The Exploding Spaceship Release Day Edition Reviewing Crux by Ramez Naam

Posted on 2013-08-27 at 18:57 by angelablackwell

Review of Crux: Book 2 of Nexus by Ramez Naam (Angry Robot, paperback, August 27, 2013)

Nexus 5 was released upon the world in the previous book, Nexus. This volume is about the repercussions of that release. Kade watches all the interesting and wonderful things people are doing with Nexus, only interfering when someone is using it to abuse others. He deals harshly with such abusers by using the backdoors in the code, but everyone else wants these backdoor codes as well. His partners who were captured are tortured by the government to reveal the passwords, but they don’t know them since Kade changed them, so this causes even more problems when the government tries to use invalid passwords.

At the beginning of the book Kade is getting his eye and hand replaced in a clinic in Cambodia since he lost his originals in the fights in the last book. While he is recovering, the government increases its efforts to find him because they discover the passwords don’t work.  He and Feng have to flee and end up running from temple to temple to stay ahead of their pursuers. Eventually a confrontation results in many monks getting killed and injured, so Kade and Feng head to Saigon to try to blend in with the tourists instead of hiding where others will get killed.

Several groups of people are looking in Saigon for Kade, including Kevin Nakamura and an Indian man named Shiva Prasad, who had to flee his homeland because he dosed all the coral with an engineered virus in order to help it survive. It worked but upset everyone because he didn’t asked permission and many believed it to be a crime against nature. Eventually Shiva Prasad’s people get Kade to their Burmese island which was given in exchange for help with their biotech program. Eventually Kade, Feng, Sam, Shiva, and Kevin are all on the island fighting for control of Kade and the children from the orphanage.

This second volume lets us see Kade get over his naïve thoughts of what others would use Nexus 5 to accomplish and we also see him mature a bit due to all the adverse consequences others experience because of him. He learns that fighting to control what people do with software after release is like trying to stuff a genie back into its bottle. When he looks at all the things people do with it, we get to see Ramez’s great imagination at work full speed, but to reveal more would spoil one of the greatest parts of this book, where we see Ramez Naam the futurist thinking about how the entire human race would use this software in people’s brains to do fantastical things.

Kade and Sam both have more mature moments when their stories are being told separately, and it is interesting to see how the changes in them affect their relationship when they get back in the same location. Sam’s past continues to be a strong influence on her decision-making because she expects the worst of everyone but Kade is using a more recent view to see the worst in humanity at times too.  All the characters, even the supporting cast, are well developed and have great depth. We see the past of everyone and how it influences their present as well as how the shared history in different cultures can lead to different results with the same data.  The settings in Asia are quite vibrant and having experienced China, Japan and Korea ourselves it really feels like you are there. Ramez’s extensive travel history was put to good use for this setting.

This book is a fantastic near future science fiction adventure with interesting neurosoftware which is implanted as a recreational drug. The software concepts depicted are realistic, but the use in human brains is obviously a bit vague on the details since our neuroscience isn’t quite on that path yet. The US government depicted is very scary but with the wrong people in charge we could be headed that way. It has interesting main characters who are college-age young adults with different types of childhoods. This makes the motivations of the characters different and sometimes confused and conflicted, so what could be a straightforward adventure plot ends up with many twists and turns. Any lover of science fiction adventure should read this book.

Posted in The Exploding Spaceship

Coming to Town: Jason Mott for The Returned

Posted on 2013-08-26 at 20:09 by montsamu

Posted in Coming to Town | Tagged flyleaf books, jason mott, the returned

September Newsletter: Jason Mott and Richard Kadrey in late August, then David Drake, Susan Cooper, Emily Croy Barker, Jasper Fforde, Robin Sloan, and (in October) Lemony Snicket

Posted on 2013-08-26 at 18:02 by montsamu

Vol 3. No 9. August 26, 2013:

First off, thank you all for making the August 3 Summer Speculative Fiction Reading such a success! To the authors, our hosts Quail Ridge Books and The Raleigh Review, and of course all of you who came out to join in and support the event, ask questions, and talk books and writing into the wee hours: thank you, thank you, thank you! In terms of other events, the middle of August was fairly quiet, though the month did bring new novels from NCSU professor Wilton Barnhardt (Lookaway, Lookaway, a satirical historical fiction), Greensboro native Emily Croy Barker (The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic), and Asheville native Marisha Pessl (Night Film, a literary mystery) who was in the Triangle area over the weekend.

Secondly, you may notice that there are still a few days left in August and yet here is the "September" newsletter. What gives? Well, there is both an event tomorrow that I found out about since the August newsletter went out, and I wanted to give another round of notice to three other late August events as well:

• NEW: 27 (Tuesday) 7 pm -- North Carolina author Jason Mott launches his new novel The Returned at Flyleaf Books. "In this sparely written first novel, poet Mott posits intriguing questions about our uneasy relationship with death. Harold and Lucille Hargrave are stunned to find their eight-year-old son, Jacob decades after the boy's death by drowning standing on their front porch, along with Martin Bellamy, a government agent for the International Bureau of the Returned." (Booklist starred review) Update: As part of the event, Durham author Nathan Kotecki (The Suburban Strange) will interview Mott. The novel is also the basis of the forthcoming 2014 ABC series "Resurrection".
• 27 (Tuesday) 7 pm — The Regulator Bookshop hosts NCSU professor Wilton Barnhardt for his historical fiction satire novel Lookaway, Lookaway (St. Martin’s and Macmillan Audio, August 20). And check your local listings, as Barnhardt has several additional readings in the local and regional area.
• 29 (Thursday) 7 pm -- Flyleaf Books hosts Richard Kadrey for Kill City Blues, the latest in his Sandman Slim series of dark urban fantasy. Kadrey was generous enough to take the time to answer some questions from Durham author Richard Dansky for the first installment of a new Bull Spec web series, "Coming to Town", featuring authors with book tour stops in the Triangle area: /2013/08/26/coming-to-town-richard-kadrey-interviewed-by-richard-dansky/
• 31 (Saturday) 6 pm to 9 pm -- Chapel Hill Comics hosts Signing with LISA HANAWALT & BRIAN RALPH! "Chapel Hill Comics is proud to announce that as part of our 10th/35th Anniversary Festivities, we will host Lisa Hanawalt and Brian Ralph on Saturday, August 31, from 6pm until 9pm! Lisa will sign her newest book, My Dirty Dumb Eyes (out now), and Brian will sign his newest book, Reggie-12 (Drawn & Quarterly is getting us copies early for the signing)!"

-Sam

[handout-2013-08-23.pdf]

UPCOMING EVENTS, AUGUST 2013

NEW: 27 (Tuesday) 7 pm -- North Carolina author Jason Mott launches his new novel The Returned at Flyleaf Books. "In this sparely written first novel, poet Mott posits intriguing questions about our uneasy relationship with death. Harold and Lucille Hargrave are stunned to find their eight-year-old son, Jacob decades after the boy's death by drowning standing on their front porch, along with Martin Bellamy, a government agent for the International Bureau of the Returned." (Booklist starred review) Update: As part of the event, Durham author Nathan Kotecki (The Suburban Strange) will interview Mott. The novel is also the basis of the forthcoming 2014 ABC series "Resurrection".

Posted in newsletter

Coming to Town: Richard Kadrey for Kill City Blues, interviewed by Richard Dansky

Posted on 2013-08-26 at 14:14 by montsamu

[Editor's note: this is the first in a new, hopefully-many-more-where-this-came-from series in which authors and other creators "coming to town" for an event answer a few questions for the website. I hope you enjoy! -Sam]

By Richard Dansky:

Five books into his wildly popular and critically acclaimed Sandman Slim series, Richard Kadrey is a significant voice in urban fantasy. Coming to Flyleaf Books on Thursday August 29th in the wake of Kill City Blues, the fifth book in the Sandman Slim cycle, Kadrey also has an unrelated novel, Dead Set, coming out this fall. While this would be more than enough for most writers, Kadrey has an extensive track record as a cyberpunk author, futurist with publications in Wired and Discovery Online, comics scripter, and animation writer. And yes, he has also been turned into an action figure.

Ahead of his visit to the Triangle, Mr. Kadrey was kind enough to answer a few questions about his work, his approach to book tours and, perhaps most importantly, how you kill an unkillable wizard with his name:

With Kill City Blues, the Sandman Slim series is now five books in. Can a new reader just jump right in and read it as a self-contained story, or do they really need to go back and pick it up from the beginning (which, to be fair, they ought to do anyway)?

Posted in Coming to Town | Tagged richard dansky, richard kadrey

Friday Quick Updates: Wilton Barnhardt, AtomiCon, Marisha Pessl, Jeff Parker, Jason Mott, and Richard Kadrey

Posted on 2013-08-23 at 14:39 by montsamu

Friday, August 23: Whew. It's been a bit since I last put together the time to update, and this one's just in time for a packed schedule coming up including new historical fiction satire from NCSU professor Wilton Barnhardt, the first AtomiCon, literary terror from Marisha Pessl, comics writer Jeff Parker, NC author Jason Mott's speculative debut, Richard Kadrey -- and that's before next Friday comes around. Early September will see David Drake launch a new novel, a visit from The Dark is Rising author Susan Cooper, and more. Whew! Stay tuned... Meanwhile in publishing news, Charlotte Author Gail Z. Martin's Ice Forged: Ascendant Kingdoms Saga, Book 1 -- published in print/ebook early this year -- was just published in audio.

[handout-2013-08-23.pdf]

Posted in Friday Quick Updates

The Exploding Spaceship Reviews The Wrath-bearing Tree by James Enge

Posted on 2013-08-13 at 17:41 by angelablackwell

Review of Wrath-bearing Tree:  A Tournament of Shadows Book Two by James Enge (Pyr paperback August 13, 2013)

Morlock Ambrosius has an adventure on his own in Kaen, a land of strange religions, when the ship he is traveling on is destroyed by fire attacks from the Kaen coast. After he makes his way back to the Wardlands, he is sent off on a ship again, but this time Aloê, the girl Morlock thinks he likes, is assigned to captain the ship. She grew up on the water and so is very much at home on a boat, but Morlock gets seasick, so he isn’t sure whether to be pleased or mortified that Aloê is on the mission with him.

Aloê and Morlock end up in Kaen on their own so it becomes an adventure in young adult relationships, which moves on to an adventure in sexual relationships and how one partner can be helped through damage done by previous sexual violence if they find the right understanding partner.  The two get separated, but eventually meet up again and encounter members of Morlock’s family whom he has never met because they were banished from the land as punishment when Morlock was an infant. This is why he was raised by the dwarves.

The characters of Merlin and Morlock’s sisters are developed in this volume and their reactions to discovering Morlock is life partnered to Aloê by feeling how their magics are entangled is quite amusing. Morlock’s and Aloê’s relationship changes and takes on new dimensions as they share secrets and passions. Morlock seems immature at the start but once he discovers she isn’t perfect either, the relationship soon moves from slightly confused to very confident and adult. They are still journeying at the end of this volume so hopefully there will not be a long wait for volume 3.

This story is hero-journey fantasy at its best. The setting is interesting, complex, and has vast numbers of cultural groups that Morlock can travel through and encounter. Some of the characters have familiar sounding names but Enge’s versions are very unique. The dwarves’ society, their psychology, and the relationship with dragons are fascinating. The explanations of magic are also not your average fantasy trope. Magic is bound up with the essence of who a person is and is bound up with their inner energy and the place they reach when deeply focused. It reminded me of Asian meditation techniques employed to center and calm oneself.  Morlock understands himself, Aloê and the universe so completely that his ability to make magical items and use magic is far beyond anything attempted by any of the others from the Graith.

There are sex scenes in this book, some of them quite detailed but only in places relevant to the plot and they are realistic and don’t have the characters doing physically impossible things. Definitely this is an adult book for very mature teens and adults.  This is the second book in the series, following A Guile of Dragons, but the adventures share characters and have independent plots so if you get volume 2 first it’s not really a problem.

Posted in The Exploding Spaceship

The Exploding Spaceship reviews The Case of the Cosmological Killer: Endings and Beginnings by Stephanie Osborn

Posted on 2013-08-11 at 17:11 by angelablackwell

Review of  The Case of the Cosmological Killer: Endings and Beginnings by Stephanie Osborn (Twilight Times Books, released November 2012)

Endings and Beginnings is the fourth book in a series that brings Sherlock Holmes into the modern day by way of a hard-science fiction time machine incident.

Dr. Skye Chadwick develops a device which allows the user to see and even visit alternate realities. Some of those alternate realities are inhabited by individuals who only exist in the pages of fiction in our world, and one of those individuals is none other than Sherlock Holmes! When the device is tuned in to the famous (and fictional!) detective’s reality, Skye sees him as he is about to plunge off Reichenbach Falls, runs through the portal to save him and in so doing pulls Holmes into our world, specifically twenty-first-century Colorado.

Because he is known to have died in his own reality Holmes can never return there, and Skye becomes his native guide in this world, helping him to adapt to his strange new surroundings, and together they spend the next three books having adventures ranging from Colorado to the United Kingdom.

Endings and Beginnings covers the conclusion of Skye and Holmes helping an alternate-reality version of themselves save all realities by repairing their tesseract core (the tesseract in our reality was deactivated after the Holmes rescue incident), as well as solving a murder case involving possession of a family farm and an old government facility on the property.

Skye and Holmes were married in the previous book, and this adds an interesting twist to the violent encounters they both tend to get into when investigating, and Skye has the added burden of doing calculations to save all the realities while handling the more mundane demands of an ongoing investigation. Because they are working for the British government they have help with necessities like housing, transport, and food, and cast members from previous books have traveled with them, so they have a cadre of familiar faces to call upon.

A face both new and familiar appears in the form of an elderly Dr. John Watson. He is quite spry for his age and bravely steps in to help when one of the other characters is attacked. Holmes is delighted to discover that the old physician is much like the Watson he knew in his original reality.

Endings and Beginnings is a convoluted mystery, so guessing the twists and turns of the plot will be nigh-impossible; readers will discover what is going on at the same time that Skye and Holmes discover it. Even so, Your Humble Reviewers detected no logical deduction errors. The story also contains a fair amount of physics jargon regarding the tesseract-repair problem, but it is clearly presented and tripped no alarms with the engineer half of the Exploding Spaceship duo.

Skye’s and Holmes’ relationship continues to develop, but they still experience the occasional disconnect due to cultural differences because of the timeshift for Holmes or the cultural shift to Britain for Skye, all of which is quite believable because relatively little actual time has passed over the course of the narrative.

The discussions between the different versions of Skye and Holmes are quite amusing and reveal things that talking with someone other than yourself would not.

Holmes, as usual, is the Smartest Man In The Room (unless Moriarty is there), but now he has the Smartest Woman In The Room working with him, so he has someone who can keep up with him and bring her own unique expertise to bear. This makes for a different dynamic than with Dr. Watson of old, but it works because Skye and Holmes are spouses as well as business partners.

If you like a good detective story, don’t mind your hard SF to have a bit of parallel universes or like a good alternate reality tale then this series is a good choice.

Posted in The Exploding Spaceship

The Exploding Spaceship Release Day Edition: Review of Warbound by Larry Correia, Pirates of the Timestream by Steve White and Tour of Duty by Michael Z. Williamson

Posted on 2013-08-06 at 21:10 by angelablackwell

Review of Warbound by Larry Correia (Baen hardback, August 6, 2013)

This is the third and concluding volume in Larry Correia’s pulps-inspired Grimnoir Chronicles, and it details Faye’s experiences hiding from the Grimnoir, attending Whisper’s funeral, and seeking a mentor from the elders in Europe. The Grimnoir think she is dead, so as Jake and the others prepare to board the great dirigible airship UBF Traveler, they are all in mourning.

The Traveler is off to Japan to solve the Chairman problem and get the rest of the Japanese to fight the Pathfinder. The methods and plan for accomplishing this change as the book progresses, and of course things never turn out as Jake envisions. Toru’s presence causes strife among those crew harmed by the Imperium, but Jake manages to keep them from killing each other.

Their trip to China gives an interesting view of the fringes of the Imperium, as well as the Chinese mafia. They also encounter the Chinese Grimnoir, whose membership is very few because so many of them have been betrayed to the Imperium.

After her enlightening trip across Europe, Faye catches up with the Traveler crew just in time to enter the battle, which is quite a shock to those who thought she was dead. After all her travels she better understands herself and her position as the Spellbound, but she is still worried about turning evil. This concern makes her think a bit more before acting, which is a good thing because it reduces her impulsiveness to a more tolerable level. She is such a quick thinker that even slowing down she is far faster than everyone else.

We get a hint at the future of Francis and Faye, so maybe a future series will give us an idea of their later lives, perhaps even those of their children. Faye and Jake are the most interesting characters in the series, so hopefully we can see them again in a prequel (maybe something about Jake’s war experience) or a sequel (how about the Grimnoir in the 1950s?). Faye shows all the normal doubts of a young woman her age, but appears to self-confident enough that she will make a self-assured woman and mother down the road.

This urban fantasy/pulp series is set in an alternate world in which magic manifested in relatively modern times, so it comes out a science-based society with magic-based superheroes added. Much of the magic can affect the 1930s-era machines in these stories, but a look into the digital age of this universe would also be interesting.

The characters, their relationships, and the governmental supporting cast are all well-developed, and the plot is quite linear but with several bumps, detours, surprises and betrayals along the way.

The trilogy is brought to a satisfying end with all the plot points resolved, but since these are superheroes they can’t live happily ever after, so hopefully they can be revisited in a later time period when they again have to save the world…or the universe.

If you like historical urban fantasy, alternate history or old-school superheroes, then this is a good read for you. The body count is not as high as that in Correia’s Monster Hunter series but the gun info is detailed and accurate, so MHI lovers will probably also like this book.

Arrr, me Hearties! Review of Pirates of the Timestream by Steve White (Baen trade paperback, August 6, 2013)

Ahoy, mateys! Pull on your seven-league boots and set the Wayback Machine for seventeenth-century Jamaica, because in the latest adventure in Baen author Steve White’s series about Commander Jason Thanou of the Temporal Regulatory Authority the intrepid time agent has an up-close-and-personal encounter with the real pirates of the Caribbean.

In the previous book, Sunset of the Gods, Jason and his party of twenty-fourth-century time travelers are on an expedition to Ancient Greece when they discover a plot by the Transhumanists to alter the future by changing the past.

Tenses always become a great hairy mess when time travel is involved, so please bear with Your Humble Reviewers for a moment: In the twenty-third century, The Transhumanists were a group of genetically- and bionically-enhanced superhumans who had held Earth under a century-long dictatorship, and by Jason Thanou’s time in the late twenty-fourth century, the Tranhumanists have been overthrown for about a hundred years, and humanity at large has been secure in the belief that that particular nightmare was now just a distant memory. Unfortunately for humanity, the Transhumanists have a time machine…

An expedition to the eighteenth century finds the remains of a twenty-fourth-century spacecraft on a Caribbean island, a wreck that had been there for 100 years when the expedition found it. As the Authority has the only known temporal displacement stage on Earth, as well as a strict policy against sending futuristic technology into past eras, it is clear that they didn’t send it, and Jason assembles a team to go to the seventeenth century and search for Tranhumanist activity.

They do not have to search for long, either: soon after they arrive they encounter Tranhumanist goons who are pursuing Zenobia, a formidable and resourceful female pirate who, as it turns out, is more than she appears to be, and who is also an acquaintance one of the biggest names in the region during that time: Henry Morgan. Yes, the Henry Morgan.

To synopsize any further would have us sailing into The Spoiler Triangle, but when Morgan appears the story shifts into not just high gear, but hyperdrive. In fact, the book might as well be called The Adventures of Henry Morgan and All Those Other Not Quite as Interesting People. It is clear that White is having an absolute blast at this point, because Morgan practically swaggers off the page and helps himself to the contents of the liquor cabinet; he steals every scene he’s in. And this is not an exaggeration: Henry Morgan really was that much bigger-than-life.

Steve White loves history; it informs in some way or other every book he has written; any time a historical detail comes up you can bet that it has been scrupulously researched, and Pirates of the Timestream is no different. As he has done with his previous Temporal Regulatory Authority stories, White provides a peek “behind the curtain” in his Author’s Notes.

Steve White’s latest is a must-read for fans of science fiction, time travel, or old-fashioned bigger-than-life sea epics. Even the cover art has a piratical twist: it was produced by Don Maitz, whose best-known work is the image of the character that adorns bottles of Captain Morgan Spiced Rum. One can just picture Henry Morgan himself reclining on a sun-drenched Jamaica beach, reading Steve’s book with a flagon close to hand of the rum that carries his name.

Review of Tour of Duty: Stories and Provocations by Michael Z. Williamson (Baen trade paperback, August 6, 2013)

This is a volume of short stories and short non-fiction pieces by the author of the Freehold series. If you are unfamiliar with Michael Z Williamson, his non-fiction pieces will give you an idea of how interesting he is. He is extremely funny as he writes about manly things, tells of his adventures with the police, tells stories from his deployments and writes as his SCA persona.  His sense of humor must have come from the Scottish side of his family as this Scottish-English, Canadian, American writes with a quirky sense of humor for an American. He reminds the reviewers of Scottish humor they see in the UK.

His stories set in Freehold and in Mercedes Lackey’s Valdemar universe are all well written and interesting. He writes some very odd characters who, if they were RPG characters, would have many quirks and sometimes even mental disadvantages.  In his non-fiction he writes about firearms (he deals in bladed weapons at many SF conventions including Dragon Con) and manly things like grilling. His real life adventures make for interesting reading although many were probably not very fun times for him and his family members when they occurred. He is involved with the Society for Creative Anachronism and attends Pennsic every year, so some of his writings are from his character, Crazy Einar.  Some of the Valdemar stories are written with his wife, Gail Sanders, whom he describes as a one night stand that hasn’t gone home after more than 20 years. Like many geeky couples, including your humble reviewers who met at a Star Trek fan club meeting, Mike met his wife at a geeky gathering, a convention. She was wearing leather, spandex, boots and a sword and he swore it was a one night stand.  A month later she drove to Milwaukee to join him at another convention, then the next month she stopped by his apartment on her way to Florida, but she never got to Florida and still hasn’t. It is 22 years later and Gail is still there.

If you like a good warrior story with realistic weapons and fighting, but heart and characterization, then give Mike’s work a try. The story stories in this volume will provide a good sample, but his novels are good too. Check the Baen website for info: http://www.baen.com .

Posted in The Exploding Spaceship

The Exploding Spaceship Family Reading Release Day Edition - Reviews of Control by Kim Curran and Weight of Souls by Bryony Pearce

Posted on 2013-08-06 at 19:18 by angelablackwell

Review of Control by Kim Curran (Strange Chemistry paperback, August 6, 2013)

This young adult science fiction tale is set in modern day Britain and centers on a group of teens who work for the Agency for the Regulation and Evaluation of Shifters, or ARES for short. Shifters are people who can go back over their life choices and take an alternative path; normally, only teens are shifters, but adults can acquire the ability by having that section of a child’s brain that grants this power transplanted into their own, a surgical procedure that is highly illegal. Scott and Aubrey are teens who are responsible for finding those shifting adults and capturing them. Control is the second volume in the series with the first one being called Shift.

Shifters come in different types including ones who can use their abilities to influence the decisions of others. Running into an adult with this power makes Scott and Aubrey’s job very difficult and dangerous.  Scott can remember the alternate realities that he was experiencing before the shift so he realizes when things change but not necessarily what was shifted to create the new reality. He can also fix things so other shifters can’t change their decisions. Aubrey can spot shift points but she can’t remember previous realities.

The two teens find all the adult shifters but one, of whom they can find no trace. Eventually someone who knows the adult gives them a clue and they are able to find the last one.  The fight with the last adult shifter is complicated, dangerous, involves multiple shifts and some major society changes including one which has a major impact on Scott and Aubrey’s relationship.  It will be interesting to see the story pick up from here because the tone will be very different because of the society changes.

Scott and Aubrey are interesting teens who seem typical of British teens, but for an American audience they may seem very independent for their age, particularly when it comes to getting around by themselves.  Their relationship is kind of a blur between best friends and young lovers which is typical of teens, who often get together because they share an interest, in this case the ability to shift, which results in a job for a government group which acts as kind of a school for shifters. The Britain they inhabit is realistic, but the various shifts mean it is not our modern day Britain. It is interesting to see the teens running around Britain but a version which may suddenly result in a strange building or a missing building compared to our world. American readers should find the British setting interesting and informative without the story being filled with data dumps.  Solving a mystery while people shift your reality results in some interesting changes and coincidences which allow Aubrey and Scott to find the last adult shifter but they are left in a very different situation in how the ARES operates and what each of their positions in ARES are.  The next book will be in a universe which will have completely new rules from the one in place when this book started so having the characters explore that world will be interesting and different from the first two volumes.  The characters and plot are interesting enough to keep an adult interested and the type of decisions the teens choose to change could be an important family discussion point if both young adults and parents read the book. For any readers of near future science fiction whether they be teens or adults, this is a good reading choice.

Review of The Weight of Souls by Bryony Pearce (Strange Chemistry hardback Aug 6, 2013)

This story is an urban fantasy, but the only fantastical elements are the ghosts seen by the main character. Taylor Oh is a 16 year old high school student who is not in the popular crowd at her school.  Taylor is cursed such that if the ghost of a murder victim touches her, a black mark results and the only way to remove the mark is to solve the problem and help the ghost move on.  School bully Justin and his gang torment Taylor and everyone else who is not part of the “in” crowd.

Things take a turn for the strange when Justin is murdered, and then his ghost touches Taylor when he realizes she can see him but does not realize what his touch will do.

There’s a small problem with removing the mark: Justin doesn’t know who killed him so Taylor doesn’t know who to go after to transfer the mark to them. Taylor has to spend time with Justin’s ghost and with his friends, and get herself into their group in order to find out the truth. This leads to some interesting changes among the personal relationships of the high school students.

The story is set in London and Taylor seems to be a typical teen other than the curse problem and the fact that her mother is dead. For American readers she will appear to be very independent and mature, and the setting will be interesting because of its cultural differences. The mixing of cultures and religions in neighborhoods without anyone thinking about it is common in Britain, but is different from the cultural situation in the US, so the way teens of different colors and cultures relate to one another will be an interesting discovery for US teens. The teens going into a pub will probably shock some American readers but this is typical in Britain.  You think her high school is a typical one until she begins to understand exactly what the “in” crowd does in their spare time.  This activity is what resulted in Justin’s death and the resolution for his ghost takes a long time and results in great risk to Taylor.

Taylor is an in depth character and you get a good depiction of her dad as well (and it is not a very favorable view of him or of his relationship to his dead wife).  She has one friend named Hannah, who is poorly used by Taylor and gets somewhat the bad end of the situation by the end of the book. Justin is actually more of a character as a ghost than he is before his death because as a ghost he actually explains himself to Taylor, which he never did before he was killed.

The plot is structured much like a murder mystery since in this case the victim’s ghost doesn’t know the truth either, but all is eventually revealed and is more complicated than expected, being more motivated by the desire to keep secrets than any desire to kill Justin.  Taylor makes some decisions which push her limits so extremely that you think she might break, but as many teens have shown, that age is usually able to bounce back from stress.

This is a good read for those who like a good ghost story, or like urban fantasy which is heavy on the urban and light on the fantasy (no elves or fairies here, just sometimes desperate ghosts).  For American readers the London setting is different and enlightening. The interpersonal relationships are well done and most of the characters have something in them which can draw sympathy from readers but the father/daughter relationship is unusual in some ways, but typical once the father’s motivation is understood. The views of the different groups in the high school and what they think and feel is quite realistic and informative and could possibly be helpful for readers to understand groups they are not part of. Taylor switches groups as the book progresses so the reader gets multiple group viewpoints. This is definitely one of the most interesting and engrossing high school tales Your Humble Reviewers have read in a long time. It should keep other adults interested as well, plus the teen/parent issues could definitely make for some interesting family discussion.

Posted in The Exploding Spaceship

Monday: One last day with Karen Lord in Chapel Hill, and a Games and Narrative Panel at the Durham County Library

Posted on 2013-08-05 at 03:29 by montsamu

It’s a big last day in the Triangle area for Barbados author Karen Lord. First up at 10 AM she’ll be the main guest on weekly local radio program Carolina Book Beat on WCOM-FM, which broadcasts to Chapel Hill and Carrboro on 103.5 FM, and streams online for pretty much anywhere with an Internet connection.

Then in the afternoon the Chapel Hill Public Library hosts, well to be more specific: “The Friends of the Chapel Hill Public Library host the popular Meet-the-Author Teas. The teas offer the public a chance to hear a published author read from and discuss their works. Refreshments are served at 3:30. The program with the author will run from 4:00 to 5:00. Free. Please come and listen! The program will take place in Meeting Room A.”

Finally, at 7 PM, Flyleaf Books hosts Karen for a reading and signing [Facebook Event], along with a just-announced special guest, Carrboro’s own Writers of the Future winner, Alex Wilson.

So! If you haven’t had a chance to catch Karen on her whirlwind tour of the Carolinas, here are your last chances.

Meanwhile! It’s quite a Monday in the Triangle, as also at 7 pm, the Durham County Library is hosting a Games and Narrative Panel Discussion with Richard Dansky, Mur Lafferty, Jason Morningstar, and Daniel Solis, in the 1st Floor Auditorium of the downtown Main Branch. “Whether we’re gathered around a table or squinting at a screen, we have always used games to create and share stories. Join local game designers and authors for a panel discussion on stories, literacy, and games (both on, and off, the screen).”

Posted in events | Tagged karen lord