In Which Trai Mini-Reviews 'Lyra's Oxford' and 'Doctor Who: Dead Air'

Time for some mini-reviewing! These two works were very short--one was a novella Pullman wrote for His Dark Materials fans; the other was an exclusive-to-audio Doctor Who story narrated by David Tennant. Basically, they both qualify as novellas, not substantial enough to warrant a full review.

Lyra's Oxford, by Philip Pullman: When we last saw Lyra Silvertongue and her daemon Pantalaimon, they were back at Oxford after being separated from the love of Lyra's life, Will Parry, a boy from our world. (It's a long and complicated story involving parallel universes. In short, Lyra's is a steampunk version of ours.) Lyra is at Oxford to learn once more how to read the alethiometer, since she lost the grace that enabled her to read it before, and she is older but still the same impulsive, adventurous girl she was at twelve or so.

Lyra and Pan are on the roof at Oxford when they witness Rani, a witch's bird-formed daemon, being attacked by a flock of starlings. They shoo the starlings off and learn from Rani why he has been sent to find them. His witch is ill and the cure can only be obtained from a local alchemist, and Lyra and Pan must bring him there.

This novella will really only make sense if you've read the His Dark Materials trilogy, but you don't need to remember much about it in order to enjoy the story. I read the books eight years ago (eesh) and I pretty much caught on fine with what I remembered.

There's really not much to say about it, I suppose. It was short and sweet but nothing really substantial. It's got a small adventure for our heroes to go on and it's a nice reassurance that Lyra is getting on fine even after losing Will to the whims of the walls between the worlds. It's a slight story and everything is wrapped up nice and tidy in, say, 25 or so pages. The bonus material is cute (a postcard from the past of The Amber Spyglass' Mary Malone, a time table for a cruise that's supposedly drifted through the walls between universes) and little more. Since there's not much substance, there's not much else to say other than that fans of the trilogy will enjoy it, but do what I did and get it from the library. Unless you're a real completist, I don't really think it's necessary to shell out the cash for this one.

***

Doctor Who: Dead Air, by James Goss: For my first Doctor Who audiobook, I decided to start small. It's only an hour long, and I figured I'd listen to it to see if I could handle an audiobook (the other times I've listened to them have usually involved me losing focus) and if I'd actually like the feeling of the story being read to me, instead of reading it myself. I can say now that I really enjoyed the experience; David Tennant is a good reader and it just really felt like the Doctor was telling a story.

"Hello, I'm the Doctor, and if you can hear this, then one of us is going to die. If I'm lucky, you're listening to this on the boat ... Of course, if I'm not lucky, you're listening to this somewhere else, perhaps even at home, in which case it's too late. It's already escaped. And it's the end of the world."

The Doctor has landed on the boat Radio Bravo, a pirate radio station in the 1960s. It is staffed by Layla, Jasper, and Tom-O (not sure of the spelling on that last, given the format; I'm assuming it's spelled as it sounds), and they are in deadly danger. The Doctor is tracking the Hush, a weapon implied to have been made by the Time Lords during the Last Great Time War in order to defeat the Daleks. The Hush silences and devours any source of noise, and it just needs the boat's transmitter in order to escape and be beamed all across the world to bring destruction. The Doctor can't stop it alone, and it's up to him and Layla to track and defeat the Hush before it kills them and the rest of the world.

Given the nature of the monster, this story was perfectly suited to audio. The creepiness amps up as the sound distorts at various points in the tale, usually as the Hush has done something dreadful. I kept flinching whenever it happened, so it certainly worked on me! (Keep in mind I was listening to this while walking in broad daylight, so it wasn't like I was listening in the dead of night!) It's a loving ode to pirate radio and good ol' cassette tapes. Think Pirate Radio (aka The Boat That Rocked in the UK) if the Doctor were on board.

The Doctor himself felt perfectly in character, something that was probably helped along by it being narrated in the first person by David Tennant. I particularly loved the instance where Layla and the Doctor have been reunited after the Hush's attempt to mimic the Doctor and manipulate Layla into fixing the transmitter, and Layla observes upon their reunion that she should have known it wasn't him, because the Doctor is so full of himself and the Hush's mimicry wasn't. That's the Doctor I know: conceited, yeah, but sweet and brilliant besides. We really get all of him here. The side of him that's sorry, so sorry when someone dies. The side of him that's a thrill seeker and really finds the hunt for the Hush fun, even when he shouldn't. And then, at the very end, the Oncoming Storm, the very dangerous, threatening side of him that only tends to come out when his companions are threatened. Oh, we do not want to have that.

The other characters were well-done if a bit flat; I excuse most of my normal concerns about this due to the fact that the story was only an hour long. Layla is given the most to do, and she was quite fun--I loved her easy acceptance of the Doctor's reveal that he's an alien, and how it caused the Doctor to reflect that he really should give medals for that sort of thing. I really enjoyed and chuckled through the early banter between her and the Doctor. Jasper and Tom-O were basically there to give us Red Shirts to worry about, but I did get the sense that the crew of Radio Bravo was a family and could see why the Doctor would really care about keeping them safe. Since the story was so short, I liked that it skipped over the expository bits about the TARDIS, the Time War, etc.--the Doctor just handwaves it away by assuming the listener would already know it. The little bits of metafiction made me giggle, although it takes a creepy turn at the end, as the Doctor is sure that no one would listen to the tape all the way through to the end (thus ruining his plans) after his warnings, and if they did, they're just stupid, aren't they? Well, mark me down as happily Too Dumb to Live!

It was a little story, but I enjoyed how it slotted into the Whoniverse. It takes place in Ten's final year, when he's traveling alone after the events of "Journey's End", but the previous companions weren't ignored; there were some sweet remembrances of Donna and another (presumably classic series) companion whose name I didn't quite catch. The implication that the Hush was a weapon in the Time War gave me chills and really lent credence to the fact that yeah, the other Time Lords aren't exactly good guys when it comes to winning the war. I really recommend this one to Who fans who just want a little more of the Tenth Doctor, or who want a deliciously creepy listen. It's fun but still scary: what more could you want?

In Which Trai Reviews 'Soulless'

Many apologies for the lack of reviewing; I've had so much required reading lately that I haven't been able to do much reading for myself!

The Book: Soulless (Book One of The Parasol Protectorate)

The Author: Gail Carriger

How I Found It: General browsing around the Internet led to me finding several enthusiastic reviews.

The Review: Alexia Tarabotti lives in Victorian era England, but it is a Victorian era very different from our own. Supernaturals walk the streets--vampires and werewolves are acknowledged and accepted by humans. Because humans have been studying supernaturals through science, technology has made great advances, and there are all sorts of mechanical inventions around. Alexia, however, might be the most fascinating thing in her world: she is a preternatural, called a soul-sucker by most vampires. She has no soul herself, whereas supernaturals in her world have an excess of soul. A touch from Alexia neutralizes supernatural powers for as long as the contact lasts.

Alexia lives the life of a spinster, her preternatural abilities known only to the BUR, a sort of FBI for supernaturals. Her quiet life is interrupted when she is rudely attacked by a hungry vampire at a ball. Strangely, though all vampires should know about preternaturals, this one seems genuinely surprised by her abilities, and when things get out of hand, Alexia kills him. This lands her in hot water with a BUR agent--Lord Maccon, an Alpha werewolf with whom Alexia has never been on great terms--and the local vampires.

It soon comes to light that loner vampires and werewolves are disappearing and being replaced with these new vampires who have no creator in sight and who have no concept of supernatural etiquette. Most troubling of all, Alexia is being hunted by a wax-faced man who seems impervious to harm... all while Alexia is developing an entirely unsuitable attraction to Lord Maccon, who seems to like her right back. What's a girl to do?

I have to say that it took me a bit to warm up to this book. I had heard rave reviews about its humor, romance, and innovative premise, but the humor felt a little too tongue-in-cheek for me at first, like the author was trying so hard to make every little thing funny. But it's impossible not to be amused by the opening scene: Alexia fending off her vampire attacker with a woodern hairpin and a brass parasol, eventually crashing into a table of treacle tart before killing him. I eventually came to enjoy the humor and laugh at it, and this was a very amusing, fluffy-but-still-science-fictiony book, and the most fun I've had reading a book of this genre in a while.

There were some great things about this book, things that I loved, but there were also some noticeable flaws that should have been edited or addressed further. I really liked the book overall, however, and will certainly be reading the rest of the series (two more books as of now, and two more in the future) as well as anything else Carriger sees fit to put out, as long as anything else she puts out is as fun as this one!

The Good: I love, love, loved the romance between Alexia and Lord Maccon. It defies all social convention and scandalizes quite a few people, but their scenes were so enjoyable and so incredibly sexy. The scene where they first kiss is going to stay with me for quite some time; it was funny and entertaining but also very passionate and hot. I also really enjoyed the supporting cast, particularly Professor Lyall, the Beta werewolf who keeps Lord Maccon in check, and especially Lord Akeldama, Alexia's gay vampire friend. Carriger is willing to poke some fun at the genre, and she acknowledges this when she introduces Akeldama (by pointing out his habit of emphasizing certain words over others, saying that he "seem[s] to speak primarily in italics"). Of all the witty dialogue in the novel, I especially enjoyed Lord Akeldama's; once this series comes to an end, I would be more than willing to see one focusing on him!

So while the characters, dialogue, and plot were all fun and engaging, I bring us to The Bad. These are things that could have been expanded upon or edited down, or things that just bugged me. None of them quite detracted from my enjoyment of the book, but they did leave me saying, "Well, I wish she'd done something with that..."

* It is mentioned early on that having no soul leads to Alexia not having both taste and morals. She learns about fashionable trends from what she sees around her and goes from there, yet, as one reviewer pointed out, she constantly critiques her friend Ivy's taste in hats and accessories. How does she know these things are ugly, if she has no concept of taste? I was especially intrigued by the idea that she has no morals and thus has to learn them from philosophy books. I thought that this could be an intriguing character; if she has no morals, one would think she'd be willing to take action and kill without compunction if someone were after her. Instead, however, she goes by the rules of proper decorum, and there's not too much action where she is the subject. Carriger's statement that Alexia had no taste or morals seemed to have been forgotten entirely after she said it, and I wanted to see that explored more--especially the part about her having no morals.

* There are fairly frequent POV shifts from one character to another from paragraph to paragraph, and Carriger vacillates between calling characters by their last names and first names. Both can be incredibly annoying. POV shifts in particular irritate me. Either this is a third-person limited narration where we see things only from Alexia's POV, or it is a third-person omniscient where we see everyone's thoughts. We should not be spending most of our time into Alexia's head and then BAM! in Lord Maccon's for a paragraph. No, it should not work that way. Also, the constant switching of what name a person is called by got to be tiring. That is something an editor should be taking care of and making more consistent.

* Some details definitely do get repetitive. By the time I was past the first third of the novel, I'd had enough of hearing that Alexia was an Italian spinster with dark skin, an unsightly nose, and a curvy body. I understand that Alexia has been told these things her whole life and made to believe them, but geez, I just wanted the narration to stop repeating them.

All of these things were, as I said before, minor flaws that can be attributed to it being a first novel and just something that needed a little bit more editing. The book itself was wonderful and fun, and I've already recommended it to people. The American Library Association named this as an adult book that young adult audiences can truly enjoy, and I completely agree: anyone fifteen or up who's into fantasy and the Victorian era should most definitely give this one a shot (just be warned about some steamy kisses, anatomical references, and, eventually, a sex scene). I really enjoyed this book and I'm looking forward to reading more by Carriger. Highly recommended to young adult and adult fans of steampunk and science fiction/fantasy.

In Which Trai Reviews 'Android Karenina'

Hello again, my readers! Once again, I am participating in a fun event for other book bloggers like me, one that will have great benefits for you guys. A few of my readers won the last contest, so maybe some of you will get lucky! This is a contest celebrating the release of Android Karenina, the fourth monster mashup by Quirk Books--combining, you guessed it, steampunk literature (robots and more!) with Tolstoy's Anna Karenina.

There will be 25 prize packs available to entrants of the contest, and the packs have tons of cool stuff, including an Android Karenina poster (one was sent to me with my copy; it's gorgeous), a copy of the last Quirk book, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls (read my review here), and other fun-sounding books such as How to Tell if Your Boyfriend is the Anti-Christ (!). To enter, simply mention that my blog directed you to the contest and provide a link to this post if possible. Onto my review!

The Book: Android Karenina

The Authors: Leo Tolstoy and Ben H. Winters (Winters is also the author of a previous monster mashup, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, also published by Quirk.)

How I Found It: Since I participated in the previous "blogsplosion", I was asked if I wanted to participate again for this book.

The Review: Regretfully, I did not have the time to fully delve into the original Anna Karenina before I undertook this mashup, so I can't make many comparisons to the original, since I only know vague details of the plot. However, I have to say that it made reading it more enjoyable, as I didn't know what was going to come next. Thus, I think even readers who don't know the original can enjoy this book, and it might even render the original more accessible to those who might want to tackle it afterwards, like I intend to do.

Winters has, in a sense, upgraded Tolstoy. The book now takes place in a 19th-century world where robots live to serve humans. Class I and Class II robots provide simple amusements as toys or perform minor household tasks, replacing servants. Real importance, however, rests with Class III robots--androids that act as companions to humans, essentially privy to every thought and desire from their human masters. These robots comfort, offer advice, and protect their masters ceaselessly. It's pretty clear that we are inhabiting a different world just by reading Winters' twist on Tolstoy's classic opening: "Functioning robots are all alike; every malfunctioning robot malfunctions in its own way."

We open in the same state of affairs as the original: Stepan Arkadyich Oblonsky has been carrying on an affair (with the woman who tends to the household robots) and his wife is refusing to speak to him. He learns his sister, Anna Karenina, is to come to visit, and hopes she will be able to resolve the messy state of things with his wife. Meanwhile, Oblonsky's friend Levin hopes to propose to Oblonsky's sister-in-law, the beautiful young Kitty, though he is tormented by self-doubt and the news that Kitty has another suitor, the handsome officer Count Vronsky. While Levin fumbles to express his love to Kitty, Vronsky becomes taken in by Anna, and they begin an affair.

Things are not all well in Russia, however. The Union of Concerned Scientists (UnConSciya) believes that progress has been stalled one too many times on one too many important projects. They mount attacks on innocent citizens with koschei, creepy buglike organisms that seek to kill any lifeforms they come into contact with. The Ministry, which controls the production of the companion robots, is secretly planning a mysterious upgrade to Class IIIs--an upgrade that Anna's harsh husband is testing, though the robot may have designs of his own, on both Karenin's family and Russia at large.

This mashup was not the best of the ones I've read, but it had charm and I found that it was pretty absorbing, given that I didn't know all that much of what was going to happen. The story had influences from all kinds of different scifi tales, from Alien to Asimov's Laws of Robotics (Winters' robots are bound by two laws: they must obey humans and cannot hurt them, and they cannot allow themselves to come to harm).

The only criticisms I had of the novel were things that could just as well be attributed to the original--I didn't like how focus seemed to be on one story at a time, instead of more fully intertwining both stories (Vronsky/Anna, Levin/Kitty) chapter by chapter. Time would be spent with one couple for a few chapters, then another for a few more, and at times I wished there would be more direct interaction between the two sets, rather than interaction with peripheral characters. I also felt that perhaps one too many cuts were done to the buildup of the Vronsky/Anna relationship--I just never felt they had much chemistry, and their affair proceeded far too quickly. I also never quite liked Vronsky as a character.

Though at first I felt Winters went somewhat overboard on the steampunk trappings of the story, they were well-done. I found myself creeped out by the koschei and felt the threat posed to society by the attacks. There was sometimes a little too much emphasis on the Class III robots--take a shot every time the phrase "beloved-companion" is used--but I did like how the relationship between human and robot was explored. It was almost a commentary on our own dependence on technology in this day and age. While there wasn't enough explanation to non-steampunk readers about various terms, I soon caught on and understood the things that had me lost.

While the story had some weaknesses and I wasn't completely sold on it at first, I ended up truly liking it and wanting to read more and more. Tolstoy and robots work oddly well together. Winters' writing style meshed well with Tolstoy's, and I'd be intrigued to see if any more Tolstoy mashups are coming down the pike. This book did what a good mashup should do--it drew me in, got me interested, and will drive me on with even greater eagerness towards the original. I tip my hat to Mr. Winters for daring to go where no man or machine has gone before!