Shaun Duke

I have to admit something to all of you. When I first picked this book up from my pile of award nominees I had very low expectations for it. I thought it was going to be terrible. I really did. I’m not sure why I thought this. Perhaps it had to do with the cover, which, while perfectly fitting for the story itself, would never have grabbed my interest in the book store–not in a million years. This has a lot to do with the fact that the story is more aimed, in my opinion, towards teenage girls. It is, after all, from the viewpoint of a high school girl, dealing with high school romances, friend problems, and other typical teenage dramas. Therefore, the cover had to reflect the target audience.I am so happy that I was horribly and idiotically wrong about this novel. It was fantastic. So good, even, that at times I wished I had a valid excuse not to go to work. I read it over the course of the last three days (finished it last night), reading at work during break and an hour each night. I didn’t want to put it down, but I had to. I wanted to continue on. I wanted to get to the end so bad because I wanted to know everything that happened.What makes this novel so good? Johnson’s writing style, or at least how she writes the first person narrative of the main character Jane. It’s that perfect style that tells you exactly what you need to know about the character–she’s a teenager, smart, and downright sarcastic and hilarious. Her style is strong throughout. I found myself giggling internally–I don’t generally laugh out loud when reading or express much of any emotion…that’s just the norm for me.The story is this:Jane attends a religious prep school with her best friend Allison. Jane is, well, to put it simply, an academic genius. But she’s not without her faults–she tends to get in trouble a lot. Allison is clumsy, throws up when put under pressure, and altogether quirky and odd. Then one day, after a terrible disaster where Allison throws up all over a freshman in the gym, Allison returns to school a completely different person. She’s so different that she’s answering questions during class, and correctly, she’s wearing new clothes and has new confidence. To make things worse, she’s just stolen Jane’s ex-boyfriend–well stolen is the wrong word, but you get the picture.Soon Jane finds out that there’s more to this sudden change than meets the eye. Allison has done something terrible and stupid–she’s just sold her soul to the devil.The story is, well, excellent. It’s strong, flows well, and sticks right to the point without running off in directions that are unnecessary. Jane is an awesome character. She’s full of life, spunk, and awesomeness–yes, I used that word to describe her. I found her to be a fantastic character.There were only a couple times I got annoyed during the novel and this had nothing to do whatseover with the story itself. I think the publisher perhaps misprinted some sentences in the novel so that they are in some ways using the right words, but are grammatically incorrect. I doubt this has anything to do with the author though.All in all the novel is damn good. It moves fast, has its fair share of twists and turns, and proves to me that I can’t judge a book by its cover all the time. Doing so means I will miss out on gems like this. Check this novel it. I think you’ll really enjoy it!

I’m heading quick into my list. I’ve already finished off two books on it, and am well on my way into Devilish. So, here is my review of this particular book.I can’t say that I really liked The King of Attolia, but neither can I say I hated it. It was so-so for me. One of the interesting things I thought this novel had over other fantasy novels was that it did not revolve around a major military conflict. The conflicts generally seemed to be internal, rather than external to the kingdom of Attolia. In addition to that I found that the world that Turner had created was so believable it was actually real. There is a good reason for this: it is so much like a Greece that never was. There are guns and pocket watches. Think of Greece if it had survived long enough to become an empire much like England became. Can you imagine?The story is this:This book takes place some time after her first book The Thief, but stands alone I think. The King of Attolia is an outsider. He’s not an Attolian, but an Eddisian from a neighboring kingdom, and not only that, he practically stole the throne. Few respect him, and the Queen herself at one point cut off his hand. But Eugenides must come to grips with the reality of his situation: he is king, whether he likes it or not, and he cannot run away–he must prove that fact to those that are bound to serve him.Costis is a soldier who has made a terrible mistake. He just struck the King. But to his surprise he is pardoned, and his Captain too. Rather than being exiled he is put under the King’s charge as part of the King’s attendants. Costis hates the King, and always has. He loves his Queen, but the King is a different story entirely. That is where the story should have stayed. The problem with the book, a part that makes the story itself a little weak, is that under all of that is threat of invasion from a neighboring kingdom, an uprising among the nobility (Barons), and mounting attempts on the King’s life. Now, the last thing worked well in the story. With Costis being a sort of personal guard for the man he loathes, it is an amazing transformation to see how the characters grow through the story. But my biggest beef was that the story focused on something that would seem literally trivial in comparison to the first two subplots. I think trivial hatreds among soldiers is minute in comparison to threat of invasion by a force that the Queen herself knows she cannot repel if the Barons cannot be controlled. So why are we focusing at all on the fact that the King is disliked and has to prove himself? At this point it’s almost pointless. Who cares if the King shows that he is worthy of his position, even if he doesn’t want it, if by the end of the oncoming war there might not be a King and Queen of Attolia at all? The subplot of war could very well have been left out in my opinion. It only damaged the story.Turner’s writing is solid, except in times when she is intentionally trying to be vague about details. There is a scene in the novel where the King is being attacked by assassins and later in that chapter we learn that the King kills all three, even though he’s technically a cripple. Yet, the scene isn’t even written. It’s almost as if the page was missing that had that action in it. Turner goes on to say that it all happened so fast, but the scene itself shows that the King is being killed. I re-read it a dozen times and still couldn’t figure out how we went from King being killed to King killing.Another issue was the constant jumping around of POV. The only characters I cared about were Costis and Eugenides. Costis is the central character and should have remained the focus. There were a bunch of jumps to characters that weren’t really all that important. We didn’t need their insights on things because Costis provided enough.The novel itself ends rather shaky for me. It seems like the novel should have gone on a bit longer in my opinion. It just stopped on a happy note, and that was that. There’s no climax, no build up to an ultimate finally. It digs into the story, stays there, and never rises to the occasion.Other than that I found the novel to be decent enough, if not lacking. Might not be the best novel written, but certainly not the worst. At least the characters and the worlds were believable.

As part of my reading list for the awards, here is my review of Recursion.It’s not very often that I get to read something as utterly complex as this story. I don’t mean complex in that “I don’t understand or fully comprehend” in the same fashion as was the case with The Elysium Commission (which was a good book nonetheless). Rather I mean the sheer massiveness of the concepts involved within the novel itself.The basic story is this:Herb is a young entrepeneur in a futuristic ‘world’ (figuratively speaking since in this case there are many worlds within Earth’s scope) governed by an entity called the Environmental Agency. He is returning to a planet where he had illegally set into action little machines called VNM’s–self replicating robots that can be programmed to create entire cities–only to find that his VNM’s have gone haywire and overrun the planet, destroying everything of value. Just when he thinks he might get away with it, being so far from the center of control for the Environmental Agency, an EA agent pops up in his ship. Soon he finds himself in a different sort of trouble as he learns that his accident is nothing compared to what the something called the “Enemy Domain” is up to.There are two other story lines that run through this. One involves Constantine–set in the past before Herb–who is called a “ghost” because he has imbedded into his mind four other personalities (not the psychological condition, but actual other personalities that live in him as he goes along with his life…they interact and the like). The other is Eva who we find out in the beginning has been planning to kill herself for some time but because the Environmental Agency is truly the nosiest of governments it won’t allow her to do it without careful planning. This is set in the past as well. Later on we find her in a mental health facility with a group of people paranoid about something called “the Watcher”.Now the two other story lines run in with the main story with Herb. Both merge in the end with Herb. I don’t think it was a perfect merging, it was somewhat flawed and not quite as strong as I would have liked, but it worked well enough to keep me interested in the story from start to finish. One of the things I loved most about this book were the concepts in it. You have VNM’s that can build AND destroy, people who have extra personalities that are practically their own people inside of their minds, copied mental entities within sustained ‘Matrix’ style worlds that are just as alive as the minds they came from, and AI’s that have grown and evolved so much that they are actually smarter than humans–for obvious reasons.All this makes for a very intriguing story. The action was fantastic and I found that I truly enjoyed all the characters, even the crazy ones. I generally don’t like stories with so many story lines, partially because I like to delve deep into individuals rather than groups. Luckily I think Ballantyne managed to create very 3-d characters for me. They had fears that were real in the world they lived in. They cried when they were supposed to; freaked out when things went bad. They were, essentially, very human! He does an excellent job taking characters that aren’t human and twisting them just so slightly so you might start to wonder, “something just isn’t right about you.” The twists and turns keep the plot fresh and new. I liked this book very much. It will be in my collection for some time and I expect to read some more Ballantyne.