dystopia Archives - Page 5 of 6

Yzabel / December 3, 2013

Review: Solomon the Peacemaker

Solomon the Peacemaker by Hunter Welles

My rating: [rating=4]

Summary:

Vincent Alan Chell is coy about answering the questions of his captor. He’d much rather talk about his dead wife, Yael, whose suicide somehow led him into captivity. Or Preacher, the bearded leader of a cult-like group that meets in the bowels of a church basement. Or the Peacemaker, the computer intelligence that has guaranteed peace between nations for half a century.

Chell describes a world where cultural norms have changed the way people interact with technology. Humanoid robots, though ubiquitous, are confined inside private homes, giving the impression that all is well with the world. Which may be the case. Yet Preacher and his group are convinced that humankind is already in the thrall of the Peacemaker. And they might be right.

Solomon the Peacemaker, Hunter Welles’s debut novel, explores the limits of technology, nonviolence, love, and memory in the twenty-second century as it races to its incredible conclusion.

Review:

(I got an e-copy of this book through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.)

I was first attracted by the cover, which matches both my love of red/white/black colour schemes and made me wonder what about the character on it (is she connected to something, or does she have a rope around her neck?). The novel also deals with a few themes that usually interest me: how technology can affect human life, people voluntarily putting on blindfolds, and a character who, being captive, may or may have not committed some kind of crime.

It’s worth saying that Solomon the Peacemaker is particular, and is probably of the make-it-or-break-it kind. First because it unfolds in a somewhat unusual manner, in that the captor’s questions are never printed, and you have to fill in the blanks yourself, resulting in either liking it or feeling that this “breaks” your reading. After the first few pages, time for me to get used to this method, Chell’s “dialogue” parts made it easy to imagine what the questions might have been, how the interrogator may have been trying to lead him to answer specifically, and so on. However, while it worked quite well for me, it may not work for someone else. Things may also be a little confusing, since a lot of background information isn’t known, and you have to piece everything together. Due to the question/answer format, too, the narrator relies on a bit of exposition bordering on information-dumping, and this tends to force the story into more telling than showing.

But this is in the beginning, and after a short while, diving into the story became actually quite easy, as it focuses on characters, their relationships, and concepts that already exist in our time: Preacher’s cult-like church, for instance, or the hardships that can befall a marriage. Vincent tells about his life with Yael, of how their common aspirations started to differ after a while, and all the while, the Peacemaker remains looming in the background, unaware of how involved it is, how many unspoken dissensions it creates. The idea of peace being maintained across the whole world by an artificial intelligence is both fascinating and repelling, in that it raises many questions: are human beings so unable to do that by themselves that they have to resort to a machine? Is there even any hope? Also, the matter of the Host is freaky, and makes one wonder about individual sacrifice for the greater good.

I found a few things to be missing, although I suppose that including them might have cluttered the narrative. I would’ve liked to know more about the Outside, and whether is was as dangerous as the people “inside” believed it to be. I managed to make my own idea about it, but somehow, it would have been nice to get just a little more information about it. On the other hand, the whole context—the interrogation room, Chell’s knowledge that he’ll never get out of there without his brain picked apart, and his calm acceptance of this, fits the dystopian side of a world that appears perfect, yet is built on a lot of hypocrisy and damage kept hidden from public view (again, the Host comes to mind).

In the end, in spite of the couple of faults I found with it (usually, telling vs. showing is a breaker for me, but here I didn’t mind so much), Solomon the Peacemaker kept me fascinated until its conclusion. An expected conclusion, perhaps, yet one that still held quite some impact.

Yzabel / October 23, 2013

Review: Paradigm

Paradigm by Helen Stringer

My rating: [rating=3]

(I got this book from NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.)

Summary:

“If I ask you to do something, will you do it?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”

“Well, I don’t know what it is yet. But I’m guessing that death is the alternative, so I’m prepared to be reasonable.”

Sam Cooper is seventeen. He drives a cherry red 1968 GTO that he won on a bet, and spends his days exploring the open roads of the great American West. He should be living the teenage dream, but post-collapse America is a hard place to survive.

The United States is long dead, basic resources are getting scarcer, and no one on Earth has seen the stars since before he was born. Vast tracts of the country are now empty as people huddle together for safety. In all this chaos, Sam has survived on his wits and occasional luck. But a visit to the walled and prosperous Century City results in a split-second decision that changes everything. Soon Sam is on the run from the ruthless Carolyn Bast, and by something much more dangerous: MUTHA-a powerful artificial entity that has been watching and waiting for Sam’s return from the barren outlands. Sam unknowingly carries the key to something MUTHA can’t live without, something so dangerous that others are willing to kill him, or worse, to ensure that the great plex never possesses it.

Sam can’t stay one step ahead of them forever. His only hope is to unravel the secrets of his peculiar past and awaken the incredible power that sleeps within-because even in his beloved GTO, without the truth, Sam will never succeed in outracing the nightmare to come.

Review:

This novel range from “okay” to “I like it”. It is interspersed with good ideas and easily recognisable characters, and although some of the latter are a little bit on the cliché side, they still manage to stand on their own. (And let’s be honest: at some point, I do want clichés. I do want to picture the badass poncho-wearing girl slashing at enemies with knives in her hands and razor-blades woven in her braids. In fact, the illustrator in me wants to draw that.)

The villains were a little over the top at times, but I liked that they were also chessmasters, laying plans within plans within plans. Too often in books, I find the antagonists too simple-minded, so when I find one that actually remembers to anticipate, I’m glad.

What I liked less in “Paradigm” was how it could easily become confusing. It relies a lot on the reader’s intrisic understanding of vocabulary and concepts that is, indeed, part of regular readers’ of sci-fi… but not so much of others. Even though I managed to follow most of the technological ideas conveyed throughout the story, there were still moments when I had to flip back a few pages, or wonder if this or that explanation held water scientifically, or was just resting on wibbly-wobbly scientific notions. (My own knowledge in that regard isn’t fail-safe, so I can never be sure.)

The plot, too, is a bit all over the place. On the one hand, it gives off nice vibes of a mad chase; on the other, it also made me feel like the characters were always running around right and left, conveniently finding each other again, too. Things go fast, and you may not notice such details on the moment, but for me, they had a nagging tendency to come back to mind later. (I guess the main character, Sam, was confusing as well: he’s supposed to be smart, yet some of his reactions seemed to run contrary to the Sam I had learned to know until now.)

Last but not least, the romance part was simply useless. I enjoyed Alma’s badass streak and no-nonsense attitude, but friendship would’ve done the job just as well.

I’d give it a 2.5 stars, but decided to round it up to 3 all the same, because all in all, “Paradigm” kept me entertained. Still, I feel it necessary to point out that younger readers might be confused now and then by how the world is presented.

Yzabel / September 22, 2013

Dystopian YA worlds: Show us why they’re wrong

What follows is worth for any dystopian story, but I’ve noticed this phenomenon in YA dystopias, more specifically. It all arose from a discussion I was having on Goodreads, regarding a book I finished a few days ago, and I’ve been thinking it might be worth addressing in a blog post.

(Please note that I’m going to use a few existing books as examples, but that it doesn’t mean in any way that I’m attacking those. It’s just my opinion, and/or using them to illustrate my point, whether they actually fall into the issue or not. Also, I haven’t read every dystopian YA book here, so by all means, if you know of a counter-example, tell me about it, so that I can check it. I like this genre, after all, and I, masochistic creature that I am, am never against seeing my to-read pile grow.)

I’ve come to realise that one specific shortcoming in a lot of those novels (well, among the ones I’ve read so far) is the lack of a solid world-building, and the logical consequence of the author having to tell rather than show the reader why society in his/her book is bad. It’s Young Adult, so perhaps teenagers don’t really care about that, and I, on the other hand, am only paying attention because I’m trying to improve my own writing. Nevertheless, it tends to make it harder to enjoy those stories, which is too bad, since a lot of the ideas behind them are actually quite good, and could live up to high expectancies if only things were a little more developed in the beginning.

The format usually goes as this: one (or several) teenager(s) living in a dystopian society start as well-integrated citizens, at least on the outside, but soon come to questioning their world, and end up finding out that everything they know is wrong/being on the run/joining La Resistance/all of that. This is a gross simplification, but it’s still the traditional basis in most stories in that genre.

The problem, in my opinion, is that all too often, the world-building tends to be rushed from the beginning, in order to get more quickly to the “let’s escape”/rebellion part, and we as readers don’t get that much of a feeling for what existed before—and thus, no well-defined society against which to pitch the characters’ upcoming new life. Those dystopian societies are “bad” and we know it, of course, because we can compare them to our own. For instance, most readers would think “how horrible” when presented with the mandatory match-making in Matched by Ally Condie: young people are introduced to their match and expected to start planning their lives with him/her, when they don’t even know that person, have never met him/her, and the whole process is based on criteria entered into computers from the day those people are born. It leaves no room to free will, to spontaneously falling in love, to having a say in who you’re going to grow old with. Everybody, or almost, would normally find all of this wrong from the start, without having to be explained why it’s wrong.

However, this is all preliminary knowledge, and as both a reader and a writer, I think that we need to be shown in what ways exactly such societies are bad for the characters. Are the latter physically threatened? Repressed in what they really want? Are they living in fear, and how is that fear being spread by the authorities in charge? Are there regular descents into “dissident homes”, and “rebels” being paraded in front of everyone so that the “good people” won’t be tempted to follow suit? Do the powers that be stage terrorist acts and pin them down on so-called rebels to keep everyone else in line? Is the hero/ine suffering from the life s/he’s leading, or is s/he perfectly integrated? If integrated, what gets to shatter their core beliefs, then, and how exactly does it happen?

There are many more questions to ask and answer to here, but basically, my point is that the characters have to be placed in more than just one “wrong” situation, forced to react to those, for us to actually find their rebellion logical, even though we, as people, are already aware that their world is totally flawed. It’s not about what makes dystopian societies bad for us, but what makes them so for the characters.

And this is, unfortunately, where some novels fail, because they rely mostly on our knowledge as readers, on what our modern socities consider as right or wrong. In turn, this makes it harder, I think, to view the characters as human beings, as real people. Since we already know what makes their fight “righteous”, we’re told that they’re brave (or not), wilful (or not), hot-headed (or not), instead of being shown through more than one scene how exactly they’re all that, and what made them, or is making them become, that way. We’re told that X realises he’s a coward as he just stands there while his friends are fighting, when simply showing him doing exactly that would carry the point across just as well, and better (provided said scene is well-described and pulled the right way, evidently). We may be shown that the police, government, psi corps, military… is bad, because they do this and that bad thing, but this is usually in the beginning, and afterwards the story seems to wander away from this, and the feeling gets lost somewhere in the middle.

As said, not every YA dystopian story suffers from this. However, the problem arises in more than just one book now and then. Besides, for those among us who want to write such novels, it’s worth keeping in mind, in order to avoid falling in the same trap pit.

So, what novels did you read, that did or did not fit that description? And why do you feel the way you do about them?

Yzabel / August 18, 2013

Review: The Darkest Minds

The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken

My rating: [rating=3]

Summary:

When Ruby woke up on her tenth birthday, something about her had changed. Something alarming enough to make her parents lock her in the garage and call the police. Something that gets her sent to Thurmond, a brutal government “rehabilitation camp.” She might have survived the mysterious disease that’s killed most of America’s children, but she and the others have emerged with something far worse: frightening abilities they cannot control.

Now sixteen, Ruby is one of the dangerous ones.

When the truth comes out, Ruby barely escapes Thurmond with her life. Now she’s on the run, desperate to find the one safe haven left for kids like her—East River. She joins a group of kids who escaped their own camp. Liam, their brave leader, is falling hard for Ruby. But no matter how much she aches for him, Ruby can’t risk getting close. Not after what happened to her parents.

When they arrive at East River, nothing is as it seems, least of all its mysterious leader. But there are other forces at work, people who will stop at nothing to use Ruby in their fight against the government. Ruby will be faced with a terrible choice, one that may mean giving up her only chance at a life worth living.

Review:

Pleasant enough to read, and raising quite an amount of valid points about the wide black-to-white spectrum of human nature. Well, rather black than white in many cases here. It becomes clear enough, and soon enough, too, that whoever those kids encounter, they should be wary of–even their own kind. And yet, if they can’t even trust their kind, then what’s left to them?

Ruby came off as too whiny a lot of times. However, considering her powers, what happened because of them, and how she basically was ripped off from her life at the age of ten, to be thrown in a place where she didn’t exactly have the opportunity to develop other social skills than “must make myself inconspicuous in order to survive”, I could understand that she’d be wary of herself above anyone else. So it kind of made sense.

I’m not rating this book higher, though, because there were also a few things that bothered me. Among other things, the lack of urgency during the travelling parts. We’re told several times about how the Psi Corps (yes, sorry, black + psi letter = Psi Corps forever in my mind), bounty hunters, the League etc. are a danger and are chasing the kids, but the few encounters they have with such groups didn’t give me the thrills, so to speak; there were a couple of opportunities for something bad to happen, the characters were aware of it, you’d expect said bad thing to happen, and… nothing. It made the travelling part of the book less exciting than it could’ve been. Also, some things didn’t make that much sense (Thurmond and other camps could’ve been put to way darker uses way sooner: it would’ve worked pretty well in such a book), and others were a little too easy to predict. The Slip Kid, for instance: Checkhov’s gun—or, in this case, Chekhov’s portrait.

On the other hand, I liked the twist at the end, as well as Ruby’s decision. It was sad, but I feel that it was the only way out, all things considered, and no matter what, it makes me wonder what will happen next. Which means I’ll likely pick the next book when it’s out.

Yzabel / May 20, 2013

Review: Shades of Grey

Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde

My rating: [rating=5]

Summary:

Hundreds of years in the future, after the Something that Happened, the world is an alarmingly different place. Life is lived according to The Rulebook and social hierarchy is determined by your perception of colour.

Eddie Russett is an above average Red who dreams of moving up the ladder by marriage to Constance Oxblood. Until he is sent to the Outer Fringes where he meets Jane – a lowly Grey with an uncontrollable temper and a desire to see him killed.

For Eddie, it’s love at first sight. But his infatuation will lead him to discover that all is not as it seems in a world where everything that looks black and white is really shades of grey…

If George Orwell had tripped over a paint pot or Douglas Adams favoured colour swatches instead of towels . . . neither of them would have come up with anything as eccentrically brilliant as Shades of Grey.

Review:

This is the first book I read by this author, so I didn’t know what to expect, but now I can say I was delighted. However, I would recommend to handle this story, especially its first half, with a fair amount of focus: the author hands out information about his world bits by bits, and one needs to be quite careful in order to understand how it functions. On the other hand, this means no, or very little info-dumps, which is something I always appreciate.

I really liked the illogical and somewhat humorous aspects of this book. In a way, it reminded me of the movie “Brazil” (which I loved). The society Eddie Russet evolves in is of the “dead-tech” quality, with regular “leapbacks” outlawing some machines, means of transportation and other implements, making things go backwards little by little; a lot of its regulations make no sense, but people comply just because those are the Rules, and after so many centuries of abiding by the latter, they just don’t know what else to live by.

The idea of a world based on colour perception is also something I found pretty interesting, not to mention that it raises questions: why are people able to see some colours and not others? Or not to see at night at all? Evolutionary speaking, it makes no sense—and here’s where the genius lies, and what makes me hope that an answer will be given in the upcoming sequel(s): who or what designed people to evolve that way? The whole lack of logics behind that actually has got a place in the bigger picture, and fits the nonsense aspect of Fforde’s world here.

Mixing dystopia with humour isn’t such an easy job, but I think the author did well here. Moreover, to me it may even be more efficient than “100% serious” dystopias, in that it better highlights the really dark aspects of such a society.

Yzabel / April 4, 2013

Review: What’s Left of Me

What’s Left of Me by Kat Zhang

My rating: [rating=3]

Summary:

I should not exist. But I do.

Eva and Addie started out the same way as everyone else—two souls woven together in one body, taking turns controlling their movements as they learned how to walk, how to sing, how to dance. But as they grew, so did the worried whispers. Why aren’t they settling? Why isn’t one of them fading? The doctors ran tests, the neighbors shied away, and their parents begged for more time. Finally Addie was pronounced healthy and Eva was declared gone. Except, she wasn’t . . .

For the past three years, Eva has clung to the remnants of her life. Only Addie knows she’s still there, trapped inside their body. Then one day, they discover there may be a way for Eva to move again. The risks are unimaginable-hybrids are considered a threat to society, so if they are caught, Addie and Eva will be locked away with the others. And yet . . . for a chance to smile, to twirl, to speak, Eva will do anything.

Review:

3.5 stars more than 3, but I’m not sure if I’d wish to go to 4. I’ll have to think about it.

On the plus side, the narrative is quite unique, in that we see things from Eva’s point of view—Eca, who’s the “recessive” soul, the one who should have vanished long ago, and is all but an onlooker, unable to move, act or even simply speak physically. While this could’ve lent to a boring way of relating events one after the other, Kat Zhang manages to give her a voice that makes her very present, very involved; Eva refers to things such as “our hands, our eyes” to speak of Addie and herself, and her personality as well as how she lived through events quickly pulled me into the story.

I liked the relationship between the two “sisters/souls”, how they have different personalities, happen to fight, then make up, always having to pretend that they’re one person only, but doing their best to live together. Eva refuses to fade, and Addie clearly refuses to let her fade as well, wanting her by her side no matter what, no matter the risks. Perhaps Addie came off as a more egotistic person, and wasn’t always very likeable; on the other hand, this isn’t so surprising.

Also, the hybrids are an interesting concept, and I think the reader is led quite subtly to learn to recognize which persona is in control: after a while, I felt I didn’t even need Eva’s words to guess who she was looking at or speaking to.

On the downside, and here’s one of the reasons why I’m not giving this book a better mark, the dystopian/alternate history depicted in “What’s Left of Me” wasn’t too clearly drawn in my opinion. I couldn’t sense strong world-building behind it, and I hope that the next book will remedy to that. For instance, we can guess why being a hybrid might be bad (for instance, souls always competing with each other for control of the body, leading to madness) but all the examples of hybrids we’re shown throughout the story are, all in all, quite rational and balanced people, who manage to get along with their other half. Maybe things would’ve been more convincing if there had been a couple of ‘baddies’ thrown in, or anything else, actually, that would’ve shaken off the underlying, nagging feeling of “the hybrids aren’t bad, it’s just the government lying, because this is a dystopian world, period.”

The second reason is that there was a bit of a slump in the middle of the book. There was a sense of danger, of risk, of hidden truths, of secrets, but it wasn’t pushed far enough in my opinion, and so things at the point seemed a little dull. The pace picked up again afterwards, though.

I’ll probably pick the second book, because I still want to know more. I hope that we’ll get to learn more about why all the lies, and that the characters will be as intriguing as they’re in this first installment.

Yzabel / March 19, 2013

Review: Dearly, Departed

Dearly, Departed: A Zombie Novel by Lia Habel

My rating: [rating=3]

Summary:

CAN A PROPER YOUNG VICTORIAN LADY FIND TRUE LOVE IN THE ARMS OF A DASHING ZOMBIE?

The year is 2195. The place is New Victoria—a high-tech nation modeled on the mores of an antique era. Sixteen-year-old Nora Dearly is far more interested in her country’s political unrest than in silly debutante balls. But the death of her beloved parents leaves Nora at the mercy of a social-climbing aunt who plans to marry off her niece for money. To Nora, no fate could be more horrible—until she’s nearly kidnapped by an army of walking corpses. Now she’s suddenly gunning down ravenous zombies alongside mysterious black-clad commandos and confronting a fatal virus that raises the dead. Then Nora meets Bram Griswold, a young soldier who is brave, handsome, noble . . . and thoroughly deceased. But like the rest of his special undead unit, Bram has been enabled by luck and modern science to hold on to his mind, his manners, and his body parts. And when his bond of trust with Nora turns to tenderness, there’s no turning back. Eventually, they know, the disease will win, separating the star-crossed lovers forever. But until then, beating or not, their hearts will have what they desire.

Review:

This is one of those books I’m having a hard time rating.

On the plus side:
– Zombies. A couple of years ago, I wasn’t really interested in those, but other stories I read since then made this theme more interesting. Here, I liked that some of them were given a chance, and were able to prove that they could still remain “humane” in many ways (sometimes even more than some of the living).
– Girls take matters into hands. Not always from the beginning, but they quickly learn to. Nora could’ve been much more of a crybaby, given her circumstances, yet she didn’t let herself sink. Pamela, too, grew to be more likeable. And Chas. How I loved spunky, mouth-running Chas.
– World-building. Granted, if we dig deeper into it, its bases are probably flawed, but no more than those of a lot of other dystopian/sci-fi stories. I’d say they’re more believale than in, say, the Hunger Games, because the rest of the world is at least mentioned.
– There’s an airship. ‘Nuff said. A certain scene involving it and a church holds a special value to me, due to personal reasons.
– Quirky and crazy engineers, whose names I quite liked, by the way.
– Neo-victorian society, with reasons for customs to revert to those of what was perceived as a “Golden Age”—and said customs indeed correspond the Victorian ones (courtship, dress code, and a lot of tiny details too).
– There’s a parasol involved in killing a zombie.
– Actually, parasols come with different lights to indicate the status of a lady: married, unmarried… and those who prefer women to men, too. Now that’s one of those tiny little ideas I like.

On the minus side:
– Once again, the “steampunk” label is applied to a world that in my opinion is not so much steampunk in the end. Sure, they use coal, but reconciliating this with more modern technology (the local equivalent of iPads, holograms, data chips…) was a little hard. Too often I feel that books get labelled as “steampunk” because it’s a fad, and this is getting annoying.
– The villains felt too cartoonesque at times.
– Some of the point of views weren’t so useful. I don’t mind juggling five POVs—I can juggle 20 if they’re properly written. But at least two of them weren’t justified. I’m not sure about the third one, since it also gives us on what’s happening meanwhile, in the city. Also, at some point the POVs tended to become hard to distinguish from each other. I’d be reading Pamela’s, and then suddenly I wouldn’t know anymore whose “voice” it was, if it was Pam’s or Nora’s.
– Not enough of New London to my taste.

Probably a 3.5 stars on my scale, but I’m not sure I should up it to 4. So 3 it’ll be for the time being. I will probably pick up the next volume, though.

Yzabel / December 28, 2012

Review: Crewel

Crewel by Gennifer Albin

My rating: [rating=4]

Summary:

“May Arras flourish at her touch.”

For generations, girls known as Spinsters have been called by Arras’ Manipulation Services to work the looms and control what people eat, where they live, how many children they have, and even when they die. Gifted with the unusual ability to weave time with matter, sixteen-year-old Adelice Lewys is exactly what the Guild is looking for, and in the world of Arras, being chosen as a Spinster is everything a girl could want. It means privilege, eternal beauty, and being something other than a secretary. It also means the power to embroider the very fabric of life. But Adelice isn’t interested. Because once you become a Spinster, there’s no turning back.

Review:

From the moment I read the blurb for this book, I was deeply interested by what its world would be: a society in which special women are able to weave time and matter? That was just screaming for my attention. I was all the more interested that I’ve been a player of the pen & paper game “Secrets of the 7th Sea” for quite a few years, in which my main character is a young woman whose sorcery is based on seeing and (re)weaving strands of Fate between people; and she’s from a country where only women can use that sorcery, and as such are maintained under very strict male dominance, either father’s or husband’s (same for other women there, by the way: either kept into menial work or as classy courtesans, but still not enjoying that much freedom). You can see why “Crewel” would appeal to me even more.

Now that I’ve read it, I can say I wasn’t disappointed. The world at first reminded me of the one in Matched (with people required to find a husband/wife and marry at 18, although they still had a choice between several matches through ads/profiles, and weren’t just assigned one), but it wasn’t all the story was woven around, and soon enough I also felt that said world of Arras was more developed, and hid something else. This is something that I’m never at ease with in dystopian (especially YA) novels, at least the ones I’ve read so far: the world they’re set in too often feels like one country, and you’re left to wonder what’s happened to the others, why they’re not stepping in to counter said dystopian society, and so on. In Crewel, it seems there’s actually a reason to that, Arras indeed being one ‘bubble’ cut from the rest. (I say ‘seem’, because we may get to learn more about that in the second book, but I can’t say yet if the world-building in that one will deliver or not.)

The love triangle so common to a lot of YA novels was present, and not that useful; on the other hand, given the world developed by the author, at least *some* kind of love interest for Adelice was logical enough, since boys and girls were being kept separate from birth to 16, and I assume that seeing some for the first time without the barrier of segregation would quickly spark something. And it wasn’t too enforced, and wasn’t the main focus of the story. Besides, I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that same-sex relationships were tackled as well: they too were bound to happen, so kudos to Gennifer Albin for not just conveniently sweep them under the rug and pretend they didn’t exist. The book wasn’t judgmental about that point, which was good.

I liked reading about the weaving process. It was a little confusing at first, but when I paid closer attention, it made more sense. I guess because “reality as a tapestry” and “weaving reality” are concepts I’m already familiar with (through another pen & paper game), so I managed to picture how it would work quickly enough. Perhaps this will be a more difficult aspect for the book for other readers, though, so I don’t know if it’s actually a quality or a flaw.

The one thing that left me annoyed sometimes were the characters, some of which felt a little too unidimensional, although their actions and reactions were understandable in such a world (Maela, for instance: she often felt like a cardboard villain, yet at the same time, I could fathom why she would behave like she did, having no other hopes in life than gaining power, and thus being personally threatened as soon as the power she had was challenged). And while I liked Adelice in most of the book, I felt it weird that while still enjoying some kind of ‘freedom’ before testing, she appeared as meek, shy and unnoticeable, yet as soon as she sets foot in a place where she’s going to be under even more scrutiny, and even more in danger, she starts standing her ground way too much for her own good. As said, I liked that aspect of the character (it made her able to step in and take acton), but I wish it would have been made clearer from the very beginning. As things were, I wondered at first if it was the same person I was reading about.

I have high hopes for the next book. But I’m also somewhat fearful, because of how the first one ended, and now I’m wondering how the world I liked seeing depicted in it will appear in the second one.

Yzabel / October 3, 2012

Review: The Tube Riders

The Tube Riders by Chris Ward

My rating: [rating=4]

Summary:

Mega Britain in 2075 is a dangerous place. A man known only as the Governor rules the country with an iron hand, but within the towering perimeter walls of London Greater Urban Area anarchy spreads unchecked through the streets.

In the abandoned London Underground station of St. Cannerwells, a group of misfits calling themselves the Tube Riders seek to forget the chaos by playing a dangerous game with trains. Marta is their leader, a girl haunted by her brother’s disappearance. Of the others, Paul lives only to protect his little brother Owen, while Simon is trying to hold on to his relationship with Jess, daughter of a government official. Guarding them all is Switch, a man with a flickering eye and a faster knife, who cares only about preserving the legacy of the Tube Riders. Together, they are family.

Everything changes the day they are attacked by a rival gang. While escaping, they witness an event that could bring war down on Mega Britain. Suddenly they are fleeing for their lives, pursued not only by their rivals, but by the brutal Department of Civil Affairs, government killing machines known as Huntsmen, and finally by the inhuman Governor himself.

Review:

(Book provided by the author through ARR #534 in the Making Connections group, in exchange for an honest review.)

A long book packed with action and events, for sure, and one that I had a hard time putting down whenever I had to.

First, the theme. A book about young people riding trains, barely hanging onto them with tiny boards, and using them first for games, then to escape and run for their lives. In Tube stations and tunnels. In the hands of a reader who’s been known to ride the London Tube and explore corridors and stairwells there just for fun. Awesome. Also, I think the author did a good job depicting his world. Granted, there were a few points on which my suspension of disbelief was somewhat stretched at times (some of the experiments, and a couple of plot junctures). But Chris Ward quickly falls back on his feet, giving us explanations about Mega Britain’s shortcomings, that make it more understandable why a group of fugitives manages to outsmart officials for some time. If anything, I would’ve liked to know a little more about how exactly that country and government came to be; on the other hand, the books is already quite long, and this probably isn’t absolutely essential in order to enjoy it (it’s just me being curious).

The characters portrayed throughout the story were all heroic in their own ways, while remaining very humane, with both merits and flaws. Among the heroes, I especially liked the street-savvy Switch, always so resourceful, and Jess, who had to wade through so much grief and try to find her own answers. And I really wasn’t happy about seeing Simon go… but with such unjuries as he sustained, at best he’d have had to be ‘left behind’ to heal, so from the moment it happened, I kind of suspected what would happen… The villains themselves had humane sides and redeeming points, in spite of their vices; the Huntsmen were clearly victims before being monsters, and Dreggo herself had a vulnerable side and a very hard past that made her anger and resentment all the more understandable. For sure, she was a resilient and interesting adversary.

I’m still hesitant about the ending, to be honest: I can’t decide whether I’d like to see a sequel or not. So much may still happen—the Bristol guys, the person left on the beach at the very end…—yet at the same time, the story still feels self-contained no matter what. It’s hard to tell.

Yzabel / September 6, 2012

Review: The Plot Against America

The Plot Against America by Philip Roth

My rating: [rating=3]

Summary:

In an astonishing feat of narrative invention, our most ambitious novelist imagines an alternate version of American history. In 1940 Charles A. Lindbergh, heroic aviator and rabid isolationist, is elected President. Shortly thereafter, he negotiates a cordial “understanding” with Adolf Hitler, while the new government embarks on a program of folksy anti-Semitism.

For one boy growing up in Newark, Lindbergh’s election is the first in a series of ruptures that threatens to destroy his small, safe corner of America — and with it, his mother, his father, and his older brother.

Review:

Hard to review, this one. I’m quite keen on Roth’s works in general, but I wasn’t so convinced here. I still found it enjoyable—just not as much as others of his novels.

What I liked:
* The “what if…” aspect (that’s why I had picked this book, after all). I have such a soft spot for these, especially when they involve American history and WW2.
* The way the story was told, through the eyes of a child. I think it allowed the author to toy (no pun intended) with a point of view that was both innocent and terribly lucid at times, in its ability to feel the raw intensity of events.
* The convincing narrative. I felt that the events unfolding in the story might indeed have happened, have been possible. It’s not totally far-fetched, on the contrary. And that’s precisely what makes it frightening.

What I liked less:
* The rushed half-assed end, and the impersonal way in which it was told. I found it really jarring, compared to the narrative style in the rest of the novel.
* Actually, Roth could’ve gone further with this story, and do more with it than (view spoiler)
* The fact that past that point, the author seemed to have lost sight of what exactly he was aiming at.