Four Stars: Atrocity Archives by Charles Stross Guest Post

October 29, 2012 by 2 Comments

Imagine a world in which mathematical algorithms became the foundation for magical systems.  Equations and symbolic systems make things happen in tangible reality, and computer systems are used to control occult forces.  Tech support just got a whole lot more interesting…..

Fellow nerds convinced me to give Atrocity Archives a try.  The first book in the Laundry Files series sets up an interesting premise and introduces us to a world that is both occult and familiar.  Magic is real in Atrocity Archives, but so is the mind-numbing bureaucracy that parallels tech support in government agencies around the world.  In this world, we meet Bob Howard – a regular, stand up guy just trying to keep the computers running and information flowing despite the red-tape and paperwork that his superiors use to try to make his life miserable.  It sounded like a cross between The Office and the Dresden Files.  While I never enjoyed The Office (frankly … too much like real life), I loved the Dresden books and thought I could resonate with Bob the Tech Guy.
The Atrocity Archives by Charles Stross Goodreads | Amazon
Title: The Atrocity Archives
Author: Charles Stross
Pages: 354 pages
Genre-ish: Urban fantasy – adult
Rating: ★★★★☆ -  fun story with interesting twists but some flaws
Setting:  The Atrocity Archives is set in the UK and the United States during the Cold War Era… but with a twist or two.  Our hero works in tech support in a typical governmental bureaucracy, associated with the intelligence and counter-intelligence networks, which is exciting in the movies but a real bore in real life.
Premise:  Mathematics and symbol systems work to allow people to transit between alternate universes and harness power that flows between the planes of existence.  The problem is that these alternate universes are not filled with happy, fluffy bunnies that mean us well – in fact, quite the opposite.  Monsters that manage to cross the boundary possess humans and drain energy from our world, which makes it essential to keep the boundaries tightly closed.  Unfortunately, the wrong discovery by a theorist opens her up to kidnapping by aliens who intend to open up a really big gate to a universe-gobbling monstrosity.  Naturally, our hero, Bob, is just the tech for the job.  Now, if he could just remember to file the correct paperwork first!!

Strengths:

  • The Atrocity Archives is an interesting take on the genre.  It ends up being science fiction crossed with H.P. Lovecraft style horror with a healthy dose of tongue-in-cheek humor.
  • Our hero, Bob, really is not the type of person to be a hero.  No James Bond waiting for the opportunity to get out of his cubicle.  Bob is just an ordinary guy who happens to be competent at his job.  He ends up being out of his league and copes through a combination of hacking and good luck.
  • The monsters of Atrocity Archives are straightforward monsters.  No misunderstood anti-heroes in this book.   We have possessed descendents of Nazis.  We have universe-eating super giants.  We have supercilious paper-pushers for bosses.  Easy to know who you’re cheering for and who you want to boo.
  • Stross captures the feeling of the US/USSR Cold War quite well.  For those who did not live through it, this book should be on your reading list.

Weaknesses:

  • The Atrocity Archives is, I think, a collection of longish novellas that are related.  This gave it a cut-up feeling, although the series holds together pretty well, it still left me feeling like I miss-timed stepping off a moving walkway.
  • The female protagonist was more clueless than I liked.  While it is true that everyone was somewhat at a loss about what was really going on until the very end, I think she could have been written to be a stronger, more intelligent character.  After all, she turned out to be brainy enough to understand the multiverse and related mathematics – still, she was relegated to the role of being bait.  I prefer stronger female leads than this.
  • Much of the charm of The Atrocity Archives is that it is a nerd’s take on the whole spy vs. spy deal.  Stross throws around a lot of computer jargon, which mostly makes the reader feel like an insider, but I wonder what non-nerds would make of it.  I have a background in computer science and have been the unfortunate tech; so, I understood most of the jargon.  But even I got tired of it after a while.

Summary:

It is a slightly rocky start of a promising series.  Bob Howard is a strongly sympathetic character – a geeky underdog who does not turn into Superman when the action starts.  He just does his best and hopes that things work out.  I’m interested to find out what the next episode in his life will bring and will be looking for the next book in the series as soon as I get some room in my calendar.

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-Barb

 

 Atrocity Archives by Charles Stross

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Guest Post: Four Stars Fate Succumbs by Tammy Blackwell

September 24, 2012 by Leave a Comment

A review of Fate Succumbs by Tammy Blackwell by Stochastic:

Adapted from Goodreads summary of Fate Succumbs:

In Tammy Blackwell’s Destiny Binds, the first novel of the Timber Wolves trilogy, Scout Donovan learned that her universe contained werewolves. In Time Mends, Scout narrowly escaped death at the hands of the Alpha Pack. In Fate Succumbs, the final installment of the trilogy, Scout is on the run. But the more she discovers about the Alpha Pack and herself, the more she realizes she can’t run forever. Destiny is propelling her towards an unavoidable battle. Can Scout survive, or will she succumb to fate?

Scout Donovan is full of snark. Snarkful. Snarkous, even. This is most apparent and most amusing when she’s most frustrated, she’s had it up to here, she’s about to explode and drench everybody with gobs of dripping hot frustration-shrapnel, but she never quite reaches that point (well, almost never). Blackwell uses this snark-regulated pressure-cooked frustration with great effect in Fate Succumbs to keep the reader simmering in sympathy with Scout, but she does so with some subtlety. Read on for an explanation.

Fate Succumbs by Tammy Blackwell
Goodreads | Amazon
Title: Fate Succumbs (Timber Wolves #3)
Author: Tammy Blackwell
Pages: 269 pages, paperback
Genre-ish: YA urban-ish fantasy
Rating: ★★★★☆- solid story, needs lots of polish
Setting:  A cross-country fugitive road-trip with a long sojourn in winter wilderness.
Premise:  After a violent escape from a violent death, Scout Donovan is on the run with no resources but the unexpected friendship, company, and assistance of Liam Cole. Together they flee cross-country. Scout knows and fears she must prepare herself for an inevitable reckoning with the Alpha Pack, a reckoning she is certain will end with her death. Nevertheless she readies herself to fight.

Strengths:

  • Scout appears to have no goal: things just happen. So why is she so frustrated? Because she’s prevented from forming any goals. This drives her bonkers.
  • Scout’s chief antagonist is mostly absent. So who is making Scout so frustrated? The situation is so dire and impossible that her friends and allies are too frightened to share their plans. In other words, circumstance, fear, secrecy, and her friends and allies are driving Scout bonkers.
  • Why are these strengths? Because frustration with antagonists and at thwarted goals are great ways to draw readers into the story. Blackwell makes great use of these tools: there are invisible goals and invisible antagonists, and they drive the reader bonkers.
  • When Scout is frustrated, her internal monologues are hilarious. All of the dialog, for that matter, is natural and compelling, and often hilarious.

Weaknesses:

  • Sometimes the pop-culture references in Fate Succumbs distract from the story. I say this because I didn’t get most of the references, which says more about me than the story. So the targeted young-adult audience won’t see this as a weakness. But it will be a problem for the culturally-impaired.
  • The witty banter is fun, but is sometimes so tangential as to be distracting.

Summary:
With Fate Succumbs, Scout’s adventure ends, but I’m very pleased to see that Tammy Blackwell is continuing to write stories in the universe of Shifters and Seers. With Timber Wolves, Blackwell has made a wonderful and stunning entrance into the writing scene. Congratulations, Miss Tammy. I look forward to your next book.

Remember to subscribe to get weekly reviews of awesome books!

-Stochastic

Fate Succumbs by Tammy Blackwell

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Guest Post: Four Stars Time Mends by Tammy Blackwell

September 13, 2012 by Leave a Comment

As promised, Stochastic is back for a guest post on Time Mends, the sequel to Destiny Binds that he reviewed for us earlier in the week! Reminder, since this is a review for the second in a series, there are major spoilers for the first book!

Stochastic: Another great first sentence introduces Tammy Blackwell’s Time Mends, the second in the  Timber Wolves series: “Tony Stark over Bruce Wayne, but Batman trumps Iron Man.” I disagree: Bruce Wayne out-of-costume is secretly badass, whereas Stark is just a smartass, and the hi-tech talking weaponized armored rocket suit beats nearly every bat thingy except the Tumbler, which got squished. But I digress. But not much.

Those who’ve read Blackwell’s well-crafted Timber Wolves novel, Destiny Binds, will recall a young-adult urban-fantasy romance, but it is also a prelude and a hook to draw the reader into a far more ambitious and gripping storyline spanning three novels. Time Mends is a very different beast to the first novel. Time Mends is no romance, but rather a harrowing story of conflict in which our protagonist, Scout Donovan, and her closest friends must evolve into true badasses with attitudes. Remarkably, looking back to Destiny Binds we can see early signs of this evolution. And now… well, step aside, Stark and Wayne, this teenage girl may someday take you down.

Time Mends by Tammy Blackwell
Goodreads | Amazon
Title: Time Mends (Timber Wolves 2)
Author: Tammy Blackwell
Pages: 190 (Kindle)
Genre-ish: Young-adult urban fantasy
Rating: ★★★★☆- Fast-paced story, maybe too fast
Setting:  Rural American high-school and adjacent small towns and woods, and a hidden culture of Shifters, including werewolves, and of Seers possessed of a variety of psychic talents.
Premise:  Scout Donovan, whose universe was once normal-ish and sans supernatural, is now in recovery from a recent accidental mauling by her werecoyote brother, Jase. She has forgiven neither her brother nor his best friend, cousin, and fellow Shifter, Charlie, for her recent injuries. Nor has she forgiven them for killing her boyfriend, Alex, who turned out to be a werewolf. In the previous Timber Wolves novel, Destiny Binds, nobody close to Scout was what they appeared. In  Time Mends, in a fascinating symmetry, it is Scout who is not whom she appears to be, to her own surprise and consternation, and to that of everyone around her. She and everyone close to her must quickly adapt or be trampled.

Strengths:

  •  The unexpected twists will take you by surprise. Stay on your toes and pay attention. Happily, this will be easy. In fact, you won’t be able to put the book down. I couldn’t. I read Time Mends cover-to-cover in a single marathon session ending at 4 a.m.
  • Blackwell knows how to write action scenes in such a way that the action happens too fast to follow until after the action has ended, and you, the reader, have had a moment to breathe and collect yourself, to back away from the edge of your seat, to mentally review what you witnessed, and to reconstruct events, and then to try but fail to anticipate whatever might happen next. This is a neat trick. Only really good writers can pull it off.
  •  Interspersed among the gripping scenes of Time Mends are moments, many of which are tender, that give you a little time to breathe.

Weaknesses:

  • The book is too short. Well, no, it isn’t, I just really really need to get the next book in the series. Right now. Sadly, I must wait until the eleventh of September.
  •  As things get worse and worse, Scout and her companions must struggle to rise to meet each new challenge. And things go so badly so quickly that the characters may evolve too much, too fast. Time Mends is almost, but not quite, too fast-paced for its length.

Summary:
Time Mends is a very good read, gripping, fast-paced, and hard to put down.  Because it ends with a strong cliffhanger, you’ll be anxious for the final installment of the trilogy, Fate Succumbs, whose release date is September 11, 2012 (about a week after the writing of this review; A- But now you can go buy it!!). With the Timber Wolves series, Tammy Blackwell shows herself to be a gifted writer. I can’t wait to see what she’s going to write next.

Remember to subscribe to get weekly reviews of awesome books!

-Stochastic

Time Mends by Tammy Blackwell

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Guest Post: Four Stars Destiny Binds by Tammy Blackwell

September 10, 2012 by Leave a Comment

I’m thrilled to introduce to everyone a new guest poster! I have converted another of my book loving friends/family to writing posts for me, mwahaha!! Better yet, Stochastic read and wrote a review of Destiny Binds, so now you get a whole new perspective on this awesome book!

Stochastic: Those of us who collect eclectic, pithy first sentences will just love this one: “John Davis smells like Play-Doh”. Ya gotta love it. It’s nice to laugh out load at the first sentence of a new book.  This first sentence promises an interesting and engaging writing style, and with her first novel, new author Tammy Blackwell makes good on the promise. This must be why I so enjoyed the first third of the book, as I am neither a nascent young female adult, nor filled with angst over hot guys. I enjoyed the rest of the book, too, but for very different reasons.
Destiny Binds by Tammy Blackwell
Goodreads | Amazon
Title: Destiny Binds
Author: Tammy Blackwell
Pages: 222 (Kindle)
Genre-ish: Young-adult urban fantasy (perhaps “rural fantasy” is more fitting)
Rating: ★★★★☆- Compelling, a couple of warnings
Setting:  Rural high-school and adjacent small towns and woods. The protagonist is wholly unaware of the supernatural nature of her universe.
Premise: Scout Donovan is high-school girl in her senior year — granted, an interesting girl, but relegated to the losers’ table at lunch — with a popular but overprotective brother (Jase), a precocious little sister (Angel), and a beautiful but overweight best friend (Tally). Alex Cole is the hot new guy, deemed off-limits to  Scout by her brother and his best friend and cousin (Charlie). As Scout tries desperately to convince herself that she is in love with neither Alex nor Charlie, we have the makings of a lovers’ triangle, and the first third of the Destiny Binds reads much like a high-school girl’s diary, which I understand is pretty typical for the genre. For the first third of the book, there is no hint of the supernatural stuff implicit in the book’s title.  All the while, author Blackwell is setting-up dominoes in a spectacular pattern. She does this in a subtle way, concealing aspects of her protagonist: she is, in fact, sharper and more dynamic than your average teenager, as is her little sister. In fact, none of the characters are who they at first seem to be. Moreover, readers will discover certain schemes only after they reach fruition, and sometimes well afterward. The first domino falls almost exactly a third of the way into the book, when the story begins to gradually transform from a diary to a love story and a gripping urban fantasy.

Strengths:

  • Tammy Blackwell writes in an engaging and dryly amusing style. This may be her first novel, but Blackwell must be a seasoned writer.
  • The character development is fantastic. Each of Jase, Charles, Tally, and Alex are shown, by slow turns, to be in no way at all whom they at first appeared to be. Even the annoying little sister isn’t who you think she is. Neither is Scout, and for her part, she is forced to adapt to each startling revelation.
  • Your brain will be sharply tweaked by the wholly-unexpected climax and conclusion of Destiny Binds.

Weaknesses:

  • For the first third of the book, characters appear to react more than they act, with the result that the book feels more like a diary than a story. This is more a weakness of the genre, to which authors of young-adult fiction must apparently adhere in order to sell their books to young adults. So it must be forgiven -especially in light of later revelations of hidden motives, actions, and dynamics of which Blackwell initially, and carefully, no more than hints.
  • Destiny Binds’ angsty teenage lovers’ triangle, with two hot guys and a young, confused female protagonist, is a templated theme that’s felt hackneyed ever since Twilight — although, to my enduring horror, I love it. So do many angsty high school girls, I’m sure, which must explain why the template continues to be successful.

Summary:
I keep finding myself defending authors of what are essentially young-adult romances. Or rather, urban fantasy with young-adult-romance themes. In undertaking such a book, Blackwell must write to her target audience. As a new author, it is especially important for Blackwell to demonstrate that she knows how to write within the constraints of her genre. Blackwell clearly understands how to do this. With Destiny Binds, she has written a solid love story and fantasy, and wrapped it in trappings that will appeal to young adults. And to people like me, who are a little embarrassed to like such stories.

Remember to subscribe to get weekly reviews of awesome books! And come back in a few days for a review of Time Mends, the sequel to Destiny Binds!

-Stochastic

Destiny Binds by Tammy Blackwell

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Guest Post! Two Stars: St. Patrick’s Gargoyle by Katherine Kurtz

September 3, 2012 by Leave a Comment

St. Patrick’s Gargoyle is a fantasy set in an alternate version of modern Dublin, in which gargoyles are the avatars of angels, set to watch over certain buildings. It seems like a fairly straightforward, if often dull, assignment until a terrible evil begins to awake under the ruins of an old, old church, and Paddy (the gargoyle from St. Patrick’s Cathedral) must enlist the aid of a human being to prevent disaster from taking hold of the world. 

I (Barbara) have long been a fan of Katherine Kurtz’s Deryni Chronicles, and so when I was wandering the shelves of the local library, looking for some light reading, I picked up this book. Although it is set in a slightly adjusted version of our modern world, it does not fit into the urban fantasy genre. The only supernatural beings frequenting the land are gargoyles, which turn out to be the earthly appearance of avenging angels, each guarding a building. The evil that threatens the world is a demon that had been contained a millennium ago by a Templar and who now is beginning to break free as the bonds that hold it wear down with age.

St. Patrick's Gargoyle by Katherine Kurtz

Goodreads | Amazon
Title: St. Patrick’s Gargoyle
Author: Katherine Kurtz
Pages: 240
Genre-ish: Fantasy with angel gargoyles
Rating: ★★☆☆☆- Slow and pedantic with occasional good moments
Setting:

The book seems to be a work written to fit into the Templar Series, which imagines events that might have happened if the Templar Order had not really been destroyed in the early 1300s. In this imagining, the Templars were not hording wealth but protecting items of magical power, including a statue that contains a powerful demon, and sacred relics. In this book, the Templars seem to have died out … or are unreachable at a crucial junction… and their spiritual heirs are orders such as the Knights of Malta, the Knights of St. John, etc., which means that it does not fit into the Templar Series exactly but has a similar flavor and premise.

Premise:

In St. Patrick’s Gargoyle, the title character, Paddy, befriends an old man, Templeton, in the course of recovering items that were stolen from the church Paddy guards. In fact, Paddy pretty much requisitions Templeton’s help and old car in order to locate the thieves, deal with them, and recover the church’s property. It is an exciting day for the old man who deals remarkably well with the oddity of having a living gargoyle ride around in his car, giving orders from underneath a tartan blanket. After the day passes, the old man, and friends and family, wonder if he has gone round the bend, and Templeton spends some time around the cathedral afterward, looking to see if there really is a gargoyle at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. He doesn’t have long to wait before a great evil in the form of a demon threatens the world, and the gargoyle learns that he needs a human knight in order to put things right … sending him to recruit Templeton to the cause.

Strengths:

  • The human, Templeton, is well written. I had a strong sense of who he was and a great deal of sympathy for his life as a pensioner in modern Dublin, living with his kids, mourning his late wife, and escaping occasionally through driving his classic Rolls and meeting with his fellow Knights of Malta. He takes chivalry very seriously, which puts him at cross-purposes occasionally with family and acquaintances, but made me like him all the more.
  • There are a few scenes that are very touching and lovely. SPOILER: I probably should have seen it coming, but certain plot developments surprised me.
  • Kurtz is a wonderful writer when it comes to bringing history into the narrative, and I learned something of Irish history while I was reading.

Weaknesses:

  • There are many plot holes and complications that make no sense. In the end things happen that make me wonder what we needed Templeton for in the first place. Paddy and the other gargoyles are not supposed to be running around town except at a dark moon, but they are all over the city once the plot gets going – and if they can all hide in the trunk of a car, be as small as they need to be, and become basically invisible to a human, why does Paddy have to hide under a blanket all day when riding with Templeton at the beginning?
  • Details are normally Kurtz’ great strength, but I found the minutia regarding differences between Catholic and Protestant dogma boring and pedantic – and it stretched credulity that two laypeople would even have such a conversation. Information about the churches and other buildings adorned with gargoyles (or not as the case may be) was also a distraction from the story.

Summary:

I finished St. Patrick’s Gargoyle only because I had set myself a goal to read a certain number of books this year. Having invested in half a book, I figured I’d better recoup my time and get credit for completion. The last few pages were the best; so I am glad I did finish it off, but throughout, it seemed that the work did not hold together properly. St. Patrick’s Gargoyle felt like a short story stretched to fit a book through the overlay of too many details about architecture, theology, and obscure modern chivalric orders. While these are details that make the Deryni Chronicles live, they only weighed St. Patrick’s Gargoyle down.

 

Remember to subscribe to get weekly reviews of awesome books!

-Barbara

St. Patrick’s Gargoyle by Katherine Kurtz

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The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher (Guest Post)

July 8, 2011 by 1 Comment

I’m back! And with a guest post :-).

I’ve only gotten through the first book of the Dresden Files (it’s on my todo list! In fact the second one is sitting right next to me…) but my bookaholic parents both tore through them, and so I figured it’d be fun to write about what my mom thinks about these books!

Title: The Dresden Files (The first book is Storm Front)
Author: Jim Butcher
Pages: ~350 per book (paperback)
 Setting: The books take place in an alternative universe Chicago where magic is real and works, but most of the population still isn’t really aware of it. Magic has a tendency to interfere with technology though and there is a whole different world and politics revolving around magic.
Premise: Harry Dresden is a quite powerful wizard who has had a checkered past that got him on the bad side of the wizard government and is also the only wizard in the phone book and willing to help non-magical types. This obviously makes his life a little bit interesting when the magic entities that prey on humans get in his path.

Strengths:

  • Great characters
  • The main character has down sides to his magic, and isn’t all powerful
  • Good supporting characters with their own strengths and weaknesses, and they don’t always get along (more realistic)
  • The bad guys are really bad, so you’re quite happy for their demise
  • Good description/feel of Chicago
  • Complex plots and twists you don’t see coming
  • Magic is complex and there is a wide range of talent levels

Weaknesses:

  • First couple of books have a bit of frantic/stressful pace, but that gets better 
  • Dresden has a bit too much drama with authority figures, it just gets a bit unbelievable and annoying
  • Dresden’s mouth is also a bit annoying; someone in their 40′s should have better self-control

Summary: These are nice easy books that are fun for airplanes and summer activities that need reading. They are great urban fantasy and pull from a wide range of mythological backgrounds. If you have a problem with Christianity getting mixed in with magic and other religions, then you might not enjoy it. There are also some sexual innuendos, so PG-13 rating. Overall, great for the beach, everyone will know you’re a nerd!

-A (and Mom!)

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