Redeye by Michael Shean

 

Redeye
Genre: science fiction, cyberpunk
Rating: 5 Stars

Number two in the The Wonderland Cycle, this installment takes place two years later and revolves around Bobbi January, club owner and hacker extraordinaire.  Bobbi is still mourning the disappearance of Thomas Walken when she gets an encrypted message from his former partner, Frieda, asking for help.  While they think they are just trying to uncover what happened two years before, they stumble upon a conspiracy and cover up that they could never imagine.  With the help of her long-time friend, and employee, Marcus Scalli, Bobbi tries to take on not just the Genefex Corporation, but a plot that could disrupt their world.

I don't want to go into too deep a review of the book because I don't want to give away the good part; the surprise.  I did NOT see it coming (don't worry, you only have to wait for half way through the book for it) but it is disturbing and different.  Let me say first that this is a very dense book.  There's easy beach reading and there's technical reading.  This falls somewhere in the middle.  The fact that Shean can make up entire new technologies and words and keep them all in his head is amazing (I asked - he doesn't write them down, they are actually all in his head).  But just because it's dense doesn't take away from the enjoyment.  It just means that you can really get into these characters and the scenes better. They are vivid and encapsulating. Shean's use of imagery and detail in descriptions make it so despite having no knowledge of cyber technology, I had no problem imagining it.  In fact, some of the descriptions are so horrible that I wished I hadn't had such an easy time imagining them.

One thing I particularly want to complement the author on is his ability to convincingly write a strong female character.  Sometimes male authors write women who sound like men.  Sometimes female writers overcompensate and take all sensitivity out of their women in an effort to make them seem strong.  Bobbi is definitely strong and smart, but she also has a vulnerability that is very likeable and relate-able.  All his characters are well drawn.  Marcus is my all-time favorite.  He's like a giant teddy bear and I just want to hug him.  I might get killed for that, but hey, I'd still try.

The end of the book leaves us with a tease for the next book to come.  I'm really looking forward to it, and this is coming from someone with little to no science fiction books under her belt and exactly one (now two) cyberpunk books.

The book release date is scheduled for April 12th, which gives you plenty of time to read the first book, Shadow of a Dead Star before then, although this book can stand alone.

Check out Michael Shean at http://michael-shean.com/wordpress/
twitter: @pseudohumanist
facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Author-Michael-Shean/235340276494024

By the way, the author did his own cover!  How cool is that?

Wordless Wednesday: Daffodils!

Springtime in DC is beautiful - our cherry blossoms are gorgeous and abundant, but unless you love hoards of tourists (I do not), getting to see them can be a pain in the rear.  Luckily, there are tons of other flower options in DC, and every day on my walk to the train station, I pass a beautiful flower bed.  It's a full block long and it's just daffodils.  Lots of varieties of daffodils.  Yellow, gold, orange and white.  Some small, some large. Some with double flowers, some with double petals.  I felt that I had to document them today before they are gone and summer takes over.

click on picture for larger image

Danger In Cat World, Nina Post

Genre: Mystery, Paranormal

Rating: 4 Stars

When Detective Shawn Danger is called to investigate the scene of a murder, he had no idea how weird his world was about to get.  An heiress has been murdered...and so has her pet tortoise.  Add to that his half-heart attempts at dating, the weird staff the heiress had, the heiress's horrible in-laws and the growing number of cats taking over his apartment, Shawn has a lot on his plate.  But he still needs to solve the murder.  Was it one of her family members?  Or the missing staff member?  And why kill a tortoise?

Danger in Cat World was a fun, different take on a detective novel.  Sure, it shows the workings of a homicide, but with a bit of a twist.  A cat twist.  I thought this book was really good.  It's fast pace, I didn't see the ending coming and it made me like cats just a bit more.  Not much, mind you.  I'm still a dog person, but Shawn's cat is pretty cool.

Post is a good writer.  Her plots aren't predictable and the twist she throws in there was totally unexpected.  In a good way.  She also has an amazing vocabulary.  I like to think that I have a good vocabulary, but when I'm going to the dictionary just positive that I've caught the author in a made up word only to be proven wrong, I'm impressed.

So give it a try.  A little mystery, a little romance, a lot of danger and lot of cats!

Sweet Dreams Are Made Of Teeth, Richard Roberts

Genre: Fantasy, Horror

Rating: 4.5 Stars

In the world of dreams, there are two sides: the side where the happy dreams are made and then there is the side where the nightmares are made.  Fang is a nightmare.  He is the large, scary thing that's right behind you, jaws snapping at your heels, just a second away from catching you.  It's not that he's mean or evil or anything, he just really likes chasing, and since he's a nightmare, he's able to.  Fang's best friend is an amazing nightmare, probably the best there is, but he has high aspirations, and they are dangerous.  And they are going to get everyone into trouble.

This is such an interesting take on dreams and nightmares.  Fang is a likeable nightmare.  He knows he's not going to catch you, but he wants to scare you while he's chasing you, just like someone who is waiting behind a corner to jump out at you means no harm.  He enjoys that thrill and he tries to make his nightmares as beautiful as they can be.  His friends are varied and unusual.  There's his muse/girlfriend. She lives in a house (you know the house, where every hallway is never ending and any door you open is never the one that lets you out?) in the nightmare world and she cries constantly.  Fang talks to her, but she never hears him, never stops crying.  But he's in love with her.  Then there's the others: Anna, the girl who wandered into the nightmares from a dream and stayed and her evil counterpart, Lucy; the fallen angel, Lily; the fish shaped dream turned nightmare, Coy; the demiUrge Self Loathing (or sometimes Masochism).  And then there's his best friend, Jeffrey.  Jeffrey is so interesting.  He's so focused on achieving his goal that he's willing to use Fang.  He doesn't care about the wrath that his goal will bring down on them, he only wants to do it.

I really enjoyed the book.  It was odd but sweet.  Who would think that nightmares were sweet, yet Richards has humanized them so they aren't the unidentifiable evil thing lurking behind you.  He's given them fallacies and insecurities and consciences (though not about scaring you). Richards created a whole other world, very detailed, that is fascinating as it is scary.  I don't know if there will be a second book after this, but the epilogue left me to think that there would be.  I hope so - I'm dying to find out how things end up with Jeffrey!

Also, totally unrelated to the book, but does anyone else have the Eurythmics stuck in their heads? Well, if you didn't before, you do now!

Zarconian Island by Aja Hannah

 

Genre: Fantasy

Rating: 5 stars

300 or so years ago, Atlantis sank and all the inhabitants, Zarconians, were thought to be dead.  However, some Zarconians did survive, and now they hide their mystical heritage (and super human abilities) from the world.

Attie Hotep is sent with the best and brightest from her high school in Maryland on a boat trip to Hawaii.  But once on the boat, Attie notices that strange things are happening, and her Zarconian blood is telling her that she is in danger.  When giant whales attack the ship, Attie, her best friend, two boys (her nemesis and his quiet but nice friend) and one other girl from her school manage to get to a deserted island.  Stranded on the island, the kids learn how to survive while they await rescue, but this island isn't just deserted, it's prehistoric. 

I loved this book! It was action-packed from the get go.  It's a little bit LOST, a little bit Cast Away. Attie is a very smart, strong character.  Sometimes she's too strong, so you have her best friend to balance that out.  Then there's the brooding Doug.  He keeps following Attie around and making sure she's ok but his best friend is Attie's nemesis and a complete jerk so she's hesitant to get to know him.  Of course, he's totally gaga for her and so sweet.  Loved this pairing.  And of course, Doug's got his secrets, too...

The island and its inhabitant were described so well.  The author was able to describe the various prehistoric animals in such a way that I could totally picture them.  I even looked one up online and the rendering was exactly as Hannah had described.  There is so much action - from the boat capsizing to fighting the prehistoric creatures to trying to get drinkable water - that the pages just flew by.  My favorite part was the end.  It was just great!  I never saw it coming (love that) and it was all action.  Totally great book from Ms. Hannah.  Looking forward to reading more!

Midnight to Sunrise, Rebecca Axelrod

 

Genre: Fantasy (vampires), YA

Rating: 3 stars

This books starts as two stories:

Nevaeh is a high school junior in Ohio.  She lives with her mom, is a cheerleader, does well in school (despite a horrible teacher) and has a steady boyfriend.  Her dad disappeared mysteriously two years before, and Nevaeh tries to make her life as normal seeming as possible, when all she wants to do is read vampire books..  On the first day of the new school year, Nevaeh meets the mysterious new boy in school, Ian.  It's instant attraction.  Soon she is sneaking around to meet him, dreading having to tell her Mom and her boyfriend.

The other part of the book is the story that Nevaeh's mom tells her as a little girl. It's early 1900s New Orleans and after years of abuse at the hand of his father, Lukas kills him and runs away.  He meets a woman who shows him that he can be more, and she transforms him into a Vampire.  She tells him that Angels created Vampires to protect humans, but that at some point, the Vampires rebelled.  One Angel showed them how to make more Vampires, and ever since, the Angels have been trying to eradicate all Vampires. But Lukas isn't right for the Vampire life - he is too nice.  Wracked with guilt over having to kill humans, Lukas saves one and falls in love.  But it isn't a happy ending for him and his love and now he must hide from both the Vampires and the Angels.

This book is the first in a series, so there are many questions (why Nevaeh's teacher is so awful to her, for one) that don't get answered, so I won't bring them into this review since I assume they will be addressed in the next book(s).  Overall, I enjoyed the story of Lukas more than Nevaeh's story.  I didn't like that she was sneaking around behind her boyfriend's back.  I know it happens, but it didn't make me like her.  And we don't see Ian and Nevaeh fall in love enough.  It was kind of rushed, which makes it seem more like insta-love than forbidden passion.  Her boyfriend started out seeming like a great guy and then turned into a controlling jerk.  It was inconsistent.  Also, her mother at the end of the book and the scene in her family room just didn't gel for me.  It was too out of character.  .

I didn't have any problems with Lukas' story. Lukas's story was full of action - it was a unique twist on the vampire lore and I flew through those pages.  I would actually have liked more of his story from the discovery at the hospital to present day.  The ending of the book was very fast paced and that is when the two stories merge.

The book could use a good proofread (commas are missing everywhere, which makes it distracting to read), and perhaps a bit of editing, but the overall story isn't bad.  It leaves you on a cliff hanger ending, which leaves me interested as to how the plot would advance in book 2. 

It's a decent start to a series, but I hope that in book two, Nevaeh comes off as more likeable.

Thank you to the author for providing me a copy of the book for my honest review.

Top Ten Movie Countdown Blogfest!

After seeing several of you fellow bloggers doing this blogfest hosted by Alex J. Cavanaugh, I just couldn't resist joining in.  I love movies almost as much as I love books.  My generation was the first to grow up with a VCR and thus able to watch movies over and over and over.  My mom jumped right on this bandwagon when we got our first VCR in 1980 and started taping movies off of tv for us.  Thus began my love for movies and my ability to quote them.

 1. The Empire Strikes Back is my all time favorite movie.  It's so dark and twisty, yet funny. I love the whole trilogy but especially that one.  We're not going to talk about episodes 1-3.  Let's just pretend they never happened, ok?



2. Indiana Jones. I honestly thought I was going to marry Indiana Jones when I was younger.  Is there anything hotter than Harrison Ford in a fedora?  I think not. And same rule for Star Wars Eps 1-3 applies here to Indiana Jones #4.  Never happened.  *shudder*

3. Back to the Future (Pt 1). While you may have noticed that I like trilogies, this one is not one of those.  The second movies is just plain awful.  However, #1 is so incredibly amazing that I forgive #2.  A little.

4. The Princess Bride. "As you wish." 'Nuff said.  *sigh* Ah Wesley.  You were my #2 choice for husbands as a kid. And I still believe that Robin Wright Penn is stunningly gorgeous.


5. Starman.  I was mildly obsessed with this movie.  So much so that I watched the TV series religiously and then taped it when it was on re-runs on the SciFi channel(before it was SyFy).

6. Somewhere In Time.  Need a good cry?  Watch this.  It's romantic and beautiful and Christopher Reeves is at his dreamiest (RIP).

7. A Real Genius. Val Kilmer was husband #3.  I had really high standards.  Funny and quirky, you cannot believe how disappointed I was to find out that college would not be like this.  Damn you 80s films!

8. Clue. I can recite this one word for word - and often do.  Hilariously funny, a little spooky, it's a cult classic that my best friend and I watched every day after school in 4th grade. Just remember: Communism is a red herring.  And Mr. Green didn't do it.

9. Forrest Gump. It was released while I was in Germany.  I came home and my mother asked me if I wanted to see it, to which I responded "What's a Forrest Gump?" I quickly found out - I watched it twice in a row and still am known to shed a tear for Bubba, Momma and Jenny.

10. The Harry Potter Series.  Ok, so the movies aren't as good as the books, but it's a lot easier to marathon these movies than to read all the books.  Sometimes I just have to take the easy way out.  I love seeing Ron, Hermione and Harry grow up and mature in the bad-ass Voldemort defeaters that they turn out to be.

I have about a million movies that I love, but those are my top 10.  Honorable mentions go to: Some Like It Hot, Easy A, The Holiday, Love Actually, Die Hard, the BBC Pride & Prejudice, American Pie and The Hangover.

What are your favorite movies?