Battle of the 2012 Books, Bracket Eight, First Round :: Osama by Lavie Tidhar vs. The Steam Mole by Dave Freer

Our third match-up in the first round of Bracket Eight of the Battle of the 2012 Books is Osama by Lavie Tidhar going against The Steam Mole by Dave Freer. The winner will be the book I (Aaron) most want to continue reading after 25 pages.

Osama: Solaris, October 2012 (published in UK by PS Publishing in 2011), 302 pages, cover art by Pedro Marques. Osama takes place in an alternate universe (possibly based on an alternate history timeline), where Osama Bin Laden is not the terrorist we know, but the fictional hero of a series of pulp novels called Osama Bin Laden: Vigilante. Through 25 pages, the novel alternates between chapters from an Osama Bin Laden novel, which depicts fictional terrorist attacks that actually happened in our universe, and chapters from the point of view of a detective named Joe living in Laos. A mysterious woman gives Joe the assignment of finding the author of the Osama Bin Laden books. The author's name is Mike Longshott, but Joe assumes that's a pseudonym.

Lavie Tidhar is the leading Israeli author of science fiction and fantasy, although he now lives in London. Osama won the World Fantasy Award after its initial release in the UK.

The Steam Mole: Pyr, December 2012, 302 pages, cover art by Paul Young. The Steam Mole is the second in a YA steampunk series, after Cuttlefish, which competed in the Fall 2012 Battle of the Books. In a steampunk universe where the polar ice caps melted ahead of schedule, our young heroine Clara Calland has escaped with her mother to Australia, pursued by the British government, which seeks a scientific breakthrough her mother has made. They made their escape on the coal-powered submarine Cuttlefish, and Clara has fallen for one of its young crewmen, Tim Barnabas. The Cuttlefish is grounded for repairs in Australia, and when Clara's mother falls ill, she ends up at the mercy of some well-meaning but clueless natives, while Tim is stuck working on the huge tunneling machines called "steam moles."

Dave Freer is a South African writer living in Australia. He is best known for his fantasy in collaboration with Eric Flint and Mercedes Lackey, as well as his solo Dragon's Ring series.

The Battle: Through 25 pages, the strength of both these books is the setting. The battle comes down to a matter of degrees.

I like how The Steam Mole integrates a steampunk sensibility into a post-global warming world. There are some nice touches, like how reluctant Australians are to go into the sun during the day, but they'll gladly send aboriginals on errands. Most of the first 25 pages are spent summarizing the previous book, but the story starts to move in earnest as Clara realizes how seriously ill her mother is, and the reader realizes she was poisoned by agents of a London duke.

Meanwhile, through 25 pages, I love the initial set-up of Osama. The contrast between the pulpish chapters of Osama Bin Laden: Vigilante and the lush descriptions of Joe's home in Laos is terrific. There are fascinating hints in Joe's chapters that the reality he sees around him is fragile. I very much want to see him poke at the edges of his own universe and start to get an understanding of ours.

While I'd be happy to keep reading The Steam Mole, I absolutely do not want to put down Osama.

THE WINNER: Osama by Lavie Tidhar

Osama advances to the second round to take on either Beyond Here Lies Nothing by Gary McMahon or A Red Sun Also Rises by Mark Hodder.

To see the whole bracket, click here.

Battle of the Books, Fall 2012, First Round :: Hemlock Grove by Brian McGreevy vs. Cuttlefish by Dave Freer

We begin the first round of the belated Fall 2012 Battle of the Books with Hemlock Grove by Brian McGreevy vs. Cuttlefish by Dave Freer. The winner will be the book I (Aaron) most want to continue reading after 25 pages.

Hemlock Grove: Farrar, Straus & Giroux trade paperback, April 2012, 318 pages, cover art by Matt Buck. Hemlock Grove is the first novel by new writer Brian McGreevy, but it has already been picked up for production as a television series, as part of Netflix's new line of original programming.

The book begins with discovery of the mutilated body of a young woman, possibly killed by an unidentified wild animal. In the eyes of local teenagers, this makes our 17-year-old protagonist Peter Rumancek a suspect, since he has admitted to being a werewolf. Through 25 pages, we're figuring he probably really is a werewolf, but perhaps he just said that because he likes to get a rise out of people. Peter is descended from gypsies; he has an offbeat way of looking at things and has trouble fitting in. But unlike many teenaged protagonists, this genuinely doesn't seem to bother him.

So far we've also met Peter's 13-year-old neighbor Christina, who is fascinated with Peter's rebellious attitudes (Christina is the one who outed Peter as a werewolf, when she noticed his index and middle fingers were the same length), and his classmate Roman, a BMOC thanks to his very wealthy family. Roman also has a hint of the supernatural, and at the end of the first 25 pages, he pulls a Jedi mind trick on some policemen who catch Peter and Roman poking around the scene of the girl's death.

Cuttlefish: Pyr hardcover, July 2012, 288 pages, cover art by Paul Young. South African Dave Freer (now relocated to Australia) broke into the field with the science fiction novel The Forlorn in 1999. He has since concentrated on fantasy, in multiple collaborations with Eric Flint and Mercedes Lackey, as well as his solo Dragon's Ring series. (Incidentally, we seriously need to get Baen Books to start submitting to the Battle of the Books. The cover of the 2012 entry in that series, Dog and Dragon, shows Lassie riding on the back of a dragon——how cool is that?)

Cuttlefish is a young adult steampunk novel, named for the illegal coal-powered submarine where much of the action occurs. In this alternate history, Britain has maintained its empire well into the Twentieth Century, and the polar ice caps melted ahead of schedule. Our two young protagonists are Tim Barnabas, a young black crew member who grew up in the tunnels under a partially submerged London, and Clara Calland, a spunky Irish girl who has taken refuge with her mother on the Cuttlefish.

Clara and her mother are being pursued by the British government and by Russian agents. Most of the initial 25-page section consists of flashbacks to when Clara and her mother first went into hiding. The scope of the efforts taken to find them suggest that the mother has made a very important discovery.

The Battle: When we started getting YA books for the Battle of the Books, we considered putting them in a separate YA bracket, but I couldn't justify doing that. As an adult, I've read YA books I've enjoyed as much as anything on the market (e.g., Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass and Paolo Bacigalupi's Ship Breaker); whereas when I actually was a young adult, I usually preferred adult books to what were then called "juveniles." So what would be the point in trying to apply different criteria to books marketed as YA?

This battle is a case in point. While I enjoyed some aspects of the first four chapters of Cuttlefish——I particularly liked the details about the coal-powered submarine——the book did not grab me as much as the opening of Hemlock Grove. I wondered briefly if I was being unfair, since Cuttlefish is aimed at young readers (the marketing materials say ages 12 and up) while I'm deep into fogeyhood. Then I realized that the 13-year-old version of myself also would have preferred Hemlock Grove, and by a wider margin.

Hemlock Grove is definitely not written for young readers——in an early chapter an unnamed person gets a hummer from a prostitute——but I think many young readers would appreciate it. The main characters are themselves teenagers, and the narrative has a wiseass teen's cynical point of view. Plus, I think young readers have sharp ears for dialogue, and the first chapters of Hemlock Grove feature much more engaging dialogue than Cuttlefish, for example this scene where Christina asks Peter about being a werewolf:

"Can I be a werewolf?" she said.

"In theory," said Peter, evasive.

He dangled his arm, snapping his fingers a few times, and Fetchit came and nuzzled the back of his hand.

"Little prick," said Peter.

"Will you bite me?" said Christina.

"Don't be retarded," said Peter.

"Come on." She lifted her leg so her calf was level with him. "Look how young and tender."

"Get that skinny, sorry drumstick out of my face."

Cuttlefish presents an interesting steampunk alternate history, but the strong dialogue and quirky characters of Hemlock Grove give it the edge in this battle.

THE WINNER: HEMLOCK GROVE by Brian McGreevy

Hemlock Grove advances to the second round, to meet either Further: Beyond the Threshold by Chris Roberson or Royal Street by Suzanne Johnson.

To see the whole bracket, click here.