making either sappy. And we get a few answers about what all was going on with Ben.
3.75 stars for the title story, “Hunted Down.” In this shorter work from about 1860, Charles Dickens tries his hand at the detective genre (loosely sp3.75 stars for the title story, “Hunted Down.” In this shorter work from about 1860, Charles Dickens tries his hand at the detective genre (loosely speaking). This story is free to read online here at Project Gutenberg.
Mr. Sampson, the narrator, now retired from work, was formerly the manager of a life assurance (insurance) firm. After a brief discussion on how people can be deceiving ("Believe me, my first impression of those people, founded on face and manner alone, was invariably true. My mistake was in suffering them to come nearer to me and explain themselves away."), he settles into telling the story of his encounters with one Mr. Slinkton ... whose name, in classic Dickens-style, already gives you a hint of his slimy character.
Sampson dislies Slinkton on first sight - a lot of it, humorously, is tied to Slinkton's hairdo, which seems to make unspoken but firm demands on how people are to treat Slinkton. But Sampson gradually relents toward Slinkton. As they meet a few more times they discuss the sad case of Mr. Meltham, a young actuary whose girlfriend tragically died, as well as Slinkton's two nieces who have lived with him, one of whom has also passed away. Slinkton also becomes involved in obtaining life insurance from Sampson for another man, Mr. Beckworth. Slinkton's actions seem suspicious, but is he really a villain?
There are a few plot twists and surprises, including a narrator who isn't entirely reliable. Reading it a second time, I can see a lot of great double meanings hidden in Sampson's words. There's a typical Dickensian helpless maiden and a Victorian-type tragedy, along with a bittersweet wrapup.
It's an intriguing and quick read, worthwhile if you have any fondness for Victorian era mystery tales. Apparently it was inspired by Charles Dickens' familiarity with a scandalous case of a poisoner around that time. It's not quite up to the level of Wilkie Collins' or Arthur Conan Doyle's best, but there are some interesting psychological things at play in this story.
Another group read with the Dickensians! group (which has some excellent commentary and analysis in the threads, BTW)....more
On sale this week! 4+ stars, maybe even 4.5. Final review, first posted on FantasyLiterature.com (along with my co-reviewers' Jana and Kelly's additioOn sale this week! 4+ stars, maybe even 4.5. Final review, first posted on FantasyLiterature.com (along with my co-reviewers' Jana and Kelly's additional reviews, which are well worth reading!):
Dr. Evelyn Caldwell is a geneticist specializing in cloning, at the pinnacle of her career: The Echo Wife begins with a banquet at which she is given a prestigious award. At the same time, Evelyn is at a low point in her personal life. She’s a prickly loner and a workaholic, and her husband Nathan has recently left her for another woman. What makes matters far worse is that Nathan, a far less brilliant scientist than Evelyn, has stolen Evelyn’s research to clone Evelyn herself to grow himself a new wife, Martine, using programming methods to make Martine a softer, more submissive version of Evelyn. Nathan even finds a way around the sterility built into the foundation of the cloning process. Martine is pregnant, while Evelyn had adamantly refused to have a child in the earlier days of her marriage to Nathan.
So Evelyn lashes out at Martine, using her cruelest words, and it raises enough questions in Martine’s mind that later that evening she asks Nathan whether he cares what she wants for herself. In the resulting violent fight between Nathan and Martine, Nathan ends up dead. Martine has no one to turn to but Evelyn, and Evelyn reluctantly helps because her entire career could be torpedoed if the truth about Martine comes out. So between them they clean up the mess and bury Nathan’s body, but now there’s a new problem: how are they going to explain Nathan’s disappearance? Well, Evelyn is the world’s foremost expert in cloning …
On one level, Sarah Gailey’s The Echo Wife is a science fiction thriller, a compelling read that kept me glued to my chair until far into the night. There are some shocking but logical plot twists, and unnerving disclosures about all of the main characters. Flashbacks to Evelyn’s childhood, especially her interactions with her intellectually gifted but abusive father, help to show why she’s developed into a cold, career-obsessed person with a venomous tongue. It also becomes apparent to Evelyn that, though she was fully aware of Nathan’s tendency to cut corners, she never really knew who he was. Meanwhile, Martine is struggling with many of the limitations that Nathan has programmed into her, and Evelyn isn’t sure whether to be pleased or alarmed when Martine is able to bypass her conditioning.
The soft science fictional aspects of The Echo Wife are the weakest part of the plot. Conveniently, Evelyn’s cloning technology allows her to create a fully adult clone in a hundred days, one that is physically indistinguishable from the person who was cloned … at least, after some physical “conditioning” is done on the clone’s body to give it the scars, broken bones, etc. to match the original person. (Evelyn takes an unholy amount of pleasure in conditioning the Nathan clone’s body and having Martine participate in that process.)
Previous recordings taken of the original person’s brain — again, it’s suspiciously opportune that Evelyn has an older recording of Nathan’s brain — are sufficient to implant a full set of memories into the clone’s brain, including physical abilities that one might think would take a clone much longer to master, but somehow at the same time the scientist is able to modify those recordings to emphasize certain personality traits and memories and remove others. Gailey tosses around a few scientific phrases like “telomere financing” and “cognitive mapping,” but still, there’s an awful lot of handwaving surrounding the science and methodologies of cloning.
What does strike me as brilliant, however, are the psychological aspects of The Echo Wife. The main characters, as mentioned above, are all deeply flawed, but their shortcomings as well as their positive personality traits make them fascinating and multilayered personalities. There are also larger themes and issues woven into the story. The humanity and human rights of clones are one key element: Clones are viewed by Evelyn and the world generally as mere “specimens,” disposable for any or no reason (and in fact they are almost always disposed of after a few months), despite the fact that they are living, intelligent beings. But the more Evelyn gets to know Martine, the less she is able to rationalize this worldview … and yet so much of her career depends on it.
Another message, perhaps more subtle, concerns patriarchy and its evils, displayed by both Nathan, who blithely disposes of women who don’t meet his needs, and by Evelyn’s father, who physically abuses females who don’t obey him ... and even(view spoiler)[, in the end, by Evelyn herself. "I am not a monster" she insists ... but, isn't she, at least a little? As one of my co-reviewers on FanLit so astutely pointed out: "The way [Evelyn] fought so hard against becoming her browbeaten mother, only to find herself exhibiting characteristics of her abusive father instead, was believable and chilling. So, too, was the ease with which she slipped into taking Martine’s programmed domestic tendencies for granted, because, of course, life is so much easier when you have someone taking care of the home for you." Brilliant insight - and of course that calls back to the book's title, and also explains why the ending is disturbing. (hide spoiler)]
When I first read The Echo Wife, I was caught up in the suspense aspect of the novel and the twists of the plot. On my second read, I found it equally gripping, but for completely different reasons, more connected to the themes and the internal struggles and psyches of Evelyn and Martine. It’s an unusual, thoughtful and unsettling thriller, well worth the read.
Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the free review copy!
Update #1: Rereading because I should’ve written my review back when I first read this about six months ago, and I didn’t... it’s more twisty than I remembered, and the characters are really interesting!
4.5 stars - my favorite of the 1944 stories nominated for Retro Hugo awards! You can read "Arena" free online here or here. Review first posted on Fan4.5 stars - my favorite of the 1944 stories nominated for Retro Hugo awards! You can read "Arena" free online here or here. Review first posted on Fantasy Literature, together with reviews for ALL of the current Retro Hugo novelette and short story nominees. Seriously, this FanLit column took me HOURS to put together, even though I didn't write all of the reviews in it, so please scoot over there and take a quick look and let me know if my efforts paid off. Feel free to add a comment to the thread there. :)
So, "Arena":
Two huge space fleets near Pluto are about to engage in a battle to the death: Humans and the aliens they call the Outsiders. Bob Carson, a young human in an individual scout ship, is about to engage with his Outsider counterpart in another scouter when he suddenly blacks out, only to awaken under a dome on a planet in another dimension. Across from him is a large red ball with retractable tentacles that turns out to be the Outsider scout, and the two are separated by an invisible barrier.
A disembodied voice informs Carson that if the space battle ensues, one side will be wholly exterminated, but that “winner” will be so damaged that it will “retrogress and never fulfill its destiny, but decay and return to mindless dust.” So this powerful entity has plucked Carson and the Outsider out of the two fleets to fight a one-on-one duel to the death. This being will destroy the entire spacefleet of the loser, allowing the winning species to continue to progress. But given the invisible barrier between the two, it will be a battle of brains as much as physical strength.
I first came across "Arena" at about age 13 in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One, 1929-1964, a book that was instrumental in shaping my love and tastes for SF. "Arena" was one of the most compelling and memorable stories in the collection, and rereading it now, a few decades later, I’m impressed with how well this novelette has withstood the test of time. Compared to some of the other Retro Hugo nominees from this year, it’s an outstanding piece of storytelling, and there’s a nice note of irony to the ending.
"Arena" was used at least partially as inspiration for a famous Star Trek episode in 1967 (also called Arena), which has a quite different ending. Many prefer the Star Trek ending, and I can't really argue with that, but considering that this was written during WWII, when the mood for righteous war was at its peak, it’s impressive that Brown actually took the time to show that Carson does attempt to make peace with the Outsider, which responds with a wave of hatred so strong that it physically weakens him.
"Arena" may be somewhat lacking in depth and nuance, but as a suspenseful, well-told SF action tale from this era, it’s hard to beat....more
Martha Wells continues her popular and highly-acclaimed MURDERBOT DIARIES series with another novella, Fugitive Telemetry, which actually takes place before the only novel in the series so far, Network Effect. (So you could read this one before that novel, but you do need to read books 1-4 first.) At this point in time Murderbot, the introverted and snarky cyborg who is the narrator and the heart of this series, is a fairly new resident on Preservation, a planet outside of the callously capitalistic Corporate Rim. Murderbot is a companion to and protector of Dr. Mensah, one of the few humans Murderbot has gradually learned to trust. Although Preservation society isn’t entirely accepting of security bots (especially rogue ones like Murderbot that aren’t subject to human controls), it’s generally a very peaceful and progressive place.
So it’s a shock to everyone when the body of an unknown person is found in an isolated passageway of Preservation Station, the space station above the planet, clearly murdered. Station Security is charged with the investigation, with Senior Officer Indah in charge, but Mensah prevails on them to let Murderbot help, since it knows a lot more about murder than the local security force, and they want to make sure that GrayCris isn’t involved. Indah is annoyed (“but then she always looked like that when I was around”) and distrustful of working with a SecUnit. But when things get complicated, Murderbot is undeniably useful to have around.
Fugitive Telemetry is an engaging and enjoyable entry in the MURDERBOT DIARIES series, with a plot that stirs a murder mystery in with the regular science fiction adventure plot. As always, Murderbot’s snarky narration (liberally scattered with parenthetical remarks, which I love because I’m—obviously—partial to them myself) is one of the highlights. Sometimes there are even parentheses inside of parentheses:
(When we had first discussed the idea of me getting jobs as a way to encourage the Preservation Council to grant me permanent refugee status, I didn’t know very much about the kind of contract in which I was actually an active participant. (My previous contracts were rental contracts with the company, where I was just a piece of equipment.) Pin-Lee had promised, “Don’t worry, I’ll preserve your right to wander off like an asshole anytime you like.”)
(I said, “It takes one to know one.”)
I won’t say more about the mystery that drives the story, to avoid spoilers, but it’s a solid one, with a resolution that was both logical and a complete surprise, at least to me.
Fugitive Telemetry doesn’t really move the overall story arc forward in the way that most of the other books have, partly because it’s a prequel to the preceding novel and partly because Murderbot’s interactions with the initially hostile Indah have a been-there-done-that kind of feel. These are relatively minor complaints, though. Murderbot, though still a media-watching introvert, has come a long way from the SecUnit that had near-crippling social anxiety in All Systems Red. It interacts much better with humans now and even finds itself (somewhat begrudgingly) appreciative of its relationships with them, though its eye-rolling at humans’ logical inadequacies will probably never disappear … and that’s a good thing. We all could use a Murderbot in our lives to remind us of our shortcomings and protect us against corporate evils and other threats. Any new MURDERBOT DIARIES book shoots immediately to the top of my reading list — and it should yours as well!
Update #3: So my brother, another Murderbot fan, was coming into town about a week ago and let me know that he was VERY anxious to read Murderbot's next adventure. I thought, well, I can reread my ARC of Fugitive Telemetry and write my review for it and then loan him the book. Excellent plan! I'm on it!
The rereading part went great. The actual writing of the review ... not so much. So my brother left town, sadly, without the book, which is still sitting here on my coffee table.
Update #2: I just finished! Another fun Murderbot adventure! Review to come!
Update #1: AAAHHH, the ARC of this book just landed on my doorstep! I am SO EXCITED for a new Murderbot adventure!!
Initial post: More Murderbot coming! How awesome is that? Can we make 2021 come any sooner? I think we're all over and done with 2020 anyway......more
Wild death-match thriller! The author kindly sent this to me (unasked for) when I asked her for a different book, Royal Ball). Even though I haven't rWild death-match thriller! The author kindly sent this to me (unasked for) when I asked her for a different book, Royal Ball). Even though I haven't read any other books in this Rhea Jensen series, this worked pretty well as a stand-alone and as a prequel to the interconnected Pimpernel series.
Rhea Jensen, a PI, has found out that her employer is FAR more sinister than she realized, and also deeply in the pocket of "The Four," a criminal conspiracy comprised of many of the wealthiest and most unscrupulous people in the world. A couple of decisions Rhea (pronounced "Ray") made in prior books have The Four unhappy ... and unhappy for them means, off with her head. But Rhea's being given a sporting chance, maybe? She and another guy who's been a traitor to The Four have been set up in a death match. Whoever kills the other might get the chance to walk away. That is, if they can escape the killer bounty hunters who will also be set loose after a certain period of time.
And there's no chance of hiding and escaping: they've put a couple of high tech tracers in Rhea and the other guy, and she knows they'll kill her friends and family without compunction if she did manage to disappear. But ... maybe there actually IS a chance to escape. The other guy says he has a plan - Rhea just doesn't know if she can trust him.
Non-stop action here! If you haven't read the prior books, you'll be able to see where you're missing a fair amount of prior character-building, but it didn't slow me down too much. And I wept some tears as well as having my heart in my throat any number of times.
Thanks to the author for the free ebook for review! Now I just need to get my hands on the rest of the series (it turns out my local library has most of them, so I'm in luck here, if I have time to fit them into my reading schedule).
Content note: discussion of a gang rape of Rhea's friend that took place some years earlier, and its aftermath....more
3.5 stars. This is the first in a 6-book detective series, with an unusual LDS (Mormon) religious twist to it. I've enjoyed some of this author's late3.5 stars. This is the first in a 6-book detective series, with an unusual LDS (Mormon) religious twist to it. I've enjoyed some of this author's later books, so when I found that my local library had (most of) this series, I decided to check them out.
Our main character is private investigator Rhea Jensen, who despite being only in her twenties is already a highly accomplished investigator with a gift for breaking into homes and computers to find the evidence. The case she's working on in this first book is an embezzlement case that gets unexpectedly complicated and dangerous.
But as much or more time is spent on Rhea's personal life. She's gorgeous, talented and incredibly physically fit, but is stuck in a rut with a seemingly hopeless crush on her old friend Ben, an aspiring musician. Sometimes he acts like he wants her, and then he jumps into yet another relationship with another woman.
To make things more complicated, Rhea starts talking with some LDS missionaries on the street one day. At first she blows them off, but then things happen and she starts thinking, maybe she should take a harder look at this religion?
It's a bit of a quirky mix with these disparate elements, but the author handles them pretty well and she's a capable writer who can spin an interesting, fast-paced plot. This is in the LDS fiction genre and will probably appeal mostly to readers interested in that. ...more
One chilly autumn night, seven fox kits beg their mother for a scary story, “so scary our eyes fall out of our heads.” Don’t go to the Bog Cavern, she tells them, because the old storyteller lives there, and the tale she would tell them would be so scary it would put white in their tails. So naturally the seven kits scamper off through the woods to the Bog Cavern as soon as their mother is asleep, and beg the spooky-looking storyteller for a scary story.
“All scary stories have two sides,” the storyteller said. “Like the bright and dark of the moon. If you’re brave enough to listen and wise enough to stay to the end, the stories can shine a light on the good in the world.”
But, she warns, kits who lose heart and don’t stay until the end of the stories may lose all hope and be too frightened to ever leave their den again. Then she embarks on a series of eight tales. There’s a beloved teacher who turns into a gooey-eyed monster who attacks Mia and her brothers, the fox kits who adore her. There’s also Uly, a runt with a crippled forepaw and six cruel sisters who torment him … but they’re not as bad as the white-fanged Mr. Scratch. And more, including the underwater monster Golgathursh, a skin-stealing witch, and a creepy, crawling disembodied hand fox paw. The stories soon tie together to become one overall tale of the terrible — and occasionally good — adventures of Uly and Mia.
Scary Stories for Young Foxes, a 2019 Newbery Honor book, is a little like a middle-grade version of Watership Down, except with foxes rather than rabbits, and a liberal dose of fox-type horror. Each of the stories in it riffs on a different classic horror trope. For example, the first story — one of the most horrific ones — is a type of zombie tale, in the form of foxes contracting rabies, turning into monsters, and stalking and killing other foxes. A sadistic fox father, with no patience or love for a crippled son, takes on the role of Dracula. Beatrix Potter assumes the role of a scary witch who captures wild animals, steals their essence by writing a story about them, and then kills and stuffs them. (According to Heidicker, Beatrix Potter really did do amateur taxidermy as part of her nature studies, but from the fox’s point of view, of course, it’s horrific.)
One of the main attractions of Scary Stories for Young Foxes is that, despite their close ties to time-honored horror tales and tropes, these stories are generally realistic. Each story revolves around a life-and-death situation that could actually happen to a young wild fox. Heidicker does take a few liberties with real life, though: rabies spreads between the foxes far more quickly than is natural, an alligator shows up in a part of England where it has no business being, and Beatrix Potter’s story here (aside from painting her as villainous, which is certain to offend some readers) diverges somewhat from her actual life history.
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Scary Stories for Young Foxes is beautifully and evocatively told, with lovely and frequently creepy charcoal pencil illustrations by Junyi Wu. As the old storyteller said, there’s an affirmative message underlying the stories, but getting to the end is harrowing for both the fox kits and the reader. Foxes die. Baby foxes die. So it’s not for every reader, but for those who, like the bravest little fox kit, can stick it out, it’s a rewarding set of tales.
Initial post: My teenage son was sleuthing around on my Goodreads account for Christmas present ideas for me and landed on this one. Awww! So now I have a lovely hardback copy of this Newbery Honor book to read, with really wonderful illustrations. Can't wait!!...more
"The Final Problem" is the final short story in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes collection. The ever-loyal Dr. Watson takes his pen in hand, heavy-hear"The Final Problem" is the final short story in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes collection. The ever-loyal Dr. Watson takes his pen in hand, heavy-hearted, to tell the story of the escalating conflict between Sherlock Holmes and his nemesis, Professor Moriarty, a criminal mastermind that Sherlock is determined to bring to justice, along with all of his criminal associates. Says Sherlock:
"He is a genius, a philosopher, an abstract thinker... He sits motionless, like a spider in the centre of its web, but that web has a thousand radiations, and he knows well every quiver of each of them."
So Sherlock asks Dr. Watson to join him on a trip to Europe, to keep Sherlock away from Moriarty - who’s determined to kill Sherlock - until the trap Sherlock and the London police have set up for Moriarty has time to snap closed.
Moriarty is a little too smart, however, and the journey turns into a cat-and-mouse chase. But who is the cat and who is the mouse?(view spoiler)[This tale is also famous because it's the one where the author killed off Sherlock Holmes ... or at least I'm fairly certain that was his intent at the time. But the public was having none of that, and Doyle unbent and wrote several more Sherlock Holmes stories later, including the unforgettable The Hound of the Baskervilles. (hide spoiler)]
There's no real mystery here, and we don't get to know Moriarty directly, only indirectly through Sherlock's observances. It's a suspenseful tale, though, and it rated #4 on Arthur Conan Doyle's personal list of what he thought were the best Sherlock Holmes tales....more
Gabriella White, a brilliant neurologist and scientist who’s searching for a cure to Alzheimer’s, is at the very end of the funding for her research project. In her frustration, she recklessly pushes the power for her lab equipment, a neural stimulation system, to the maximum … and accidentally finds herself in her husband Paul’s body in their nearby house, holding their beloved 11-month-old daughter, who they call Kat or Kitten. Shocked, Gabby drops Kat back into her crib and runs back to the lab, where she finds her own body in a comatose state. She’s not at all sure whether she’ll be able to switch her consciousness from Paul’s body back to hers.
In the very next chapter, it’s twenty-five years later, and it’s clear that Gabby’s botched experiment, now called “flash” technology, has completely transformed our world, in both good ways and bad. When a flash takes place, the flasher’s original body is unresponsive and the flashee’s mind essentially checks out completely during the entire time the flash is taking place, and has no recollection of any events that happened while the other person’s mind was controlling their body. A young woman named Annami is venturing into the illegal world of darkshare, where you let an anonymous person renting your body for a period of time in exchange for a cash payment. Annami knows that the person renting her body can use it for almost anything — sex, crimes, even murder — the only limitation being that if her body is killed, the person whose mind is in her body will also die. It’s one of the two immutable Rules of flashing (the other is that your mind always needs to return to your original body before jumping to a new body).
Annami is driven by a compelling need to earn a massive sum of money quickly for a secret purpose. At the same time, she’s hiding from a gang led by a man called Bleeder, who have been searching for her for several years. To make matters worse, Annami’s first darkshare goes south in a big way: instead of her body being returned to the den where she started, she wakes up in a strange room soaked in blood, next to a dead body, with a killer in the process of breaking into the room to take her out.
Anyoneis the second novel by Charles Soule, a comic book writer whose first novel, The Oracle Year, also featured a fascinating science fiction premise, a suspenseful plot, and a brisk pace. Anyone is a dual timeline novel that shifts between Gabby’s story in our present day and Annami’s in the future (eventually, of course, the loop is closed and the threads converge). Under the contract she signed, any invention Gabby comes up with is owned by Gray Hendricks, the private investor (read: ver y rich loan shark) who funded her research, but Gabby completely mistrusts what Hendricks will do with her invention if he finds out about it. So she lies about what she’s found to her manager at Hendricks Capital, trying to hide her invention, but it’s clear that somewhere between now and twenty-five years from now, something goes wrong with Gabby’s plan. As a result, reading Gabby’s part of the plot felt very much like waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Like Blake Crouch’s Recursion, Anyone is a suspenseful SF thriller about a mind-altering, world-changing technology, with lots of twists and turns in the plot. Anyone does lag somewhat in the middle, but overall it’s an exciting story that sucked me in for an entire evening and into the late night, until I was finished with the book. The characterization felt more successful than in The Oracle Year, although Soule still has a penchant for greedy, soulless villains. Anyone also contains more significant racial and sexual diversity; it feels natural and melds well with the plot (which isn’t always the case). My main complaint is that Anyone didn’t quite stick the ending, which is abrupt and has some major logical holes in it.
Anyone has a deeper side as well, exploring themes like privacy, greed, and individual identity. Soule also put some serious thought into how this flash technology might change our world: migrant work, surgery and military operations are transformed by the ability to put an expert into someone else’s body on the other side of the world; people rent celebrities’ bodies for a brief thrill; and it’s easy to take a vacation in a distant land in someone else’s body. There’s also the dark underbelly: international prostitution is made ridiculously easy, darksharing is another form of selling yourself, and there’s the lurking risk of body-snatching (both temporary and permanent).
Soule asserts that there have been positive effects on our world as well, like correcting climate change, but never really explains how that particular phenomenon occurred. I did really enjoy a brief segue into how the world of sports is transformed by the ability to feature exhibition matches between old, retired superstars who are playing their sport in a younger athlete’s body.
Overall, Anyone is an intense and absorbing techno-thriller that balances oppression and darkness with sympathetic main characters and a hopeful outlook.
I received an ARC of Anyone from HarperCollins and Wunderkind PR for review. Thanks so much!...more
3.5 stars for this pair of novellas, both featuring the same main character, a young Englishwoman named Perdita. For those who love Mary Stewart's ret3.5 stars for this pair of novellas, both featuring the same main character, a young Englishwoman named Perdita. For those who love Mary Stewart's retro romantic suspense novels from the 50's and 60's, one of the frustrations is that she only wrote about a dozen of them. So it was pretty exciting when I found out about these two obscure novellas, published in magazines in the 1960's and then lost for many years.
Seriously, I paid $5 for the Kindle version of this pair of books just so I could read "The Lost One," which I've never seen available anywhere else. (I already had a copy of "Wind off the Small Isles.") Was it worth it? Well, yes and no. Yes, I think, if you're a devotee of Mary Stewart. Otherwise, no (sorry, Mary!). They're not the best things Stewart ever wrote, but they're fun if you're a Mary Stewart completist. If you're not already a fan, I suggest starting with Nine Coaches Waiting, Madam, Will You Talk? or This Rough Magic instead.
3.25 stars for "The Lost One," a 1960 story which appears second in this book but is pretty clearly first in chronological order. Perdita, probably twentyish in age, and her mother are traveling to the Lake District to tour around (the same plan Elizabeth Bennet had!). They get lost in the English countryside at night because Perdita's mother's directions were bad - which is appropriate, Perdita points out, because her name actually means the "lost one." Then their car breaks down, so they make their way to a nearby farm where they see a light in the house. It's an ominous sign when the light is turned off as they approach the house, and no one answers their knocking.
Perdita's mother, nothing daunted, finds an unlocked french window and goes into the house to look for a telephone. And at that point things start to go really wrong.
There's no romance element here at all; it's purely a suspense story. My favorite scenes were with Perdita's mother, who cracked me up with her blithe indifference to rules and expectations, and has a habit of deflecting attention elsewhere when difficulty strikes (but then comes through when she's really needed).
They stared at us for a full half-minute of silence. While I cleared my throat and wondered just how to begin, Mother pulled her furs around her and looked the part of Fragile Old Lady with Headstrong Daughter, and left it to me.
"The Lost One" is a well-written but brief suspenseful adventure. There's not a whole lot of meat to it, and no romance at all. If it weren't written by Mary Stewart I think I'd forget it pretty quickly, but since it is a Stewart story it was worth reading for me.
3.75 stars for "The Wind off the Small Isles," published in 1969. If you're a fan of Mary Stewart's classic romantic suspense novels, this obscure novella has been like the Holy Grail: out of print, hard to find and wildly overpriced. For a few years we fans in the Mary Stewart GR group were passing around PDF copies of the pages in an old Good Housekeeping magazine, where this story was originally published. But now it's FINALLY been republished at a fairly reasonable price.
This is an appealing, bittersweet tale with Stewart's typical attractive and intrepid young woman protagonist, a detailed description of an exotic locale - this time we're in the Canary Islands - and the sudden appearance of a handsome stranger. The story begins with a pair of secret lovers planning to run away together in 1875, in a night with volcanic ashes blowing in the wind, and then jumps to the present day ... which is 1967, heh.
Perdita, now age twenty-three, who describes her job with a popular author as "personal assistant, chauffeur, dog, devil and dairymaid, and whatever you call the person who is sent out in front to draw the fire," travels with the author, Mrs. Gresham, to the volcanic island of Lanzarote to research it as the setting for a new novel. There, in the first of several highly improbable coincidences, they run into the author's son Mike, who's the assistant to a well-known playwright who tells the story of the mystery of the runaway lovers from long ago. I liked the way the mystery from the past affected, and was reflected in, the current events.
"The Wind Off the Small Isles" is enjoyable but could have used more fleshing out. It feels a bit abrupt - most of the story takes place in just two days - and the romance is necessarily rushed(view spoiler)[, though at least they're not pledging eternal love to each other at the end of those two days (hide spoiler)]. :)
At one point Perdita comments about her author-employer:
Mrs. Gresham, who is nothing if not clear-sighted, once called herself “the clown with the normal clown’s urge to play Hamlet,” but this didn’t seem to me to fill the bill. I called it her “Sullivan act”, a finished master of light music breaking his heart to be Verdi.
I wonder if Mary Stewart was obliquely expressing her own feelings about her writing of beloved, but light, romantic suspense novels. Soon after this she published the first of her Arthurian fantasy novels, The Crystal Cave. She wrote a few more romantic suspense novels afterwards, most notably Thornyhold, but her glory days in that genre were behind her....more
Tadiana ✩Night Owl☽
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