The Silver Dream, story by Neil Gaiman & Michael Reaves, written by Michael & Mallory Reaves (Book #2 of the InterWorld series) is both better and not as good as its predecessor.

The story in this one is better. My main complaint about the first book in the series is that it read more like the outline of a TV show concept (which is what it is) than a fully fleshed out novel. The Silver Dream works as a cohesive, contained novel. As such, it’s more compelling.

Joey Harker has been with InterWorld for two years now. His team has gained experience in the field. When new and powerful Walkers are discovered in both the HEX and Binary sections of the Altiverse, InterWorld agents (including Joey) retrieve them and bring them back to Base Town. Along the way, Joey meets Acacia (“Don’t call me Casey”) Jones, a mysterious young woman who turns out to be far more important than she lets on. That’s when things start to go wrong … and FrostNight begins.

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I admit: the only reason I checked out InterWorld is because it has Neil Gaiman’s name on it and it was available at my local library. I was waiting for a copy of a different book that I wanted to read, and I needed something to fill the time while I waited. I admit, as well, that I hadn’t paid any attention to the fact that InterWorld is a YA novel.

I wish I knew how much of InterWorld comes from Mr. Gaiman and how much is from the coauthor, Michael Reaves. I hope this is mostly Mr. Reaves book because, otherwise, I have to accept that Mr. Gaiman finally wrote something that disappointed me.

I’m not saying InterWorld is a bad book. It’s not. It’s smart and funny and fast-paced. It’s entertaining, with a delightful cast of characters.

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Alice by Christina Henry is… interesting. Compelling. Artful. There’s a poetry to the writing, the dialog is spare and evocative. The author’s vision of a violent Victorian world, shaped by sharp caste divisions and twisted by strange magic, is deeply rendered and believable.

We meet Alice in an insane asylum, suffering from post-traumatic stress after a violent encounter ten years prior which she can’t fully remember. She’s from the wealthy part of town but her family has abandoned her. Her only friend is the man in the adjacent cell, who, if anything, is even more insane than Alice and also suffering from memory loss. He knows about a monster trapped in the basement.

There’s a fire, they escape, and thus begins a quest through the darkest parts of the City’s underworld, which returns their memories and brings Alice into her own as a Magician in a world where magic has been banned.

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Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie satisfies my hopes for her Imperial Radch series. It’s a worthy conclusion to the story of Breq Mianaai / Justice of Toren One Esk Nineteen.

I admit I had reservations going into this third book of the series. The first novel showed so much promise but the second was strangely limited and left much to be desired. I really couldn’t get a sense of where the concluding volume would go.

Ancillary Mercy is a well-balanced amalgam of its predecessors. It takes place in the same location as Ancillary Sword but brings back the galactic scope of Ancillary Justice. It presents an ending which manages to be believable and appropriate, but also unexpected and compellingly unresolved.

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Overall, I’m very happy with Library of Souls, the final novel in Ransom Riggs’ Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children series. It starts out at a dead run and doesn’t slow down until the end. It builds to a truly gigantic climax of staggering proportion.

It’s exciting, a surprising and worthy conclusion to the story.

It’s also laugh-out-loud funny at several points. There’s an unexpected influence of Monty Python at work in this installment and it’s very effective. It allows the ridiculous to coexist seamlessly with the horror and constant danger, which is ultimately what empowers the reader to go along for the ride.

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I’m of two minds as to how I should review Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson.

Taken in-and-of itself, my response to this novel is overwhelmingly positive. It’s damn good. Good enough that I fully expect it to be nominated for some awards (although I don’t know if it’s good enough to win any).

Compared to some Mr. Robinson’s other work, however, my reaction to this novel is less favorable. But, then, maybe it’s unfair to compare Aurora to his other work…

I’ll start by mentioning some of the reasons why this book works well:

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I read Ready Player One over a year ago, but somehow never got around to posting my review of it here on my blog. Given that it’s one of my all-time favorite novels—and given how often I now compare other books to it—I really should post my review. So, here it is…

Ready Player One is a nostalgia trip like no other. It’s an ode to the rise of gaming and geek culture, a recollection of the early history of geekdom, all crammed between the covers of a really good future dystopian SF novel.

Most of the time, nostalgia bores me. I find affectionate trips down our cultural memory lane insipid, overly rose-tinted, and saccharine.

Ready Player One, though, grabbed me from the very first page and wouldn’t let me go. It kept me up past my bedtime, it kept me off my computer and social media, because reading it was the only thing I wanted to do.

Continue reading “Book Review: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline” →