The Naming: The First Book of Pellinor

The Naming: The First Book of Pellinor
Alison Croggon, 2006

Premise: Girl has never known anything but the life of a slave. when a mysterious man claiming to be a Bard offers to take her away to a new life, she leaves without another thought.

Urgh. This is only sort of a review. I didn't finish this book. I was skeptical from the start, when the prose lurched awkwardly between too cliche and too purple. The mixed metaphors made me wince.

“Freedom was a fantasy she gnawed obsessively in her few moments of leisure, like an old bone with just a trace of meat, and like all illusions, it left her hungrier than before, only more keenly aware of how her soul starved within her, its wings wasting with the despair of disuse.”

I was having trouble putting my finger on what bothered me at first. It seemed okay for a while, I mean. Well until the characters luck into a crazy unbelievably perfect under mountain passage to a magically perfectly timed meeting of ridiculously good wizards, I'm sorry, Bards, (only they’re really wizards/elves because they love life! and they love music! and they love the world! yay!) and she immediately is super special and heir to mysterious powers and fated to be important and starts remembering her infant time in an impossibly good city of impossibly talented people. That...started to bug me. Sure there are suspicious characters working against the self-evidently good protagonists, and she sucks at swordplay, but the impression of unending wish-fulfillment was too hard to shake.

I just didn’t connect to her at all. The narration kept saying things about her like ‘she had never had a bath before’ and yet she never ever acted like that person. There was a evil bad guy who was obviously coming back, and yet, I didn’t care. I just had to stop, finally.

Plus if I wanted to read a badly disguised reworking of Tolkien I have other options. It was when Cadvan mentioned that his horse was from a race of magic horses and had come to his call that I had to put the book down and move on to something else before I flung my Kindle at something. There's just not enough hours in the day for truly boring books.

DNF.

The Lost Fleet: Dauntless (The Lost Fleet, Book One)

The Lost Fleet: Dauntless (The Lost Fleet, Book One)
Jack Campbell, 2006

Premise: What should have been the Alliance’s greatest victory has turned to ash. What remains of the fleet is stranded in Syndicate space, out-maneuvered and out-gunned. Captain John “Black Jack” Geary is somehow suddenly in charge. Only he’s only recently been woken up from a century of hibernation, and his hopeless last stand became a galaxy-wide myth of heroism while he slept. Geary wants to rescue his people, save the fleet and the Alliance. But he’s not actually a hero of legend, just one soldier, out of his time.

You know, until I actually wrote it down, I missed the parallels with Captain America. Anyway, this is a fun military sci-fi piece with action, pathos, and some interesting world-building. The mechanic for space battles sounds like it would make sense, I don’t really care if the math works or not. The characters are interesting, although the story trips along so quick that we don’t have too much time to get to know them.

This is the first book in a series, obviously, and it does a good job with what it sets out to do. It’s not great literature, but it’s fun and well written. If you’re in the mood for pure military SF, this is a nice choice, and it was a perfect airplane book.

4 Stars - A very Good Book

Fantastic Four Vol 1 and 2

Fantastic Four Vol 1: Solve Everything
Fantastic Four Vol 2: Prime Elements
Writing: Jonathan Hickman, Art: Dale Eaglesham, et. al., 2010

Premise: Collects Fantastic Four 570-574, 575-578. Marvel’s First Super-Family stars in all-new adventures. In the first volume, Reed Richards turns his brain to the most intractable problem of all: everything. In the second, the Fantastic Four explore four alien cities, and struggle to make peace between Earth and different civilizations.

The Fantastic Four have been getting short shrift in the public consciousness recently. They’re a little stodgy and a little old-fashioned, and their movies really stunk. Hickman proves here, though, that there’s a lot to love about these characters. Everything that makes them really work is on full display here: their strengths and weaknesses and their rock-solid relationships with each other.

The first plot arc really reminded me what’s amazing about Mr. Fantastic, a guy often relegated to one-panel jokes in other books. The first volume only ran into trouble because the last two issues were done by a different, far inferior, artist. The rest of the art is really solid, which is good, because consistent art is often a problem for Marvel.

The second volume I liked quite a bit as well, although it’s mostly set-up for a larger plot that you can feel looming on the horizon. Each issue is still enjoyable to read on its own, though, so that’s nice.

What else... Sue is great, both badass and motherly, caring but not without her own scars, Johnny and Ben both have moments to shine, and the Richards kids! Oh my gosh I adore them! Valeria is new to me, and she is so. damn. awesome. Franklin’s birthday party happens at the end of the first book, and it’s pretty adorable, too. In case you don’t know, they’re both crazy powerful kids. It’s a great super-family dynamic of the kind that doesn’t get enough exploration in comics these days.

Both strong volumes which only continue my love affair with recent Marvel.

Volume One: 4 Stars - A Very Good Book
Volume Two: 3 Stars - A Good Book

Thuvia, Maid of Mars and The Chessmen of Mars (Barsoom 4 and 5)

Thuvia, Maid of Mars, 1920
The Chessmen of Mars, 1922
Edgar Rice Burroughs

Premise: Books 4 and 5 of the Barsoom Series, following Warlord of Mars. John Carter has built an alliance over much of Mars, but there are still plenty of dangers to challenge the younger generation. These are the further adventures of the children of John Carter and Dejah Thoris.

Yes, these books are dated and silly and really repetitive, but I love them anyway.

I enjoyed Thuvia, Maid of Mars, which follows Cathoris (John Carter’s son) and Thuvia of Ptarth. Others try to keep them apart, and Thuvia quickly gains a stalkery admirer who kidnaps her and blames Cathoris. The young lovebirds have to rescue each other, escape, and get home in time to stop a war. It’s more of the same from the earlier books, although I still found it a really fun read with some new supporting characters and enjoyable action.

On the other hand, I really adored The Chessmen of Mars, which I think is best described as a fairy tale retold as a space opera adventure with romantic comedy elements.

I mean, here's the beginning: A princess meets a foreign prince at a ball. He seems to be just a rich jerk, so she won't give him the time of day, but he falls hard for her. The princesses' transport is caught in a storm and she's stranded halfway around the world, so the prince rushes after her. He suffers his own setbacks, and by the time they find each other, he's in disguise as a common soldier, and he swears himself to her service. More adventures, escapes, new friends, new enemies, and romantic banter follows.

I really enjoyed Tara of Helium (daughter of John and Dejah), she was strong and brave and honorable. It takes her time to love Gahan of Gathol, and I have a better sense of their romance than of some of the others in this series. While she doesn’t get as much time to be badass as I’d like, she is badass, and she gets more time following her point of view than the other ladies of Mars.

The humor in Chessmen of Mars tickled me as well. At times the narration seems to be having a great deal of fun with its own heightened romantic style.

I have been a huge sucker for the blend of chivalry, adventure, romance and wonder in these books so far, and I very much enjoyed the fourth and fifth entries in the series.

Thuvia, Maid of Mars - 4 Stars
The Chessmen of Mars - 5 Stars

Both books are out of copyright in the United States. Download for Free: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/72
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1153

Ringworld

Ringworld
Larry Niven, 1970

Hugo Winner - 1971

Premise: Louis Wu is bored on his 200th birthday. He's seen and done a lot in his long life. Now, however, he's bored, so when an alien named Nessus from the reclusive species known as puppeteers asks him to come on an expedition past the edge of known space, he quickly decides to go. Louis, Nessus, a Kzin called Speaker and a girl who Louis met at his party will comprise the team to explore the anomaly spotted on long range scans, the anomaly called the Ringworld.

Ringworld is not really about the Ringworld. I mean, yes, about half of it takes place there, and it is the iconic idea that lasted in the sci-fi consciousness and made the book famous. However, the book is really about the four main characters and how they reflect 'futuristic' and/or alien ideas about life, love, sex, destiny and humanity. You can find out nearly everything you need to know about the Ringworld by reading the back of the book, though.

The descriptions of the Ringworld are great, and some of the adventures that the characters have getting there and on the Ringworld are interesting. On the other hand, I have somewhat mixed feelings about some of the characters. The conflicts are interesting, and following Louis as he pieces together Nessus and Speaker's secrets was enjoyable.

Teela is brought on the expedition because Nessus believes that she is lucky. She is a frustrating character, because her apparent incompetence and naivete is necessary for her plot arc. It all makes a certain amount of sense by the end, her resolution is either the most satisfying or the most frustrating, and getting there is annoying.

Between her and Prill (the only other major supporting female character) I am left with the sense that in the world of this book women are as much an alien species as kzinti or puppeteers, if not more so. As a female-type person, I find that frustrating unless it's extremely well handled. It's not enough to make me wholly dislike the book, but it was a repeated annoyance. There is one piece of extremely problematic narration that caught me off guard late in the book that I found actually quite offensive, though.

Still, there were a lot of intriguing moments here, and I enjoyed the setting overall.

3 Stars - A Good Book, with some issues.

List of Hugo Winners

Terrier (Beka Cooper, Book 1)

Terrier
Tamora Pierce, 2006

Premise: Young Beka Cooper wants nothing so much as to be part of the Dogs, aka the City Guards. When she finally starts her on-the-job ‘Puppy’ training with a pair of the best guards in the Lower City, she’s both thrilled and nervous. Her tenacity and her own small powers could help her become a great Dog, if she can first survive training.

The design of Terrier really risks being cutesy, but I liked it. The book is Beka’s diary, plus some supplementary documents in the front, and that occasionally means an entry about being sick and unable to write more, or an inkspill on the page. Because it’s written in her words, we’re thrown immediately into the dialect of the city, but you’ll have no trouble keeping up.

Beka is a great YA heroine. She’s brave and friendly, but afraid of speaking up sometimes. Her small paranormal abilities (not too exceptionally rare in a fantasy kingdom) sometimes feel like more trouble than they’re worth, but she uses them to enhance her police training.

The Dogs are like a more realistic medieval relation of the Discworld Night Watch, so of course I loved that aspect of this book. (Fantasy cops is definitely a sub-genre I’m soft on.) Police work is in its infancy here, so bribes are occasionally the order of the day, but the Guardsmen and women care about their city and protecting the people in it. I really liked the range of characters: Dogs and Puppys and various citizens and criminals.

The magic in the world was interesting and subtle, and the politics running under the surface intriguing. The two large cases that take up most of the plot of the book were well-structured, both interesting and sadly believable.

I think you probably already know whether you enjoy fantasy-adventure YA with a strong heroine and a good story, and if you do, Terrier is a good book to try out. It’s not great literature, but it’s solidly fun.

4 Stars - A Very Good Book (especially for YA)

Hawkeye Vol 1: My Life as a Weapon

Hawkeye Vol 1: My Life as a Weapon
Matt Fraction, David Aja, Javier Pulido, et. al., 2013

Premise: Collects Hawkeye #1-5 and Young Avengers Presents #6. I’m just going to quote from the beginning of the first issue. “Clint Barton, aka Hawkeye, became the greatest sharpshooter known to man. He then joined the Avengers. This is what he does when he’s not being an Avenger. That’s all you need to know.”

What a fun series. Apparently when Clint isn’t busy with the Avengers he’s mixing it up with low-level gangsters, getting involved in the lives of his neighbors, and running the odd secret mission for SHIELD. Also training/hanging around with/getting trash-talked by Kate Bishop, also known as Hawkeye. (That’s sort of explained in the Young Avengers Issue in the back. They have the same code-name, just roll with it.)

The dialogue is snappy and clever, the action exciting and tense. The art perfectly enhances the tone of the book; it’s stylized and gritty on one level, but also full of humorous touches and clever layouts. Plus you have to love a book in which 4 of the 5 first issues start with the line: “Okay...This looks bad.”

There’s one twist which annoyed me because a very similar thing happened in Fraction’s Iron Man run, and it probably wouldn’t have bothered me if I had read them 3 years apart (as they were published) instead of 4 months.

The Young Avengers issue is pretty cute, and gives some nice backstory on Kate and Clint’s friendship, although it predates the Hawkeye run by four years, so both characters did some changing in the meantime.

Clint’s maybe slightly more hapless and less badass sometimes here than he should be, but I think it works. I had heard nothing but good things about this title, and I have to agree that it’s pretty fantastic.

4 Stars - A Very Good Book

Here's a little sample of Issue #1! http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=preview&id=13108