Microreview [book] : The Lost by Sarah Beth Durst

Gently disturbing fantasy drama in the American desert

I spent the first hundred pages of this novel by Sarah Beth Durst wrestling with the anticipation that the story would lurch into overfamiliar thriller territory, or unoriginal fantasy. A woman distraught over her mother's illness and tired of her small life impulsively drives out into the desert where she finds herself stuck in a nightmarish town of lost souls and confusing behaviour. This setup could have been the lead-in to either an action thriller or a straight-up fantasy of alternate dimension travel cliches. Yet her tale kept wrong footing me neatly, quietly and confidently treading its own path, and more importantly, speaking in its own voice. By the time I realised I was deep into the book I also realised I was deeply involved with her central character's journey and had long forgotten my reservations.

That is not to say the book is without flaws. In living each second through the eyes of the protagonist Lauren, Durst drags us through some occasionally repetitive first-person thoughts which I found rather wearing : "I wonder what a horror-movie heroine would do"; "If I want to find my way home to Mom, I have to stay alive long enough to do it". Yes, we know mate, we are reading the story. A little more acceleration through these moments would have helped the energy of the tale. However, how much such a change might have diminished the emotional connection to Lauren is enough to make me look back on the book now and feel Durst knew exactly what she was doing. No Hemingway then, but no need to be either. The time she takes to describe each situation and all of Lauren's reactions, external and internal, to them means her tale takes on a languid, hypnoptic disposition that suits the mystery at the heart of the drama and the other-wordly oddness of the town called Lost.

The town and its inhabitants, including little lost child Claire, the magnetic yet dangerous Peter and the elusive Missing Man, packs of feral kids with knives and vicious dogs, to name a few, make for compelling intruders on Lauren's isolated situation and indeed her isolated personality. This is a woman who is herself 'lost' and the town's power, without spoilers, ties in to this. Whilst Durst entertains with images of abandoned houses appearing stranded in the dirt overnight, lunch-boxes of rotten fruit or a barn full of lost masterpieces of art, it is in Lauren she chiefly cares about and expertly ensures her readers do too. Lauren is no bland hero however; her stubbornness and mistrust are well displayed and she is someone at times you can relate to more than necessarily like. I would have enjoyed a little more outlandishness to the action, a little more insanity to some of the scenes, but I loved the focus and restraint and the careful depiction of a fellow human in crisis.

Ending with a lengthy episode that threw me somewhat, which I won't reveal, the author threatened for me at least to lose the tension at the centre of the plot, despite some very moving and believable scenes. However Durst then whips the action back for a final haunting moment which reveals itself as the cliffhanger on which this planned trilogy will continue. 'The Missing' is to follow later in the year, and 'The Found' next, and I'll be waiting to be taken back to the desert when they appear from the dust storm's void...

The Math

Baseline Assessment : 7/10

Bonuses : +1 for wrongfooting me and choosing emotion over shallow action.

Penalties : -1 for perhaps taking a little too long to get going.

Nerd Coefficient : 7/10 a mostly enjoyable experience (find out how our scores work here)

Durst, Sarah Beth. The Lost [Harlequin/Mira Books, 2014]

Buy it from your local indie stores - click here

POSTED BY : English Scribbler, sci-fi and fantasy fella and London-dweller, and Nerds contributor since 2013.

Microreview [book]: Zero Echo Shadow Prime by Peter Samet

Intricately plotted and imagined story of one girl, split into four parts

Zero Echo Shadow Prime is the kind of book you hope for when you take a chance on something from a self-published writer. Peter Samet did not set himself an easy task with this near-future sci-fi story, and he delivered in a big way.

The book begins with an Echo waking up under a scrawled mantra on her ceiling that reads "Kill them all or feel withdrawl." Not only does the reader not know what an Echo is at this point, but neither does the character. She has no memory, no idea of who she is, or where, but she has four arms, and realizes this is unusual when she leaves her bedroom and meets three other Echoes, each with their own "gifts" — flamethrowers for hands or bio-luminescent skin, for instance. They are all told that they are descendants of "The Archetype," and they will be expected to battle one another to the death. And when they go outside, they discover millions of other Echos, all in the same boat. But this is not the real world. We're quickly introduced to reality through Charlie Nobunaga, a young tech celebrity who has recently lost her twin sister. To try to keep herself sane, she threw herself into an AI project, and created the first sentient "Shadow." In a clever extension of something like Siri, Samet's future-dwellers have virtual personal assistants called Shadows that can be outfitted to look however the user desires, and Charlie has programmed the first one with actual emotions and the ability to pass a Turing test. But Charlie's got a problem she doesn't want anybody to know about — namely, that she shares the same mutation that caused her sister to develop and quickly succumb to pancreatic cancer, and now the cancer has awakened in Charlie, too.

What's a young, dying tech genius to do? Enter Jude Adler, the CEO of Rivir, a global tech company that has been on the leading edge of Shadow technology. In exchange for Charlie's code, she's willing to give Charlie a brand new start, in a brand new, bio-engineered body. Charlie is appalled at the twin prospects of selling her creation (her only true friend, it turns out, whom she has named "Alan") and having her consciousness mapped into a robot body. But there are larger forces at work that Charlie cannot control, and she's soon swept up in a tide of parental overreach, corporate corruption, anti-technology zealots, and her own (significant) issues.

The set-up is compelling, and the focus on driven, well-rounded female characters in a work of serious science fiction is refreshing, but where the book really excels is in the intricate interweaving of four different plotlines that exist in different realities. It's a deft balancing act that never falters, and helps the book develop a tremendous amount of narrative momentum. It's a thoughtful page-turner with something to say, which is no easy task to pull off. And toward the end, when I began to worry that all of this momentum was just going to barrel forward into a pat "Happy Ending"-style resolution, Samet was able to play one last card that prevented a clean resolution and opened up new possibilities...for a sequel?

The Math

Baseline Assessment: 6/10

Bounses: +1 for a female-centric story where not only did Charlie not need "a man to save her," but where most of her problems were actually created by men trying to save her, and she had to right the ship herself; +1 for the worldbuilding feat of creating multiple, interconnected sci-fi realities; +1 for a believable near-future that sounds both cool and terrifying

Penalties: None

Nerd Coefficient: 9/10. Very high quality standout in its category. If you're curious, we don't give a ton of 9's round these parts...

Posted by Vance K — Cult film and sci-fi geek, Nerds of a Feather contributor since 2012, and reader since, well, let's say 1980.

Microreview [book]: Reached, by Ally Condie

 A mildly interesting dystomance

 

Condie, Ally. Reached. Speak, 2013.

Buy it here.

Ever noticed how easy it is to talk about really great—or really bad—books/movies/etc., but how difficult it is to explain why something is just so-so? That's the problem I have today, as Reached, while certainly not a bad book, cannot live up to the promise of the trilogy's first installment, Matched, with its wondrous blend of poetry-as-resistance and chilling portrait of the ruthless panoptical (at this point it seems almost redundant to note "dystopic") Society.

Moreover, the love triangle at the center of the trilogy's drama has lost some of its fascination for this reader, at least; in the first book it was thrilling, in the second (Crossed) it was merely believable, but here in the concluding volume, it feels already resolved, somehow, as though there were never any doubt which way each character would go, and indeed alternatives to the characters' "first choice" in love keep conveniently popping up. One senses the heavy hand of Fate here, as well as that slightly oppressive atmosphere of heterosexual pairing in which no eligible female (or, in this case, male) can escape the ironclad bonds of matrimony: the Happy Ending.

But Reached retains flashes of the power of the first volume, as when Cassia recites (even if only in her mind) some of the key forbidden poems, particularly the Dylan Thomas "Do Not Go Gentle". And Condie did well to problematize the Rising, rejecting the easy "resistance at any price" line of moral absolutism and instead presenting a surprisingly balanced and even critical view of just about everyone, Society loyalist, Rising insurgent, or unaligned alike (though those who choose not to choose are made to seem noblest of all, as though to make any compromise in service to an uprising is an unforgivable sin). There are strong echoes/resonances with Hunger Games here, but if you want my two cents, Condie did quite a bit better in wrapping her series up than did Suzanne Collins did with the Hunger Games (particularly the cringe-worthy third volume Mockingjay).

So all in all, even though there doesn't quite feel like enough here around which to hang a story, and the romance part (and, in fact, the dystopia part) fell a little flat, Reached remains one of the better dystomances out there. Whether this is more a commentary on the sad state of the dystomance subgenre is up to you.

The Math

Objective assessment: 5/10

Bonuses: +1 for addressing the moral complexity of  resistance to a dystopian society well (and much better than in Collins' Mockingjay), +1 for foregrounding beautiful poems as the stuff of resistance

Penalties: -1 for letting the central drama of the love triangle (to quote Eddie Izzard on the Ottoman Empire) "slowly collapse like a flan in a cupboard"

Nerd coefficient: 6/10 "Still enjoyable, but the flaws are hard to ignore"

[You can take a gander at our unusual scoring system here.]

This has been a public service announcement by Zhaoyun, scifantomance connoisseur (and yes, I'm brave enough to admit I had to look up how to spell that—I will be forever mystified that the French couldn't have settled on 'connaser' or something reasonable!) and one of the sous chefs here at Nerds of a Feather since early 2013.

Microreview [film]: Edge of Tomorrow

An edge-of-your-seat, laugh-out-loud, knock-your-socks-off scifomance! 

First things first: in real life, Tom Cruise may be mad as a haberdasher, but on screen he still has the magic. So even if you find Tom Cruise disagreeable as an individual (and let's face it, who doesn't?), I'd advise against letting your distaste for his craziness spoil a perfectly good movie!

Second things second: director Doug Liman has combined the humor of Swingers with the frenetic action of The Bourne Identity in this, his newest gem. Because of the relatively unusual (though by no means unique) temporal premise of Edge of Tomorrow (about which I will say as little as possible so as to keep unadulterated the joy of discovery for the six people in the world who haven't already heard it compared to Groundhog Day or Source Code), there were almost limitless options for how to depict the story: in a farcical mode, or a deadly serious action mode, or a Shakespearian tragedy, or a humance (humorous human interest romance). But Liman and the film's other creators have struck just the right balance, in my opinion, between the humantic and the sci fi action extravaganza modes.

As with any project of this scope, some aspects strike specific individuals (notably me) with greater pizzazz than others. Certain elements of the movie's plot, including the enemy's bizarre, almost incomprehensible inability to deal with what seems like the mother of all weaknesses/chinks in its armor, and the handful of cases of "we've managed to throw together a doohicky that can deux the crap out of your machina" sci fi babble, left me scratching my head. But then, if the enemy were truly as omnipotent as they seem, the movie would have been about twenty minutes long, so perhaps I should simply accept the pseudo-scientific exposition of gadgets and whatnot as the price one pays for good entertainment.

Everything going as planned...ish.

And what entertainment! In addition to the intriguing references to World War I (Blunt's character being nicknamed the Angel of Verdun, etc.) there are quite a few laugh out loud moments, and twists worthy of an M. Night Shyamalan movie (but without the crappiness!), even for those of us who (sigh) were told beforehand that Edge of Tomorrow is "just like Groundhog Day but with aliens and stuff" and thus instantly had the ultimate shock surprise of the movie spoiled. And the on-screen eye candy of Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt, as well as the film's deliberate attempt (or so I see it) to prevent audiences from too easily identifying with Cruise's character (who starts and remains kind of unappealing personality-wise), are sure to please.

Even scifobics (up to and including old people!) who get the heebie-jeebies whenever movies contain anything that isn't 'realistic' should enjoy this high-octane romp! (Yes! I've always wanted to use that ridiculous phrase, which is only trotted out for Jason Statham movies under normal circumstances but seems appropriate here.)

So in conclusion, happy birthday, America—and what better way to celebrate than by seeing Edge of Tomorrow?

The Math:

Baseline assessment: 8/10

Bonuses: +1 for having plenty of humance and +1 for striking a nice balance between laughs and chills

Penalties: -1 for a few instances of sloppy sci fi babble along the lines of "reverse the polarity of the neutron flow" (though nowhere near that bad)

Nerd coefficient: 9/10 "Standout in its category" (admittedly, it's kind of a small sub-category we're talking about here, but for what it's worth, I'd say this movie trumps the excellent Source Code and even rivals the King of Time Loop movies, Groundhog Day itself!)

See more about our scoring system here. 

Zhaoyun, zompire scifantomance fan, has been keeping it real here at Nerds of a Feather since before Edge of Tomorrow was a gleam in its director's eye (or in any case since early 2013).

Thursday Morning Superhero

The big news in the world of San Diego Comic-Con is that DC and Warner Brothers are taking over Saturday Night.  Kevin Smith has been booted from Hall H so that DC can promote four titles.  From the official release, " [k]icking off the exclusive evening is the world premiere public screening of the highly anticipated new drama series Gotham (the only screening of Gotham at this year’s Comic-Con), followed by a screening of the complete pilot of new action-drama The Flash, and exclusive video presentations from returning hit Arrow and new thriller Constantine. Cast members and producers from all four shows will make special appearances throughout the night."  Sounds like people will be lining up early and hanging out in Hall H all day.  I will attempt to make my way in, but will most likely be enjoying something else at the convention.  Time for the books!

Pick of the Week:
Southern Bastards #3 - As someone who grew up in Texas, I can fully relate to high school football running a small town.  I am pretty sure it was nothing like what Earl Tubb is dealing with in Craw County, Alabama.  After watching his old friend stumble into and die on the football field during a game, he has reached his breaking point.  As it says at the start of this book, "Now Earl has a stick. And some questions he'd like answered."  Tubb begins to fight back against Coach Boss and his crew and we finally learn just how far Coach Boss' power reaches.  Jason Aaron captures the feel of a small, seedy southern town and Jason Latour's art is a bit rough around the edges to fully immerse you in a situation that would make most people uncomfortable.  I am not sure if this duo has worked on any other projects, but I will be on board with any future books they are a part of.  It was great to see Tubb finally step up and fight back and I look forward to seeing him beat people with his stick in issue #4.

The Rest:
Nailbiter #3 - The mysteries that surround the town of Buckaroo, Oregon continue to grow with each issue from this entertaining thriller from Joshua Williamson.  I was in search of some answers in this issue, but find myself with more questions than I began with.  Has Edward Warren truly retired from killing?  Something tells me we will see him begin to develop a body count again soon.  Williamson has done a masterful job crafting complex characters that provide real depth for this small town mystery.  Mike Henderson sets a dark tone that evokes real moments of terror and shock.  If you are a horror fan then it is not too late to hop on board.  I sure hope that Detective Fish begins to unravel the mystery as to why so many serial killers have sprung up in this small town.

Original Sin #5 - This event continues to gain momentum as we draw nearer to who actually pulled the trigger and killed the Watcher.  We learned last time that the Winter Soldier merely killed a replicant of Nick Fury, but we also learned that Nick Fury is one old dude.  This issue gives us the background on Mr. Fury and was a delight to read.  If you are a fan of Fury, even if you haven't been keeping up with this event, then I would encourage you to check this out.  This event continues to impress and surprise me with each new issue.  It is a bit of a disappointment that not many of the Watcher's secrets have been revealed, but still a joy to read.

Rocket Raccoon #1 - With all the hype about the Guardians of the Galaxy I would be remiss if I didn't check this title out.  I am happy to report that Rocket Raccoon is just plain fun.  Over the top action, tongue humor, and a solid little story to go along with it.  While not in the same category as Southern Bastards or Nailbiter, Rocket Raccoon is a good comic to read for pure entertainment.  The Lego variant that featured Stan Lee was enough for me to open up my wallet and I would encourage you to check out this title as well.

Legendary Star Lord #1 - Sticking with this Guardians theme, I went ahead and picked up this issue as well.  Another fun title, but with a lot more heart.  The debut was sweet, but not sure if it is enough to bring me back.  I enjoyed learning more about Peter Quill and the one-shot story was nice, but I don't know if it quite delivered the hook.  If you are a Guardians fan then you already picked this title up.  If you are new to the series like I am, then you may want to wait for the trade.





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

Microreview [book]: Half a King by Joe Abercrombie

Abercrombie's Best Yet...

Joe Abercrombie's earlier works turned inside out all of my expectations for character development. Instead of character development, the heroes in his First Law books, Best Served Cold, and Red Country all suffer from character regression. People are downright bad. Vile. Morally challenged. Dare I say evil? But with a desire to redeem themselves and better their situations... until they realize it is futile to escape from who they really are. This formula shocked me, and and made me an instant fan.

But after six books of the same formula, I grew somewhat bored. Granted, Abercombie's books featured tight prose, hilarious anti-heroes, and truly poignant writing. But he began to feel like a hack. A great hack. The Stephen King of hacks, but a hack nonetheless. So I was excited to see what he would do with Half a King, a novel that is purportedly geared at a YA (young adult) audience. This alone is a big change of pace for Abercrombie--an attempt at grimdark light! 

If anything, with Half a King, Abercrombie exceeded my expectations. Everything that I like about his writing remains unchanged. Half a King is laced with lighthearted cynicism, punctuated with laugh-out-loud hilarity, and features some of the brutality that fans have come to know and love. But what he changed is even more important. Abercrombie dumped his traditional, grit-laced formula to tell a coming of age story set against a dark background. Oh happy day!   

The story centers around Prince Yarvi, a weak young intellectual (with half of one hand) and second in line to the throne who was born in an era dominated by the sword. He thus spent much of his life shirking his military responsibilities and learning to become a Minister, an advisor to the kings that reminds of the Maesters in GRRM's A Song of Ice and Fire. But the death of his father and older brother force Yarvi to take the throne and begin a quest for revenge, a quest that pits him against enemies from both near and afar.

Yarvi soon learns that although he lives in an era of the sword, to get by he must hone his wits. He is helped along the way by a motley group of truly likable characters, from the oarsmen Rulf and Jaud to the beautiful navigator Sumael and the swordsman Nothing. And his wits are further honed by his truly likable (!) enemies, some who bring to mind the comic thoughtfulness of Nicomo Cosca. It is this honing of his wits that turns Yarvi from adolescent boy into a thoughtful young man, one who realizes that he could have a good life ahead of him, and that his own worth does not center on his half a hand.

Perhaps this coming of age story is the only YA aspect of this novel (aside from the light word count). In fact, I am honestly surprised that Half a King is being marketed as a YA novel at all. It is almost wholly unrecognizable as YA fantasy. Half a King does feature teenage angst, but it does so against a grim, dark, and brutal background that would give me pause before recommending it to a young audience. 

Instead, this should be seen as the Pinot Noir of Abercrombie. Classic, but mild and somewhat toned down. I imagine tried and true Abercrombie fans will be outraged by his selling out to reach a bigger audience. But if anything, this book has made his writing more accessible to a broader audience. With Half a King, Abercrombie is trying to sell the love, and I would be surprised if it does not sell wildly. 

Highly recommended. This is his best book yet. 

The Math

Objective Quality: 8/10

Bonuses: +1 for twists and turns that kept me guessing; +1 for having such likable characters

Penalties: -1 for not really being a YA novel. 

Nerd Coefficient: 9/10 "standout in its category"

Read about our scoring system here. And remember, we categorically reject grade inflation!

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

Microreview [film]: Spring Breakers

Former Disney Channel tweens in a 70s exploitation flick for the 21st century

First, and let's just get this out of the way now, Spring Breakers has so many naked boobs in it that by the time people are doing blow off a college girl's chest maybe 40 minutes into the movie, it doesn't even register at first that she's topless. Boobs to the point where boobs become uninteresting. Whether or not this is by design is, like much of the rest of Spring Breakers, open to interpretation.

The plot is simple enough. Four disaffected college friends (among them former Disney tween stars Vanessa Hudgens and Selena Gomez) can't afford to go on a big spring break blowout like everybody else, so rather than stick around their crummy college town for a week, they decide to rob a diner to bankroll a last-minute trip to Florida. You know, like you do. But when they get down to the annual sun-and-sand bacchanalia, they wind up at a party that gets busted by the cops, and into the tank they go. But (lucky for them?) a local rapper/drug dealer named Alien (James Franco) thinks they look nice in their bikinis and bails them out. One of the girls is too weirded out by the whole getting-arrested-and-then-bailed-out-by-a-terrifying-stranger thing, and gets on a bus for home. The other three stay behind and join Alien on a crime spree. You know, like you do.

So here's a film that presents you three interchangeable heroines who are all loathsome, traipsing through a flesh-parade that knows almost no bounds, and I found myself by the halfway point feeling pretty dirty. And then, suddenly, the film turns into a meditative art film, with long vistas of Alien and the three remaining girls staring off into sunsets, while Alien, repeating "Spraaaaang Breaaaaak" in voice over, floats above it all. The film then culminates in some very artistic pool sex and a slow-motion drug-lord showdown.

I have no idea what the film is trying to say, if anything. Is it that there's a huge disconnect between reality and film portrayals — whether in the hypersexualization of spring break or in a life of crime? Or maybe it's an attempt to be as transgressive to today's audiences as many 1970s exploitation films were to theirs? Or is it simply "Look at all these boobs!" I can't say. But bizarrely, I kept thinking about it for days afterwards, which is something I can't say for all that many movies.

The Math

Objective Quality: 5/10

Bonuses: +1 for James Franco's total disappearing act into the character of Alien; +1 for Franco's "Look at all my shit!" monologue, which I would pay money to see done in an audition or acting class by some acting student; +1 for making me think about it afterwards

Penalties: -1 for making no effort to differentiate the three female leads; -1 for just making me feel icky inside

Cult Film Coefficient: 6/10. Still enjoyable, but the flaws are hard to ignore.

Posted by Vance K — Cult film aficionado, unapologetic lover of terrible movies, and Nerds of a Feather contributor since 2012.