Komarr - Lois McMaster Bujold

Back aboard the Vorkosigan train! I've done a lot of posts on the Vorkosigan and Temeraire series lately, and it may be getting a little repetitive/boring. After all, what new things can I say about the same authors, over and over again? I do try to pick out something new to talk about with each book, even if it ends up being a relatively short post. With the Temeraire series I like to look at how Novik's writing evolves over time, but Bujold has been writing since 1986, whereas Novik's only broken into the mainstream in 2006. A woman with almost thirty years of writing experience is probably at the top of her game, so it's hard to look for the 'improvement' with each book (besides, Vorkosigan was written completely out of chronological order so it's more difficult to see any kind of improvement arc). Maybe I use Bujold's books to analyze what's done right as far as plotting goes. And maybe it's just a nice escape into a world with characters that I really care for.

Komarr sees Miles Vorkosigan on his first assignment as an official Imperial Auditor (technically the ImpSec incident was the first-first assignment, but this is the first after really being assigned the office on a permanent basis). He travels to the planet Komarr with another auditor, to investigate an accident where a ship crashed into a solar array over the planet, and determine if it was deliberate sabotage or not. Naturally, in the vein of Vorkosigan's life, things quickly get complicated. It's also the first time we meet Ekaterin Vorsoisson, who--because I don't believe in spoilers and read some wikis to find out if Miles ever, ever is lucky in love--will eventually become Miles' wife. It's a bit of a thrill to see such an interesting character and know that one day he'll get to have a successful relationship. It's not the point of the book, but when you get attached to a character that is so perennially unlucky--even when he gets lucky!--with the ladies, it's comforting to see him find some happiness.

This is going to end up being one of those short posts.There's just not a lot left for me to say about Bujold short of raving about her characterization and clever dialogue, which I do every time. It's another solid entry in the Vorkosigan series that reliably leaves me asking "What next?"

Realistically I should probably leave the Vorkosigan series for a bit so my posts don't all become this predictable, but it's haaaaaard.

She rested her chin in her hand, and regarded him; her brows quirked in quizzical delight. "Lord Vorkosigan. Can I take a number and get in line?"
Whatever it was he'd been expecting her to say, it wasn't that; he was so taken aback he nearly fell off his chair. Wait, she hadn't meant it to come out sounding quite like--His smile stuck in the on position, but decidedly sideways.
"The next number up," he breathed, "is 'one.'"

Overall: 4 stars

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I wonder who that's supposed to be?

Empire of Ivory - Naomi Novik

Returning to the world of Temeraire like an old friend, we pick up in Empire of Ivory with every dragon in Britain--save Temeraire himself--suffering the effects of the dragon plague. Many have already died, leaving the Corps in dire straits. When Temeraire is exposed, but does not sicken, they begin to wonder if his earlier cold, cured by mushrooms at the Cape on their journey to China, may have been along the same lines. Laurence and Temeraire, and others of their cohort still sick but marginally well enough to travel, head out on Riley's dragon transport ship again to try to recover the cure. Blah blah, things happen, eventually they find the mushrooms, but they also find a civilization in the African interior that again challenges Europe's notions of how dragons and humans must live together. Laurence and Temeraire's crew are taken captive, they rescue them, Capetown is attacked by the African dragons, the Europeans are driven out of Africa, but they return to Britain with the cure. The most interesting part of this book is when Laurence discovers that the military has sent a captured French dragon back to the French--after exposing it to the plague. Without the cure, thousands of dragons all over Europe will die, and so Temeraire and Laurence together decide to steal the cure and bring it to the French, in the hopes of staving off such utter destruction, rending both of them traitors.

This is... not the strongest of the Temeraire series. It's not bad, per se, it just feels like a stepping stone between bigger issues. The previous storylines were almost mandatory based on logical progression: Temeraire must fight in the war for Britain, China must eventually find out, he must return to them to figure out his place in the world, they must return to Britain, etc. This book more feels like an excuse to explore the alternate history culture of another continent, with the only real development plot point coming right at the very end of the book.

I get the commercial sense of having more books in a series (see also every goddamn YA trilogy that could be condensed into one) but it makes me wonder what this series would be like condensed into a more efficient form. I imagine there would be only four books, instead of the total of seven. I also imagine I might skim less pages of introspection and philosophy. I want the meat of the plot, the rest is just sauce.

Still, there are some rather clever moments with the characters that I enjoy, and it's not like I'm going to quit the series or anything. Clearly there's something working, even if I'm getting rather more sauce than meat.

"Jane," Laurnece said, "will you marry me?"
"Why, no, dear fellow," she said, looking up in surprise from the chair where she was drawing on her boots. "It would be a puzzle to give you orders, you know, if I had vowed to obey; it could hardly be comfortable. But it is very handsome of you to have offered," she added, and standing up kissed him heartily, before she put on her coat."

Overall: 3 stars

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Shades of Milk and Honey - Mary Robinette Kowal

My relationship with e-books has had its ups and downs. Initially I was one of those squares who was all, "Real book 4eva! Smell of paper! Musty! Happy!" and then I moved five times and after lugging twenty plus boxes of books everywhere I began to rethink think my stance on seeing books as something to 'collect'. After that I got a Kobo and began exploring the world of free epubs, and eventually for convenience I've migrated to the Kindle app on my phone and computer. The convenience is undeniable: I only have to think of a book and I can find it on Amazon, purchase it in an instant, send it to my phone, and start reading. But as I learn more about some of Amazon's business practices, including the poor treatment of workers in their warehouses and the Amazon/Hatchett fiasco of yesteryear, I'm really considering changing my spending habits to focus more locally. It's a tough call, trying to weigh my consumer conscience with consumer convenience.

Long story short, this book is an example of why I'm just so hesitant to cut that convenience cord. I found this book solely through Amazon recommendations: Jane Austen plus magic? Count me in. It's like Temeraire (Napoleon plus dragons!) but from a lady perspective. And I am all about the lady perspective, being one myself.

So the main story of this book is about Jane and Melody Ellsworth, unmarried sisters of a fairly respectable family. A few cliches jump out at me here, particularly in that Jane is the plain but talented one, and Melody is the pretty but untalented one, and they each are jealous of the other for what they lack. Once you get past that, you've got a fairly Austen-esque story of love triangles, where Melody likes both Mr. Dunkirk and Captain Livingston, and both seem interested in her, but Jane also like Mr. Dunkirk, and Mr. Dunkirk's sister Elizabeth is interested in Captain Livingston, and then there's the artist Mr. Vincent who also is forming an attachment to one of these ladies, etc. etc. Add in a dash of glamour, magic used to create various illusions that is as important as painting or music to a lady's drawing room accomplishments.

The story is okay, but you really have to like that kind of thing to start with. Which I do! It's a niche that I fit neatly into, like people who like romance novels. My only real gripe is the characterization. Jane and Melody are fairly developed characters, but it's them we see the most of. The rest seem fairly flat, which may be due in part to our POV resting solely on Jane, and the restrictions of Regency society. The protocols of social interactions at the time so heavily emphasized propriety that it makes many of the interactions seem similar, and so it's realistic that a girl like Jane would not get to know the intricacies of Mr. Dunkirk or Mr. Vincent's personalities, and by consequence the reader, seeing through her eyes, would also see only what's on the surface. But it does leave our male heroes at a disadvantage because it's hard to root for one of them, when you're not emotionally connecting with any of them. A good romance is romancing the reader as much as the heroine, and without that connection, it's infinitely more difficult.

Also, once we got to the climax of the story, it and the resolution suddenly seemed to flow very quickly compared to the rest of the story. I had to go back and reread the climax to really understand what had happened, who had been shot, etc. and then it felt like within a very short span of time, the happily-ever-after was wrapped up in a nice little bow. It felt a little easy. I would have liked to see a few more obstacles to Jane's romance, after it was acknowledged. Writers are here to throw rocks at their characters: that's what we're here to see. I don't feel it diminished the story, necessarily, but perhaps was a missed opportunity.

But it's still one of those fun reads, a tasty little snack to fill the spaces between bigger, tougher books. I'll probably go on to read the rest of the series as well.

Overall: 3.5 stars

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Artemis Fowl - Eoin Colfer

When I started this book (available for 2.99 on Kindle at the time - I mean, why not? I'd heard of it.) a friend of mine, who read these books as the actual target audience (a child), implored me. "Don't compare it to Harry Potter," she said. "Just don't."

Inauspicious start.

I fully realize that this book is not written for a reader like myself. What's interesting is that we don't always seem to know who it IS written for: When I researching it to start with, all signs pointed towards Young Adult, but that's clearly incorrect. Young Adult features protagonists in the teenage range, maybe 15-17 or so, whereas Artemis is all of twelve. If anything, it's middle grade, and that's being generous to the writing style. Because the way the book patronizes the reader, I would expect it to be more for the lower end of such.

Seems a weird thing to say about a kids book: patronizing. But I'm serious. I think kids are a lot smarter than we necessarily give them credit for. This book lays everything down in such a heavyhanded manner that there's no room for nuance or inference, which I firmly believe kids CAN pick up on. You don't need a plot point beat into your face in quite the manner that Colfer does--with a mallet, over and over and over.

The characters are all extremely flat, and any dimension they might try to show feels forced. The worst offender is Artemis's mother, written like the author only has the barest glimmer of understanding of mental illness and disdained research, instead falling back on (in my opinion, damaging) stereotypes. Some of your readers might actually have family members with schizophrenia that don't remotely resemble the grab-bag of cliches that don't even apply to schizophrenia you assembled into Angeline Fowl. Not naming any names or anything.

On a more technical note, the POV shifts repeatedly in a single chapter, which is disorienting for a reader. Enough time needs to be spend in each POV to anchor the reader, or it feels like we're drifting all over the place. For this reason it can often be simpler, though by no means required, to stick to a single POV and eliminate the confusion.

So yes, in the vein of "Don't compare it to Harry Potter", I suppose that if I were not coming at this with a background of having read books before, it might fare better. But I don't think you should have to essentially not know any better to be able to enjoy a book if it's well-written. Like Harry Potter. Or Bridge to Terabithia. Or the entirety of the Redwall series, which is clearly written to a child's level and yet manages to not patronize. Hell, The Giver could arguably be middle grade too, if we're going based off of writing complexity and protagonist age, and it not only manages to use complicated and mature themes at kids' level but also uses a lot of inference instead of hammers-to-the-face. It can be done, well and often. Just not so much here.

Overall: 2 stars

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Memory - Lois McMaster Bujold

So I've heard this idea here and there that some books enter your life just when you need them: I totally buy it. At least, I do now. First I talked about Serena, where I really envy the main character's ability to give-no-fucks and get what she wants (although, admittedly, I draw the line at murder). Now I identify heavily with Miles in this, the umpteenth book of Bujold's Vorkosigan series (seriously, I have no idea what number we're at). To explain this, I really have to get right into the meat of the plot.

In books previous to this incarnation, Miles was killed, cryogenically frozen, and reanimated, and still he suffers from some residual side effects of the resurrection process. He finds himself having seizures more and more often, and we open on a rescue mission going catastrophically wrong when Miles seizes while holding a plasma arc and accidentally amputates the legs of the very man he's supposed to be saving. He hadn't told the Dendarii, hoping to keep it secret, and though that cat's out of the bag he still hopes to keep it secret from Illyan and avoid a medical discharge from the Barrayaran military. So he lies on his report. Illyan, naturally, finds out, and does the only thing he can do: he fires Miles for falsifying reports.

Miles' life is completely falling apart, and we spend this book with him figuring out how, exactly, to deal with that, and the guilt of knowing he completely deserved for it to happen.

"Worse. I did that myself. I did it all to myself." - Miles

Why do I find this so personal? Well, I'm about doing the same thing to myself. I currently have a terrible boss at work, and the constant stress is really encouraging me to self-sabotage. For several months now I've felt like I'm watching my career circle the drain--and there's this sense of hopelessness, that I see reflected in Miles. How to go forward?

But, it naturally being a Bujold-written world, nothing can ever be uncomplicated. Illyan starts showing signs of rapid mental decline, and it's attributed to the memory chip in his brain failing. Miles believes that the failure is deliberate sabotage, but the acting head of ImpSec, Haroche, seems to be deliberately stepping in his way. Through a series of pushes where Miles explores his identity as Admiral Naismith vs Miles Vorkosigan, he ends up appointed as an Imperial Auditor, and swiftly unravels the sabotage, restoring balance to the Imperium. He earns his redemption, both internally and externally, as he figures out what it means to be Miles Vorkosigan again, and steps into the permanent role of Auditor, finding a new path forward in his life.

Again, I feel life imitating art: I received a great job offer recently that's also allowing me to continue my life forward on a different path. It's not the way I planned to go forward, but like Miles, I'm finding the opportunity in it.

I don't really have much more to add to this. Bujold is ever wonderful, Miles is ever engaging, Grover Gardner is ever a delight to listen to. I've mentioned previously how I intersperse my more difficult reads (whether because they actually require a higher reading skill or are just more boring) with fun reads, and Vorkosigan is like the equivalent of curling up with a blanket, hot tea and a warm fireplace. It's comforting, no matter how many times I go back to it.

"You have no mass and cannot move me. I'm tired, and I want my supper." - Miles

Overall: 4.5 stars

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Black Powder War - Naomi Novik

Welcome back to the Temeraire train! Still winding my way through a re-read so that I can pick up the latest book in the series right on the heels of the last. In Black Powder War we continue Temeraire and Laurence's journeys, leaving China after Laurence's adoption by the Chinese emperor when the pair receive urgent orders from home to return by way of Turkey and pick up some dragon eggs on the way (a bit like calling one's spouse to get eggs and milk on the way home, but much longer and with more danger). A lot of time in this book is spent traveling, which again, common to the previous books, does not much advance in the way of plot. They employ a guide named Tharkay who appears to be half British and half Mongolian, and implies a certain amount of suffering in consequence by the chip on his shoulder. They cross deserts and mountains, instigate an avalanche and befriend a large group of ferals, reach Turkey only to be denied the agreed-upon eggs, steal the eggs and flee (dropping one in the process, which I'll be honest, is pretty heartbreaking!). They get caught up in the war between France and Prussia, and Granby rather accidentally graduates to captain of a fire-breathing Kazilik from their Turkish eggs. Finally they arrive home, battered and bruised and worse for the wear, to find that all of Britain's dragons save themselves and the ferals they've brought along are sick with a plague and Britain's war effort is in serious danger.

Again the plot often seems as if nothing in particular is happening--there's a lot of flying, a lot of traveling, some waiting, some eating, some philosophizing. But you don't get to the third book in a series without knowing ahead of time that's what you're getting into, and must be okay with it at that point. Novik's got a talent for making that work.

But is this book that gives me the most egregious examples of terrible sentences. I give you:

Maden, who in his trade often served as a factor for British visitors, spoke excellent English, and his family also; they sat to table five, Maden's two sons being already established in their own homes; besides his wife only his daughter Sara remained at home, a young woman well out of the schoolroom: not yet thirty but old to be unmarried with so good a dowry as Maden seemed able to provide, and her looks and manner were pleasing if in a foreign mode, dark hair and brows striking against fair skin, very like her elegant mother.

That is one sentence. One sentence with two semicolons, one colon, and eight commas. I run out of breath just reading the thing. Semicolons are that tricky punctuation that everyone seems to love but few manage to use sparingly enough that they don't become obtrusively obnoxious. Let's boil it down very simply: try not to use them at all, but if you must, use them as little as possible. Periods are not the enemy. Ending sentences does not diminish your work. A period is a breath point, an internal signal for the brain to pause and catch itself; semicolons and commas do not give you that. Look, I just used one! Once.

Incidentally I've been reading about the semicolon tattoos recently and as an amateur punctuation fan I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, I appreciate the message, but the metaphor doesn't carry. "A semicolon is used where the author could have ended a sentence and chose not to," so also apply that to your life. It's hard to criticize, because I think many would take it as criticizing the message, which I emphatically repeat that I am not. That said, any writer worth their salt would end that sentence with "...but they probably should have ended the sentence after all, really, because periods are important and semicolons are overused and overvalued."

Sigh. The life of a pedant.

Anyway. Another solid entry in the Temeraire series. I will note that for all my criticism I did not find these kinds of semicolon issues in Novik's most recent release Uprooted--or at least, they were few enough that they weren't obtrusive, which is really the goal. A writer can certainly (and probably should) improve their writing skill with each book as they learn more and more about their craft, so I do not lobby this as insults against Novik herself by any means. I still envy her ability to weave a story and hey, she's certainly doing better than I am!

Overall: 4 stars

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Gene Mapper - Taiyo Fujii

I've been making an effort to pick up one new release every month, and it's been coming up with some pretty great results. I hadn't heard of Taiyo Fujii before, but found his book Gene Mapper on an IO9 post on June releases. (Eventually, I'll get to reviewing them the same month they're released, but I digress.) Fujii is a Japanese author, and Gene Mapper is his debut novel, just released in English translation.

In the world of Gene Mapper, much of the world's natural crops have fallen to a blight called Red Rust, leading to a rise in genetically engineered foods. Mamoru Hayashida is a gene mapper who works for a company, L&B, developing Super Rice 6, or SR06. Only the field of SR06 that's been planted appears to have some sort of invader, which could spell trouble not only for L&B, or Mamoru's career, but genetically engineered (or in L&B's preferred nomenclature, genetically distilled) plants entirely. It's Mamoru's job, with the help of Takashi (a victim of a side effect of L&B's super rice zero), to figure out who and what the invader is and whether or not they can stop it. It's a high-tech mystery, a whodunit of virtual reality proportions.

I think it's the translation that hinder this book for me. It's as if something is being lost in going from Japanese to English, and I have a certain sense of being lost. I really like Fujii's concept of augmented reality, using AR stages for conversations and work and broadcasts and all kinds of things, but I don't really understand how it works. I can see someone entering an AR Stage and seeing the augmented reality, but what would someone not on any stage see them doing? They're talking and moving in their stage, sometimes having private conversations, and so wouldn't they be talking and moving in the real world as well? I guess I don't understand the privacy factor of that, just as an example. And again, I think this is partly due to the translation. The worldbuilding, while interesting, is not very clear in english, and more difficult to really engage with.

In another part of the book, Mamoru goes into the SR06 field wearing a special suit that has a weird kind of emotional control built in. The 'augmented reality' turns into a real hindrance, but that whole portion just makes no sense to me. I don't understand why they're wearing the suits in the first place--maybe to prevent contaminating the field, though I'm not sure with what, if the genetically distilled rice is supposed to be so stable--but also, I really don't understand why they would need or even want emotional control in the first place. That just makes no logical sense when you look at how it completely derailed Mamoru's mission. The only purpose I can see it serving is a plot point that reveals Takashi's true nature, which really, it needs to make sense on the surface as well as move the plot forward. Thumbs down.

I felt the ending to be a little forced. It reminds me of the theme of the movie Antitrust, where the culminating moment is the scrappy underdog releasing the corporate badguy's code to the world. Mamoru knows that revealing the engineered animals will prompt people around the world to create their own, but he can't let the 'nature guerrillas' get away with their plan to discredit genetically distilled rice with underhanded means. So he releases the entire code and user manual to the world, thinking hey, now everyone will do it right. I don't follow the logic, I guess. I mean, sure, you're giving those who would possibly do a bang-up job of replicating a bunch of engineered grasshoppers by themselves the tools to do it correctly, but just because someone has the tools doesn't mean they're not going to purposefully create something destructive. I appreciate the effort to create a more complex ending than everything-is-fixed, though. There probably wasn't any way they were going to come out of that situation with an entirely happy ending anyway, but it does feel as if that's the feeling that's trying to be pushed there--the code's out, everything's okay now. Resolution, in the context of fiction, does not have to be Solution. Not every problem in a story needs to be Fixed.

Overall though, if you don't mind feeling a little lost in a sea of buzzwords, it's not a bad read. I think a lot of other fantasy and scifi I've read has primed me to be okay with not necessarily understanding everything that's going on, though I like clarity more. It's a fun read on it's own, and high-concept, which is always nice. But somehow it also doesn't necessarily stand out to me. Not bad; but not necessarily great, either.

Overall: 3 stars

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Throne of Jade - Naomi Novik

In an attempt to get through old books (again) and give them away, I'm burning through the Temeraire series this month at a pretty consistent speed. Maybe it's because the other books I'm reading are just not very interesting, and I keep veering back to the fun reads! As helpful as craft books are, they're incredibly boring, let's admit. Sometimes you just want to shut your brain down a little bit and get lost in something fun.

Interesting cover variant.

In this, the second book of the series, Temeraire and Laurence are confronted by Chinese envoys who have heard of Britain's acquisition of a Celestial dragon. Yet again, we have authorities trying to separate the two, in a kind of star-crossed-lovers battle to stay together. Eventually it is agreed for the envoys, including a prince, Yongxing, to accompany Temeraire AND Laurence AND his crew back to China. Naturally the envoys still want to separate them, and naturally Temeraire and Laurence intend to resist. Once there the pair learns how differently dragons are treated in China, much to the disadvantage of Britain's coverts. Here we don't see dragons used as slaves to the British military cause, but treated as people in their own rights, able to travel the cities at will, purchase goods, or even starve. The price of freedom, one might say.

Here, too, Temeraire meets Lien, the albino Celestial and companion to Yongxing doomed to become the series' regular antagonist in future books. Interesting how her white color, the color of death, is seen as exceedingly unlucky, and after Yongxing's death her life pretty much falls apart because of it. You can't help but feel something for her, even as she seeks to return the damage on Temeraire. You can see how it comes from a place of hurt and anger, and so hats off to Novik for so deftly portraying that kind of turmoil, especially in a non-POV character.

 The sentence structure is often really clunky again, but that's something I want to address further with the next book, Black Powder War. Right now I'm focusing more on analyzing how to plot, with the idea that structure at a sentence level is something that is infinitely easier to teach than structure at a plot level. The Temeraire books are interesting in that, as far as external plot, there's not actually a whole lot of arc to get through. The first book was, essentially: Laurence meets Temeraire, they train, they fight some battles. What gave the book depth was exploring their relationship and that with the people around them. Here again, we find a relatively simple external plot. Laurence and Temeraire travel by ship to China, a few things happen along the way, they get to China, they meet Temeraire's family relations, there are attempts on Laurence's life, and then everything is resolved. It's not particularly complex, but it's the way that we explore this that makes this series work. I think this is owed to Novik's characterization ability (also something I want to work on in my own work) and her ability to lay out a believable historical setting with a draconic twist.

Overall it's a good read. I guess I can't claim it's revolutionary or literary gold or anything, but it's fun and entertaining, and pretty appropriate for a younger reader, too. It explores some philosophical issues in an interesting way, especially in this book, where we delve further into the subject of slavery, both human and dragon. Another issue it picks away at is class, though couched in terms of Chinese imperialism. An interesting way to talk about various issues of freedom and rights.

Overall: 3 stars

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