A fresh look at old tropes

Books | Matt Stephens | The Jake Colbert Testimony

This is a book that is full of old SF tropes, both from books and movies. As page one tells you, “I have told this story twice, and one of the skeptics has made the point of saying that there are several clichés in the narrative. If you think that too, then just remember, these things are apparently commonplace in these testimonials for a reason.”

So, while it's as tropey as a summer movie for teens, it's fun to read, and fresh. The book is written as a report, pulling heavily on Jake's journal written during the actual events. This helps maintain a lot of suspense, as the 'live' reports get a lot of editorial help from hindsight.

Jake Colbert, teen protagonist, is getting a new girlfriend in his life, the school president Jess Connolly, someone he adores from what he thinks is a distance. She has a possessive boyfriend already, Pierce Tanner, son of the sheriff, making this opening situation a typical teen life problem. There is also the black best friend, a self-proclaimed coward, who wrily remarks in the opening chapter, when told to investigate noises in the cornfield: "I've seen this movie a thousand times." Zack said with certainty. "It starts with a kid looking through a telescope, then a bunch of high school kids start talking about scary monsters in the cornfield, and then the black dude wanders off and gets eaten by something." Zack's girlfriend, Marie, used to be Jake's girlfriend, and is very worried for his love-life. As you can see, author Matthew Stephens dives right into it, and you have the eerie noises in an overgrown cornfield right there in chapter one.

Aliens appear not too far into the story. The adults seem to be either oblivious, controlled, or complicit. In many ways, it's a typical teen movie plot: the only ones who know the truth are teens, and the truth is so full of tropes, that it is dismissed. Stephens carries this off quite well. At the same time, these are teens, after all, so worries about school, the upcoming festival, the issues with the new girlfriend, the relationship of Pierce with his father, the worry Jake has for his kid brother, all these combine to reinforce the dissonance of the aliens juxtaposed against normality (ok, normality for American teens). As the 'normal' bits play out, the aliens get bolder, and the teens are left fighting with fewer and fewer resources.

The best parts about the book are the growth of the characters, and the slow exposure of their true natures, full of heroism and cowardice, betrayal and redemption. Like any teen book, the adults are NPCs (non-playing characters) in the main, more like extras who populate the scene, essential for economic stability, but usually not fundamental to the teens' decisions. This is as a teen story should be. If I was a teen, I wouldn't have it any other way. Even as someone with teenaged kids, it's still as I want the story to be.

The pace keeps picking up, as fast as the reader can keep up. There are climactic scenes of battling the aliens, full of sound, explosions, zombiefied crowds milling around and creating further obstacles for our heroes.

And the end is surprising and satisfying and not at all tropey.

Go ahead. Read and enjoy!

Full disclosure: I got an advance copy (before all the typos were all fixed) in return for an honest review. So here you have it.

Amazon has it.

Special effects get better as the Dragon hatches a cunning plot

Books | Neal Asher | The Technician

This is the second book by Neal Asher that I have read, and I am now a Fan. This book is somewhat spaced out in the series (I do hate missing intermediate books), and Dragon, the entity made up of four linked spheres each a kilometer across, has, somewhere in those missing books, managed to divide and fool. One of those spheres has crashlanded on the planet of action, and Dragon's creations, the dracomen, have set up home on the planet.

The Polity is likely to declare that the planet was previously occupied by a sentient species, making it off-limits to humans, so the humans there are understandably miffed and willing to create mayhem, separatism, and the like. Especially as they have only just come aboveground after being an Underground (as well as literally underground) opposed to the ruling theocracy. Which has been obliterated almost to a man. There is one man left of them, who has had his head eaten off (and spat back) by a giant creature known as The Technician. The Technician is an artist, who makes incomprehensible sculptures out of the bones of the gabbleducks, huge pyramidal animals that gabble nonsense that almost makes sense (but never does), and chase unwary humans. There is an amphidapt man (a frog man for us normal movie-watching humans) who hides from everyone, including, he hopes, the AIs in orbit, and whose life's mission is collecting every one of the Technician's sculptures, in order to make sense of them. When we are a few chapters in, we understand that if the Technician is really old, then humans have to clear out.

Or, wait, there is also an alien AI which has refused to communicate with humans or their AIs for decades upon decades. There are two human AIs, one of which is totally insane, and the other one probably is, for it has released the black (physically as well; perhaps Asher doesn't really care for metaphors) AI. Not really. The wicked part of it is sealed away (and leaks out somewhere in the second half of the book, ha ha).

Back up a bit. The reason Dragon crashed on the planet is that it sold its augments to the religious government, found them to be somewhat resistant, and in a tremendous set of double crosses, the theocracy used a Dragon supplied superweapon and Dragon destroyed them. Largely. The rest being taken care of by the Underground.

OK, at this point, I suggest you read the book for yourself. It is hugely complicated, there are giant wars run by AIs and fantastical future weapons. The Technician fulfils its destiny, as does the remaining theocrat, assorted Polity agents (not Ian Cormac, but good enough), dracomen, gabbleducks, and whole series of satisfyingly alien aliens. Yesss! Aliens more wacky than Larry Niven could come up with, and that is saying something.

Yes, there are truly villainous villains, and unlike, say George RR Martin stories, they do get their just desserts, and lots of people live happily ever after.

Fanlike drooling prevents me from typing further for fear of damaging my keyboard.

Finders keepers, losers weepers

Detective | Belinda Bauer | Finders Keepers

Someone is kidnapping kids and leaving behind yellow sticky notes that read “You don't love him” or “You don't love her”. Most of the kids are kidnapped when they are left unattended for trivial lengths of time. Like dropped off by their school bus or told to go to the car in the parking lot while the parents amble up. Certainly a nightmare scenario for any parent. And the town is full of anxious parents. The clues are few (the reader gets more of them than the detective).

On the other hand, there is Jason Holly, a policeman who has lost his family and seems to have become somewhat unhinged, and who is therefore off duty, and off the case. Except that he cannot, or will not, keep himself away. The guilty consciences of kids and adults cause more confusion. You know how it is: relatively minor stuff gets told lies about, which ends up complicating the main investigation.

All the spoiler I will give you is that there is a happy ending. Mostly.

This is a story in which the psychology of the detective is complicated enough, and the villain's is gruesome. Which means that your hair will stand on end. At least, mine did.

Should we keep faith in David Baldacci?

Thriller| David Baldacci | Saving Faith

Lee Adams is hired by a mysterious client to find Faith Lockhart. Faith has disappeared because she is being protected by the FBI, whom she has approached to cut a deal. In return for information about high-level misdeeds, she wants her mentor, lobbyist Danny Buchanan, and herself to be home free. Now, somebody is after her, FBI agents get killed, and she is on the run, along with Lee Adams.

Is Danny really a lobbyist with a heart of gold, or something a lot darker?

Unlike many books by Baldacci, this one describes emotions rather than letting us feel them directly, which to my mind is a drawback. Or perhaps it isn't fair to hold only Baldacci to higher standards, eh? No, by gum, it is perfectly fair.

Slower than some of his other books, some good twists and turns, but the climactic scenes are not handled that well. They're a bit like from a formulaic Hollywood movie (you know the hero can win against a zillion villains), although there is certainly one Noooooo! moment.

There are better books by David Baldacci, but this one's not bad either.

Catching up with my reading

I've still got to tell you about Saving Faith by David Baldacci and Dark Visions (an anthology), yet I've read whole scads of books in the meantime. So I'll just list them here quickly, and you can expect to read about these in due course.

Finders Keepers by Belinda Bauer
Exposed by Alex Kava
Illegal Action by Stella Rimington
The Technician by Neal Asher
If I Should Die by Allison Brennan
Adrenaline by Jeff Abbott
Heroes of Olympus - The Demigod Diaries by Rick Riordan et fil
Deliver Us From Evil by David Baldacci
Dreamland by Jim DeFelice and Dale Brown
iBoy by Kevin Brooks
If I Should Die by Judith Kelman (no, I'm not repeating myself, same name, different authors!)
Variant by Robinson Wells
Plugged by Eoin Colfer
Battle Born by Dale Brown
Think of a Number by John Verdon
Case of Lies by Perri O'Shaughnessy
Stolen Magic by MJ Putney
Dodger by Terry Pratchett
Fragment by Warren Fahy
The Donor by Frank M Robinson

Jeffery Devious writes another thriller

Thriller | Jeffery Deaver | XO

Jeffery Deaver is one of the most devious writers around. His books have more turns and twists than a jalebi (Westerners think the pretzel is twisted; Indians laugh at their naivete). This one is true to the tradition.

Kayleigh Towne, a brilliant and beautiful singer, is being stalked. Fortunately, she is close friends with Kathryn Dance, my favourite fictional kinesics expert. Dance helps Kayleigh to escape the stalker. Or is the stalker the real villain? People get killed. The truth is finally got at some half a page or so before the end. A true jalebi of a story, typical Jeffery Devious. Read, read.