Cover Art Snark & Author Self-Mockery: Woot!

Apprentice Writer appreciates people who don't take themselves too seriously. She flat out adores readers who like a genre but can recognize the over-the-top elements in it. She got a does of both from the lovely and talented Scientist Gone Wordy, who made AW snort tea at breakfast with a link to author Jim C. Hines' reflectionss on urban fantasy/scifi cover art.

He doesn't just opine. He conducts research.

That's right. He tries to recreate cover poses.

Bravo to Mrs. Hines for having a spouse with the chutzpah to post the far-from-pretty results.

Non-Laughter Twin Reviews: ANN AGUIRRE

WANDERLUST (Book 2, Sirantha Jax)
Science Fiction

BLUE DIABLO (Book 1, Corinne Solomon)
Urban Fantasy


Premise
Former space jumper takes on new role as galactic ambassador whom various factions jockey to influence for their own reasons.

'Handler' (gains impressions from touching objects) assists former love to locate his kidnapped mother.


What Works
Apprentice Writer very much enjoyed Book 1 in the Sirantha Jax series, Grimspace, and her hopes in this second installment were, happily, mostly fulfilled. There continues to be action and unusual characters aplenty, with the greatest satisfaction deriving from Velith's reappearance (an insectoid bounty hunter and easily the most intriguing character from Book 1). There is a nice twist at the end of this installment which AW did not foresee. In terms of character development, sailing is not smooth for Jax and March who finally became a pair previously; both experience inner damage that threatens their relationship in a realistic and intriguing manner: March in terms of emotion, and Jax in terms of physical health. Added great dimension to the story.

Setting and premise for 'Blue Diablo' were doubly appealing. The heroine, nursing a broken heart and body newly healed after the last professional collaboration with her former love went disastrously wrong, hides from him and vindictive criminals they brought to justice in a Mexican pawnshop. Utilizing his own gift of luck, Chance tracks her down and persuades her to join him in rescuing his mother from occult-curious kidnappers. Their seach across the border into Texas leads them to others with gifts and/or varying levels of awareness of things that go bump in the night. The depiction of how special gifts come at a personal price at the same time as they provide rewards was very well done - all talented characters suffered mentally or physically, sometimes profoundly, due to use of their abilities. The story was less about them having a gift, per se, and more about the circumstances under which each decided that application was worth the inevitable damage.

What Doesn't
When Jax is appointed to the role of ambassador early in the story, it seemed like a fantastic way to achieve character growth and avoid rehashing previously trod ground. Alas, this opportunity was not always taken. Both Jax and some secondary characters seemed sadly lacking in making the leap to that next level. WARNING: MILD 'Wanderlust' SPOILERS!




During a flight, crew error causes turbulence and Jax wonders if it is linked to a plot to captureVelith. Rather than taking the next logical step and wondering if it is a plot to capture her, the human symbol of the newly fragile political system , she puts it down to her usual paranoia. This was startlingly dim, given that it wasn't the first attempt at interference with her group. Following a discussion about possible interstellar war with billions of human casualties, Jax goes on about how much she loves hot chocolate (or 'choclaste' as the synthetic space variant is called) since it makes even such destruction better. If it hadn't been for the previous lack of role-awareness, AW might have put this down as a kind of black humor coping mechanism in the face of overwhelming responsibility. As it was, it came off as so shallow that AW began to sympathize with those who originally doubted Jax' fitness for the ambassadorship.

Later, it becomes clear that her movements are being controlled so she disguises a strategy session as party in her mechanic's room. Dina - who supposedly spent years flying with a mercenary crew doing untold amounts of shady things, and is now knowingly on a ship belonging to an even more shady crew - fails to put even the most elementary two and two together and grouses about a) being overrun and b) her spleen about Jax getting romantic with a new male character. That she couldn't put the pieces together without help, and couldn't imagine that the previously attacked ambassador rated a bodyguard (in which capacity she had misinterpreted Jax and Jael together) was not only annoying but should have been heavily unlikely given her upbringing in a royal household. When Dina fails Jax yet again, by refusing her request for help in putting together a wardrobe befitting high-level public appearances (something for which Dina would have been trained and Jax has utterly no experence) AW was more than ready for the mechanic to be 'spaced' as Jax suggests for another less than competent character.

And, on a'What the heck happened?' observational note, the way the characters cursed changed from Book 1 to 2. Whereas previously 'frack!' was the expletive of choice, here it was replaced with the conventional f-bomb. To AW personally, this seemed another sadly lost opportunity, other planets and societies being unique places to show new linguistic inventions.

END 'WANDERLUST' SPOILERS

WARNING: MODERATE 'BLUE DIABLO' SPOILERS!


Aw's biggest non-working element was a purely subjective one, which other readers could consider a plus. In a word: Zombies. AW is so not a zombie person. She would not have picked up the book had she known. But by the time they arrived, the end of the book was in reach so read on she did.

Every protagonist is a mix of strengths and weaknesses; Jax is certainly not flawless. But for this reader, her specific blend of flaws somehow felt easier to live with than Corinne's, if that makes any sense. Corinne is hypocritical about her ex; whereas she drives to another town and stays there overnight with a male character she finds attractive (partly to advance the case and partly to antagonize Chance), when he asks to meet alone with an attractive woman (in order to advance the case) she takes the car and in a jealous fit abandons him in a potentiallhy dangerous situation for the sake of retaliation. She is not the best of house-guests; letting her hosts pretty much cater to her, grousing when they don't express sufficient sympathy for her most recent hurts even though moments before, they threatened to kick out a police officer for failing to treat her with proper respect, and feeling free to invite outsiders in for meals without checking with the hosts ahead of time whether it would be acceptable.

By the time that an ever-available overseas character popped up who was mysteriously able to supply all needed information they themselves couldn't obtain in the same geographic area as the villains, AW suspected that the Corinne series is not for her. By the time a certain element is revealed at the end about the kidnapped mother, AW was certain of it.

END 'BLUE DIABLO' SPOILERS



Overall
Ms. Aguirre is a prolific author, continuing not only with these two series but branching out into paranormal as well. In what may be her most appealling attribute, she is extremely supportive of other authorsl; AW 'discovered' the peerless Meredith Duran through Ms. Aguirres one-woman promotion long before Ms. Duran's name became synonymous with 'rocketing star' in the historical romance world.

Various comments in the blogosphere hint at a possible divide between series supporters, along the lines of those who like the Jax books not necessarily enamored of Corinne and vice versa. AW found this to be true. She will stick with Jax (next up: Doubleblind), leave Corinne to another audience (next up: Hell Fire) , and look forward to taking a look at the first paranormal title once available.

Gentle Reader - What say you?
Jax or Corinne? March or Chance?
Both? Neither?

Read another review here.

Learn more about this author here.

Non Laughter Reviews: COUNTDOWN

COUNTDOWN
Michelle Maddox
Speculative Fiction

Premise
Petty thief wakes to find herself chained to a wall as the unwilling star of a reality TV show in which the price for failure in any successive level is instant death.

Cover
A serious-looking couple running against a dark-lit background with a comicbook kind of vibe; gives an accurate idea of what to expect.

What Works
One of the most common pieces of advice given to aspiring writers is "start the story in the middle of the action so as to hook reader interest, and then never to slow down so as to maintain it'. To put it mildly: the author has taken this advice to heart. From the first page, the pace is pounding, and never lets up. Written in first person, the reader has to figure out what's going on bit by adrenaline-rocketing bit alongside the heroine and hero (or is he? which seems to be a repeating theme in SHOMI titles; see also Eve Kenin's 'Driven'). The stakes are high, the situation desperate, the touch of paranormal enough to make things interesting but not so much that the feel of regular-person-against-corrupt-system is compromised. To thoroughly mangle Tom Hanks' famous line from 'A League of Their Own': 'Stagnation? There's no stagnation in Countdown!'

What Doesn't
Aspects that might not work for some readers are all actually things that make sense for the type of story this is. Beyond the very general backdrop of a post-apocalyptic, decaying urban world that everyone with enough money or connections wants to get off of, there is practically no world-building - but there doesn't need to be given the heroine's narrow 'just let me survive another hour' persective and the fact that the action takes place almost exclusively within the reality TV framework. The heroine spends the much of the first part of the story demanding to be told what is going on, yet whenever anyone gives her a piece of information or advice she ignores or acts in direct opposition to it - yet given the fact that she's been on her own since mid-adolescence following the deaths of her family members, her mistrustful nature and fight-or-flight response to everything makes sense. The clues to solution of each countdown level and the method of final confrontation with the villain seem a bit simple - but this story doesn't pretend to involve complex, brooding, multi-layered intrigue. If Apprentice Writer has grasped correctly, the SHOMI line is designed to appeal to younger readers who may also enjoy graphic novels, manga, and fast-paced action adventure. This book signals what it is with the comic-like cover vibe. Countdown delivers exactly what the package promises - a light, entertaining, furiously fast read.

Overall
It will be interesting to see if the author continues to write speculative fiction along with the humorous paranormal books she writes under her alternate pen name, Michelle Rowen.

Expressions of Strong Emotion

One of the things writers need to decide when creating characters is how they will express strong emotion.

Will it be a surface description?
"Frothmeister beheld the damage, and cursed."

Or will it be explicit?
"Frothmeister beheld the damage, and said (insert phrase of choice)."

If explicit, will it be some oft-heard phrase, or will the author take the delicious opportunity to be creative in a manner that reflects that particular character?
"Frothmeister beheld the damage, and bellowed 'Seeping slough of a half-giraffe, I'll thwortle those gronzites till they float!"

Sci-fi and fantasy writers have greater than usual opportunties for this sort of thing due to alternate world- and races- building that is part of their genre. The trick is for the reader to be able to figure out what is meant by a totally new-to-them word, via clues of context and personaltiy. In Ann Aguirre's GRIMSPACE, the characters eschew the regular version in favour of a different F-word: "Frack." There was a whole lot of fracking going on.

This was fine since it was clear from the first what was meant and why the characters felt it was called for. What threw Apprentice Writer out of the story was the sudden insertion of a conventional f-bomb. Why this change? Was it a typo? Was it an intentional contrast to the previous expression, for some purpose Apprentice Writer couldn't fathom from the text? Whatever the reason, the inconsistency brought the pace of the story to a crashing halt for this reader.

Then there is the opportunity provided by characters who have special interest in language. Daphne, the heroine of Loretta Chase's MR. IMPOSSIBLE, is a brilliant linguist, fluent in living and dead languages. And what is the expression of choice for this vocabulary-gifted character? "Good grief." A surprisingly conventional choice. Perhaps, intended to reflect Daphne's restricted nineteenth century social position.

In Sherry Thomas' PRIVATE ARRANGEMENTS, the heroine has a larger-than-life personality and does nothing in half measures. Her expression of choice is "Crumbs!", which amused Apprentice Writer very much as it made perfect sense that the tiny, broken bits of dust leftover from anything would be regarded negatively from her tycoon, big-picture perspective. It made perfect sense for her character.

Then we come to Apprentice Writer's current #1 favorite expression of strong emotion, taken from Joanna Bournes' MY LORD AND SPYMASTER, in which a hardened old spy learns of something surprising and responds,

"God's avenging chickens!"

Apprentice Writer defies any reader not to laugh. This is the second of Ms. Bournes' "Spy" books; the same character made a divine fowl reference in the first one too, but AW was so intent on blazing through the most excellent story that she didn't take the time to write it down. One can only hope that there will be a new and wonderful chicken expression in each of Ms. Bourne's books to come.

Gentle Reader, what unusual expressions have you come across?

TWIN REVIEWS

Two mega-buzz accompanied releases of recent months were Ann Aguirre's GRIMSPACE and Meredith Duran's DUKE OF SHADOWS.

Mega buzz generates storms of reviews; there are many, many traditional reviews in print and cyberspace for gentle readers who care to peruse them. Apprentice Writer proposes something different: twin reviews. Why? First, she came upon one by recommendation from the other. When authors heap high praise on other authors, it's often worth paying attention. Second, she read them at the same time. Third, there are some remarkable parallels, despite one being a sci-fi suspense type story, and one a historical romance. Fourth - who's going to stop her? That's the beauty of having your own blog!


PREMISE
Sole survivor of a spectacular and politically far-reaching spaceship crash joins renegades intent on toppling the monopoly of a big-brother type galaxy conglomerate.

Sole survivor of a spectacular shipwreck arrives in India on the eve of politically far-reaching native uprisings intent on toppling British occupation and joins those caught in the crossfire, trying to suvive.


COVER ART
Typical 'butt-kicking heroine' type cover in blue tones with female figure sporting long hair, pants, midriff-baring top, and tatoos. There are countless such covers, but still, would probably have attracted Apprentice Writer's attention enough during a bookstore meander to pick it up.

Yet another in a sea of headless, bare-chested male torsos. One would think there is an unbelievably huge swell of people who hope to become thoracic surgeons, judging by the gross tonnage of freshly waxed, anonymous manchests in the aisles. Apprentice Writer would never have picked it up without word-of-mouth. The gold tones and minaret in the background are nice, though.


HERO
March is a mercenary with psychic abilities which brought him to the brink of insanity before he learned to control them. Unsurprisingly in such a person, he is physically and emotionally hardened. Due to loss and innate character, he is not in the habit of getting close to anyone - yet, perhaps to atone for earlier actions, routinely puts himself at risk so as to protect those more vulnerable. He mirrors the heroine in being emotionally guarded and not backing down from a fight. A satisying hero; AW's favorite moment with him was during his interaction with a newborn of a non-humanoid alien species.

Julian is of mixed English and Indian descent and as such, forever caught between two worlds, neither fully ignored nor fully accepted by either group. He receives a lot of attention from women attracted to his great looks, a lot of derision from men threatened by his influence and unwilling to accept the warnings he offers in regard to Indian anger prior to the uprising, and rebuffs from both sides of his family. Outright hate and racial bigotry from the cousin who would have inherited the ducal title and holdings did Julian not exist (no one who reads romance will be surprised to learn that this person is the heroine's fiance), and requests to keep his distance from the Indian relatives with whom he spent part of his childhood but who now find it difficult to have a British member amid rocketing anti-British sentiment in their community. He mirrors the heroine in being more or less socially adrift. A satisfying hero; AW's favorite moment with him was any in which he interacted with the heroine.


HEROINE
Sirantha (known as Jax) is struggling to keep things together, with no clear memory of the catastrophic events that claimed the lives of so many, fearful that she may indeed somehow be partially to blame, and certain of an unpleasant fate in some form or another with her employer determined to make her the scapegoat. When a stranger appears to break her out of the facility and off the planet for his own reaons, she takes the opportunity and runs with it. Which pretty much characterizes the action for the remainder of the story, in a whirlwind of action-adventure with a side of romance and frequent stirrings of self-examination thrown in.

Emmaline was supposed to have arrived in India as a sheltered heiress, accompanied by loving parents, feted by the British community as the fiancee of aristocrat and Indian Army officer Marcus. Instead, she arrives traumatized by physical hardship and emotional loss, and is subjected to the moralistic suspicions of a community refusing to believe that the sailors who rescued her left her untouched. An artist, she is curious about her new surroundings and immediately drawn to the local people and colorful marketplace, but soon learns that she is to remain solely with her compatriots in 'safe' places. Feeling increasingly stifled, she is also disillusioned about her fiance, and decides to return home. Then the country explodes with uprisings. How she reacts - immediately while her life is in peril, and later when her sanity is - forms the rest of a compelling story.


OFF NOTES (WARNING! SEMI SPOILERISH COMMENTS!)
Jax spends a whole lot of time reflecting on how people don't like her and she doesn't blame them. Yes, her thoughts are distorted by grief and fear that she may be culpable, and yes, the story is told first-person so a fair amount of rumination is part of the package, but the frequency of her bemoaning how unlikable she is and being surprised when someone is halfways decent towards her got old fast.

Emma spends a lot of time reflecting on how Julian disappointed her by not seeking her out again as promised following the uprisings. Yes, she has genuine (if falsely understood) reasons for thinking this and yes, his apparent abandonment so soon after the loss of her parents and break from her fiance is an almost fatal blow. But - hello? - he didn't leave her to go to the races or a poker game. He left to try and use his unique position to prevent massive bloodshed and save his family. By contrast, Emma spends no time at all reflecting on the fate of other individuals whose personal actions led to her survival. While literally in the midst of fighting for one's life, this is understandable. But four years later, she still has given no apparent thought to the Maharajah who opened his small Kingdom as a place of refuge to British women, to the crown princess who orchestrated her escape from murderous sepoys, to the detachment of Indian soldiers who remained loyal to the Raj and escorted her to safety across the hazardous countryside. All of them may have had a lethally steep price to pay for choice not to hand her over to the mob. If Apprentice Writer recalls correctly (remember: she flew through these books) Emma does not even bother to ask Julian the fate of his family when they meet again, so wrapped up is she in his link solely to her. To be fair, she does agonize over the fate of some others, and is truly saddened when she does learn of his family. Also, her behaviour is in keeping with a spoiled single child upbringing. But it aggravated AW so she chose to mention it (see: 'my blog, I can do what I want' above.)


RACE RELATIONS
One of the most appealling aspects of sci-fi (at least, those examples with which AW is familiar) is that the human characters no longer make distinctions among themselves. They're all from New Terra or Old Earth or wherever, and that's that. No continental/appearance/ligual distinctions. If there is conflict, it is usually with other life-forms, but even so, there is usually a marked degree of shipboard- and planetside integration of species. 'Grimspace' takes the concept a step further by reflecting on relationships with species that are not humanoid. The team lands on a planet whose dominant life-form is perhaps best described as amphibian. Events cause Jax to ponder whether she somehow values such life less than humanoid life, and criticizes herself for projecting humanoid thoughts where they may be inappropriate. It was a fascinating and thoughful jaunt into new territory, and one this reader hopes the author will continue to explore.

Whether she wishes it so or not, Emmaline's world by contrast is tragically defined by distinctions of 'us' and 'them'. Regular readers of this space know that AW has marked thoughts on the topic of novels set in India; she was delighted to find that the author avoided potential pitfalls by the simple but brilliant strategy of having characters with heroic and villainous traits distributed among Brits as well as Indians, and by having Emmaline be a true artist. This ties back to Apprentice Writer's philosophy that art, music, and food are the ultimate uniting forces of humanity, in the sense of her belief that a 'true' artist will find inspiration in the landscape, architecture and people of whatever place they find themselves, a 'true' gourmet will always be interested in new tastes and cooking techniques, and a 'true' musician will always be interested in new sounds and instruments.

AUTHOR
Ms. Aguirre maintains a lively internet presence, came up with an excellent marketing strategy for this, her debut novel (in the form of an entertaining quiz helping readers identify with key characters as well as a great prizes in a word-of-blog contest), and without intending to do so nevertheless slaps slow-producing Apprentice Writer in the face by working on and completing multiple manuscripts per year despite having small children.

Ms. Duran maintains no internet prescene that AW could detect, came up with an excellent marketing strategy for this, her debut novel (in the form of winning Gather.com's first chapter contest and thus securing a contract), and without intendind to do so nevertheless slaps slow-producing Apprentice Writer in the face by dashing off this novel for a little light relief in between completing her Ph.D. (shades of Diana Gabaldon.)


OVERALL
Jax, alone with her thoughts in a locked cell, grieving the death of her pilot and life partner, dreading the return of the sadistic conglomerate interogator determined to force a confession of guilt out of her. Emmaline, alone with her thoughts on the endless sea, grieving the loss of her beloved parents, dreading the ease with which she might choose to let herself slip under the waves but also the reception she might receive in straitlaced British India should she survive.

Both of these stories grabbed this reader by the throat from the opening paragraphs and never let go. Absolutely gripping. Apprentice Writer has no hesitation in recommending both for readers who want an intense, thought-provoking story with memorable main characters.
Being emotionally wrung out (in a good way!), she will now recuperate with something on the lighter side, and restore her balance with a hit of funny. Bring on the chicklit.