2010 book log

I was very surprised and pleased to win The God of the Hive as a First Reads book from Goodreads, and took it as just cause to rush back and get caught up on the previous Mary Russell book, The Language of Bees. Fair warning to any Mary Russell fans who may be behind on the series: for the love of all that’s holy, do not start this book until you’ve read the previous one. This is part 2 of the story begun in The Language of Bees, and you really need to read them back to back if at all possible to appreciate the full scope of the story.

There’s little I can say here without divulging spoilers, but I can say that I was quite surprised by the hard right turn the overall plot took in this half of the story. Things which were set up in The Language of Bees turn out to be much less of the point than I’d previously expected. For the most part this worked for me, although the overall villian struck me as a trifle weak once that revelation was finally given to the reader. I was equally struck by how a character who didn’t show up at all in the previous book became a significant driving force for the action–a little bit too much so at times, given how late he comes into the story. This character does however provide some thematic ties back into bees and beehives, which was at least a bit of nice callback to the previous book.

And meanwhile, there’s a great deal to love here. It was a refreshing switch to see a whole lot of plot emphasis on Mycroft Holmes, especially in the context of the overall theme of how England in general and the intelligence community in particular is advancing in the twentieth century. And the character of Estelle, Damian Adler’s little daughter, is particularly charming; she’s very much believable as a canny little granddaughter of Sherlock Holmes.

I’ve seen other reviewers comment that in the course of the series, Laurie King’s grown as a writer; I’ll definitely go along with that. I’ve quite enjoyed the expansion of the viewpoint from Mary herself out to other characters, which lent The Language of Bees and The God of the Hive both a respectable gravitas that the earlier books in the series don’t yet achieve. Overall, four stars.

I first went through The Zombie Survival Guide in audio form, but on my second pass through I went to a print edition and was quite pleased to do so. While the audio edition is played absolutely straight, with the narrator doing his reading in deadly earnest (and therefore infusing the whole thing with delicious zombie-laden lulz), the print copy comes with crude little illustrations scattered throughout the pages. They’re perfect for the schtick of the book, because they’re exactly the kind of hand-drawn style you’d expect in a combat manual for fighting the living dead.

Which is, of course, what this is. The level of detail for weapon selection, attack and defense strategy, and planning escape routes is surprisingly thorough–and if you look past the zombie schtick, a clever reader could find possible tips for surviving actual real-world disasters in here. What kicks it up another notch for me as a reader though is the backstory laced in with the combat and survival advice: the history of the “Solanum” virus, how it affects its victims, and the entire section at the end devoted to recorded attacks painstakingly by the manual’s in-character “author”.

All in all it’s great fun for zombie buffs, even if it doesn’t quite manage the sheer unadulterated brilliance of Brooks’ followup, World War Z. Four stars. Or in this case, maybe, brains.

If you’ve read Max Brooks’ entirely deadpan and therefore entirely chortleworthy The Zombie Survival Guide, then you’ve already pretty much read the content of this graphic novel. If you haven’t, then what you’ve got here is a nice little collection of zombie attacks throughout recorded history, in a setting that assumes that they’ve been going on all this time and that they only seem more recent because we’ve just gotten way better at recording them.

For Max Brooks fans, the main virtue of this volume is the appeal to completists and to those who might like the art. There’s no new content here, so for me, the selling point was seeing the stories I’d already been introduced to in the Guide depicted visually. And there are certainly some arresting visuals to be had herein, such as the fight scene at the beginning between a zombie and a prehistoric African in a jungle setting–or, much later, an initiate in a secret order forced to spend the night alone in a chamber full of severed zombie heads in jars.

Not all of the encounters in the Guide are depicted in the graphic novel, so this volume’s best as a companion to the Guide‘s stories, and not as a replacement. Three stars.

I came into The Language of Bees very belatedly–and only because I actually won an ARC of its immediate followup, The God of the Hive, on Goodreads! I therefore wound up reading them pretty much back to back, and that’s definitely how you should read them, since the two are linked parts of one overall story that really doesn’t come into true focus until you’ve read them both.

For this review, though, I’ll deal specifically with The Language of Bees. It starts off domestically enough, with Mary and Holmes returning home for the first time in many months to discover a minor mystery awaiting them: what’s happened to one of Holmes’ hives? Right along with that, though, they’re handed a much bigger one. For Holmes has an adult son Damian by his old affair with Irene Adler. And Damian needs his help to find his missing wife and daughter.

I was almost disappointed that the mystery of what happened with the hive got only a little bit of camera time at the beginning. Mary spends some time on it while Holmes departs with Damian, and while she does eventually find the answer, it barely comes up later on. But I could forgive that easily, for the edgy uncertainty between Mary and Holmes as she tries to fathom how he’s dealing with the discovery of not only Damian, but of Damian’s wife and daughter, was thoroughly gripping character development. This is the meat and potatoes of why I’ve thoroughly enjoyed this series in general; not only does King know her Holmes lore intimately, but she extrapolates beautifully from what’s in the canon. I absolutely bought into the character of Damian and how he grew up with the specter of his famous father looming over his life.

Perhaps because I hadn’t actually read any of the Mary Russells in a while, I was slightly jarred by the realization that this book was set in 1924. I’m used to thinking of “Sherlock Holmes” in the context of “late 1800’s”, or at the very least, no later than WWI. Yet the undeniable technological advancements of the 20’s are in play here, and serve as symbols of what comes up as a distinct theme all throughout this book as well as the next one: Holmes and his brother Mycroft growing old enough that the world is developing past them.

Toss in the connection of a mysterious cult that seems to have ensnared the missing Yolanda and the potential danger to Damian’s little girl, and suffice to say that I found this highly entertaining. Even if I still want to know what the heck happened in Japan, a question still unanswered after a couple of novels now! Four stars.

Man, Folly was a difficult book to read–but fortunately, not quite as much a difficult to review. As I’ve said before in my reviews, I greatly enjoy Laurie King’s work, and this is easily one of the most substantial novels of hers I’ve tackled to date, if not the most.

Folly has just enough of a mystery in it to qualify as an actual mystery novel, but without a doubt, the true core of this story is the struggle of Rae Newborn against her own history of crippling depression. She’s had to fight against it all her life, but most recently, it’s been exacerbated beyond all bearing by the death of her second husband and youngest child, and on top of even that, suffering a rape attempt. Now, certain she needs to either conquer her demons or let them destroy her, she’s taken refuge on a remote island in the San Juans and is determined to rebuild the wreck of a house once owned by one of her ancestors. Once there, she discovers secrets about her great-uncle’s history–and disturbing hints about what may well have been going on in her own.

If you’re someone who’s suffered depression or who has a loved one who’s done so, this may not be the book for you; I haven’t had to deal with that burden, and even then, I had a hard time making my way through this book. A great number of the passages when Rae is alone on Folly with nothing but the surrounding wilderness and her own treacherous thoughts are almost painful in their evocativeness. So are several of Rae’s initial interactions with her neighbors, and her later interactions with what’s left of her troubled family. Balancing this out are King’s vivid descriptions of the island’s setting itself; Folly is as much a character as any of the people in the cast.

I think my only real complaint with it is that certain plot revelations at the end slightly cheapen the struggle Rae goes through, but overall this was a fairly minor complaint. I was very pleased to make the trek through the entire book… but yeah, it was a tough go. So if you go in, I’d recommend taking your time and reading it in whatever size chunks you’re up for tackling, and intersperse them with something joyful. Four stars.

I’ve had quite a bit of fun lately listening to SF audiobooks on my iPhone, and 7th Son is one of the most notable things I’ve listened to lately. Audio is the form I mostly dealt with it in, although it’s critical to mention as well that Book 1 of this story is available in print and ebook form. Once I got far enough into this story that I realized I did in fact want to own a copy, I snatched up the ebook. If you like SF-flavored thrillers, it’s definitely worth your time.

The story starts off with a literal bang: the shot of the gun that takes out the President of the United States. What shocks the nation even more than the assassination is the assailant: a four year old boy who mysteriously dies days later. And in the aftermath of this, seven men leading seemingly disparate and unrelated lives are abruptly snatched up by a top-secret government agency, brought together, and set to the task of finding the mastermind who brought about the President’s demise.

This would have been shock enough to the seven men, but far greater a shock is their discovery that they resemble one another enough to be identical brothers, modulo external physical differences. They soon learn that this is because they haven’t led natural lives at all–they are clones, and moreover, they’re the clones of the man they’ve been brought together to seek.

I say all this because it’s not really spoilery. Much of the initial stretch of the story has to do with the seven clones all reacting to the shock of this discovery. Because there are many viewpoint characters here, and because each of the seven men gets the story of their abduction told, the real action does take a bit to get underway. Especially if you’re listening to the audio version. Have patience, though; things continue to get quite intriguing, and as you get periodic glimpses of what mastermind John Alpha is up to, there’s a lovely sense of impending dread as all of his machinations go on while the clones are still trying to figure each other out.

In the audio version, author J.C Hutchins does an excellent job reading each chapter. Things are spiced up as well with guest narrators coming in on many of the later chapters to summarize previous action for you, and there are nicely spaced musical hits in between major scenes to maintain the mood. The audio is definitely worth listening to. But on the other hand, don’t discount buying a print or ebook version, either. The official released book is just different enough from the older audio version that it’s intriguing to wonder what led to the decision to shift certain things around. Without getting too spoilery, I’ll simply note that you might be on the lookout for two of the major characters swapping roles as to who does what in the final third of the story.

Overall this was a gripping little narrative, sometimes with slower pacing than most modern thriller fans might like. But it helps to keep in mind as well that this is only Book 1 of a true trilogy, and that Books 2 and 3 eventually continue and conclude the overall adventure. Unfortunately Book 1 is the only installment of the trilogy that’s in print, and the only one expected to be released–but if you like the audio version at all, support J.C. Hutchins by buying the print or ebook version! Four stars.