Billy Jensen is a podcaster and author who became famous for his true crime investigations. I was expecting this book to be a little more investigatorBilly Jensen is a podcaster and author who became famous for his true crime investigations. I was expecting this book to be a little more investigatory; the premise is that serial killers are going undetected because they target addicts and sex workers (often the same thing) who no one cares about. He does uncover a few cases like this, but it's not some secret network of serial killers who've cunningly discovered a "safe" population of prey. It's mostly opportunistic sociopaths who are often homeless and/or jobless drifters themselves. They make use of prostitutes, they hook up short term with junkies, and when something goes wrong, or the urge strikes them, they kill them. This does in fact largely go undetected because the police don't put a lot of resources into finding the murderer of a junkie street whore, and they especially don't do a lot of cross-department collaboration and comparing of notes. One of the big takeways from this book is that if police departments talked to each other more and just applied some basic data science, they'd probably uncover a lot of patterns and a lot of killers.
Mostly, though, Killers Amidst Killers is not really a thriller or Billy Jensen on the trail of a devious serial killer. He does get personally involved in a few cases, and even interviews a few killers and suspected killers in prison. One of things he tells the reader is that anyone (with sufficient time and gumption) can help solve unsolved murders, especially of the sort of women who no one else cares about. But few are as dedicated to the job as Jensen. He drives across the country, he pesters police departments, but he doesn't actually solve a lot of cases.
As the subtitle indicates, the real theme of this book is the victims of the opioid epidemic, so Jensen spends a lot of time talking about the hollowing out of the Rust Belt and Detroit and West Virginia and places like that, and how impoverished, unemployed people fall into substance addition. He specifically talks about the opioid crisis, and takes a couple of chapters to talk about Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family, whom he blames for far more misery than any serial killer.
Ultimately, the killers themselves are banal, pitiful people. Jensen hates media "superstar" killers like Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, and fictional ones like Hannibal Lecter. The killers he finds, and sometimes talks to, are not brilliant and clever men with a plan. They are generally stupid, narcissistic, delusional, and pathetic. They kill prostitutes because those are the women they can access; then they lie (to themselves and everyone else) about what happened. They get away with it because they're in the wind, and nobody cares about the women they kill but their families.
There wasn't really a lot new here. Mostly some interesting interviews and a lot of class indignation. The stories are poignant and sad tales of desperation. Opioids kill more people by orders of magnitude than serial killers, yet serial killers make for sensational narratives; heroin and fentanyl is just something that "happens" to addicts....more
This book has a lot in common with the first book I read by Ronald Malfi, Bone White. His preferred theme seems to be guys who left their pasts behindThis book has a lot in common with the first book I read by Ronald Malfi, Bone White. His preferred theme seems to be guys who left their pasts behind and went off to the big city, only to be pulled back to their crappy hometown to deal with the skeletons buried in their closets. With hints of the supernatural that never quite come out into the open.
Small Town Horror is basically "I Know What You Did Last Summer" with Stephen King childhood-friendship-is-black-magic vibes. The main character, Andrew, is a big shot New York lawyer, with a beautiful pregnant wife. Life is good. Until he gets a call from an old friend back in his home town in Maryland, on the Chesapeake Bay.
It turns out his old gang never left- one of them has become a cop, one has become a failed real estate developer, one has become a junkie, and the girl in the group has become a single mother waiting tables.
The plot revolves around a secret they've all been keeping for years, about a high school classmate who died in a tragic accident. Everyone has been carrying the guilt of what happened since they were kids, and things start unraveling. The "supernatural" element is introduced by the mother of the dead kid, who's got a reputation as the town "witch."
The plot was suspenseful even if the "secret" is pretty obvious from the beginning, and the hints of supernatural add an atmosphere of creepiness without really turning it into a proper horror novel.
I was annoyed by what seemed to be some baffling decisions by the main character, and when the reason for those decisions was revealed, I was annoyed by the fact that the author sort of "cheated" by hiding a major revelation from the reader until near the end. Big reveals should not be things that the main character knows all along but just doesn't mention until it's convenient.
That said, I still liked how it all came together in the end. It's a gloomy, tragic small town horror....more
Generation ship stories were passe for a long time, but they must have been on the "hot list" for a few agents for a while, because I've read several Generation ship stories were passe for a long time, but they must have been on the "hot list" for a few agents for a while, because I've read several in the past few years.
Now, scientists have pointed out that generation ships (where humans live in a giant spaceship that spends decades or centuries reaching another star system, producing new generations who live and die aboard the ship, all so a future generation can finally reach their destination) really can't work, for many technological, biological, and social reasons. Not without magic-level technology, anyway (in which case, you might as well imagine FTL travel). But the premise is still alluring and makes for compelling stories, so SF readers can accept it just like they can accept FTL travel in space operas.
Braking Day follows a lot of the tropes that have become common to the subgenre: centuries ago, people left Earth for (reasons). Over time, the crew of the ship has become stratified into a caste-like society, with the "officers" lording it over the grunts who do the dirty work. And of course, there will be a Big Secret related to their actual mission and what will happen with they arrive.
Ravi Macleod is your typical YA protagonist. He's from a "non-academic" family, as one of the officers sarcastically refers to his clan of black marketeers and scrubs, but he's obtained a rare slot in engineering school, destined to become an officer, if he can actually pass training despite the prejudices of his peers and superiors. Naturally, he has a massive crush on the popular girl who's a member of the Captain's family, and thus completely out of his league. Naturally, she will play a part in the plot as both the love interest and the twist, when it comes, regarding loyalties.
His generation ship, the Archimedes, is approaching Braking Day- when they will turn around and begin applying reverse thrust to slow the ship to a halt above New Earth, in the Tau Ceti system. Ravi is a member of that lucky generation that will actually see planetfall. All the old crew hierarchies will be dissolved and their society will change forever. Can you predict that there will be factions who don't want this?
When Ravi sees a hallucination of a girl floating outside an airlock without a suit, trying to talk to him, it leads to him eventually learning things about their ship, their mission, and what will happen on Braking Day. The story goes in some fairly unpredictable directions, but stays within the realm of moderately-hard SF.
A generation ship story about a young man invites Heinlein comparisons, of course, but Oyabanji's characters aren't Heinleinian; they are competent and human, but messier, and the writing style and the storyline are contemporary. I enjoyed it, and I enjoyed it a lot more than Medusa Uploaded, which was similar in many ways but weirder and with less believable characters....more
Motherless Child is Yet Another Vampire Story, and doesn't add much new or original to vampire lore, which is actually a good thing. Vampires are nastMotherless Child is Yet Another Vampire Story, and doesn't add much new or original to vampire lore, which is actually a good thing. Vampires are nasty predatory fiends and when you get turned into a vampire, you are constantly hungry and fighting to hold onto your humanity. That's the way I like my vamps.
Sophie and Natalie are basically "trailer trash" - a couple of besties who both got knocked up and are now working low-end retail and living in a trailer park in North Carolina. When a musician known as "The Whistler" shows up at their local honkie-tonk, they think a little bit of excitement and stardom is touching their dreary lives. They wake up naked, bloody, and hungry.
The Whistler is, of course, a vampire, and for his own reasons, he decided to turn both these chicks. He is obsessed with Natalie, and turned her best friend as a sort of afterthought. Natalie and Sophie both figure out what's happened to them pretty quickly. Natalie returns home, tells her mother (another single mother working at a Waffle House) to run away and not let her find her. Her mother, without fully realizing what has happened, immediately realizes that Natalie is dead serious, and does as she says.
The rest of the book is a chase between The Whistler, Natalie, Sophie, and Natalie's mother, who has Natalie and Sophie's children. Natalie's mother is one of the best characters, as a serious and hard-working woman who's basically a case study in broken dreams and sacrificed futures, fiercely protective of her daughter, and who also knows when to let go. The Whistler is creepy and predatory and a classic master vampire, but it's Mother who steals the spotlight as the Big Bad.
Well-written and with good characterization, but I still found the story lacked a real wow factor or enough excitement to make me eager to pick up the next book (this is the first in a trilogy). As vampire stories go this is a good one, and if you want a deft portrayal of working class single mothers, the author clearly knows the milieu. There is plenty of violence and gore. But ultimately it's just another vampire story....more
Even if you've never read or watched The Stepford Wives, you probably know the premise, because "Stepford wife" has become part of the pop culture lexEven if you've never read or watched The Stepford Wives, you probably know the premise, because "Stepford wife" has become part of the pop culture lexicon. It refers to a married woman who performs a traditional, subservient housewife role in a (literally!) robotic fashion: mindlessly, smilingly cheerful as she devotes herself to keeping the house clean but always being available to please her husband with an afternoon quickie. She has no ambitions, no desires of her own, and no internal life. She is a wifebot, a bangmaid, and every man's dream.
Well, maybe not that last part. But that is what I think makes this 70s classic (and its various film adaptations) more interesting than the very short and simple story would be by itself.
Here is the plot (including spoilers, because it's a 50-year-old classic): Joanna and Walter, a nice middle class couple with two children, decide to leave Manhattan and move to a nice suburb in Connecticut called Stepford. Joanna makes a little side money as a photographer and isn't particularly radical, but she is disturbed by how complacent and boring all the women of Stepford are. The only social activity in the town at all is the "Men's Association." Walter, her supportive and progressive husband, joins the Men's Association saying it's just a place for the guys to gather and play poker and stuff, and they're going to change the rules to open it up to women soon.
Joanna initially makes friends with a couple of other women who similarly don't fit in in Stepford. They also discover that Stepford used to have an active women's movement, which included many of the women who now spend all day cleaning the house in high heels and makeup. She watches with horror as one by one her friends also turn into complacent housewives no longer interested in anything but cleaning and being sexually available to their husbands. Suspecting that the same thing will happen to her, she tells her husband that she wants to leave. Walter, with some resistance agrees, but demands she see a psychiatrist first. Joanna eventually discovers the horrible truth: the Men's Association is secretly replacing their wives with robots. The book ends with Joanna meeting her inevitable fate, as it turns out the clock had been ticking since the moment she arrived in Stepford.
Ira Levin, a popular horror/thriller author who wrote such classics as Rosemary's Baby and A Kiss Before Dying, published The Stepford Wives in 1972, and the first movie version came out in 1975. It is very much an artifact of its time. Feminism was still kind of radical, women were starting to be seen in career roles, and men were having a hard time adjusting. Boomers who grew up with stay-at-home moms and June Cleaver on TV might have talked a good game about supporting "women's lib" but what guy wouldn't actually want a docile and subservient wife who's always waiting at home for you, never argues, never complains, and never asks for things? At least, that is the assumption in the book. Joanna's wife Walter initially appears to be a modern-minded supportive husband, but his mask slips little by little. There is some ambiguity about his transformation: did he arrive in Stepford a normal, decent guy who became entranced by the vision of submissive sexbots that the bros in the Men's Association showed him? Or did he move his family to Stepford already knowing what it offered?
Later takes on The Stepford Wives treat it as a satire of the American housewife stereotype and the emptiness of suburban life, but Levin wrote it as an actual horror story. There is the physical horror of women literally being murdered and replaced with robots, but I think the psychological aspect is more interesting: for a woman, the message might as well be "Can you really trust any man?" If your darling husband was offered a chance to turn you into a submissive, obedient bangmaid (who, incidentally, gets free body sculpting and breast enlargement as part of the package), are you really sure he wouldn't take that deal? It seems no man in Stepford ever said no.
Although the references in The Stepford Wives are certainly dated, it's a book that still reads well today. It's short and concise and even if you know the plot already, thanks to its age, there is still a slow creeping sense of doom as Joanna realizes the situation she is in....more
Relics could be considered "urban fantasy" since it features the familiar theme of mythological monsters hiding in a modern urban setting. The tone isRelics could be considered "urban fantasy" since it features the familiar theme of mythological monsters hiding in a modern urban setting. The tone is much more dark fantasy, edging into horror. There is a lot of violence and gore. To me that made it more enjoyable than your typical "paranormal-romance-pretending-to-be-fantasy."
Angela Gough is an American gal living in London with a hot British boyfriend. She became enamored of true crime thrillers, which led her to majoring in criminology. She and her boyfriend Vince are deeply in love but haven't really discussed getting married yet, and Angela has been happily child-free for years but with her biological clock ticking she's starting to want all the things modern strong independent women aren't supposed to care about. So she's kind of a stereotype, and unsurprisingly was the least interesting character in the book.
Somehow she's been living with Vince for years, even as he maintains a separate apartment, and she's had no real idea of what he does for a living. Something finance-trade mumble mumble.
A normal person would think this is all kinds of red flags, but when Vince disappears, leaving a note saying "Don't look for me," Angela is absolutely certain it couldn't be that Vince just decided to leave her, or had a side chick somewhere.
To be fair, she is right, but come on now.
Eventually, Angela discovers that Vince has actually been working "freelance" for a couple of a London crime lords who collect "relics": the ancient remains of mythological creatures. Satyrs, goblins, nymphs, angels, fairies; they all existed once, and there are people willing to pay big money for their parts. Except it turns out, the creatures aren't all dead, and the buyers for these relics aren't just interested in the preserved remains of the long-dead. They want fresh parts.
Aside from the eye-rolling obtuseness of one of the POV characters, I enjoyed the book. Relics has a familiar cosmology; legendary creatures who faded into myth as humans multiplied and industrial civilization took over, but they're still hiding there in the shadows. Some of them are friendly, and some are pretty nasty, but the worst characters in the book are humans. Angela and Vince are caught up in a three-way conflict between a mad satyr, two rival sociopathic crime bosses, and the Kin they are helping defend. The book is quite contemporary (when Angela asks one of the Kin "What can you do?", Vince tells her "They're not the Avengers."). It's also quite bloody and gruesome in places.
Relics stands on its own, but it's the first book in a trilogy. I'm interested to see if the following books hold the theme well or just become an ever-expanding monster manual. ...more
Ron Chernow's biographies of George Washington and Alexander Hamilton were excellent, so when I reached POTUS #18, Ulysses S. Grant, Chernow's biograpRon Chernow's biographies of George Washington and Alexander Hamilton were excellent, so when I reached POTUS #18, Ulysses S. Grant, Chernow's biography was the one I naturally picked up. I wasn't disappointed; he covers the Union-general-turned-President in just the right amount of detail, from his early life to his post-White House career, with a big chunk of the book spent on his campaigns during the Civil War. The only slight criticism is that as is often the case with biographers, Chernow's fondness for his subject is obvious, so when Grant's deficiencies come up (and he had quite a few), Chernow always offers an explanation most sympathetic to Grant.
Hiram Goes to West Point
Ulysses was actually born Hiram Ulysses Grant. He came from Ohio, from middle class abolitionist parents. At age 17, his father got him a nomination to attend West Point. According to Chernow, Grant had never been planning to attended West Point, but he went along with his father's wishes. Grant had never liked his first name and didn't go by "Hiram," and the congressman who nominated him wrote his name incorrectly as "Ulysses S. Grant." The West Point admissions officer refused to change it, so his name remained, officially, Ulysses S. Grant forever after.
One of the frequent stories told about Grant is that he graduated "near the bottom of his class" at West Point. Here Chernow takes up the defense of Grant's reputation; he actually graduated 21st out of 39. Chernow calls this "in the middle of the pack," which is basically true if a somewhat favorable way of saying "in the bottom half," and Chernow then goes on to point out that this was after West Point had already weeded out a large percentage of those who first entered, which is also true but just seems to be protesting too much that Grant was totally not just a mediocre graduate.
Grant had a classmate, Fred Dent, who liked him a lot and wanted to set him up with his sister. Ulysses and Julia Dent did hit it off, and became engaged, though they didn't get married until after Grant returned from the Mexican-American War. Julia was the daughter of a Missouri slaveholder. Grant's abolitionist parents did not like the Dents, and Julia's parents did not approve of Ulysses, whom they thought wasn't good enough for her. This echoed the troubles Abraham Lincoln had with his slave-owning in-laws. Unlike Mary Todd Lincoln, though, Julia was a kind and supportive wife, and though she wasn't always happy about the hardships of being an officer's wife, she didn't pout and pine for slaves and luxurious living like Lincoln's wife did.
Drinking Problems
The alcoholism that would plague Grant throughout his life first became evident during his time in the army. He served with distinction in the Mexican-American War, but after the war, it became evident that he had a drinking problem. Eventually he ran into a commanding officer that wasn't willing to overlook it. The exact details of his resignation from the army remain a little vague; Grant claimed he resigned because he promised he would if he couldn't get his drinking under control, but others would later claim that he was essentially told to resign or be court-martialed.
His long-suffering wife Julia and his father's attorney, John Rawlins, who would become his lifelong friend, did what they could to keep alcohol out of Grant's hands, even as he was in command of the Union Army, but not always successfully.
He returned to Ohio, entered into a number of failed business ventures, had to accept humiliating financial assistance from his father-in-law, and seemed destined to become a washed-up nobody.
"I Need This Man. He fights!"
When the Secessionist Movement broke into a civil war, Grant was stirred by patriotism to rejoin the army, though he did try to hold out for a higher rank than he was initially offered.
The path from a volunteer Colonel to Lieutenant-General in command of the Union Army would have seemed, in the beginning, as unlikely as Grant eventually becoming President. Chernow covers the entire Civil War, and every battle Grant fought, in detail. Essentially, Grant moved up the ranks by winning battles at a time when the Union desperately needed officers who could win battles. Lincoln kept promoting him, even after word reached him that Grant had a drinking problem, because he had been plagued by ineffective, foot-dragging generals, while Grant got shit done.
This is not to say Grant always won; he didn't. But over time he won more often than he lost. Another historical controversy to this day is Grant vs. Lee. There are critics who say Grant was a mediocre general who won only because the Union had to win, eventually, with its vast superiority in material and manpower. Chernow, of course, argues against this and describes Grant's strategic acumen in detail, depicting him as a decisive and bold leader who wasn't afraid to put himself in harm's way (there were several instances of soldiers having to yell at the general to get back behind lines as he exposed himself to fire to get a better view) when not a few other Union generals seemed to be passive at best, cowardly at worst.
Robert E. Lee, for his part, was also a very capable general, but Grant considered him overrated, and at one point yelled at his generals, who were constantly worried about what Lee would do next, to stop worrying about what Lee would do and to start thinking about what they were going to do to stop him. Southerners revered Robert E. Lee after the war, and to this day, but during the war he was sometimes considered too slow and unresponsive and Southern newspapers called him "Granny Lee" for his failure to go after the Yankees.
When Grant finally defeated Lee, he received his former West Point classmate cordially and hospitably, and was gracious in victory, demanding unconditional surrender but allowing the Confederacy's officers to keep their weapons and horses. Lee was less gracious; he spurned Grant's attempts at chit-chat, and stayed coldly polite in their interactions. After the war, Grant continued to keep his promise to protect Lee and his officers from being tried for treason, despite a strong vengeful sentiment among Northerners in favor of doing so.
A Swing Around the Bottle
The Lincolns invited the Grants to accompany them to that fateful night at Ford's Theater; Grant declined, citing an earlier engagement. Supposedly, they wanted to go to their home in New Jersey, but this was probably an excuse: Julia Grant couldn't stand Mary Lincoln, who had been very rude to her. (In fact, Mrs. Lincoln was rude to pretty much everyone, but especially the wives of anyone she perceived to be a rival to her husband).
Grant was summoned back to Washington after Lincoln was shot. He continued to serve as commander of the Army in the Andrew Johnson administration, and initially he got along well with Johnson. This didn't last. Johnson was an irascible man who reversed himself on reconstruction; Grant wanted to protect the rights of freed black citizens who were now being terrorized throughout the South, while Johnson clearly prioritized restoring the Southern states to full statehood as quickly as possible, and preserving the privileges of the white aristocracy. (Johnson, born a poor "white trash" Southerner, both despised and envied the aristocratic plantation class.)
When Johnson staged his disastrous "Swing Around the Circle" tour of the country to build support for his administration, he dragged Grant and Admiral David Farragut and General George Armstrong Custer with him. Grant was bored, disgusted with the entire thing, considered Johnson's speeches to be disastrous, and ended up bailing on the tour early. He also reportedly starting drinking heavily again during this farce.
When Andrew Johnson was impeached by Congress, he became increasingly isolated, and turned his ire on Grant, among others, whom he correctly perceived to be more popular than him.
An Honest President in a Corrupt Administration
Grant was now in favor with the so-called "Radical Republicans" who wanted to preserve black suffrage and continue prosecuting a vigorous Reconstruction policy. He easily won the Republican nomination (with running mate Schuyler Colfax, an abolitionist former Whig Congressman from Indiana), and running against Democrat Horatio Seymour, won both the popular and electoral college vote in a landslide.
Grant's administration is generally regarded as one of the worst in US history. It was rife with corruption and cronyism. Chernow does an admirable job of defending Grant's honor, arguing (mostly convincingly) that he had always been a bit naive and overly trusting, and that he was probably unaware of most of the unsavory activities of people in his administration. (The fact that Grant was repeatedly fleeced by con-men throughout his life, including after he left office, makes this more believable.) Most of the scandals involved people in his administration probably operating without his knowledge, but the famous Whiskey Ring scandal (involving tax evasion by whiskey distillers on a grand scale, with huge kickbacks to federal revenue agents) touched Grant personally, as he had a financial interest in some of the whiskey production, and people who knew him used their association with him for clout and claimed he was completely on board. (Grant denied this; at worst he was probably willfully ignorant.)
Grant wasn't completely without successes: he did vigorously combat the rise of the Klu Klux Klan and tried to protect the rights of black citizens, even ordering troops to mobilize in the unreconstructed South. His opposition to the Klan helped him win reelection in 1872. He instituted civil service reform, and (with more mixed results), put the US on the gold standard and vetoed an inflation bill.
Although he considered running for a third term, the failure of Reconstruction and a series of investigations by Congress for corruption dissuaded him. He supported his Republican successor, Rutherford B. Hayes.
The First Presidential World Tour
After leaving Washington, Ulysses and Julia Grant traveled around the world. They took a tour of Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, and were received by Queen Victoria, Tsar Alexander II, Pope Leo XIII, Otto Von Bismarck, and Emperor Meiji of Japan. As an unofficial representative of the United States, with the tacit support of President Hayes and the State Department, this was the first case of "Presidential diplomacy" by an ex-President. The Grants were well-received everywhere (though some state leaders had unflattering things to say about the doughty Julia), and he returned to America, landing in San Francisco to cheering crowds.
Would-be Third Termer
Enormously popular after his world tour, Grant's name was being bandied about as a potential nominee for the Republican ticket in 1880. He would have become the first President to serve non-consecutive terms. He was in the lead at the Republican Convention and won a plurality of votes in the first ballot, but not enough to secure the nomination. In those days, conventions often voted over and over and over again, and it took 36 ballots before dark horse candidate James Garfield finally won the nomination. Grant didn't like Garfield, but publicly supported him, and he was devastated when Garfield was assassinated by a crazed office-seeker; a man who had, in fact, repeatedly accosted Grant also in preceding months.
Fleeced and Dying
Ex-Presidents also didn't usually get lucrative speaking, consulting, and publishing deals. Not only was there no pension for ex-presidents at that time, but upon becoming President Grant had had to resign his commission in the Army and thus lost his military pension. Despite Ulysses S. Grant being a hero of the Civil War and an ex-President, the Grants were now poor. Wealthy supporters literally gave him and his wife a house on Manhattan's Upper East Side, but Grant still struggled to earn a living. This was when he and his son fell in with a con-man named Ferdinand Ward, who set up what would later be called a Ponzi scheme. Not just the Grants, but many of their friends, were taken in by Ward, on the strength of Grant's word. Ward even talked Grant into talking the wealthy William Vanderbilt into throwing more money into the venture. Everyone lost their entire investment; Grant signed over his house to Vanderbilt, who accepted it but with the proviso that he would only take possession of it after both Grants passed away.
Grant was approached to write a memoir, something he had initially refused to do, thinking he had nothing interesting to say (!). But in 1884, he was diagnosed with throat cancer; likely the result of his lifelong cigar habit. Now he was dying and almost penniless and afraid of leaving Julia unsupported. (Congress, upon learning of Grant's condition and their financial situation, would eventually vote to restore his pension and Julia's widow's benefits.)
The famous author Mark Twain, a friend of the Grants, offered him a very generous publishing contract (Grant, as usual, was about to be fleeced by another publisher). He wrote his memoirs even as he was dying, and finished them just before he died on July 23, 1885. Mark Twain praised his clear, honest prose style and to this day they are considered one of the best military memoirs ever written. The one thing Grant didn't write about (though Twain thought he should) was his struggles with alcohol. The Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant became a best-seller. Julia was able to live out her life in comfort thanks to the royalties.
The entire country mourned, and his funeral became a massive state affair, with ceremonies and parades and flags lowered around the country. He was beloved in both the North and the South, where he was remembered fondly for having been an honorable foe who had been gracious and generous to the defeated Confederacy.
I would rank Grant as one of the best presidential biographies I've read (though not quite as good as Chernow's biography of Washington). Chernow does seem to go out of his way to defend Grant's reputation, but other historians generally consider him to have been a great general and a mediocre but not terrible president....more
Flames of Mira seems to be one of those little-known indie epic fantasies that came out a few years ago and failed to make much of a splash, despite aFlames of Mira seems to be one of those little-known indie epic fantasies that came out a few years ago and failed to make much of a splash, despite a devoted core of fans. I finally got around to listening to it, and it was pretty good! I can't quite say it was great, but clearly the author was striving to tell a traditional epic fantasy story using a setting that didn't resemble Earth or a copy-paste of a D&Dish world.
Unfortunately, I still felt like it carried the baggage of one of those "edgy, alternate setting" D&D worlds - you know the ones, where the classes and races are mostly familiar, but they've been reskinned for Planescape or Dark Sun?
D&D references are unfair; Clay Harmon might or might not have based this on an RPG campaign (I would not be surprised), but he hides the dice and the character sheet at least as well as Brandon Sanderson does. I know Sanderson comparisons are nearly as tired as D&D ones, but when you go to great lengths to create a complicated periodic-table-of-the-elements-based magic system, they are kind of inevitable.
The world of Mira is almost entirely underground. Entire civilizations are built beneath the planet's crust, side by side with flowing rivers of magma and overhanging glaciers of ice from the surface. The surface is said to be so icy and inhospitable that it's almost instantly fatal.
Ig (which we later learn is not his real name) is an "elemental." He has the power to literally control the elements, and he is in a foreign land where his powers are almost unknown and make him a superweapon. He is a superweapon "flesh-bound" to the Magnate Sorrelo Adriann, your basic asshole despot in charge of a city-state under the jurisdiction of a nearly immortal god-king who has "Primordial" enforcers with powers like Ig's. You can bet there will be an elemental showdown, yup.
Ig appears to most of the city to be merely the Magnate's manservant, but in fact, he is an enforcer, assassin, and whatever else Sorrelo orders him to do, thanks to his flesh-binding. And if Sorrelo dies, the flesh-binding will be inherited by his children, so Ig is forever bound to the Adriann family.
Sorrelo has three children: kind, idealistic Emil, ambitious and pragmatic Sara, and naive, feisty teenager Efadora. Ig considers Emil his friend, and he kind of has a crush on Sara. When a coup deposes Sorrelo, Ig has to protect Emil and Sara (while Efadora has been separated from them and thus has her own POV chapters), and then spends much of the book trying to help the Adrianns regain their throne.
What makes the story compelling is not the magic system (which is detailed and complicated) or the fights (which are detailed and sometimes overly so) but the characterization. Ig is a killing machine who's really just an abandoned child looking for love in his heart of hearts, and he really, really wants to believe that Sara's promises of helping the common people are real. The slow realization that she is every bit as ruthless and cold-blooded as her father, she just manages to feel bad about it sometimes, is brutal, but not as brutal as the scenes where she puts him under the control of vengeful mercenary who takes pleasure in forcing Ig to commit atrocities.
Flames of Mira is well-written with fully developed characters, from the protagonists to the villains, but its narrative is confusing at times. It is a multiple POV novel, with Ig being the primary protagonist, but sometimes we shift to the Adrianns. It also skips back and forth in time, so the author doles out slowly Ig's backstory; how he became an elemental, how he left his homeland, and how he became bound to Sorrelo and his family.
This was a very good epic fantasy that didn't quite reach epic greatness because of the somewhat confusing world and magic system (I'm still not sure I understand it completely) and the POV and time skips, which annoyed me. Nonetheless, it's a series I would consider worth continuing....more
I am fond of thrillers, but I tend to be more about the characters and the story than just how clever and twisty the author can be. And The Package brI am fond of thrillers, but I tend to be more about the characters and the story than just how clever and twisty the author can be. And The Package brought to light a number of writing tropes in thrillers that I have realized annoy me.
Emma is a psychiatrist who survived a serial killer called "The Hairdresser." He raped her and shaved her head, but left her alive. For various reasons, her story doesn't quite add up, leading the police and even her own husband to doubt what really happened.
Much of the story involves Emma trying to figure out what really happened, discovering one awful revelation after another, being repeatedly gaslit and chasing red herrings, and misleading the reader. There will be multiple wrong guesses about who "The Hairdresser" really is, with tragic consequences, but when the final reveal was revealed, I found myself annoyed. I won't say the clues didn't fit together, but I felt like certain characters had to do sudden unforeshadowed heel-face turns to make it make sense. When a character who's been perfectly normal throughout the book suddenly reveals that they are actually an evil sociopath who's been playing a long game, it really needs more development.
Additionally, we have the CSI trope of police departments and lawyers being willing to go to extraordinary (and expensive) lengths to set up contrived situations to try to catch a killer. The Package is set in Germany, but most of the legal and police aspects seem more or less similar to American procedurals, and I assume that the German justice system, like the American one, probably does not routinely have the resources to set up an elaborate gotcha using multiple unsuspecting participants in an ethically dubious manner.
This story was okay but just a little too Netflix-tropey for me, and I realized perhaps I am becoming more picky and critical about my thrillers and mysteries....more
I enjoyed Marko Kloos's Frontlines series, but it went on too long. Set in a future where Earth has become an impoverished shithole and the only way oI enjoyed Marko Kloos's Frontlines series, but it went on too long. Set in a future where Earth has become an impoverished shithole and the only way out is through enlistment in the space marines, humanity finds itself fighting "Lankies," an alien race of gigantic kaiju who do not communicate or negotiate, but simply try to stomp humans on whatever world they find them, and xenoform the planets. The Frontlines novels were good military SF that got a bit repetitive, and I was kind of glad when Kloos wrapped up the series.
I picked up Scorpio because it's either a stand-alone novel or a new series set in the same universe. But it really felt like a YA side-novel that was an excuse for Kloos to make a dog the secondary character.
Alex Archer was child colonist on the planet Scorpio when the Lankies arrived. Her parents died in the initial attack, and the remaining colonists managed to survive for eight years, hiding underground and occasionally emerging to try to salvage in the ruins of their former colony. They only have about 150 people, but the handful of surviving space marines still try to maintain military regs. Alex has been trained as a dog handler, and accompanies the grunts on their salvage mission with Ash, a black shepherd who warns them of approaching Lankies.
Unfortunately, I felt like this book spent a lot of time with not much happening, and ultimately it didn't have much to say. Alex is roaming around with Ash and the grunts, there are a few terrifying encounters with Lankies, and then there is a second act which seemed pointless except that it sets her up for future novels. "A girl and her dog" seems to be the main draw here.
The tone was a little YAish (because the story is seen through the eyes of a young adult whose entire teen years have been spent on this colony). Scorpio was okay, but felt like an excuse to return to the Frontlines universe with a new character, without really adding anything new....more
I hate to call any book I enjoyed "filler," but when you are writing a 10-book series, some books are clearly meant to move the story along with some I hate to call any book I enjoyed "filler," but when you are writing a 10-book series, some books are clearly meant to move the story along with some plot elements that could have fit into a few chapters but are padded out to novel length. Additionally, we now have several main characters in the series, so the author gets to indulge in writing an entire book from one character's POV, then leaving that character off in the boonies while making the next book about the character who was off-page in the last one.
So it is in the last few books in the Shadows of the Apt series. Book five, The Scarab Path, focused on Cheerwell Maker and her adventures in the desert city of Khanaphes. In the sixth book, The Sea Watch, we leave Cheerwell in the desert with her foe-yay Wasp romantic interest Thalric, and turn back to her uncle, Stenwold Maker, the real main character of the series, who is still trying to hold his alliance together and defend Collegium's independence, as he has been since the first book.
Adrian Tchaikovsky often betrays his nerdy RPG roots. He does (IMO) a better job than Brandon Sanderson of writing a fantasy universe influenced by RPG tropes without being consumed by the details of magic systems and racial attribute bonuses, but The Sea Watch really felt like one of the RPG supplements that's packed full of new races and lands for a side campaign. This is the Underwater campaign book, where Stenwold discovers that the mythical "Sea Kinden" actually exist, and thus we are introduced to a whole bunch of new Kinden and their Arts. Crab-kinden! Shrimp-kinden! Squid-kinden! Octopus-kinden! Coral-kinden!
No Shark-kinden, though. I am disappoint.
(Also, I don't think any mammals, other than the "Kinden" humans, have ever been mentioned in this series. All the fauna is giant bugs or aquatic creatures. But it's been mentioned that they drink milk. Where is the milk coming from???)
Stenwold has to negotiate his way through factional disputes with Sea Kinden (who like the land Kinden have kingdoms and coups and tribal warfare, ancient grudges, fanatical religions, and a few inventive Apt Kinden discovering technology.) Meanwhile, the Spider Kinden are preparing to launch an Armada at the Collegium. There is a sort of MacGuffin quest for a lost heir. Stenwold navigates his way through this with a lot of diplomacy and deal-making and a maybe slightly too convenient resolution at the end. The Wasp Empire remains a looming off-page threat for most of the book.
I've found all the Shadows of the Apt books to be good reads, and this is a very satisfying series. The Sea Watch wasn't the most dramatic or game-changing volume (even with the introduction of Sea Kinden), but the author was clearly having fun with it, and it does keep the metaplot boiling along....more
Like most SF fans, I was a big fan of The Expanse, so I was looking forward to writing team James S.A. Corey's newest, which they claim will only be aLike most SF fans, I was a big fan of The Expanse, so I was looking forward to writing team James S.A. Corey's newest, which they claim will only be a trilogy because they "don't feel like writing another nine book series."
The Mercy of Gods is structured unusually. While the first book just gets the story going, we already know from the page 1 prologue that the main character, Dafyd Alkhor, is going to lead an insurrection against the alien Carryx that will destroy their empire and burn a thousand worlds. The authors admit that this is a kind of trick to pull the reader along with promises of things to come, plus reassurance that the entire series will not be humans having a boot stomping on their faces forever, because that's all that happens in book one.
The story starts on the planet Anjiin, which is another unusual choice: humans know they aren't native to the planet, but their arrival is lost in the mists of prehistory, and while they now have an advanced technological civilization, they are not yet spacefaring and have had no contact outside their solar system. (Will the big twist be that this is the same universe as The Expanse, thousands of years in the future? That would seem like a cheap gimmick, but it's not impossible.) The first few chapters are about a bunch of scientists playing academic status games, which we know don't matter because an alien empire is about to arrive and crush them.
The Carryx invasion is brutal and short, and it's quickly established that these are give-no-fucks aliens who commit genocide before breakfast. They have been spreading across the galaxy conquering and exterminating everything in their path for thousands of years, and humanity is just another acquisition. They wipe out an eighth of the population of Anjiin just to make a point, and then the main characters are among a select group of humans abducted to be taken to a Carryx homeworld, where they are put in a vast multi-species arcology, given obscure instructions and a scientific task by their alien overlords, and then more or less left alone in what becomes evident is some sort of survival contest, not just for themselves but for their species.
The Mercy of Gods has very familiar beats. The writing shows the same stylistic ticks as The Expanse, with dialog like:
"You said there was another way." "I did."
And lines like:
"It was. And then it wasn't."
As with the Expanse, the focus, despite the high stakes and the foreshadowing of a grand, epic scale, is on a small group of flawed human characters, especially Dafyd Alkhor, who was just a minor research assistant with some connections back on Anjiin, but starts putting pieces of the Carryx puzzle together faster than his companions and (per the prologue and multiple chapter preludes) is eventually going to put his boot on the Carryx. The humans have quarrels and rivalries and love affairs because they can't quite stop being petty backbiting academics even while enslaved by genocidal aliens, and while we're probably supposed to become attached to some of them, it's hard because only Dafyd is really interesting (and he isn't very), and all the rest are clearly in danger of dying at any time, George R.R. Martin style.
Mercy of Gods was like sliding into an almost-familiar series with a new storyline. I wish the authors had stretched themselves a little more, but I am looking forward to the next book....more
It's said that every writer eventually writes a book about writing, usually with a thinly-veiled self-insert as a main character. Every writer who "maIt's said that every writer eventually writes a book about writing, usually with a thinly-veiled self-insert as a main character. Every writer who "makes it," even whose genre is usually fantasy or horror or detective mysteries, will at some point take on the publishing industry, their colleagues and frenemies, their fans, and social media in a semi-satirical novel with knives out.
This is R.F. Kuang's "writer book," and I loved it. And that's without having read any of her other books (she is best known for fantasies like The Poppy War and Babel).
I admit I was initially worried that this would be a "woke" book. Oh, come on, you know exactly what I mean. Asian female author writes a book about a white woman taking credit for an Asian woman's work just screams "330 pages of ranting about white privilege and cultural appropriation and marginalization and tokenization blah blah blah."
I was pleased to discover that R.F. Kuang is more nuanced than that, and approaches both of her writer characters - the deceased Athena Liu and the protagonist, June Hayward - with both affection and vicious skewering. It is of course a classic reader's mistake to try to project the author onto her characters, and Athena Liu and June Hayward are both obviously fictional, but I cannot but believe Kuang put a bit of herself in both of them. If so, it was done with sharp, humorous self-awareness.
Friends since college, June Hayward (full name: "Juniper Song Hayward" - her mother was a bit woo-woo) and Athena Liu are both ivy league grads living the lit life. But Athena is a hot social media darling and has become a rising star - feted, award-winning, Netflix deals, the works - while June managed to get one book out which disappeared into the publishing pond with an unnoticed plop.
June is seething with jealousy at Athena's success. So when they are at Athena's apartment one night and Athena suddenly (and perhaps a bit implausibly) chokes to death, June takes the opportunity to steal Athena's final manuscript.
(I know what you're thinking: so, is the big twist that June actually had something to do with Athena's death? Mild spoiler: no, she really didn't. Kuang doesn't let her become such an easy villain.)
Athena's rough draft was a book called The Last Front, telling the story of the Chinese-Canadians who served in World War I. June reads it, and it's good (of course) but still a first draft. Unpolished. It needs some work.
June's publisher is of course surprised at her unexpected new manuscript. And there is some initial trepidation: a white woman telling a story about the historical racism faced by Chinese people? But as the book goes to auction and it's clearly destined to be a bestseller, June gets all the marketing and support and hype she never got with her first feeble efforts. And (at her publisher's suggestion) publishing The Last Front under the name "Juniper Song." She never actually claims to be Chinese...
Yellowface does focus on all the expected issues, because they are brought up constantly. June has uncomfortable experiences at book tours and author panels when people find out that she is not, in fact, Chinese. Her friendship with the late Athena Liu is brought up, pointedly. And inevitably, rumors surface (fueled by a mysterious online antagonist) that she stole the manuscript for The Last Front.
Much of the book is June trying to cover her tracks and rationalize her actions. She faces harassment and persecution that she doesn't deserve (except that the reader knows she really does), and R.F. Kuang is pitch perfect in representing (and skewering) book-twitter and social media and the petty insecurities of authors and readers and reviewers. Athena Liu does not escape unscathed, as we find out (from June's admittedly unreliable point of view) that she was guilty of her own kind of theft.
But the best character is June, because Kuang makes her sympathetic, even though she is fundamentally a terrible person. Yes, stealing her friend's manuscript and rewriting it without crediting the source was bad, but it's the sort of desperation move for which one could (perhaps) be forgiven... but every opportunity June has to make things right, or at least not make things worse, her insecurity and jealousy and basic awfulness wins out, and as things spiral out of her control, you start to root for her take-down.
Does she get taken down? Does she get her well-deserved come-uppance? I won't spoil that, but honestly, the last part of the book was the least interesting to me. I guessed the climax and who was responsible, but I also felt like what nuance Kuang had given to June's character sort of flattened out as she became more and more unlikeable, and there was a bit of the boilerplate social justice ranting (delivered in a "villain" monologue, no less) that I was worried about, though it still came off as somewhat self-aware parody.
But June's arc as a Basic Karen and Colonizing White Woman was despicable and believable and sometimes pretty damn funny, and I very much enjoyed Kuang aiming her guns not just at Colonizing Karens, but also at self-righteous woke Asians, mean reviewers, the publishing industry, and the small incestuous world of frenemy fellow writers.
Yellowface is funny, poignant, mean in all the right ways, and great for anyone who likes reading writers unleash on other writers. Now I might check out one of Kuang's feted and awarded books....more
Once upon a time, the term "Extruded Fantasy Product" was coined. It apparently originated in the old days of the Internet, but referred to long-runniOnce upon a time, the term "Extruded Fantasy Product" was coined. It apparently originated in the old days of the Internet, but referred to long-running trope-filled series of a generally formulaic and recognizable style. Ye Olde Fantasy Inns in Not-Europe Fantasylandia, Dark Lords and Farmboys of Destiny, schools of magic out of D&D's Appendix N... It's been applied, not always fairly, to pretty much any big fantasy series, but most notably Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series.
Robert Jordan, of course, remains massively popular, yet I bounced after reading the first book because it was such a tepidly-written pastiche fantasy, and that's how I felt about The Magic of Recluce, which likewise clearly has a large following because it's up to over 20 books now.
No disrespect to L.E. Modesitt, Jr., who's an enormously prolific author who's still churning out books in his 80s, but this was his first book for me, and probably will be my last. I didn't hate it; I didn't even dislike it, it was just very "mid" as the kids say nowadays.
Lerris is from a small island nation called Recluce, which for reasons that don't become clear until later, is isolated, powerful, and regarded with suspicious by its neighbors, even though they are utterly peaceful and never make war on anyone. Recluce has a tradition of forcing its misfits into exile on what's called a "dangergeld," a sort of walkabout where they travel the world, learn things, and can eventually return if they learn whatever lessons they are supposed to learn.
Lerris is such a misfit; he's not a bad kid, he isn't rebellious, he doesn't do anything wrong at all! He's just... bored. (The word "boring" is used almost every page in the first few chapters.) He is not satisfied with his life as the son of a master woodworker and his woodworking is only middling, so despite his parents being highly-regarded citizens of Recluce, even Lerris gets sent out to Dangergeld.
He gets trained with a small group of misfits like him (Recluce makes sure everyone is adequately prepared for their adventure, they don't just kick them out at the border), and then goes forth to find himself.
This is very much a bildungsroman, and also a Farmboy of Destiny story (technically, Woodworker of Destiny). Lerris learns that he is a budding wizard and eventually heads down the road towards become an Ordermaster.
The worldbuilding and magic system is creative enough, though no more creative than what you'd find in your average variant D&D setting. It's a two-point morality system, with Order and Chaos being the two types of magic. Order lets you fix and strengthen things, Chaos lets you destroy things, and this interpreted broadly. They don't correspond precisely to "Good" and "Evil," as Order can be used for bad purposes and Chaos for good purposes, but in practice the path of Order is very hard and requires strict self discipline, while the path of Chaos seems to inevitably lead to power-mongering and destruction. There are also "Gray" wizards who sort of straddle the line, but they are even rarer than Chaos and Order masters.
Lerris spends years tooling around becoming an Order master, manfully resisting the temptations of all the hot chicks who throw themselves at him. (A lot of reviewers object to the fact that so many female characters are described in terms of their attractiveness. This novel is narrated from the point of view of a young dude - of course a lady's assets are going to be the first thing he notices, he's a wizard, not a monk!) Eventually he has his big showdown with a Chaos master, gets the girl, and is set up for the next umpteen volumes of adventure.
It was okay. It was just okay. It was very typical of pulp and Tolkien-influenced fantasy published in the 90s, but at no point was I particularly interested in finding out what happened next, I was just waiting for the story to end. Sorry, this series is a pass for me....more
Madeline Miller is undeniably a good writer, and she has sparked something of a trend in retellings (particularly feminist retellings) of Greek myths.Madeline Miller is undeniably a good writer, and she has sparked something of a trend in retellings (particularly feminist retellings) of Greek myths. I loved Miller's Circe, but thought Song of Achilles was only okay.
This short story, a retelling of the story of Pygmalion and Galataea, seemed like something made to order for her fans, but to me it read like something very predictable in every respect, though it was crafted nicely.
In Greek myth, Galatea was a beautiful marble statue carved by the sculptor Pygmalion. He falls in love with her and prays to a goddess (Aphrodite in most versions) to bring her to life. This story of course has been the basis of many, many retellings, from My Fair Lady to Wonder Woman to Pretty Woman. Madeline Miller isn't the first to read it for its feminist implications, and I guess the reason I didn't love this story is that it seemed entirely predictable and on the nose. From the moment Galatea wakes up confined to a room by her husband, watched over by doctors and nurses, I knew it was going to be a paint-by-numbers story of Patriarchy and an abusive, egotistical dickwad who wants a compliant beautiful sex toy and doesn't regard Galatea (or indeed, any woman) as human. Lo and behold, this is exactly how the story unfolds. Galatea gets a little bit of justice in the end, but mostly it's just a story about a dickwad banging his Hellenistic-era RealDoll while she schemes and dreams of freedom.
In case you didn't get the point, Miller's afterword talks about how offensive and misogynistic the original Galatea story was, how very much this upset her, and how Pygmalion was clearly an incel.
I guess you will like this story if feminist indignation is your jam, but as a retelling of a classic Greek myth, it was a nice literary cup of tea without any great originality or new angles....more
The Final Architecture series (a trilogy so far) is one of Adrian Tchaikovsky's big epic space operas. Yes, one of them. The man churns out multi-voluThe Final Architecture series (a trilogy so far) is one of Adrian Tchaikovsky's big epic space operas. Yes, one of them. The man churns out multi-volume series like a machine, and yet every one reads like another author's primary work.
In this space opera, moon-sized constructs called the Architects destroyed Earth, as they have destroyed the homeworlds of many other races throughout the galaxy. Humanity and several other races fought a war of survival against the Architects decades ago, before the Architects abruptly withdrew, for reasons known only to a few.
Now they are back, and Idris Telemmier, one of the few survivors of the first war, is also the only one who knows the truth: the Architects are not the real enemy. They are merely the servants of some other entity.
The first book in the series, Shards of Earth, introduced us to the Final Architecture setting, to Idris Telemmier, and to all our other characters aboard the crew of the free trader and salvage vessel Vulture God. With a motley cast of space buccaneers and a bunch of different factions, it was fun and grand in scale while still keeping a tight, Firefly vibe.
Eyes of the Void is the second book of a (so far) trilogy, and while I enjoyed it a lot, it mostly just... continued the story and felt very much like the series mid-point it is. Idris is a hot property that multiple space empires want to acquire-ahem, employ, to reproduce the brutal, low-survival-rate "Intermediary" program that created Intermediaries like him who can guide spaceships faster than light through Unspace. Idris is unhappy with his role despite knowing that the survival of billions probably depends on his efforts.
Despite the looming threat of the Architects, humanity of course cannot get its shit together. The Parthenon - an empire of genetically-engineered warrior women - are on the verge of war with the Council of Human Interests. The rival space empire the Hegemony, ruled by a race of clam-like beings who consider themselves gods, is no better at unity or cooperation. Idris falls in with a group of mad scientists trying to plumb the secrets of Unspace, and winds up being somewhat unwillingly "rescued" by the crew of the Vulture God.
There is a lot going on here, with a story told from multiple POVs. My favorites of course are the family-like crew of the Vulture God, including Olli, the cantankerous cripple who doesn't like anyone, Myrmidon Executor Solace, a Parthenon warrior who is slowly releasing the genetically engineered stick up her butt, Kris, a lawyer from a world where "legal cases" are fought with knife duels, and Kit, a hivemind accountant whose flat one-liners are the funniest of all.
There were no big revelations in this book, nor really, any huge moments where the entire war turns. Idris is unraveling the secrets of the Originators a bit at a time, and being his usual neurotic self, while the rest of the galaxy tries to get its act together as the Architects return. Tchaikovsky's strength is really characters; while he creates big, sprawling interesting settings with a dozen different races suitable for RPGing (yet less RPG-like than another author I could name coughBrandon Sandersoncough), it's the characters who make you come back to see how they will PC their way through the plot.
A very good book that really just whets your appetite for the conclusion....more
Like Harry Potter, I got into Buffy the Vampire Slayer only as the series was wrapping up. I binge-watched all the earlier seasons before the final seLike Harry Potter, I got into Buffy the Vampire Slayer only as the series was wrapping up. I binge-watched all the earlier seasons before the final season aired, and I watched the epic if somewhat uneven final (seventh) season.
I think Buffy was some of the best storytelling ever seen on TV. That's not to say there were no bad episodes, especially in the rocky first two seasons, and then after Joss Whedon turned over some of the writing to other scriptwriters. But Buffy took full advantage of the trend that was only starting to become popular, of giving an episodic TV series long-term story arcs that rewarded regular viewers, dramatic character development (heroes becoming villains, villains becoming heroes, nobodies becoming important characters, minor side characters becoming Big Bads, etc.), laying plot seeds that would not hatch for years, and planting easter eggs for keen-eyed fans to discover. It was this same quality of clever plotting and crafty characterization in what should have been just a dumb teen fantasy that eventually made me a Potter fan.
I watched the (also good, but not quite as brilliant) Angel spin off series. After Buffy went off the air, there were of course RPGs, books, comic books, and so on. The comic books, written by Whedon himself, are officially considered "canon" continuations of the story, and they're pretty good if not always the best fit for the medium.
I am a Buffy fan. So much so that I even own this:
[image]
So when Audible announced this project, written by Amber Benson (who played Tara on the show and is a geek girl beloved by nerds), it was one of my rare pre-orders.
Slayers is not, properly speaking, a novel. It's a full cast audio production that is more like a radio play. It features many of the stars of the TV series reprising their roles, including Charisma Carpenter as Cordelia Chase, James Marsters as Spike, Anthony Head as Giles, Juliet Landau as Drusilla, and of course, Amber Benson as Tara.
Whether or not it's "canon," Slayers feels a lot like an unofficial Season Eight of Buffy. And it's definitely made for hardcore Buffy fans; if you never watched the original series, or only caught an episode here and there, you will miss pretty much all the references, in jokes, shout outs, and background in this story. If you're not familiar with the events of Seasons Six and Seven in particular, I really wouldn't recommend listening to this, as you'll probably be lost (and won't appreciate it for what it is, a big fat kiss to Buffy fans).
Slayers begins with a brand new Slayer, 15-year-old Indira, who is sassy, genre-savvy, and literally got her Slayer powers this morning and decided the smartest thing to do with them is head straight for the nearest vampire nest and get to staking. She is saved from what would have been an almost certain death by Spike, who wants no part of this adorable, spunky baby Slayer and plans to dump her on the nearest Slayer or Watcher as quickly as possible. Then Cordelia shows up.
Wait, Cordelia? The Cordelia who died in Angel? Yes, that Cordelia. Except not that Cordelia. This Cordelia comes from an alternate universe where Cordelia was the one (and only) Slayer, no one's ever heard of Buffy Summers, and Spike's old flame Drusilla is the Big Bad, and Cordelia needs Spike's help.
So, this is a parallel universe story, which allows a number of characters who died in the original series to show up again. Spike, Cordelia, and Indira form the core of a new Scooby gang that has to go to Cordelia's universe to save it from a vampire apocalypse led by Drusilla. Many old friends and enemies will make their reappearance, many Buffy tropes will be revived from their late 90s-early 00s golden age, and you can tell the actors were having a lot of fun.
Amber Benson does a pretty good job of capturing the snark and snappy dialog of the original series, though some scenes stretch on a bit too long. Most of the twists were fairly predictable, but both in length and pacing it really was a lot like listening to a new season of Buffy....more
This is a genre-savvy book with frequent call-outs to classic thrillers and horror movies, but it's not actually either. It's a mystery wrapped aroundThis is a genre-savvy book with frequent call-outs to classic thrillers and horror movies, but it's not actually either. It's a mystery wrapped around a book about fucked up people trying to be family.
Mathilda is a 14-year-old "Girl Detective" who lives with her aunt and uncle after her mom was killed by a drunk driver and her dad went to prison for running the killer over. Mathilda is a precocious aficionado of true crime stories, and is determined to prove her dad is innocent. Then, in the same week, her dad is released from prison, and Mathilda is diagnosed with the big L - leukemia.
Mathilda's father, Jack, who's built like hired muscle but only ever wanted to be a musician, now just wants to be a dad again. But the ex-cop who exonerated him drags him into a complicated scheme to blackmail a retired serial killer known as the "California Bear."
At first I thought this story was following a pretty predictable course, but it takes one swerve, then another, and soon it's a story about vengeance, redemption, copycat serial killers, and the deeply fucked up nature of the "True Crime" industry, which the author says in his afterword was his original inspiration for this book.
This book was also inspired by his actual daughter, who was actually diagnosed with leukemia (and sadly, did not make it). That made Mathilda's story poignant even before I got to the afterword and found out about the author's real-life daughter; on the one hand, she's a sassy little genius who sometimes is forced to be the adult in a room full of grown men. On the other hand, she's a dying kid with more than one clock ticking on her investigation.
I picked up California Bear because I am writing a serial killer novel of my own, and this story was not exactly what I expected, but it was still pretty good, with a mystery that planted lots of red herrings before tying it all up, and a touching if (the author can be forgiven for) optimistic ending....more
The Destroyermen series is a long-lasting product: a fifteen-book series that goes on and on, but so far each book has been entertaining enough to staThe Destroyermen series is a long-lasting product: a fifteen-book series that goes on and on, but so far each book has been entertaining enough to stand on its own while advancing the overall story only a little bit.
In an alternate Earth occupied by lemur-like Lemurians and raptor-like Grik, it turns out that the World War II destroy Walker and its Japanese pursuers were not the first humans from our Earth to stumble through whatever portal brought them here. There is already New Britain, descended from British ships that crossed over centuries ago, and the Dominion, descended from Spanish Catholics. While New Britain was introduced in the previous book, where Matthew Reddy and his crew figured out that they are based in roughly what is Hawaii on this world, the Dominion moves into the chief villain role in this book when the Walker arrives at the capital of New Britain.
Despite being very much a sea-going action thriller that is read by people who want battles and intrigue and banter between Lemurians and WWII sailors, Anderson does a good job of creating plausible alternate history empires. New Britain is very British culturally, but its politics have diverged significantly, as the East India Company has become a sinister "shadow government." The destroyermen and Lemurians also discover that (for reasons that kind of make sense but still seemed a bit tortuous), women are virtually chattel. Although the more salacious implications of this are only hinted at, there are a whole lot of British officers saying "Well, of course we don't like the system but what can we do?" while insisting they really love their wives.
The Dominion seems to have combined the worst aspects of the Inquisition and the Aztec empire, and the one Dominion character we meet, the Dominion ambassador to New Britain, is the Big Bad of this book. In previous books, the Japanese and the Grik both began as essentially faceless orc enemies, but later became individual characters with some diverging from their "racial archetype," so it remains to be seen if the Dominion will remain unambiguously evil or if there will turn out to be some nuance and dissent there as well.
Speaking of the Grik and the Japanese, much like the last book, we only get a few chapters showing cameos of our old foes and what they are up to on the other side of the world. Rising Tides is primarily split between Matthew Reddy and the Walker in New Britain, and his girlfriend Nurse Sandra and Princess Rebecca and their fellow survivors out on the seas, who have to survive hostile natives (of the non-human variety) and volcanic eruptions.
The Destroyermen is a series for people who like the premise and the action and don't mind the story being dragged out for many, many books. A little bit gets added in each book, there are usually a few new characters introduced, but long-running plot threads like the war between the Grik and the humans and Lemurians, which side the Dominion will be on, and for that matter, when Reddy will finally be reunited with his nurse gal who was abducted two books ago, get stretched out across several volumes....more
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