Book Review - A Confusion of Princes, by Garth Nix

I’ve been on a distinct science fiction jag lately, and I’ve noticed that hard sci-fi is starting to pop up more often in YA lit, which makes me extremely happy. I’ve never read Nix before, but Sabriel has been on my to-read pile for quite some time. Even without his name attached, though, I would have jumped on this one; after hearing it summarized by a fellow librarian, I practically ripped an advance reader’s copy out of her hands. While I did have a few issues with its execution, A Confusion of Princes was every bit as fun to read as it seemed like it would be.

The story follows Khemri, a newly inducted Prince of a vast galactic empire. Contrary to the life of luxury he had imagined princehood to be, Khemri finds himself on the bottom rung of a vast and deadly society of millions of Princes, all of whom share the superhuman gifts of his biological, technological, and psychic engineering. Even his supposed immortality is no protection from the cutthroat political environment he is thrust into. However, someone high above him in the Imperial hierarchy has a plan for Khemri, which puts him onto a fringe world populated by normal humans. Khemri fights to return to his princely legacy, but his befuddling entanglement with a human girl named Raine is better preparing him for what he’ll face upon his return than he realizes.

The book is written from Khemri’s point of view, and therefore plunges the reader into Nix’s version of the galaxy without too much in the way of introduction to its particulars. As such, it took me a few pages to take in the lingo and understand what it was referring to. Once I got past that particular hurdle, though, I loved the worlds that Nix built. The balance of world-building, hard sci-fi details, and interpersonal drama is deftly achieved, making for an exciting bit of galactic escapism. The characters aren’t quite as nuanced as I prefer; in fact, the only character that gets any exploration at all is Khemri, and he follows a fairly predictable arc throughout the story. Even so, he’s a perfect protagonist.

My only problem is that Khemri is a little too perfect. It’s certainly not outside the bounds of the story, since his many psychic and technological powers are an integral part of the story. However, I did feel a little buffeted by Khemri’s constant ability to do everything perfectly and concoct ingenious workarounds to every challenge. It seemed to flatten his character out a little, and because the story is told in the first person, some scenes seemed to revolve around conveniently invented plot devices. The problem is somewhat compounded by the story's pacing. Over half of the book is spent on Khemri’s training in the ways of being a Prince. These sections are fascinating in their own right, but they relegate the main story to a comparatively cramped section of the book, forcing Nix to depict a lot of action in a short space without the benefit of much explanation or introspection.

Thankfully, Nix does hit all of the right notes to make Khemri’s story both sympathetic and thrilling. Meanwhile, the convenient badassery of the hero is an easy problem to forgive, considering the genre. While I wish we would have spent a little less time following Khemri’s awesome exploits of awesomeness and more time on his relationship with Raine or the differences between the Empire and their human thralls, I was still caught up by the story and thoroughly impressed with the slick, detailed universe that Nix creates. While adult fans of hard sci-fi might want something more from the story, this is a great read for general science-fiction fans, and perfect for teen readers who are looking for action and adventure.

Verdict: 4 / 5

Book Review - Memories of the Future Vol. 1, by Wil Wheaton

I’ve been following Wil Wheaton for quite some time, mostly by happenstance. I stumbled upon his blog back around 2001 or so, led there by my long-standing fondness of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and ended up being a fairly active participant on the message boards he maintained at the time. Since then, I’ve enjoyed watching him on his ascendant path to nerd spokesman, but for some reason have never gotten around to reading any of his books until now. While this one is a little rough around the edges in a few places, it delivers a perfect mix of snark and nostalgia.

The book is a collection of short reviews that Wil originally published online with AOL TV Squad. The reviews cover the first thirteen episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation’s uneven first season, and Wil apparently subjected himself to extensive rewatches while writing them in order to refresh his memory. If you own the series on DVD or have access to Netflix streaming, I highly suggest you do what I did: follow his example and watch each episode before reading its review. It definitely heightens the experience.

The first season of TNG has its high points, but it often swings between unintentionally hilarious and plain awful. Honestly, it’s hard to take seriously the vision of the future presented by the hair and makeup stylists of the late 1980s (I sensing something, Captain. Aqua Net. Aqua Net and... and rouge. So... much... rouge!) Wil calls out the inherent silliness of these early episodes from the perspective of someone who worked behind the scenes, enriching the hilarity with trivia and personal recollections. Best of all, he does it with a palpable fondness, contrasting the ridiculous bits with the truly good ones, and taking plenty of time to give credit to his wonderful costars as they navigated through a show with questionable writing but enormous potential.

The only problem I have with the book comes from the format it was initially presented in, I think. Wil initially wrote each review as a humorous online column. Thus, he packs a lot of one-liners into each chapter, and flavors them with plenty of inside baseball from Star Trek and general nerd culture. Being a Star Trek nerd, I appreciated most of these asides, but there was a groaner every now and then. It was never enough to detract from my enjoyment of the book, but a few paragraphs skirted the line of reaching just a bit too much for a joke.

Minor quibble, easily forgotten. Honestly, this is a great book for anybody who has ever watched the series, and a perfect companion piece for watching it again. It’s also worth looking at for anybody who has a general interest in science fiction, since it offers an acerbic and often hilarious look at a seminal science-fiction franchise.

Verdict: 4 / 5

Book Review - Zoe's Tale, by John Scalzi

John Scalzi personally coerced me into taking an autographed copy of this book from him, under threat of being hunted down by Wil Wheaton. No, seriously, that's a true story. I’m glad he did; even though this probably wasn’t the best starting point for the Old Man’s War series, it’s a tight and fun read that promises even better stuff from his other books.

Zoe’s Tale is a retelling of the previous Old Man’s War book, The Last Colony, from the perspective of teenager Zoe Boutin-Perry. A small group of pioneers are chosen to establish a new colony on a fringe world, with Zoe’s parents plucked from a quiet agrarian community and chosen to lead the expedition. Things go awry from the very beginning, though, when the world they arrive at is revealed to be a different world than the one they were supposed to settle. The colonization mission is revealed to be a ploy, culminating in a confrontation with a vast, heterogeneous armada that seems dedicated to preventing human colonization of the galaxy. Zoe is unfortunately caught in the middle of this intergalactic chess game, along with the people she cares about. However, her unique status as a demigod/treaty provision for the fearsome Obin race allows her to do something about it, if she can summon the courage to do so.

It became clear to me fairly early on that I would have liked this book a lot more if I had read The Last Colony beforehand. This book seems to place a lot of emphasis on filling holes and explaining plot points in that book, and there are a lot of deleted and extended scenes meant for readers that are already familiar with the series. That makes Zoe’s Tale a great companion book, but for a first-time reader like me, it didn’t quite hit the mark. I read somewhere that this book goes a long way in fleshing Zoe out so that she doesn’t seem like a deus ex machina in the previous book, but unfortunately, all that extra focus makes a lot of the rest of the story seem a little too convenient. The bad guys are mysterious, ill-defined, and ultimately irrelevant. The introduction of a crucial alien character near the climax, while heavily foreshadowed, feels a lot like a deus ex machina, itself. Worst of all, there is a lot of world-building done in the beginning, and most of it is promptly ignored once Zoe’s story gets going (since the ideal reader of this book already knows that stuff), which makes for some baffling inconsistencies.

While that sounds harsh, it doesn’t necessarily make for a bad standalone book. Zoe is a great character, and exhibits the right mix of teenage insecurity and adult intelligence. The book is a nicely paced, genuinely exciting space opera, which is all I really wanted from it. Since the book is narrated in the first person by a teenaged protagonist, there is a dry humor and whimsical flightiness injected into the proceedings that nicely complements the serious nature of the plot, making it a true “alternate perspective” tale. Even though I wasn’t on board the whole time with the setting and how the story progressed, things move at a nice clip and are punctuated by some extraordinarily well-written scenes, particularly near the end.

I left the book with a definite feeling of regret that I didn’t read the original Old Man’s War books before trying this one. Even so, the characters and lore are affecting enough that I’m eager to jump into Scalzi’s other books. I wouldn’t recommend using this one as an entry point, like I did, but I’d definitely recommend it to sci-fi fans that are already familiar with Scalzi's work.

Verdict: 3 / 5

Book Review - My Favorite Band Does Not Exist, by Robert T. Jeschonek

I gave this one a try solely from the cover and from the basic plot gimmick: a hoax band that might actually exist. It was clear right from the outset, though, that there is considerably more to this book than meets the eye. So much so, in fact, that I really don’t know what to make of it. It’s a weird cross of speculative fiction, YA romance, and bizarro, with a heaping spoonful of magical realism and dash of pulp fantasy homage. I think I liked it, but it was kind of a mess.

The story is told through three different viewpoints. Idea Deity is a boy on the run from his family, and suffering from a condition wherein he believes he is a character in a novel, being manipulated by a malevolent author. As a release valve for his anxiety, he has created a fake band called Youforia and maintains their web presence, effectively nurturing an online following for an indie band so obscure that they don’t actually exist. Meanwhile, Reacher Mirage, the lead singer for the band Youforia, is driven to distraction by the news about his band that keeps leaking out onto the Internet. Determined to keep the band a secret until he is ready to play in public, he is confounded by reports of the band's doings that nobody else should know about. The third perspective is told through a tattered fantasy book called Fireskull’s Revenant, which both Idea and Reacher happen to be reading. As that story draws to a climactic confrontation, Idea and Reacher are slowly pulled together in a meeting that could save them both.

This book is utterly confusing at the outset. Jeschonek does not give the reader much time to get accustomed to the quirks and idiosyncrasies in Idea’s world before shifting to Reacher’s much odder one. Furthermore, it’s not particularly clear until later that the sudden jump to reading a chapter in the book-within-a-book, Fireskull’s Revenant, is a narrative device that will continue throughout the story. I almost gave up in the first third of the book, because the technicolor mishmash of existentialism and bizarre characters was a bit much to handle.

With a little perseverance, I broke through to a place where I started to get into the story. As the characters and their disparate worlds began drawing together, the pace evened out a bit. Still, once I got to the end I was left feeling a little unsure about what I had just read. I think I understood what Jeschonek was going for, and I liked the themes and the unique concept, but I’m not sure how successful he was at translating it all into a readable story. Still, there’s an eclectic, punk-rock aesthetic at play, here. This book would be worth trying if you’re looking for something way off the beaten path, or are in the mood for some weirdness without venturing into full-on bizarro territory.

Verdict: 2.5 / 5

Book Review - Glow, by Amy Kathleen Ryan

This is definitely a case of the right book hitting me at the right time. I’m currently neck-deep in an addiction to the video game Mass Effect 2, which has precipitated a definite sci-fi jag in my entertainment tastes. This rich little dollop of YA sci-fi, which I got to read as an advance reader's copy and will be published in September, is just what I was looking for. It had a couple of procedural issues, which kind of makes me want to knock a point off depending on my mood, but this is a great start to what promises to be a fun series.

The first volume of the Sky Chasers series introduces Kieran Alden and Waverly Marshall, a young couple aboard a huge starship called the Empyrean. The Empyrean and its sister ship, the New Horizon, left an ailing Earth over forty years ago, carrying the hope of creating a new world and saving the human species from extinction. Kieran, being the first baby born to the original Empyrean crew and an all-around golden boy, is first in line for the ship’s captaincy. Everyone expects that he and Waverly will get married, and she does love him, but she has her doubts about whether she really wants to marry him, or if she is merely succumbing under the moral imperative to procreate. Her realtively sedate troubles are violently interrupted by the appearance of the New Horizon, which is supposed to be years ahead of them. An unexpected turn of events separates Waverly and the other Empyrean girls from everyone they’ve ever known, where they must find a way to escape a desperate captivity that is insidiously disguised by good intentions and comforting lies. Meanwhile, Kieran finds his capacity for leadership truly tested, when Seth Ardvale, a rival for Waverly’s affections, decides that Kieran isn’t fit to lead. Facing an increasingly dangerous mutiny and with no adults available to step in and take charge, Kieran is forged into a leader that might save them all, or might take them further down the path to annihilation.

So, I need to address two things right away. First, more and more teen books have characters with names like Kieran, Waverly, Brayden, Madison, et cetera, and my irritation with this is proof that I’m officially getting old. Second, I really wish everybody would stop trying to market new books as “The Next” version of whatever recently made piles of money. Yes, this actually is a fantastic readalike for The Hunger Games, but it doesn’t change the fact that repeatedly bleating “OMG THE NEXT HUNGER GAMES” is marketing at its most crass, and it makes my eyes twitch.

Okay, with that out of the way: this is solid sci-fi, and a fantastic teen book. It definitely places more emphasis on action and character development than it does on space and starships, but it does what it does very well. Of particular note is the interesting way in which it handles religion. A few chapters in, I was ready to dismiss this one as another version of the same story I’ve read plenty of times: religion bad. Being no fan of religious fundamentalism myself, I’m pretty okay with that, but it’s a somewhat tired trope. But then Ryan pulled the rug out from under me: secularism bad, religion good? Wait, no, religion still bad, maybe? Turns out, religion and secularism in this book’s universe are as good or as bad as their adherents. Gee, what a concept. And this not only makes for intriguing character motivations, but deftly sets up the framework and dominant theme for the rest of the books in the series. This, more than anything else, has me excited about how the next books will turn out.

The only problem I had with this book is that it had a whole lot of story tell in a fairly short amount of time. Like I said above, Glow is action-packed, and things move along briskly and with satisfying tension. Trouble is, the story occurs over several months, and it’s somewhat disorienting trying to reconcile the dialed-up pace with the apparently missing chunks of story time. The problem is exacerbated by the split in the narrative; once Waverly and Kieran are separated, the book follows their individual stories in different chapters. Each story could conceivably have its own novel-length treatment, but they are combined into a slim multithreaded plot in which they chronologically overlap. The process leaves certain elements feeling unexplored, or even artificially rushed.

The book also ends with a massive cliffhanger, making no bones about being the first part of a series. However, the two story halves each get a respectable climax, and the cliffhanger comes at the end of some dramatic falling action, letting Glow stand alone quite well. I think there are a few too many things to pick at to call Glow a complete success, but I personally loved it. The story is exciting and satisfying, the setting is a fresh take on a familiar concept, and the utopian themes and realistic motivations are a breath of fresh air in an expanding field of teen sci-fi where the bad guys are bad because they’re just bad, man, and it’s up to the teenagers to make everything all right.

That, I think is my favorite thing about this book: it isn’t at all clear who “the good guys” are, or what the best course of action for the teen protagonists is.

Verdict: 5 / 5