Title: Boneshaker

Author: Cherie Priest

Genre: Steampunk/SF/Horror

Publisher: Tor Books
Publication Date: September 2009
Paperback: 416 pages

Stand alone or series: Book 1 in the Clockwork Century series

In the early days of the Civil War, rumors of gold in the frozen Klondike brought hordes of newcomers to the Pacific Northwest. Anxious to compete, Russian prospectors commissioned inventor Leviticus Blue to create a great machine that could mine through Alaska’s ice. Thus was Dr. Blue’s Incredible Bone-Shaking Drill Engine born.

But on its first test run the Boneshaker went terribly awry, destroying several blocks of downtown Seattle and unearthing a subterranean vein of blight gas that turned anyone who breathed it into the living dead.

Now it is sixteen years later, and a wall has been built to enclose the devastated and toxic city. Just beyond it lives Blue’s widow, Briar Wilkes. Life is hard with a ruined reputation and a teenaged boy to support, but she and Ezekiel are managing. Until Ezekiel undertakes a secret crusade to rewrite history.

His quest will take him under the wall and into a city teeming with ravenous undead, air pirates, criminal overlords, and heavily armed refugees. And only Briar can bring him out alive.

How did we get this book: We bought our copies

Why did we read this book: It’s Steampunk week and Boneshaker has been praised to the skies by Steampunkers, reviewers and recently even made into Library Journal’s list of “Core” Steampunk titles.

REVIEW:

First Impressions:

Ana: Boneshaker is another book I had been looking forward to reading for a long time and holding off to until we had our Steampunk Week. Given the amount of praise it received, the fact that very recently it made into Library Journal’s list of core Steampunk titles and the fact that Cherie Priest seems to really know what she is talking about, I had great expectations about the book. And they were sort of met, as overall the book proved to be a solid read. I liked most specially its sympathetic duo of mother-son protagonists, the lovely writing, and the setting (an alternate 19th century Seattle). Plus, Zombies and Pirates = fun! However, upon reflection, the very premise of the book did not hold to close scrutiny and ironically, that includes the very Steampunk nature of the story.

Thea: I have to agree wholeheartedly with Ana on this one. I was ecstatic with Boneshaker’s unique premise – Civil War Era Steampunk Zombies! Hiyo! Sign me up!

And…well, Boneshaker is a bit of a mixed bag. The premise is wonderfully imaginative, but, as Ana says, kind of implodes on itself when subjected to any level of scrutiny. This history is a mess as is the actual source of the zombification of Seattle’s inhabitants – and I’m not exactly sure I’d label this as a true work of Steampunk. That said, I enjoyed the overall story and the horror aspects of the book, and certainly read it eagerly enough, which counts for a lot.

On the Plot:

Ana: It’s the 1880s, and the United States is still plagued by the legacy of the Civil War. In Seattle it has been 16 years since the eccentric scientist Leviticus Blue built his Boneshaker, a tunnelling machine built to drill through the ice fields of Alaska. The machine went berserk in the middle of the town basically destroying it all and in the process hitting the underground reserves of a mysterious gas – the Blight – which, if inhaled, turns people into Zombies. The inhabitants of the town fled, authorities built a huge wall which has been keeping the gas and the zombies (or “rotters”) in.

Briar Wilkes and her son Zeke leave just outside the walls and try to make do with her meagre salary as a worker at the water treatment plant (filtering the effects of the Plight) . Their lives are not easy since Briar is the widow of the infamous Leviticus Blue and no one will let her forget that, including her son. In an attempt to prove that his father was in fact not the criminal that everybody thinks he is, Zeke sneaks into the walled City in search for clues sand a desperate Briar goes after him when his only viable way out collapses after an earthquake and in the process discovers that are people still living inside. She must find him and quick, before the rotters – or someone worse – find them first.

As plots go, Boneshaker’s start off with a lot of potential. The impetus for the story – a mother who admitted not being the most perfect and open of mothers, in search of her son and to try and mend their relationship spoke to me like only a character-driven story can speak. It is also undeniable that Cherie Priest’s prose is lovely and enticing. I have nothing to say against pacing (it is rocketing good fun!) or against the overall plotting: mother searches son in parallel stories, both run from zombies, run into pirates, danger abound, there is a villain who might or might not Leviticus Blue himself. It is all actually pretty good.

It is just when you think about the details that things start to fall through.

For example: there is a lack of real science. It puzzled me for example, that it had been 16 years since the accident happened and yet there were no scientists studying the phenomenon – where did it come from? What was it? How to reverse it? Well, that does not sound Steampunk ish at all. I would expect at least one mad scientist somewhere making a dash to understand it. Furthermore, can a wall really stop the spreading of a gas? For 16 years? Without any leaks? Without it rising above it? Leaking through pipes? Really? Sometimes, I wondered if the gas was not a mere excuse for the use of Goggles and masks – making it a choice for Steampunk Aesthetics than for Steampunk Science – especially when there is barely an appearance of the very Boneshaker of the title.

Another thing that made me wonder (and wonder and wonder): Briar discovers that there were people still living in the inside. Citizens of Seattle, basically living like scavengers , forever having to wear masks and living in fear of the zombies and I asked myself over and again: why? Why would anyone stay if they didn’t have to? Surely there were alternative – better ones, than to live in a place where you can’t go outside where you can’t breathe, where you can’t get any real food because of a mortal Gas that can turn you into a zombie? Surely.

Yes, Steampunk can be fun but Scott Westerfelf has proved with his Leviathan that you can have a Steampunk novel that is both fun and yet rich with Steampunk elements that actually matter.

Having said that: I sustain that I did have a great time reading the novel, despite these misgivings. I find this series has a great potential. Who knows, perhaps the sequels will be more Steampunk heavy?

Thea: What Ana said. When reading Boneshaker, two things immediately jumped out at me:

1. There’s a huge “buyability” problem with the story.

As Ana mentions, the solution to deal with Seattle was to wall it off – literally, with a big wall. And this would protect the rest of the world from zombies, and from the mysterious “Blight.” Which is a gas. I repeat – a gas. How exactly does a stone wall contain a gas? This seems a little silly. THen, given the fact that Seattle is the rainiest city in the continental United States, how in heck can the Blight gas be so prevalent as to completely ensheath the city, impervious to the months and months of rain that should clear the air? Furthermore, how is the Blight still leaking out after 16 years? This must be quite a reservoir indeed – and if the rain isn’t washing it away, and an accumulation of 16 years’ worth of a thick gas is spreading through Seattle, wouldn’t it have been enough to spread a little further (as opposed to being contained by the walls)? And Ana makes a good point – why wouldn’t the government, or some enterprising scientist or company for that matter, be interested in finding out what exactly the Blight is? After 16 years, no one is interested in discovering why the gas turns people into zombies? No one wants to know where the gas came from, what it is, and if it exists anywhere else in the country? Heck, even allowing that US government is so shattered and preoccupied by the legacy of the Civil War (which requires a huge effort to suspend disbelief in and of itself), wouldn’t anyone be interested in weaponizing this gas? I was kind of surprised and disappointed that Ms. Priest didn’t go there, it seems so obvious – the Blight as a biochemical weapon to be harnessed for the American Civil War and perhaps for the inevitable World War?! – but perhaps that’s fodder for a future book.

Beyond the haziness of the Blight (lame pun intended), there’s also a problem in terms of believability of era, and technology. Which brings me to my second point:

2. The technology and science aspects are so vague as to suggest that Boneshaker is much more of an aesthetic work.

And this is totally fine – just like with genres like Science Fiction, you can get the hard Stephen Baxter stuff, or the softer, Gene Roddenberry stuff. But my problem with Boneshakeris that the time period and the steampunk aesthetic are irrelevant to the storyline (yes, the bone-shaking drill unleashed the gas that caused the zombies and the premise of the novel, but this could have been any drill. You don’t even see the drill until the end of the book, and the cataclysmic effect is completely off-stage). This might have been the distant future or present day or even on another earth-like planet. For example, the characters speak in the modern vernacular, so it’s easy to forget the time period altogether. And if you can take away the technology, and if you can take away the time period and are essentially left with the same story, these elements are superfluous.

I should also note that Ms. Priest has an afterward to the book in which she claims that all of the historical inconsistencies (so far as the size, importance, development and specifics of Seattle) are intentional – which explains why certain buildings and landmarks are completed and/or in different areas than they are in real life. But my points still remain – I imagine that Cherie Priest is very connected to Seattle and thus chose to write Boneshaker in this locale, but it seems like too much of a stretch to truly work. If this had been in New York, or Philadelphia for example, I think it would have worked to the book’s credit. Or set it in a totally new city altogether, bypassing all of these other historical/structural/environmental critiques.

In any case, despite all of my reservations, I really did enjoy Boneshaker in its capacity as an SF horror novel and a page-turner. A mother set on finding her son in a zombie infested city? How could I not love this?! The pacing is excellent and although a little too contemporary to work in the time period, Ms. Priest has undeniably strong narrative technique and a gift for storytelling. This alone is more than enough to recommend the novel, even if it’s a little skimpy on the details.

On The Characters:

Ana: I think of the greatest strengths of the novel are its engaging and sympathetic characters. I absolutely loved Briar and Zere both as separate entities and their relationship. Especially because they were so freaking flawed and sometimes even annoying. Zeke behaved like a quintessential teenager – prone to do stupid things, but with the heart in the right place. Same thing goes for Briar – I really liked how she reflected upon her reasons for keeping secrets from her son and the moment she decided to change it all. She is fierce Plus, there is one revelation in the end, which even though I saw coming from a mile away, I still thought was awesome and made all the difference in the world adding an extra layer of complexity of the novel – and every single mention of a certain character from the start.

There are also a plethora of secondary characters that although not really that well-developed, were actually pretty entertaining in their own way. I was quite fond of the air pirates (especially Cly) and the underground refugees Lucy the one-armed barmaid and Jeremiah.

Thea: I have to agree with Ana in that the characters are a great asset to Boneshaker. I loved Briar, in particular, as the flawed mother that loves her son, no matter what. There’s a pivotal scene at the end of the book, a confession, that is so heart-wrenchingly honest and moving, it truly makes the book. Ezekiel, or Zeke, as Briar’s son felt a little less developed as a character to me, however. Yes, he was very much a teenager, and very believable in his quest to exonerate his grandfather’s legacy, and even his father (the creator of the titled Boneshaker) – but other than this desire, he lacks the well-rounded finish that his mother has in abundance.

Other secondary characters pop in and out and are enjoyable additions – in particular I loved Lucy, the one-armed barkeep and, a Native American Princess (who is nothing like the princess you have in mind, I guarantee it), and the gruff, lovable Jeremiah Swakhammer. Of course, there’s also the shadowy, nefarious Dr. Minnericht that runs Seattle’s underground ruins with an iron fist…

Altogether, an enjoyable and connecting cast.

BUT IS IT STEAMPUNK?

Ana: Weeeeell. There are undeniably, elements generally related to Steampunk in this novel. Alternate history. CHECK. Goggles, Dirigibles, some Steam technology, CHECK. A mad scientist. CHECK. However, I think those elements are only skin deep – remove them and they wouldn’t really make a difference to that world (although obviously they do to this story) . Those elements seem too confined to be really Steampunk-ish. But then again, the Steampunk seal has been signed, sealed and delivered by Steampunk luminaries from all over the place so what the hell do I know?

Thea: I’m sorta of the same mind as Ana here. Yes, there are steampunk elements up the wazoo (what with the bone-shaking drill, goggles, a couple of airships, and other strange inventions sprinkled throughout)…but is it really steampunk? I guess it really depends on your definition. For me, the aesthetic elements were strong but somewhat irrelevant, and it’s not the best example of a steampunk novel in my personal opinion. There’s no radical social critique, nor is there a dazzlingly central technological element. But, as Ana says, what the hell do I know? I can understand why this is labeled as steampunk, but I also understand why some folks might not see it as such.

Notable Quotes/Parts: From the prologue:

From Unlikely Episodes in Western History

Chapter 7, “Seattle’s Walled and Peculiar State.”
Work in progress, by Hale Quarter.
1880

Unpaved, uneven trails pretended to be roads; they tied the nation’s coasts together like laces holding a boot, binding it with crossed strings and crossed fingers. And over the great river, across the plains, between the mountain passes the settlers pushed from east to west. They trickled over the Rockies in dribs and drabs, in wagons and coaches.

Or this is how it began.

In California there were nuggets the size of walnuts lying on the ground—or so it was said, and truth travels slowly when rumors have wings of gold. The trickle of humanity became a magnificent flow. The glittering western shores swarmed with prospectors, pushing their luck and pushing their pans into the gravelly streams, praying for fortunes.

In time, the earth grew crowded, and claims became more tenuous. Gold came out of the ground in dust so fine that the men who mined it could’ve inhaled it.

In 1850 another rumor, winged and sparkling, came swiftly from the north.

The Klondike, it said. Come and cut your way through the ice you find there. A fortune in gold awaits a determined enough man.

The tide shifted, and looked to the northern latitudes. This meant very, very good things for the last frontier stop before the Canadian border—a backwater mill town on Puget Sound called Seattle after the native chief of the local tribes. The muddy village became a tiny empire nearly overnight as explorers and prospectors paused to trade and stock up on supplies.

While American legislators argued over whether or not to buy the Alaska territory, Russia hedged its bets and considered its asking price. If the land really was pocked with gold deposits, the game would absolutely change; but even if a steady supply of gold could be located, could it be retrieved? A potential vein, spotted intermittently but mostly buried beneath a hundred feet of permanent ice, would make for an ideal testing ground.

In 1860, the Russians announced a contest, offering a 100,000 ruble prize to the inventor who could produce or propose a machine that could mine through ice in search of gold. And in this way, a scientific arms race began despite a budding civil war.

Across the Pacific Northwest big machines and small machines were tinkered into existence. They were tricky affairs designed to withstand bitter cold and tear through turf that was frozen diamond-hard. They were powered by steam and coal, and lubricated with special solutions that protected their mechanisms from the elements. These machines were made for men to drive like stagecoaches, or designed to dig on their own, controlled by clockwork and ingenious guiding devices.

But none of them were rugged enough to tackle the buried vein, and the Russians were on the verge of selling the land to America for a relative pittance… when a Seattle inventor approached them with plans for an amazing machine. It would be the greatest mining vehicle ever constructed: fifty feet long and fully mechanized, powered by compressed steam. It would boast three primary drilling and cutting heads, positioned at the front of the craft; and a system of spiral shoveling devices mounted along the back and sides would scoop the bored-through ice, rocks, or earth back out of the drilling path. Carefully weighted and meticulously reinforced, this machine could drill in an almost perfect vertical or horizontal path, depending on the whims of the man in the driver’s seat. Its precision would be unprecedented, and its power would set the standard for all such devices to come.

But it had not yet been built.

You can read the full excerpt online HERE.

Additional Thoughts: It is also worth mentioning that Boneshaker comes in a beautiful package. Not only is the cover gorgeous (although irrelevant and misleading), but the book itself is printed on thick paper in this lovely rust brown print, lending even more to the steampunk aesthetic.

Rating:

Ana: 7 – Very Good

Thea: 7 – Very Good (Though it was a close call, bordering a 6)

Reading Next: A Local Habitation by Seanan McGuire

Title: A Dark Matter

Author: Peter Straub

Genre: Horror, Literary Fiction

Publisher: Doubleday
Publication Date: February 2010
Hardcover: 416 Pages

The charismatic and cunning Spenser Mallon is a campus guru in the 1960s, attracting the devotion and demanding sexual favors of his young acolytes. After he invites his most fervent followers to attend a secret ritual in a local meadow, the only thing that remains is a gruesomely dismembered body—and the shattered souls of all who were present.

Years later, one man attempts to understand what happened to his wife and to his friends by writing a book about this horrible night, and it’s through this process that they begin to examine the unspeakable events that have bound them in ways they cannot fathom, but that have haunted every one of them through their lives. As each of the old friends tries to come to grips with the darkness of the past, they find themselves face-to-face with the evil triggered so many years earlier. Unfolding through the individual stories of the fated group’s members, A Dark Matter is an electric, chilling, and unpredictable novel that will satisfy Peter Straub’s many ardent fans, and win him legions more.

Stand alone or series: Stand alone novel

How did I get this book: Review Copy from the publisher

Why did I read this book: I am a huge of Peter Straub’s, and have been since I first read Ghost Story as a teen. So, when we were offered the opportunity to read and review A Dark Matter – and to interview Peter Straub himself! – I was ecstatic.

Review:

On an evening pregnant with violence and possibility in 1966, a group of eight young men and women trek out to a meadow and perform an ancient ritual, following the charismatic spiritual guru, Spencer Mallon. At the end of the evening, only six emerge from the meadow – one boy disappears completely, another’s mangled, shredded corpse lies dead in the grass. Even those lucky enough to emerge with their lives, however, are forever changed by the event. Lee Harwell, best friends with four of those who went to the meadow, has always felt on the periphery of this extraordinary event. Unwilling to buy into Spencer Mallon’s teachings and affected persona, Lee refused to join his friends that evening, and only decades later decides to seriously piece together the mystery of what happened that evening. Now a famous author, Lee finally pursues answers: from “Dilly” Olson, the handsome young man that followed Mallon for years before landing in prison; from “Boats” Boatman, a kleptomaniac that has lost his defining edge; from Meredith Bright, the impossibly beautiful and coldly inhuman senator’s wife; from “Hootie” Bly, the innocent boy that went mad after that evening, and who can only speak in quotations from books; and from “the Eel,” Lee Truax, Lee Harwell’s beautiful wife that gradually lost her sight after that evening in the meadow.

Though billed as something of a supernatural horror novel, A Dark Matter is much more of a psychological book. It’s a subdued novel in the fashion of Rashomon or Lost, using different character perspectives to gradually build a complete picture of events. But it’s also more than just a book about solving the mystery of “What Happened That Fated Eve!” It’s also an exploration of relationships and characters as they have changed over the years. All this, of course, filtered through the outside perspective of a narrator that has no knowledge of the event, but has seen how his friends have been affected by that remarkable, supernatural experience. As Lee Harwell explores the memories of the past, he collects and records each character’s story – in terms of writing, this translates to a bizarre, yet satisfying, format for the novel. A Dark Matter is essentially a collection of shorter stories, connected by Lee’s narrative and his own piecemeal understanding of events. What should be an awkward, disjointed read is instead a rewarding, quirky one that simply works. I loved the metafiction aspect of the book (i.e. readers know Lee is writing these stories for a book, just as Lee is conscious to the fact he is writing a story). It simply worked.

As for the characters themselves, those entities behind the recollections, they are a strange, motley crew. Lee Harwell, our hero, isn’t really a hero. Of all his high school friends, Lee was the only one smart enough (or is it stubborn?) not to buy into Spencer Mallon’s B.S. peddling. And yet, the whole driving force behind the book is Lee’s inherent outside-ness, his position on the periphery of a life-changing event that cast a shadow on the lives of all his closest and most loved friends. It’s an intriguing juxtaposition – though Lee reiterates numerous times that he’s glad he didn’t meed Spencer Mallon in 1966 and that he’s happy he did not go to the meadow, the reader can’t help but feel he regrets this, deeply. As a narrator and protagonist, Lee Harwell is a very human, frail dude. Susceptible to human failings and emotions, Lee’s one well rounded voice. The other characters, however, lack the same rounded development. For one thing, it’s a little pet peeve of mine when everyone in a book is ridiculously good looking – Mallon is likened to a young Harrison Ford (circa Raiders of the Lost Ark), Dilly incredibly handsome, Boats only slightly less handsome, the Eel completely, heartstoppingly, breathtakingly beautiful. In fact, it’s the Eel that I wish had more of a character, as she’s always on the periphery and on a pedestal that her husband has (sub?)consciously elevated her to at every turn of the page.

The best characters were, without a doubt, Meredith Bright and Hootie Bly. The scene when Lee finally meets the beautiful Meredith is chilling and made of awesome – Meredith’s beautify is the grade of perfection you see with plastic surgery on cougar trophy wives, vampiric politician spouses, the Nicole Kidmans of the world. Her ruthlessness and narcissism is simply dumbfounding. Hootie, however, is the character that steals your heart. After going mad, losing himself to a prison of words after the Meadow, Hootie is committed to a mental institution – where he has remained for decades, until Lee and Dilly come calling. Hootie, a boy with a photographic memory, speaks only in quotations – his favorite being Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. He is the unmarred innocent, the idiot savant that comes to life in a way that is unique and memorable, quite literally stealing the show from the other members of the group.

While I loved some of the characters and the actual structure of the book, my main problem with A Dark Matter was in how loose and amorphous the story was. Firstly, all of the kids from the meadow never blame Mallon for what has happened to them – which I admit is kinda cool (besides the fact that Mallon gives me the willies). It seems a little weird that these generally smart, impossibly beautiful people were so easily taken in by a dime-a-dozen, pseudo-spiritualist moocher – and that years later, after going blind/mad/to prison/etc, they still all love Spencer Mallon.

Also, A Dark Matter is built up around this mystery of what each character saw in the Meadow, and ultimately the vision is different for each character and there are no concrete answers – even the Eel’s final revelation is a little underwhelming. But, as I finished the book and thought about it for a while, I came to my own Lee Harwell type of discovery. A Dark Matter is not so much about the what as it is the how. It’s a defining, and as Lee says, a liberating experience. The supernatural elements of the book (which aren’t very prominent) are nothing compared to the psychological development of the story – it’s about the hold this event has put on all the characters’ lives, inflicted on them by themselves.

Ultimately, I enjoyed A Dark Matter, as a work of literary fiction. Absolutely recommended to fans not only of Mr. Straub’s horror, but of a well-written, thought-provoking, and ultimately emotionally liberating story.

Notable Quotes/Parts: From Chapter 1:

A Few Years Back, Late Spring

The great revelations of my adult life began with the shouts of a lost soul in my neighborhood breakfast joint. I was standing in line at the Corner Bakery on State and Cedar, half a block down the street from my pretty brick townhouse, waiting to order a Swiss Oatmeal (muesli) or a Berry Parfait (granola), anyhow something modest. The loudest noises in the place were the tapping of laptop keys and the rustle of someone turning newspaper pages. Abruptly, with a manic indignation that seemed to come from nowhere, the man at the head of the line started uttering the word obstreperous. He started out at a level just above ordinary conversation. By the time he found his rhythm, he was about twice that volume and getting louder as he rolled along. If you had to settle on one word to yell over and over in public, wouldn’t you pick something less cumbersome? Yet he kept at it, spinning those four lumpy syllables every possible way, as if trying them on for size. His motive, for nothing actually comes from nowhere, soon became obvious.

Obstreperous? ObSTREPerous? OBSTREPEROUS? Ob-strep?-ER-ous? OBstreperous?

Lady, you think I’m obstreperous now? This is what he was saying. Give me another thirty seconds, you’ll learn all about obstreperous.

With each repetition, his question grew more heated. The momentarily dumbfounded young woman at the order counter had offended him, he wished her to know how greatly. The guy also thought he was making himself look smart, even witty, but to everyone else in the shop he had uncorked raving lunacy.

His variations were becoming more imaginative.

Obstreeperous? Obstraperous? ObstrapOROUS?

To inspect this dude, I tilted sideways and looked down the good-sized line. I almost wished I hadn’t.

Right away, it was obvious that the guy was not simply playing around. The next man in line was giving him six feet of empty ?oor space. Under the best of circumstances, people were going to keep their distance from this character. Eight or nine inches of white-gray hair surged out in stiff waves around his head. He was wearing a torn, slept-in checked suit that might have been ripped off a corn?eld scarecrow. Through a latticework of scabs, smears, and bruises, his swollen feet shone a glaring, bloodless white. Like me, he had papers under his elbow, but the wad of newsprint he was clamping to his side appeared to have lasted him at least four or ?ve days. The puffed-up bare feet, scuffed and abraded like shoes, were the worst part.

“Sir?” said the woman at the order counter. “Sir, you need to leave my store. Step away from the counter, sir, please. You need to step away.”

You can read all of chapter 1 and chapter 2 online at the book’s official facebook page, HERE.

Additional Thoughts: Check out the pretty effective book trailer below:

Also, make sure to check out our very own Q&A with the master of horror himself, Peter Straub HERE.

Rating: 7 – Very Good

Reading Next: Except the Queen by Jane Yolen & Midori Snyder

On this edition of “Chat With An Author” we bring you the ineffable Peter Straub – horror author, poet, and occasional guest star on soap opera One Life to Live. It’s no secret we’re fans of Mr. Straub’s work (so far, Thea has talked two unsuspecting readers into writing reviews of his work), so when we were presented with the once in a lifetime opportunity to interview this prolific author, we jumped at the opportunity!

Here to talk about his new novel, A Dark Matter, ladies and gents please give it up for Peter Straub!

The Book Smugglers: First and foremost, thanks for taking the time to “chat” with us! A Dark Matter is your newest horror novel, about a group of teen friends in the 1960s who follow a charismatic college campus guru and unleash a cataclysmic evil that forever changes them. What was the creative impetus behind writing A Dark Matter? What inspired this book?

Peter: The book began when I started to remember some strange, fraudulent but charismatic men who wandered through Madison, WI, in the mid-sixties. They had mysterious, prophetic things to say; they had studied mystic texts and traveled through exotic lands; it was their self-imposed task to impart their wisdom to younger minds. It was their unacknowledged task to live for free at their acolytes’ expense, to stay in their apartments, drink their liquor, appropriate their clothes and their girlfriends, and to take drugs.

The Book Smugglers: A Dark Matter seems to flow organically from your past work, incorporating elements from your earlier novels and building upon them. In particular, A Dark Matter uses the same varied character perspectives and metafiction-style devices that you’ve used in your Blue Rose Trilogy (Koko, Mystery, The Throat). You’re a writer that doesn’t seem to be afraid to experiment and push the narrative/structural envelope. Do you ever fear that readers (or those gorgon-esque reviewers) may not “get” your writing?

Peter: Some don’t, of course. For two decades anyhow, a certain class of reader has been complaining that my books are too slow, that the payoff isn’t instant, and that too much is going on. Who needs all this stuff, they say, and what good is it in the first place? I can’t worry about these people; they already have plenty of writers who give them exactly what they want. What I want to do is to reach the readers who have not as yet given me a try, and to give the readers I already have, whom I love beyond measure, work that is as good as they deserve it to be.

The Book Smugglers: On that note, the actual structure of A Dark Matter is pretty unconventional – the book unfolds through stories and collected memories. Many early reviews liken A Dark Matter to Akira Kurosawa’s classic mystery film Rashomon, and for good reason. Why did you experiment with this new eccentric structure in this book? Did any other films or books like Rashomon influence A Dark Matter?

Peter: To tell you the truth, I never thought of the Kurosawa film. Nor was it influenced by any other film, actually. It just came to me, after years of wondering where this ship was headed, that it was going to move from one version of the event in October, 1966, to another, maybe three in all, and that these different versions would reflect the characters and ambitions of the people who delivered them. So, it seemed to me though I had never planned to do this, that the book would have three endings, one after the other, with the last being the best, truest, and most comprehensive. It is a very odd structure, I know – in fact the structure is like this: a summarized introduction; an interpolated short story; some left-field speculations about evil; and three endings. This is perfectly nuts, it shouldn’t work; but it seemed to work anyhow. I liked it, I thought it read in a very satisfactory and involving manner.

The Book Smugglers: Your books, A Dark Matter included, explore horror of a psychological and supernatural nature, and also manage to traverse the Never Never Land between “genre” and “literary” fiction – a gap that has claimed many an author in its unfathomable depths. How do your books appeal to both genre fiction fans and the literary types?

Peter: We shall see. It seldom seems to me that I actually have made the wonderful genre crossover that I felt was the actual heart of the particular novel I was writing—or, more accurately, that hardly anyone noticed what I was at least trying to bring off. Reviewers all described my books as works of horror, and that was that.

The Book Smugglers: Many of your novels (particularly those books in your Blue Rose Trilogy) use unreliable narrators – a favorite technique that we love reading here at The Book Smugglers. Why do you use this type of narrator in your writing? Do you have any particular favorite unreliable narrators in fiction?

Peter: Well, in actual life, every single narrator you meet, including you and me, is as unreliable as can be. Everybody shapes and shaves experience while describing it, everybody frames himself or herself in a better, stronger role and in a more flattering light than may truly have been the case. We can’t help doing this, it’s how we are built. So the unreliable narrator is no more than an aspect of psychological realism. It is extremely interesting, however, to come across narrators who do not understand that they are telling very partial or inaccurate “truths,” also narrators who tell deliberate untruths because lying to the reader and the other characters in the best way to get what they want.

My favorites would be the narrator of The Good Soldier, Ford Madox Ford, and The Sacred Fount, Henry James.

The Book Smugglers: You’re most well known for your work in the horror genre (with five Bram Stoker awards under your belt), but you’re also a poet with several published collections. You’ve also written and edited collections of short stories, won the prestigious World and British Fantasy Awards, and have had a recurring guest role on a soap opera. Basically, you do it all. Do you have a favorite genre or medium to write or create in?

Peter: I’m in love with the novel, and have been since my teens. And because I love genre work but think it need have none of the limitations generally associated with it, it is very gratifying to me that so many younger writers have moved right into the gap you mention above, and without worrying at all about it, mix horror/fantasy and general literature into one wonderful thing: Kelly Link, Michael Chabon, Graham Joyce, Kevin Brockmeier, Dan Chaon, Brian Evenson. They’re great.

The Book Smugglers: Who are some of your favorite and/or most influential authors?

Peter: Apart from those I just named, I could list James, Hawthorn, Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Iris Murdoch, Muriel Spark, Donald Harington, Raymond Chandler, Dennis Lehane, Philip Roth, David Plante, Bradford Morrow, John Ashbery, Fernando Pessoa, Stephen King, Roberto Bolano, Rodrigo Fresan, John Langan, Sarah Langan, John Crowley, and a lot of others.

The Book Smugglers: You’ve collaborated with Stephen King in the truly excellent books The Talisman and Black House. [An aside: When you and Stephen King start tossing ideas around, we imagine its something like the proton-pack streams being crossed in Ghostbusters (i.e. unfathomably beautiful and universe-ending dangerous).] How does the two-author collaborative book writing process compare to writing a book on your own?

Peter: With Steve King, the difference is liked being carried along in a big, perfectly-tuned Italian sports car capable of hitting 150 without getting the shakes and humping along on a touchy old motorcycle that slams into every bump and hole and conks out every ten miles or so. That’s the difference, pretty much. I’m the old motorcycle.

The Book Smugglers: The Talisman has recently been released in comic book format – do you read comics? Did you have a say in the art direction or publication process of the comic book adaptation?

Peter: I read graphic novels, a lot of them, and got into them through Neil Gaiman’s Sandman books. With my dear “One Life to Live“ friend, Michael Easton, I wrote a long, hairy graphic novel called The Green Woman, which was illustrated by John Bolton and will come out from DC/Vertigo later this year. Michael and I are very proud of this book.

With The Talisman comic, Steve and I were consulted at every step in the pricess, and continue to be so.

The Book Smugglers: We hear rumors that a third book in The Talisman arc is in the works – is this true? What other writing projects do you have simmering?

Peter: At some point in the next year or so, Steve King and I will begin pondering the third and last Jack Sawyer story. Nothing else is simmering, except for the vague outlines of a story set in Victorian England and the present day.

The Book Smugglers: The zombies are coming! The zombies are coming! You only have time to save ONE book, ONE movie, and ONE TV show. QUICK! What are they?

Peter: Oh, grump, I hate zombie, but here goes, anyhow: The Ambassadors, Franny and Alexander, and The Wire.

The Book Smugglers: We Book Smugglers are faced with constant threats and criticisms from our significant others concerning the sheer volume of books we purchase and read – hence, we have resorted to ’smuggling books’ home to escape scrutinizing eyes. Have you ever had to smuggle books?

Peter: No, I long ago gave up having to smuggle books into my house, and now they pour in through the doors every day. I just completely gave up guilt for buying books and music.

Peter Straub is the New York Times bestselling author of more than a dozen novels. Two of his most recent, Lost Boy Lost Girl and In the Night Room, are winners of the Bram Stoker Award, as is his recent collection, 5 Stories. Straub was the editor of the two-volume Library of America anthology The American Fantastic Tale. He lives in New York City.

We’d like to extend a huge THANK YOU to Peter Straub for taking the time to “chat” with us! For more information about Peter Straub, make sure to visit his website, www.peterstraub.net. And make sure to stick around as later today we review his newest novel, A Dark Matter.

Today, we welcome you to our very own launch party for the third novel in Lisa McMann’s “Wake” trilogy! First, we offer a double feature review of Fade and Gone. Then, we invite YOU dear readers to enter our international giveaway for the chance to win one of TEN copies of Gone!

Fade (Book 2 in the “Wake” Trilogy)

Publisher: Simon Pulse
Publication Date: February 2009
Hardcover: 256 Pages

For Janie and Cabel, real life is getting tougher than the dreams. They’re just trying to carve out a little (secret) time together, but no such luck. Disturbing things are happening at Fieldridge High, yet nobody’s talking. When Janie taps into a classmate’s violent nightmares, the case finally breaks open–but nothing goes as planned. Not even close. Janie’s in way over her head, and Cabe’s shocking behavior has grave consequences for them both.

Worse yet, Janie learns the truth about herself and her ability. And it’s bleak. Seriously, brutally bleak. Not only is her fate as a Dream Catcher sealed, but what’s to come is way darker than she’d even feared…

REVIEW: Fade picks up where Wake leaves off, following Janie and Cabel as they delve headfirst into another undercover sting at Fieldridge High. The police force follows up on an anonymous lead that a teacher may be having an illicit, sexual relationship with students, with Janie accepting the role as point-person – i.e. bait. As Janie struggles to discover the identity of the sleazy teacher, she also has a lot to deal with, personally. She juggles her growing relationship with Cabel (which must be kept secret from her friends and the student body, lest they blow their cover) with her own growing understanding of her power as a Dreamcatcher. With Miss Stubin’s old police files and journals to help guide her, Janie comes to terms with some of the hard truths about her very unique abilities – both good and bad.

Lisa McMann really puts Janie and Cabel through the grinder with this second book. In Wake, she introduced readers to Janie’s unique ability to enter the dreams of anyone sleeping near her – a curse Janie has to bear, which means she’s constantly tired, hungry, and isolated. Though Janie has had her “power” since she was eight years old, she doesn’t know much about it (other than how drastically it interferes with her ability to lead a normal life). In Fade, Ms. McMann explores the implications of being a Dreamcatcher in much more detail, creating a heartbreaking future for Janie and Cable. And I mean heartbreaking. This is heavy stuff. I loved that Ms. McMann doesn’t shy away from the gritty in this second novel – the characters speak like teens (swearing, believable slang, etc), they drink, they have sex. The sleazier elements of teacher-student relationships and date rape are also examined in an unflinching way, and I really appreciated that that (as horrifying as it is to read).

Again, the strength of Fade (as with Wake) lies with Janie and her relationship with Cabel. I love the natural progression with these two characters! They have disagreements and misunderstandings, but are undoubtably in love with each other, and I love that their relationship is changing and growing as they spend more time together. While Cabel’s character isn’t given as much insight as with the first book and he does feel a bit “support system”-y (i.e. he’s always – only – there to pick Janie up when she falls), there IS some significant development in his believability as a character. At least, there is to me. Whereas in the first book, Cabel came across as the typical too good to be true hawt dude with a troubled past that of COURSE is always there for Janie no matter what, in this second novel, you see some chinks in his perfection. He has to realize that Janie is an independent, intelligent young woman who wants to help, even if it means putting herself in dangerous situations. And when Cabel tries to go all alpha and protect her from herself (yecch, I abhor this type of “hero” behavior), Janie calls him on it…and he gets it. That’s a good thing.

There’s also another marked improvement in Fade from Wake – the revelations about the nature of her gift. Some of those questions that weren’t asked in the prior book are addressed here, in particular about the future that awaits young Janie. With Miss Stubin’s notes (and her spectral, from-the-grave dream guide persona) to guide her, Janie has a very dramatic decision to make that will change her life. This also means that the stage is set for some serious drama in Gone…

The only problem I had with Fade, as with Wake was how silly and implausible the Janie and Cabel working as super secret agents for a very well funded and influential branch of the Michigan police department. It’s a little too TV movie for me. But, with the strength of Janie’s character and the difficult issues she must grapple with, I was more than willing to suspend my disbelief in the sillier (and more trivial) aspects of the story.

Much better, more complicated and heartbreaking than Wake, Fade is a smart, sharp book. Highly recommended – if you were underwhelmed with book 1, I beg you to give book 2 an honest shot.

Notable Quotes/Parts: From Chapter 1:

Chapter 1
A NEW YEAR

January 1, 2006, 1:31 a.m.

Janie sprints through the snowy yards from two streets away and slips quietly through the front door of her house.

And then.

Everything goes black.

She grips her head, cursing her mother under her breath as the whirling kaleidoscope of colors builds and throws her off balance. She bumps against the wall and holds on, and then slowly lowers herself blindly to the floor as her fingers go numb. The last thing she needs is to crack her head open. Again.

She’s too tired to fight it right now. Too tired to pull herself out of it. Plants her cheek on the cold tile floor. Gathers her strength so she can try later, in case the dream doesn’t end quickly.

Breathes.

Watches.

You can read the full chapter online HERE.

Rating: 7 – Very Good

Gone (Book 3 in the “Wake” Trilogy)

Publisher: Simon Pulse
Publication Date: February 2010
Hardcover: 224 Pages

Janie thought she knew what her future held. And she thought she’d made her peace with it. But she can’t handle dragging Cabel down with her.

She knows he will stay with her, despite what she sees in his dreams. He’s amazing. And she’s a train wreck. Janie sees only one way to give him the life he deserves—she has to disappear. And it’s going to kill them both.

Then a stranger enters her life–and everything unravels. The future Janie once faced now has an ominous twist, and her choices are more dire than she’d ever thought possible. She alone must decide between the lesser of two evils. And time is running out….

REVIEW:

NOTE: This review contains SPOILERS for the first two books in the trilogy. If you have not yet read Wake and Fade, and if you do not wish to be spoiled for these two books, READ NO FURTHER. You have been warned…

Gone is the last book in the Wake trilogy, in which Janie comes to terms with the biggest decision of her life. She faces a traumatic, all around shitty decision: to stay with Cabel, to be loved, to continue with her work for the Police Force and go blind and lose the use of her hands….or to isolate herself, giving up Cabel but keeping her sight and dexterity. Janie loves Cabel and he loves her, but she knows from his horrifying nightmares every night that he has his own doubts and fears about Janie’s future (and how his future will be affected by her crippling disability). During the day, he doesn’t betray even the slightest hint of doubt, and Janie feels so very alone – because the love of her life can only be honest to her in his dreams. Then, she gets a frantic message from her best friend and neighbor, Carrie – her father, a man she has never known, lies in the hospital and is very near death.

Gone is a worthy close to this trilogy, and is a very different animal than the first two books. While books 1 and 2 were centered on detective work/high school police stings with Cabel and Janie working undercover, this final book is much more introspective and focused on Janie’s abilities and her future (which makes it all the better, in my opinion). There is the mystery of who Janie’s father was before his debilitating injury, but Gone is really much more a book of answers and revelations, and, ultimately, of choices. Janie must choose between a hard road of love (always feeling that she’s holding back Cabe or making him resent her) or cutting herself off from the rest of the world entirely. It is, as one character puts it, Janie’s “Morton’s Fork” – a choice between two impossible alternatives.

In Gone, everything comes full circle. We learn what happened to Janie’s sad, alcoholic mother – a seed planted in the first book (one I had since been dying to see more of). In Gone, all answers are given. This is a HARD book. One thing Ms. McMann does so brilliantly throughout the trilogy is convey how very tough and messed up Janie (and Cabel’s) lives are, and I cannot help but feel for these two characters. I feel for them, but I admire them too – Cabel and Janie’s relationship goes to a whole new level in this book with Cabel’s subconscious doubts and fears (all extremely valid, all things considered). He becomes more real and believable as a character and I finally “buy” him in this third book because he’s no longer a too good to be true, completely selfless hot boyfriend. And Janie is fantastic as well, coming face to face with her own greatest fears and making the only decision she can with the hand she has been dealt.

The revelations are wonderful and the book ends the trilogy in a very smart way. It’s bittersweet, but just so…fitting. It couldn’t have been any other way. I’m glad that the trilogy doesn’t end with Janie magically all better and all her issues resolved in a sparkle of rainbows and living happily ever after with nary a worry in the world. I have mad respect for Lisa McMann, for continuing to go there. This is a far more mature book than Wake, and it is good to see Janie come full circle.

The Wake Trilogy, in this reader’s opinion, is one that just gets better with each subsequent book – and it’s a story arc that grows on you, the longer you think about it. Absofreakinglutely, highly recommended.

Notable Quotes/Parts: From the official excerpt:

Janie and Cabel move carefully through the hallways, watching for open doors. She gets caught in a weak dream but only for a few seconds—she barely even has to pause in step. They stand outside Henry’s room, Janie’s hand tense on the handle.

Static and shockingly bright colors. Janie nearly crumples to her knees, but this time she is more prepared. She steps blindly toward the bed and Cabel helps her safely to the floor as her head pounds with noise. It’s more intense than ever.

Just when Janie thinks her eardrums are going to burst, the static dulls and the scene flickers to a woman in the dark once again. It’s the same woman as the day before, Janie’s certain, though she can’t make out any distinguishing features. And then Janie sees that the man is there too. He’s in the shadows, sitting on a chair, watching the woman. He turns, looks at Janie and blinks. His eyes widen and he sits up straighter in his chair.

“Help me!” he pleads.

And then, like a broken filmstrip, the picture cuts out and the static is back, louder than ever, constant screams in her ears. Janie struggles, head pounding. Tries pulling out of the dream, but she can’t focus – the static is messing up her ability to concentrate.

She’s flopping around on the floor now. Straining.

Thinks Cabel is there, holding her, but she can’t feel anything now.

The bright colors slam into her eyes, into her brain, into her body. The static is like pinpricks in every pore of her skin.

She’s trapped.

Trapped in the nightmare of a man who can’t wake up.

Janie struggles again, feeling like she’s suffocating now. Feeling like if she doesn’t get out of this mess, she might die here. Cabe! She screams in her head. Get me out of here!

But of course he can’t hear her.

Rating: 8 – Excellent

GIVEAWAY DETAILS:

Courtesy of publisher Simon Pulse, we have TEN copies of Gone up for grabs! The contest is open to everyone and will run until Saturday, February 13th at 11:59 PM (PST). To enter, leave a comment here answering this question: If you were faced with your own “Morton’s Fork” – living with Janie’s ability as a Dreamcatcher, or completely isolating yourself from other slumbering people – what would you choose?

Good luck!

Title: Mr. Shivers

Author: Robert Jackson Bennett

Genre: Horror, Historical Fiction

Publisher: Orbit
Publication Date: January 2010
Hardcover: 336 pages

Stand alone or series: Stand alone novel

How did I get this book: Review Copy from the publisher

Why did I read this book: Ever since I saw the mockup of the haunting cover and read the synopsis from Orbit, I was instantly hooked. Billed as an apocalyptic-style horror novel set during the American Great Depression (one of my favorite periods of study as a history major), I could not resist.

Summary: (from Amazon.com)
It is the time of the Great Depression. The dustbowl has turned the western skies red and thousands leave their homes seeking a better life. Marcus Connelly seeks not a new life, but a death – a death for the mysterious scarred man who murdered his daughter. And soon he learns that he is not alone. Countless others have lost someone to the scarred man. They band together to track him, but as they get closer, Connelly begins to suspect that the man they are hunting is more than human. As the pursuit becomes increasingly desperate, Connelly must decide just how much he is willing to sacrifice to get his revenge.

Review:

Mr. Shivers was easily one of the most highly anticipated novels of early 2010 for me – the blend of horror, gritty realism, and the bleakness of the Great Depression setting instantly appealed to me, and I was ecstatic when I received an ARC for the title. Add to that the overwhelmingly positive reviews from the heavy-hitters like Publisher’s Weekly, the Guardian, and Library Journal, and I was one very excited girl.

Unfortunately, Mr. Shivers simply could not deliver. All sound and fury, but ultimately with little to say, I found myself hollowly disengaged and sadly disappointed with this debut novel from Mr. Robert Jackson Bennett.

Marcus Connelly (simply referred to throughout the book as Connelly) is a man that has lost everything. His young daughter has been killed by a mysterious, legend of a man whose face is marred by three long scars. Unable to move on with his life, Connelly’s marriage deteriorates, and he decides to leave to find – and exact revenge – on the gray man that murdered his daughter, the man that the hobos riding the rails call “the Shiver Man.” All Connelly knows is that he must travel west and he makes his way across an arid, devastated American landscape, from Tennessee to Oklahoma, hitching rides and stowing away on trains with other men in search of a better future. Along the way, Connelly learns that he is not alone in his quest as he comes across another trio of men out for blood, payment for the wake of death and destruction left in the scarred man’s path. As the group closes in their pursuit, hot on the Shiver Man’s trail, they gradually begin to realize he may not be any mere man – and Connelly learns, all but too late, that all revenge comes at an unimaginable cost.

Mr. Shivers is the debut novel from Robert Jackson Bennett, and it has a wicked good premise – at its onset, Mr. Shivers is a strong, attention-grabbing novel. The initial descriptions of the Depression-ravaged landscape, complete with Hoovervilles, dust storms, and the constant presence of the railroad are evocative and well-painted, as is the desolate, gray mood of the novel. Indeed, Mr. Shivers begins with a bang, banking on the strength of its morose setting. The historical perspective feels a little shaky at times (with regard to slang/colloquialisms and geography), but Mr. Bennett’s atmosphere in the novel is undeniably compelling. However, as the story unfolds, it’s very easy to see where it is going to end up. There’s a good deal of predictability here, which is unfortunate for so strong a start and premise (barely within the book’s first act, the old adage about those seeking monsters becoming them immediately comes to mind). This isn’t a particularly bad thing, provided that the characters and level of writing are strong. Unfortunately, they weren’t.

As a protagonist, Connelly is simply drawn. He’s a very tall & broad, intimidating, bearded man that does not like to speak. In many ways, he’s empty; a husk following the death of his daughter. This characterization is actually quite effective, at least in the beginning, but Connelly never manifests any semblance of a personality or tone as a character, nor do any of the other secondary cast members in the book (who read like flat stereotypes: an ex-priest, a Jew, a brash young man). There’s absolutely nothing in the way of character development here, which, unfortunately is another point against Mr. Shivers. This, however, would have been forgivable had the writing been impeccable…but once again, I found myself disappointed.

Mr. Bennett’s writing style, unfortunately, comes across as self-indulgent. Every conversation Connelly has in this book (or rather, that he listens to, as he does not speak much), every extended section of descriptive prose feels so melodramatically self-important as to seem…well, silly and derivative. For example,

He looked up at the stars again and considered this spot on the land, this tree he sat under. These empty square feet of land had always been here, would always be here. To this place he was no more than a dream. And he wondered about those who had come before, wandering over the plains, treading this spot. People that came before nature. Animals that came before sunlight. Perhaps it had been so. He touched the coarse earth. Once something had died here. It was a fact of chance. Some animal had dragged itself to this spot or many had fallen, limbs askew, its lifeblood leaking onto the earth. And then perhaps it had lifted its thoughtless eyes to the infinity above, looked at the endless, bejeweled dark, just as Connelly was now, and made some sound, some mewling cry. Asking a question. Begging for a few seconds more. And then expired, maybe leaving its questions behind.

This is perhaps a matter of personal taste, but the constant presence of these sorts of passages throughout the book were grating and felt amateur, the work of an author trying very hard to sound poetic and significant but failing, at least to me as a reader. I also found myself uncomfortable with some of the more religious and patriotic undertones to the novel, but this is, again, a matter of personal taste.

Mr. Shivers is also distinctly reminiscent of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods (Connelly is a character very similar to Shadow, and the traveling story and American backdrop is also very familiar), as it is of early Stephen King (in particular, The Gunslinger with Roland’s ages-old pursuit of The Man in Black versus Conelly’s Man in Gray). Unfortunately, Mr. Shivers lacks the resonance or skill of these two master storytellers, and the end result is something more derivative and bland. There are good ideas in this book, but Mr. Bennett stumbles, lacking in the execution of these ideas. The plot is cumbersome and the writing overwrought. I finished Mr. Shivers with an overall feeling of disappointment.

All these criticisms said, Mr. Bennett clearly does have promise as an author. This is only his debut novel (which probably accounts for the feeling that he’s trying too hard in this book), and there is potential here. Ultimately, Mr. Shivers isn’t a great book, but it’s not a terrible one either.

Notable Quotes/Parts: From Chapter 1:

By the time the number nineteen crossed the Missouri state line the sun had crawled low in the sky and afternoon was fading into evening. The train had built up a wild head of steam over the last few miles. As Tennessee fell behind it began picking up speed, the wheels chanting and chuckling, the ?elds blurring into jaundice- yellow streaks by the track. A fresh gout of black smoke unfurled from the train’s crown and folded back to clutch the cars like a great black cloak.

Connelly shut his eyes as the wave of smoke ?ew toward him and held on tighter to the side of the cattle car. He wasn’t sure how long he had been hanging there. Maybe a half hour. Maybe more. The crook of his arm was curled around one splintered slat of wood and he had wedged his boots into the cracks below. Every joint in his body ached.

You can read the full excerpt online HERE.

Additional Thoughts: Mr. Shivers has a pretty cool interactive website, which is definitely worth checking out. Also worth taking a look at is the haunting book trailer:

Verdict: Though I was eagerly anticipating this novel, Mr. Shivers failed to live up to the hype. Not without its merits, this is the type of book that may sing to some readers, but, unfortunately, I am not one of them. A plodding, predictable plot, flat characters, and overly-dramatic writing made this a forgettable read for me – though I will give Mr. Bennett’s future endeavors a try.

Rating: 5 – Meh

Reading Next: Need by Carrie Jones

Title: Beautiful Creatures

Author: Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

Genre: Fantasy, Gothic, Romance, Young Adult

Publisher: Little, Brown (Hachette)
Publication Date: December 2009
Hardcover: 576 pages

Stand alone or series: Book 1, with a sequel underway

How did we get this book: Review Copy from the Publisher

Why did we read this book: Even though it was just released this month, Beautiful Creatures is making its way on numerous best-of 2009 lists – and everyone from authors and bloggers alike are singing its praises! And thus, we Book Smugglers had to check it out before the end of the year…

Summary: (from amazon.com)
There were no surprises in Gatlin County.

We were pretty much the epicenter of the middle of nowhere.

At least, that’s what I thought.

Turns out, I couldn’t have been more wrong.

There was a curse.

There was a girl.

And in the end, there was a grave.

Lena Duchannes is unlike anyone the small Southern town of Gatlin has ever seen, and she’s struggling to conceal her power and a curse that has haunted her family for generations. But even within the overgrown gardens, murky swamps and crumbling graveyards of the forgotten South, a secret cannot stay hidden forever.Ethan Wate, who has been counting the months until he can escape from Gatlin, is haunted by dreams of a beautiful girl he has never met. When Lena moves into the town’s oldest and most infamous plantation, Ethan is inexplicably drawn to her and determined to uncover the connection between them.

In a town with no surprises, one secret could change everything.

REVIEW:

First Impressions:

Thea: I’m torn when it comes to Beautiful Creatures. I started the book with high hopes, ready to immerse myself in a southern gothic – and it was a kind of uneven experience. I found myself enthralled at parts of the story, but skeptical and disengaged for large chunks of the novel. I liked the idea of Beautiful Creatures, but the execution was somewhat lacking. Still, the atmospheric nature of the novel and intriguing premise made it a worthwhile – albeit slightly disappointing – read.

Ana: I experienced a wide range of emotions while reading Beautiful Creatures. I started out extremely excited, with high expectations given the amount of universal praise it received ( I even thought it could make my top 10 of 2009) but as soon as I started to read I felt an overwhelming feeling of annoyance which I believe, came from recognition – where did I read this plot before? It didn’t last long though, as the story proved to be quite original. I then proceeded to alternate between being mildly bored and extremely intrigued. I really liked the mystery and the setting but at the same time I did not connect with the characters. Such fluctuation in my reading experience, is I believe, a reflection of an uneven book with both good and …not so good points.

On the Plot:

Ethan Wate has lived in small town Gaitlin for his entire life – and though Gaitlin runs through his veins, he feels a dissatisfaction with his life as it is, and longs for escape. Then, when new girl Lena Deschannes moves to town, everything changes. Lena, a beautiful girl who refuses to try out for cheerleading and defies Gaitlin “cool” classification, is unlike anyone that Ethan’s met before. And it gets even stranger – she also happens to be the girl that has been haunting his dreams and nightmares for weeks. Lena and Ethan are inexplicably linked, and as they grow closer, they must work together to fight jealous classmates, suspicious guardians, and an age-old curse that threatens to destroy them.

Thea: In my opinion, the plotting is the strongest part of this novel. Though the pacing is uneven – far too little time spent on actual action versus far too much time spent on separation angst – the actual mystery surrounding Lena and Ethan is expertly conceived and tantalizingly executed. At face-value, Beautiful Creatures is a normal boy meets supernatural girl story, with a Romeo and Juliet sort of separation sensibility. But there’s also another layer to the story – the nature of the attraction between Ethan and Lena, and the curse that plagues them. I loved the rich history in the book, how the story would jump from present day to supernatural flashbacks, and the family saga of hurt and dark secrets for both the Wates and Duchannes’/Ravenwood families.

So far as worldbuilding is concerned, the novel also shines. Gaitlin is such a flawed yet completely believable small town, steeped in its own core values and quirks, filled to the brim with its own secrets. The Civil War reenactments, the Southern Pride, and the scenes in which the town stands solidly against anything and anyone who poses a threat as “different” are all resonating, powerful images.

Also I loved the idea of “casters” and mortals, and the spin that in this book the supernatural one is the girl, and the underpowered mortal narrator the boy. It may seem insignificant, but there are so many stories on the YA market told from the mortal girl (see Stephenie Myer’s Twilight) or superpowered girl (see Aprilynne Pike’s Wings) perspective – and this choice of narrator allows Beautiful Creatures to stand out in a sea of homogeneity.

But…there were significant problems, especially in terms of pacing and believability. The high points were enough to keep me reading, but the dragging fifty-plus page chunks on teen “does she like me too?” angst really threw a wrench into my reading experience. Then, there’s the problem of narrative voice and some questionable writing choices (in particular, Lena’s lyrics were pretty ham-handed/super-cheesy)…but more on that in the next section.

Ana: The plotting and the setting were definitely the highlights of the novel. The former was gripping and left me guessing and interested to the very end and the latter provided the excellent atmosphere, with a Southern feel that I could almost touch. The small town framing to the novel was very well done and I felt suffocating along with Ethan, a feeling that only grew in a crescendo as he got to know his neighbours better. There is the rich story connected with the Civil War, and which appeared in the book via current day town enactments and flashbacks to the past and I really enjoyed reading that. As for the plotting, it reads a lot like a Mystery novel with the suspense behind the curse that plagues Lena’s family and Lena herself. I liked how Ethan and Lena combined to investigate the reason behind the curse and to find a way out of it.

Another thing that I absolutely adored was the fact that there was not a vampire or fallen angel in sight ( I am honestly burnt out) and I loved the mythology surrounding the Casters and their powers which was definitely original.

My overall impression surrounding the plot and the execution of the story is a very positive one. I was very impressed with the final pages and the conclusion (for now) of the storyline – I particularly liked how things played out in the end with the idea of consequences to one’s actions and decisions being present and with the authors following through with the high stakes as expected. I felt there was no coup out here and for that I am grateful.

It is a shame that for all that there was good about the plot and the setting, I did not connect with any of the characters.

On the Characters:

Thea: This is where I struggled the most with Beautiful Creatures. The most glaring flaw in the novel is the inconsistent narrative voice – that is, Ethan’s voice. This is supposed to be a sixteen year old male, but there is NOTHING about this character that feels or reads like an adolescent boy. He’ll spend hours cuddling and chastely kissing Lena, admiring her ethereal beauty…but never once does pop a stiffy or even think about sex. Which, for anyone that has lived through adolescence, can probably deduce is a load of crap – especially from the male perspective. The level of chastity in the book is eye-roll inducing, and its attempts to completely circumnavigate any level of sexuality are painfully obvious, and even a little insulting to the target audience (read: teens aren’t sexless. They can handle it. Trust me).

Beyond the lack of sex, the other issue I had was how off-kilter all the character reactions seemed. WHY would these families keep such secrets from their children, when clearly keeping them in the dark isn’t helping anyone? Why would Ethan let his best friend date someone that is truly, heinously evil without warning him? Why, why, why!? I found myself increasingly frustrated with how dense and insulated these characters could be, none moreso than Ethan and Lena themselves.

Ana: This is where the novel did not work for me in the end and explains the way I felt reading it. Part of me was really interested in what was happening but at the same time I was feeling strangely unresponsive to Beautiful Creatures – for I did not really care for the characters and what would ultimately happen to them.

When I read a book I want to be able to at least understand the characters’ actions even if I might not agree with them. I want to be able to relate or to like or even dislike a character intensively. But I felt oddly detached and I think it comes from poor characterisation.

Take the narrator for example. The book has such rich descriptions of the town and life in small town however, I cannot tell you what Ethan looks like. I have no idea. I know he has emo hair and wears old t-shirts and is tallish but other than that – he is sort of non-descript.

Furthermore he is a 16 year old boy but I had a hard time believing he was a teenager OR a boy. Thea is spot on on her assessment of the weird chasteness of the book. We are talking about a BOY who is making out with a girl he thinks is the epitome of HOTNESS and there is one scene where they are under the covers kissing ONLY for what seems to be hours and yet there is not a mention of a hard-on or frustration. Am I to believe this? I can believe if he chooses not to act upon these feelings for any number of reasons but I can’t believe that the physical aspect, the physical, normal reaction was not even mentioned. Nada, niente. That just reads wrong to me and unbelievable.

I also had a hard time buying some of the character’s actions. I did several double takes, quite a few times whilst reading the book. I couldn’t believe how Ethan just didn’t do anything when his best friend went away with someone he KNEW was EVIL and possibly conspiring to kill his girlfriend. His reasoning was that Link wouldn’t believe him: yes, because that trumps his best friend possibly being in DANGER by going out with a lunatic! In the beginning, before Ethan knew anything, before he even knew Lena, he has these nightmares and he wakes up with mud in his hands and he doesn’t think much of it? doesn’t talk to anyone? Isn’t that weird? I would be SO FREAKED OUT if I woke up from nightmares with the mud that was in the dream now stuck in my hands.

I also didn’t understand how everybody in this town and in Ethan’s life were so meddlesome and yet, no one, no one was concerned about his father who spent his days in pyjamas, and closed in his study and nothing was done about it until it was too late.

Plus, some things were way too convenient. Like Marian, the librarian being Someone Important who OH NOES, could not really help them.

I don’t feel like I really know any of the characters including Lena and her uncle Macon who were the characters I felt had a lot potential and yet I thought were unfortunately underdeveloped.

And I am not going to mention the way the adults kept the kids in the dark in a LIFE AND DEATH situation because in that way lies madness.

Final Thoughts, Observations & Rating:

Thea: Uneven, but not without its high points. Even though there was a problem of believability and off-kilter pacing, Beautiful Creatures still was a compelling read that’s memorable enough to recommend to fans of YA supernatural romance of the Twilight variety.

Ana: Despite my problems with the characters, I felt compelled to read on in order to know more about the history of the families and the overall mystery. I think there were quite a few good ideas in this book although the characterisation needs working. Perhaps in the sequel?

Notable Quotes/Parts:

The Middle of Nowhere

There were only two kinds of people in out town. “The stupid and the stuck,” my father had affectionately classified our neighbors. “The ones who are bound to stay or too dumb to go. Everyone else find a way out.” There was no question which one he was, but I’d never had the courage to ask why. My father was a writer, and we lived in Gatlin, South Carolina, because the Wates always had, since my great-great-great-great-granddad, Ellis Wate, fought and died on the other side of the Santee Rover during the Civil War.
Only folks down here didn’t call it the Civil War. Everyone under the age of sixty called it the War Between the States, while everyone over sixty called it the War of Northern Aggression, as if somehow the North had baited the South into war over a bad bale of cotton. Everyone, that is, except my family. We called it the Civil War.
Just another reason I couldn’t wait to get out of here.
Gatlin wasn’t like the small towns you saw in the movies, unless it was movie from about fifty years ago. We were too far from Charleston to have a Starbucks or a McDonalds. All we had was a Dar-ee Keen, since the Gentrys were too cheap to buy all new letters when they bought the Dairy King. The library still had a card catalogue, the high school still had chalkboards, and our community pool was Lake Moultrie, warm brown water and all. You could see a movie at the Cineplex about the same time it came out on DVD, but you had to hitch a ride over to Summerville, by the community college. The shops were on Main, the good houses were on River, and everyone else lived south of Route 9, where the pavement disintegrated into chunky concrete stubble – terrible for walking, but perfect for throwing at angry possums, the meanest animals alive. You never saw that in the movies.
Gatlin wasn’t a complicated place; Gatlin was Gatlin.
The neighbors kept watch from their porches in the unbearable heat, sweltering in plain sight. But there was no point. Nothing ever changed. Tomorrow would be the first day of school, my sophomore year at Stonewall Jackson High, and I already knew everything that was going to happen – where I would sit, who would I talk to, the jokes, the girls, who would park where.
There were no surprises in Gatlin County. We were pretty much the epicentre of the middle of nowhere.
At least, that’s what I thought, when I closed my battered copy of Slaughterhouse-five, clicked off my iPod, and turned on the light on the last night of summer.
Turns out, I couldn’t have been more wrong.
There was a curse.
There was girl.
And in the end, there was a grave.
I never even saw it coming.

You can read an extended excerpt online HERE, or check out the audio excerpt HERE.

Additional Thoughts: For another, completely different opinion check out Kate Garrabrant’s review.

Rating:

Thea: 6 – Good

Ana: 6 – Good

Reading Next: It’s our Feats of Strength! Ana reads Naamah’s Kiss by Jacqueline Carey, and Thea takes on Practice Makes Perfect by Julie James

Today, we give you a supernatural double-shot of goodness, in the spirit of Smugglivus! First up, it’s the lyrical stylings of Ryan Mecum, followed by a zombified version of a holiday classic from Adam Roberts…

Vampire Haiku by Ryan Mecum

Publisher: How
Publication Date: August 2009
Paperback: 144 pages

Summary: (from amazon.com)
You hold in your hands a recently discovered poetry journal – the poetry journal of a vampire. William Butten was en route to a new land on the Mayflower when he was turned into a vampire by a fellow passenger, a beautiful woman named Katherine. These pages contain his heartbreaking story – the story of a vampire who has lived through (and perhaps caused) some of America’s defining events. As he travels the country and as centuries pass, he searches for his lost love and records his adventures and misadventures using the form of poetry known as haiku.

Read along, and you just may find a new appreciation for – and insight into – various events in American history. And blood.

Review:

Earlier this year, Ana and I read and reviewed Ryan Mecum’s delightful Zombie Haiku – and we liked it so much, we of course responded with alacrity when he invited us to review his new poetic book, Vampire Haiku.

Like Zombie Haiku, Vampire Haiku is written entirely in a series of haiku (that’s a three line poem, with 5-7-5 syllables per line), but tells an overall story. This novel is the poetic journal of a man named William Butten, a translatlantic passenger on the good ship Mayflower in 1620. En route, William meets a lovely married woman named Katherine – who isn’t exactly what she seems, as becomes clear to William when she drinks his blood and turns him into a vampire. Over the next few centuries, the vampire William documents his adventures, his conquests, and his love for Katherine in his journal (all in haiku form, of course).

And what can I say? Mr. Mecum does it again with his winsome Vampire Haiku, capturing a slightly different interpretation of American history through a vampire’s eyes. This slim, glossy book comes in a cool package – the interior of the book, the accompanying illustrations, photographs and blood spatters are gorgeously composed – and the haiku are as fun as ever. A few favorites:

The syllable count
for “vampire” is confusing.
Two? Three? I’ll guess two.

Blood tastes like cherries
mixed with a lot of copper
and way too much salt.

When a mosquito
pierces my neck and drinks blood,
is that irony?

I just saw Twilight.
It’s labeled a vampire film,
but I don’t know why.

These were not vampires.
If sunlight makes you sparkle,
you’re a unicorn.

Even better than the humor, though, is the unrequited love story between William and his Katherine over the ages – it adds a touch of bittersweet heartache to the book.

Though I think I still prefer Zombie Haiku (as a zombie fan first and foremost, this is a – pardon the lameness of the pun – “no brainer”), Vampire Haiku is a wonderful little book, and another solid entry from Ryan Mecum. Perfect for a stocking stuffer, or for someone looking for a quick, quirky pick-me-up. Definitely recommended.

Rating: 6 – Good

I Am Scrooge: A Zombie Story for Christmas by Adam Roberts

Publisher: Gollancz (UK)
Publication Date: October 2009
Hardcover: 160 pages

Summary: (amazon.com)

Marley was dead. Again. The legendary Ebenezeer Scrooge sits in his house counting money. The boards that he has nailed up over the doors and the windows shudder and shake under the blows from the endless zombie hordes that crowd the streets hungering for his flesh and his miserly braaaaiiiiiinns! Just how did the happiest day of the year slip into a welter of blood, innards and shambling, ravenous undead on the snowy streets of old London town? Will the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future be able to stop the world from drowning under a top-hatted and crinolined zombie horde? Was Tiny Tim’s illness something infinitely more sinister than mere rickets and consumption? Can Scrooge be persuaded to go back to his evil ways, travel back to Christmas past and destroy the brain stem of the tiny, irritatingly cheery Patient Zero? It’s the Dickensian Zombie Apocalypse – God Bless us, one and all!

Review:

Since the wild success of Seth Grahame-Smith’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies earlier this year (reviewed HERE), the taking of an established classic work of literature and zombifying it has become something of a trend. Adam Roberts’ I Am Scrooge: A Zombie Story for Christmas takes Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol and twists it into something a little more…silly (and by “silly” I mean bloody, gorey, and brains-y).

The basic story is thus: Ebeneezer Scrooge, the miserliest of misers, he of the “bah humbugs,” turns out to be the only person in the world immune to the encroaching zombie plague (which he discovers after a re-animated Marley bites him on his backside). On Christmas Eve, Scrooge is visited by three spirits (Present, Future and Past) for a specific purpose – to see the extent of the zombie plague, and to give him the motivation to stop it (by putting the maniacal mastermind behind the zombie outbreak to a preemptive death).

If you buy I Am Scrooge, you already know what you are getting into. This is a silly book that isn’t really about zombies as metaphor for human failings. It’s not George A. Romero. It’s not Kim Paffenroth or Robert Kirkpatrick. But, for what it is – a good, healthy dose of the ridiculous followed by a serving of Christmas Puddi-er-Brains – I Am Scrooge is wonderful. Mr. Roberts does not make the awkward mistake of trying to ape Charles Dickens’ prose (as Mr. Grahame-Smith attempted with Jane Austen), nor does he rely on A Christmas Carol too much. Instead, he takes the basic premise of the novel and writes a wry, brisk, slip of a book (it’s only 150 pages), that involves time travel, some famous author cameos, and the strategic location of Australia.

Seriously.

Add to that a sometimes-narrator that has fun with the english language, i.e:

‘Brains!’ moaned the beast, its arms flung wide as if in greeting. It writhed, slowly, jerkily, upon its wooden-knob of impalement. Of its impaling. Its impaleness. Of its Impellor.

Of its being impaled. Yes, I think that’s the right one.

…and you’ve got a party. I Am Scrooge is absurdism at its best – the final showdown will have you rolling your eyes, and yet strangely delighted. At least, I know I was delighted. I appreciated how off-the-wall silly this book was, and devoured it in a single sitting. It’s not War and Peace (or even A Christmas Carol) – but then again, it’s not meant to be. And for what it is, it rocks. Recommended, if you’re looking for silly, fast, and escapist. With brains.

Rating: 6 – Good

Reading Next: Raiders’ Ransom by Emily Diamand

Title: The Devil’s Alphabet

Author: Daryl Gregory

Genre: Horror, Science Fiction

Publisher: Del Rey
Publication Date: November 24, 2009
Paperback: 400 pages

Stand alone or series: Stand alone novel

How did I get this book: ARC from the publisher (via Sacramento Book Review)

Why did I read this book: Funny story, actually. I received an ARC for In Great Waters by Kit Whitfield – another upcoming title from Del Rey. Imagine my surprise when I opened the ARC and found an entirely different book inside! Instead of Ms. Whitfield’s novel about an alternate speculative fiction history, I found The Devil’s Alphabet by Daryl Gregory. While I do wish I had the chance to read In Great Waters, I was still excited as The Devil’s Alphabet was one of my highly anticipated reads for the year! So, while a major ARC Fail, I still got some goodness out of the misprint.

Summary: (from amazon.com)
From Daryl Gregory, whose Pandemonium was one of the most exciting debut novels in memory, comes an astonishing work of soaring imaginative power that breaks new ground in contemporary fantasy.

Having fled shortly after the pandemic, Pax now returns to Switchcreek fifteen years later, following the suicide of Jo Lynn. What he finds is a town seething with secrets, among which murder may well be numbered. But there are even darker–and far weirder–mysteries hiding below the surface that will threaten not only Pax’s future but the future of the whole human race.

Review:

Pax is, on the surface, a very average guy. Living in Chicago, working in a restaurant, Pax lives an average, normal, life. Until one day, he receives a message from back home telling him that one of his best friends, Jo Lynn, has died of an apparent suicide. Frightened but determined to at least pay his respects, Pax leaves for his hometown of Switchcreek, Tennessee, even though it means returning to a past he has distanced himself from for fifteen years. For all that Pax seems normal, his past is decidedly extraordinary, tied to his small, remote hometown. Switchcreek was a place like any other, until one fateful day when its inhabitants were stricken by a strange disease – some would die immediately, many would change, and only a few – like Pax – would remain untouched. This mysterious illness, called Transcription Divergence Syndrome (TDS) later by the government, remains a mystery to the outside world – as soon as TDS appeared in the town of Switchcreek, it vanished from the face of the planet. TDS proved non-contagious and oddly contained only to those initial residents of the town – those who became large, elongated “Argos,” those who became strangely hairless and self-reproducing “Betas,” and those who became impossibly obese “Charlies.”

When Pax, a rare “skip” (one of those who remained human, and who has “skipped” town), returns, he discovers a past that has been patiently waiting for him, that refuses to give him back up to the outside world. Every small town has its share of dirty work and secrets, and soon Pax learns that Switchcreek is no exception – with the truth about the dead Jo Lynn as only the tip of the iceberg. Between the strange new divisions between the three conclaves within the changed town, a dangerous and lucrative narcotic drug, and the possible spread of TDS, Pax faces a hard past and an even more difficult future.

I really, really wanted to love The Devil’s Alphabet. The cover and the intriguing premise had me, hook line and sinker. A mysterious disease that transforms the inhabitants of a small town; family angst and lost friendships; an in-depth evaluation of the meaning of humanity – what’s not to love?! Then, when I learned this sophomore novel from Daryl Gregory made it on Publisher’s Weekly’s Top Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror picks for 2009, I was even more excited to dig in. Sadly, The Devil’s Alphabet never lives up to this promise, lacking the cohesion of its admittedly strong ideas and themes.

At first glance, The Devil’s Alphabet seems to be a coming-home drama with a Stephen King-like flair. There’s a murder mystery, an estranged father and son relationship turned upside down by a bizarre addiction, a government conspiracy, internal power struggles between the different conclaves of non-humans, and an overarching theory of alternate parallel universes. While these disparate ideas are fantastic on their own, when thrown together into a single book these separate parts never quite click. The Devil’s Apprentice isn’t sure what it wants to be, switching scale from small-town drama to pseudo-science fiction thriller, creating an overall effect that is awkwardly paced and slightly schizophrenic. Following different characters in their separate schemes, from Pax’s past ghosts (unleashed through his addiction to a pus secretion from his father’s Charlie-transformed body called “the vintage,” a drug that produces a narcotic effect), Deke’s frustration at the Argo inability to reproduce, to the deceptively ruthless machinations of town mayor Rhonda, the story stumbles and plods along unevenly throughout. The entire drug/addiction storyline with “the vintage” (produced only by elderly Charlie-transformed men) is essentially pointless (besides perhaps evoking a disgusting reversal of a child’s reliance on a parent’s bodily secretions – simply substitute mother’s milk with father’s heroin-filled pustules). The suicide/murder plot is hardly a mystery; certainly, it’s not enthralling enough to keep readers engaged and on their toes. The most intriguing plotline by far is in the novel’s second act, when a larger city in Ecuador suffers a massive outbreak of TDS – the government, doctors and folks in Switchcreek postulate what could have caused a non-contagious disease to suddenly flare up in an entirely separate location, and what the possible ramifications may be. Even with this intriguing thread, however, the story suffers from clunky dialogue and pseudo-sci-fi posturings about parallel mirroring universes. Moving along in more stalls than starts, I found myself growing bored and frustrated with The Devil’s Alphabet – which is all the more infuriating because there were teasing glimmers of greatness throughout.

Among these strengths are Mr. Gregory’s vivid descriptions and most especially, his dedicated characters. Mr. Gregory’s writing is richly detailed, conjuring great and terrible images of these different “monsters” that occupy Switchcreek, and breathing life into the formerly quiet small town itself. The idea of these four different species’ and how they interact together – argos, betas, charlies and humans – is expertly realized. The giant stature, grey skin and low timbered voices of the Argos, the wine-stained, selkie-like skins of the Betas, the grotesque fatness of the Charlies are evocative images that Mr. Gregory wields with undeniable skill. Even more impressive than his descriptions, however, is his dedication to character. Each character in The Devil’s Alphabet is nuanced and genuine, each working through their own quiet problems and issues. Deke, the massive Argo and Switchcreek “chief” tries to comfort his old friend Pax, and meanwhile grapples with he and his wife’s inability to reproduce (as no Argo seems to be capable of procreation). Rhonda, representative of the Charlie leadership, quietly runs the town with an iron fist, trying to even the scales for her own conclave. The Betas, with their asexual reproduction unchecked and devoted maternal instincts driven to the brink of fanaticism also pose an intriguing question of procreation and human nature. And, finally, there’s Pax. Human, flawed, forever changed Pax – he struggles with addiction, with emotional detachment, daddy issues, and the bonds of old friendship and love. Pax isn’t a particularly likable character, but he’s a solidly real one; weak, flawed, and undeniably human.

For all Mr. Gregory’s skill at writing characters and his genuinely intriguing ideas and themes, The Devil’s Alphabet never manages to integrate these parts into a convincing whole. There is more than enough here, however, to prove that Mr. Gregory is a talented new voice. I certainly will be looking forward to his next book – and hope that with time and experience, cohesion between plot and character will be achieved.

Notable Quotes/Parts: From Chapter 1:

Pax knew he was almost to Switchcreek when he saw his first argo.

The gray-skinned man was hunched over the engine of a decrepit, roofless pickup truck stalled hood-up at the side of the road. He straightened as Pax’s car approached, unfolding like an extension ladder. Ten or eleven feet tall, angular as a dead tree, skin the mottled gray of weathered concrete. No shirt, just overalls that came down to his bony knees. He squinted at Pax’s windshield.

Jesus, Pax thought. He’d forgotten how big they were.

He didn’t recognize the argo, but that didn’t mean much, for a lot of reasons. He might even be a cousin. The neighborly thing would be to pull over and ask the man if he needed help. But Pax was running late, so late. He fixed his eyes on the road outside his windshield, pretending not to see the man, and blew past without touching his brakes. The old Ford Tempo shuddered beneath him as he took the next curve.

The two-lane highway snaked through dense walls of green, the trees leaning into the road. He’d been gone for eleven years, almost twelve. After so long in the north everything seemed too lush, too overgrown. Subtropical. Turn your back and the plants and insects would overrun everything.

His stomach burned from too much coffee, too little food, and the queasy certainty that he was making a mistake. The call had come three days ago, Deke’s rumbling voice on his cell phone’s voicemail: Jo Lynn was dead. The funeral was on Saturday morning. Just thought you’d want to know.

Pax deleted the message but spent the rest of the week listening to it replay in his head. Dreading a follow-up call. Then two a.m. Saturday morning, when it was too late to make the service—too late unless he drove nonstop and the Ford’s engine refrained from throwing a rod—he tossed some clothes into a suitcase and drove south out of Chicago at 85 mph.

His father used to yell at him, Paxton Abel Martin, you’d be late for your own funeral! It was Jo who told him not to worry about it, everybody was late for their own funeral. Pax didn’t get the joke until she explained it to him. Jo was the clever one, the verbal one.

At the old town line there was a freshly painted sign: WELCOME TO SWITCHCREEK, TN. POPULATION 815. The barbed wire fence that used to mark the border was gone. The cement barriers had been pushed to the roadside. But the little guard shack still stood beside the road like an outhouse, abandoned and drowning in kudzu.

The way ahead led into what passed for Switchcreek’s downtown, but there was a shortcut to where he was going, if he could find it. He crested the hill, scanning the foliage to his right, and still almost missed it. He braked hard and turned into a narrow gravel drive that vanished into the trees. The wheels jounced over potholes and ruts, forcing him to slow down.

The road forked and he turned left automatically, knowing the way even though yesterday he wouldn’t have been able to describe this road to anyone. He passed a half-burned barn, then a trailer that had been boarded up since he was kid, then the rusted carcass of a ‘63 Falcon he and Deke had used for target practice with their .22’s. Each object seemed strange, then abruptly familiar, then hopelessly strange again-shifting and shifty.

The road came out of the trees at the top of a hill. He braked to a stop, put the car in park. The engine threatened to die, then fell into an unsteady idle.

A few hundred yards below lay the cemetery, the red-brick church, and the gravel parking lot half-full of cars. Satellite trucks from two different television stations were there. In the cemetery, the funeral was already in progress.

You can read the full chapter excerpt online HERE.

Additional Thoughts: Daryl Gregory’s first novel, Pandemonium was the winner of the 2009 Crawford Award. If you haven’t read Mr. Gregory yet, I highly recommend you start with this fantastic debut novel (as opposed to beginning with The Devil’s Alphabet).

A brilliant debut novel from a rising star in fantasy and science fiction, Pandemonium is a wild ride through the American cultural landscape.

It is a world like our own in every respect… save one: Beginning in the 1950’s, random acts of possession begin to occur. Ordinary men, women, and children are the targets of entities that seem to spring from the depths of the collective unconscious, pop-cultural avatars that some call demons. There’s the Truth, implacable avenger of falsehood. The Captain, brave and self-sacrificing soldier. The Little Angel, whose kiss brings death, whether desired or not. And a string of others, ranging from the bizarre to the benign to the horrific.

As a boy, Del Pierce is possessed by the Hellion, an entity whose mischief-making can be deadly. With the help of Del’s family and a caring psychiatrist, the demon is exorcised… or is it? Years later, following a car accident, the Hellion is back, trapped inside Del’s head and clamoring to get out.

Del’s quest for help leads him to Valis, an entity possessing the science-fiction writer formerly known as Philip K. Dick; to Mother Mariette, a nun who inspires decidedly unchaste feelings; and to the Human League, a secret society devoted to the extermination of demons.

All believe that Del holds the key to the plague of possession—and its solution. But for Del, the cure may be worse than the disease.

Verdict: The Devil’s Alphabet boasts a strong premise and layered characters, but fails to deliver a truly engaging story. Still, Mr. Gregory’s distinct voice and eye for description make him an author worth trying and watching out for in the future.

Rating: 6 – Good, but somewhat lacking

Reading Next: Ice by Sarah Beth Durst

“On The Smugglers’ Radar” is a new feature for books that have caught our eye: books we heard of via other bloggers, directly from publishers, and/or from our regular incursions into the Amazon jungle. This is how the Smugglers’ Radar was born, and because there are far too many books that we want than we can possibly buy or review (what else is new?) we thought we could make it into a weekly feature – so YOU can tell us which books you have on your radar as well!

On Ana’s Radar:

Let me start with a Squee! and a yay! Demon Blood, the next instalment in the Guardian series by Meljean Brook has a cover! And it is awesome because it fits well with the overall feel of the series and because it features the HEROINE which is one of Brook’s strengths (her awesome female characters). In other words: another win for this series!

Long before she was transformed into a Guardian and trained to fight demons, Rosalia knew darkness all too well. Raised by a demon, Rosalia learned to guard her heart—and her soul—until she found a man worthy of her love. Once, she thought that man would be the powerful vampire, Deacon…until he betrayed the Guardians.

After losing everything to the lies of a demon, Deacon lives only for revenge—and is taken aback when Rosalia offers to help. A vampire who has nothing—who is nothing—isn’t worthy of her attention. But Rosalia wants to do more than just look, and the explosive need between them can’t be held in check. And when Deacon’s vengeful quest creates a dangerous alliance of their enemies, she will be his only hope…

I am also looking forward to reading Meljean Brook’s story in this anthology:

It is the first story in her upcoming Steampunk series, The Iron Seas. The story is called Here There Be Monsters:

Two years ago, blacksmith Ivy, desperate to flee London, purchased her overseas passage by agreeing to spend the voyage in the bed of the pirate captain, Mad Machen. Saved at the last minute by his rival, Ivy scraped out a new life in Fool’s Cove…until Mad Machen finds her, forces her to accept a job that will create a monster, and reminds her that she still owes him the price of a journey…

I saw the trailer for this YA book over at CJ’s Thrillionth Page and I am keen on reading it (The UK has a different cover):

Incarceron — a futuristic prison, sealed from view, where the descendants of the original prisoners live in a dark world torn by rivalry and savagery. It is a terrifying mix of high technology — a living building which pervades the novel as an ever-watchful, ever-vengeful character, and a typical medieval torture chamber — chains, great halls, dungeons. A young prisoner, Finn, has haunting visions of an earlier life, and cannot believe he was born here and has always been here. In the outer world, Claudia, daughter of the Warden of Incarceron, is trapped in her own form of prison — a futuristic world constructed beautifully to look like a past era, an imminent marriage she dreads. She knows nothing of Incarceron, except that it exists. But there comes a moment when Finn, inside Incarceron, and Claudia, outside, simultaneously find a device — a crystal key, through which they can talk to each other. And so the plan for Finn’s escape is born !

Everwild, the second book in the Skinjacker Trilogy series By Neil Shusterman is out and given how much I loved Everlost, I am getting it ASAP.

Nick, ‘the Chocolate Ogre’ and Mary Hightower battle for the fate of Everlost in the thrilling second book in Neal Shusterman’s Skinjacker Trilogy.

And finally, I was recommended this book by Kaz Mahoney and I think it looks great:

What does you in—brain or heart? Frannie asks herself this question when, a week before she turns fifteen, her dad dies, leaving her suddenly deprived of the only human being on planet Earth she feels understands her. Frannie struggles to make sense of a world that no longer seems safe. She discovers an elegant wooden box with an inscription: Frances Anne 1000. Inside, Frannie finds one thousand hand-carved and -painted puzzle pieces. She wonders if her father had a premonition of his death and finished her birthday present early. Feeling broken into pieces herself, Frannie slowly puts the puzzle together. But as she works, something remarkable begins to happen: She is catapulted into a foreign landscape suspended in time where she can discover her father as he was B.F.—before Frannie.

On Thea’s Radar:

I feel so vindicated, having basically twisted Ana’s arm to read Everlost, and lo and behold, she loves it. Heh. Anyways! This was a pretty big book release week, with Stephen King’s newest, Under the Dome out in stores finally!!! I cannot WAIT to get my hands on a copy, as expensive as the damn tome is. And, I saw this air on SyFy the other day:

There aren’t enough hours in the day, dammit! Another release this week, that looks fabulous:

Joseph has succeeded in rescuing his sister, Chelo, from a pitched battle on the colony planet Fremont. Now he and Chelo and the love of his life, Alicia, and all of their extended family, are finally returning home. Halfway there, a probe intercepts them, sending them new coordinates and a message from Joseph’s enigmatic supporter and teacher, Marcus.

War is brewing.

Joseph is wanted for escaping to save Chelo. To stay safe, Joseph must bring his family and friends to the renowned planet of Lopali, where men and women can fly, and peace and freedom abound. Or do they? Alicia has always wanted to fly, but the modifications that give humans wings kill as often as they work.

Joseph must learn to actually change humans, to free the fliers of a tyranny that has enslaved them, since their species was born. If he can do this, the fliers have agreed to help him stop the war. But it’s not as easy as it seems.

Also this week, I experienced a major ARC FAIL. See, I received an ARC for In Great Waters by Kit Whitefield, and i was excited to get crackin’ on it. So, I open the ARC and what do I find? The Devil’s Alphabet by Daryl Gregory. No joke. The ARC was a massive misprint – but I’m not complaining! I’ve been drooling over The Devil’s Alphabet for a while. And I’ll get In Great Waters somehow…

During a time of great upheaval, the citizens of Venice make a pact that will change the world. The landsmen of the city broker a treaty with a water-dwelling tribe of deepsmen, cementing the alliance through marriage. The mingling of the two races produces a fresh, peerless strain of royal blood. To protect their shores, other nations make their own partnerships with this new breed–and then, jealous of their power, ban any further unions between the two peoples. Dalliance with a deepswoman becomes punishable by death. Any “bastard” child must be destroyed.

This is an Earth where the legends of the deep are true–where the people of the ocean are as real and as dangerous as the people of the land. This is the world of intrigue and betrayal that Kit Whitfield brings to life in an unforgettable alternate history: the tale of Anne, the youngest princess of a faltering England, struggling to survive in a troubled court, and Henry, a bastard abandoned on the shore to face his bewildering destiny, finding himself a pawn in a game he does not understand.

Yet even a pawn may checkmate a king.

Switchcreek was a normal town in eastern Tennessee until a mysterious disease killed a third of its residents and mutated most of the rest into monstrous oddities. Then, as quickly and inexplicably as it had struck, the disease–dubbed Transcription Divergence Syndrome (TDS)–vanished, leaving behind a population divided into three new branches of humanity: giant gray-skinned argos, hairless seal-like betas, and grotesquely obese charlies.

Paxton Abel Martin was fourteen when TDS struck, killing his mother, transforming his preacher father into a charlie, and changing one of his best friends, Jo Lynn, into a beta. But Pax was one of the few who didn’t change. He remained as normal as ever. At least on the outside.

Having fled shortly after the pandemic, Pax now returns to Switchcreek fifteen years later, following the suicide of Jo Lynn. What he finds is a town seething with secrets, among which murder may well be numbered. But there are even darker–and far weirder–mysteries hiding below the surface that will threaten not only Pax’s future but the future of the whole human race.

And finally, this upcoming book from Guy Gavriel Kay looks awesome (thanks to Aidan of A Dribble of Ink for the heads up).

In the novel, Shen Tai is the son of a general who led the forces of imperial Kitai in the empire’s last great war against its western enemies, twenty years before. Forty thousand men, on both sides, were slain by a remote mountain lake. General Shen Gao himself has died recently, having spoken to his son in later years about his sadness in the matter of this terrible battle.

To honour his father’s memory, Tai spends two years in official mourning alone at the battle site by the blue waters of Kuala Nor. Each day he digs graves in hard ground to bury the bones of the dead. At night he can hear the ghosts moan and stir, terrifying voices of anger and lament. Sometimes he realizes that a given voice has ceased its crying, and he knows that is one he has laid to rest.
The dead by the lake are equally Kitan and their Taguran foes; there is no way to tell the bones apart, and he buries them all with honour.

It is during a routine supply visit led by a Taguran officer who has reluctantly come to befriend him that Tai learns that others, much more powerful, have taken note of his vigil. The White Jade Princess Cheng-wan, 17th daughter of the Emperor of Kitai, presents him with two hundred and fifty Sardian horses. They are being given in royal recognition of his courage and piety, and the honour he has done the dead.

You gave a man one of the famed Sardian horses to reward him greatly. You gave him four or five to exalt him above his fellows, propel him towards rank, and earn him jealousy, possibly mortal jealousy. Two hundred and fifty is an unthinkable gift, a gift to overwhelm an emperor.
Tai is in deep waters. He needs to get himself back to court and his own emperor, alive. Riding the first of the Sardian horses, and bringing news of the rest, he starts east towards the glittering, dangerous capital of Kitai, and the Ta-Ming Palace – and gathers his wits for a return from solitude by a mountain lake to his own forever-altered life.

And that’s it from us! What books are you looking forward to?

Title: The Maze Runner

Author: James Dashner

Genre: Dystopian/Apocalyptic, Horror, Speculative Fiction, Young Adult

Publisher: Delacorte Books
Publication Date: October 2009
Hardcover: 384 pages

Stand alone or series: First book in a planned series.

How did I get this book: Review Copy from a fellow blogger (thanks Amy!)

Why did I read this book: I have been crushing on this book for a while now – ever since I saw the cover and read the synopsis, I’ve been dying to get my hands on it. A while back I was tweeting about how much I was drooling over this title, and the lovely Amy of My Friend Amy was an absolute doll and offered me her copy! Naturally, I accepted. And, here we are.

Summary: (from amazon.com)
When Thomas wakes up in the lift, the only thing he can remember is his first name. His memory is blank. But he’s not alone. When the lift’s doors open, Thomas finds himself surrounded by kids who welcome him to the Glade—a large, open expanse surrounded by stone walls.

Thomas might be more important than he could ever guess. If only he could unlock the dark secrets buried within his mind.

Review:

A dark room ascends. A young boy awakens with no idea where he is. With no idea who he is. All that he can grasp in the lonely darkness is a name – “My name is Thomas.” When the ascent stops, Thomas is hauled out of the dark room and into a strange new world where he’s greeted by teenage boys of different ages and sizes. Thomas is the latest addition to the Glade – a large open green square, surrounded by an immense labyrinth. By day, the Glade is a place of hard work as boys dedicate themselves to their specific, important jobs: farming, cleaning, tending, killing. No job, however, is more important than that of the Runners – the smartest, quickest boys who go out into the Maze every day to document its paths and attempt to find an exit. The Runners must be quick because every day come nightfall, the immense doors connecting the Glade to the Maze shut, and unspeakable monsters called Grievers roam the labyrinth. As the new boy (the “shank greenie”), Thomas grows increasingly frustrated when no one answers his questions about the Glade, the surrounding maze, and the Grievers that roam its exterior in the dark – but soon Thomas learns that the rest of the boys are just like him. None of them can remember anything prior to the box, nor do they recall why they are in the Glade or who put them there. All they know is their dedicated safe routine, and their precipitous existence – work your job, keep your head down, and hope that the runners will one day find the exit to the elaborate, ever-changing maze.

Until the day after Thomas’s arrival, that is. Everything changes. There should not be another delivery from The Box for another month – but the following morning, someone else arrives in the Glade. A beautiful teenage girl, bears a disturbing message. Everything is about to change. Somehow, both the new girl and Thomas are connected to the mystery of the Glade and its Maze, and they must do everything they can to find a way out, and to lead the other Gladers to safety.

The Maze Runner is every bit as delectable as advertised – it’s everything I love in a novel. Isolated characters in an impossible setting, fighting for their lives – check. Futuristic sci-fi/post-apocalyptic/dystopian setting – check. Mass amounts of tension and violence – check. The only thing that could have made The Maze Runner even more of a “Thea book” would be to set it in outer space, with zombies and time travel in the mix somehow (then again, that may have been a tad much). My point is, I loved the setting and the premise for this novel. There are quite a few young adult survival of the fittest types of stories pervading the marketplace now, which may have some readers skeptical of another new similar title. Rest assured, dear readers – reminiscent of The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins and the Gone books by Michael Grant, The Maze Runner is a shining new entry in this particular subgenre, completely worth your time.

The most striking thing about The Maze Runner is the strength of its world-building and the adrenaline-fueled plot. This is akin to a novelization of Lost (one of my favorite television shows ever) – no one knows what’s going on, and mystery and danger abound at every turn. Somehow, all these teenage boys have been transplanted to an isolated world surrounded by an ever-changing maze with only one objective – find a way out. The idea of the Glade and its surrounding, shifting maze, filled with heinous monsters is incredibly compelling and raises a number of questions – why are the boys there and who put them there? Is there anything outside the Glade? Is it some sick experiment or type of imprisonment for crimes they have committed in the past? These questions and countless others are raised – and even more importantly, are addressed – in this provocative novel. Also impressive is the writing style of The Maze Runner. Similar to Patrick Ness’s Chaos Walking books, The Maze Runner employs a particular new slang – the Gladers have evolved their own way of dealing with problems and speaking, using words like “shank,” “greenie,” “griever,” among others. It’s a little strange initially, just as it is strange to protagonist Thomas’s ears, but makes sense in the context of the story.

I don’t want to say anything much about actual plot points as these are things best discovered upon reading without spoilers, but suffice to say that the writing and plotting are irresistibly tight and crisp, and Mr. Dahsner knows how to write a thrilling mystery. Just when we receive an answer and one part of the puzzle is uncovered, that leads to an even larger question. And he manages to keep you interested in the story, dying to find out what’s next, with only a minor level of annoyed “WTF is going on!?”-ness (And trust me, as a long-time Lost devotee, I can honestly say in terms of pace of revelations, The Maze Runner is not even close to the level of impotent frustration that it could have reached).

These strengths in terms of pacing and plot reveals are also in part due to the strength of the main character, Thomas. Thomas is a clever young man and he asks all the right questions (whether or not he receives answers to them, well, that’s a different story). Because Thomas is completely new to the Glade and the way of life of the boys there, his own burning questions and frustrations are ones that we share as readers, which makes for a very effective device. As far as protagonists go, Thomas is a fine one with a natural curiosity and ability to voice his opinions, even when they may not be the popular or safe choice. He’s tenacious and brave, but not so flawless to render him one-note. Considering that Thomas and the other characters in the Glade cannot remember anything about their pasts, they are all distinctive, well-rounded characters and very believable. In particular, I loved Minho, Newt, Chuck, and Gally – each has their own charms and distinct personalities.

The only character I wish we got to see more of and understand more was the lone female member of the cast, Teresa. We get tantalizing glimpses into her past and her abilities as linked with Thomas, but as she’s in a coma and ostracized for most of this first book, we don’t get to truly know her. However, this is something I think that will be remedied in the next two books.

In many ways The Maze Runner is a reflection of the Maze that surrounds the Glade itself – little pieces of the puzzle gradually are shuffled and revealed throughout the book, keeping readers on their toes. We keep guessing what could be next, and what each individual piece means until finally the whole picture comes into dramatic crystal sharp clarity. And when you talk about a cliffhanger ending that leaves you salivating for more, I don’t think you can get any more compelling or infuriating than the end of The Maze Runner (I’d put it on the level of The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness). I need the next shankin’ book. NOW.

Notable Quotes/Parts: From Chapter 1:

He began his new life standing up, surrounded by cold darkness and stale, dusty air.

Metal ground against metal; a lurching shudder shook the floor beneath him. He fell down at the sudden movement and shuffled backward on his hands and feet, drops of sweat beading on his forehead despite the cool air. His back struck a hard metal wall; he slid along it until he hit the corner of the room. Sinking to the floor, he pulled his legs up tight against his body, hoping his eyes would soon adjust to the darkness.

With another jolt, the room jerked upward like an old lift in a mine shaft.

Harsh sounds of chains and pulleys, like the workings of an ancient steel factory, echoed through the room, bouncing off the walls with a hollow, tinny whine. The lightless elevator swayed back and forth as it ascended, turning the boy’s stomach sour with nausea; a smell like burnt oil invaded his senses, making him feel worse. He wanted to cry, but no tears came; he could only sit there, alone, waiting.

My name is Thomas, he thought.

That… that was the only thing he could remember about his life.

He didn’t understand how this could be possible. His mind functioned without flaw, trying to calculate his surroundings and predicament. Knowledge flooded his thoughts, facts and images, memories and details of the world and how it works. He pictured snow on trees, running down a leaf-strewn road, eating a hamburger, the moon casting a pale glow on a grassy meadow, swimming in a lake, a busy city square with hundreds of people bustling about their business.

And yet he didn’t know where he came from, or how he’d gotten inside the dark lift, or who his parents were. He didn’t even know his last name. Images of people flashed across his mind, but there was no recognition, their faces replaced with haunted smears of color. He couldn’t think of one person he knew, or recall a single conversation.

You can read the full excerpt and the first nine chapters online HERE.

Additional Thoughts: If you liked The Maze Runner and want more of the same dystopian style goodness, where children are put in drastic situations, you might want to try some of the novels below. These include – The Hunger Games and Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins, Battle Royale by Koshun Takami, The Lord of the Flies by William Golding, The Long Walk by Stephen King, Gone and Hunger by Michael Grant, The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan, and The Girl in the Arena by Lise Haines.

Also, for more information on The Maze Runner (including audio excerpts, a game, author interview, and discussion forum), check out the book’s awesome website HERE.

Verdict: If you couldn’t tell, I loved The Maze Runner. Anyone looking for a thrilling, white-knuckle read should look no further. This title from James Dashner totally rocks. Absolutely recommended…and is it October yet?

Rating: 8 – Excellent

Reading Next: The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson