100 Page Thoughts: IMPULSE by Dave Bara

In what has become a regular feature here (this is the third such post, natch), here are my thoughts on a book after hit the 100 page mark.  The other two posts on this "feature" also highlighted debut novels.

Impulse, Dave Bara’s first novel is a Space Opera/Military Science Fiction novel set in the far future. Far enough into the future that “Old Earth” is not the focal planet for humanity in the story…at least after the first 100 pages. Like many Military Science Fiction novels, Impulse is told in the first person. In the case of Impulse, the viewpoint character is Peter Cochrane, who is assigned to the titular ship to investigate a disaster in space which claimed the lives of fellow military personnel, including his girlfriend.

Peter received this news from his father, initially, though the assignment comes from his superior. The orders he’s given are not 100% standard operating procedure as he is going into the mission under one set of orders and he’s told to “disobey your superior if that means being loyal to the Navy.”

Much of the narrative is laying groundwork for the novel, setting up the conflict Peter must face, introducing Peter and his supporting characters, and giving a hint of the future history of the human race out in the stars.

At the outset, the best ‘high-concept’/mash-up description I can give is Jack Campbell’s Lost Fleet plus James S.A. Corey’s Expanse with a slight dash of Fringe thrown into the mix. I like the future Bara has mapped out for this one and look forward to where the story goes and what Dave reveals about this future history.

Books in the Mail (W/E 2013-08-23)

A sparkly new space opera (first in a new series) arrived this week, though the name isn’t familiar the writers is…along with the third installment in a popular author's fairly new series.

Fortune’s Pawn (Volume 1 of The Paradox Series) by Rachel Bach (Orbit, Trade Paperback 11/05/2013) – It is somewhat of an open secret that Bach is a pseudonym for Rachel Aaron, author of the very entertaining Eli Monpress fantasy novels. I’m really looking forward to this book.

Devi Morris isn't your average mercenary. She has plans. Big ones. And a ton of ambition. It's a combination that's going to get her killed one day - but not just yet.

That is, until she just gets a job on a tiny trade ship with a nasty reputation for surprises. The Glorious Fool isn't misnamed: it likes to get into trouble, so much so that one year of security work under its captain is equal to five years everywhere else. With odds like that, Devi knows she's found the perfect way to get the jump on the next part of her Plan. But the Fool doesn't give up its secrets without a fight, and one year on this ship might be more than even Devi can handle.


Monsters of the Earth (Books of the Elements #3) by David Drake (Tor, Hardcover 09/03/2013) – Drakes third installment in “a series of four fantasy novels set in a city and empire named Carce, which very similar to that of Rome in 30 AD.” Drake mixes myth and magic with history, and based on the title, this one has monsters in it.


Governor Saxa, of the great city of Carce, a fantasy analog of ancient Rome, is rusticating at his villa. When Saxa’s son Varus accompanies Corylus on a visit to the household of his father, Crispus, a retired military commander, Saxa graciously joins the party with his young wife Hedia, daughter Alphena, and a large entourage of his servants, making it a major social triumph for Crispus. But on the way to the event, something goes amiss. Varus, who has been the conduit for supernatural visions before, experiences another: giant crystalline worms devouring the entire world.

Soon the major characters are each involved in supernatural events caused by a struggle between two powerful magicians, both mentored by the deceased poet and mage Vergil, one of whom wants to destroy the world and the other who wishes to stop him. But which is which? There is a complex web of human and supernatural deceit to be unraveled.

This new novel in David Drake’s ongoing chronicles of Carce, The Books of the Elements, is a gripping and intricate work of fantasy.

Ahmed and Cobley Reviewed at SFFWorld

A couple of days later than usual, but we’ve got another debut for Mark’s review and my review is (as it was for last week) the second installment of a trilogy. Our reactions from last week (Mark thumbs down and me big thumbs up) are a bit reversed, though my thumbs aren’t quite as drastically down as Mark’s thumbs.

Mark’s review concerns the Saladin Ahmed’s debut novel Throne of the Crescent Moon, which recently appeared in the UK after appearing in the US earlier in the year (and leaving me very impressed):

Crescent Moon taps into an area of Fantasy that seems to have fallen out of favour in recent years. With the genre’s concentration on Western pseudo-Medieval type tales, the ancient Arabian Nights type tales, based less on European culture, is ripe for revisiting.

There’s certainly enough here. We have Kingdoms, rebellion, canny thieves and honourable heroes, combined with mystical supernatural elements. It reminded me of those Arabian stories from Weird Tales in the 1930’s, but with a contemporary re-imagining.
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In talks of gods and religion, ancient evils and older spells, Saladin has tapped into the well-stone of good old-fashioned storytelling in an old established setting of ancient Arabia. This is Arabian Nights meets Clark Ashton Smith but with less purple prose and more adventurous actions.

I enjoyed The Orphaned Worlds the second novel of Michael Cobley’s Humanity’s Fire trilogy, but not quite as much as the first book:

With the universe a-flutter about the discoveries on Darien of potential ancient races and the reuniting of two of humanity’s lost colonies, Cobley paints his story on a very wide canvas and delves further into the past of Darien and the ancient races who may or may not still have their fingers in affairs. While Seeds of Earth focused primarily on the planet Darien and the inhabitants from the seed ship Hyperion and a bit of a focus on the planet of Pyre, populated by of the seed ship Tenebrosa, as well as the final seed ship Forrestal on the planet Tygra.
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One of the smaller plot strands, at least thus far, is that of Robert Horst, an ambassador from Earth and the artificial intelligence that has taken the form of his daughter. Horst is a tragic and sympathetic character at times, at others desperate to change the past. These sequences show something larger at play than any of the characters, especially Robert himself, could imagine. What I also found intriguing was how Robert’s ‘daughter’ aged as quickly as she did, not remaining at a static age as one would expect a simulated intelligence based on one’s memories to be. Here, I thought, Cobley’s playing with the A.I. trope of SF handled very well and differently than I’d previously seen.

Books in the Mail (W/E 2012-12-08)

Only a few books this week, and two of them from the same author in the same series...


The Orphaned Worlds (Book Two of Humanity’s Fire) by Michael Cobley (Orbit Mass Market Paperback 10/30/2012) – I read the first in this trilogy a couple of months ago and thoroughly enjoyed it so I’m looking forward to where Cobley takes the series. This here’s book two with more great Steve Stone cover art.

The fight is on. So let the battle begin.

Darien is no longer a lost outpost of humanity, but the prize in an intergalactic struggle. Hegemony forces control the planet, while Earth merely observes, rendered impotent by galactic politics. Yet Earth's ambassador to Darien will become a player in a greater conflict as there is more at stake than a turf war on a newly discovered world.

An ancient temple hides access to a hyperspace prison, housing the greatest threat sentient life has never known. Millennia ago, malignant intelligences were caged there following an apocalyptic struggle, and their servants work on their release. Now a new war is coming.



The Ascendant Stars (Book Three of Humanity’s Fire) by Michael Cobley (Orbit Mass Market Paperback 11/20/2012) – I read the first in this trilogy a couple of months ago and thoroughly enjoyed it so I’m looking forward to where Cobley takes the series. This here’s book three with more great Steve Stone cover art.

War erupts in the depths of space...


Battle-ready factions converge above Darien, all with the same objective: to control this newly discovered planet and access the powerful weapons at its heart. Despotic Hegemony forces dominate much of known space and they want this world too, but Darien's inhabitants are determined to fight for their future.

However, key players in this conflict aren't fully in control. Hostile AIs have infiltrated key minds and have an agenda, requiring nothing less than the destruction or subversion of all organic life. And they are near to unleashing their cohorts, a host of twisted machine intelligences caged beneath Darien. Fighting to contain them are Darien's hidden guardians, and their ancient ally the Construct, on a millennia-long mission to protect sentient species. As the war reaches its peak, the AI army is roaring to the surface, to freedom and an orgy of destruction.


Darien is first in line in a machine vs. human war -- for life or the sterile dusts of space.

Called to Darkness (A Pathfinder Tales novel) by Robin Laws (Paizo Mass Market Paperback 01/13/2013) – These Pathfinder novels have been coming out regularly and seem to capture the world fairly well. Byers has penned quite a few Forgotten Realms novels so he’s got the chops to handle a setting like Pathfinder.

Kagur is a warrior of the Blacklions, fierce and fearless hunters in the savage Realm of the Mammoth Lords. When her clan is slaughtered by a frost giant she considered her adopted brother, honor demands that she, the last surviving Blacklion, track down her old ally and take the tribe’s revenge. This is no normal betrayal, however, for the murderous giant has followed the whispers of a dark god down into the depths of the earth, into a primeval cavern forgotten by time. There, he will unleash forces capable of wiping all humans from the region—unless Kagur can stop him first.

From acclaimed author Richard Lee Byers comes a tale of bloody revenge and subterranean wonder, set in the award-winning world of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game.

Corey, Fowler & Christopher Reviews at SFFWorld

I catch up with a book Mark read earlier in the year while Mark continues on with a newly found series he’s quite enjoying and Nila takes a look at a Superhero novel.


James S. A. Corey’s Expanse sequence has received deserved award nominations with the first volume and the second volume has already received a fair amount off praise. Here, I give my thoughts on Caliban’s War:

The plot itself is fairly familiar, ship on the run trying to find a missing girl, same macguffin from previous novel, interplanetary politics. But so what, the novel is a lot of fun and perhaps more fun than it’s predecessor because we can see more of the characters both new and old. With familiar situations established, Corey can delve further into the interpersonal relationships of the crew of the Rocinate, and more importantly, give us new strong characters to follow. While Prax is an interesting character, the ladies really shine in Caliban’s War. Bobbi is a complex character - a large, imposing woman whose thoughts and actions come across very naturally and realistic. Conversely, the ascerbic Avasarala provides some snarky humor throughout. Her uncompromising attitude is balanced by her interactions with her family. There’s also a good deal of political weaving especially through her character as she interacts with people very high up in the solar system’s hierarchy including a particularly grin-inducing scene with one individual at the novel’s conclusion. I hope to see much more of her in this series as it progresses..

Mark catches up with the second installment of Christopher Fowler’s Bryant and May Mystery, and the book is The Water Room:

With the events of Full Dark House (reviewed here) I found the series a very pleasant surprise. The Water Room develops them further. Whereas the first book introduced them in their most recent reincarnation (they did appear in some of Christopher’s other writing previously) and Full Dark House was mainly about their first case back in 1940’s London, this one is resolutely ‘now’, with the book’s beginning at the time of the reopening of the redecorated Peculiar Crimes Unit’s base after the explosion in Full Dark House.

It’s not long before we’re into ‘the weird stuff’. Bryant is contacted by an old colleague whose elderly sister has been found dead in her house and in possibly mysterious circumstances. The body was in the cellar, sitting, as if at rest, but with water around her feet and Thames river water in her mouth. The house is nowhere near the river. Bryant is intrigued and involves the PCU. However, when her various and varied neighbours are interviewed, it seems initially innocuous, a case of relatively simple sudden-death.

Last, and most certainly not least, Nila jumps aboard the growing trend of Superhero Fiction in her review of Adam Christopher’s Seven Wonders:

Set in a fictitious town in southern California, Seven Wonders introduces us to Tony Prosdocimi; a regular guy, nothing special. Except for the fact that at the ripe age of 23, he has suddenly developed superhuman powers. Powers just like the Seven Wonders, a team of superheroes that supposedly protect the City of San Ventura from the last supervillain on earth, The Cowl.
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After this, the story then follows a myriad of protagonists and antagonists vying to either save the city, save their own skin, or hold the city hostage for some unsaid reason. In the midst of it all, a regular guys ends up being the last thing he thought he’d be, a cop’s dead body get’s hijacked by an alien, and the world is indeed saved - but not safe.

Bennett & Corey Reviewed at SFFWorld

Mark and I have got two Orbit titles in our weekly spot here at the ‘o Stuff.

Robert Jackson Bennett has been making waves with each of the three novels he’s published over the last three years. I finally picked up his third novel, The Troupe, and at this point in June, I think it is my favorite 2012 novel:

Circuses, carnivals and traveling entertainers have been popular elements of fantastic fiction going back to Charles Finney’s Circus of Dr. Lao to Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes. Placing Bennett’s The Troupe alongside those iconic novels of dark fantasy is an easy thing to do for many reasons. Bennett’s style is both subtle and powerful, he doesn’t often beat the reader over the head with blatant imagery or themes. Rather, the hints and pieces he offers the reader work so effectively to build a collaborative engagement of conversation between writer and reader that it proves all the more powerful. We know there’s a big curtain and behind that curtain, lots of pieces and players are moving around while the performers in front of the curtain waive their hands for the audience. In that respect, Silenus’s Troupe is just the front for much larger events and performances, as well as intimate movements and emotions.
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Throughout my experience with The Troupe I felt echoes or resonances with a lot of fiction I’ve read or watched over the years that rang very True. Not that Mr. Bennett was repeating the cadence as much as he was adding to the overall song. Some of these resonances include the aforementioned Ray Bradbury, as well as Stephen King (thematically The Dark Tower and specifically Low Men in Yellow Coats), Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s The Shadow of the Wind, the television show Lost, among other elements. What Bennett cued into is the veneer that much more is going on behind the curtain than what the reader sees on the page or the audience sees on the stage – a grand chess match between powers people can’t comprehend, let alone even realize exist.

Mark’s book is a hotly anticipated releases and sequel to an award-nominated book, Caliban’s War, the second novel in The Expanse sequence by James S.A. Corey the open pseudonym for Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck:

Whereas last time the tale was mainly told from space pilot Holden and detective Miller’s points of view, this time we have just Holden’s but added to that are the characters of Bobbie, a Martian soldier who is the sole survivor of a massacre on Ganymede, Avasarala, a diplomat trying to bring the Earth-Mars-Outer planets dispute to an end, and Praxidike/Prax, a scientist on Ganymede whose daughter is mysteriously kidnapped just before a solar mirror crashed down on the planet-sized moon of Jupiter. It seems that the disaster may have been an attempt to cover the kidnapper’s tracks, and like on Eros in Leviathan Wakes, the actions of multi-corporations are again suspected.

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Interestingly, the authors have improved some of the characters we have met before – most especially Holden, who, as less of a Dan Dare type hero this time around, I appreciated much more than I did in Leviathan Wakes. Having got to know the characters in the previous novel, Caliban’s War is where the books build on the friendship between Holden and the rest of his crew to keep things together. This works especially with Naomi, but also Alex and Amos. Their mutual affection reminded me here of Chris Wooding’s Ketty Jay series. Like that series, friendships are tested here, and the outcome is not always pleasant.

Blue Remembered Earth - My Review at Tor.com

My most recent Tor.com post went live yesterday and it was a review of Alastair Reynolds's Blue Remembered Earth, the first installment of his Poseidon's Children saga:

So click on over and see what I thought of this familial romp through our Solar System.

Ruminations on Various Books

No new review from me this week, at least yet, but quite a few from other SFFWorlders, which I'll mention below. I finished up On Basilisk Station by David Weber a while back and put together a review, which I'll post to SFFWorld next week. Right now I'm in the middle of Leviathan Wakes and really enjoying it. It started out well, then summarily began to kick serious ass about 150-200 pages into the book. I'll be posting the review to that the following week.

Before jumping aboard Leviathan Wakes, I finished up The Keep by F. Paul Wilson and thoroughly enjoyed the book. Creepy, moody, realistic, great sense of secret history and a true page-turner. Discussion is still relatively light over at the SFFWorld Book Club.

As for this week's reviews, Mark reviewed a plethora of older books. The first of which is a reissue of a book from about a decade ago, Kristin Britain's debut novel Green Rider

In 1998, Kristen Britain had her first novel published. Now reissued in a lovely re-covered edition, along with the two sequels, First Rider’s Call and The High King’s Tomb (and with the fourth, Blackveil, due in paperback later in 2011), now’s a good time to catch up with the series.

Being over a decade old, perhaps unsurprisingly, my first impression was that Green Rider is determinedly old-fashioned, albeit smoothly written and charmingly positive. Its heroine, Karigan G’ladheon, is clearly heroic in the traditional fantasy sense that she is a young merchant’s daughter with a destiny, to be a Green Rider. Green Riders are King’s Messengers, the fantasy equivalent of the Pony Express, which powers of access above and beyond the normal.

Mark reviewed another, older and perhaps forgotten classic of the genre The Lincoln Hunters by Wilson Tucker

The Lincoln Hunters is one of those worth resurrecting. The tale itself is now seen as rather mundane perhaps, but at the time of its original publication it must have been a great entertainment.

It is essentially a time travel tale. In the rather sterile future of 2578, the company Time Researchers sends people (called ‘Characters’) back in time to record or transcribe famous events for home museums.

On this occasion Benjamin Steward is sent as part of a team to audio-record President Lincoln’s so-called ‘Lost Speech’ of May 19, 1856 in Bloomington, Illinois. This was a speech about slavery that, according to history, was so impassioned that the reporters there forgot to write it down. (Alternatively, it has been suggested that the speech was conveniently lost afterwards due to its controversial content.)

Newly christened SFFWorld Moderator PeterWilliam took a look at up-and-coming author Liane Merciel's Heaven's Needle, her second novel

Liane Merciel released a well-crafted debut effort (The River Kings' Road) a little over a year ago, it was a fine effort, in fact an effort that left an indelible imprint which served as a reminder to acquire and read her next work as quickly as reasonably possible. After having just completed the final, and stunning, four hundred and seventy-three pages, I am rather relieved. Perhaps a fear of the worst prevailed as I approached this new work, but happily it can be said that Merciel suffered no sophmore jinx. Heaven's Needle is everything one might have hoped for, and certainly everything Merciel promised it would be in previous interviews.


In Heaven's Needle, Merciel brings back a couple of characters from the first book, Kelland and Bitharn, and a host of new characters. The new characters include a Thornlord of Ang'arta, a sigrir warrior woman of the far northern seas, some novices of Celestia, some tragic, if ethically challenged, victims and a Mad God. Based upon the ending of the first book, it was expected that the next novel of Ithelas was due to take a darker turn - and it sure did that.

The last book Mark/Hobbit reviewed is Greybeard another reissue of a Brian Aldiss Classic:

Much of the tale is therefore what we see and what happens to them along the way. Britain’s aging population is now pretty much made up of isolated enclaves, people huddled together to maintain their survival with little or no interest in the outside world.

This might sound depressing and morbid, yet the pages turn quite nicely. There’s a nice combination of things happening in the now and flashbacks to earlier times. I was surprised to recognise a very similar approach and style echoed in what I’ve recently read in David Wingrove’s Chung Kuo series, Son of Heaven. (Though perhaps that should not be too much of a surprise - Wingrove and Aldiss worked together on their non-fiction history of SF, Billion Year Spree in the 1970’s and later Trillion Year Spree in the early 2000’s.)

The context of Greybeard is quite interesting in that Aldiss has been widely quoted as a critic of the popular author of the time, John Wyndham, stating that The Day of the Triffids author was writing ‘cosy catastrophies’.