Did you notice how I mentioned that I was reading Hide Me Among The Graves several weeks past, but haven’t yet posted any review of it? Well, I can explain. And I have a few other points of interest for you today, with tidbits on Agents of Shield and Dominions 3.
Category Archives: Books
Wolf Who Rules, by Wen Spencer
I have to admit, my memory of Wolf Who Rules has blended into the book that comes before it (Tinker, which I reviewed last week) and the next one in the series (Elfhome). As you might expect from such a situation, if you liked Tinker you’ll almost certainly like Wolf Who Rules.
I can extricate the details of the plot with some additional focus, but the stories all pile together, following one another so closely that it is not easy to tell where one ends and the next begins. Little is done to ease you back into the story beyond a few quick info drops, but this also means that if you’ve just read Tinker you’ll easily slide along into this one without any sense of confusion. Without one of the sometimes ponderous prolonged reintroductions that are so common to a series, Wolf Who Rules whisks you straight into the next adventure.
Tinker, by Wen Spencer
Wen Spencer surprised me. I picked up Tinker through the Baen ebook store, expecting to find something that would keep me suitably amused while traveling. The book did that, and then it grabbed me and pulled me in. While I should have been working, I read. While I should have been visiting with family, I read. While I should have been sleeping… you get the idea. It turns out that Spencer is very good at delivering on the promises of her pacing; she starts with a bang, and she quickly turns up the heat and adds increasing tension to the mix. There are a few spots where you can sit down and take a breath, but you won’t want to. Add some sections that make you wince and cringe and more sections that are laugh-out-loud funny, and you’ve got Tinker. It’s a bit like a less pulpy version of Girl Genius. Would you like to know more?
The Quiller Memorandum, by Adam Hall
Ah, pseudonyms. Adam Hall was one of the pseudonyms used by the author Elleston Trevor (which was itself not the author’s original name). It seems entirely appropriate to me that such an excellent spy novel should come from someone who felt so compelled to shroud and change their own identity. If you like spy stories and intrigue, or would like to try dabbling in them for the very first time, look no further. Quiller is a far better Cold War spy than the cinematic Mr. Bond ever was, more deeply focused on the details of spycraft, practicing intimate information war as a metaphoric knife fight where you’re never truly certain as to who holds the advantage. Drawing blood is rarely the point of the duel, and secrets are more valuable than lives. The Quiller Memorandum, as you might have guessed, is a very exciting book.
Does the title feel achingly familiar? Just like something that you’ve read before? Well…
1636: The Devil’s Opera, by David Carrico and Eric Flint
Within several hours of writing my piece last week, I had already finished reading 1636: The Devil’s Opera, meaning that I went through it in slightly more than one day despite several interruptions. It’s an addictive delight, just as I had anticipated it would be. In that way, it is completely in keeping with what I’ve come to expect from Eric Flint, and from his 1632 series. And now I want to go back to see what else David Carrico has on offer. He seems promising, and if his other works are anywhere near as good as this one, I’ll be happy to read them. Now then, about this book…
What You Want To Read
I have been moderately derelict in my duties: I’m in the throes of a book. 1636: The Devil’s Opera caught me late yesterday and hasn’t yet let go. I am also partway through two others (Hide Me Among The Graves, The Quiller Memorandum), but I don’t have a review of any of them ready for you.
I’ve been making progress on the next Jerome short story, with several thousand words down already and a good number more to go. I’ve been having some trouble with this one, but it’ll come around eventually.
What I want to know, though, is what you next want to read from me. Specifically, are any of you interested in seeing more material based on that flash fic piece which I wrote? I’ll include it past the break so that you can refresh your memory, but here are a few questions to get things started:
- Do you want to see more in this setting?
- If yes, whom should I follow? Who and what seem most interesting to you? How long should I make it?
- If no, what sort of thing would you like to see instead? Do you have any ideas that you’d like to see explored?
Please put any responses in the comment section. Once again, the flash fic piece in question follows the break…
The Escapist Nature of Superhero Works
What do your favorite superheroes say about you? Superhero literature — and really the speculative fiction genre as a whole — are a genre rooted in escapism. Superheroes are a way of conceiving of the world as we’d wish it to be, but in a roundabout sense. While a utopian novel may define our perfect world, superhero works define the one-man struggle to make a perfect world. Have you ever heard somebody say ‘man, if I were in charge…’. That is the defining idea behind super hero works: one person trying to change the world dramatically by sculpting it to their personal ethos. It is my opinion that our favorite superhero works indicate (to some degree) how we see the world.
Master of the Cauldron, by David Drake
I think David Drake might have access to a time machine. You see, I’ve written my reviews of his books years after they were published, and yet he has consistently moved to address my concerns. He doesn’t get it exactly right every time, but he’s clearly heard me and has responded to the points that I make. He’s even usually fixed things within a book or two.
Master of the Cauldron is the sixth book in the Lord of the Isles series, the last book before the final trilogy which is supposed to wrap up all of the adventures that our heroes have been having. It continues with the excellent setting which I gushed about in my earlier reviews, still delivering on that sense of diving into a world made up of an Atlantean amalgamation of our past. In fact, much of it is very familiar. If you’ve paid attention while reading the previous books, you’ll probably be able to call most of the scenes here as they happen, or at least know the pattern of the flow as you read. So the question is, do I still like it? Continue reading
Cartozia Tales
Quick disclaimer: I received my copy of the first issue as a review submission, and am friends with Lucy Bellwood, one of the excellent artists on the project.
Cartozia Tales is the collaborative creation of a group of indy cartoonists, with two issues out and another eight to come pending a successful Kickstarter project. It explores the world of Cartozia by offering stories from all over the map… literally. One of the central conceits of the project is that each of the artist teams will create stories from a randomly chosen location in the world of Cartozia, with the eventual goal of having every artist tell a story from every section of the world.
The world itself is filled out in promising detail on a map in the center of the first issue (like that pretty one up above). Your initial introduction to the material is offered by a young cartographer named Shreya, who travels around the world of Cartozia mapping it out and collecting stories. These stories are all designed to be accessible to young readers, and as such they are short, move quickly, and don’t require an extensive background vocabulary. But leaving it at that doesn’t do full justice to the content; a number of the stories were just as deep and engaging as I would hope something aimed at an older audience to be, and the stories that didn’t quite hit that note felt like they promised to do so within the next few episodes.
The art changes from one story to the next as different artists take the reins, offering a wide variety of styles in a medium that is more often denoted by much larger uniform chunks. I am of course quite partial to Lucy’s work, but I found several new artists that I expect to look up once I’ve finished writing this post (never mind, I couldn’t resist and already looked them up). Simply put, I quite like this project and I’m looking forward to reading the next issue. I highly recommend that you check it out, and contribute to their Kickstarter if you like what you see.
Getting Motivated to Write
I live in Portland, and as such, everybody I know is a ‘writer’. I imagine it’s like being an ‘actor’ in Los Angeles; people use the word as a catch-all for their hopes and dreams. But wanting to write and doing it occasionally doesn’t make you a writer any more than playing pick-up basketball every once in awhile makes you a basketball player, or playing with Legos makes you an engineer. And so most ‘writers’ I know are actually baristas, with most ‘actors’ being waiters/waitresses.
As with most things, success is hard, and most success will be measured in degrees. So what is a writer? Well, I’d struggle to define ‘writer’. My first attempt would be:
Fistful of Wits 