Posts Tagged ‘thriller’
Agyar, by Steven Brust
Posted on: March 22, 2013
Agyar, by Steven Brust
published in 1993
where I got it: purchased used
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Ladies, John Agyar is the kind of man your mother warned you against. He’s charming and mysterious, and he only wants one thing from the beautiful young women he flirts with.
Some of you may have already stopped reading, because you’re not interested in *that* kind of character. As a reward to those of you still reading, I’d like to share with you the thought that screamed through my head around the halfway point of the book: “holy shit, that’s what’s been going on all this time!?”
Squatting in an abandoned house, John is told there is a typewriter in an upstairs room, and he therapeutically begins to write. At first, he just records his conversations with the boring residents of this sleepy Ohio town. As he gains comfort with the idea of writing as therapy, and with the idea of his housemate Jim actually reading these typewritten pages, he begins to add in more important details. The pages of Agyar are those typewritten pages.
Here’s the thing through – This is John’s diary, and he talks about what he feels like talking about. He’s under no obligation to tell you anything important. You’ve got to figure that part out for yourself. In so many books the story is in the ink, in the words, on the pages. In Agyar, everything important is between the lines. If you look close, it’s all there. As per usual, this review may be more vague than needed. I type the wrong word, and I spoil the surprise. (whatever you do, don’t read review of this book on Amazon. the surprise is spoiled instantly, and in the most unkind way)
American Elsewhere, by Robert Jackson Bennett
published Feburary 2013
where I got it: received review copy from Orbit Books
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In the early days, I was a huge fan of M. Night Shyamalan. The Sixth Sense was groundbreaking, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched Signs, and even The Village has redeeming qualities. (and because I greatly enjoy those films, we’re not even going to talk about Shyamalan’s flops, of which there are many) What do those films have in common? A style that immediately pulls you in, perfectly timed and suspenseful disconnects between what people say and what’s really going on, compelling characters, isolated environs that feel timeless, cliffhanger scenes, and a climax that (although sometimes very silly) that reminds you he’s been giving you hints all this time, you just weren’t looking for them. I do have a soft spot for misdirection.
Now imagine if the endings of Signs and The Village weren’t completely silly. Imagine if those endings were sublimely perfect, if they were everything you wanted the end of a thriller to be. You’re starting to get close to the feeling of American Elsewhere.
You know those books that completely bowl you over? The ones where you know you’ll be buying every book the author ever writes? The ones where every time you finish a chapter you slowly whisper holy shit to yourself? The ones that make you ask “Hey author! Where have you been my whole life??” American Elsewhere is that book.
American Elsewhere is so many flavors of phenomenal that I don’t even know where to start. Compelling characters that I cared about immediately? check. A multi-faceted mystery that kept me guessing until the final reveal? check check. A story structured and paced in such a way to give intimate scenes and action sequences equal billing for importance? that too. Even if you’re not into thrillers or supernatural mysteries, you will still love this book. (One caveat: if you’re offended by strong language this may not be the book for you. Mona uses the f-bomb even more than I do.)
When Tim Powers’ recent novel Hide Me Among The Graves became available, half the speculative fiction fans I know cheered, and the other half said “Tim who?”. Have you enjoyed the recent Burton and Swinburne steampunk trilogy from Mark Hodder? How about Connie Willis’s time travel books? Did you like Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, or maybe Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon? If you answered Yes to any of those questions, Tim Powers is an author you should be reading. Also, he’s got some major street cred – when you and I were in pre-school, he was chillin’ with Blaylock and Jeter and helping define what many of us now know as steampunk. Tim Powers is truly one of my heroes of literature, one of the authors I go to when I need a comfort read, something I know I’m going to enjoy, something that is guaranteed to knock my socks off. When I first read The Anubis Gates around 10 years ago, I didn’t know who Powers was, but I knew I wanted more.
Powers writes primarily alternate history, but he does it in a way no one else does. He likes to use what I call the “pockets of I-don’t-know” theory, where he finds pockets in history where something odd was reported, where someone was reported acting very unusual, or went missing for a few days and wouldn’t tell anyone where they’d been, or just something strange happened. The fiction of Tim Powers lives in these pockets, he’s writing the secret history of what really happened. or as he puts it:
“I made it an ironclad rule that I could not change or disregard any of the recorded facts, nor rearrange any days of the calendar – and then I tried to figure out what momentous but unrecorded fact could explain them all.”
Intrigued? Here’s a few more reasons you should be reading Tim Powers.
He’s a “gateway” author. Go the bookstore or the library, and Powers will probably be found in fiction, not science fiction. He’s perfect for people who “aren’t really into all that weird scifi stuff”. Do you like spy thrillers? Try Declare, about Kim Philby’s true mission, which might have involved genies, and something horrific living on Mount Ararat. Prefer contemporary dramas with some suspense and maybe a smidgen of mythology? Try Last Call, which takes place in Las Vegas, and touches on some of the mythological opportunities that might have helped the luckiest city in the world, because destiny is the ultimate gamble, right?
Pirate Cinema, by Cory Doctorow
published October, 2012
where I got it: borrowed ARC from a friend
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Cory Doctorow is mean. he likes to hit his readers where it hurts, to show us where our world is going if we’re not careful. If China Mieville’s Railsea is a YA retelling of Moby Dick (complete with similar literary mannerisms), then Pirate Cinema is a YA introduction to political manifestos such as Atlas Shrugged (complete with speeches at the end). This isn’t the first time I’ve compared Doctorow’s fiction to that of Ayn Rand, and if you know my history with Rand’s fiction, you know I mean that comparison as the highest compliment.
The story follows Trent McCauley, a British teen who does all the normal teen things, like hating school, being awkward around girls, and downloading tons and tons of video clips of his favorite actor, and mashing them up into new and funny videos, a la Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid, and then uploading his vids for his fans and friends to watch.
Thanks to a new draconian law regarding copyright infringement, Trent’s family loses their internet access for one year due to his constant downloading of films and clips. His little sister can’t do her homework at home anymore and her grades plummet. His mother can’t get her prescriptions refilled online. His father loses his phone-bank job. Trent’s family is ostracized by their being kicked off internet access. Full of shame, Trent runs away to London.
This may sound like it’s a story for an about people who remix videos and remix music, and if you’re not one of those folks it’s easy to think this politically charged story doesn’t apply to you. Ever recaptioned a photo or submitted something to Lolcats? Ever shared a deviantart image on Facebook simply because you liked it? ever taken a photo you found online and photoshopped it into something you liked better, if only to show off your photoshop skills? If you’ve ever done any of those things, you’re in the same boat as Trent – you’ve shared someone else’s intellectual property, changed it, made it into something new, and claimed that new thing as your own unique creation. And you’ve broken the law. We’re all just as guilty as Trent, we just haven’t been caught yet.
Blackbirds, by Chuck Wendig
Posted on: July 10, 2012
Blackbirds, by Chuck Wendig
published in 2012
Where I got it: the library
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Everyone is going crazy for Chuck Wendig’s Blackbirds. Action packed and with an engrossing premise, shattered characters, and Richard Kadrey-esque prose, it’s no wonder this little book is getting a lot of attention.
Although a growing number of people are fascinated by her, Miriam Black wishes she could just disappear. As an adolescent, she gained the power to tell people the circumstances of their death. Perhaps the person lives until they are 95 and dies peacefully in their sleep. Perhaps it’s a housefire, or a drug overdose, or suicide. Living alone and on the run, she tries to avoid touching people. But of course it doesn’t work. Once upon a time she tried to save the life of a child whose death she’d foreseen. That didn’t work either.
Miriam comes off fairly crass, but it’s a facade. She’s not a mean person, she’s just really sick of shaking hands and seeing terrible visions in hospitals and bathroom floors. Her diary, nearly out of pages, is the only therapy she has, the only way she can get these feelings and fears and self hatred out of her system.
Miriam isn’t the nicest person in the world, so it’s doubly unfortunate that she’s mostly surrounded by assholes. Frat boys looking to get laid, truckers who might rape her, violent drug addicts, the scum below the bottom crust of society. Miriam doesn’t expect to meet anyone nice. And then she meets Louis, and everything changes. Louis is a completely normal, kind man. And in the moment before his death, he calls Miriam’s name.
I recently reviewed Robert Jackson Bennett’s newest novel, The Troupe, and it was absolutely incredible. Seriously, go read my review. I’ll wait.
Mr. Bennett’s debut novel, Mr. Shivers was published in 2010, and while that novel was winning literary awards left and right, he was busy publishing his second novel, The Company Man. His fourth novel, American Elsewhere is scheduled to hit store shelves this coming winter. And beyond all of that wonderfulness, he agreed to let me ask him a bunch of strange questions. What a gentleman!
Everyone, please give a big round of applause to Robert Jackson Bennett!
LRR: The Troupe focuses around Vaudeville performers and troupes that traveled the country in the early 1900′s from theater to theater. Did you spend any time in the theater when you were younger? Are you a fan of music and theater of the early 1900′s?
RJB: I was a musician, actually – a classically trained violist. So I know a fair bit about prodigies like George, having met a few in my time. Some were hilariously self-involved, like George, and others were like the little circus dogs who only know how to perform, and haven’t ever done anything else. It could be a bit sad, in a way.
I’m a huge fan of early 20th century comedy – the Marx Brothers, Laurel and Hardy, Buster Keaton… I still haven’t seen that many comedians who can do so much with so little.
Some people don’t get the Marx Brothers. Personally, I don’t get people who don’t get the Marx Brothers.
LRR: Did you always want to be a writer? If not, what got you started down the path to “Hi, I’m an author!”
RJB: I kind of think so. I think my parents might have raised me to be a writer without knowing it. My first word was “Melville,” if that gives you any idea, because that was our dog’s name. They were always giving me books and discussing them with me. It was expected of you to be culturally informed. And at some point in time I started thinking up variations of the things they were showing me or books I read on my own, trying to make them better and make them the sort of story I wanted to read, and eventually this just translated into writing.
LRR: What authors and books have inspired you over the years?
RJB: Oh, geez. A bunch. I grew up reading Stephen King, Madeleine L’Engel, Roald Dahl; then it translated into Neil Gaiman, John le Carre, Susana Clarke, David Foster Wallace; and lately I’ve been reading a lot of David Mitchell and Katherine Ann Porter.
I’m chiefly fascinated by work that examines one idea or a set of ideas. I still think of a novel as the most fun kind of thought experiment, trying to glean truths from fabulous lies, setting things in motion and smashing them together and seeing what’s left and what isn’t. I’d say most of my novels fall under this category.
Arctic Risi
ng, by Tobias Buckell
Published in 2012
Where I got it: borrowed
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Anika Duncan was just doing her job. As an airship pilot for the United Nations Polar Guard, her job is to watch the waters. For drugs, human trafficking, and radioactive material. In the not too far future, the ice has started to melt, the Northwest Passage has opened, and floating bergs and barges all the up on the pole act as a loosely conglomerated not-country called Thule.
On a routine mission Anika’s instruments pick up something they shouldn’t. And then her airship is fired on, killing her co-pilot. At first, the government goes all out to find her attackers and find out what they were smuggling, but before long the terrorists disappear and she’s told there was absolutely nothing on their ship. But she knows what she saw on her instruments. On the run and with few friends to help her, Anika heads north in hopes of learning what was on the ship and who her true friends are.
Once the action starts in this eco-thriller, it never stops. Imagine a Bond movie where Bond and the beautiful ass-kicking Bond girl got melded into one character, and you’d have Anika Duncan. As a pilot with the UNPG, she can fly any airship and shoot any gun. She never backs down, and has no idea what she’s gotten herself into. From the islands of Northern Canada and all points north, whoever thought so much could happen in the Arctic Circle?
Faith, by John Love
Posted on: February 10, 2012
- In: John Love | science fiction | scifi
- 13 Comments
Faith, by John Love
published in January 2012
where I got it: purchased New
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Remember Peter Watts’ Blindsight? Blend it with Moby Dick, and then imagine it was written by Gene Wolfe. Now ramp up the tension and suspense to eleven. It’s hard to believe Faith is a debut novel. It reads so smooth and subtle that as the pages fly by under your fingers, all you feel is the copper tang of a nameless fear.
Faith has a slow start, and this is exactly as it should be. Otherwise, we would never know the subtle ironies of the Sakhran race, how they live together, but live apart, their sense of honor even as they were conquered by the Commonweath. Without the slower, gentler, understated start, we would never understand the pure and total demise of the proud Sakhran race, and how they didn’t even attempt to resist it.
Three hundred years ago and unidentified ship came to the Sakhran homeworld. Only one person among them understood what she was. He wrote a book, and when the book was read, the Sakhran race began to decline. Out of vicious irony, the Sakhrans named the ship Faith. Like her namesake, she visits on a whim, and can destroy with a whisper, not knowing and not caring what she’s turned you into. But this Faith offers only questions, never any answers.
Faith has returned, and the expanded Commonwealth of Planets believe they have the only weapon that can stop her. The Commonwealth built nine Outsider ships. Built in secret, and then pushed away as lepers, the ships are named after psychopaths and mass murderers. There is never any shore leave, and crew know to never return to their home planets. Aaron Foord, commander of the Charles Manson knows he is the Commonwealth’s only chance against Faith. His crew are the dregs of humanity, the mistakes, the undesirables, the hidden criminals, perhaps, the anti-Faith. And those of his crew who aren’t human? some of them claim to have eaten their own children.
The Third Section by Jasper Kent
Posted on: October 20, 2011
The Third Section, by Jasper Kent
Published in Oct 2011
where I got it: received a review copy from the friendly folks at Pyr
Why I read it: Enjoyed immensely the first two books in the series Twelve, and Thirteen Years Later
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Taking place 30 years after the events of Thirteen Years Later, The Third Section (the third book in Jasper Kent’s Danilov Quintet) follows the children of Aleksei Danilov. His son Dmitri is in Sevastapol, fighting off the French and the English. When Dmitri discovers two dead soldiers, whose wounds match those witnessed thirty years earlier, he knows the creatures he helped his father hunt have returned.
Meanwhile, Aleksei’s illegitimate daughter, Tamara, has secured a post with the Tsar’s secret police, The Third Section. With a cover as a madam running a brothel, her official mission is informing on loose lipped politicians. Her supervisor attempts to unnerve her by showing her his torture chambers, but she barely reacts. Tamara has nothing left to lose, what could he possibly show her that would frighten her? When one of the working girls is found dead, covered in blood and missing her throat, Tamara begins an investigation that can’t end well.
And then we have Yudin, one of the most thrilling villains I have ever met. In Twelve, Yudin, or Iuda, as he was known then, identified Aleksei as a worthy opponent. Now that the game has started, Yudin won’t back away until there is a winner. And when one is immortal, the game never has to end. He is vicious, scientifically curious, and sadistic, and the pleasure of finally getting his point of view was a pleasurable horror unto itself. I have no sympathy for Yudin, but his talent for deception and the long game makes him beyond fascinating to watch.
Reamde, by Neal Stephenson
published Sept 2011
where I got it: library
why I read it: I suffer from Stephensonitis masochism
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It took me a while, but I got through Reamde (a play on words of the ubiquitous readme file that comes with most software), Neal Stephenson’s latest door stopper of a book. This isn’t so much a review as it is a reaction, so don’t say I didn’t warn you.
So I don’t have to go thru the plot bits again, please read my first blab on Reamde, found here. Amazon plot blurb can be found here.
A mainstream book review site (Salon? Slate? someone like that) blurbed Reamde as being Stephenson’s most accessible book yet. And it is. No weird futuristic monks or cyberpunk guys with odd names, no generational flashbacks, nothing “weird” or inaccessible on that front. A globe spanning thriller that falls somewhere between a Ludlum style “pick off the bad guys one by one” and a Doctorow-esque “the Chinese gold farmers aren’t the bad guys!” , Reamde is surprisingly normal, or at least normal compared to what I’ve come to expect from Stephenson. It is in a word, it is utterly accessible.
For us Speculative Fiction fans, accessible is the double edged sword of the decade.
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