That Self-Same Metal

In honor of National Shakespeare Day:

Title: That Self-Same Metal
Author: Brittany N. Williams
ISBN: 9781419758645
Pages: 344 pages
Publisher/Date: Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS, c2023.

Sixteen-year-old African-Americans Joan and James Sands work for William Shakespeare’s theater, James as an actor and Joan as combat choreographer and bladesmith, maintaining and making the stage swords. Her father’s notoriety in the metal shop obviously aided in her getting this highly unique position, although her magical abilities over metal gifted by the Orisha Ogun don’t hurt either. Her family has been tied to the Orisha for a long time, and when her godfather doesn’t perform the necessary rituals with the new mortal monarch to keep the Fae at bay, it falls to Joan to figure out who to trust and how to help preserve the separate worlds.

I absolutely love it when authors identify their published works as originally written for the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) challenge, because it shows the success a motivation can have on people who have their own book waiting to be both captured on paper and released to the world. I had never heard of the Orisha faith until Tomi Adeyemi’s Children of Blood and Bone received the huge popularity and notoriety that it did almost five years ago, which is when Brittany Williams finished her novel, so it could be said she was at the right place in the right time. Five years later, many are still working diligently to increase diversity in publishing, and this checks a number of boxes without feeling forced. The main characters are African-American, several characters are seen courting individuals of the same gender, and Joan is specifically in a bisexual love triangle that may or may not turn polyamorous in the inevitable sequel. “If you think I’m jealous of him know that I feel no such thing. […] Stop thinking about what’s proper when you can have both of us.” (208) Now how matter of fact is that!?

The swashbuckling sword play is a mighty fun read, although one scene in particular has foes trading blows in the middle of a production, interrupting the play in a way that everyone unrealistically accepts as “Is this a new addition to the script?” including the actors who aren’t in the know. A secondary character’s death is glazed over, along with several of the (as a Kirkus reviewer puts it) “periphery situations that are hard to connect to the main plot”.

For something that is supposed to be kept a secret, a remarkable number of characters are either directly involved in events or are informed at some point. In addition to being open-minded about the existence of Fae, stereotypes of the time are summarized and bestowed upon society as a whole, but all the characters we are meant to like don’t seem to follow those societal prejudices against women on the stage (Joan makes an appearance in place of her brother at one point), homosexuality, African Americans specifically and race generally (James is on stage while other characters are in black face), and religion/Catholicism. The players are remarkably progressive and that is never cleared up in the narrative. Some of these tidbits about the timeframe could have been trimmed from the story and included instead in a more thorough historical note at the end of the book.

Like my complaints in Children of Blood and Bone, the magic seems under utilized and overly explained, however I did appreciate the inclusion of Joan’s perspective when Ogun uses her as a vessel for his efforts to regain balance between the Fae and mortals. Joan is scared to death when it happens that she is not going to regain control, since like in most hero fantasy she is ill-informed and ill-prepared for it to happen and her upcoming responsibilities.

These things should not deter readers, but should be used as points of discussion and research for people that had their interest whetted by the story of the self-sufficient and spunky steel smith.

The Twisted Ones

Title: The Twisted Ones
Author: T. Kingfisher
ISBN: 9781534429574
Pages: 385 pages
Publisher/Date: Saga Press, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, c2019.
Awards: Dragon Award Winner (2020), British Fantasy Award Nominee (2020), Locus Award for Horror Novel Nominee (2020)

I woke up very slowly. There was a sound that I had been hearing for some time, and gradually I came awake, still hearing it.
It was Bongo. He lay flat at the foot of the bed, his fur standing up in spikes, and he was growling.
His growl was harsh and awful, like nothing I’d ever heard before. I could see the square of moonlight coming through the window reflected in his eyes.
It came to me, rather distantly, that Bongo was terrified.
My first instinct was to sit up, put my arms around him, ask him what was wrong. Being only half awake may have saved me.
I did not move my head. I looked over to the window, where Bongo was staring.
There was a white face in the window. (150-151).

Copy editor Melissa, mostly called Mouse, has been asked by her father to cleanout her grandmother’s house in the deep, rural south after she passes. Mouse’s father’s health is failing and hasn’t been to the house for several years since they moved his mother to an assisted living facility. When Mouse arrives with her hound dog in tow, she realizes her grandmother was a hoarder, with stacks of newspaper, plastic bags, and creepy porcelain dolls among the debris. As she starts cleaning and hauling things to the dump, Mouse finds an old journal of her step-grandfather, talking of strange twisted things in the woods that he thought could be tied to similar beings he escaped from in his native Wales. After visiting a mysterious hill and forest with a warped Stonehenge-like collection of white carvings, Mouse begins encountering these same strange things when they begin visiting her in the dead of night. Are the twisted ones still looking for her step-grandfather, or have they now set their sights on Mouse?

This is not the first T. Kingfisher novel I’ve read, and it likely won’t be my last. Reader beware though, if your first exposure to her writing is the The Saint of Steel series, you might want to read this one in the daylight. Kingfisher develops her settings and stories with an arresting ambiance that leans on heavily on clichés (creepy doll collection in an abandoned hoarding house anyone?). Mouse’s after the fact narration of the events also lessons the suspense, as readers are aware from the beginning that she survives whatever horrors she and the readers encounter in the woods. However, the clichés are comfortable and classic for a reason, and, like the Jaws theme song, most readers will still be drawn in by them, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Inspired by Lovecraft’s interpretation of Arthur Machen’s story “The White People”, I can appreciate Kingfisher’s attempts to realistically write a story featuring a “recreated manuscript”, as her complaints about nearly photographic recall of plots are ones that have similarly frustrated me for years. Much of the backstory behind the twisted ones is left unexplained, contributing to the oral history element of the tale that will leave some readers unsatisfied. Several members of my book group wanted to know more, but I thought it struck the right combination of exploration and exposition, with dangling threads yielding to the “we’ll never know” trope while still shedding a little light with revelations about recent events.

Most characters were extraneous, with the main focus being on first Mouse and then by extension Foxy, an older eccentric neighbor who voluntarily gets pulled into the trouble drawn to Mouse. Foxy’s roommates, bipolar Skip and Thomas who assists Mouse with some of her grandmother’s larger items round out the trio, but along with a dump attendant, a barista, a cop, and Mouse’s father, they are largely background characters. The neighbors’ willingness, most notably Foxy’s, to insert themselves into a horror drama seems unrealistic, especially after they encounter one of the things that has been stalking the house. Mouse’s attempt to see the task through to the end is also unusual, particularly when her father gives her the out to just come home and he’ll bulldoze the place.

Just like the story this is inspired by, pieces of this book will stay with you, while other bits will float away into the ages, leaving behind a relic of remembrance.

Children of Blood and Bone

Title: Children of Blood and Bone
Series: Legacy of Orïsha #1
Author: Tomi Adeyemi
Narrator: Bahni Turpin
ISBN: 9781250295446 (hardcover), 9781427295514 (audiobook)
Pages: 531 pages
Discs/CDs: 14 CDs, 17 hours 44 minutes
Publisher/Date: Macmillan Young Listeners Audiobook from Henry Holt and Company, c2018 by Macmillan Audio

“What did you do?” I ask. “Why were the king’s men chasing you?”
“Don’t tell us.” He shakes his head and jabs his finger toward Lagos. “Go back. Turn yourself in. It’s the only chance we have to–”
She removes her cloak, silencing us both. […]
“Oh my gods,” I breathe.
The princess.
Amari.
I kidnapped Orïsha’s princess. (75)

Zélie and her brother Tzain are hoping for a good day at the market, selling a fish their father caught. That is their one goal, until Zélie is frantically approached by a hooded girl, pleading for help in getting out of the city. As a member of the diviner race, Zélie has no love for the ruling class, or slaughtered her people, specifically her mother, and killed magic forever. Or so she and everyone else thought, until the girl produces a scroll and reveals herself as Amari, the princess and newly created sympathizer of the diviners. The scroll is the first part of a process that could bring magic back, but Amari’s tyrannical father will do anything from preventing that from happening. It’s a race against time and the pursuing army, led by Amari’s brother, to renew magic before the slaughter from a decade ago resumes.

While I cannot speak to the accuracy of her accents, Bahni Turpin is a joy to listen to, as the different languages roll off her tongue and provide a very authentic listening experience. She sobs, she screams, and she gasps in turn to accentuate the expression and emotion of the narration. Capably carrying the conversations between the cast of characters, I look forward to listening to other audiobooks by her.

The story has been raved about. It was chosen by Jimmy Fallon (really by a majority of his fans) as the inaugural selection for his book club. NPR reviewer Caitlyn Paxson exclaimed that “Adeyemi already writes like an author who is ten books deep into her career, so I can only imagine how strong her writing will become.” It was a Kirkus Prize Nominee for Young Readers’ Literature.

However, I can’t wholeheartedly throw my support behind it. I loved the unashamedly African American cast, setting, and story. Pulling from Nigerian deities and mythology/religion, and incorporating vocabulary and languages, cultures, clothing, and food, readers are immersed in the world of Orïsha. Just foreign enough to provide a sense of wonder, but still familiar enough for readers to recognize (lionares, snow leopanaires, and black panthernaires big enough to ride on?), readers are captivated by the details. That same amount of time was regrettably not spent on the overall plot and character development.

Of the four main characters who share narration duties, Amari seems to be most developed. Living a sheltered life until a horror she witnesses in her own home encourages her to flee with a stolen item, she has reasons for first seeking refuge and then rebellion. Zélie, one of two reluctant rebels, is the stereotypical “chosen one,” picked by the gods (or so everyone else says) to lead the pursuit and restore magic to the lands. I’m not picking on the premise, but I am disappointed in the generic but very obvious love story that engulfs her. Tzain, Zélie’s brother, is the other reluctant participant, literally along for the ride to protect his sister and keep her out of trouble as she stumbles through this quest. Both Tzain and Zélie are on guilt trips, as Zélie blames herself for the trouble that has arisen from her new found “savior status” and Tzain vacillates between blaming her for their predicament and feeling guilty that he harbors these feelings. The fourth narrator, Inan, it the most difficult to both relate to and understand. I can’t say too much without giving away the story, but I’m seriously perplexed by how many times he changes his mind on what side he should be on and how he both condones and condemns his actions and the actions of others. In my mind,  he gets what he deserves at the end. I know that’s slightly harsh to say and we’re not quite sure how/if his part in the story ends since the last page is a mighty cliffhanger, left intentionally as a set-up for the second book.

Now, the magic of the magic is that there is no sense to it. The history of the magic, how it’s distributed, the gods involved in each iteration, is all relayed repeatedly throughout the book. Maybe it’s because there is so little screen time for the magical acts, the author was worried that readers would forget it existed. Maybe it’s the convenience that it disappears, reappears, and bends to the whims of the story. Again, I can’t say too much without spoilers, but there are hints that this history is falling apart as first one and then a second character show different colors of their abilities than what everyone expects, and then gives no explanation for why that is the case.

The story succeeds slightly better as a political commentary/satire. While we primarily think of satire as humorous comic strips or sarcastic Onion articles, Children of Blood and Bone is quite obviously a commentary and criticism of racial prejudice and politics in modern society (and intentionally so, as detailed in the ending author’s note). The brutality of the guards and government officials is directed solely against a race of people physically different from themselves. The magic and power that the oppressed have challenges the authority of the ruling class, and those in power are scared because of the tenuous hold they know they have on the suppression of the downtrodden, literally and figuratively. The dissension in families as younger generations begin to question the “way it’s always been” and the reasons behind the upheaval, the accuracy of the historical stories, and the disparity between the citizens. It’s all there, and while I appreciate the symbolism, I recognize I’m coming from a somewhat sheltered viewpoint as a white, working/middle class, cis-gender female. Allusions have successfully been made in other stories, and I think when they are not the primary focus of the book they are able to lead more people to them without fear of being seen as radical in nature. I’m interested to see where the magic, the story, and the characters end up.

Renegades

Title: Renegades
Series: Renegades #1
Author: Marissa Meyer
ISBN: 9781250044662
Pages: 556 pages
Publisher/Date: Feiwel and Friends Book, an imprint of Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC c2017 by Rampion Books

Nova had one dart handcrafted by Leroy Flinn, their own poisons master. She only needed one. If she missed, she wouldn’t get a second chance.
But she wouldn’t miss.
She would kill the Captain.
Once he was hit, Ingrid, the Detonator, would emerge from hiding and hit the Council’s parade float with as many of her signature bombs – made from a fusion of gasses in the air—as she could launch. Phobia would focus on Thunderbird, as she usually took to the air during a battle, giving her a frustratingly unfair advantage. They’d heard that Thunderbird was deathly afraid of snakes, which was one of his specialties. They were banking on the rumors to be true. Worst-case scenario: Phobia startled her long enough for Nova or Ingrid to take her down. Best-case: He gave her a midflight heart attack.
And that was it. The Council—the five original Renegades—all eradicated at once. (28-29)

But of course, the plan that Nova and her team have spent so much time concocting doesn’t go off as planned, and one of their own get captured. Plan B is a Hail Mary effort, sending Nova in deep undercover to train with their enemies. She succeeds, and is placed on the very team that thwarted her efforts to kill the Captain. Serving as a double agent becomes harder then she expected when she realized not only the people she is spying on, but also her own allies are keeping things from her. Plus, with a new prodigy (person with superpowers) in town that no one knows anything about, it’s anybody’s guess who is going to end up helping Nova in her hour of need.

Superpowers seem to be a rising trend in literature these days, possibly a result of the growing interest and excitement around the Marvel and DC movies. Personally a fan of Marissa Meyer’s Lunar Chronicles series, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on her newest series. But while I found her first series ground breaking in her reimagining of fairy tales, this one treads some well-worn ground of vengeance, vindication, villainy and virtues. We’ve seen this story told multiple times, of a “bad guy” who is out to kill the “good guys” with questionably justifiable reasons. In this case, seventeen-year-old Nova is focused on the Renegades, a group of five super-powered adults who are trying to restore order to a world taken down by chaotic and more selfish super-powered antagonists when powers were first starting to develop. The Anarchists, the group that Nova is originally a part of, is all that’s left of an organized front trying to enact revenge against the Renegades for hunting them down and confining the Anarchists to hiding and petty crimes necessary for survival. A variety of ethnicities, backgrounds, and powers are well portrayed, and reminiscent of Brandon Sanderson’s Reckoners series (which begins with Steelheart). We see the conflicting philosophies and responsibilities played out time and again, all the way back to Spiderman’s famous “With great power comes great responsibility” and more recently by V.E. Schwab in Vicious. The actual debate sparked by the different camps is explicitly laid out in a scene between Nova and one of the Renegades, where they discuss the influence that the prodigies had on the world, and whether non-gifted people could contribute to the rebuilding of something that the gifted but greedy individuals brought about.

Nova is very set in her ways and ideals, but even she is not immune to the altruism showcased by her team, which includes Adrian (superhero name “Sketch”), Oscar (“Smokescreen”) and Ruby (“Red Assassin”). Oscar, Ruby, and injured Dana are background characters to dual narrators Nova and Adrian. On the opposing side is Honey, Winston, Leroy, Phobia, and Ingrid, with Ingrid receiving more screen time then the rest as the default leader of the group. Everyone on both sides seems aware of the hype that they are obligated to live up to, with the Renegades being recognized on the street and the Anarchists being villainized and characterized by public displays and paraphernalia.

Adrian has his own secret, which readers are privy to within the first few chapters. Trying to live up to the legacy of his adoptive parents, he’s experimenting with his ability in order to enhance and add to his powers. Assuming the secondary identity of “Sentinel”, Adrian’s actions end up in an unenviable position where he needs to right a mistake before revealing himself. Then he receives a tip about a new prodigy who might be involved in his mother’s death, and he’s ready to discover everything he can, even if it goes against the wishes of the Council. This unexpectedly also places himself in a position to realize that not all Renegades are as altruistic as the organization wants them to be, and he’s struggling to come to terms with that idea since he’s been indoctrinated with the goals and dreams his entire life. D

The tender romance for Nova that begins by the end of the book is expected. Hints of the spectacular double-cross during the climactic battle are also liberally laid as to come as little surprise. The true unexpected twist revealed on the very last page is what will leave readers gasping and struggling to wait until the sequel arrives later in November 2018. I expect more background information will have to fill in the blanks that readers realize the author has been purposefully hiding since the very first page.

Wires and Nerve

I originally intended to post these in October, but the end of the year got away from me. Since I can’t draw, in honor of Inktober 2017 I searched out a graphic novel to fit each daily theme presented. Now that October is over, I finally have a chance to catch up on my blogging. Here’s my submission for the theme from October 29th: united.

Title: Wires and Nerve
Series: Lunar Chronicles series
Author: Marissa Meyer
Illustrator: Doug Holgate with Stephen Gilpin
ISBN: 9781250078261
Pages: 238 pages
Publisher/Date: A Feiwel and Friends Book, an imprint of Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC, c2017.

I’ve been hunting wolves for seventy-one days. I’ve tracked their packs through the jungles of Peru. The sewers of Rome. The abandoned shipyards outside Cairo. I’ve seen the devastation they cause with my own eyes. The mutilated bodies of their victims. The terror that lingers in those left behind. I’ve been hunting them long enough that I’m beginning to understand how they operate. Like the wild wolves they’re meant to imitate, they like to prey on the old and sick, singling out the weak from the herd. They strike fast, targeting heavily populated areas, then vanish back into the wilderness. I’ve even come to recognize the sorts of places they like to make their dens. The darker… the eerier… the better. (18-19)

Fans of Marissa Meyer’s Lunar Chronicles series will be happy to learn that the story didn’t end with Cinder ascension to the Lunar throne. Unfortunately, the wolf-hybrid soldiers that were sent to Earth by Queen Levana in anticipation of her taking control of the planet are still at large, and wreaking havoc around the world. Cinder can’t jeopardize her relationship with Earthen governments and citizens by sending Lunars, especially so soon after they were threatened by that very race. Humans are no match for the wolf soldiers speed and agility. So that leaves Iko, the plucky robot and loyal sidekick with a chip in her personality that makes her unlike any other android. When she runs into a spot of trouble and needs to call on members of the old gang, it sets into motion events that expose the head of the revolution, Alpha Lysander Steele, and his plans to revolt against both humans and Lunars alike.

I’m a biased, long-standing fan of the series from the very first book. I’ve enjoyed and listened to the audiobooks so often that some of the voices used in those are now in my brain. I didn’t expect the blue tones in the illustrations (considering the covers of the original series, I expected red), but the visuals are exceedingly well done. The pacing adds to the action sequences, building suspense and supplementing the dialogue and text with wordless panels that convey meaning and emotion. Holgate does have a tendency to end chapters by focusing on a singular character, especially with an extreme close up of eyes, but that does lend an episodic, cinematic feeling to the story, where you expect a “duhn duhn DUHN!” to play in the background along with the page flip. The plot reads naturally, and while you can more fully appreciate the plot if you’ve read the preceding titles, there is a short summarizing prologue, and additional back matter is provided within the story in a way that doesn’t feel like obtrusive. Characters relationships with each other and motivations are clearly displayed or stated.

It’s exciting to see Iko get her moment in the spotlight and her personality especially shines in her indignity at the salesman who tries to explain why Iko isn’t as celebrated as the rest of the heroes. There is a short scene where it alludes that we’ll learn more about Iko’s programming in the planned sequel. The relationship that Iko begins by the end of the book is slightly problematic to me right now, but I’m looking to see how it develops in the next installment. I was originally looking at her as a C3PO type character, where it wasn’t necessary for her to pair with someone like the rest of the original crew. I guess like a Shakespearean play or the second half of Little Women, fans might have requested this to happen, but I’ve seen some comments online that indicate I’m not the only one with some trepidation on how this will work out.

The sequel, Gone Rogue, comes out Jan. 30th, so soon you can pick them both up to complete your collection.

The Golden Compass The Graphic Novel Vol. 1

Title: The Golden Compass The Graphic Novel Vol. 1
Original Author: Philip Pullman
Adapted by: Stephane Melchior
Translator: Annie Eaton
Illustrator: Clement Oubrerie (with Philippe Bruno)
ISBN: 9780553523720
Pages: unpaged
Publisher/Date: Borzoi Book published by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. c2015. (Originally published by Gallimard Jeunesse, c2014) Adapted from The Golden Compass, c1995.

“Lyra! So that is what they’re teaching you here? Spying!”
“Ouch, that hurts!”
“The wine! It’s poisoned!”
“A spy and a liar. They’ve really done well with your education.”
“I was hiding! I saw! The Master poured powder into the wine.” (unpaged)

Lyra has lived at Jordan College for almost her whole life, and is tired of being supervised by the stuffy professors and scholars who live there. She wants to go on adventures with her uncle, Lord Asriel, whom the head of the school tried to secretly poison on her last visit. Instead, she is whisked away from the dangers of the city, including rampant kidnappers dubbed the Gobblers, by the mysterious Mrs. Coulter. However, Mrs. Coulter has her own agenda, including an association with a board using children to research a mysterious substance called Dust, that multiple groups are racing to understand and control. Heading for an adventure she always wanted but could never anticipate, Lyra is left relying on the help of a group of gyptians and her own skills as she travels to the North, to the land of ice, cold, and not-so-friendly armored polar bears.

I’ve been a big fan of the His Dark Materials trilogy ever since it was first published almost 20 years ago. (Not saying “Man I’m old” prevents me from being old, right?) When I heard they were making it into a graphic novel trilogy, I was excited. I was slightly disappointed to learn that this trilogy of graphic novels is only focusing on the first book, and question the rational behind splitting the original novel in this manner. This first volume leaves off with Lyra’s journey north with the gyptians just beginning, and she still has a long way to travel. The artwork is also not what I expected from a story that deals with fantastical elements and beasts. Muted in tone, with lots of dark blues and dusty orange/reds, the color palette may have been determined by the story’s setting and mood more than the other way around. Lyra’s determination and free-spirited nature is still evident in this portrayal, but quite a few of the more animated facial expressions for her and the other characters strike me as overly exaggerated and at times comical. The number of panels per page (sometimes as many as nine) also necessitates that they are quite small, and so details do not translate well, with the exception being when the artist intentionally makes a panel bigger for emphasis.

The background behind Dust and the deamons has been eliminated almost completely, except for a few quick expository pages and some overheard conversations on Lyra’s part. Readers must pay attention to the illustrations to determine the nature of daemons, including their ability to change shape, the necessity of physical proximity to their humans (I almost typed owners, whoops!) and the ties that bind them to those humans. For readers who enjoy fantasy and the ideas of other worlds, this would be an adequate introduction to the ideas. Make no mistake though, this is a paltry substitute for the real thing, and I’m saddened by the fact that some people won’t be motivated to tackle the original.

Calamity

Title: Calamity
Series: Reckoners #3
Author: Brandon Sanderson
Narrator: MacLeod Andrews
ISBN: 9781511311748 (audiobook) 9780385743600 (hardcover)
Pages: 421 pages
CDs/Discs: 10 CDs, 12 hours
Publisher/Date: Audible Inc., and distributed by Audible, Inc. and Brilliance Audio. c2015. (audiobook) Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, c2016 (by Dragonsteel Entertainment, LLC) (hardcover)

“I’m fine,” I said. “But they spotted me.”
“Get out.”
I hesitated.
“David?”
“There’s something in there, Mizzy. A room that was under lock and key, guarded by drones–I’ll bet they moved in there as soon as our original attack happened. Either that, or that room is always guarded. Which mean . . . ”
“Oh, Calamity. You’re going to be you, aren’t you?”
“You did just tell me to, and I quote, ’embrace my nature.'” I fired another salvo as I caught motion at the end of the corridor. “Let Abraham and the others know I’ve been spotted. Pull everyone out and be ready to retreat.”
“And you?”
“I’m going to find out what’s in that room.” I hesitated. “I might have to get shot to do it.” (27)

David is now the defacto leader of the Reckoners, or at least what is left of them. Their fight against Regalia in Babylon Restored did not go expected. Then again, when do David’s plans ever go as expected? After breaking into the Knighthawk Foundry to get supplies, they follow a lead to Ildithia, an ever shifting city made of salt. Their bare bones basic plan is to find out how to defeat Calamity while recovering one of their own team members. But the powers of the Epics are not what they seem, and as David fights to save people who were once allies, he may put in jeopardy the team members who have always stayed loyal.

Sparks, it is hard to talk about this third book, the conclusion to the trilogy, without giving away anything that has happened in the first two books. So forgive my vagueness. Beginning about two months after the end of Firefight, David has truly evolved into a leader, running team missions and being looked to by other team members for guidance and instruction. His bad similes/metaphors are back, and they seem to have leaked into the rest of his team. While that may be true to real life (speech patterns evolving based on who you hang out with most), it was less amusing when more and more people started spewing bad similes. I still have two really great favorites. The first one is David trying to describe his nerdiness/obsession about Epics:

“I’d call him obsessed, but that doesn’t do it justice.” […]
“I’m like . . . well, I’m like a room-sized, steam-powered, robotic toenail-clipping machine.” […]
“I can basically do only one thing,” I explained, “but damn it, I’m going to do that one thing really, really well.” (57,61)

The fact that person actually allows him to finish his metaphor so many minutes/pages later proves how much they have grown on each other. You really see David’s romantic side in this next quote. I wish I had someone to describe me like this.

“You,” I said, tipping her chin up to look her in the eye, “are a sunrise.” […]
“I would watch the sun rise, and wish I could capture the moment. I never could. Pictures didn’t work–the sunrises never looked as spectacular on film. And eventually I realized, a sunrise isn’t a moment. It’s an event. You can’t capture a sunrise because it changes constantly–between eyeblinks the sun moves, the clouds swirl. It’s continually something new.
“We’re not moments [redacted]. We’re events. You say you might not be the same person you were a year ago? Well, who is? I’m sure not. We change, like swirling clouds and a rising sun. The cells in me have died, and new ones were born. My mind has changed, and I don’t feel the thrill of killing Epics I once did. I’m not the same David. Yet I am.”
“I met her eyes and shrugged. “I’m glad you’re not the same [redacted] I don’t want you to be the same. My [redacted] is a sunrise, always changing, but beautiful the entire time.” (137-138)

However, David also develops a distracted internal monologue as a result of his more pronounced love interest that proved unnecessary and seemed out of character, especially with these happening in the heat of battle.

“I imagined her cursing softly, sweating while she sighted at a passing drone, her aim perfect, her face . . .
. . . Uh, right. I should probably stay focused. (16)

One of the things I admired about this book was Sanderson’s handling of the fight scenes. The team does take damage. While with the technology existing in the book not everything they undergo in the sense of physical injuries is permanent, there is a character death that I didn’t see coming and that seriously affects the team, not only emotionally but also in their ability to run future missions. Other readers/reviewers have mentioned the drawn out nature of the planning and the fighting, but I’m glad that time passes. Fights aren’t won in an instant, wars take time, and the exhaustion that the characters suffer as a result is mentioned repeatedly. We also see the aftermath of a battle, with bodies lying around, and David actually considers taking action to prevent a repercussion of war, before being convinced otherwise by his team that it would be too risky. His world view has expanded to not just consider his own goals, but also what sort of implications the end result would have on the citizens of this new city, which his focused way of thinking in Newcago would have never considered.

The book also showed that people have their own weaknesses and motivations, regardless of whether they are an Epic or a regular human. By the end, we definitely see that some people will never change, while others, especially David, have evolved over the course of the series, sometimes out of necessity but other times due to their own inevitable growth.

It’s the last about 20% of the book where the plot starts to fall apart. Sanderson has backed himself into a corner, with Reckoners falling back, falling down, and falling out of the fight. There is an epic (pardon the pun) showdown between David and the book’s major Epic (who for…. reasons I can’t name). Several new Epics are introduced, and one resurfaces from a previous book. From the beginning I felt like there was more to one of the new Epics than meets the eye, and his role/reveal in the final fight felt VERY convenient. The team’s interactions with him felt out of character, and this is where things start to get muddled. Then David has a last minute Hail Mary opportunity (literally, the last 50 pages of a 400 page book) to take out Calamity, which was never the primary goal of the entire plot of the book even though the book is named after him.

I love how Jessica from Rabid Reads posted on Goodreads that the problem is solved “just like that”, which is literally the words Sanderson uses.I went back to check, page 411. REALLY? Less than 10 pages to the end of the book and “just like that” problem solved. There’s no other way to describe it, that’s just lame Sanderson. You spend three books setting up this epic battle and circuitous rationale behind the powers, the weaknesses… everything. And then you go and pull (really great turn of phrase omitted because of spoilers) fake-out on us and refuse to answer any of the questions that result. It’s the epitome of “and then they woke up, and realized it was all a dream”.

Regardless of my anger towards Sanderson over his inability to provide closure or a straight answer to close off this series, Macleod Andrews continues his phenomenal job at voicing the series. I found myself by the end of this third book comparing his voice for David to a young Michael J. Fox, overly ambitious but still cautious about what’s to come. Meanwhile, the altered Epic they face off against seemed like the newest incarnation of Batman, where the voice gets gravely when assuming his alter ego. Seriously, listen to the audiobooks for these, but be prepared to be scratching your head and throwing the discs across the room by the end.

Firefight

Title: Firefight
Series: Reckoners #2
Author: Brandon Sanderson
Narrator: MacLeod Andrews
ISBN: 9781501278099 (audiobook), 9780385743587 (hardcover)
Pages: 416 pages
Discs/CDs: 9 CDs, 11 hours 41 minutes
Publisher/Date: Dragonsteel Entertainment, LLC c2014. (Audible, Inc. and distributed by Audible, Inc. and Brilliance Audio)

I pass through the crowd and knelt beside the corpse. She’d been a rabid dog, as Prof had put it. Killing her had been a mercy.
She came for us, I thought. And this is the third one who avoided engaging Prof. Mitosis had come to the city while Prof had been away. Instabam had tried to lose Prof in the chase, gunning for Abraham. Now Sourcefield had captured Prof, then left him behind to chase me.
Prof was right. Something was going on. (31-32)

David and the Reckoners have fought off three new Epics successfully, but something isn’t adding up as to why they are making the effort to travel to Newcago and engage a team of Epic assassins. All clues point to Babylon Restored, formerly known as Manhattan but currently ruled by a mysterious High Epic named Regalia, who flooded the city in order to maintain control. David, Tia, and Prof leave the rest of the team behind and join up with a new team that has become entrenched in the city. Their plan involves taking out Regalia before she takes out them, but with Regalia seemingly one step ahead of them at every turn and secrets being kept on all sides, David’s famous improvisational skills may be put to the test.

If you enjoyed Steelheart, you’re going to love Firefight. MacLeod Andrews is back as narrator, and the one scene that swept me away was when David is getting choked to within an inch of his life by an Epic. You hear the distress, you hear the rasping, frantic breath leaving his body, and you hear the fear. We leave behind in Newcago Cody and Andrew, and get Mizzy, a manic pixie like character who is a new recruit training to be sniper and point who also does equipment repairs, operations leader Val who is just as close mouthed and serious as Jonathan, and Exel, an ex-mortician giant of a man who is half gregarious infiltrator/reconnaissance  and half big man of muscle. Each new character and Epic are given equally appropriate voices. Mizzy is delightful in terms of comic relief. In one of my favorite scenes early in the story, she is given “scribe duties” during a meeting, and her notes include:

Reckoner Super Plan for Killing Regalia at the top of the sheet. Each i was doted with a heart. […]
Really important, and we totally need to do it on the paper, with three big arrows pointing at the heading above. Then after a moment, she added Boy, it’s on now in smaller letters beside that one. […]
Regalia totally needs to get with the business. […]
Excel needs to pay better attention to his job […]
Step One: find Regalia, then totally explode her. Lots and lots. […]
Step Two: put Val on decaf. […]
Step Three: Mizzy gets a cookie. […] (131-135)

She plays off David extremely well, maybe because they are both the newest ones to their teams, or maybe because they are closest in age to each other.

“Well, trust me,” I said. “I’m more intense than I look. I’m intense like a lion is orange.”
“So, like . . . medium intense? Since a lion is kind of a tannish color?”
“No, they’re orange.” I frowned. “Aren’t they? I’ve never actually seen one.”
“I think tigers are the orange ones,” Mizzy said. “But they’re still only half orange, since they have black stripes. Maybe you should be intense like an orange is orange.”
“Too obvious,” I said. “I’m intense like a lion is tannish.” Did that work? Didn’t exactly slip off the tongue.
Mizzy cocked her head, looking at me. “You’re kinda weird.” (115)

And yes, David’s bad metaphors are back, but it seemed like they were less frequent than in the first book, which is okay by me. Although as someone determines near the end of the book “You’re not actually bad at metaphors […] because most the things you say are similes. Those are really what you’re bad at.” (414) It, among other things, shows David’s growth from the last book. The intensity of the Reckoners’ situation has also changed, as they fight not just one but two Epics that are intertwined in a long term goal that no one sees coming. David starts questioning what they are doing as more information about Epics comes to light and he starts to wonder what makes Epics go bad and if there is a way to prevent them from being consumed by their powers. We see David in true assassin mode, questioning his motives and beliefs as he tries, usually unsuccessfully, to come to grips with his feelings and hatred towards most Epics but with an ever growing list of exceptions.

We get way more information about the creation of Epics then I ever expected. All the pieces of the puzzle start coming together, and the ending simultaneously wraps up the problems found and creates whole new ones that we need to face in the recently published third and final book in the trilogy. We may have lost some friends in the process (shhhh, no spoilers here), but knowing David, he’ll figure something out, and being in a tight spot just makes him try harder to succeed.

Steelheart

Title: Steelheart
Author: Brandon Sanderson
Series: Reckoners #1
Narrator: MacLeod Andrews
ISBN: 9781480569133 (audiobook), 9780385743563 (hardcover)
Pages: 386 pages
Discs/CDs: 10 CDs, 12 hours 20 minutes
Publication: Brilliance Audio, c2013. (Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc. c2013.)

Eventually the Reckoners led me around a corner that looked like every other one–only this time it led to a small room cut into the steel. There were a lot of these places in the catacombs. […]
I took a hesitant step backward, realizing I was cornered. I’d begun to think that I was on my way toward being accepted into their team. But looking into Prof’s eyes, I realized that was not the case. He saw me as a threat. I hadn’t been brought along because I’d been helpful; I’d been brought along because he hadn’t wanted me wandering free.
I was a captive. And this deep in the steel catacombs, nobody would notice a scream or a gunshot. (48-49)

Ever since his father was killed by the Epic Steelheart, David has been spending the last decade studying these super powered people who inevitably battle each other for control over the cities and populations of the dystopian United States. They all have a weakness, and David knows he holds the key to Steelheart’s, if he could only figure it out. David’s not the only one fighting the Epics, and he’s been following the Reckoner’s efforts for years. After intentionally stumbling into an assassination attempt and helping (sort of) he’s able to convince the team of Reckoners to let him join them on their quest. But convincing them to go up against the most powerful Epic ever is going to take a lot more than hunches and guesswork. It’s going to take stealth and strategy, neither of which David is particularly good at imbuing.

Think of the X-Men world, but only with the Magneto team and not Professor Xavier’s humanity; then add Superman’s obscure weakness, only it’s different for every Epic, and you’ll have a good approximation of the world Brandon Sanderson has created for his Reckoners series. And what a world it is, with adaptations to the culture while still maintaining enough recognizable references to modern day to orient readers. It’s a bloody existence being a Reckoner, surrounded by war and death. The opening scene of David’s father’s death is also gritty and gruesome in it’s realism, which might turn off some more sensitive readers. I was somewhat disappointed that we didn’t see more of the day-to-day life during an Epic’s reign, but what we do glimpse is impressive. With only one or two chapters of info-dumping back story, readers are submerged into David’s internal monologue.

David’s life after his father’s death is like those of kids during the Industrial Revolution, working grunt jobs due to his size and ability to be exploited, although he doesn’t mind as it guarantees him a roof and food. Much has been said about David’s horrible yet humorous metaphors, and they definitely are memorable and add to his personality.

I tried not to stare, but that was like trying not to blink. Only . . . well, kind of the opposite. (48)
Megan’s eyes could have drilled holes through . . . well, anything, I guess. I mean, eyes can’t normally drill holes through things, so the metaphor works regardless, right? Megan’s eyes could have drilled holes through butter. (103)
“It’s like . . . a banana farm for guns.”(142)
They looked so dangerous, like alligators. Really fast alligators wearing black. Ninja alligators. (149)

But there is also depth and incredible insight from David. He objects to being called a nerd because not only does he make a distinction between smarts and persistence, but he also realized that the smartest students lost their freedoms by being scrutinized and under surveillance working for an Epic. He recognizes he’s been living a life motivated by revenge and death, but isn’t quite sure how to focus on anything else.

Not just David, but all the characters are multidimensional, and readers focus on what little information they can gleam from the narrative about everyone. MacLeod Andrews has been added to my list of top narrators. David’s youthful and playful but committed demeanor, Cody and Abraham’s back-and-forth banter, the more serious and solemn tones of Prof, the skeptical and scholarly Tia, and Megan’s sarcastic quips are all captured with precision and excellence. Cody is the spot of humor, with his southern accent, Scottish vocabulary, and intentionally insane side-comments. He throws you off guard leaving both readers and David wondering just how much of this is an act and how much of what Cody says does he actually believe, but rest assured he is much more than the village idiot. Abraham is a mystery, with Andrews alluding to a James Bond character with his clipped accent, but Abraham’s personality is probably the most predictable and stable out of all of them. Megan is the stereotypical unrequited love interest for David, who hasn’t had much past experience with girls. But Megan is anything but stereotypical, as David realizes when she turns out to be an extremely capable point-man with an astonishing knowledge of weapons. She challenges him, which is good for both of them. Rounding out the team is Tia, the typical brains of the bunch who holds information and her cards close to her chest, and the esoteric and reclusive leader Prof, who leads with equal parts discipline and democracy. The whole cast is memorable, not just because of Sanderson’s writing but Andrews’ portrayal of them.

Like the movie Saving Private Ryan, team members share only the basics about their life in an effort to avoiding tipping off the Epics if one of them ever gets captured. Prof actually asks David how old he is and if he would have anyone who would come looking for him if he were to disappear. By the end of the book, we’ve realized not everyone is as they appear, and it’s questionable where and how the story will continue. We know more about all the members of the team then we did when we started, but there is one big question that needs answering, and hopefully will be resolved in the sequel.

The Sleeper and the Spindle

Each month for a previous job, I wrote a maximum 150 word review of a new book that came into the library during the month. I’ve expanded that idea to the blog in a feature I’m calling To the Point Tuesdays. If you want to play along, just post a link in the comments and I’ll add them to the post.

Title: The Sleeper and the Spindle
Author: Neil Gaiman
Illustrator: Chris Riddell
ISBN: 9780062398246
Pages: 69 pages
Publisher/Date: first published in Rag & Bones: New Twists on Timeless Tales, published in 2013 by Little, Brown. c2013, Illustrations c2014. Originally published in the U.K. in 2014 by Bloomsbury. Published in U.S. by HarperCollins Children’s Books, a division of HarperCollins Publishers, c2015.

The smallest dwarf tipped his head to one side. “So, there’s a sleeping woman in a castle, and perhaps a witch or fairy there with her. Why is there also a plague?”
“Over the last year,” said the fat-faced man. “It started in the north, beyond the capital. I heard about if first from travelers coming from Stede, which is near the Forest of Acaire.”
“People fall asleep in the towns,” said the pot-girl. […]
“They fall asleep whatever they are doing, and they do not wake up,” said the sot. “Look at us. We fled the towns to come here. We have brothers and sisters, wives and children, sleeping now in their houses or cowsheds, at their workbenches. All of us.”
“It is moving faster and faster,” […] “Now it covers a mile, perhaps two miles, each day.” (18)

Three dwarfs tunnel under the mountain range in search of a wedding gift for their queen, returning with news of a horrible sleeping sickness plaguing the neighboring lands and heading closer every day. The queen, having previously faced her own sleep spell, postpones the wedding and attempts to break the spell and save both kingdoms. Although this might sound familiar, Neil Gaiman’s twist ending flips the story, and you question who is really being held captive. The queen’s confidence is obvious in both narration and illustration, and is the most welcome adaptation to the traditional tale. Two illustrations specifically catch my eye, the first has the queen standing with the dwarfs ready to embark, and the second is the full-spread gorgeously rendered drawing of the kiss. It doesn’t seem enough though to warrant publishing a previous short story as its own book, but U.S. fans will enjoy Gaiman’s newest import.