Review – Page 7 – markwebb.name

2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson – review

2312 was one of the big science fiction releases of 2012, but given my horrendous backlog of reading I didn’t quite get around to reading it. As 2013 came to a close, and still hearing it talked about, I thought I better include it in my catch up reading binge.

Humanity has spread through the solar system, but not to the stars. The plot follows several different characters in what first appears to be a bit of a murder mystery, but quickly extends into a solar system spanning conspiracy.

I’ve read a few reviews of 2312 and I don’t know that I have anything particularly new or startling to add to the dialogue. Frankly, I found the plot to be almost of secondary consideration. As the characters moved around the solar system, I was almost more excited to read about how humanity had tamed the planets. None of the characters were particularly compelling/engaging for me, but still the book kept me hooked.

The treatment of gender was fascinating, and handled quite subtly. Robinson postulates a solar system where gender issues have been rendered largely secondary. Rather than making heavy handed comments on the nature of equality, he just shows the world as it is. No one comments on gender-parity issues, because there are no issues to talk about. The description of a equal world happens between the cracks, building over the course of the novel and best enjoyed in retrospection.

The sheer engineering gumption that it takes to populate the solar system is impressive. A rolling city that crosses Mercury staying constantly in the temperate zone, hollowed out asteroids spun up to create gravity and containing an astonishing array of plants, animals and societies, the timescale involved in terraforming Venus – it is all fantastic stuff. People talk about the book evoking that old school “sense of wonder” – I can now see what they were talking about.

Robinson uses multiple points of view effectively, fleshing out the universe and showing key characters from multiple points of view, highlighting their flaws and making them more three-dimensional (and in some cases less reliable narrators when their turn to be point of view character comes around again).

In summary, it won awards and excited great comment. It’s well worth the read. It’s long. It can be a bit dry in places.

I also reviewed this book on Goodreads. View all my reviews.

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Wizard Undercover by K. E. Mills – review

This review forms part of my contribution to the Australian Women Writers 2013 Reading Challenge. All my 2013 AWWC reviews can be found here.

Wizard Undercover is the fourth book in the Rogue Agent series by K. E. Mills. You can read my review of the first book in the series, The Accidental Sorcerer, here, my review of the second book, Witches Incorporated, here. and my review of the third book, Wizard Squared, here. Those reviews cover a lot of my general thoughts on the world building and general background, so I’ll keep this review shorter and focused on the plot of this book.

In Wizard Undercover, Gerald and his friends are sent in undercover to a royal wedding in another country to uncover a plot to sabotage the event and cause international strife.

This book brought together a lot of the strengths of the first few books. The plot is fun and engaging, with enough twists and turns to keep the reader interested. It is more of a straight out spy story, and is better for it.

While there is still an element of Gerald’s powers saving the day in an entirely unpredictable and convenient way, this is significantly de-emphasised compared to the previous books and indeed the smaller instances serve to advance other plot points.

In this book, Gerald’s inexperience as an agent is his biggest handicap. It is all very well bringing the biggest gun to the party, but if you don’t know who to shoot you are still rendered somewhat ineffective. Wizard Undercover treads that line much more adeptly than the last two books.

The character interactions felt more natural and polished as well, which adds to a richer reading experience.

Thoroughly enjoyed this book, and on the strength of it am eagerly awaiting any further instalments in the series.

Highly recommended.

I also reviewed this book on Goodreads. View all my reviews.

This work by Mark Webb is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Australia License.

Wizard Squared by K. E. Mills – review

This review forms part of my contribution to the Australian Women Writers 2013 Reading Challenge. All my 2013 AWWC reviews can be found here.

Wizard Squared is the third book in the Rogue Agent series by K. E. Mills. You can read my review of the first book in the series, The Accidental Sorcerer, here and my review of the second book, Witches Incorporated, here. Those reviews cover a lot of my general thoughts on the world building and general background, so I’ll keep this review shorter and focused on the plot of this third book.

Wizard Squared is essentially a parallel reality story. In The Accidental Sorcerer, the protagonist (Gerald) makes certain noble decisions to resolve the plot. In Wizard Squared, the author postulates an alternate world where Gerald made other, less noble decisions and as a result warped himself into an evil sorcerer.

I thought this plot had a lot of possibilities, and was looking forward to reading the book. However, I wasn’t taken with the direction it went in. In some ways I am guilty of wanting a different book than the one the author wrote, which isn’t really fair.

The first section of the book retells the ending of The Accidental Sorcerer, but with the alternate ending. This went on for quite a long time – it almost lost me to be honest. I did wonder whether this kind of backstory might have been woven into the plot a little more seamlessly (and briefly).

Perhaps as a result of the extensive introduction, the rest of the story felt rushed and didn’t broaden the readers view of the world Mills has created as much as the previous two books. This was disappointing.

Evil Gerald was a little too “moustache twirling” for my tastes. He had gone completely and utterly bonkers, and because the conversion to cartoon evil was so complete, it was hard to summon the “there but for the grace of god” type feeling I think the reader was supposed to have. I think there was an opportunity to portray a more subtly evil Gerald, which would have made some of good Gerald’s decisions more complex and morally ambiguous.

I mentioned this in the review of Witches Incorporated, but the use of Gerald’s wild and unpredictable powers to resolve plot issues irked me particularly in this book. None of the character’s actions have much impact – Gerald’s power did most of the work. And his powers were not particularly under his control. So really, things worked out via luck more than anything else. I found this slightly unsatisfying.

As a stand alone book, I’d have trouble recommending this one. If you are enjoying the series overall (which I am), there is enough character progression to warrant reading, but don’t be afraid to skip a few pages where necessary.

Fortunately (spoilers) I enjoyed the fourth book in the series (Wizard Undercover) a lot more.

I also reviewed this book on Goodreads. View all my reviews.

This work by Mark Webb is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Australia License.

Witches Incorporated by K. E. Mills – review

This review forms part of my contribution to the Australian Women Writers 2013 Reading Challenge. All my 2013 AWWC reviews can be found here.

Witches Incorporated is the second book in the Rogue Agent series by K. E. Mills. You can read my review of the first book in the series, The Accidental Sorcerer, here.

K. E. Mills is a pen name of writer Karen Miller. After I’d read The Accidental Sorcerer, I attended a writing workshop with Miller at the Australian National SF Con. At the end of the workshop she gave away some piles of books in a sort of lucky door prize, and I was fortunate enough to win the rest of the series. Autographed no less. So I guess you could say that I’m reviewing some books I received gratis, but given I won them fair and square I’m not losing sleep over it. Besides, you try elbowing aside some other contestants to make sure you get a particular pile of books – I worked for my loot!

I might leave that last paragraph out of the Goodreads entry. Anyway, back to the review.

Witches Incorporated is set after the events of The Accidental Sorcerer and follows the adventures of Gerald and his friends as:

Gerald completes his secret agent training (to become a “janitor”);
Monk continues his mad inventor schtick for the government;
Princess Melissande, Reg and a new character (Monk’s sister Bibbie) set up a witching locus agency (Witches Inc)

As the title suggests, this book focuses mostly on the last dynamic, with the point of view character mostly switching between Melissande and Gerald. After an interesting prologue with Gerald, the focus of the first half of the book is almost entirely on Melissande and the witching agency.

Melissande’s “promotion” to a primary point of view character is an interesting choice. It certainly gives a different perspective. Melissande is the least powerful (magic-wise) of the characters, and given Gerald’s super-wizard status, this gives us a slightly more relatable character to see the world through. In that way she takes the place of Gerald in the first book, before he came into his powers.

This brings me to one of the issues I had with this book (and with the rest in the series, truth be told) – just how powerful Gerald has become. The first book had Gerald in the underdog position most of the time, which made him more endearing. From this book onwards, he is (by a long way) the most powerful wizard in the world. It changes his dynamic with his friends and old enemies, making restraint his most strongly emphasised personality trait. Restraint isn’t the most compelling trait in the world. His poorly controlled and understood powers also make for a convenient way for him to get out of sticky situations, without him being fully aware of how he does it.

The plot brings together the at-first-blush-relatively-trivial mystery that Witches Inc has been hired to solve with Gerald’s first janitorial mission. The story moved along at a fair pace, and the ins and outs of the various bits of industrial espionage and implications for international politics were interesting and kept me reading.

The focus on a broader range of characters did add to the richness of the world Mills has created. There is a lot of banter and I found the interactions interesting enough, although there was a little bit too much of the Robert Jordan style “women and men don’t understand each other” dynamic for my taste. That’s a minor gripe though.

I really enjoy the world Mills has created – a kind of steampunk powered by magic vibe. The first book focused on a colonial setting, this one was set in the motherland. I liked the extension of the world view, and gaining a better understanding of how the world works.

Overall I enjoyed dipping into this series again, enough so that I continued in my journey reading the remaining books straight afterwards.

Recommended.

I also reviewed this book on Goodreads. View all my reviews.

This work by Mark Webb is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Australia License.

Caution: contains small parts by Kirstyn McDermott – review

This review forms part of my contribution to the Australian Women Writers 2013 Reading Challenge. All my 2013 AWWC reviews can be found here.

Caution: contains small parts by Kirstyn McDermott is the latest in the Twelve Planets series released by Twelfth Planet Press. It includes the following stories:

What Amanda Wants
Horn
Caution: Contains Small Parts
The Home for Broken Dolls

Kirstyn McDermott is an author who I can rely on to produce excellent quality, lovely prose that creeps me the hell out. I’ve liked her earlier work (see my previous reviews of Madigan Mine and Perfections if you don’t believe me) so it will be no shock to anyone to find out that I really enjoyed Caution: contains small parts as well.

All four stories are in a contemporary setting (as is most of McDermott’s work that I’ve read). The horror elements are subtle – no splatter-punk here. These are generally speaking not high action pieces, rather they twist horror tropes to find interesting ways of exploring characters and merging together the grotesque and the beautiful.

I’m always concerned with describing short story collections/anthologies – often the pieces are too short to describe without giving spoilers. Let me give you the blurb from the book itself.

Caution: Contains Small Parts is an intimate, unsettling collection from award-winning author Kirstyn McDermott.

A creepy wooden dog that refuses to play dead.
A gifted crisis counsellor and the mysterious, melancholy girl she cannot seem to reach.
A once-successful fantasy author whose life has become a horror story – now with added unicorns.
An isolated woman whose obsession with sex dolls takes a harrowing, unexpected turn.

Four stories that will haunt you long after their final pages are turned.

My favourite of the four stories was the titular story Caution: contains small parts. Without giving anything away, it resonated the most with me. I felt closer to the protagonist than in any of the other stories, and found the ending particularly moving.

The first story, What Amanda Wants, is a very strong piece. A strongly realised protagonist and a mystery that felt solid and resolved satisfactorily (with trademark McDermott creepiness).

Horn contained some very visceral writing and again a strongly realised protagonist. This is the story with added unicorns, in case you were wondering.

The final story (more like novella length) is The Home for Broken Dolls. This was probably my least favourite of the book. Don’t get me wrong: it is superbly written, with some well drawn characters and a good arc for the protagonist. However, I found it more intellectually interesting than emotionally engaging. This is probably one of those this-says-more-about-me-than-it-does-about-the-story moments though.

Overall this is another excellent addition to the Twelve Planets series, and a fantastic addition to McDermott’s body of work. Highly recommended.

I also reviewed this book on Goodreads. View all my reviews.

This work by Mark Webb is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Australia License.

The Expanse Trilogy by James S.A. Corey – review

I first came across the first book of the Expanse trilogy Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey (pseudonym for the collaboration of authors Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck) in a review of one of the later books in the series on the Random Alex website. I have been looking for some good old fashioned space opera, and while Alex’s review of Leviathan Wakes itself was a little underwhelming, I was drawn in by her description of the series as a whole.

The series is made up of three books:

Leviathan Wakes
Caliban’s War
Abaddon’s Gate

I’ve heard a lot of discussions about inside the solar system space opera, but this was my first experience with the trend. I must say I enjoyed the trilogy. For one, I actually went on and read the whole series (rather than putting down the first book and saying “I must get back to that later” as is my usual style). That’s got to be a good sign, right? I think it also came at a time where I needed some reading that was interesting but not too intellectually taxing – this fit that bill quite nicely too.

The characters were relatable (if suffering from perhaps a lack of female perspective in the first book). There was plenty of action, solar system spanning politics, alien intrigue, Rag tag crew, advanced space ship, fighting the forces of oppression etc – all good stuff. I found the exploration of a “realistic” (read “no faster than light travel”) solar system very engaging. The mechanisms used to colonise the planets/moons, the impact of different gravity environments on human physiology and the resultant “race” relations that ensue, the creation of a new frontier society and the ongoing impact of corporations on the expansion into space – these were all interesting themes explored around the edges of the main story.

I enjoyed the plot of the first book, Leviathan Wakes. It was self contained, had a fairly solid mystery at the core and resolved somewhat satisfactorily. The next two books grew grander and grander in their scope, but didn’t seem as tight as the first book.

I read in the latest issue of Locus that the series has been optioned for TV, and I’m not surprised. The books seemed written with at least the possibility of a TV/movie adaption in mind – big ships, big explosions etc. I understand one of the authors is George RR Martin’s assistant in another life – I guess being around that much TV success probably has a way of rubbing off on a person!

I also read a somewhat shorter novella The Butcher of Anderson Station, which tells the story of one of the minor characters of the main series. If you like the novels, this is worth reading – quick and gives more depth to the universe created by the authors.

Great popcorn reading, well worth the price of admission.

I also reviewed this series on Goodreads. View all my reviews.

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Redshirts by John Scalzi – review

Redshirts by John Scalzi is a science fiction piece riffing on the fate of the infamous Star Trek “redshirts” – those hapless crew members that beam down to the planet with main cast members and always seem to die. The book starts by looking at the situation from the crew member’s perspective, as a group of new recruits begin to realise that their superior officers seem to be miraculously surviving while all around them anonymous crew are slaughtered week after week. The rest of the crew has developed survival techniques to ensure that they are never, under any circumstances, selected for an away mission.

There have been a lot of reviews about Redshirts and I’m not going to be able to add anything particularly insightful in this one. It was… OK. Writing was good (better than anything I could have produced). Story was interesting enough. I liked the three codas at the end. It gets very cleverly “meta”. It was… OK.

If the previous paragraph feels like I’m damning the book with faint praise, it is entirely possible that I am. I didn’t hate it, but I was never really grabbed by it. The writing was good, but not compelling. The premise was clever, but in some ways a bit too clever. It seemed to get in the way of a stronger story.

Coincidentally, I watched another “meta” work over the last couple of days – Joss Whedon’s The Cabin in the Woods. I found it interesting to contrast the two works. With The Cabin in the Woods the story seemed to be more strongly embedded, the meta elements woven in a bit more tightly. The Cabin in the Woods is by no means perfect, but it did feel like the story was being put first. Redshirts felt a bit more like the clever conceit was being put first.

Look, this book is up for many awards, and there are a lot of people that love it. It’s a pretty quick read, and is one of those books that has got a lot of “buzz”. I think it might be one you just have to try for yourself – its “meta” elements are different enough that I’m not sure other people’s opinions are as helpful as normal. If you do read it, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments section below. I can’t shake the feeling that I might be missing something.

I also reviewed this book on Goodreads. View all my reviews.

Update 3/9/2013:

Redshirts just won the Hugo, further proof that I’m probably missing something!

This work by Mark Webb is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Australia License.

A Madness of Angels by Kate Griffin – review

A Madness of Angels by Kate Griffin came to my attention when listening to one of my favourite podcasts, The Writer and the Critic (episode 29 if you’re interested). The book was recommended by guest N.K. Jemisin and sounded very interesting. Besides, the author’s real last name is Webb. Can’t go past a book by another Webb.

So, a basic rundown of the plot. Matthew Swift is an urban sorcerer, someone who uses the rhythms and movements of the city to create magic. He has also been dead for the last two years. Our story begins when he suddenly gets better, resurrecting fully formed, naked and in his old apartment, which is now being occupied by someone else. It isn’t the only thing that’s being occupied by someone else. Matthew has brought some visitors along for the ride in his newly corporeal body. Who killed him? Who brought him back? The rest of the novel is driven by Swift’s attempts to answer these questions.

The world building is great in this book. Different forms of magic, from the creative sorcery making ad hoc use of the powers inherent in a city of millions, through to rule bound magicians, magically travelling bikies and gun toting religious nutters. This is a world meant for more than one book (and indeed I can see there are three more in the series).

The main character shares his consciousness with previously incorporeal beings, and Griffin represents this duality very effectively, switching between singular and plural pronouns throughout the narrative. The instability inherent in this kind of sharing made for a more compelling character – from the glimpses we get of Swift pre-merger, he wouldn’t have been interesting enough to hold a readers attention.

Other characters were portrayed in interesting ways, but I didn’t feel particularly close to any of them. Some of the minor secondary characters felt a little shallow, with not enough back story to forge a connection. One particularly pivotal character is introduced quite late, and does not have enough page time for the reader to really feel for her when nasty things happen.

I’m in two minds about the writing itself. In some scenes I found it wonderful – gorgeous prose describing the sorcerer’s movement through an urban environment, and giving a wonderful sense of place for London and its surrounds. But in other places the text became dense and difficult to read, and I must admit that I found myself skimming. This was probably my loss, but I suspect if I’d gone as slowly as the text sometimes demanded I would have been reading this book for a long time. On the other hand, the dialogue in the book was excellent – crisp, focused and with just the right amount of snark.

So overall I found that the book dragged a little. It felt like it could have been edited to be a lot tighter. There were points where the stream-of-consciousness style of narration worked very effectively as Swift and his passengers moved through the city, and other times where it didn’t quite capture me.

All in all I enjoyed the book and will track down the sequels at some future point. Recommended for lovers of urban fantasy.

I also reviewed this book on Goodreads. View all my reviews.

This work by Mark Webb is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Australia License.

Suited by Jo Anderton – review

This review forms part of my contribution to the Australian Women Writers 2013 Reading Challenge. All my 2013 AWWC reviews can be found here.

Suited by Jo Anderton is the second in the Veiled World series of books (see my previous review of the first book in the series, Debris, here).

Suited follows the continuing adventures of Tanyana, former elite manipulator of pions, now reduced to cleaning the magical debris left over from their use. Having taken the side of the Keeper (the mostly invisible manager of debris) against the mysterious Puppet Men, Tanyana finds herself the uneasy ally of the rebellion element in the city of Movoc-Under-Keeper as well as fighting an internal battle against her own debris collection suit.

Once again Tanyana is a very conflicted character – constantly questioning herself. At first I was concerned that she was going to spend a lot of time moping about, but as the psychological influence of her suit becomes clearer, the conflict behind the self-reflection becomes more evident and is more satisfying as a result.

In fact, the suit takes on enough personality to be considered a character in its own right in this book. I liked the balance between the power the suit provided Tanyana, and the cost of accessing that power. It made Tanyana more engaging.

The secondary characters are still fairly lightly drawn, but I did feel that some of the characters closest to Tanyana were filled in more solidly in this second book, in particular the character of Lad.

As is often the case with sequels, we learn a lot more about the world and what is going on with the supernatural, traumatised Keeper and the nasty Puppet Men. This is the part of the story that hooked me most – trying to puzzle out the mystery of exactly how this world is constructed. Tantalising hints are sprinkled through the story, including references to “programmers” (unusual in what is on the face of it a secondary world fantasy!). This central mystery, more than anything else, is what will bring me back for the third book in the series (which, as far as I can tell, isn’t released yet).

In Debris I occasionally found that the pace dragged, but didn’t have that sensation with Suited. Some excellent action scenes are interspersed with the more character driven scenes (in fact the scenes where Tanyana cuts loose are quite something to be seen).

All in all I enjoyed Suited immensely. Looking forward to the next volume!

Recommended.

I also reviewed this book on Goodreads. View all my reviews.

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Angel Rising by Dirk Flinthart – review

I recently read, enjoyed and reviewed New Ceres Nights, a collection of short stories set in the shared world of New Ceres. In a future where humanity has reached the stars, one planet choses to limit themselves to 18th century technology. I liked the collection, and have been keeping an eye out for further work set in the same world.

Angel Rising by Dirk Flinthart is a novella set in New Ceres, focusing on one of the shared characters, George Gordon. Gordon is one of the few people allowed to used modern technology, as a part of a group of protectors (Proctors) that are deployed to foil plots that threaten the New Ceres way of life.

In this novella he is off to the Sunrise Isles, where 18th century Japanese culture has been recreated. Inevitably he runs across samurai, ninjas and mystic warrior nuns, as well as a mysterious offworlder with amnesia and a lot of people looking for her.

I enjoyed the novella, giving further insight into this shared world. I find it interesting how the same character is portrayed by different authors, same base characteristics but some real differences in characterisation.

Flinthart’s writing is crisp and clear, with engaging action sequences placed at regular intervals in the plot. The plot was good – as the book is novella length it carries you along at a fair clip. In fact, the shortness is probably the only main issue I had with the work – there were times where I would have liked to see the plot expanded with more texture.

If you’re interested in the New Ceres shared world, I’d probably start with New Ceres Nights. However, Angel Rising is an excellent next stop on your tour.

Recommended.

I also reviewed this book on Goodreads. View all my reviews.

This work by Mark Webb is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Australia License.