Mickey7

Mickey7 by Edward Ashton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

When I finished the book last night, I rounded 3.5 up to 4 stars, but now that the end-of-book-high has worn off, the problem I have with the characterization of Eight has become increasingly irritating to the point where I'm downgrading my rating. Now I'm at 2.5 rounding to 3. For the moment. Might go down to 2.

The premise of the book is centered around the concept that on a colonization mission to a new planet, one crew member is "Expendable," and after each death, he (Mickey) is bioprinted into a new body and comes out of the tank with the exact memories and personality of the original Mickey and all subsequent iterations as of the most recent upload data. So WHY does Eight come out of the tank acting like a jerk? For this premise to hold water, 7 and 8 should have been almost the same person, minus the most recent six weeks, and based on the personality of 7, nearly all the challenges of the story could have been either overcome or improved if 7 and 8 had simply talked to each other. Kept each other informed of what was going on, who said what to whom, etc. Heck, even keeping an open comm link might have helped! Then the story could have focused on the two of them working *together* to figure out what was up with the creepers rather than taking forever to figure out what the reader grasped immediately. I get that hunger makes people irrational and grumpy, but still. I find myself wanting to rewrite the story with the characterization problem solved to see how that could play out and what opportunities that might present with both Cat and Nasha.

For that matter, there were LOTS of characters who could have benefited from being 3-dimensional instead of archetypes. Berto, for one. Marshall, for another. Cat, Nasha, the prime creeper who never even gets a name.... Maybe later books in the series will flesh out the characters?

For readers' advisors: story doorway is primary, setting (outer space on an ice planet about a thousand years in the future) doorway is secondary. Some occasional swearing. Some death, but even the descriptions of the various ways Mickey has died are not especially graphic. References to sex, but it's of the fade-to-black variety.

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Record of a Spaceborn Few

Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The third book in the series is once again set in the same universe but featuring different characters. Only one character, Tessa, connects to book #1–she is Ashby’s sister. The books are essentially stand-alone.

This volume focuses on the mostly humans who live in the Fleet: the generation ships which brought humans into contact with other species after Earth suffered too much environmental damage and had to be abandoned. Hundreds of years after leaving the Sol system, these giant ships are still home to many thousands of people, the ones who chose to live their lives in space rather than seek out other places and planets. The ships orbit a sun given to the Fleet by the Galactic Commons, who admitted humans for membership not all that long ago.

Record of a Spaceborn Few follows a handful of distinct characters as they live, work, and grow aboard one of these ships. We get to witness their personal struggles as we follow their different journeys and stages in life, all the while learning the culture of Exodan spacers. Becky Chambers is a brilliant world-builder.

It’s a completely character-driven story. To say the pace is leisurely is putting it mildly. The characters barely cross paths, yet by the end, I felt like I was ready to sign up for Eyas’ new workshop and live in a hex. An absolutely fascinating exploration of how human culture might evolve to thrive in space. I especially loved how the ships were designed to eliminate hunger and homelessness, caste, and the illusion of rank. Everyone contributes, and NOTHING is wasted.

For readers’ advisors: character doorway is primary, setting secondary. Intermittent swearing. No onscreen violence, although there are some deadly accidents. LGBTQIA people are normal and unremarkable, and nonbinary gender pronouns are routinely used for some characters—xe & xyr, which I wish we’d adopt in real life, as it’s WAY more clear than using plural pronouns.

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A Closed and Common Orbit

A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I love this book SO much! I had a hard time getting into it because I started reading it quite soon after finishing book #1 in the series (The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet), and book #2, although it begins right where #1 leaves off, only tangentially mentions the characters from the first book. I wasn't ready to say goodbye to the original characters at all, but once I got past that and started learning more about Jane 23, Pepper, Sidra, Blue, and eventually Tak, I became completely absorbed in their story.

For readers' advisors: character and setting doorways are primary. The world-building is incredible, and I spent much of the book wishing fervently that I could reach in and hug the characters. A fair amount of swearing, especially when Jane is a rebellious teenager. Some references to sex but no sex scenes. Not really any violence except for when Jane kills her first feral dog as it attacked. A Closed and Common Orbit has a non-linear structure, alternating between Jane's story in the past and Sidra's in the present. ("Present" being hundreds of years in the future somewhere else in the galaxy.) Many completely different species, and humans are far from dominant. There is really no such thing as a "white" person any more. One of the characters comes from a 4-gendered species, and xe is of the gender that regularly switches between male and female. (Can I just add how much I love the creation of neutral gender pronouns in this series?! Xe and xyr are SO much more useful and specific than using the plural "they" to refer to a singular person. I wish this would transfer to real life!)

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Etiquette and Espionage

Etiquette and Espionage by Gail Carriger
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Sophronia Temminick is shipped off to Mademoiselle Geraldine's Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality as a covert recruit--meaning neither she nor her family know it's actually a training academy for lady spies. Sophronia becomes suspicious during the journey to the floating school when their carriage is ambushed by flywaymen intent on stealing a mysterious "prototype" from Mademoiselle Geraldine...who turns out not to be the headmistress after all.

Sophronia's natural inquisitiveness and propensity for sneaking, er, exploring, lead her to make friends in unusual places--always useful when one wants to gather information and thwart nefarious plots. With help from her roommate, Dimity, a few of her fellow first-year students, and her friends Soap and Vieve, Sophronia discovers a demoted classmate knows more than she should about the missing device, and they collaborate to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands.

Carriger does a fantastic job of world-building, bringing to life a Victorian England where servants are mechanical, vampires and werewolves can be teachers, and a school can float courtesy of massive coal-fired boilers. I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know Sophronia's universe, and I look forward to the rest of the series. I will have to check out Carriger's adult series, now that I know this is a YA spinoff of that one.

For readers' advisors: setting doorway is primary, story is secondary, as the plot doesn't really ramp up until later in the book. No sex or bad language.

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Shift

Shift by Kim Curran
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Have you ever wished you could go back and make a different decision? Turn left instead of right? Answer the phone instead of letting it go to voicemail? Sixteen-year-old Scott Tyler can--he's a Shifter, with the power to change his reality by deciding to change decisions he's already made. Sometimes that saves his life. Sometimes it kills his sister. And then there are the decisions that lead to meeting a girl named Aubrey...and being hunted by a brain-eating psychopath.

I read an advance copy of Shift, courtesy of NetGalley, and I loved it! A very fast-paced read from a new British young adult author (so new, she's not even on Fantastic Fiction yet). The story is set in modern-day London, but with a few tweaks: some children are born with the ability to "shift," to change their minds and thus their realities. These children are recruited to join a special school that trains them to control their abilities, and the teenage "graduates" go on to work for a variety of departments, including mapping likely outcomes of Shifts and "fixing" timelines gone wrong. At the onset of adulthood, entropy sets in, and Shifters lose their abilities. At least, that's what everyone believes until Scott and Aubrey stumble over some evidence that reality is not what it seems.

For readers' advisors: story doorway is primary, setting secondary. There are a few swear words and some violence, but not much.  The ending could have benefited from a slightly longer explanation of what happened to Scott.

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Zero Gravity Outcasts

Zero Gravity Outcasts by Kay Keppler

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Five years ago, Minka Shokat was falsely accused of treason and kicked out of Central Command, so she's not their biggest fan. But she still needs their money, so she and her partners, Anjali and Tex, occasionally transport Central Command cargo in their modified junkheap of a Wayfarer Class spaceship. When Minka discovers that this time their cargo is accompanied by the gorgeous ex-boyfriend who didn't support or defend her, she is furious. When she finds out their "cargo" is the very general who brought the charges against her in the first place, she is livid. However angry she is, though, she first has to survive the journey, and that is no easy task when hostile ships are attacking from all directions.

While reading this novel (novella?), all I could think about was Firefly. The characters were different, of course, and the universe wasn't as fleshed out, but there were many similarities: futuristic setting of humans colonizing other planets, centralized galactic governmental agency bad guys, struggling independent spaceship crew, innovative defenses based on designs by the brilliant crew members, etc. Minka's little pine tree for some reason always made the phrase "Earth that was" run through my head.

It was an entertaining and quick read. Not very deep or complex, just fun. I think it would have benefited from being a little longer--more time to develop the story instead of rushing through the exposition via the gossipy Tex, and no need to skip entirely over the delivery of the rest of their cargo or gloss over the battles to get to the happy ending.

For readers' advisors: story doorway primary, setting secondary. No sex, but there is some swearing.



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The Shepherd's Tale

The Shepherd's Tale by Zack Whedon

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


At last, the backstory on Shepherd Book! The graphic novel begins moments before Book's death and jumps backwards through the stages of his life, ending when he's a teenager. It really explains so much, and it makes me want to re-watch the series.

I am so impressed with this graphic novel. It's the first one I've read that actually makes me believe a picture (or in this case a panel) is worth a 1000 words, and Zack Whedon even makes each word worth 1000 words. I'm astounded that such a complete and nuanced story can be told so succinctly.

The artwork by Chris Samnee is less photo-realistic but manages to convey more. I had no problem following the story and keeping track of who was whom and what was going on. Hooray!

For readers' advisors: character, story, and setting doorways.



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Serenity: Better Days

Better Days by Joss Whedon

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Volume 2 of the Serenity graphic novel series was a little more confusing to follow than the first. The story bounced around between present and past, memory, fantasy, etc., and when I finished reading the story, I had to go back and reread most of it just to figure out what had happened. This was partly because the artwork didn't always resemble the cast members closely enough (esp. Simon), but also because the story jumped so much that I'd forgotten about a particular subplot that turned out to be key.

Bottom line? It would have made a wonderful episode of the Firefly tv show, and fans will probably still enjoy reading this graphic novel episode because Joss Whedon wrote it, so it has his snappy dialogue. There are some very funny scenes, particularly those when Jayne speaks.

For readers' advisors: setting and story doorways


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Serenity: Those Left Behind

Serenity: Those Left Behind by Joss Whedon

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I don't usually enjoy graphic novels, but I'll read anything that lets me live once more in the world of Firefly/Serenity, even for a little while. Since Joss Whedon himself wrote the story, it's like my favorite show came back to life for a half hour or so. (It's a very short novel.)

This episode fills in a little of the gap between the end of the tv show and the movie, which was helpful. It's about a job that goes wrong (don't they always?) and takes place when both Inara and Shepherd Book are getting ready to leave Serenity. There isn't time for much in the way of character development, of course, but the story is exciting, and the dialogue cracks me up. The artists from Dark Horse Comics (Go, Milwaukie!!) do a pretty good job with the artwork. The characters usually look pretty much like the actors, and I had no trouble telling who was whom or what was going on. The spine label says this is volume 1, so I will be finding out how many others there are and where I can get them!

For readers' advisors: setting and story doorways, primarily



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One of Our Thursdays Is Missing

One of Our Thursdays Is Missing by Jasper Fforde

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Thursday Next is back! Or no, wait, Thursday Next is missing! It's up to the written Thursday, with the assistance of her trusty butler, Sprockett, to figure out what happened to her. What was she working on when she vanished, why did a book with its ISBN number scrubbed off suddenly dissolve and scatter a long swath of debris across numerous genres, and what is up with the murderous Men in Plaid?

The latest installment in the Thursday Next series takes place almost entirely within BookWorld. Fforde keeps readers on their toes with his literary humor, complicated plot twists, and off-the-wall imagination. I can't wait for the next one--there are lots of loose ends just waiting to be tied up. Or not. It is Jasper Fforde, after all. :)

For readers' advisors: setting and story doorways



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Among the Hidden

Among the Hidden by Margaret Peterson Haddix

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars

I read this book last year...or maybe 2 years ago. Good book! I intend to eventually read the rest of the series. It's kind of a "what if" book--i.e. what if resources were scarce enough (or rather, controlled by the government enough) that you were only allowed 2 children...and the neighbors would turn you in to the police/government/Gestapo if they found out you had, say, 3 kids...and then BAD things would happen to you/your kids.


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Truesight

Truesight by David Stahler Jr.

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars

David Stahler Jr.'s Truesight is like George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm meets Lois Lowry's The Giver. Only with blind people. The premise is that about a hundred years in our future, parents are choosing their unborn children's genetics, and a blind couple decides they want their child to be blind like they are, so they tinker with the DNA. It becomes a big media thing, a whole community of blind people grows around them, and eventually they get persecuted by the "seers" (i.e. people who can see) and ask for and get protected status for their Foundation. Part of the group's doctrine is about how much better it is to be sightless because you're not distracted by appearances, are more pure & selfless, blah blah blah. People who can see are vilified and held up as examples of corruption and war, etc.

Fast forward an unknown length of time to when the book is set--on a colony on a planet somewhere outside our solar system. Our hero, Jacob, is a 12-almost-13-year-old-boy who is struggling with adolescence in a society that preaches the good of the group over the good of the individual. Only it turns out that everything isn't quite so perfect in their community--the physical blindness is also sometimes a metaphorical blindness. The "Gatherings" remind me an awful lot of Animal Farm & the "blind" (pardon the pun) bleating of the sheep. Jacob struggles to adjust to his changing awareness of his world, learning some difficult lessons about human frailty and deceit.

The story can be a bit heavy-handed at times, but it's still pretty interesting. Not quite up to Lowry standards, but OK. I'd be interested to know what teenagers thought of it--whether they relate to Jacob's angst, etc. Truesight is the first in a trilogy, apparently, the second book of which is The Seer.


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