Teaser and WWW

Between the very poor wireless in the hotel in Oregon, IL, and then the travel misadventures of yesterday, neither Teaser Tuesday nor WWW Wednesday got written. So here they are:

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current read.
* Open to a random page.
* Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page.

* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

* Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!


Here's my teaser from Lev Grossman's The Magicians:

... the test gave him a passage from The Tempest, then asked him to make up a fake language, and then translate the Shakespeare into the made-up language. He was then asked questions about the grammar and orthography of his made-up language, and then -- honestly, what was the point? -- questions about the made-up geography and culture and society of the made-up country where his made-up language was so fluently spoken.


It's not the greatest teaser in terms of plot, but it gives you a sense of the writing style. I'm enjoying this book, and it even sparked a conversation with the waitress at Ruby Tuesday's tonight.


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WWW Wednesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along!

To play along, just answer the following three (3) questions…

* What are you currently reading?
* What did you recently finish reading?
* What do you think you’ll read next?

My answers for this week:

I Am Currently Reading: THE MAGICIANS by Lev Grossman. The book has been highly recommended by a few people, including new Twitter / blogger friend RoofBeamReader. I put it in my backpack to read on the flight from Chicago to Nashville; actually ended up reading it on the DC to Nashville leg of the revised trip, and then more over dinner tonight. And had one of those wonderful experiences at dinner, where the waitress asked what the book was, and we talked about it and about voracious reading habits and the like.

I Recently Finished Reading: Robert Silverberg's TO OPEN THE SKY. TOtS is long out-of-print, but you can find used copies on Amazon. A few years back I found four copies on the shelves at Powell's Books in Portland and gave them out to friends. This was the first actual science fiction novel not aimed at kids that I ever read, back in 5th or 6th grade, and I still own the same dog-eared, yellowing copy. I reread it every few years, and still love it. I have delayed putting up a review post simply because the book means so much to me I want to give it a lot of thought.

I Think I'll Read Next: The new Gabriel Hunt adventure, HUNT AMONG THE KILLERS OF MEN, is up next. Because even though I'm starting to feel a bit of genre-burn-out, I still need me some Hunt hijinx. Especially knowing this is the next-to-last book as of right now. He's a Jones for our times, Gabriel Hunt is.

WWW Wednesdays

WWW Wednesdays is another weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along!

To play along, just answer the following three (3) questions…

* What are you currently reading?
* What did you recently finish reading?
* What do you think you’ll read next?

My answers for this week:

I Am Currently Reading: TO OPEN THE SKY by Robert Silverberg. TOtS is long out-of-print, but you can find used copies on Amazon. A few years back I found four copies on the shelves at Powell's Books in Portland and gave them out to friends. This was the first actual science fiction novel not aimed at kids that I ever read, back in 5th or 6th grade, and I still own the same dog-eared, yellowing copy. I reread it every few years, and still love it.

I Recently Finished Reading: Scott Sigler's ANCESTOR. Sigler is the new master of gory, high adrenaline, thriller/sf/horror fiction. Ancestor posits a world where a private company is close to genetically engineering an animal from which organs can be harvested and transplanted into humans ... and of course things go horribly wrong.

I Think I'll Read Next: Either the new Gabriel Hunt adventure, HUNT AMONG THE KILLERS OF MEN, or Lev Grossman's THE MAGICIANS. I usually read the Hunt books as soon as they come out, and I'm a few weeks behind on doing that. But Grossman's book has been highly recommended by a few people, including new Twitter / blogger friend RoofBeamReader. So we'll see which jumps at me when I'm done with the Silverberg.

Teaser Tuesdays

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current read.
* Open to a random page.
* Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page.

* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

* Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Here's my teaser from Robert Silverberg's To Open The Sky, a book long (and sadly) out of print:

Recollection flooded back, dizzying him, staggering him. There had been three heretics in the room that other time, not just one, and they had given him wine and promised him a place in the Harmonist hierarchy, and he had agreed to let himself be smuggled into Santa Fe, a soldier in the great crusade, a Harmonist spy.

To Open The Sky was, to my own recollection, the first actual science fiction novel I ever read, and I still to this day own that copy of the book. I reread it every few years, and still love it.

One of the things I do over on Livejournal is maintain a community called 365shortstories. My intent, every year, is to read a short story per day. Needless to say, it doesn't always work out -- and the years where I even come close, I don't actually read a story per day. I'm going to start cross-posting my story reviews here as well, but I'm not going to go back and port them all over. I'll pick up with the current one, and all the previous reviews can be found at

This past business trip I slacked off on the short stories (even though I brought a bunch with me) in favor of a novel and a history of fictional character crossovers, both written by friends / acquaintances. Got home from my trip today, hit Barnes & Noble, and saw that the latest P.N. Elrod-edited urban fantasy anthology, Dark and Stormy Knights, had been released. And since you can't spit into an UF anthology without hitting a Jim Butcher short story, of course I picked it up:

243. Even Hand by Jim Butcher. Before now, the only Dresden Files short story not narrated by / starring Harry Dresden was the Thomas Raith novella Back-Up. But after the events of the novel Changes, I'm not surprised to see a Dresden Files short story that does not feature Harry. I suspect we'll see a few more of this type of story in the next few months. This time out, Butcher casts the spotlight on Harry's sometimes-grudging-ally / mortal nemesis (as opposed to all of his immortal nemesises ... nemesisi .... nemesese? neme-never-mind ...) Gentleman Johnny Marcone. It's a welcome, first-person look into this very complicated, very deadly man whom Harry may despise but whom he can't help but respect. And not only do we get a good glimpse into some of Marcone's pet peeves, we also get at least one juicy little tidbit about red-headed sidekick Hendricks that makes him a bit less of a one-note heavy. The story revolves around someone coming to gangster Marcone for help, because he's the nearest signee to the Unseelie Accords, the agreement that maintains some form of civility between the various supernatural races / realms in the Dresdenverse. And that's about all the background you need to know, and about all the spoiling you'll see in the story. Butcher goes out of his way to not mention recent book events, so this story is a good "feeler" for what the Dresden books are like in terms of the world-building. It's not a good "feeler" for the voice of the novels, though. Butcher does a great job of making Marcone sound like Marcone, so gone is the pop-culture-laden patter of the novels. Marcone is far more straightforward (but not succinct) than Harry is. One character even makes a comment about Marcone's lack of sense of humor. I recommend The Dresden Files to everyone, and I definitely recommend this particular story, which might now be one of my favorites.

Ancestral Threat

Book 40: Ancestor by Scott Sigler, isbn 9780307406330, 425 pages, Crown, $24.99

Scott Sigler's latest hardcover from Crown is an re-issue / expansion of a story that Sigler first released as an audiobook podcast, then as a limited edition print book. Apparently, part of his contract with Crown was a guarantee to re-issue Ancestor. I'm glad he did. I haven't heard the podcasts, nor do I have a copy of the limited edition (having become a Sigler Junkie only with Crown's publication of Infected a few years back), so I was able to approach this edition with fresh eyes rather than looking for the changes made.

As he did in Infected and its sequel Contagious, Sigler continues to mine the landscape where medical thrillers and hard science fiction cross-breed. This time, he throws a little cabin-in-the-woods slasher flick dna into the mix as well. The short version of the plot, without giving away any more than the cover copy does: after a lab experiment goes awry and a debilitating cross-species virus almost escapes, a US cover military team starts shutting down all private research facilities working on developing a process for easier transplanting of animal organs into humans. One of the labs they are hunting, led by former team member PJ Colding, drops completely off the radar -- because Colding's team is very close to genetically engineering an animal that would be bred solely for the purposes of harvesting organs: a computer-grown, bovine-gestated animal created from the genetic pattern of what they think is the 'ancestor' to all modern mammals. But something in the coding goes wrong, and the creators become the prey trapped on a bleak snow-covered island.

What I like:

Sigler doesn't rush the reveal of the Ancestors. The book is as much about the tension among the team creating them as it is about what happens when they come into existence, if not moreso. In fact, he delays the full reveal until late in the book -- much like the way Ridley Scott delayed showing us what the Alien looked like, teasing us with half-glimpses while ratcheting up the tension by allowing us to be as confused and scared as the characters in the story. Of course, once they are revealed, it's a full-speed race to the end of the book. I read the final 140 pages in a mad rush, staying up way past the point I should have been asleep on a work night. It's a rare book that can get me to do that these days. Sigler manages it.

Sigler also fills the book with characters who are diverse enough to be individuals, and interesting enough to rise above the stock roles you find in such stories. PJ Colding's reasons for essentially going rogue are believable, as are Sara Purinam's reasons for not trusting him. Three characters border on stereotype with not much depth (Magnus, Andy, and Rhumkorff), but they play their parts well regardless. And Sigler even breathes decent life into the requisite cannon-fodder secondary characters. In particular, I felt like I knew, and could really 'hear' the characters of James and Stephanie Harvey.

What I didn't like:

In addition to the somewhat stereotypical nature of the human bad-guys (as opposed to the predatory Ancestors), the other thing that bothered me was the virtual disappearance of one somewhat-major character, Paul Fischer, at about the book's three-quarter mark. This is either a brilliant strategy on Sigler's part (dropping the Fischer sub-plot enables the author to avoid the "easy resolution" to the situation), or not. My jury is still out on that.

What I hope:

We already know there will be a sequel. My hope is that the Fischer storyline will get picked up and dovetail with the story of the human survivors of the book, justifying the time invested in introducing and developing him.

Final Verdict:

A kick-ass snow-mobile roller-coaster of a ride: it starts out slow and detailed, builds well, pays off at the end, and gives us something to worry about for the future. The science is believable, the military jargon sounds dead-on, and the tension is leavened with doses of black (sometimes very black) humor. Highly, highly recommended.

2010 Book 39: Crossovers

Book 39: Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World, Volume 2 by Win Scott Eckert, isbn 9781935558118, 477 pages, Black Coat Press, $30.95

Back in May, I reviewed the first volume of Win Scott Eckert's massive Timeline of character crossovers. I was excited that Volume 2 would be out so soon, and as expected I plowed through it in short order. Volume 1 covered gothic, pulp, crime, mystery and other character crossovers (including a limited number of super-heroes) from pre-history through 1939. This volume covers 1940 through the far future, and has appendices that list books and stories Win opted to not include in the Crossover Universe timeline for a variety of reasons. I liked this particular touch, pointing people to stories he felt were just too hard to reconcile with the relationships and histories originally laid down by Philip Jose Farmer and acknowledging that in many cases the stories are well told (and that for the most part, quality is not the reason some crossovers are excluded).

I did find myself disagreeing on a few points of inclusion or dis-inclusion. For instance, there are a number of times where Win suggests that stories happened, but were greatly exaggerated by the authors who told those stories (a good example: The Day of The Triffids probably happened on the Crossover Earth, but with nowhere near the level of carnage and mayhem the movie ended with) while others are dismissed for similar reasons. But that's the joy of a project like this: my own version of which crossovers to include could certainly diverge from Win's at any point and neither of us is hurt by it. For instance, I would personally choose to include the characters of Arn Munro and Neptune Perkins, from Roy Thomas' Young All-Stars comic series, because of their connections to Philip Wylie's GLADIATOR and Poe's Arthur Gordon Pym, but would note that not every issue of that comic series is automatically incorporated into the CU because of the rule about limiting the proliferation of super-heroes in the CU. But that's just me.

As I said about the first volume, Eckert has done an absolutely amazing job synthesizing over 100 years of meetings between fictional characters to come up with a cohesive storyline in which there is something for everyone, from Conan to Holmes to Batman to Spenser, to Charlie's Angels to Lost to Star Trek. The book is also lavishly illustrated with book and magazine covers featuring the characters mentioned throughout.

True mystery/gothic/horror/sf/pulp/comics/cri

me/literature geeks can't really do without this two volume set.

Prisoner of Azkaban review

Book 37: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling, read by Jim Dale, isbn 9780807282328, 448 pages / 10cds, Scholastic / Listening Library, $54.95 (for the cds)

Even with the book series all said and done, I still proclaim the third Harry Potter novel my favorite in the series. At this point, Rowling has mostly smoothed the rough edges off of her style, and she has a much clearer idea of where the series is going. She lays so much groundwork here not just for book four, but for the end-game of the entire series. Draco Malfoy begins the slow fade to the background that will remove him as any kind of main plot participant until Half-Blood Prince, while Severus Snape steps up into the limelight and becomes more than an aggravation / subplot. With the arrival and then departure of Remus Lupin, we get our first hint that the constant vacancy of the Dark Arts position is more than just happenstance. And with the introduction of Lupin, Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew, we start to get the history that will affect every decision Harry makes throughout the rest of the series.

What I've always liked about Rowling's writing is that Harry, Ron, Hermione and their teenage friends don't always make the right decision -- they go on their instincts, their hormones, and sometimes make the kind of mistake we as readers are slapping our foreheads and shouting at them to not make. Every time Harry fails to tell Dumbledore something, every time the Trio hare off on their own someplace, the writer in me recognizes Rowling setting up important complications but the reader in me yells at them to stop being stupid and myopic. Of course, they are teenagers -- they are virtually made of myopia. And that's what makes them so real. They are not perfect. Even amongst themselves -- the discord between Ron and Hermione here, how easily they cut each other out, is a great hint at how Seamus Finnegan will turn completely against Harry in "Phoenix" based solely on what Seamus thinks he knows versus what is the truth.

Prisoner is also the last of the short books in the series, the last that is tightly plotted and in which the subplots are not given equal page time with the main plot. Which also mirrors the age Harry and the gang are at -- life gets more complicated the older kids get, as their world-view expands beyond themselves.

Jim Dale, of course, does his usual fantastic job performing the book. I've commented before that his Hagrid and McGonagall sound just like Robbie Coltrane and Maggie Smith, while the rest of his characters sound original. This time, he manages to also make Remus Lupin sound almost exactly like David Thewlis. Certain voices, certain inflections, just fit certain characters, and I think in these cases Dale is wise to go with what sounds right rather than differentiating just to avoid comparisons.