Review of Steel Victory by J. L. Gribble

J. L. Gribble has created a captivating alternate reality in her debut novel, full of magic and vampires and were-creatures. The story centers around a centuries old female vampire named Victory and her adopted family, and the city-state she's cultivated as a safe zone between the British and Romans empires.

Victory has tried to step back in her control of the city politics, but as often happens, subversive elements creep in and try to undermine all she has accomplished. A new Roman Emperor also threatens to destroy the peace that has been established by treaty for decades.

But her family is not one to be trifled with. They all have military training and varying degrees of experience in the arts of war. A mercenary guild helps protect the city as well, with ties that go back to the birth of the city. But their little hamlet is no match for an entire legion from either the Brits or the Romans, so they must rely on savvy politics to keep their status as a free-state.

The characters are all singular, well-developed, and interesting. She uses strong female characters as the main points of view, while not a new thing, it does add flavor to the historical fantasy trope, especially Victory as a matriarch of the city-state and the anchor of the story.

Mrs. Gribble's prose is excellent, a very well-done novel from a first-time author. The story is tight and moves quickly. It drew me right in. I would definitely qualify this novel as a page-turner. She keeps cranking up the tension, and just when you think things couldn't get any worse, she takes up another notch.

The timeframe this story takes place in is hard to pin down. The alternate history of Romans and Greeks still playing a large part on the world scene would imply an older venue, but it's post-apocalyptic, taking place long after a nuclear war that has devastated much of the land. Certain types of technology have been rendered useless by Elven magic but there is a history of gun making that could be taken out of our current science. The history of this world intrigues me and I hope we find out more about it in the other books in this series. She currently has this planned as a trilogy with the next book set to release sometime in 2016.

If you like vampires or urban fantasy this should be in your wheelhouse. Highly recommended.

The Art and Craft of Telling Stories on Paper

This is from a paper I did for my MFA program.

Stephen King's On Writing is more than just a book on how to write. It is a memoir and a journal about how he wrote several of his best sellers. It also showcases his keen eye for what makes a good story.

King is in the camp that believes writers are born, at various skill levels. A writer cannot be made of someone who is not born a "writer". Mr. King does believe that the skill can be sharpened, thank goodness.

I found the memoir section engaging. I'm not sure why this surprised me. Each of these little vignettes was a little story of its own. Even though they were non-fiction, they were quite entertaining. He remembered things that had some aspect that was either jarring or gross. Elements that, no doubt, helped shape the direction his writing life would take. I definitely empathize with getting poison ivy in all the wrong places as a kid. I did notice, however, that even Stephen King uses passive voice when describing something, colorful and evocative though it may have been.

Pimping a book: Lexicon by Max Barry

UK / Aus / NZ / SA

I just finished the audiobook version of Lexicon by Max Barry. It made my drive to Pennsylvania for the next residency in my MFA program a riveting adventure instead of drudgery.

I've been a Max Barry fan since he was Maxx Barry. I loved Jennifer Government, and I've made it a point to read every book he's written. Max's infectious, dark humor has always been a hallmark of his work, but the tone of Lexicon surprised me. It feels like an older, more mature brother of his other works. It's a blisteringly brilliant book. I was a fan before this novel came out but this new book puts Max into a different tier.

Be careful...reading Lexicon will compromise you, turning you into one of his proselytes for this heart-stopping thriller. It's a profoundly intelligent tale that covers a global conspiracy to use words as keys to unlock the human mind. 

The novel follows a young street hustler drafted into a secret organization, made into a weapon by careless inattention, and a seemingly innocent bystander, the only survivor of a horrific disaster. Usually his barb filled prose are more than enough for me but he goes for a different approach in this book. The normal tongue-firmly-planted-in-cheek style is set aside for a more serious tone, elevating Max Barry into the upper echelons of science fiction writers. He has obviously done a lot of historical research to ratchet this story up several notches and combined with the philosophical undertones, it really messed with my head.  Barry jumps back and forth through the timestream, which serves to maintain a blistering pace and keeps you guessing who is one whose side and what's going to happen next.

Don't Reamde

I just finished reading Neal Stephenson’s new 1042 page tome, Reamde. Can’t say that I enjoyed it. I’ve read a few other works by him, namely Snow Crash and Diamond Age, and I enjoyed them both very much, but this one was a slugfest from the word go.  This was the single longest book I’ve read and actually finished.  It was more out of stubbornness than anything else though. I’ll warn you now there may be some spoilers in this.

There are some good aspects to the book. The writing is done well, grammatically correct and well punctuated. I didn’t notice any editorial problems from that standpoint. The plot is fairly intricate, moves at a moderate pace initially and covers a lot of territory, which Neal obviously spent a lot of time researching, because he doesn’t hold back any detail. I mean ANY. He waxes on for paragraphs about stuff that has absolutely nothing to do with the story and not just a couple of times, but throughout the book.  He could have easily cut 500 pages out of this and it would not have changed the story in any meaningful way.  Surely he had an editor, but maybe he refused to budge on their recommendations.  I have no way of knowing.  As I said, there is plenty of plot here, but no real story in the sense that I understand story. I’ll get back to that.

Pimping a book: Gabriel's Return

Do you like Science Fiction?  If you do, you will love the new series by Steve Umstead.  I read a review comparing Evan Gabriel with Snake Plissken and it is on the mark.  Think Snake Plissken on Mars, subtract the cheese, add a dollop of interstellar intrigue and pulse rifles and you have the world of Commander Evan Gabriel.

This is a new thing for me, I’ve only done a few book reviews in my time, but when I heard that Steve was releasing his second book and looking for a little help generating some interest I jumped in with both feet.  Hope you don't mind if I wax eloquently on his new release.  No fancy bells or whistles here, just old-fashioned word of mouth.

I met Steve on twitter about a year ago and he was still working on his first release, Gabriel’s Redemption, and I immediately liked him.  When his book was published I bought it knowing full-well that it was self-published and wanted to throw him a bone, but it was extremely well-crafted, WITHOUT a lot of the pitfalls you hear about in the DIY format.  But that wasn’t all, the story moved fast and even though the protagonist is a grim man, it captured my attention from the word go.  I absolutely love his “Neuretics”, they are one of the cooler concepts I’ve read in quite awhile.  Frankly, I'd love to steal this concept for my novel.  His near future world is extremely believable and his projected technology works like a charm.  Neuretics are a form of integrated brain-slash-nervous system-slash-secure internet-slash-radio tech that thoroughly rocks my world!  In Gabriel’s Return we find Commander Evan Gabriel in a happier place, and with a love interest.  I have to say the new life suits him well, even if he’s not entirely comfortable with it.  The second book is so often a letdown, but in this case it is an upgrade to the original.  Steve is getting better as a writer and it shows.   This Clancyesque story line takes us across the galaxy, but the stakes are more personal and more meaningful, ultimately creating a much more satisfying story.  I honestly can’t wait for the third book!