No Guns Life 1 by Tasuku Karasuma

 From the publisher:Ex-soldier Juzo Inui has one question—who turned him into a cyborg and erased his memories?

After the war, cyborg soldiers known as the Extended were discharged. Juzo Inui is one of them, a man whose body was transformed, his head replaced with a giant gun. With no memory of his previous life—or who replaced his head and why—Inui now scratches out a living in the dark streets of the city as a Resolver, taking on cases involving the Extended.

When a fellow Extended showed up in Inui’s office—on the run from the Security Bureau with a kidnapped child in tow and asking for help—Inui almost throws the guy out. But Inui’s loyalty to a brother Extended makes him take the job. Keeping the child safe won’t be easy, since everyone wants him, from the mob to the megacorporation Berühren, which sends out a special agent who knows exactly how to deal with the Extended… 

Want a story about a faceless loner warrior who helps a child with mysterious powers, but you're already caught up on The Mandalorian? Then No Guns Life might be just the manga for you!

Juzo Inui is a cyborg soldier who was modified so much that even his head was replaced with a gun (how does he see, you ask? It's a mystery!). Now that the war is over, he makes a living helping out others like himself, living on the fringe of society. Then one day a fellow Extended shows up with an unconscious child in tow and security agents on his tail, asking Juzo for help. Against his better judgment Juzo takes the case and goes on the run with the child, pursued by agents of the Berühren corporation who say he's their property. When the boy wakes up, Juzo understands immediately why Berühren wants him back so badly...

No Guns Life mixes a sort of noir detective story into a dystopian cyberpunk world, but in a signature manga style. The result is a dark, gritty, and action-filled mystery that's also sometimes humorous. For example, after a confrontation in a sewer, Juzo quips "This is why I hate humidity -- and kids." Some of the enemies Juzo encounters just in the first issue are a secret agent dressed as a nun, and a cyborg girl whose body can transform into a giant mechanical spider. Between the heavily stylized cybernetics and the black and white art style, the action can sometimes be a bit hard to follow. But I found the characters and setting compelling enough to make up for it.

This review is for the first issue, but Galesburg Public Library has issues 1 through 4 available in our graphic novel collection.

Chosen Ones by Veronica Roth

 

Fifteen years ago, five ordinary teenagers were singled out by a prophecy to take down an impossibly powerful entity wreaking havoc across North America. He was known as the Dark One, and his weapon of choice—catastrophic events known as Drains—leveled cities and claimed thousands of lives. Chosen Ones, as the teens were known, gave everything they had to defeat him.

After the Dark One fell, the world went back to normal . . . for everyone but them. After all, what do you do when you’re the most famous people on Earth, your only education was in magical destruction, and your purpose in life is now fulfilled?

Of the five, Sloane has had the hardest time adjusting. Everyone else blames the PTSD—and her huge attitude problem—but really, she’s hiding secrets from them . . . secrets that keep her tied to the past and alienate her from the only four people in the world who understand her.

On the tenth anniversary of the Dark One’s defeat, something unthinkable happens: one of the Chosen Ones dies. When the others gather for the funeral, they discover the Dark One’s ultimate goal was much bigger than they, the government, or even prophecy could have foretold—bigger than the world itself. And this time, fighting back might take more than Sloane has to give.

Things I Liked

• Despite the fact that Roth is writing a sequel to Chosen Ones, the book didn’t end on a cliffhanger. It leaves just enough unanswered that I will read the sequel, but I still felt satisfied with the conclusion
• It has a well-written, very sweet love story. And a very interesting sort-of-but-not-quite love triangle that I was not expecting.
• I really enjoyed the wide cast of characters. Although I would’ve loved to learn more about some of them (hopefully in the sequel!), they were interesting, and an inspiring group in a very real way. They are flawed and broken, but they are strong and tenacious. I also liked that the characters are a very diverse group, with an array of races, backgrounds, and sexual orientations represented.
• The story is interspersed with letters, news articles, journal entries, and passages from fake textbooks that give more background into the story and clues as to what is going to happen. The different media provided a fun break from the narrative and was an interesting way of furthering the story.
• The book has a few great plot twists that I was not anticipating.
• The story is a very interesting mix of dystopian and fantasy. It’s hard to decide which category it fits best in. It takes place in an alternate Chicago, where five teens have to save the world, but the world also has magic in it, which is used in varying degrees. It also has a bit of science fiction mixed in, when alternate universes come into play. This clash of genres could have easily gone badly, but Roth makes them work together in a unique way that was exciting to read.

Things I didn’t like

• Even though it didn’t end on a cliffhanger, it also didn’t feel finished. I didn’t know until after finishing it that there would be a sequel, so the ending seemed especially abrupt. I still have unanswered questions, but hopefully they will be answered in the second book.
• The pacing got a little bit slow at times, especially when Roth gets very detailed about places and architecture of Chicago.
• While I liked the story and plot, the villain’s actions were very strange. In the end, his reasoning and motives seemed wildly disproportionate to his actions, which made me question the entire storyline a bit.

Overall, this was exactly what I needed for a quarantine pick me up. While it is maybe not the most original plot, I thought it was told in an original way, from an adult perspective years after they’ve saved the world. Despite being an adult novel, it’s very reminiscent of a young adult dystopian novel (plus magic), which I loved. If you’re from the Chicago area and you like dystopian or fantasy books, I would give it a try. Roth grew up in the Chicago area and lives in Chicago, so the details about the city are abundant (sometimes too abundant) and specific. I would recommend Chosen Ones for fans of Veronica Roth’s Divergent series, or fans of dystopian novels in general.

The Galesburg Public Library owns this book in regular print format, as well as an ebook through both the Libby and Axis360 apps.

The Mother Code by Carole Stivers

From the publisher: It’s 2049, and the survival of the human race is at risk. Earth’s inhabitants must turn to their last resort: a plan to place genetically engineered children inside the cocoons of large-scale robots—to be incubated, birthed, and raised by machines. But there is yet one hope of preserving the human order—an intelligence programmed into these machines that renders each unique in its own right—the Mother Code. In a future that could be our own, The Mother Code explores what truly makes us human—and the tenuous nature of the boundaries between us and the machines we create.

The Mother Code has a terrific premise, but it didn’t quite live up to its promise for me. The military releases a bioweapon that causes a global pandemic. In a desperate attempt to save humanity, a fleet of robots is launched containing genetically engineered embryos. The robots are coded with the personalities of the real women who donated eggs to the project. The robots disperse, the babies are incubated inside them and born, and the mother robots raise the children. A core group of military strategists given an antidote survive the pandemic, along with pockets of naturally resistant humans like the Hopi. Years pass as the children grow up and the team of humans tries to find them.

The Mother Code is very readable and moves along at a brisk pace. I totally bought into the sequence of events at the beginning. However, as it moved toward the end I felt the plot twists were too Hollywood-esque. The narrative tension felt artificial.

I never felt I got to know the kids, who read like a casting call for a movie: the combative natural leader; the meditative naturalist who communes with snakes; the reckless tomboy; the shy mouse; the boy with almond-shaped eyes who is good at cooking; the black girl who starts a garden. In fact overall this entire book reads like a detailed movie script, and indeed Steven Spielberg has optioned the movie rights.

The overall message of what it means to be a mother seemed very labored by the end. If you are looking for a fast-moving thriller that reads like an action movie, The Mother Code may be for you. As a book that will truly make a reader think, that’s perilously close to something that could happen in real life, the book is not quite as successful.

I read an advance reader copy of The Mother Code. It is scheduled to be published in May 2020 and will be available at the Galesburg Public Library in print and as an ebook.

The Warehouse by Rob Hart

Imagine a world ravaged by gun violence and environmental damage, where a huge corporation that sells everything to everyone and delivers the items by drone limits the choices of where you can live and work. In Rob Hart’s The Warehouse, the giant company Cloud has put other retailers out of business and become the only place to work. Paxton and Zinnia pass the test and start their jobs. Paxton ends up in security;  Zinnia works long days racing against the clock, picking items to mail to customers. They work at Cloud. They eat at Cloud. They sleep at Cloud. Zinnia puts up with sexual harassment from a manager; Paxton competes against others for the approval of his boss.

But neither Zinnia nor Paxton is who they seem. Each is keeping secrets, and each has an agenda. However, it’s not easy to stand up for yourself when you are a tiny cog in the Cloud.

The Warehouse is likely to be this year’s big, almost-there dystopian novel. And it all feels like it could come true next week.

Rob Hart dedicated his book to Maria Fernandes, a woman who worked part-time at several Dunkin’Donuts to make ends meet and who died from gas fumes while taking a nap in her car. In the meantime, Dunkin’ CEO Nigel Travis earned $10.2 million the year she died. The Warehouse is not a perfect book, but it will make you think hard about the relationship between corporations and their employees and about income inequality.

I read an advance reader copy of The Warehouse, which comes out on August 20. The Galesburg Public Library will have it in print and as an ebook.

From the publisher: Earth, 2144. Jack is an anti-patent scientist turned drug pirate, traversing the world in a submarine as a pharmaceutical Robin Hood, fabricating cheap scrips for poor people who can’t otherwise afford them. But her latest drug hack has left a trail of lethal overdoses as people become addicted to their work, doing repetitive tasks until they become unsafe or insane. Hot on her trail, an unlikely pair: Eliasz, a brooding military agent, and his robotic partner, Paladin. As they race to stop information about the sinister origins of Jack’s drug from getting out, they begin to form an uncommonly close bond that neither of them fully understand. And underlying it all is one fundamental question: Is freedom possible in a culture where everything, even people, can be owned?

One of the most hyped upcoming releases in science fiction is Autonomous by Annalee Newitz. It is well written and kept me reading. It is, however, extremely bleak. The way the author deals with the issue of autonomy for both humans and robots is thought-provoking, as are the plot threads about health care in the future. While I had a hard time liking any of the characters, they were memorable.

This debut novel from the founding editor of the science fiction site io9 reminded me of A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers, the TV series Andromeda, and most of all the movie Blade Runner. If you like bleak space operas about a fallen Earth, this book may be for you.

I read an advance reader copy of Autonomous. It is scheduled to be published in late September 2017. It will be available at the Galesburg Public Library as a print book and as an ebook.

Defy the Stars by Claudia Gray

From the publisher: 

She's a soldier. Noemi Vidal is 17 and sworn to protect her planet, Genesis. She’s willing to risk anything - including her own life. To their enemies on Earth, she’s a rebel. He's a machine. Abandoned for years, utterly alone, Abel has advanced programming that’s begun to evolve. He wants only to protect his creator, and to be free. To the people of Genesis, he's an abomination. 

They are enemies in an interstellar war, forced by chance to work together as they embark on a daring journey through the stars. Their efforts would end the fighting for good, but not without sacrifice. The more time they spend together, the more they're forced to question everything they’d been taught was true.

Defy the Stars had me from page 1. The plot plunges right into action, with interesting characters and world building. I’m not a huge fan of the robot (or whatever) who wants to become “real,” but the author does a good job with this particular plot device and I bought into it.

Earth is approaching collapse after years of environmental destruction. The people of Earth have created “gates” that allow them to visit other solar systems, and they have chosen four planets as replacements for Earth. However, the people still living on Earth have learned nothing about good stewardship. The settlers on the planet Genesis have taken the mistakes made on Earth to heart and are trying to keep their planet healthy. They are fighting to keep the people of Earth from ruining Genesis as well.

Noemi is a Genesis soldier. She has volunteered to go on a suicide mission with other volunteers. I would have preferred that Noemi be a little older – maybe 21 or 22 rather than 17 - but this book is aimed at young adults and so she is a teenager.

Noemi and Abel, the “mech” (aka robot) that she finds on an abandoned Earth ship, are both strong but flawed. I liked them both and enjoyed the alternating points of view. Noemi and Abel embark on a mission Noemi hopes will end the war between Genesis and Earth. This takes them to each of the other planets and to Earth. The best part of the book by far for me was the descriptions of the four colonized planets, all very different and with very different inhabitants. Some of the people they meet get caught up in their plans and have their own moments to shine. (Oddly, one character is mentioned multiple times throughout the book but never actually appears. Perhaps he will appear in the sequel.)

Let’s face it, the plot is not particularly original, but I enjoyed the ride all the same. There is a fair amount about faith and God, which surprised me, but I didn’t find it heavy handed. I look forward to reading the sequel some day.

Defy the Stars will appeal to fans of the Starbound series by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner. I read an advance reader copy of Defy the Stars. It is scheduled to be published in April 2017 and will be available at the Galesburg Public Library. 

Gilded Cage by Vic James

From the publisher: Our world belongs to the Equals—aristocrats with magical gifts—and all commoners must serve them for ten years. But behind the gates of England’s grandest estate lies a power that could break the world. A girl thirsts for love and knowledge. A boy dreams of revolution. And an aristocrat will remake the world with his dark gifts.

Gilded Cage is a bit like Hunger Games meets Harry Potter. It is set in an alternate, modern Britain. Although they don’t use wands, there are people with magical skills called Equals. They live in luxury while those without magical powers must serve them as slaves for 10 years of their lives. It’s the kind of world imagined by Harry Potter’s Gellert Grindelwald and Tom Riddle.

The perception among those who haven’t served their slavedays is that they aren’t that bad, but they are. While serving their slavedays, people have no rights, and most are not adequately fed, clothed, housed, or cared for medically. Most Equals take their better circumstances as a right, although a few among the Skilled are fighting to end the slaveday system.

Gilded Cage focuses on a family of five that decides to do their slavedays together. (I never really understood how people could choose their slavedays – if you could put it off indefinitely, couldn’t you die before doing them?) The parents and their three children expect to be sent to one of the cushier spots – serving one of the aristocratic Equal families. But their teenaged son Luke gets sent to one of the brutal factory towns instead.

Although the focus and narrative viewpoint of the chapters moves between several characters, Luke and his older sister Abi seem to be the focal point. Abi works with one of the sons of the Equal family who has no Skill (a squib, if you like, although he seems to be the only one around). There is a lame insta-romance between them that really just got in the way.

There are a lot of nuanced characters, and you cannot always tell if they are good or bad. There are some truly evil characters too, and some really good ones. There is also some heavy handed writing (for example, a man in a cage tells Abi, “You’re in – the pen – too….Just – I see – my cage – my leash.” (p. 208 of the advance reader copy)). Many of the scenes (especially those in the factory town Millmoor) felt so familiar I had to remind myself that I haven’t actually read this book before. But there are some original touches, and the plot twists compelled me to keep reading. If you are looking for a well written dystopian novel with interesting characters, you may enjoy Gilded Cage (first in a series).

I read an advance reader copy of Gilded Cage. It will be published in February 2017, and it will be available through the Galesburg Public Library as a print book and an ebook. 

The Last One by Alexandra Oliva

From the publisher: Survival is the name of the game as the line blurs between reality TV and reality itself in Alexandra Oliva’s fast-paced novel of suspense. She wanted an adventure. She never imagined it would go this far. It begins with a reality TV show. Twelve contestants are sent into the woods to face challenges that will test the limits of their endurance. While they are out there, something terrible happens. Cut off from society, the contestants know nothing of it. When one of them—a young woman the show’s producers call Zoo—stumbles across the devastation, she can imagine only that it is part of the game. Sophisticated and provocative, The Last One is a novel that forces us to confront the role that media plays in our perception of what is real: how readily we cast our judgments, how easily we are manipulated.

I attended the Public Library Association conference in Denver this spring, and The Last One was one of the hot books people were talking about. I was lucky enough to meet the author and pick up an advance reader copy of her book.

The concept is intriguing – 12 contestants on a reality survival TV show have no idea that a pandemic has broken out. The novel moves back and forth between the early days on the show before the pandemic, as the staff behind the show manipulate how viewers will perceive the 12 contestants, and later days, when the contestants believe they are facing a solo challenge. The later chapters follow one contestant in particular as she stumbles on increasingly distressing scenes that she believes are part of the challenge.

I very much enjoyed reading The Last One. I compare it to the blockbuster Gone Girl in that I wanted to keep reading to see what was going to happen next. It’s not a book I would read a second time, and it will be more enjoyable to read if you don’t know much about the plot. The writing is smooth and the character development good.

I’ve never watched any Survivor episodes and I still enjoyed the book. I think fans of the TV show would like this book even more than I did because of the way the contestants are manipulated and presented to the TV audience.

The plot dragged a bit toward the end and slowed my rush to finish. But the slow period didn’t last very long. This is a debut novel, and to make the story work the author does rely on a couple of plot devices that are hard to believe. I won’t mention one because it would act as a spoiler, but the other involves her eyeglasses. She breaks them early on. Although she breaks into stores to find supplies, she does not look for reading glasses or contacts until late in the book.

But those are minor complaints. I think this would be a great beach or travel read. I often dislike the flat or anticlimactic endings of first novels, but I was quite satisfied by the ending of The Last One¸ and I was happy to see that the author did not feel the need to tack on an epilogue.

I recommend The Last One to anyone looking for an engrossing thriller, especially fans of survivalist fiction. I read an advance reader copy of The Last One; it is scheduled to be published on July 12. It will be available at the Galesburg Public Library in print and as an ebook.

Arcadia by Iain Pears

From library patron Norm:

Arcadia follows characters in three different worlds. The author is well known for running different narrative streams in his novels, whether it’s seeing the same events or small period of time from the point of view of several different characters or telling stories from different time periods centuries apart, so he knows how to move effectively from one place, time, and character to another, and he creates interesting characters and situations in each. One of them is as far as we know the world we are familiar with, its setting the Oxford of the 1950’s, and while one character finds a gate to a different world, another is charged with finding a mole in the British Secret Service. The second is apparently a highly technological and overcrowded world in the future run by scientists (not the enlightened rulers one would wish) where there is tension with green back-to-nature enclaves, and a brilliant scientist who warns that a scheme to travel to parallel universes will bring disaster vanishes with vital resources and becomes the subject of a manhunt. The third is the delightful rural world of the title, with scholars who interpret the sacred “story,” idyllic celebrations, romantic love, and wronged noblemen.

There are engaging characters in each world, and the plots play out well in all of them. It wouldn’t be any fun, though, if the characters from one world didn’t find their way to the others, and if we didn’t eventually realize that characters we meet in one world were originally from another. How all this happens and the mystery of how these three worlds are connected is a mystery, the solution to which makes an interesting if grim variation on the familiar science fiction parallel universes convention. As far as the characters we focus on are concerned the ending is happy, but how happy on the large scale it is would make a very interesting discussion.

In case I didn’t make it clear, I really enjoyed this book and recommend it highly. 

 - Norm

The Map of Bones by Francesca Haig

From the publisher: 400 hundred years in the future, the Earth has turned primitive following a nuclear fire. For some unknowable reason every person is born with a twin. One is an Alpha—physically perfect in every way; and the other an Omega—burdened with deformity, small or large. With the Council ruling an apartheid-like society, Omegas are branded and ostracized while the Alphas have gathered the world’s sparse resources for themselves. Though proclaiming their superiority, for all their effort, Alphas cannot escape one harsh fact: whenever one twin dies, so does the other. Cass is a rare Omega, one burdened with psychic foresight. While her twin gains power on the Alpha Council, she dares to dream the most dangerous dream of all: equality. For daring to envision a world in which Alphas and Omegas live side-by-side as equals, both the Council and the Resistance have her in their sights.

The Map of Bones is the second book in Francesca Haig’s Fire Sermon trilogy. The Map of Bones is easy to get into and easy to read, and it has a strong female lead. I will read the final book when it is published.

Still, The Map of Bones didn’t really pop for me. A surprise reveal toward the end seemed a bit pointless and dispassionate, as did the secret Zoe, an Alpha fighting for the Resistance, has been carrying. I have no emotional investment in the characters and I don’t sense any real commitment and feeling between them. Narrator Cass again makes some idiotic decisions, like insisting on burying an acquaintance found hanged even though her party is in an enormous hurry. The language is sometimes a little overwrought (“We trawled those dusty rooms for hours. Walls with a tracery of rust and damp. A baby’s skull the exact weight of a nightmare.” p. 275 of the digital advance reader copy)

I do recommend The Fire Sermon trilogy for those who enjoy dystopian fiction and strong female leads, and I look forward to seeing how the trilogy wraps up. I read a digital advance reader copy of The Map of Bones. It will be available at the Galesburg Public Library starting May 3 in print and as an ebook. The library also owns the first book, The Fire Sermon,  in those two formats.

Postscript: One thing that bothered me was that while the book is called The Map of Bones, the phrase “maze of bones” was used over a dozen times in the book while “map of bones” was only used once. I found this very distracting. As I read a digital advance reader copy; maybe the text will be changed before the final book is printed (although I think The Maze of Bones would have been a better title, and the cover could still have used an Alpha symbol as the A and an Omega symbol as the O).

Forty Signs of Rain by Kim Stanley Robinson

There’s a new genre of fiction that is becoming ever more popular – climate fiction, or cli fi. Plots are focused on the environment and especially our planet’s climate. Climate fiction is benefitting from the fact that dystopian and apocalyptic novels are super hot right now – or maybe climate fiction is helping drive that popularity.

The Galesburg Public Library’s Food for Thought book discussion group found the water shortage dystopian novel Not a Drop to Drink by Mindy McGinnis to not be scientific enough in explaining how we as a society could reach such a crisis. Then we discussed Kim Stanley Robinson’s Forty Signs of Rain, and we found it to be a little too scientific. We all at times felt a little overwhelmed by the facts, background information, and explanations of primate behavior and how the scientific proposal and grant process works.

Still, those who finished the book were glad they had done so, and we all agreed it could make a great movie.

Most of the book is set up – the flooding crisis in Washington DC does not take place until the last 100 pages. But there are two more books in the series so Robinson could take his time introducing his characters. Scientists, politicians, biomathematicians at a start-up, and refugees from a low-lying island nation all meet and interact as we are fed the circumstances driving the planet toward an environmental crisis.

It’s refreshing to have a male author writing about a lactating working mother whose husband works from home and assumes most of the childcare. Their toddler is a real character in the book, not just a plot device.

The politics in the book (published in 2004) seem all too real. The animals in the Washington zoo are released to fend for themselves as the city floods, something that recently happened in the country of Georgia. I often wonder how so many Americans can vote against their own interests, and one of Robinson’s characters agrees:  “You work every day of the year, except for three lousy weeks. You make around a hundred thousand dollars. Your boss takes two thirds, and gives you one third, and you give a third of that to the government. Your government uses what it takes to build all the roads and schools and police and pensions, and your boss takes his share and buys a mansion on an island somewhere. So naturally you complain about your bloated inefficient Big Brother of a government, and you always vote for the pro-owner party….How stupid is that?” (p. 74)

Quite a few times as I read Forty Signs of Rain I found myself thinking “Yes, that’s so true!” Another example:

“The battle for control of science went on. Many administrations and Congresses hadn’t wanted technology or the environment assessed at all, as far as Anna could see. It might get in the way of business. They didn’t want to know. …And yet they did want to call the shots. …On what basis did they build such an incoherent mix of desires, to want to stay ignorant and to be powerful as well? Were these two parts of the same insanity?” (p. 114-115)     

   

If you agree that climate change is a real planetary issue that needs to be addressed and don’t mind a fair amount of facts and figures, you might enjoy Forty Signs of Rain. If you think climate change is a load of bunk or just don’t think we can afford to do anything about it, the book would probably just make you mad.

The Galesburg Public Library owns all three books in Robinson’s Science in the Capitol series.

An Inheritance of Ashes by Leah Bobet

The narrative of An Inheritance of Ashes grabbed me right away. It is hard to figure out what’s going on, but still I wanted to know. Hallie is 16. She and her older sister Marthe are trying to hold on to the family farm. Marthe is pregnant with her first child, and her husband has not returned from the far-off war he travelled to fight. Marthe and Hallie have an angry, uncommunicative relationship. Their father forced his own younger brother off the farm years ago, and now Hallie is afraid her sister will do the same to her.

The world building is, frankly, odd. It’s dystopian, but whatever returned civilization to a more primitive time happened decades ago. Now, strange, “twisted” creatures that burn whatever they touch have come into our world from another. A hero named John Balsam ended the war against them by tearing a hole through the other world, but the twisted things are still showing up on the farm.

Hallie, her neighbors, and a mysterious veteran who arrived at the farm seeking work and shelter for the winter must band together to figure out what is happening and save not only the farm but their entire community.

I found the twisted creatures on top of the dystopia a bit much. It seems unlikely that both scenarios would happen – the twisted things are never connected to whatever events crashed civilization in the first place. It might have been more effective to set the story in an unnamed primitive society rather than a fallen civilization. It just really didn’t make sense to me, but it  also didn’t bother me *that* much. I still enjoyed the story.

I liked some of the overwritten but unusual language, such as “Heron stood before me, stiff and unshaken, his peculiar grace bleeding into the very air. It wasn’t just northern manner, it was his sense of calling: the way a person held themselves high when they were devoted, without compromise, to something greater than themselves.” (p. 45 of the advance reader copy) There is some cringe-worthy dialog, especially between Hallie and the young man who wants to court her, to balance out the nice stuff.

The relentless negative relationship between Marthe and Hallie was hard to take at times, and the identity of the mysterious veteran is likely to be obvious to every reader even though it is not to the characters in the book. But I raced through this book and recommend it to readers who like dystopian coming-of-age stories. (Also, it has a gorgeous cover!)

I read an advance reader copy of An Inheritance of Ashes from netgalley.com. It will be published on October 6 and will be available at the Galesburg Public Library.

The Scorpion Rules by Erin Bow

Hundreds of years in the future, Earth is run by an artificial intelligence. Originally human, turned into an AI in a quest for immortality, Talis took advantage of access given to him by people at the UN and forced the people of Earth to stop fighting wars. First, he blew up cities to get their attention. Then he took the children of all the leaders – the Children of Peace – to hold hostage against their good behavior. If there is war, the children of the leaders die.

Greta, the narrator of Erin Bow’s book The Scorpion Rules, is one of those children. Canada is now the Pan Polar Confederacy, and she is the daughter of their Queen. If the Children make it to the age of 18, they are sent home and new hostages are taken. If their countries go to war, the Children disappear to some unspeakable end.

We see Greta and the other Children her age studying in their classroom and doing chores on the farm. The characters are not particularly well drawn or memorable. Greta takes great pride in maintaining calm and control. The new boy, Elian, does not. He takes pride in defiance and anger, no matter how he is punished. There is much punishment in this book, and torture. The torture is not graphic but it is extremely evocative, and I found it hard to read.

For the most part, the narrative engaged me. Despite my intense dislike of torture scenes, I did feel compelled to keep reading. I often enjoyed the author’s way with words, like in this passage: “Elian reached up and took one of my wrists, stopping the motion, looking me up and down. I’m sure he was trying for as a man looks at a woman, but it came off rather more as an engineer looks at a bridge pylon.” (p. 63 of the advance reader copy). At other times, the language was a bit overwrought ("I closed my fingers around the gun, and rose to my feet like the Lady of the Lake." (p. 173))

The ending of The Scorpion Rules surprised me, and the plot took a few turns I did not expect. There is a love triangle of sorts. Granted, it is an unusual triangle – a girl with feelings for a boy and a girl – but still, can’t we be done with love triangles? That aspect of the plot was so, so tired. Greta also develops strong feelings of some sort for Elian almost immediately – not quite insta-love, but insta-something.

Some cultural references fell flat, like a bad football joke and mentions of the Road Runner.  In his Utterances, Talis actually says, “Resistance is futile.” (p. 26). Also, some scenes were a little too reminiscent of The Hunger Games series. For example, Greta is to be tortured, with coverage sent to her mother by video. The producer, Burr, paces about checking camera angles and noting things on a clipboard. He wants the other Children nearby for reaction shots. This scene reminded me very strongly of The Hunger Games (as did the repeated use of the words “Tick Tock Clock Drop”). But I guess it is hard to write a dystopian teen novel and not be compared to The Hunger Games.

The Scorpion Rules is a first book in a series. It does not stand alone. This is a good thing if you really enjoy it and want more. The ending really left a lot of room for exploration in the next book. I would recommend The Scorpion Rules for readers of young adult literature who aren’t yet tired of dystopian works and also for questioning teens, as Greta is also questioning.

I read an advance reader copy of The Scorpion Rules. It is scheduled to be published on September 22 and will be available in the Young Adult section of the Galesburg Public Library.

The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi

The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi has a compelling and believable premise. Set in the near future, water shortages in the west have reached critical levels. In many places, it no longer rains. The states are fighting for what water is available; Texans have become refugees that struggle to cross state borders (often ending up dead and strung up as a warning to others). Catherine Case is a powerful woman who controls much of the water in the west, ensuring that Nevada drinks while other states thirst.

Case employs many people to help her retain her power and her water. One of them is Angel, a former gang member she rescued from prison. He looks like a scary tough guy, scarred and tattooed, but he is a complex and loyal individual. He goes on a mission to Arizona, in its death throes but still hanging on, and gets mixed up in subterfuge over water rights that date back two hundred years. He crosses paths with Lucy, a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist in Phoenix to report on the crisis, and Maria, a Texas refugee determined to survive on her own terms.

The world building is all too easy to believe. Americans have been wasting fresh water for decades in ways that are completely unsustainable. As Angel observes:

“Thanks to the centrifugal pump, places like Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas had thrown on the garments of fertility for a century, pretending to greenery and growth as they mined glacial water from ten-thousand-year-old aquifers. They’d played dress-up-in-green and pretended it could last forever. They’d pumped up the ice age and spread it across the land, and for a while they’d turned their dry lands lush. Cotton, wheat, corn, soybeans – vast green acreages, all because someone could get a pump going. Those places had dreamed of being different from what they were. They’d had aspirations. And then the water ran out, and they fell back, realizing too late that their prosperity was borrowed, and there would be no more coming.” (p. 80 of the advance reader copy)

In Bacigalupi’s world, the Red Cross provides water, and refugee camps spring up around them. The tension between Texans and Arizona natives is palpable. The Chinese build oases for those with money and power. Young women sell their bodies to survive and take drugs to provide false courage.

While the characters are not particularly original types, they are well drawn. They have depth. The intrigue was twisty but not so complicated that it was hard to follow.

Bacigalupi hit only a few false notes for me. For example, Angel thinks about Lucy: “He wanted her. He wanted her like he’d never wanted another woman.” (p. 231 of the ARC). Really? Time to slip into the overblown language of a genre romance? There are descriptions of graphic torture and violence. Angel survives gunshots and trauma that would kill anyone else except maybe Indiana Jones.

Still, I found the book gripping and the future world realistic. If you enjoy dystopian fiction and don’t mind veering off into Hollywood movie territory occasionally, I recommend The Water Knife.

I read an advance reader copy. The Water Knife will be published on May 26. It will be available in the Galesburg Public Library’s New Fiction area after that date.

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

I’d never read any Margaret Atwood before choosing Oryx and Crake for book club. I listened to the audio version, narrated by Campbell Scott. Wow, Atwood is a great writer. But this is one disturbing book.

The book is narrated by Snowman, who seems to be the last remaining original human on earth. There is a new race of genetically engineered people, but they have very little in common with Snowman. Society has collapsed. Cities are in ruins. Over the course of the book, Snowman talks about his present life - sleeping in trees to avoid being eaten by genetically engineered monsters, scrounging for food, water, and supplies, answering questions from the perfect children of the other race - while also telling us about his childhood, about his relationships with his best friend Crake and his one great love Oryx, and what happened to bring the planet to its present state. (Bonus points from me for multiple references to Alex the African Grey Parrot.)

The narrative grabbed me from the third paragraph on page 1: “Out of habit he looks at his watch – stainless-steel case, burnished aluminum band, still shiny although it no longer works. He wears it now as his only talisman. A blank face is what it shows him: zero hour. It causes a jolt of terror to run through him, this absence of official time. Nobody nowhere knows what time it is.”

Published in 2003, Oryx and Crake came out before the current round of dystopian novels. And unlike many of them, we don’t have a hopeful subplot to distract us from the grim reality of what our future as a species could hold if we go down a certain path of genetic engineering. There are relationships, including romantic and sexual relationships, but the unrelenting narrative about how the world was destroyed is not much lightened by those relationships.

Gated compounds and economic divides. Genetic engineering. Too powerful corporations. Every depravity imaginable available on the internet. Climate change. Of all the dystopian novels I've read over the years (at least 20 in the last four years according to my Goodreads list), this is the scariest because it feels the most possible.

The book is filled with statements and passages that made me stop and think, like this one: “Watch out for the leaders, Crake used to say. First the leaders and the led, then the tyrants and the slaves, then the massacres. That’s how it’s always gone.” (p. 155)

At this point I am not sure whether or not I will read the sequels - not because the first isn't good, it is – but because the series depicts such a depressing future. At the very least I'll need a little break first and something lighthearted to read before tackling The Year of the Flood.

If you enjoy beautifully written realistic dystopian fiction that carries true warnings for our species, Oryx and Crake is for you. The Galesburg Public Library has the three books in the series in both print and ebook versions.

The Fire Sermon by Francesca Haig

The Fire Sermon by Francesca Haig is a dystopian novel set several hundred years after “the blast,” a nuclear war that ruined the world. “Before the blast, they say there’d been sermons about fire, about the end of the world. The fire itself gave the last sermon; after that there were no more.” (p. 13 of the advance reader copy)

At first, there were few surviving babies. Three or four generations after the blast, twins began to appear. One perfect baby and one imperfect, mutated baby. One Alpha baby and one Omega baby. At first, some tried to kill the imperfect baby only to discover a chilling truth – when one twin died, the other died. Now society is divided into the Alphas and the Omegas. As soon as it is clear which baby is the deformed one, he or she is cast off into an Omega village, to struggle to survive on the worst land with the least resources. The Alphas know they can’t kill their Omega twins, but they make life harsh for them.

Every now and then, an Omega baby’s deformity is manifested as the ability to glimpse the future. The narrator, the unoriginally named Cassandra, is one of these seers, otherwise normal.

Most twins don’t stay together long enough to form a bond, but since it is not clear at first which child is the Omega child when a seer is born, twins with a seer stay together longer. Cass and her twin Zach lived together with their parents until they were 13, when Cass was forced to leave home. Zach has joined the Alpha government, determined to make a name for himself and change society. The book opens with Cass being taken from her home and thrown in a cell. Powerful Alphas often “protect” their twins in some manner, so the Alphas can’t be assassinated through the murder of their twins.

The book starts very slowly. The world building is gradual. The author does not dump all the information on the reader at once. However, once Cass meets up with a mysterious one-armed prisoner who has no memory of his past, escapes, and goes on the run with him, the book really takes off. I was pulled right into the story after that. It was refreshing to have an adult narrator (in her twenties) instead of a teenager for once.

Some of the plot specifics are hard to believe or clichéd. Cass loudly breaks a glass case with a wrench while trying to escape her prison. She and Kip, the amnesiac, come across a party in a barn at an Omega settlement and dance freely in the shadows despite the danger. When Kip reveals something Cass wants to keep secret, she goes on a rampage, throwing breakable objects at the door. There is a love triangle that feels forced (are women authors even allowed to publish stories without love triangles anymore?).

But it’s an engaging story despite these occasional lapses. Although dystopian plots have been done often, this one manages to find some original ideas to include. The book ends with two big surprises, one I anticipated and one I did not.

There are some lovely passages. For example, “There were no written tales or pictures of the blast. What was the point of writing it, or drawing it, when it was etched on every surface? Even now, more than four hundred years after it had destroyed everything, it was still visible in every tumbled cliff, scorched plain, and ash-clogged river. Every face. It had become the only story the earth could tell, so who else would record it?” (p. 13 of the advance reader copy) The Omega children are all sterile; Cass wonders, “Was that the one thing Omegas are spared? Since we can’t have children, at least we’d never have to experience sending a child away.” (p. 25 of the ARC)

I feel the author missed an opportunity to make the reader think about the economic disparities of our own society. Perhaps the sequel will get be a little meatier. I definitely plan to read the sequel, and I recommend The Fire Sermon for those who enjoy dystopian fiction and strong female leads. The book is scheduled to be published in March 2015. I read an advance reader copy from netgalley.com.

The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins

As a librarian, I like to read books that readers are talking about. As the leader of the library’s Movie of the Book club, I also keep an eye on books being made into movies. The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins falls into both of these categories.

The Hunger Games has a horrific premise. A future version of the United States, Panem, damaged by war and climate change, hosts a yearly event called the Hunger Games. To punish its twelve Districts for rising up against the Capitol (and losing) decades earlier, two young adults from each District are chosen by lottery every year and sent to the Capitol to fight to the death in an arena while the whole country watches on television. One victor emerges.

Because of the depressing plot, I dragged my feet on reading the series. However, once I started I found it hard to stop. The three books in the trilogy are difficult to take. They are grim, violent, and disturbing. However, they are also exciting, full of unexpected plot twists, and told by a flawed and compelling narrator.

The first book in the series is The Hunger Games. It is the strongest book in the series. It grips your imagination and won’t let go. It begins with an introduction to Katniss Everdeen, a sixteen-year-old who lives in District 12 with her mother, her little sister, and her sister’s pet Buttercup, “the world’s ugliest cat.” Katniss’s life is a hard one: never having enough to eat, hunting illegally to get food, scrambling to survive. Still, she has family and good friends.

But it’s reaping day, the day two youths in each District are chosen as “tributes” and sent to the Capitol to entertain its citizens by fighting to the death in punishment for rebellion. When her sister’s name is chosen, Katniss volunteers to take her place. Then the boy for District 12 is chosen. He is Peeta Mellark, a boy in her class at school, a boy she is not friends with but owes a debt to all the same. And from that point on, their fates are intertwined as they head to the Capitol and the Hunger Games.

The similarity to our own reality television shows is obvious and no doubt intentional. The 24 contestants are polished and prepped, then presented to the viewers to choose favorites. While the cameras roll there are breathless interviews, the revealing of secrets, and prurient interest in the lives of the contestants. And then the Games begin.

Most of the first book takes place during the Games. The author makes you feel the narrator’s desperate desire to live. She also makes you feel the moral dilemma Katniss faces in knowing that to survive, every other contestant, including her fellow tribute from District 12, must die. The book made my heart race and gave me nightmares, but it also made me desperate to know what happened next. Although it concludes in a satisfactory manner, it is clearly a Book One that urges you to continue on to Book Two, Catching Fire.

As so often happens with a series, Catching Fire is not as good as the first book in the series. The novelty of the plot has worn off, but the pain and horror of the situation in Panem for the citizens of the Districts has not. That’s not to say it’s not a good book. It is, and it continued to take plot turns I did not expect. There was no doubt I felt compelled at the end to forge on to Mockingjay, the final book in the series. Katniss continues to grow and change, as do the people and the situations around her, leading to a difficult but acceptable series conclusion that left me thinking about conditions in our own world. The themes of this series will stick with me for a long time.

Pure by Julianna Baggott

Pure by Julianna Baggott is a disturbing book. It is set in the future in the Baltimore area after a terrible series of Detonations have turned the landscape to rubble and damaged everyone not destroyed by the blasts. In view of the ruined city stands a sealed Dome containing survivors who escaped the bombs.

It is nine years since the Detonations. The survivors are horribly damaged. Everyone has burns and embedded glass and metal. The bombs had the ability to merge living flesh and inanimate objects. The main character, Pressia, who is sixteen, was holding a doll when the bombs hit. The doll’s head has taken the place of her left hand. It has become a part of her; when she tries to cut it off, it bleeds. A young man named Bradwell has a living flock of birds in his back; they rustle their wings underneath the shirt he wears over them. A soldier was riding on a motorcycle with his brother behind him when the bombs went off; his brother is now merged into his back, the brother’s arms hanging around his neck.

Those who live outside the Dome eke out a meager living while trying to avoid being killed by Dusts – those who fused with the earth, now more rock than human. At the age of sixteen, the OSR – originally Operation Search and Rescue, now Operation Sacred Revolution – takes you away. No one knows what happens once you are taken, but Pressia is determined to escape the OSR.

Those who live inside the Dome and escaped damage from the blasts are called Pures by the survivors outside. They attend class, eat only pills formulated for optimal health, and undergo “coding.” Not surprisingly, those outside the Dome hate the Pures. When Partridge, one of the Pures, escapes to see if he can find his mother outside the Dome, he meets up with Pressia and Bradwell, and the three begin to question everything they’ve been told about the Detonations and life on the other side.

I had a hard time moving forward with this book. I was very reluctant to keep reading. Just when I thought the images couldn’t get any more disturbing, a passage would prove me wrong. About 60 pages in I was ready to stop reading. The book seemed bleak and humorless. The imagery struck me as heavy-handed. However, I read a stellar review of Pure and decided to keep going. I began to know and care about the characters. Tiny glimpses of humor emerged periodically.

Pure is being compared to The Hunger Games. Although the premise of Hunger Games – teenagers fighting to the death on a reality show – is also disturbing, I found it much easier to read than Pure (which is also the first book in a trilogy). In her acknowledgements, the author notes that she researched the effects of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki while writing Pure and adds, “I hope, in general, that Pure directs people to nonfiction accounts of the atomic bomb – horrors we cannot afford to forget.” I wish I’d read that before I started the book. It sheds a lot of light on where the anguish and horror of Pure is coming from.

As I said, Pure is a profoundly disturbing book. I can’t exactly say that I enjoyed it. But I did get caught up in the characters and the circumstances, and I’m glad I stuck with it. I will be reading the sequels. Anyone who likes to read dystopian novels and can handle disturbing themes and images should give Pure a try.