Fiction Fridays: Vampires and Nymphos?

For a brief period of time, until Feb. 24th 2009, Mario Acevedo's 2006 novel The Nymphos Of Rocky Flats will be available as a free online ebook. You can read it off of the publishers website here.

Mario Acevedo has combined humour, the supernatural and the classic hard boiled PI into a compelling story. The protagonist Felix Gomez is a Private Investigator, a veteran of the Iraq conflict where he became a vampire. He has come to the Denver area at the request of an old friend to investigate a serious of troubling events at an Dept. of Energy research facility. Throw in some nymphos, and aliens and you get a real page turner.
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Most novels couldn't pull it off. The subject matter seems too ridiculous, but Mario Acevedo succeeds in a way that even leaves you wanting more at the end. Things that worked in this story include the restraint on the sex, the fast pacing of the action sequences and the well constructed characterizations and plot.

Things that didn't work? Well it is what it is, a light afternoon's read. The author touches somewhat on the impact of current and past events on the character's lives, but very quickly moves us into another action sequence before any real character development is achieved. Only at the end of the novel, in a slightly predictable way, does a character show real change and growth, though it has more to do with advancing the next action sequence than enlightenment.

I don't mean to be harsh, for I enjoyed this story because of it's humour and lightness. A dark brooding vampire lamenting the torment of his eternal years for page after page is a tired cliché right now. A little action and getting on with your life (or undead) is a pleasant and refreshing change.

The main reason I'm mentioning this story, and linking to it, is because Mario Acevedo demonstrates very well the Scene-Sequel Pattern approach to creating a novel. That alone makes it worthwhile reading if you are interested in understanding and using this technique.

*Disclaimer some of the stuff on the above linked site is for pay - I link only for information, I am not suggesting you spend money.
*and yes Fiction Fridays can be posted on a Thursday, a calendar is just another cage man. ;)





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Fiction Fridays: Tower in the Crooked Wood

Johanson, Paula : Tower in the Crooked Wood
(Bundoran Press, $11.95, November 2008, cover art Erich Schreiner)

I very recently got a chance to read Paula Johanson's YA Novel 'Tower in the Crooked Wood'. Why am I reading Young Adult Fiction?
Why not?!

I'm not young, sure, but I enjoy quality speculative fiction no matter who it's targeted toward. Recently my wife and I have been on a YA novel kick, though I'm unsure if everything in the Twilight Series is really 'Young Adult'. YA fiction has a lot to recommend it, one thing being a lack of pretentiousness. By it's very nature it's accessible to the reader and there are a lot of good authors writing young adult work. Paula Johanson being one of them.

At it's core 'Tower in the Crooked Wood' is a fantasy novel about a young woman trying to bring an end to an evil that is inflicting suffering and death on many people, including her own family. My one sentence outline makes it sound similar to many fantasy novels, and that's a failing on my part. This story is not some tired rehash of an orphan hero who saves the world, though that is what does kindof happen. Instead it is the story of a young woman struggling with emotions like loyalty, vengeance, & love, all the while discovering her own inner confidence and sense of self.
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Jenia, the hero, is an orphan, raised in a small village of mud huts. She's more comfortable trimming fruit trees, than she is in the environment that she now finds herself in. At the beginning of the story we realize that Jenia is running from man and beast, in an unfamiliar land and seeking a "..cursed mountain that she'd left bloody footprints on..".

Very shortly into the tale Jenia finds not what she was seeking (a great evil), but the exact opposite. After her long journey full of danger and fear, and after many sacrifices in pursuit of her goal, the greatest challenge she faces is the one offered by the warmth, respect, and even love of the villagers of Tlakwa.

Paula Johanson's solid writing paints a picture of the life of these villagers as Jenia assimilates into their world. They are a good people, full of love and laughter who's worldview is at times shockingly at odds with Jenia's. There is quite the subtext on the nature of war and the reasons behind fighting.

There are scenes in this story that are very familiar to someone, like me, who's lived on the west coast of Canada for a number of years. At one point Jenia, shortly after enjoying a meal of clams, is walking across the beach and realizes that just as she's discarded the shells from her meal on this beach, so have others. In fact so many others that the beach was almost entirely made of up shells or shell fragments. At that moment Jenia sees the vastness of time stretching behind her, and, with her small pile of shells, ahead of her.

It is scenes like the one above that differentiate this story. Paula Johanson has created a believable world for the village of Tlakwa. The people have a culture and a history. This should be expected from someone who is also a successful science fact writer, but the way those details are used shows Paula Johanson's strength as a storyteller. The Tlakwa have traditions and beliefs that challenge Jenia to examine her own values and morals. Here Paula Johanson gives us a wonderful view into the thoughts and emotions that drive Jenia. At the end we are able empathize with her, because we understand her. We share in her conflict, her triumphs and sorrows.

This a great coming of age story with a strong female lead that any reader of speculative fiction will enjoy. In a time when young adult fiction seems to be getting more and more graphically dark in content, this story was refreshing. 'Tower in the Crooked Wood' is available from the publishers website (first 2 chapters free!), if it's not in your local bookstore or library.



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