creative derivative

A Gentle Tyranny by Jess Corban

Rating: 3.5 stars (out of 5)

Genre: feminist speculative fiction

Review: This book is what you would get if you combined the gender-segregated society of Sheri S. Tepper's The Gate to Women's Country with the capital extravagnce and high stakes competition of Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games.  Which is to say that this book is more than a little derivative.  Is it still worth reading?  Yes.

Corban takes the ideas behind these two books and runs with them, adding in descriptions of the jungle setting that are beyond lush.  Reina's naivete at the beginning of the book was troublesome to me, but Corban places her in situations that force her confront her own lack of knowledge and gives her the motivation to overcome it.  Reina's growth is realistic and believable in a way that many authors can't pull off.  And we learn that her ignorance isn't entirely due to her sheltered upbringing or her own passivity.  There are things in her society that are just not talked about, and which will probably turn out to be its downfall.  We'll have to wait for the sequel to find out, though.

FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.

feel the burn

In the Quick by Kate Hope Day

Rating: 4 stars (out of 5)

Genre: science fiction

Review: At an unspecified point in the probably-not-too-distant future, humanity has a solid start at space exploration, with bases on distant moons and regular liftoffs of supply rockets.  It looks a little different from what we might expect; for one thing, rocket launches take place somewhere that's very cold.  For another thing, the whole program seems to be organized around the protégées of Peter Reed, who invented a new kind of fuel cell that makes long-distance space exploration possible.  This fictional space program also seems a rather down-and-dirty affair, not the gleaming high-tech of NASA.

When the fuel cells on the first long-distance mission malfunction, though, all long-distance exploration is on the verge of being scrapped.  Everyone assumes the crew is dead, except for June Reed, Peter's niece, a young and difficult genius in her own right.  Only twelve at the time of the malfunction, she must bide her time training for space before she can set her plan to save the crew in motion.  It is six long years before she is assigned to the moon that was meant to the be the gateway for supply runs.  Here she is able to collaborate with one of her uncle's students, and together they try to reconfigure the fuel cell so that they can mount a rescue mission, and reopen deep space to humanity.

The harshness of space is not new to the science fiction reader.  In Kate Hope Day's hands, that harshness feels very immediate, as June trains for, and then tries to work in space.  Giving equal measure to the human and the science is the mark of the best science fiction, and Day is more than up to the challenge.  June is the only character to get full authorial treatment, but seeing the universe through June's eyes, and walking with her as she struggles to see her vision realized is a treat for the reader.  She's a character who won't soon be forgotten, and her dream is one to build on.

FTC Disclaimer: I recieved this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.

'ware the mob

Good Neighbors by Sarah Langan

Rating: 4 stars (out of 5)

Genre: fiction

Review: The Wildes are the newest family on Maple Street, a quiet crescent-shaped street on Long Island that faces a large park.  The families on Maple Street are a fairly close-knit group, complete with block parties and the children roving through the backyards together in the summer.  In the summer of 2027, tensions are running high due to a collapsing economy and worsening environmental conditions, and when a sinkhole opens up in the park during the Fourth of July block picnic, things get out of control and the Wildes get blamed for it all.  By the end of the summer an entire family will be dead.

Apparently, what happens on Maple Street captures the public's attention, and by 20 years later all the surviving participants will have been interviewed numerous times, books will have been written, and there will even be an interactive Broadway play based on the events of that summer.  But what actually happens on Maple Street?

The later analysis and interviews that are included lead the reader to believe that there is some confusion about who is to blame for what happened, but the contemporary narrative makes things fairly clear.  It comes down to mental illness.  As a result, debating responsibility was less interesting than watching the reactions of the residents of Maple Street.  This is a modern-day Crucible, with sexual abuse replacing witchcraft.  Peer pressure and mob mentality are undisguised, but what was most interesting to me was how some people doubled down on their accusations, even in the face of actual evidence to the contrary.  It was fascinating.

Langan's writing is very vivid, evoking the heat and the smells of that summer (although apparently many things smell like candy apples) as well as the actions of the characters.  My only complaint about this book is that there are far too many neighbors, and I couldn't distinguish among them.  In terms of bringing the mob to life, this is very effective, but in terms of establishing individual motivation it is, of necessity, less effective.  Unfortunately, not having a sense of many of the characters as individuals took away from the story for me.  Still, this is a powerful book, and an important one, in a world where "truth" seems less and less concrete.

FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.