YetiPreview: The Wind-Up Girl

After the dense and somewhat disappointing The Quiet War (review) and the light, fun The Lost Symbol (review), I'm plunging back into the Sci-Fi deep end with paolo Bacigalupi's debut novel The Wind-Up Girl.

I already gave my feedback on the cover in a Covering Covers post (quick summary: absolutely fantastic cover except for the top left and bottom right text) but I have to say I'm excited to finally get my hands on a Bacigalupi novel. His Pump Six and Other Stories simply blew me away. It was bleak, depressing, and I couldn't get enough. It wouldn't be a stretch to say that this is my most anticipated book of 2009 and I guarantee it's in the Top 5.

I'm a bit late in posting this as I'm already a hundred or so pages in but so far The Windup Girl has not disappointed. Bacigalupi paints a future landscape with such deft brushstrokes that you don't even notice as he gives you the tour of the place. It's world-building but it's top-notch and expertly subtle. I would go on further but I want to save some of my thoughts for the review.

My only complaint so far are the frequent use of Thai words. While they're probably accurate, I've only picked up only some of them so far and it bugs me not to know the exact context of the words. Much like Ian McDonald's Brasyl, The Windup Girl could definitely benefit from a glossary at the end of the book. And unlike Brasyl, I looked for a glossary first so I didn't struggle through the cultural elements for the majority of the book before finding it.

Expect a review up sooner rather than later because I am loving what I've read so far.

YetiPreview: Best Served Cold

Here's a brief overview of the next book in my queue: Best Served Cold

Publisher’s Description: Springtime in Styria. And that means war.

There have been nineteen years of blood. The ruthless Grand Duke Orso is locked in a vicious struggle with the squabbling League of Eight, and between them they have bled the land white. Armies march, heads roll and cities burn, while behind the scenes bankers, priests and older, darker powers play a deadly game to choose who will be king.

War may be hell but for Monza Murcatto, the Snake of Talins, the most feared and famous mercenary in Duke Orso's employ, it's a damn good way of making money too. Her victories have made her popular - a shade too popular for her employer's taste. Betrayed and left for dead, Murcatto's reward is a broken body and a burning hunger for vengeance. Whatever the cost, seven men must die.

Her allies include Styria's least reliable drunkard, Styria's most treacherous poisoner, a mass-murderer obsessed with numbers and a Northman who just wants to do the right thing. Her enemies number the better half of the nation. And that's all before the most dangerous man in the world is dispatched to hunt her down and finish the job Duke Orso started...

Springtime in Styria. And that means revenge.

Expectations: I ripped through 1,713 pages of Joe Abercrombie’s First Law trilogy in about 3 weeks earlier this year. I read a lot but I don’t read that fast unless it’s really something special. I’m not exaggerating when I say that I’ve enjoyed Abercrombie more than any epic fantasy author I’ve read in the past five years, perhaps ever. His characters are , violent, and incredibly addictive. The torturer Glotka and the barbarian Logen Ninefingers are a pair of most cold-hearted bastards I’ve ever read and Abercrombie writes them in a way that you can’t help but cheer them on. But Abercrombie is not a one trick pony. He’s not all character. He writes a better swordfight than any author I’ve ever read. When things get violent, and they often do, you feel like you are watching the action so closely you should be worried about the blood splatter. Abercrombie also has a natural gift for dialogue and poetic prose, managing to be hilarious, often darkly so, without being corny and connecting the thoughts and words of the characters to the action and plot in unexpected but brilliant ways. His fantasy world is also incredible. There a history and depth that lends itself to a bigger story, in which the main characters are but pawns. I can only imagine how the war between the Union and the Gurkish will play out on the plains of Styria.

If you can’t tell, I am a huge fan of Joe Abercrombie. That being said, I expect all this and more. In The First Law, Abercrombie built his sandbox, now it’s time for him to play in it.

Cover Art: I have a confession to make. I love the UK version of the cover so much that I had to order it from Book Depository LTD. (Not to mention the fact that the UK edition came out a month and a half earlier, but let's not focus on that...) Blood, money, land, and steel. Simple. Straightforward. No awkward character depictions to ruin that image in your head (unlike the US cover), no blurbs to distract the eye. This is an absolutely gorgeous cover, not to mention the meta-level commentary on the lack of maps in The First Law trilogy.

YetiPreview: Nekropolis

Hopefully by this point I'll have finished Moxyland and moved on to Tim Waggoner's Nekropolis. Nekropolis, like Moxyland, is a debut title from new publisher Angry Robot Books.

The publisher's description:

Meet Matt Richter. Private eye. Zombie.

His mean streets are the city of the dead, the shadowy realm known as Nekropolis. In this first case, Richter must help a delectable half-vampire named Devona recover a legendary artifact known as the Dawnstone, before it’s used to destroy Nekropolis itself. That is, if he can survive the myriad horrors that infest the city itself.

Pulp and proud, cracking wise like we just dug up the rotting corpse of Dashiell Hammett and put him back to work at his typewriter, Nekropolis is just the first of a trio of fabulous urban fantasies Angry Robot will be bringing you from the mighty Tim Waggoner.

Originally published as a limited run novella, the expanded Nekropolis is the definitive version of this massively entertaining series opener.

At first glance this appears to be part-Jim Butcher/part-China Mieville. Supernatural detective in a supernatural city. I'm expecting something fast-paced, fun, and profoundly weird.

Based on the description, it appears that we've got some vampires and zombies running around the city of the dead. Vampires and Zombies are some of the more overused elements in urban fantasy, so it will be interesting to see what unique spin, if any, Waggoner uses. This will also be my first book by Waggoner so I'm not sure what to expect from him.

Nekropolis will be available in the UK on August 1st but doesn't hit US stores until January 2010.

YetiPreview: Moxyland

Moxyland is the debut title from new genre publisher Angry Robot Books. It's written by a South African author named Lauren Beukes and I believe it's her first novel as well. Amazon promises:

A frighteningly persuasive, high-tech fable, this novel follows the lives of four narrators living in an alternative futuristic Cape Town, South Africa. Kendra, an art-school dropout, brands herself for a nanotech marketing program; Lerato, an ambitious AIDS baby, plots to defect from her corporate employers; Tendeka, a hot-headed activist, is becoming increasingly rabid; and Toby, a roguish blogger, discovers that the video games he plays for cash are much more than they seem. On a collision course that will rewire their lives, this story crackles with bold and infectious ideas, connecting a ruthless corporate-apartheid government with video games, biotech attack dogs, slippery online identities, a township soccer school, shocking cell phones, addictive branding, and genetically modified art. Taking hedonistic trends in society to their ultimate conclusions, this tale paints anything but a forecasted utopia, satirically undermining the reified idea of progress as society's white knight.

The blurb has me intriguing and I always love reading about projected futures for non-American cultures. Charles Stross's Halting State (Ace Science Fiction) and Ian McDonald's Brasyl and River of Gods were great reads so it will be interesting to see if Beukes can do the same for her native South Africa. The SF ideas sound like something straight out of a Stross novel. Add in the fact that Beukes is the debut author Angry Robot Books is hanging their hope on

The cover art is attention grabbing and those "image missing" icons get me every time. The neon orange really attracts the eye and the missing faces would probably get me to flip the book over. It's not my favorite cover ever but it certainly gets the job done. I'd give it a B/B+

Moxyland is 304 pages long. I'm not sure when I will be able to post a review because of the upcoming holiday weekend but it will be up in the near future. As always, read along if you can!

YetiPreview: Omen

I got Omenon Wednesday and but I still had a couple hundred pages of Powers left so I had to get through that first. Any book in the Star Wars "present" automatically jumps to the front of my reading queue. It might be bad, it might be pulp, but it's Star Wars, which has always had a special place in my heart.

Omen is Book 2 in the Fate of the Jedi after March's Outcast. Outcast was a huge departure from Del Rey's usual offering in the sense that it was a fairly stand-alone book, despite being the first of the 9 book arc. It gave some hints at a larger plot but not a whole lot. Basically, we know that something is driving the Jedi insane, we know there is something in the Maw that is being omnious, and we know that Luke and Ben are off in the Unknown Regions looking for what happened to corrupt Jacen but that they haven't found anything yet. It terms of open plot threads, almost everything was neatly tied off at the end of Outcast. I found this a bit strange but also a positive sign of change.

The previous series, Legacy of the Force was another 9-book series, but it only contained about 5 books worth of story. Because the books were being written simultaneous by different authors, there was often a lot of rehashing and repeated character development between books. It seemed like there wasn't a clear definition of where one book was going to end and where the next would begin. Characters would make the same decisions or realizations two, three, or more times, leaving readers confused and irritated. It was messy, poorly organized, and the story suffered.

But it looks like Fate of the Jedi is avoiding that by using clearly defined milestones between each book. I guess I'll be able to judge that better after I finish Omen.

Omen is the first book I've read by Christie Golden, so I'm not familiar with her writing style. If she can describe an action sequence better than Troy Denning and write humor like Mike Stackpole or Aaron Allston then I'm sure she will do fine. Just stick to the continuity, try to research the characterizations, and you will do fine.

Here's the Amazon description:

The Jedi Order is in crisis. The late Jacen Solo’s shocking transformation into murderous Sith Lord Darth Caedus has cast a damning pall over those who wield the Force for good: Two Jedi Knights have succumbed to an inexplicable and dangerous psychosis, criminal charges have driven Luke Skywalker into self-imposed exile, and power-hungry Chief of State Natasi Daala is exploiting anti-Jedi sentiment to undermine the Order’s influence within the Galactic Alliance.

Forbidden to intervene in Jedi affairs, Luke is on a desperate mission to uncover the truth behind Jacen’s fall to the dark side–and to learn what’s turning peaceful Jedi into raving lunatics. But finding answers will mean venturing into the mind-bending space of the Kathol Rift and bargaining with an alien species as likely to destroy outsiders as deal with them. Still, there is no other choice and no time to lose, as the catastrophic events on Coruscant continue to escalate. Stricken by the same violent dementia that infected her brother, Valin, Jedi Knight Jysella Horn faces an equally grim fate after her capture by Natasi Daala’s police. And when Han and Leia Solo narrowly foil another deranged Jedi bent on deadly destruction, even acting Jedi Grand Master Kenth Hamner appears willing to bow to Daala’s iron will–at the expense of the Jedi Order.

But an even greater threat is looming. Millennia in the past, a Sith starship crashed on an unknown low-tech planet, leaving the survivors stranded. Over the generations, their numbers have grown, the ways of the dark side have been nurtured, and the time is fast approaching when this lost tribe of Sith will once more take to the stars to reclaim their legendary destiny as rulers of the galaxy. Only one thing stands in their way, a name whispered to them through the Force: Skywalker.

I already gave a discourse on the FotJ cover art here. In summary, I like it. A lot. The Omen cover features a Sith looking female so I am slightly curious to see where that goes.

I'm also curious as to what Omen refers to. Star Wars is often extremely bad about having titles that actually pertain to the events of the novel. Invincible featured a death. There were no revelations in Revelation. However, Outcast did feature an outcast so Del Rey is currently 1-for-1 with FotJ.

Omen is a disappointly short 250 pages. I should be able to get through it today so hurry if you are reading along.

YetiPreview: Powers

Since finishing The City and The City I decided to finish up Ursula K. LeGuin's Annals of the Western Shore trilogy with Powers (Annals of the Western Shore). Powers was also this year's Nebula award winner. This was extremely unexpected as I had never heard of the book before seeing the award shortlist.

Powers is Young Adult, but I try make a point to read the award winners (and most of the shortlist if I can) just so I can see if I agree with the awards process. I've read the first two books in the trilogy (although they aren't a dependent trilogy) and I have a sneaking suspicion that if these books had been written by anyone but Le Guin they wouldn't have won. But being fair, I've only read the first two (Gifts and Voices) so it still could be worthy of the praise.

I was going to pull a synopsis from Amazon and insert it here but I think I just managed to spoil myself as a significant plot event appears to have been included in the general description. I'm amazed at ability of reviews to ruin good plot twists or entire stories, just because they can't write anything besides a freaking plot summary.

Plot summary =/= Review.

End Rant. Anyway, on to the cover art. For the most part, I don't like seeing characters on my covers especially photorealistic ones. There are some exceptions but for the most part I would avoid it if it was my decision. I like the blues and greens of the rest of the cover though and the 1 word titles work well. I did notice that it's not readily apparent which book is which in the series, something that can be annoying if you aren't ordering online.

I also like the balance between the author and the title. Some famous authors just overshadow the rest of the cover and it's a sign that the publishing company thinks the book will sell on name alone. More often than not, an author who has that much recognition might be phoning it in. Read the latest Grisham legal thriller or Clancy military doorstop and tell me I'm wrong. Ursula K. Le Guin, who has more than earned the name recognition (although maybe not with the YAs at which this is targeted) is prominent but not overwhelming, especially given the white flash which draws the eye toward the title. Overall, I would give the coverart a C, mostly due to my distaste of photorealistic people.

Powers is 512 pages long. I invite anyone to read along.