Microreview [book]: Truth and Fear by Peter Higgins

Higgins, Peter. Truth and Fear [Orbit, 2014]

The Meat

Peter Higgins, oh what a fan you have made of me. After a surprisingly confident debut in Wolfhound Century, what do you do? You up the ante. Thank you.    

Truth and Fear is the delightfully confusing, beautifully written, immersive, and engaging second installment of his new series, The Wolfhound Century. And delightfully confusing is an understatement. Although he has largely shifted gears from the brilliance that was Part I of Wolfhound Century (see my review here), Higgins still keeps the story (now more of an adventure) as a slowly unfolding mystery, providing enough clues to keep the reader's rapt attention but still leaving much to the imagination. Many tantalizing questions remain close to mind: Just what in the world is Vissarion Lom, especially now that the slab of angel skin is no longer wedged in his forehead? What is the Pollandore, and what are its aims? And what are the aims of the newest protagonist (?), the shapeshifter Antoninu Florian?

Truth and Fear picks up right where the first installment leaves off. It begins with protagonists Vissarion Lom and Maroussia Shaumian on their way back into the capital of the Vlast, Mirgorod. Lom sees his primary duty as keeping Maroussia safe, and luckily he finds an ally in Antoninu Florian, a being with undisclosed aims of his own. And as Lom continues his desperate quest to keep Maroussia Shaumian safe, he also struggles to discover more about his own divided nature.

The war with the Archipelago has changed Mirgorod, so the capital city Lom and Maroussia return to is not the one they left. The war, after all, is not going well for the Vlast, and the forces of the Archipelago are threatening the capital city. This suits Lavrentina Chazia just fine. She sees the baptismal fires of war as a unique opportunity to build a new, a purer, a stronger, and a united Vlast deep within the east, thousands of miles away. Chazia is convinced that the Pollandore is the route to her success, so she is willing to do anything to capture Maroussia Shaumian, who may in fact be the key to opening the Pollandore. The war also suits (primary antagonist) Josef Kantor just fine. It provides the perfect context in which he continues his quest to overthrow the existing social order and to create a new one, a harder future centered around him. And meanwhile, the Archangel is still struggling within the land, finding more and more freedom of movement to break free of its forest-prison. 

Higgins tells this tale with a crisp, engaging, and truly elegant prose. Perhaps the most poignant scenes are those tales of war come home. As the war comes to Mirgorod, predatory gangs and the dregs of society emerge in force. Meanwhile, Josef Kantor finds himself in a position to guide the defense of the city. And he seems to have taken a page out of the Soviet Union's World War II handbook. Citizens matter not. Death matters not. Instead, what matters is the city as idea. No sacrifice is too great to keep the idea of Mirgorod strong and alive. So the defense of Mirgorod at times feels like Gregory Zhukov's famous defense of Stalingrad in 1942, one that was highlighted by its blatant disregard for military and civilian casualties alike. Josef Kantor as general lights up the page, and I found myself wishing for more chapters from his perspective.  

The fates of all, however, are not tied to the war in Mirgorod. Instead, they are tied to a small town deep within the Vlast called Novoya Zima. It is within this town that the true future of the Vlast, of Chazia's dreams, or of Josef Kantor's empire, may be forged. Supported by an authoritarian state, sporting the best minds of the Vlast, and engaged in top-secret research, Novoya Zima offers a perfect location for the climax of this fantastically fun read.   

The biggest weakness of Truth and Fear, however, was the rather feeble antagonist, Chazia. Granted, she was never set up as the main antagonist of the series. That honor goes to Josef Kantor, a man who might possibly be more Stalinist than Stalin himself. And Higgins does a wonderful job of showing how Chazia's obsession with angel skin has slowly been driving her insane. But given the fact that this book pit Vissarion Lom and his wits against an increasingly insane Chazia and hers, she ended up seeming overly weak willed and frail. Hardly an antagonist that could make the reader sit on the edge of his/her seat. And this was despite the fact that her insanity and possible unpredictability could have made her a literary force with which to be reckoned. Instead of anxiously waiting for the denouement of the Chazia storyline, I found myself waiting for Josef Kantor to come back on stage.   

This does not detract in any way from the story. Simply put, Truth and Fear is a fantastic continuation of Higgins's debut series. If his series gets any better, I might just morph into a stalking superfan.

The Math

Baseline Assessment: 8/10

Bonuses: +1 for capturing the spirit of World War II-era Stalinist Russia.

Penalties: -1 for Chazia.

Nerd Coefficient: 8/10 "Well worth your time and attention"

See why an 8/10 at NoaF is like an 11/10 at other sites here.

POSTED BY: Jemmy, a SF/F fanatic, a failed wall gazer, and a Nerds of a Feather contributor since 2012.

Microreview [TV] : From Dusk Til Dawn (The Series) [2014]

Last week I commented on my excellent luck with books of late. So I thought a switch in medium might vary my hit rate to stop myself becoming a relentless 8 or 9 marker. Furthermore, what better fresh meat to dig my claws into than the far-from-promising new series based on a film that didn't really need a series? After Hannibal, etcetera, and with Fargo and even The Mist (god, that was awful) on the way, comes yet another attempt to harness the fame and popularity of a cinema hit for television success. From Dusk Til Dawn: The Series is not only based on the 1996 film ('96? A really?! Wow, I feel old) but is, from what I'd read, nothing but a lazy retelling of it. Excellent, sounds like a 3/10!

Except it isn't. Quite. For one thing it isn't just a simple retelling, only slower. Many characters are new and the sequence of events is shifted such rah I hope things take off in unexpected ways. It plays with time in a fairly interesting way, flipping around the events of the film and showing events before, too. It seems to be heading in the same direction (Mexico, the mythical bar, vampires), but is taking its sweet time getting there. 

Unlike many other reviews I've seen I'm not against this concept. I am all for having deeper background and deeper characterisation, and more hopefully complexity than most horror and most crime thrillers, of which Dawn is a mixture. The film was, furthermore, fun but shallow, stylish but soulless, and above all in this context one-dimensional. I didn't really care about anyone in it, and despite some great performances, the dialogue was pretty daft.

Sadly the first episodes seem to revel in what I liked least. The action is man-heavy, attempting to be cool and deep, but feeling more like immature macho posturing. One of the worst element is the actor replacing Clooney who seems trying hard to replicate George's 'let me explain this to you calmly and thoroughly-enunciated in a bullying yet suave manner' act, but the trying shows, and the charm and the anger is lacking. Meanwhile the Seth Gecko character's performer has less of a hurdle - Tarantino wasn't great and here the psycho brother, whilst still looking nothing like his supposed sibling, has more complexity. He sees visions, suffers delusions and generally is as mad as a bag of ferrets. Sadly he also seems to have only mild discomfort when it comes to being shot in the hand, unlike his gangly predecessor, and sort of frowns at the hole. Unless he is revealed to have super powers I'm not really buying it .

The only real note of quality in Episode 1 is, surprisingly enough, Don Johnson, who plays the cliché of the wizened old Ranger with a huge sincerity and realism totally beyond what this silly fiction deserves. His partner, played by Jesse Garcia, soon becomes the hero of the piece, and, despite having the bland cop on a path of revenge but with a new baby back home storyline to contend with, he plays it well enough. But the rest of the team seem to be trying too hard. Desperate to impress. I've worked on too many bad short films to not recognise badly-directed actors of limited experience, and whilst it's hard to credit Rodrigues with poor skill, he has always relied on seasoned stars like Banderas or Keitel, or true naturals like Elijah Wood, to carry his fun but incredible tales. Cotrona and Holtz just flounder here.

They are hamstrung, to be fair, by some truly appalling 'tough guy' lines : 

"The only mistake I've made it stopping my train of thought to listen to this bullshit" ; "I catch you with your mouth open again and I'm going to put a bullet in it" ; and, my personal favourite (which I really hope was intentionally-awful),

"You play with me again and I'll play with you and you won't understand the meaning of the term until you've been played with by me" 

Mamet would be proud.

As the episodes continue and we meet our Keitel, Lewis and the other kid replacements, the acting improves a little (Robert "Have you seen this boy?" Patrick does well with another clichéd part), but the dialogue remains over-cooked. "You grieve like you're alone on an island but you're not", says the daughter at one point. Man, that's so, deep, you know? Sigh. Indeed the female characters by and large are lumbered with the usual wiser-but-less-fun role and seem secondary in importance and power, often victims or objects of lust Yawn again. 

With all this Dawn almost made me turn over. But the intrigue over how they would stretch and twist the basic and bare story kept me watching, and by episode 3, as the vampire cult start to be revealed, along with various backstories and additional characters, I had to admit I was enjoying it a fair bit. Not in any way with anything approaching affection or serious absorption, and even four eps in I am still waiting for anything beyond the emotional range of a Fast and Furious, quite frankly. Yet it works, and in some ways works better than the film. The brothers start to transcend the ties of the film and the poor lines and begin to seem like real people a little more.

Nevertheless, this is often lazy, reductive drama. I love the west Texas world of dust, sun, bars and truckers, even though I've seen it too many times on screen and through a windscreen, but here it was just too unoriginal, and it so far is more a Yawn, than the Dawn of a great series. The vampires are potentially a little more defined than the shock horror of the movie - an ancient blood cult who worship snakes but also seem to run a major cartel - and have promise. They also bring most of the horror elements which allow the story to be enjoyable in an entirely fantastical way. Perhaps this is their plan; draw viewers in with generic cops and robbers Texas nonsense but then sweep us away into craziness - a coy dance compared to the original's sudden lurch. 

Certainly those that say it is a poor relation to the old film are in my view mistaken.  I was never even a big fan of the film. Clooney was too shouty and smug, the action is sub-par Total Recall-esque bar fights, and I was already tired of that shot of the guy looking down at the camera with a gun. Sadly Rodrigues still thinks it's cool. 

We shall see as the series continues, on El Rey in the US and Netflix elsewhere. I just think I won't be watching again until someone gives me the 'you really should give it another chance' talk. That worked for me with  Lost and Walking Dead, after all, and they have become two of my all-time favourites. 

The Math... well, I won't beat around the bush - I finally got a 4/10! "problematic but has redeeming qualities"

By English Scribbler, long-distance trucker and blood-sucker, and Nerds contributor since 2013.

Microreview [Book]: The Last of the Smoking Bartenders

Howell, C.J. The Last of the Smoking Bartenders [New Pulp Press, 2013]

The Meat

Tom is on a mission in the desert of the American Southwest. He’s out to stop the illusive Network from carrying out another terrorist attack. In order to defeat the Network, Tom has gone off the grid, erasing his identity and even avoiding handling paper money—something or other about micro-tracking devices on the bills. Tom’s so deep underground, he’s  a homeless transient, a foul smelling bum. Along his journey west, Tom hooks up with a young drifter, Lorne, and inadvertently enlists him in a little arson and murder. This brings the duo to the attention of Hailey, the only federal agent in this desolate section of the Southwest. Tom’s quixotic quest ensnares others along the way—a crew of Navajo tweakers, a goitered psychopath, and, for a brief moment, the last of the smoking bartenders. Hence, the genius title. 

The Last of the Smoking Bartenders is an uneven novel. In many respects it is unlike much of contemporary crime fiction, in all the right ways. C.J.Howell’s writing is lucid and economical, his characterizations strong, his violence shocking, and his philosophical excursions fitting in this post-True Detective landscape. But the book suffers from an unfocused, often meandering plot.

The novel is effectively a chase: Lorne and Hailey are both trying to catch up with Tom, Lorne to assist him in taking out the Network, Hailey to arrest him for setting fire to an abandoned mine and killing a security guard in the process. After a strong first third, however, The Last of the Smoking Bartenders loses steam, becoming bogged down in Tom’s wanderings. This section of the novel is salvaged somewhat by thoughtful considerations of homeless living and human altruism—and some brutal violence, tersely written. It picks up again in toward the end, though the last twenty pages seemed to be unnecessary after the violence that ended the chase.

C.J. Howell, however, made many wise choices. First, though he set his novel in the Utah/Arizona dessert, Howell embraced a more subtle approach to the region’s meth-fueled criminal class. His scaled-back, stark depiction stands in marked contrast to the heavy handed, often cartoonish portrayals of tweakers common to Southwestern noir. (Even Breaking Bad suffered from a bit of this.) The characters are still insane, but more realistically so. They do drugs—and drink—but feel the effects. And, unlike your average noir P.I. or other stock psychopath, the drugs and booze affect the characters' behavior. Adversely.

Second, Howell takes a similarly realistic approach to FBI Agent Hailey. I need not rehash the argument that the depiction of women in noir is often misogynistic. Women are also, and more generally, depicted unrealistically, particularly when the character is against type. Hailey isn’t Ms. Tree or other “tough” female hero. She doesn’t say things like, “Move it, lady!” Instead, Howell allows her to be a vulnerable and lonely individual, whose career and personal life have gone off course. She drinks too much, and takes too many pills. In other words, she gets to be human.

Unfortunately, Howell doesn’t give her much to do. She disappears in the second act, only to reappear at the finale and not really do much. This does not really matter in terms of how Howell writes his female leads, as much as how he plotted the novel.

I wanted more from this book. But he gets points for throwing Bakersfield in toward the end.

The Math

Objective Score: 6/10

Bonuses: +1 for one decent female character; +1 for Bakersfield

Penalties: -1 for the actual last smoking bartenders, who was a total letdown 

Nerd coefficient: 7/10

Best Sci-Fi TV of All Time Tournament Bracket (Round of 16)

VOTING HAS CLOSED FOR THIS ROUND. CHECK OUT THE ROUND OF 8 HERE.

The NCAA Tournament is about to resume for the Final Four games, and the results are in for Round 1 of the Nerds of a Feather Greatest Sci-Fi TV Show of All Time Bracketology Extravaganza™. If you missed the first post, the tl/dr version is I made a list of 32 contemporary and classic sci-fi shows, and completely unscientifically lumped them into regions and seedings. Then, a lot of votes came in!

There were not a lot of surprises in the Round of 32, which makes me feel like I got the initial seeds somewhat correct. As Reddit pointed out, however, I constructed the bracket wrong, and Number 1 and Number 2 seeds should not have met until the Round of 8. That's my fault. Nevertheless, I like the matchups in this round, and feel like we're going to wind up in the right place eventually, wherever that may be. Here's where we stand now:

Some cool things about the Round of 32:

• There were two upsets. Six-Seeded The Six Million Dollar Man reached out and bionically slapped The Prisoner, so it has to go back to the village, and The Fall Guy Lee Majors moves on. And Stargate SG-1, which maybe should've been seeded higher, took down Star Wars: The Clone Wars
• The top vote-getter of all entries was Star Trek: The Next Generation, followed by Firefly.
• Number Two seed Lost faced an unexpectedly tough challenge from Seven-Seeded Sliders, but most of the closest races were in the (4) vs (5) matchups.
• Every show, even the Eight-Seeds, got multiple votes

So what's going to happen in the Round of 16? Will Star Trek: The Next Generation continue steamrolling the competition, even when the competition is The Twilight Zone? Can the speculative fiction Twin Peaks make a deep run in this sci-fi bracket where some say it doesn't belong? Can a battered Lost rally and challenge The X-Files? I sure don't know, but it's up to you guys. Vote below!

CLASSIC NORTH
CLASSIC SOUTH
MODERN NORTH
MODERN SOUTH

Thursday Morning Superhero

I know that this is my comics post, but I wanted to remind everyone that this Saturday is International Tabletop Day.  International Tabletop Day is a glorious event that brings nerds of all types together.  I am going to be demoing some games at my LCS and can't wait to partake in a day of gaming.  Whether you play traditional games, card games, miniature games, role playing games, it doesn't matter.  Get out and game.  You can see what events are in your area by clicking here and check out some of the amazing promos that some stores will have by clicking here.  I hope to score the geek faction for Smash Up.   Cheers!

Pick of the Week:
Starlight #2 - Mark Millar has produced some wildly entertaining titles (Nemesis, Superior, Wanted, Kick-Ass, etc.) and Starlight is nothing short of fantastic.  Duke McQueen is a retired Airforce pilot who went mysteriously missing forty years ago.  Upon his return, he claimed to have traveled to another world.  McQueen was the savior to this world, killing the evil dictator and freeing a population of oppressed people.  Not too shockingly, nobody believed him and he had a stigma hanging over him his entire life.  Fortunately he had a strong partner in his wife, but tragically she recently passed.  Alone, with nothing else to lose, McQueen is faced with the a big decision.  Krish Moor, an alien from Tantalus, who has flown to earth to call on the mighty McQueen.  In addition to a gripping tale, Millar paces this series incredibly well as McQueen's actions seem intentional and methodical.  The panels with no dialog paint a picture of an incredibly thoughtful man who questions his own past.  Millar recently welcomed a new baby to his family (congrats!) so I hope we don't have to wait too long to continue on McQueen's journey.  I am really impressed with this title.

The Rest:
Bad Blood #4 - After reading this issue I don't want it to end with issue #5!  An action packed book, complete with training montage and stunning twist.  Trick and Lolly have not proved to be the most lethal combo when it comes to hunting down vampires.  Enter Jonas.  He has been hunting vampires for quite some time and schools the duo in the world of vampires.  Joe Espisito's "You're the Best Around" was stuck in my head as I witnessed Trick grow from sickly cancer patient to a force to be reckoned with.  His growth in this book was a welcomed sight and Jonathan Maberry sprinkled in some good tongue-in-cheek jokes about vampires that maintained the light feel to this otherwise dark tale.  Good stuff.

Secret #7 - I felt that I was finished reading this issue before I even started it.  That is meant as a compliment as the conversation that takes place on the Russian's yacht is both compelling and intriguing.  I felt as if I were watching the penultimate moment in a spy thriller only to have the movie reel bust (like what happened to me when I saw Willow in the theater).  The regularity with which issues are coming out now has finally brought me back into this thriller.

Inhuman #1 - Another Marvel event is upon us and the first issue was quite enjoyable.  Black Bolt has unleashed the Terrigen cloud to save the city, but it is dispersing across the globe triggering inhumans, unbeknownst to them, to reach their true potential.  While Medusa is on board with this, there are other factions that believe only a select few inhumans should undergo the Terrigen process.  Marvel, you have my attention with this one.

POSTED BY MIKE N. -- comic guy, proudly raising nerdy kids, and Nerds of a Feather contributor since 2012.

Microreview [book] : Hollow World , by Michael J. Sullivan

Sullivan, Michael J.  - Hollow World, The (2014, Tachyon)

Pre-Order Hollow World

He also is ensuring all buyers of the print copies will get his e-book free too!

print edition from Tachyon Publications

Well, at the risk of jinxing myself, I seem to be on a lucky streak with the books I'm picking to review for Nerds of A Feather. To be fair, I had heard good things about Sullivan's work before, particularly The Riyria Revelations, and so this wasn't a random choice. If it had been, though, the great cover would have lead me in like those evil wine companies who put cool labels on the bottle to make you think it'll taste better. In this case though, we have a fine Malbec : powerful yet palatable, exotic yet familiar -  and ok the wine comparison is slipping but - full of impossible fantasy yet feeling entirely emotionally-true.

By fantasy, however, I don't mean in genre terms. In fact Sullivan has stated on his blog and kickstarter campaign for the novel that he was keen to transcend genre, and if he was to 'label' it in any way it would be more traditional, elderly sci-fi, of the Wells and Asimov persuasion. Wells is mentioned in the introduction here too, for Hollow World owes much to The Time Machine (although that is a little like saying rock owes much to blues, or cheese to milk). Yet this is a much richer, complex book than Wells could have imagined writing or a reader of his time accepting. The science can take a backseat to the human drama because we don't need convincing. After decades of leaps-into-the-future fiction in many forms, we are educated and aware, and ready to suspend disbelief as someone jumps through a portal , or revs up a DeLorean.

Here, our time-traveller is Ellis Rogers, a gentle and beaten man, sleep-walking through a sad life until he is given a terminal diagnosis and allows himself one last adventure, with a homemade machine based on having secretly solved a long-ignored theory. Leaving his empty marriage behind, he zaps himself from his Detroit garage to... And here I almost want to stop the review, to afford you, if you choose, the same ignorance of where and in what time he finds himself as I had. Therefore if you want to keep things a mystery, please skip the next paragraph for a spoiler-free wrap up. I may mention some names or moments in there, but I'll try not to. But I won't promise anything; I've not writen thet bit yet. I haven't even spell-checked the last sentence. See you in a minute.

Ellis arrives in 4078, somewhat overshooting his target of a couple of centuries hence. But instead of flying cars and towering cities, nature has reclaimed the planet from humans after cataclysmic storms forced us into underground caverns. Over time, as technology advanced and humans evolved into sexless copies of each other, this became Hollow World (a nice nod, perhaps to all those Hollow World conspiracy theorists out there). Ellis is plunged a little neatly straight into a murder mystery which soon expands into a political conspiracy. In doing so, however, he first meets first a future-human called Pax and Sullivan wisely keeps the focus intimate and domestic as Pax takes him home, allowing our hero - and us -  time to assimilate this future reality without being rushed through violently like Charlton or Keanu, the poor chaps. Ellis gets the computer butler to make him coffee and he introduces Pax to the concept of sarcasm. He wonders at the alien nature of his new existence and mourns for the past and the mistakes he made. This is no blank protagonist, no meat puppet to be our eyes in this fantasy world, but a complex and aged person with quirks and flaws. Sullivan knows the matters of the heart hit home more strongly than any razzle-dazzle of imagination. Only then do we start a more turbulent whirl through the plot, and I'll keep that vague even from spoiler-junkies like you, as it is absorbing and very enjoyable.

Welcome back, mystery-fans. You missed an incredible paragraph. Some laughs, and many tears. Trouser tears. Oh well, you made your choice. So, for you and your less timid peers, I offer a final recommendation to seek this book out. If sci-fi or fantasy have left you feeling a little tired of late, like myself - there are simply too many books out there, too many spins of the same tune - this novel is, even more perhaps than Lagoon recently , a real tonic. The ability Sullivan has to describe the world Ellis finds himself in without losing sight of how Ellis would be feeling is admirable, and he keeps things light on their feet and frequently humorous, avoiding the solemn tone of so much future sci-fi. Details of, and reasons behind Hollow World and its inhabitants are richly told within the context of the characters' actions and not submitted as clunky, stodgy lumps of educative exposition. The central plot felt a tiny bit too neatly inserted, like a device to add some action and purpose rather than something naturally grown from events, but it was suspenseful and complex, and entertaining, and ended up forcing the hand of all the players to fully show the nature of Hollow World. For all I wondered what a simple slice-of-life tale might have been - just a walk with Ellis into this new universe, with no real dramas, could have been a joy - I also loved this crime story within a political thriller within a sci-fi adventure. Most of all, though, I loved the central characters and the superbly detailed emotional architecture of each scene. Ellis's thoughts were idiosyncratic yet entirely relatable, and his friendship with Pax was moving, surprising and, well, daring, in the context of genre (or multi-genre) fiction. 

This is a superb time travelling tale, full of imagination and intrigue, and Sullivan has kickstarted the literary sub-genre as successfullly as I felt Primer did in film. Yet it is more than an exercise in genre; it is a wonderful book. Many times in the reading of this I lost myself pleasantly - I missed my stop on the tube and on the bus, and forgot to go to bed til two one weeknight, and the cat had stolen my side of the mattress. Thanks for that, author. You also ruined the finale of The Walking Dead as I was reading in the ad breaks and kept having to rewind back over the biting and stabbing which really killed the suspense. Shame on you.

The Math

Objective Assessment : 8/10

Bonuses : +1 for managing to breathe fresh air into an old set-up and putting modern, intelligent emotions and politics into a fun, futuristic adventure; +1 for keeping character ahead of plot all the way, and ensuring Ellis's internal journey was the real heart of the matter.

Negatives : - 1 in a world so far ahead in time, shorn of history, it still felt all perhaps a little too familiar and very American in flavour; either a flaw or an intentional move , it killed some of the culture shock for me of what Ellis encounters.

Nerd Coefficient : 9/10 Early contender for book of the year ( how our scores work )

Written by English Scribbler, Nerds contributor since 2013. If he had a time machine he would go to all the years in that old Zager and Evans song and then report back to them so they could be more certain in the lyrics.

Microreview [book]: Heaven's Queen, by Rachel Bach

Bach, Rachel. Heaven's Queen [Orbit, 2014]

Endings are almost impossible to do well. Suppose you have a trilogy, the first two installments of which are brilliant, to the point that you find yourself falling in love with the world, the characters, and so forth. Any attempted end to that story faces two serious and, worse yet, rather contradictory problems: a) the deep-seated desire for high-stakes closure, or resolution, common to all melodrama (and let's face it, most of what we all like is melodrama through and through) and b) the instinctive horror we all feel at the thought that something we love will end.

Problem b) has no real solution, of course, since everything ends and that fact undoubtedly sucks. But that doesn't mean all non-solutions to problem b) were created equal. Probably the best is the cascading ending: we need only watch Return of the King (or read the book) to see a shining example. The focus is on letting the audience down from the emotional high of problem a) gently—and gradually.

Many commented after watching said movie, or noted while reading the extended falling action sequences at the end of the book that the movie skips or streamlines (Sharkey, anyone?), that it "feels like there's more than one ending." And it's true, because each storyline, each major character demands a unique resolution, which solves problem a). But in order for us to weather the emotional trauma of problem b), that elemental force which, as (for example) Frozen is ending, makes three-year-olds scream and wail that they want to stay in the movie theater (and thus the film world) forever, we need time to recover from each individual shock of resolution, and if they come too abruptly, even we adults might just find ourselves wiping away a tear or two (or several Kleenex's worth for me!) as the beloved movie thunders to its conclusion. On the other hand, there's such a thing as too gradual, so as with all things (ευχαριστώ for the Golden Mean idea, Aristotle!) balance is key.

How did Rachel Bach (a.k.a. Rachel Aaron) handle this thorny problem? Was she able to deliver a sufficiently satisfying resolution for each of the main characters and plotlines while managing to avoid the trauma of a too-sudden finish or, alternatively, an endless end? The coy response would be that you should read the book to find out, but I'll just tell you the answer's a resounding yes! The themes introduced in Fortune's Pawn and then developed in Honor's Knight come to supremely satisfying conclusion in Heaven's Queen (and even the title to this volume has an additional layer of meaning beyond the ongoing and somewhat tired chess metaphor). The mystery of the phantoms is revealed, and our favorite spunky armored mercenary Devi(ana) Morris kicks the stuffing out of pretty much the entire universe. Bach maintained the pace very well in this final volume, with plenty of action on both huge fleet-sized and on an individual tactical level. Some characters die, as is only fitting in melodrama (since it only enhances the perceived value of the resolution when ultimate victory comes at very high cost—just ask the Weasley twin who took one for the Harry Potter team).

One of the only false notes in Heaven's Queen was a rather anticlimactic showdown near the end of Devi's mad gamble. For this sort of action-y melodrama to provoke the strongest possible emotional response, it is necessary for the prowess of the villain to be tremendous indeed; a too-easy victory by the hero(ine) leaves one with a vague sense of disappointment, as it deprives the audience of seeing (so to speak) the heroine reach new heretofore unimaginable heights of awesomeness.

Of course, in one sense Bach is to be commended for declining to follow every convention of the genre, instead spicing things up a bit with what, in an action comedy, would potentially be a very amusing case of sabotaging the audience by building up expectations only to subvert them with an easy win for our heroine. But personally, I think it would have been more effective, especially with the anti-utilitarian themes developed in book two, to have the figure of the ultimate utilitarian be her greatest challenge(r) yet. I'm being so cryptic, incidentally, because I a) think people should definitely read this book/series, and b) still believe spoilers kind of spoil things, despite what these guys are saying.

In any case, read it: you won't regret it! (After all, be honest—who can't get behind the idea of a "all out of bubble gum" kind of tough girl like Devi?)

The Math

Objective assessment: 7/10

Bonuses: +1 for managing to bring everything together in a cataclysmic denouement, +1 for handling the falling action final chapters very well

Penalties: -1 for having one of the series' most mysterious figures be such a pushover in the end

Nerd coefficient: 8/10 "Well worth your time and attention" [8/10 is actually awesome: see here.]

This review brought to you by Zhaoyun, sf/f book and movie aficionado and main cast member of Nerds of a Feather since early 2013.