Battle of the 2014 Books, Bracket One, Second Round :: Empress of the Sun by Ian McDonald vs. The Emperor's Blades by Brian Staveley

We begin the second round of Bracket One of the Battle of the 2014 Books with Empress of the Sun by Ian McDonald against The Emperor's Blades by Brian Staveley. The winner will be the book I (Aaron) most want to continue reading after 50 pages.

Empress of the Sun: Pyr hardcover, February 2014, 280 pages, cover art by Larry Rostant. I named Empress of the Sun, the third volume in McDonald's Everness YA series, as one of the four seeded books in this bracket, because I like Ian McDonald's work in general and I enjoyed the first two books in this alternate universe series. Empress of the Sun defeated Elspeth Cooper's The Raven's Shadow to advance to the second round.

In the first 25 pages of Empress of the Sun, Everett Singh and his steampunk gypsy companions arrived in a new alternate universe, where they promptly crashed their airship. In the second 25 pages, Everett guesses the bizarre nature of this universe, which caused the crash. They will need to find a way out of this universe before our villain Charlotte Villiers can locate them. Meanwhile, an alternate version of Everett called Everett M. realizes that the incredibly deadly nanotechnology he brought to the other Everett's universe has (predictably) escaped. He desperately tries to track it down before this entire world is destroyed.

The Emperor's Blades: Tor hardcover, January 2014, 476 pages, cover art by Richard Anderson. The Emperor's Blades is the first volume in Staveley's Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne high fantasy series. It reached the second round with a lopsided win over The Barrow by Mark Smylie.

The first 25 pages of The Emperor's Blades introduced us to our main characters Kaden and Valyn, the two sons of the emperor. Neither young man is enjoying a life of luxury. Rather Kaden, heir to the throne, is receiving harsh mental training in a spartan, remote monastery, while Valyn is learning the ways of an elite fighting group who ride giant hawks into battle. Valyn was investigating the murder of an entire ship's crew, when he received word of the death of his father the emperor. The last dying member of the slaughtered ship's crew warned Valyn that he is in danger from a plot. In the next 25 pages, Valyn desperately asks his superiors for permission to go to Kaden, but they refuse. Unsure of whom to trust, he decides to confide in his fellow cadet and good friend (and potential love interest?) Ha Lin. Before they get far into the conversation, they find themselves (surely not coincidentally) in a tavern on crumbling stilts, as it collapses into the sea.

The Battle: : Both these books start out very strong, with well-drawn characters, creative world-building, and interesting storylines. I don't much want to put either book down, but I'm forced to choose one to keep reading. . .

Through 50 pages, I am hugely impressed with Brian Staveley, who I believe has all the tools to become a major voice in fantasy. I am most interested to see where he takes The Emperor's Blades after a very solid opening.

Of course, Ian McDonald is already a major voice in science fiction and I've liked his Everness series so far; however, by the third book it's starting to seem that Ian McDonald feels compelled to toss in every bizarre type of alternate universe he can conceive of. The new world Everett has crashed on is so absurd (think Edwin Abbott's Flatland) as to severely strain my suspension of disbelief.

There is a good action scene in the second 25 pages of Empress of the Sun, but it's triggered by Everett M.'s unforgivably selfish decision to bring to (our) Earth nanotechnology that he has seen first-hand is incredibly deadly. His belief that he could keep it locked up in a peanut butter jar was so foolish that it's hard to cheer for him when he later does battle with the escaped nanotech, even if the future of the world is at stake. Everett M. is a conflicted character, but his willingness to endanger an entire world to save himself makes it hard to sympathize with him on any level.

In contrast, the second 25 pages of The Emperor's Blades place Valyn and his friend Ha Lin in a moral dilemma with no easy answer, as Valyn tries to save an innocent young woman from a slowly collapsing building:

When Valyn pulled the unconscious girl through the doorway, he found, to his horror, that the gap had grown to almost a dozen feet. . . .

Lin read the situation instantly, shook her head, then stepped right to the edge of the yawning crevasse.

"Throw her," she said, gesturing.

Valyn stared at the gap, aghast. Salia couldn't have been three quarters of his weight, but there was no way he could toss her the full distance. He glanced down. The jagged pilings bristled like spikes.

"I can't," he shouted back.

"You have to! Now, fucking throw her! I'll catch her wrists.

It was impossible. Lin knew it as well as he did. Which is why she wants me to do it, Valyn realized in a rush. Salia was dead weight. He could make the jump alone, but just barely. As long as he held on to the unconscious girl, he was trapped on the wrong side of the gap, pinned to a burning, teetering shell that would drag him to his death. He saw it all clear as day, but what could he do? Drop the unconscious girl and leave her to die? It was the right choice, the mission-responsible choice, but this wasn't a 'Kent-kissing mission. He couldn't just . . .

"I'll jump with her," he shouted, preparing to sling Salia across his back. "I think I can make it."

Lin's eyes widened with horror. Then they hardened.

Before Valyn understood what was happening, she had her belt knife out, was cocking her arm, then throwing. Valyn watched, stunned, as the bright blade flashed end over end in the sun, then buried itself in Salia's neck with a sudden gush of hot, bright blood.

That is a terrific passage, playing out in only half a page. Even if you think Lin made the wrong choice, it's easy to sympathize with her reasons.

I'm only 50 pages in, but everything I've read so far in The Emperor's Blades tells me I'm looking at an outstanding new storyteller at work.

THE WINNER: The Emperor's Blades by Brian Staveley

The Emperor's Blades advances to the semifinal round to face either What Makes This Book So Great by Jo Walton or Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer.

To see the whole bracket, click here.

Battle of the 2014 Books, Bracket One, First Round :: The Raven's Shadow by Elspeth Cooper vs. Empress of the Sun by Ian McDonald

We begin Bracket One of the Battle of the 2014 Books with The Raven's Shadow by Elspeth Cooper taking on Empress of the Sun by Ian McDonald. The winner will be the book I (Aaron) most want to continue reading after 25 pages.

The Raven's Shadow: Tor hardcover, March 2014, 567 pages, cover art by Dominic Harman. The Raven's Shadow is the third book in the high fantasy series The Wild Hunt, the first published work by British author Elspeth Cooper. The previous volumes were Songs of the Earth and Trinity Rising. Songs of the Earth competed in Amy's Battle of the Books Summer 2012 bracket. This version of The Raven's Shadow was preceded by the Gollancz UK edition, released August of last year.

The primary protagonist of the Wild Hunt series is Gair, a young man blessed or cursed with a connection to a type of magic called the "Song." He's been learning to use his power, but apparently with mixed results.

As The Raven's Shadow opens, Gair is licking his wounds from a battle he barely survived; he believes that a close friend was not so lucky. One suspects Gair will soon be off to seek vengeance, but in the first 25 pages he is too dazed yet to think about that. Meanwhile, other major characters——Masen, an apparently well-intended older magician; Savin, clearly an evil sorcerer; and Ytha, a power-hungry sorceress——are converging on the north, where further conflict looms.

Empress of the Sun: Pyr hardcover, February 2014, 280 pages, cover art by Larry Rostant. Empress of the Sun is the third volume in McDonald's Everness YA series, after Planesrunner and Be My Enemy. Be My Enemy competed in Battle of the Books Bracket Six, where it reached the semifinals before falling to Caliban's War by James S.A. Corey. But I liked it well enough that I ended up finishing it and also reading Planesrunner. Ian McDonald is a science fiction writer from Northern Island who has won the Hugo Award and many other awards and accolades. Because I am a fan of McDonald and enjoyed the first two Everness books, I named Empress of the Sun one of the "seeded" books in Bracket One of the Battle of the 2014 Books.

The Everness series involves travel between alternate universes, with steampunk elements thrown in for fun. Our teenaged protagonist Everett Singh is on the run from the authorities who control the ten known alternate Earths. They want Everett because he possesses the "Infundibulum," a computer program devised by his father, essentially a map of all the nearly infinite (I assume it's "nearly" infinte, because how you could have a map if it's infinite?) alternate Earths out there. Everett doesn't trust those powers, for good reason, so he's keeping the Infundibulum to himself while he searches for his lost father.

As Empress of the Sun opens, Everett has just used the Infundibulum to help his gypsy-like friends escape on their huge airship from an Earth dominated by out-of-control nanotechnology. Two problems. First, the escape didn't come off as well as he hoped, as the airship has promptly crashed on a lush, overgrown version of Earth. Everett feels blamed by his friends, who assume he made a miscalculation. Second, Everett M. Singh, an alternate version of Everett assigned to find the first Everett, followed him to the nanobot world and only managed to get away by promising the nano groupmind, the "Nahn," to help it escape its quarantined universe. He has carried a piece of the nanotechnology to the first Everett's home, where he thinks he has it trapped in a peanut butter jar. Uh huh.

The Battle: This battle features two books that are both third in a series, which would make for a fair contest, except that I've read the first two books in Ian McDonald's series (as well as plenty of his SF for adults), while I've never before read anything by Elspeth Cooper. But the Battle of the Books is nothing if not subjective and arbitrary, so let's proceed . . .

The first few pages of The Raven's Shadow read like fairly routine high fantasy. The characters recite the names of various locations in the north, giving me a sense of unease that the author will feel compelled to take us to each of them in turn. But the fact that the book defies high fantasy convention by not including a map of these places bodes well.

Where my reading glasses started to prick up was the introduction of the sorceress Ytha. Ytha does not come across as a nice person, but perhaps not an evil one either. Rather, she is an ambitious person, whose personality has been shaped by the rules in this realm, a place of ongoing power struggles in which women are not expected to participate. We see her manipulate the thick-skulled chief she ostensibly works for, and then lead a ceremony with seventeen women with magical potential:

Firethorn seared her skin and the force of the binding knocked all the breath from her lungs. She staggered, gasping as heat spread outwards from the hand-print, raced over her skin and lifted every hair on her scalp. It surged into her breasts, sank into her secret places. She was a woman seventeen times over and she knew it in every bone, every fibre, felt it the way the earth felt the quickening of spring. . . .

By the Eldest, this felt good. As good as the first time she'd ever wielded her power, against the fat herdmaster who'd wanted her to suck the juice from his root when she was ten, and laughed at her when she said she'd be a Speaker one day. As good as the day she'd taken the mantle from old Brynagh and, for the first time, saw a man kneel at her feet instead of the other way around. Better. With power like this, she would bow her head to no one.

That's a nicely written passage that makes me interested in this character's story. Through three chapters, however, I'm less interested in the main character Gair, who hasn't yet had the chance to do much of anything.

Turning to Empress of the Sun, it's a good idea at the start of the third book in a series to let readers know that this book won't be just a rehash of the prior books. Ian McDonald accomplishes that by immediately crashing the airship that has been Everett's safe haven into a jungle. Not only does this disrupt the story, putting Everett and his friends in danger and thwarting his plan to find his father, but it has a great impact on Everett emotionally:

Mchynlyth and Captain Anastasia were bent over the hatch. Everett ached with guilt.

"Is there something I can do . . ."

Mchynlyth and Captain Anastasia turned at the same time. The looks on their faces froze him solid. He died . . . there, then, in a clearing in an alien rainforest in a world that didn't make sense, in a parallel universe. Died in his heart. He stepped back.

He had never been hated before. It was an emotion as strong and pure as love, and as rare. It was the opposite of everything love felt, except the passion. He wanted to die.

This is the opening scene of the book, and it simultaneously draws me into the storyline and makes me feel sympathy for Everett. I don't feel any such sympathy for his double Everett M., however, since even for a teenager, helping the Nahn escape its universe is unforgivably irresponsible. It does make for a good story, though, putting not just the entire Earth but nine entire Earths in jeopardy.

The opening pages in the third book of a series are all about quickly offering new readers reasons to become interested while reminding returning readers what they liked about the previous books. In the opening pages of The Raven's Shadow and Empress of the Sun, Elspeth Cooper does that well, and Ian McDonald does it superbly.

THE WINNER: Empress of the Sun by Ian McDonald

Empress of the Sun advances to the second round, to face either The Barrow by Mark Smylie or The Emperor's Blades by Brian Staveley.

To see the whole bracket, click here.

Battle of the Books, Bracket Six, Second Semifinal :: Caliban's War by James S. A. Corey vs. Be My Enemy by Ian McDonald

Our second semifinal in Bracket Six of the Fantastic Reviews Battle of the Books features Caliban's War by James S. A. Corey going against Be My Enemy by Ian McDonald. The book I (Aaron) most want to continue reading after 100 pages will reach the championship round.

Caliban's War: Orbit trade paperback, July 2012, 595 pages, cover art by Daniel Dociu. Caliban's War reached the Final Four by defeating Blood of the City by Robin D. Laws in the first round and London Eye by Tim Lebbon in the second round. Caliban's War is the second volume of James S.A. Corey's series The Expanse, following the Hugo-nominated Leviathan Wakes. James S.A. Corey is the joint pseudonym of Daniel Abraham & Ty Franck.

Caliban's War began with a bizarre creature attacking Earth and Mars forces on Ganymede. The creature is surely related somehow to the alien intelligence encountered in Leviathan's Wake. The opening 100 pages feature Jim Holden, the spaceship captain who was one of the main characters of Leviathan's Wake and who has been sent to Ganymede to investigate, and three new viewpoint characters: Bobbie Draper, a spunky soldier who survived the Ganymede attack; Chrisjen Avasarala, assistant to the undersecretary of executive administration on Earth, but actually pretty much the driving force behind the entire Earth government; and Prax, a researcher on Ganymede, desperately trying to find his daughter, who was abducted the day of the attack.

Be My Enemy: Pyr hardcover, September 2012, 263 pages, cover art by John Picacio. Be My Enemy reached the Final Four by defeating Besieged by Rowena Cory Daniells in the first round and No Peace for the Damned by Megan Powell in the second round. Be My Enemy is the second volume in Ian McDonald's Everness young adult series, after Planesrunner.

The two main characters of Be My Enemy are teenager Everett Singh and teenager Everett Singh. The two Everetts are from different alternate universes. One Everett is a crewmember of the airship Everness. In the opening 100 pages he works furiously to help the Everness escape an attack on a frozen alternate Earth. Meanwhile, the other Everett (Everett M) has been modified by a strange alien race, adapted into the ultimate soldier. Both Everetts are converging on airship-Everett's version of Earth, hoping to find Everett's father, who was a key figure in discovering the means to travel between alternate universes.

The Battle: Through 100 pages, I am enjoying the hell out of both these books. They both feature strong main characters, amusing side characters, interesting and colorful settings, and absorbing action. I remain very impressed with Abraham and Franck as a writing team, while Ian McDonald does YA far better than I might have guessed. Caliban's War has a slight advantage in that I've read the previous book, but so far Be My Enemy stands alone well——althought to McDonald's credit, it's made me very interested in going back and reading Planesrunner.

Still, the rules of the Battle of the Books require me to choose one book to continue reading. So I have to try to find some bases for preferring one, even though I have no complaints at all as to either novel. So let's see . . .

I love the dialogue in Caliban's War. Many of the characters are clever and witty, yet they all speak with distinctive voices. For example, there's a great scene in the second 50 pages of Caliban's War in which the authorities inspect Holden's ship. Because Holden is a bit of a celebrity, he tries to blend in as a crew member while his first mate Naomi poses as the captain. To Holden's astonishment, his mild-mannered engineer Amos suddently starts antagonizing the inspecting marines, asking whether the smooth crotches on the front of their spacesuits are anatomically correct. After the inspection, Holden confronts Amos:

"What. The. Fuck," he said through gritted teeth, "was that all about?"

"What?" Naomi said.

"Amos here did just about everything he could to piss the marines off while you were gone. I'm surprised they didn't shoot him, and then me half a second later."

Amos glanced down at Holden's hand, still gripping his arm, but made no move to pull free.

"Cap, you're a good guy, but you'd be a shitty smuggler."

"What?" Naomi said again.

"The captain here was so nervous even I started to think he was up to something. So I kept the marines' attention until you got back." . . .

"Shit," Holden said.

"You're a good captain, and you can have my back in a fight anytime. But you're a crap criminal. You just don't know how to act like anyone but yourself."

"Wanna be captain again?" Naomi said. "That job sucks."

There's nothing wrong with the dialogue in Be My Enemy, but I'd especially hate to miss any of the upcoming conversations in Caliban's War.

The characters are also more varied in Caliban's War. I enjoy the contrast between chapters from the point of view of, say, Holden, who is self-confident but not at all arrogant, and Bobbie, who is a nice person and a good soldier but also a bit of a wreck after seeing her team torn to bits on Ganymede. In Be My Enemy, most of the narrative is from the point of view of Everett Singh, albeit two different Everett Singhs, whose personalities are beginning to diverge interestingly. Even though I like what McDonald is doing with the two Everetts, the variety of characterization in Caliban's War makes it a bit harder for me to put down.

Another distinction, which is unfair because it's subjective but there's no point pretending it doesn't exist, is that space opera spanning the solar system appeals to me a bit more than an alternate universe story. If you particularly like alternate universe tales, my guess is you will really enjoy Be My Enemy, but for me Caliban's War is the one I most want to continue reading.

THE WINNER: Caliban's War by James S.A. Corey

Caliban's War advances to the championship round, where it will face After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall by Nancy Kress.

To see the whole bracket, click here.

Battle of the Books, Bracket Six :: Final Four

After some delays, we're finally down to the Final Four in Bracket Six of the Fantastic Reviews Battle of the Books:

Earth Unaware by Orson Scott Card & Aaron Johnston vs. After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall by Nancy Kress

Caliban's War by James S. A. Corey vs. Be My Enemy by Ian McDonald

We hope you've enjoyed this tournament so far. This sixteen-book bracket, our sixth, contained books from across the genre. There were science fiction, high fantasy, urban fantasy and horror books. Hopefully some sparked your interest. Good books can and do get knocked out of the competition in the first and second rounds due to strong competitors. I know there are books that I (Amy) would like to read.

Stopping reading good books after only 25 or 50 pages can be difficult, and so can judging between two completely different books. The Battle of the Books format allows us to sample and spread the word about many more new books and authors than we otherwise could.

Now only four books remain. All four "seeded" books made it to the Final Four. This is the first time this has happened.

Thanks again to all the authors and publicists sending us great books to consider. If you're an author or publicist, click here for the rules and an address to send your book if you'd like to be included in a future bracket.

We have had a great response to the Battle of the Books format. More brackets are to come!

Battle of the Books, Bracket Six, Second Round :: No Peace for the Damned by Megan Powell vs. Be My Enemy by Ian McDonald

Our last second round match of Bracket Six of the Fantastic Reviews Battle of the Books has No Peace for the Damned by Megan Powell doing battle with Be My Enemy by Ian McDonald. The winner will be the book I (Aaron) most want to continue reading after the first 50 pages.

No Peace for the Damned: 47North trade paperback, July 2012, 252 pages, uncredited cover art. No Peace for the Damned is Megan Powell's debut novel and book one of the Magnolia Kelch urban fantasy series. It reached the second round with a win over The 13th Zookeeper by Bernd Struben.

The opening 25 pages of No Peace for the Damned introduced us to Magnolia Kelch, a young woman with remarkable abilities, including mind-reading and regenerating her body, even after horrible injuries. Magnolia has escaped from her evil and ambitious family and volunteered to join the Network, a secret organization aligned against her family. The second 25 pages give us more flashbacks to Magnolia's mistreatment by her family, all of whom despise her, in part because they fear she will become too powerful to control. Meanwhile, Magnolia is having trouble gaining acceptance by the other members of the Network, most of whom mistrust her motives.

Be My Enemy: Pyr hardcover, September 2012, 263 pages, cover art by John Picacio. Be My Enemy is the second volume in Ian McDonald's Everness young adult series, after Planesrunner, although it is not difficult to follow without having read the earlier book. Be My Enemy got here with a first-round win over Besieged by Rowena Cory Daniells.

Be My Enemy stars two different versions of teenager Everett Singh, from two different alternate universes. One Everett Singh, a crewmember of the airship Everness, is working furiously to try to get the ship out of a frozen wasteland alternate Earth, as a massive warship closes in on them. The other Everett has been modified by a strange alien race, adapted into the ultimate soldier. Both Everetts are intent on finding the airship-Everett's father.

The Battle: One thing I love about the Battle of the Books is it prompts me to sample a whole lot of great stuff that I probably would have missed otherwise. I had never heard of Megan Powell and am not all that intent on finding a new urban fantasy series to read, but so far No Peace for the Damned is most engaging and interesting. Meanwhile, I am certainly familiar with Ian McDonald, one of the leading SF authors working today, but I probably would have been more inclined to read some of his adult books that I've missed, rather than his new YA series. Yet judging from the first 50 pages of Be My Enemy, this series compares favorably with McDonald's best work, which is saying quite a lot.

Through 50 pages, No Peace for the Damned is flowing very smoothly, and Megan Powell has done a marvelous job of generating sympathy for her main character Magnolia Kelch. Magnolia has an impressive array of abilities——mind-reading, telekinesis, becoming invisible——and yet she very much still seems the underdog, because her entire powerful family is aligned against her, while most of the members of the Network are also hostile to her. I am quite interested to see how she settles into the group, and how she combats her delightfully malicious family. There is also a potential romance brewing between Magnolia and one of the other members of the Network, but I'm less interested in that, because Powell has so far given no reason for Magnolia's attraction to the guy other than his looks.

Meanwhile, the opening of Be My Enemy is slam-bang awesome. Both Everett characters are engaging, and the similarities and differences between them are most interesting. McDonald also lets us see enough of the other characters around them to pull us into the story. The characters surrounding the Everett out on the ice are a very likeable group, particularly the captain and her spunky young daughter, who get to star in a terrific aerial battle in the second 25-page section. The characters the other Everett are encountering are a dangerous, perhaps trecherous lot, while the aliens' purposes are enigmatic. The latter Everett has so far retained his own personality through the physical changes he has undergone, but it will be a challenge for him to maintain that as he works alongside this ruthless group.

It's always a test whether a sequel can pull me into the story quickly enough to do well in the Battle of the Books. It's a testimony to Ian McDonald's skills that I'm fully enjoying Be My Enemy, while at the same time anxious to go back and read the prequel Planesrunner. No Peace for the Damned is off to a solid start, but Be My Enemy is the book that already has me fully absorbed in the story.

THE WINNER: Be My Enemy by Ian McDonald

Be My Enemy advances to the semifinals, where it will take on Caliban's War by James S.A. Corey, aka Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck.

To see the whole bracket, click here.

Battle of the Books, Bracket Six, First Round :: Be My Enemy by Ian McDonald vs. Besieged by Rowena Cory Daniells

The final battle of the first round of Bracket Six of the Battle of the Books features Be My Enemy (Book Two of the Everness Series) by Ian McDonald versus Besieged (Book One of The Outcast Chronicles) by Rowena Cory Daniells. The winner will be the book I (Aaron) most want to continue reading after 25 pages.

Be My Enemy: Pyr hardcover, September 2012, 263 pages, cover art by John Picacio. Be My Enemy is the second volume in Ian McDonald's Everness young adult series, after Planesrunner, although so far it does not require familiarity with the previous book. Ian McDonald is one of the preeminent authors in the field of science fiction today. He has won or been nominated for nearly every award in the field, including winning a Hugo Award for his novelette "The Djinn's Wife," and being nominated for the Best Novel Hugo for River of Gods, Brasyl, and The Dervish House.

The two stars of Be My Enemy are teenager Everett Singh and teenager Everett Singh. The setting is multiple present-day Earths, after discovery of travel between alternate universes. One Everett Singh is aboard the airship Everness, which escaped a battle (presumably at the end of Planesrunner) into a barren, frozen Earth. Using his father's revolutionary discoveries about the multiverse, Everett is working on how to get the Everness out, while worrying about which universe his father has fallen into. Meanwhile, we meet a different Everett in a universe where humans have encountered a strange alien intelligence occupying the dark side of the moon. This Everett's father died in a traffic accident before reaching his breakthrough. Everett is given a mission to go into an alternate universe to find his alternate father's discoveries.

Besieged: Solaris paperback, July 2012, 670 pages, cover art by Clint Langley. Australian Rowena Cory Daniells has written three epic high fantasy trilogies, the T'En Trilogy (beginning with Broken Vows, under the name Cory Daniells), The Chronicles of King Rolen's Kin (beginning with The King's Bastard), and now The Outcast Chonicles, which begin with Besieged. She also writes paranormal mysteries under the name R.C. Daniells.

Besieged opens with the birth of the king's son, which the king is horrified to discover has six fingers on each hand, marking the child as a half-blood. It seems "True-men" humans fear and despise the magical, elf-like T'En, and so shun half-blood children with "wyrd" traits in common with the T'En. The king is inclined to kill the baby, but our protagonist High Priest Oskane persuades the king to allow him to take the child into exile. The first 25 pages end with a glimpse of a group of T'En warriors, one of whom is in childbirth herself.

The Battle: Through 25 pages, both of these books are written at a very high level, so I will have to try to nit-pick some possible justification to drop either one out of the Battle of the Books.

For Be My Enemy, I got nothin'——the opening pages of this novel are pretty near flawless. In the opening chapter, Everett Singh is hit by a car while running to catch a bus after playing in a soccer game. He wakes in a strange white room. After a few minutes, he realizes where he must be:

The cold rushed into him. The strength drained out of him. His knees buckled. He put out his hands to steady himself against the glass. And his arms and hands opened. Rectangular patches on the backs of his hands lifted up on plastic struts. Long hatches opened on his upper and lower forearms. The back of each first finger joint flipped up. There were things inside. There were things inside . . . moving. Things not his flesh. Things not quite living but not quite machine. Things unfolding and extending and changing shape. He saw dark empty spaces inside him full of aliens, pincers and grippers and manipulators and scanners reaching out of his body.

He screamed.

A little old woman appears and says, "Greetings, Everett M. Singh. It is the eighth day of Christmas and you are on the dark side of the Moon."

That is a bang-up opening chapter. Then we get a strong passage about the other Everett Singh, the one familiar from Planesrunner, who is working hard to get his shipmates out of a frozen alternate Earth. This passage reads smoothly by itself, but also has nice resonances with the first chapter, for example this Everett remembering the good old days when he used to have time to play soccer.

Chapter Three takes us back to the first Everett, who is instructed by government officials to work with "Madam Moon," the aliens' interface for interacting with humans, to find his alternate father's discovery about the multiverse. The officials are quite trusting of these aliens, but since the aliens have dedicated themselves to spreading through the galaxy, skeptical readers must be suspicious of their motives for wanting to better understand the multiverse.

There is a lot going on here, and a lot of reasons to want to keep reading.

The opening of Besieged is also strong, with a memorable initial scene, when King Charald realizes his son is tainted——he literally throws the child across the room. By his contrast with the king's other scheming advisors, High Priest Oskane instantly becomes a likeable character. The prejudices at work here make me interested in what will become of the child.

But forced to try to find something to complain about, I must say the writing in Besieged strikes me as a bit heavy-handed. Several small details did not ring true to me, for example this description: "He paced, his boots sinking into the sandy soil, crushing fallen pine needles; their tangy scent filled the clearing, mingling with the fresh smell of the sea." I have stepped on pine needles a great many times and never had the air suddenly fill with a new tangy scent.

More importantly, I had the same reaction as to important plot points. For instance, the king blames his young bride that their child is a half-blood. Oskane's rival Nitzel determines to take advantage of this by replacing the young queen with his own daughter. Since she is already married, he will have to kill his own son-in-law first. I can believe that he would do that, but it strikes me as entirely out of character for the brash, self-important king to accept his advisor's daughter as a bride, when she is already married and has born another man's children. But the author compels the king to do it, anxious to show how evil Nitzel is.

A few such moments of Daniells pulling her characters' strings a bit too obviously are a small quibble, but enough to decide this Battle of the Books, since I found the opening of Be My Enemy so impressive.

THE WINNER: Be My Enemy by Ian McDonald

Be My Enemy moves to the second round, where it will face No Peace for the Damned by Megan Powell. Incidentally, this completes a strong first-round showing by Pyr's YA hardcover series, which has gone 3-0 so far in Bracket #6.

To see the whole bracket, click here.

Aaron's 2011 Hugo Recommendations :: Best Novel

Hugo nominations are due in just a week, so it's past time to list my favorite SF/F of 2010, starting with best novel. These are the five novels I'm planning to nominate:

Paolo Bacigalupi, Ship Breaker
Aliette de Bodard, Servant of the Underworld
Guy Gavriel Kay, Under Heaven
Nnedi Okorafor, Who Fears Death
Catherynne M. Valente, The Habitation of the Blessed

I expect the Bacigalupi novel to make the final ballot, and I think the others all have at least a chance at nomination, except perhaps Servant of the Underworld. (If de Bodard is nominated this year, it will be for one of her outstanding pieces of short fiction.)

As usual when selecting novels to nominate for the Hugo, I am dismayed to realize how many books from last year by some of my favorite authors I've yet to read. If I could stop time and read everything I'd like to before the nominating deadline, these are the ones I think would be most likely to elbow their way onto my list:

Iain M. Banks, Surface Detail
Greg Egan, Zendegi
Ian McDonald, The Dervish House
China Miéville, Kraken
Connie Willis, Blackout/All Clear

Whether you agree with any of my choices or not, I hope you find time to nominate by next week.

Aaron's Take on the 2010 Hugo Nominees :: NOVELLAS

Best novella is a strong category this year. Even though this is certainly the fiction category with the fewest eligible works published, the voters managed to find six worthy nominees. All of the nominees will have their supporters——several of the nominated authors are popular with the Hugo voters, plus Kage Baker will have a sympathy vote due to her untimely death——but my guess is John Scalzi will win a Hugo for the third straight year, his first in a fiction category.

Kage Baker's "The Women of Nell Gwynne's," a steampunk mystery with a group of prostitute/spies as lead characters, is mostly light entertainment but does have an appropriately dark edge when showing us why some of our heroines would choose this life. The tale features some wonderful dialogue and is great fun to read, but the whodunit does not satisfy and the story feels less complete than the other nominees. My guess is "The Women of Nell Gwynne's" was meant as the first in a series of stories about these remarkable ladies——see for instance my recommendation for The Bohemian Astrobleme——which sadly will now never be completed.

"Palimpsest" by Charles Stross is a time travel story on a very large scale. While it begins with the cliché of a time traveler killing his own grandfather, the tale quickly moves on to grander and more original issues about the fate of humanity over the next billions, even trillions, of years. The folks directing human destiny control time travel technology, although oddly their grand plans mostly involve moving planets around, not time travel. Stross throws plenty of interesting ideas at us, but fails to include strong enough characters to provide the emotional hook to carry us through this type of Stapledonian epic. The main character has very little personality, and his two girlfriends have none at all.

"Act One" by Nancy Kress, a former story recommendation of the week, explores the morality of an attempt to impose genetic modifications on humanity to give everyone a greater sense of empathy. This is a near-future story on a much smaller scale than "Palimpsest," but the superior characterization makes "Act One" more successful overall.

James Morrow is the best satirist in our field, and one of the two best ever along with John Sladek. "Shambling Towards Hiroshima" exemplifies his trademark dry humor. The protagonist is a Boris Karloff-style creature-feature actor, called on during World War II to give the Japanese a demonstation of the damage that will be inflicted, if they don't surrender, by a fearsome weapon the United States has developed: monstrous fire-breathing lizards. Morrow has great fun writing of the B-movie culture of 1940's Hollywood, but he doesn't quite manage to combine this with his serious point as seamlessly as in his best work. The goofy monster movie material takes over the story, while the endnote as to the morality of weapons of mass destruction feels tacked on.

Ian McDonald's "Vishnu at the Cat Circus" is the fascinating life story of a genetically engineered slow-aging super-genius who was instrumental, along with his unmodified brother, in the radical transformation of India. In contrast to "The Women of Nell Gwynne's," which suffered because it felt like the opening chapter of a larger unfinished work, "Vishnu at the Cat Circus" is impressive because it stands alone very well yet also is a terrific capstone to Ian McDonald's series of stories (as well as the novel River of Gods) set in a future India.

While all the nominees in this category are very good, my favorite is John Scalzi's "The God Engines," the thought-provoking story of Ean Tephe, captain of a starship powered by an enslaved god, captured and harnessed by the god Tephe worships. Not surprisingly, Tephe comes to doubt his faith in his own god, but from there matters do not play out as you might expect. The tale is an interesting blend of science fiction, fantasy, and horror elements.

John Scalzi has emerged in the past five years as one of the field's most capable authors, but at times he relies too heavily on snappy dialogue, rather than attempting something with more depth and emotional impact. "The God Engines" is thus a breakthrough work for him. Scalzi sets aside his usual sardonic humor in favor of original, intricate world-building and a compelling protagonist caught in the teeth of a dilemma from which there may be no way out. All of Scalzi's fiction is entertaining, but "The God Engines" is his best yet.

Aaron's Ballot for Best Novella
1. John Scalzi - The God Engines
2. Ian McDonald - Vishnu at the Cat Circus
3. James Morrow - Shambling Towards Hiroshima
4. Nancy Kress - Act One
5. Charles Stross - Palimpsest
6. Kage Baker - The Women of Nell Gwynne's

Aaron's Hugo Recommendations :: Novella

I didn't get to read that many novellas from 2009, but the small number I read included some outstanding stories. I plan to nominate these five for the Hugo Award:

Nancy Kress, Act One (Asimov's, March '09)
John Langan, The Wide, Carnivorous Sky (By Blood We Live)
Ian McDonald, Vishnu at the Cat Circus (Cyberabad Days)
James Morrow, Shambling Towards Hiroshima (Tachyon)
Jason Sanford, Sublimation Angels (Interzone, Sept-Oct '09)

With the exception of "The Wide, Carnivorous Sky," which is more likly to appeal to horror readers than SF fans, all of these have a reasonable chance of joining John Scalzi's The God Engines on the Hugo ballot. (I haven't yet read The God Engines, but given Scalzi's popularity with the Hugo voters, I am confident he doesn't need my help.)

Good luck to all of these deserving authors!

Aaron's Take on the 2008 Hugo Nominees :: NOVELS

Of the five novels nominated for this year’s Hugo, one is easily my favorite, one is far-and-away the worst, and the other three are difficult to rank.

Starting with the good news, I thoroughly enjoyed The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon. For me, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union worked on every level. It is an excellent alternate history, cleverly following through on the implications of a single alteration of history – that the Jews who settled in Israel after World War II were driven off and relocated in Alaska – while at the same time using that variation on history to illuminate aspects of human nature and Jewish culture. The novel also works well as a murder mystery. Most importantly, it is an outstanding character study of Meyer Landsman, the detective seeking to solve the central mystery. Based entirely on the novel’s own merits, I would love to see The Yiddish Policemen’s Union win the Hugo Award. The fact that the author is a Pulitzer Prize winner yet would actually be pleased to win a Hugo is merely a nice bonus.

Moving to the bottom of the list, sometimes a singer writes a song that requires a voice stronger than his own, and he would be better off handing the song off to someone else to perform. That is what happened to Robert Sawyer with Rollback. In Rollback, an octogenarian couple undergoes rejuvenation therapy, but it only works for the husband, so he is suddenly sixty years younger than his wife physically. This would make for a heart-wrenching story, in the hands of a writer skilled in conveying complex human emotions. Robert Sawyer is not. His strength is scientific speculation, not human drama. His dialogue is wooden and dull, his characters so one-dimensional that it is obvious even Sawyer does not conceive of them as real people. Then again, perhaps it is best that the protagonist is such a non-believable character, otherwise I would have been very annoyed with him for moping through most of the novel over his terrible misfortune of being given an extra sixty years of life. A further disappointment with Rollback is that Sawyer's future year 2048 is terribly unimaginative, indistinguishable from the present day but for a few housecleaning robots and passing references to the weather being a little warmer than it used to be. Nothing else has changed, or if it has, the main characters are oblivious to it. They go around quoting Seinfeld and Star Trek and Lost in Space, but never make a reference to anything past the turn of the century. I hate to think that there are any people, even at the age of 87, so detached from the world around them; if there are, you wouldn't want to make them the viewpoint characters of a futuristic science fiction novel.

Ranking the remaining three novels is a close call for me. In the end, I’m going with Halting State by Charles Stross as my second choice, because it is successful as entertainment but also has something interesting to say. Halting State starts with a premise that sounds silly, the investigation of a crime that occurred within an on-line role-playing game. But the novel goes at it with such gusto that I found myself drawn in completely, and was easily able to suspend my disbelief even when the initial crime broadens into intrigue and espionage of global import. The novel is fun to read, and (in sharp contrast to Rollback) also has a lot of interesting speculation and commentary on our near future.

For me, the remaining two nominees suffered from opposite deficiencies. Ian McDonald’s Brasyl is an interesting novel. I like the concept of a science fiction novel about Brazil, alternating between past, present, and future timelines, interconnected through the device of quantum physics. Yet I found Brasyl rather difficult to get into. It takes the story too long to get moving, and the writing style of the present and future threads is off-putting. The entire novel is loaded with Portuguese terminology and the present and future scenes add an ultra-hip sensibility that I gather is meant to convey the feel of Brazilian culture, but for me made the novel too difficult to read.

Conversely, John Scalzi’s The Last Colony, about efforts to establish a new human outpost on a faraway world, is easy to read and quite entertaining but rather less ambitious than the other nominated novels. It is the third in Scalzi’s series begun with Old Man’s War, and suffers from Scalzi's determination to resolve various loose threads from the previous two volumes. The story does not present its individual characters with the kind of internal conflicts that were a strength of the prior novels (for example, Jared Dirac's identity crisis in The Ghost Brigades). The Last Colony has an enjoyably fast pace and some snappy dialogue, but a bit less to say than the earlier two Old Man books, notwithstanding all the galactic politics that come into play in the second half of the novel. Scalzi has a strong following and will surely get more shots at the Hugo; I would like to see him win it for a work with more depth.

Aaron's Ballot:
1. Michael Chabon – The Yiddish Policemen’s Union
2. Charles Stross – Halting State
3. Ian McDonald – Brasyl
4. John Scalzi – The Last Colony
5. Robert J. Sawyer – Rollback