COLLATERAL DAMAGE (ST: TNG), by David Mack

After the heart-stopping intrigue of Control and the quieter transition of Available Light, I finally reached the conclusion of this narrative arc focused on the infamous Section 31 and its heavy-handed involvement in Federation policy.  Well, in truth there are two more books that deal with past events leading to the present confrontation, but I discovered their existence only recently, and I plan to read them in the near future: I’m aware it’s a strange, backward way of following the development of this storyline, but on the other hand the novels I read so far did a great job of filling the background and making those issues understandable, so it will be more a matter of connecting the dots than anything else…

Back to Collateral Damage: after the discovery of Captain Picard’s involvement in the plot to depose a former, corrupted Federation president, who was then killed on the orders of Section 31, the Enterprise’s captain is called back to Earth to testify about his connection to the events; although he was not aware of president Zife’s murder, he still has to answer for his past role in the conspiracy to remove him from office, and the tribunal will have to decide if he should be deferred to a court martial.  The novel’s secondary plot focuses on the Enterprise chasing a group of rogue Nausicaans who interfered in a Starfleet Intelligence operation, stealing a powerful weapon they intend to use as a blackmail tool to pursue their desperate goal.

While I have sometimes complained about the thinness of B-plots in tie-in novels, this is not the case here: on the contrary, I can easily say that Collateral Damage stands on two outstanding A-plots that enhance and complement each other, turning the story into a compelling narrative and ultimately dealing with the same kind of dilemma – the consequences of one’s actions and choices – from two different points of view.  In the few instances in which we saw Nausicaans on screen, they were depicted as quarrelsome and brutish, but here their acts – reprehensible as they are – come from desperation and loss, since their homeworld was destroyed and the handful of survivors did not receive the expected support from a Federation far too distracted by its own problems. 

This thread of the novel held my attention in many ways: for starters it offered an in-depth view of the Nausicaan culture, a rich and layered one that contradicts those few glimpses seen on screen, the effect strengthened by the use of exotic language as a means of conveying the sense of alienness of the characters. Then there is the question about the lack of Federation response to the tragedy suffered by the Nausicaans: as I remarked in previous reviews, this is not the Federation envisioned by Roddenberry, and it’s quite far from the utopian ideal of its creator – it’s an entity whose mistakes can have shocking consequences and worse, it’s guilty of turning a blind eye toward the suffering of others, showing the first(?) cracks in what so far had seemed a flawless exterior, allowing the repercussions of that failure to bite it, hard, on the behind.  

The resolution of this narrative line is one that feels right in many ways: first because it owns the Federation’s past mistakes and then acknowledges that there is always room for mutual understanding, even in the worst circumstances, and second because it allows Worf, who is in command of the Enterprise for this mission, to shine as a character and to show enormous growth, something that rarely happens in tie-in novels where the unwritten rule seems to require crew-members be kept in a sort of unchanging limbo. This author is clearly not afraid to take those characters and let them move forward on the strength of past experiences and gained wisdom, and they benefit from this choice by becoming their own persons, delightfully three-dimensional and believable.

Where the Nausicaan angle offers a lively and often tense narrative, the part of the novel dedicated to Picard’s trial – the one I was eagerly waiting for – is equally fascinating, sustained by a keen focus on the technical elements of the proceedings, one that turns those scenes into emotionally gripping moments.  There is a great deal of well-portrayed courtroom drama here, a theme I enjoy and that is built up by the apparent desire of prosecutor Louvois to find Picard guilty and to ruthlessly destroy his image and career. It makes for some very tense narrative segments, where I experienced genuine worry for the path the events were taking, but the true core of the story resides in the two-pronged question of the far-reaching consequences of one’s actions on one side (a mirror to the theme of the Nausicaans abandoned to their destiny), and about the dilemma of doing the wrong thing for the right reasons on the other.

There is of course no clean-cut answer to the second question: removing corrupted president Zife was a necessary choice given the situation at the time, but we see Picard wrestling with the moral implications of his actions and feeling that some of the other conspirators’ stigma has tainted him as well. Although not involved in the decision to kill Zife, he perceives that his integrity – the character trait he clearly most cares about – has been compromised and that, as he tells Louvois in their parting exchange, “None of us is innocent […]. Not anymore.”  This loss of innocence is shared by the whole Federation, for a long time unknowing hostage of an organization that forged policy with means that went dramatically against everything the Federation itself stood for.  It’s a bitter acknowledgement, but again it feels more true – humans being humans – than the polished, utopian perfection we used to see on screen; and no matter how bleak this consideration looks, it leaves room for the hope that humanity might learn from its mistakes and keep striving for better ideals.

With Collateral Damage I once again found myself enjoying a tie-in novel that had the courage to explore the darker side of its background, and in so doing went well beyond the pure entertainment value of its brethren, making me think about serious issues while keeping me thoroughly engrossed. A rare and welcome combination, indeed.

My Rating:

THE CROSSING PLACES (Ruth Galloway #1), by Elly Griffiths

I discovered this thriller series thanks to fellow blogger Sarah at Brainfluff, and before launching into this review I have to thank her for the post that piqued my curiosity and led me to learn more about this intriguing character.

Dr. Ruth Galloway is a forensic archeologist living on the Norfolk coast, in a bleak but suggestive area of salt marshes, strong winds and compelling Iron Age relics. In her late thirties, Ruth teaches at the nearby university and lives alone with her two cats in a cottage facing the boundary between land and sea: hers is a quiet, contented life, her seclusion a choice rather than the product of circumstances.  The quiet routine is one day shattered by the visit of Chief Inspector Nelson, tasked with the investigation of a young girl’s disappearance and obsessed by a similar case from the past, one he was unable to solve: the discovery of human bones on a nearby beach compelled Nelson to seek Ruth’s help in finding out if they belong to the missing girl.

Ruth’s examination brings her to the conclusion that the remains are from the Iron Age, but still Nelson’s case haunts her, particularly because someone – probably the abductor of the first child – keeps writing taunting letters to the inspector, using terms that only someone versed in archeology would know. The parallel between the Iron Age ritual sacrifices and the mystery of the kidnapped girls preys on Ruth’s mind and she finds herself progressively more embroiled in the riddle, to the point that her life might be in danger…

I enjoyed The Crossing Places quite a bit, thanks to its many unique elements: first there is the isolated, windswept background of the Norfolk coast salt marshes – I searched the web for more information and the pictures I found showed that despite the apparent bleakness there is a sort of… savage beauty to the place, and I was able to understand Ruth’s fascination with the area, and her desire to remain immersed in such a changeable environment.  This is a very atmospheric story and the salt marshes are the perfect setting for a mystery encompassing several years and developing along a very circuitous route riddled with false trails and red herrings, not unlike the treacherous paths running along the marshes.

And then there is Ruth, a very unusual heroine for the genre: she is a quiet, reserved person who has learned to deal with the vagaries of life and built herself an existence tailored on her own preferences, uncaring of the conventions and requirements of society and family. Composed and almost withdrawn, she is not however the kind of person who allows others to rule her choices, and therefore the perfect foil for the brusquely driven, almost overbearing Nelson, with whom she establishes a relationship that’s mostly based on mutual respect and the acknowledgment that their differences can complement each other rather than clash. This is portrayed quite well in the dovetailing of current police investigation and archeological research, which are not so different after all, as someone says at some point: for Ruth it’s a brief step from her study of the Iron Age girl’s remains, and the reasons for her burial in that particular site, to the burning curiosity to learn the fate of the missing girls – she knows that in each case they were sacrificed, one because of religious beliefs and the others because of someone’s twisted goals, and her inquisitive mind needs to put all the pieces together to form a complete picture.   But what I liked most in Ruth’s character is that while she acknowledges that reaching one’s middle age carries its own load of regrets and missed opportunities, she totally owns her choices and has found a way to turn them into a kind of existence she can be comfortable with, if not exactly happy.

The mystery at the core of the novel is an intriguing one, particularly as it focuses on the scenes from the point of view of a girl imprisoned in what looks like a cell, both expecting and dreading the infrequent visits of her captor: it’s clear from the start where those interludes are leading, just as it’s easy to figure out who the kidnapper/killer might be, because in spite of the false trails scattered here and there the clues appear to point in that direction, but that hardly matters because the fascinating aspect of this mystery lies in the foreboding and menacing flavor of the story, enhanced by the very peculiar background in which it’s set.

The Crossing Places is a good, if sometimes imperfect story: having checked, I discovered it’s the author’s debut novel, which helps me make allowances for some of the “blemishes” I encountered along the way and to hope that some of them will be straightened out in the next works.  At the start of the story we get Ruth’s physical description through one of the most abused ways, i.e. through the character looking into a mirror: I freely acknowledge that it’s one of my (too many…) pet peeves, but for some reason it never fails to bother me, because it speaks of a certain unwillingness to find other means to get that kind of description across. Then there is the detail about Ruth being slightly overweight, a detail too often repeated – to the point where it seems to define her in spite of her academical and personal achievements, as if she were more concerned with appearance than substance, in open contradiction with her otherwise well-balanced personality.

These are however minor disturbances, and they were not enough to prevent me from total immersion in the story or from looking for the next novels in the series, with the hope that some of the problems that afflict this book will be straightened out in the course of the journey.

My Rating:

SHARDS OF EARTH (The Final Architects #1), by Adrian Tchaikovsky

I received this novel from Pan/McMillan through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review: my thanks to both of them for this opportunity.

Shards of Earth is my sixth book from Adrian Tchaikovsky and one unlike the others I read so far: this author moves from one kind of story to another with enviable ease, so that I’m now certain that no matter which work of his I pick up, I will be pleasantly surprised by what I find. This first volume in the Final Architects series brings us fully into the space opera genre with a story spanning many worlds and civilizations and introducing the most terrible kind of adversary, one which does not seem to act out of malice or thirst for power, but simply because that is its way – one for whom the words collateral damage or consequences seem to hold no meaning at all.  More than once I have wondered how events of the past year have weighed on Adrian Tchaikovsky’s imagination as he crafted the Architects, entities that work according to their own inner programming (not unlike a virus!), unaware of the damage they are inflicting…

At the start of the novel, galactic civilization is two generations past a catastrophic event which threatened to annihilate every form of life – human or alien – in the universe: moon-sized things appeared literally out of nowhere, changing the shape of the worlds they encountered in a sort of destructively “artistic” way, erasing in the process all life present on those worlds. The Architects – so the mysterious entities were named – seemed attracted only by inhabited worlds, and their deadly attention did not spare either alien or human civilization: Earth was one of the worlds so reshaped, and the people who were able to escape from the cataclysmic remolding of their worlds lived like refugees under the constant threat of the appearance of an Architect in their skies.  A last, desperate attempt was made to contact the aliens by genetically enhancing a group of human volunteers (called the Intermediaries) who would be able to communicate with the Architects in the hope of stopping the destruction: during an all-out battle involving the allied fleet created to face the threat, the Intermediaries were able to stop the mindless carnage, and the aliens disappeared just as swiftly as they had manifested.

Some fifty years after the end of the war, what had been an alliance forged under the threat of annihilation has now fractured into a number of governing bodies more often than not at odds with each other: danger forgotten, every one of them – including some criminal conglomerates – seeks power and dominance over the others. The Intermediaries, already marked in body and mind by the transformation, did not fare so well and most of them died, while a program to create more is underway using convicted criminals, not so much as a defense against a return of the Architects – which many deem impossible – but rather because one of the side effects of the genetic enhancing is the ability to navigate unspace, the ghastly nowhere between worlds.  Idris Telemmier is the last one of the original group of Intermediaries, and he now works as a navigator for a crew of interstellar scavengers on a ship very aptly named Vulture God: he does not age, nor does he need sleep, but he’s a very troubled individual and all he wants is to be forgotten and to forget – as impossible as it is – the horrors he had to witness, which makes a strange discovery, made by the Vulture God’s crew in the far reaches of space,  even more disturbing: the Architects might be coming back…

It takes a while for Shards of Earth to make the reader comfortable within its pages, or at least that was my experience at first: Tchaikovsky wastes almost no time in explaining his universe, plunging the audience in medias res so that one feels a little lost – that is, until a closer look at the character and civilizations list, not to mention the useful timeline, opens a window on this huge, complex background and everything falls into place.  The aliens peopling the Galaxy are indeed quite bizarre creatures, confirming the author’s richness of imagination: they are not only weird-looking, but they come from equally outlandish civilizations and their interactions with the humans can go from the humorous to the quite terrifying. Yet it’s the human (or post-human…) characters I connected with more deeply, particularly the crew of the Vulture God, which gave me the same kind of wonderful vibes I could find in Firefly or The Expanse, making me feel perfectly at home with this group of mismatched individuals.

Idris is the one who required more “work” from me because at first he comes across as gloomy and sullen: it’s only as his story comes into light, bit by bit, that it’s possible to understand the depth of the damage inflicted on him first by the procedures necessary to turn him into an Intermediary, then by his war experiences and finally by the constant journeys into unspace – the navigational medium that can turn an unmodified human into a crazed wreck and weighs on an Intermediary with the conflicting sensations of loneliness and of a looming, threatening presence.  If Idris is able to still maintain a grip on sanity it’s because of the bond he forged with his crew-mates, an apparently ill-assorted group that has grown into a found family whose interactions are a joy to behold – from expansive captain Rollo who calls the members of his crew “children”, to dour drone specialist Olli, whose stunted body made her a wizard in remote control of machinery; from  crab-shaped alien tech Kit to lawyer Kris, whose main job is to protect Idris from being indentured by unscrupulous conglomerates, they all create a wonderful sense of familial cohesion that looks like the only barrier separating Idris from a devastating breakdown.

That’s the main reason the arrival of an old acquaintance of Idris places them all on defensive mode: Solace is a member of the Parthenon, a human faction that long ago left Earth establishing a society of parthenogenically created women-soldiers – she and her sisters fought valiantly against the Architects, but are now looked on with suspicion, not least because there is a great deal of misinformation about their civilization and goals.  Solace is tasked with convincing Idris to help the Parthenon create their own Intermediaries, should they be needed with the possible return of the Architects, and when she joins the Vulture God she initially upsets the balance aboard the vessel, but as the days go on and a series of dramatic events plagues the crew, she feels torn between commitment to her duty and the growing sense of belonging that her adventures aboard the ship are bringing about.

As far as space opera goes, Shards of Earth is a perfect, quite engaging representative of the genre, and for this very reason I refrained from mentioning any detail from the fast-paced string of events at the core of this story. What I’m more than happy to share, however, is that the last 15-20% of the novel moves from a fast pace to a breakneck speed that had me turning the pages as quickly as I could, because the stakes were enormous and the various revelations beyond compelling.  And the good news is that although this is the first volume in a series, it does not end in a cliffhanger: granted, we understand that the various pieces have just been set in motion on this galactic chessboard, but this segment of the story is tied up quite satisfactorily – although I would not mind reading the next book right now 😉

If you are a fan of Adrian Tchaikovsky, I’m certain you will enjoy the depth and scope of his new work, and if you never read any of his books, this might very well be an amazing introduction. Either way, you will not be disappointed….

My Rating:

AFTERSHOCKS (The Palladium Wars #1), by Marko Kloos

Thanks to SciFi Month this past November I felt the need to add more SF books to my reading queue, and a quick peek at my ever-growing “wanted” list reminded me of this novel that had looked very intriguing when I saw it mentioned online.  Although a bit wary about it, since Military SF does not always agree with me, I soon discovered to my joy that this series is more about people than technology, and that Aftershocks is the promising beginning to an interesting saga.

The six-planets system in which the story is set is slowly recovering after a devastating war started by the Gretians against the other five settlements, who in response created the Alliance and defeated Gretia, which is now occupied by the winning side and struggling under political turmoil and the effort of paying for the reparations imposed by the Alliance.  Aftershocks follows the journey of four individuals from different extractions, offering a multifaceted view of the scenario in which the events take place: their various experiences contribute to the accumulating clues that paint a picture of a complex and intriguing situation still in the first stages of its development.

Aden is a Gretian POW and a former member of the Blackguards, Gretia’s elite troops, although his role as an intelligence operative kept him from the atrocities committed by this infamous corps: after five years of a quite comfortable imprisonment on an arcology orbiting Rhodia, he is released together with the other Blackguards but does not feel like going back to a home he left in anger long before the war.  Idina is a sergeant in the Alliance contingent enforcing the occupation on Gretia and she struggles with her post-war feelings about the defeated adversaries, particularly because she now needs to work alongside some of them in the peacekeeping activities required by her present role. Dunstan is a captain in the Rhodian navy, suddenly thrown from his somewhat boring patrol duty into an escalating conflict with pirates who seem focused in something more than a simple looting spree of merchant ships. And then there is Solveig, the daughter of a former Gretian magnate, who finds herself at the head of the company and must deal with a conflict between her duties to the company and her family ties.

One of the most intriguing aspects of Aftershocks is its depiction of a multi-planetary society going through the aftermath of a bloody war caused by the desire to control valuable resources – particularly Palladium – rather than by a mere expansionist drive, so that the end of the conflict has left in its wake a sense of unspoken unease: my take on the situation is that everybody might be worried about a repeat of the attempt by someone else – the Alliance operatives are acting together, indeed, but certain events in the story led me to believe that someone could be “stirring the pot”, so to speak, to create suspicion and mistrust, playing both sides against the middle to gain the upper hand. The first clues seem to point that way, and what little is shown in this first book had me totally hooked and eager to see where the story will lead.

Given the complexity of this scenario, the author quite skillfully depicts the background by moving constantly between the various POVs: their disparate origins offer the chance of describing their respective worlds without need for lengthy info-dumps, while their reactions to the current situation offer a similar opportunity for a few flashbacks on the war, so that readers find themselves quite comfortably set in the story and able to follow the characters in their individual journeys.  Of the four, Dunstan seems the more prosaic, but I believe this comes from the fact he enjoys less exposure than the others: I hope that as the story progresses he will find himself in the thick of the action, and that the blend of military competence and humanity that are his most notable qualities will allow him to emerge in finer detail.

Aden, on the other hand, is the one with more time in the spotlight: he’s adrift in more ways than one, since he joined the military to escape from a smothering home only to find himself embroiled in a war he did not look for. Quite skilled, thanks to his previous intelligence duties, he however possesses an unpretentious disposition and a deep honesty that make him easily likable: hopefully, the next books will reveal more about his past and offer more clues about his present.

Idina is a quite complex character: her combat role in the war forced her to face its worst aspects and while she’s not exactly suffering from PTSD, those experiences have left a deep mark on her – having to work alongside her former enemies she must deal with very complex feelings that become even more difficult to analyze when she finds herself at the center of a tragic event whose origins and consequences defy interpretation.

Solveig enjoys too little narrative space to be clearly defined, but I see a great potential in her personality, mostly because she’s aware of being classified as “daddy’s daughter” by other people who seem unable to perceive her qualities: still, there is an iron core to her whose evolution I quite look forward to.

As I said, Aftershocks retains all the qualities and ingredients for an engaging space opera, and I certainly enjoyed it as a starting point for the series, but I have a big complaint about it, one that prevents me from giving it the full four stars that the book deserves: it’s too short – to use a cinematic comparison, what we can enjoy in this first volume feels more like a long trailer rather than the full movie, because the characters’ arcs are sketched but not brought to any satisfying stage, just as the story itself is cut just when the individual paths seem to be about to reach a turning point.

Luckily enough, there is already a second book in print, so I will not have to wait too long to see how events unfold, but I can’t help wondering if this narrative choice is going to be repeated in the future, because being left in the lurch is not a pleasant experience… 😉

Still, I feel like recommending this series to all enthusiasts of the genre.

My Rating:

TV Review: THE EXPANSE, Season 5 (Spoiler Free)

There was a number of reasons I was looking forward to this fifth season for the screen version of my favorite space opera series, The Expanse: first, it’s one of the most dramatic segments in the narrative arc, the point of convergence of several threads that include the violent reaction of some extremist fringes in Belter society to the decades-long exploitation by Earth and Mars; the never ending struggle to use the alien protomolecule for power leverage; and the profound changes – political and economical – brought on by the discovery of the ring system and its portals to many habitable worlds. And then there is the character development enjoyed by some members of the Rocinante crew, who are cut off from each other by circumstances, so that they enjoy their own separate arc, therefore gaining much more depth and a better definition of their past and of the way they became the people they are in the present. Much as it’s hard to see them so scattered, because time and hardships have built the four of them into a family, the separation does not only achieve the goal of adding compelling layers to their psychological makeup, it also offers the opportunity to follow the various narrative components of the story through their eyes and experiences.

James Holden, who until now has been the fulcrum of the events and the front-and-center character, is left a little on the sidelines in this fifth season, allowing the spotlight to shine on his crew-mates, particularly Naomi and Amos, and we see him feeling somewhat adrift now that the rest of his found family has departed from the Roci to meet their personal needs that, although in different ways, are all centered around family matters. Avasarala is suffering under similar circumstances since losing her position as Secretary General of the UN, and her tight focus on politics and power has cost her the estrangement from her husband as well, so that her initial story arc follows a similar path to Holden’s, that of someone in search of direction – not that I doubted for a single minute that she would find it…

The common factor for Naomi, Amos and Alex, as they depart from the Roci, is their need to deal with the past and for all of them this journey will have quite unexpected consequences: Alex goes back to Mars to try and reconnect with his estranged family, but time and his previous attitude have made this impossible. Of the three this felt to me as the less compelling thread and it became more interesting only once Alex met with Bobbie Draper, now engaged in the investigation about the strange goings-on apparently implicating the Martian Navy in smuggling operations.  As the two team up to shed some light on the mystery of the diverted equipment and the ramifications that seem to involve some of the higher echelons in the Martian military, we see how the discovery of the ring gate, and the number of habitable planets beyond it, has impacted on the Martian dream of terraforming the planet and turning it into an Earth-like world – after all, why toil for decades, if not centuries, when there are countless worlds out there ready to be colonized? What once was a tight society united by a common goal has now lost its inner cohesion and is rapidly turning into a despondent civilization ready to crumble: Bobbie’s sorrow as she observes the death of the ideals that fueled her world is saddening, but at the same time her resolve in getting to the roots of the puzzle shows that she is the same fighter we have come to know and love.

Amos’ travels bring him back to Earth instead, and more precisely to Baltimore, the city he had run from at a young age to carve his life in space: Lydia, the woman who cared for him like a mother, died recently and he wants to pay his respects. When I read the book, this was the story section that helped me focus better on Amos’ character: back then I had not yet read the novella The Churn, which opens a huge window on Amos’ past, so that the events  depicted in Nemesis Games finally gave me a perfect grasp on his personality. The TV series has been able to flesh this character in a more organic way, and I enjoyed the way the actor has been able, in this season, to seamlessly blend Amos’ outward fierceness with his unexpected softer side, particularly when he decides to visit Clarissa “Peaches” Mao in the maximum security prison where she has been sent. The unspoken reason for such a visit is that he somehow feels connected to the young woman through their shared violent past and that he probably wants to offer her the hope that there might be a form of redemption down the road, as was the case for Amos thanks to his ties with the Roci’s family.  Which might indeed be the kind of opportunity “Peaches” is given at the end of the season…

From my point of view, though, the most important, most intense thread is the one focused on Naomi: we already learned that she has a son she had to abandon to escape from involvement with the most radical fringes of the OPA. Now that she knows her former lover Marco Inaros, the father of that child, has become a dangerous terrorist, she wants to save her son Filip from the same fate she escaped long ago – if that is still possible.  When I started watching The Expanse  in Season 1, I felt that Dominique Tipper was the perfect Naomi as I pictured her from reading the books: here, in this fifth season, she gives her absolute best performance so far, one that is both physically and emotionally heartbreaking as she deals with the choices of the past and their consequences. I was able to perceive Naomi’s pain and regret as she seeks to connect with a son who does not know her – apart from what he’s been told by a manipulative father – and tries desperately to drag him away from Inaros’ toxic influence; and I felt just as physically ill during the long, painful sequences where she attempts a desperate gamble to undermine the terrorist leader’s callous plan to destroy her friends. If you saw the episodes I’m referring to, you will not be surprised if I tell you that I needed to remind myself to breathe, because Naomi’s struggles with the situation on the derelict ship were so vivid and intense that for a while I could not remember it was just a TV show.

And speaking of Naomi, I’d like to point out how many other amazing female characters people this series – both in the books and on screen: I’ve spoken often of Avasarala and her aggressive but effective approach to power, but she’s not alone. Bobbie Draper is another amazing character, and the way she faces challenges – either with or without a powered armor – has always been one of my favorite elements in the story; and in this season we see more of journalist Monica Stuart, whose courage and persistence in following leads elevates her above the professional norm. But the one I want to talk about more extensively is Drummer, portrayed by the very talented Cara Gee: this character has been fleshed out more in the TV series, and I’ve been always looking forward to her appearances, where her determination and strength of character manage to hide a form of vulnerability that becomes more apparent in this season where she has to deal with many painful losses and very hard decisions.  From her famous speech on the bridge of the Behemoth in the previous season to the present interactions with her crew, struggling to find a way between the Belter ideals and Inaros’ violent approach, she emerges as a compelling figure where strength and gallows humor combine to create a fascinating personality that is so easy to connect to and enjoy watching.

Given how much further depth this show has managed to achieve with this fifth season I’m saddened at the thought that the sixth will be the last one, leaving the last three books in the series (the ninth of which should be out toward the end of the year) out of the screened story. Still, this continues to be a brilliant, deeply engaging series that fully deserves all the praise that it rightfully receives.

My Rating:

THE SHADOW OF THE GODS (The Bloodsworn Saga #1), by John Gwynne

I received this novel from Orbit Books, through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review: my thanks to both of them for this opportunity.

A Time of Dread was the book that helped me discover author John Gwynne, that first book in the amazing Of Blood and Bone trilogy then leading me to retrace his narrative path with the previous series The Faithful and the Fallen, of which I still have two books to explore. When this new work was announced I was beyond eager to see where Mr. Gwynne would take us next and also certain that I would enjoy this story as I did the other ones: well, The Shadow of the Gods managed not only to surpass my expectations, it even outclassed his other novels I read so far – and they were already outstanding works in their own rights! 

This will be a spoiler-free review, because I was fortunate enough to read the e-ARC some time before the expected publication, and I don’t want to deprive potential readers of the sheer joy of discovering this amazing story on their own. Still, I can talk freely about this extraordinary world and the awesome characters peopling it, to give you an idea of the breath-taking journey that’s in store for you. Since the Bloodsworn Saga is based on Norse lore and mythology, I had an advantage thanks to my recent experience with the TV series Vikings, being already familiar with some of the terms and above all with the appearance of the characters, so it was easy for me to picture people and backgrounds and I felt at home practically from page one.

The land of Vigrid was once dominated by the gods, who wrecked the world in the war they waged against each other: in the new world born out of the ashes of the old one, the bones of the dead gods hold special power and are therefore much sought after by overlords seeking to extend their dominions. There are monsters as well in Vigrid, called vaesen and lying in wait for the unwary traveller or trying to attack unprotected homesteads – and then there are the Tainted, humans in whose veins runs some of the gods’ blood, gifting them with special powers: they are either hunted down like animals, or captured, enslaved and exploited.  

Three are the main characters of the story: Orka, once a renowned warrior and now making her living as a huntress, together with her husband and young child; Varg, a former thrall (slave) on the run from his old master and driven by the need to avenge the death of his sister; and Elvar, the daughter of a powerful jarl, who renounced a life of privilege to join the warband of the Battle-Grim, in search of fame and glory. I was certain that these three separate threads would converge sooner or later, since there seems to be something brewing in the world, something sinister that starts with brutal attacks on isolated homesteads and the kidnapping of young children, so that Orka’s search for her own stolen child slowly but surely moves toward the meeting with the Bloodsworn – the warband in which Varg has been accepted and that took on a perilous but well-paid assignment – and probably with the Battle-Grim, whose need for wealth has taken them toward the most dangerous, monster-infested part of the world. The Shadow of the Gods is but the prelude to what promises to be an engrossing story, and reaching the last page left me eager to see where this amazing new saga would take me next.

John Gwynne’s novels always achieve a well-balanced mix between plot and characterization – one of the reasons they always prove so satisfying – and this new work is a case in point: as the characters engage in their individual journeys we are made familiar with the land of Vigrid and with its history, we are presented with wide plains and rocky expanses, with river marshes and frigid tundra, and we feel as if we shared the characters’ paths and the difficulties they entail. We are also able to visit a city built inside the huge skeleton of a fallen god, a place of constant twilight that made me feel quite uneasy (and with good reason…), and then we travel by sea, sharing the effort of warriors who lay down their weapons for a while to take up the oars and guide their ship through perilous seas. There is a constant cinematic aspect to the descriptions here that makes the storytelling vivid and three-dimensional, without losing the “fireside tale” quality that for me has become the author’s trademark. And of course I can’t forget the battles: with John Gwynne’s novels I never skip the description of battles because they are realistically detailed and – no matter the brutality of the clash – always dramatically fascinating.

But of course, even in this stunning background, the characters are the elements that make these stories truly shine, and in The Shadow of the Gods both main and secondary ones are responsible for breathing memorable life into the novel.  I needed some time to warm up to Orka at first, mostly because she comes across as somewhat harsh and demanding in her dealings with her son, while her husband looks like the softer one of the two. But once Orka’s mother instinct is put to the test, it’s easy to understand how her apparent sternness is only a means of steeling young Breca against the world’s dangers, and her determination and ferociousness in rescuing him from his kidnappers are as white-hot as her love for him.   Elvar, on the other hand, looks like she’s still evolving and trying to find her destiny: refusing to be used as a pawn in her powerful father’s political dealings, she choose to join a warband as a form of freedom and rebellion at the same time: what she’s still learning is that, no matter what one’s life choices are, there is always a price to pay for them. And finally Varg, who like Orka is desperately trying to fulfill an oath: his life as a slave has been a harsh, lonely one, and the loss of his sister – the only person he could trust – has turned him into a haunted, mistrustful person, to the point that the most difficult task he faces with the Bloodsworn is to accept friendship and camaraderie, truly a heart-breaking side of his character, and one that offers some poignant insights once he starts to fraternize with his new companions.

The beauty of these characters is that they are all inherently flawed and probably not “hero material” in the usual meaning of the term, but I have come to care deeply for them (and particularly for Orka and Varg) because they are driven by the strength of their love for friends and family, and because they have the ability to create a bond – as strong as the one of blood – with the people they live and fight with. This is one of the themes at the core of John Gwynne’s novels, the backbone of loyalty and devotion that can bind individuals tied by a common goal, and here it’s present in a superbly gritty and emotional form. It might be a little early to say that his might be my best read for 2021, but I’m not sure I will find others capable to bring out the immersive delight I experienced with The Shadow of the Gods – and this is only the beginning of the whole story…

My Rating:

THE FALL OF KOLI (Rampart Trilogy #3), by M.R. Carey

I received this novel from Orbit Books through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review: my thanks to both of them for this opportunity.

Approaching a series ender often brings contrasting emotions, particularly the concern that it might not live up to expectations: well, this was definitely NOT the case with The Fall of Koli, the amazing, adrenaline-infused final book in M.R. Carey’s Rampart series set in a post-apocalyptic future where humanity hangs on to survival by its fingernails. As is my habit, I will try to refrain from spoilers as much as I can, but be aware that some details from previous books might be mentioned.

Young Koli Woodsmith was exiled from his native village of Mythen Rood in book 1: in this future, dystopian England, the few remaining – and functioning – items of tech from the old civilization are both weapons of defense and the way for the village’s ruling clan to keep hold of their power. Having stolen a piece of tech for himself, thus uncovering a long-guarded secret in Mythen Rood, Koli is forced to leave home and start a journey across the land, gathering two unlikely companions: Ursala from Elsewhere, a sort of traveling physician, and Cup, former member of a death cult. In book 2, the three companions undertake a voyage toward mythical London, where they might find a way to revive a dying civilization, and at the end of that second book we are left with a disturbing cliffhanger.

The Fall of Koli defies any expectation one might have entertained about the story’s progression, both in developing events and in the way the story is told: equal narrative space is given to Koli and his companions and to the situation in Mythen Rood, where Koli’s one-time friends Spinner and Jon, together with the other villagers, face a deadly threat from a nearby enclave, whose superior firepower and aggressive attitude might end in death and destruction. I have come to see this series’ storytelling as the expanding circles forming when one throws a stone in water: at first we learn about the small, confined world of Koli’s home village, then we see a little of the outside world and its many dangers, and once we reach this last installment we finally understand how the world as we know it ended, what remains of its former power and what threat that dormant power represents.

The regular shifts in narrative perspective turn the story into a compulsive read, and the raising stakes on both sides of the action keep the tension at high levels, making it clear that any kind of ending is possible, and that it might not contemplate a happily-ever-after for everyone. Where the situation in Mythen Rood might look like a classic post-apocalyptic scenario where the strongest and better armed always overpower the weakest, the sections concerning Koli & Co. become progressively more disturbing as the real nature of the Sword of Albion, whose recorded message prompted the group’s journey toward London, is revealed and the individuals the travelers meet look more sinister and threatening with every passing day.

Where the overall scenario is compelling, the characters’ journey is no less intriguing: Koli is probably the one who changes less than others, but the fact that he appears to remain true to himself throughout the story does not detract from his innate kindness, selflessness and capacity for compassion, which are the traits that best define him. Koli might not be the “hero” in the widely accepted definition of the word because his strength does not come from particular acts of bravery: what defines him and makes him so relatable is his capacity for connecting to people and understanding their worth, for seeing the possibilities of redemption and change as he did with Cup before and as he does here with Stanley Banner, a truly creepy character on the outside, whose tragic destiny comes to the fore thanks to Koli’s refusal to consider circumstances only in black and white.

Spinner, once Koli’s love interest and now a prominent figure in the hierarchy of Mythen Rood, enjoys a greatly transformative journey: from young girl set on obtaining through marriage a comfortable position in the village’s society, she moves on to the role of fiercely protective mother first and equally fierce defender of her small world once outside threats come knocking on the door. In a way, Spinner achieves what Koli had set out to do and failed at: by throwing a monkey wrench in the workings of Mythen Rood’s balance of power, she helps wake her people from a sort of complacent status quo that might ultimately have led them to extinction.  Her growth is much more pronounced than Koli’s but still she tempers it with compassion and a fine understanding of her fellow citizens’ psychological traits, mixing it with a determination that belies her young age: I enjoyed Spinner’s chapters greatly and her journey was a very compelling counterpoint to Koli’s own adventures.

Last but not least Monono: Koli and Spinner are the story’s two main focuses, granted, but the Dream Sleeve’s AI personality is further explored in this third book, offering an enlightening view on her abilities and the true changes brought on by the software upload that took her to a different level of performance. Monono’s “voice” remains the same charmingly cute girl-analogue we have learned to know and love, but here – where she gets her own point of view chapters – we discover something else, a capacity for viciousness that belies the effervescent tone she employs in her dealings with humans. It’s true that at times Monono’s quips and pop-culture references provide some light relief to an increasingly tense situation – see when she mentions the Stepford Wives or the Boys from Brazil, or when she calls Morticia and Gomez the oh-so-creepy Lorraine and Paul Banner – but when she shows her true nature it’s impossible not to consider the threat other AIs have represented in fiction and to see Monono in a troublingly different light. The only factor keeping her from going down the same road as, for example, HAL 9000 or the more recent AIDAN, is Koli: the young man’s inherent kindness is indeed the balancing element conferring the human angle Monono needs to avoid that pitfall, as she says herself:

I’m not forgiving by nature, and every shit I give about your species is given – grudgingly – because I was stupid enough to get involved with a boy from the wrong side of tracks. A boy made of flesh and blood.

Be warned, The Fall of Koli does not tie up nicely the narrative threads explored throughout the trilogy since it reserves some space for tragedy and loss, but nonetheless the poignant ending of the series is both surprising and satisfactory and closes a compelling story-arc in the best possible way I could have asked for.

My Rating:

FIREFLY: THE MAGNIFICENT NINE (Firefly #2), by James Lovegrove

It was March 2019 when I read and reviewed the first book of this new series which brings back the adventures of the Serenity crew after the premature termination of the TV show, and despite having promised myself that I would follow closely the new issues, I once again managed to take a trip on the road to Hell, paved with good intentions and missed books…

Better late than never, however, here I am with book 2, a novel that through the title (with its reference to The Magnificent Seven movie) and its cover (Jayne wearing the infamous hat seen in one of the episodes) showcases quite clearly Firefly’s successful mix of Wild West and Science Fiction, and promises to keep Jayne Cobb front and center in the story.

It’s business as usual aboard Serenity, what with not enough paying jobs, the ship needing costly repairs and the crew engaging in some squabble: the latest of these originates from River parading around wearing Jayne’s ridiculous hat and Jayne demanding bloody retribution – that is, until he receives a message from an old flame, asking for his help. Tethys is a dry, deserted world where only a few hardy settlers choose to eke out a meagre life, which is now jeopardized by a bunch of outlaws, calling themselves the Scourers: led by merciless Elias Vandal, the Scourers take possession of the area’s wells, exacting a price from the colonists for the water that should belong by right to the hard-working settlers, whose choices are either pay or be killed in the most brutal of fashions.

Temperance McCloud, Jayne’s old lover, begs him to come to her help and that of her fellow citizens, and the mercenary manages to overcome Captain Reynolds’ quite understandable objections – not that it takes much to wake up Mal’s inner Don Quixote. When Serenity lands on Tethys the situation looks even more critical: the crew is vastly outnumbered, and an attempt at resolving the issue through a duel sends Jayne to the infirmary, grievously wounded but still willing to do his best, particularly because of Temperance’s teenaged daughter, whose name is Jane and whose age raises well-founded questions about the identity of her father…

Even more than its predecessor, The Magnificent Nine recaptures the flavor of many Firefly episodes, with the crew of Serenity launching themselves into an adventure laden with unknowns and potential trouble, but doing it anyway because – no matter their outwardly skeptical approach to life – they are good guys and when push comes to shove their collective hearts are in the right place.  Jayne Cobb’s character is the one who gets the spotlight here, as well as the inkling that his cynicism might not be as deeply rooted as he shows the world: of course he remains the usual coarse-mannered, selfish individual we all know and love (?), but there are moments when some chinks in that armor let us perceive a different kind of person who might be buried deeply inside the rude mercenary, someone who is capable of selfless gestures and integrity.

The rest of the Serenity’s crew (with one exception) feels no different from what we saw on screen and their interactions, the gallows-humor banter and the speech style all contribute to make this story look like a seamless addition to the handful of filmed episodes that were aired during the too-brief life of this show. The overall mood is on the same level as the series’, with seriousness and humor twining together to offer an adventure that can be both hair-raising and funny – that is, until some bits of dialogue happen to foreshadow the upcoming events of the movie Serenity, reminding us that some members of the crew will not accompany us for the whole screened journey, and adding a poignant quality to those sentences. The one that proved most painful for me was the mention of a certain character’s old-time instructor, who advised his pupils to learn how to “soar like a leaf in the wind”. Talk about sucker punches!

The only exception I mentioned above is River: in most of her interactions she acts and speaks in far too “sane” a manner that is in stark contrast both with her on-screen portrayal and with what we know about her and the appalling treatment she received in the Alliance’s “special school” where she was trained to be… something else.  It’s a jarring divergence with all that we know and learned about River and a blemish on the overall characterization for this story.

The other issue I had with the novel was with some of the “bad guys”, because they fell into the trap of long explanations of their motives and intentions: these sections represented for me both an annoying trope and a slow-down of the otherwise fast pacing of the story, and in one specific case led to a too-swift and difficult to believe change of heart from one of the Scourers.  It was, however, only a minor irritation, and it did not prevent me at all from enjoying the book or from wanting to move forward with the series.

If you are a Firefly fan, this book (and most probably the others in the series) is the best way to recapture the “magic” of the show and to keep the Serenity flying in our imagination.

My Rating:

NIGHTWISE (Nightwise #1), by R.S. Belcher

Nightwise has been languishing on my reading queue for quite some time, but after enjoying both books in Belcher’s new Brotherhood of the Wheel series I knew it was high time to see where the author would take me in this journey through his Urban Fantasy realms. And what a journey it was, indeed, mixing the well-established themes of UF with those of the hard-boiled noir and placing at the center of it all a character who requires some time and effort to connect to.

Laytham Ballard is a Wisdom, or wizard if you want, trained in the arts of the Life, the magical background underlying everyday life and unknown to most humans.  Ballard’s old friend Boj is dying and as a deathbed request he asks Laytham to find and kill Dusan Slorzack, the man who tortured, raped and killed Boj’s wife. Easier said than done, since Slorzack, besides being a former military, is well connected with the criminal underworld and also apparently versed in the magical arts: any trail Ballard tries to follow is beset by dead bodies, horrific creatures and mortal danger.

Determined to get to the bottom of it all (and at some point more interested in winning the game than fulfilling his dying friend’s request) Ballard enrolls the help of a group of disparate people –  some versed in the magical arts, others possessing more mundane but still precious skills – and starts a very risky journey from which there might be no return, learning as he goes that there are layers upon layers in the occult world, and that many of them encompass unexpected domains like finance and politics. It goes without saying that the final showdown is as brutal and bloody as the events preceding it, and it opens the way to more stories focused on Laytham Ballard, the second of which I’m already eyeing with keen interest.

As I said in the premise, Ballard requires some strenuous work, from the reader’s point of view: he’s not your average UF protagonist, the kind with a shady past but a good, generous heart. No, he’s all rough edges and unpleasant traits, quite selfish and self-centered, a total badass who does not make excuses for that but rather admits it with no small measure of pride. What’s worse, from the very start we see how he has no qualms about throwing innocent bystanders under the proverbial bus when need arises, candidly acknowledging that it’s better them than him. This sounds like the perfect recipe for a loathsome character, and at first it’s so easy to despise him, but as the novel moves forward and bits and pieces of Ballard’s history come to the surface, one begins to see where he comes from, which events molded his psychological makeup and how his worldview was shaped.  It might not be enough to actually like him, but in the end I came to care for him as a character (sort of…) and to be invested in his journey.

What’s more enlightening than those fragments of Ballard’s past is the way he relates to the people in his inner circle and, more importantly, the way they relate to him: seeing how they care for him and his well-being, and how they worry about his self-destructive habits, you can see the man from a different angle and measure him not so much for the face he shows the world, but rather for the way those people perceive him. If establishing an emotional connection with this character might prove something of an effort, his friends’ continued concern is the key to a better understanding of what makes him tick. And last but not least there are hints about a crucial event that required a massive sacrifice, one that might be at the root of Ballard’s apparent lack of empathy: these words

They cut your joy […] They cut it out of you like a surgeon. They amputated your emotions…

are as revealing as they are enigmatic and just beg for a deeper knowledge of the man.

Laytham Ballard is not the only dark element in Nightwise, however. The background in which he moves is just as harsh and gritty: we are treated to several tours of the underworld where mundane and magical cross paths, a setting where drugs, extreme sex and violence are commonplace, a veritable journey through a hell in which Ballard seems to move with careless confidence. Ghastly and gruesome as some scenes might look, there is still a vein of humor running through them which manages to balance out the inevitable revulsion: this story is so very much darker than what I experienced with the Brotherhood of the Wheel novels, and without this whimsical element I doubt I might have endured through the whole book. Violence is also present in considerable quantity – there is a long sequence in which Ballard suffers days on end of torture, which was truly difficult to stomach – and it’s thanks to that amalgam of humor and brutality that I was able to move forward, wondering all the time whether he accepted that pain while waiting for the opportunity to escape or because he saw it unconsciously as a form of well-deserved punishment for his worst deeds… 

I realize I might have scared many potential readers with my considerations, but I’d like to point out that no matter how dark and unforgiving this story and this world might look, there is a fascinating quality to it all that keeps you glued to the book, and it’s enhanced by the few rays of light scattered throughout the narrative, the best of them a casual encounter on the road that sees Ballard accepting a lift from a trucker, who is none other than dear Jimmie Aussapile from the Brotherhood of the Wheel series, here making his first appearance (and probably being the seed concept for the other novels…): I can tell you that this encounter made me all but squeal with joy, as if I had found a long-lost friend, because Jimmie is a delightful creation – well, apart from the tobacco-chewing, that is 😀

If Nightwise forced me to tap into my reserves of inner strength to withstand some of its more troublesome moments, I’m glad to have explored this new area in R.S. Belcher’s rich imagination, and look forward to seeing where this grim character will go next.

My Rating:

MEMENTO (The Illuminae Files #0.5), by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff

The Illuminae Files is one of my favorites SF series and apart from offering a compelling story and characterization it established a record with me, because it portrayed an array of YA characters who felt well-crafted and believable, without all the annoying traits afflicting teenagers in the genre.  So, when I heard of the publication of this novella that acts as a prequel to the main trilogy I was nothing short of thrilled.

The story is set just a short time before the attack on the Kerenza IV colony, the incident starting the whole bloody mess. The protagonist here is Olivia Klein, a young and starry-eyed tech recently enrolled on the Alexander, the ship where an advanced A.I. has been installed: AIDAN (the acronym for Artificial Intelligence Defense Analytics Network) is still being fine-tuned and Olivia has been assigned to the team responsible for the improvement of AIDAN’s integration with the system and  its responses.  While the techs study AIDAN’s behavior, so AIDAN does study the humans calibrating its performance, and does so with childlike but still disturbing, innocence: the very embarrassing questions it asks of Olivia about her budding romance with her superior Ethan Wolfe are a good example of such curiosity and, together with some queries about ethics and morality, also offer the first hints that something might be… well, not exactly wrong, but weird in AIDAN’s functioning parameters.

Alexander’s intervention at Kerenza, and the crippling attack it’s subjected to, turn out to have dire consequences on AIDAN’s logic processes, and the AI starts exhibiting the first signs of the deadly behavior that is one of the pivotal themes in the trilogy: the fact that it now refers to itself as “I” instead of using the third person is probably the first sign of the “madness” that has come to possess it…

Memento, for all its brevity, works like a punch in the stomach – of course, having read the trilogy, I knew how the story develops and was aware of the tragic consequences of the Kerenza attack, but in this case being forewarned did not forearm me against the emotional impact delivered by the novella.  I felt particularly sorry for Olivia, because I knew that all her youthful enthusiasm would meet a catastrophic end, but at some point a certain discovery about her past made her character arc all the more poignant and tragic.

But of course AIDAN is at the center of it all here, and again I experienced the mixed feelings that accompanied me all through the narrative arc of the Illuminae Files: the AI is a construct undergoing a process in which it questions its own identity, goals and reasons of existence and it does so based on the input set by human beings, who are by nature imperfect and fallible – which on hindsight makes those fatal consequences almost inevitable, and turns AIDAN into a character that is in equal measure fascinating and appalling.

Like the three full-length books previously published, Memento is told through transcripts,  memos and personal messages that manage to tap the characters’ emotional depths and to make you feel invested in their journey, even despite the small number of pages of this story – which is indeed the only complaint I have about this shorter work: I would not have minded a longer book indeed…

My Rating: