The Blurb

It’s one thing to learn to curtsy properly. It’s quite another to learn to curtsy and throw a knife at the same time. Welcome to Finishing School.

Fourteen-year-old Sophronia is a great trial to her poor mother. Sophronia is more interested in dismantling clocks and climbing trees than proper manners—and the family can only hope that company never sees her atrocious curtsy. Mrs. Temminick is desperate for her daughter to become a proper lady. So she enrolls Sophronia in Mademoiselle Geraldine’s Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality.

But Sophronia soon realizes the school is not quite what her mother might have hoped. At Mademoiselle Geraldine’s, young ladies learn to finish…everything. Certainly, they learn the fine arts of dance, dress, and etiquette, but they also learn to deal out death, diversion, and espionage—in the politest possible ways, of course. Sophronia and her friends are in for a rousing first year’s education.

Set in the same world as the Parasol Protectorate, this YA series debut is filled with all the saucy adventure and droll humor Gail Carriger’s legions of fans have come to adore.

The Review

First, I want to remind you that this is a YA series. That means that this book has a totally different feel than the Parasol Protectorate series. This book lacks Alexia’s acerbic wit (I’m sure Sophronia will develop hers in time) and the more adult themes of love/sex/marriage (at least for now). Most YA series focus on the problems of becoming an adult, and Finishing School is no different. The only difference is, Sophronia will become an adult knowing how to curtsy properly, sneak appropriately, and how to poison one person specifically at a dinner party for fifty.

I also love the name Sophronia. Probably because it’s like Sephrenia and when someone asks me what my middle initial stands for, I tell them Sephrenia. (I like to be mysterious.)

It is a genuine pleasure to, in this book, see some familiar characters at younger stages in their life. You may recognize such people as Sidheag Maccon, Niall the werewolf, and Genevieve “Vivi” Lefoux. I’m still trying to figure out if we’ve seen Sophronia anywhere in the Parasol Protectorate series and we just don’t know it (or maybe I don’t remember it), but if so she wasn’t ever mentioned by her first name.

I didn’t fall in love with Sophronia the way I did with Alexia. Sophronia is missing an element of snark that I love a lot. I assume, however, that since she’s young she’ll grow into it. (I imagine that quite a lot of Victorian ladies dealt with their world with snark. I know I would.) So this book doesn’t quite rate as highly as it’s predecessor series. However, if you’d enjoy seeing a Victorian Hogwarts with steam and gears instead of magic (and on a dirigible!) then I’m sure you’ll enjoy this.

Rating: ★★★½☆ 

New York City: The Year is 1889. 
New York City: The year is 2089. 
In 1889 a group of bold pseudo-scientists discover the “temporal current” and begin to view the distant futures that await the Empire City. In the future, all life as we know it has crumbled, leaving New York City a ghost town with a populous scrabbling to survive underground. 
In the past it’s up to an unlikely group of Victorian heroines and heroes to preserve something of their world to save their future generations. In the future it’s up to an unlikely group of survivors to take a leap of faith; discovering what their ancestors left for them with no more guarantees than love and hope.

The Review

A new Leanna Renee Hieber book is a delicacy to be sipped. It took me so long to finish this relatively short novella. You have no idea. The time I spent reading this is in direct proportion to how much I loved it. I would read a couple of pages, usually only one of the rather short alternating points-of-view. Then I would put the book down (figuratively, as this is a digital release). Then I would chew over the scene thoughtfully, ruminating, absorbing the beautiful (as always) word choice. I would go off and read something else for a day or two, until the brass gears in my head had revolved sufficiently toward the soft ping that pulled me back into this world. Or worlds, I suppose. Even though both timelines in this novella are really one, even though this world is our world — our past and our future — they are so starkly different from each other that they may as well be completely different worlds.

And yet. (And yet.) One thread remains the same throughout. It is a bright, shining cord of striking strength and femininity. Two very different and far separate generations of daring, willful women (and yes, a few men, too) determined to save the world. Maybe not their own world, not exactly, but some semblance of a world. I finished this novella at exactly the correct time, because I needed this. I needed to grasp that silver thread and hold it fiercely in my hand, to cup it gently in my palm and whisper, “See? This is our future. Our present. Our past. These are the kinds of heroines who really lived, who are living, who will rise in days to come. These are the women we need so desperately. These are the women WE ARE.”

Imagine a world where not only *can* women save the world, but that they MUST. Buy this. Get it. Read it. Absorb it. And then go out and create that world. That is what Leanna is giving us here: a gentle pride of the past, a small hope for the future. It’s a precious gift. Don’t waste it.

Rating: ★★★★½ 

So I’m going to tell you a little story, in keeping with the special day.

Two days ago, I overslept my alarm by quite a bit. My sleep schedule has been messed up since at least Jordancon and I had taken some Nyquil in order to (hopefully) get a good night’s rest. Eventually, my husband had to come wake me up or I might not have gotten up at all. But before I did, this was the scene playing out in my dreams….

{Imagine wavery, dream sequence harp music segue here.} 

The scene takes place in a nameless retail store. Probably a strip mall type store, because this one had manual glass doors that you had to pull open. No Automatic Caution Doors* here. It was one of those stores with the little foyer, so you open one set of doors, take two steps, and then have to open another door before you’re actually shopping.

*Don’t these things look like they say “Automatic Caution Door” to you, too?

So now that we have our setting, we can talk about characters. The first character is leaning around the half-open glass door, having a duel with the second character, who is dancing around the foyer area trying to stay out of reach. Now for the contextually appropriate part: the first character is Darth Vader. The second character is a helmet-less Dark Helmet (also known as: Rick Moranis).

Darth Vader, who is pissed off about who even knows what — I don’t read minds, even in my dreams it seems — is trying desperately to cut down the Rumpelstiltskin-esque figure of Dark Helmet with his lightsaber-that-looks-like-the-top-end-of-a-wooden-cane. (Don’t question the dream logic. Just don’t do it.) Except he can’t really reach around the door in order to make death upon his enemy.

Queue a voice-over of Dark Helmet’s thoughts: “I have to stay out of reach of the end of that cane-saber! If I let it touch me, I will disintegrate into nothingness!”

And then, a thought passes over Dark Helmet’s face. You can see it forming like someone who just had thirteen four-bean burritos and is about to have really, really bad gas. The most horrible gas to ever grace the universe. This is a Death Star of a fart moving around the moon and coming into firing position.

“Wait a minute!” Dark Helmet cries. He dances into Vader’s reach, past the end of the cane-saber, and grabs the (apparently safe) middle. Jerking it out of the hand of his stunned enemy, Helmet steps back, whips the end of the can around and presses it to Vader’s arm.

“Ah-ha!” he exclaims as Darth Vader disappears in a puff of smoke. Then I woke up.

And that was how I dreamed that Mel Brooks’ character kicked the ass of George Lucas’ in a fake cane-saber duel.

Enjoy your weekend, folks, and May the Fourth be with you! 

Desert Aes Sedai Sees Rain

This past weekend, I spent 5 glorious days and 4 late nights in sunny (mostly), sparkling-with-tree-pollen Atlanta, Georgia at the 5th annual JordanCon! In case you don’t know, JordanCon is a weekend-long convention in honor of the late author Robert Jordan. The last novel in the fourteen-volume main series was completed in January 2013, after more than twenty years since the debut book, The Eye of the World.

This was my first ever JordanCon, even though several of my friends have either attended or been intimately involved with the Con since its inception. (Hi, Tiff! Hi, Jen!) I have to say that, despite Atlanta in spring time being an absolutely miserable place for someone with allergies, I am very glad that I went. JordanCon isn’t just for fans of Robert Jordan (though that helps!), but has plenty to offer for other SF/F fans. I had only ever been to Dragon*Con before, and – in my opinion – JordanCon has nearly all the benefits of a larger con with a much smaller and more pleasant crowd.

My husband and me at lunch.

My husband and I arrived on Thursday afternoon, with enough time to check into our rooms and have a sit down before most of our other friends arrived. We wandered down the street to a local sports bar for dinner. They were having a trivia night, which was entertaining and I had the best burger of the weekend there. If I could remember the name of the place, I would certainly share it, but I don’t. Also, I’m too lazy to look it up now. I had tickets for the Atlanta ghost tour scheduled as extracurricular to the Con on Thursday night, but sadly my allergies didn’t like Atlanta’s peak tree pollen season. I let a friend go in my place and stayed indoors with several varieties of medications instead.

The hosting hotel, the Doubletree Roswell, is very well-appointed. They have a bar and restaurant downstairs that had a special menu for the occasion, complete with the Raken Chicken Salad. The Con had every square inch of the hotels communal space booked, including the ballrooms, conference rooms, and even something called the “board room”. The dealer hall was combined into one room with the art show. The fan in me wanted more booths, but my wallet appreciates that there were only a handful of carefully selected vendors. I am also proud that I didn’t spend half of what I could have there!

The worst best game you’ll ever play!

My friends and I ended the evening early by retreating to our rooms for pizza and a rousing game of Cards Against Humanity. If you haven’t heard of or played this card game before – you honestly should. We decided pretty quickly that we’re all going to hell for some of our answers. I’m okay with that though… At least all of my friends will be there right beside me!

Brandon’s signing

One of the best things about JordanCon is that the day’s panels don’t usually start until late morning, so one doesn’t need to feel as if you’re missing anything by getting a proper amount of sleep after a late night. Our Saturday started off with an unexpected detour. What we intended as a quick trip up to the Con Suite for breakfast turned into a nearly hour-long chat with Wilson Grooms (WoT fans will recognize the name), his wife, and Lisa, the fabulous jewelry artist featured in the Art Show. We were able to hear some off-panel personal stories about Jim (Robert Jordan) from people who knew him, including his niece and grand-niece who showed up later. Wilson kept insisting throughout the discussion that he and Jim were just regular folks. And they are, I know, but it doesn’t make those stories less important to us. Authors are a reader’s gateway into another world. Most of the time, we readers only see that world, so those “just folks” stories are precious to us. Even more so for an author who is gone.

She’s thinking about stealing it.

There was also a reading by Brandon Sanderson on Saturday of his upcoming middle grade novel, The Rithmatist. A friend of mine took video, so I’m hoping that shows up somewhere that I can view it again. What I could tell from the snippet, however, is that this will be an awesome book for kids and adults alike. This one has one of those wonderfully strange magic systems that Brandon is famous for, and I can’t wait to read it.

Unfortunately for me, my allergies started doing their tired old song and dance again as my friend Paige and I hit the Con Suite for lunch. This meant instead of attending the really awesome Urban Fantasy panel, during which Chuck Wendig was named the panel’s mascot/spirit animal, I was lying flat on my back in my room waiting for two different kinds of allergy meds to kick in. I am still pissed off about this, as it rumor has it it was the best panel of the entire weekend. I did manage to see the Memory of Light panel and the costume contest, however, before packing it in for the night and retreating to our rooms for Cards Against Humanity 2: Drunken Boogaloo!

Panels!

Sunday’s panels included Theological & Mythological Influences in the Wheel of Time, during which Harriet made me get kind of misty eyed. (She said, paraphrased, that the closest we come to our own Creator is through the act of Creation ourselves. This is quite Significant to me.) There was also a super cool slide show of Michael Whelan’s art where he explained the thought process and some of the history and metaphors behind each painting. Steampunk Hour and the Writer’s track Pacing & Plotting panel rounded out my weekend.

There are more personal anecdotes however. Such as how my friend Paige (from New Mexico) has become almost famous. We discovered Brandon has been telling the story of Paige-from-New-Mexico at signings. Presumably it is the story of how a group of fans as wide-spread as Ohio, Nebraska, LA and Australia mentioned her name to Brandon at several of his signings, until she was so familiar that she seemed like an old friend when she finally showed up at an event in Albuquerque. She has such extraordinary luck (and nerve!) We found her deep in conversation with Michael Whelan in the dealer’s hall, discussing the merits of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings adaption. This is on top of the fact that it was Paige who initially started up our talk with Wilson. My friends? They are some pretty cool people.

Other anecdotes are either not worthy of blog space, or are private. But I hope you’ve enjoyed my little recap. If this has tempted you in any way towards attending JordanCon VI (at which Patrick Rothfuss will be the Guest of Honor!), then I hope you’ll attend. I will definitely be there! Don’t forget to say “Hi” if you see  an Aes Sedai running around in a green shawl with the name Kiara on her badge.

(I’m not anti-social. Just shy.)

(Special note: Most of the above photos were shamelessly stolen borrowed from my dear friend Paige. See the rest.)

Because sexism and gaming and the current culture surrounding both is something I care about, I read the article. I found myself nodding, agreeing. This was a good, reasonable argument written by one of the few men I’ve seen willing to speak out about something so pervasive that a whole lot of people don’t even see anything wrong.

Then, I got to the end of the article and my eyes rolled so hard they almost got stuck that way. I don’t normally read Rock Paper Shotgun. I avoid gaming sites on purpose for two reasons: 1) I don’t have the time or monetary resources to game enough that I need to be kept up to date on upcoming releases. And 2) the usual culture on gaming sites is so boobs-and-guns-and-more-boobs that I got jaded a long, long (long) time ago.

Being web-minded myself, I realize that “related posts” type algorithms don’t have the best logic sometimes. Computers are incredibly smart, but they can also be pretty dumb. So I’ll say right off: I don’t blame RPS for this section appearing at the end of their article.

No, I pretty much just chalk this up to the prevalence of the shit that women have to deal with on a daily basis. When I reached the end of the article, this is what I saw:

Let me blow that up for you a bit:

That’s right. 4 out of 5 “More From the Web” links on an article about misogyny and how we must continue to rail against it are links to things that contribute to the problem the article is talking about. 

Again, I realize this is a screwed up computer programming thing and not at all the fault of RPS or the author of the article, but this proves the problem! Even our computers see an article about sexism and figure we probably want to read about swimsuit issues, shaving pubic hair, and brothels.

This is is a sign that something is deeply wrong with us. 

From Victor Frankenstein to Lex Luthor, from Dr. Moreau to Dr. Doom, readers have long been fascinated by insane plans for world domination and the madmen who devise them. Typically, we see these villains through the eyes of good guys. This anthology, however, explores the world of mad scientists and evil geniuses—from their own wonderfully twisted point of view.

An all-star roster of bestselling authors—including Diana Gabaldon, Daniel Wilson, Austin Grossman, Naomi Novik, and Seanan McGuire…twenty-two great storytellers all told—have produced a fabulous assortment of stories guaranteed to provide readers with hour after hour of high-octane entertainment born of the most megalomaniacal mayhem imaginable.

Everybody loves villains. They’re bad; they always stir the pot; they’re much more fun than the good guys, even if we want to see the good guys win. Their fiendish schemes, maniacal laughter, and limitless ambition are legendary, but what lies behind those crazy eyes and wicked grins? How—and why—do they commit these nefarious deeds? And why are they so set on taking over the world?

If you’ve ever asked yourself any of these questions, you’re in luck: It’s finally time for the madmen’s side of the story.

The Review

Everyone knows that superheroes are boring. Villains are more interesting: more complex in their madness, more brilliant in their darkness. When the villains are also genius scientists… Well, then you have some remarkable. The authors writing for this collection go in all sorts of different directions. Some of their villains are well intentioned, others are narcissistic, some are spurred on by achievement, others by revenge. And some of them are truly, genuinely mad.

I’ve been trying to decide on a favorite story, but I don’t think that I can. They are all wonderful and unique in their own way.

• Professor Incognito Apologizes: An Itemized List (Austin Grossman),  in which a mad scientist/villain apologizes to his girlfriend for deceiving her, is a perfect opener.
• Father of the Groom (Harry Turtledove) seems to be the weakest in the set, telling the story of what happens when the Bridezilla’s new father in law is a mad scientist.
• Seanan McGuire’s Laughter at the Academy is the mind-bender of the bunch.
• Letter to the Editor (David D. Levine) is an unexpected twist.
• Instead of a Loving Heart (Jeremiah Tolbert) is the kind of story I wish The Mad Scientist’s Daughter (see my last review) would have been.
• The Executor (Daniel H. Wilson) is one of the best in the book, and probably the most touching.
• The Angel of Death Has a Business Plan (Heather Lindsley) reminds us why evil geniuses should work alone. This one made me smile, and is one of my favorites.
• Homo Perfectus (David Farland) was the most disturbing of the bunch, featuring a power-hungry, rapist CEO.
• The narrator of Ancient Equations (LA Banks) had me rolling my eyes.
• Alan Dean Foster’s Rural Singularity could be the best in the book and certainly has the most unique mad scientist.
• Captain Justice Saves the Day (Genevieve Valentine) takes a refreshing approach.
• I’d love it if The Mad Scientist’s Daughter (Theodora Goss) became a series. How cool would it be to have more stories of popular fiction’s most mad scientists’ daughters?
• The anthology’s headliner Diana Gabaldon has the longest story in The Space Between. It’s well-written but ill-explained and wasn’t in the running for favorite.
• Carrie Vaughn’s Harry and Marlowe Meet the Founder of the Aetherian Revolution is another story I hope we might see more of eventually.
• Blood & Stardust (Laird Barron) was entertaining, but hard to follow at times.
• I’d say L.E. Modesitt, Jr. has the creepiest villain — a political mad scientist — in A More Perfect Union.
• Naomi Novik’s Rocks Fall is brief but particularly special. I found it intriguing.
• Mary Robinette Kowal’s We Interrupt This Broadcast reminds us that she can do much more than her long form fantastical Victorian romance and do it very, very well.
• Marjorie M. Liu gives us the interesting tale of a man dealing with the legacy of his name: Lex Luthor in The Last Dignity of Man. Disturbing, thought-provoking, and will make a tug or two on the heartstrings.
• The Pittsburgh Technology (Jeffrey Ford) is the only one who doesn’t show us the face of the mad scientist behind the sinister plot. Not the strongest story in the bunch, but worth a read if you have the time.
• Mofongo Knows by Grady Hendrix takes us back to pulp novels, stories of simian villains, and their inevitable conclusion. If you liked Chuck Wendig’s Dinocalypse Now, you’ll like this story.
• I found The Food Taster’s Boy by Ben H. Winters the most thought-provoking and a good final note. It reminded me somehow of Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn series.

I read this book when I was sick one weekend, so all the stories have a certain surreal quality in my memory now. (This is the sick weekend that ended with me washing my face with shampoo accidentally because I was that exhausted and disoriented from being awake for what seemed like 473 hours in a row.) I received a digital ARC from Netgalley but ended up buying it anyway. Overall, I’m pretty glad I did. 

Rating: ★★★★☆ 

The Power of the Rellard by Carolyn F Logan

The Blurb

 Shelley and her younger brother, Georgie, are getting worried! They made up a game–an elaborate series of athletic “trials”–to cheer up their little sister, Lucy, who’s recovering from a bad illness, and now she’s getting all weird about it. Everyone had been so pleased when Lucy won the contest despite her weakness that they decided to celebrate. They crowned her the Rellard, Wielder of Power, and conferred upon her a special “magic talisman.” It was fun at first, until the game started to take control! Now Lucy believes in the magic and claims that a fantastic winged creature has asked their help to fight a dark and terrifying evil. Georgie and Shelley don’t know what to think. After all, the Rellard is just a game…isn’t it?

I don’t remember when I first read it, but it was published in 1989. I remember that it was about then that my teachers were getting concerned with my reading. I’d been carrying my mom’s 1100+ page copy of Stephen King’s It around with me, and apparently SK was deemed too “adult” for a 9 year old kid. They started gifting me books at that point, “age appropriate” books that I read but that fell flat to me.

I remember, before that year, reading all sorts of stuff. I’d sped through Encyclopedia Brown, The Little House on the Prairie series, The Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew,  all the Bunnicula books, and nearly an entire set of Encyclopedia Britannica’s from circa 1962. I had a reputation in my family for being a reader by then – for being “the smart one” – but I really read because I didn’t have anything better to do.

Anyway, I don’t remember how I ended up with this paperback. I was a carnivorous library user, but I don’t remember actually having very many books of my own as a child. I do remember pining over all the descriptions in the Scholastic fliers we’d get at school, dreaming of all the stories I could read if only we had the money. I didn’t remember this particular book at all, though, until a user at Goodreads helped me find it. (If you are in need of similar services, try the “What the Name of that Book?” group. It might take awhile, but they’re very helpful.)

In any case, I was very happy to discover this book again, and I wanted to share it with all of you.

The Blurb

The Review

I didn’t like this book, yet I read every single word from cover to cover. Why did I do this if I didn’t like it? Honestly I have no idea. I tried to put it down, but every time I tried it would burn and itch at me from the back of mind. It was as if the story infected me, got in my head and rattled around tearing up the place until I threw my hands in the air and gave it what it wanted.

At first blush, it makes sense that I’d like this book. A coming of age story in the far distant future where robots are about to take on all the trappings of full human hood? Yes, please. I expected a mishmash of I, Robot and Chester 5000 XYV. What I got was more like Twilight, but with a robot instead of a sparkly emo-kid. Don’t get me wrong, this book is much more well-written than that one, but our main character is about the same: vain, selfish and shallow.

I appreciate that lots of teenagers are able to make the journey through vain, selfish, and shallow and grow to be a better person. The problem is: I don’t think Cat every really grew into anything. I empathized with her a lot as a lonely kid to distant parents who never took the time to really know her. I even had sympathy for the reckless teenager. What I disliked was the selfish young woman who grew into a careless, deceitful woman. She spends her whole life lying: to her parents, her tutor, her friends, her eventual husband — and, worst of all, to herself.

Maybe it’s my fault for reading this book with a mind toward the past. I thought of things like segregation and voting rights for women and minorities (especially minorities). I heard echoes while reading of white plantation owner’s daughters having illicit affairs with slaves. (Spoiler alert: those affairs very rarely ended well for the slaves.) Could the slave ever really say no, without suffering consequences? Does Finn, by the end of the book, really love Cat or is it just that this connection was foisted on him somehow by his programming and circumstance?

I suppose that’s a bit like asking if the people in our lives *really* love us by design, or if they love us merely because we were convenient in the moment when they needed to fall in love. It’s an interesting conundrum – certainly something to think about. I think this question is really what kept me coming back to the book. It seems intolerably cruel to me that the first robot capable of love is doomed to love someone so completely – in my eyes at least – unlovable.

I have to give the author props for realistic characters and a well-thought-out political progression. The world, what we get to see of it, was fascinating. I wish we would’ve seen a lot more of it, but Cat doesn’t spend much time thinking about anything but herself, unfortunately. The writing itself got into my brain like an infection and I couldn’t get the voice out of my head. Obviously, this author has a lot of skill. It’s too bad that ultimately, skill doesn’t win out over an unlikable protagonist.

This is not a book to be read strictly for entertainment, but could – and I say this grudgingly, but it is true – be read for the expansion of the mind. If I could rate this separately, I would give it four stars for skill and two for ability to entertain. So I will rate it a three and be done with it.

Rating: ★★★☆☆ 

• Item the first: WFF will now house all my myriad thoughts and posts. This means the front page has a new look that will direct you to only book reviews if you want only book reviews, or just all the other stuff if you prefer that. If you want everything, you can still feel free to subscribe by RSS or email. You can also subscribe via RSS to individual categories, if that floats your boat. 
• Item the second: I am a BzzAgent and part of that program is sometimes posting reviews and opinions publicly. Those reviews will also go here, in their own category. Feel free to skip them if they don’t interest you. I won’t be offended.
• I have some reviews and not-review posts in the works. 2013 is proving to be an exciting year, so stay tuned.
• Part of my goals for 2013 is to purge my own dead-tree bookshelves in an effort to go nearly-all-digital. This purge is good news for you, as I’ll be dumping them on you guys GIVING AWAY the best of my copies to my dear readers here at WFF.
• There will not be an official Kiaras Festivus this year. Some of you have emailed to ask me this, and I hate to say it but it’s true. I had no time to coordinate this year and I can’t expect my friends, fans, and beloved authors to sponsor guest posts or giveaways with so little notice. I am super sorry about this, guys, but it couldn’t be avoided. I’ll do my best to fill in the gap on my lonesome.

If you have questions, comments, suggestions, or tribute, please leave it in the comments.

XOXO,

Kia