The Book Review Club - Illuminae

Illuminae
The Illuminae Files
By Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff
YA

"First, survive. Then, tell the truth." That's one of the better loglines I've read in a while. And this is one of the better novels I've had the good fortune to read in the YA category in a while.

Basic premise: The morning Kady breaks up with Ezra their colony on the outskirts of the populated section of the universe is attacked and destroyed by a corrupt company. The "marines" of the galaxy beat back the attackers and rescue a handful of survivors. Their main ship, however, takes heavy damage, and it's a race against time to make it to the next outpost before they're attacked and destroyed by the same company. What they don't realize, until it's too late, is that the bioweapon used by the company to attack the outpost goes viral, starting a plague on the fleeing ships. The Artificial Intelligence, which runs the battle cruiser, has also taken heavy damage--mentally--and can't be trusted.

Basically, the odds of survival are stacked against not just Kady and Ezra, but everyone on the fleeing ships. Will anyone survive to tell the tale and bring the offenders to justice? Because, hey, we evil authors can and do kill of main characters all of the time.

Cue mad scientist evil laugh: Bwahahahaha.

Tongue and cheek aside, I haven't enjoyed a read this much in a long time. I had begun to despair that the realistic fiction bandwagon had set up shop, and it was going to be a long time before YA fiction came around to be fun and entertaining again. While this is touted as dystopian, don't let the moniker fool you, or put you off. This is sci fi. Fun sci fi. Edge of your pants sci fi. Star wars YA style. In other words, a breath of fresh air within the angsty teen lit of late.

The story is told mainly from Kady's POV, although using different formats for information sharing, i.e. texts, emails, reports, interviews, etc, does allow the authors to introduce different POVs. Again, breath of fresh air. Admittedly, I'm getting a wee bit tired of the female dominated genre.

While studies may show that mostly women and female teens read YA, that doesn't mean we'd only like to read female POV. Yes, it's AMAZING to have a female heroine. Love it. Love it like chocolate cake. But, if that's all you get, after a while, even chocolate cake gets boring. Please, please, please, if the world of publishing is listening, can we have a few more male POV stories? By that, I don't mean heroes who rescue the damsel in distress, just male POV. That's all. Let's get inside the mind of the male teen. What I wouldn't have given at that age to understand this mysterious anomaly.

For more warm winter brain food, stomp on over to Barrie Summy's website. She's serving them up with a healthy does of California sun!

The Book Review Club - The Martian

The Martian
Andy Weir
Science Fiction - Adult

Pop quiz:
1) Do you ever stare at the night sky wondering if there is life out there?
2) Ever tried to levitate something with your mind?
3) Have you ever secretly (or not so secretly) watch Star Trek?

Houston, we have lift off. You like science fiction!

Science fiction has been fascinating readers from the moment Mary Shelley brought Frankenstein's monster to life. And writers of science fiction have been working to keep their edge ever since that first breath of life into their genre. Today, they're getting a little help from actual, real life physicists. Science fiction has become your basic rocket science.

How can this be? Some brilliant people at Tor had the great idea to pair up science fiction writers with NASA scientists. The result is a new list of science fiction titles, headed up by Andy Weir's, The Martian.

Basic premise: Robinson Crusoe on Mars.

More details: Mark Watney, a member of the Ares 3 Mars crew, accidentally gets left on Mars during the middle of a sandstorm. He has a habitat. He has oxygen and water. He has some food. But he doesn't have enough to last until the next Ares mission arrives. Cue creativity. How will Mark survive? Will NASA be able to help?

Weir's characters are wonderfully diverse and wickedly smart without being so smart they become inaccessible. The plot is scary believable. Accidents can happen, especially on a mission to a place as far away and foreign as Mars. The scientific does not way down the story, but rather, enhance it. Admittedly, there were moments when I did zone a little. Then again, that could have been the elliptical machine getting the better of me. I have books I "save" for work outs only. This was one. But I found myself sneaking more of The Martian whenever I could, like a secret stash of chocolate. And more than once that I had to remind myself this is NOT REAL. It's "just" a story (so stop crying!).

Tor has more books in the line up. One is about an elevator from earth to the international space station. Finally, a true fix for my science fiction addiction. I can't wait to see what they imagine up next. And...um...if it's not too much to ask, does anyone know how to get in the super secret society of writers who get to work with these amazing scientists?

For more April fling reads, check out Barrie Summy's website!

The Book Review Club - The Hero with a Thousand Faces

The Hero with a Thousand Faces
Joseph Campbell
Craft

I never thought I'd see the day I would review a craft book over a work of fiction or nonfiction. But here it is! Never say never. It's not that I don't read craft pieces. Or that they cause me undo pain (okay, maybe some). It's just that until now that I hadn't been moved so profoundly by one that I felt the urge to share. 

The Hero with a Thousand Faces changed all of that. Reading Campbell's book was more than an experience. It made me rethink the way I view literature, storytelling, the role of storytelling within humanity, religion, society, thinking. At one point, Campbell had exposed so much of what storytelling does so profoundly, I said to my husband, "All I've got left is Cogito ergo sum. That's it!" (And yes, even Aquinas appears in Campbell's work).  

Campbell's look at how storytelling affects us mortals alters one's perceptions on so many levels. In investigating the greatest stories of all times, predominantly those focused on creation, god, gods, the universe - those deeply moving issues we all struggle to comprehend and understand - Campbell shows so evocatively how important storytelling is, what role it plays, and ultimately, creates guideposts for today's writers. Why does a hero have to refuse the call to adventure? Why does he have to walk through fire? What is, ultimately, so important about experiencing the hero suffer?

I will readily admit, I don't always get things the first time around. And all of this stuff may be old hat for a lot of writers, but having it laid out, discussed, chewed, dissected, analyzed, evidenced and described really helped me to see how critically important each stage of the hero's journey is not so much to the hero, or to me, but to the reader, to her emotional experience of the story I am trying to tell.

In case you're like me and need a picture to understand it all better, Campbell gives one, laying out story in its circular nature, each part labeled meticulously so that the reader can also go to the section of the book that then describes that stage.

Reading this book made me rethink not only my writing style but the way I perceive the role of story within our existence. True, talking about religious stories can do that since religions try to answer the big, huge questions, but seeing that they all try in very similar ways and how all of their stories evoke emotions in similar ways by going through similar stages was nothing short of revelatory for me as a writer.

I know. I know. Revelatory? I'm getting carried away. But here is some fact to balance out my swooning. George Lucas used Campbell's work to craft Star Wars. Star Wars! Can anyone say amazingly successful story?

I'll stop there. I promise. But if you're up for rethinking your whole concept of story, writing, the importance of storytelling to our existence, grab this book! Go for it. It is so incredibly worth it.

For more great reads to put some skip in your 2011, hop over to Barrie Summy's website. You won't be disappointed!

You Might Be a Writer If...

Some weeks, I can think of at least three things I could write about in this Friday post. Other weeks, I'm praying to the gods of inspiration for, well...inspiration. Of course, I could do the high functioning thing and write down the extra two ideas in the creative weeks, but somehow, it never happens.

The save came this week at the eleventh hour, literally (11 p.m.), as my husband and I were walking out of the movies.

You might be a writer if...you've been told you've got an overly active imagination.

That's what my husband told me. He wasn't the first, just the latest. Poor guy.

We went to see the latest Star Trek movie last night. I admit it. I'm a trekkie. A huge trekkie. It's not my fault. I blame it on bad Sunday TV programming during my formative years as an adolescent. Sunday morning was such a let down after Saturday cartoons. Plus there was all that time to kill before church, the comics read and reread, my brother soundly aggravated and totured. What was a kid to do? Enter, deus ex machina extraordinaire, Star Trek reruns.

The original, of course. It was the 1970s. I watched them all, many times over. The only problem was, my brother and I hardly ever got to see an episode through to its end because we had to leave for church. We used to push it to the very last minute, begging our parents to let us finish.

Maybe it was all that unfulfilled longing that made me such a trekkie. Either way, come movie time last night, I was giggly with excitement. I hadn't read any of the previews, watched few to none of the trailers. I wanted to let the latest script writers do their thing.

It was great for me. I was thrilled, scared, excited, moved. If only my husband had remembered how moved I can get. More than once, the alien coming out of nowhere had me screeching or jumping or...well, I hit him one time so hard, I kind of hurt him. Poor guy. He spent the rest of the movie with his arms crossed, scooched away from me, avoided all contact for fear I might accidentally injure him again.

"You have an overly active imagination," he said as we were walking over. "Big time."

It's too true. I can't deny it because the evidence is overwhelming.

I tried levitating rocks with my mind after seeing Star Wars.

I slept with my neck covered for years after seeing a Sammy Terry midnight marathon of the early Dracula movies.

When my mom had to pull a splinter out of my hand when I was five or six, I got kind of emotional. "Everything is getting dark. I can't see anything. It hurts too much!" (Yes, I actually remember saying that.) My mother: "Open your eyes."

Oh yeah.

The only reason I think I was able to read Lord of the Rings as a child was because I imagined all of its black and sinister creatures more a sort of tarnished grey. And that still had me scared to death. After I saw Peter Jackson version of them, I didn't sleep for weeks.

I have an overly active imagination. I didn't know what to do with the thing, until I became a writer. Now all of those insane ideas can weave themselves into something that makes sense. Whole books come to me in the blink of an eye, and people ask me, "How did you think that up?"

Overly active imagination.

My characters don't just inhabit my brain, they dance around my office. Go shopping with me. Advise me on how to talk to my children.

Overly active imagination.

Bedtime stories for my kids come so easily, maybe too easily. We constantly miss bedtime.

It's a talent now, not an oddity. I love it. I just have to remember to buy my husband some protective gear for our next movie outing!

Shout Out to Readers

I was all set to blog this morning about another 5 hour "tree watch" I sweated through yesterday. Don't worry, for those who love the occasional whacked out Christmas tree story, it's coming. But today, it's a shout out to readers.

I didn't know I was going to write this blog until I opened my email this morning. There was a letter waiting for me from a father who had bought my new middle grade novel for his son. He said: "I am writing to let you know my son has not put 'Dragon Wishes' down since we purchased it. He is fascinated with the characters and the story. I have not seen him this excited about a book that was not 'Star Wars'. "

For all readers out there who ever wondered whether authors read your letters and whether those letters make a difference, as an author, I can say without a moment's hesitation, they do! And how they do!

This letter put the sun in an entirely stressful day today. I'm in edits on the last 30 pages of my young adult novel, so tired, I feel like I really am in labor and delivery all over again. And then I got this letter. The best part of the whole thing is that a child is reading my work, and is inspired by it. I mean, comparing it to Star Wars? Is there any greater honor? Just between you and me, I used to lay awake at night trying to move rocks with my mind. I used to put one in my bed next to my hand. Sometimes I'd lift it up, sort of to give it a head start with the whole levitating thing. I never did move that rock - other than with my hand - but I lost a lot of sleep trying. That's the effect that Star Wars had on me.

And now my writing might actually be having this effect on a reader? I can hardly believe it.

So thanks, Dad, for letting me know. Thanks to every reader who's ever sent me a picture, letter, email, the works, especially kids. I hang up pictures in my office. They inspire me. I read all of the letters, and some, I keep in a special file. They are amazing. I can't say it often enough.

Here's one of my favorites, copied verbatim from the No. 2 pencil handwritten letter I received:

Dear Mriss Nyikos "I'm really happy you were here. I liked the books Squirt the Squid, Shelby the lemoin shark and Dizzy. Squirt is very cute and funny. Shelby is.....well, I forgot, but dizzy is a heck of a story. I think the book Dizzy is the beast. Im working on a book about Salmon. I hope you come back soon. Your friend Tommy P.S. Lemon sharks kill us in freenzezs

Thanks kids. Thanks parents. Thanks readers! I appreciate your words. Here's a heartfelt shout out to you!