tachyondecay's reviews
2024 reviews

Marissa Meyer is one of those authors always adjacent to my radar, never quite on it. I want to say I tried Cinder once and bounced off it, but I can’t actually say for sure. In any event, I noticed the sequel to Renegades on a shelf at my library and promptly checked out both books. I am a sucker for superhero remixes, and this one looked good. However, I have been burned by them in the past—they are tricky to get right—and at the very beginning of this book, I was nervous. Fortunately, Meyer sticks the landing.

Nova watches her parents get murdered at six years old. Instead of becoming Batman, however, she gets taken in by her uncle—who also happens to be Ace Anarchy, the most powerful and founding member of the Anarchists. These superpowered “prodigies” have wreaked havoc on Galton City. Fast forward ten years. Nova is now a teen, her uncle was murdered nine years ago by the eponymous Renegades, and she is hellbent on revenge. She hatches on a scheme whereby she infiltrates the Renegades, joining up as one of them: Insomnia. Living a double life as Insomnia to her new Renegade team and the wanted fugitive Nightmare to her Anarchist found family, Nova is a textbook case of divided loyalties. Whose side will she come down on in when it counts the most?

The opening of Renegades is great from a technical point of view. Much like an action film, we get a big, explosive set piece that introduces us to some of the main characters while getting us excited. However, as with a lot of superhero fiction, sometimes things that look great in comics or on television come across as clunky in prose. It’s one thing to show a superpower being used and another to describe it only in writing. I think this is what a lot of authors who want to write a superhero novel struggle with, and Meyer here is no exception.

What saves this book, honestly, is the strength of the interpersonal characterization. Nova and Adrian are such a great duo. They are both keeping secrets—from each other and from the people close to them. Their motivations are in lockstep, both traumatized by a close personal loss. I found some of their individual characterization a bit over the top at times—yet that kind of melodrama is probably appropriate for this subgenre.

Meyer walks a fine line in her portrayal of the Renegades. It would be easy to turn this book into a “Nova learns the Renegades were the good guys all along” parable; similarly, she could have turned it into “Ah-hah, the Renegades are the bad guys all along and have evil designs on humanity.” Without spoiling it, the truth is definitely somewhere in between. The Renegades have positive and negative qualities. Some of them are giant dicks. Some of them truly mean well. To that end, Meyer shows us how much Nova struggles as she infiltrates their ranks. She befriends her team members. Is attracted to Adrian. Genuinely adores and acts against her best interests to save Max. Yet it’s clear she hasn’t completely been converted to the Renegade cause—and honestly, that might be a good thing?

One of the themes that emerges later in the book is the idea that maybe the powers, not the prodigies who wield them, are the problem. Maybe the world would be a better place if prodigies didn’t exist as such. This is not an original theme, mind you, nor does Meyer explore it with that much gusto (though I have hope that Archenemies will go in that direction). But Renegades excels at highlighting how the powers are not the point. As several so-called allies of Insomnia point out, “not having to sleep” is not the world’s most baller superpower. Nova proves her mettle through her ingenuity and grit. Adrian, likewise, has spun his power, which is not very useful as an offensive ability, into something that can be incredibly versatile. Even though she has come up with such an incredible diversity of prodigy powers, Meyer remains committed to a lens that depicts prodigies as people first, which is fascinating.

All in all, this is one of the more successful novels I have seen to tackle superheroes and superpowers. Much respect to Meyer for not really delving into why prodigies exist (I am filing this under “fantasy” rather than “science fiction” because it seems like magic is involved—there is certainly no attempt to justify anything with science, and some of the powers are frankly ludicrous). Love the moral ambiguity, especially surrounding Nova. The twist at the end is a bit anticlimactic yet, to be honest, delicious. I’m so glad I have the next book in front of me to read soon!

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.

Damn but William Gibson can write! I realize this might feel like a contradictory pronouncement to the one I made at the start of my review of The Peripheral, but I assure you the statements are compatible. I wasn’t aware of this sequel, Agency, until recently, but it was nice to pluck it from my library’s shelves. While you don’t need to have read the first book—this is a very loose sequel, with overlapping characters but not a direct connection in plot—it would help. Overall, however, I think Agency is the superior of the two novels.

Verity Jane works as an alpha tester for new apps. She agrees to test some AR glasses that include an AI assistant who is more than she (as Eunice identifies) appears to be. This quickly sinks Verity deep into plots to destroy or repossess Eunice and then get Verity out of the picture—and that is when Ainsley Lowbeer, through her intermediary of Wilf Netherton, decides to intervene from the future. Well, from a parallel future. See, Verity and Eunice exist in a “stub” continuum. It’s 2017 there, 2136 back in Wilf’s home timeline. Verity’s time has diverged from his as a result of the initial intervention—by a longtime foe of Wilf and Lowbeer’s—back in 2015. However, Verity’s timeline could still be careening towards destruction, whether it’s the jackpot or just an ol’ fashioned nuclear war. As a result, Wilf does his best to intervene.

As a writer, Gibson is really in the business of creating his own stubs. Worlds where things went a bit different from how they have in ours, where the technology is a bit different. We don’t have the cyberspace cowboys of Neuromancer, but we got the web. We don’t have the virtual reality and nanotechnology from Gibson’s Bridge trilogy, but we have related technologies. With each decade, Gibson takes his same concerns and tweaks them for the technologies of our time. Agency is no exception. Its emphasis on AI, surveillance, and the connectivity of networks—both digital and human—is notable.

I can’t tell if it’s reading The Peripheral nearly exactly a year ago or just that Gibson explains things better here, but I found this book a lot easier to follow. The narrative is also much more straightforward—whereas The Peripheral had a lot of back and forth, people from Flynne’s stub visiting Wilf’s time, etc., for the most part this just has one-way travel. There are fewer side quests, resulting in a more linear plot—not always a good thing, but a good choice here, in my opinion, for the way it allows us to focus on the two timelines and the overall story.

Ironically given its title, the main character, Verity, has very little agency of her own. From almost the moment we meet her, she is being given orders, either by Eunice or one of the members of Eunice’s hastily assembled network of operatives. It’s true that Verity chooses to go along with all of this. She seems to have some semblance of fondness for Eunice despite their short acquaintance. The irony remains, however, and I think this paradox is most easily resolved if we realize Verity is not the main character. Eunice is. Eunice is the protagonist, even if there are large swathes of the book where she isn’t around—Gibson tells us, pretty explicitly, that her branch plants are working on a lot of things in the background throughout the story. Verity is much closer to being a stock character, like Joe-Eddy or Virgil. It’s a bit of a weird narrative choice, but I guess it kind of works.

Really, though, that’s what Agency is all about. Writing prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Gibson nevertheless presages some of this event’s effects on the world. Similarly, he anticipates the bubble of generative AI and the attendant problems this could cause—though Eunice is far more AGI than anything we could create at the moment.

Though this book is replete with the spectre of the jackpot—a Gibsonian view of the apocalypse if ever there was one, albeit also eerily probable—and all of its negative consequences, Agency, like The Peripheral, is actually really optimistic. It’s a story about people who are enthusiastic for the future—or a future. Lowbeer, Wilf, and Rainey’s palpable concern for the inhabitants of Verity’s stub, despite that past timeline in no way affecting theirs, is really touching. The same goes for the moments we get between Wilf and Rainey and with their son, Thomas, and how Wilf dotes on him as a proud dad. It’s cutesy—but it is also meant to remind us that even after an apocalypse, life goes on. We keep going. We rebuild. And, given the chance to avert that apocalypse or the equivalent thereof, some people would like to do that.

I stand by what I said last year: I think Gibson’s legacy as a writer will almost certainly be the influence he has had on science fiction as a genre more so than his novels themselves. When I express awe at Gibson’s writing ability, it’s less so for his storytelling prowess—Agency is a serviceable thriller but nothing to write home about—and more so for his ability to take our contemporary concerns and mould them into something just ever-so-slightly Other, just enough to get us to take them more seriously (I hope). Gibson is not prescient by any means; however, he does possess that excellent quality, for a science-fiction author, of being clairvoyant. He can see our present, zoom out and see the big picture for humanity, and then choose which “what if” paths to go down. Agency is one such path. If you like intrigue, action, chase sequences, and sentient AI, it’s a path you ought to read.

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.

What would you do if you could make the world a better place and save the soul of someone you’re attracted to, but you would have to die in his place? A hero would jump at this chance, of course. The Last Huntress is a story about willingness to sacrifice and standing against powers far beyond our comprehension. Lenore Borja’s world is creative and intriguing, though I can’t say the same for the story she chooses to tell in it. I received a copy of this book in exchange for a review.

Alice finds herself initiated rather abruptly into the current generation of huntresses: women throughout history who can access the Mirror Realm and track and exorcise demons. They are trained and overseen by Cithaeron, a once-mortal man now reincarnated through the lifetimes. But things are different now. Alice might be the last huntress ever called, and she seems to have more power—that comes at more of a price—than the others. She and Cithaeron are bound up, twin flames, yet Alice’s destiny is one of self-sacrifice in exchange for Cithaeron’s soul. For lurking behind the Mirror Realm, behind our world, behind it all, is the spectre of Hades and the other Olympians.

The Last Huntress starts off like so many young adult stories. Alice is the new girl in town, and she meets a cast of peers, some of whom are boorish and awful (David) and others who become her new sisters (Olivia, Hadley, Soxie). The dialogue is trite, the action a series of set pieces, the development fairly standard. Alice’s initiation into the huntresses is as confusing for the reader as it is for her, but once she is finally in the know, the book picks up.

Borja’s creative use of Greek mythology is the best thing about this book. The parts she uses are a bit more obscure to me, but I like how she characterizes Hades and the other Greek gods. I like the lore gradually revealed, especially near the climax, of why the gods have been absent and what Hades’ master plan entails. Alas, the nature of the demons and their connection to the Mirror Realm is somewhat underdeveloped (which will be a recurring complaint from me).

We never really get a chance to settle into this world or the story. We don’t get much of an understanding of what business-as-usual is for the huntresses before Alice’s arrival throws everything off its axis. Even as Alice’s destiny unspools, Borja keeps throwing twist after twist at us as the story careens further away from its initial conditions. There’s no breathing room. There’s one memorable chapter where Alice is bonding with her fellow huntresses and having fun, but that’s about it—everything else is urgency, danger, go go go.

The romance subplot is also, as far as this aromantic chick can tell, just all right? Maybe even a bit boring? It’s supposed to be hot and heavy. But we get so little time with the two characters, and most of it is spent in crisis mode. Again, I just don’t feel invested in or connected with these characters as people.

The Last Huntress is a book with a lot of potential; it just falls flat for me. It never quite comes together into something truly memorable.

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.

Although over a decade old at this point, Undoing Border Imperialism still feels relevant today in 2024—maybe even more urgent and important than it was when Harsha Walia first wrote and assembled it. Part how-to, part manifesto, part oral history, this compact volume works hard to syncretize different modes of resistance, from academic theory to grassroots activism. It is a volume I sorely needed to read as I navigate my own journey trying to figure out how to be a more effective, more participatory activist.

The core of this book looks at resistance against the Canadian state via NOII (No One Is Illegal), and specifically the NOII-Vancouver branch in which Walia has participated. Though focused therefore on migrant justice, fights against deportation, etc., Walia explicitly addresses the need for intersectionality, particularly with regards to Indigenous self-determination and sovereignty, as well as anticapitalism. She discusses her own experience occasionally. However, she focuses mainly on what NOII has accomplished, how the NOII groups have functioned, and what advice she or other activists she has interviewed would give to people looking to be more involved in this advocacy. The result is impressively well-organized, incisive, and inspiring.

I appreciate how Walia makes space for different lenses of activism. The book starts grounded in theory before branching out into practice, and Walia notes the tension between these two worlds. As someone whose background is heavily academic, intellectual, rational, part of my work is unlearning some of these modes of thinking, expanding my perspective so I better understand what it is like to do work on the ground. At the same time, Walia cites a lot of theorists, scholars, and writers whose names I had never heard or whose work I haven’t read. There is so much more for me to learn!

Probably the most enlightening chapter for me personally was “Overgrowing Hegemony: Grassroots Theory” (see what Walia did there, lol). Walia criticizes NGOs for being reliant on funding from governments or institutions that, in turn, might expect them to be less radical. She contrasts this with the model of NOII and other, more fluid groups. This analysis really helped me understand why I have felt disappointed in a local collective that I initially thought could be more radical than it turned out to be—they are organized as a nonprofit, with a board, etc. Walia sounds the alarm that the path towards respectability and campaigns for mainstream reform can be tempting but fraught with problems.

At the same time, Undoing Border Imperialism does not pretend that NOII or similar groups are utopian. Walia is honest about the challenges of operating such groups, the unspoken hierarchies that can emerge, and the need often to work alongside other groups who don’t always share your values. This latter point was interesting to me. We are so polarized, and the Left has a serious problem right now with purity culture and eating itself, especially on social media. Walia’s approach is practical, compassionate, but also grounded in an unflinching commitment to her group’s core principles. Her point is that you can align on strategy without expecting one hundred percent concordance on beliefs. However, she also stresses that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to working alongside diverse groups. It’s always going to be a conversation—and that is so important too.

I must admit I don’t know a ton about migrant justice issues in Canada. I learned some from reading Policing Black Lives, and I have been trying to follow the conversation around the temporary foreign worker program. Our society doesn’t seem like it is interested in having a serious discussion, however, about the racism and xenophobia within Canada; we are too interested in pretending we are so much more welcoming and inclusive than the United States. Walia and other activists whose voices are included in this book are very critical of Canada as a nation-state. As they should be. Undoing Border Imperialism might not radicalize you by itself, but it is a fantastic resource on your path to further radicalization.

Ultimately, this is a book that encourages action rather than armchairing. If you want to learn more about signing petitions and posting on social media, this book is not for you. I can’t claim I am going to immediately go out and start hanging out with my local activists and putting my body on the line in direct action—I’d love to say that, but it would be untrue. But this is a book that shows you how direct action works in concert, not in opposition, with other forms of resistance.

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.

Years and years ago, I said that my love for space opera was dimming. Space opera has always been one step away from science fantasy, of course, but I was getting bored with how same same all the nanotech-fuelled, AI-high stories seemed to feel. In the last couple of years, something has changed. I don’t know if it is me or the field or both, but I have been loving space opera again! When I opened my eARC of New Adventures in Space Opera, provided by Tachyon Publications in exchange for this review, I was pleasantly surprised by how many of the names I recognized among the contributors.

The book lifts off with Jonathan Strahan’s introduction, which provides escape velocity. He puts into words a lot of what I was feeling, described above, crystallizing how it feels like we are definitely in a new vogue of this subgenre. The military science fiction of the nineties and early 2000s is metamorphosing into a decolonial, or at least postcolonial, attempt at deconstructing the imperialist sides of space opera. I think that is what most fascinates me about the subgenre. Beyond that, however, I think the way authors are exploring how advanced tech and a sprawling, galactic humanity might reshape our understanding of personhood and autonomy has changed for the better. The Big Ideas are becoming more complex, more nuanced, than in decades previous. That isn’t to trash science fiction or space opera from before—but like any genre, science fiction must be responsive to its times. These new adventures feel different in the right way for the world in which we currently live.

The anthology opens with a banger, “Zen and the Art of Starship Maintenance,” by Tobias S. Buckell. It ends with an astrophysical twist which is clever but doesn’t exactly feel all that original, so your mileage may vary. What actually intrigued me more about the story is its handling of the idea of free will. The main character is a maintenance intelligence that is basically a copy of an uploaded human; when they uploaded themself, they signed a contract that removed their free will. At the same time, they seem to have plenty of autonomy, which is an intriguing paradox.

These meditations on personhood continue in “Belladonna Nights,” by Alastair Reynolds; “Metal Like Blood in the Dark,” by T. Kingfisher; and “A Good Heretic,” by Becky Chambers. These stories all variously have either nonhuman or transhuman protagonists and, as such, truly stretch one’s imagination when it comes to understanding how such protagonists navigate and learn concepts—like deceit—we humans take for granted.

Some of the stories are more prosaic. “Extracurricular Activities,” by Yoon Ha Lee, follows a young Shuos Jedao (one of the main characters from Lee’s Machineries of Empire series) on a special op. “A Temporary Embarrassment in Spacetime” by Charlie Jane Anders feels very season 3 Star Trek, if you know what I mean, and I can’t say I loved it, but I understand what she’s going for. “Planetstuck,” by Sam J. Miller, is a little melancholy and haunting.

I bounced off a few of the stories hard. Lavie Tidhar continues to be an author who I think is just not for me, nor did I really follow “Morrigan in the Sunglare,” by Seth Dickinson. I liked Arkady Martine’s “All the Colors You Thought Were Kings”—it was interesting reading this as a contrast to her Teixcalaan duology that I just recently finished. That being said, I think the theme I got from the story—that we are doomed to be assimilated into oppressive, imperalist institutions if we think we can change them from within—isn’t sufficiently explored, even for a short story. Similarly, “The Last Voyage of Skidbladnir,” while rich in pathos and imagination, didn’t intrigue me or excite me that much.

All of this is to say: this is a varied collection. It’s unlikely you will enjoy them all, but you will probably enjoy some (hopefully most) of these stories—maybe the ones I didn’t like as much are the ones you’ll love! That there is probably something for every science-fiction reader in this anthology is a testament not only to Strahan and Tachyon’s curatorial skills but also to the cornucopia of space opera available these days, especially in shorter forms. And as much as I am less enamoured by slower stories like “The Last Voyage of Skidbladnir,” I really want to emphasize that I don’t think those stories are any less worthy of celebration or inclusion—space opera should not just be bang-bang-big-shoot-em-up-in-space! There is room for and value in stories that focus more on inner lives, on relationships, on giant space crabs!

Anthologies are always hit-or-miss for me, yet I had a feeling New Adventures in Space Opera would be more hit than miss. Maybe I just read it at the right time. Whatever the case, I was right. This book is just fuelling the fire stoked by my recent reads in the subgenre and leaving me hungry for more, more, more.

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.

That’s it, no more Gabrielle Zevin for Kara. Granted it had been fifteen years since the last book I had read by her. Moreover, both of the books I’ve read have been YA novels. So maybe I could be forgiven for talking myself into trying Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, given the hype it has received. Sometimes the hype is worth it, and I shout, “Why did you all let me sleep on this?”

Today is not one of those days, my friends. I did not enjoy this book, and the only reason I’m not giving it one star is because I am much kinder than twenty-year-old Kara was with her ratings.

Sam Masur is working on a math degree at Harvard when he reconnects with Sadie Green, his onetime friend from childhood in Los Angeles, who is now attending MIT to design video games. Sam and Sadie start working on a video game together, which propels them into a lifelong career. Sam’s roommate, Marx, joins them as the business leg of their tripod. As the sands of time, etc., the three experience the vicissitudes of life, love, and game design. Sam and Sadie quarrel and reconcile, Sam deals with disability, Sadie with sexism, both of them with loss. Marx is pretty much the only tolerable thing about this book.

Now, I do have some words of praise! First, although I’m not really qualified to comment on it, I liked Zevin’s portrayal of disability through Sam and his foot. It feels good to see this foregrounded in a way that shows the complexity of Sam’s condition. He is neither a saint nor a martyr; there is no disability porn here, nor is there a magical moment of Sam becoming a better person. It’s hard to write unsympathetic characters (which is what I found Sam to be) who are also disabled, and I want to emphasize that I found Sam’s unsympathetic nature to be separate from his disabled status. For what it is worth, I thought Sadie is super unsympathetic too.

Oh wait, I am supposed to be compliment still. Damn it. Let me try this again.

Another highlight of Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is the setting of a video game studio. Again, since I was a baby when most of this stuff happened, I am not the most qualified to comment. Still, I thought the depiction of nineties and early 2000s video game development was spiritually accurate if not factually accurate. Zevin captures the infectious enthusiasm that was the zeitgeist of the industry. These decades were a tipping point when PCs had started to saturate households and their capabilities had improved just enough to really do some amazing things (for the time) with graphics, yet such developments were expensive and time-consuming. The push-pull tension between “video games are art” and “video games are consumer products” feels very real and truthful, and I enjoyed these facets of the plot. That being said, if you thought this book was about video games, you are wrong.

Sam and Sadie’s relationship is the heart of this novel, and I really wanted to love it. Though there are elements of longing, theirs is ultimately a platonic relationship. As an aromantic asexual reader, it’s so valuable for me to see platonic relationships foregrounded as equal to romantic relationships. It feels like Zevin is trying to do that here, albeit in a messy and very unsatisfying way. Which is ultimately why, despite this positive aspect of the book, I can’t really say I enjoyed it.

See, Sam and Sadie suck. They are just terrible people.

I think Zevin knows this. I think she wants us to think they are terrible people but also sympathize with them because, hey, aren’t we all? Isn’t that the point of life, haha, we all hurt each other but we can kiss and makeup and move on?

About the third or fourth time Sam and Sadie had a falling out, I felt like I was watching one of those TV shows where the two leads are stuck in a will-they/won’t-they for seven seasons because writers have forgotten how to write tension into will-they relationships. Only in this case, it’s watching a friendship circle the drain. I get it—sometimes friends fight and don’t talk for years and then reconcile! I am old enough to finally grasp what friendship can be in all its glorious diversity, including the turbulence of decades. But why, Sam? Why, Sadie? You just keep hurting each other like moths drawn to a flame that arms them with chainsaws and then sets them against one another.

But let’s say you’re into chainsaw moth fights. Let’s say you are buying what Zevin is selling with the Sam/Sadie arc. OK, cool.

Can we talk about the writing?

The writing is clunky, and in particular, the sex scenes are just … wow. The best way I could describe it to a friend was that the author, a cis woman, writes sex scenes like a cis man—by which I mean, even when the perspective is focused on a woman’s sexual experience, the scene feels like it’s written by someone who has no idea what a woman’s sexual experience is like. Don’t believe me? I will hit you with a small dose. Brace yourself:

 

Well, I can’t erase that phrase from my mind and now neither can you!

Zevin cheerfully glosses over an incredibly abusive relationship—doesn’t deny it, mind you; Sadie and the others acknowledge it as abusive and it’s actually one of the many bombs that go off in her and Sam’s friendship. But Dov also gets to be smarmy, “haha, yes, I know I am a fuckboi, aren’t I incorrigible?” Similarly, Zevin orchestrates a gun-violence subplot that has all the emotional resonance of a sledgehammer against concrete. Oh, and that casually upbeat reference to “the creation of Israel” hits different in August 2024, and while I wouldn’t go so far as to dunk on this book for being Zionist like some have and don’t know much about Zevin herself, all I can say is … yeah, not a good look.

I am certain the critical defence of all this is simply “that’s the point, Kara.” Zevin doesn’t acknowledge the depth of these moments because this is supposed to be one of those books where “life happens.” It’s all literary and pretentious and shit, like she’s Douglas Coupland mixed with Philip Roth.

And I don’t. Care.

If Zevin is master of anything, it’s banality. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is boring. It has all the ingredients of a deep and important book. It wants you to think it’s saying a lot by not saying much at all, hoping you will fill in the blanks yourself rather than realizing there is nothing to read between the lines. But this book is nothing more than a long, empty promise.

Oh look, I talked myself into giving it one star. Is 2009 Kara coming back with a vengeance? Incidentally, this is my 2000th book review published on this my review website. When I was pondering if I should do something to mark the occasion, maybe pick a particularly special book, it never occurred to me that if I left the book to chance, it would end up being a one-star review. But I guess that is its own kind of special.

If I ever pick up another Gabrielle Zevin novel, please smack it out of my hands, OK?

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.

Look, I knew The Rules would be a long shot from the moment I laid eyes on it, but I was bored and plucked it from the obscurity of the YA stacks at my library because why not. I feel like I have fallen off the YA wagon lately; I have only read three in the past year, so I was rather starving. Stacey Kade is not a name I recognized, but the plot seemed decent enough, and even though I suspected it would be a dud, I hoped it might at least have its moments. Which … sort of?

Ariane Tucker is a human–alien hybrid living under the assumed identity of the deceased daughter of the man who broke her out of captivity at GTX, the evil corporate villain of this book. Aside from life on the lam, Ariane is your typical junior—or she would be, if she didn’t slavishly follow the eponymous Rules. Invented by her “father” to help her fly under the radar lest GTX locate her and take her back into custody, the Rules help Ariane survive but are also a serious buzzkill. Until now, Ariane has never minded them. But when Rachel “Generic Mean Girl Du Jour” Jacobs bullies Ariane’s friend and Ariane retaliates, bringing her into the orbit of Zane “You’re Not Like Other Girls” Bradshaw, sparks fly and the Rules go out the window.

Look, I don’t want to be too harsh on this book, so let’s start with some good news: this book isn’t bad; it’s just OK. It’s the kind of YA novel that, if you read enough of this vibe, is eminently predictable—yet Kade deserves credit at least for managing to hit each beat. If each of the remaining two books in this trilogy (I won’t be reading the rest) sticks the landing in the same way, this is a solid serialized story that I could see myself loving more at fifteen. Storywise, The Rules is an exemplar of a novel that has all the working parts … just none of the heart that really gets to your core.

There are two major flaws with this book, and they are connected: the characterization and the writing overall.

None of these characters, Ariane included, are remotely interesting human beings. Though there are attempts at making them round and dynamic characters, these mostly result in each person falling back into an archetype, as I mocked above. Zane Bradshaw wants to be played by High School Musical–age Zac Efron but would probably be a Disney Channel Shia LaBeouf if he’s lucky. Jenna is a spaghetti noodle of a best friend type. Ariane’s father has, like, six lines until the climax of the novel. Split between Ariane and Zane’s first-person narration, The Rules should be full of dramatic irony and a lot of tension as Zane sleuths out Ariane’s secret. At the very least, there should be some sparkage, some romantic will-they-won’t-they drama. No. It’s Snoozeville over here, and Ariane and Zane are co-mayors.

Even that by itself might still make this a worthwhile slog. But then at the start of a later chapter Kade hits us with a “I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.” Literally. Word for word. In 2014. It’s not Kade’s fault, really; one of her editors should have caught this cliché, collected it carefully, and then marched it out back for its summary execution. This darling was not killed, however, and it’s emblematic of the writing in The Rules: this might be the most YA-iest YA novel I have read in a while, as if Kade sat down and, David Eddings style, plotted out beat-for-beat what a conspiracy SF YA novel should look like.

As I said above, in and of itself that is not a bad thing (David Eddings was my hook into fantasy, and maybe Kade’s books will be some young person’s hook into SF). There’s something to be said for hitting every beat. Alas, this kind of rote storytelling doesn’t do much for me these days, nor does it make me excited to recommend this to younger readers. The Rules is too good at following its own rules, and like Ariane up until the events of this book, it is too good at flying under the radar.

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.

As mentioned in my review of the first book, I ordered A Desolation Called Peace from my indie bookshop about thirty pages into A Memory Called Empire. The result? Arkady Martine is one hell of a writer. This sequel forms the conclusion of a tight duology.

Spoilers for the first book but not for this one.

Mahit Dzmare has returned to her home, Lsel Station, after barely a week as the Lsel Ambassador to Teixcalaan. She is immediately mired in the politics of Lsel’s ruling council—one of the councillors wants to forcibly remove her imago machine; another might be an ally to her but might not, and so on. No one else knows Mahit actually has two imagos—two different versions of the previous ambassador, Yskander, in her head. Meanwhile, her one-time liaison, Three Seagrass, assigns herself to a dangerous mission on the frontlines of the Teixcalaan military action against an unknown alien force. Three Seagrass and Mahit soon reunite, and this time the stakes aren’t just the Teixcalaan Empire, but perhaps Lsel Station and all of humanity.

Whereas the first book hews closely to Mahit’s point of view, Martine opens up the narration in A Desolation Called Peace. In addition to following Mahit, we are treated to limited third-person perspectives of Fleet Captain Nine Hibiscus, Three Seagrass, and Imperial Heir Eight Antidote. She keeps the writing narration-heavy yet exposition-light, a paradoxical style I truly appreciate. You get to luxuriate within the world of Teixcalaan—often from Mahit’s point of view as ambivalent outsider—without feeling like you are receiving an intense crash course in imperial history. The increase in perspectives, however, allows Martine to explore and build out this story to a more epic scale.

Mahit and Three Seagrass are goals, a fantastic OTP, no notes.

I also love them both as protagonists, and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Nine Hibiscus. The stuff with Twenty Cicada, aka Swarm, was a bit predictable but still satisfying. Eight Antidote annoyed me a bit and was giving child prodigy (but not in a good way). This is where the narration-heavy style lets me down, for the book often delves too deep, in my opinion, into things like Eight Antidote’s reasoning and motivation. There is far more telling than showing in this book. I’m not against that, but your mileage may vary depending on which character the book is following in any given chapter.

On one level, this is a story about first contact, about a threat to the neverending expansion of empire, about the travails of translation and interpretation with something truly alien. I thought Martine telegraphed the nature of the aliens pretty obviously from the start, so little about the mystery of how to communicate with them interested me. At the same time, I liked the fleet politics and the conflict between Mahit and Three Seagrass. Somehow, Martine balances all these disparate subplots, keeps all the plates spinning, in a very satisfying way.

On another level, this is a story about creating the future. Reluctantly, this is where I admit Eight Antidote shines. For a culture built on war and conflict and blood, Teixcalaan struggles sometimes with the idea that it is good to be at peace. Eight Antidote’s certain rejection of conflict is heartening, reading this now in 2024 with the world the way it is. I appreciate the grand themes Martine is getting at here. The internecine plots within the Empire’s ruling class are so deliciously crafted and such fun to follow. There are people who would plunge Teixcalaan deep, deep into war just to further their ambitions, and it is startling, albeit not surprising.

On a third level, this is a story about loving people. Whether it’s Nine Hibiscus’s longstanding platonic bond with Twenty Cicada, Mahit and Three Seagrass’s tenuous romantic connection, or Eight Antidote’s opaque relationship with Nineteen Adze, Martine shows us so many different types of love and care. The desolation in A Desolation Called Peace includes, I think, the fact that peacetime is when we realize what—who—we have lost. In war, there is no time to mourn the dead. Afterwards, the emotional valence of our lost loved ones—whether they are dead or simply have left—is felt more fully. If the majority of this book is a tense thriller, the denouement is a rewarding, bittersweet, hopeful coda.

If you liked A Memory Called Empire, you will like and must read this sequel—and you should definitely read the first book before you read this one. I will gladly consume any more stories Martine gives us in this universe, and perhaps any more that she creates.

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.

I came to my Anna Kendrick obsession sideways, in a low-key way I am realizing is very apposite for Kendrick’s brand of celebrity. I have never watched Pitch Perfect. If you asked me which of her movies cemented her in my mind as a celebrity crush, I couldn’t tell you (but I can tell you my fave—more in a moment). To top it off, I found Scrappy Little Nobody as a publisher overstock purchase from a local store and paid—wait for it—$5. Five Canadian dollars. So I didn’t even pay full price, which again, feels very on-brand for Kendrick.

Kendrick’s memoir is of the “look at me, I am just like you folk” variety: witty, self-deprecating, down-to-earth. Plenty of embarrassing stories from her childhood and awkward adolescence, along with her arrival in Los Angeles and her rocky road to her present level of moderate fame. I don’t mean to sound cynical—I truly enjoyed this memoir and found it the perfect mix of entertaining and inspirational. However, let me be upfront by saying that if you hoped for Big! Revelations! about Kendrick, or if you were expecting this to be anything more than a run-of-the-mill memoir from an actor in her thirties, then you’ll be disappointed. Pitch your expectations perfectly, and you’ll have a great time.

It is, after all, Kendrick’s atmosphere of being a scrappy little nobody that she projects that I think I find so alluring. Lots of celebrities understand their role in our society is absurd—too many these days seem to lean into that. Kendrick has somehow managed to find moderate success in her profession without (as far as I can tell) getting involved in anything that I call “weird shit”: cults, influencer gimmicks and scams, and so on. She acknowledges the gulf between her reality and those of her fans, but she has a foot still in the real world. Also, this girl works—have you seen her filmography? She’s busy.

Indeed, her love of what she does shines through in these pages—balanced by a hefty dose of “I need to work to live.” She talks about how Twilight paid her bills while she could work on indie projects that wouldn’t. She talks about the struggle, sometimes, to afford toilet paper, the incongruity of staying in swank hotels for the publicity tour for Up in the Air when, back in LA, she could barely afford the place she shared with two others. Kendrick neither romanticizes the biz nor does she downplay how much she loves theatre and acting. It’s this sense of unvarnished honesty that I appreciate.

Early on in the book, Kendrick says something that really stuck with me. Of her experience wrapping her first film, Camp, she says

 

That last sentence tho!! I think I needed to hear that this summer. My life is good overall, and I feel very fortunate and privileged. But I’m turning thirty-five, and I am becoming aware of my approaching middle age. Friends are creating families, and this aroace girlie is feeling … uncertain. Turning inwards, thinking about times past, feeling wistful and angsty about the inability to reclaim youth.

Then Anna Kendrick shows up and rolls her eyes and says, “Get over it,” but in a far more thoughtful way. Live in the present. Keep going. If old adventures never ended, new ones could never begin.

Again, I don’t want to give the impression this book is some deeply philosophical tome. It’s not. Ninety percent of this book is the most prosaic shit you could imagine. Which is what makes that ten percent, these little nuggets, all the better. Scrappy Little Nobody knows what it is about, gets in, does the job, and gets out.

My favourite Anna Kendrick movie, by the way, is currently Mr. Right, with Sam Rockwell. I watched it for the first time a few weeks ago (I bought this book about six months ago but hadn’t read it until now). I was obsessed. How had no one told me to watch this nine-year-old movie before now?? Kendrick plays to type—a weirdo—and pulls it off with such an incredible balance between mania and elation that I don’t know what else to do except applaud. I know your dream already came true, but in case you need to see it again in print, Anna: Kendrick is a revelation.

If you enjoy Kendrick’s performances, you’ll like this book. If you think she’s a scrappy little nobody, this book could change your mind and get you interested in her performances. Or not. I don’t know. Don’t trust me; I didn’t even pay full price for it.

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.

World War II books that don’t focus on soldiers or battles are my jam. Give me the pieces about the civilians, the spies, the scientists, the kids. I picked up The Curse of Pietro Houdini on a whim from the new books shelf at my library. I thought the title betokened some kind of fantasy novel, and though that hope was dashed, I still enjoyed Derek B. Miller’s historical yarn of an irreverent-yet-sentimental old man and his happenstance, gendershifting protégé.

A fourteen-year-old narrowly escapes Rome as Italy finds itself occupied by German forces. The eponymous Pietro scoops up this child on his way to Montecassino, the first Benedictine abbey, where he plans to restore and perhaps rescue some priceless works of art before the Nazis or the Allies destroy them. The child claims the name Massimo and takes on the appearance of a boy and falls in with Pietro as his assistant. From here the kind of peculiar bond really only found in quirky stories like this develops as Pietro tries to keep Massimo safe while also preserving the artworks. Along the way, they kill some Nazis, get injured, go on the run, and more.

Miller shows himself an expert at interweaving fact and fiction in this historical novel. I didn’t know much about Monte Cassino (don’t know much about wartime Italy at all, to be honest), so it was fascinating learning about real-life people like Schlengel and Becker alongside Miller’s fictional creations like Pietro. I liked seeing things through the eyes of sympathetic yet non-Ally characters: their disdain for Americans and imperialists is enjoyable. Pietro criticizes the Americans, for example, for dispatching their “monuments men” in some cases yet blithely bombing irreplaceable landmarks like Montecassino in other cases. Similarly, the perspectives of civilians like Lucia and Dino, or Bella, or even Massimo/Eva, shed light on how fraught the war must have felt when it was both in the vicinity yet at a remove.

Miller’s exploration of gender expression through our narrator is also worth examining. The book starts in the first person until the narrator reaches a breaking point and “becomes” Massimo, fully inhabiting this persona so much that it feels like he “believes” himself to be a fourteen-year-old boy from a rough life in Rome. At this point, the book shifts into third person, remaining this way even as Massimo transforms into Eva to escape press-ganging. Though I don’t believe we are meant to interpret these shifts as the narrator truly having a mental break, they are useful in illustrating how intensely some people had to conceal their identities to survive Nazi or fascist rule. I also enjoyed how accepting Pietro was of the genderfluidity of our narrator.

Without going into spoilers, I want to conclude by briefly looking at this book as a tragedy—for it has some of those elements. Dark shit happens near the end of this book. You want everyone to get out of it alive. You want a happy ending. And maybe Miller gives you one or maybe he doesn’t—that isn’t for me to say. But like any book about World War II, The Curse of Pietro Houdini is about resilience in the face of trauma, and Miller is quick to point out in his afterword that some of the worst events in this book did, in fact, happen. War is hell, and it is no wonder novelists continue to revisit some of our most famous wars so they can tinker with the environments that most test our humanity.

If, like me, you want “cozy” wartime books, The Curse of Pietro Houdini has something to offer. It’s humorous yet sometimes heavy, far-reaching yet incredibly intimate, lighthearted yet shading often into sombre. In other words, it is as much a rash of contradictions as its title character—as it should be.

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.