post-apocalyptic Archives - Page 2 of 3

Yzabel / January 9, 2016

Review: Down Station

My rating: [rating=4]

Blurb:

A small group of commuters and tube workers witness a fiery apocalypse overtaking London. They make their escape through a service tunnel. Reaching a door they step through…and find themselves on a wild shore backed by cliffs and rolling grassland. The way back is blocked. Making their way inland they meet a man dressed in a wolf’s cloak and with wolves by his side. He speaks English and has heard of a place called London – other people have arrived here down the ages – all escaping from a London that is burning. None of them have returned. Except one – who travels between the two worlds at will. The group begin a quest to find this one survivor; the one who holds the key to their return and to the safety of London.

And as they travel this world, meeting mythical and legendary creatures,split between North and South by a mighty river and bordered by The White City and The Crystal Palace they realise they are in a world defined by all the London’s there have ever been.

Reminiscent of Michael Moorcock and Julian May this is a grand and sweeping science fantasy built on the ideas, the legends, the memories of every London there has ever been.

Review:

[I received a copy of this novel through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]

A group of survivors from different areas of the city find themselves running in the Underground tunnels at night as a mysterious, overwhelming fire rages through London. When a portal opening on a mysterious sea opens, they quickly jump through it, knowing it’s the only salvation they’re going to find—that, or a painful death. Stranded in this new world, without anything to help them save for their clothes and whatever they had with them when they ran from the fire (that is to say, very little), these seven people from various backgrounds have to learn to work together and cooperate. And it sure as hell isn’t easy, especially when they start getting to know each other more.

This is how “Down Station” begins, narrated through the eyes of two characters: Mary and Dalip. Overall, the story was a little “slow” at times, but never enough as to make me skim: these slower moments allowed the author to explore the mind and growth of the main characters. Although it’s a bit too bad that the secondary ones weren’t given so much care (Stanislav was OK, but the cousins didn’t seem to do much, for instance), the various stages of self-discovery Mary and Dalip went through were really interesting to read.

Mary: orphan, foul mouth, prone to burst of angers, got in trouble with the law, was placed on probation… Basically a young woman without many means, who tends to run her mouth faster than she thinks, caught in a vicious circle: the more others see her as trash, the more she conforms to that image people have of her. Landing in the strange world of Down puts her face to face with something she hadn’t expected: freedom. The freedom to go wherever she wants, to be whoever she wants to be. And that freedom is frightening, just as it might lead her to losing herself… or not?

Dalip: engineering student from a Sikh family, loyal and honest to the point of endangering himself, always wanting to do good even though sometimes “good” could very well turn and bite him (and others) back… A noble and honorable character, who nevertheless used to live under his family’s thumb and never seemed to have an opportunity to discover who he could really be. As cruel as Down was, that world transformed him, made him become another, stronger man, while presenting him with challenges that might very well break his honest streak and turn him into a monster. The path to his freedom is not Mary’s, not his family’s, not Stanislav’s: it is his, and only his.

There is magic and mystery in that world, and rules both fairly different and fairly similar to those of ours (those who have the one sought-after currency are the ones who manage to gain power, yet the most powerful potentials aren’t necessarily those you’d expect at first). There is lies and treachery, hiding half-truths and precious information. The allies in this story were shifty, and the antagonists cruel—but as Mary so aptly summed it up, although they had no excuses, they had reasons to do what they did. Were they valid? Who knows? Perhaps Bell’s plan could have worked. And perhaps she was just crazy, and Down would never let anyone go no matter their efforts.

I wasn’t so satisfied with the ending, unfortunately, as it left quite a few doors open (is London still here, could anyone go through a portal the other way, what happened to a certain character…) without feeling like there’s going to be a sequel. However, I could be mistaken about that—I really hope there’s going to be one, addressing those points, as they’re for me a case of “you said too much or not enough” for me. (Also, the blurb currently on Goodreads is a bit misleading, as if it was the blurb for a series rather than just one book?) No matter what, I definitely enjoyed the story and the way the main characters turned out, how they gained their freedom and what they made of it.

Conclusion: Interesting concept and character development, although I found the ending a bit abrupt.

Yzabel / December 5, 2015

Review: Yesterday’s Gone (Season 1)

Yesterday’s Gone: Season One by Sean Platt

My rating: [rating=2]

Blurb:

On October 15 at 2:15 a.m. everyone on Earth vanished.

Well, almost everyone.

A scattered few woke alone in a world where there are no rules other than survival… at any cost.

A journalist wanders the wretched reality of an empty New York, in search for his wife and son.

A serial killer must hunt in a land where prey is now an endangered species.

A mother shields her young daughter from danger, as every breath ﬁlls her with terror.

A bullied teen is thrilled to ﬁnd everyone gone. Until the knock on his door.

A fugitive survives a ﬁery plane crash. Will he be redeemed, or return to what he’s best at: the kill?

An eight year old boy sets out on a journey to ﬁnd his missing family. What he ﬁnds will change him forever.

And there’s a few people who aren’t surprised that this happened at all. In fact, they’ve been dreaming about this day for years.

These survivors aren’t alone…
Someone or something is watching them.
And waiting…

Strangers unite.

Sides are chosen.

Will humanity survive what it never saw coming?

The only certainty is that Yesterday’s Gone.

Review:

(I received a copy through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.)

I seldom read serials, and I admit that reading one in the shape of a “novel” of gathered episodes kind of defeats the purpose (all the more since the authors mention their love of cliffhangers at the end), but… nevermind. I was in the mood for post-apocalyptic stuff, anyway.

So far, this first “season” isn’t the most original thing I’ve read when it comes to this theme: most people gone, survivors trying to figure out what happened (with some being really awful chaps), mysterious aliens-or-zombies creatures that may or may not be the reason behind the catastrophe, an infection… It’s part alien sci-fi, part zombie post-ap, and readers who enjoy the typical tropes of such stories are likely to get their share here, although at times it felt like a jumble of subplots more than a structured story, as if the authors were going along with whatever struck their fancy. This may or may not be true; I couldn’t make up my mind about it, as every time some new elements was introduced, I thought “yet another idea…, then “this could still come together in the end, with more seasons to go, depending on what they do, so let’s wait and see.” Truth be told, we don’t get a lot of clues about what’s happening behind the scenes; the hints are more of the gory variety (the worms, people being killed…)

The format itself is very TV-like, an obvious goal, and one I was looking for. It wouldn’t be difficult to imagine this serial as episodes, complete with regular shifts from group to group. This worked well enough for me. There’s no shortage of action, and as the focus jumped from one character to another, I often found myself wanting to know more about the one left in a predicament… while also wanting to read about the current focus, that is. There were a few boring parts (I didn’t really like the ones about the kids, the Uno game, etc., as I was of course interested in what the characters would do as survivors), especially in the middle, although the pacing managed to bring me back in again in the last third of the book.

The characters are fairly typical of such stories. Survivalists (both good and bad people), some of whom were united by strange dreams and knew beforehand they had to prepare for the apocalypse. An ex-government agent/spook. A pregnant teenager from a conservative family. A father who now regrets he let his work get in the way of his family. A mother trying to protect her daughter. A young man who finds himself stuck, supreme irony, with his abusive stepfather, instead of the latter being dead/gone like most other people. A guy whose last conversation with his now-gone wife was an argument. A kid who meets an old man, the latter taking him under his wing. Even a serial killer.

I remained torn about these characters for most of the story: some of them are uninteresting and would deserve more spotlight to be allowed to shine, but others are definitely intriguing, even though not always exploited to their best, plot-wise.

Boricio was one of the vilest ones in this story, and yet, in spite of all the revolting stuff about him, especially the way he treated women, he also had a sort of “heroic bastard” side to him, probably because he was written with a humorous, slapstick comedy side; oddly enough, some of his scenes were enjoyable… in a much twisted way–like a train wreck that you can’t help but keep looking at. Edward, too, was fascinating: I still don’t know what’s true about him, what’s make-believe, who’s right about him, and let’s not forget the twist at the end of his arc in this first season.

On the other hand, the female characters were a letdown: mostly here to be the object of violence (Callie, Paola after her dream) and/or to be rescued and protected (Teagan, Mary and Paola) by the guys. The only “active” female character is the one in Boricio’s narrative, and she’s clearly one of the baddies, on top of not being developed anyway (Callie is first shown as badass, same in her flashback, but quickly devolves into frightened-girl-in-need-of-protection). And don’t start me on the rape scene, so nicely wrapped and dropped under the rug as a sort of afterthought; that was seriously infuriating. Definitely not the way to write such a scene and its aftermath, to say the least.

In terms of writing style, something that bothered me was the use of numbers (it feels really weird to read “20 yards” and not “twenty yards” in a novel – though maybe it’s just me). Another issue was a tendency to resort to “descriptive” sentences (he did this, she did that), which ended up in a lot of cases of “telling, not showing.” Finally, the dialogues also felt stilted most of the time, with a lot of flashback-type narratives when characters revealed what had happened to them; not uninteresting in itself, but told in ways that didn’t feel very natural, as if they were, well, scripted.

Conclusion: 2.5 stars. I will likely read book 2, since I also got it through NetGalley anyway, because “Yesterday’s Gone” was interesting in more than one way. But I can only hope that this series will improve in terms of writing style and character development (and that we’ll get actual revelations about the monsters and the shady ops guys).

Yzabel / July 22, 2015

Review: The House of Shattered Wings

The House of Shattered Wings by Aliette de Bodard

My rating: [rating=3]

Blurb:

In the late Twentieth Century, the streets of Paris are lined with haunted ruins. The Great Magicians’ War left a trail of devastation in its wake. The Grand Magasins have been reduced to piles of debris, Notre-Dame is a burnt-out shell, and the Seine has turned black with ashes and rubble and the remnants of the spells that tore the city apart. But those that survived still retain their irrepressible appetite for novelty and distraction, and The Great Houses still vie for dominion over France’s once grand capital.

Once the most powerful and formidable, House Silverspires now lies in disarray. Its magic is ailing; its founder, Morningstar, has been missing for decades; and now something from the shadows stalks its people inside their very own walls.

Within the House, three very different people must come together: a naive but powerful Fallen angel; an alchemist with a self-destructive addiction; and a resentful young man wielding spells of unknown origin. They may be Silverspires’ salvation—or the architects of its last, irreversible fall. And if Silverspires falls, so may the city itself.

Review:

[I received an ARC through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]

I liked the premise, I really did—not to mention that theme of the broken, rotting throne at night against the backdrop of a ruined Paris. There’s something both sick and magical to such a city. The Seine river blackened and polluted by magic turned sour, horrors lurking in its waters. Gangs scrapping remnants in order to survive, Fallen angels being their favourite preys, preys that end stripped up of blood and bone and basically everything, for the power those organs can bring. Houses full of mages, Fallens and their dependents, vying for domination, yet also teetering on the brink of destruction, for the last large-scale conflict among them ended up being the 1914 war, the Great War nobody nor any place in the world seems to have recovered even 60 years later…

Yes. Definitely enchanting, in a morbid way. I couldn’t help but be fascinated by this charred landscape, by the sheer hopelessness permeating eveything and everyone, despite the pseudo-grandeur some of the characters tried to keep as their facade. Descriptions here worked pretty well for me, making it easy to create this picture of Paris in my mind, all the more because I’ve walked those places, the parvis of Notre-Dame, the Halles, and so on. The atmosphere was somewhat old-fashioned, in that people in the story clung to a world long gone by (far away colonies entangled in the War, displays from fashion stores back when everything was still gilded…), and a lot of names were really traditional French names (Ninon, Madeleine, Isabelle, Philippe…). Although, as a native French speaker, it was also somewhat weird to see those names associated to English ones like Silverspires or Morningstar; that’s a matter of language on my part, though, and not any fault of the book.

And no romance. There was no room for that here. The only “links” were of blood and curses and magic and slavery of sorts. No “souls destined to be together”. The relationship between Philippe and Isabelle definitely wasn’t born under the brightest star, so to speak.

The reason why I’m not rating this novel higher is because… I wanted more. The mystery, the curse, those were intriguing, but the balance between unveiling them, developing the characters and showing the world around them was regularly a bit off. I would have wanted to see more interaction between Philippe, Isabelle and Madeleine; see more about how they evolved, or rather, could have evolved as people. I expected to see more of House politics, of the complex webbing of alliances and betrayal and various other ways of pecking at each other. More about Philippe’s origins and what his presence in Paris meant, more questioning about immortality and fallen angels, perhaps? At times, I felt that all that was more akin to beating around the bush, and that a while elapsed with nothing really happening, neither in terms of events nor of character growth. That while would’ve been the perfect place to inject… well, “more”.

I was also not too convinced by some of the secondary characters, more specifically Selene. I expected more cunning on her part, as someone who had been playing the game of House politics for decades. As a Head of House, she wasn’t “older” than Asmodeus, yet the latter and his schemes hooked me much more, seemed more ruthless and thus believable. I got it, nobody could have equalled Morningstar, but…

All in all, this is still an “I liked it” book. Just not the “I’m in awe” story I had hoped for.

Yzabel / July 16, 2015

Review: Seveneves

Seveneves by Neal Stephenson

My rating: [rating=1]

Blurb:

What would happen if the world were ending?

When a catastrophic event renders the earth a ticking time bomb, it triggers a feverish race against the inevitable. An ambitious plan is devised to ensure the survival of humanity far beyond our atmosphere. But unforeseen dangers threaten the intrepid pioneers, until only a handful of survivors remain…

Five thousand years later, their progeny – seven distinct races now three billion strong – embark on yet another audacious journey into the unknown, to an alien world utterly transformed by cataclysm and time: Earth.

Review:

I finally managed to finish it. Yesss. I did.

Now where to start.

Good ideas, definitely. Using the ISS as a base for survival. Trying to cram as much knowledge and items as possible there to preserve the human race. Having to watch from above, knowing that all your beloved ones are doomed to death in about two years, and the clock keeps ticking by. Knowing that it’s all unavoidable because it’s happening on such a scale no group of heroes will be able to fix it, or whatever. Having to say goodbye while keeping strong. The orchestras on Earth, silenced one after the other. Crazy harebrained expeditions like the Ymir‘s—oh, goodness, that part was epic, and clearly one of my favourite ones. Such moments of beauty those could’ve been.

But.

But it read so dry most of the time, and not because of the science. Actually, I like the science. I like having a few explanations about how this works and why and what’s the science behind. I like seeing how characters go through specific situations using robots, vehicles, and so on. However, this book was really bizarre in that regard. It regularly felt like being in a classroom with a teacher explaining some very easy stuff you’ve already understood, then brushing away your questions at the harder theories you do not understand. As an “old” reader of sci-fi, and one that isn’t new to hard sci-fi either, I am kind of used to inferring a lot of things. I do not need to read sentences such as “they climbed into the Lunar Vehicle—in other words, the LV”. Just write the full name, then give me the acronym three lines later, and I can do the math, thank you. I’ve always been crap at maths and physics, really, so when I start thinking “but that’s the very basics, why are you expanding on it”, then there’s a problem.

All the telling-not-showing also greatly reduced the characters’ roles as people instead of plot devices. Granted, it was obvious a lot of them would die, and this is precisely why I would’ve loved seeing more from their point of view, more of their actions “off screen”.For instance, the guys in the Ymir, again, went through a lot, yet we just learn about it matter-of-factly later. Or the Arkies and the “Casting of Lots”, all the young people who were trained and sent in space to keep as much diversity as possible.

In a way, this book was too ambitious for, well, one book. Or too full of explanations, taking too much room, to be able realise its full potential as a plot with so many implications. It could’ve spanned two or three novesl: the going into space, surviving for 5000 years with all the problems that were bound to arise, then the return to Earth, for instance. So many themes to tackle. The politics. The troubles going on Earth before the Hard Rain: not as pronounced as one could’ve expected (hoarding, rioting…). The schemes going on on board the ISS after it had become the only shelter left (they should’ve shot a certain woman as soon as they saw her, is all I’m going to say). And then, later, the whole seven races and their characteristics that somehow never got diluted in spite of living in such crammed space, clinging to differences that didn’t make that much sense all things considered (I didn’t buy the “they all retained traits from their founders” idea). The return to Earth had some nicely adventurous moments, bordering on indeed showing more than telling, but those didn’t last.

This was a far, far cry from Snow Crash (which I read and loved some 12 or 13 years ago, by the way). It could’ve been so intense, so epic, so full of both hope and despair mixed together. Instead, it just completely fell flat for me.

Yzabel / December 13, 2014

Review: Prince of Thorns

Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence

My rating: [rating=2]

Summary:

Prince Honorous Jorg Ancrath at 9 was hung in briar patch to watch his mother and young brother slaughtered by Count Renar’s men. At 13, Jorg led a band of bloodthirsty thugs. By 15, he intends to be king. Life and death are a game where he thinks he has nothing left to lose. But treachery and impossibly great dark magic power await him in his father’s castle.

Review:

I thought I’d have liked this book better. I wished I had. But mostly I’ll file it in my “OK” category.

The ruthlessness of the world depicted here was quite appealing (despite being appaling, yes that’s so totally intended, and I’m not even ashamed). One may despise the protagonist and his band of “brothers” for the raping, pillaging and other acts of violence, but the fact is, the whole lot kind of fits. I also liked not being completely sure what world it was set in: alternate history? Post-apocalyptic? The “Builders’ Sun”, the books, the strange talking “spirits”… definitely hint at a more technological past, and this is something I tend to like, plain and simple.

The reasons why I didn’t warm up more to this novel were mostly:

1/ A lot of events and decisions felts seriously disjointed. The prose is easy to read, so it’s clearly not a matter of “but that’s just because your grasp on English is bad!” (it isn’t) or “stop reading at 6 am in the tramway when your brain is still all mushy” (I was off work). More than once, scenes and chapters would roll after each other in a way that made me feel something, some additional scenes, were missing. Jorg would make a decision, and I’d have to read back a few pages to see what I had missed, only to conclude that I hadn’t missed anything: his train of thought just wasn’t explained. Which would be all right, this being a first person narrative, but on the other hand, considering his decisions and actions in general, they clearly demanded more thought than mere hunches.

For instance, one specific plan rests on Jorg’s sudden understanding of something in a book whose contents don’t make sense to people in general (himself included)—the concepts are too far removed from their era’s scientific knowledge. So it struck me as really odd to see him go about how this is all technobabble one moment, to understanding-leading-to-a-plan the next.

2/ The protagonist was developed enough, but sometimes he was just too skilled, too lucky, too… everything. What should have been challenges made me think that whatever happened, he’d find a way out, and in turn, the tension eased too much. I guess I expected more cunning, and less rushing headfirst with the certainty that some deus ex machina would happen.

3/ The whole cast around Jorg, all the other characters, felt too flat. It fitted the “pawns theme” (this war’s a game, people have to be sacrificed in the end, etc.), yet it didn’t make for a pleasant reading, with everybody being disposable, from random peasants in villages to Jorg’s oldest companions. I wouldn’t have wanted Jorg to be more humane towards them; but I would have wanted them to feel more like actual characters, with lives of their own, and desires/goals that would’ve made it easier to understand their actions.

I may or may not read the next book. I haven’t decided yet.

Yzabel / October 7, 2014

Review: Station Eleven

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

My rating: [rating=3]

Summary:

One snowy night a famous Hollywood actor slumps over and dies onstage during a production of King Lear. Hours later, the world as we know it begins to dissolve. Moving back and forth in time-from the actor’s early days as a film star to fifteen years in the future, when a theater troupe known as the Traveling Symphony roams the wasteland of what remains-this suspenseful, elegiac, spellbinding novel charts the strange twists of fate that connect five people: the actor, the man who tried to save him, the actor’s first wife, his oldest friend, and a young actress with the Traveling Symphony, caught in the crosshairs of a dangerous self-proclaimed prophet. Sometimes terrifying, sometimes tender, Station Eleven tells a story about the relationships that sustain us, the ephemeral nature of fame, and the beauty of the world as we know it.

Review:

(I received a free copy courtesy of NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.)

A strange read, one that didn’t seem to have that much of a plot in itself, but that kept me fascinated and enthralled all the same. This is clearly one of those “hard to explain” cases. In other circumstances, I might have found more faults with this book… but I just didn’t, or when I did, they didn’t register with me full-force.

For instance, the Georgian Flu that wiped off 99% of the world population was handled more as a pretext than as a deeply researched medical possibility. And it’s true: from a purely scientific point of view, I don’t think the situation as a whole was handled in a really believable way. When you stop to think about it and consider things logically, it had quite its lot of holes. (E.g.: some people seemed immune, while others remained cooped up in their shelters for weeks… but when they got out, why didn’t they catch the flu? Was it gone, and if yes, why? If not, then did it mean they were immune?).

However, the atmosphere permeating the novel made up for those kinds of details at which I would normally raise an eyebrow. Granted, I did raise an eyebrow—then went on enjoying the prose all the same. Perhaps because I read much of the Severn Airport part while in an actual airport and plane, and was thus fully immersed? Or perhaps because of the Station Eleven story within the story (now that was a comics I’d definitely like to read). Or because the characters’ stories, while not so exceptional, were tied together in a way that just clicked with me. (I tend to enjoy plots that jump between different time periods, present and past… I know this doesn’t work so well for lots of readers. Well, it does for me.)

At the end, some mysteries remain. Where is the Symphony going? What’s with the new grid? What happened to Elizabeth? Is anyone going to ever discover who was the unknown man who tried to save Arthur, and what became of him? In a way, not getting those answers was annoying; on the other hand, I’m not sure having them would be essential to my enjoyment of this novel.

It could have been better. It wasn’t. Yet I connected with it nonetheless. It’s quite strange, indeed.

Yzabel / August 13, 2014

Review: Fiefdom

Fiefdom: A Kingdom Novel by Dan Abnett

My rating: [rating=3]

Summary:

The last of humanity has taken refuge in hibernation at the poles, hiding from the giant invading insects that have conquered the Earth. Defending these outposts against bug attacks are genetically engineered dog soldiers, loyal and unquestioning to the Masters’ voices in their heads. At least they were, but things have changed on the Earth. The Masters voices have gone and a new peace has arrived in the northern hemisphere. The legend of a masterless rogue soldier from the distant South has spread, and in the new Fiefdoms of old Germany something very dangerous is about to happen.

In a not-too-distant future, amongst ruins in the the ancient city of Berlin the Aux’s live in clans, fighting amongst themselves. Their ancient enemey, Them – giant marauding insects, are a folk memory. Young Evelyn War however will be the first to realise that this quiet is not what it seems, that the Auxs themselves, having been bred for hand-hand combat in a war long-thought to be over, and now idling violently in peace in the subways and collapsing buildings in Europe, must set aside their petty hostilities if they are to face the battle to come. Evelyn is the only one to see the oncoming storm, but the clan leaders and her elders do not believe her warnings, and time is running short.

Review:

(I got an ARC through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.)

My review comes a little late, I should’ve read this novel in June or July, and posted back then. Ah, well…

Mixed opinions on this one. It’s set in the world of the comics Kingdom, but decades after their events. I never read the comics, so I probably missed a few interesting things, or didn’t “get” everything right; I honestly can’t tell. On the other hand, since I approached the novel with an unknowing eye, at least I can tell what would work for new readers, and what wouldn’t. Or so I hope.

The setting is definitely a post-apocalyptic one. At some point, “Them” (giant insects of sorts—possibly alien?) came to Earth; to hunt them down, the humans engineered dog-human hybrids, the Aux, powerful fighters meant to obey the voice of their “Masters”. One of them in particular, Gene the Hackman, became quite the legend, to the point that every tale told by the Aux today, gathered in packs in the old Berlin underground stations and tunnels, start with a recap of what he did. The weather changed (or was changed), leading to a “Time of Ice” that made Earth too cold for the insects, and drove survivors underground. I think this is the gist of the background story behind this world, and if it indeed is, then the book is clearly understandable from a new reader’s point of view.

I wrote “mixed opinions” earlier on, though, because Kingdom also has a deterrent potential, depending on what you’re looking for in it. So I’m going to proceed in a “what I liked/disliked” fashion, and let readers decide if this would be their cup of tea or not.

What I liked:

* The Aux live according to a pack mentality loosely based on dogs’. Not wolves, for a change, but dogs. Their mythology, their beliefs, have evolved along such lines. They display attitudes and personalities of fierce warriors, with both male and female being sent to “scrap” (kill the insects), but deep inside, there’s still talk of “Masters”, of “keeping Them off the lawn” (in a way, that was almost cute). It’s indeed as if they were dogs given a human voice to speak of what their owner expected of them, and they don’t take kindly to those who go “feral”, start forgetting their duties.

* The names: every Aux has a name reminiscent of a famous writer/poet, sometimes being exactly the same, sometimes not, but always with a hint of what they stand for: Ezra Pound, Evelyn War, Makewar Thackeray, and so on. This brought a smile to my face more than once, although I’d have liked to know why they had such names.

* The Berlin setting. I like underground stations in general, but I don’t know Berlin, so I was both in familiar territory and in one a little different from the usual Anglo-Saxon cities I read about in novels. The third person narrators are Aux, and they see everything through their own eyes, obviously. I liked that little game of reading a description and piecing things up to determine what was its original function. The station plans, for instance. Or the “voice of the Master” that is actually an old recording of which tunnel each train had to run in.

* The Aux mythology, their tales of Gene the Hackman who walked the earth to kill “Them”:

Gene the Hackman, top dog, him done the great Walk Around. Not for him the darkness, not for him the cold, not for him the Time of Ice. Gene the Hackman, him got whet. Gene the Hackman, him got whet and walked the Earth and him killed Them.

He’s a role model for them all, but the tale-teller, Edward Leer, had a way to use his Gene stories to weave new tales, and adapt them to the pack’s current predicament.

* The Aux speech patterns. They talk in mangled, broken English that fits well with their origins: simple words (just like the ones you’d use to order dogs around), a lot of playing on words (get wet/get whet—although that one doesn’t work with the “hw-” feature in my own accent), yet that also gave every dialogue a strange musical lilt. It enhanced the oral quality of their culture, as well as their existence as warriors bred for one thing only, and now living as if the threat was still here, while slowly losing their ways. (Once-revered Hearers, those who received orders from the Masters, aren now despised, just like those who believe in their words.)

What I disliked:

* I never got a clear idea of what the Aux looked like. At first I imagined them 100% human-looking, only with a pack mentality, but this seemed a little too… clean? to my liking. They have hands and legs (they wear gloves, trousers, can use crowssbows…) so they don’t have paws, but are their faces hybrid of dog and human, or not? I could never tell.

* Things got repetitive after a while, with the pack moving around looking for alliances and getting into various fights. The story ran in circles, much like them, which in terms of matching patterns did fit, but wasn’t so interesting in terms of plot.

* This included the broken English, a make-it-or-break-it deal in my opinion. It was pleasant to my “mental ears” in the beginning, but in the end, I wished the characters sometimes used different expressions for a change, not always “time to get whet” or “there’s strength in numbers”.

* I still don’t know if it’s a standalone stories, or the beginning of a series. The story took its sweet time to get to the ending. Then, once said ending was here, I thought it was too abrupt, and both too open and too closed at the same time: we can easily imagine what will come next, and it seems like there aren’t that many possibilities left for the Aux.

* I would’ve enjoyed more details about the world. The Aux never talk about packs outside Berlin, in other cities. We don’t know if the Masters are still here, nor how the Hearers managed to listen to them (was it some different chemistry in their brains?). What is this “Auxtralia” mentioned once? (It sounds like Australia, but that would be way too far considering the Berlin setting.) Why did they have writers’ names, was it some tradition initiated by the Masters? I guess someone who’s read the comic books will have some of those answers, but I didn’t, and I was a little frustrated.

Overall, though I kind of enjoyed this book, I wasn’t awed. I liked its atmosphere, but not so much its plot.

Yzabel / June 2, 2014

Review: The Girl With All The Gifts

The Girl With All The Gifts by M.R. Carey

My rating: [rating=5]

Summary:

Melanie is a very special girl. Dr Caldwell calls her ‘our little genius’.

Every morning, Melanie waits in her cell to be collected for class. When they come for her, Sergeant keeps his gun pointing at her while two of his people strap her into the wheelchair. She thinks they don’t like her. She jokes that she won’t bite, but they don’t laugh.

Melanie loves school. She loves learning about spelling and sums and the world outside the classroom and the children’s cells. She tells her favourite teacher all the things she’ll do when she grows up. Melanie doesn’t know why this makes Miss Justineau look sad.

Review:

(I got a copy through Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review.)

4.5 stars—to be honest, 3rd person present narration is something I don’t exactly like, and at times (mostly when I picked up the book again after something or other made me stop reading) it made it difficult to get back into it. However, I suspect in this case, it’s really a matter of personal preference, and every time the story pulled me back in in seconds, anyway.

There’s something both deeply disturbing and fascinating to this novel. At first sight, it looked like a “traditional” enough post-apocalyptic story, with humans surviving in locked-down places while looking for a way to go back to how the world used to be, or at least, find a way to keep strong and going. But as I went into the story, more and more little differences appeared. Maybe not that many, maybe not enough to warrant a giant “this is so different” label… yet still taking me gradually further from what I expected.

There’s a survival trek through zombie-infested territory. There’s a scientist doing research, hoping to find a vaccine. There’s the hard-boiled soldier and the rookie, protecting the group. There’s a civilian who wants to believe in something better. There’s the kid, Melanie, strange Melanie, so smart yet also so innocent, because she’s never seen the world outside of the classroom. This somewhat dysfunctional group is complemented by both strength and dysfunctionality within the characters themselves—though it’s hard to describe without walking into, well, spoiler-infested territory.

Caldwell is partly doing her research out of spite, the 25th scientist on a list of 24 “chosen ones” who were supposed to work to eradicate the plague; even though she’s dying, she keeps going on, wanting to understand, wanting her life to have a meaning, wanting to succeed where the others failed, and somehow “playing god” regarding her “specimens”. Justineau, who acts fiercely protective towards the kids in general, and Melanie more specifically, has a selfish reason of her own to do so, maybe to try and find absolution. Born in a shitty world, Kieran had a shitty childhood which he wanted to escape, yet never really managed to. Parks comes out as quite an asshole, but he’s seen his share of horrors, and his distrust of Melanie is understandable. As for Melanie herself, her innocence combines with an acute awareness of her own nature, and the world and people who’ve been shaping her don’t realise until it’s too late what her existence really means.

There are so many things I’d like to say about this novel; doing so, though, is likely to make me spoil another reader’s pleasure.

I liked the idea behind the “zombie plague”: not a virus, not a pathogen, but a fungus—it’s the first time I see this angle played in a story, at least. The science describing its behaviour seemed believable to me (I’m not a scientist, however, so I could be mistaken). Being a fungus, another aspect plays a part, on top of blood and bites: spores, and that was ended up being the most frightening, because can the surviving humans really escape such tiny particles? Avoiding zombie encounters, wearing armour, establishing secured aread: comparatively, this is easy. But spores? The whole concept also led to eerie descriptions that left me with a feeling of unease mixed with fascination: a silent city, its streets littered with corpses long decayed, out of which strange fungi sprouted, growing, growing, and who knew when they’d reach maturity, and start spreading those dreadly spores?…

The ending fascinated me as well, because of all it implied, all the unspoken outcomes it could lead to, all its ambiguity and imperfection. The hope it carries is a very twisted one, perhaps even a false one. (What follows is major spoiler material, so don’t click if you don’t want to know.)

This ending? Irony to the power of ten. Melanie has basically become Caldwell, drawing from the scientist’s example, shaping the world according to her own belief of what will be the best solution, engaging a procedure with no turning point, and using the hands of a dying man to do so. She has trapped Helen in a role she, herself, thought as a perfect existence: the kind teacher guiding the kids, the teacher whose lessons were always the best part of the week… but is this what Helen wanted and liked? Not so much. The specimen has become the dispassionate scientist, while the protector has become the prisoner. The base is gone. The men are gone. The children are a new form of life, but one that doesn’t lend itself to much hindsight yet, and even with guidance and teaching, who can tell whether they’ll succeeded in making a new world?

So, I loved this book. So much that I was willing to forgive its narration (something that might have broken another story for me). Unless zombie stories gross you out, I’d definitely recommend it.

Yzabel / April 21, 2014

Review: What Remains

What Remains by Kay Holland

My rating: [rating=1]

Summary:

Project Fed. It was supposed to be the answer to hunger, but
instead, it was the destruction of the world as we knew it. The growth of chemically enhanced “super” fruits and vegetables began in unmarked farms across the Nations, as well as their distribution in small towns. Within hours of Project Fed’s first delivery and primary consumption, something far beyond expectancy was unleashed. Something far beyond what anyone could help.

Four months later, Seventeen year old Max Cade is trying to
survive amongst what remains of her old life. In an effort to escort an awry “Doctor” from one camp to the next, she will have to reintroduce her two young friends to the horrors beyond their shelter that she so badly wanted to shield them from. Getting there was supposed to be the easy part, but when travelling through a world of ruin, sometimes the undead have other plans.

Review:

[I got a copy through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review. The book already been published when I requested it, I don’t think it was an ARC.]

From the blurb, as well as from the first two chapters, this novel had an interesting premise, and looked like a short, nice read; alas, I didn’t enjoy it.

First problem: too many spelling mistakes and misused words. I know a lot of books out there contain the odd typo, and I wouldn’t nitpick about one, but too many will just throw me out of the story, and this is exactly what happened. A few examples:

“Something still stirred in her bowls after all of this time”
“their since of security”
“the extent of differentially”
“A few interns had committed suicide due to depression and fear” (I think the right word was “inmates”?)
“psychical” in place of “physical”

Also weird sentence structures:

“made helped him to decide”
“Just behind him whom Max thought to be his father was standing at the makeshift hole/window watching the kid and wearing a blank face.”

After a while, it really gets hard to ignore those. (There are also a couple of weird tense shifts, as well as point of view changes that sometimes made it confusing when it comes to know who’s thinking/doing what.)

Another problem: the dichotomy between blurb and book. We readers immediately know what caused the epidemics, but the characters learn about it some 69% in, and in a kind of passing way, as if so many people already knew, except for them. I wouldn’t have minded the late reveal, if the blurb hadn’t given it away from the beginning. So basically the whole mystery about the “virus” petered out quickly, and I wondered what was the point.

The story also runs into several plot holes. The well-locked store where they find shelter, for instance: no infected has been able to enter it in months, yet the characters just waltz in? Or a character whos named before he was formally introduced (probably a typo more than a plot hole… but still annoying). Or the crazy camp captain who threatens to throw them out without their weapons if they don’t do his bidding, yet never takes their guns to better keep them under his thumb.

I couldn’t like nor connect with the characters either. Too much telling about their feelings, for starters; as a result, they came off as bland and more like generic zombie-novel-archetypes rather than real people (and Peter being so ready for a zombie apocalypse, just like that? Hmmm…). They also displayed contradictory reactions (Max knows Paul was only a pre-med student, yet blames him for not being a “real doctor”—he never said he was). Sometimes, those even reached the Too Stupid To Live zone: Paul doesn’t do much when it comes to defending himself, and although they know that travelling by car attracts zombies, they still jump in one as soon as they get the opportunity. Guess what happens next?

The novel does contain good ideas that clearly have their place in such a genre: trust issues; fear of losing one’s “family” because any such connection can be severed at any moment; difficult decisions to make (abandoning someone who may or may not be infected); people going overboard, their crazy desire for control running amok now that there’s no more real society to keep them in check. Unfortunately, those weren’t enough to counterbalance the many mistakes and abrupt transitions.

Yzabel / March 21, 2014

Review: The Cleansing

The Cleansing by Sam Kates

My rating: [rating=3]

Summary:

Apocalypse unleashed, the Cleansing begins. Relentless. Survival, uncertain.

Seven billion people inhabit this world, unaware our destruction is at hand. Death arrives unheralded—swift and nearly certain—not from meteors or nuclear holocaust or global warming, but from a source no one even knows exists.

The architects of doom have moved among us, hidden in plain sight, waiting for the signal to trigger our extinction.

Blindsided, humanity falls. A handful of survivors, bewildered and grief-stricken, must face the new reality, and quickly. For while the Cleansing threatens our existence, it is only the beginning…

Review:

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

3.5 stars.

An interesting twist on the more traditional post-apocalyptic “a deadly catastrophe wipes off humanity, only a few hundreds/thousands survive”… because this time, the survivors are mostly the ones who were responsible for said catastrophe (and this isn’t a spoiler: we learn about it in the first couple of chapters). We’re clearly given both sides here: that of the “poor” human survivors, and that of the group who engineered everything, and was thus organised enough beforehand to be able to breeze through the aftermath.

I liked how the story made me question a lot of things. What we take for granted. The reasons behind the decision of the “bad guys”. How some of them may not be so far away from humanity as they like ot think. I suspect the latter aspect will be explored more in the next installment, or at least I hope so, as it’s something I found quite intriguing. The characters of Troy, Diane and Milandra come to mind. Troy being too trigger-happy in his mission, for a supposedly non-violent being; Diane showing no emotion, no signs, and being exactly the kind of person who might or might not snap in the end; and Milandra, the one who gave the order, yet still tries to protect the one guy who didn’t obey. It seems to me that thousands of years spent among the “drones” have taken their toll, and it made me wonder: how many others are going to have second thoughts, in spite of having carried the order and followed the plan so far?

On the downside, the writing was sometimes a little too dry, and I found it hard to connect with the characters, which in turn made it harder to actually care for them. For quite a few chapters, we see them in their mundane lives, or going through the apocalypse, but mostly I wouldn’t feel very invested in them. I also thought part of the explanation, given throughout the second half of the novel, tended to veer into info-dump territory (just a couple of times, fortunately). The setting also makes up for bleak prospects for the human race—but then, it depends on whether one wants to read a story full of hope in the wake of adversity, or indeed read something about a dark future, in which case The Cleansing definitely delivers.