Friday Round-Up: Czerneda, Gladstone, Brennan, SF Signal & SFFWorld

I didn't realize I lapsed so much in these round up posts. I've posted & participated in quite a few things since I last gathered my contributions in one blog post.

A couple of Fridays ago, my December Completist column posted to SF Signal, featuring Species Imperative by Julie Czerneda, an omnibus of her series of the same name comprised of Survival, Migration, and Regeneration.

The star of the trilogy, of course, is Mac. She is one of the most plausible and believable scientist protagonists I’ve come across in Hard Science Fiction. Make no mistake about Species Imperative being Hard SF, just because it features Biology rather than Quantum Physics or the science behind space travel as its feature science, Czerneda applies no less a rigorous approach to the science/biology in the novel through Mac. Her deductive reasoning, how Mac infers things about the Dhyrn’s homeworld, her conclusions about the relationship between the Dhryn and the Ro are all logical scientific reasonings. Most importantly because these are novels, Czerneda makes for great dramatic tension and narrative pull with Mac.

There’s a tradition of Science Fiction wherein the scientist is hero, gallantly (and often flawlessly) solving the problems raised by a story or novel’s plot. That tradition also tends to gender-default to male characters. Czerneda goes the other direction and gives readers a flawed well-rounded character at the height of her chosen vocation who is a woman. In Mac, she’s given readers one of the more engaging scientist-heroes in the genre, and just an admirable character as a whole.

A couple of weeks ago, my review of Max Gladstone's wonderful debut, Three Parts Dead, was posted to SFFWorld. I love the milieu and Max is one of the smartest writers I've encountered in the genre. Met him at a couple of Tor.com events and he comes across just as nice and cool as he is a good writer. Not a bad combo.

There’s a great balance in the characters who comprise the main cast; our protagonist is female, as is her boss. Another supporting character, Cat, has a strong character arc that parallels and intertwines with the main plot. These women have power in this world, or are the most forthcoming in their quest to gain a foothold with it. Despite the church’s power being represented by a man, Elayne exhibits no qualms about dealing with him and these people if not on an equal level, then a level on which she has a moral high ground. What makes these women such great characters, especially Tara and Elayne, is that they have agency of their own and are not defined by their relationship to men in the novel. Granted, Tara’s relationship with her former professor at college is an integral element in the novel, but it isn’t the only defining aspect of who she is. Cat, on the other hand, is a bit of a dependent character, but that dependency is not intertwined with her gender. She is, in essence, an addict.

In many ways, the world Gladstone has created reminds me of the cityscapes of China Miéville’s New Crobuzon (Perdido Street Station and The Scar), in large part, because of the mix of arcane, eldritch darkness and non-human races set primarily in a city.

Over the past week at SFFWorld, Mark Yon has been posting the Best of Year thoughts from him, Mark Chitty, and Nila White:

• SFFWorld Best of 2014: Part 1 – Fantasy & Horror
• SFFWorld Best of 2014: Part 2 – Science Fiction
• SFFWorld Best of 2014: Part 3 – Genre Film & TV

Speaking of Best of 2014, I was asked to mention a few books in Tor.com's Reviewers’ Choice: The Best Books of 2014.

Last week, I was on the SF Signal Podcast (Episode 273): The Best SF&F Book, TV Show, Movie, Comic Book, Game or other thing you consumed in 2014. Host Patrick Hester talked to Sarah Chorn, Jeff Patterson, Django Wexler, John Stevens, Fred Kiesche, and me.

This past week at SFFWorld, my review of ML Brennan's debut novel Generation V was posted. I've read my fair share of Vampire novels and enjoyed this one, which was a good start to the series (which either goes by Generation V or American Vampire):

Brennan, through Fort, has a rather snarky modern prose which is perfectly contrasted against the mannered and high-society aura surrounding his family: mother Madeline, brother Chivalry, and his sister Prudence. Through much of the novel, at least the first third and what felt like a significant part of the middle third, Fort is very much a doormat. He lets his roommates walk all over him, (the most current roommate owes him a few months worth of rent), his ‘girl-friend,’ (who slept with the aforementioned roommate) has different ideas of what their relationship should be, and his over-bearing boss doesn’t exactly have an open door policy. While being a bit of a pushover for his older, more powerful vampire brother can be understandable, added to the other characters who trampled over Fort, I was more frustrated with Fort’s lack of backbone and ability to assert himself against the people who are pushing him down. In my head, I kept thinking that he needed to stand up for himself.

Friday Round-up: Functional Nerds, Tor.com, Bennett, and Bear

It has been an interesting week, from my perspective in the SFF online community.

On Tuesday, I made my second podcast appearance, this time on The Functional Nerds.  John Anealio is a fellow NJ SFF fan and he and I drove into NYC for a couple of Tor.com events over the past year. Since we both live in NJ, we've been trying to get some NJ-based gatherings together since there seems to be quite a few of us in the great Garden State. He, Ed Lazellari (author of Awakenings and The Lost Prince) and I got together a couple of weeks ago and John (and his co-conspirator Patrick Hester) decided to invite me onto the podcast. So, go listen to me talk about The Strain, Guardians of the Galaxy, and how I came to be involved in the online genre community

Functional Nerds Episode 203

Playing on that theme of "live" interaction with the genre community, Tor.com had a launch party for the new Tor.com Imprint headed up by Lee Harris and Irene Gallo on Wednesday.  It was a great event where I finally had the opportunity to meet some folks with whom I interact on twitter and elsewhere intarwebs like Richard Shealy (@SheckyX on twitter), spelling bee champion Max Gladstone, Thea James of the The Book Smugglers (we both choke up at about the same point in reading Memory, Sorrow and Thorn), Marty Cahill (@McFlyCahill90) and the legendary (in his own mind) Justin Landon. Yes he is a tall dude, we are nearly the same height so we literally did see eye to eye. (Seriously, though his Rocket Talk podcast for Tor.com is MUST listen for any genre fan).

Photo courtesy of Irene Gallo

It was also great chatting with my Tor.com editor Bridget McGovern, Orbit editor Devi Pillai, Orbit PR sorceress Ellen Wright,  Myke Cole, DAW editor Joshua Starr, Lee Harris, Irene Gallo, and quite a few other folks. What was coolest, from the point of view of my own ego, was that a few people knew my name, and people I didn't know too well or interact with much online recognized my name. 

The great Robert Jackson Bennett provided SFFWorld a guest post this week on the subject of secondary world fantasy: 

"Rules and Ornaments in Secondary World Fantasy"

Lastly, I posted my review of Shattered Pillars, the second book of Elizabeth Bear's Eternal Sky Trilogy. While I recognize all the great things about the book, I wasn't connected with the narrative through the whole thing.  That said, she's doing some very interesting things in the book and series.

What Elizabeth Bear does in Shattered Pillars is broaden the global canvas of her world, adding depth to a world that already had a rich and authentic feel. Not only does Bear expand on the gods and world, she introduces new concepts of divinity and power foreign even to the characters we’ve already met. In part, Shattered Pillars can be seen as a travelogue through this beautifully created world. In other words, the world is a fully realized character in and of itself....But…and I hate adding buts into these things, but I must. For all of the splendor on the pages of Shattered Pillars, I found myself not connecting with the narrative or the characters as much as I would have liked. I felt a distance between me as the reader and the story on the pages. Perhaps because it was just over two years since I read Range of Ghosts, perhaps something else. I recognize what a solid piece of fiction Shattered Pillars is, but I had my problems staying intimately invested in the novel.

Friday Round-up: Corey & Howey at SFFWorld and Sullivan at Tor.com

This week's Friday round-up includes another Tor.com piece and SFFWorld review from, plus

First up is my book review of Cibola Burn, the latest installment of (IMHO) the best space based Science Fiction series on the shelves today, James S.A. Corey's The Expanse:

New Terra is not just a potentially inhabitable planet, it is the first inhabitable planet around a distant star (named Ilus) which also has rich deposits of minerals rare and useful. Chrisjen Avasarala, a very high official of the Earth government and a fan-favorite viewpoint character from Caliban’s War, appoints Holden as a mediator with the task of settling the tensions between the people who have made the pilgrimage to New Terra as colonists and Royal Charter Energy (RCE), the company trying to stake a claim for the planet as their own. A group of terrorists have detonated a bomb on the planet’s main Launchpad, destroying an RCE ship and killing the half the people aboard.

...

Corey has always populated these novels with strong characters. We’ve come to know Holden fairly well over the course of these four novels, and while it is great to see returning characters (Bobbie Draper was a POV character and she returns as a POV character in the prologue here), meeting new people is always a feature. The standout here was Elvi, a determined scientist who fits the mold of ‘scientist hero’ in the same vein as many protagonists from the Golden Age aside from her gender. One of the most telling things we learn through her is how the “life” on New Terra cannot be really measured by any known means.

I wrote another #Torbit piece, in support of Hachette/Orbit authors for Tor.com.  This time, I focused on Michael J. Sullivan:

Each omnibus collects two Riyria novels, and the first two, Theft of Swords and Rise of Empire, contain stories that were previously self-published. However, the third volume, Heir of Novron, is split between a previously self-published work and a brand new conclusion to the series titled Percepliquis. Sullivan didn’t want to put-off his long-time readers too much by demanding that they re-purchase book five, so Orbit allowed a compromise of sorts for this final novel, but more on that later.

The series tells the tale of two friends and brothers in arms: Royce Melborn, a thief, and Hadrian Blackwater, a mercenary. The two call themselves Riyria and are known as a competent duo, working outside the thieves’ guild and taking on jobs for nobles who would otherwise not want to get their hands dirty. Off the bat, Sullivan gives readers fully-formed protagonists who are mature rather than the clichéd farmboys of epic fantasy. In fact, the feel of the story at the outset has more of a sword and sorcery adventure than epic fantasy. Of course, the comparison many people have made to Royce and Hadrian is to Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser. The relationship between Royce and Hadrian comes across as something that is long-standing.

Also at SFFWorld, Nila reviews another one of Hugh Howey's post-apocalyptic (though not related to Wool) novels, Sand:

Original released as a serial, in Hugh Howey’s latest novel we are introduced to a family falling apart after their father left them for a better place. Actually, he left them to find a better place, but nonetheless, he left them. In his wake, his wife, daughter and three sons struggle to make it in a post-apocalyptic Colorado.

The story is set long after a cataclysmic event that left the world filled with sand and wind. The populations in and around Low-Pub (Pueblo, CO), Springston (Colorado Springs, CO), and Danvar (Denver, CO) have re-arranged themselves into shuffling towns that move with the sands. Water is limited, like it always is in the west, but it is made even harder to acquire because of the constantly shifting sands. The old towns (and knowledge) have long been buried and people have devised a way to dive deep into the sands to recover artifacts that can be used up top.

I will also mention that I "engage" in the comments of this week's episode of Rocket Talk, the Justin Landon-run podcast for Tor.com.

Friday SFFWorld and SFSignal Round-up: Boyett, McClellan, Bywater, Hines plus more!

Here's my semi-regular round-up of reviews and assorted linkery from the past week or so.  Last week, my Completist column for SF Signal went live, this time featuring a two-book series that might be considered cult favorites, The Change books by Stephen R. Boyett:

In the Changed world of the novel, no creature is more magical than a unicorn and nothing holds as much magical power as the horn of a unicorn. It is for this reason that Pete and Ariel must constantly be on guard and aware of their surroundings even more than usual in this dangerous new world. When they come int the area of Atlanta, this danger confronts them head-on as an imposing man on a Griffin who, on behalf of a powerful Necromancer in New York, demands Ariel’s horn. Fortunately, Pete had recently befriended a warrior named Malachai Lee who helps to fend off the Griffin and its rider. Malachai is a sword master of the newly changed world and takes Pete under his wing. With the real threat of a bounty on Ariel, Malachai sets out for New York to confront the Necromancer, demanding Pete and Ariel not follow him.
...
Even though Elegy Beach and Ariel are told in the same type of narrative voice, Fred is a much different narrator than his father. That said, Boyett’s voice in Ariel was crisp and honest, and much the same can be found here. The framework of the two novels is similar; both are essentially quest fantasies wherein the heroes must travel to the enemy’s stronghold and bring him down to save the world.

This week, I posted a new review to SFFWorld for the first time in a few weeks. The book under review? The Crimson Campaign, the second installment of Brian McClellan's Powder Mage Trilogy, which is evolving into a premier Epic/Military Fantasy series.

War is still raging between the Adro and Kez, caught in the middle are Tamas, Admat, Taniel Two-Shot and one-time seamstress Nila, among others. The Crimson Campaign is the second installment of Brian McClellan’s Powder Mage Trilogy and as excellent a debut as was A Promise in Blood, he elevated his game with this second novel.
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Where A Promise of Blood gave a broad stroke of the military, The Crimson Campaign delves much more into the importance of stability in the military. McClellan also shows how short-sighted leadership can cost a great deal in the long run. Although the gods are a part of the story, these gods are backdrop and merely a part of the story rather than the complete focus. People in the story don’t universally believe the gods have returned, despite a few of them (Taniel, Tamas, Ka-Poel) conversing with the Gods. Rather, they are just one more complication in the larger global conflict; the gods are not the be-all end-all of the story. As such, one can consider The Crimson Campaign a slide from Epic Fantasy along lines of his mentor Brandon Sanderson and into a story more grounded as a Military Fantasy, with a stronger resonance to Glen Cook’s landmark Black Company novels as the story has progressed through two volumes and there’s still a vibe of Abercrombie in the feel of the story at times. These are all good things.

At SF Signal Sarah Chorn's (aka Bookworm Blues) ongoing series Special Needs in Strange Worlds features the great Jim C. Hines.

Also at SFFWorld is a review from Mark Yon of Stephen Bywater's debut novel The Devil's Ark:

Set mainly in the 1920’s, the story tells of Harry Ward, a photographer working in Iraq/Mesopotamia. Still affected by his fighting and his injuries there in The Great War, he takes on what should be a relatively simple job – to take photographs of an archaeological dig just outside Mosul.

...

Whilst the plot may not be particularly new, The Devil’s Ark is a great fun read. Sometimes you can be happy knowing what sort of thing to expect in a read and here in The Devil’s Ark the reader is not disappointed. Like a good Hammer Horror movie or a Weird Tales magazine story, the fun here is not in the actual events as they happen but in the telling.

This is a good debut. Stephen manages to set up the tale well, evoking images of an ancient Empire, lying redolent in desert heat, whilst an even older evil is awakened.

Some great podcasts have dropped this week, too:

• The new podcast Justin Landon runs for Tor.com, Rocket Talk this week features Brian T. McClellan and Delilah Dawson. McClellan is a writer I've come to really enjoy (duh, look at the review I linked above) and Dawson is an author whose work I really would like to try. I follow her on twitter and she dishes out some great advice.
• Two great SF Signal podcast, both from the Pike Peak Writer's conference Patrick Hester attended:
• Diversity in Genre Panel Live from PPWC2014 With Carol Berg, Jim C. Hines, Chuck Wendig and Amy Boggs
• Patrick interviewing Carol Berg, another author whose work I hope to return to after enjoying her debut years ago.

SFFWorld/SF Signal Link-Dump Friday (Decker, Carey, Ashura)

Over the last couple of weeks, I've had a few things posted on SFFWorld and SF Signal.  Last week, my review of James K. Decker's Fallout, an excellent follow-up to his superb The Burn Zone.  Fallout successfully builds on its predecessor and makes me want to read more about these characters and the world:

So, what can a review offer when holding back on a lot of the plot description? Well, I can say that Fallout is an excellent follow-up to what I thought was one of the more enjoyable (and surprising because of the comparably small fanfare prior to the release of the novel) SF novels I read in 2013. Decker takes everything he did previously and turns it up to eleven. Seeing the world through Sam’s eyes is not a pretty thing, society seems on the fringe of survival, the future is an unclean world, and trust is something she has little spare change for in her wallet. Her ‘father’ Dragan has taken up with a woman whom Sam distrusts and dislikes. Sam’s trying to strike a balance with Vamp; Sam knows he has romantic feelings for her but she’s afraid to let him get too close.

...

Although the novel is set primarily in Hangfei, in taking the story to that theoretical 11, Decker expands the conflict and issue of the Haan to a global scale. Nations outside of China are mentioned as problematic, particularly America. Implications are not only relegated to Hangfei in China, elevating Sam’s plight and actions above a personal issue.

Over at SF Signal, my latest Completist column was published featuring a novel split into two books for publishing purposes.  A haunting, dark, and beautiful tragedy, Jacqueline Carey's The Sundering:

The Sundering Duology (Banewreaker and Godslayer) tells the story of the powers of the “dark” struggling against the powers of “light.” A bright force loved by many, with a dark enemy many look upon as the epitome of evil. Prophecy, elves, an ancient powerful wizard, a youthful bearer of a powerful object, and a dark army of ogres may sound familiar, but that is the beauty of what Ms. Carey is laying out in this novel — familiarity laced with something new. Indeed, this is the essence of much of the best High/Epic Fantasy today, readers know the generalities of the territory in which they tread, it is the magical spin with which the author presents the story that can make the story/novel rise above its peers. The Sundering definitely rises above its peers. On the surface, The Sundering seems, and only on the thin surface, another Tolkien-inspired saga of Good versus Evil, or rather Evil vs. Good.

...

The Sundering is very much a tragedy, especially considering the protagonist is a “villain” and this is essentially told through the Lord of the Rings framework. That said, the prose and writing is elegant, and an experience I did not want to cease. Her ability at creating real characters is excellent. This novel, with the dark cloud of war driven by motivations muddied with changing points of view, resonates with today’s world.

Nila reviewed Davis Ashura's debut novel A Warrior’s Path – Book One: The Castes and the Out Castes,. (David has been hanging around the SFFWorld forums for a few years under the Radone moniker):

Mr. Davis Ashura’s debut novel, A Warrior’s Path – Book One: The Castes and the Out Castes, is told from the point of view of several characters. The first we are introduced to is Rukh Shekton and his cousins out on their first, their virgin, mission across the monster-ridden spaces between protected cities. Their caravan is about to be attacked by those monsters, the Chimera, creatures cobbled together from different parts of other animals by an insane god, Suwraith. The troop, hundreds strong, prepare to outrun the Chimeras. They discard their wagons and any gear not necessary for survival. Scouts are dispatched and a small contingent sent back to Asoka (their destination) to relay events.

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I picked up and put down this book several times, intending not to continue reading it. Once I got past the first few sections, I’d been inundated with so much backstory and world-building, I simply kept reading because I invested so much energy trying to keep all the names straight, I thought I owed it to myself to just keep trying.

I’m glad I did.

Mark and I helped to host a part of Brandon Sanderson's UK blog tour and Den Patrick made a stop to tell SFFWorld about the world of his new novel, The Boy with the Porcelain Blade.

Also at SF Signal, Patrick Hester did a podcast interview with Jeff VanderMeer about his new Southern Reach Trilogy, which is getting a staggered release throughout 2014 and Paul Weimer reviewed the kickstarted Kaiju Rising anthology edited by Nick Sharps and Tim Marquitz (which I backed).