Tag: novel

The Deed of Paksenarrion, by Elizabeth Moon

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

the deedThis is an omnibus volume containing an entire trilogy of novels: Sheepfarmers Daughter (1988), Divided Allegiance (1988), and Oath of Gold (1989). Together, they tell the story of Paksenarrion Dorthansdotter, a young woman in a fantasy world who, as a tall, strapping farm girl of eighteen years, runs away from home to escape an unwanted forced marriage, and joins a company of mercenary soldiers.

Moon’s literary vision here has both strengths and weaknesses (which are sometimes the converse of each other). Her world-building is very detailed; it brooks comparison with Tolkien’s or, at least, Paolini’s on that score. (I appreciate a fictional world where women can occupy positions of power, and can train and serve as soldiers in full equality with men.) She also brings a high level of realism to the fantasy genre; as a Marine veteran, she knows a great deal about what the experience of initiation and training into a military unit is like. Indeed, other than the fact that Paks trains with a sword rather than a rifle, her life as a recruit is probably much like that of real-life modern “grunts” going through boot camp; and Moon recounts it in great detail.

The realistic note continues through the trilogy. Though magic operates in this world, and magical species like elves, dwarves and orcs exist, this element doesn’t appear much in the first book. (It will come much more to the fore in the later ones.) Realistically as well, Moon is willing to suddenly kill off characters, including characters you’ll have come to like and care about — exactly the way that real-life humans may die suddenly in combat situations, whether everybody likes and cares about them or not. Characterizations here are, not surprisingly, very realistic and vivid, and this is true of many secondary and minor characters too.

Some fantasy fans may want a higher level of magical content in their reads than the first book offers, and find it too much on the “mundane” side, though I don’t have a problem with this myself. Some readers won’t be happy to have characters they like, and expect to play more prominent roles, killed off. A bigger problem, though, is pacing. Usually, I have a pretty high tolerance for a slow narrative pace. Even so, I found this one glacially slow. Moon takes us through every aspect of “boot camp” life, every stage of every journey, every part of a siege, etc. You learn a lot about the world and the characters this way, but some scenes don’t add anything along that line. There are exciting, action-filled scenes, too; but many readers would find this narrative draggy in quite a few places. But the pace picks up somewhat in the later books (or perhaps we just get more used to it). And while characters who model responsible sexual behavior are refreshing, Paks’ total disinterest in sex seems at odds with the author’s usual realism. However, that trait will fit in with the future the author has in mind for her heroine.

Paks’ character grows considerably over the course of the trilogy. At the beginning, she’s a good-natured but simple young girl, who’s likeable enough as a person, and who does have a moral code; but she doesn’t think about the ethics of taking human life on the battlefield in wars over things like trade or border disputes, where her company happens to be on whichever side hired them first. To her, that’s just what mercenary soldiers do; it’s simply a morally neutral job that she likes and is pretty good at –though, to her credit, it’s important to her that she’s part of an “honorable company” that doesn’t murder noncombatants or rob innocent peasants.

sheepfarmerBut the first book ends with a crisis of genuine moral decision, in the tradition of serious fiction that aspires to do more than just entertain; and our heroine’s ethical sensibilities are in for real growth and development in the succeeding books. And this comes about as believable personal maturation of who she’s always essentially been, not as an artificial change tacked on by the author. This is one of the great strengths of the trilogy. (For fans who don’t like the military-centric type of fantasy, Paks is taken out of the mercenary company context fairly soon in the second book.)

While the first novel introduces us to the seemingly polytheistic religions and cults of Moon’s fantasy world, the later volumes take us behind the scenes to see more of a unifying pattern in apparent diversity. The human cultures of Pak’s world recognize a righteous Creator, the High Lord; and it’s explicitly suggested that the elven and dwarven concepts of the Creator are the same God, just with a different name and different stressed aspects. Other, lesser “gods” are spiritual entities that either serve the Creator, or in the case of the evil ones (and some are radically evil) oppose him, much like Satan opposes God; while human saints like Gird and Falk are separately venerated by distinct groups of followers, but each are recognized as servants of the common High Lord. In other words, religion in that world is much more monotheistic in essence than it initially appears; and it’s a strongly moral monotheism. (And as in our world, believers have to struggle with challenges to faith and problems of theodicy.) These religious themes play a key part in the last two novels.

There’s plenty of sword-fighting and other action here, quests and intrigue, magical perils, hidden identity, and a plot that’s suspenseful right up almost to the last page. But it’s also a work of rare psychological and spiritual depth, with the kind of serious dimension that marks it as truly great fiction, fiction of lasting literary significance, not just entertainment value. It’s also fiction that will break your heart in places, because there are points where Paks practically goes through hell –and some scenes here are not for the squeamish. But light is only recognizable against darkness; and out of great darkness here comes great light. One of the most powerful scenes in English-language literature that I’ve ever read in a lifetime of reading occurs here (you’ll know it when you read it). It’s a real shame that this trilogy isn’t more widely known by fantasy fans; but more than that, it’s a shame that it’s not recognized as one of the crown jewels of the American literary canon from the late 20th century. I’d like to hope that someday it will be!

Author: Elizabeth Moon
Publisher: Baen Books. Available through Amazon, both for Kindle and as a printed book.

A version of this review previously appeared on Goodreads.

Skinwalker, by Faith Hunter

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

skinwalkerSupernatural fiction is a favorite genre of mine, and I have a soft spot for strong heroines who can kick some butt when necessary; so naturally, I thought a book that appealed to both interests might be rewarding. But that didn’t begin to prepare me for how much I liked this one! In this opening volume of the Jane Yellowrock series, featuring a Cherokee Indian shape-shifter who makes her living hunting down and killing rogue vampires that prey on humans, Faith Hunter has created one of the most original and vividly-realized fictional protagonists to come down the pike in a long time, and established herself in my eyes as one of the genre’s outstanding contemporary voices.

The book trade classifies this as “urban fantasy.” Our setting is New Orleans, brought to life masterfully by Louisiana native Hunter, in one of the best evocations of place I’ve come across in fiction; but this isn’t quite the New Orleans we know. Here we’re in an alternate world similar to our own in most ways –but one in which the world has been aware of the existence of vampires (and witches –Hunter’s take on these is interesting) since 1962. “Civilized” (non-predatory) vampire clans, often with considerable wealth built up over the centuries, and their voluntary blood-servants and blood-slaves are a part of the urban ethnic mix. But shapeshifters aren’t generally known to exist, and that aspect of Jane’s life is one she keeps carefully under wraps.

Jane’s a supremely well-drawn, round character, with a personality and interior life that’s believable (and that’s some achievement, when you consider some of her characteristics!). She can shift into the form of any animal for which she has DNA handy, usually in the form of teeth or bones, etc. (Hunter handles the problem of differences in body mass in a really creative way!) Usually, though, she takes the form of the panther who’s bonded with her in an unusual way, even for shapeshifters, and which she doesn’t fully understand. There’s a lot about herself she doesn’t know (though some of those mysteries will be revealed in the course of this book); she remembers nothing before she stumbled out of the Appalachian wilderness some 18 years ago, at an age the authorities guessed to be about twelve, an apparently feral child.

For the next six years, she was raised in a Christian orphanage; and while she’s no plaster saint, she’s a practicing Christian. Her Christianity is of a low-key, not judging nor preachy sort, and not inconsistent with an openness to Cherokee spirituality. It also doesn’t come with the view held by some believers that women should be pacifistic doormats.  This woman’s trained in martial arts, knowledgeable about guns, packs a Benelli shotgun (as well as assorted stakes and knives) that sprays silver shot, rides a Harley, and doesn’t take garbage from anybody, human or vampire. She’s also a caring person with a tender heart, whom I’d be proud to have for a friend. (And she’s the kind of friend who comes through when the chips are down).

Jane isn’t the only round, lifelike character here; those qualities apply to the whole supporting cast (two-legged and four-legged; Beast is a masterpiece!). The plot is perfectly paced and constructed, IMO, with plenty of mystery to keep you guessing, not just the central mystery –who (and maybe what) is the rogue?– but the enigma of Jane’s buried memories, and the increasingly intriguing secrets of the vampires. Hunter’s treatment of the Undead is pretty traditional in most respects, and unlike many modern authors of vampire fiction, she doesn’t ignore or reject the idea that vampires fear Christian symbols (indeed, they’re burned by the touch of the cross), but not those of other faiths –why, Jane wants to know?

The author is a wonderfully descriptive prose stylist, one of the few writers (the late Ray Bradbury was another) who enables you to fully experience her world with all your senses: not just sight and hearing, but smell, taste and tactile sensations as well. And she does personal interactions wonderfully well, with insight, sympathy, and often real emotional power. Of course, since this is action-oriented fiction, you can expect some violence, and some of it’s gory; what the rogue does to victims isn’t pretty, and elementary school kids aren’t the intended audience for the book. But this won’t bother most tough-minded adults.

This is one series that I’m going to be following, and hoping to read in its entirety!

Note: There’s no explicit sex here, and very little implied sex, despite the fact that some of the minor characters are prostitutes. (Jane doesn’t engage in any sex.) Hunter is also relatively sparing in her use of bad language, though that doesn’t mean there’s none.

Publisher: Roc, available through Amazon, both for Kindle and as a printed book.

A version of this review previously appeared on Goodreads.

Operation Angelica, by Juliene Lloyd

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

operation angelicaFull disclosure at the outset: I accepted the author’s offer of a free copy of this book, in exchange for an honest review. Author Lloyd dedicates this debut novel, appropriately, “to all the invisible heroes in the world who risk their own lives to save others.”

It’s the opener for a projected series, the Vormund/Ames Files, dealing with a secretive consulting firm that caters to governments and businesses with needs in the security and counter-terrorism area. What they provide is usually advice and analysis –but there are times when they go beyond that. While they’re not amoral mercenaries simply out for a buck –they choose to be on the side of good, not evil– they may operate on the edge of the law, and in operations where their employers sometimes might want some “plausible deniability.” The author’s own comment (in a personal message to this reviewer) sums her work up best: “There are serious themes, but framed in terms of good, evil, and hope. I consider my characters to be imperfect people trying their best in an imperfect world.”

Though published this year, the book is set in 2008. A few months before it opens, a small party of innocent and idealistic American botanists ventured into the jungles of Honduras, researching medicinal plants. Unfortunately, they blundered into the territory used by drug lord Hector Vega, and while trying to flee from a fire fight between his minions and a rival gang, they were all brutally gunned down. Both the U.S. and Honduran governments know, from eyewitness testimony, that Vega was responsible; but his political connections and back-scratching arrangements give him blank-check immunity. He’s not as home free as he imagines, however, because the grief-stricken fiancee of one of the murdered men is a soft-spoken young woman from Georgia named Elizabeth Ashton. Liz is a decent, ethically-oriented person who cares about others and about doing the right thing. She’s also a professional sniper for the FBI, with the rank of Special Agent, and probably as deadly a markswoman with a rifle as it’s humanly possible to be.

The plot here has two focal points of action (and this doesn’t disclose anything that’s not already outlined in the cover copy): the Vega problem in the early chapters, and the main plot strand, code-named “Operation Angelica.” Law enforcement runs in Liz’s family (her father is a county sheriff, and her brother a state trooper); respect for legal due process and commitment to basic justice are both important principles for her. When they’re in irreconcilable conflict, and she has to decide which one trumps the other, she doesn’t take it lightly. Personally, I don’t have any problem with her decision (I’m much less hard on her on that score than she is on herself!). But it’s one that, eventually, brings her to the notice of the Vormund/Ames management –who are impressed rather than scandalized. That leads to a job offer (and given the series title, it’s no surprise that she accepts!).

The company’s current big project in hand is a rescue mission for a group of hostages –especially a critically ill journalist with both Columbian and French citizenship– held by a drug-trafficking Marxist guerrilla rebel group in the South American jungle. We also have a sub-plot involving a high-ranking CIA official with a gambling-debts problem and a lot fewer ethical scruples than he needs to have.

Lloyd’s prose style is accomplished and assured, which is to say that she handles diction, syntax, and vocabulary very well (a refreshing experience nowadays!). In 253 pages, I only found four typos, which indicates pretty good proofreading. She also appears to have genuine technical knowledge of firearms (although modern pistols don’t have to be “cocked,” as one is here; but many writers make that minor mistake) and of the training, procedures and equipment involved in SWAT-style ops; I don’t have personal experience in that area, but the writing has a solidly realistic feel to me. Not only Liz, but all of the major characters here are clearly delineated and lifelike.

Character and relationship development occupies more of the book than action, as does planning, intelligence gathering and set-up –that’s also realistic for this type of thing, where the time involved in actual gun-blazing action, if you’ve planned well, is actually relatively brief. That said, there’s a good deal of taut tension that mounts steadily before the shooting starts, and there’s a high body count when it’s finished. (Also, GWG fans will appreciate the fact that this novel gives us at least two major female characters who can handle a gun capably, not just one; CIA agent Katherine Williams is certainly one formidable lady!)

For the most part, the plotting here is linear and straightforward, without a lot of convolution, and this is a quick read. I withheld the fifth star in my rating because of several logical missteps in the CIA-official subplot; but that didn’t stop me from really liking the book, and I definitely intend to follow the series!

Note: Liz and other characters use a certain amount of bad language, of the d/h/s/a-word sort, at times, but no obscenity or religious profanity. Their speaking style is well within the bounds of realism for these types of characters and situations. One of the flashbacks has Liz recalling a conversation she and her fiance had when they were lying together in bed, and it’s clear that another couple make love at one point; but there’s no explicit sex, and Lloyd doesn’t portray any of these four people as promiscuous types.

Author: Juliene Lloyd
Publisher: Dark Sword Press. Available through Amazon, both for Kindle and as a printed book.

[A version of this review previously appeared on Goodreads]

Iron Bloom, by Billy Wong

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

ironbloomThis first book in Wong’s Legend of the Iron Flower series is one I got for my Kindle app at a time when it was being given away free. I only read books that way to see whether I consider them worth buying a copy –and in this case, the print edition is now on my book shelf. As a first novel, it’s not unflawed, but I liked it well enough to support the author by buying a copy, and plan to continue reading the series.

The Legend of the Iron Flower takes place in a medieval-style fantasy world; it’s sword-and-sorcery pulp, with much more emphasis on swords than sorcery. Our heroine, Rose Agen, is a teenage girl here (the succeeding novels and short e-stories follow her career into the ensuing years, when she’s older.) Rose was born to a snow-bound mother in the midst of the coldest winter in memory, with the firewood gone, and survived. She grew to be a tall, big-boned girl with a matching physique, and an iron constitution; people call her “god-touched” or a “freak” (sometimes in the same breath). Among the youth in her village, she’s the best wrestler, and like the others has fenced some with wooden swords, just for the fun of it. But her life takes a different turn when she kills her first man (in self-defense) at the age of 15; and over the next couple of years, a LOT of men follow him to the grave.

A genuinely ethical person who cares about others, Rose takes up the sword only to protect innocents; she sees her ability as carrying with it a duty. She kills only the aggressively wicked, and prefers nonviolent approaches when that’s possible, but the burden of taking many lives (not all of whom, as she recognizes, are as evil as others, and some of whom may have people who love them) still weighs heavily, and believably, on her. Sometimes she sees herself as a “monster,” and she can agonize over whether she’s too quick to resort to the sword. These conflicts are intensified when she meets up with a sect of philosophically-based based pacifists, and she and their young leader, Ethan, fall for each other. (Teenage love here leads to teenage sex; but Wong only refers to this directly in one place, and handles it very tastefully; there’s no explicit sex.) I didn’t see the romantic complication as cheapening the philosophical debate; rather, I saw it as intensifying the stakes in the issue, and adding to its emotional force.

The internal and external debates here are simple but serious, and not superficial because they’re simple. Like Rose (and Wong), I come down on the side of believing that defensive violence is sometimes necessary; but don’t revel in the necessity; and I think the kind of discussion that takes place here is worth having and thinking about. (Contrary to what those who see fantasy literature as “escapist” imagine, Rose’s fantasy world isn’t the only place where brigandage, war and tyranny occur; they seem to be pretty widespread, and to present exactly the same issues, here as well!) Rose isn’t an unflawed plaster saint who never makes bad choices; besides teenage sex, she engages in some teenage drinking, and abuses alcohol on a couple of occasions as an opiate for her stress and conflict. But even if I didn’t approve of some of her choices, I always understood and liked her. She’s a believable teen, considering that her culture seems to be one that doesn’t coddle adolescence, and expects kids to grow up quickly; her age shows in her wanderlust and thirst for adventure, and in her relationship with her parents (loving, but not without conflicts). But she’s mature in many of the ways that count.

Rose is a round and dynamic, well developed character. Some of the secondary characters, like Ethan and mercenary warrior Angela (we actually get two fighting ladies here for the price of one!) are also relatively well-drawn. Wong writes action scenes well, and he delivers plenty of them here. But even with the staggering body count and level of physical mayhem here (fighters can get beheaded, gutted, lose limbs, etc.) he doesn’t wallow into unnecessarily graphic descriptions of gore; there’s no feeling of a “pornography of violence” to the book. The plot has a variety of situations, and threw me some surprises at times. He puts Rose into thought-provoking situations (one in particular stands out) where the question of what response is right or wrong doesn’t have easy answers. And he deserves credit for giving us a brawny, battle-scarred heroine whose looks don’t conform to the Victoria’s Secret party-line model of female beauty. (That doesn’t mean she isn’t beautiful, outside as well as inside; it just means that a thin, slight build, an unmarked face and an undamaged bust aren’t essential aspects of beauty.)

As fantasy worlds go, Wong’s is on the low-magic end of the spectrum. Great sorcerers practiced it in the past, and have left some enchanted artifacts and spells around, but the knowledge of magic is for the most part lost; and creatures like ogres exist, but we don’t see much of them. Personally, I don’t see this as a flaw. The author’s world-building, though, is definitely weak. We know that Kayland is a large, patched-together kingdom forged from many formerly independent entities, that its technology is basically medieval, and that its religion is vaguely polytheistic, with an afterlife where rewards or punishment depends on behavior. But that’s really about all. There isn’t much sense of the culture, or of cultural differences, and both all Kaylanders and the foreign Vlin barbarians apparently speak the same language.

Wong’s writing style is barebones and minimalistic, lacking in texture and polish. He sometimes falls into the trap of telling rather than showing, and at times fails to provide information we’d like, and which would enhance the story. (For instance, we’re not even told Rose’s age, or given a physical description of her, until well after she’s introduced; and I’d have liked a lot more description of Millie’s underground cave.) Dialogue often sounds like it’s written to serve the plot, not to reflect the way these characters would actually speak in the situation. (And while the author avoids obvious Americanisms in the character’s speech, it is a bit odd in this type of fantasy world that everyone has first names, like Eddie or Millie, that could have been taken from any modern American list of baby names!) It’s not true, IMO, as some reviewers have complained, that Wong’s plotting is aimless; although it’s somewhat episodic, it does have a structure of story arc and resolution. But it can seem aimless because it appears to be occurring in a time vacuum; we learn that Rose has turned 16 at one point, but there are very few indications of how much time passes in different parts of the tale, and no notices of seasonal changes, so there’s very little to peg an internal chronology on.

For me, perhaps the most serious weakness is that Rose is TOO incredibly resilient and hard to kill. Action heroes and heroines, of course, tend to be super-tough and larger than life; but nonetheless, we do have the feeling that Conan or Jirel of Joiry are mortal. True, Rose can be hurt seriously, bleed copiously, feel pain galore, and be laid low for a time by wounds. But on at least four occasions, she survives wounds that she and everyone else thinks are mortal, and realistically would be; and she can keep fighting long after any normal human, no matter how tough, would be unconscious. (That’s true of some other characters, too.) That makes for spectacular fight scenes, it doesn’t make for realism. It also reduces the stakes in her battles, and makes her harder for me to relate to (just as I don’t personally relate as well to superhero characters as I do to normally-abled humans).

In the same vein, I would really question whether any human being could sustain a 30-foot drop onto solid rock without serious injury. And on one occasion when Rose comes up against a magically-empowered adversary, the magic just wimps out at a crucial point to allow her overcome it, which I thought was a cheap way out on the author’s part. So while I did like the book, these drawbacks kept me from rating it more highly overall than I did. As noted above, this is the author’s first novel, and he’s a relatively young writer. His stylistic skills are likely to improve with practice; and they show to better advantage in short fiction. I’ve read several yarns in his Tales of the Gothic Warrior story cycle (set in the present, and featuring Freya Blackstar) and liked all but one; I can also recommend the stand-alone e-story “Last Minute Replacement,” and one of Side Stories of the Iron Flower, “Bad Milk,” to action heroine fans. (The latter is the only one of Rose’s other adventures that I’ve read so far, but these two won’t be the last!)

Note: Bad language in this novel is relatively infrequent, and strictly of the d-word or h-word sort.

Author: Billy Wong
Publisher: Self-published, available through Amazon, both for Kindle and as a printed book.

A version of this review previously appeared on Goodreads.

Coral Hare: Atomic Agent by Clive Lee

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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.

The Athena Project, by Brad Thor

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★★
“More illing than thrilling.”

the_athena_projectI first became aware of this novel through an article back in February about MMA champion Ronda Rousey and her move into movies, which said

Ms. Rousey’s supporting parts are a run-up to a planned starring role in “The Athena Project,” a movie about a team of female counterterrorism agents. The film is in the early stages of development with Time Warner Inc.’s Warner Bros. Producers cast her after one sit-down meeting and are working on the script now. That film “is what I would really like to make into my franchise,” Ms. Rousey said. “Like Stallone has his ‘Rambo’ and Schwarzenegger has his ‘Terminator’ and Bruce Willis has his ‘Die Hard.'”

Okay, that sounds intriguing enough, though whether it’ll come to pass is harder to say – the rights were bought back in November 2010, before the novel hit stores, so it clearly isn’t exactly rushing into production. I got a copy of the book and… was distinctly underwhelmed. I don’t generally “do” literature, so this review will probably consist of me flailing around, trying to explain why, but I do understand why this is easily the lowest-rated of all Thor’s books on Amazon. It gets an average of 3.2 stars, with the next lowest with any significant volume of reviews being a 3.9; frankly, the former figure seems generous.

The central plot isn’t bad. The Athena Project are a group of four Delta Force operatives, all women, who carry out missions requiring their special skills. In this case, they’re digging into an arms dealer responsible for provisioning a terrorist attack, but the further they dig, they murkier things get. Eventually, they uncover a scheme to leverage resurrected Nazi technology, and create a new generation of weapons, against which there can be no defense. There’s also an entirely separate side story, involving a cell of the villains honeypotting a guy into smuggling a component into the secret government facility buried under Denver Airport. That’s long been a belief among conspiracy theorists, so is kinda neat. But it’s woefully connected to the rest of the story, and there’s no payoff to this aspect. It feels almost like Thor had two half-novels written, and decided just to intersperse their chapters.

But the main problem are the female characters: Gretchen Casey, Julie Ericsson, Megan Rhodes, and Alex Cooper. I had to look those names up, because as heroines, they are completely forgettable and indistinguishable from each other. Maybe Thor would have been better off concentrating on a single character, as it seems he does in his other works [his main hero there, Scot Harvath, pops up briefly in this novel]. On the other hand, maybe that wouldn’t have helped, given literary gems such as “Considering what these women did for a living, they certainly wouldn’t have described themselves as being dressed to kill, but everyone else would have.” Or “I don’t know about Mr. Right, but he definitely looks like he could be Mr. Right Now.” Is there a world where women talk like that? Maybe, with the right actresses, lines like that might work on the screen; on the printed page, however, they come over as cheesier than a block of aged Cheddar.

What Thor does do well is action, and when he concentrates on that, the results are snappy and effective. Although the villains appear to come from the Imperial Stormtrooper school of accuracy, it’s easy to picture in your mind what’s going on, and it makes for exciting entertainment. That’s why I’m not immediately consigning the movie to the garbage can since, in the right hands, this could still be good. Thor seems convinced, stating after news of Rousey’s association with the picture broke: “We have never seen a chick kick ass like this. This is going to make Tomb Raider look like a Disney movie.” That’s tough talk – I’ll be hoping the film lives up to the concept’s potential, and isn’t such a disappointment, frankly, as large chunks of this poorly-written novel.

Author: Brad Thor
Publisher: Pocket Books, 432pp, $9.99

Catching Fire, by Suzanne Collins

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★★★★
“Certainly better than Battle Royale 2.”

catchingfireWe rejoin heroine Katniss Everdeen in the second book of the trilogy, after her success in the 74th Hunger Games, where she out-lived the other contestants, in part through a fabricated love-affair with fellow District 12 tribute, Peeta. However, as well as her previous love, Gale, she now has to cope with life as a celebrity, beginning with a “Victory Tour” through the other districts. It soon becomes clear that not all is well, with her stand against the Panem government having fanned the flames of rebellion elsewhere. To demonstrate their power remains unshaken, the leaders announce the special, 75th Hunger Games will involve two previous winners from each district, meaning Peeta and Katniss are sent back in to a new, even more lethal environment, to take on other champions.

That this works better than its predecessor, is mostly due to the pacing department, which builds through a first-half of impending doom, and on to an upgraded Hunger Games, before dropping a bomb in its final paragraph. There’s more depth given to the Panem hierarchy than first time around, and the undercurrent of growing revolution is nicely depicted. The Twilight-esque love-triangle aspect, which bogged down the first book, is reined back, with Gale almost absent, though Katniss still has deal with her feelings for Peeta, whom she has sworn to protect at any cost. However, can she trust those with whom she is allied in the games, and whose motivations are less clear? It’s this angle which largely keeps you turning the pages, along with the arena, throwing one threat after another at her.

At its center is Everdeen, who remains an entirely admirable creation. She is loyal, brave and phenomenally-skilled with her bow, yet possesses enough doubts and flaws to keep her human, rather than becoming some kind of superheroine. Clearly, the first-person narrative does mean there’s not much sense of direct threat to Katniss’s survival; however, Collins has enough other cards in her hand, to leave you concerned as to what the emotional cost of that survival might be. Hopefully, the second film can capture the nuances and improve on its predecessor in the same way. For when that literary bomb was dropped on me at the end, I gave serious consideration to heading straight into the third book. Damn you, Suzanne Collins.

Author: Suzanne Collins
Publisher: Scholastic

The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins

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★★★½
“A first-person version of Battle Royale! With a love interest!”

I don’t “do” literature much here: I used to read a ferocious amount, but time and opportunity have waned since I stop commuting by train to work. However, I got a Kindle for my birthday, and that spurred me to finish the first novel I’ve read in a long time. While I enjoyed Hunger, and am keen to see the movie version, I was not blown away by this as much I hoped. It’s certainly a provocative premise. In a dystopian future, the former US has been divided up into districts. To discourage rebellion, each year every district sends two teenagers, selected at random, to the capital. They are placed in a large, multi-terrain arena for a nationally-televised tournament to the death: last one alive wins glory and a life of ease. When her younger sister is selected in their District 12, Katniss Everdeen volunteers to replace her: she has been using her hunting skills to support her family, so feels she has a much better chance of survival. But it’s still one against twenty-three…

As noted above, it has often been compared to Japanese cult classic Battle Royale, even if Collins claims the legend of Theseus as her inspiration. Here, the “reality show” elements are definitely more amped-up, with contestant makeovers, interviews, etc. Once the competition is under way, is when the book is at its strongest. Collins does not soft-pedal things at all, as the field is quickly whittled down through a mix of brutality and subterfuge, and it becomes inescapably addictive, to see what curve is going to be thrown at Katniss next, and how she’ll cope with it. For cope she will, since she’s a resourceful, smart and physically adept heroine, a marvellous counterpoint to many alleged “heroines” offered up to young adults.

Unfortunately, there’s also the obligatory love triangle, with Team Gale [the hunting partner Katniss leaves behind] and Team Peeta [the baker’s son chosen as the other District 12 tribute]. How can she choose between them? For the early part of the book, this doesn’t intrude too much, but it eventually becomes the elephant in the corner, overshadowing all else. The pacing also blows: the finale should be the climax of the games, as the last few contestants battle it out, with a brief coda thereafter. But, instead, Collins ramps up the teen angst, and the novel peters out into an uncertain conclusion, ending not with a bang, but a whimper. I really hope I’m not in for more of the same in part two.

Author: Suzanne Collins
Publisher: Scholastic

The Smoking Gun Sisterhood, by Thad Brown

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★★★★
“Admiring and respectful celebrations of gun-packing women as kick-butt heroines, for readers of both genders who appreciate heroines of this type.”

Art by Rich Smedley

The rise of self-publishing has provided an opportunity for authors to distribute their product directly to the public – it’s no longer necessary to have a contract or even a publishing house. This is, frankly, a double-edged sword: just because you can write a book, doesn’t mean you should write a book. But it also offers a better chance to reach the public for niche publications like this, a short-story collection which falls squarely into our wheelhouse, featuring a wide range of action heroines [and at least one action villainess]. Some of the ten titles might help to give you a fairly good idea of what to expect: Biker Angel; Cops and Robbers; Sisters, Dark and Light.

It has a certain throwback ambiance, feeling at times like you’re reading a collection from the sixties than a modern publication. That’s not a criticism, just an observation, and might be partly because the sexual angles present in some stories are far more hinted at than explicit, and partly because there a square-jawed and certain morality present, largely without shades of grey. Brown has a nicely cinematic tone to his writing – it’s very easy to visualize proceedings in my mind’s eye as they unfolded, and the three entries mentioned above would all have potential as movies. My favorite was probably Sisters, Dark and Light, which pits an FBI agent against a kidnapper whose sadistic streak is frankly disturbing. I also enjoyed the two Capta and the Cop stories, set in the same universe, yet heading in opposite directions.

Perhaps my main criticism is a couple of the stories feel in need of expansion, almost like they were trailers more than features, albeit for movies that I’d still want to say. I did notice a few typos, though any regular readers here will know I’m hardly anyone to complain, and the packaging is too bland – it’s the kind of collection that is crying out for a pulp-styled illustration on the front. Otherwise, it certainly comes recommended to action heroine fans. There’s plenty of variety in scenarios, and even the least of the tales is still fun to read. I think the overall attitude of the stories is what makes them work: it’s the author who described them with the quote in the ‘brief’ section of the header. Having read the book, I’d say it’s perhaps a little po-faced (they’re more entertaining than that makes them sound!), but it’s not far from the mark. If you enjoy this site, I think you’ll get a kick out of these tales.

Update: August 2010. Thad tells me there is now a new edition, which has all the typos corrected, as well as having page numbers, a table of contents, and even has the messed-up line breaks in the preface fixed. He adds, “I wasn’t able to do a cover with a pulp-style illustration that you said it cried out for; I’d wanted to import Rich’s biker picture that inspired “Biker Angel,” but Lulu’s software just wouldn’t cooperate! I did install a different cover image, a smoking revolver on a russet -sort of dried-blood-colored-background, which I thought was pretty cool.”

Update: December 2013. After one regular publishing deal fell through, the last I heard from Thad was that the collection “has now been accepted for publication by Pro Se Productions” and “should be available for purchase in both paperback and e-book formats sometime around mid-2013.” Checking their site, no sign at this point.

Update: April 2014. A little delayed, but we’re delighted to announce the book is now available through Amazon. You may recognize the quote. :)

Update: November 2014. It’s now available in e-form on Kindle, for only $2.99!

[The opening of one of the stories, Cops and Robbers, can be found here, as a taster for the book. 

Women With Guns, by Noah Sarlat

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★★½
“Doesn’t live up to the blurb on the back. Then again, how could it?”

The tender sex – and the terrible things they can do. Violence, savagery, sudden death on the battle field, torture and butchery behind enemy lines – these are the facts of war. It is a man’s world… but what of the women trapped in it? What of women such as:

  • Minerva, the sexton’s sexy daughter, who loaned her secret weapon to the Danish underground…
  • Repon Sirik, young leader of Indochina’s feared Hoa Hoa, women warriors who’ve made life a living hell for their enemies…
  • Tuli, the Laotian lady with a yen for vengeance and a wild way with jungle warfare…
  • Frau Kastanie, the not-so-merry widow and her party-girl panzers of Bremen…
  • Katina, her four Greek girl friends, and their crazy, blood-spattered flight to Istanbul…

These are the women with guns, stripped of morals, fighting and loving in the savagery of war. You’ll meet them (and others) in these strange but true accounts.

That’s the lurid copy on the back of this fifty-cent 1962 pulp collection of stories, originally published in magazines with names like For Men Only or Male. The reality is rather different: without exception, the characters mentioned are supporting at best, and nearer cameos in a couple of cases. The stories are very much male-oriented: for example, the head of the Danish underground, and the man who leads Katina et al out of Nazi territory. It’s through their eyes that events unfold, and they’re responsible for most of the action. There are occasional moments otherwise – but in that area, I note it’s the “foreign” i.e. non-white women, who are easily the most pro-active. Civilized girls just don’t do that sort of thing.

This doesn’t mean that the stories are bad: the majority are solid, two-fisted pieces of entertainment, obviously products of their era (sex is fairly frequent, yet largely happens off-page, after a knowing ellipsis), yet rarely dull. The sole exception is Hitler’s Hustlers of Bremen, a muddled, confusing and, frankly, dull piece about black-market shenanigans in Germany just after the war. My favorite, on the other hand, was Five Greek Girls to Istanbul – basically, the title is close to the plot there, with the hero leading his mini-harem through occupied territory, with a sojourn as members of the resistance on the way. Still, I can’t hide a sense of disappointment, even if such mis-direction is a concept with which I’m certainly familiar: many are the 21st century DVDs with equally lurid cover and blurb, that similarly fail to deliver.

Editor: Noah Sarlat
Written by: Richard Gallagher, Emile C. Schurmache, George Mandel, James Collier, Burton Shean