Review: The Tale of Princess Kaguya: Picture Book, by Isao Takahata

 

The Tale of Princess Kaguya: Picture Book, by Isao Takahata, published 2022 by VIZ Media.

A lovely picture-book adaptation of the 2013 Studio Ghibli film, The Tale of Princess Kaguya, this volume brings the movie to the palm of your hand and allows you to experience or share this moving and complex story in a simplified version appropriate for young children.

Princess Kaguya is a being who comes to Earth from the Moon to experience the joys and sorrows of human life. She is raised by a bamboo cutter and his wife; the bamboo cutter has his own ideas about what her life will be like and she struggles to make sense of it all.

It features beautiful artwork from the film and enough story to get by on;  I actually couldn't think of much that the book left out from the 2-hour-plus movie and yet I was able to easily finish the book in one sitting. 

The story comes from a 10th century Japanese story called The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter. I like how Takahata's retelling places the emphasis on the princess and touches on contemporary themes like a woman's place in society and the cost of social stratification alongside the traditional touches.  It's all very low key compared to the movie and the sexual themes are also downplayed in picture book version somewhat.

This would make a lovely gift for a child or for yourself if you are a fan of the movie. You should play the soundtrack in the background as you read for something like a fuller experience.

Review: MADE FOR LOVE, by Alissa Nutting

Made for Love, by Alissa Nutting. Published 2017 by Ecco. Audiobook narrated by Suzanne Elise Freeman. Literary Fiction. Science Fiction.

A woman runs away from her techonut husband while her elderly father finds companionship in a sex doll and another man becomes attracted to dolphins in Alissa Nutting's funny, twisted and thoroughly delightful new novel.

At the outset, Hazel, a young woman in her thirties, abandons her marriage to Byron Gogol. He is founder of a tech company looking to take over the world, or at least the people in it, through the introduction of more and more intrusive technology. Finally he wants to "meld minds" with his wife, in one-sided arrangement that would give him access to her every thought but give her nothing in return (haha sounds like my last relationship too). His incursions start out with low-level technostalking when they first meet and escalate to monitoring her without her knowledge 24/7. She wants out; what started out as a loveless marriage for money has become something frightening and deeply threatening and now, hiding at her father's house, she believes Byron will eventually kill her rather than let her go.

At the same time her father, who is more ill than he lets on, has taken up with a sex doll named Diane and wants to live out his remaining time in a fantasy world of plastic love. He lets Hazel stay with him for the time being, but only if she agrees to buy him a second doll.

Then there's Jasper, a con artist and gigolo who gets a number done on him after an encounter with a dolphin changes him in a way he struggles to come to terms with, first through employment at an aquarium and later through Gogle-sponsored surgery. Eventually all three characters come together, but not in any way I expected.

Made for Love; what does it mean? Hazel's father's doll was manufactured for sex; Hazel herself becomes an object in the eyes of her husband, there to be used for his experiments; and Jasper has created of himself a character who pretends to love women while he steals from them. But at a metaphorical level, or literal if you're religious, the human soul as made for love is a religious concept that reaches back to the Bible. Pope John Paul II said "A person's rightful due is to be treated as an object of love, not as an object for use." All three main characters, and many of the minor ones, have to learn this lesson over the course of this strange and wonderful book.

I'm calling this book science fiction because it is deeply concerned with the ways technology affects our lives, and portrays a current-day or near-future world in which technology is threatening to become hyper-intrusive, a world in which we have literally no privacy, not even the privacy of our own thoughts. The beating heart of the narrative is Byron Gogle's company, the extension of his self with its wireless tentacles stretching out, trying to enclose everyone in his life just as a start. Byron/Gogol's grasping is desperate and needy and belies Byron's blasé, blank affect; there's more going on with him than we see, but the whole point is that he is the one character whose interior life we will never see, and that's the way he wants it.  As his tentacles get closer and closer to our protagonists I was feeling a real tension and suspense, wondering how this was all going to turn out.

The ending is quick but satisfying; an otherwise throwaway character saves the day, and those that remain move on to uncertain but somehow better futures. I really enjoyed Made for Love; it was quirky, hilarious, edgy and at times outlandish, but it kept me reading and held my attention, which is saying a lot for audio fiction. Suzanne Elise Freeman's expert narration helped a lot too; she is expressive and charismatic and brought the words to life.  If you have a slightly off-kilter sense of humor and are ready for the unexpected, Made for Love is a great choice for you.

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure: I received a complimentary audio listening copy from libro.fm.

Review: THE LITERARY CONFERENCE, by César Aira

The Literary Conference, by César Aira. Published 2010 by New Directions. Translated from the Spanish by Katherine Silver.

Argentine author César Aira's 2010 gem of science fiction hilarity is about a wealthy scientist who wants to take over the world by cloning the late Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes. More than this I cannot tell you, because the book is very short and consists mainly of the ruminations of this scientist about his pet project, and the consequences thereof.

What I will say is that if you enjoy your science fiction with a hefty dose of surreal comedy, this is the book for you. Or if you enjoy your surreal comedy with a coating of science fiction. Or if you just like books that make you scratch your head and laugh. Or if you can read.

I am a huge fan of Aira's and his books are my favorite literary treats. Short and perfect and unforgettable, please read The Literary Conference.

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review.

Review: DINNER, by César Aira

Dinner, by César Aira. Published 2015 by New Directions. Translated from the Spanish by Katherine Silver. Literary Fiction.

So, as regular readers of this blog may know, César Aira is one of my favorite contemporary writers, but he's definitely not for everyone. One way or another, reading him will change your life; if you love his books, he will change your life for the better. Either way, buckle up.

Dinner is going to go down as one of my favorites of his, and certainly one of my favorite reads of 2017. It's short, as per usual- short and sweet. It's about zombies.

Specifically, it's about a zombie invasion of Pringles, Argentina, where all (?) of Aira's novels takes place. The narrator, who is not explicitly named, has dinner with his mother and then after dinner turns on the television to see the zombie invasion take place. Then he has a conversation with a friend about it. That's it.

Dinner is certainly one of Aira's more plot-centric books; after an opening digression on the importance of names to creating a community, he launches into a virtual blow-by-blow of the zombie invasion, from the moment the dead of Pringles rise from their graves to the moment they go back. It's very suspenseful; Aira does a masterful job building tension and leaving you wondering how it will be resolved.

Ultimately the solution is silly, sweet and makes perfect sense. But then there is a wrinkle at the very end which may keep you up at night after all.

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review.

Review: THE CITY OF MIRRORS, by Justin Cronin

The City of Mirrors, by Justin Cronin. Published 2016 by Random House. Literary Fiction, Science Fiction.

So, I finally ate the whole thing. Late Friday night I finished the last few pages of The City of Mirrors and with it Justin Cronin's Passage trilogy comes to a close. Wow.

To catch you up, humankind has been laid waste by a deadly virus that originated in the jungles of South America and came to the United States as an experiment by a Harvard scientist working for the US government. Timothy Fanning is Patient Zero, the first infected in the jungle and the leader of the general contagion. The government scientists infect twelve men on death row and a little girl named Amy in furtherance of a project which hopes to produce a race of supersoldiers but instead creates a race of monsters ("virals" or infected persons) from ordinary people. In The Passage (volume 1) and The Twelve (#2) we see the origin of the virus and its devastating, immediate effects, and then move forward and see how humanity is faring about 100 years in the future. In short, the news isn't all that great.

All three books concern a core group of survivors- Peter, Alicia, Michael, Sara, Hollis, Theo, Mausami and Amy- and the original 13 infected men. Cronin introduces new characters along the way too as people have children, or move, or supporting characters from one section move to the center of the stage elsewhere. The City of Mirrors is long like the first two, and mostly weighted towards action with sizable chunks of exposition and backstory. In particular we learn about Timothy Fanning in great detail through an extended soliloquy near the beginning of The City and get to know a new character that Cronin introduces at the very end.

Plot-wise, The City of Mirrors recounts the end of the viral period and the beginning of a new world. There are several endings as the characters branch off to different destinies, and then there is a final ending, poetic and emotional, that loops us right back to the beginning. Have your tissues ready.

Did I like it? Yes. Cronin does a masterful job tying up the loose ends and giving his characters appropriate and satisfying endings. There was a little bit of bloat and I will admit to some skimming when it came to the backstories, especially the final bit when the book was about to end. At that point I was impatient for the plot to move and wasn't interested in the life story of someone who I was going to stop reading about in ten pages. But never let it be said that Cronin doesn't create richly drawn characters; that's what kept me reading, these people I'd come to care about so much.

If you are new to the Passage trilogy you should start with book one, The Passage, because these books depend on being read together and that's the best one anyway. But once you read The Passage be ready to be hooked. And when you get to The City of Mirrors you'll be too busy crying to worry about anything else. If you've already read the first two you will want to read this no matter what I say, and you should.

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review.

Review: THE CORE OF THE SUN, by Johanna Sinisalo

The Core of the Sun, by Johanna Sinisalo. Published 2016 by Grove Atlantic, Black Cat. Translated from the Finnish by Lola Rogers. Science fiction.

James Tiptree Jr. Award-winner Johanna Sinisalo takes us on a trip through a reimagined modern day Finland in The Core of the Sun (translated by Lola Rogers), as a young woman at odds with the rigid gendering laws of her society searches for her missing sister all the while battling her growing despondency through an addiction to capsaicin and black-market chili peppers.

Vanna, or Vera as she was born, has come of age in a culturally isolated Finland in which women are divided into two female genders- ultra-girly elois who are allowed to marry and have children, and sterilized morlocks destined for a life of sexless squalor and manual labor. Vanna herself is a morlock by temperament but tries to pass as an eloi because everything about her culture teaches her that to be an eloi is to be accepted, loved and celebrated while morlocks are scorned and rejected. Her beautiful sister Manna doesn't have to pretend though and accepts the life of an eloi without question. The sisters' relationship as seen through Vanna's memoirs form the emotional core of this immersive and fast-paced tale that uses multiple points of view to tell the story of how Vanna tries to escape both physically and psychologically, aided by her friend and confidante Jare, who has his own reasons for helping her.

The Core of the Sun reads like a Finnish Handmaid's Tale crossed with Brave New World, with more voices, and more hope. Sinisalo mixes Vanna and Jare's first-person perspectives with primary source documentation from this version of her country and some real history too, like the story of the silver foxes and the early days of eugenics. In this version, Finland has evolved into a "eusistocracy," in which everyone, male and female, is slotted into rigid gender roles supposedly for the betterment of the whole country. Of course this betterment comes at the price of freedom and Sinisalo makes sure we think about both the benefits and the costs associated with this vision of Scandinavian life.

This review also appears on SFinTranslation.com.

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review.

My Thoughts: The Bone Clocks, by David Mitchell

The Bone Clocks, by David Mitchell. Published 2014 by Random House. Literary Fiction, SFF.

I finished The Bone Clocks last night, finally. It's been with me for a couple of weeks now, given that it's a long book and my life has been hectic and I haven't always had much time to read. But reading has provided a nice escape and needed breaks from the chaos of moving and I've been glad to have such a meaty book to escape into.

The book blends literary fiction and urban fantasy, like Cloud Atlas, but powered by the paranormal rather than technology. He also uses interrelated narratives to tell the story. And just for fun, a couple of characters from that book have a cameo appearance in this one. But you don't need to have read Cloud Atlas to enjoy The Bone Clocks.

The main character is Holly Sykes, an ordinary Londoner whose life becomes a battleground in a war between two races of immortals. Mitchell starts when Holly is a teenager and runs away after fighting with her mother over a boyfriend. He introduces the main characters and sets up the battle in this section, then shifts perspective, telling Holly's story from the points of view of the men in her life for much of the middle of the book. Finally he rounds back to her and changes course again for a depressing post-apocalyptic vision of the future. But he finishes out with a satisfying ending that ties it all together at long last.

For me this book was good escapism. Sometimes it was confusing, especially during the big epic showdown between the Anchorites (bad guys, think of them as a kind of vampire) and the Atemporals (good guys, think of them as benign body-snatchers) and the infodump contained therein. And sometimes I questioned the import of those long Holly-less passages. But I loved the characters and wanted to see how it would all turn out.

I'd definitely recommend literary and science fiction readers try it. It got a very positive write-up in SFX Magazine, one of the premiere sources of information in science fiction and fantasy. I usually enjoy the books they rate highly and I enjoyed this one too. I can't say it's a favorite but it was worth the time I gave it.

Rating: Backlist

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive a copy of this book for review.

Review: WORLD OF TROUBLE, by Ben H. Winters

World of Trouble, by Ben H. Winters. Published 2014 by Quirk Books. Science Fiction. Crime Fiction.

So World of Trouble was for me one of the most hotly anticipated books of this year. It's the third in a series called The Last Policeman, about Detective Hank Palace of the Concord, New Hampshire police department, and some very unusual circumstances. The world is going to end- a comet called Maia will collide at a certain date and it's definitely going to happen. The first book, also called The Last Policeman, takes place about six months out; the second, Countdown City, 77 days before impact. This one starts merely two weeks from Maia's slated arrival. All three are fairly standard procedurals but what makes them different is the premise. Why solve a murder, or resolve a disappearance, if everyone is going to die in six months? Why do anything anymore, when nothing you do will matter?

The answer to these questions is one that Hank pursues along with his perps. Before the world ends though, it falls apart little by little. People go "bucket list," leaving jobs and relationships to chase last-minute dreams. All over the world anarchy is taking hold. The poor in parts of the world that will be affected most immediately by Maia flock to the United States and other richer countries in hope of salvation. People stockpile food, weapons, whatever. Currency becomes meaningless, and so does life, for a lot of people.

For Hank, hanging on to his sanity, and his humanity, means taking the time to care for Maia's first victims, these murders and disappearances that happen before the impact. So he insists on investigating an apparent suicide in the first book, at a time when suicides have become commonplace, and a man who disappears from his devoted wife in the second, when everyone and their neighbor is going "bucket list".

In this final volume Hank is chasing his sister, Nico, who has taken up with a group of survivalists who believe they can save the world. Hank is skeptical to say the least but his sister is all he has left and he's determined to find her and be with her when the impact happens. Because as much as he hopes, he doesn't doubt that it will. He leaves a communal home he's been sharing with other police officers to bike to Ohio to find her. What he finds changes everything and nothing.

From a whodunit perspective this book was right up there with The Last Policeman for providing satisfactory twists and turns although I did guess who did it at an opportune moment well before the big reveal. But this book is still a great page-turner filled with lots of colorful and surprising characters. The big question is, does the world end? I won't tell you but I will say the ending is beautiful, poetic and just- and this just might be one of the best reads of 2014.

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review.

Review: ANNIHILATION by Jeff Vandermeer

Annihilation, by Jeff Vandermeer. Published 2014 by FSG Originals. Science Fiction.

Whoa. So, I dabble in SF but I don't read a lot- maybe 3 or 4 titles a year, and I'm picky. I like China Mieville, and Christopher Priest, and once in a while I can be persuaded to read Victor Lavalle but mostly I go by the reviews sections of SFX magazine. If they like it, I'll probably like it. They loved Annihilation, and so did I.

Set in the future at an indeterminate time, the book, which is the first in a planned trilogy (all will be out this year), tells the story of a doomed expedition to a place called Area X. The narrator, a biologist, tells us that this is the twelfth such expedition, and all of the previous 11 have ended in tragedy- suicides, murders, disappearances, mental breakdown and disease. The narrator's own husband was one of the casualties of the last expedition and her motivations for joining are one of the things we explore throughout this drawn-out, immersing and page-turning book.

The book we read is her journal, a record she leaves in situ after the first part of her journey has ended. She is not a reliable narrator and carefully withholds some crucial information until about 7/8 of the way through. The journey is bleak and scary; the landscape is brutal and holds some real terrors for her and the other members of the expedition, all women and all scientists of some sort. We never learn names. The women are defined by their professional roles- the linguist, the psychologist, the anthropologist. This nomenclature makes them seem generic and nonspecific, like playing cards or blanks. It's safe to say this is not a character-driven book but rather a voice-driven book, the singular voice of the biologist-narrator. And like I said, she's not reliable.

The book is short but it's not a quick read. It's detailed and like I said, immersing- when you're reading, you're there, and it's not a pretty place, filled with monsters and death and psychological games. But hang in there because it picks up speed near the end and becomes impossible to put down. It might be worth your while to wait for all three; I think I will wait till the third is published and read books two and three together.  The complete series, called the Southern Reach Trilogy, is Annihilation, out now; Authority, coming in May, and Acceptance, coming in September. Jeff Vandermeer is known as an anthologist and did one called The New Weird a few years ago. This book would fit right in. If you like weird, this is it.

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review.

Review: MADDADDAM, by Margaret Atwood

MaddAddam by Margaret Atwood. Published 2013 by Random House. Literary Fiction.

Okay, if you've ever read this blog before you know I am Margaret Atwood superfan. I'm not going to go all Misery but she is my favorite author. So when she has a new book, everything else just stops.

MaddAddam is her latest, the third in the trilogy that began in 2004 with Oryx and Crake. In that book, we met a guy named Jimmy, who was in love with a former prostitute named Oryx; sadly she was in love with Crake, a brilliant scientist. The three of them lived in a gloomy future in which corporations controlled life, people were breeding bizarre animals and life was just generally pretty bleak. I appreciated this book more on my second read; you can read my thoughts here. In 2009 she followed it up with The Year of the Flood, which told the story of this world from the point of view of a group called God's Gardeners, a sort of hippie sect that rejected the man-made and tried to opt for a way of living closer to nature. I loved YotF and have been waiting for this third installment ever since.

I have to release some gentle spoilers.

The flood referred to in the title of book two is a pandemic that wipes out most of humanity. MaddAddam picks up just after the "flood," when a small group of survivors from the first two books comes together along with some creatures made by Crake, a race of gentle, mango-colored beings referred to as "Crakers." Crake made them to replace humans, to be perfect, at least as he understood it, and to take better care of the Earth than he felt humans had. Toby, a middle-aged woman who had holed up in a spa during the outbreak and whom we got to know in The Year of the Flood, returns along with Zeb, a former Gardener turned rebel, Jimmy himself, still reeling from the final events of Oryx and Crake, and more, plus some of those genetically designed animals, one species of whom plays a crucial and unexpected role.

The big plot point is the showdown between our gang and a group of three men called Painballers. Painball is like a souped up, hyper-violent paintball crossed with the Hunger Games, and the people who survive it have nothing left but the need to hurt, rape and kill. As the survivors regroup they know the Painballers are out there and that there will be a confrontation. In the mean time as we wait, we get a full and extended backstory for Zeb and by extension his brother Adam, founder of the Gardeners. In the present day, Adam has disappeared and understanding Zeb's relationship to Adam is crucial for the final denouement.

I usually have two or three books going at once, but when I picked up MaddAddam not only did I put them all aside for the duration, I wanted to go read all of Atwood's books again. She's really that good, folks. So yeah, I loved it. I loved learning Zeb's crazy life story, seeing his relationship with Toby play out, and watching the interactions of three different species, all of whom have to navigate some pretty crazy stuff. Some bloggers have complained about how lovelorn for Zeb Toby is after seeing her as self-sufficient in The Year of the Flood. I wasn't bothered by the shift in her characterization because I didn't see it as a shift. She always loved Zeb; she loved him in that book, too, but he wasn't present with her for most of the action. When she sees him again, all these feelings are reignited and I thought the nerdy pair were charming and their relationship genuinely moving. It was the best part of the book for me.

And I did love it. I will say that you should read the first two first though. Atwood includes a thoughtful and thorough plot summary at the beginning but... read the first two first, but it doesn't matter which of the two you read first. In MaddAddam Atwood provides a beautiful and fitting end to the story. I don't have to tell Atwood fans to read this; they have already. But the rest of you- get on it!

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure:  I received a copy of MaddAddam for review.

Review: THE LAST POLICEMAN, by Ben H. Winters

The Last Policeman, by Ben H. Winters. Published 2013 by Quirk Books. Crime Fiction. Science Fiction.

The Last Policeman is the first of a trilogy and tells the story of Concord, New Hampshire detective Henry Palace, recently promoted after 15 months on the force. He's investigating the death of one Peter Zell,  an introverted accountant found hanged in a McDonald's bathroom. It looks like he killed himself. I mean, it really looks that way, and everyone thinks Palace's crazy to investigate, because these days everyone is killing himself. It's the end of the world, after all.

No, it really is. In the book, scientists have predicted that a mammoth asteroid is six months away from destroying life on Earth. Anarchy is settling in. People are pulling up stakes, going "bucket list" to do the things they always wanted to do. Cults are forming. Hopelessness abounds. And suicides are way, way up, so much so that no one even questions Zell's death. No one does, except for Palace.

The Last Policeman is more than just a mystery. It asks some searching questions about the choices that people make- would make, could make- when faced with the collective, inevitable, date-is-on-the-calendar end. It also asks us about our own lives, since each of us faces the inevitability of death with or without an asteroid. Society's steady dissolution is a major feature of the book; Palace struggles with the cynicism around him and inside him as he pursues Zell's killer. He almost gives up. Who could blame him? It looks just like a suicide; maybe it is.

I was totally glued to this book from page one. It was a staff pick of a fellow bookseller and I'm so glad she recommended it because I don't think I would have picked it up otherwise. I liked the combination of pre-apocalyptic science fiction and crime, and the setting of small-town New Hampshire was perfect. When the world ends, it won't just end in New York City; it'll end for all of us and Winters makes us consider the figurative impact of this asteroid through different levels of society and in places that don't normally come to mind when we think of catastrophe. And he wraps it up in a truly riveting mystery that will keep you guessing. Highly recommended!

P.S. Volume 2, Countdown City, is out now; there is no release date that I know of for #3 but I plan to read them together. I have to know how it all ends!

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review.

REVIEW: The Islanders, by Christopher Priest

The Islanders, by Christopher Priest. Published 2012 by Gollancz. Science Fiction.

The Islanders is one of the strangest and most challenging books I've read in a long time. Let's just say if you thought Cloud Atlas was easy and kind of dull, The Islanders would be a great book for you.

Christopher Priest is one of our greatest living writers of science fiction, not that I even know enough about SF to say that, but I'll say it anyway, and I challenge anyone to dispute me. Go on, bring it. He started off writing pretty standard SF but has progressed over the years to difficult puzzle books, books that you can't say you've read until you've read them at least twice. With The Islanders, I think three times is probably the minimum.

I picked it up after hearing it described as "Nabokovian" and Christopher Priest is one of the few authors who actually deserves the comparison. The book starts immediately, and I mean before the first page, with the dedication. The Islanders sets itself up as a gazetteer of a fictional place called the Dream Archipelago, a huge chain of islands stretching around an imaginary globe. No one knows how many islands there are in the Archipelago, their exact terrain, population, etc.; some of the islands have multiple names and it's hard even to say which is the "true" one. Then there's that word, "true." It's one that you'd best let go of, since absolutely nothing is what it seems in Priest's twisty universe. Or is it? Maybe some of it?

The book starts out with an introduction by a man named Chaster Kammeston, who later, um, seems like he wouldn't be in a position to write it at all. (Or...?) Then we go through many islands, one at a time, and slowly a narrative emerges about a murder and more. Characters who don't seem important turn out to be crucial; misdirection abounds. The style varies. Dry reference alternates with weird short stories that intersect and overlap. In one, Priest invents the thryme, a horrific creature which will haunt your nightmares as it has mine. Later he'll chill you to the bone with a  Lovecraftian tale of madness and solitude. We learn about a process enabling immortality, an enigmatic painter who leaves a trail of bodies in his wake, a temperamental theater performer, a writer and his twin, and a woman who wants to turn the islands themselves into musical instruments. And then there's that murder.

If you've read Priest before you'll recognize some of the motifs, like twins and the theater, artists and what it means to create. If not, buckle up. This book confounded me, confused me, flipped me around and landed me back on the ground only to want to start the whole crazy ride all over again. I've only read the book once so by my own standards I can't be said to have read it at all. I need to go back to this wonderful, puzzling and infuriating book. I have to. And you need to get started on your first go-through, like right now.

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review.

REVIEW: The Twelve, by Justin Cronin

The Twelve, by Justin Cronin. Published 2012 by Ballantine Books. Literary fiction. Science fiction.

If you're like me and you read and loved The Passage, you probably already have The Twelve, and you've probably already started. If not, what are you waiting for?

If you haven't read The Passage yet, bookmark this review, head to the bookstore and read it. It's about a viral plague that lays waste to America and turns people into blood-sucking monsters, and the ways people cope with the remains of society hundreds of years later.

Okay, you're caught up?

Book Two of The Passage Trilogy picks up where Book One left off in terms of style and voice but not exactly in terms of plot. Instead, Cronin circles back to the beginning, Year Zero of the contagion, and brings to the foreground some characters who were mere extras in the first book. A man Passage readers saw briefly in a store, now known as internet phenom Last Stand Denver, takes on a crucial role in saving human society; and April, a teenager trying to save her brother, turns out to be a forebear of one of our most important characters. Bad guys come back. Lila, Wolgast's ex-wife, descends into deep delusion and mania, emerging as a chilling villain. Grey, a janitor presumed dead in The Passage, comes back as a monster.  But none of these characters can match Horace Guilder, a small man who discovers a way to be a very big man indeed, but at a horrifying cost.

Our old friends are back too- Peter, Michael, Alicia, Amy- and some new folks. After some warmup set in Year Zero and some in the near-past Texas,  it's full-on action in the present, divided between the society established in Texas and another in the midwest, in a place called the Homeland. The Homeland is a dark, brutal Orwellian dictatorship where "flatlanders" or ordinary people labor as slaves for the elite, or "red-eyes," who see themselves as God-like and omnipotent. Problem is, they're not, and the secret to their power is more than just the violence they inflict on the flatlanders. The so-called red-eyes are beholden to some very dark masters, and the day of reckoning is coming.

The Twelve is an incredibly detailed and incredibly gripping thrill-ride. Once you get started you will be turning the pages like crazy; like The Passage, I was reading it during TV commercials and pauses in conversation with my husband, because I didn't want to let a minute go by without finding out more. Cronin keeps the action moving, keeps the characters busy and moves the plot to a heart-pounding climax with everyone on stage. He punishes even our favorite characters with tortures physical and psychological and never loosens his grip on our attention. Everyone goes through huge changes in preparation for the final showdown of Book Three but, to my surprise, the book ends on an exhale of relief and readiness rather than the sucker-punch sigh of Book One. And once you finish The Twelve, you will be ready for that grand finale.

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure: I received this book for review.

Readercon 2012- Some of the Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year and What I Bought

So one of the big reasons I attend ReaderCon, the annual festival/conference of science fiction and fantasy every year is to attend sessions on the best books of the year and get ideas about what to read. I don't read a lot of science fiction but I like to dip my toe in a little and learn. And every year I come back with ideas and lots of new books.

I bought three books this year:

Redemption in Indigo, by Karen Lord, was on last year's list of best science fiction and fantasy. It's a retelling of a Senegalese folk tale about a glutton whose wife leaves him, and the powers she gains. It's published by the great Small Beer Press.

Her Smoke Rose Up Forever is a collection of short stories by James Tiptree Jr., and some of Tiptree's only work that's in print. Tiptree was the pseudonym for author Alice Sheldon. She was known for edgy, feminist science fiction and so far I'd have to agree with that assessment! I see a lot of Margaret Atwood in Tiptree.

Finally, and this is more fun, I picked up 24 Frames into the Future, a collection of essays about science fiction film and movie culture by John Scalzi, author of many novels and stories. Each essay is about 2-3 pages long and many are very, very funny.

But what made folks' best-of lists this year? Four critics gathered for the Year in Novels panel, offered their picks and then asked for audience favorites.

ReaderCon's Year in Novels tracks novels from the ReaderCon year rather than the calendar year, so from July 2011 through July 2012.

The panel was made up of four critics: Don D'Ammassa, Natalie Luhrs, Gary K. Wolfe and Lisa Gruen Trombi. Several agreed that Kim Stanley Robinson's recent 2312 was a standout and also enjoyed China Mieville's Embassytown and Railsea as well. Caitlin Kiernan's The Drowing Girl received a lot of praise, and Wolfe said that Tim Powers' Hide Me Among the Graves was "the best fantasy of 2011." It's a historical fantasy about the Rosettis, telling the "secret history" of the family between the lines of known history. I may well look out for that one!  

The Killing Moon and The Shadowed Sun, by N.K. Jemisin, stood out for its "great worldbuilding"; inspired by ancient Egypt, one critic called it "multilayered" and "wonderful." Osama by Lavie Tidhar is unavailable currently in the U.S. but was praised for the risk-taking by author Tidhar, who recreates the real world as fiction within fiction. Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore was a YA pick with Cashore receiving praise as one of the most thoughtful writers for young adults.

The audiobook of Bitterblue was noted as a standout as well, as was the audio of John Scalzi's Redshirts, narrated by Wil Wheaton.

Audience picks included A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness and The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. The critics noted great early buzz for Iain M. Banks' forthcoming Hydrogen Sonata and Paolo Bacigalupi's Drowned Cities, which is out now.

On Sunday the 2011 Shirley Jackson Awards were handed out to the following writers and works:

• "The Corpse Painter's Masterpiece," by M. Rickert, won in the Short Fiction category. It appeared in the Sept./Oct. 2011 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.
• After the Apocalypse: Stories, by Maureen McHugh and published by Small Beer Press, won for Single Author Collection.
• Ghosts by Gaslight, edited by Jack Dann and Nick Gevers, published by Harper Voyager, won for Anthology.
• "Near Zennor," by Elizabeth Hand, won for Novella. It was published in A Book of Horrors, published by Jo Fletcher Books.
• "The Summer People" by Kelly Link won best Novelette. It was published in Tin House 49/Steampunk! An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories, Candlewick Press.
• Witches on the Road Tonight, by Sheri Holman, won Best Novel. It was published by Grove Press.

The Shirley Jackson Award recognizes horror, psychological suspense and the dark fantastic. This year Jackson's daughter Sarah Hyman DeWitt honored us with an appearance and wonderful stories about her mother,  a very kind and loving person.

Of the books mentioned, I want to read 2312, Witches on the Road Tonight and Hide Me Among the Graves. I tend to wait for paperbacks so I'll get them later on.

Now you know what to look for on the science fiction shelf of your local independent bookstore! Happy reading!

REVIEW: The Testament of Jessie Lamb, by Jane Rogers

The Testament of Jessie Lamb, by Jane Rogers. Published 2012 by HarperPerennial. ISBN 9780062130808.

This year's winner of the prestigious Arthur C. Clarke Award and originally published by the small Scottish publisher Sandstone Press, The Testament of Jessie Lamb is a book that will definitely get you thinking, and talking.

Veteran writer Jane Rogers tells the story of a 16 year old British girl named Jessie, who as the book opens is being held captive by her father. The story takes place in the near future after the spread of a deadly disease called Maternal Death Syndrome or MDS, which kills every infected pregnant woman. And everyone on Earth is infected. Panic spreads; scientists race to find a solution to the extinction of man while factions protest and regular people try to figure out what to do next. Jessie's father is a scientist at work on one of the most controversial projects, the Sleeping Beauties. Sleeping Beauties are young women- girls, really- who are impregnated with embryos then left in a coma until they deliver, and die.

When the book opens Jessie is tied up in a neighbor's house. She writes the book to keep herself occupied during her captivity, as a kind of reminiscence about the onset of MDS, the ensuing panics and reactions of her friends and family, and worldwide responses and consequences. Rogers lets Jessie give us a pretty good idea of the kind of chaos and uncertainty spreading through her society and her circles. Her aunt Mandy, childless and single, latches onto a cult for what she believes is her last chance at happiness. Her parents quarrel; her friend is raped and joins a feminist group. Jessie finds herself confronted with all kinds of conflicting ideas and input, and, eventually, comes to the decision that will land her in her cell and change her life forever.

I have to say I was very impressed by the novel. It's a genuinely creepy and disturbing dystopia, with a heroine who exhibits all the symptoms of teenage narcissism and still decides to take an active role in what's going on. She has no idea how her actions are impacting those around her; right up to the end she's blind to the effect she's having, totally cocooned in her own solipsistic righteousness. But the reader can see, and it's chilling, this single-mindedness of hers. I was totally engrossed and engaged from beginning to end. A paperback original, I think Testament would be a fantastic and very challenging book club selection, and a great read for lovers of dystopias and literary science fiction.

Rating: BUY

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The Testament of Jessie Lamb (P.S.)
by Jane Rogers

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FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review.

REVIEW: Yellow Blue Tibia, by Adam Roberts

Yellow Blue Tibia, by Adam Roberts. Published 2010 by Gollancz.  Literary Fiction. Science Fiction.

If you don't speak Russian you should start by knowing that "yellow blue tibia" is a verbal pun for Я мебя люблю (ya tebya loobloo) or "I love you". Yellow Blue Tibia, Adam Roberts' fun, fascinating and engaging novel is a love story of some sweetness as well as a science fiction romp through the waning days of the Soviet Union.

It takes a while to get around to the love story, nested inside the memoir of one Konstantin Andreiovich Skvorecky, an elderly, washed-up translator and erstwhile science fiction writer. In the 1930s, Skvorecky was part of a group of science fiction writers recruited by Joseph Stalin in an effort to create an alien threat around which he could mobilize the Soviet people. World War 2 was over, Germany was defeated and Stalin (at least the Stalin of this book) believed that U.S. was on the verge of collapse. He therefore feels that the Soviet people needed a new enemy, something to galvanize and unite them. He bring the writers together in a dacha and where they make up a story about aliens made of radiation. Suddenly, mercurially, the story is buried and the writers dispersed. Fast forward to the 1980s and Skvorecky is a lonely old man waking from a slumber of many years only to find that the fiction he helped create may be reality after all.

Yellow Blue Tibia has been compared to the science fiction of Margaret Atwood but a think a more just comparison would be to that Russian satirist Vladimir Voinovich, whose novel Moscow 2042 this one resembles, at least in tone. It's a fun book and very well-crafted but it kind of dragged for me around the middle third, as Skvorecky is bounced around from KGB officers to jail to hospitals to Chernobyl and back again, the unwitting victim of failed assassination attempt after failed assassination attempt until he finally learns the truth behind the people manipulating him as well as the truth about his companions on his crazy journey, American Scientologists James Coyne and Dora Norman. The Americans are recruited for a mysterious, latter-day role in the same project that we learn Skvorecky has been a part of for years. I admit I found the whole thing kind of murky.

I may not have been the right reader exactly for this book but I enjoyed it enough to recommend it to literary fiction readers looking for something definitely off-beat and a little crazy. I can think of a couple of friends in particular I think would like this, people who like their science fiction with a good dose of humor and satire and readers interested in fiction about the Soviet Union and its collapse. And Voinovich fans, please buy this book.  If you fit into any of those categories, go ahead and seek out this unusual and challenging novel, and I wish you luck.

Rating: BACKLIST

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review.

REVIEW: Inverted World, by Christopher Priest

Inverted World, by Christopher Priest. Originally published 1975; this edition published 2008 by NYRB Classics. Science Fiction.

Inverted World is one of those books where the less you know when you start, the better. That said, there a couple of basic things. Unlike The Prestige, the other Christopher Priest book I've read (and reviewed here), Inverted World is much more straight-up science fiction. Like The Prestige, it's a puzzle, and a book whose premise and reality unwind slowly.

You could almost think of Inverted World as a kind of coming of age story. When we start, Helward Mann is reaching adulthood; he's entering a Guild, a professional society sworn to secrecy, and he's getting married. He lives in a giant moving, self-contained city called "Earth" that travels the world on tracks which have to be constantly laid, on a path that has to be constantly calculated, mapped and planned. He's never been outside the city before and knows nothing of the world that awaits him. Neither, it seems, do most of the city's inhabitants. And the people outside the city have a very difficult relationship with the city, as we come to understand.

As Helward comes to understand his world, so do we, and meanwhile we have Priest's characteristic puzzles to unravel. As in The Prestige, perspective is very important, but unlike The Prestige, we have characters whose perceptions of reality differ from each other- greatly. And we don't know where we are for most of the book. Is Helward on Earth, our Earth? What happened to this planet, whatever it is? What apocalypse lead to the world that exists, and the way people live now? Why is it some but not all people live like this? What is the nature of the outsiders? What is the nature of the city? What is its future?

Inverted World is a fantastic novel. It's not a white-hot page-turner per se but I'll bet that once you get started you'll be so intrigued by the mysteries Priest sets up you'll want to keep going and going. When the big reveal comes, it's pretty good; there's a truly jaw-dropping moment near the end I still can't get out of my head and I read this book back in the summer. Between the stunning The Prestige and this engrossing novel, Christopher Priest is a science fiction author that literary readers really need to get to know!

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review.

REVIEW: The Prestige, by Christopher Priest

The Prestige, by Christopher Priest. Published 1997 by Tor Books. Literary Fiction. Science Fiction.

So, yes, The Prestige is the novel on which the 2006 film of the same name was based. But Christopher Priest's extraordinary novel is so much more than what you saw on the screen (and if you didn't see it, wait till after you've read the book, but do see it.)

The Prestige is a puzzle book, a book whose several stories layer and twist over and under each other. When the book opens, Andrew Westley is about to have a meeting with an enigmatic and very wealthy young woman, Kate Angier, who knew him as a child. Something happened when he was a child, and it's that something that Kate wants to talk about. Privately, Andrew has always had the sense that he was a twin, and that somewhere out there, maybe dead, was a missing brother he never knew. There is no evidence to support this feeling- it's just a feeling, and a feeling that will haunt Andrew until he can find out what that something is.

In the next chapter, we meet Alfred Borden via his memoir. Borden is a Victorian-era magician of some repute, engaged in a years-long rivalry with one Rupert Angier, another magician, whose diary we read next. Angier becomes obsessed with discovering the trick to Borden's most celebrated illusion and will stop at nothing to discover the secret and do the trick even better than Borden. The two men spy on each other, play tricks on each other and try to destroy each others' lives. Then we hear from Kate; then it's back to Andrew and the book's devastating conclusion.

Even if you've seen the movie, you don't know Andrew's story.

The Prestige is an amazing book, truly amazing. I would characterize the novel as a highly literary Victorian fantasy, maybe even as steampunk; if you've read The Night Circus and want to step it up a little, The Prestige is a great place to start. There's so much more going on here than the plot or the shocking reveals. Perspective and voice are everything; you never quite know who is speaking to you, who is telling the truth or lying, who you can trust. If you just read for plot you'll be flipping pages madly; if you want to read for more I would advise you to linger over Priest's many tricks and misdirections. It's a magic act in and of itself, this book, and one that I can't recommend highly enough to readers looking for a thrill ride unlike any other you're likely to come across. The Prestige will doubtless appear on my "Best of" list this year and it's one of the best books I've read any year. It's also a stunning introduction to one of the most exciting writers I've come across in years. Amazing, essential and challenging, The Prestige will keep you guessing and thinking long after the final curtain fall.

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review.

REVIEW: Song of Time, by Ian R. MacLeod

Song of Time, by Ian R. MacLeod. Published 2008 by PS Publishing. Hardcover.

Song of Time is a neat book with a really bad cover. I heard about at the 2008 Readercon presentation "The Year in Novels," where critics from science fiction and fantasy specialty journals talk about their favorite books of the year. I don't remember who recommended Song of Time but the critic thought it was a good example of "literary SF" and described its plot in a way that made it sound like catnip.

A 2009 Arthur C. Clarke award winner (among other honors), and set in a distant and oblique future, the story concerns an elderly woman who lives alone and who finds a nameless, naked young man washed ashore near her Cornwall property. The woman, Roushana, is an Irish-Indian retired violinist who shares the story of her life with her mysterious visitor, while preparing for a major transition in her own.  The book covers decades of time. She recounts her childhood, the death of her adored older brother Leo, the impact of wars and pollution and politics on her life and that of her husband, the charismatic Claude, already a star when they meet and fall in love in Paris. Meanwhile, in the present tense, she's getting to know Adam, as she's come to call the man, and finding out exactly who, and what, he is.

Song of Time is more of a fictionalized memoir than a dystopia or futuristic book per se. MacLeod concentrates more on the characters and their life stories over another dramatic arc or world-building as such. It's distinct from a book like Embassytown that builds a fairly compelling plot on top of a complex and detailed world but goes a little light on character. Here, it's all about the people. He tells us the story of Roushana's life and then only what we need to know of the world to understand it. So questions remain, but MacLeod gives us a rich portrait of the people in a world different from our own but recognizable nonetheless. He writes beautifully; the style of the book is distinctly literary with vivid descriptions and lengthy exposition. Probably a must-read for committed SF readers,  I'd also recommend it highly to readers of literary fiction looking for a strong character-driven novel a little different from the usual literary fare.

Read a great review of Song of Time at Tamaranth's Creative Reading.

Getting a hold of a copy might be tricky if you're outside the UK. I was unable to find it in Powell's extensive database and obtained my copy directly from the UK publisher.

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review.

REVIEW: Embassytown, by China Miéville

Embassytown, by China Miéville. Published 2011 by Random House. Science fiction.

"I can make things bad for you," Ez kept shouting. "There are things I could say."

Embassytown, the latest novel from acclaimed British writer China Miéville, takes as its theme language and the power it can have over us all. Like many of Miéville's books, this one starts with a city, the city of the title. Embassytown exists in the far future, on a distant planet humans have settled. It's kind of a border town between human civilization and that of the Ariekei, an enigmatic race to whom the planet belongs. The Ariekei, or the Hosts,  speak a language so difficult that only specially-trained Ambassadors can communicate with them, so the Ariekei remain an enigma to all but this very select group of people. Avice Benner Cho, the protagonist and narrator, is not one of these people, but she's something even more important. Avice is a simile.

When Avice was a child, she was recruited to perform a task for the extremely literal-minded Ariekei so that they could enrich their language (so iconic it's simply referred to as Language) with figurative speech. Since then, she's traveled through the immer, or deep space, had a career, been married, and generally had a life. There are others like her as well, other similes, and the first breakdown of Language has a profound effect on them. Other key players include an ex-Ambassador named Bren, Avice's husband Scile, and a new Ambassador who is unlike the others, and whose use of Language wrecks a havoc that changes Ariekei society forever.

Embassytown is the kind of book that unrolls slowly, and you'll want Miéville's own extremely skillful use of language to wash over you. Unlike The City and The City, a tight, plot-centric blend of genres, Embassytown is more straight-up science fiction and less about plot and more about the language itself. In other words, it's not a fast read, or a particularly gripping page-turner. I found it to be long and dense, but I kept going because Miéville sets up such a remarkably complex and detailed world and made me care about the Ariekei and their extremely unusual problem. The novel is as rich with ideas as it is neologisms, and even when I couldn't tackle more than a few pages at a time, I never seriously considered putting Embassytown down for good. Miéville is a major talent whom literary readers would do well to get to know. As Miéville wrote in my copy of the book, "Hope you enjoy this linguistic apocalypse!"

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review.