Summer Reading List: Zhaoyun

Zhaoyun's Fantastic (with a few post-apocalyptic romps thrown in) Summer Reading List--"it's better than the ones you had in high school"

1. Reached by Ally Condie.

Which way Cassia will go—to Ky or Xander? If this is sounding a little like a soap opera/eerily similar to The Hunger Games trilogy idea of a tempestuous love triangle, well—it is. But it's still entertaining! It was in my "Time Permitting" category last summer, and time did not permit. But here's hoping time will graciously give permission this year!

2. Half a King by Joe Abercrombie 

(release date: July 2014)

  I, like Jemmy, am half in love with Abercrombie (clarification: we're in love with his work!), so this book coming out is one of the most exciting things happening this entire summer!

3. The Widow's House by Daniel Abraham (release date: Aug 2014)

W00t! I love this series, and I'll be fighting tooth and nail with my fellow-feathered Nerds for the privilege of reviewing this latest installment of Abraham's magisterial Dagger and Coin series.

4. Sand by Hugh Howey

Wool sold me on Howey, and his earlier work like Half Way Home wasn't too shabby either; now it's time to examine his latest offering, and see which direction he's going—backwards, or to new and ever more dizzying heights of brilliance!

 

5. Valour (sic!) by John Gwynne 

(U.S. release date: July 2014)

 His first book, Malice, was very nice indeed, and I have Dickens-level (i.e., "great", get it?) expectations for the sequel!

6. The City of Mirrors by Justin Cronin (release date: Oct 2014)

The conclusion to Cronin's excellent (book one) or at least very very good (book two) vampire saga—who wouldn't jump at the chance to devour it? Technically, it's not really coming out this summer, not until the fall, but the way I see it, that just means I'm more likely actually to have time to sink my teeth into it (wink wink).

This list brought to you by Zhaoyun, sf/f aficionado and member of Nerds of a Feather Quorum of Twelve (ish) since early 2013.

Microreview [book]: The Twelve, by Justin Cronin

The Meat

I don't know quite what to make of this book, or of my reaction to it. In most ways it's an excellent sequel—it delivers the same superb writing and engaging characters while, in fact, improving on one questionable aspect of the first book, The Passage, whose two giant halves fall to either side of a 100 year gap. In The Twelve, by contrast, that radical chronological break has been replaced with three distinct time frames, and occasional shuttling back and forth between them, which reduces the jarring sense of rupture book one delivered.

    All the key characters from book one return (except for Babcock!), and Cronin spices up the mix by adding a handful of no-longer-fully-human, not-quite-vampire creatures which one person, in a burst of insight, calls Renfield-esque. In other words, the mystical bond between vampire overlord and not fully turned Creepy Guy is explored at some length, in a very clever and engaging way.

   It all sounds good so far, right?  And it is—it's good. But not great, like The Passage (despite its flaws) was great. I wasn't moved (as much), nor was I gripped with the same neck-crunching force as emanated from the pages of book one. This was something of a puzzle to me, since most of this book's readily identifiable features seemed to equal, or in some cases outperform, the first book, so one could say book two is somehow slightly less than the sum of its parts.

   Vowing to solve the enigma of this book's slight disappointment, I considered all the usual suspects: a) how the very nature of sequels almost always precludes them surpassing the original (partly because the logic of the world established in book one constricts the parameters of where the story in potential sequels might go, and partly because authors, for obvious reasons, tend to put all their best ideas in their first book and consequently have to dig deep to produce anything like the raw brilliance of their initial effort), b) how an excellent first book creates impossible expectations for the sequel(s) in the minds of the readers, and c) how strong attachments to characters from book one mean that if any major life-changing (or –ending!) events befall these characters it might well alienate some readers who find their own lives in the toilet because of damage to their beloved (insert character name here). And sure enough, The Twelve does take moderate hits from all three of these areas, so that might explain part of why it seems not quite to have lived up to The Passage.

   It explains part, but not all, for as I thought more deeply about why I personally found it just slightly disappointing, a fourth reason popped into my head: the climax of book two, despite being a lot more exciting in visual description (it plays out a lot like a good action movie, in fact), is somehow less rewarding than that of book one. I can't say much more than that without "Dumbledore dies at the end"-ing it for you, but suffice it to say that the stakes in the final act, and even the scale of the challenge, seemed slightly ill conceived.  In the end, our heroes arguably accomplish more, and face a much more drawn out struggle to do so, but the world itself feels less menacing than that of book one (five years earlier), the possibility of human survival/victory much greater, which led to a problem of atmosphere.

   Remember Alien(s)? People argue back and forth about which was best, Alien or Aliens, but they're quite distinct; Alien has spine-tingling suspense, while Aliens brings edge-of-your-seat action and thrills. In some ways, the same thing is happening here with Cronin's work. (I just hope book three doesn't end up like Alien 3! We'll know we're in for an Alien 3 experience if all our favorite characters show up dead at the very beginning, I suppose.) 

The road that shouldn't ever be taken in sequels...

Anyway, the experience of reading book one was rather like watching Alien—one can imagine being in that place, being hunted, and knowing that no place exists beyond the monster's reach. This book, by contrast, brings an Aliens vibe, with excitement aplenty, yet without that pervasive sense of dread from the finely crafted mini-world of book one.

   Despite personally enjoying Aliens more than Alien, with Cronin's work the Aliens direction feels less successful, and The Passage (book one, that is) remains distinctly superior.  But if you're reading this, Mr. Cronin (and yes, I know the chances of that are slim), pleeease don't try an Alien 3 vibe for the threequel!

The Math

Objective assessment: 7/10

Bonuses: +1 for Cronin's fantastic prose (example: 'He still had the young person's predisposition to regard the world as a series of vaguely irritating problems created by people less cool and smart than he was'), +1 for scrapping the 100-year gap—or rather, yawning chasm—that bifurcated book one

Penalties: -1 for treating Amy and Alicia so callously (you'll see what I mean), -1 for the ending and for losing that sense of dread so painstakingly crafted with the Colony in The Passage

Nerd coefficient: 7/10 A mostly enjoyable experience

And read on for why statistically a 7/10 is actually waaay better than a C-!

Summer Reading List: Zhaoyun

Zhaoyun's Dark yet Fantastical Summer Reading List!

As I huddle directly under the air conditioner trying to stave off heat stroke this summer, my thoughts have turned, unsurprisingly, to humanity's rather robust contribution to the warming cycle currently in full swing here on planet Earth, and whether it spells doom for us all, a la The Day After Tomorrow (though honestly, right now a freak cold spell sounds pretty awesome). So you may notice, in my summer reading list below, a certain apocalyptic theme.  However, I'm by no stretch of the imagination a pessimist, which is why the books I read tend to get through that nasty apocalypse business relatively quickly and get on to the "post" part, the joyous rebuilding of civilization...

1) The Twelve, by Justin Cronin

   A while back I wrote a review of Cronin's first book in this trilogy, The Passage, which was phenomenally good (the book, that is, not necessarily the review!), so I've been looking forward to reading the second installment ever since, and methinks summer is the time to do it.  Ah, how nice it will be to return to the world of uber-vampires and Amy and, in the middle of it all, the surviving blood banks (I think you know what I mean).

2) Island in the Sea of Time, by S.M. Stirling

   90% of the people who read this blog, I am quite certain, have a) seen Revolution, and b) are just a bit conflicted about it.  Objectively, we all know that despite an intriguing starting premise and a well-directed pilot, the show is terrible, suffering from ham-handed, repetitive, wildly implausible story-telling (and utterly unstable characters!) so bad it's almost impressive, in a way. And don't even get me started about the younger brother and his moment of fame. I wish I could interview the execs at NBC who green-lit the second season, or possibly dissect their brains to rule out the possibility that they're aliens and perhaps, just perhaps, get to the bottom of their colossal idiocy in renewing such a terrible series after it had already started to (or continued to!) founder big-time.

If you're anything like me, this is how you look after enduring an episode of Revolution...

   That's the objective appraisal of the show: an interesting idea that was totally ruined by people who don't understand how to tell a story—and might be aliens.  But the romantic in me still finds something to like about the basic premise. This got me thinking: where did the premise come from?  It certainly didn't originate with any of the pod people running the show! Shame on you for lending your name to the crapfest, J.J. Abrams!

   Well, I can't be totally sure, but my money's on it being lifted from Stirling's Dies the Fire, which explores how human society might falter and adapt in a world suddenly and inexplicably deprived of electricity (in any form, including batteries, etc.) or effective gunpowder. And Dies the Fire was pretty interesting, and even with the annoying Wiccan utopia thing it was loads better than Revolution, at any rate (did I just damn it with faint praise?), so I decided I'd like to see where Stirling's idea for this sort of world came from, and it turns out he started his exploration of this unique universe in his Nantucket series, which is sort of the reverse—an ancient world where a small group does have access to advanced technology. Move over, Revolution! It's time to revisit ancient Greece...but this time, I'm bringing my AEGIS cruiser!

 

3) The rest of The Strain trilogy by Guillermo del Toro, Chuck Hogan

   The first book, The Strain, was quite good—its first half was absolutely fantastic, and the second half, while slightly disappointing due to all the clumsy exposition, wasn't too bad either.  It reads an awful lot like a novelization of a screenplay, a story screaming to be made into a chilling action/horror movie (and judging from the title of book three, a pretty dark one at that), which is no surprise considering Guillermo del Toro is one of the co-authors.  While I'm excited to read the rest of the trilogy, I sure hope this series wasn't the real reason del Toro ended his involvement with The Hobbit! I like Jackson as much as the next Tolkien fan(atic), 

but I would've loved to see what del Toro could do with the story, and I can't help but think we wouldn't have gotten such a languid, trying-to-be-LOTR-but-coming-up-short first movie if he'd been in control.

4) The Tyrant's Law, by Daniel Abraham

   I'm just finishing the second book in the series now, and am leaning toward agreeing with Jemmy's review, in that I feel it's significantly better than the already very entertaining first book. Given the glowing review The G gave this book, as well as the fascinating guest post we had by Abraham himself recently, my interest in The Tyrant's Law is well and truly piqued!

5) Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, by Ransom Riggs

   Do you ever get just a little sick of endless, monotonous lines of words, words, words, for hundreds of pages on end? Who was it who arbitrarily decreed that children can enjoy more sensorily engaging illustrated works but adults have to snooze their way through dry text? (I'm thinking of you, A.R. Burn!) This brings me to why I've chosen a borderline Young Adult book for my list.  I've been told by a source I trust that it's a) very good, and b) text interwoven with vintage photographs, an idea I find intriguing.

            I guess it's time for confessions, as well: I kind of like YA fiction, and I'm only slightly afraid to admit it! The Hunger Games, for example: the first one was pretty good, the sequel was okay, and the third one was mind-numbingly awful, but I certainly don't regret reading them—they were fun! These sorts of stories are so simple to read they're like Prozac in book form, and I'm hoping to get another dose from good old Miss Peregrine and her weird kids!

Time Permitting:

6) Reached, the conclusion of the Matched trilogy, by Ally Condie.

   See #5 for why adding corny post-apocalyptic romances to my list is okay. And if it's the same old tired trope of love triangle, that doesn't make it any less deliciously entertaining to figure out, at long last, which way Cassia will go: to Ky or Xander. Regarding the character names, I really want to say "You can't make this stuff up" but of course that's pretty much what Condie did...

   Anyway, the second book, Crossed, was a let-down after Matched, the excellent first book, so I'm hoping Condie can bring back the magic of Matched in book three!

7) Extinction Point, by Paul Antony Jones

   I don't know anything about this book, but honestly, what's not to like, given the title?