A Review of The Unnaturalists by Tiffany Trent

In a steampunky new London powered by “myth,” a substance which is supposedly mined but actually has far more dire origins, Vespa assists her father in studying and even stuffing the Unnaturals, beasts like the Sphinx and little sylphs. But these imperialist scientists are denying what a boy named Syrus and his fellow Tinkers camping out on the edge of town already know—that the Unnaturals are sentient and are being exploited by the Empress in horrible ways.

The book is a dystopian fantasy, but it doesn't have a futuristic feel, so don’t let the genre make you think you'll be getting the usual post-apocalyptic fare. Instead you'll feel like you're in the nineteenth century as you follow Vespa’s perils and her attraction to a young Pedant named Hal, along with Syrus’s creepy adventures as he tries to fulfill the request of a great Unnatural in the forest to find the witch who lives in the city. Of course, that would be Vespa, but witchcraft is forbidden, and there’s a reason hers is just now beginning to make itself known. Then there’s her father’s assistant, the slimy Charles, who is also more than he seems. A group of vigilante magic-makers called Athena’s Architects rounds out the picture. Well, not counting a variety of creatures, including a particularly awful type of werewolf.

Vespa first meets Syrus in a way guaranteed to make her distrust him, which complicates matters when he finds out he must bring her to the forest. Hal is also not at all forthcoming about his plans, which leaves Vespa scrambling around trying to find out what’s going on. What she does learn changes everything she’s ever believed in. Here's a look at Vespa the young scientist as she travels through the Forest, where magic still hides:

The Wad and I both nod and follow him outside. Trees rustle their flaming robes along the road. We're in the Forest. Instinctively, I make the sign against irrationality to protect myself from pixie infestation. It's all I can do, since we've had no time to don nullsuits, if Father and Charles even remembered to bring them. Most young ladies my age would be terrified if they found themselves so unshielded on a Forest road that's likely teeming with Unnaturals.

I like Vespa for the most part, though I think Syrus is the more interesting character. The interplay between these two and Hal makes for good storytelling. One thing that struck me, though, is that Vespa’s story is told in first person, while Syrus’s is told in third person. It isn’t that distracting, but it just seems like an odd choice.

A major theme of the book is the clash between magic and science, or the numinous and the rational. Vespa starts out as a logical, scientific young lady, but she soon learns that the facts she’s been told about the world aren’t especially factual. She also discovers that she is not who she thought she was, and neither, in his way, is her father. This seems like a nice bit of symbolism for young adult readers who are busy trying to define themselves as someone other than their parents.

The Unnaturalists is a good read for anyone who enjoys steampunk and historical fantasy of the YA variety. Join Vespa in discovering that science isn’t everything, and magic is real.

Note for Worried Parents: This is a YA book, but I don’t think there’s any reason it can’t be read by older middle grade readers, especially 10- to 12-year-olds.

A Review of The Pearl Wars by Nick James

This debut novel enters the growing ranks of YA sci-fi with strong boy appeal; it's also another dystopian offering. In James's future U.S., most of the population is divided between a corrupt government on the Surface and a group of Skyship dwellers who are political dissidents. Both groups compete to capture the Pearls: small spheres that fall from space and contain vast quantities of energy that can be used to keep the machines of civilization running.

Of course, there's a third faction here, though it's not well organized—those who live between the ruins of post-apocalyptic cities outside the protected areas run by the government. The worst of these are called Fringers because they live in Fringe Town and are the equivalent of roving street gangs. But others eke out an existence in quietly pathetic little communities.

Jesse Fisher lives on a Skyship. He encounters ruthless Cassius Stevenson from the Surface agency when both are in pursuit of a fallen Pearl. As they clash, the boys nearly die; then, as the two of them dangle from the rooftop of an abandoned building, they feel a strange flash of energy flowing between them. Just what connection could two such different people possibly have?

Back in their respective realms, Jesse and Cassius discover that the adults they trust are keeping secrets from them. When they meet again, is it to kidnap, kill, or help each other? Each boy seeks for answers, but the politics of Skyship and Surface conspire to keep them from learning what they need to know.

James deliberately makes Cassius less likable than Jesse, who seems more like the main character. But the two subplots do intertwine, and you may feel a bit of sympathy for cold-hearted Cassius before all's said and done.

Jesse has friends on the Skyship, but it's hard for him to know who to trust. Why does Captain Alkine take an unusual interest in him? Then there's an older girl named Eva. She seems to keep an eye on him, but why? Is Skandar really that good of a friend? And what about Avery, a girl who might be attracted to Jesse?

Then Jesse starts having strange interactions with the falling Pearls. Who is he really?

As for Cassius, he begins to question the intentions of Madame, leader of the Surface government and the closest thing he has to a mother. Does she care about him at all? As his body reacts bizarrely in the aftermath of his meeting with Jesse, he becomes determined to find the Skyship boy and see if he can make things normal again.

But neither boy is exactly normal. Eventually both of them are on the run, running from each other and after each other, fleeing from larger forces as they head for the ruins of Seattle, where they believe they will find the truth.

Here's a sample of the action:

Just as the guy's about to crack my skull open, an explosion rattles the street.

All three Fringers release me and spin around. I crumple to the ground, face on fire.

Framed by their tense, ready-to-pounce bodies, I see the silhouette of Eva Rodriguez. A trail of sandy smoke winds up into the air beside her like a serpent. It came from a detonator, the spherical shell of which lies on the cracked pavement in front of her right foot.

She looks older than her fifteen years, and far more intimidating than me with her cropped hair and well-practiced battle scowl. A bulky burlap pouch hangs over her shoulder, barely containing a radiant green glow. Resting inside is the Pearl we were sent down to retrieve...

"I've got more where that came from." Her dark eyes lock onto each of them as she moves the barrel of the pistol from one to another. "Leave. Now."

You'll find more action than character development in The Pearl Wars, but Jesse is a nicely dimensional character, while Cassius is sufficiently dark and complex to create a good contrast to his Skyship counterpart.

Nick James's vision of the future is an intriguing one, and his storytelling is suspenseful and fast paced—obviously influenced by TV, movies, and comic books. Watch for some great plot twists as you give this first volume of his new Skyship Academy series a try!

Note for Worried Parents: Like many YA dystopian novels, this book has a grim, dreary world marked by violence and betrayal. There's a little boy-girl attraction, but not much more than you'd expect from a teenage boy protagonist.

Also: The jacket art is great, but I think it looks a bit steampunk, and this is not a steampunk book.

Don't know how long it will last, but here's Nick James explaining his blog tour contest, and then you can check out his his very cool website, where you'll find more info about the blog tour and Nick, his book, etc.

A Review of Enclave by Ann Aguirre

I'm pretty sure I'm not the first nor will be the last to compare this book to The Hunger Games: tough teenage girl who's a warrior, dark dystopian setting, a race for survival. But believe it or not, Deuce's world is worse than Katniss's. I compare them simply to give you some idea about the book's general tone and level of violence. Really, Aguirre has built her own world here, and it makes the one with those 12 (or 13) districts and televised death matches look downright cheery.

Here the death matches are every day. Deuce is part of a mostly primitive tribe inhabiting the subway tunnels in a post-apocalyptic New York City. She and her bunch are pretty brutal, exiling or killing off anyone who breaks the rules, but they are menaced by worse terrors—the cannibalistic mutants they call Freaks. (These have a whiff of zombie about them, if you're trying to picture it.)

Deuce has survived to the age of 15, so she is marked with fire and given a name instead of a number. She is proud of her training as a Huntress (vs. a Builder or Breeder), but she is dismayed to be assigned to a partner who came to the tribe as an outsider and has managed to survive in their culture. Fade isn't necessarily one for obeying the rules, which means he could get Deuce killed by the tribal leaders. Sent on a suicide mission, the two manage to survive, but when they return with a warning about the Freaks, their leaders won't listen.

Deuce and Fade end up in exile, where they are nearly killed by the Freaks. Then Fade leads Deuce to the surface of the city, a place she has never dreamed of going. They run into trouble with a local gang and with the Freaks who live on the surface. Barely escaping death yet again, they acquire a hardhearted companion and flee the city altogether, unsure where they will wind up, assuming they continue to stay alive.

Yes, there's a sort of love triangle. Deuce and Fade grow close, but their closeness is threatened by the thuggish Stalker. As tough as she is, Deuce is somewhat drawn to Stalker, who is more like her. But she likes Fade partly because he is more compassionate and civilized than she is (though nevertheless a fighter). This plot thread is left hanging at the end of the book.

Deuce's world is an ugly one, but it's heartening to watch her survive and grow and even (sort of) escape to a place that is a bit less vicious—though the Freaks continue to threaten those who are more human even as the book ends. We are definitely heading toward a sequel here!

I've read some of Aguirre's adult sci-fi, and she just keeps getting better. This book is well crafted, from its world building to its character building. Aguirre moves easily between action and emotion, giving Enclave a better balance than some books of this sort. Here's Deuce heading out on her first real hunt:

Beyond the light of the enclave, it was dark, darker than I'd ever seen. It took my eyes long moments to adjust. Fade waited while I made the shift.

"We hunt like this?" Nobody ever told me. Primitive fear scuttled up my spine.

"Light attracts Freaks. We don't want them to see us first."

Reflexively, I checked my weapons as if mentioning the monsters could bring them slavering out of the murk. My club slid free cleanly. I put it back. Likewise, my knives found my palms in a smooth motion.

As we moved, my other senses compensated. I had done visual deprivation as part of my training, but I hadn't understood just how much I would need that skill out here. Now I was glad I could hear him moving ahead of me because I could make out only vague shadows. No wonder Hunters died.

So yes, if you liked The Hunger Games, or Incarceron or The Forest of Hands and Teeth, for that matter, add this to your list of creepy-cool dystopian books!

Note for Worried Parents: Enclave is an intense book for teens and includes graphic violence, horror, and the threat of rape, plus mature themes simply in the way Deuce's grim little society functions.

Also: Click here to watch the book trailer. (Not sure I care much for the casting of Fade. I'm thinking the boy should look a lot less like a friendly spaniel. Oh well!)

Please note that this book was provided to me as an ARC by the publisher.

A Review of The Iron Thorn by Caitlin Kittredge

This author isn't the first adult writer to cross over to YA, but so far she's one of the best. Steampunk, urban fantasy, alternate history, dystopian fiction, romance, gothic novel, you name it: The Iron Thorn combines the best of all these subgenres, throwing in one of those genetic ticking clocks plus an actual ticking clock that's the nerve center of an entire house made of magic-infused gears. Which is to say, if you liked Fever Crumb, Leviathan, Lament, and Twilight, you should take a look at Kittredge's new YA offering.

As the jacket flap puts it, "Aoife's family is unique in the worst way." Her mother has gone crazy and is in an insane asylum, while her beloved older brother lost his mind, too, nearly killing Aoife before running away.

Aoife lives in the dark city of Lovecraft, where she studies in the strict school of engineers, applying reason and science to practical problems as the city's great Engine beats like a malevolent heart beneath it all. Her fellow student and best friend, Cal, stands by her, but even he is uneasy when it appears that Aoife herself will lose her mind when she turns sixteen. The city authorities, as represented by the Proctors, also have their eye on the girl, which is a very bad thing.

Then Aoife gets a cryptic message from her brother Conrad and sets off to find him, presumably at their father's home in a village to the north. Crossing the city, let alone the countryside, is a dreadful prospect, considering the threat of death or capture from monsters like the nightjars and government spies in the form of clockwork ravens. Fortunately, Aoife and Cal find a scruffy guide named Dean, who has secrets of his own. He knows a guy with an airship, and it appears he won't sell them out to the monsters that live in the sewer system, so off they go.

The little company eventually reach the house where Aoife's father lived, only there's no sign of him or of Conrad. Of course, Aoife has never met the man. And his house turns out to be very strange indeed. That's even before Aoife has her first encounter with the fairy realm, whose denizens—most notably a fey named Tremaine—may prove to be the greatest threat of all. But Aoife, despite her growing attraction to Dean and her loyalty to Cal, will do anything to get her brother back. Anything.

This book is a thoroughly marvelous tale, one of my favorites so far in 2011. In fact, I felt that my experience of YA horror/steampunk/dystopian fantasy was refreshed by reading The Iron Thorn. I also appreciate how the main plot thread comes to a satisfying conclusion, even as new problems set us up for the next volume in this series. In addition, for those of you looking for romance, Aoife's interactions with Dean aren't cliché in the least; they're clever and bumpy and real (with Cal acting sweetly jealous, to boot).

I guess about the only thing that threw me off even a little would be the logistics of Aoife's role relative to the fey, especially her use of magic in the book's climax; however, close enough. The rest of the book more than makes up for a bit of trouble in that regard.

Here's part of Aoife's description of the marvelous clock in her father's mechanical house:

On the opposite side of the long narrow room was a leviathan clock—a full-bodied, intricate machine, much different than a pocket chronometer. As I watched, the hands swung in a parabolic arc, their wicked spiked finials grinding to a halt at twelve midnight. The chimes let out a discordant, muffled bong.
The hands swung again, and I stepped closer, watching them trail across the clock face like compass needles that had lost north, the unearthly ticking echoing loud enough to vibrate my skull. Each numeral was actually a tiny painting, wrought in delicate ink. A naked girl lying sleeping on a stone. A great goat with the body of a man sitting on a throne. A circle of figures in a dark forest who wore the sign of Hastur, the heretical Yellow King, whom cultists worshipped before the necrovirus. According to Professor Swan, and who knew where he got his stories from?
...Friendly as the library was, the clock was a monstrous thing, a machine of bloody teeth.

I know you're all wondering how to pronounce the main character's name, so I looked it up: that would be ee-fa.

Now, please get your shivers on and enter the alarming world of Aoife's Lovecraft!

Note for Worried Parents: This is a book for teens. The horror elements are pretty horrific, and there's some teen attraction with eventual kissing.

Update 8-17-11: Check out this interview with the author on The Enchanted Inkpot!

A Review of Trickster's Girl by Hilari Bell

This book is going to make you want to get on a motorcycle and take a road trip to Alaska, which, coincidentally enough, is pretty much what the author did when writing Trickster's Girl (though maybe she drove a car).

Now, we've seen a lot of dystopian YA fiction over the past few years, but it doesn't often include fantasy elements. Bell comfortably marries a damaged human future with the mythological beings who want to make things better. Well, some of them do. The rest think it would be great if all of the humans thoroughly destroyed themselves.

Even though Bell's premise, set on our planet a century from now, at first glance seems environmental, it also includes terrorism: someone has unleashed a biological weapon that kills off trees as well as giving people a particularly powerful form of cancer, and its influence is slowly spreading northward from South America.

Raven, that ancient trickster, decides to save the planet he finds so entertaining, so he scrounges up an unwilling recruit to run the human side of the spells needed to heal various crucial power spots (having to do with ley lines and nexuses, if you know your sci-fi/fantasy tropes). Naturally, as the book begins, Raven disguises himself as a hunky teenage boy and infiltrates a high school, where he stalks Kelsa until she agrees to listen to him.

Don't mistake this for one of those current YA paranormal romances, though. You know, where the hot supernatural guy falls hard for an oh-so-ordinary girl who is his junior by a century or two and then spends the rest of the book alternately protecting her and making out with her? Right. This isn't that book.

So Kelsa isn't interested in what Raven has to say except—her father has died from the cancer and she is not getting along with her mother one bit. To help solve the problem that killed her father, she grouchily agrees to accompany Raven to just one place. Whereupon they break into a museum in the dead of night in order to steal a medicine bag. Again, not what Kelsa had in mind! Then Raven tells her he wants her to go on a road trip to Alaska on her motorcycle. The girl has no intention of cooperating at this point, but he cleverly argues her into it.

Of course, Raven is still withholding information, like the little fact that he has enemies, beings like himself who don't want the problem fixed. And those enemies have recruited humans to stop Kelsa. That's aside from ordinary problems like what to eat and dealing with flat tires and whether they will be able to cross the Canadian border without getting caught (in a world where DNA-based personal identity cards make it hard to do that sort of thing). Or the problem of Kelsa figuring out how to work a brand-new kind of magic when she doesn't even really believe in magic except that this irritating boy turned into a raven and back right in front of her to prove it.

Little by little, Raven and Kelsa succeed, and soon the enemies' efforts escalate, till it's not certain Kelsa will live, let alone finish her part of this task. It takes the last-minute help of another kid to pull off Kelsa's final defeat of her enemies, and then the magical torch is passed to that boy, a Native American who will be the main character in Bell's second book in the Raven Duet.

One thing I've discovered in reading Bell's previous books (Goblin Wood and A Matter of Profit, among others) is that she isn't interested in black-and-white storytelling. Bell goes for ambiguity and nuance whenever she gets the chance, e.g., in a discussion of faith healing and why Kelsa's father died. Those of you who feel that fantasy is too often morally simplistic will appreciate the complex humanity of her books, including this one.

Kelsa is not always cheerful or appealing and her motives are sometimes petty, but she hangs in there and gets the job done. I appreciate seeing that her grief for her father doesn't render her saintly; far from it, in fact. I also like Bell's version of the mythological trickster figure, whom she envisions as changing names and faces over the centuries, depending on what myths the humans create.

Setting is important in Trickster's Girl, both in a solid, functional way and in a spiritual sense. Here's a sample, as Kelsa is about to heal a glacier:

Like the glacier itself, the dip was bigger than it had looked from a distance. Kelsa stared curiously, for this shallow trench was nothing like the water-cut gullies and canyons she was accustomed to, just a slightly deeper groove amid hundreds of others the glacier had carved into the mountain's stone....
Kelsa could see nothing now but a wall of white curling away, for its top was far higher than her head. It didn't look very inspiring, but this dirty snowbank was just one branch of an ice field that could be seen from space, and that even now was carving away the peaks that towered around her.

The question arises: How well does Bell's blending of science fiction and fantasy work? I think she succeeds. The science fiction is simply an extension of our modern world, with slightly more sophisticated technology and believable social/political developments relating to terrorism and other concerns. The mythology is also extended, centered around Raven and a barely glimpsed pantheon of mostly Native American gods and nature spirits.

Trickster's Girl is a focused story compared to some of the cast-of-thousands books we've been seeing, in part because the quest/road trip format gives it a fairly linear shape. It doesn't have the over-the-top intensity of something like The Hunger Games, yet it has its own quiet kind of intensity. I think you'll find it's easy to get on that motorcycle with Kelsa and head to Alaska, attempting to heal a troubled Earth with the help of an unreliable mythological being.

Note for Worried Parents: There's some peril here, with motorcycle gangs and talk of guns and drug smuggling. Trickster's Girl is pretty wholesome, albeit mature. Its intended audience is teens.

This book is due out on Monday, January 3rd. I requested a review copy from the Amazon Vine Program.

Also: My interview with author Hilari Bell is now up at The Enchanted Inkpot.

A Review of Pod by Stephen Wallenfels

Gritty-cool. That's the term I've decided on for Pod. This book pulls off what all kinds of alien invasion and action films have failed to achieve in recent decades: it's the ultimate sci-fi suspense thriller. All this without ever showing us a single alien—just their ships.

There are two stories in Pod as we follow a couple of kids whose lives implode when the aliens come. Josh, apparently a high school sophomore, is living a happy suburban life with his parents in a town near Seattle, only his mother is away at a medical convention in L.A. Then early one morning, Josh is woken by a horrible screeching noise and all of the radios and TVs in the house lose power. He and his father see a huge black pod descend from the sky. More pods descend, until they can be seen floating in every direction. Beams from the pods start to disintegrate all of the cars and trucks. Next the newspaper girl, who is running towards Josh, is gone in a flash of blue light as Josh's father holds him back from going out the door to help her.

Cut to Los Angeles, where twelve-year-old Megs is living a very different life from Josh. She and her mother have a car, but that's about it, ever since they ran away from the mother's abusive boyfriend. Megs's mom talks big, though it's pretty obvious she's making it on prostitution gigs. On this particular morning, she goes off with a man she's met, leaving Megs in the car, which is parked in a hotel parking garage. She promises to take Megs to Denny's when she comes back and blows her a kiss, telling her to lock the doors. Only not long afterwards, Megs hears a terrible screeching sound, and all hell breaks loose.

From there, we go back and forth from Josh to Megs, watching how they react to the situation in which they find themselves, now that anyone who goes outside will be disintegrated. In many ways, Megs's experience is the more horrific, since a group of thugs led by the chief security guard takes over the hotel and terrorizes the occupants under a pretense of creating order. Megs continues to hide in the parking garage, where she creeps from car to car, trying to find food and water. Unfortunately, two of the hotel thugs also come to the garage, looking for valuables in the cars. They become aware of Megs's presence, and she must play her already awful game of hide and seek even better. Megs has found a kitten, and even though she knows she probably shouldn't, she tries to keep it alive. Megs becomes more aware of how bad things are inside the hotel and even tries to help, especially after the kitten is captured by her enemies—whose preferred means of killing people is throwing them outside so that they will be destroyed by the alien pods.

Josh's troubles seem more subdued by contrast, but they are powerful in a quiet way. His father immediately starts worrying about water and supplies, becoming increasingly obsessive about counting every bite of food in the house. He and Josh bicker as they consider the future, if there is a future at all. And should they eat the dog? If it comes down to it, should they eat each other? This portion of the story slowly grows in intensity, made all the more horrifying as Josh sees what happens to the people in the apartment building across the street.

Yet in the midst of all this, animals can roam outside without being killed, which might lead readers to suspect that the aliens are pretty much against humans and their technology. (Various aspects of technology are destroyed along the way.) Are we talking ruthless environmentally concerned aliens?

At any rate, things get worse and worse for Josh and especially for Megs. Here's a sample of what it feels like to be Megs in the parking garage:

This is my new address:
Megs Moran
Level 6 Orange
Row J, Space 12
Los Angeles, California
Here are the directions. You go to Level 6 Orange—orange because all the levels have different colors. If you have kids, avoid the bloaters on levels 3 and 5. The smell is so bad they might puke. Find Row J—you can't miss it, there's a little brown Toyota truck at the front with muddy monster tires that Richie slashed. Walk all the way down to space 12, that's two cars up from the end. If you go too far you'll be staring at three huge spaceballs. I'm next to the White Ford Focus with dangling side mirrors (be careful not to step on the broken glass—there's lots of it). Knock three times on the trunk of the blue Volvo. I'll pop out like a weasel and say Nice to see you!—unless you're Richie or Hacker, in which case I'll scream my head off. Like I did an hour ago when I woke up from a dream about Richie cutting into the trunk with a chainsaw.

FYI, Richie and Hacker are the thugs who are looking for cash, guns, and Megs, AKA "the Parking Lot Pirate." "Spaceballs" are what Megs calls the pods. Bloaters are dead bodies, of course.

I said this is the ultimate sci-fi suspense thriller, but Pod is more than that. While most suspense thrillers tend to be more plot-driven than character-driven, here the suspense is all the more powerful because Josh and Megs feel so real and important to the reader, as do some of the secondary characters.

Although this book is easily classified as science fiction and is specifically an alien-invasion story, it is also a work of dystopian fiction. Only Pod takes place right when things fall apart. (See the author's ironic use of a Ronald Reagan quote at the beginning of the book.)

The kinds of threads Wallenfels leaves hanging at the end of Pod will make you really want to read the sequel. Even small details, like the brief exposure Josh has to one of the alien rays, though not the killing kind, make you wonder what might happen next. (Megs appears to have been exposed, too.) Besides which, we get a glimpse of how the two stories could eventually tie together.

I'll confess that Pod came out nearly a year ago, but I recently got around to reading it and had to wonder why I waited so long!

Note for Worried Parents: This is tough stuff, and not just because it's easy to infer that Megs's mother is prostituting herself. The alien invasion results in numerous deaths, and this somehow manages to pale by comparison to the misery and violence unleashed by the thugs who take over the hotel in L.A. Definitely a book for teens.

A Review of Black Hole Sun by David Macinnis Gill

Here's another book I bought just because I liked the author's last book so much. That previous book would be Soul Enchilada, whose occasional plot glitches are completely overcome by Gill's mad writing skills and his even madder characters and YA voice.

Soul Enchilada is a semi-satirical paranormal set in the Southwest, featuring a funny, sarcastic Latino-Black girl. (See my review in last summer's "Scary YA Extravaganza.") The new book takes place on a future Mars, where governments have risen and fallen, leaving behind the shreds of civilization, including our guy Durango. This kid's backstory alone is more interesting that half the books out there, and believe me, it's not dumped on readers—you have to fit the pieces together as you go along.

By the way, check out the cover blurb from the hottest YA writer on the planet. No, not Stephenie Meyer; Suzanne Collins! She says, "Rockets readers to new frontiers...action-packed."

There's a pop culture feel, let alone a wish-fulfillment feel, to this book in some ways: Durango is ex-military and has an Artificial Intelligence implanted in his head to help him out. He is also a good-looking guy and chicks love him. But Gill doesn't get carried away with Durango's appeal. It ends up merging into the plot and even being the source of some humor when Durango, like most teenage boys, doesn't read the signals he gets from the opposite sex very well. As for the AI and the military training, that ends up being part of this kid's painful backstory.

You may notice that Durango tells someone early in the book that he is 8.5 years old. I looked that up so you won't have to: a Martian year is about 687 days, which means the boy is nearly 16 in Earth years.

This author's Mars is a brutal place, where food is scarce and Durango takes jobs for his little team of mercenaries that are all too likely to get them killed—and don't pay well, either. The new gig requires Durango and his buddies to defend a group of miners in a formally abandoned mine in the southern polar region from a group of mutant cannibals. (This feels more realistic than it sounds, trust me!)

Black Hole Sun is written in a kind of insider's shorthand, which gives it a strong sense of immediacy but does require the reader to work a little to get in sync. The effort pays off when you wind up feeling like you really are crawling along mine shafts, waiting to get your throat ripped out by the Drӕu. Yes, there are hand grenades, also alien slime. But there are quieter interactions, as well. Here's a sample, in which Durango is trying to keep his cool around his lieutenant, a girl he figures he shouldn't have feelings for because he needs to be a professional and a leader. She's meditating, and she asks him what's wrong...

How can I tell her, I woke up last night and you weren't here, so I went to look for you and was shanghaied by a suzy who first tried to jump me, then wanted to slug me. And that now, as I feel you next to me, your head held just so, your eyes closed, your lips slightly parted, I have trouble holding my breath, much less holding my chi.
"Just tired," I say.
"Ah." She says, and lets my lie hang in the air, like burned incense.

Gill doesn't just write terse action, he builds complex characters. The members of Durango's team are a rag-tag lot, especially self-styled swashbuckler Fuse and his large, touchy, not-so-bright sidekick, Jenkins. Then there's the rich old client who wants her kidnapped daughter rescued, but not her kidnapped son. She wants a lot more than that, as it turns out. Or we meet the vicious leader of the Draeu and discover her unexpected connections to Durango's past. The miners, too, are keeping secrets, and the story ends with an ethical cliffhanger which, even so, is still a side note compared to Durango's personal journey. At least for now.

About my only complaint is a quibble: the essentially interior dialogue between Mimi the AI and Durango is given in quote marks, just like everybody else's. To me, that implies that other people can hear it, though of course they can't. I would have liked to see the lines set in italics to distinguish them from the spoken dialogue. Then again, the nice thing about these exchanges is their humor, which livens up a dark story.

Now, there's been some talk about the lack of sci-fi in kidlit lately, and a recent crop of books has appeared to fill the void. But this one is the most purely hardcore yet, merging dystopia with aliens and a hopeful-yet-hopeless hero's journey. An unabashedly boy book, Black Hole Sun reeks of dirt, bravado, ice, blood, treachery, and near misses. Gill's tale of an abandoned Mars colony of the future is noir disguised as action-adventure. Durango makes a fitting hero for our new millenium, which, quite frankly, is jam-packed with an uneasy mix of optimism and despair. A lot like this book.

No offense to Pittacus Lore, but Black Hole Sun is the real deal.

Note for Worried Parents: This one is definitely for teens, probably 14 and up unless you have a serious sci-fi fan who's a year or two younger. The violence is pretty intense, though it moves at a fast clip—I did mention cannibalism, right? A few sideways references to sex, nothing major. Mature themes overall in that Black Hole Sun is quite bleak.

Update: I visited David Macinnis Gill's blog and discovered this clever book trailer for Black Hole Sun.

A Review of Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

For those of us immersed in the world of children's books, yesterday was a big day: the third and final book in Suzanne Collins's Hunger Games trilogy came out. I bought my copy on the way home from work, then walked into the house and began to read, skipping dinner to finish. I went to bed thinking about Mockingjay, I woke up thinking about it. So no, I won't wait till my regularly scheduled weekend slot to review this book. (Note my lack of spoilers below, which was hard to pull off!)

Just about any other writer, having established the wealthy, hedonistic Capitol led by evil President Snow in oppressing the twelve outlying districts, and having delivered Katniss into the hands of the rebels, would have then presented the rebels' heroic fight against the Capitol forces most heroically, with Katniss as their mascot. And that's—sort of what happens. But this is Suzanne Collins. I am now in awe of Suzanne Collins. Because she immediately proceeds to have the rebel forces, led by Alma Coin, the hardnosed president of supposedly nonexistent District 13, use Katniss in much the same way President Snow used her.

Twice in the last book and once in this book that I can recall, another character comments that Katniss doesn't know the effect she has on people. This may seem a bit too pointed. Furthermore, anyone reading Katniss's account of these events can see her flaws so clearly that they might have trouble understanding the effect Katniss has on others. So just what is that effect?

Mockingjay confirms that Katniss is a folk hero in spite of the efforts of leaders like Snow and now Coin to mold her into a Folk Hero. That's because Katniss believes in things like justice and kindness, values instilled in her by her parents (even her troubled mother, a healer) and by her own struggles to survive equitably in a tough world. Katniss tries to do the right thing no matter how hard it is, driven by her own moral compass even as others work to manipulate her into serving their ends.

Collins never takes the easy road. Katniss has been damaged, and will be damaged again. She suffers from post-traumatic stress syndrome and various physical ailments, more of them as the book goes on. The rebels' work to patch her back together becomes increasingly ironic and symbolic as Katniss, blown about by a detonation of agendas and deliberate attempts by President Snow to destroy her both psychologically and physically, becomes still more stubborn about what truly matters from moment to moment.

The plot twists in Mockingjay are jaw-dropping and satisfying. I'll admit I made the mistake of thinking as I bought the book, Hmm, this one looks smaller. How much can this writer accomplish, and is she going to give her story short shrift? Is she worn out?

The answer is a resounding NO.

Suzanne Collins masterfully offers up both an action-packed, suspenseful dystopian adventure and a symbolic, theme-packed commentary on age-old and contemporary social issues. Most notably, she questions the ethics of war and of our new media's determination to transform dimensional individuals into flat, packaged types for the sake of money and power. This author refuses to glamorize heroism, war, power, or celebrity.

She also refuses to glamorize romance. In Mockingjay, Collins addresses what it means to love someone, bringing up the idea that people change—does that make love more, or less likely? Is loving someone selfish, unselfish, or both? And, paradoxically, does loving someone mean saving them, or killing them? Suzanne Collins is not one for simple answers. Katniss plays out the complexity of human interactions in this book; even her terrible relationship with President Snow takes on unexpected meaning.

All of this comes to us in the form of one increasingly tortured girl's desire to make a good world for the little cluster of people she cares about, a goal that appears more and more unlikely as Mockingjay progresses. Along the way, not all of Katniss's choices may seem wise, but each of them will strike readers as true.

Few authors have used symbols so well in contemporary YA literature: take a look at what Collins does with those mockingjays, or with white roses, and how she turns the idea of a girl "catching fire" thematically and more literally in a contrived entertainment context on its head. Perhaps most notably, watch how the war becomes a new version of the Hunger Games.

Reviewers have commented that Catching Fire managed to be a better book than The Hunger Games, and now Suzanne Collins pulls off the impossible: Mockingjay takes it a step higher, ending this trilogy powerfully, thought provokingly, achingly well.

Thank you, Ms. Collins.

Note for Worried Parents: All three books are for teens. They include violence, death, much suffering, war, betrayal, torture, and mild references to sex. However, this material is handled gracefully, if painfully, and the Hunger Games books end up being downright inspiring.

A Review of Raiders' Ransom by Emily Diamand

Emily Diamand won the first London Times/Chicken House Children's Fiction Competition with this book, beating out more than 2,000 other writers. It's easy to see why. I can't decide which is better, her world building or her characterization.

It kind of surprised me to realize that Raiders' Ransom, the start of a series, is dystopian fiction, set in 2216 after rising sea levels have changed countries like England forever. I'm used to seeing that subgenre of science fiction and fantasy dominated by Young Adult writers, perhaps because it tends to be Dark Stuff Indeed.

Which is not to say that Diamand's vision of the future isn't bleak. But it is also swashbuckling, and this book is middle grade fiction, not YA (though perhaps for the older end of the spectrum, say fourth through seventh grades).

In Diamand's future, the British Isles are made up of the Last Ten Counties, a region of southwest England ruled by an oppressive Prime Minister; Greater Scotland to the north; and the warrior tribes (Raiders) who inhabit the marshes along the now-abbreviated southeast coast. In a luddite backlash, technology has been destroyed by the fearful denizens of the southern regions, though Scotland has retained some and is trying to get their hands on more.

Our story has two narrative voices—fishing girl Lilly, accompanied by the psychic seacat she simply calls Cat, and a raider boy known as Zeph, the son of a ruthless tribal leader. Zeph's father leads his men to Lilly's fishing village to find a lost tech treasure for the secretive Scottish Ambassador and instead kidnaps Prime Minister Randall's seven-year-old daughter, Lexy. Lilly's beloved grandmother is killed in the raid, and when the Prime Minister takes out his wrath on her village, Lilly sets off on a fairly hopeless quest. Disguising herself as a boy (natch), she steals the tech jewel from Lexy's aunt with the goal of ransoming the missing child and saving her friends.

Nothing goes as planned, of course. Zeph and Lilly's paths cross in a dangerous half-drowned London, where trust is offered and then betrayed as the two try to achieve their disparate heart's desires. Both have troubles that can't easily be wrapped up in the course of a single book, but the plot comes to a satisfying stopping point, which pleased me—series or no series, a book's plot should be as round and whole as an orange instead of trailing off like an unfinished sentence.

Diamand's characterization is a real strength in Raiders' Ransom. Lilly and Zeph are imperfect, yet likable. Lilly is initially more empathetic than Zeph, who is being taught by his father to be brutal. But Zeph ultimately makes his own decisions, as does Lilly, both of them not so much rebelling against the adults around them as finding their own ways to be. I was happy to find that many of the author's secondary characters are rounded, as well, some surprisingly so (e.g., Lexy's aunt and Zeph's "stepmother").

One of the oddest characters in the book is the handheld computer or jewel, which seems like a ghost to superstitious southerners, including Lilly. Diamand has fun with the AI by making him prissy and self-serving, which means that his reactions make even less sense to Lilly, who is busy fighting for her life, than they would if she had any idea what computers were all about.

Diamand gives her characters' voices a nice little futuristic twang without going overboard. I'm not always fond of books written in present tense, but after the first few pages I got into the swing of things, deciding that the sense of immediacy suited the storytelling. (It's a trend that may grow, perhaps in reflection of film and other "present tense" media, even texting.)

Here is Lilly's voice:

Maybe Cat can smell fish? Fish guts curling off the harborside into the water; fish scales decorating the stones like pearls. Scrape, slice, pack: the daily chore of fisherfolk. And Cat's a favorite, with his pretty gray markings and his seaweed eyes. Any one of 'em, man or woman, would give him a tidbit, hoping to steal him away. He makes the most of it, gets a bellyful whenever he can, but it doesn't matter what they do, how much fish they give him; he'll thank 'em, eat it neatly, then come straight back to me.

This series start promises real adventure in a newly envisioned future, one where young heroes must navigate the treacherously high seas surrounding the British Isles as well as the untrustworthy shoals of politically motivated adult behavior. As for a possible environmental message, Diamand launches her plot off a current question about the ocean rising to cover up the world's key port cities. From there, her imagination takes her to a new place: I recommend you visit it in Raiders' Ransom and the books to follow.

Note for Worried Parents: There are a few off-color references and a raider has a concubine, plus the Viking-like raiders are pretty scary, especially when they start throwing knives.