Locus, April 2013

by Locus Publications

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  Deborah Coates, Deep Down ( Tor 978-0-7653-2900-4, $25.99, 304pp, hc) March 2013.

  The second Hallie Michaels fantasy mystery finds ex-Sergeant Hallie considering a job that could take her away from her rural South Dakota hometown. But the appearance of a strange shadow in the fields, local disappearances, and then a visit to an elderly neighbor being visited by canine harbingers of death combine to draw Hallie into a new mystery – one that somehow involves her possible boyfriend Deputy Boyd, and his hidden past. It’s a good read, but the mix of fantasy and mystery is a bit uneasy; the almost hardboiled tone and actual investigation is offset by all the magic around – magic without noticeable rules, until they are needed for the plot.

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  Julie E. Czerneda, A Turn of Light (DAW 978-0-7564-0707-0, $20.00, 849pp, tp) March 2013. Cover by Matt Stawicki.

  Forces conspire to keep a young woman from leaving her isolated hometown in this unusual fantasy novel, a charmingly quirky tale of political refugees turned pioneers in a remote land where magic lurks. Jenn Nalynn is days away from her 19th birthday, the official age of adulthood, and she longs to escape the tiny isolated town of Marrowdell – but those she loves pressure her to stay. A big change is coming, too, one involving the quirky magics that infuse the valley, to which the humans are mostly oblivious, but has the valley’s unseen inhabitants unsettled. Frustrated, Jenn tries a spell that goes oddly awry, creating an unexpected potential suitor even as a handsome stranger comes to town, and it may take all three of them together to figure out what’s about to happen – and how to survive it.

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  MaryJanice Davidson, Undead and Underwater (Berkley Sensation 978-0-425-25332-8, 331pp, tp) March 2013. Cover by Don Sipley.

  Davidson’s fans will find this lighthearted paranormal romance collection a treat, with three novellas, two in familiar series. Most notably, in the title novella, Betsy the Vampire Queen and Fred the cranky mermaid go head to head, battling physically and verbally (Betsy’s airhead babble proving surprisingly effective against Fred’s serious snark) before finally teaming up to battle a bad guy with an evil plan for nonhumans. ‘‘Super, Girl!’’ is an amusing tale of a human resources manager trying to keep her job while being unable to resist helping others with her peculiar superpower – she can eat just about anything and turn the energy into superstrength. The collection wraps up with a tale of the Wyndham Werewolves that ranges from past to the future, with characters reminiscing as a grown-up Lara Wyndham finally takes control of the pack, and finds her mate. The bad guys that pop up in these tales are pretty lame when it comes to final confrontations, but these stories are really all about the snark and banter, with a little passion along the way.

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  Richelle Mead, Gameboard of the Gods (Dutton 978-0-525-95368-5, $26.95, 460pp, hc) June 2013.

  SF and fantasy mix in this first volume of the Age of X series, set in a future where various disasters have led to most of North America being taken over by the Republic of United North America, where religion is considered dangerous and strictly monitored by Internal Security’s SCI division: Sect and Cult Investigation. But some ritualistic murders lead to the recall of exiled SCI operative Justin March, who dared to suggest the supernatural might be real – and has a pair of ravens talking in his head. He’s assigned one Mae Koskinen as bodyguard; she’s an oddity herself, a rare aristocratic castal to join the ranks of the deadly enhanced soldiers called praetorians. Together, they try to solve a string of killings and clues that involve forbidden genetic engineering and ancient gods apparently trying to make a comeback – and who are oddly interested in Justin and Mae. It’s an intriguing scenario, although the worldbuilding feels a little shaky – despite a lot of traveling about, it’s unclear where various locations are, how exactly this world came to be, and exactly what the role the ‘‘elite’’ castals play. And Justin, as an investigator of religions, should really have figured out who his ravens are right from the start. Still, it’s an intriguing scenario, what with gods coming back to a complacent, only vaguely futuristic world that has denied them too long.

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  Seanan McGuire, Midnight Blue-Light Special (DAW 978-0-7564-0792-6, $7.99, 336pp, pb) March 2013. Cover by Aly Fell.

  The monstrous fun continues in this second book in the InCryptid series about cryptologist/monster hunter (and competetive ballroom dancer) Verity Price, who is having trouble dealing with the fact her boyfriend Dominic is an enemy. He’s a member of the cryptid-killing Covenant, from which the Price family split generations before, and now the Covenant is sending a team to prepare for a purge of the cryptids in Manhattan. It’s bad enough that Verity doesn’t know if she can trust Dominic, but the Covenant team includes a relative from the branch of the family that didn’t leave the Covenant – and bitterly hates those who did. Things get serious as the friendly cryptids of Manhattan prepare to fight for their lives – maybe a little too serious – but the series remains amusing even so.

  –Carolyn Cushman

  Return to In This Issue listing.

  LOCUS LOOKS AT BOOKS: DIVERS HANDS

  River of Stars, Guy Gavriel Kay

  Pirate Cinema, Cory Doctorow

  Level 2, Lenore Appelhans

  The Mad Scientist’s Guide to World Domination, John Joseph Adams, ed.

  Cyberpunk: Stories of Hardware, Software, Wetware, Evolution and Revolution, Victoria Blake, ed.

  Tenth of December, George Saunders

  CECELIA HOLLAND

  River of Stars, Guy Gavriel Kay (Roc 978-0451464972 $26.95, 576pp, hc) April 2013

  The master of the historical fantasy has found a canvas large enough for his ambitions. Guy Gavriel Kay’s second novel based on the Chinese past is his finest work so far, a vision of tremendous scope, achieved through precise, intimate observation of a brilliant culture in the throes of disintegration and rebirth. The Song Chao, splendid as only a great Chinese dynasty can be, was already struggling with some bad politics when the steppe barbarians began to break through in the 12th century.

  Kay has chosen as the centerpiece of his novel the fall of Kaifeng, the capitol, (which he calls Hanjin) to such a raging horde, and his story is the tale of Ren Daiyan, the low-born general who led the resistance to the barbarians. But Kay isn’t interested simply in providing a narrative of events: what China (which he calls Kitai) offers this writer is a historical stage as defined and stylized as calligraphy, against which the actions of his characters can play out with much larger resonances.

  The story opens in a world of ritual, manners, and reflection: ‘‘The Kitan liked order, numbering, symmetry, and they also liked the debates that followed.’’ The Emperor’s court is splendid and utterly artificial, but not fantastic: perfect replicas of reality, stripped of all the noise, like the Emperor’s garden, intended as a mirror of the world. In this self-regarded space, the smallest gesture seems enormous. The people themselves sometimes seem trapped in their costumes, interchangeable. A later scene, set in an ancient and half abandoned western capital, is an eerie progress through a world seemingly made for giants, and now inhabited by ants.

  By the beginning of the novel, a steppe horde has already taken the northern part of the empire, the ancient homeland. Ren Daiyan, hero of River of Stars, devotes himself from boyhood to recovering these lost prefectures. Born the son of a minor provincial clerk, he becomes an outlaw, inveigles his way into the army, and rises steadily toward his goal of retaking the north. He falls in love with Lady Lin Shan, a poet, a favorite at court, and an intelligent woman in a world where women are allowed no power.

  Shan gives Kay room to explore one of his ongoing interests – how women in societies that deny them power actually achieve it anyway; inside the carapace of social mores she operates as much like an outlaw as Daiyan does – watchful, shrewd, decisive. But the court is only part of Kitai, and an isolated and ill-informed part at that. An abundance of other characters pop in and out of the story: a ri
tual master, farmers, outlaws, bureaucrats, the whole busy world of an ancient and various culture, all sensed and entered into and inhabited.

  Kay’s cagey use of time gives this an extraordinary depth. ‘‘He wasn’t the boy who had fought imagined barbarians in a bamboo grove, and yet, of course, he was and always would be.’’ The whole story, once Kay’s got the ground established, seems to move on three levels at once: present tense, memory, and foreshadowing. Again and again, Kay evokes all three in a single paragraph. The result is a novel that grows steadily richer in allusion, drawing the reader deeper into its meanings.

  Did you truly taste anything later in life, have any experiences at all, except through the memory of other times, sometimes long ago?

  An empire so old and vast drags its past after it like an anchor. For some of Kay’s people, the ancient glory of Kitai is corrupting, a justification for the infighting at the court, the arrogance of power, all expressed, like a Song era painting, in the manipulation of symbols: a gardener crying, a tree uprooted, the wrong word at the wrong time. For others, like Ren Daiyan, the glory is a challenge.

  As the barbarians spill into the Empire, Daiyan takes that challenge. His tireless focus on recovering the lost lands drives him to victory when all the other generals fail, and brings him to the brink of the ultimate success: reviving the great, ancient Kitai, north and south together.

  We look back, and we look ahead, but we live in the time we are allowed.

  But the symmetry of Kitai is inexorable. Daiyan’s own strength becomes his weakness. The corrupt politics entraps him in his own virtues. In the end, it seems, half an empire is good enough. One hero is worth two emperors. There are two cups of poison. Two possible outcomes. And a book you don’t want to be over.

  –Cecelia Holland

  GWENDA BOND

  Pirate Cinema, Cory Doctorow (Tor Teen 978-0-765-32908-0, $19.99, 384pp, hc), October 2012.

  Well-known author and activist (and regular Locus contributor) Cory Doctorow certainly needs no introduction here. Doctorow has built a large and loyal audience through his novels, short stories, blogging, essays, and talks. But it’s worth noting that political fiction writers – defined in either sense, as the writer who openly engages modern political issues in their fiction or who openly engages them outside it – are relatively rare in our world, where the most respected public intellectuals tend to come from the nonfiction or academic world. (We won’t get into the wane of public intellectuals in favor of loud talking experts on 24-hours news networks.) Also rare are authors who treat teen readers as politically savvy and engaged, but Doctorow established himself as one of them with Big Brother and For the Win.

  His third novel for young adults, Pirate Cinema, is no different on that score. As the novel opens, 16-year-old Trent McCauley is making a film at home in Bradford, England: ‘‘But that day, my little lappie was humming along, and I was humming with it, because I was about to take away Scot Colford’s virginity.’’ Colford, a deceased film star with a large body of work, is Trent’s muse for the films he creates through editing existing footage into startling new combinations. This is illegal, of course, especially in the universe of this novel – which opens the day the government takes away Trent’s family’s Internet access. Doctorow quickly and deftly assembles that universe: ours, but not quite. In this near-future, technology is further along, and so are laws designed to protect studios and turn ‘‘pirates’’ like Trent into criminals. Losing Internet access is a huge blow that affects the entire family. And though he feels guilty, he also knows he can’t stop making the films in his head.

  And so Trent runs away to London. This is where Doctorow’s tale really begins, borrowing from Oliver Twist. Trent spends a panicked night wandering the city, not sure what to do. Lucky for him, he happens to meet up with a charming master of the streets, Jem. Not only has Jem researched the best method for netting cash from passers-by, he’s willing to teach Trent how to survive in this London. Actually, more than survive: thrive. As they rummage through skips for past-sell-by-date gourmet food and distribute it among others, and then set up a squat in an abandoned bar – complete with Jem’s friend Dodger supplying electricity (the Jammie Dodgers? who can’t love that) – the novel takes flight, and Trent begins to feel more at home than he ever did back in Bradford. Yet, as he builds a new family of friends, he can’t bring himself to call his parents or sister.

  Throughout all of this, we explore the politics of piracy and anti-piracy law. Trent himself learns about how tech works and articulates why he believes he should be legally allowed to make his films. And he falls in love with a girl, 26 (Twenty to friends), who avoids being a manic pixie dream girl by being too sharp and practical for that. As the story progresses, ever-more-daring feats of cinematic glory and political ops are arranged. The supporting cast shines, all well developed and three dimensional, from Cecil’s roomies to Twenty’s parents and Trent’s little sister and parents.

  Doctorow builds a voice for Trent – who transforms into the infamous Pirate Cinema director Cecil B. DeVil – that is loose and real and earnest. In fact, the sincerity that comes through in Trent’s tale and Doctorow’s telling is the novel’s biggest asset. Doctorow is obviously talented at embedding large amounts of information within a story in a non-disruptive way. We believe these characters are having these conversations, because they do so clearly care about the ideas at stake and because there are real-life consequences to the concept. But just as strong here is Trent/Cecil’s inner life and the connections he builds with his friends and family. His relationship with Twenty in particular is sweet without being cloying and feels true to life. Whenever the squatter’s life is in danger of getting too rosy, Doctorow raises the stakes for this band of activist street kids. Whether you agree with the book’s politics or not, Trent’s emotional and political journey is one well worth taking.

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  Level 2, Lenore Appelhans (Simon and Schuster 978-1-442-44185-9, $17.99, 288pp, hc), January 2013.

  In Lenore Appelhans’s debut YA novel, main character Felicia Ward is dead, and not loving it. This is a portrait of an afterlife stuck in neutral. Level 2, where Felicia is stuck, is composed of all-white chambers. She and the other inhabitants – including two girls who have become friends, Becka and Virginia – wear white gowns and are bald. They spend most of their days jacked in and reliving memories – their own and others’ – in a sharing system based on the net. Credits are earned when other people rent your memories, though some memories are just too painful to share. In fact, most people spend their credits chasing highs and avoiding lows.

  And that includes Felicia, who most commonly selects scenes from the time she spent with the last boy she loved, Neil, a blond (literal) choir boy who brought her back after her ex Julian’s betrayal. When there’s a disruption in the hive of memory chambers, it’s Julian that comes through the formless wall, only to leave again. Almost as soon as their shapeless existence has been interrupted by this excitement, the other girls begin to forget about it. And then Becka suffers an attack and is seemingly erased from the system. When Julian shows back up, Felicia goes with him, despite the fact she clearly doesn’t trust him. On the run from drones, we begin to learn more about this strange afterlife. The Morati – the guardians who run this level – are keeping the dead here to harvest their energy. As long as they don’t process the lives they just lost and move on, the dead are essentially batteries. Julian is with the resistance, and while Felicia may not care about that at first, she does care about Neil. And Julian says he can help her find him.

  So she goes along, weaning off the drug (in a neat twist, the waters of the Lethe distilled for a sinister purpose), meeting other rebels and slowly learning the secrets of this world. But can she trust someone who betrayed her before?

  While all this good versus evil in the afterlife action is going on, we also relive Felicia’s memories with her whenever she has to jack in, or whenever she wants to revisit them. We exp
erience Julian’s betrayal. We feel her exhilaration with Neil. We see her fraught relationships with her State Department workaholic mother and her kind composer father. We learn Felicia’s secrets. It’s in these short, beautifully rendered memory sections that Appelhans makes us care about Felicia and the mad missions she’s suddenly embroiled in on a playing field she could never have imagined. Each of them comes tagged with key words, info on whether the owner (Felicia) has shared it or not, the number of views, and the user rating vs. owner rating. These offer a nice insight into what Felicia’s obsessions have been – and what she’s been avoiding. Perhaps fittingly for a book about a science fiction-infused afterlife, Felicia’s relationship with Neil finds her in the unfamiliar waters of attending church. It’s relatively rare to see in fiction what is a major part of so many teen’s lives, and Appelhans manages to bring just the right weight to this component and Neil’s faith. As Felicia learns more, it becomes clear she is important to the future of this place… and maybe others.

  The novel’s conclusion indicates there’s plenty of exploration left to do in this world. With Felicia and her memories, Appelhans has created a character I’ll happily follow further into death.

  –Gwenda Bond

  KAREN BURNHAM

  The Mad Scientist’s Guide to World Domination, John Joseph Adams, ed. (Tor Books 978-0765326454, $14.99, 368pp, pb) February 2013.

  Cyberpunk: Stories of Hardware, Software, Wetware, Evolution and Revolution, Victoria Blake, ed. (Underland Press 978-1-937163-08-2, $15.95, 432pp, pb) February 2013. Cover by Claudia Nobel. [Order from Underland Press,