Coral Hare: Atomic Agent by Clive Lee

Coral Hare, Atomic Agent, by Clive Lee

Literary rating: ★★★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆☆☆☆

coral hareFull disclosure at the outset: the author, who’s a member of my Action Heroine Fans group on Goodreads, gifted me with a no-strings-attached free copy of this novel.

Most people who’ve read much at all about World War II are aware that Germany, as well as the U.S., had an active atom bomb development program. The information that Japan did too was only recently declassified. First novelist Lee draws on this new historical data to produce a riveting espionage-action thriller –and the adjective “high-octane,” for once, isn’t just hype!

After a blood-drenched prologue set in Tokyo in 1937, our story focuses on Mina Sakamoto, a Nisei (American-born offspring of Japanese immigrants to the U.S.), born and raised in Honolulu, who’s recently turned 14 at the time of Pearl Harbor. Largely Americanized and seeing herself as American, she’s the daughter of a medical doctor, who’s unofficially trained her to function as a practical nurse. She’s also good at languages (the Hawaii of that day was quite an ethnic melting-pot) and a bit of a tomboy, good at roller skating and rabbit hunting with a slingshot. This background is going to come in handy, because the events of Dec. 7, 1941 will propel her into becoming, before she’s 15, a full-fledged field agent of the OSS (Office of Strategic Services), the World War II-era forerunner of. the CIA. (“Coral Hare” is her coded radio call sign.) Out of 64 chapters, the last 50 focus on the spring and summer of 1945, when the now-17-year-old goes up against Japan’s A-bomb program.

The story arc is constructed well; the time devoted to Mina’s grueling OSS training provides the necessary believability for her transformation into a kick-butt warrior, and the intervening years between this and her climactic 1945 missions are handled very adeptly. Lee shows us some personal growth on Mina’s part, and her relationship with her mentor is nicely depicted. But I’d say that 80-90% of the book consists of either fighting action, in which absolutely no punches are pulled by the combatants or the author, or of horrific descriptions of the effects of bomb blasts, both conventional and atomic, on human beings. The mayhem is very graphic, gory and grisly; despite the teen protagonist, this is definitely not YA fiction (though some teens would like it). A lot of serious research to insure historical accuracy obviously went into this, and that’s a significant strong point of the novel; but Lee avoids the trap of shoe-horning all of his information into the tale via info-dumps. (He does use footnotes, which the reader can skip over or read. I found some of these quite educational; I wasn’t much interested in the military hardware specs, but serious World War II buffs might be.)

His prose style is clear and readable, with language and diction mostly handled capably, despite a few typos. (There are a few cases of incorrect sentence construction or misused words –a person can’t lie “prone on her back,” since “prone” means face-down, and Lee tends to confuse “flanking” with approaching from behind– and rare details that don’t ring true, such as Mina’s not being done with eating one hamburger when she’s been in a diner for two hours; but these aren’t big deals.) Several fascinating historical appendices make it clear how much real-life history (a LOT!) was incorporated into the narrative, as well as providing information on real-life Allied female spies in the war, and an honor roll of real Japanese-Americans who served in the OSS. Lee’s respect for the courage and sacrifice of the “Greatest Generation,” to whom the book is dedicated, is clearly evident, and commendable.

Even with a doctored birth certificate and some string-pulling, Mina’s age poses some credibility problems (the biggest one, which Lee mostly finesses, being parental consent for her going off in the first place). Despite this, Mina’s an unforgettable character, with an industrial-strength level of indomitable spirit and courage, and fighting prowess that’s second to none. Allowing for their differences in setting and weaponry, she actually has some similarities to Billy Wong’s epic-fantasy swordswoman protagonist Rose Agen in Iron Bloom: they’re both teens who’ve had to grow up quickly (but who yet retain some traces of the teen), both super-lethal fighters with massive kill counts, and both possessed of endurance and recuperative powers that amaze observers. But while Lee is by far the better stylist of the two, Wong has created a character who’s the more morally introspective. Rose is bothered by killing, even though she does a lot of it, and does so only to protect innocents from harm. Protection of the innocent plays into Mina’s motives, but she’s more driven by revenge, and if killing bothers her, she doesn’t show it; at times, she rather appears to enjoy inflicting mayhem. That makes her harder to like unreservedly –though I still did like her, and root for her.

Public domain, via Wikimedia CommonsFor me, the main weakness of the novel was a sense of missed opportunity for moral reflection. True, Mina’s trying to stop WMD’s from being built and deployed, which is certainly a commendable goal. She also doesn’t harm any civilians herself. But she knows about the Manhattan Project, which is a mirror image of the Japanese effort, and is present for the firebombing of Tokyo (shown left, and in which more civilians died than in both atom bomb attacks combined). We’re not told what, if anything, she thinks about any of this; the silence can suggest that she pretty much endorses an “us against them” ethic in which whatever “our side” does is okay, because OUR cause is just. For the time and place, of course, that attitude is realistic (for both sides), and Mina at least doesn’t have the racism that fueled a lot of that attitude.

But I missed the kind of grappling with the ethical issues that could have raised this into a five-point rating instead of four. (True, the graphic descriptions of human suffering from both atom and conventional bombs might inspire some of that grappling in some readers.) I’d also argue that by the summer of 1945, the Japanese could not have won the war even if they’d produced an operational A-bomb; and despite Lee’s historical research, I doubt that the OSS ever used torture to interrogate prisoners. (We know that the Axis powers did, and probably the Soviets, too –they used it to extract “confessions” in the Stalinist purge trials a few years earlier– but besides the ethical issues, I think U.S. intelligence realized how unreliable it is as a source of honest information.)

For all that, this book does what it does very well; it’s an unabashedly pulpy, edge-of-the-seat thrill ride through hell and back, with a take-no-prisoners heroine who’s in a new mortal jeopardy every time you turn around. (And remember, this isn’t a series book; there’s no guarantee that our gal’s going to make it home!) If you’re an “action junkie,” you’ll get your fix here, and then some. This would have real possibilities for a movie adaptation (which would definitely be R-rated for violence), and if one is ever made, it’s going on my to-watch list!

Note: There is a notable amount of bad language here, mostly of the d, h, and s-word type, but also some profanity, and eight uses of the f-word. (That’s arguably realistic for the speech of U.S. soldiers; less so for the speech of Japanese-language speakers, before the U.S. Occupation.) However, there’s no sex (except for a rape scene, which isn’t graphically described). It’s noted in passing that Mina wants to marry and have kids someday; but right now, she has other priorities besides boys. (Like staying alive!)

Author: Clive Lee
Publisher: Self-published, available through Amazon, both for Kindle and as a printed book.
Official website

A version of this review previously appeared on Goodreads.

Werner Lind joins the GirlsWithGuns.org team

We’re delighted to announce Werner Lind is joining the site as a contributor, with a special responsibility for covering fictional action heroines. His first review is already up, and here he is to tell us a bit about himself and his background.

Hi, fellow action heroine fans! My name is Werner Lind, and Jim recently invited me to contribute some book reviews, from time to time, to this site. I’m a librarian (great job for a book lover!), and an avid reader ever since I was six. While I read in quite a few genres, I have a special fondness for strong, brave kick-butt heroines, who fight for justice and the underdog. (And I can get interested in the occasional action-style villainess, too, especially if her character is somewhat nuanced. Of course, just because a lady happens to be on the wrong side of the law doesn’t always mean she’s a villainess, either.) Over on the reading-oriented social network Goodreads, I’m the founding moderator of the Action Heroine Fans group and current moderator of the Girls and Guns group. You can access my Goodreads author page. (The heroine of my vampire novel Lifeblood isn’t exactly an action heroine in the mold of some of those represented on this site –but she does have vampire strength, and she can handle herself very well in a fight!) I also review books on Goodreads, but the ones here will be second (and so more polished) drafts of those.

Jim suggested that I tell you a bit about myself. My wife is the kind of lady in real life that I admire in books; she grew up handling guns for hunting, and bagged her first deer at the age of 11. We have three grown-up daughters (the oldest has a green belt in karate), and four grandkids who keep us busy. Like a lot of guys my age, I grew up having a crush on Emma Peel of The Avengers and the ladies of Charlie’s Angels; and of course, what moviegoer in the 70s wasn’t a fan of Princess Leia in Star Wars? Some of my other favorite action heroine films are both of the Tomb Raider movies, Red Sonja, Bad Girls, and Bandidas. (As for my favorite action heroine books –well, you’ll see those from my reviews.) If you’d like to talk about fighting females in fiction, drama, and real life, join Jim and the rest of us over on the Girls and Guns Forum (“putting the ‘bullet’ in bulletin board”  ); we’d love to hear from you!

A quick word about my rating scales! For overall ratings, I use the same scale that Goodreads does. One star would mean I didn’t like a book, and two that it was just “okay.” Three stars means I liked it and four stars that I really liked it, while five stars says that it’s “amazing.” The “kick-butt quotient” for heroines here is my own scale, as follows:

  • One star –Heroine can fight (or maybe meet other physical challenges), but doesn’t kill.
  • Two stars –Heroine uses lethal force sparingly, and may be conflicted about it.
  • Three stars –Heroine uses lethal force occasionally when needed, and takes the necessity in stride.
  • Four stars – Heroine kills quite a few people (or she’s a villainess who doesn’t mind killing good guys and innocents).
  • Five stars –Heroine counts her kills in the dozens (or more), and can basically wipe out small armies.

Maleficent

★★★★
“Maleficent Bastard.”

kinopoisk.ruThis idea seems insane on the surface: take one of the classic villainesses of all-time, and tell the story from her point of view? How could that possibly work? But then, you think about it a bit, and the possibilities become apparent – not just in the fairytale arena, but in others as well. What about a Bond movie from the perspective of Goldfinger? A horror movie through Freddy Krueger’s eyes? One of the first things you realize, is that casting is particularly key: here, you need to have a lead who can take a character that has been universally loathed by generations, to the point where it’s in our cultural DNA, and turn it around, to become the sympathetic focus. The other essential aspect is the motivation: what happened to make them the way they are, and justify their subsequent “evil” actions? You have to bring the audience along on that character’s journey – and, bear in mind, this is a Disney film, so the scope for any kind of explicit content is close to nil. Yeah, we were right the first time, there’s no way this will ever succe…

What? Angelina Jolie as Maleficent? Suddenly, the idea doesn’t just make sense, it became more a case of, why did nobody think of this before? Virtually from the first photos of Jolie in her uber-goth get-up, it was clearly perfect casting: Jolie was Maleficent and Maleficent could have been no-one else. That extends through the finished product: whenever Jolie is on screen, the film ramps up at least another gear, if not two, because you know something’s going to happen. She doesn’t even necessarily have to do much: there’s a relatively early scene, where she’s walking across the countryside, and behind her, stone fences are being shredded, as if by an unseen tornado. That, combined with Jolie’s expression, playing out on a face whose cheekbones could cut glass,  completely sells the premise of what follows. Though we can’t shortchange Linda Woolverton’s screenplay which, as mentioned above, is a crucial component. The torment through which the heroine goes, is about as thinly disguised a date-rape metaphor as you’ll ever see in a Disney film, and works impeccably.

The set-up has two kingdoms, a human and a fairy one, living in… Well, I wouldn’t say peace, but cordial disdain is perhaps close to it. This lasts until the monarch of the former, King Henry, casts envious eyes over his neighbour, only for his invasion attempt to be humiliatingly destroyed by its queen, Maleficent (Jolie) and her fey army. He promises his daughter’s hand to anyone who kills the queen, and this opens the door for Stefan (Copley), who had been a friend of Maleficent’s growing up. Their friendship blossomed into more during their teenage years before they drifted apart. However, his ambition overwhelms his friendship; he drugs Maleficent, cuts her wings off using iron (poisonous to fairy folk), and uses this as proof to secure his position as heir. The queen throws up an enchanted forest between the two kingdoms, but doesn’t forget the wrong done to her, and when King Stefan has a baby daughter… Well, you know how Sleeping Beauty goes from there, I trust.

maleficentiExcept, there’s one very significant twist. Chris and I took a pie break an hour in, and she complained the film’s direction was “obvious.” Yes… and no. It was clearly pointing in the Prince Charming and happy ever after directions, but I’m delighted to report this is then subverted into something entirely different, and which packs a much greater emotional wallop. There was sniffling coming from beside me on the couch before the end, let’s just leave it at that. If there’s a Disney moral to be found in the (mostly awesome) ending, it’s perhaps not just the value of forgiveness over revenge, but that when someone offers you the former, it’s often wisest just to take it. Oh, and another important lesson: if you go plummeting off battlements with a creature that has wings and can fly, there’s really only going to be one loser in that scenario.

While Jolie and the story are uniformly excellent, that’s not to say the film is without problems. First-time director Stromberg is better known as an art director, and this is painfully apparent whenever the heroine isn’t on screen. The lengthy sequence where Princess Aurora (Fanning) is growing up in seclusion, tended to by a trio of fairy godmothers, Bibbety, Bobbity and Boo – okay, I made that last bit up – is, frankly, dull. Aurora herself is such a cloying goody two-shoes, she makes the original animated version of Maleficent seem like a paragon of subtlety and depth. and the fairoic trio are about the most grating efforts at comic relief I’ve seen since the last Adam Sandler movie. I was also not very impressed with some of the creations in fairyland. More than one of these second-rate CGI creations, look like they were designed to shift merchandise rather than serve any genuine purpose for a mature audience: think along the lines of Jar-Jar Binks with wings.

These are issues which would probably sink many a lesser movie, but Jolie and the story are strong enough to keep you engrossed, through to a spectacular, dragon-infused finale which the last part of The Hobbit will have to go some to beat. It’s easy to understand why this is, at time of writing, the third-biggest worldwide film of 2014. Depending on how Mockingjay Part 1 goes, it could remain the biggest action-heroine movie of the year, which would be an amazing feat, given muted prerelease expectations of around $150m domestic (it took 60% more). Regardless, Maleficent certainly cements Jolie’s role as the reigning queen of our genre, from Tomb Raider through Mr + Mrs Smith to Salt and on to this. If the reports of her retirement from acting, to concentrate on directing and writing instead, prove to be true, Jennifer Lawrence, Eva Green or anyone else will find it very difficult to fill the abandoned pair of glass slippers.

Whoops, wrong fairy-tale. :)

Dir: Robert Stromberg
Star: Angelina Jolie, Sharlto Copley, Elle Fanning, Sam Riley

2015 in Action Heroine Films

Looking back at last year’s preview, it’s interesting to note the hits, misses and no-shows from the films previewed there. Lucy and Maleficent performed above expectations, although both are still almost certain to be out-grossed handily before long (if not already!), by the third Hunger Games movie. On the other hand, Kite ended up basically going straight to video, and Resident Evil 6 has now been pushed all the way back to 2016, due to Milla Jovovich becoming pregnant again. So, take all of what follows with an appropriate pinch of “card subject to change,” wildly variable release dates and no guarantees, considering in some cases I’m going off a one-sentence synopsis on the IMDb.

barely lethalBarely Lethal (TBA)

Still no sign of this one, so let’s just copy paste from 2014! “A 16-year-old international assassin yearning for a “normal” adolescence fakes her own death and enrolls as a senior in a suburban high school. She quickly learns that being popular can be more painful than getting water-boarded.” I’m not sure who came up with that synopsis, but they likely deserve some first-hand experience of waterboarding. Cute title, even if it does feel rather too close to the lacklustre school plot from Kick-Ass 2. Chris will probably be up for this, since she thoroughly enjoyed director Kyle Newman’s Fanboys. Hailee Steinfeld plays the hit-teenager, Megan, and Jessica Alba is former employer Victoria Knox, who smells a rat and heads in pursuit. Samuel L. Jackson and Sophie Turner (Sansa Stark from Game of Thrones) are also involved.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: The Green Legend (August 28)

Another hangover from last year, we’re still eagerly anticipating this due to the directorial presence of Yuen Wo-Ping, and those in front of the cameras, Michelle Yeoh and Donnie Yen. The martial arts will kick ass, there seems little doubt. But will it pack the same emotional wallop of the original? There has been a twist to the distribution too, with the film being released simultaneously in cinemas and on Netflix (who are co-producers on the $60 million production), though some theatre chains are boycotting it as a result. AMC sniffily said in a press release, “No one has approached us to license this made-for-video sequel.” Their loss, I’d say.

The Godmother (TBA)

According to Wikipedia, Griselda Blanco was a drug lord of the Medellín Cartel and a pioneer in the Miami-based cocaine drug trade and underworld during the 1970s and early 1980s. She was also known as La Madrina, the Black Widow, the Cocaine Godmother and the Queen of Narco-Trafficking, After spending the best part of two decades in jail, she was deported back to Colombia in 2004, and was killed in a drive-by shooting in 2012. Now, there’s a movie being made about her life… starring Welsh actress Catherine Zeta-Jones. Well, that’s an adventurous bit of casting, to say the least. I’ve seen pics of Blanco and Zeta-Jones didn’t come to mind, shall we say. Mind you, Al Pacino wasn’t Cuban either.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 (November 20)

Already filmed, having been shot back-to-back with part 1, it’s now just a question of how big this will be. The success of the first half should give us a clue, but this seems virtually certain to become the biggest action heroine film of all time, and could well be the first ever to take a billion dollars worldwide [Part 2 ended at $865 million, and the last part of, say, Harry Potter, a similarly two-part split, bumped its return up about 50% over its immediate predecessors]

Into the Forest (TBA)

“In the not too distant future, two young women who live in a remote ancient forest discover the world around them is on the brink of an apocalypse. Informed only by rumor, they fight intruders, disease, loneliness & starvation.” The two women are played by Ellen Page (Whip It) and Evan Rachel Wood, and it’s an adaptation of the novel by the same name, written by Jean Hegland.

janesgotagun

Jane Got a Gun (February 28)

Having apparently survived losing its director and chief villain Jude Law, the hits kept on coming, with the film also losing Law’s replacement Bradley Cooper, with Ewan McGregor coming on, in a reunion of sorts with heroine/co-producer Natalie Portman. However, that wasn’t enough to save the film in April from having its release date pushed back six months past the originally scheduled one of August. The month of February is not a great spot on the calendar, and one wonders if this will end up effectively being buried. The plot, in case you’d forgotten: “After her outlaw husband returns home shot with eight bullets and barely alive, Jane reluctantly reaches out to an ex-lover who she hasn’t seen in over ten years to help her defend her farm when her husband’s gang tracks him down to finish the job.”

Momentum (TBA)

During a carefully conceived heist, one of the participants, Alex (Olga Kurylenko, Kirot) witnesses of her colleagues being brutally murdered by a highly specialized international syndicate, who are in search of a key. As she attempts to escape the murder scene, she is spotted by the syndicate’s head, Mr. Washington, resulting in an ensuing chase and life or death situations as the unstoppable Alex fights for her life, as well as the lives of those at risk over this mysterious key and what it may open.

A Sexual Thriller (TBA)

Alexandra Duval (Luna Rioumina) is a beautiful, young, deadly assassin She has the training and disciplined grace of a nallerina coupled with the fortitude and lethality of a mighty warrior. She specializes in the ‘soft kill‘ – getting up close & personal with her targets – a black widow. But after she learns of a murder eerily similar to that of her fiance’s, she embarks on her quest to find those responsible for killing the love of her life.

Sicario (TBA)

Emily Blunt (shown below in Looper) stars, playing “A confident female cop [who] joins a secret CIA operation to take down a big Mexican cartel boss, a job that ends up pushing her ethical and moral values to the limit.” Other members of the cast include Benicio del Toro and Josh Brolin, and there’ll be some local interest for us here, with its Arizona setting – though the filming appears to have been in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Director Denis Villeneuve received plaudits for his earlier work, Prisoners, and I’m getting something of a No Country for Old Men vibe about this production – not just because of Brolin, but also cinematographer Roger Deakins – perhaps combined with cop TV series The Bridge [which, of course, was a remake of a Scandinavian show]

looper

Spy (May 22)

“Susan Cooper is an unassuming, deskbound CIA analyst, and the unsung hero behind the Agency’s most dangerous missions. But when her partner falls off the grid and another top agent is compromised, she volunteers to go deep undercover to infiltrate the world of a deadly arms dealer, and prevent a global disaster. ” This will be the third collaboration between director Paul Feig and star Melissa McCarthy, with the film also starring Rose Byrne, Jason Statham, Jude Law and – a favourite of both my wife and mine – Miranda Hart. One imagines this is more likely to be heavily skewed toward the comedy aspects rather than the action, but I’ll confess to a sneaking respect for McCarthy, the only decent thing about Bridesmaids [that was one of Chris’s movies!]

Suffragette (TBA)

A September release in the UK, no American release date yet. This “tracks the story of the foot soldiers of the early feminist movement, women who were forced underground to pursue a dangerous game of cat and mouse with an increasingly brutal State. These women were not primarily from the genteel educated classes, they were working women who had seen peaceful protest achieve nothing. Radicalized and turning to violence as the only route to change, they were willing to lose everything in their fight for equality – their jobs, their homes, their children and their lives.” The star is Carey Mulligan, best known perhaps for playing the heroine in Blink, the finest episode of Doctor Who.

survivorSurvivor (TBA)

So there may be no Resident Evil, but this one might give us our Milla Jovovich fix for the year. “A State Department employee newly posted to the American embassy in London is accused of crimes she didn’t commit, and forced to go on the run while she tries to clear her name and stop a large-scale terrorist attack set for New Year’s Eve in Times Square. ” It was filmed in the first quarter of this year (apparently when they say “on the run”, they mean it for Milla, as shown on the right), and I’m not sure why it’s apparently being sat on – there’s no US release date currently, but it’s listed as September 2015 in the Netherlands. The Director is James McTeigue, who did V for Vendetta and Ninja Assassin.

Tiger House (TBA)

High concept: “An injured gymnast must defend her boyfriend’s house from a gang of armed robbers.” Slightly-lower concept: “Kelly sneaks into her boyfriend’s house but tonight, she’s not the only unwelcome visitor. Now, she must draw on her reserves of strength and skills of dexterity to escape. As the situation spirals out of control, the suburban house becomes a terrifying arena for violence. ” Tagline: “12 hours. 4 killers. 1 way out.” Second quarter release scheduled for the UK, with Kaya Scodelario as the heroine, and Dougray Scott also present.

Z for Zachariah (TBA)

Another post-apocalyptic tale based on a novel – seems to be a trend for 2015 – though this one, by Robert C. O’Brien, dates back to the seventies. It starts Margot Robbie, who will also be Harley Quinn in the upcoming Marvel film, Suicide Squad. According to Variety, “The thriller follows a small-town girl (Robbie) who lives alone on a farm in the only valley with breathable air in the wake of nuclear war. Her world is turned upside down when two strangers wander in from the forest.” Chris Pine and Chiwetel Ejiofor also star, presumably as the two strangers mentioned.