Book Review: "Seed" by Rob Ziegler

I've heard it said of late in the book world that the term "post apocalyptic" has become overused and trite; it's "over" as far as literary trends go. I disagree wholeheartedly with this assessment, as someone who loves to read and has written more than one tale of a future world of war and desperation. Even were that not the case, there's really no term other than gloriously post apocalyptic to describe Rob Ziegler's first book, Seed, a thrilling novel about the harsh future of the Human Race.

Severe climate change forces humanity in North America into a yearly migration pattern to plant crops in the North when the winter is over, then move back South to avoid the freezing weather extremes in the winter. These specially designed, genetically programmed seeds that withstand such a harsh environment all come form Satori, a strange and insular living compound built on top of what was Detroit.

Brood and his strange younger brother, Pollo, are migrant con men scratching out a living in competition with La Chupacabra, a massive organized crime ring preying on migrants. When they hear of a strange woman from Satori, the Corn Mother, who has defected and is starting an open settlement, Brood and Pollo are caught up in the search for this new little Eden. Brood makes it. But Pollo is swept off to Satori itself, with severe consequences.

Meanwhile Doss, an agent for the defunct U.S. government, is sent to find the Corn Mother. If the government can capture her and her genetic technology, and lessen their crippling dependency on Satori, they may have a chance to regain some influence. But stuck between Satori and La Chupacabra, Doss finds herself caught up in the fight of her life alongside Brood and an army of tough-luck child soldiers.

While Doss and Brood make their way toward the Corn Mother and each other, another part of the story unfolds within Satori itself: Sumedha, one of the genetically engineered humanoids who oversee Satori, searches for a genetic mutation that would allow humans to survive the harsh planetary climate like Satori does. Pursuing this genetic graft though will have severe consequences for Satori as a living thing, as well as bringing together Doss, Brood, Pollo and Sumedha to determine Satori's future and the future of humanity.

Even though the characters from each of these story branches don't come together until the very end, I felt the connection between them very keenly. Three very different protagonists with points of view that vary significantly all orbited around the central issue of Satori's presence and what it meant, lending complexity to the story without giving most of it away. A particular point of interest to me in this vein was the open animosity between Brood and La Chupacabra, often ending in blood, and how it was juxtaposed with Doss's status as a figure very well respected by the gang. She is even gifted by the gang's leader with two young Chupe soldiers as bodyguards.

Zeigler also does a wonderful job of creating a mentality for a hopeless migrant population entirely dependent on something that they fear, hate, envy, and don't understand: Satori. To keep themselves going they turn to crime, to drugs, to religion; to anything that will keep them going for one more day. The idea of the Corn Mother, leaving Satori to set up a new beacon of hope for migrant people, fell perfectly into this pattern of the search for something mystical and better.

I will say that if you don't speak Spanish, you'll have a hard time understanding most of the migrants, particularly Brood and Pollo, and members of La Chupacabra.

The complexity of Satori, a living building perfectly designed as a closed system to withstand the harsh environment, is truly brilliant and more than a little bit fascinating. Add to that the question of life versus sentience, and what a lack of sentience means for a living thing, and you've got an important ethical puzzle cleverly woven into an action-packed thrill ride of blood, guts, glory and desperation.

If you like Ender's Game-type moral and political complexity but are ready for something grittier and more visceral, I highly recommend Seed by Rob Ziegler. It was released in 2011, and is available now in both hardback and paperback. Just look for the awesome and distinctive cover art at your favorite local bookstore!

PSA: Behind the Curtain at Amazon

As a bookseller at a bricks-and-mortar community bookstore and a "localvore" in general, I am hugely biased when it comes to the question of Amazon.com and its business practices. But even from a journalistic viewpoint, Amazon is not the civic-minded giant that it pretends to be. The Seattle Times (which is Seattle, Washington's most prominent newspaper and is located in Amazon's hometown) did some digging into Amazon and came up with the following four-part series, which I hope that you as a consumer will take the time to read.

Read about Amazon here.

Again, on behalf of myself and booksellers everywhere, thank you for supporting your small community bookstores.

Book Review: "The Arrivals" by Melissa Marr

What do you get when you combine time travel, travel between worlds, Egyptian tombs, vampires, and the Wild West? The answer, my friends, is the latest novel from Melissa Marr. And as eclectic as it sounds, it works. Mostly.

Kitty and Jack, a brother and sister from a rough Western town, have spent almost thirty years in the Wasteland, an alien world full of strange and often dangerous creatures. They don't know how or why they were brought here, but at least they're not alone; others like them from different times and places have been mysteriously transported to the Wasteland as well. The natives don't go out of their way to bother them, but neither are they an accepted part of the community. The only thing that the Arrivals all seem to have in common is that each of them, intentionally or not, has killed someone before in their lives.

Kitty and Jack look after their fellows as well as they can, while trying to steer them away from Ajani, an Arrival who exploits the Wasteland and its native people for personal gain and pursues Kitty with a disturbing singlemindedness. Tensions between Kitty and Jack's small group and Ajani have always been high, but when Chloe is suddenly swept into the Wasteland from our modern day, her presence changes everything and will lead to a final showdown with Ajani and his empire.

Let me first say that this is a really good story. It's simple, it's very creative, it involves lots of action and romance that doesn't feel smutty; the plot progression is so smooth that I didn't even notice its movement until I was already being swept along with it. The story doesn't really get started until Chloe shows up though, and so the first part of the story (which takes place in the Wasteland) was a little bit directionless. It set up a few important things, like Kitty and Jack's personalities and Kitty and Edgar's relationship, and the unusual way in which death works for the Arrivals (sometimes, six days after being killed, Arrivals wake up again. Sometimes, they don't). But I felt like I was just waiting for the story to begin until about chapter five, which was frustrating.

Ajani's character makes a really great bad guy, the perfect foil to Jack even down to questions of self-image and philosophy of existence. These are very important but subtly expressed, implied even. The plot is simple and straightforward but it is the complexity of the characters that make this an interesting read.

And as fun as it was to see so many different genre types thrown together into one book, there were some parts in which Marr wandered a little too far off the beaten track. The result of drawing from too many different detail origins (like in the naming of Wasteland creatures, where she pulls from everything from Norse folklore to psychological conditions to Biblical names. Or the use of an Egyptian spell in the middle of everything to open up a portal between worlds). The result was a cluttered feeling, like there was no common thread running through the book, origins-wise. Even an alien point of commonality would have felt more helpful. Again I point you toward the characters to pull the fraying random edges of the story together and carry them through to the conclusion.

*SPOILER ALERT*
I really did like that at the end after Ajani was defeated, the Arrivals didn't just all happily go home to their own times and places; the rules of the wormhole still applied. I also really liked how Kitty's telepathy and affinity for some of the Wasteland's denizens were worked into the plot. It was, again, indicative of a subtlety that was lacking in the collage of origins in the Wasteland setting.

So. If you're ready for an awesome, character-driven tale of good and evil, you want a story that's just plain fun to read, and you love a good cross-genre novel, pick up a copy of The Arrivals at your favorite local bookstore. It was just released this month.

Book Review: "A Spark Unseen" by Sharon Cameron

Sharon Cameron first came to my attention as an author when I read her first book, The Dark Unwinding, last fall. I fell in love with it, finished it in two days, and have been combing through piles of Advance Reader Copies ever since, looking for the next installment of the story. Welp, I finally found it, and it's called A Spark Unseen.

But before I tell you about this second book in the series, let me introduce you to our protagonist, Miss Katherine Tulman, as I first met her in The Dark Unwinding.  She was then the orphaned ward of her aunt Alice in London, where she was little better than a servant. Her only goal in life was to secure enough funds of her own to escape her aunt and useless cousin, and that goal began to seem possible when Katherine was sent to Stranwyne Keep, her grandmother's estate, on Alice's business. The estate had been held by Katherine's uncle, her father's brother, for years. But rumor had been circulating that he had lost his mind, and so Alice jumped on the opportunity to secure the estate for her own son. She did this by sending Katherine to observe her uncle and attest to his lunacy upon her return to London. In exchange, Aunt Alice would ensure that Katherine was not completely destitute.

Katherine is determined to send her uncle "Tully" away to an asylum and finally win her freedom from the vile Aunt Alice. But once she arrives at Stranwyne, she discovers an entire world built around her rather unique uncle. The townsfolk think of him kindly, despite his many oddities and reclusive nature, and the town's commerce is thriving with the pottery that is produced there. The estate is well-managed, and in no real need of Aunt Alice's intervention. Indeed, Katherine becomes more and  more aware of what she would be destroying should she choose to put her uncle in an asylum, as she well could. But the marvels that he designs in his workshop with the help of the handsome but aloof Lane fascinate her, as they do Ben Aldridge, who is studying Uncle Tully's creations and how they work.

As her time at Stranwyne continues, Katherine becomes more and more convinced that Uncle Tully must not be committed. But as her certainty grows, she becomes less and less sure of herself, and her strange bouts of lost memory and strange states of mental vacancy worsen. Is she losing her own mind just as she gains the trust and possibly love of Uncle Tully's closest caretakers (including Lane, a silent boy named Davy and his bunny, and the dour Aunt Bit)? Will she be packed off to an asylum just as poor Uncle Tully?

*SPOILER ALERT* I'm happy to report, dear reader, that she is not. In fact, it turns out that poor Katherine is being drugged with opium by the seemingly nice Ben Aldridge. He is actually a French spy, who plans on using Uncle Tully's innovations as the basis for a new weapon that we would today most closely liken to a torpedo. After nearly killing Katherine and flooding the lower village as well as part of Stranwyne Keep, Ben tries to make his escape with Uncle Tully's prototype device. However, Katherine manages to blow up his small boat as he's making his getaway. Ben is presumed dead, although his body is not recovered. In the fallout from all the intrigue and Katherine's refusal to go along with Aunt Alice's plan to take over Stranwyne, several things happen that prove important in A Spark Unseen: Aunt Alice comes to Stranwyne for an update and finds that Katherine and Lane are a couple of sorts. This is troubling since Katherine is a lady and Lane a servant. Additionally, Katherine discovers that her father left her a very large inheritance, and that Aunt Alice never had much of a hold on her to begin with. Katherine becomes the steward of Stranwyne Keep with the help of Mr. Babcock, the estate's solicitor. But this happy new life is clouded by the arrival of Mr. Wickersham, an agent of the British government. Troubled by Ben Aldridge's actions and by what the French could be planning, Mr. Wickersham enlists Lane with his French heritage to travel to France and spy for the British.

This is where A Spark Unseen picks up, with Katherine safely in charge of a once again thriving Stranwyne Keep and her uncle happily at play with his mechanical creations. But there has been no word from Lane in months, and most of the household has lost hope that he is still alive. After two men attempt to kidnap Uncle Tully out of Stranwyne, Mr. Wickersham arrives with the intention of bringing Katherine and Uncle Tully to London to continue work on a British prototype of a torpedo. Uncle Tully, in his mental state, does not react well to the new and unknown. So to ensure that he does not become a lab rat to the British government, Katherine and her faithful maid Mary contrive to fake Uncle Tully's death and take him away to Paris. Of course in addition to protecting her uncle, Katherine is determined to find Lane. But the situation is much more complicated than she imagines, and soon she's in over her head with both French and British spies, nosy English neighbors, a missing Mr. Babcock, the Emperor of France, Ben Aldridge, and still no sign of Lane. For just how long can one hide someone as brilliant as Uncle Tully in a city like Paris?

Please, please, please don't be fooled by the covers on these books. They look like ditzy teen romances, yes, but they belie the intricate story within. Katherine is a strong female protagonist who sometimes gets in over her head, but recognizes the hopelessness of anything other than slogging onward, and Mary is a wonderful, endearing friend and coconspirator to Katherine. In addition to Lane (who is still self-righteous enough to annoy me sometimes but it works well in context) and Mr. Babcock, a host of new characters is introduced including Frenchmen Henri and Jean Baptiste, and Josef, the return of Ben Aldridge under a different name, and the revelation of Mrs. Hardcastle as an ally.

The introduction of electricity to Uncle Tully's work is another stroke of genius, although not as much happened with it as I would have imagined until the final scene with Uncle Tully and Ben Aldridge. But I have a feeling that it will be playing a larger role in the next book, as will Lane's heritage. Ben's near insanity was very well written, and entirely believable. Similarly believable were Lane's actions while he was missing, although again here his attitude about not being good enough for Katherine made me "harumph" and shake my head in disapproval.

Uncle Tully in himself is a magnificent character, not just because he provides a focal point for the evolving story but because of who he is. If I had to make a guess, I'd diagnose Uncle Tully with some form of autism. He is brilliant and often single-minded in his work, creating the most fascinating machines from inside his own head. In addition, he has a preoccupation with time and numbers, and loves clocks, Lane, Katherine (whom he calls "Simon's baby" in reference to his brother, Katherine's father) and Marianna, who was Uncle Tully's mother. He is sweet and endearing but also sometimes frightening in his reactions to things that he perceives as "not right" and to things that interrupt his personal schedule. Katherine's struggle to understand and provide for her uncle are rewarded with the appreciation she develops for him and his talents, and the eventual demonstrations of love that he shows her. It's a beautiful sort of relationship that is often overlooked by popular literature, and I give an (extra) tip of my hat to Cameron for depicting it so beautifully.

So I tell you, get up and go find yourself a copy of The Dark Unwinding as soon as your favorite local bookstore opens! If you're a sucker for steampunk and Victorian England like I am, you'll adore it. And while you're at it, check out the inspiration behind Stranwyne Keep here at Sharon Cameron's website! The second book in the series, A Spark Unseen, will be released in October of this year. Check with your bookstore to find out about preorders! 

Book Review: "Queen's Gambit" by Elizabeth Fremantle

King Henry VIII is probably best remembered for his string of six unfortunate wives and for the rift he created between the Crown and the Catholic church with his reformation attempts. This book by Elizabeth Fremantle addresses both defining issues, primarily from the perspective of Katherine Parr, King Henry's sixth and final wife. After the death of her second husband Katherine is summoned to court to serve one of the king's "illegitimate" daughters. She never imagines, over thirty years old, that she will be the one to catch the king's eye and be chosen as his next wife. But with the aging king progressively more unpredictable and prone to bouts of rage and senility, Katherine's life hangs by a thread as the tides of court intrigue swirl around her.

But Katherine doesn't want to be just another docile woman under the thumb of her monarch husband. She is a fervent religious reformer, reading banned books and writing some of her own religious thoughts, and treads a fine line between playing the good wife and trying to convince Henry to promote more reform. But such progressive thinking earns Katherine some powerful enemies within the king's inner circle, and they will use whatever sway they have to try and oust her from King Henry's good graces. And Katherine's enduring and forbidden love for the courtier Thomas Seymour may provide them with the ammunition they need to seal her fate.

Fremantle uses real historical figures from the court of King Henry VIII to tell the story of a strong, smart, determined woman trying to blaze a trail of reformation in a world where women had no power. Katherine's perspective in the story is complemented by the perspective of Dorothy Fownten, one of the queen's servants. This creates an interesting "Upstairs/Downstairs" feel to the whole novel. It also serves to deepen Katherine's eventual legacy beyond her title and her heir, to imagine the impact she had on the people immediately around her, servants and peers alike.

While many of the details of personal relationships during this time period are lost down the well of history, Fremantle creates a very believable web of friendships and rivals, with many of them intertwining and overlapping. While the author openly admits that she has taken the liberty of fabricating many of the relationships as she imagines they would have been, I found the friendship between Katherine and Huick, a court physician, to be particularly endearing. Their kinship is a silver thread woven throughout the novel's entirety, the bright spot in some of the darkest situations.

**SPOILER ALERT** I found it frustrating, however, that the strong convictions about religious reform and education that Katherine had at the beginning of the book disappear as the novel continues. I understand that she must have been feeling worn down and threatened at every turn, but to have her turn into a weak woman waiting for her own demise, whose only wish in the world turns out to be having a baby, was a disappointment. I find fault here not with the facts, but in the presentation of Katherine's personality change. It is so complete that by the end of the book there is not a trace of the adventurous protagonist who caught my attention in the beginning. Instead, she just wants to be a wife and mother. I'm not saying that these are not admirable goals for a woman in any time period; they are just a far cry from her initial character presentation, especially in that she had no additional aspirations.

Anyone who appreciates detailed and engaging historical court intrigue, where some of the most subtle plays have the most profound consequences, will be blown away by Queen's Gambit. The sincere personal relationships that form even in the midst of King Henry's violent court make for a very compelling read. Queen's Gambit was released on June 18th and is available at your favorite independently owned bookstore now.

Book Review: "The Scrivener's Tale" by Fiona McIntosh

I'll be the first to admit that "fantasy" is an awfully broad category. But McIntosh's latest novel The Scrivener's Tale truly does fit squarely into the realm of "classic fantasy." Don't immediately start thinking of The Sword of Shannara or the Dragonlance Chronicles, though; this isn't your typical magic-wielding situation. Instead, picture this: Gabriel, a former psychiatrist living in modern-day Paris, agrees to see one last patient as a special favor to a friend. But the patient who appears to be a lost, delusional girl turns out to be a demonic minion who uses the unsuspecting Gabriel to somehow transport both of them to another world. Now Gabriel must hide his consciousness inside his own body while the minion and her demon use it to wreak havoc on the kingdom of Pearlis.

Meanwhile the Brotherhood, an order sworn to protect the royal family of Pearlis, has become aware of the demonic threat. One of their own, Cassien, has been trained from birth to deal with such an eventuality. Now with the help of a young boy and a legendary magic wielder, it's up to Cassien to defend his princess and save Pearlis from the demon's ancient evil.

So, now you see what I mean when I say "classic fantasy." You have a princess in trouble, a handsome and peerless warrior, an unspeakable evil, world-traveling, and magic. But despite the theme, which may seem unoriginal at first glance, this was a genuinely well-written story. It did start out pretty rough, though, writing-wise. It felt like McIntosh was just so excited to get started telling the story that she had some trouble clearly articulating the setup. I had a really difficult time getting my bearings with the initial perspective of the story, and I understand McIntosh's desire as a writer to set up the background of the story from the beginning (especially since there's such a rich back story in this case) but I think this would have been better presented through the process by which the characters learn about their own past. All the prologue did for me was confuse and disorient.

But if I overlook the initial clunky start, the rest of the book was well-done and entertaining. In particular, Gabriel's character and his reaction to world travel and demonic possession were extremely believable. He was a very sympathetic character, and McIntosh did a great job writing the confusion, disbelief, outrage and disorientation that I imagine a situation like this would instill in an ordinary person just trying to go about his life.

One other glaring issue I had with the book didn't have to do with the story itself though; it was the title. Although there is a scrivener's quill involved in the book, and the question of what exactly a scrivener is gets addressed very clearly, there is no scrivener in the story. At the very tail end of the book one character expresses an interest in maybe exploring the possibility of a life as a scrivener, but I didn't feel that this tentative association justified entitling the whole book The Scrivener's Tale.

If you love classic fantasy but want a break from elves and dwarves, or if the theme of travel between worlds piques your interest, I recommend that you pick up a copy of The Scrivener's Tale by Fiona McIntosh. It was released in April and is available now at your local independent bookstore.

Book Review: "Doomed" by Chuck Palahniuk

You've probably heard the name Chuck Palahniuk before, either because you've seen the movie "Fight Club" (Palahniuk penned the original novel) or because you've read one of his twelve - yup, you read that right - other amazing and highly acclaimed novels. Doomed will be his next masterpiece, the second installment of his take on Dante Alghieri's Divine Comedy.

Madison Desert Flower Rosa Parks Coyote Trickster Spencer, the only child of two pop-culture idols, died and made her way through the (really gross) depths of Hell in Damned, the prequel to Doomed. Now, through a freak spiritual accident on Halloween, Madison finds herself trapped in spirit form back on Earth. Through her own meddling, Madison finds to her horror that she's inspired her parents to found a new religion centered on their dead daughter, effectively damning everyone on earth to eternity in Hell. We follow Madison, through her blog posts from beyond the grave, as she explains the events that led up to her death, the subsequent founding of Boorism, and her attempts to herd the Human Race away from damnation.

The sardonic voice of Madison is a perfect vehicle for telling this story of childhood gone horribly (and hilariously) awry. From her parents' private mansions in Milan or Monte Carlo or Mogadishu to her time with her grandparents in "tedious upstate," Palahniuk bounces the reader around while somehow still miraculously managing to keep the story line together and see that it progresses at a reasonable rate. There also appears to be a "voice within a voice" present, as Palahniuk adopts the voice of a character adopting her own voice for her blog. It really is quite the impressive feat, and really shines when Madison dictates conversations that she had. They differ noticeably from her writing voice, in a subtle but distinct manner.

Another writing feature that Palahniuk consistently uses is one that I've taken the liberty of appropriating in the previous paragraph: Referring to a given home by simply giving three possible cities that begin with the same letter really brought home the nature of Madison's parents' rockstar lifestyle. This device (like "Paris or St. Petersburg or Palikir") really emphasizes the fact that they moved around so much to their various properties, place came to really not matter at all. In the midst of all this glamorous jetting around the world, Madison really had no home other than the presence of her parents, which is I think important to notice, especially when it comes to the time that she spent in "tedious upstate."

On something of a tangent, I also want to comment on how good Chuck Palahniuk is to his loyal fans. It was my privilege to work briefly with him when he did an event at the Wild Buffalo in Bellingham, and despite the long line for autographs and a time crunch to clean up after the event, he stayed until everyone had had their books signed. Additionally, he took photos and even stepped outside to say hello to a fan who couldn't get into the 21+ venue. He even signed my copy of Haunted for me:



If you're a fan of beautifully irreverent humor in the form of supernatural adventure, snarky protagonists or horribly unfortunate events that make you groan and giggle at the same time, or if you've read and liked Chuck Palahniuk's off-the-wall sense of irony, plan on buying your copy of Doomed when it's released on October 8th of this year. That gives you plenty of time to read Damned, the first book in this series, which is available at your favorite local bookstore now.