Shadow Unit

For those of you who have not yet had the pleasure of stumbling upon “the greatest television show that never existed” well, get to it!

This “TV Show” is Shadow Unit Shadow Unit’s third season just began on Christmas with the release of the episode On Faith. The easiest way to explain this show is to think Criminal Minds crossed with the X-Files. The origin of this show is thus: Elizabeth Bear encouraged some of her author friends to write fan fiction for TV shows as an attempt to reconnect with writing for pleasure. This sparked the idea of Shadow Unit in the mind of Emma Bull, who then brought the idea to life with the help of Will Shetterly, and eventually Elizabeth Bear, Sarah Monette, and the list of involved authors keeps growing.

The amount of time and effort these authors have put into Shadow Unit is amazing. There is tons of background information available, each season has extra’s that add to episodes and bring in back story, and several characters even have active LiveJournal’s. With the extended format of this show the reader gets to know the characters better than one can with real TV or even most novels or series.

Each episode is built in five acts and the episodes tend to be longer than most short stories. The exception to this is the final episode of season 1 which is easily long enough to be a novel, and also probably the best episode thus far. On Faith is different from most episodes in that it takes place before the Shadow Unit officially formed, but it gives the readers a little more perspective on the overall story and a few more tidbits about the settings history.

If this is the first time you have heard of Shadow Unit, or you have never checked it out before I recommend starting with the Shadow Unit Wiki. You will find character descriptions, some more explanation of the premise and background, and also the suggested reading order as some of the extras were not released chronologically with the episodes. Do yourself a favor and get hooked on Shadow Unit!

1633

If you recall from my 1632 review, I quite enjoy this setting. As I stated before with the first novel Eric Flint did an amazing job of both setting up an interesting alternate history and making effective use of time travel. As great as 1632 is, I have come to have a much greater appreciation for Flint and this setting since reading Flint and David Weber’s 1633.

Flint has stated that when he wrote 1632 it was intended to be a stand-alone novel, but due in part to the large amount of interest at the Baen-Bar the setting has developed into something quite large. For 1633 Flint chose to collaborate with David Weber, and while sometimes collaboration is not a good choice in this case it was indeed the right thing to do. The novel still flows just as well as 1632 and feels like a cohesive unit, in fact unless you are already familiar with Weber’s work you may not even notice his presence.

1633 starts not too long after the end of 1632, but departs from 1632 in a lot of ways. While 1632 features mostly the “up timers” as the main cast and stays fairly geographically close to where Grantville landed 1633 introduces a lot more denizens of the 1600’s and has expeditions to France, England, Scotland, Holland and beyond. Also in 1633 we get more of the perspectives of outsiders, that is those who are not members of the new community/country developing around Grantville.

In 1632 we find the characters largely reacting to what is happening around them. The “up timers” essentially only deal with how to survive each issue as it crops up, and while there is discussion and the beginnings of future planning not much of it pays off within the boundaries of that story. 1633 is quite the opposite of this. We now find those plans starting to mature and become something, and we see the major power players making even more long reaching decisions.

Since the “up timers” know that their technological advantages are only good for as long as they last they have begun to do everything in their power to use what they have available to build up technology that, while not quite as advanced, will still keep them ahead in the power struggle. Key to this strategy is building up large enough stock piles of more easily made advances to carry them through to a point where they can make larger advances. Key to this novel are the foundation of the Navy, with what amount to Civil War era ironclads, and a fledgling Air Force, using single engine airframes running car engines.

Another way 1633 diverges from 1632 is that now the other powers in the area are starting to realize exactly what they are up against, and changing their long term plans accordingly. A major issue that arises revolves around the wrong people getting a hold of history books and doing everything they can to alter those things that went awry in their plans in the "original" history. This makes life interesting for the “up timers” because now they have less of a handle on how events are going to unfold.

Weber and Flint have crafted an amazing novel in 1633. They have taken all the things that made 1632 good and gone a step further. Whereas at times in 1632 it felt like the “up timers” were nearly impervious, even though they did have some trying times, in 1633 their weaknesses are beginning to be discovered. Weber and Flint do not pull any punches this time around, and everyone is fair game. The decisions that are made here are harder for the characters and have farther reaching implications. I truly loved this book, I give it a 4.5/5.

Elantris

I must admit that until all the hoopla around the release of Jordan/Sanderson’s The Gathering Storm I didn’t know much of anything about Brandon Sanderson. As I have not read any of the Wheel of Time, and don’t plan to I was not really interested so much in the new book, but more so in this author who had been handpicked to take up the reigns for the late Jordan. Say what you will about WoT and Jordan, but I have to believe that someone chosen to basically speak with another author’s voice, especially in so well known a setting, has to be at least better than average.

So combined with this desire to find out just who this fill in voice was, and recommendations from several of my friends over at the aSoIaF forums at Westeros.org I decided to read some Sanderson. Initially I intended to start with The Final Empire (Mistborn book 1) as that was the direct recommendation but as I was not paying attention I wound up with Elantris (a standalone) instead. Mind you I am not complaining about this mix up.

Elantris is the story of a city perched on the edge of what was once the greatest civilization in the world. Elantris was the name of this great civilization, its members were virtually immortal and could control vast magical powers through what amounts to a complex and well explained system of runes. Then one day the magic stopped and the citizens of Elantris became what amounts to living dead instead of living gods. The story is set ten years later and tells of a power struggle both for the rulership of the city in the ashes and attempt to avoid domination by a neighboring warmongering religion.

The story is told from three perspectives, rotating in the same order throughout. Initially I found this a bit annoying as the third perspective was not as enjoyable to read as the other two, this is just personal preference not anything to do with the writing or the story itself. However, as the story progressed I found this third perspective to be important to the story and gave the reader information that would have been hard to implement in any other fashion.

This novel starts with a definite hook, and doesn’t let go until the end. All too often I find that even though I enjoy a story I don’t have a driving passion to keep reading it, that is not the case with Elantris. Sanderson has built a strong world to work with and spent obvious time on its magic system and building backstory and characters to inhabit the novel and its environs. While the overall arc of the story is predictable, Sanderson does very well at both hinting at the eventual twist and at the same time keeping it hidden so the reader doesn’t see it coming.

From what I have read about The Gathering Storm WoT fans seem to be on a whole happy with Sanderson, and I can see why he was picked to fill the void. I found Elantris to be one of the better books I have read this year, and cannot wait to read the Mistborn novels. Sanderson is a distinct voice amongst the masses and I am glad I took the recommendation to read his work. I give Elantris 4.5/5.

The Briar King

Prior to stumbling upon Greg Keyes The Briar King (Book 1 of The Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone) I had no idea that Keyes wrote anything other than tie-in fiction. I have read his three entries in the Star Wars Universe, which like most of the other Star Wars novels are all fun reads. With the exception of the Timothy Zahn entries a perhaps one or two other though I never can remember who wrote which novel, which I guess is a good thing as all of the novels should flow together as if written by one author. Keyes also has novels set in the Babylon 5 universe and a game tie-in with the Elder Scrolls, I have not read any of these works.

With this as a background I did not have any grand hopes for The Briar King. I had seen it referred to as “GRRM-lite,” which when you really think about it could be applied to a lot of works; face it a lot of people can attempt to reach GRRM’s level, but so far I have not found anyone who has. Is The Briar King truly GRRM-lite? Well it is Sword and Sorcery, but much heavier on the Sword end. It does feature political machinations and unforeseen plot twists. There is no lack of blood and treachery, the narrative style is more POV than not, and there is a mostly unseen evil working to destroy the world of men. These are the bones that make a Song of Ice and Fire and the Briar King. However, the Briar King may be GRRM-lite, but it is more of the lite and less of the GRRM.

I liked all of the “POV characters” well enough, some more than others as you would expect. They are dissimilar enough to not feel like different sides of the same coin and they are truly spread around enough to actually give you different windows on the overall story. At the same time they interact enough to give you different viewpoints on the same points of action. I also enjoy the way magic is more of an enhancing tool (in most cases) than an a pure weapon.

The story follows members of the royal family and also a few people that work for either them or the church as an ancient evil rises anew. It is unclear in this first novel, just how much the political intrigue is purely on the human level and how much of it is actually the unseen hand of the Briar King (or whatever force might be behind him) using people as pawns in the larger game. As the evil rises other creatures thought to be the stuff of legend or tales used to scare children into obedience begin to arise, and of course there are the obligatory evil monks who have been corrupted by the power of evil.

The novel covers plenty of ground and actually builds to a fairly strong conclusion. In point of fact this novel could easily have stood alone, although at the end the reader would have been left with a few questions and the larger story arc would not have been resolved. It is, unfortunately, not often that a first novel in a planned series has even this much of a full story feel to its structure, and for that I give Keyes some credit. This is a fairly quick read, nothing that requires too much attention to detail. I enjoyed my time with the characters and the story, I give it 3.5/5

Monstrous Regiment

I do not intend to write many reviews starting with works that are not the first in a series. I have chosen to in this instance for a couple reasons. The first being it has been so long since I read The Colour of Magic that I could not do it justice in a review at the moment. The second being Pratchett’s work is strong enough to stand on its own without starting at the beginning. I intend to eventually get back to the beginning, but I don’t know how long that will be. Until then you can check out the Wertzone where Adam is in the middle of doing reviews of the Discworld Novels.

As you may or may not know the Discworld novels consist of several sets of characters who have what amounts to series with the larger series. These are Rincewind/the Wizards, the Witches, the City Watch, and Death and his cohorts. Interspersed throughout these other storylines are a few stand-alone novels, Monstrous Regiment is one of these. There characters of the Discworld tend to freely float about and in this case the City Watch (at least a few officers) are involved.

Whilst the majority of the novels are set in or around the city of Ankh-Morpork Monstrous Regiment takes place in the tiny country of Borogravia. Borogravia is an apparently bloodthirsty realm that has been at war with its various neighbors more or less continually for decades. At the start of the novel these neighbors have finally decided to gang up on the much smaller, yet vicious, country and have enlisted Ankh-Morpork’s aide, in the shape of Commander Vimes and a few Watchpeople. In the classic case of long and bloody wars most of the able-bodied young men of Borogravia have already been lead off to the slaughter.

Thus we find that the raw batch of new recruits are all in fact women in disguise. All of these characters are off to war to either find someone or something, ranging from a brother to some battlefield experience with surgery. The tale encompasses the new recruits struggles to get to the front and then their actions and foibles once they arrive. As with all Pratchett’s work the real meat of the novel is its irreverence towards social norms and its biting commentary on ingrained beliefs and practices.

Borogravia is a country with a dead god (Nuggan) whose ghost is mad, and the country has been ruled by the Duchess for something like 70 years. The characters have varying degrees of belief and patriotism, and their interactions with each other and outsiders provide much of the commentary. What this novel proves to itself, its characters, and perhaps its readers is that women can and usually are better at things than men, except when they are trying to be men , in which case they just amplify all of the negative qualities of the male persona.

I listened to this novel, read by the excellent Stephen Briggs. The audio book was well done and did the material justice. The good thing about the occasional stand alone in the Discworld setting is that it brings Pratchett’s full strength to bear on the material, while the series are always wonderful because of character familiarity at times the story and the commentary can get bogged down in the same familiarity. With a standalone like Monstrous Regiment all the players are fresh and usually built to fit the exact issues that Pratchett is aiming at. This novel is exactly such a case, I give it 4/5.

1632

Eric Flint’s 1632 is a refreshing take on alternate history (or it would have been when it was published in February 2000). If you are looking into it for the first time it can be found as either the “Ring of Fire” series, as it has come to be known, or the “Assiti Shards” which I believe must have been dropped as that title is really only a passing reference to something that never really developed. Both series titles refer to the mechanism by which the story is begun.

A perfect sphere of modern West Viriginia surrounding the town of Grantville is uprooted and hurled back through time into 1630’s Germany. This drops the “up-streamers” as they are later dubbed into the middle of the Thirty Years War, quite literally as several battles take place nearly on the territory they now occupy. This time traveling is dealt with neatly by also transporting the people and land to a parallel history or universe so that the readers and characters are not plagued by the old tired problem of worrying about tampering with history and thus causing your own extinction. Due to this choice the readers are able to experience an interesting look at the 1630s.

Flint mixes the points of view that the reader is treated to between up-streamers and people from the, lets call it, local time. This combined with the fact that there is obvious depth to the amount of actual history involved (by that I mean we have important historical figures who are not just the famous ones) gives the story more of a real feeling. We experience the struggle to understand several distinct cultures from most of the sides involved. Some of the characters accept these cultural differences and use them to improve the situation, other’s reject them and as per usual respond with hatred and violence.

Key to the success of this story as something beyond the average is how characters from both timelines come to work together. Through this togetherness we can see the character development as well as the plot development as it is actually influenced by the differences in characters background, technological levels, and how they choose to integrate these radical changes into their lives and actions. Furthermore the scope of what this novel takes on itself works. It doesn’t try to be grand, it merely answers the immediate questions brought on by the massive change in its character’s situation. It worked as a stand alone, but also lead nicely to a larger body of work, which now encompasses several novels and shor t story collections.

I like this novel because it feels like it could be genuine. There are characters with many levels of gradation between good and bad, and the bad characters are not necessarily “evil” just on the wrong side of a bad situation. There is a bit of a thrill at the technological superiority of the “Americans” and the bringing of the boots to the oppressors. What makes this novel stand out is how the characters recognize the situation and work together to improve their world, not just kick ass and take names indiscriminantly. Flint has done a great job of creating a vibrant setting with characters that you can actually care about. I give it a 4/5

The Magicians: A Novel

Lev Grossman’s The Magicians: A Novel is an interesting read. It is essentially a mash up of other works that have been succesful. The character’s attend a school for magic that is unknown to the world at large (Harry Potter) and revere and (of course) enter a magical realm (Chronicle’s of Narnia). Then thrown in for good measure are bits of urban fantasy. The Harry Potter homage goes so far as to include a made up “sport” although in this case it much more closely resembles a board game than a “sport” and the rules are so vaguely described as to make one question whether or not the rules were ever actually fleshed out to the point of making the inclusion of the game worth the reader’s time.
I must say that the majority of the novel, which takes place at Brakebill’s College (the stand in for Hogwart’s) I thouroughly enjoyed. In fact I would say that I would have liked to have gone to Brakebill’s. Grossman here takes the concept of a wizarding school where I think most adults really wanted Harry Potter to go. We have a bunch of hormonaly rampaging teens together and playing with magic, with very little actual adult supervision, to me it sounds like a great time. One thing I really enjoyed about the novel was the Antartic Excursion. This bit I thought was very original (in fact one of the truly authentic feeling parts of the novel) and I feel it actually brought something to the story and the character development.
The concept Grossman was going for I think had a lot of promise. Where it stumbles though is the fact that we only have one book. If this had been broken down into 4 or 5 novels, perhaps going by year as with Potter I think Grossman could have done something grand. With the stand alone novel however, I believe Grossman was far too limited to really explore the two worlds he chose for his characters to inhabit. The characters really don’t develop much beyond how they are each introduced, and all of their experiences in school are a bit hurried. In fact the whole novel feels a bit rushed, largely because so much territory is covered.
All of this could have been ok, if the pay off had been worth the build up. Unfortunately the trip to Fillory, as with the rest of the novel is rushed. In fact after revolving essentially around becoming a real magician and gaining powerful friends so that the trip to Fillory isn’t just a quit death, the trip is so essentially short that it doesn’t even feel worth the bother. Not to mention that the eventual wrap up of why the party is essentially lead to Fillory, while promising, is a bit mishandled (probably again due to the single novel size limitation) and leaves the reader feeling a bit let down. The main character does however, stay within his limited development and not suddenly become changed by the experience which in a way is refreshing.
Don’t get me wrong, this book was fun to read, which is in my opinion what at times is most important. I would recommend it to most people, especially as it is a quick read. In fact if I were to find out that Grossman had intentionally done things as they turned out as a sort of poking fun at the way things usually go I would significantly up my rating of the novel. After all it is essentially the enshrining of all the things we look for in entertainment, sex, drugs, and a good time. The only thing that gets me is the longer I think about the book the more I feel we missed out on something that could have been great. I give it 3/5.

A Word on Ratings for Reviews

In recent months there has been some discussion on other blogs about the use of ratings in reviews. For this blog I will be using a 1 to 5 scale with half points. I debated this a bit as I questioned whether or not I should just go for a 1 to 10 scale and whole points only. I decided on the other in that 1 to 5 seems a more widely used scale and I think a 4.5/5 is a little stronger than a 9/10. That said I will be using 5's only for books that I feel are in the category of an author's best work (only if the author is worthy obviously) or the work is deserving of a Hugo. A 4 to 4.5 will be a work I feel is very good. A 3.5 will be a strong work, and a 3 will be something I feel is a pleasant read but not necessarily a work that contributes anything to the genre. I am not sure if i will ever give anything less than a 2.5 or 3 as if a book is that bad I may not actually finish it, in which case I probably will not do full review but merely state my disgust. If i decide to make any further gradations or change my scale I will let you know in future posts.

Introduction

First off, the main purpose of this blog is discussion/review of Science Fiction and Fantasy Novels (call it Genre or Speculative Fiction if you want). However, I am not going to be that strict about it. I will post about things like NFL Football, new films and music, interesting websites, and so forth when I feel that there is something to be said. That being said, my first review will likely be of Lev Grossman's The Magicians and I should post it in the next day or so.