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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Fiction Fridays: Vanity List

In this case the Vanity part is marking off all of the titles I've read on the list of 149 SF&F Novels Everyone must read. This started with a series of articles at The Guardian covering the 1000 Novels Everyone Must read. My copy of the list was taken from the SF Signal article where this little meme began.

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The Bolded Titles are ones that I have read. I counted 44, but my eyes went blurry near the end. This is also just from memory, however what looks clear is that most of what I've read is old. I blame that on inheriting a good chunk of my Sci-Fi Collection. Though my Dad doesn't seem to think I've inherited anything yet, something about him still being alive and wanting his books back.

A couple of books or authors that I would add: The Listeners by James Gunn or anything by Gregory Benford

Feel free to copy the list and do the same in the comments or on your own blog. *Thanks to SF Signal and other bloggers for compiling it in an easy to use format.

1. Douglas Adams: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979)
2. Brian W Aldiss: Non-Stop (1958)
3. Isaac Asimov: Foundation (1951)
4. Margaret Atwood: The Blind Assassin (2000)
5. Margaret Atwood: The Handmaid's Tale (1985)
6. Paul Auster: In the Country of Last Things (1987)
7. J.G. Ballard: The Drowned World (1962)
8. J.G. Ballard: Crash (1973)
9. J.G. Ballard: Millennium People (2003)
10. Iain Banks: The Wasp Factory (1984)
11. Iain M Banks: Consider Phlebas (1987)
12. Clive Barker: Weaveworld (1987)
13. Nicola Barker: Darkmans (2007)
14. Stephen Baxter: The Time Ships (1995)
15. Greg Bear: Darwin's Radio (1999)
16. William Beckford: Vathek (1786)
17. Alfred Bester: The Stars My Destination (1956)
18. Ray Bradbury: Fahrenheit 451 (1953)
19. Poppy Z Brite: Lost Souls (1992)
20. Charles Brockden Brown: Wieland (1798)
21. Algis Budrys: Rogue Moon (1960)
22. Mikhail Bulgakov: The Master and Margarita (1966)
23. Edward Bulwer-Lytton: The Coming Race (1871)
24. Anthony Burgess: A Clockwork Orange (1960)
25. Anthony Burgess: The End of the World News (1982)
26. Edgar Rice Burroughs: A Princess of Mars (1912)
27. William Burroughs: Naked Lunch (1959)
28. Octavia Butler: Kindred (1979)
29. Samuel Butler: Erewhon (1872)
30. Italo Calvino: The Baron in the Trees (1957)
31. Ramsey Campbell: The Influence (1988)
32. Lewis Carroll: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865)
33. Lewis Carroll: Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871)
34. Angela Carter: Nights at the Circus (1984)
35. Angela Carter: The Passion of New Eve (1977)
36. Michael Chabon: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (2000)
37. Arthur C Clarke: Childhood's End (1953)
38. GK Chesterton: The Man Who Was Thursday (1908)
39. Susanna Clarke: Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (2004)
40. Michael G Coney: Hello Summer, Goodbye (1975)
41. Douglas Coupland: Girlfriend in a Coma (1998)
42. Mark Danielewski: House of Leaves (2000)
43. Marie Darrieussecq: Pig Tales (1996)
44. Samuel R Delaney: The Einstein Intersection (1967)
45. Philip K Dick: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968)
46. Philip K Dick: The Man in the High Castle (1962)
47. Thomas M Disch: Camp Concentration (1968)
48. Umberto Eco: Foucault's Pendulum (1988)
49. Michel Faber: Under the Skin (2000)
50. John Fowles: The Magus (1966)
51. Neil Gaiman: American Gods (2001)
52. Alan Garner: Red Shift (1973)
53. William Gibson: Neuromancer (1984)
54. Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Herland (1915)
55. William Golding: Lord of the Flies (1954)
56. Joe Haldeman: The Forever War (1974)
57. M John Harrison: Light (2002)
58. Nathaniel Hawthorne: The House of the Seven Gables (1851)
59. Robert A Heinlein: Stranger in a Strange Land (1961)
60. Frank Herbert: Dune (1965)
61. Hermann Hesse: The Glass Bead Game (1943)
62. Russell Hoban: Riddley Walker (1980)
63. James Hogg: The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1824)
64. Michel Houellebecq: Atomised (1998)
65. Aldous Huxley: Brave New World (1932)
66. Kazuo Ishiguro: The Unconsoled (1995)
67. Shirley Jackson: The Haunting of Hill House (1959)
68. Henry James: The Turn of the Screw (1898)
69. PD James: The Children of Men (1992)
70. Richard Jefferies: After London; Or, Wild England (1885)
71. Gwyneth Jones: Bold as Love (2001)
72. Franz Kafka: The Trial (1925)
73. Daniel Keyes: Flowers for Algernon (1966)
74. Stephen King: The Shining (1977)
75. Marghanita Laski: The Victorian Chaise-longue (1953)
76. CS Lewis: The Chronicles of Narnia (1950-56)
77. Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu: Uncle Silas (1864)
78. Stanislaw Lem: Solaris (1961)
79. Ursula K Le Guin: The Earthsea series (1968-1990)
80. Ursula K Le Guin: The Left Hand of Darkness (1969)
81. Doris Lessing: Memoirs of a Survivor (1974)
82. MG Lewis: The Monk (1796)
83. David Lindsay: A Voyage to Arcturus (1920)
84. Ken MacLeod: The Night Sessions (2008)
85. Hilary Mantel: Beyond Black (2005)
86. Michael Marshall Smith: Only Forward (1994)
87. Richard Matheson: I Am Legend (1954)
88. Charles Maturin: Melmoth the Wanderer (1820)
89. Patrick McCabe: The Butcher Boy (1992)
90. Cormac McCarthy: The Road (2006)
91. Jed Mercurio: Ascent (2007)
92. China Miéville: The Scar (2002)
93. Andrew Miller: Ingenious Pain (1997)
94. Walter M Miller Jr: A Canticle for Leibowitz (1960)
95. David Mitchell: Cloud Atlas (2004)
96. Michael Moorcock: Mother London (1988)
97. William Morris: News From Nowhere (1890)
98. Toni Morrison: Beloved (1987)
99. Haruki Murakami: The Wind-up Bird Chronicle (1995)
100. Vladimir Nabokov: Ada or Ardor (1969)
101. Audrey Niffenegger: The Time Traveler's Wife (2003)
102. Larry Niven: Ringworld (1970)
103. Jeff Noon: Vurt (1993)
104. Flann O'Brien: The Third Policeman (1967)
105. Ben Okri: The Famished Road (1991)
106. George Orwell: Nineteen Eighty-four (1949)
107. Chuck Palahniuk: Fight Club (1996)
108. Thomas Love Peacock: Nightmare Abbey (1818)
109. Mervyn Peake: Titus Groan (1946)
110. Frederik Pohl & CM Kornbluth: The Space Merchants (1953)
111. John Cowper Powys: A Glastonbury Romance (1932)
112. Terry Pratchett: The Discworld series (1983- )
113. Christopher Priest: The Prestige (1995)
114. Philip Pullman: His Dark Materials (1995-2000)
115. François Rabelais: Gargantua and Pantagruel (1532-34)
116. Ann Radcliffe: The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794)
117. Alastair Reynolds: Revelation Space (2000)
118. Kim Stanley Robinson: The Years of Rice and Salt (2002)
119. JK Rowling: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (1997)
120. Geoff Ryman: Air (2005)
121. Salman Rushdie: The Satanic Verses (1988)
122. Joanna Russ: The Female Man (1975)
123. Antoine de Sainte-Exupéry: The Little Prince (1943)
124. José Saramago: Blindness (1995)
125. Will Self: How the Dead Live (2000)
126. Mary Shelley: Frankenstein (1818)
127. Dan Simmons: Hyperion (1989)
128. Olaf Stapledon: Star Maker (1937)
129. Neal Stephenson: Snow Crash (1992)
130. Robert Louis Stevenson: The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886)
131. Bram Stoker: Dracula (1897)
132. Rupert Thomson: The Insult (1996)
133. JRR Tolkien: The Hobbit (1937)
134. JRR Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings (1954-55)
135. Mark Twain: A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur's Court (1889)
136. Kurt Vonnegut: Sirens of Titan (1959)
137. Horace Walpole: The Castle of Otranto (1764)
138. Robert Walser: Institute Benjamenta (1909)
139. Sylvia Townsend Warner: Lolly Willowes (1926)
140. Sarah Waters: Affinity (1999)
141. HG Wells: The Time Machine (1895)
142. HG Wells: The War of the Worlds (1898)
143. TH White: The Sword in the Stone (1938)
144. Angus Wilson: The Old Men at the Zoo (1961)
145. Gene Wolfe: The Book of the New Sun (1980-83)
146. Virginia Woolf: Orlando (1928)
147. John Wyndham: Day of the Triffids (1951)
148. John Wyndham: The Midwich Cuckoos (1957)
149. Yevgeny Zamyatin: We (1924)



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