Alternative Alamat edited by Paolo Chikiamco (2011)

Flipreads / Amazon / Official Site

5/5 stars

Description:
Philippine mythology is full of images that ignite the imagination: gods of calamity and baldness, of cosmic time and lost things; the many-layered Skyworld, and weapons that fight their own battles; a ship that is pulled to paradise by a chain, and a giant crab that controls the tides… Yet too few of these tales are known and read today. “Alternative Alamat” gathers stories, by contemporary authors of Philippine fantasy, which make innovative use of elements of Philippine mythology. None of these stories are straight re-tellings of the old tales: they build on those stories, or question underlying assumptions; use ancient names as catalysts, or play within the spaces where the myths are silent. What you will find in common in these eleven stories is a love for the myths, epics, and legends which reflect us, contain us, call to us–and it is our hope that, in reading our stories, you may catch a glimpse of, and develop a hunger for, those venerable tales.

“Alternative Alamat” also features a cover and interior illustrations by Mervin Malonzo, a short list of notable Philippine deities, tips for online and offline research, and in-depth interviews with Professors Herminia Meñez Coben and Fernando N. Zialcita.

Review:
Alternative Alamat a fascinating read. I gained more knowledge about certain mythological figures (e.g. Maria Makiling, Tungkung Langit, Alunsina, Bernardo Carpio), but I feel like it’s just the beginning. There’s so much more to explore and retell.

Stories that stood out to me in particular are
-“The Alipin’s Tale” – a mythological retelling of Lapu Lapu’s fate and the changes after the Battle of Mactan. It is told like a folktale from the POV of his alipin (servant) and it concludes with a ballsy ending that’s like a punch in the gut. I also give it props for incorporating the intersection of race and class.
-“Keeper of My Sky” – the post-creation story of Tungkung Langit and Alunsina. This is one of the most bittersweet stories I’ve ever read. It’s simultaneously intimate and epic, both about the fate of two people and of the universe. If you’re prone to moisture in the eyes, maybe you shouldn’t read this in public.
-“Offerings to Aman Sinaya” – about a fishing village, their way of life, and their struggle to survive in the present day. It has moments of joy when young members master their birthright, but also of anguish as they continue to feel the negative impact of industrialization.

There’s also bonus content in the appendix: a list of notable Filipino deities and the region their stories originate from, interviews with two professors (specializing in folklore and anthropology, respectively) and a list of additional resources on Filipino mythology.

As a whole, this is not what I’d consider to be an uplifting or an escapist read. It raises more questions than answers, because many of these stories touch on contemporary issues that we don’t have an answer to yet. It’s unique and thought-provoking, but I’d recommend reading something lighter in alternation with this book when it gets too heavy.

This anthology is a rare gem, and it’s wonderful that it’s available as an ebook. I’d recommend it for those who are curious about Filipino mythology, or interested in mythology and folktales in general.

You might like this if you like…
Mythology and folktales; Philippine speculative fiction; short story anthologies; an intelligent read that is bittersweet, but rewarding

Voice by Joseph Garraty (2011)

Smashwords / Amazon / Author’s Site

5/5 stars

Description:
Local rock band Ragman is finally taking off. Stephanie Case’s flamboyant performances and scorching guitar work have started attracting crowds, and singer John Tsiboukas–aka Johnny Tango–is delivering the best performances of his life. After months of playing to dead rooms, it looks like success is at hand.

The thing is, there’s something wrong with Johnny’s voice. Until just a few weeks ago, he couldn’t hit the right pitch if you painted a target on it and let him stand real close. Now he sounds amazing. . . and strange things happen every time he sings. Lights burn out. Whole rooms become cold and hushed. People get violent.

For Johnny and Case, Ragman is a ticket out of a life of meaningless, dead-end jobs and one lousy gig after another, but as the weirdness surrounding Johnny begins to turn into outright nightmare, they find that the price of stardom might be higher than either of them could ever have imagined.

Review:
Voice is a supernatural horror novel that follows a rock band from obscurity to fame, with bits of gore trailing the way. It’s terrifying, tragic, and freaking amazing.

It’s an absorbing and intense read from cover to cover. The musician who makes a pact with the devil at the crossroads is a well-known rock and roll myth, and the horror elements themselves aren’t unique, but Garraty’s delivery is pitch-perfect and will make your hair stand on end. The author masterfully executes the classic “less is more” approach to horror, letting your own paranoia fill in the blanks and scare you shitless.

What makes it great is that the supernatural horror blends into the setting naturally. The creep with thinning hair at the back of the dive bar could be either a man with unfortunate features or a demon creature out to disembowel you. I was glad that I didn’t read some scenes in public because they made me scream like a crazy person. You know that time when you watched Alien for the first time and didn’t see that chestburster coming? Yeah. That.

The everyday tribulations of being a musician are convincing and immerse you into the character’s lives. I loved details like when Case, the lead guitarist, explains to someone that their band wasn’t hard rock like Nickelback but more like the New York Dolls or Motörhead, she’s promptly met with a blank look. Garraty is as much an expert in music as in horror, and has a way of fleshing out details without overburdening the reader with obscure trivia.

I could go on and on about why I love this book, but I definitely must praise Voice for the characters. Everyone’s fascinating with great internal conflict, adding layers to the plot. There’s illicit relationships, band drama, and the daily struggle to prove their worth to themselves. Heck, even the minor bit characters are intriguing too, and I wished there was more uncovered about them!

The entire line-up is strong, but two characters steal the spotlight. Case is a fantastic heroine, a no-bullshit woman in a macho scene. While she walks around in leather pants and knows Krav Maga like nobody’s business, she’s a multidimensional tough dame and not merely a caricature of one. You could call her the spiritual successor to Ellen Ripley.

But Johnny’s internal conflict–that’s main star of the book. Johnny, Johnny, Johnny. What do I do with you? Every time I read a chapter in his POV, my heart soared or twisted itself in sympathy. He’s the lead vocalist whose talents are unremarkable compared to the rest of the band, and it’s his hunger to prove himself which leads to the pact with the devil. No matter what the reader thinks of his choices, deep down, you feel that you would same thing. It makes the story even more chilling, and that is the mark of an outstanding horror novel.

As Johnny would scream to the audience between his Elvis sneers, “Is it hot enough for you, motherfuckers?” Yes, it is motherfucking hot. Read it.

You might like this if you like…
Horror; rock and roll; a motherfucking good book

While you’re checking out Voice, don’t mind me, I’m just rocking the fuck out since this is one of the rare times when it’s appropriate to imbed Motörhead in a book review. Don’t get too lost in the rapture of rock and roll though, because dreadful otherworldly creatures are out to devour your soul.

The Antithesis by Terra Whiteman (2011)

Smashwords / Amazon / Author’s Site

3/5 stars

Description:
This is a story about God and the Devil, but not how you were taught to believe.

This is also a story about love and hate, and the suffering both can bring.

This is about rights and wrongs, and all of the spaces in between.

This is about revenge, courage, death, passion; with no villains, no heroes… only those left scorned.

This is a story about Heaven, Hell, and the Jury that holds them together.

This is The Antithesis.

Justice Alezair Czynri is the newest recruit of the Jury, a group of powerful beings who reside in Purgatory and enforce the Code between Heaven and Hell. However, Justice Czynri could not have come at a worse time. A storm lays just over the horizon…

One that brings with it a war.

Review:
The Antithesis is impossible to peg to a subgenre. The tropes are a mash between seinen action manga (Japanese comics for a 20+ demographic) and supernatural urban fantasy. I’m a sucker for gorey over-the-top Rule of Cool fight scenes, so when I read the scene where Alezair gets turned into a Judge and can turn his hands into scythes, demolish armies, and regenerate lost limbs by eating dirt and convulsing painfully, I knew I had to read this book.

The original take on the battle between Heaven and Hell is thrilling to read. It’s a world where angels and demons are more akin to other creatures (ala humanoid races in space opera) rather than idealized ethereal beings. The demons are the former slaves of the angels, and the war they wage on the souls of lesser beings (such as us. We’re just one portion of a multiverse and we’re not very important) is essentially a giant (rigged) chess game to sort out the politics of these two groups. Judges are another kind of creature whose role is to keep score. It’s a messy shades-of-gray universe where the angels seem like jerks and you can’t help but sympathize with the demons, and I have to give kudos to the author for the fresh perspective.

This is a badass book in many ways. I liked many of the demon characters, I’m awfully fond of the crazy fight scenes, and there’s some interesting worlds in the multiverse (including a weird west one) but I couldn’t completely get into it for two personal reasons. Firstly, vampire-like urban fantasy tropes don’t interest me, and secondly, I couldn’t suspend my disbelief for some of the world-building.

There aren’t any vampires in this book but the tropes are similar. Alezair gets turned into a Judge because he lusts after Leid and he becomes her guardian. Judges live for hundreds of years, have to kill a lot of people, and some even mourn the fact that they’ve turned into monsters. All the higher creatures have hierarchical societies, they drink wine and smoke constantly, and there’s a lot of intrigue and unrequited love angst. I know a lot of readers like these tropes, but I generally just can’t bring myself to care about these kinds of conflicts (especially the love angst) and unfortunately this book wasn’t the exception.

All the higher creatures act like 21st century North Americans, complete with desk jobs and alcohol abuse. It humanizes them, but there wasn’t an explanation as to why they all organized their societies in this specific way, so my brain often kept on questioning it instead of enjoying the story. Even a wry comment like “Once the multiverse developed the art of bureaucracy, it engulfed everything in its path and escape was impossible” would help with the suspension of disbelief, but it doesn’t exist.

The other dimension I couldn’t wrap my head around was gender. The narrative asserts the biological and historical differences between these creatures, but they did not vary in gender dynamics and they dealt with femaleness rather strangely. Leid is the Commander of all the Judges, and according to the narrative, she’s highly respected and feared, intelligent, and physically powerful. So I raised my eyebrow at the fact that she could be cornered to a wall by a male subordinate and be paralyzed with fear, and there’s an after-the-fact horrified reflection on the man’s part that he could have raped her. But why does a woman like Leid have to fear rape if she’s as powerful as the narrative asserts her to be? She’s a hands-turn-into-scythes killing machine. I wouldn’t expect that the Terminator could be harassed in the same way, so why would she by virtue of her being female?

I know other readers will find this book very enjoyable, but because of matters of personal taste, I can’t say this is one of my favourite books of year. World-building is one of the most challenging parts of speculative literature, and it’s much easier to do so when it’s based on common settings, and much more tricky when from an original secondary world. Like I said, the points I raise about the world-building are very subjective, so don’t let that stop you if you won’t find them distracting. If you like over-the-top fight scenes, intrigue and tragedy akin to vampire tropes, and a unique concepts on the battle between heaven and hell, then you might consider this worth a look.

You might like this if you like…
Dark and Troubled Pasts; over-the-top Rule of Cool manga-style fight scenes; vampire and urban fantasy tropes; unrequited love angst; multiverses with a space opera vibe

If you’re interested in this book, you’re in luck! The sequels, Book Two Alpha and Book Two Beta, are already out on Smashwords, Amazon, and other retailers.

The End of the World by Andrew Biss (2011)

Smashwords / Amazon / Author’s Site

2/5 stars

Description:
Are you prepared for what comes next?

Accustomed to a life of cosseted seclusion at home with his parents, Valentine is suddenly faced with making his own way in the world. His new life is quickly upended, however, when he’s mugged at gunpoint. Finding shelter at a mysterious inn run by the dour Mrs. Anna, he soon encounters a Bosnian woman with a hole where her stomach used to be, an American entrepreneur with a scheme to implant televisions into people’s foreheads, and a Catholic priest who attempts to lure him down inside a kitchen sink. Then things start getting strange…

In this story based loosely around the state of Bardo from The Tibetan Book of the Dead – an intermediate state where the dead arrive prior to rebirth – dying is the easy part. Getting out of Bardo and returning to the land of the living is a far more perilous proposition, and unless you know what you’re doing…you might never leave.

An odd, yet oddly touching tale of life, death, and the space in-between.

Review:
The End of the World is a contemporary fantasy novella with an offbeat sense of humour. Valentine is a sheltered teenager who is thrown out of the house by his parents, and subsequently finds himself in a bizarre inn named The End of the World. When I say bizarre, I really do mean bizarre. Priests emerge out of kitchen sinks, the next door guest is walking around with a giant gunshot hole in what used to be her stomach, and Valentine tries to make sense of it all.

I enjoyed parts of this book. There’s some hilariously awkward dialogue between Valentine and his parents, and the narrative is sprinkled with colourful off-hand comments that require a double take.  The humour tends toward the weird, dark, or perverted, which is all fine by me because it was done consistently. There’s a number of well-written descriptions, and I liked the story’s core message.

The book doesn’t reach its potential due to too much telling and not enough showing. The end notes state that this is a novella adapted from a play, which explains the heavy emphasis on dialogue and the noticeable lack of atmosphere, setting, or character interactions beyond sitting around and talking.

The story’s overall trajectory is predictable. The main conflict of the story is about Valentine trying to figure out what the inn is and how to move on, but the book description already spoils that this inn is based off purgatory, and it’s not much of a stretch to figure out what happened to him. Valentine also doesn’t get into much adventuring or much else before the story ends, so it feels like the entire second act is missing.

The characters are theatrical but unconvincing–more like types rather than real people. Valentine gets into an argument with a Catholic priest about religion, and I thought that the dialogue was so utterly silly that I couldn’t read it without cringing. I didn’t find the argument funny or intellectually stimulating, and that was the case with most of the dialogue in this book.

The problem with the other guests is that they are only characterized by where they came from and how they died. Beheaded Afghan man. Bosnian woman with no stomach. There wasn’t enough humanity or authentic slices of life to make them convincing. It’s like they were pulled out of the evening news report of who-died-in-the-world-today. Characters don’t have to be realistic or sympathetic to serve their role in a story, but they were caricatures without being funny or really doing anything. They were talking props for Valentine, and that was it.

I like the story’s central message regarding life and death, but it hits you over the head with it over and over again in dialogue which makes it lose its impact. In the end, I’m looking for a story to engage me in one of two ways: make me feel, or make me think. The best stories do both. Unfortunately, The End of the World does neither.

I think Biss has storytelling skill, but this adaptation needs to read more like a book. It’s not dealing with the limitations of a play, so there should be more action, scenes, and characters to beef up the second act. The message should be delivered through the progression of events rather than as infodumps through dialogue. A book is not limited by budget, sets, or actors–the only limit is imagination. Perhaps I would have enjoyed the play, but as a novella, I’d give it a miss.

You might like this if you like…
Dialogue dialogue dialogue; quirky and ribald humour; agnostics and atheists; setting… what’s that?

The End of the World is currently a free download at Smashwords and Amazon. 

The Cornerstone by Nick Spalding (2011)

Smashwords / Amazon / Author’s Site

2/5 stars

Description:
A great book will transport you to another world… literally, if you’re not careful.

On a gloomy Thursday afternoon, Max Bloom enters his local library in a last ditch attempt to stave off an epic case of teenage boredom. Among the hushed stacks he discovers The Cornerstone – an ancient book tucked away on a dusty, forgotten shelf. Opening the cover, Max is transported to an alternate dimension full of things intent on killing him – thus avoiding boredom with remarkable success.

He meets a beautiful girl called Merelie (brilliant), who tells him he’s the only one that can save both their worlds from the Dwellers – hideous mind sucking creatures from beyond the universe (not so brilliant).

Merelie thinks Max is a Wordsmith, a sorcerer able to craft magic from the written word itself – one powerful enough to stop the Dwellers and their treacherous human allies.

This all sounds completely unbelievable. The kind of thing you’d read in a fantasy novel… but The Cornerstone doesn’t lie – and the danger is very real.

In a world threatened by monsters, where books are worshipped and powerful magic exists, Max Bloom must make a choice: close The Cornerstone and run home – or trust Merelie, become a Wordsmith, and save two worlds from certain destruction…

Review:
The Cornerstone is a contemporary fantasy set in suburban Britain. Max is an ordinary Xbox-playing 17-year-old boy, but when he finds a magical book, it transports him to an alternate world threatened by monsters. A beautiful girl is convinced that Max is the fated sorcerer that will save her world, but that’s not likely as her world’s magic comes from books… and Max doesn’t read any. The story follows Max as he discovers books, magic, and if he has what it takes to be a hero.

This novel kicked off to a great start. The lively prose pulled me in quickly, the flippant tone was refreshing, and the humour had personality. I expected to read a lighthearted fantasy adventure that was genre-savvy and would play with some of fantasy’s most common tropes. It turns out to be a story that’s promising in concept, but not quite there in execution.

“Show, don’t tell” is a classic adage for good reason. The Cornerstone lost my interest because it frequently read like a series of summaries rather than a story that was actively unfolding. The first half of the book slowly sets up the conflict, but after that, it decides to skim over the most important developments. As major events are told rather than shown, it removes the dramatic tension that should have taken place, and I did not feel emotionally involved in the rest of the book.

The concept of an alternate world where words have power, wordsmiths are magicians, and God is called the Writer is intriguing. I was eager to see what magic system would be developed, but it doesn’t have any rules beyond “draw power from books, shoot lighting beam”. Not all fantasy books need to get detailed about magic, but if it deals with a lot of magicians and the protagonist has to learn new powers, developing a magic system with rules and limitations is an integral part of world-building. Magic can’t be an unstoppable force or else magicians would be too powerful to care about; in this story, the sources of power (books) aren’t scarce enough to create that sense of vulnerability.

I liked the idea of an uncooperative teenage boy as a hero, and several characters brim with personality. I found Max, the grandpa, and the librarian particularly charming.  The Cornerstone’s strengths are its characterization, wit, and entertaining commentary. Unfortunately, the humour didn’t work for me in the framework of a fantasy adventure.

The pacing is too brisk when there should’ve been more world-building, and it drags in uneventful scenes because much of the prose is dedicated to humourous aside commentary. It tries to go for an anachronistic style of humour similar to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I’m a fan of humourous SF/F like Douglas Adam’s The Hitchiker’s Guide series and Terry Prachett’s Discworld, but this book often misses the punch line:

Just how many Wordsmiths and Dwellers could be taken defeat before being overwhelmed and taken prisoner?

It turns out the answer was 42.

The humour is supposed to come from The Hitchiker’s reference, but the original 42 joke is about the absurdity of the universe and the futility of grand questions. If 42 could meaningfully quantify something, it defeats the point of the joke.

Great satiric SF/F books play with genre tropes while adding new ideas to the mix. Max belittles the overused fantasy tropes that he encounters, yet The Cornerstone doesn’t act on its genre-awareness. It follows the “boy becomes a wizard to save the world” connect-the-dots with a plodding predictability. Perhaps the story’s inability to breathe new life into old tropes deserves the protagonist’s condescension, but neither endeared itself to this fantasy reader.

There’s nothing wrong with the classic “boy becomes the chosen one” plot if there are other engaging elements, like with the great world-building found in The Tales of Alvin Maker and the Harry Potter series. The relationship between the parallel worlds is original, but most of the fantasy elements feel like placeholders (insert monster here, insert secondary fantasy world here) rather than a world to get to know. Again, this problem is rooted in the book’s tendency to summarize rather than show.

I’ve been looking at other reviews and it seems like this review is the most critical. I think it’s because I was looking for a solid fantasy book first and a humourous read second. I felt disappointed with how it handled fantasy tropes and I don’t think it contributes much to the genre. The Cornerstone is a worthwhile read if the humour hits you in all the right places. But if you’re looking for a satisfying fantasy read, I suggest you look elsewhere.

Other reviews of this book: All Metaphor, Malachi; Booked Up

You might like this if you like…
British humour; anachronistic pop culture references; boy becomes wizard and saves world; magical literature (literally)

While I’m not a fan of this book, Spalding is an entertaining writer. His other books, such as Life… With No Breaks, have been receiving great reviews and have sold over 10,000 copies this year. While I’m not sure if I want to read him for fantasy yet, I’m interested in his other books for humour. If you like British humour and wry commentary, I wouldn’t hesitate to check out his other titles.  

The Last Man on Earth Club by Paul R. Hardy (2011)

Smashwords / Amazon / Author’s Site

4/5 stars

Description:
Therapy groups support people traumatised by a common issue, such as cancer, sexual abuse, or PTSD suffered in war. This therapy group is for people who were the last survivors of their world.

Each of them was rescued from a parallel universe where humanity was wiped out. They’ve lived through nuclear war, zombie hordes, machine uprisings, mass suicide and more. They’ve been given sanctuary on the homeworld of the Interversal Union, and placed with a therapist who works with survivors of doomed worlds.

No one has lost as much as they have. No one has suffered as they have. Their only hope is each other.

Review:
How would you like your apocalypse served? Zombie? Nuclear? Machine war? Genocide? Combustion into ash? Mass suicide induced by alien energy beings?  Well, you get the all-in-one combo with this book.

The Last Man on Earth Club explores the experiences of six apocalypse survivors from six parallel Earths. It’s examined through the therapy sessions run by Dr. Asha Singh, where she treats the survivors recovering on the homeworld of the Interversal Union (IU). The IU is like a multiverse UN where it provides aid to all the parallel Earths, because apparently the end of the world is happening somewhere all the time. While it’s told from the doctor’s first person POV, it often reads like third-person as she often takes the role of a detached observer, and we learn of the patients’ experiences through their dialogue and progress in therapy.

It’s an unusual concept, but it works. The tone is brooding yet clinical, creating an effective contrast to the horrifying apocalypses described by the survivors. It’s not a fast-paced page turner, but it will hold your attention throughout all 170,000 words. The real nature of the apocalypses and the survivors’ experiences are revealed slowly, and each apocalypse experience is memorable with its own set of conflicts to grapple with.

The six survivors are well-developed characters with distinct personalities. Their interactions, conflict, and growth drive the narrative of the story. While they have severe problems and their quarrels can get over the top, they are sympathetic characters and they don’t come off as melodramatic. This is a character-driven story that really makes the connections between adversity, suffering, and healing.

I liked the parallels to contemporary international regimes. The Interversal Union’s resources are strained by the amount of apocalypse refugees that require their need. There’s an organization that parallels the International Criminal Court, and the characters are polarized in their attitudes towards justice, revenge, and prosecuting people for genocide. These real world parallels make the survivors’ ordeals even more compelling–resulting in an emotionally powerful novel that’s never short of ideas worth reflecting on.

My suspension of disbelief was stretched with one survivor’s world where half the population had superpowers. This world had a lot of calamities and bioengineered abominations that came out of some seemingly nonsensical experiments. There are some moments where this book sacrifices practicality for Rule of Cool (or more precisely, Rule of Nightmare Fuel), and it would have been nice if multiverse-travel was explained further. But these are minor criticisms of a very solid science fiction work.

The Last Man on Earth Club is highly recommended, especially for fans of dystopian and apocalyptic literature. If you like the first few chapters and want to learn more about the characters, then go for it, and it only gets better from there. It’s a dark, original, and intelligent science fiction book that continues to give me some food for thought, and also perhaps a little hope.

Other reviews of this book: Sift Book Reviews, Bookish Ardour

You might like this if you like…
Dystopian and apocalyptic fiction, character-driven science fiction, crapsack worlds, less action and more reflection

You can read a neat interview with the author on Bookish Ardour. Hardy also has an interesting blog post about narratives in apocalypse fiction, explaining a bit of the background behind this book and its unique concept. I also recommend reading something more uplifting before and after you read this novel, lest you get too introspectively broody. The survivors are neat to read about, but you really don’t want to start feeling like them.

Exaltations by Richard Garfinkle (2009)

(Smashwords not available) / Amazon / Author’s Site

3/5 stars

Description:
Peter Refton is a hunter of human lives. Across a score and more of Earths he has caught and captured the most fascinating and pivotal people. The knight who reformed Charlemagne’s army. The bureaucrat who oversaw China’s expansion and control. The inspirer of wisdom in a million seekers of understanding. Peter Refton is that most dangerous of hunters: the biographer. He has made trophy-stories of so many, and boldly carries their lives around from world to world. Then one day, a story comes to hunt his life.

Now, caught between worlds and aided by a knight, an ancestress, a sorceress and twin warriors, Peter Refton is on a Quest to —

–To free himself from the coils of the most voracious of stories: the Quest. To fight the Quest itself — and those who told the story onto him.

Exaltations is an allegorical novel of alternate histories and fictional realities, about the ways the channels of stories affect human thought, and about love, faith, devotion, and the tyranny of quests.

Review:
This book is so meta that anything else you thought was meta would seem banal in comparison. A writer (Peter Refton) and the people who he had written biographies about are on a quest to fight Grandfather Quest, because Quest ensnared them as characters in his story. Grandfather Quest isn’t the only metaphysical character in this book, it includes heavy-hitters like Time and Fate—and all intrigue and plot their way to directing the story unfolding before the reader’s eyes. There are multiple narrators, stories absorb each other, and the scenes fly through time and space with settings that are historical, mythological, and metaphysical.

This book’s ambitious premise is commendable, and I also really enjoy reading experimental narratives. One of the reasons why I read speculative fiction is to push the boundaries of how I perceive reality-as-it-currently-is. With this book, I was expecting to look at stories and storytelling under a different light.

Exaltations has an epic worldview to match its impressive scope. I liked how it made little distinction between mythological, historical, and biographical stories because over time, they really do become the same thing. The inclusion of mythologies and persons outside of the Western world added a breadth and depth to its vision. The Chinese ancestress and the celestial bureaucracy that she belongs to are especially well-conceived, and there are plenty of allusions to stories from other cultures including Indian, Scandinavian, and Greek.

I have mixed feelings about this book. The ideas, characters, and settings in of themselves are interesting–but I’m not as thrilled with how they were written. Exaltations is full of riddles and power-wrestling between characters both physical and metaphysical, which by itself could be fascinating—but it wasn’t engaging for the most part.

The characters are interesting (even the metaphysical ones), but they all seemed so static and invulnerable. It’s sort of like they could be outmaneuvered in the one scene, but none of that mattered, because they could be reconstituted in anew in the next. That would be fine if the focus wasn’t on how they were trying to struggle out of story A or story B, but that struggle is the focus and the cause for all the action. The characters live on in an eternal limbo of changing scenes without any of the events changing them as characters. My favourite scene was when Fate created a different reality where their individual conflicts ended up badly for them, and I wish there were more scenes like this where the power of abstract forces could be felt on the individual level. Again this could be subjective as I tend to like character-driven fiction, but I thought that in order to explore how stories affect human experiences, the cause and effect is best shown and not merely talked about.

There are many sections where the bodiless story-characters discuss riddles and Big Concepts. They outline unique spatial models to visualize the relationships between ideas, stories, and lives, but they didn’t get me to think about those concepts differently. I was really hoping to have my ideas challenged, but instead I felt like I mostly read wordplay.

There are brilliant scenes and ideas, and I highlighted a number of passages to further ruminate over, but I can’t say I was satisfied with the entire experience. I love the subject matter, the characters, and the concept of reading a story that’s being fought over by different writers… but ultimately I didn’t connect much with most of the scenes in the book itself. I’m perfectly willing to entertain the idea that I just didn’t “get it” or had the wrong approach with this read, and so I’m settling for a somewhat non-committal three stars.

If you find the book’s description interesting, liked the sample, and aren’t afraid of an experimental narrative full of scenes where bodiless speakers discuss Big Ideas with the Important Concepts capitalized—then give it a go. I’m interested to see what others think of this book, and I hope that they will find it more engaging than I did.

You might like this if you like…
Experimental narratives; mind screws; meta commentary about stories and storytelling; Time, Fate, and Other Abstract Ideas

Garfinkle has another intriguing speculative fiction book called Celestial Matters. It’s a hard SF/alternate history book where Ancient Greek science is taken as literal fact, and everything moves according to Aristotlean and Taoist physics and such. It was nominated for the Nebula award back in 1998. It’s not available in ebook form, but you can check it out in various paper forms on Amazon.

The Sable City by M. Edward McNally (2011)

Smashwords / Amazon / Author’s Site

4/5 stars

Description:
The Trade Houses of the Miilark Islands control the shipping lanes linking four diverse continents across the blue vastness of the Interminable Ocean. The Houses are represented abroad by the Guilders; men and women skilled in business and burglary, salesmanship and swordplay, merchandising and musketry.

Tilda Lanai has trained for years to take her place among them, but now the House she is to serve is imperiled by the sudden death of the House Lord. Scenting blood in the water, rival Houses begin to circle. The desperate search for an exiled heir takes Tilda across a war-torn continent and to the gates of the Sable City, where centuries ago dark magic almost destroyed the world.

Along with a sinister sorceress, a broken-hearted samurai, and a miscreant mercenary long on charm but lousy with a crossbow, Tilda must brave the demon-infested ruins to find the heir who may yet save her House.

Review:
The Sable City is a fun and refreshing D&D epic fantasy romp set in the 14th century. There’s muskets and magic, and dwarves and samurai. Blood gets spilt along the way due to encounters with nefarious demon hordes and such, but a wry sense of humour is maintained throughout the book.

The book grabbed my attention from the first page and I found it hard to put down, which is a bit of a problem considering its epic word count of 183,000. Hence, be warned. It first starts as a quest for two, then a diverse cast of characters are introduced; their paths get tangled and it builds up to a fun dungeon-crawl and boss fight. I’d like to talk about some of the twists and surprises, but I won’t spoil the fun for you.

While the characters don’t deviate from the common fantasy types (kleptomaniac rogue, gruff dwarf, snarky mage, antisocial melee guy, female healer, … even the novel samurai isn’t characterized beyond stoic), they’re very likeable, lively, and sympathetic. I cared about them as real individuals and desired to see their stories through. There aren’t any faux action or TSTL heroines here as Tilda and the other women are skilled and resourceful. There’s plenty of moxie and quipping to go around.

McNally develops a rich and detailed world full of history. It pays greater attention to resource wars, changing boundaries, and taxes than other stories with this fantasy setting. It’s a world where an accursed city of doom opens up… and the first thing that happens is that hobgoblins levy taxes on any treasure carried out. It’s dungeons and business.

One of The Sable City’s greatest strengths is its energetic tone and sense of humour. The characters have their troubles and despair, so while it has its poignant moments, it never gets too serious for its own good. It plays with some fantasy tropes while keeping the reader immersed in the story, and it strikes this balance masterfully.

The book’s weakness lies in the “building” of world-building. The first fifth is difficult to read because of the massive infodumping about the world. It made me feel like I was reading a game world wiki than a novel, but once you’re past the infodumping, it’s smooth sailing and turns out to be a really fun read. I think it could still benefit from more editing to fix excessive exposition and some awkward early scenes–but the way it is now, it’s still a great 4 star book.

There are a few anachronistic phrases (like “teamster”) and moments where I felt like I was playing an RPG instead of reading a novel. Its preoccupation with equipment and armour can only be described as obsessive, a mage attempts to cast Know History, and the party has a penchant for climbing up towers full of mooks just because the towers are there. But the quirks work well with the tone and story, so I just find them charming.

Due to the beginning 20% of ridiculous infodumping, I advice readers approach to that section with some blinders on if you’re overwhelmed by the details. Once you’re past that, it greatly improves and reveals itself as a rewarding and fun dungeons & dragons romp. I highly recommend The Sable City if you’re looking for an entertaining epic fantasy adventure.

Other reviews of The Sable City: Ficsation

You might like this if you like…
Epic fantasy with a wry sense of humour, Dungeons & Dragons with the added bonus of Muskets & Samurai, Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura (yeah, don’t expect those muskets to go very far here either), some really entertaining descriptions of equipment and armour

Death of a Kingdom, book two of the Norothian Cycle series, is coming out later this month. You can find the latest updates on the Sable City Facebook page. 

 After reading this book, I had the deep desire to start a new character in Arcanum with a gun-toting beardless dwarf. People who read The Sable City will understand why. Yes, Arcanum is an old isometric-perspective RPG. No, I haven’t jumped on the Dragon Age bandwagon yet, but you can make a beardless dwarf on there too.

The Karma Booth by Jeff Pearce (2011)

Smashwords / Amazon / Gallivant Books

4/5 stars

Description:
The Karma Booth: execute the murderer in one booth, bring their victim back to life in the other. Seems like the perfect miracle machine, right?

Only the victims don’t return exactly the same, the Booth isn’t as predictable as expected, and Iran’s got one. On top of the ethical dilemmas, of course.

Ethics consultant and ex-diplomat Timothy Cale is hired by the U.S. government to investigate the Booth and its effects. Cale and his partner, London police detective Crystal Anyanike, must stop a powerful psychopath on an international killing spree while searching for the elusive billionaire behind the Booth’s invention, the one man with the answers to all their questions…

Review:
The Karma Booth is a Michael Crichton style techno-thriller with a healthy dose of body horror. It’s set in the near future with the focus on the new resurrection technology, as the globe-trotting protagonists try to stop different factions from using the Booth for their own ends.

While there’s a lot of SF with themes about reincarnation and planes of existence (Philip Jose Farmer’s Riverworld comes to mind), this work provides a twist as it’s placed in the context of 21st century world events and demographic trends. There’s a lot of ideas to chew on and it never runs out of surprises. I also appreciate how the body horror is introduced subtly in the scenes, which made it effective and even more disturbing.

The the “international” part of international intrigue is well done. I haven’t read as much military and spy thrillers because sometimes the neocolonialism of many American and British characters rub me the wrong way, but The Karma Booth isn’t hampered by this at all. The narration moves smoothly on an international scale between Cale and the various victims and criminals, with enough detail to make each setting and point of view character feel authentic.

I like how the realistic the protagonists are, which is a refreshing change in this genre. Cale as a US (ex)diplomat has sensible skill set, as he is always at the disadvantage during physical altercations and often screws up. He is also worldly not just the elitist sense, but also in the balanced upgraded common sense sort of way, which I appreciate in any person–fictional or not.

The Karma Booth could be stronger in its pacing and characters. It doesn’t become a serious page-turner until at the halfway point. Pearce takes an exposition-heavy approach to world-building; it’s vivid and done well for each scene, but somewhat holds back the overall momentum. I also find the protagonists distant and uninteresting–they sometimes seem to exist just to put the puzzle pieces together for the reader’s convenience. But none of that kept me from turning the page anyway. The world going to crap, the body horror, and the metaphysical dread were more than enough to keep me reading the book through the night.

I recommend this book. If the premise sounds interesting to you, read the sample and don’t hesitate to buy if it pulls you in. Any drawbacks it has are minor to the overall package of a stimulating Science Fiction/Horror thriller read. I know that I’ll be re-reading a number of my favourite scenes, simply because they are awesome and creepy as hell.

You might like this if you like…
Michael Crichton, Philip Jose Farmer’s Riverworld, international intrigue, body horror, metaphysical dread resulting in fitful sleepless nights

P.S. Pearce has other SF books available. I haven’t read any of them yet, but Reich TV caught my eye and The Scattering is scheduled to review it in a few months. It’s an alternate history novel that explores how broadcasting could have changed Nazi Germany. It follows a young George Orwell as a correspondent uncovering a Nazi plot, because them Nazis have a terrifying new weapon in their hands. I don’t know about you, but that sounds like a recipe of awesome to me. Why don’t you sample Reich TV too since you’re already over at the Gallivant Books site?

Added on May 15: SF blogger Matt Heckler (Android Dreamer) has posted a five star review of Reich TV. If you haven’t checked out any of Pearce’s books yet, you’re totally missing out.