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Review of EXTRAORDINARY by Nancy Werlin
Extraordinary by Nancy Werlin My rating: 4 of 5 stars A bargain between the faerie and human worlds has gone wrong, wreaking havoc among the faeries. Mallory and Ryland, a fey brother and sister, are dispatched by the faerie queen to the human world in a last-ditch effort to salvage the situation. Their mission: to masquerade as humans in order to manipulate Phoebe, a descendant of the original human bargain-maker, into fulfilling the the terms of the pact. There are familiar paranormal elements here (faeries–yeah, OK), and familiar romance elements as well: good girl falls for bad boy who treats her like dirt yet it takes her the whole book to figure out that he’s a jerk and she should kick him to the curb. Werlin does provide an internally consistent framework for this scenario, since the reader knows that Phoebe is under Ryland’s magical influence; every now and then…
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Review of DEVIANTS by Maureen McGowan
Deviants by Maureen McGowan My rating: 4 of 5 stars The Dome is the last community of human survivors on an asteroid-devastated Earth, which is now the province of savage Shredders and lethal Dust. Or so say the privileged elite who run the Dome. But when orphaned, 16-year-old Glory–whose power to kill with a glance makes her one of the Deviants who are feared and hated by the Dome’s inhabitants–is forced to run for her life to protect her crippled brother, she discovers that the world, and the Dome, are nothing like she has been taught to believe. The repressive society that brainwashes its members in order to perpetuate its survival is a familiar dystopian trope. Familiar also is Glory’s first-person present-tense narrative voice, and the love triangle that presents her with two toothsome potential boyfriends (each, of course, with a dark side). DEVIANTS doesn’t feel derivative, however, due to…
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Review of EMBASSYTOWN by China Mieville
Embassytown by China Miéville My rating: 5 of 5 stars I won’t even attempt to summarize the complicated premise of EMBASSYTOWN. The novel is a bit slow to start, and the characters aren’t deeply drawn–especially the protagonist, who is more a narrative device than a real character (rather like the vestigial narrators in some 19th century Russian novels, who serve principally as camera eyes to reveal the doings of others). I also have some misgivings about the premise–for instance, if the Ariekei’s unique language doesn’t allow for abstraction, how could they ever have conceived of the need for similes? But these are quibbles. Overall, EMBASSYTOWN is a beautifully written, profoundly original, intellectually challenging, and completely immersive novel that demonstrates yet again that China Mieville is one of the finest writers currently working in any genre. I was strongly reminded of Ursula Le Guin’s THE DISPOSSESSED–not because of any similarities of…
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Review of SHIP BREAKER by Paolo Bacigalupi
Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi My rating: 4 of 5 stars A coming-of-age novel that’s a bit slow to start, but ultimately engrossing. What stands out for me aren’t so much the characters–protagonists Nailer and Nita are complex and believable, but many of the supporting characters are sketchily drawn–or the plot, which has a familiar shape–shipwrecked rich girl rescued by gutter rat, flight from bad people wanting to use rich girl as pawn, a big fight, a hairsbreadth rescue–but the meticulously detailed, multi-layered post-climate change world in which the action takes place. Bacigalupi presents a scenario in which our own “Accelerated Age” and the damage it wrought is just a memory, and a new society has grown up in and around its relics and submerged former metropolitan areas. From the hardscrabble coastal region where Nailer and his crew dismantle the rusted hulks of supertankers for salvage, to the drowned city…
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Review of WHEN THE SEA IS RISING RED by Cat Hellisen
When the Sea is Rising Red by Cat Hellisen My rating: 4 of 5 stars A haunting YA fantasy by a debut author. Seventeen-year-old Felicita, a sheltered aristocrat, flees the rigid traditions and stifling conventions of her caste, taking refuge in the slums and falling in with a rag-tag band of outcasts, grifters, and revolutionaries. Struggling to adjust to her new life, she plunges headlong into a dangerous infatuation, and is swept up in events she doesn’t understand. By the time she realizes the true nature of what she’s become part of, it’s too late to escape. This is a pretty familiar plot line. But Hellisen keeps it fresh with a determined and realistically conflicted heroine, interesting characters, and truly stellar world building. Atmospheric descriptions and lyrical prose bring the seaside city of Pelimburg–populated by humans, selkies and vampires (who aren’t like any other vampires you’ve met), animated by strange…
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Review of THE NIGHT CIRCUS by Erin Morgenstern
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern My rating: 4 of 5 stars Really 3.5 stars, but I rounded up because of the quality of the writing. A circus of dreams, open only during the hours of darkness. An ancient duel between two powerful sorcerers, enacted by proxy through a succession of students who are never allowed to understand why they are competing, or for what. A love story as doomed as it is inevitable. Lovely writing, sumptuous imagery, ingenious and exotic magics. All the ingredients, it would seem, for a truly extraordinary book. And yet, though this is a novel of wonderful parts, somehow the whole didn’t add up for me. Perhaps because the cool present-tense narration is distancing, making it difficult to engage with the characters. Perhaps because the multiple points of view–including the reader’s, in a guided tour of the circus–are too diffuse, and these different story threads…
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Review of DEARLY, DEPARTED by Lia Habel
Dearly, Departed by Lia Habel My rating: 4 of 5 stars Sexy teenage zombies? Yeah, I was skeptical too. But in Dearly, Departed Lia Habel just about made me believe it. This is a fun adventure/romance with an intriguingly unusual take on the zombie theme. Yes, there’s a zombie plague, with hordes of ravening flesh-eaters–but some zombies wake up with their minds intact and are able to refrain from gobbling flesh. Of course they require a lot of medical and mechanical intervention by sympathetic living people to keep them from, well, rotting away–Habel comes up with some ingenious steampunkish scenarios for zombie maintenance–but otherwise they can live pretty much like normal people. This YA debut novel is well-plotted and paced, with exciting action scenes and a host of appealing characters (and, of course, some pretty horrible bad guys). The romance between the living heroine and the zombie hero develops believably,…