Monday, August 31, 2020

Book Review: Malorie (Bird Box #2) by Josh Malerman

 


Malorie (Bird Box #2) by Josh Malerman
Hardcover, 320 pages
Published July 21st 2020 by Del Rey Books 
 

I have told this story before but since we are talking about the sequel it seems fitting. During the 2014 World Horror Convention held in Portland I was setting up my books to sign and there was a very long line for one author I never heard of. Then I kept seeing people everywhere at the con holding his book and talking about it. Years before Birdbox became the most-watched movie on Netflix and a global meme with taking the "Birdbox" challenge Josh Malerman's novel Birdbox was the talk of the World Horror Convention.
 
After the con, I knew I wanted to read this book but of course, I had already decided that it was impossible for this novel to live up to the hype. I am starting to see a pattern with the Bird Box series - living up to impossible hype is just what this story does. I am sure there are a few of you think there is only a cash not story reason to do a sequel here. As powerful of a hit as Bird Box was as a book there are forces that would push and pull an author on a project like this.
 
As great as Bird Box was the pressure to deliver an equally scary and emotional ride would be a burden for any writer. Because goddamn was the first book was both of those things.  As someone who read the book long before the movie I feel sorry for those of you who saw the movie first. (I am going to assume you  at least saw the movie and spoil the first one) Honestly, the movie was good, but for my money, it missed the key part of the first act.
 
In the film, you know the creatures and the madness is real. I read Bird Box cold, no idea what the novel was about. So while Malorie was heading down the river with the blindfolds on her and the kids I didn't know if the monsters were even real for a good 70 pages. I thought this novel was about a crazy and abusive mother. That misdirection is void from the movie because the creatures while still unseen are very real on the other side of the blindfold right away.
 
Personally I trusted Malerman who has not been cash-grabbing and repeating the same kind of horror story over and over. There is nothing overly commercial about a supernatural western spin on Sleeping Beauty like Unbury Carol. I enjoyed that novel but it is not exactly mainstream, and the cool thing is readers were willing to follow him.  
 
I understand the first question I need to answer in this review is the sequel a worthy follow-up and in every way, I would say it is as good as the first book and surpasses it. The main way Malorie passes Bird Box is an unhappy accident. Malerman could not have know when he wrote this book pre-pandemic that he would be releasing it into this environment. While America is debating the virtues of wearing mask verses and the idea of safety taking away a person's freedom.
 
The blindfold debate between Malorie and her son is almost eerie at moments in this book. It added a level of importance to the themes in a way I was not expecting. The power of this debate in the novel is set-up in the first book because Malorie knows that the thin piece of fabric is keeping her alive and sane.  

The peace of the school for the blind where the first novel ended is broken when a blind woman suddenly goes mad. This is a few years after the events of the first novel. Malorie escapes with her children but the events put into question even her own rules for survival. What if the mask is not enough, if a blind woman went mad, then maybe the creatures can just touch you.

We have a huge time jump while Maloire raises her kids to their teenage years in social distancing to the extreme. Her adopted children Olympia and Tom are teenagers now and for Tom, that means a streak of rebellion. He has started to resent the isolation and is not convinced that they must live by Malorie's rules and he starts to question the blindfold he has lived with most of his life.

One of the most powerful moments of the novel comes early when Malorie goes to visit another survivor that lives alone nearby. They have been friends and helped each other for years but Ron and Malorie have never seen each other. When Malorie comes to say goodbye they take off their blindfolds for the first time.
 
 "They stare at each other a beat. Take each other in. Malorie sees fear and exhaustion in his face. She wonders if, in the old world, Ron hardy was wealthy"
 
It was painful, even in the presence of this person she was growing to know to take off the mask. It is an important reminder in the first act of the stakes. Both in the monster storyline but also the emotional push and pull between Malorie and her son. It is such a grand theme of the times. Tom desires freedom from isolation and his mother. He has only known a world with these monsters and that desire for freedom pushing against safety is at the beating heart of this novel.

The drive of the story comes when a blindfolded census worker comes to count them as survivors and leaves a copy of the names of those safe in other parts of the state. Two of those names are Malorie's parents who according to the book are surviving up in northern Michigan. It seems impossibly far, except Ron tells Malorie the rumors of a train that travels the state north and south.

The Train and the weird dynamic of it becomes one of the major parts of the novel. One of the strongest moments that nearly broke me came from Dean who runs the train. He has the most powerful moment of the novel when explaining how Dean lost his children to the madness in his sealed-off protective bubble...
 
 "...And you know what?"
 
"What?"
 
"I Never found the sliver."

 
This is the heart of Malorie's darkest and deepest fear. After losing her sister and the world itself Malorie is scared that no matter what she does she can't keep out the insanity. She can't no matter the rules, or the blindfolds ever be free of the fear and doubt. This drives Malorie as a character and her fears that she might have gone crazy as she says "the old fashion way." Goddamn.
 
I don't want to give away anything from the final act, and the ending but the themes and debates at the core of this novel carry on to the last moments. The debate between safety and paranoia. Can the thin piece of fabric that Malorie has worn like armor protect her?  

The final act leaves me wondering has Malerman set-up a perfect lead-in for a third book or provided an ending that we were constantly building to? I don't know the answer. This could be the end but I will tell you the journey is filled with emotionally intense moments of fear and suspense that will reward any reader who connects with these characters.

That is the heart of every horror story ever told. Will you connect and put yourself in the shoes laid out for you. Malerman could not do more to build empathy here. Malorie, Tom, and Olympia are the perfect horror characters in the sense that I was nervous for them through-out the reading experience. That makes it an effective novel, an effective horror story, and in this case a sequel equally as good as the masterpiece it followed up. No easy task but it is another reason Malerman is one of the best we got.

Stay tuned as Malerman is coming on my Podcast "Postcards from a Dying World" soon, when the link is live I will post it.


 

Friday, August 28, 2020

Book Review: Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

 


Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Hardcover, 301 pages
Published June 30th 2020 by Del Rey 
 
Mexican Gothic is SMG's sixth novel and the third I have read personally. I was at her book signing for her crime novel  Untamed Shores at Mysterious Galaxies here in San Diego when some leaned over and told me that NBA had postponed the season. So until further notice, Silvia Moreno-Garcia remains the last book event I ever went to in person. This was a book I was looking forward to. While it is probably not the most popular of SMG's book  I loved her Mexico City crime/vampire novel Certain Dark Things.  Her novel Signal to Noise is one of the most unique reads I have ever read. That one felt like it could only come from her. The genres change and SMG finds a way to make that jump with skill each time he hits another genre.

Mexican Gothic for good reason is not as unique, but that is on purpose. SMG is playing with well know gothic tropes and even a classic of feminist literature. That being said we up with a setting, characters, and a subtle political theme that makes the execution 100% unique and totally the product of a singular voice Silvia Moreno-Garcia. This is a spooky atmospheric gothic that has a setting and characters that can only be a product of this author and that is the best feeling when you open a book.
 
SMG has found a really good role for herself in this period and historical settings, she clearly does her research and is very good at getting lost in these other time periods. The opening of this book hits at the 1950s Mexico City glamor that our lead character Noemi Taboada is a part of. If there was anything disappointing about the novel, is I could have really dug a whole novel in that setting. Here is hoping SMG  comes back to 50s Mexico City. She did say at Mysterious Galaxies that she loved that setting too, and in the short parts that is clear.
 
The novel really gets going when Noemi gets a strange letter from her cousin Catalina who married the son of a English silver mine owner in the Mexican mountains. The letter is your classic gothic plea for help that pulls Noemi into the countryside. The novel appears to playing with and updating themes from the classic of feminist literature The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. I admit I read in college and my memories of it are thin. I remembered the story but had to look it up to remember the title. That said Mexican Gothic evokes it well and I believe that was intentional.

Once Noemi gets to this English manor in the mountains the slow-burn build towards the final act is one. Noemi tries to confirm what she initially believes is Catalina's paranoia. As the story goes on she learns details that lay out the history of the house, the cult, the mine, and get into levels of supernatural horror I actually didn't expect.

The first two acts are filled with atmosphere as you expect from a gothic, the final act is pretty bonkers but I was surprised by the balance of social justice message that is delivered with a subtle touch. It might get overlooked by some readers who are having fun with the weird and monster driven final act. Everything that happens in the closing moments of the book is earned.

This novel wouldn't work with the characters and setting was interesting. SMG gives the setting a creeping beauty that evokes the classic gothic feel. It sucks you in, it makes you feel comfortable and then upsets those expectations in the final pages. I really enjoyed this book.
 
 

My Signal to Noise review

Thursday, August 20, 2020

Book Review: Survivor Song by Paul Tremblay + Two part podcast!

 

Survivor Song by Paul Tremblay 

Hardcover, 320 pages

Published July 7th 2020 by William Morrow 
 
It is a function of being on the west coast but Paul Tremblay snuck up on me. I know he was hanging around Necon, and publishing short stories here and there for a long time so while New York publishing might see him as an overnight sensation. I think that is a discredit to the years of hard work that Paul Tremblay has put in. I was interested in this book from the first time I saw it sitting on the shelf at Mysterious Galaxies. I don't remember if I was more surprised to see a hardcover horror release from an author I didn't know or the fact that the title was quoting a Bad Religion song.

Tremblay had my attention. While hardcover horror releases from new voices are becoming a thing again it was a rare thing at the time.  The success of A Head Full of Ghosts is huge part of the reason why. Tremblay won the Bram Stoker award for Cabin at the End of the World but he did something far more important.  He gave horror a vital new voice.  Ghosts and Cabin were important at the time because they were books that you thought about long after you closed the books.

 The success of Josh Malerman and Paul Tremblay comes at an important time and has helped other younger powerful voices like Jeremy Robert Johnson, Silvia Morena Garcia, Molly Tanzer, and others to find homes in mainstream publishing, to get reviews in major markets with horror.  I hope readers of this book looking for deeper dives will be writing these names down and might I add Cody Goodfellow and Brian Evenson to the list.

Not to put too much weight and hype on Survivor Song, but Tremblay did that to himself by kicking major ass with each of his novels. The genius of this man's work is that he keeps tackling trope-tastic standards in horror and elevating them.  The Exorcism novel, the home invasion, and now the zombie pandemic story. The thing is he takes these tropes and makes masterpieces. These novels are kinda like going into a hole in the wall greasy spoon dinner and getting a top-shelf sandwich.

There are two ways to do an end of the world story, you have go global with a million characters or you can focus tightly on a small group and limited point of view. It is the difference between the George Pal War of the Worlds from the 50s that featured generals and scientists and the Spielberg version of the story that focused only on one family.

That tight camera is what we have here. Think of the Stand as a prog-rock song recorded with a full symphony. Survivor Song is a great song with one power cord and a pillow in the kick drum in comparison.  You are going to dance to both but I will take the second option at this point for a one really important reason.

The epic multiple character pandemic has been done many times and to great effect even recently with Chuck Windig's The Wanderers.  M.R. Carey brought some fresh invention to the genre with Girl with All the Gifts but the real strength of Survivor Song is the tight focus on two characters - Natalie and Doctor Ramola Sherman.

Their friendship is at the heart of this novel. I can't say if he nailed the young friendship between two women, but it seemed very real to me. What Tremblay excels in is taking stories some writers would tell over 800 pages and solidly telling it in 300 pages.

It is clear if you get to the end of the book and read the acknowledgments what question was the germ of the idea here. From that nugget, Tremblay sets up a tension and a ticking clock that drives the action. It is sorta hard talking about this without spoilers although it is all said on the dust jacket I am glad I read nothing going in.

Natalie is very pregnant when she is a bit in the opening chapter. Her best friend is a doctor who knows they have a short time before the infection takes her friend. They have a short time to get medical help and save the baby.

That simple set-up gives Tremblay a canvas to explore how the women support and love each other, the subtle nature of how pandemic in this case based on rabies expands quickly, and this becomes timely because 240 pages in we get a glimpse at the partisan reaction that PT wisely saw coming. That last part was more of the narrative in Cabin but it is here too.

Stephen King said he had trouble putting down this book and that is by design. The chapters are longer but that is because the narrative doesn't give us or the characters much room to breathe. This was the goal of one of my novels so enjoyed seeing how Tremblay keep the tension and pace up. King also compared this novel to the work of Richard Matheson, I can see that in the sense that every time I Am Legend feels like it is giving us a rest a fresh narrative wave sweeps the reader away.

Survivor Song is a scary rollercoaster of emotions and if you allow yourself to fall for the spell of it you will see it is also a tear-jerker. The wall between the scares and the tears is so thin that is what makes this book special.
 
 
 
 

 
 
 

Monday, August 17, 2020

Book Review: The Deep by Rivers Solomon, Daveed Diggs, William Hutson, Jonathan Snipes

 

The Deep by Rivers Solomon, Daveed Diggs, William Hutson, Jonathan Snipes
Hardcover, 166 pages
Published November  2019 by Gallery / Saga Press 
 
 
This is my second Rivers Solomon book this summer.  They were the author of the powerful generation ship novel An Unkindness of Ghosts. That was a powerful debut novel and a great example of Afrofuturism. It was a book I found challenging while I was reading it on a couple of levels.  For one thing, it was a brutal story about slavery and the antebellum south through the lens of science fiction. At the same time the method of world-building was done in a style I didn't really connect with. The thing is the story stayed with me long after I closed the book.

The Deep is a similar book. I enjoyed it as I was reading it, but liked it better after I closed it and thought about it more. The most famous person involved in this project is Daveed Davis famous for originating the role of Thomas Jefferson in Hamilton. He is the frontman of the Afrofuturist hip-hop group Clipping. What a cool project. I love the idea of a concept being expressed in music, prose and maybe someday I think it would make a great anime film.

 
The novel is a somewhat surreal fantasy, if you get hung up on how people talk below water or how the under ocean city works you are missing the point. The song/novel is inspired by the idea that the children of pregnant African slaves thrown overboard crossing the Atlantic survive to become generations of merpeople.
 
 The story is focused on Yetu whose job is to remember, that is how the history is passed down. When Yetu experiences short moments of the above world of the Two-legs the contrast is clear.  The story and much of the world building is all there in the song and it is expanded in the novel. One theme the book explores very well is the need and trauma of passing the history down through generations. The act of remembering is important but painful process in this culture. When their culture mixes with the land and the "Two-Legs" is when the people start fully understand their origins.

“I AM THANKFUL FOR THE ocean, from which life springs. I am thankful for the ancestors, who lived, which is all any of us can do. And I am thankful for our vast human history, wide and various enough that there are legacies of triumph for every legacy of trauma. Everything is always changing, which means nothing can ever be hopeless.”

The Deep is a novel that is heavy on the atmosphere and the tone. The concept is high but not explained in details. Sci-fi reader who want things to be literal or explained fully should probably not read this. Part of the fun of this novel is that it is nothing we have ever seen before. A novel that started as a Hip-hop tune and a concept so beautifully strange that turns a horror of history into an unexpected evolution.

 "We wajinru live Zoti's ignorant lie for centuries, convinced our castles in the deep can shield us. The Ocean is more than our home or birthplace. It is our heaven, too. For we were knit together by the powers of it's life force."
 
The spiritual force just under the surface of this book is so much more important than the details. Based on a song this novel is short and not a traditionally structured narrative. I think the short length is perfect. Sorry for the obvious analogy but if it was longer narrative-wise the reader would start it feel out to sea. A longer piece would need more structure in my opinion. Still, this is a neat book that makes a great companion to the song.


 

Sunday, August 16, 2020

Book Review The Mirage by Matt Ruff

 

 
 
The Mirage by Matt Ruff
Hardcover, 432 pages
Published February 2012 by Harper 
 
This is an interesting book and despite it being older than Lovecraft Country, I think most readers of this book found it after the amazing success of Ruff's novel that will be an HBO TV series launching this month. While Lovecraft Country might be a better novel, I think I enjoyed the experience of reading The Mirage even more. This book is an alternate history farce of the War on Terror and the awful foreign policy of the GW Bush years. I think some readers took the alternate history aspects a little too serious and were nitpicking aspects of the false history in a way that I think misses the point.
 
There are laugh-out-loud moments in the book but this is not a goofy satire. I like the balance that Ruff strikes in this book. It works in three modes. Bizarro satire/political commentary/uncomfortable reflection. I enjoyed all three modes as Ruff's experiment is simple. Flip the War on Terror.  Using the tools of science fiction and alternate history Ruff sets his book in the UAS, the United Arab States that was formed after World War 2 out of the ashes of colonialism.
 
This democracy in the UAS is made up of states who are similar to the middle east nations we know.  This country has governors like Baathist gangster Saddam Hussein and Senator Osama Bin Laden the son of the oil tycoon. Yeah, it is corrupt but when this timeline has a tattered plutocracy with Donald Trump can we really talk shit? The story takes place a decade after fundamentalist Christian highjackers send planes crashing into Baghdad's Tigris & Euphrates towers on November 9th,2001.

The main point of view character is Mustafa A Baghdadi a homeland security agent. While many of the well-known characters are sorta cartoonish satire versions of themselves I thought Mustafa was a good anchor for the story. Some of my favorite moments of the book were scenes when Mustafa's investigation brought him face to face with Saddam. I loved all these scenes that sees the Iraqi president as a brutal gangster and every bit as scary as he is in our world.

The narrative is a third-person broken up with fake wiki-pedia like entries from this world's equivalent to the online library of Alexandria. This is a helpful way for Ruff to do world-building without having the characters stop to explain the world. They are nicely laid out like the entry about Osama Bin Laden that comes pages after he is introduced. It gives us a few pages ponder his role on our own before filling in the blanks.
 
 It is not until the second half that Mustafa travels to the fractured North American countries that we find out that the elderly LBJ has been an autocratic dictator since the killing of Kennedy. That he signed a civil rights act that was pretty much not worth the paper it was signed on. That the U.S. is mostly the eastern states and the country has broken apart, Texas for example is an evangelical nation. There several short military conflicts in North America but not much is said about Mexico and Canada. Some of the obvious characters from those years Dick Chainey and Donald Rumsfeld plays roles in the story but there are a few cool surprises I don't see coming when I get to spoilers I will explain.
 
Comparisons to Man in The High Castle are both obvious and at the same missing the point of both books. In High Castle PKD was making a point that the narrative of history is not always to be trusted. there is no binary On the High Castle world Vs our own. The world  where the allies won in the novel inside of the novel of High Castle is not OUR world. The Mirage does set up this binary reality. There is a condition where people believe in our world, Mustafa finds a copy of the New York Times from September 12th that appears to be from our world.
 
The Mirage is not about the narrative of history it is about the War on Terror. The point is to show Americans how this "war" would look with the roles reversed. So the binary take on it is fine and makes sense. I personally would have preferred if this world just existed and there were no illusions to this other world.  

So far so good, I am not sure I agree at all times with Ruff's idea about how this world would shake out but it is his mirror on our society and he can highlight what he chooses. Even if I don't agree I think it is a valuable one to look at. The Mirage is more of a thought experiment than novel, it is clear that Ruff got the episodic nature of Lovecraft Country in mind here but this is more one story.

There are some moments in spoilers I was not a huge fan of that took the book down a bit for me including a problematic core to the final act but it is a big spoiler. I suggest if the topic interests you to read and come back but if you don't plan to after the spoiler warning I will talk about a twist I liked and one I didn't. In the meantime overall I think This book should be read.



SPOILERS:

OK , there is a major twist in the third act when a CIA contacts Mustafa during his mission in the D.C. green zone. This agent is Timothy McVeigh working for the Christian Intelligence Agency on behalf of the republic of texas under the direction of a profit David Koresh who is working with a man called the Quail Hunter -clearly Dick Chainey. I didn't see this coming but it makes sense if you are flipping the War on Terror. I liked this twist.
 
The Twist I didn't like and thought was a problem is that despite flipping the stories the big twist at the end is that the Truthers in this world who think Bin Laden engineered the 11/9 attacks were proven correct. Yep, the end has an evil Muslims behind the whole thing twist. I was bothered that he couldn't commit in the story to the idea of Christian terrorists. I really didn't like this ending but still liked the book overall.

Laird Barron Podcast Interview

 

 
When Laird Barron first announced Blood Standard as his first straight crime novel I was excited that an author known for cosmic horror and dread was giving his talents to a project like this. He was a 2007 and 2010 Shirley Jackson Award winner for his collections The Imago Sequence and Other Stories and Occultation and Other Stories. "Mysterium Tremendum" won a 2010 Shirley Jackson Award for best novella. He is also a 2009 nominee for his novelette "Catch Hell" Other award nominations include the Crawford Award, Sturgeon Award, International Horror Guild Award, World Fantasy Award, Bram Stoker Award, and the Locus Award.

The Isiah Coleridge novels are weird crime classics, the titles are Blood Standard, Black Mountain, and Worse Angels. The majority of our conversation is focused on these books with a bit of Samurai movie talk.
 
Link on Spotify:
 
 
Coming to Youtube.


Monday, August 10, 2020

Book Review: Providence by Max Barry

 

Providence by Max Barry
 Hardcover, 352 pages
Published April 16th 2020 by Hodder & Stoughton (first published March 31st 2020) 
 
This is the first Max Barry book I have read but I was familiar with Australian author from a few appearances on one of my favorite podcasts Geeks Guide to the Galaxy. He had made some waves with an early book when he made a computer game NationSates that tied to the world-building of the book. It was a neat marketing experiment.
 
The concept of this book is one I liked. Through the lens of military science fiction, the genre has taken many effective stabs at the nature of war. This novel has much to say and I certainly don't fault it for taking big swings. I didn't dislike the novel but coming after a super-powerful  read I felt a little underwhelmed. The concepts are inventive and the prose is solid enough.
 
This novel is about manufactured warfare through the lens of a AI battleship and the human drones who crew the ship despite being useless. They are they as a symbol of human resistance despite the AI being able to wage the war without them. I get it, I get that Barry is commenting on drone warfare and the future of war as seen through the eyes of this crew who are wrapped in the flag of "The Service."
 
Here lies my problem with the book. I am not saying I need to understand everything but there is zero effort giving to the world-building back on earth. What governments or systems feed "The Service." I am not saying it has to be over the top like Starship Troopers but give us something. I also thought calling the alien Salamanders the name of an earth critter was lazy. I am not saying they couldn't get that nickname from the soldiers but someone would give them a more scientifically sound name.

The characters, on the other hand, were better composed as I felt like I understood them and their roles in the story.  They react to the isolation of deep space warfare in a way that helped propel the story once they come to the realization that they are not even tools of war the book takes the first of a few twists. Barry plays with time and setting in interesting was. The last twist involving the setting was super effective and a cool moment. That twist really added to my enjoyment of the book.

This book is not bad, there are a few elements to really enjoy, but with all the amazing science fiction out there I can't put this super high on my list. I think military sci-fi completionists should certainly check it out.  Military sci-fi about the absurd nature of war is never a bad thing I just wish more effort was given to the world-building.
 



 
 

Friday, August 7, 2020

Book review: Worse Angels (Isaiah Coleridge #3) by Laird Barron



Worse Angels (Isaiah Coleridge #3) by Laird Barron
Hardcover, 320 pages
Published May 26th 2020 by G.P. Putnam's Sons

When Laird Barron first announced Blood Standard as his first straight crime novel I had a friend who is just a horror reader complain to me that he was not happy about it. He argued that Barron had a talent for unsettling cosmic dread and that should be what he is writing. I laughed at the notion that unsettling cosmic dread had no place in crime. True Detective which was understandably influenced by Barron's work proved that. Who better to infect crime novels with a rusty jagged edge. These books have a nasty feel to them that few straight crime writers could do.

We now have a trilogy of Isaiah Coleridge novels and I hope many more. I get the feeling that Barron wanted to establish and ground the first novel quickly. The first book is a violent and dark affair but it is pretty straight forward that mixed tough guy brutality with pondering on the nature of violence. Coleridge as  a character is an ugly, harsh guy, but in those moments when he gets philosophical you get a glimpse of something deeper in his nature. His observations add a certain class to the character like a beautiful diamond shining in the bottom of a week old porta-potty.

Certainly, Black Mountain the sequel about a cult and a serial killer was darker and weirder. It wasn't a rehash either, it felt familiar character-wise, but the story was different in tone. The first book didn't highlight the Liggoti or cosmic horror elements. So the question for me was when I closed book two was this - was that a fluke or are we getting weirder.

 I am excited to say that Worse Angels does get darker and weirder still.

I wouldn't say that Worse Angels is weird cranked to 11 but the guitar has a lot more distortion if I can beat this analogy to death. This novel is like that moment when the peanut butter and jelly slices of bread are pushed together. I can see some of your traditional crime readers might be thinking what the fuck am I reading? You are reading a crime novel spun in the brain of a deep-thinking cosmic horror writer. It is what True Detective keeps trying to capture that comes out pretty effortlessly in the worlds of Laird Barron.

Isaiah Coleridge is a weird character raised in Alaska, with native roots in New Zealand. Any book with him as a hero is going to feel rough around the edges.  By this book, he has a girlfriend, who has a kid to give him softer moments. That said he has not changed much. The story kicks off when an ex-cop Badja Adeyemi who was a bodyguard to a senator asks Isaiah to investigate his nephew's suicide. He was a part of a major construction project and the family doesn't buy the story behind his death.

The project is a large particle collider, the senator a UFO nut, and the suicide shady. These are all weird elements, and while they are not as obvious as the serial killer in the last book, they are the right pieces in the hands of this author. I love the weird and dark moments as much as the hilarious banter. All the fun elements are there.

Each book has at least one huge action set piece in this book that happens underground and I love how Barron has found a way in each book to have the action parallel the characters in interesting ways.  in the final act, all the elements come together and the stakes get higher than this trilogy has gotten to before.  Worse Angeles strikes that balance between the familiar of a series with the rising stakes.

The Isaiah Coleridge novels are excellent tough guy crime and the best part is that they are intelligent and thoughtful. I consider this series a must-read for me, I think it should be on your list if you like crime fiction if you are a hard-boiled fiction fan if you like Laird Barron's cosmic horror you might have to give these books a little more rope as you wade through the mist.  There are monsters in there, they may not be rooted in mythos but no less nasty, no less entertaining.

I am interviewing the author for my podcast and will add the link here to this review once it is available:

Monday, August 3, 2020

Book Review: A Song For A New Day by Sarah Pinsker

 
A Song For A New Day by Sarah Pinsker
Paperback, 372 pages
Published September 10th 2019 by Berkley Books


The world has changed quite a bit since this novel was released and sadly for us,  Sarah Pinsker looks like a prophet a year after her debut novel.  I am sure she is already getting more than enough jokes about how she needs to write her next book about unicorns and rainbows for everyone. As she is the winner of the PKD award for her short story collection, I was excited to dive into this novel.  Also as a writer who has written about touring musicians myself, I am always interested in stories on the subject.

ASND is a powerful debut set in a dystopian future where the world is divided into the before and after, large public gatherings like sports and music are banned. A deadly virus is on the rampage...Yes, this book was released in 2019 which means it was probably first written well before that. The world of this novel is not exactly like ours the inciting incident is a series of a terrorist attack that made much of the public afraid of public gatherings.

ASND is very much about how the internet is changing music, I wish I had read this in our Before Times but I can't help have my view of the book colored by my experience reading it. Like many during the pandemic, I am watching lots of live videos of bands I like. As a person of limited funds in the last few years, I did the math and decided I personally get more out of spending my money on books and film so I was already limiting the concerts and shows I was going to.

In a world where posting your video or pics from a concert is more important than the actual experience, I related to much of this novel.  Very wisely Pinsker split the narrative between Luce Cannon the touring indie rocker and Rosemary a fresh new fan who becomes a influencer in the corporate music world. The later works for Stage-holo a company making VR live performances, a soul-sucking experience that is a sci-fi stand in for major labels and stages with 10 feet of barricades.

With subtly executed world-building Pinsker writes about a new future where life is lived almost entirely online. Drone delivery and any community is mostly done in 'Hoodspace' a VR  accessed by hoodies, the next interface. In one sense this novel is a coming of age story as Rosemary goes to her first concert early in the novel. Music becomes her life as she eventually lands a job recruiting bands for the corporate Stage halo.

The band and musician she grows to most want to sign is Luce Cannon, whose favorite underground illegal  venue is shut down when Rosemary accidentally exposes them. With her favorite venue shut down, Luce has to hit the road and figure how to tour the dystopia.

As I was reading I thought about Great White the has-been rock band recently having a concert in South Dakota. This concert was a big middle finger to science and taking the Covid-19 seriously. Is Luce Cannon different? In hindsight, Pinsker might write this novel differently today but the virus and illness is a little glossed over, although I know it is a little less deadly.

The novel  is a great love letter to live music, and how powerful it can be. It is impossible for anyone reading this book months into the coronavirus to not wonder about Luce's insistence on playing live and wondering if it was not irresponsible?  Hindsight is 20/20, I get it but if there is one weakness of this book it is how the book glosses over the reasons the laws have banned concerts a bit. As if the man just wanted to just ruin the fun. I had a friend who quit a popular pop-punk band after years of touring who once told me he quit because "it was easy to forget the world outside of the band existed."  So it is with good reason that Luce  would be myopically focused on chasing that feeling. I am sure that is an experience many musicians are feeling today.

Does that sound like I am nitpicking? Sorry, that is not my intention. It is not fair in some senses to hold up the actual future as a mirror to this novel. It's predictive powers both giveth and takes away from it. Over all though Pinsker deserves the awards and appreciation.  ASND is a powerful well-written work of science fiction well deserving of the Nebula award it won. There is a strong argument against my minor complaints, that less is more. I think had I read this last year I would not have even noticed. The novel is a wonderful example of strange found families and connections that happen only in subcultures. The connective tissue that the shared experience of music provides is hard to explain so any time a novel does that it is exciting.

A Song For A New Day is very cool, and a breath fresh air in the speculative arena. I think this is a must-read for any musician missing the pull of the stage and live music. I think it is a must read for Science Fiction readers looking for a new fresh take on the future.