1st Avenue

Not the book everyone thinks of when they hear "City of Bones," unfortunately. I have no idea what that one is about, but this one is actually about bones. Cities and wastelands littered with bones and sand and an ancient mystery tied to bones (among other things) and a lot of mysticism revolving around the usage of bones, hence the relevant title.

I think most readers would give this book a 3- to 4-star rating, but for me it's nearly 5 stars. I rarely reread a book right away after finishing it the first time around--this book made me to that. I rarely wish books were longer--this book made me do that too. After finishing this book a second time, I wished it was part of a series. There's still so much left that can span a continuous series. The easy pacing, engaging characterization, interesting plotting, and overall atmosphere of the story made it an very enjoyable read.

Without further ado, this is a post-apocalyptic semi-steampunk desert fantasy, which means it's mostly fantasy with some interesting sci-fi parts.

As depicted on the front cover, this story takes place in a barren setting overrun by deserts and wastelands. The few cities left alive following a long-ago apocalypse are struggling to survive under a lot of strain--socially, economically, religiously, spiritually, morally, etc. It's not clear when or how the apocalypse came about due to all records being destroyed, but it was probably some centuries ago.

The main story takes place in Charisat, the largest and wealthiest surviving city surrounded by the Waste, former oceans that have been turned into vast fiery desert pits. What's special about Charisat is that it's a multi-level (Tier) city and its citizens' socio-economic statuses are tied to where they live on these Tiers, with the highest Tiers set aside for royalty, politicians, and religious figures; the middle Tiers are for merchants; and the lowest Tiers are for the poor, non-citizens, and other outcasts. More about Charisat below*.

Half of the adventure/mystery in this story is focused on digging into the past, discovering pieces of relics--ancient artifacts--and figuring out their actual functions. The belief is that all of these relics are small pieces of a huge system of some kind that the Ancients--people living before the apocalypse--made and used somehow. The only people believed to know how to use these machines were the Survivors--those who survived the apocalypse--but for some reason, these people did not pass on the knowledge to their descendants. They only left cryptic textbooks, strange notes, and weird drawings behind, as crazy ancestors tend to do. Hunting down these relics and bartering for them, or in some cases stealing them outright, is the other half of the adventure/mystery. And what's an adventure without political and religious intrigue and a crazy cult chasing after the relic hunters? Of course time is as limited as water once everyone realizes that by piecing the relics together they begin to unravel the mystery of the apocalypse.

The relic hunters are: Khat, a not quite human non-citizen hiding in Charisat from a mysterious past; Sagai, also a non-citizen, relic scholar, and Khat's partner in crime; and Elen, a young determined scholar mage ("Warder") from the upper Tiers on a secret mission. Due to their extensive knowledge of history and valuable relics, Khat and Sagai are hired on (read: forced) to help Elen in her search. They don't have much choice in the matter since they're lower-Tiered immigrants who don't want to offend the authorities or get kicked out of the city by refusing to help. Don't worry, there's no love triangle here, but things do become more tense as these three come closer to unraveling the mystery.

The setting is both fantastical and realistic. It's a feat of imagination, but at the same time, the depictions borrow from familiar cultures and customs of the Middle East, such as veils and preservation of identity as a social status. The terrains and climates are distinctly that of a desert world, and details pertinent to both city and society (of Charisat) are casually slipped into narration and conversations to reinforce the feeling of being in an unfamiliar place that feels vaguely familiar. Dry heat, searing sand, scorching sun, burning paved roads, gleaming rooftops, billowing dust clouds--all minor details that add to the overall atmosphere of the story.

* More on the social order of Charisat:

Some quotable moments:

Lastly, I always wanted to use this meme, but never had the chance until now.

I think Peter F. Hamilton summed it up best:

     "A fast, exhilarating read [...] the kind of old-fashioned adventure I didn't think we were allowed to write anymore, of freebooting privateers making their haphazard way in a wondrous retro-future world."

So, yeah, a lot of fun. That's the best way I can describe the experience of reading this book. It's fast-paced, high-octaned, unpredictable, and fun. The last ten chapters are un-put-down-able.

The Ketty Jay is a beloved cargo fighter craft belonging to an extremely unfortunate part-time pirate captain, Darian Frey. The story starts off on the wrong foot for Frey as he is captured and held at gunpoint due to a "small misunderstanding." Unfortunately, things don't get any better for Frey or his ragtag crew as the story progresses. They literally fly from one disaster to another, just barely skirting bullets and explosives enough to save themselves and the Ketty Jay.

As a captain, part-time pirate and full-time freelancer, Frey is terribly unfortunate. He's being sought after by the authorities (Century Knights), various scorned thugs (that's why he has to avoid certain cities and ports), and a relentless mercenary to whom he may or may not have personal ties. As much as Frey and his crew try to stay out of trouble and fly under the radar, trouble and the people looking for them always find them just in time. It's a mess, but a fun mess.

On top of all of this, Frey and Co. are hired for a risky job only to be framed afterward. And so they go on the run. Again. Just when things couldn't possibly get any worse they stumble on a conspiracy plot. Pieces of the puzzle gradually fall into place, and the reason they were framed start making sense. It's only when they set out to clear their names once and for all do they have luck and good timing on their side.

I still can't believe this book isn't on TV yet. It's got all the elements of a rollicking drama: adventure, conspiracy, piracy, dodgy aircraft, dogfights, alchemy, necromancy, tortured characters, sly historical references, a whole world that still needs exploring, and of course, weird technology that comply with weird physics. On second thought, I'm glad it's not on TV. The last time something like this was on TV it was canceled almost immediately.

A lot of reviewers compare Retribution Falls to Joss Whedon's famously canceled TV show Firefly, and I can see how they made that connection because both are similar in tone, setting, and genre, but that's where the similarities end because Retribution Falls is a balanced mix of science fiction and fantasy. The magical elements aren't explored as much as the technological elements in this book, but they're featured enough to show that both do exist, in their various forms and factions, in the world of the Ketty Jay. I don't remember this world having a specific name, so I will refer to it as "the world of the Ketty Jay" since most of the action happens in and around the spacecraft.

Some quotes:

A moving journey about a young girl growing up during the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and coming face to face with drastic cultural and social changes. Told through weaving prose and a believable voice, the narrative is similar to that of other fictional texts written about immigrant struggles, identity, and life. So not unlike the works of Amy Tan, Maxine Hong Kingston, Jhumpa Lahiri, or Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

The story is about young twin girls Saba and Mahtab Hafezi growing up in a fictional farming village in Iran. The girls have a special hobby which is forbidden under the new regime: they love to collect American pop culture and basically everything American. They clip magazine articles about life in America, secretly watch American sit-coms and movies, listen to rock music, and make up stories about how great it would be if they lived in America, instead of where they are now. They dream of a life in which they don't have to live in hiding, the life they had before the revolution. In reality, under the new regime, life is difficult for everyone, but especially for women and girls.

One day, Saba and Mahtab, along with their mother, are separated. Saba stays behind with their father. She doesn't remember much about that day or what happened afterward, and so she assumes her mother and sister must have gone to America and that she and her father will join them at a later time. During the separation, to escape from her day to day life, Saba imagines Mahtab living the life they'd always dreamed of somewhere in Middle America and doing normal average American things, like have friends, hang out with her friends, go to school, etc. Basically all the things Saba could not do in Iran. These daydreams and wishes keep her going, she believes, until the day she and Mahtab are reunited.

We've all read one too many of these fictional semi-autobiographical narratives to know that these stories, what with an oppressive regime looming in the background, don't end well. So I will only say that Saba does get to go to America later on in the story, and she comes face to face with the reality of an America she never expected. To say any more would spoil the later parts of the book.

The focus on America and Americana might turn some people away from this story. Saba and Mahtab put everything American on a pedestal, and their obsession does become grating after a while. But due to their current circumstances, it's understandable that they would put America, as shown on the media, in place of their escapism. Fictional America is a shining beacon of assumed freedom compared to the Khomeini government, whose intent was/is to crack down on Western influence and return Iran to an extremely conservative way of life.

A reader who's having a hard time with this book should keep in mind that America, or the ideal image of America, seen through the eyes of an immigrant is vastly different from the America as seen by the people who live here.

Those turned off by Americana might want to tune back in because every day life in Iran, both before and after the revolution, is written beautifully and described in specific tangible details. The author Dina Nayeri is an Iranian immigrant, and much of content of this book is taken from her own life and experiences. She is influenced by both American and Persian music, so both are featured a lot throughout the story. It's a good balance, and I find the music enhances the events in the story. It's like having an author-selected soundtrack to go along with the journey. Speak of which, an author-selected list of songs can be found here.

(There are a couple of quotes I'd like to add, which I will as soon as I get the book back from a friend, assuming she isn't going to keep it or lend it to another friend.)

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I'd like to thank Heather Kirkpatrick of Riverhead Books and Will Martin of the Penguin Group for sending me a copy.

This book is one of the few that works better as an audiobook because it's got lovely flowing sentences that sound great when spoken aloud, and there are all these fantastical sensory details that suck you right into the dreamy magical world of the night circus. The downside, however, is a book that's a chore to read on your own, as I found out (more below the spoilers). I started out reading and I really enjoyed the first few chapters, but then the story dragged on for too long and I lost interest somewhere in the middle and ended up finishing it via Jim Dale on audio. He's amazing. Anyone who's interested in this book should try it on audio first.

Now for the hard part. I'll try easing into it.

Once in a while you come across a book that you may or may not enjoy, but the experience of reading it teaches you something new about yourself. This book taught me that the older I get, the less patience I have for flowery prose and meandering story arcs (that take too long to lead nowhere...interesting). I think I outgrew purple prose when I realized, too often, they're used as a diversion, rather than a device, to pan the reader's attention away from a weak story or revelation or, in this case,

I don't mean that in a terribly negative way. Nice prose is great. Nice prose is necessary (sometimes). Nice prose is always welcomed...as long as it doesn't take up the whole story and/or isn't used as a substitute for plot or character development (because that's a cop out and I'd want my time, effort, and money back).

This is my round-about way of saying I didn't like this book as much as I could have, if that makes any sense. I certainly don't hate it. I just hate feeling cheated out of a potentially great story.

On the other hand, I feel as though I should like this book more because it's got all the qualifications of a book I would like. And that's why, even though I find the execution of the story unsatisfying, I still can't critique it directly...because it's a lovely book. Also, if you look at its background, you'd be impressed that it started as a nanowrimo draft. From that to what it is now--what it has achieved now--is impressive. Extra credits for that, I suppose?

It's a nice book though. Great as an autumn read.

Morgentern does have a way with language and a way to make you experience the story, rather than just reading it. Her descriptions of tactile sensations are just lovely. Everything is just lovely actually, from the writing to the world of the night circus to the mystery of magic to the effervescent chill in the air.

Unfortunately, that's my problem with it, that everything is too lovely and serves no other purpose than just being lovely. Things started to become grating when I realized the story was going nowhere due to a lack of further plot and character development. Even the intrigue of slight-of-hand and magic established earlier in the story lost their novelty.

This story could have been much more than what it is. It could have been much more than just lovely. It had a solid foundation to support a much richer, deeper, darker fantasy in the style of Neil Gaiman or Alice Hoffman.

Which got me thinking. Maybe it would have been better as a short story.

This short story is exactly what the title says it's about: talking to girls at a party. What sets it apart from other how-to-pick-up-girls guides is it doesn't show how to pick up girls because it's actually a story, and the girls are not like other girls. And by that, I don't mean they're not like other girls (click for further explanation).

As far as Gaiman short stories go, I like this one about as much as the others. It's funny, smart, and unusual, like its forerunners. What's different here is its purposefully stumbling awkward humor.

The year is 1970-something and the place is somewhere in the UK. Vic and Enn are two teenage boys experiencing a teenage rite of passage; they're invited to a party and they're determined to interact with girls. However, Enn is inexperienced and has no idea what to expect. So naturally he comes off as awkward and self-conscious (and hilarious but in that secondhand embarrassment kind of way). Vic, on the other hand, is a bit more of a smooth operator.

The girls are portrayed as exchange students, and the boys don't doubt that for a minute because, like it's been established, they're inexperienced, but we, as more experienced worldly readers, know better. We pick up on the nuances and various moments between Enn and Vic and the girls that don't seem quite right because they're more awkward than the usual teenage awkwardness.

Half of the fun of this story is in the boys trying to figure out how to talk to these girls all the while figuring out they're not like other girls. Literally.

It doesn’t normally take me this long to get through urban fantasy. The book just got away from me. Literally. I lost it, along with the rest of the series, to relatives visiting over Christmas break and didn’t get around to getting another copy until last week. So I’m just making sure to say the dates read have no bearings on how much I like this book.

This is another great installment by Ben Aaronovitch and the series definitely improves with each book. All the praises I had for the previous two books also apply here. Not that it should matter, but I feel as though I’m being repetitive when I say how much I like this series and Aaronovitch’s writing.

The premise is an American international student is found dead in a subway tunnel. The cause of death is murder, of course, and quite possibly murder by magic, which is why Peter Grant is called to the scene. Now that Leslie May is made apprentice, she also joins in on the investigative work. This case introduces Peter and Leslie to a whole new world of magic, very different from what’s he’s encountered up to now, and the trail takes him under ground into the tunnels, sewers, and more rivers of London. This new world of magic is literally a whole world, a different way of living, under ground.

Once again, Aaronovitch has found interesting ways to incorporate London’s history into London’s present time and then work both into the murder mystery and magic of the week. Like the previous two books, this story is another journey into the heart of London, this time literally, and what I really like about that is you learn new things with each chapter. I spent a good part of a weekend looking up London’s messed up sewer systems, and I didn’t mind at all. Another thing I like about these mysteries is that they’re smart and smartly plotted. They’re usually one step ahead of my calculations and that’s just how I like murder mysteries.

Some highlights from the book:

How the police actually handle your personal information:

     In the old days every police station used to have a collator–an officer whose job it was to maintain boxes of card files full of information of local criminals, old cases, gossip and anything else that might allow the blue-uniformed champions of justice to kick down the right door. Or at least a door in the right neighbourhood.

Introducing Sergeant Kumar of the tunnels:

     “If you have to walk the tracks with the juice on, then you stay off the sleepers. They’re slippery. You slip, you fall, you put your hands out and zap.”

     “Zap,” I said. “That’s the technical term for it, is it? What do you call someone who’s been zapped?”

     “Mr. Crispy,” said Kumar.

     “That’s the best you guys can come up with?”

     Kumar shrugged. “It’s not like it’s a major priority.”

Introducing DCs Guleed and Carey of the family relations unit:

     The metal was painfully cold under my hands but it took me less than five seconds to get my foot on the top bar, swing myself over and jump down. My shoes skidded on the cobbles but I managed to recover without falling over.

     “What do you think,” asked Carey. “Nine point five?”

     “Nine point two,” said Guleed. “He lost points for the dismount.”

[...]

     Given that all three of us were Londoners, we paused a moment to carry out the ritual of the “valuation of the property.” I guessed that, given the area, it was at least a million and change.

     “Million and a half easy,” said Carey.

     “More,” said Guleed. “If it’s freehold.”

Introducing Molly to the guest:

     “This is Molly,” I said. “Molly–this is Zach who will be staying overnight. Can he use the room next to mine?”

     Molly gave me a long stare and then inclined her head at me, exactly the way Ziggy the dog had, before gliding off towards the stairs. Possibly to put fresh linen on the guest bed or possibly to sharpen her meat cleavers–it’s hard to tell with Molly.

Adventures in the sewers:

     “Stop,” I yelled. “Police.” I hoped they would, because I was getting knackered.

     Our fugitive tried to pick up their pace, but my height gave me the advantage.

     “Stop,” I yelled. “Or I’ll do something unpleasant.” I thought about where we were for a moment. “Even more unpleasant than what we’re doing now.”

[...]

     “Oh, great,” I screamed. “Now we’re a bobsleigh team.”

     “It’s the luge,” yelled Kumar. “It’s only a bobsleigh if you’ve got a bobsleigh.”

     “You two are insane,” shouted Reynolds. “There’s no such thing as a triple luge.”

     Between duckings I glimpsed a patch of grey. I opened my mouth to yell “Daylight” and then really wished I hadn’t when I got a mouthful of diluted sewage.

     It was another intersection. I saw an alcove with a ladder and lunged–only to be swept past, with my fingers centimeters from the metal. My foot hit something underwater hard enough to pitch me over and the world’s first-ever Anglo-American Olympic sewer luge team broke up.

The scenes in the sewer had me laughing for a good hour. There plenty more hilarious moments like these, but they edge into spoilers territory so I will refrain from listing all of my favorites.

(what is up with Booklikes' quote scripts??)

— — — — —

A few things I thought were interesting:

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In case it hadn’t been mentioned enough by other reviewers, this series should be a TV series. I hope something is in the works because this series has the makings of a rollicking procedural. Ben Aaronovitch should be involved behind the scenes somehow, and this guy (Alfie Enoch) should definitely play Peter Grant. Seriously. He’s got the looks, attitude, and presence to own the character. Harry Potter fans might know him as Dean Thomas from the movies and Sherlock fans might remember him from that one episode.

I know I'm way behind, but this is quite possibly the best children's book I've read in the last decade.

I didn't think it'd be possible, but the audiobook, read by Samuel L. Jackson, is even better than the book.

Highly recommended for sleep-deprived people who have difficult fussy children.

Not recommended for the difficult fussy children themselves. Not for the reasons you might think though, like the word fuck on every page in the book. That's not it at all. I just don't think children would enjoy the art work or satirical commentary as much as their parents. The message and lighthearted humor would be lost on them. That's all.

Perfect~ birthday gift for every parent you know, especially your own if you just so happen to be a former difficult fussy child. :)

If you like the previous two books and the way J.D. Robb/Nora Roberts writes, you’ll like this one and the rest of the In Death series too, I’m assuming. The main focus of this installment is on characterization, building up and fleshing out secondary characters, and of course Eve Dallas’ dark past, which resurfaces throughout the book. The revelations of it are very dark, which surprised me because I didn’t think Roberts would take it that far.

Eve Dallas is an interesting solid main character with a violent past that she can’t shake and, worse, can’t recall clearly. She’s strong enough to carry this series. Eve’s love interest and her friends and acquaintances are also interesting in their own rights. They add interesting contrasts to her characterization and the murder mysteries. For most of the book, the writing is fine. A bit blunt at times and somewhat confusing due to shifting POVs, sometimes within the same paragraph, while two or more characters are discussing evidence and possible suspects. But the overall story is fine, sort of repetitive though since it’s similar in tone to the previous two books.

The thing that keeps me from liking this series is Nora Roberts’ distinctive writing style. She leans too much on the love lives of both main and secondary characters, which is expected since Roberts comes from a romance writing background. What’s not expected is how she seems to go out of her way to make the murder mysteries, Eve’s past, and the general world of In Death as violent and as gruesome as she can. It’s almost as if she’s over compromising with the violence because of her romance writing background…? Personally speaking, I think the focus on the romance angles is at odds with the dark nature of the murder mysteries. I find the contrast between them awkward and sometimes unsettling.

After finishing this book, I remembered why I don’t usually read serial mysteries or, when/if I do, I don’t follow a series any further than the third or fourth book because every book after this point is predictable. More often than not, the series locks itself into a pattern that puts it at a risk of becoming dull and/or formulaic if there aren’t any strong characters to carry the story. This happens to be the case for In Death. I think it has found its stride and is settling into a formulaic pattern. Which is unfortunate for me since I was sort of looking forward to this series improving with every book, but now I don’t know if I should read any further.

This leather-bound Dickens collection is a must-have for any Dickens fan and any fan of Victorian England. It looks great on the shelf, especially next to those other leather-bound classics, if you have any. The stories included are: A Christmas Carol, A Tale of Two Cities, David Copperfield, Great Expectations, and Oliver Twist.

Every time I reread Dickens, the experience is not so much like reading, but being lectured by a stuffy English prof. on the inner workings of Victorian England. Of course the extensive details and social commentary are necessary. I just don’t think there’s room for them in a novel. Essays? Yes. Letters? Sure. Biographies? Absolutely. But a novel? Maybe in the introduction section, just maybe.

It was while reading Great Expectations in high school when I realized I didn’t like Dickens’ particular style of writing; there were too many words per every point made. While I liked his stories overall (still do like them), I didn’t (still don’t) like his way of telling a story. It’s too blunt, too on the nose. It makes his motives too obvious to the reader. I prefer subtly in storytelling and stories that aren’t so adamant in “teaching society a lesson.” But I gotta hand it to Dickens though. No classic lit. author could tell a story of street smarts, excess wealth, hardship, and destitution quite like he did.

This is a book for book clubs, which is fine since it's advertised as such and even got a stamp from Oprah herself. What I like about that is it doesn't lead you to believe it's anything other than a book written to be discussed in book clubs. I like to call them "book club bait" because book clubs just love 'em.

The story is about a WWI veteran, his wife, a lighthouse, an infant, and some moral complications following the couple's decision to keep the child and raise her as their own. The veteran, Tom, marries a young woman, Isabel, and takes a job as a lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, on the tip of Antarctica, south of Australia. The scenery and life on the island are described in lovely flowing language that takes on a sweeping effect that's so often found in turbulent historical fiction romances. The only thing steering this story away from becoming another sweeping romance is infertility. Tom and Isabel have trouble conceiving and suffer through many miscarriages which leave them childless. The truly crushing thing here is they are on an island in the middle of the ocean with only each other for comfort. What follows is lovely flowing language about isolation, desolation, melancholia, and ultimately hopelessness. Isabel spends much of this period weeping, and Tom spends all of it trying to console her.

Just when all hope seems lost, a "miracle" happens in the form of a boat washing up on the beach carrying a dead man and a living child. They name the infant Lucy, and together they become a family. Every few years, the couple return to the mainland to visit friends and family and gather news of the world. This time they bring Lucy along only to find out that she has a mother, stricken with grief and madness, who still searches for her and her dead father. And issues of debatable morality ensue.

This was my first full-length Gaiman novel, and it was OK. Well, it started out OK, then became interesting, but ultimately unsatisfying near the end. I think I was expecting a... better ending, something that's more in line with Gaiman's short stories but on a grander scale.

With all the hype surrounding this book, I originally thought there was something in it that's widely appealing, other than Gaiman's prose and fantastical yarns. I really thought I'd be blown away by this book because his short stories were so well done. Maybe I set the standards too high and became disappointed when the story turned out to be just OK overall. Maybe a little better than OK, maybe 's all right. I'm glad for the experience now that I know what a Gaiman novel is like, but still... I don't see what all the fuss is about.

The hook is certainly interesting and reels you into the story, a mythological yarn set in contemporary times, but it suffers from having an aimless main character at the center of all this fantastical chaos. Shadow Moon (yes, you read that correctly) floats aimlessly along, unattached to various unsettling things happening around him. For a guy who just learned that mythical gods exist, he took it pretty well. Then again, he just finished a stint in prison. Then again, if only he's a little bit sharper, a little more alert, he might have sensed something not quite right or worse

. If only. I fail to see the point of setting up a powerful story with a desensitized main character. He not only slowed things down, but made most of the resolution pointless in the end. But perhaps that's the point of it all?

The prose is impressive though. Gaiman definitely knows how to keep the narration from becoming dull or slowing down. The thing is Gaiman can write great prose--there's no denying that. But does he pull the story together at the end? I don't think so, this time. I enjoyed the read all the way up until

. It was as if Gaiman hacked off whatever original plans he had for the ending and replaced it with a family-friendly version suitable for readers of all ages. Everything in the story was fine until the end; a familiar theme in most Gaiman books, as I've come to learn.