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books

Insignia by S. J. Kincaid

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S. J. Kincaid gets my hearty thanks for breaking me out of my reading funk with Insignia, her debut novel. I had heard great things about it for weeks and finally decided to give it a chance to hook me – and I am so glad I did.
Tom Raines has lucked out. Thanks to his virtual reality gaming skills, he’s been recruited to work at the Pentagonal Spire, where he trains to eventually become a combatant in World War III. If he shows he’s up to snuff and gains the sponsorship of one of the twelve multinational corporations, he’ll be fighting for the Indo-Americans in outer space, remotely controlling a spaceship with the help of a computer chip implanted in his brain. 
That premise has the word “cool” written all over it.
The war – which is being fought to secure rights for the corporations to the resources in space – has won overall popular support since no one actually dies. No one even gets hurt – it’s all done remotely, and the only things that are blown up are machines. Things aren’t rosy on earth (huge rates of unemployment and poverty), but people don’t seem to be too fussed about forking over tax dollars so that the sponsoring corporations can make more money.
Tom knew that choosing this way of life wouldn’t be a cakewalk, but he wasn’t quite prepared for just how tough it would be or how many secrets he’d have to keep. All that is offset by the fact that he finally has a chance to make friends and a life for himself after being dragged around the country by his drunk gambler of a father.
I love how huge this story managed to be, incorporating a world war and large-scale political intrigue, not to mention the entire freakin’ solar system. But I also loved how Kincaid concentrated on her characters, Tom in particular – he’s so utterly teen that it hurts to read about sometimes.
The world Kincaid has created is fascinating. At first I was a little hesitant to believe in a culture that wages war using machines in outer space, with no real lives at stake, but she wrote it so convincingly that I believed it. It was not difficult for me to believe in a world controlled by twelve mega-corporations who have essentially bought out the world governments. I loved reading about the computers implanted in the teens’ brains and how it’s possible to actually give them computer viruses, making them baa like sheep – or other, much less innocuous actions. 
I did find myself drawing some comparisons between Insignia and other books I’ve read. I got a little bit of a Harry-Ron-Hermione vibe from Tom-Vik-Wyatt (Tom’s two best friends) for most of the story, and the competitions between the divisions within the Spire reminded me a lot of Rowling’s house competitions as well as Veronica Roth’s faction competitions during training. Additionally, the various training simulations Tom and his classmates undergo brought to mind the war games in Robison Wells’ Variant. And then there’s Blackburn, a teacher at the Spire who I pictured as an amalgam of Snape and Moody.
Still, the main premise of Kincaid’s story is pretty unique, and she tells it wonderfully. Unlike many action/adventure stories, I couldn’t tell where this one was going most of the time. Usually when I read a jacket flap, I have a pretty good idea, but this one threw me for several loops. And everything that happens is believable in Kincaid’s world, which is detailed and always interesting.
I can see Insignia getting some Cybils love. It’s got huge teen appeal, is quite well-written, and addresses some meaty issues (corporate control of government, why we fight wars, the nebulous division between human and machine). It’s a natural readalike for Divergent – the cover blurb from Roth is appropriate – not only because it’s high action, but also because of the emphasis on competition and the protagonist’s struggle to determine if the place in the world that he’s chosen for himself is the right one. Highly recommended.
Book borrowed from my local library.

Eve and Adam by Katherine Applegate and Michael Grant

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Those of you around my age may not believe this, but I have never read an Animorphs book. Books about animals were so boring to me as a kid, so why would I want to read a book about kids who could turn into animals? Seemed like a recipe for a nap to me.
So let’s just say I am glad that Applegate’s and Grant’s return to collaboration does not involve a resuscitation of that series. In fact, I don’t think there’s a single animal in Eve and Adam. 
The book starts off badly for Evening Spiker, whose mother is a renowned and very wealthy scientist who runs Spiker Biopharm. Eve is hit by a car on page 1, and she’s rushed to the hospital. Her mother promptly picks her up and takes her back to Spiker Biopharm, where apparently she will receive better treatment.
As she recuperates, her mother decides to give her a project to work on: use some of the company’s educational technology to “create” a perfect boy in the lab. This aspect of the story is actually smaller than the jacket copy would have you think. For most of the story, it provides a few laughs but is of little importance.
The more important aspect involves Solo Plisskin, a teenage boy who works for Ms. Spiker. He’s got some sort of vendetta against her that he’s managed to keep hidden, but we follow his plans to eventually bring her down. He’s drawn to Eve, though, and as Eve begins to unravel some of the secrets of her mother’s company, Solo starts to see how they involve to his own secrets. 
The story is told in Eve’s and Solo’s alternating points of view. There’s a clear romantic attraction there, but since Eve is the daughter of someone Solo hates, there’s resistance, too. There’s plenty of suspense as well. Although Solo clearly knows what he has against Ms. Spiker, he’s not telling until the absolute last moment, so we can only guess.
The set up is interesting, but it seemed like Eve and Adam was more of a gimmick than a story. There was nothing outstanding about the writing – if you made all of the pronouns gender-neutral, I doubt I’d be able to tell you who was narrating at any particular point. The big revelations weren’t terribly interesting or original and I was a bit bored throughout, although I know the authors were shooting for a fast-paced sci fi thriller. And I was never engaged in either Eve’s or Solo’s problems. In fact, I found Eve’s mother to be a more engaging character than either of the two leads. There will be a sequel, but I doubt I’ll bother reading it.
All that said, there will be people who get more out of this reading experience than I did (like always). Readers a bit more invested in romance will probably enjoy it more, and those who are just dipping their toes into sci fi might find this a good place to start. It’s certainly an ephemeral book, though.

Review copy received from the publisher. Eve and Adam hits shelves October 2.

For Darkness Shows the Stars by Diana Peterfreund

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Elliot North is a Luddite, a member of the land-owning aristocratic class that has sat at society’s peak since the Reduction crippled humanity. Thought to be the result of over-reliance on technology and scientific experimentation, the Reduction caused a large portion of the population to give birth to mentally deficient babies, a condition that persisted for generations.
The Luddites outlawed technology and have since then ruled over the “Reduced” (those with reduced mental capabilities) and the “Posts” (children of the Reduced born without mental deficiencies) who live on Luddite land and serve them in much the same way indentured laborers or slaves did in the American South. Posts are actually fairly new – for many generations, children of Reduced people were Reduced themselves. 
Kai is a Post. He grew up on Elliot’s father’s land, and the two became friends as children, despite the huge social gulf between them. And they eventually fell in love. When Kai decided to make a better life for himself, far away from a place that kept him a prisoner, he asked Elliot to come with him. 
She said no, choosing loyalty to her family over Kai. Now it’s four years later, and Kai has returned with a new name, a new job, and a secret. He and his group of explorer Posts have rented land from Elliot’s family in order to build a ship, which brings Kai into almost daily contact with Elliot. There’s tension and longing and restraint and recriminations and all the other good things you find in a really delicious romance.
For Darkness Shows the Stars is more like Austen than some other modern or SF/fantasy re-tellings in that Peterfreund concentrates a lot on the society and the complexities of her two leads and not as much on the plot. That’s not to say that there isn’t a plot, but this is certainly a character-driven story. Readers looking for a more “traditional” dystopian/post-apocalyptic novel that features plenty of action and shocking plot revelations will be disappointed. 
Readers looking for a steamy romance will also be disappointed – Elliot and Kai barely even touch. But it’s swoon-worthy all the same, for the same reason modern readers still find Austen’s original works swoon-worthy: mature, lovely writing that connects us so closely to Elliot and Kai that we feel each misunderstanding, each look, each unspoken sentiment keenly. It makes for a pretty intense read, and it’s a testament to Peterfreund’s writing that she’s made a book with almost zero physical contact so romantic.
I was pleased with the way she wrote the society as well. It’s an impressive feat of world-building, with plenty of detail that unfolds naturally over the course of the story. Unlike many stories that feature a blighted future society, this one makes sense in the context of the story’s events. It’s also not sensationalized. The Reduction is a terrible thing, and what the Luddites did to the Reduced and the Posts since then is also terrible, but I never felt that it was done to shock. And for all that this setting is so very different from that of today and is so vital to the story, it’s still just the setting. The real story is about Elliot and Kai’s relationship, and Peterfreund doesn’t make their desire to investigate the Reduction the primary plot point. Their relationship and their own growth as individuals are what she is most concerned with.
For Darkness Shows the Stars was a real breath of fresh air for me. It’s a dystopia and a romance and an Austen re-telling, but it’s a unique story and not a carbon copy of anything else. Plus the writing is excellent. Highly recommended.
Book borrowed from my local library.

Guest Post: Fair Coin by E. C. Myers

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Matthew Jackson returns for a guest review of the YA fantasy/science fiction novel Fair Coin by E. C. Myers. Jackson has been sporadically guesting for us for a while now, most notably his series on Horror Lit 101. An avid reader and reviewer, he reviews adult fiction for BookPage, is an entertainment journalist at Blastr.com, and will have a short story published in the forthcoming issue of Weird Tales Magazine. You can visit him online at his tumblr and Twitter. (Full disclosure: he also happens to be my boyfriend, and I am proud to say that I have significantly increased the number of YA books he reads.)  

I’m not one of those reviewers who groans at genre classifications. Sometimes I think we have too many of them, and sometimes it frustrates me when readers refuse to venture outside of their “paranormal romance” or “urban fantasy” or “contemporary YA” comfort zones, but overall genres are fun for me. That’s all by way of saying I’m a devotee of numerous genres, but it still makes me happy when I find a truly genre-bending book that manages to cleverly blend conventions while going its own way. It makes me even happier when the book in question is shelved in the young adult section, an area which – in the age of countless paranormal melodramas and dystopian rebellion adventures (neither of which I mean any offense to, by the way) – could use all the genre-bending it can get.

Sixteen-year-old Ephraim’s life is plunged into chaos when he comes home one day to find his mother slumped over the kitchen table after a suicide attempt. That’s problem enough, but things get even more harrowing when he discovers why his mother tried to kill herself: earlier that day, she was called to the hospital to identify the body of her dead son. A boy who looks just like Ephraim is dead, and among his belongings (which Ephraim’s mother brought home from the morgue) is a mysterious coin.

Curious and scared, Ephraim takes the coin and accidentally discovers that it seems to grant wishes. The wishes start small, little experiments to test the object’s power. But as the wishes grow, and as Ephraim learns what the coin is capable of, he realizes that every time he changes something voluntarily, something else involuntarily shifts along with it. There’s more than simple magic going on, and as Ephraim tries to hold it together with his best friend, his crush and his mother, he realizes that unless he can come to understand what the coin really is, everything will fall apart.

I’ve talked about this before, and I’m never really sure that I’m making sense when I say it, but I like stories that unfold. There’s nothing wrong with a predictable, direct tale if it’s told well, but my favorite stories are always the ones that feel like every chapter is a discovery rather than a signpost on some big story map. It’s more fun when the story is revealing itself to me rather than pushing me on to the ending. Of course, I want to get to the ending, but I want to feel like I’m experiencing something along the way. Fair Coin is that kind of book. Myers deftly and gracefully weaves fantasy, science fiction, mystery, romance and teenage uncertainties into one tight, compelling package. It’s a page turner that also packs real weight into every chapter, and that’s always a worthy book.

If I have a complaint, it’s the dialogue, but I’m not necessarily blaming Myers for that. His prose is direct yet vivid, his pacing is wonderful and his story is fascinating, but the dialogue never quite feels real to me. There’s too much exposition packed into the mouths of the characters in places, and the human moments sometimes stumble a bit over clumsy lines. But in all fairness, that might just be me. It might ring completely true to teen readers, but even if it doesn’t, the dialogue doesn’t get in the way much.

Fair Coin might not have the same kind of instant appeal that some YA genre novels pack, but if you’re willing to make the leap it’s worth the investment. It’s a tale that twists genres without breaking the rules of any of them, told with fire and confidence and a sense of humor. E. C. Myers has quite simply done something wonderful here, and if you’re frustrated with predictable genre fiction you’ll be glad this book exists.

Finished copy received from the publisher. Fair Coin is available now.

Starters by Lissa Price

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Callie Woodland* and her brother, Tyler, are orphans – their parents were killed in the Spore Wars and they’ve been surviving on their own ever since. The Spore Wars actually killed off everyone between the ages of 20 and 60, and as a result, those over 60 have disenfranchised those under 20 of much of their rights: they can’t hold a job or vote, for instance. 
With no legal means of making money and no adult to claim them, Callie is desperate, especially since her brother is ill and in need of care. So she decides to sign on with Prime Destinations, a company that allows “Enders” (those over 60) to take over the bodies of “Starters” (those under 20) for a brief period of time. It allows the Enders to experience what it’s like to be youthful again and nets the Starters a significant amount of money.
Unfortunately for Callie, the procedure goes awry. She wakes up before the Ender who rented her body has relinquished it, but if she goes back to Prime Destinations and tells them, she won’t get paid. Callie isn’t even in complete control of her body at this point – she’ll black out again and then wake up in another place, knowing the Ender had re-taken control for that period of time. What’s more, she fears that the Ender has something dangerous in mind for her body, and Callie is determined to prevent it from happening.
Starters is such a fun read. It’s one of those books that you set down after reading the last page and say to yourself “Whew!” It’s a finish-in-one-sitting, don’t-want-to-put-it-down read, with bountiful secrets and breathless revelations. Basically what I’m saying is that Starters is a page-turner of the highest order.
Unlike some fast-paced, plot-driven books, Starters doesn’t feel thin or hastily put together. There’s some character development, one or two subplots, and at least some semblance of world-building (although that is probably its weakest part – more on this later). It’s unpredictable, twisty, and superbly written in that way that makes you completely fall into the story without surfacing until you realize you should probably eat sometime that day.
I always used to consider myself a stickler for world-building that makes sense in all aspects, but more and more I’m realizing that it’s not as important to me as long as the writer sells it with conviction. Delirium has, arguably, one of the most ridiculous premises I’ve ever encountered, but I quite enjoyed it despite that. Starters is a little more believable, but there were still a couple points that irritated me: 
1. The Spore Wars killed off everyone between the ages of 20 and 60 because they weren’t given the vaccine, but it’s impossible to believe that no one in this age range had access to it, legally or otherwise. The Spore Wars and the illness they caused are sketchy at best, so don’t go into this expecting any explanation.
2. Everyone over 60 is called an “Ender,” even though people at this point in time routinely live to 200 years of age or more. When not even half your life is finished, I don’t think you can really be called an “ender.”
Plot has always been my main reading love, and Starters has one of the best. It’s backed up by solid writing and an expert sense of timing. Starters is ideal for all readers who enjoy fast-paced, plot-driven, mind-bending reads, and especially for fans of Divergent.
(Do you like the cover? I don’t have anything against the shininess, but the image of Callie is really off-putting to me.)
*If I were this book’s editor, I would have asked Price to change her name to something a little less similar to “Caddie Woodlawn,” which I must have said in my mind a dozen times.
Review copy received from the publisher. Starters is available now.