A Call to Duty by David Weber & Timothy Zahn

Growing up, Travis Uriah Long yearned for order and discipline in his life . . . the two things his neglectful mother couldn't or wouldn't provide. So when Travis enlisted in the Royal Manticoran Navy, he thought he'd finally found the structure he'd always wanted so desperately.

But life in the RMN isn't exactly what he expected. Boot camp is rough and frustrating; his first ship assignment lax and disorderly; and with the Star Kingdom of Manticore still recovering from a devastating plague, the Navy is possibly on the edge of extinction.

The Star Kingdom is a minor nation among the worlds of the Diaspora, its closest neighbors weeks or months away, with little in the way of resources. With only modest interstellar trade, no foreign contacts to speak of, a plague-ravaged economy to rebuild, and no enemies looming at the hyper limit, there are factions in Parliament who want nothing more than to scrap the Navy and shift its resources and manpower elsewhere.

But those factions are mistaken. The universe is not a safe place.

Travis Long is about to find that out.

There are a few writers who I will read without fail when they release a new book and David Weber is one of them. A Call to Duty, co-written with the legendary Timothy Zahn, was a nice departure, taking his Honorverse universe back in time slightly to the early years of Manticore and showing a Royal Navy dealing with very different problems – a lack of enemies means that internal pressures are about to see the RMN fold completely, left with only a small number of ships to protect its borders. 

As usual, A Call to Duty has a large cast of characters, but the main storyline centers around Travis Long, a young enlisted whose out of the box thinking brings him both opportunities and major problems. Your reaction to A Call to Duty is likely to depend entirely on how you feel about the rest of Weber’s work – the book has the same long descriptions of hardware, political intrigue, space battles and lack of aliens. I for one love the universe Weber has created and Long is a worthy successor (predecessor ?) of Honor Harrington. The ending has all of the trademark action and tension as one expects from David Weber and sets things up nicely for the sequel whenever that may be.

I gave A Call to Duty 4 stars. 

Star Trek Deep Space Nine: The Missing by Una McCormack

An original novel set in the universe of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine—a direct sequel to the New York Times bestselling story arc, The Fall!

Deep Space 9 is once again becoming an important way station in the Alpha Quadrant for many different people with many different agendas. Uniquely crewed by representatives of different species from both the Khitomer Powers and the Typhon Pact, the Federation science and exploration vessel Athene Donald stops at the station as its final port of call before heading into uncharted territories. The whole project is the brainchild of Dr. Katherine Pulaski, who hopes that science will do what diplomacy alone cannot, and help various powers put aside the tensions of recent years, returning to scientific research and the exploration of space.

On DS9, base commander Ro Laren has her hands full with the sudden arrival of a ragtag flotilla of small ships crewed by a group calling themselves the People of the Open Sky. Ro is not keen on handling this first-contact duty, but becomes increasingly intrigued by the People, who are made up of several hitherto unknown species. Describing themselves as explorers, they are interested in everything about the station. Ro begins to enjoy her assignment, particularly as she takes counsel from the logs of Jean-Luc Picard. Blackmer, however, is more suspicious about these apparently friendly arrivals and monitors their movements around DS9…

Of all the writers currently working in the Star Trek litverse, two of the finest are women. While Kirsten Beyer has been doing amazing things with the Star Trek Voyager storylines, Una McCormack is a little bit more eclectic, with a penchant for Deep Space Nine and the Cardassians. Her work, especially the Cardassia-centric The Never-Ending Sacrifice, have been must reads for most Treklit fans for the past few years and in The Missing she does not disappoint.

Picking up on numerous threads left hanging in the recent Star Trek books, The Missing follows three main storylines: Beverly Crusher settling in aboard Deep Space Nine, Katherine Pulaski aboard a civilian starship encountering a strange alien ship and a murder mystery aboard the new station. Within those storylines, McCormack continues to develop the DS9 characters, especially current commanding officer Ro Laren and security officer Jefferson Blackmer, while spinning out some new directions for such fan favourites as Odo. Characters from Brinkmanship, including the Tzenkethi Corazame and Starfleet Intelligence officer Alex Gardner, also appear and McCormack does a great job of developing them from where she left them in Brinkmanship. She also is able to use these characters to have a discussion on where Starfleet and the Federation as a whole seem to be heading in this Typhon Pact era.

Where McCormack does the best job, though, is definitely in her handling of Crusher and Pulaski. While Crusher's seeming abandonment of Jean-Luc Picard and their son could have been mishandled (see the fan reaction to Sisko's storyline in the early post-Destiny novels), McCormack instead makes it easy to understand and empathise with her decision. She also rehabilitates Pulaski, a character many TNG fans learned to dislike if not despise during her tenure on the show. Here Pulaski maintains her "difficult" personality but McCormack does enough to round out the edges without gutting the character. It really proved to be a fantastic handling of the character, and I hope McCormack gets a chance to return to her in the future.

All in all, the various storylines and characters are handled with style by McCormack, bringing a number of characters seen in recent novels to conclusions and new beginnings. At the same time, she manages to write more of a classic Trek novel, returning to the sort of adventures found in the beginning of the DS9 relaunch and boding well for what would appear to be a more exploratory, scientific direction for the Treklit verse in the coming months. The Missing shows again why McCormack is one of the finest Trek writers working today.

I gave The Missing 4 stars.

Wrat-Up 2014 - Top Ten Science Fiction Books

This has been a good year for new sci-fi for me: of the books below only one is from a writer who I had previously read. Each of them were excellent and unique in their own way, spanning space opera to near future to young adult. 

Again, in no particular order, my SF top ten 2014:

The Martian by Andy Weir

An edge-of-the-seat thriller, told through the eyes of an astronaut struck on Mars, The Martian has already been optioned for the movies, directed by Ridley Scott no less! A real page turner that also manages to embody the very best of humanity in the stars, this was one of my favourite books of the year. It also won the Goodreads Choice Awards for SF, so there's also that!

The Happier Dead by Ivo Stourton

A near-future thriller dealing with immortality, The Happier Dead was a nail-biting thriller, a great mystery and fantastic sci-fi. Ivo Stourton is also a class act, one of the only writers to have reached out to me (a complete unknown) on Goodreads and thank me for my review! Hats off Mr Stourton! (and sorry for not getting back to you about that interview!) :)

The Girl in the Road by Monica Byrne

Far from an easy book, The Girl in the Road is well worth the effort put in. A story told across two tracks that entwine in unsuspected ways, this is Earth based SF where current problems are taken to extremes. Whether it be the search for new energy sources, the effects of climate change or the rise of so-called Third World countries, this puts an intriguing spin on very real issues, just as all good SF should do. A book that has been very much underrated in my opinion.

The Forever Watch by David Ramirez

A well-written debut that juggles some of the most common SF tropes - spaceships, aliens, dystopian worlds - with aplomb and flair. Combining a murder mystery with an ark-ship milieu, Ramirez manages to bring together a dark, interesting and frightening novel that will leave you thinking.

The Burning Dark by Adam Christopher

Sci-fi horror is not an easy thing to pull off, but Adam Christopher does it extremely well in The Burning Dark. Replacing the haunted house with a haunted space station, Christopher weaves together threads of alien possession, radio signals in hyperspace and a nearby star giving off toxic emissions to form a terrifying exploration of the final frontier...

Red Rising by Pierce Brown

A YA epic, Red Rising follows Darrow, a Red working and living on Mars who takes on the mantle of one of the leading Golds in order to get revenge. Part Hunger Game, part Count of Monte Cristo, Red Rising was a fantastic read, full of exciting action scenes and prose that makes the pages spin by. Cannot wait for the sequel early 2015!

Influx by Daniel Suarez

What if the world we know today is actually half a century behind where it should be? This is the question asked (and answered) by Influx, where a scientist who invents reflective gravity discovers that fusion power, A.I. and genetic manipulation were all invented decades ago, but are being controlled and kept from the general population. A sly thriller that ends in a huge set piece, Influx was a blockbuster, popcorn book.

Honour's Knight by Rachel Bach

In her paradox trilogy, Rachel Bach, aka. Rachel Aaron, did for space opera what she had already done for epic fantasy - shake it up, give it a fresh coat of paint and remind us all why it is such great fun. Of the trilogy, I found this, the second, to be the most powerful, a real shake up of the status quo with some amazing set pieces and a great twist ending.

Afterparty by Daryl Gregory

A true mind-bending near future thriller, Afterparty plays with hallucinations, drug printing and religion to create a chase story that never really lets up as it travels across North America. Wonderful, quirky characters and a biting commentary of the world we are fast approaching makes this a great read for fans of Stephenson and Gibson.

A Darkling Sea by James Cambias

Remarkable for its opening which spins the first contact story on its head, A Darkling Sea deals with weird aliens, strange worlds and a number of interesting characters. Cambias is an excellent writer whose prose carries the story along through to a satisfying ending. 

Waiting on Wednesday: Seveneves by Neal Stephenson

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Jill over at Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

This week's pre-publication "can't-wait-to-read" selection is:

Seveneves by Neal Stephenson
Expected publication: May 19th 2015

When the moon blows up, the earth’s atmosphere is predicted to go through changes that will eventually lead to a Hard Rain, a meteorite storm that could last for thousands of years, rendering the earth’s surface uninhabitable. In preparation, the nations of the earth send an ark of humans to an International Space Station. But the Station isn’t immune to the galactic catastrophe and many of its people are lost, mostly men. When stability is reached, only seven humans remain, all of them women. 

Jump forward thirty thousand years. Two peoples exist: those who survived on Earth, living rustic, primitive lives; and those who derived from the Seven Eves of the space station, affluent, sophisticated, organized sects looking to colonize the surface of earth. 

Stephenson’s next novel is an epic potboiler, with political and military intrigue, and plenty to say about evolution, genetic engineering, and civilization as we know it.

I have not read as much of Stephenson's work as I would like, so when I saw this - a sci-fi dystopia set in the far future - I immediately added it to my TBR list.

The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell

Following a scalding row with her mother, fifteen-year-old Holly Sykes slams the door on her old life. But Holly is no typical teenage runaway: a sensitive child once contacted by voices she knew only as “the radio people,” Holly is a lightning rod for psychic phenomena. Now, as she wanders deeper into the English countryside, visions and coincidences reorder her reality until they assume the aura of a nightmare brought to life.

For Holly has caught the attention of a cabal of dangerous mystics—and their enemies. But her lost weekend is merely the prelude to a shocking disappearance that leaves her family irrevocably scarred. This unsolved mystery will echo through every decade of Holly’s life, affecting all the people Holly loves—even the ones who are not yet born.

A Cambridge scholarship boy grooming himself for wealth and influence, a conflicted father who feels alive only while reporting from occupied Iraq, a middle-aged writer mourning his exile from the bestseller list—all have a part to play in this surreal, invisible war on the margins of our world. From the medieval Swiss Alps to the nineteenth-century Australian bush, from a hotel in Shanghai to a Manhattan townhouse in the near future, their stories come together in moments of everyday grace and extraordinary wonder.

Spanning six decades and the entire world, The Bone Clocks is a mind-bending, genre-twisting epic that traces the effects of a cabal of immortal mystics on a single woman and the people who cross her path. From her adolescence in England in the 1980s, Holly Sykes finds herself encountering strange events and unexplained paranormal activity throughout her life. It is only as she reaches the end of her life, though, that she begins to uncover the true depths of the war she has stumbled upon and the impact she herself will have on the world... 

My first David Mitchell book was actually not written by him – last year I read The Reason I Jump, a memoir of autism written by a young Japanese man that Mitchell and his wife translated. I loved the translation, but I also enjoyed the beginning section where Mitchell explained his own experiences with autism (his son is on the spectrum). So when I heard about The Bone Clocks I jumped at the chance, not having any idea what I was letting myself in for. The Bone Clocks is an amazing novel, a true mind-twister that sprawls across time and space, bringing in elements of literary fiction, pulp genre novels and historical works, pulling together a huge cast of characters in a race against time to stop a cabal of soul vampires while exploring metaphysics, psychology, philosophy and environmentalism. I have rarely read a book that touched on so many things and yet Mitchell does a fantastic job of tying the whole thing together. A coming-of-age tale, a sci-fi thriller, an exploration of what it means to be human... The Bone Clocks is all of these things and more. Highly recommended! 

I gave The Bone Clocks 5 stars.

Dragonsblood by Todd McCaffrey

Amazon
Goodreads

When a fatal illness begins affecting dragons just before the latest cycle of Thread begins to fall, the young dragonrider Lorana must try to find a way to stop the disease before it decimates their ranks. When her efforts fail to bring about the necessary healing, she and her friends turn to the lyrics of an ancient song that may point to an answer five hundred years in their past, in the early years after the arrival of mankind on Pern. In those long-ago days, Wind Blossom, daughter of the woman who bred the fire-lizards ino dragons, struggles to live up to her mother’s shadow while the technology so central to their lives fails around them. These two women, separated by hundred of years, must find a way of communicating across the gulf separating them, in a race to save the entire dragon race…
 
In the first Pern book written exclusively by Anne McCaffrey’s son Todd, we are treated to an adventure across the ages that takes place partly in the era of the Third Fall first introduced in the McCaffreys first jointly written novel, Dragon’s Kin, and partly back in the earliest days of the Pern timeline, fifty years after the arrival of mankind on the planet. Todd McCaffrey does a great job of juggling these twin timelines, telling contained stories in both that interweave and combine in clever ways as the storylines progress. It was really nice to return back to the early days of Pern, seeing some of the characters introduced in Dragonsdawn again, and continuing the fall of the old world of technology and its influence on how society develops in its absence. At the same time, McCaffrey creates an intriguing cast of new characters (some of whom return from Dragon’s Kin in secondary roles) and a tense situation – as Fall approaches, the dragons have begun to die off. Dealing with a disease forces the new characters to struggle to find a way to heal them, using what little skills they have. The only hope seems to be a message from the past, one that is revealed slowly through the course of the book and which has a very clever resolution at the end. Todd McCaffrey does a nice job of playing with the time travelling elements and rules introduced in the earlier books, the consequences of which are central to a lot of the characters (one extremely unpleasant character in particular has a redemption thanks to these effects). The characters are classic McCaffrey – if you’re looking for complex grimdark characterisation, this is probably not the series for you. But as part of a long-running, much loved series, Dragonsblood is a fine addition and an exciting novel in its own right. I would definitely say that the Pern series is in good hands with McCaffrey’s second son at the helm.
 
I gave Dragonsblood 4 stars.

Paradigm by Ceri A Lowe

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Goodreads

Following a major climatic catastrophe, the surviving citizens of London have taken to the underground, living in a reinvented society where people are regularly put in cryogenic sleep until needed. Births are carefully controlled and life is constrained by the needs of the greater good. Carter Warren is born into the world after the end, called on to fulfill his destiny as a contender for the role of Controller General. However in the years he has spent in deep freeze, things have changed and the world he left may no longer be the world he left behind...

Paradigm is a new entry into the extremely popular post-apocalyptic young adult scene, the latest in a long line of books that trace their DNA back through Divergent to the Hunger Games. Set in a world where climat change has forced the human race underground, it tells a dual story of two young people - one, a young girl called Alice Davenport, struggles to survive in the world left behind in the immediate aftermath of the Storms, while the other, a young man named Carter, lives almost a hundred years later in a London that has adapted to the post-Storms world. As we follow both stories concurrently, each begins to inform the other, creating a patchwork of two tales that combine to give us a complete view of what is going on while leaving a lot of questions unanswered. Unfortunately, only one of these threads really worked for me - the Alice storyline - leaving the pathwork lopsided and at times difficult to read.

While Alice's story is a great exploration of a post-apocalyptic world in the immediate aftermath (think Stephen King's The Stand just after the virus hits), Carter's storyline is a rehash of what has been seen a thousand times before in recent years with this subgenre. While I enjoyed Hunger Games and Divergent, to name the two most well known entries in the post-apocalyptic YA field, Paradigm may have been a step too far for me. While Alice's story was interesting, it did not provide any majorly original or insightful additions to this genre, while Carter's seemed to be a paint by numbers exploration of a tyranical uber-state.

The book left me frustrated by the end, which is more of a commentary on the plot than the writing - Ceri Lowe knows how to write a gripping story but in this case the skill of the writer was unsufficient to get over the obstacles created by the basic story. Although I didn't skim read, the book did not keep my attention in any major way: I found myself putting it aside without any real intention to pick it up again, so it took me quite a while to finish it.

Paradigm is the start of a series but I very much doubt I will pick up the sequel. While Alice's storyline was an interesting one that maintained my attention through much of its course, the Carter storyline lost me completely. Still, the writing was good and it is clear that Ceri Lowe has skills. I gave Paradigm 2,5 motionless Arks out of 5.

Mentats of Dune by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson

 

The great Mentat School was his - from the initial concept seven decades ago, to choosing this location in the remote marshes of Lampadas, to the many graduates he had trained over the years. With quiet efficiency and determination, Gilbertus Albans was changing the course of human civilization.

In the aftermath of the Butlerian Jihad, when mankind overthrew its robot overlords, the Empire struggles to survive the turmoil left behind. As the Corrino Emperor strives to strike a balance between the remnants of the Jihad, determined to assert control over humanity, and Venhold Spacing, who hold the only key to safe travel through foldspace, two rival schools who will one day play key roles in the galaxy take their first faltering steps. The Mentat School especially finds itself thrust into the centre of intrigue and danger.

Dune is one of the seminal science fiction novels of the 20th century, a philosophical space opera full of great concepts, multifaceted characters and musings on family, power and fear. It inspired such great speculative fiction as Star Wars and the Wheel of Time series. A handful of sequels followed, whose reception varied, before Frank Herbert died leaving the series unfinished and poised on a cliffhanger. Fast forward a few decades and Herbert's son, along with prolific scifi author Kevin J Anderson, picked up the torch. Beginning with a prequel trilogy detailing the fued between the Atreides and Harkonnen that forms such an important part of the original book, the Herbert/Anderson duo have gone on to complete the original series, before returning to the deep past of the Dune universe. Mentats of Dune is the latest in the series, a sequel to 2011's Sisterhood of Dune.

The obvious question to be asked with all of the prequel/sequels written by the duo is whether they bring anything to the universe Herbert created or whether they are nothing but a cynical use of a beloved saga. While I don't think the motives of Brian Herbert and Kevin J Anderson are cash related - their love for the universe is obvious - I also think that it may be time for them to let the Dune universe lie.

By this point, it is difficult to have a conscious discussion about plot when it comes to the Dune books without going into a long rambling explanation. And that is one of the main faults with this book - it relies so much on connect-the-dots scene setting and winks to the audience that it is hard to discern a clear plot to discuss. The book is called Mentats of Dune and yet for large parts of the book the main Mentat characters are almost secondary to what is happening. There is very little tension and few characters I personally felt invested in.
The writing is fine - clear, crisp, without major infodumps or long descriptive passages. However I found myself skim reading the book, reading just enough to discern what was happening and how each situation would be resolved. There is very little of the sense of wonder left - it feels like each planet is similar to the one before, and even Arrakis was missing that special something that once made it so compelling.

The book ends without any major surprises. It left me without any major expectations for the follow-up, beyond a mild interest in seeing how the Atreides will rise from their current position to the powerful house we see later. I imagine I will pick up the final book of the trilogy, but unfortunately I think that may be the last Dune book I pick up for a while.

Mentats of Dune may be the bridge too far for some fans, though from what I have seen on other blogs and forums that bridge was reached a long time ago for many others. Lacking the sense of wonder that made Frank Herbert's original such a hit, this is paint-by-numbers space opera. I didn't hate it but it did leave me numb. Not a book I will be remembering at the end of the year by any stretch of the imagination. I gave Mentats of Dune 2 disembodied robot overlords out of 5.

Goodreads
Buy It For Kindle
Series Website

From the Blogosphere:
Flickering Myth
Giant Freaking Robot
Sci-Fi Pulse

From the Author's Mouth:
Older interview with Kevin J Anderson at MediaMikes

Tower of Babel

 

"...So we can all see the benefits to such an alliance," intoned the burly Orion at the head of the meeting table, his gaze taking in each of his two guests in turn. "Working alone, the Vulcans were powerful enough to drive both of your organizations into retreat. Now they are part of a larger, even stronger Federation whose Starfleet patrols increasingly interfere with your efforts to stay in business. What better revenge," the green-skinned man went on in a polished baritone," than to form a partnership of your own to stand against them?"

In the aftermath of the Earth-Romulan War, the fledgling United Federation of Planets is taking its first steps into the wider galaxy. Growing pains soon set in, though, as relations between two factions with the government grow steadily more tense in the run-up to a presidential election that may decide the Federation's course for years to come. As Admiral Archer attempts to complete delicate negotiations with the Rigelians to bring them into the fold, an alliance of former enemies gather in the shadows to derail Starfleet's every attempts to keep the peace. Using deadly viruses, assassination attempts and kidnapping, they will stop at nothing to see the still fragile Federation fail...

Star Trek: Enterprise probably won't win many fan's plaudits for best Star Trek series ever, but the prequel series has some redeeming features that become more apparant in rewatch. Thankfully, these redeeming qualities have been brought to the fore in the series of books that have continued the story of Captain Archer, Commander T'Pol and the other characters of the first ever starship Enterprise beyond the controversial series finale. After laying the stage for the Earth-Romulan War in the first few books, the chosen authors have seen our characters through that conflict and beyond, bringing us what most fans were hoping for from the television series: the first years of the Federation.

Tower of Babel picks up where A Choice of Futures left off, with an alliance of Orions and other alien races seen in Enteprise trying to derail the Federation's first tentative steps. The Rise of the Federation has done a great job of advancing the characters of Enterprise in logical directions, so while the Enterprise itself has been turned into a museum, we find her crew spread across two main vessels: the Endeavour and the Pioneer. T'Pol has become a captain, as has Malcolm Reed, and it is interesting to see the two of them work together and apart. Bennett uses the situation in the Rigel system to ramp up the tension between the two captains, giving us a glimpse into how T'Pol has evolved, but also into the uncertainty Reed feels especially when working with both his former commanders.

An added complexity to the story comes from the presidentiel race that is heating up as Tower of Babel begins. Whether it was intentional or not (I would imagine that it was), Bennett was able to use this presidential campaign to reflect the beginnings of the United States, with a clear demarcation between those who wish to see the Federation expand and grow (called Federalists) and those who wish to protect the rights and priviliges of the individual planets (called Planetarists). Anyone who has any knowledge of the first few presidencies of the US knows that this was a key component in the discussions of the time, giving rise to the two-party system that continues today. These debates still go on in modern America, often portrayed now as the argument between "Big-government" Democrats and "States-rights" Republicans, so it will be interesting to see how Bennett or another author portrays this going forward. However it develops, as a huge fan of Political-Trek, I loved these glimpses into the early politics of the Federation.

Bennett never loses sight of what we all love about Star Trek, though, and we get some interesting glimpses into the Rigel system in this book, giving us a number of races I for one had not yet encountered much in my Star Trek novel reading. We also are given a number of space battles, trekno-babble and cool winks to the future of the Star Trek universe (I doubt many fans won't feel a shiver of pleasure when they realise who T'Rama is!)

Tower of Babel wraps up the storyline of the presidential race and the Rigelian talks, while leaving a number of storylines open, and ends on a pretty large cliffhanger which seems to nod back to a season 2 episode. Continuing in the line of the majority of recent Trek novels, this is great fun, combining a good story, characters we already love and the glimpses into the past of Trek that we hoped for from Enterprise. Bennett is a great writer and he pulls off another triumph here. I gave Tower of Babel 4 Saurian saunas out of 5.

Goodreads
Buy It For Kindle
Author's website

From the Blogosphere:
At the moment, none

From the Author's Mouth:
Link to an audio interview over at Equal Time for Freethought

Notes From the Internet Apocalypse by Wayne Gladstone

When the great crash happened it was nothing like we feared. There was no panic. No tears. Mostly just slammed fists and swearing. The Internet was down, and hitting refresh didn't work. "Ctrl, alt, delete" was also useless. No one had Internet. Anywhere.

In Notes From The Internet Apocalypse, the net has stopped working. As an entire generation of Twitterites, Facebook afficianados, Chatroulette zombies and redditers descend into the street to find some way of recreating the online experience in the real world, three unlikely heroes join together and set off on a quest to bring the wifi back...

Like anyone who has a blog or lives online, the thought of the Internet vanishing leaves me in a cold sweat! J A couple of days without connecting is difficult enough, but to have no more access whatsoever to all my favourite sites and the constant background noise of the Worldwide Web is a terrifying thought. One that Wayne Gladstone takes and runs with. When I saw the book on a rundown of sf and fantasy novels released this year, I was immediately taken in both by the clever cover and the great blurb. Unfortunately the book wasn’t as much of a touchdown than I had hoped.

And yet it started so well... As the book opens we are introduced to Gladstone the narrator who proceeds to tell us about this world a tiny jump, skip and hop away from our own, where overnight the internet has stopped working. In these early pages, the sheer inventiveness and clever humour that Mr Gladstone brings to creating his world carried me along. From Youtube zombies who force real cats to do trick after trick until they die, to twitter addicts who only speak in tweets, the bitingly dark humour works. While snorting at the outrageous extent people go to to recapture the online world offline, there is still a certain uneasiness as you wonder just how farfetched a lot of this really is.

Unfortunately, this inventiveness did not necessarily translate to either the plot or the characters. Gladstone, our narrator, takes a very long time to take on any kind of active role in what is happening, beyond stumbling around sex clubs looking for his friends. Those two friends are never clearly painted and it is difficult to tell exactly how real they are nor what their actual goals are in relation to Gladstone.

The book kept me going though, through the murky middle parts and towards what seemed to be building towards an interesting, even exciting end. This is where Mr Gladstone the writer lost me completely, though. Awash in a series of confusing events and cypher explanations, not at all helped by the detachment of the narrator who never quite connected emotionally (with me at least), I ended the book completely lost. I still have no idea what the ending was and what it was supposed to mean, nor how much of it was real and how much we are supposed to believe went on in Gladstone the narrator’s mind.

A fabulously inventine and ironic look at our world and just how we might react to the loss of what has become such an important part of our lives we can’t imagine living without it, Notes From the Internet Apocalypse failed to grab my attention in terms of character or plot and left me confused and irritated by the ending. I gave this 2.5 /b/tards out of 5.

Goodreads

Buy It For Kindle

Author's webpage

From the Blogosphere:

My Shelf Confessions

Reading is Fun Again

RiR

From the Author's Mouth:

Interview at The Quillery

Honour's Knight by Rachel Bach

"You said no?" the girl shrieked, crushing the letter in her fist. "You didn't even think you should ask me first?"

 

Following the events of Fortune’s Pawn, we find Devi Morris, the kick-ass mercenary who is the hero of the Paradox trilogy, recovering from a mysterious attack that has left her a fellow merc dead and some major holes in her own memory. As she struggles with her own issues (which include seeing things no one else can such as a black stain spreading across her hands whenever she gets angry), Devi tries to make sense of the people she is serving with and to close the gap in her memories.

Rachel Bach had been on my radar for a while through her alter-ego, Rachel Aaron and The Spirit Thief series. Although I have yet to actually read that fantasy series, I did read Ms. Aaron’s book on her writing process 2,000 to 10,000 and loved her voice as well as her great advice. So when I read on her blog that she had a new series coming out, that it was a self-contained trilogy to be released over a six-month period and that it was a space opera starring a mercenary... I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it!

I thoroughly enjoyed Fortune’s Pawn, which reads like a space opera revisited by an urban fantasy author. The collision of tropes worked a treat and when the story broke off on a HUGE cliffhanger, I couldn’t wait to get back to Devi’s weird, wonderful, complicated universe.

Honour’s Knight does not lose any of the momentum that Ms. Bach ended Fortune’s Pawn with. Instead, she picks up all of the story threads and launches them into orbit. I was a little worried that the entire book was going to be Devi trying to get her memories back, but thankfully that specific storythread was nicely wrapped up relatively quickly, allowing the book to explore a lot of interesting territory. We learn a lot about what is actually going on with Devi’s mysterious employer, the huge galaxy-wide threat he is facing and the lengths he is willing to go to fight off that threat, while putting Devi into a complicated moral conundrum – just how far is too far when it comes to sacrifying the few for the many?

Devi herself is put through the wringer in this one, from her complicated relationship with cook Rupert (a romance that is handled extremely well and very believably considering what each of them are willing and able to do the other as the story progresses without a pat solution at the end), to the shattering of her belief system as we get a glimpse at the deified royalty of Paradox mentioned in the last books. As all of this is going on, though, Devi continues to kick some serious ass, which is one of the great successes of this trilogy and a wonderful ‘steal’ from the urban fantasy genre: the depiction of a strong, powerful female character. Devi is not someone anyone should ever piss-off.

Alliances shift, surprises are sprung and things end with Devi and Rupert alone in the unknown, the book ending on another cliffhanger nicely setting up the third book, Heaven’s Queen, which is due in April. Honour’s Knight took everything that worked in the first book and shifted it into warp speed, continuing a fantastic space opera trilogy. I gave this 4 strange blue invisible bugs out of 5.

 

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Interview at Orbit Books