Nina Post

The Department of Magic by Rod Kierkegaard Jr.

2012-04-05T11:41:50Z

"How could a stupid boring bureaucratic government job have turned so quickly into a life of supernatural weirdness and crime?"

The Department of Magic explores a fantastical Washington, D.C. via a semi-mythical department inside the US federal government. It's a small operation that was formed immediately after the assassination of Lincoln. In the present day, the Haitian earthquake released gods and demons that are "malignantly influencing the political factions inside" D.C., and the Department of Magic is urgently needed again.

Rocco Di Angelo and Jasmine Farah start off as low-level government workers, and are quickly recruited into the Department of Magic. Their new boss is a 'horogaun' born in 1809, whose family was attacked by Wendigoes in the Arkansas Territory (something many of us would believe about current or former employers).

Rocco is dead broke, living in a fleabag motel, and Jasmine is an ambitious Geopolitics grad focused on her upcoming wedding to Tony. RK has created some sharp, endearing characters, especially Rocco, who was raised with strong women and has great passion for the work of 19th-century women writers (he's looking forward to reading 'Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl' and 'Hunt the Slipper'). Jasmine also has an unusual hobby: she's into urban climbing, i.e. scaling large buildings, which she puts to good use.

Jasmine's roommate, Bobbi, has an old-money family, and she and Rocco start dating. (If you consider Family Cursemas, RK has a penchant for bringing together one broke or relatively poor person and one wealthy person.) Rocco, however, is actually in love with Jasmine, and eventually something bizarre happens to Bobbi that clears and complicates the path for the couple. There's some nice conflict and tension as Rocco and Jasmine break into secured locations to steal objects of enormous magical significance, e.g. stealing Washington's false teeth from the Museum of Dentistry.

One of the most entertaining parts of the book was Jasmine's honeymoon with Tony. She thought Tony was competent and organized, but realizes that "he possessed a fatal flaw: He always got the single biggest decision wrong." The description of Papeete, Tahiti is hilarious and probably true: "a squat grimy little city with Stalinesque government buildings that the French government had somehow parachuted onto the lush green island."

Each chapter begins with an entry from the Federal Bestiary, and Rocco and Jasmine end up encountering that particular creature. These are two of my favorites:

Plaints: "Many of these are silent sad defeated creatures who have long since given up the ghost, still pursuing lawsuits for damages against the federal authorities or filing for patents."

Shadowmen: "Often open hotel doors or share cab-rides in the night."

I was more engaged with the first half of 'Magic'; I thought the pacing was a little off after the midpoint. The paragraphs are quite long and get more dense with description and exposition, with relatively sparse dialogue embedded within the paragraphs. Part of the problem with the second half is that you don't have as much connection to Jasmine and Rocco as you did in the first half. Yes, some of that is setup, and RK resolves relationships throughout the second act, but the third act could use more emotional connection and more varied pacing. Also, formatting-wise, there is no separation before and after em-dashes, so it's hard to parse a rhetorical emphasis (with an em dash) and a hyphenated word, because they look the same.

But overall, 'Department of Magic' was very enjoyable and quite funny, with great details, memorable characters, and fun set pieces. I recommend it for urban fantasy readers who want something a little different; also fantasy readers who are politics wonks and don't mind reading about a reanimated George Washington. You should also check out Kierkegaard's terrific Family Cursemas, a contemporary takeoff on the traditional Agatha Christie-esque house mystery.

Head Rush by Carolyn Crane

2012-03-08T14:01:16Z

"Warning: this book contains high-speed rollerblade chases, a mysterious green dashboard ornament, a father of the bride in full hazmat gear and a delicious kebab."

Head Rush was the masterful finale to a standout urban fantasy series. Crane can tell the hell out of a story: as usual, the main character's goal and agenda is always clear, the stakes are high, the urgency is taut, and the pacing is pretty much perfect. The premise of the Disillusionists series is a great hook, as summarized in this interview with the author:

"You hang out with somebody who’s intensely angry or depressed or incredibly light and happy, and it greatly affects you. So in a that way, I think zinging already happens on a very minor scale."

Part of what makes the trilogy special, aside from the premise and Crane's outstanding writing, is the emotion. Crane keeps the reader in frequent contact with Justine's thoughts, and really develops the emotional connection between her and those she cares about. Justine's fondness for her friends shows her loyalty and courage, but the most important of these connections is the one Justine has with Packard. Their relationship is steamy and simmering with conflict, but also poignant and intimate:

"It's here, in this silent sharing, rather than the kiss or the torment or any of the fireworks, where I feel like we truly click into place."

Despite all evidence to the contrary, Justine must trust what she knows about Packard:

"I know he hates the smell of curry, and that he loves bossing people, and swimming in the ocean. He loves dry humor and kicking snow clumps off the bottoms of cars."

All of the characters in Head Rush have secrets, and Crane's familiarity with soaps is wielded with delicious suspense. Some of the secrets involve Otto's plans and what he's responsible for, but it's very entertaining to see how the characters' secrets intersect and then are exposed. Justine knows that Otto is keeping some heavy secrets, and her increasing suspicion colors her perception of him -- a lesson in showing a character's emotion through their description:

"He's in a dark, silk-brocade robe that I usually find dashing, but now it seems like a dangerous artifice, like one of the bug-eating flowers in his night garden."

With that said, Justine has real empathy for Otto despite his actions. If you're a writer, you should pay close attention to how Crane develops her complicated, three-dimensional villain over the trilogy and how she brings his story to an end.

Another relationship that is resolved over act two is Justine's germ-freak dad. Though she understands him better, she is still struggling to forgive him for his failures as a father. They finally connect when Justine is honest with him about Otto, and he comes through for her in ways she wouldn't have expected. There are some great details about her dad and his bunker house. For example, Justine tells a friend that her dad wouldn't wear the hazmat exoskeleton to the wedding; "he would've worn the everyday hazmat suit with a level-one respirator."

There are some very funny and quirky touches in Head Rush, like the Gumby on the dashboard that Justine poses to reflect her mood (and later pays off in a way that makes the room a little dusty). Also, "It's gauche for the maid of honor to go on a murderous rampage in lieu of attending the bridesmaids' dinner." And, "My fingers heat up as a tsunami of pure terror rushes into him, all to the soundtrack of 'Afternoon Delight.'"

Ideally, you would read the first two books in the Disillusionists series before Head Rush, though you could certainly enjoy Head Rush on its own. But like a great serialized TV show or J.D. Robb's Eve Dallas books, these characters are developed over the trilogy. Their emotional growth and backstories are strongly woven throughout the three books, and culminate in an awesomely satisfying finale in Head Rush.

Announcing my debut novel: The Last Condo Board of the Apocalypse

2012-01-29T01:43:48Z

I'm thrilled to report that my debut novel, The Last Condo Board of the Apocalypse, is being published by Curiosity Quills Press.

Here's the logline:

When hundreds of fallen angels and dimension-hopping monsters take over a highrise condo building, a down-on-her-luck bounty hunter must team up with an unlikely group of allies to prevent the apocalypse.

The book will be available in print and e-book editions starting on February 29.

You can learn more about the book here on my site, or visit my publisher's website for their spin on things.

Shadow of a Dead Star by Michael Shean

2012-01-17T14:27:49Z

Shadow of a Dead Star is a blistering cyber-noir dystopian mystery published in 2011 by Curiosity Quills Press. The hero is Thomas Walken, an investigator with the Industrial Security Bureau. He's a company man, but reliant on his conscience and gut intuition, and desperately trying to stay true to himself in a city that tries to crush what makes us human at every turn.

He works in the New City of Seattle, where capitalism and technology have taken an amoral turn. State governments have been reduced in scope and power to the point where corporations are running the lower levels of administration, and the resulting prosperity has a monstrous dark side. Wonderland, a hive of criminal mech labs, is the festering sore of the city.

The book doesn't waste time getting to the catalyst: Walken intercepts a cargo flight delivering three hugely expensive and illegal Princess Dolls, the Wonderland trade, who arrive dead. Though Walken figures out the how and the who behind the mystery of the Dolls, the why eludes him. As he investigates further, he learns that he's part of something much larger and more sinister than he imagined. The stakes are humanity itself, the utter ruination of humankind -- and Walken stands alone as the only person who can uncover the truth.

Stakes are raised at the midpoint, and Walken's old beliefs and old way of life are obliterated, "as if he had been dropped off in the wilderness and left for dead." I liked the B story of the sexy, bubbly hacker who provides help and comfort, and really liked this part: "Bobbi's warehouse had no doors; it was accessible via a maintenance tunnel that had been sealed off from the public veins by a paperwork error she had helped initiate." In the end, like an avenging angel, Walken uses the traits set up throughout the book -- his anger, his gut instinct -- to find and stand up to the villain.

One of Shean's major strengths is the noir and dystopian tone he creates, with lines like "Pallid concrete had been stained with polluted rain until it was streaked with like black-veined marble." He's also a maestro of setting the tone with lighting; here are a few examples out of many good ones:

"alight with luminous motes of green and amber"
"like canvas stained with mercury"
"thinning into the purple chords of the coming dawn"

He also keeps a strong connection to his main character, and partly does this with comical imagery ("feeling like he'd spent the night strapped to the inside of a cement mixer").

Though I initially had a problem with the extensive exposition at the end, it bothered me less a second time around. Another quibble: a few of the character names are too similar, and could use more delineating. The formatting of the book is very clean, with only one or two minor errors.

Shadow will have you thinking about this world long after you put the book down, and definitely rewards a second reading. Shean is a skilled and talented writer, and I would recommend this book for any cyberpunk, noir, dark mystery, or scifi fan.

If you're interested in Shadow, you would also like Shean's web series. Bone Wires.

Deadline by Mira Grant

2011-09-18T19:05:12Z

Here's the thing with Feed (see my earlier review) and Deadline: every time people praise a TV show or movie about a disease outbreak, or a zombie infection that ravages a nation, I get annoyed because both Feed and Deadline are wildly superior, yet aren't mentioned. "Piss on that," I say, because I am a delicate flower. "What about Feed and Deadline, for the love of George?"

Deadline is the second book in Mira Grant's (AKA Seanan McGuire's) three book Newsflesh series. As the follow-up to Feed, which set up the characters and their world, Deadline deals with how the medical establishment handles the pathology of the Kellis-Amberlee zombie virus, and from the point of view of a different main character.

We reconnect with Shaun Mason a year after he shot his sister when she amplified with the virus. He's a "haunted house pretending to be a man," armored with steel-reinforced jeans and a bright, camera-ready smile that can turn feral. Shaun is out of the field and nominally the boss, but his team are a bit like battered spouses, wary of his behavior and his temper. He functions solely to find out who shot the infected needle at Georgia and to take down some zombies along the way. To keep his sanity, he talks to Georgia, who's a significant presence in the book:

George wouldn't complain if our positions were reversed. She'd just glare at people, drink a lot of Coke, and write scathing articles about how our judgmental society called her crazy for choosing to maintain a healthy relationship with a dead person.

Georgia reaches conclusions faster than Shaun, but for things he could have known or concluded himself. She's like a turbo-charged subconscious:

As always, it was George who grasped the reality of the situation first, her understanding allowed me to understand. "Oh my God..." she said, horrified.

When a fearful, exhausted, and legally dead CDC researcher shows up at the team's office, everyone is on edge. But it gets even worse when the sirens start wailing, indicating an outbreak around their working/living quarters in Oakland. They get the hell out, but lose part of the team. With no office or apartments, and devastated from the loss of their colleague, they go on the road with their semi-hostage, CDC outcast Dr. Kelly Connelly. Destination: "Maggie's Home for Wayward Reporters and Legally Dead CDC Employees."

Maggie is one of many examples of Grant's skill when it comes to writing fully dimensional characters. She's a horror-movie loving pharmaceutical heir who writes poignant, lacerating poetry and lives on a compound with military-grade security. The team is there to save their asses and find out what's going on, but find rest and solace (not to mention meatloaf). You get the distinct impression that this is the only real rest that they'll get in the series.

The safety of Maggie's place gives Shaun and Becks the strength to confront the CDC. But there's always time for some banter:

"Okay, Shaun, before you freak out, this was the best way to do it."
I raised an eyebrow. "That's a really shitty elevator pitch, and I would never buy your project based on that. Just so you know."

The team seeks out a mad scientist-type who's researching reservoir conditions like the one George had (Retinal KA). Shaun discovers an ever bigger conspiracy and uncovers profoundly disturbing data about the origin of viral substrains and reservoir conditions that almost pushes his sanity over a cliff. But now they have the proof they need to make an inquiry into the CDC.

Next stop, Portland, OR, to find out how much of the CDC is involved with the high death rates of people with reservoir conditions. After a tense argument with the director, Shaun and Becks are trapped in a suddenly deserted facility. The stakes are high, and McGuire balances suspense, fear, zombie-killing tips, and humor. She uses every sense to put you in the scene. They're lost, in the dark, under the imminent threat of auto-decontamination -- and on the run from a zombie mob:

That's one thing the old movies got wrong. Real zombies -- especially the freshly infected kind -- can *run*.

McGuire has a sure hand with action, slowing it down here with a cinematic touch:

Aim, fire. Swing, zap. Aim, fire. It was almost like dancing, a series of soothing, predictable movements. When George's gun ran out of ammunition, I switched to my own backup pistol, the motion as smooth and easy as it could possibly have been.

And she slides in tips about zombie killing within the combat scenes:

Viral amplification doesn't give zombies superpowers, but it makes them really focused.

I love being in Shaun's point of view, like here at the truck stop's convenience store:

I paused in the act of opening the Coke cooler, looking longingly at the pot of coffee simmering next to the hot dogs. That stuff was probably ancient, tarlike, created through the slow compression of the bones of prehistoric creatures until their fossilized blood was pumped up from the very center of the planet to fortify long-distance truckers.

..and with his frequent and tense interaction with machines:

"Thank you for your compliance," said the house.
I directed my middle fingers at the ceiling.

Shaun's arc is to be less of a selfish asshole and start caring about (or at least expressing interest in) other people, not just Georgia. He makes small but significant steps toward this better version of himself. He was too caught up in his own thing, whether that was being an action star or a haunted house of a man, to bother to ask Mahir about his wife, who put up with a lot, or ask Becks why she became an Irwin. Somewhere along the way in Deadline, he realizes that he should have asked:

"I guess I was too busy being an asshole to realize it was something I needed to ask about. I'm sorry. I'm asking now."

Deadline will make you care about what happens to these characters. It will make you desperately want to find out what happens next, especially with the twist at the end that I vaguely suspected on some level, but blew my mind anyway. And it will make you think of a way of life that we often take for granted:

A world where people travel on a whim, where they swim with dolphins and own dogs and do a hundred thousand things that are basically unthinkable today. It seems like paradise from where I'm sitting, a generation and a couple of decades away.

The third and final book in the series is Blackout, which will be available in the US/UK in May 2012. Countdown, a companion novella set in the world of Feed, was released in August 2011.

Chasing the Moon by A. Lee Martinez

2011-06-21T12:58:04Z

We can all relate to Lovecraftian themes of human powerlessness in an indifferent, possibly malevolent universe -- where we fight to keep even a feeble grip on our sanity in the face of unutterable cosmic horrors. In 'Chasing the Moon,' Martinez's eighth book, we're not alone in this. Humans may be a "clueless race of cosmic microbes," but the eldritch horrors are no less lost and confused. It is empathy that helps us all survive and even thrive in a demented world beyond our understanding.

Diana Malone, a coat seller with a penchant for trivia, gets a jaw-dropping good deal of an apartment. Moreover, she's had some bad luck lately and has been living like a vagabond, so she accepts the keys. The building, however, is multidimensional, and there's a fuzzy green monster in the closet who wants to devour her.

She keeps the apartment and survives, because she's got "The stuff. The goods. The mojo." She sees bizarre things that no one else sees, and is bound to the monster in the closet, Vom the Hungering:

"What matters is that we're stuck with each other, and we can't go back. Me, a timeless devouring force and you, a delicious chewy morsel wrapped around a crunchy calcium treat."

Attendant to her new status as a beacon to interdimensional beings, Diana acquires a number of eldritch hop-ons (Michael Bluth: "You're gonna get hop-ons"). These include Unending Smorgaz, a rubber hedgehog who spawns clones of himself; and Zap, a tentacled eyeball who sees the secrets of the universe. Diana also gains powers that allow her to edit reality, and this power grows throughout 'Moon.'

As it turns out, the terrible wolf Fenris is causing the rips in Diana's reality by chasing the moon, his eternal prey:

"He will be the most formidable of all, he
Who, under the form of a monster, will swallow up the moon."
(Voluspa, Pfeiffer's tr.)

Even Fenris, like all of the other-dimensional creatures in 'Moon,' is "lost and confused," and trying desperately to escape.

The monsters enjoy Diana's company because she calms and focuses their destructive natures, which they struggle against every day. Humans are not that different from Vom the Hungering (as Graham Elliot has said on MasterChef: "I wish I had two mouths to eat this") or any other eldritch horror. We struggle against our limbic drives and primal natures every day (as Danny Trejo has said: "Here's a fact: The bottom line to any argument is murder"). This struggle is most overtly personified in the character of Greg, the smarmy evangelist of a primal order temple, who is constantly fighting for alpha status.

Other characters in 'Moon' include the fascinatingly odd West, who keeps the universe (and the building) running properly; and Chuck, the cute guy down the hall whose sanity is fraying. Greater entities are wreaking havoc in movie theaters and chain restaurants. But it's not just humans who are confronted with a crazy reality where they don't seem to belong. No one -- not humans nor those who eat galaxies nor those who eat civilizations nor the incomprehensible universe itself -- has any control over their fate.

A book like this -- fun, imaginative, humane, and packed with endearing and credible characters -- makes me thankful that Martinez isn't on his eighth sequel to Gil's. But what it comes down to is this: If you like discussions of Hanna-Barbera cartoons and the idea of fixing the boiler to keep the insect apocalypse at bay, you'll like this book.

Feed by Mira Grant (Newsflesh, Book 1)

2011-05-20T19:06:19Z

In Mira Grant's "Feed," a team of young Bay Area bloggers are invited to follow a Senator's Presidential campaign in the year 2040. Almost thirty years have passed since the Rising, the Kellis-Amberlee zombie virus that wiped out 32% of the world's population. Even though the team are licensed journalists, access to the campaign could bolster acceptance and propel them to the top of the news ratings. But when an outbreak occurs at the candidate's ranch, the team finds disturbing evidence. The rail spike of a midpoint raises the stakes for some of the characters, who suffer a loss and betrayal as they realize the existence of a conspiracy. If they decide to move forward, they could be killed or convicted for treason.

The characters are sharply depicted, endearing, and shaded with contradiction. Georgia is a terse "Newsie" who seeks the truth in the news, a leader who keeps the team on-task. She suffers from retinal KA, a condition that permanently expands the pupils and gives her migraines, but allows her to see clearly in low light, like the zombies. Shaun is the risk-taking "Irwin." He's cheerful, but with an incendiary temper. Buffy is their paranoid field systems maintainer and poetry-writing Fictional. The team works out of their van, combining one part 'Sneakers' with one part 'A-Team'. The emotional core of the book is the strong sibling relationship between Georgia and Shaun.

"Feed" stands out for Grant's realistic and textured construction of day-to-day life after the Rising, and for the etiology and behavior of the virus itself. She probably calls the CDC on speed-dial and says "It's me." The CDC is a major presence in the book, and Grant covers biohazard cleanup and virus testing and disinfection procedures like a pro. Society has acclimated to the zombies beyond the frequent security checkpoints: criminal forensics doesn't exist anymore because crime scenes must be disinfected before investigation. Elevator design and hospital equipment have also changed.

The research and imagination behind the comprehensive world construction in "Feed" is absorbing and compelling, and not at the expense of character. Grant maintains a constant connection to Georgia and Shaun, and does not lose track of the emotion, nor the wry, contextual humor:

Shaun nudged me and whistled, pointing to the inset gunner's windows on the back windshield. "Even Mom doesn't have those," he murmured.

The argument posed in the book is, 'Was it worth it?' The team's individual blog posts at the end of each chapter explore this question; was their achievement a Pyrrhic victory? The book ends on a devastating, surprising note that propels the story into its follow-up, "Deadline." "Feed" is a great read, and well-deserving of its Hugo nomination.

Corpse and Danish Talk Bravery

2011-05-12T16:33:48Z

Sloth and Moth Write a Personal Ad

2010-12-01T21:19:17Z

Corpse and Danish Make Coffee

2010-11-24T14:39:30Z