Book Review: Uprooted

Ugh, between yet another cold and just a general feeling of "I have ideas but not the energy to write out these ideas" I seem to be off schedule again. Since I posted so little this past week, no catch-up post and in next week's catch-up post I'll talk about the comic review I skipped, Beautiful Darkness.

I'm familiar with Naomi Novik's name and writing due to her "master and commander with dragons fanfic"/Napoleonic-Wars-With-Dragons series and while I am a bit nervous that she took time off from it to write a completely different novel (as I would for any author) I do understand since that series is slated to be about nine novels and she's written at least six of them. So, it's not surprising that she chose to write about something other than dragons but this story is even more fantastical with it's creatures which I found interesting from a meta standpoint ("okay is she more interested in writing historical fiction or fantasy? Well this gives me at least part of the answer!"). Weirdly enough Amazon includes "Temeraire" in the title but I have no earthly idea how these stories could be connected, if magic is added into the Napoleonic Wars I think everyone is doomed, so I can only assume this was done to try and entice more readers and will reassure others that you can make this your first Naomi Novik book and enjoy it just fine.

Uprooted by Naomi Novik

Book Review: Crucible of Gold

Continuing with the "Napoleon Wars with Dragons" series of books, I actually got to this one in the year it came out which I'm quite proud of, in case people haven't figured out by now I can be rather terrible at reading books soon after they come out. Although, given that it's going to be a least a year until the next book comes out it might've been a good idea to wait a little longer before reading and reduce the wait time....

Crucible of Gold by Naomi Novik

Am I the only one who is getting real Master and Commander vibes from this cover? I blame the ship in the foreground and while I am a bit sad to see the covers start to deviate from the pattern they originally established I must admit that this cover is probably a bit more eye-catching than the originals were. 

Summary: Laurence and Temeraire have been called back into service in the British Air Forces, rather reluctantly on their part, for a new mission that the British apparently cannot trust to any other group (which further serves to annoy them): to travel to the great Incan Empire of South America and to convince them to not ally themselves with Napoleon. But the journey is never easy for these two, nor does it seem to ever end, and once again they will need to use nearly every skill they have to survive and to smooth over the many political scuffles that come up along their way.  

The Good: The parts of the series where Laurence and Temeraire visit other countries is rapidly becoming my favorite part and I would love for the series to devote some time near the end to showing Temeraire reforming the way dragons are treated in England (actually, I'm even more interested by that idea than the war at this point). The Incan Empire was an interesting setting, especially seeing how it differed from real world history, and I wish more of the book had been spent there instead of with the characters constantly traveling around. And the story reintroduces some characters that haven't been seen in two or so books which was rather nice (I'm all for expanding the cast but, as I've mentioned in other reviews, I am bothered when each book in a series receives an entirely new cast, it simply feels like a waste and I'm glad that's not the case here).  

The Bad: I am of the firm belief that Napoleon will be defeated by the end of the series, there's simply been too much build-up for that not to be the outcome, yet he gets stronger and stronger with each book which means that the ending will have to be more and more spectacular to pull that off. True there are at least two more books to go, and the ending to this one heavily hinted that the British will gain a new ally in the next book, but I'm now starting to lower my expectations of how the story will end since it has set up a problem almost too complex to be resolved. Also, even though these books are crammed full of plot and not much time is wasted, there is still just a lot going on in this book and I almost wish it was trimmed down (and to it's credit all the various subplots are addressed or resolved as they come up, it's still just a lot of stuff to take in).


The story certainly feels like it's beginning to enter the end game by now and I am happy to see it progressing along, even if I am getting worried if Novik can actually pull off an ending that will be worth an eight book wait. Guess there's nothing to do but to hope for the best! 

Comic Review: Will Supervillians be on the final?

....oh come on, with a title like that how could I NOT pick this one up? When I first came across this, via a review on ANN, I thought that the title made the story sound like a train-wreck waiting to happen, especially when I found out that the author was the same author of the "Napoleonic War with dragons" series. Also, I've noticed over the years that I tend to like less/think aren't done as well stories that have a prose writer at the helm with an artist or comic adaptations of a book. Granted, I know that DC and Marvel don't always (often?) have someone who both writes the story and draws the comic and their stories seem to work (well, sometimes) and I have seen many collaborative webcomics that have one person who is the primary writer and another who does all the art but in those cases the result generally feels like a cohesive work. Here, well it's not so much that the story doesn't feel cohesive, rather, I'm not entirely sure why this story was told in comic form at all (although I can't see it working any better as an all prose work either...)

Will Super Villains Be On the Final? Written by Naomi Novik, illustrated by Yishan Li

  
Summary: Leah Taymore is nearly at the end of her rope, with prodigious super powers she's been enrolled in the college for superheroes two years early but with all of her (orchestrated by a villain of course) bad luck it doesn't seem like she'll be able to remain. Will she somehow be able to stay, save the day, and get the guy?

The Good: Leah isn't a terribly well-rounded character but she's likable enough and despite her powers and hardships doesn't feel like a Mary Sue. I also liked two of the side characters, twins who are the resident advisers for Leah's floor managed to get more fleshed out than I expected and I found myself wishing that they had more screen time (especially the girl of the pair). The story also concluded better than I expected, it's clear that there is much more to it than just this volume but it ended at a good place.

The Bad: A classic episode/chapter in a school story is to have the characters go to a philosophy class, have the teacher propose a question about morals (which doesn't have a "right" answer) that is strangely relevant to the plot, and then have the characters mull over it. This time this scenario is partially explained by the fact that the philosophy teacher is the villain but the question was so dumb I nearly threw the book across the room. It's a question dealing with events that happened before the story so I won't get into details but believe me when I say that it wouldn't have generated much debate in my high school classes let alone my college ones and nothing makes a writer appear dumb when they try to pull off something "clever" like this and fail. And this whole story feels like someone was trying to be clever with a new idea (never mind the fact that the idea of "school for superheroes" has already been done plenty of times before) but didn't have any new ideas to bring to the table to make it work. Also, I can't tell if some of the guy characters (and apologies that I'm not using names here, I honestly cannot find them online and forgot to write them down) were out of character at times or if the artist actually drew the wrong one which is a first for me. Also, co-ed bathrooms, really? Sure I've been in dorms that have a small, gender-neutral bathroom so there can be mixing of the sexes, but the idea that the only bathroom for an entire floor (which appeared too small, I've been in dorms with only one huge bathroom for 40+ people) that is mixed gender was a pretty stupid detail.

The Art: Another complaint I have with these collaborative works is that the art more often than not is just boring. By which I mean, sure the art is there and I saw over 100 pages of it but don't expect me to recognize the artist if I saw their work again, the art didn't feel like it had any style to it at all, rather that the publisher said "we need a comic with generic, 'manga-inspired' art" and that was it*. Interestingly enough there were a few pages in the back with original sketches and prompts for what the characters should look like which were kinda interesting but most so for Leah's roommate. The prompt calls for her to have a more chubby, best-friend look, and I wouldn't have described her as anything except average weight/build. Perhaps that idea was scrapped but it did make me think of all the talks and writings I've seen about re-enforcing the idea that only thin is beautiful, both because the best friend, not the star and the second most important female character, was supposed to be not thin and that if that's their definition of "not thin" then they have a sadly screwed up definition.


The story did turn out better than I expected (probably because my expectations weren't high, think a few inches above the floor) but still had enough weird, dumb details and didn't do anything new/interesing with material I've seen before that I have no intention of recommending it to anyone. No idea if there will be more books forthcoming, the publishing date was last year but Amazon doesn't seem to list a volume two (also worth noting is that you can get new and used copies online for just one cent, never a good sign) and I really have to wonder why Del Ray financed this project in the first place.  




*ironically enough, did a quick search on Amazon and it turns out Yishan Li has done a number of "how to draw manga" books before. 

Book Review: Zombies vs Unicorns

Considering my overall impression of the Mars anthology was only lukewarm at best it may seem a bit odd that I decided to read another anthology immediately afterwords, the only explanation I can offer is that I'd been meaning to read this book for years (I followed Justine's blog back when she was still able to update and might have been around for the original blog post). So, knowing full well that just because an anthology is hyped well and has a lot of authors in it that I like doesn't mean that it's going to be good (I'm looking at you Geektastic) I decided to give this one a shot anyway.

Zombies vs Unicorns edited by Holly Black and Justine Larbalestier

 

I'm curious how the paperback cover works since the hardcover book here has the black dust jacket with cut-outs of a zombie and a unicorn which can be removed to show a mural of unicorns and zombies fighting each other printed onto the book cover itself. I think the dust jacket idea is clever although I'm not that fond of the art style used for the images themselves, it's a neat idea regardless however.

 

Summary: Originating from a debate in the comments of author Justin Larbalestier's blog, she and Holly Black head up this anthology which compare zombies and unicorns with 12 stories from well known young adult authors who try to prove why their side is better.

 

The Good: I was quite pleasantly surprised to see that not every story in the anthology involved romance, I simply like a break from it sometimes, and that there were two LGTB romances in the anthology as well (oddly enough both zombies, "Love Will Tear Us Apart" by Alaya Dawn Johnson and "Inoculata" by Scott Westerfeld), a very nice change of pace overall. There are some stories in here which I’m confused if they were written to be parodies (all unicorn stories, Meg Cabot’s "Princess Prettypants" and Naomi Novik's "Purity Test")*  but they ended up being so genuinely hilarious that in the end I ended up not caring, I had fun reading them. Fun actually sums up a lot of the anthology, given my bad track record with anthologies I really wasn’t expecting much out of this one yet I enjoyed it and can see why so many other people have as well.

 

The Bad: I’m simply not a big fan of dystopias, for reasons that deserve their own post someday, and since a number of the zombie stories were set in dystopias I didn’t like them as much (which may sound harsh but as I’ve said before, it’s not plot but setting that’s the most important part of a story for me and that’s extra true with such stories like these). None of the stories were bad however, there were just some not to my taste and only about half of them stuck in my mind only a month after I read them which speaks volumes on it's own.

Probably the best anthology I've tried in the past few years but since it had been at least six months between whatever my last anthology was an the Mars one that's not as grand a statement as it sounds. Not sure if I would want a copy of my own for rereading but I'd certainly recommend this to many of my friends, it's a fun book with variety that I can see appealing to a lot of people.

 

  

*so zombies do romance and unicorns do comedy? No wonder I like unicorns better

Book Review: Victory of Eagles

Well, it’s been a few months since I reviewed one of these books but I finally got around to finding the fifth book in the Temeraire series (ie, what if there were DRAGONS in the Napoleonic Wars and they were used like ships?). Knowing that this series has a few more books to go (I believe the plan is for it to be a nine book series) does make the series a bit less enjoyable (you know that no matter whatever the heroes do, they aren’t going to beat Napoleon yet) but only a bit.

Victory of Eagles by Naomi Novik

One change I noticed here was that the books are finally normal hardcover sized, no more tiny paperback sized books! Made it much easier to hold the book and gave it more room to have a proper illustration on the cover which I also liked (am I the only one who thinks it wouldn't look out of place on a Master and Commander book?).

Summary: After Laurence's treason at the end of the previous book, Laurence is waiting to be executed and Temeraire has been separated from him and now resides in the breeding grounds. But idealistic Temeraire refuses to sit around for the rest of his life and convinces the rest of the dragons to leave the grounds and help fight against the French and earn some money for building pavilions in the process.

The Good: Since the two have been separated, Temeraire actually gets more screen time and more pages devoted to what he's thinking and planning than in the previous books and he's a very interesting character. Laurence often comes off as an cautiously idealistic character, or at least a cautiously optimistic one, but Temeraire is so idealistic that he's a radical and it's a nice contrast to Laurence since he's not quite himself in this book. Since this book is even more war focused than the previous four there's not a lot of opportunities for the characters to do much other than fight and think (or emo) but the book does set some interesting groundwork for what Temeraire might accomplish later on.

The Bad: It still seems odd that humans have domesticated dragons for centuries at this point yet only now (the time line of these stories) is it beginning to change history. Dragons haven’t changed the outcome of dozens of wars but they do let Napoleon actually land on and invade English soil and that’s a rather large change*.  Another unrealistic point is jut how much the dragons need to eat to stay in combat shape and that England manages to supply them all. The amount the dragons need to eat doesn’t sound unreasonable (based on the sizes given for them it sounds perfectly reasonable if not too little) but it does seem rather improbable that one small nation could feed them all without much trouble, especially after seeing the supply problems in this book.

So, not my favorite book in the series so far, mostly because it was so much fighting and becauseLaurence loses it for a while (and for the rest of the book he comes off as  "woe is me, I am to die and I can't protest it because I have MORALES" never mind the fact that he has a perfectly good reason not to die). But the next book will have a change of setting, always interesting, and we draw ever close to the end of the series which is also exciting. 

*and the books could have hand waved this by saying that the domestication of dragons in most parts of the world, except China since they’re isolated enough to not really matter here, was a recent thing so there hadn’t been as much of a chance for them to interfere with history, that would have been a perfectly valid explanation.

Book Review: Empire of Ivory

I believe, and I could be crazy and making this entirely up but I don't think that's the case here, that Naomi Novik has said that the Temeraire series is entering it's final third so it looks like this is going to be a nine book series after all, not some monstrosity that goes on forever. With that in mind I was much more cheerful by reading this book (book four, only two more before I'm caught up!) but I also just liked this one more than Black Powder War. I think it was the pacing since Black Powder War was certainly more interesting and, again this is what I think I've heard, Novik wrote the first three books back to back so it might be that she had gotten more into the swing of writing and was just a better writer by this point, she's certainly gotten a load more of experience.

Empire of Ivory by Naomi Novik

 Same style cover as before and again, I'm not quiet sure what they're supposed to be portraying. I suppose that's supposed to be the fort in South Africa but really, that could've been better.

Summary: As revealed in the preview section of the last novel (and something some readers would have already guessed), the British fleet of dragons has been decimated with a horrible new illness they have no cure for. Many of the dragons are still alive but slowly wasting away, after being accidentally exposed Temerarie isn't however and that sets off a search for what gave him the immunity which leads Captain Laurence and the crew to Africa where they discover that Napoleon isn't the only person they have to worry about.

The Good: Like I said before, I liked the overall feeling of this book more than the previous one and I think it's because Temerarie and Laurence are equals by the end of this book. Even in the previous book Temerarie came off as a young person who is still trying to understand the world, by here he feels like a young person who has learned about the world and decided that stuff just isn't right and they want to change it, or at the very least defy it (oddly enough since wikipedia calls the first three books Temeraire's arc and the second three as Laurence's arc, I suppose these books will deal with Laurence coming to terms with Temeraire's newfangled ideas). It's also nice to see Novik really start to mess with history, if you're going to write a story with a game changing difference like dragons then the history should be pretty different.

The Bad: I do wonder if Novik wrote the second book and then resolved to never try and fill up all the time they crew spent on a long sea voyage again. Considering how long the book would've been otherwise I'm not going to complain, merely say that it was a surprising change. Also, despite the fact that more happened in this book than the last one (as in, advance the overall plot) it feels like not as much happened. Maybe I started speed reading and that's why it feels like less but it just didn't feel as gripping.

So, the book certainly set up a number of very interesting (and highly spoiler-y) plot threads for the next few books that I'm eager to see further explored. Wiki tells me that book seven is due out in the US sometime in 2011 so I guess I'll get the next two books finished by January or so (like I've said before, I've got a ton more books to read and some of them are HUGE, I think Inkdeath is even bigger than this one).

Book Review: Black Powder War

do believe the Temaire books should be my equivalent of a guilty pleasure (there's a lot of them, endless number of possible stories, paperback format) but it feels too creative for a guilty pleasure. Although, not much changes between books so maybe that would qualify it...

Black Powder War by Naomi Novik

 Funny enough, the cover of the book I had was much less saturated from this image but all the ones I found on google were about the same color. Maybe it's my screen or the book cover faded a lot, either way it looks much more garish here.

Summary: Captain Laurence and his crew are suddenly called away from China with nary an explanation except that rare dragon eggs are at risk, a reason that the entire crew views with some skepticism. It's a long journey from China to Turkey and the real action begins once they get back to Europe, back in the middle of the Napolenic Wars and with precious cargo to boot.

The Good: It's very cool to see how the series is hopscotching all over the world and showing that yes it's a diverse world in terms of dragons (most of the other details seem to be based on real history and there are a number in there firming up the setting). Also nice was to see Temeraire's continued interest in dragon liberation and, instead of either quenching it or having Laurence be gung-ho for it, balancing that with his own changing beliefs. By this point in most books Laurence would've been on the same page and Temeraire but it feels a bit more realistic to see him taking more time while still trying to be tolerant (and that's more than reality can say sometimes too). It was also nice to see more focus on his crew again but, at that rate they're getting killed off it's not like there are many left to focus on at this point.

The Bad: I suspected there was a legitimate reason for Temeraire and co to be called out of China so the twist on that was hardly surprising, but I can't remember if that was even in the book. If I recall right, it was actually in a preview chapter for the next book and I would've liked the book to end on the twist ending, even as obvious a twist as I found it. And the book seemed to drag in the desert scenes and then dragged once they were back in the war, it's my least favorite book so far and have a sneaking suspicion that this and the next book should've been combined instead.

So, not as happy with this book but it might be a while before I get around to book four to see if I like that one more. And honestly, with a series like this that could go on for close to forever I'm wondering where I should stop reading it. Yes I should stop when I stop enjoying them, and this is far from the worst stuff I've ever read but how am I supposed to decide that it's just not going to get better again?

Book Review: Throne of Jade

So, this first batch of reviews (of which I'll post two a day, it's still going to take a while to get through all of them) are from my old livejournal account and date back to last July. The writing will (hopefully) get smoother as they go on and once I get through all the old reviews I'll start posting new reviews dating from mid-November/early December.
So! Starting off with Throne of Jade which is the sequel to His Majesty's Dragon (read that last winter but none of the libraries near me had a copy of Throne of Jade so I had to hold off until I got home to read it). It's a direct sequel to the idea of "gee, what would the Napoleonic wars have been like if there were DRAGONS in it?" except, following a thread from the previous book, Laurence, his dragon Temeraire, and their crew are off to China to resolve a few diplomatic issues.

The cover is in the same style as the first one but I don't think the copy I got from my library is quite that saturated.

The Good: Like the first book I love the idea that dragons are like ships and have many people working on them to make more use in battle, similar to ships, why didn't anyone else think of that before?!? It makes so much more sense than having only one or two people per dragon, it's a brilliant way of looking at an old idea and twisting it. Also like the first book, I like the back and forth between Laurence and Temeraire, not only because the characters have chemistry, but because the conversations highlight the differences between the 19th century viewpoints of the characters and the 21st one of the viewers. You have Laurence who is the 19th century gentleman who, while polite to most of those in the book, still comes off cold and unwilling to see any viewpoint other than the one he was raised on. Temeraire provides the counter viewpoint by questioning British convention and the stint in China really helps with this.
The Bad: But it still remains a bit hard to sympathize with Laurence because of his views and the characters don't seem to do so either. and a lot of the characters from the first book were missing because of the trip to China and that was unfortunate, there weren't any really interesting characters to replace them and the book felt flatter without the additional character interactions.

So, good but not as good as the first, hopefully the next book will get back to England with more of the old cast for the additional spark needed.