BOOK REVIEW: Stephen Carter's PALACE COUNCIL

Stephen Carter's novel Palace Council is the third in his series of "Darker Nation" mysteries. The first were The Emperor of Ocean Park and New England White, both of which I have read and reviewed previously on this blog.

I liked both of Carter's previous mysteries (although I must confess a preference for the first, simply because of the multiple chess references) and haven't picked up his fourth work of fiction, Jericho's Fall, because it is in a completely new genre which I am uninterested in (spy thriller).

Palace Council is not as good as it's two predecessors. This time, instead of a straightforward murder mystery with a pinch of political intrigue and family drama in the mix, Carter has decided to write a faux historical novel.


The two main characters are Aurelia Treene and Eddie Wesley. Aurelia marries Kevin Garland, who is the son of "perhaps the richest Negro in the United States" in the 1950s. The Garland family played central roles in Carter's first two books. Eddie is in love with Aurelia, but he's also a dedicated writer. He ends up with two National Book Awards before he's 40 and a wanderlust which has him interacting with all the major characters of the era, including Joseph P. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Edgar Hoover, Langston Hughes and many more.


However, the problem is that Carter has lost focus on what made his first two "Darker Nation" novels so interesting: they were centered around the Darker Nation! This idea is a clever concept that African-Americans have created their own, parallel social strata and power structures in America which are entangled  but distinct from the white hierarchy which rules America. It is Carter's mordant portrayal of this Darker Nation which animates his other novels and its absence in Palace Council leads to a plodding tale.


I do hope that Carter returns to his previous setting in future mysteries; for now, I would only recommend reading Palace Council for completeness. Otherwise just stop at reading The Emperor of Ocean Park and New England White, the first two in the series.


Title: Palace Council
Hardcover: 528 pages.
Publisher: Knopf.
Published: July 8, 2008.

OVERALL GRADE: B.

BOOK REVIEW: Alastair Reynolds' Absolution Gap

Alastair Reynolds' Absolution Gap is the third novel in his Revelation Space series. I was turned on to his work by Mark Chitty's Walker of Worlds blog, who is also a big fan or Peter F. Hamilton and Neal Asher, two other big British science fiction writers.

I read the first book in the Revelation Space series in Fall 2009 but have been eagerly devouring all of Reynolds works since then. See my reviews of the first two books in the trilogy, Revelation Space and Redemption Ark. In addition, there are two other novels which are set in the Revelation Space universe, Chasm City and The Prefect, both of which are excellent, well-written science fiction novels.

Surprisingly, even though Reynolds is most well-known for his original trilogy of novels set in the Revelation Space universe, they may not actually be his greatest creations.

Absolution Gap is the third and concluding book in the trilogy and features all the characteristics we have come to expect from Alastair Reynolds: dense, multi-layered plot(s), ambiguously identities of main characters, political intrigue, relativistic suspense and vast quantities of prose.

There is a 20-year gap between the events from the end of Redemption Ark and the events from the beginning of Absolution Gap. Our main protagonists Neil Clavain, the Conjoiner who defected to join Humans, Scorpio, a human-pig genetic hybrid, Ana Khouri (the main character from  Revelation Space and Redemption Ark), Skade (head of the Conjoiners and arch-nemesis of Clavain) all return and interact in ways on the planet Ararat which are exciting and horrifying (not everyone survives and I don't want to give away any spoilers here). It is nice to see characters that we are familiar with re-appearing in this third and final book of the series.

As with his other books in the Revelation Space series, the sophisticated plot of Absolution Gap also unspools in multiple time periods, due to Reynolds' insistence on no space flight greater than the speed of light combined with events that occur in different star systems.

The new characters that Reynolds introduces are terrifying and fascinating. On the planet Hela, Rashmika Els is a teenaged girl who apparently always knows when someone is telling the truth. Hela is ruled by the clearly insane Quaiche, who is a former crewmember of the Ultra spaceship Gnostic Ascension, and Grelier another crewmate who acts as Quaiche's right-hand man and enforcer. Quaiche has been infected with an indoctrination virus which makes him obsessed with Hela's star, Haldora, which appears to disappear intermittently (for fractions of a second every decades or so). He has had his eyelids removed and placed himself in a cathedral in perpetual motion so that he can (literally) keep his eyes constantly on Haldora so he doesn't miss a single vanishing. Rashmika goes to work for Quaiche and Grelier since someone with her unusual talents are invaluable.

The two storylines from Ararat and Hela intersect when the "lighthugger" Nostalgia for Infinity leaves Ararat (the Inhibitors are destroying that planet's star and are only prevented from destroying the planet itself by Clavain's old Conjoiner friend Remontoire) and everyone goes to Hela for the resolution of the story. It turns out the mystery behind Haldora's bizarre disappearing act is the existence of another alien species who may be able to help humans in the fight to stave off extinction, or who may be even worse than The Wolves.

Overall, although Absolution Gap is not as gripping as the first two installments of the trilogy, it is a reasonably high-quality conclusion to an incredibly original, well-written space opera which can be favorably compared to any of the classics in the genre of hard science fiction.

Author: Alastair Reynolds.
Title: Absolution Gap.
Length: 768 pages.
Publisher: Ace.
Date: May 31, 2005.

OVERALL GRADE: B+ (3.4/4.0).

BOOK REVIEW: Peter F. Hamilton's The Evolutionary Void

 

Peter F. Hamilton's The Evolutionary Void is the third (and final) book in the British science fiction grandmaster's Void Trilogy which started with The Dreaming Void and The Temporal Void. I was looking forward to reading this book very much and even purchased the hard copy on Amazon.com months prior to its official publication.


Hamilton is well-known for his long, intricately plotted, hard sci-fi space operas which are peopled with a dizzying number of characters. The Evolutionary Void is no exception, and it is even more complicated than his other books because it is not only the culminating work in the Void Trilogy, it also follows his earlier Commonwealth Saga books Judas Unchained  and Pandora's Star.

The Evolutionary Void picks up exactly where The Temporal Void concluded. There are multiple storylines which are instantaneously resumed which requires the reader to get up to speed very quickly. In fact, it is probably impossible to read and enjoy this book without reading the first two books (The Temporal Void and The Dreaming Void) first, and relatively recently.

The main story lines are bifurcated into action that takes place either inside or outside the Void, a spatial anomaly which can potentially expand to eliminate the known Galaxy. Inside the Void, the main character is Edeard the Waterwalker who lives in the curiously exogenous city-state of Makkathran which possesses a pseudo-feudal political structure with very limited technology but is populated with humans having telekinetic and telepathic powers. Outside the Void, 1200 years have passed since the exciting events depicted in Hamilton's Judas Unchained  and Pandora's Star. Many of the main characters from those books (Paula Myo, Ozzie Isaacs, Nigel Sheldon, Gore and Justine Burnelli and Oscar Monroe come to mind) are still around, and if you haven't read the previous duology then the reader will miss some nuances of these characters' interactions. The people outside the Void know about the goings on inside through Dreams which are shared in the gaiasphere, a galactic-wide network where properly equipped humans can share their emotional states (invented by Ozzie, of course!) with everyone. Only two people have ever been able to dream about events happening (or that have happened?) within the Void: Inigo (The First Dreamer, around whom a powerful religion called Living Dream has been formed) and the unknown Second Dreamer, who is only identified (and publicly exposed after a multi-planet manhunt) as an average Commonwealth citizen named Araminta. Araminta is a great creation, again demonstrating Hamilton's deft approach with female characters; just as Paula was the heroine of the first series, Araminta is the heroine of the second.

For someone whose reputation is built (deservingly so) on his depiction of action-packed, explosion-filled space battles and mind-blowing, futuristic technology, Hamilton does a surprisingly compelling job of telling what is essentially a fantasy tale inside the Void involving Edeard. The fantasy bits are the best part of the Void books, in my opinion. Hamilton's actually used this device of interlaced chapters of fantasy and hard science fiction before, in Fallen Dragon, and it works very very well. In fact, when the fantasy section becomes somewhat irrelevant due to an ill-chosen plot device I will not give away here, the science fiction story did not hold my attention nearly as well as my previous interest in Edeard's story and as a result I lost interest in The Evolutionary Void. This really surprised me, but it's undeniable that at some point I was just simply confused and slogging through the out-of-the-Void story, anxiously looking forward to catching up on Edeard's story inside-the-Void. When all I could look forward to was whatever Paula, Araminta, Oscar or Inigo would do next, my attention and interest flagged.

This is not to say that The Evolutionary Void is a bad book; Hamilton is an incredibly ambitious author and I think he just tried to do too much in one ridiculously large novel. (Really, the three Void books are clearly just one gigantic tale that due to the constraints of the publishing industry had to be released as three separate volumes.) This is also not surprising because Hamilton's masterwork, The Night's Dawn Trilogy, which is hands-down the best science-fiction trilogy ever written, was released as no less than 6 different books when really it is one gargantuan tale. I have to confess even reading that work one can get lost, but there the problem was that one had too many plot threads and characters one cared about. Reading the Void trilogy we have precisely the inverse problem: too few characters we care about--even characters that we had previously cared about quite a bit in the earlier duology. Of the new characters, only Araminta and Inigo are really fully drawn, with the primary villain of the piece recycled from the earlier series (The Cat). I think there was just one more hook (mystery, romance, comedy, horror) which if it had been included would have greatly strengthened my overall evaluation of this final book, and by extension the entire series. I have read both The Night's Dawn trilogy and Judas Unchained & Pandora's Star twice in their entirety; I believe I would rather re-read those than the Void trilogy (although I will probably give The Evolutionary Void another read, just for completeness).

There is still a lot of science fiction out there I have not read, such as Hamilton's own Misspent Youth, which is a standalone novel set around 1500 years before The Void Trilogy. If any of it is as creative and compelling as this sub-par (by his superlative standards!) Hamilton novel, I will be happy indeed.


Author: Peter F. Hamilton.
Title: The Evolutionary Void 
Hardcover: 704 pages.
Publisher: Del Rey. 
Date: August 24, 2010.

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: B+.
WRITING: A-.

OVERALL GRADE: (3.583/4.00) B+/A-.

BOOK REVIEW: Alastair Reynolds' Chasm City

British science fiction master Alastair Reynolds has very quickly become one of my favorite authors and Chasm City is a big part of that. Although it is not formally in the Revelation Space trilogy of Revelation Space, Redemption Ark and Absolution Gap, it is set in the same universe as those other books, like The Prefect and his short story collection Galactic North.


Specifically, Chasm City is located on the planet Yellowstone, which once featured the most advanced human civilization in Reynolds' Revelation Space universe; the planet and its environs are mentioned frequently in Revelation Space and Redemption Ark.

The main character of Chasm City is Tanner Mirabel, or at least we the reader think it is. One of the themes in Reynolds' work that I have noticed is the idea that the narrator doesn't not always know their own identity. In other words, the threat of subversion of one's individual identity is always a possibility. Tanner arrives on Yellowstone from another planet called Sky's Edge in order to kill Argent Reivich, whom he believes killed the woman he loved (who just happened to have been the wife of the crime boss Cahuella who hired Tanner to be his chief of security). This storyline appears to be a pretty straightforward revenge tale.

The second, more intriguing story is about Sky Haussman, the original colonist of Tanner's home planet Sky's Edge, who in the intervening centuries since the planet's colonization has become revered as a near God-like figure by some but a Machiavellian mass-murderer by others. Tanner has been infected with a bizarre virus which causes the infected to bleed stigmatically from the palm and to dream obsessively about the life story of Sky Haussman and the sad, bizarre tale of how Sky's Edge was colonized.

There are multiple other subplots, which are also well-written and fascinating. One of the most memorable involves a bizarre extra-terrestrial  creature which is part plant and part reptile called a hamadryad which Cahuella is obsessed with capturing and confining in his private zoo/garden. Another subplot involves a subculture in Chasm City which revolves around a particular drug called "dream fuel." This dangerous substance allows users to avoid the devastating effects of the Melding Plague (a nanotech virus which destroys all machines at a cellular level, including nanomachines that most advanced humans possess during this era and which shows up in the other Revelation Space novels).

Chasm City is the most ambitious and intricately plotted of Reynolds novels, and, in my opinion, the most successful. The threads come together in a surprising way. I thought I had figured out the secret twist about two-thirds through the novel but there was a twist on the twist which completely floored me.

Any lover of well-conceived speculative fiction who has an appreciation for other genres (especially hard-boiled detective fiction) will not be disappointed by taking the time to read Chasm City.

Author: Alastair Reynolds.

Title: Chasm City.

Length: 704 pages.
Publisher: Ace.
Date: May 27, 2003.

PLOT: A+.
IMAGERY: A.
IMPACT: A.
WRITING: A+.


OVERALL GRADE: A+/A (4.15/4.0).

BOOK REVIEW: Alastair Reynolds' Redemption Ark

Alastair Reynolds' Redemption Ark is the second novel in his Revelation Space series. I was turned on to this work by Mark Chitty's Walker of Worlds blog, who is also a big fan or Peter F. Hamilton and Neal Asher, two other big British science fiction writers.

Midway through reading the first book (see MadProfessah review) I ordered the next two books of the series from Alibris.com right away.

The best part of  Redemption Ark is the return of two of the main characters from the first book, Ana Khouri and Irina Volyova. Additionally, Reynolds introduces us to the Conjoiners, technologically advanced humans who have learned how to integrate nanotechnology with human physiology so that they have greatly increased strength and speed, machine-level mental processing capacity and speed as well as the ability to network with all other Conjoiners within range. Basically, to a Conjoiner any form of electronics is not only accessible but manipulable.

Of course, this being Reynolds, the plot of the story is the main attraction, and boy is it a doozy. Following on the events of Revelation Space, the powerful "hell class" weapons that are housed in the bowels of the 4-kilometer-long ship called Nostalgia for Infinity become the prize for a trio of very determined individuals.

The first member of the group looking for the weapons are a group of Conjoiners headed by a woman named Skade. The second group is led by Skade's previous deputy named Clavain who had defected from the group of humans called the Demarchists who are currently fighting an interstellar war against the Conjoiners when his Demarchist commander brother tried to kill him. Clavain finds out that Skade has developed a fleet of ships that can fly very close to the speed of light in order to have an "escape route" to another galaxy if the Inhibitors from Revelation Space, predatory machines (dubbed "Wolves") who exterminate species whom they detect have achieved interstellar flight, decide to eliminate humanity. The third group consists of Khouri and Volyova, who (together with archeologist Dan Sylveste) discovered the Inhibitors' purpose in the Resurgam system and currently have possession and access to the weapons in the hull of Nostalgia for Infinity. By using the hell class weapons Volyova and Khouri in the first book Revelation Space not only alerted the Inhibitors of humanity's existence but also alerted the Conjoiners of the existence and location of the hell class weapons (which they had created and lost hundreds of years before).

In addition to a race to get to Resurgam by the two Conjoiner factions, Redemption Ark features multiple asides in which Reynolds provides extensive the details of the Wolves. They turn out to be machines intelligences who have been around for billions of years and are culling life in order to save it from extinction when the Milky Way collides with the nearest galaxy in a few billion years. The characters of Volyova and Khouri are fleshed out and Clavain is also a very interesting new character.

The result is a very exciting work of very hard science fiction replete with fascinating ideas which is probably the high point in the Revelation Space trilogy.

Author: Alastair Reynolds.
Title: Redemption Ark.
Length: 704 pages.
Publisher: Ace.
Date: May 25, 2004.

OVERALL GRADE: A (4.0/4.0). 

PLOT: A+.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A.
WRITING: A.

BOOK REVIEW: Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space

Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space is the first novel I read by this British author. His work is reminiscent of another British sci-fi author, the brilliant Peter F. Hamilton. Hamilton happens to be one of my favorite writers, so it is great praise from me to compare Reynolds favorably to Hamilton.

It takes a while to get going but around page 50 or so it had sucked me in and I had great difficulty in putting the book down. By about page 200, I started looking to buy the sequels Redemption Ark and Absolution Gap on Alibris.com.

The main idea of the Revelation Space universe is that there is something, which eventually gets named the Inhibitors, that eliminates sentient species soon after they have demonstrated the ability to travel between stars. Once they have demonstrated that they can travel significant fractions of the speed of light, something completely annihilates the species and they become extinct. This explains why spacefaring humans have discovered the remains, fossils and artefacts of nearly a dozen technological species, but never a live alien. It's an intriguing premise, but it merely serves as background to the central storylines which are more character-driven.

Here is a great summary of the characters in Revelation Space written by Ryan Anderson at The Martian Chronicles blog

 The main character, Dan Sylveste is a scientist studying that civilization, driven by an unstoppable compulsion to solve the mystery of what happened to the Amarantin. Meanwhile, Ana Khouri is an assassin who has been hired by the mysterious “Mademoiselle” to kill Sylveste and prevent him from discovering the answer. A third main character, Volyova, is one of only a handful of surviving crewmembers on a starship that holds some of the most powerful weapons ever concieved. The ship is gradually being consumed by a virus emanating from their captain, who is kept frozen in stasis to slow the spread of the infection. 

I think it is pretty significant that the two of the main characters are female. Some reviewers have complained that none of the main characters are very likable, but there is no question that they are interesting and intriguing.

I really liked seeing the world through the eyes of Irina Volyova and Anna Khouri. Dan Sylveste is the most important character in terms of the Revelation Space universe, but he was not the character that most appealed to me.

The book itself is paced pretty slowly, but is well worth the time invested to unwrap the intricate, overlapping plots. It is a great introduction to the gripping, very hard sci-fi universe of Alastair Reynolds, a place any fa of real space opera will enjoy.

Author: Alastair Reynolds.
Title: Revelation Space.
Length: 592 pages.
Publisher: Ace.
Date: May 28, 2002.

OVERALL GRADE: B+/A- (3.5/4.0).
PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: B+.
WRITING: B+.

BOOK REVIEW: Joe Abercrombie's The First Law Trilogy

I first learned about Joe Abercrombie from Amazon.com, which suggested the author for people who like Patrick Rothfuss. I bought the first one at a local independent bookstore in Glendale, Mystery & Imagination Bookstore (238 N. Brand Blvd, Glendale, CA 91203, 818-545-0206) who had also turned me on to Rothfuss' The Name Of The Wind in the first place.

Abercrombie is another hard-core fantasy author like Rothfuss, with swords, wizards, duels, kings, sieges and hand-to-hand combat. Lots of hand-to-hand combat.

Although the three books are really three parts of one very long, engaging story each book also has its own story arc which allows them to be read independently (although probably not out of order).

The Blade Itself
The first book in the series introduces the trilogy's main characters, namely San dan Glokta (the heartless inquisitor and former expert swordsman who was caught and tortured by the enemies of The Union and left a crippled, bitter man), Jezal dan Luthar (the reigning expert swordsman who also happens to be a handsome, self-centered twit), Bayaz (who may or may not be a great wizard of antiquity come back to life) and Logen Ninefingers (a brutal, uncivilized Northman who has such a deadly and violent reputation his name alone makes strong warriors nervous) and The Dogman (who is currently leading Logen's band of Northern barbarian killers in his absence). Abercrombie plays with many familiar cliches of epic fantasy, often turning them on their head with obvious relish to the laugh-out-loud delight of the reader. As first books in a trilogy go, The First Law does a good job of setting up the future action while still containing enough tension and thrills itself to be a worthy read.

Before They Are Hanged
The second book is about three main story lines: Glokta is trying to save himself and the city of Dagoska while under siege by the savages from the South who openly defy The First Law (Thou Shall Not Eat The Flesh Of Men), Bayaz is leading a band of misfits to the end of the world on a quest to find an object of power to save the world from the so-called Eaters, and there is a gigantic clash of armies in the North which signals war is coming to the Union sooner rather than later. Again, Abercrombie walks a fine line between tweaking epic fantasy conventions and following them to the letter. The main strength of the book is his characterizations, which he supports by letting the reader see the internal dialogue of many of his characters which at first blush seemed to be very unprepossessing. However, once you see the world and situations (literally) through their eyes it puts a more positive spin on their actions, even when they are behaving badly. Before They Are Hanged suffers slightly from being the middle book in a trilogy, but very slightly. For me, part of that was due to the bigger role the strong female character of Ferro Maljinn plays  in this section of the story.

Last Argument of Kings
Abercrombie takes the final book and resolves all of the storylines from the second book (most of the main ones are actually resolved by the end of the second book); he also develops his characters to places the reader was almost certainly not expecting. I don't want to give away any spoilers (read the books yourself, they are well worth the time, especially if you are a fan of epic fantasy) but some of the characters that we generally believed were "bad" end up becoming "good" and some of the characters that we thought were "good" do some very bad things indeed. Besides characterization, Abercrombie's great skill is in writing fight scenes that make the reader believe one is particpiating in hand-to-hand combat or the hart of a battle right there with the characters. He really outdoes himself in that regard in Last Argument of Kings, and that alone probably makes the last book the best of the series. As before, Abercombie's main goal is to upend reader's expectations, of genre, character and story and he succeeds on many levels. That being said, there's a fourth book set in the Universe of the First Law trilogy books called Best Served Cold which I really have no interest in reading. I'm invested in these characters and have many unanswered questions, mainly "what happens next?" and "Where the heck is Logen Ninefingers?"

Author: Joe Abercrombie.
Title: The Blade Itself (The First Law, Book 1).
Length: 531 pages.
Publisher: Pyr.
Date: September 6, 2007.

OVERALL GRADE: A- (3.66/4.0).
PLOT: A.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: B+.
WRITING: A-.

Author: Joe Abercrombie.
Title: Before They Are Hanged. (The First Law, Book 2
Length: 543 pages.
Publisher: Pyr.
Date: March 25, 2008.

OVERALL GRADE: B+ (3.50/4.0).
PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: B+.
IMPACT: B+.
WRITING: A-.

Author: Joe Abercrombie.
Title: The Last Argument of Kings. (The First Law, Book 3)
Length: 639 pages.
Publisher: Pyr.
Date: September 23, 2008.

OVERALL GRADE: A/A- (3.75/4.0).
PLOT: A.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A-.
WRITING: A-.

BOOK REVIEW: Tana French's The Likeness

Tana French's The Likeness is the sequel to her stunning debut novel In The Woods (see MadProfessah review).

The Likeness is another intense "psychological thriller" in which who commits the murder is not as important to the author as the psychology of the killer (and the detective).

In this outing of the Dublin Murder Squad, which occurs roughly six months after the events depicted in  In The Woods, a body is found in a very small town outside of the big city who has a bizarre likeness to Detective Cassie Maddox, one of the main characters of the first book. Even more bizarrely, the Jane Doe has apparently appropriated an old fake identity that Cassie used to use, that of Lexie Madison, when she served on the Undercover Division under her difficult boss Frank Mackey. The new, fake Lexie has apparently been hanging out with a curious foursome of students who have taken residence in town's great manse though an inheritance and consider themselves a family.

Mackey has the brilliant but dangerous idea of hiding the information of Lexie's death from the media and her "family" and suggest that Cassie wear a wire and reprise her undercover role as Cassie, this time to try and catch the girl's killer, who is most likely to be one (or more) of the members of Lexie's new family. Her boyfriend Sam O'Neill (who also appeared in the first novel) will be the lead detective to try to solve the murder.

The story becomes incredibly emotionally taut as Cassie realizes how alike she and Lexie were in many ways, and begins to uncover some of her doppelganger's secrets as she attempts to replicate Lexie's relationship within a very odd family.

If  In The Woods was at its core a novel about the deep friendship between a man and a woman and the incipient complications that ensue, The Likeness is about the intensity of bonds that can form between families that are self-selected in adulthood. Additionally, French is able to really show the reader the psychological and emotional toll of extended undercover police work. The Likeness is another tour-de-force novel which stays with the reader for a very, very long time after the last page is read.

Title: The Likeness.
Author: Tana French.
Length: 466 pages.
Publisher: Del Rey.
Date: July 17, 2008.

OVERALL GRADE: A/A+.

PLOT: A+.
IMAGERY: A.
IMPACT: A+.
WRITING: A.

Tie for 2010 Hugo Award For Best Sci-fi Novel

The 2010 Hugo Awards were announced last weekend in Melbourne, Australia. As I expected, China Miéville's acclaimed novel The City & The City (see MadProfessah's B+ review) was the winner of the Hugo Award for Best Novel. That's not a surprise. What is a surprise is that there was another winner, despite the fact that the voting process used is preference voting (like the Oscar ballots, voters rank the nominees in order of their preference for what they want to win the prize).

The other Hugo Award winner for Best Novel is Paolo Bacigalulpi's The Windup Girl, which Time magazine listed as one of the Top 10 reads of 2009. I haven't read it, yet, but it is now on my Amazon wishlist.

The organizers of AussieCon4 have released statistics of the vote (pdf) in this year's Hugo awards and the Best Novel balloting is fascinating:

The City & The City by China Miéville (winner)	The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi (winner)
240	240
240	240
264	254
292	275
323	308
380	380

The two winners were tied in 3 of the 6 rounds, with Miéville having a lead in the unimportant middle rounds. The only rounds which are determinative are the 1st and last rounds, and there the two were completely tied. The last time there was a tie in the Hugo Award for Best Novel it was between two of my favorite books of all time, in 1993 Doomsday Book (read MadProfessah's A review) by Connie Willis and A Fire Upon The Deep (see MadProfessah's A review) by Vernor Vinge.

It should be noted that the only time there has ever been a tie in Oscar voting is in 1968 for Best Actress when Katharine Hepburn in The Lion in Winter and Barbara Streisand in Funny Girl tied. The Academy sadly does not release the results (ever!) of Oscar balloting.

BOOK REVIEW: Tana French's In The Woods

I was completely unaware of Tana French's Edgar-award winning first novel In the Woods until a friend of mine who knows I like mysteries told me I had to read it. I'm very glad of the recommendation. Having read every single one of Ian Rankin's Inspector John Rebus novels I was delighted to find a new mystery author.

The two have some similarities, in that they are both British authors who set their books in their respective countries' biggest city (Rankin in Scotland's Edinburgh and French in Ireland's Dublin). French's books are less centered around a specific main character but instead are more emotionally focussed narratives.

For example, In the Woods is the story of Rob Ryan and Cassie Maddox, two Murder Squad detectives who are investigating the horrific murder of a 12-year-old girl named Kary Devlin. The body was found in the very same woods a then-12-years-old Rob had been found 20-years before covered in blood with no memories while the two best friends he entered the woods never seen again.

In the Woods at its core is a story about the powerful bonds of friendship. The friendship between Rob and Cassie is lovingly depicted, from Rob's perspective as the narrator. The complications of a friendship between a straight man and straight woman are acknowledged and even emphasized in some ways. The other friendship that anchors the novel is the friendship between the young Rob (then called by his middle name Adam) and his two best friends, which is depicted in nostalgic flashbacks.

It becomes clearer and clearer as the novel progresses that the resolution of the recent Devlin murder involves some deep secret buried within the creepy Devlin family but that more importantly, regardless of that resolution, the lack of resolution of the old crime is weighing increasingly heavily upon Rob's psyche. In the end, Rob becomes a quintessential "unreliable narrator"  but there are other, more serious ways that Tana French breaches the contract between reader and murder-mystery author which makes In the Woods an unforgettable and thrilling read.

Author: Tana French.

Title: In the Woods

Length: 429 pages.
Publisher: Viking Adult.
Date: May 17, 2007.

OVERALL GRADE: A/A+.
PLOT: A.
IMAGERY: A+.
IMPACT: A.
WRITING: A.

BOOK REVIEW: Alastair Reynolds' The Prefect

Despite never having heard his name before a year ago, British science fiction writer Alastair Reynolds has turned into one of my favorite authors.

In the space of about 8 months (December 2009 through July 2010), I have read five of his novels, all of which are set in his Revelation Space universe. Those books are (in the order I read them) Revelation Space, Redemption Ark, Chasm City, Absolution Gap and The Prefec.

The Revelation Space universe is at least as interesting as Peter F. Hamilton's Confederate and Commonwealth universes. The two British authors have similar ideas: humanity is flourishing hundreds of years in our future, we have met a few aliens and technology (especially in computing) has advanced in particular ways. Both universes feature a way for humans to "cheat death." In Hamilton's, a memory cell which contains the entire personality can be backed up and then inserted into a cloned copy of the original person, and people can generally select their age, sex and overall physical appearance. In Reynolds' universe a back-up of the personality can be made and then installed in either an "alpha-level" or "beta-level"simulation which runs on a computer. Alpha-level simulations are controversial, they are considered independent entities in their own right; beta-level simulations are more common and are more likely to be replications of the original human personality they were based on.

Reynolds' stories are darker, more cerebral and intricately plotted with secrets within secrets to be revealed to the reader during the execution of the plot. Hamilton stories are usually more straight-up swashbuckling military space operas, thrilling adventures that greatly entertain. Hamilton is still my favorite writer, but Reynolds gives him a run for his money!

A theme of Reynolds' work is the inclusion of complicated choices (often between multiple, equally bad scenarios) that his characters have to make and his obsession with identity and misdirection. Oftentimes a central question in the books is discovering the solution to a central mystery, and several times that mystery involves the "true" identity and motives of a central character.

The Prefect is set in a time period between the events of Revelation Space and Chasm City, set in the Glitter Band, a group of 10,000 human-made habitats set in orbit near the planet Yellowstone in the Sky's Edge star system. The title character is Tom Dreyfus, who is a member of Panoply, which is basically the police force for the 100 million people who live in the Glitter Band. Panoply officers are not allowed to carry guns, because their mission is to insure the process of democracy in the band, which occurs through nearly continuous electronic plebiscites of the populace. However, The Prefect at its core is really a standard detective novel, which I like because I am also a big fan of mysteries. It is reminiscent of Reynolds' best book to date, Chasm City, which also revolves around the work of a cop.

It is also a hard sci-fi novel. The book has profoundly altered humans known as Ultras, another group of altered humans known as Conjoiners, space battles, sentient computer programs and a possibly alien entity known as The Clockmaker.

If you like "hard" sci-fi and the work of authors like Hamilton, Reynolds and Neal Asher, you will almost definitely enjoy The Prefect. I did!

Title: The Prefect.
Author: Alastair Reynolds.
Length: 416 pages.
Publisher: Ace.
Date: June 3, 2008.

OVERALL GRADE: A.

PLOT: A+.
IMAGERY: A.
IMPACT: A-.
WRITING: A.

BOOK REVIEW: The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest

The third (and final?) book from Steig Larsson is The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, which follows in the footsteps of the publishing sensations The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played with Fire.

The books are set in Sweden and revolve around the character of Lisbeth Salander, one of the most celebrated anti-heroines in all of fiction. Salander is a boyish-looking, multiply pierced, very short woman with an eidetic memory and world-class computer hacking skills.

The other main character of what is now known as the Millennium trilogy is Mikael Blomkvist. He is a crusading investigative reporter, 40-something and devastatingly attractive to women.He is clearly a proxy for the author, who was editor-in-chief of an alternative magazine in Sweden for years before dying suddenly of a heart attack shortly after delivering the manuscripts for the first two books.

Both The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played with Fire are intensely suspenseful novels that became blockbuster bestsellers in Sweden and around the world. They have been turned into Swedish-language films with a major Hollywood version on the way.

The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest is a fitting third chapter in the Millennium trilogy but is not the best book of the series (it's hard to choose between the first two books but  I think I'd have to give an edge to the second one for sheer suspense, although the plot and atmosphere of the first is compelling). Although familiar themes of misogyny and little guys fighting the big guys crop up again in Hornet's Nest, for some reason it's not as gripping as the first two novels even though the stakes involved get higher and higher. This is probably primarily because the book has no central mystery any longer, it devolves more into a police procedural combined with a courtroom thriller. These are not bad aspects, but they are not exactly the same elements which made Dragon Tattoo so enthralling. For the first time I noticed the somewhat leaden dialogue, as well as the multiple shifts to first-person narrative, often to secondary characters.

Overall, I'm glad I read the trilogy and would heartily recommend to anyonje who likes mystery or suspense to read either of the first two. I really can't imagine anyone having done that not completing the entire series, despite the diminished return of the third book.

Author: Stieg Larsson.
Title: The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest.
Hardcover: 563 pages
Publisher: Knopf.
Date Published: May 25, 2010.

OVERALL GRADE: A.

PLOT: A+.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A.
WRITING: A-.

BOOK REVIEW: Peter Hamilton's Fallen Dragon

Peter F. Hamilton's Fallen Dragon is one of my favorite author's only stand-alone novels, since it is not part of any of his multiple trilogies or series.

Fallen Dragon was written soon after Hamilton had completed his masterpiece, the 3000-page Night's Dawn trilogy but I read it while waiting for the next book in the Void trilogy.

The parallels with the books in that series (The Dreaming Void, The Temporal Void) are immediately apparent. Both works intertwine Hamilton's typical hard-sci fi plot with another tale which is softer, more fantasy-related.

The main character in Fallen Dragon is Lawrence Newton, whose story is told in two different timelines: one as a teenage kid in the throes of his first love dreaming of getting off the godforsaken planet Amethi his family is colonizing and terraforming and the other as a hard-bitten mercenary working for the Zantiu-Braun corporation in the pillaging of asset-rich, defense-poor worlds.

While participating in "asset realization" on the planet of Thallspring as part of a quasi-military invasion force which is being resisted by a local insurgent population, Newton hears rumors about a "fallen dragon" in a rural village. The village Arnoon is rumored to harbor a vast treasure and a curious Newton goes to explore.

Overall, Fallen Dragon features Hamilton's typical flairs of militaristic activities, especially space battles and combat missions. It doesn't feature characters as resonant as his best work but is still a compelling suspenseful read.

Title: Fallen Dragon.
Author: Peter F. Hamilton.
Hardcover: 640 pages.
Publisher: Aspect.
Date: March 11, 2002.

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: B+.
IMPACT: B+.
WRITING: A-.

OVERALL GRADE: B+/A- (3.5/4.0).

BOOK REVIEW: Paul McAuley's Outer Series

The Quiet War	Gardens of the Sun

Paul J. McAuley's The Quiet War and Gardens of the Sun are the first two books in what I will call "the Outer series" although it is not clear if there will be more. In researching authors like Alastair Reynolds, Iain M. Banks and Peter F. Hamilton the name Paul J. McAuley (and Ian Whates) came up.

The Quiet War and Gardens of the Sun tell the story of an Earth which has undergone severe climate change which has led to vast political upheaval. There are now only three political superpowers: Greater Brazil (basically South America and North America), Europe and Pacifica (China and India). Humanity has split into multiple strains, with colonies on Mars, the Moon and the Outer Planets. During the last war, the Mars colonists attempted to arrange for an asteroid to hit the Earth so the Chinese re-directed a comet to land on their colony and successfully re-directed the asteroid so it missed our planet.

Animosity between people still on earth and the people in outer space persist decades after these events, especially since the Outers as they are called, have taken to genetically adapting themselves to low-gravity conditions, using bio-engineering in ways that people on Earth find morally offensive. After almost ruining the planet with pollution in the 20th and 21st centuries, the people of Earth in the 23rd century are busily cleaning up their world and attempting to reverse the damage. They look upon any meddling with nature with suspicion.

Both Gardens of the Sun and The Quiet War are chock-full of the details of living in low and zero gravity, combined with a plot that features intricate, internecine political intrigue.

Overall, I would not say that these McAuley books are in the same league as the works of Hamilton or Reynolds, which are long, suspenseful, totally engrossing works of space opera. They are worth reading, however, and a reasonable diversion but not a substitute for hard science fiction, if that is where your tastes lie.

Title: The Quiet War

Author: Paul J. McAuley

Length: 405 pages.
Publisher: Pyr.
Date: September 22, 2009.

OVERALL GRADE: A-/B+.

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: B+.
IMPACT: B+.
WRITING: A-.

Title: Gardens of the Sun

Author: Paul J. McAuley

Length: 411 pages.
Publisher: Pyr.
Date: February 2010,.

OVERALL GRADE: A-/B+.

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: B+.
IMPACT: A-.
WRITING: B+.

BOOK REVIEW: Aravind Adiga's THE WHITE TIGER

Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger won the 2008 Man Booker Prize, the most prestigious individual book prize in English (only writers from Commonwealth countries are eligible).

I got the book for Christmas in 2008 and finally read it over my summer vacation in August 2009.

The White Tiger is a book about contemporary Indian life, told in a very readable, darkly comic style by a prose magician.

It is one of the few Booker prizewinners that can easily be read in an afternoon. (Or even read at all. I still have a copy of Salman Rushdie's Midnight Children, barely begun, no my bookshelf.) Having been to India myself in the last 5 years I am always curious to see depictions of the country in film and novels. This was one of (not the most important) things which made Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire (read my review here) so enjoyable to me. I'm not saying if it wasn't set in India the movie would not have been interesting to me; I'm saying that the added India element enriches the work in my eyes, thanks to my interest in the subject.

Anyway, Aviga's work is written in the form of a series of letters to the Premier of China (The White Tiger of the book's title) and follows the adventures of Balram Halwai, a perfectly ordinary Indian man from a typical Indian village who happens to be the narrator of the book--and a murderer.

Adiga has harsh social commentary on almost every aspect of Indian society, from elections to malls to religion (so many gods, so little time!) which has made the book somewhat controversial in some circles, presumably even more so now that it has been awarded the Booker.

In the end, though, there's something not quite satisfying about The White Tiger. After you finish it, you feel like you are ready to read another book, about half an hour later.

Title: The White Tiger

Author: Aravind Aviga
Publisher: Free Press
Date: October 14, 2008.
Length: 352 pages.

PLOT: B.
IMAGERY: B+.
IMPACT: B-.
WRITING: A-.

OVERALL GRADE: B/B+.

BOOK REVIEW: Vonda McIntyre's Dreamsnake

At a local used bookstore in Glendale I finally got my hands on a copy of Vonda McIntyre's Dreamsnake, one of the rare works of speculative fiction to have won the Nebula, Hugo and Locust award. I often read these books and Dreamsnake is one of the few books that is double Hugo-Nebula winner that I have not read yet. The others are Lois McMaster Bujold's Paladin of Souls and Arthur C. Clarke's Fountains of Paradise.

Most double winners are classic books, that deserve to be re-read over and over again. Connie Willis Doomsday Book, Frank Herbert's Dune, David Brin's Startide Rising and Issac Asimov's The Gods Themselves fall into that category. Interestingly, recently I tried to re-read Ursula K. LeGuin's The Dispossessed and I could not get through it. A few years ago I finally read Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama and was surprised at how painful it was to get through it.

So, I really did not have high expectations for Dreamsnake. However, I was pleasantly surprised.

Dreamsnake is about a Healer named Snake who uses snakes to heal people. The book mentions repeatedly that she uses the rare dreamsnake to help people who have serious (potentially fatal) illnesses, by either curing them or easing their transition to death. What's curious is that during the course of the book, Snake heals several people without a dreamsnake, and in one case even loses a patient despite not having one of the alien serpents at hand.

One of the key features of Dreamsnake is its depiction of a very different society. It is primarily agrarian, with almost no technology and very curious cultural practices (like not wanting to tell acquaintances your "true name" and a completely different view of contraception). One of the most interesting aspects of the book is the completely laissez-faire approach to sexuality. Most adult relationships are in partnerships of three, usually two women and one man or two men and one woman.

A drawback of the book is the somewhat stilted nature of the prose. The sentences are very short and not very lyrical in nature. I'm not sure if this is because the book is over thirty years old, but I suspect that much be a factor. Another weakness of the book is the central character Snake. As depicted, she is not a very likable person and was very hard for this reader to identify with. She is moody, cranky, unattractive and uncertain. She is also brave and dedicated to helping others, almost to a fault.

The story resolves itself in the end in a somewhat unsurprising manner, with Snake finding love and companionship and a solution to dealing with the lack of dreamsnakes on her world. Overall, I'm glad that I finally read the book but I would not classify it as a classic of the form like most Hugo-Nebula winners.

Title: Dreamsnake.
Author: Vonda McIntyre.
Length: 319 pages.
Publisher: Dell.
Date: June 1979.

OVERALL GRADE: B.

PLOT: B+.
IMAGERY: B.
IMPACT: B-.
WRITING: B.

BOOK REVIEW: Robert J. Sawyer's Neanderthal Trilogy

TITLE: Hominids
AUTHOR: Robert J. Sawyer
PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: B+.
IMPACT: A-.
WRITING: B+.

OVERALL GRADE: B+/A- (3.5/4.0).

TITLE: Humans
AUTHOR: Robert J. Sawyer
PLOT: B+.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: B+.
WRITING: B.

OVERALL GRADE: B+ (3.33/4.0).

TITLE: Hybrids
AUTHOR: Robert J. Sawyer
PLOT: B+.
IMAGERY: B.
IMPACT: B.
WRITING: B-.

OVERALL GRADE: B-/C+ (3.0/4.0).

Robert J. Sawyer is probably best known now as the author of Flash Forward, on which the now-cancelled ABC television miniseries of the same name was based. However, the Canadian author is also acclaimed for his other science fiction work, which to date have won him Hugo, Nebula and Campbell Memorial awards.

Sawyer is the author of the Neanderthal Parallax, a trilogy of three books: Hominids, Humans, and Hybrids. I read these books this spring when I started watching Flash Forward. Sawyer is one of those speculative fiction authors who has really interesting ideas and is very creative. The central idea of the Neanderthal Parallax is that there are parallel universes, and in one parallel universe the Earth develops with Neanderthals (homo neanderthalis) as the dominant hominid species instead of humans (homo sapiens). When a quantum computer on one of the alternate earths malfunctions, a passage between the two societies is formed and Ponter Boddit, a neanderthal scientist, is transported into a society surrounded by creatures that were extinct on his planet.

Hominids is primarily concerned with using Boddit as a device to compare the two planets and societies where the two different hominid species have developed. Sawyer is at his creative best when he provides us with the details of life on the Neanderthal planet, particularly the social mores and beliefs (i.e. there is no belief in a higher power or "God" in Ponter's planet) through the Neanderthal's reactions and thoughts. Hominids won the 2003 Hugo award for Best Novel and is clearly the best book of the trilogy. Hominids other central character is Mary Vaughn, a Canadian geneticist who is also an expert on neanderthals. Since Sawyer is Canadian, much of the action takes place in Canada. Vaughn is an interesting choice to be the central homo sapiens character in the book. The main deficiency in the book is Sawyer's ham-handedness in the depiction of the characters of Ponter and Mary, as well as some of the other minor characters who are generally one-dimensional in scope.

The sequel to Hominids is Humans. It was also a Hugo award finalist. It continues the brilliant story first began in Hominids but it moves more of the action to the neanderthal version of Earth. In that case, we learn more about the differences in societal structure between neanderthal and human society. Sawyer again does a good job of depicting this surprisingly foreign world but he is somewhat hamstrung because he has to use the character of Mary Vaughn as a vehicle for taking the reader through this world. Vaughn has her own psychological traumas and predilections which influences the way she interacts and experiences the neanderthal planet and its society. Sawyer stoops to some soap opera-like relationship twists that I could have done without in the second book.

The final book in the trilogy is Hybrids which, surprisingly, was also nominated for a Hugo award. It is the least interesting of the three books, and I really only read it because I was curious as to how the plots would be resolved, but by this point I didn't really care. One of the most disturbing sub-plots is resolved in a somewhat obvious manner. Sawyer gets even more heavy-handed in his political allusions to modern Earth society, which I don't disagree with, but is still somewhat annoying.

Overall, the Neanderthal Parallax trilogy is an interesting addition to the science fiction canon, but most readers can just read the first book Hominids and forgo the other two books.