25 March 2013

Review: The Mirage


The Mirage
The Mirage by Matt Ruff

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



I love a good alternate history/reality story, and the idea behind The Mirage piqued my interest quite a bit, as it was an alternate take on the 11 September attacks as if it were a non-unified Christian American fundamentalist group that hijacked planes and sent them into towers in Baghdad.

There's a lot of great things about this book. The concept alone works great, but there's a lot more for that. There's faux-Wikipedia entries for a lot of the history and people involved in the time frame, we get alt-universe appearances by all the major players as well as some surprises, and there's even some aspects of the story that crossed genres that I didn't expect.

What works well for me, though, was that the book was definitely political in nature in a lot of ways, but not in a way that the ideas didn't work. You end up chuckling at the connections as opposed to being offended if you don't quite agree, and I assume the same reaction in the other direction. It's really solid.

Really, the book is just because there were a lot of great ideas in a firmly executed concept. I had a ton of fun seeing how Ruff decided to go about the story, trying to predict what might be coming next, and seeing what crossovers worked and what kind of parallels between universes Ruff drew. It's really something I think everyone would like, especially if you think geopolitical thrillers or high-concept mainstream fiction can be your thing.



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17 March 2013

Review: Black Wings of Cthulhu: Tales of Lovecraftian Horror


Black Wings of Cthulhu: Tales of Lovecraftian Horror
Black Wings of Cthulhu: Tales of Lovecraftian Horror by S.T. Joshi

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



As a fan of all things Lovecrafty, a new anthology of Mythos short fiction curated by ST Joshi, the leading Lovecraftian scholar was very exciting.

As someone who doesn't really love short fiction, and has found a lot of the mythos short story collections wanting, I was a little ambivalent about trying yet another one.

The good news, overall, is that Black Wings of Cthulhu is good. It's not superlative by any means, but it's not a disaster like many of the other compilations I've read. It's good, and that's a good thing.

The problem with the book in a nutshell might be the use of the more cosmic aspects as well as the unseen madness. This is partly because of my preferences: my favorite stories in the book included ones where we could actually experience the horror first hand with the protagonists of the story (like in the tales involving the woman who bought meat, or the man who picked up the tentacled coin). The stories I enjoyed the least were much more abstract. This didn't mean that those stories were necessarily failures, but more that they may not have been as interesting as perhaps they could have been. This isn't to say that any of them come close to the eye-rolling tendencies some Mythos stories I've read have had (such as the "Cthulhu is in my computer modem" story I read some time ago), but too many of the stories in this collection ended about as softly as they began, with little to stick with.

Overall, the book is what it is. It's definitely worth picking up if you're a hardcore Mythos fan, because there's enough good (along with the stories up top, Laird Barron's story is predictably superlative, and there are at least 3 or 4 others that are quite solid) to go along with the not-so-good, and the stories are almost all short enough where you won't be making a major investment of time or energy if you dislike a handful.



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16 March 2013

Review: The Lie


The Lie
The Lie by Chad Kultgen

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



At this point, I'm generally hatereading these books after being horrified by The Average American male. I found The Lie to be better on a whole, since it actually has a coherent plot that isn't completely centered on how terrible women apparently are, but still.

Long and short, the book alternates between three people: a person (Brett) who could very well be a college age protagonist from Average, his best friend who is a good guy even though Brett does everything in his power to try and change that, and Heather, a girl that Brett eventually dates. Things just get more and more terrible until there's basically nothing redeeming left about anyone involved, and it's just tragic. There's hatred of college, hatred of women, of prostitutes, of sororities, of business, or...everything except sex, which is something that should be pursued at every opportunity, and only out of a sense of revenge or anger.

And yet the book was still really readable, and actually had moments in it that The Average American Male did not. If the book could cut back on so much of the outrageous offensive stuff, it might actually be something that could be recommended to other people. Instead, it's like an episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia crossed with the movie Very Bad Things without showing the self-awareness necessary to ensure the audience understands that this is satire or a joke. It's kind of unfortunate.



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12 March 2013

Review: Poison


Poison
Poison by Bridget Zinn

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



It's difficult to discuss this book without discussing the fact that the author, Bridget Zinn, passed away between completion and publication. It means reading and thinking about the book not as much in terms of the book itself, but rather what could have been.

The story itself is fun. The lead girl is a potions master. She'd has a pet pig. She's good with a crossbow. She had to kill the future ruler of the empire, who is also her best friend.

So it's a fun, interesting read that toys with some different ideas. It had an opportunity to be a series and obviously can't be. This is why it is hard to discuss without the context of the clear talent that has been lost in Zinn. I definitely recommend it independent of the author, but it will be hard not to keep that tragedy in mind.



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11 March 2013

Review: The Boys Volume 12: The Bloody Doors Off


The Boys Volume 12: The Bloody Doors Off
The Boys Volume 12: The Bloody Doors Off by Garth Ennis

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



The Boys comes to its final conclusion in this volume. It's a weird one, because the bulk of the resolution comes in volume 11, except we finally get Butchers endgame and tie up the remaining loose ends.

The biggest story, the overall plot, is the bigger issue overall. I can't really say for sure I love where the Butcher ended up in this book. On one hand, I definitely feel as if the monomaniacal way Butcher wants to end things makes some sense given what we know about the character. The Supes are bad, Voight is bad, and so on. On the other hand, that he spends so much time building this group up simply to tear them apart? Allegiances seemed to matter for Butcher, but maybe not. As we see in his final scenes, everything he does seems to have a purpose. I'm just not sure I'm buying this specific one.

The end is a little more nihilistic than I would have preferred as well. Outside of Hughie and Annie, the idea that it's just going to be a new rotation all over again...I don't know. It doesn't really make sense with the "kill 'em all" attitude the series has had.

I can nitpick all day, though. At the end of it, the way things went about concluding was pretty satisfying, especially when I felt things were essentially done. For a series I went into with a ton of skepticism, with imagery and ultraviolence I had a lot of trouble with, the fact that this story made me place a lot of other comic trades on the back burner says a lot about how addictive the series was and how strong the writing is. Herogasm aside, I don't feel as if there was a significant miss anywhere along the line, even with the brutality. There's something to be said about that.

I wish I could recommend this series to everyone, but that wouldn't be right. There's too much questionable stuff to unequivocally say "yep, this is how to do a comic about superheroes gone bad, and you'd love it." But, really? This is the way to do a comic about superheroes gone bad, because it probably would be ultraviolent, with a lot of weird sex and bad drugs and terrible people and worse outcomes. And maybe that was the point - that we should be glad we don't need the Butcher. I know I am.



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10 March 2013

Review: The Selection


The Selection
The Selection by Kiera Cass

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



Holy crap this was good.

If someone told me that there was a book out there that was a mix of the politics and selection aspects of The Hunger Games with the ridiculousness of The Bachelor, I probably would have scoffed. That so many people were raving about this book, however, meant I had to give it a shot. I'm glad I did.

The basics are that the prince of this future America is now looking for a bride, and tradition holds that all eligible young women of a certain age have the opportunity to be part of The Selection, where a number of the girls are chosen to live at the palace and get to know the prince, and he slowly narrows the group down until he finds the right girl. Our protagonist, also named America, is part of one of the lower castes and is in love with another boy, but applies to be part of The Selection in order to help feed her family, and surprisingly gets in. As things fall apart with her boyfriend, she moves into the palace and things get very interesting.

The book is great on so many levels. The concept behind it is fairly silly, and the book does a good job winking a bit at the entire idea. Even with that said, it's a simple, well-constructed world with the history and the arbitrary caste system, and the way the world got to be what it is tends to be more on the realistic side, which is a fascinating change of pace. America is a great character, the prince is exactly what you'd want, and there are a ton of little wrinkles along the way to keep this from being completely predictable.

This book, to me, fulfills the promise of the super-disappointing Matched. Too many of the current YA dystopia books have had disappointing sequels, as well, and knowing that book two is about six weeks away...I'm excited. Definitely worth your time and energy if you're looking for a lighter fluffy YA book.



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08 March 2013

Review: Etiquette & Espionage


Etiquette & Espionage
Etiquette & Espionage by Gail Carriger

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



I fully and completely loved the first book in Gail Carriger's Parasol Protectorate series, so the announcement that she was starting a YA series was very exciting for me. Even more exciting was that the book is even better than I anticipated, and is a ton of fun with possibly some of the best steampunk elements for a YA book since Philip Reeve's Mortal Engines books.

The positives about this book are that the tropes are fairly generic: a girl is sent off to finishing school, the school is actually a front for more nefarious/useful operations, and our heroine, Sophoronia, is surprisingly good at things so far.

Where the book succeeds is the humor, which is laugh out loud funny at times, the winks to the fact that everything is a little ridiculous and Carriger knows it, and a lot of the advanced ideas for the time frame, from racial relationships to understanding differences (there are, after all, vampires and werewolves).

The book is probably closer to a 4.5, but who cares? It's the most fun I've had with a YA book in some time, and it makes me want to dive into the next book in both this series and Parasol as soon as possible. Highly recommended.



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04 March 2013

Review: The Average American Male


The Average American Male
The Average American Male by Chad Kultgen

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



This was one of the most horrifying things I've ever read.

The plot is paper thin, let's start there. The book is about one guy who is unhappy with his girlfriend, and it's 200 pages of his girlfriend, getting out of that relationship, getting into a new one, with some small asides with his gay friend and life in general.

It sounds all sweet and typical until you actually read the thing, which is just a crazy rant that pushes every available envelope until they're crumpled into the wall, where Kultgen proceeds to set the envelopes on fire and then urinate on them in an attempt to put them out. If you think that's a crude way to describe the book, I know full well that you haven't read it, because that's tame compared to his descriptions of women, sex, love, and whatever else.

This is an angry, angry, hate-filled rant. It has its moments of amusement, but it's so over the top that it really comes back around to nearly offensive, and I don't offend easily at all. I can't exactly tell if this is meant to be a parody, and I hope to all that is good and pure in the world that this is over the top on purpose, but I really have no idea how this gets published or gets positive attention or...I don't know at all. I kind of hate myself that I finished this book, even though I can justify it by noting it was a very fast read. I hate myself even more that I'm interested in the sequel just to see where the heck this is going to go next.

Yikes.



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03 March 2013

Review: Above Suspicion


Above Suspicion
Above Suspicion by Helen MacInnes

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



For as much as I enjoy spy movies and some modern spy books, I am woefully underread on the classics of the genre. I've seen a ton of Bond movies, but never read the Broccoli books. And when Above Suspicion landed on my doorstep last week, I learned that "the queen of spy-story writers" was not only someone I had never heard of, but was responsible for some important fiction to the genre. I suppose I should just dive in from there, right?

I'll say this much, first: I got to read the reissued version that Titan Books is putting out, and it's a pretty impressive tome. It's a well done paperback version, the text feels crisp and clean (I'm not sure if there was any editorial cleanup, but it feels modern), and the covers really bring an old text up to date. The book itself, while seventy plus years old, also reads quick and current, with little in the way of jarring wording or plot twists that would throw a reader off (except for the constant references to the coming World War).

The story itself is solid as well: Robert and Frances are spies for the United Kingdom, and are trusted to head out on a mission that very quickly escalates into a massive European trek involving Nazis and a lot of racing against time and each other. It's a story that dives in within 10 pages, and generally doesn't stop until the very end.

If I have some downsides to it, it's that the book does feel a little long (which may just be a relic of the time), even if it moves pretty quickly. Other than that, though, it's a story that holds up over two generations now, and the reissues are apparently going to continue for MacInnes's works throughout 2013. I look forward to reading more of them as time goes on, and hopefully they find a new audience in this new century.



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Review: Above Suspicion


Above Suspicion
Above Suspicion by Helen MacInnes

My rating: 0 of 5 stars



For as much as I enjoy spy movies and some modern spy books, I am woefully underread on the classics of the genre. I've seen a ton of Bond movies, but never read the Broccoli books. And when Above Suspicion landed on my doorstep last week, I learned that "the queen of spy-story writers" was not only someone I had never heard of, but was responsible for some important fiction to the genre. I suppose I should just dive in from there, right?

I'll say this much, first: I got to read the reissued version that Titan Books is putting out, and it's a pretty impressive tome. It's a well done paperback version, the text feels crisp and clean (I'm not sure if there was any editorial cleanup, but it feels modern), and the covers really bring an old text up to date. The book itself, while seventy plus years old, also reads quick and current, with little in the way of jarring wording or plot twists that would throw a reader off (except for the constant references to the coming World War).

The story itself is solid as well: Robert and Frances are spies for the United Kingdom, and are trusted to head out on a mission that very quickly escalates into a massive European trek involving Nazis and a lot of racing against time and each other. It's a story that dives in within 10 pages, and generally doesn't stop until the very end.

If I have some downsides to it, it's that the book does feel a little long (which may just be a relic of the time), even if it moves pretty quickly. Other than that, though, it's a story that holds up over two generations now, and the reissues are apparently going to continue for MacInnes's works throughout 2013. I look forward to reading more of them as time goes on, and hopefully they find a new audience in this new century.



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01 March 2013

Review: Flat-Out Love


Flat-Out Love
Flat-Out Love by Jessica Park

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



A different YA book that I grabbed off of the Amazon Prime lending library, and I'm actually pretty glad I did.

The story follows Julie, who is starting college in Boston and runs into an issue where her college housing has fallen out and she's stranded in the city with nowhere to live. Her mother's old college roommate still lives in the city with her kids, however, and she decides to take Julie in. Julie quickly learns that things are a little weird. Finn, the oldest kid, is traveling the world and isn't around, but his younger sister keeps a lifesize cardboard cutout of him around. The other brother, Matt, is a socially-awkward MIT student. Julie has to balance school with this strange family that's sort of adopted her for the short term.

I truly did not see where this book was going, but really appreciated where it ended up by the time I was finished. It's a surprisingly chaste book for the genre, and it takes a few chances I didn't expect. The book is very professional and well-written, which can't be said for a lot of independently-published books, and it just works. It's stunning it wasn't picked up by any major house.

If you have the Prime lending library, grab this as your freebie. It's worth your time. If not, it's under $4 at Amazon, well worth your money.



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