A Great Big Best

Like most readers, most of the fiction that I read comes in the form of novels. The novel I’m reading at any point in time forms the backdrop of my life and it affects my mood, attitude and philosophy of the world as much as the weather or the geography of where I’m living. In fact, the question “what are you reading now?” often leads to discussions of how one is feeling just then about life.

Short stories are different. Most often I come across short stories while browsing through magazines or flipping through anthologies that purport to introduce a new sub-genre or collect the best of a year or decade. It’s rare that I’ll read a complete collection of short stories by a single author, but when I do it’s always eye opening, providing a new insight into a particular writer’s work.

It certainly did with The Best of Larry Niven, a giant collection of stories by the master sci-fi writer due out this winter from Subterranean press. I read a number of Niven’s novels when I was in high school and so I knew to expect lots of cool ideas plucked from theoretical physics and the real qualities of real space. I also knew to expect aliens that were truly alien and not just some very human looking beings with ridged noses.

Return of the Verdilak!

Lately I've been reading multiple books at once, a chapter here and there of completely unrelated things. Usually I'll get into one of these at the expense of the others and read it through to the end before returning to the pile, but in this case I got pulled off-track by something I unexpectedly found in a local used book store: the 1996 graphic novel Verdilak, by Bo Hampton and Mark Kneece.

Lockdown: Escape From Furnace, #1 -- Alexander Gordon Smith

Set far enough forward into the future that there are seven Indiana Jones movies¹, a few years after the Summer of Slaughter, and enter a world in which adults are so scared of teenagers -- and children -- that they've built Furnace: an underground, maximum security prison.

If you get sent to down to Furnace, you're there for life.

Not that your life there will be very long...

Girl Parts by John M. Cusick

Girl Parts by John M Cusick
"David and Charlie are opposites. David has a million friends, online and off. Charlie is a soulful outsider, off the grid completely. But neither feels close to anybody. When David’s parents present him with a hot Companion bot designed to encourage healthy bonds and treat his “dissociative disorder,” he can’t get enough of luscious redheaded Rose — and he can’t get it soon. Companions come with strict intimacy protocols, and whenever he tries anything, David gets an electric shock.

Parted from the boy she was built to love, Rose turns to Charlie, who finds he can open up, knowing Rose isn’t real. With Charlie’s help, the ideal “companion” is about to become her own best friend."-summary from Amazon

I really enjoyed this book, though it's one of those that I was hoping no one would ask me about or see the cover and of course it's the one I brought to ALA to read. Cover aside, it had a fantastic premise and was really original. I loved how Cusick digged in deep and made his characters three-dimensional, including even the Companion. There's a lot of introspective and quiet moments that you might not expect to be in this novel, so that was a nice aspect.

There is also lots of humor sprinkled throughout, though it's not as hilarious as the back cover summary suggests. I also thought it was kind of funny how the way for these boys to become more social and away from the machines that they're obsessed with (though I'm sure there's a few boys who have them who are more like Charlie, who doesn't do much on the computer) is through a machine and not, yknow, getting involved in extracurriculars.

Also in the book is a bit of a mystery, though it doesn't come into play until the latter half of the novel. There's something going on though with Sakora Solutions (the company that makes the Companions) and I'm excited to see what it is. The ending had me going "This can't be all. There must be more. There isn't?! NOOOOO!!" and then people looked at me funny but whatever. However, there is a sequel coming, so at least there's that to look forward to. I can't wait to see where the story goes.

Secret Six: Unhinged

Want to know a secret? The best comic book on the market today features no big-name, A-List superheroes. It's not written by Grant Morrison, Warren Ellis or Geoff Johns. And it's pencilled by a fairly obscure artist. The book in question is Secret Six, and if you haven't read any issues of the series, do yourself a favor and pick up the trade paperback collecting the first six issues of the currently ongoing series - Secret Six: Unhinged.

There seem to be a lot of reasons NOT to read Secret Six at first glance. I mean, honestly, who wants to read a book that features D-List Batman villain Catman on a regular basis. Catman? Really? But the bottom line about Secret Six is that writer Gail Simone takes characters no one in the DC universe gives a whit about and makes them engaging, compelling (if not totally likable) human beings. Think of it this way: Alan Moore did the same thing with a previously mishandled property called Swamp Thing, and Neil Gaiman took the Sandman and transformed him/it into an unprecedented literary property. So if they can do it, and make it work, so can Gail Simone.

Don't look for conventional super heroics here. There just ain't any. These aren't lovable, or even in some cases tolerable, characters. Catman was emotionally and physically brutalized by a big game hunting father; Scandal Savage was raised by an immortal demigod bent on world conquest; Bane was addled by the same drug that powered him; Deadshot was, and is, simply a sociopath, and Ragdoll....well, the less said about Ragdoll the better. I don't think I was ready for this new character invented by Simone, and even now I'm not sure my psyche can handle him.

There is some concern that Secret Six may not last much longer as an ongoing series, and I think I'd like to do my own part to help rectify this situation. This is a great book, well worth the time and energy it takes to read it. It challenges the norms of the conventional, melodramatic funny book and it does so in seriously subversive ways. This is comic book writing without a safety net, since there doesn't seem to be any editorial edict against killing off these characters. No one is safe, and if that isn't the beginnings of good storytelling, I don't know what is.

Steampunk to kick you out of a reading rut

Cherie Priest returns to the Clockwork Century world she created in the outstanding steampunk adventure Boneshaker with a new novella, Clementine. Her characters are firmly set in an alt-history 1880s, where the Civil War has not ended and a rash of wartime technological advancements have resulted in all manner of fascinating machinery. Spinning out of Boneshaker with supporting character Croggon Beaureguard Hainey, escaped slave and now infamous sky pirate, Clementine is a standalone title which includes hot pursuit of a stolen dirigible, Pinkerton detectives, an asylum, a weapon designed to bring destruction of unparalleled power down upon the masses, and one former real life Confederate spy named Isabelle Maria Boyd. Let me just say that the inclusion of the infamous “Belle” Boyd pretty much made this former history teacher weep with sheer joy.

Teen Survey: Anders

There's nothing like discussing a good book at 7 in the morning with an awesome co-worker. Meet Anders, who is probably either reading or going on a sunrise run as I type this. We've been recommending books to each other all summer and we've had lengthy discussions about titles such as I'll Get There. It Better Be Worth the Trip. by John Donovan and Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan. After exchanging half a dozen books with Anders, I asked him if he wanted to fill out the teen survey for GuysLitWire. He said sure, and so I now give the floor to him.

Name: Anders

Age: 15

Books recently read for fun: Hero; Will Grayson, Will Grayson; Looking for Alaska; Lord of the Flies

Books recently read for school: Frankenstein; Beowulf; Dorian Gray

Books in your to-read pile: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas; Watchers (I seldom have many books to read)

Favorite authors: I have none - a story is a story no matter who the author is. It's the story that captures me and pulls me in, and I really don't pay attention to who wrote it up (maybe I should?).

Favorite books: Loamhedge; Brave New World; The Tao of Pooh; Hero; The Hobbit; THE ALCHEMIST!!!!!!!!!!

Favorite genres: The good ones. I'll pick up anything that is fun to read.

Why do you like to read? I'm not sure. Because... I find it entertaining? I enjoy reading someone's story and making my own speculations.

Favorite movies: Inception; Ratatouille; Wall-E; Laputa: Castle in the Sky

Favorite musicians/singers/types of music: Cash Cash; The Script; Vampire Weekend; Ingrid Michaelson; Boys Like Girls; (Alternative); (recently) Two Door Cinema Club

Do you listen to music (or TV) while you read? No. I find it distracting unless it's a school book that I HAVE to read and it's really boring (like The Bridge of San Luis Rey). Sometimes the assigned books are so bad that I lose concentration if I DON'T have music on.

Do you finish every book you start? Almost always. If I start a book, I feel uneasy not finishing it. I might take a week break, but eventually I've gotta finish.

Tales of the Madman Underground by John Barnes

Tales of the Madman Underground has been reviewed on Guys Lit Wire twice. The first review (over a year ago) was rather lukewarm about the book, clearly not a big fan. The second review, from February, was glowing. I just read the book myself and think I need to break the tie. And by doing this I hope I get as many people as possible to read Tales of the Madman Underground, because it is one of the best written and boldest young adult books I’ve read. How good is it? It is Robert-Cormier-Good. That is the name that kept zipping through my brain as I made my way through all of the adventures of the madman underground. It is outstanding. Read it.

I was born in 1960, but I consider myself a kid of the seventies because those are the years of my youth that I remember. This story takes place in 1973; in fact, all 532 pages take place over just six days in 1973. John Barnes nails the seventies. Imagine for a moment how different life was in 1973. Not just in the obvious ways, with technology or politics, but in how people treated each other, or something more mundane, like how we saw smoking or picking up dog poop. Reading this story immersed me right back into those years as well as the realities of being a teenage boy. The book rings with such an authentic voice, that I was sure Barnes was also a teenager in the seventies. I looked him up, and sure enough, in 1973 he was 16.

Karl Shoemaker is starting his senior year in high school in Lightsburg, his small Ohio town. How small is it? No-movie-theater-small. In many ways the town is dying, both literally and spiritually. There seems to be more empty, boarded-up stores than open stores. And the people of Lightsburg – like so many towns big and small all across our nation – are hurting. They are struggling with alcohol and relationships and anger and drugs and the aimless drift of life. And some of them are just awful people and abusive parents. Karl’s dad died a few years before and his mom is a wreck. She loves him, but she is an endless partier and an alcoholic, and so was Karl as well as his dad, but Karl saw his ugly future in a bottle of booze and quit and goes to AA. I know this sounds depressing, but in fact, the book glows with wisdom and in a way I see Karl as a teenage philosopher.

What's It All For? The Carpet Makers

Oh, the tedium of our lives. Waking up, staggering to the bathroom, brushing our teeth, showering, dressing, stumbling out the door to work or school, sitting all day at an uncomfortable desk...

You have no idea.

In Andreas Eschbach's science fiction novel The Carpet Makers, there are artisans who spend their entire lives weaving carpets from the hair of their wives and daughters, thread by thread, morning to night, marriage to death. This holy chore in service to the Emperor provides rugs for the grand palace of a vast interstellar empire, and the entire economy of many planets depends on it.

Until the Emperor dies, of course, and a new government must free these enslaved planets and discover the true purpose of the carpets that never made it to the imperial palace.

What would you do if you found out that everything you've lived and worked for is nothing like you've been told?

Such is the dilemma of the characters in The Carpet Makers. The story passes adeptly from character to character, chapter to chapter, story to story, as we watch fascinating people of all kinds struggle for freedom and meaning against the inertia of history. Some are rebels against the status quo, others are loyalists to the way things have always worked. They live, they struggle, they inquire...all in pursuit of the truth.

None of them can take the value of their existence on faith anymore, and this novel is an excellent reminder that the duty of an intelligent person is to ask questions and resist assumptions. Change, even of the smallest kind, can overwhelm us all without any warning, and it is the adaptable and inquisitive who survive.

Beautifully written, clear and compelling, The Carpet Makers is an old-school science fiction story full of fascinating cultures and far-flung ideas, the kind that keep you thinking long after reading it -- perhaps about just what the woven carpets of your life are really for.

Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Dana

"Two Years Before The Mast" is only partly a sailing book. It's also a history of California before the Gold Rush.
When it came out in the 1840s, there were -- I assume -- plenty of sailing books. But there were no books about California. (Or at least not many in English.) Because almost no one had been there.
So when college boy Richard Dana signed up for a sailing voyage and ends up stuck in California, it was the perfect opportunity for him to look around and write down his impressions of the place.
When he penned his book he couldn't have known how interested people would eventually be in California.
Because when he was there it was mostly empty, with just a few Mexican missions and towns. These places weren't much but they have familiar names: Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco. Dana was there when cow hides were about the only thing they had to offer.