Weekly Reader: The Dark Chorus by Ashley Meggitt; Dark Hypnotic Horror About A Mentally Disturbed Man With Soul Stealing Powers

 Weekly Reader: The Dark Chorus by Ashley Meggitt; Dark Hypnotic Horror About A Mentally Disturbed Man With Soul Stealing Powers

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Ashley Meggitt's The Dark Chorus is a disturbing supernatural novel about a protagonist with an almost hypnotic power of stealing and capturing souls from the body.

The Narrator is a seriously troubled young man who spent most of his life in children's homes and psychiatric wards. His mother just died and he knows because as she died, he took her soul and put it into what he calls, The Dark Chorus, the souls that he collected and he carries with him. He is haunted by this ability, whether he does it out of malice, self-defense, or accidentally.

He is caught in the act of killing a woman during a ritual and he is judged to be mentally insane. His psychiatrist, Dr. Rhodes tries to find out the root of his strange story. The Narrator makes a pair of new friends, Makka and Vee. It isn't long before the trio are on the run with law enforcement and psychiatric services following close behind.

The book begins terrifyingly and pretty much stays that way. The Narrator's opening ritual is nightmarish as the souls wail at him in a chorus that sounds like all of Hell has a sound system just for The Narrator. His ritual ends up depriving his mother of her memories and identity to the point where she doesn't recognize him. It gets worse when he assaults a family friend, Mrs. Johnson, a woman that he insists wanted to die, to exchange her soul for his mother's. It's a mesmerizing and eerie ritual that sets the stage for the rest of the book. 

While the Narrator has this unique power, he is not invincible. In fact, he is often susceptible to other character's manipulations and desires. He becomes aware of this as he hides with Makka and Vee. His two friends are frightened of him but are also motivated by their own avarice, rage, and need for violence against those who have wronged  them. The more that they drag their new friend into hiding with suspicious allies and family members, the more they fuel his connection to the Dark Chorus and his souls. Their desires for an end to their pain only adds to the Narrator's.

While Makka and Vee could be considered The Narrator's friends, they are also interested in their own personal gain. The only one who is genuinely concerned for him is Dr. Rhodes. As they search for the boy, Rhodes doubts his elaborate story. At first Rhodes plays on one of my favorite tropes: whether what is happening is real or just part of Insanity. After all, The Narrator could have imagined the whole ritual in the beginning and Makka and Vee could be playing along with The Narrator's fantasies for their own means. 

However, that changes once Rhodes starts peering into The Narrator's past and finds out about his connections to a mysterious cult. The Narrator's back story serves as an explanation for the strange events and makes him even more isolated because of decisions that were not of his own doing. 

His souls can't connect him to anyone, even himself. This is what Dr. Rhodes connects with him. She is the only person who truly cares for and wants to try to understand him. She wants to see beyond his ability to the real suffering person inside.

The Dark Chorus gives us a unique power and the suffering that a person who has it can go through. They can feel used, misunderstood, discredited, and alone: just drifting along like a soul without a body.

Weekly Reader: The Black Rose (Larkin's Barkin' Book One) by Pete Adams; Engaging Crime Thriller About East End London Crime Families Undone By Nonsensical Ending

 Weekly Reader: The Black Rose (Larkin's Barkin' Book One by Pete Adams; Engaging Crime Thriller About East End London Crime Families Undone By Nonsensical Ending

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: One thing that I will say about Pete Adams's The Black Rose is that it had a very strong premise and a great engaging and suspenseful beginning and middle. However, somewhere towards the end, it really lost itself. While the book provided plot twists that were genuinely surprising, they were so far out in left field that Adams really should have let go of surprise and instead let the compelling narrative lead to a better, even if it had to be more conventional, ending.

The Black Rose is great at exploring the British criminal underworld and the families that run it. Adams was clearly inspired by such noted real-life firms like the Clerkenwell Crime Syndicate (AKA The Adams Family), The Arif Family, The Richardson  Gang, and The Kray Twins. The inner lives, rules,  standards, and family honor and sometimes disloyalty come into play within the fictional Saint and Larkin Families. The two families have been at war for generations. They have had blood for blood. Every time one member gets killed, another is struck down in retaliation.  They vie for ownership of the streets and the various illegal operations around town. Occasionally, they stop the fighting out of respect if important key members die or they join forces to fight a common enemy like the law or a rival firm. 

This time the Saints and Larkins have found a corker of an enemy: The O'Neill Crime Syndicate, a new group that originated from Ireland.

 Their main representative isn't a seasoned gangster. In fact, she is a fifteen year old girl, Roisin (pronounced Ro-sheen) O'Neil AKA Rose and The Black Rose. Rose befriends Chas Larkin, the sickly and mentally ill outcast of the Larkin family. When Rose and Chas begin their own crime spree, the Saints and Larkins realize that they have to put their differences aside to take on this new, psychopathic, and highly dangerous enemy.

The contrast between the Larkin-Saints and Chas and Rose are what makes the book. While no one in the book is particularly likeable, there are differences. The Larkins and Saints have been doing the criminal rivalry for decades so they are an integral part of the neighborhood. As much as these families hate each other, they realize that they are dependant upon one another.  

The Saints control the docks and the Larkins control the gambling houses, brothels, and other businesses around the docks. Both families are headed by tough as nails women in Bessie Saint and Alice "Nan" Larkin. They have their separate pubs in which they congregate-Dad's for Saints and Arrie's for Larkins. Two younger women in the families develop a friendship that turns into a romance, possibly a suggestion of a union at least by marriage. (Hey even the Hatfields and McCoys put down their guns temporarily when two of them married each other. Only to pick them up again after they got divorced.)

Both families know and respect the East End and the people that inhabit it, considering the London area their protectorate. They commit violence towards each other such as threatening rival family members (whoah to the Saint schoolchild who bullies a Larkin and vice versa. Rest assured, they will live to regret it.) and destroying their property. But they have rules and standards.

For example if an important family member is killed, they call off the fight long enough for a grieving process to continue and even have representatives attend the funeral. They both grieve when a mass death arrives (and in this book, it happens a lot.)

Their sometimes peace is symbolized by a crumpet that resides under a glass case in Dad's. The rules are that no one would but a Saint may touch it and the Larkins honor it until it gets mysteriously stolen in the beginning and the Larkins don't own up to it. This incident leads to a long chain of violence between the Saints, Larkins, the police, and the newcomer O'Neils which fractures the strained peace between the Saints and Larkins, especially when Chas and Rose become involved.

Chas meets Rose when she defends him from bully, Mickey Saint at school. Chas is often considered an outcast even within his own family, so in Rose he finds someone intoxicating and bewitching, a kindred spirit, and an understanding friend. However, there is a darker side to Rose's behavior as  she beats Mickey Saint practically to death. The two continue to go on a crime spree of wanton violent destruction, not caring whether it's Saint or Larkin property or neither. Rose and Chas act without conscience or scruples and they don't care who they hurt. In fact, Rose seems to delight in playing the two crime families against each other.

She also is able to carry Chas along. Playing on his loneliness, isolation, and his subconscious thoughts against the rest of his family and the Saints, Rose is able to put into action what he has wanted to do for some time. The more she acts, the more Chas follows her into that world and the more dangerous he becomes.

That's why she frightens the two families so much. Rose is less of a real person than an entity who feeds off of hatred and destruction. Unlike the two families who have a code and rules, Rose has none. She has no loyalty or allegiances. We hear about the O'Neills but don't see them except for Rose and there is even doubt whether they really exist or only exist because of this one girl. She is willing to do what the Saints and Larkins are not and that makes her more villainous and far more dangerous.

 It's as though Hannibal Lector was put into the middle of the Godfather. His psychopathic chaotic nature contradicts that of the Corleones and he would be considered a greater evil than them. That's how Rose is seen to the Saints and Larkins. She shakes up their world because she is not a part of it. She is beyond their control and almost unstoppable, unless the two families work together to end this two-person crime spree.

In fact the only thing that stops Rose is an ending that puts things to a screeching halt. I won't spoil it, but let's say it's one of those endings that seems to pull a twist out of thin air and a ridiculous one at that. It relies on an absolute suspension of disbelief that is beyond incredulous and requires a lot of questions to ask how it was possible to be pulled, how this twist could have been maintained when logistics would have prevented it, and the subsequent ramifications for what had occurred before the reveal. 

I don't want to say that Rose O'Neill is a good character who deserves a good ending, but she was built up to be so mesmerizing, so destructive, and so chaotic that this ending does her an injustice. A good antagonistic character deserves a better ending than that.

Weekly Reader: The View From Breast Pocket Mountain: A Memoir by Karen Hill Anton; Brilliant Touching Memoir About A Woman Searching For and Finding Her Purpose in Japan

 

Weekly Reader: The View From Breast Pocket Mountain: A Memoir by Karen Hill Anton; Brilliant Touching Memoir About A Woman Searching For and Finding Her Purpose in Japan

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Karen Hill Anton's memoir The View from Breast Pocket Mountain is. beautiful, brilliant, and touching memoir about an African-American woman who searches for her purpose and finds it in Japan.

Anton is like most memoirists, gifted with a good memory and the ability to captivate the senses and Reader's interests through the various scenarios in her colorful life. When she describes her childhood in Harlem with her two siblings and single father, her closeness to her father is sincerely felt. She remembers her institutionalized mother who had amnesia and couldn't always remember her children when they visited her in the institution in which she was placed.

 Anton also recalled how her father efficiently performed the duties of mother and father while giving his children basic lessons from home before starting school and giving his kids an appreciation for classical music and art. Because of his experience with a typewriter and having an encyclopedia knowledge, he was often called to draw up petitions and lead organizations. Anton's memories show him as a loving and strong willed  man who gave the gift of vast knowledge to his children.

Anton studied Art history and modern dance while living in Greenwich Village. She met figures like Joseph Heller, author of Catch 22. However, her real education came about during her various travels. At 19, she moved to London and hitchhiked through Europe. Travel changes a person's perspective and broadens their personal experiences. A telling moment occurs when Anton returns to New York City. Comparing it to the clean streets of Copenhagen, she asked why they were so dirty and was stunned when she was told that they had always been like this.  

In the United States and Europe, Anton became involved with the arts scene befriending various artists and musicians. She also met Don, an immature self-centered man. While Anton was a willing member of the Flower Power generation and was herself pretty free spirited, her relationship with Don showed that even the freest of spirits has their limits. Those limits are reached when someone constantly puts themselves and their partner in debt, when despite threats of homelessness and hunger they still won't at least try to look for work, and when one partner is saddled with a child while the other leaves. Don left Anton pregnant. She gave birth to her daughter, Nanao, in Denmark.

When some memoirists write, they could be considered name droppers. Anton on the other hand could be thought of as a place dropper. Many of her accounts are of her various travels and the experiences that she had are spread throughout the book. Shortly after Nanao was born, she and Anton lived in Switzerland where Anton worked as a cook. They then moved to a college town in Plainfield, Vermont where she worked as an administrative assistant and audited classes.

 It was also in Vermont where she deepened her relationship with Billy Anton, a friend that she had known since her high school days in New York City. They remained friends who shared books, ideals, and travels even though they were with other people. After Anton's separation from Don and Billy's divorce, the two became lovers. They eventually married and Billy adopted Nanao as his daughter. Billy led Anton on the adventure of a lifetime by being offered a job to teach at a dojo in Japan. Feeling a bit lost after the death of her father, Anton left her Plainfield job behind and she and Nano packed up and headed for Japan with Billy.

Some of the most interesting passages occur during Anton's road trip to Japan and her and her family's  lives in Japan. There are many moments where Anton felt out of place as a black woman in countries where she was in the minority. There is also a suspenseful passage which describes a near assault in the Middle East. The majority of the people that they met on their road trip were helpful and always ready with a bed, food, directions, or a break time to relax and talk while their children played.

Their arrival in Japan was originally fraught with tension as Billy worked as an instructor and Anton as a cook at a dojo that served more or less as a cult. Men, women, and children were separated and Yoshida, the sensei, resorted to physical abuse. The final straw for Anton and her family was during Christmas during a party when they saw a staff member bruised and bloody after an encounter with Yoshida. Worried that could happen to each other or Nanao, Anton and her family decided to leave the dojo. They eventually settled in a rural farming village on Breast Pocket Mountain.

The Anton Family's time on Breast Pocket Mountain has the typical moments of an outsider trying to adjust to a new life by growing used to the customs, learning the language, and getting used to the hard work living on a farm entails. But it is nice to read that Anton and her family finally felt secure and at home with new friends, beautiful landscape, and a place to raise Nanao and their three younger children: Mine, Mario, and Lila. Billy taught English while Anton studied calligraphy and wrote columns for the Japan Times and Chunichi Shimbun. They went through a realistic period of isolation,  marriage counseling, and considering separation or divorce. However, they are still married and still live at Breast Pocket Mountain.

The View from Breast Pocket Mountain is a good book that reminds Readers that they can find home anywhere, even if it's far from the country in which they were born.

Weekly Reader: The Road to Delano by John DeSimone; Gripping Historical Fiction About Interracial Friendship Set During the Migrant Farm Workers Struggles of the 1960's

 

Weekly Reader: The Road to Delano by John DeSimone; Gripping Historical Fiction About Interracial Friendship Set During the Migrant Farm Workers Struggles of the 1960's

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: John DeSimone's The Road to Delano is one of those terrific historical fiction novel that mixes fact with fiction. It details the Migrant Farmer Worker struggles in the 1960's including the racism towards the undocumented immigrant workers, the fights between the laborers and the growers, and the organization of the United Farm Workers (UFW) labor union led by Cesar Chavez. This struggle is seen through the eyes of two high school boys from different races and economic sides who are coming of age during these tumultuous times.

One of those boys is Jack Duncan. His father, Sugar, died in a car accident. He and his mother are in danger of losing their farm to creditors. He then receives information from a neighbor that his father's death was no accident. As Jack starts asking questions, he becomes the target of locals who aren't too happy with his probing. Their combine is stolen, without it they can't harvest, and he gets chased on the road by people who no doubt want to finish what they started with Sugar's death.

The other boy is Adrian Sanchez, Jack's best friend and the son of the Duncan's field supervisor. Adrian and his family are caught up in the beginnings of the UFW. In fact his father is a member. Because of this, Adrien and his family are the victims of various racist attacks, including ostracism and violence.

The Road to Delano explores Jack and Adrien's friendship against the backdrop of these times. The UFW is realistically portrayed as a reaction to the cruelty of how the workers are treated and why they decide to fight against it. There are various passages where the workers are forced to work in the heat for several hours and for very few wages. Many of them came to the United States for a better life, but they see just as quickly that the American Dream has only sold them a bill of goods. They aren't any better than they were before and now they have the added mistrust and racism that comes with being new to a country.

One of the most emotional moments occurrs when Jack sees the home of one of the workers, a girl about his age named Sabrina, and her sickly dying mother. This experience is not only heart wrenching for Sabrina and her mother but also because of the lack of concern their employees show for the situation. It is no wonder that they want to strike and fight against these circumstances.

 We meet Cesar Chavez a few times and he provides a quiet, intimidating, leading presence. He is someone who is dedicated to the rights of others sacrificing his reputation and his life for the cause. However, Chavez's presence is mostly talked about not read and in this case, it's for the best. While Chavez is an important powerful presence in the novel, the type of character that when he enters everyone shuts up and listens, but this isn't his story. This is about two teenage boys and their struggles with the world around them.

Sometimes Jack and Adrian deal with the issues that affect typical teenagers of any era. They are both on the baseball team hoping to win scholarships. They have their eyes on girls: Jack starts a romance with Ella, an outspoken anti-war activist, and Adrian begins a relationship with Sabrina after he, Jack, and Ella help her and her mother. They often tease and defend each other like brothers. Even though the strained circumstances often cause them to be at odds on occasion, they never lose their friendship with each other. 

The different sides and violence surrounds the boys particularly when the fight becomes personal. Jack peers into his father's death as well as Adrian lets his father's struggle become his. Their conflicts are interconnected by the larger picture of the UFW strikes.

One passage demonstrates this interconnectivity between the personal and the public. A UFW strike occurs during a high school baseball game.The sounds of an every day school event are mixed in with the external cries of "Huelga! Huelga! Huelga!" (Strike! Strike! Strike!) As though the normal world tries to go on in the event of monumental change, but it can't go in like normal because normal is what got them in this situation.

Normal is what produces racism without thought, a lack of understanding towards those who are economically disadvantaged, and cruel treatment towards workers without questions or conflicts. The world shouldn't go back to normal, it should go to better. The friendship and acceptance between Jack and Adrian demonstrates that.

 

New Book Alert: Pride of Ashna (Foundra Series 02) by Emmanuel W. Arriaga; Brilliant Epic Multi Character and World Building Makes One Of The Best Science Fiction Novels of 2021

 

New Book Alert: Pride of Ashna (Foundra Series 02) by Emmanuel W. Arriaga; Brilliant Epic Multi Character and World Building Makes One Of The Best Science Fiction Novels of 2021

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Recently, I have read Reality Testing and Court of the Grandchildren, two Science Fiction Novels that offer pessimistic views of the future: worlds destroyed by the overabundance of technology in the former and environmental catastrophe in the latter.

Reading such novels is enough to leave one in despair wondering what is the point in reading books about the future if they predict that there isn't going to be one. 

Pride of Ashna Book 2 of the Foundra Series by Emmanuel W. Arriaga captures the other side of the coin in Science Fiction. It discusses dark things like war, prejudice, tyranny, and government conspiracies. However, it also reminds us that there is another side to Science Fiction: the side that leaves us to wonder, imagine possibilities, create new worlds of alien races, and dream of the lengths that we can go to with technology, space travel, and other things.

In some ways, Pride of Ashna is a space opera in the style of Star Wars, one that imagines a universe filled with fascinating creatures, plenty of action and adventure, conflict, and impressive character and world building that goes into the telling such a tale.

Pride of Ashna is a multi-character narrative in which several characters offer their perspective of the events that happen, providing a wider scope than just one select group. Because of this, several plots are going on but are all joined together by the end.

First, the Ashna Maidens, a group of female warriors, are trying to protect the Outer Rim worlds from bandits and pirates. One of their members is Serah'Elax Rez Ashfen who is on the fast track to becoming a leader to her people.

We also have a race of immortal beings, who are connected to enesmic energy, an elemental force that can be manipulated by certain beings. Some of these immortals lead nations like Lanrete, founder of the Huzien Alliance. Some fill their personal pleasures like Lanrete's ex wife, A'Amira Shen who sleeps with anyone that she can seduce. Some beings are pure enesmic energy, some wise and mysterious and others destructive and chaotic. During the book, a ship, the Empress Star, is hijacked and the Ashna Maidens are infiltrated from within.

There are also some more personal stories going on such as that of Secnic (master of technology) Captain Neven Kenk and Sencic-Cihphist (wielder of intense power such as telepathy and telekinesis), Zun Shan who begin a romance and navigate their way into a real relationship. As well as the affair between Soahc, an Immortal and Brime, his assistant turned lover, as they study the enesmic energy up close and personal.

Like I said, there are plenty of things going on to show how vast this universe is but it shows the brilliant depths of Arriaga's imagination. There are various races with unusual traits such as the golden skinned Huziens or the feline like Uri. Cultures are explored. For example we learned how Ashna Maidens are recruited as young children, raised as warriors, and that they take a vow of celibacy.

We also learn that some characters can obtain immortality through enesmic energy and how such a long life affects those around them when they outlive children, spouses, friends, and sometimes their whole worlds.

There is a helpful appendix so the Reader doesn't get confused by all of the names, planets, and terms. If the Reader doesn't understand when a character calls another "obrehen", the Glossary tells us that it is the Huzien word for blood brother. We also learn that the often repeated word "vusg" is what you say when something goes wrong. (Every culture has its swear words, even outer space ones.) Since Pride of Ashna is Book 2 in the Foundra Series, the Glossary helps provide some much needed exposition so the Reader doesn't get too lost if they haven't read Book 1.

Besides a monumental and successful feat in setting and world building, Pride of Ashna is great in characterization. There are several brilliant moments that deepen our understanding of these individuals that live, work, and thrive in this universe. 

There are various moments in which characters shine. Throughout the book, Lanrete composes Founder's Logs that read like journal entries, so we experience what it's like first hand the changes in this galaxy and what he lay witness to as well what a long life of wisdom and regret has done.

 Humor is found as well, such as when after winning in a physical competition, Uri Combat Leader Tashanira Yen Unvesel takes her prize by putting her feline claws on Huzien Chief Medical Officer Jenshi Runso. The two are enjoying their coital bliss so much that they are at first unaware that their ship, the Empress Star is being hijacked until someone tells them

We also see plenty of horror. When space pirate Vexl Jabstremn takes over the Empress Star, he guns down the command crew demanding that they take him to certain coordinates. The Captain and First Officer bravely demand a guarantee for the safety of their crew before they are shot down. A terrified Second Officer is one of the few remaining command crew members left to acquiesce to Vexl's demands.

One of the most frightening characters is Sephan The Deceiver, an enesmic being. He possesses the body and soul of Cihphist Breshna Vecen. His goal is for Breshna to gain access to the Ashna Maidens so he can deceive, conquer, and eventually lead them. Breshna has enough power to hear and see everything that Sephan makes her do and to feel remorse which Sephan gets off on

In a large ensemble cast, sometimes it is easiest to pick out the favorite characters. In this book, there are two: Serah'Elax Rez Ashfen and Neven Kenk. Serah'Elax's journey is that of a warrior raised within a culture and questioning it for the first time.

Since her childhood, after the death of one of her mothers, Serah'Elax has been trained by the Ashna Maidens. Even though her birth mother has become a pleasure seeking prostitute, Serah'Elax prefers the celibate controlled life of the Maidens. She is a brave commander leading her army of Maidens to defend others. However, she is a character who lives by the absolutes of the Maidens.

She had been raised to never question her culture until circumstances forced her to. Breshna inside Sephan frames Serah'Elax and she is put into exile. During that time, she interacts with various characters that cause her to question her beliefs. While she is just as brave and just as strong as before, she gains more of an understanding towards others. She realizes that the Maidens' standards are too rigid and confining and they have Sephan to manipulate them so easily because of their arrogance and ethnocentrism. Serah'Elax becomes a better leader by gaining this knowledge and acceptance

Another fascinating character is Neven Kenk not because he is strong or powerful, but because he is so ordinary. Even though he is a Sencic Captain, so he has some power, but he mostly just does his job of working on technology. To paraphrase a line from Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, Neven is "just a simple man trying to make (his) way in the Universe." 

While all of this action and larger scope drama is happening around him, Neven is mostly concerned with his personal issues such as maintaining a romance with Zun. They have to overcome many obstacles like Zun's sadness from her late husband's death or that Neven is raped by A'Amira. (I also would like to give kudos to Arriaga for portraying a rape towards a male character by a female not as a joke or a situation in which he finds stimulating or enjoyable. He is traumatized as any female character would be in this situation and it's treated seriously by the other characters.) 

Neven's story arc is small, but that's the point. He is the average person in this Universe just trying to live his life during desperate times probably no different than his Readers. He just wants to work and fall in love. His journey is so interesting because it's so human and relatable. 

Pride of Ashna is a monumental but incredible feat in Science Fiction works building and characterization. Truly, it is one of the best Science Fiction Novels of this year.

New Book Alert: Court of the Grandchildren by Michael Muntisiov and Greg Finlayson; Somber Warning About The Future World The Next Generations Will Inherit

 

New Book Alert: Court of the Grandchildren by Michael Muntisiov and Greg Finlayson; Somber Warning About The Future World The Next Generations Will Inherit

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: While reading Michael Muntisiov and Gregory Finlayson's Science Fiction novel, Court of the Grandchildren, I was reminded of the proverb, originally attributed to environmental activist, Wendell Berry, "We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we only borrow it for our children." I am also reminded of Greta Thunberg, the young climate activist and Nobel Peace Prize Nominee, addressing the world leaders at the UN Climate Action Summit with the passion of her youth but the wisdom of someone twice her age with: "How dare you? You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words! And yet I am one of the lucky ones! People are suffering! People are dying! Entire ecosystems are collapsing! We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth! How dare you?"

As older generations, we have to take into account the world that we have destroyed either on purpose for corporate gain or accidentally through apathy and inaction, the world that future generations will inherit. According to NASA's Global Climate Change Website, the global temperature has increased by 2.12 degrees with most of the increase occurring in the last 40 years. This causes rising sea levels, decreased snow cover and shorter winters, shrinking ice sheets and glacial retreat, declining Arctic seas, ocean acidification, and extreme weather patterns like hurricanes, tornados, floods, drought, blizzards, and famine. This is the world future generations will be given and may worsen.

This is also the world envisioned by Muntisiov and Finlayson in their novel. It is only set in a few short decades in 2059. This is a world where a massive flood caused by increased sea levels and inadequate protection occurred. The results were that many of the coastal states were destroyed or declared uninhabitable.

 New states are formed in the absence of old ones. Because people haven't learned anything about welcoming asylum seekers, the constitution limits entry of out of state residents into one of the states, Concord. Of course, these former residents are taunted and threatened by locals that complain about sharing resources and employment with out of staters. 

The environment is on the precipice of destruction and extinction of the human race is happening. To make up for the lack of human workers, artificial intelligence is on the rise. Some anti technology zealots have joined a group called Humans First. Younger generations have turned violent against the elders because of the state of the world that they have been left with by calling them "burners" and attacking them. (Forget, "Okay boomer." The term "burner" carries much deadlier connotations.) Death and loss are so common that the Euthenasia Law is enacted so people can acquire the right to commit suicide.

In this world, 96 year old David Moreland is at a loss. He is ordered to appear before the Climate Court because he is charged for being one of the people who caused the massive floods that destroyed the bicoastal states. He is guilty about the devastation but has also appealed to the court and reunited with his great niece, Lily for one reason: he wants to acquire the right to die.

This book is extremely dour and dark with a bleak future projected. However, there is a sense of detachment and world weariness within the writing. It alternates between David and Lily's points of view with transcripts from David's trial and memoranda provided by the Climate Court, police, and Presidential candidates. The overall effect is that the Reader is experiencing David's trial as though it were a real event. 

We are only getting parts of the information without providing an emotional investment. This is one of those books where the authors don't have to resort to melodrama or cheap gimmicks to appeal to emotion. The situation is sad enough to imagine the destruction of various beaches, coastlines, and once vastly populated cities, and the deaths of millions of people. It doesn't need theatrics, it just needs to report the events.

David and his great niece Lily reflect the generation gap that is inflicted in this book. David is grouchy, witty, and argumentative. He fights not only with Lilly but Sarah, his AI housekeeper, and everyone else unfortunate enough to be caught near him. However, he is a man who is using his snark and foul temper to hide the hurt that is inside. He knows that he is responsible for much of the blame and suffering that has  incurred including personal losses of his own. 

Lily on the other hand represents the younger generation, the one that has to live and work in the environment that her forebears created. She does not have the luxury of wanting to die so she has to push herself forward. Even though she just met David, she feels responsible for him since they both lost various family members. She realizes that granting permission for his death is a difficult request and has to weigh the consequences on allowing someone to die because by all intents and purposes, he is guilty for the deaths of many or letting him live because he is about the only family that he has.

One of the more heartbreaking moments occurs when David finally reveals what happened at the disaster that killed his family and was instrumental in the mass flooding. It becomes sadder when it is revealed that it was caused not by a slow natural progression from climate change but by human means, corporate greed, and human desire for cheap and easy rather than safe and energy efficient.  

We see this loss that has surrounded David and understand why he feels that he can't live with these ghosts any longer. 

Court of the Grandchildren is a dark book that makes us look at the consequences of our actions of the past and present. We can look at what we have caused and declare us, all of us, guilty. 

New Book Alert: Courage Jonathan (Courage To Rise Book 2) by Heather Nadine Lenz; Warm and Funny Novel About Life After Happily Ever After

 

New Book Alert: Courage Jonathan (Courage to Rise Book 2) by Heather Nadine Lenz; Warm and Funny Novel About Life After Happily Ever After

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: I have to hand it to Heather Nadine Lenz. She thought of one of the cutest ways to draw Readers into a second volume if they are unfamiliar with the first. Most authors have a prologue. Others put dabs of exposition throughout the book so they can pick up things as they go on. Others ignore it entirely and expect the Readers to catch up.

In Courage Jonathan, the previous novel, Courage Caroline is summarized in one overlong drunken monologue by a future groom on the day before his wedding.

Jonathan Arrozinni is in Bali ready to marry his fiancee Caroline but as he explains to a bartender, he has cold feet. He recalls the events of the previous book: That he is the son of a wealthy family who started an architectural firm with his brother. He fell in love with Caroline, a yoga instructor from a poor family. His family raised objections and threatened to cut him off. Through a series of romantic complications including both of their exes, Jonathan decides to go for love instead of money and asks Caroline to marry him.

In this opening chapter, the bartender is no doubt considering a career change as Jonathan rambles on and on but the Reader gets a sense of the kind of character that Jonathan is. He is foolish, prone to hasty decisions without thinking, helplessly idealistic, romantic, at times self-centered, entitled because he had spent his life with money, but ultimately good hearted. In this chapter we learn about Jonathan through this summary of the previous book.

Courage Jonathan is a funny and warm book. If Courage Caroline says that  love conquers all and is worth taking the leap, then Courage Jonathan is the more rational friend holding their romantic idiot friend by the belt loops and saying "Whoa there, Love Birds, you might want to hold off and think about this for a while."

The trouble begins right before the wedding. Besides Jonathan's second thoughts, Caroline announces that she's pregnant, and Jonathan's brother makes a humiliating speech earning Caroline's embarrassment and Jonathan's fury. This angers Jonathan so much that not only does he refuse his family's money but he dissolves his partnership with Daniel and resolves to start his own firm. Well a year later, Jonathan is bankrupt, unemployed, and depressed and a fed up Caroline is ready to file for divorce and take their son, Leo with her.

The book has some romantic moments that reveal what a sweet couple Jonathan and Caroline actually are, the kind that are instantly likeable and we root for. In Bali, they observe a beautiful waterfall with the other members of Jonathan's family who before and since are at each other's throats. That moment however brings them together as they observe this natural beauty.

Another moment is during their wedding over water. They have to be barefoot and of course Caroline and Jonathan slip and get wet. As they playfully splash each other, we see this is a couple that take great delight and joy in being together. Despite the family conflicts and Jonathan's concerned feelings at the beginning, the Reader needs these moments to see Jonathan and Caroline as a loving couple caught up in the haze of romance before reality sets in and sets and it does.

After the bankruptcy and the estrangement of Johnathan's family, we see what a life of privilege does to someone who is too used to it and the culture shock when someone has to get used to being on their own for the first time. Jonathan may have felt suffocated by the standards and questioned many of their dealings. He may have constantly tired of them controlling him but now that he has cut the strings, he is wondering what went wrong.

It's not a surprise that Johnathan's architectural firm goes under. He is without the contacts, the backing, and the promotion that his famous name provided. He's practically like a toddler trying to skip learning to walk and trying instead to run around the neighborhood only to fall flat on his face. 

His depression when everything goes under is real enough to be understandable but also comic enough to make one want to shake him out of his funk and tell him to get over himself. It gets more dramatic as he contemplates suicide before he is rescued by a friend. This moment becomes a wake up call for Jonathan as he no longer loses himself to self pity and really takes positive steps to take charge of his life. Before when he broke from his family and started his own firm, he did it basically just to show them off like a pouty kid wanting to prove to his parents "See I did it myself!"

This time he restarts his life to become a better person on his own terms, so he can be a better worker, friend, husband, and father. He becomes a more well rounded person who takes pride in his work and cares for Caroline and Leo.

The ironic thing is at the exact moment when his new life is at its highest, his family are at their lowest. Jonathan may have successfully broken the patterns of entitlement and avarice, but they have not. They end up paying a price for their greed and expect money and a famous name means that they won't face punishment. At least in this book, they will. Jonathan looks on this with bemusement at their situation, relief that he got out, and a haunting thought of who he might have been and where he might have ended up if he stayed.

Courage Jonathan begins with a character who is so laughable that you want to slap him to make him see reality. It ended with him being slapped by life and becoming more real than ever.

New Book Alert: Like No Other Boy by Larry Center; A Book Like Many Others But A Sweet Moving Story About Love Between Father and Son

 New Book Alert: Like No Other Boy by Larry Center; A Book Like Many Others But A Sweet Moving Story About Love Between Father and Son

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Books about children with physical, psychological, and neurological disorders are nothing new. Books about the bond that children develop with animals are nothing new. Books about the relationship between single parents and their children are also nothing new.

In substandard hands, Larry Center's Like No Other Boy would be a glurgy piece of tripe filled with cliches that would make even the most ardent Hallmark Channel fan roll their eyes. Thankfully, Center is not that author. Instead he wrote a sweet, moving, and at times heartbreaking novel about the love between a single father and his Autistic son.

Chris Cutcher's son, Tommy is Autistic. He has limited communication with anyone and while verbal often has verbal tics and becomes agitated. On one of his weekends in which Chris has custody (Chris and his ex wife, Cheryl have joint custody.), he takes Tommy to the zoo. Tommy does not react much until they pass by the chimpanzee enclosuree. Fascinated, Tommy begins to communicate with the primates and even reveals one is pregnant. A sign outside the enclosure confirms it. 

Chris is stunned and when they return, records a second encounter between Tommy and the chimps. He is impressed that Tommy has opened himself up so he looks for a program that studies chimpanzees so Tommy can talk to them. Chris takes Tommy to the Weller Research Institute which studies primates. The researchers are able to study how Tommy communicates with the chimps while the boy makes new animal friends. We learn that

a combination of mental pictures, sign language, and laser focusing on one thing allow Tommy and the chimpanzees the ability to understand and relate to each other.

Chris's ex, Cheryl is less than enthused and wants Tommy to go to a school in Houston so he can be with her and her new fiance. Besides the stress of a divorce, raising a special needs child, and a not so lucrative career in voice over work, Chris also has to take care of his aging father so he cannot move to Houston. He wants Tommy to stay with him in San Diego, so a custody battle looks to be on the horizon.

There are some very touching moments between father and son that reflect the difficulties of raising a special needs child and the love that a good parent has for that child. In some passages, Tommy loses his temper only to be calmed by the promise of a token or a visit to the chimps. Sometimes Tommy withdraws so much into himself that Chris can't follow or understand him though he tries. We also see the realistic frustrations and exhaustion someone has in raising such a child. These moments make the sweet parts like when Chris makes his son laugh by imitating Tommy's favorite cartoon characters or when Chris watches with pride and delight as the chimpanzees help him open up even more beautiful.

I am not qualified to judge the accuracy of how Tommy's Autism is written (and people on the spectrum react differently to stimuli so what applies for one may not apply for another). However, the emotional crux of the story between the father and son is something that is earnest and sincere.

There are other characters that are equally as well written, both human and animal. Chris gets assistance from an animal researcher, Rachel who is amazed and encouraging towards Tommy's conversations with the chimpanzees. Chris's father is crotchety, stubborn and doesn't like being reminded of his diminished faculties but is fiercely protective of his son and grandson.

Cheryl, Tommy's mother, could be written as a villain and there are moments when she is pretty antagonistic like her insistence that Houston is the best option for him and her refusal to see that Tommy's time with the chimps is working even when she sees the results for herself. Cheryl also loves Tommy and advocates for him. She is just one of those types of people who think only she knows best and no one else.

Even the chimps are brilliantly characterized. There is Mikey, a little mischief maker who loves to run around the enclosure. Obo was a shy primate brought out of his shell by Tommy's arrival. Albert has heart problems from a lifetime of abuse and sometimes withdraws to paint but he is able to communicate through Tommy a longing for freedom. Of course Tommy's interactions with his primate friends are  deeply felt as many animal lovers can testify sharing a bond with their furry companions that goes beyond speech. It goes through thought, emotion, and understanding. This book shows that.

Like No Other Boy may be a book that tells a familiar story but it does it in a way that is touching, honest, sincere, heartwarming, and heartbreaking. 

New Book Alert: Reality Testing (Sunrise Book #1) by Grant Price; Intricate Science Fiction Novel About The Price Paid For Overabundance of Technology

 

New Book Alert: Reality Testing (Sunrise Book #1) by Grant Price; Intricate Science Fiction Novel About The Price Paid For Overabundance of Technology

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Overabundance of Technology is a common theme in Science Fiction. Usually, authors write about the cost of humanity and what we will turn into when our gadgets control us. Remember Ray Bradbury's short story "The Veldt" when two children who are so addicted to their virtual room that they order lions to attack their parents as they passively watch? Or Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 where the people were so influenced by the wall screens in their house that their intelligence was diminished and they willingly gave up their books to the firemen who burned them? Or Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers where interstellar travel and mobile power suits gave young Earth soldiers the power to wage war on the residents of alien planets? Or the many episodes of Twilight Zone and Outer Limits that show Artificial Intelligence becoming more human and their creators becoming less so? 

A key difference between those works and current science fiction is that those technologies had yet to exist so authors were left to imagine what they could and capture their best and worst qualities. Now, that technology is here and now. Authors don't have to imagine it. It's right here with social media, quantum computing, passenger space travel, smart housing, energy efficient means of travel, and so on. All an author has to do is follow the news and see the next step of where these technologies are going for better or worse. Science Fiction is becoming Science Fact faster than we thought that it would.

One of the current Science Fiction Novels which explores this theme is Reality Testing by Grant Price, the first book in a series that deals with a young woman rebelling against the dystopian future of a world destroyed by corporate greed, environmental catastrophe, and a cabal of governments, corporations, and scientists that use that technology on human guinea pigs. Again these are not new themes, but what makes this book good is the intricate plot and the benefit of using technology we see every day to higher and more frightening levels.

In Reality Testing, our protagonist and potential rebel is Mara Kizing, a mechanic who lives in near future Germany. She is inside a dream tank reliving her apparent murder of a man. As Mara makes her escape from the tank and the building in which this experiment is taking place, she remembers that she signed on for some project to get creds but the details are not yet known. It becomes clearer when she goes to see her wife, Jema and Jema doesn't recognize her. The techs at LINK inserted her mind and consciousness into a completely different body.  

Now Mara is on the run because of the escape and murder. Even though it means separation, Jema (who was already anxious about Mara signing up in the first place) suggests that she hide out in a semizdat settlement with one of the resistance groups like the Vanguard. After a violent encounter, Mara is left alone and seeks redemption by finding the Vanguard.

There are two distinct separate sections that explores the impact of technology so much that it is clearly emphasized in Price's writing. The first section is more technical as Mara stumbles through the city hiding from her pursuers. It is fascinating and horrifying as we look at this new transformed world. Berlin is awash with technology so much that it is omnipresent and suffocates the human elements as much as the dense polluted clouds overhead. The walls speak and sing every advertisement to the point that they become a cacophonous symphony. The "bulls" catch their prey using augmented eyes to scan information like a robot Gestapo. A person is not only killed but their information is erased from records as though they never existed.

The vidlinks are everywhere and give the power to turn anyone from hero to villain as they do for Mara by turning her into a coldblooded killer when she was really just a desperate woman longing to escape. Unemployment is high so people sign on to be test subjects in some of the most bizarre experiments.

Many of the experiments are not purposely completely explained possibly for future volumes, but also because these characters live in this environment and they know what they are. They are familiar and have been exposed to them their whole lives.

 However, Price leaves clues for the Reader to guess. For example, besides Mara's LINK, we are also told about the Seahorse project. We aren't completely given all the details but there are hints.  Volunteers are only men. Women are considered "obsos" or obsolete. A quick study of male seahorses and knowing that they can do what few biological male species can do naturally, well it doesn't leave much to the imagination what the Seahorse project is about. (The next volume should feature a man who has actually been through the Seahorse project to get a more inside view of what it's like.)

Because of the emphasis more on setting and world building, there isn't much on character except between Mara and Jema. They are a couple who are on their last nerve. Mara is a woman so desperate for money that she will put herself through physical torture. Jema is worried and anxious about her, but is tired of the danger, the stress, and is ready to file for divorce for a peace of mind.  It's doubtful that

if things didn't end up the way they did, that Mara and Jema would have had a happily ever after.

In contrast to the Berlin setting, when the plot shifts to the Vanguard we are given more emphasis on character and less on setting. We are shown a cooperative community which lives off of minimal technology. They use solar energy and grow their own food. The members plan acts of rebellion that go from mere pinpricks to major consequences. It's all nothing new but we see strong sense of character in this section that was absent in the previous.

Even before Mara encounters the Vanguard, we get a whole chapter devoted to their founder known as The Abbot. We learn that she was a scientist whose research was used for the Seahorse project. She abandoned her cushiony life and high paying job to fight the system that she had once been a member.

The Vanguard is very secretive. Many of the characters use pseudonyms and put Mara through a variety of tests to prove her loyalty. This is a group that is wary of outsiders almost paranoiac. But as some say just because you're paranoid doesn't mean that someone isn't out to get them.

 The suspicion is a natural reaction to a group that is close to and protective of their members and don't want to see them get hurt or destroyed. They have worked hard for this new way of life and don't want to see it go the way of the old one, especially when they have the chance to rebuild society and start over again and make it better.

Weekly Reader: Little Blue Eyes by Rob Santana; Little Baby Brings Big Trouble and Tough Decisions

 

Weekly Reader: Little Blue Eyes by Rob Santana; Little Baby Brings Big Trouble and Tough Decisions

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Rob Santana has made a career of writing about people making rash and reckless decisions, usually in moments of desperation. His previous work, The Oscar Goes To and his latest work, Little Blue Eyes feature people that do things like appear in adult films, steal and withhold information, deal and buy drugs, and practically kidnap children. These decisions are often abhorrent and create problems for the characters. But Santana writes these characters with a lot of understanding so that the Reader sees that they were made not from intended malice but by other forces like poverty, addiction, revenge, envy, and simple desperation to improve one's life no matter the circumstances. They act and don't stop to consider the consequences. It's later that the consequences come back to haunt them.

That is the situation faced by Elena Mitchell, protagonist of Little Blue Eyes. Elena has been recently let go from her position at a bank even though a lesser qualified woman was promoted in her place. (The Latina/African-American Elena suspects racism since the blond woman not only cannot do the job but can't speak Spanish very well which is a requirement and in which Elena is fluent.) Worse, her sister Terry is moving in with her soon-to-be-fiance and they are having a baby. Terry rubs further salt on the wound of Elena's life that she is unable to bear children, a painful reminder for her.

 While on a fruitless job search, she hears a cry from behind a dumpster. A small Caucasian baby boy with blue eyes stares at her. Elena picks up the little one and falls into confusion and love. 

After some indecision and contacting the wrong people, Elena decides to raise the baby herself and name him Todd. That is slightly complicated when she arouses suspicion as a biracial woman carrying a white baby in an economically disadvantaged neighborhood of mostly black and Latino residents. (She tells them that she is babysitting.) Of course it isn't too long before the police, a dangerous baby broker and his team, and Todd's less-than-stellar birth parents are on the case and Elena finds herself in a world of trouble.

There are conflicts within the book and unfortunately many of them are caused by Elena's actions. The first thing that Elena does is take Todd to a hospital which is good and makes sense. But the second thing that she does is unexplainable. Instead of contacting any authority figures, adoption agency, or family services, she calls a baby broker, Carlos Ruiz. Not only that but she tells him that the baby is white, a prime catch for baby brokers, since they can sell Caucasian infants to wealthy white families and make a profit. True, Elena changes her mind and grows attached to Baby Todd. The book also makes it clear that she is not a cruel heartless person. She is driven by poverty and possibly mistrust of the police or other official services. She sees no reasonable way out. The worst that she can be thought of is reckless and thoughtless. However, her calling Carlos leads to worse complications that could have been easily resolved if she hadn't called him.

To be fair, Elena may make rash and hasty decisions but once she starts actually caring for Todd, she holds his best interests at heart. She protects him as a lioness would protect her cub, often bringing him along on job interviews, or introducing him to friends and family. She properly feeds, cleans up after, and nurtures the little one and protects him from danger. (Granted, danger she put him in herself.) When things get too dangerous, she makes a very tough decision out of love. It becomes clear that contacting Carlos was a mistake, but it doesn't diminish her love for Todd or her role in his life.

By contrast, Todd's birth parents, Sharon and Nick, make plenty of mistakes and are proven to be inferior parents. They are a pair of addicts who are more interested in their next fix than caring for a baby.

The whole reason that Todd is behind a dumpster in the first place is because Nick coerced Sharon into abandoning him at the hospital waiting room and he was left outside by accident. When they finally regret their decision to give Todd up, they harass and stalk people to get answers. (This is not only foolish but unnecessary since it's later revealed that Sharon's uncle is a cop and they could have just asked him. Though they probably didn't want him to know about their addiction or their shameful neglect of Todd.) There is a lot of covert racism as they harass Elena's neighbors and mistrust them on sight.

While they are more self centered than Elena, Nick and Sharon are also seen as driven and desperate people. They are certainly more unlikeable than Elena but they are seen as people who are so bound to their addictions that they put their own lives and that of their child at risk. Even when they search for Todd, it seems to be less out of love and more out of desperation. There is a moment though that the Reader encounters the hurting and suffering would inside and how they regret the path that their addictions led them on as they realize that they could have been a happy family, but were unable to be.

 Little Blue Eyes becomes a clear choice between a baby's addicted seriously messed up birth parents or an unemployed troubled potential adopted mother. While all three have their flaws, only one actually has the baby's best interest in mind and proves to be the real loving parent.