"The Counsellor Crow" by Karen Lord :: Aaron's Story Recommendation of the Week

We are between brackets of the Battle of the Books, so time to catch up on some story recommendations.

My Story Recommendation of the Week is for "The Counsellor Crow" by Karen Lord, from the anthology The Bestiary, edited by Ann VanderMeer and published by Centipede Press (cover art by Ivica Stevanovic).

The Bestiary is an anthology of short pieces, each describing a creature one suspects does not actually exist. The gimmick is that there is one strange animal with a name beginning with each letter of the alphabet, plus creatures called The Ampersand and The          .

The strength of this anthology is the array of writing talent Ann VanderMeer has assembled. How can you go wrong reading pieces by such authors as China Miéville, Catherynne M. Valente, Brian Evenson, Vandana Singh, Michael Cisco, Stephen Graham Jones, Karen Heuler, Karin Tidbeck, Felix Gilman, etc. etc.? The weakness is the pieces are similar enough that after a while the book can start to feel like a single gag repeated until it gets tiresome.

But the best pieces here are very good indeed. To me the funniest story in the book is "The Daydreamer by Proxy" by Dexter Palmer, about a genetically engineered parasite that your employer urges to try, because it will make you a wonderfully efficient worker! At least for a while. I think the most clever and elegantly done story is "Tongues of Moon / False Toads" by Cat Rambo, about an animal remarkably efficient at camouflage. ("One may go so far as to imitate an alchemist and thus fall prey to a recursive trap, lost in a mental mise-en-scène, seeking itself.")

And my overall personal favorite in the book is "The Counsellor Crow" by Karen Lord, perhaps because it has a rather more pointed message than most of the pieces. "The Counsellor Crow" describes a type of corvid whose appearances tend to coincide with human misery:

The turning point in the evolution of the Counsellor Crow took place not in Ildcrest, but in neighbouring Ilderland, where a new Prince and a resurgent nobility developed a strongly nationalistic and anti-modernist ideology that called for a return to old values and old ways. Modern technology was banned, foreigners were ousted, and the nobility tried a motley assortment of centuries-old garments, weaponry and rituals in an attempt to replace a Golden Age that never was with a New Age of their own devising. Naturally, with all the permutations and combinations of available customs, there were disputes, rebellions, and then civil war. The sacred battlefields of Ilderia returned, and the Counsellor Crows fed and grew fat.

The narrator of this scholarly article on the Counsellor Crow suspects the animal of using mimicry, speculating whether it is "the first recorded instance of a predator that mimics not the voice, nor the appearance, nor the scent of its prey, but their thoughts." The narrator ends with the alarming observation that the population of Counsellor Crows is now the highest on record.

Karen Lord, originally from Barbados, has only been publishing fiction since 2010 but already has amassed an impressive collection of awards. She does not often write short fiction, so "The Counsellor Crow" offers a rare opportunity to sample her writing in a single sitting.

Battle of the 2013 Books, Bracket One, Championship Round :: The Best of All Possible Worlds by Karen Lord vs. The Cusanus Game by Wolfgang Jeschke

We have arrived at the championship round of our current bracket of the Battle of the Books. In one corner we have The Best of All Possible Worlds by Karen Lord. In the other corner we have The Cusanus Game by Wolfgang Jeschke. Two fine books. I (Jackie) have read through Page 200 of both these books, and the novel I most want to continue reading to the end will be the champion of Bracket One of the Fantastic Reviews Battle of the 2013 Books.

The Best of All Possible Worlds:  Del Rey; February 2013; 306 pages; book design by Victoria Wong. Keren Lord's debut novel, Redemption in Indigo, was published in 2010 and won the Frank Collymore Literary Prize in Barbados.

The Best of All Possible Worlds defeated 23 Years on Fire by Joel Shepherd in the first round, overpowered The Secret of Abdu El Yezdi by Mark Hodder in the second round, and got past Electricity & Other Dreams by Micah Dean Hicks in the semifinal round to reach the championship.

In the first 200 pages of The Best of All Possible Worlds, we learn that the Sadiri are people with advanced mental capacities; they share a low-level telepathic bond. Many men travel off-world but the females mostly stay on the planet. When their planet is poisoned, killing everyone, the off-world men must come up with a plan for their race to survive. "Councillor" Dllenahkh was off-world on a meditation retreat when the planet-wide genocide occurred. He is sent on a mission to the planet Cygnus Beta to decide what might be done.

Dllenahkh meets biotechnician Delarua of Cygnus Beta who has studied the Sadiri language and society. She's the perfect Cygnian government worker to accompany Dllenahkh and to introduce him to the different settlements. Delarua discovers that Dllenahkh is looking for women with Sadiri genetic heritage, and hopes that many of the women will volunteer to become wives and bear offspring so that the Sadiri mental abilities and customs can survive.

A group is gathered to travel the world for a year to make genetic tests at the various settlements on Cygnus Beta. The settlements have varied cultures, which feel like different worlds. One settlement, on the Kir'tahsg Islands, has a caste system. Delarua is notified that the settlement's elite deal in slave trading and treat the poor people abhorrently, which is against rules and regulation of Cygnus Beta. Delarua, without the settlement's approval, illegally tests the servants' and workers' blood and discovers a cruel fact. In order to fix the problem, Delarua must let her government know what she's done, which causes her to lose her government job. Dllenahkh then hires Delarua to continue working for the Sadiri because of her "insightfulness concerning Sadiri society."

Delarua is happy to stay with the group and works hard at the new job. She needs to use drug patches to keep herself awake. She finds it difficult because Sadiri need less sleep than Terrans. At another settlement, Delarua and group member Nasiha are attacked. The chemical used to try to subdue them interacts with Delarua's drug patches. Her short term memory is affected. Dllenahkh and Delarua are becoming closer.

The Cusanus Game:  Tor, English translation September 2013; originally published in 2005 in Germany; 538 pages; translator: Ross Benjamin. Wolfgang Jeschle was a German science fiction writer who also wrote Last Day of Creation.

The Cusanus Game overpowered The God Tattoo by Tom Lloyd in the first round, won a decision over The Doctor and the Dinosaurs by Mike Resnick in the second round, and got past Burning Paradise by Robert Charles Wilson in the semifinal round to reach the championship.

The prologue in The Cusanus Game takes place in 1425. Caravan Leader Emilio meets with a starship from the future, the 21st century, to trade goods. Bahktir, part of the caravan, learns his son Hakim was killed while trying to enter the area where past and future meets.

In the mid-21st century, botany student Domenica is in her last year of college in Rome. The nuclear war of 2052 in Germany has affected all of Europe. Factions are still fighting in Italy. Genetic mutations occur among people and plants. People are trying to survive in a violent and scary world.

Domenica and some friends apply for a job with the Rinascita Project. Domenica is not sure what the job is about but they need a botanist and jobs are hard to find. She ends up getting the job with four other friends, including a theoretical physicist and a medieval historian. Domenica's ex-boyfriend Bernd and his sister turn down the job offer because they think bad things will come from this project. Domenica and the others taking the job travel to Venice for more testing and orientation.

In this future, nanotechnology is used in various ways, and not all are favorable. Nanos that are meant to bolster the wooden pilings that hold up Venice will occasionally get ingested by fish and, to the fishermen's disgust, the fish morph into wood. The scientists created an ice border around Venice to keep the nanos confined, but now the nanos have penetrated the border and are damaging the environment.

In the mid-1400s, Caravan leader Emilio and Bahktir are ready to meet the starship from the future to trade goods. Bahktir's son Hakim is still alive in this timeline. Emilio and Bahktir go to the ship and see Hakim with broken bones prone on a wheeled stretcher. The starship liaison says they will take Hakim to a clinic in Mantua to get him healed. Bahktir can get him the next time they trade goods.

Domenica learns that she will travel to the 1400s to gather seeds and plants and bring them back to her time. In this timeline, 1400s Cardinal Nicolaus Cusanus learns that a witch who collects seeds and plants and labels them with strange Latin names is going to be burned at the stake.

The Battle:  We have the galaxy-spanning science fiction epic The Best of All Possible Worlds vying to become champion against The Cusanus Game, a futuristic science fiction novel that involves nuclear disaster and time travel.

In The Best of All Possible Worlds, I find the idea of searching for mates with the right genetic heritage weird, but the storyline makes it seem plausible: 1) the genocide on the planet Sadira and 2) the desire of the government of Cygnus Beta to have more information about the settlements on the planet. As the group travels around Cygnus Beta, which was described as "a galactic hinterland of pioneers and refugees," their interactions with the varied subcultures are believable. Some settlements are downright strange.

One settlement is hidden, a monastery with Sidiri monks, both men and women, whose mental abilities surpass the Sidiri. Telepathy and telekinesis are the norm for them. At one point, Dllenahkh and Delarua, with the help of a Sidiri monk, walk across a fast moving creek and fly down into a valley.

Humor is sprinkled throughout the book. Delarua must translate between Dllenahkh and the Faerie Queen, a forest settlement leader. Delarua unknowingly tones it down a bit, sounding more like an emotionless Sadiri than herself, jealous with their interaction. Delarua discovers that Sadiri send their bad people off-planet. She realizes that the Sidiri on her world and elsewhere are "diplomats and judges, pilots and scientists, nuns and monks...and jailbirds." Delarua is a hoot!

The characters are fleshed out and believable, and I like them. The Sadiri have mental abilities and they push emotions away, like Spock on Star Trek. Some of their interactions can be amusing.

I need to mention the proliferation of names and diseases beginning with the letter "D." It simply annoys me.

The Cusanus Game seemed better to me in the second hundred pages, probably because there weren't as many time switches. In the first hundred pages, we switched back and forth from Domenica's present to her past one year earlier more often than I would have liked.

The Cusanus Game is well written and offers scientific explanations behind the ability to time jump backwards and to the present, never into the future. Simply put, "we produce the match, which aligns the here and now with the there and then." But don't let that tiny bit of simplicity fool you. Discussions about solitons, quantum physics, particle waves, space-time, "nanos," and other scientific verbiage fill pages and pages, most of which makes sense. It's interesting stuff, and I love reading about quantum physics.

Domenica doesn't seem to catch on to the hologram experience, which she would if she were more observant. She's taken into a simulation and she goes through the whole thing not realizing that it was fake, even though clues hit her in the face throughout. She seems oblivious even though her ex-boyfriend told her time travel was involved in the project. Domenica seemed intelligent and compassionate to me earlier in the book. Now she seems dense. Unfortunately, I don't feel connected to the characters in The Cusanus Game.

Descriptions in The Cusanus Game in some parts are masterpieces, yet in others seem overdone or confusing. I also find some descriptions both fascinating and frustrating, such as in a description Domenica gives of a mechanical wheel-chair:

It looked like an armchair spun out of strong silver wire, or rather a wicker beach chair...with the undulating movements of its wire bristles or tentacles or whatever the winding, surging, thin tendrils of flexible steel wire should be called...

I think the description should be exact to help the reader visualize because, to me, armchair and beach chair are very different, as are wire bristles and tendrils. I'd prefer a more exact simplified description. This book was originally written in German, which might account for this type of overlap.

This book is not a fast read; challenging time flips, beautiful prose with some confusing storylines, and interesting science cannot be skimmed.

There's a gift in writing time travel and this book does a great job. Many chapters begin with a different time period. After 200 pages, we're seeing that history is already changing. I'm curious to see what happens, and I look forward to figuring out why the past now has different outcomes. Will Domenica burn at the stake when she goes back in time? What havoc does Emilio plan to create when the spaceship brings back a healed Hakim?

The winner of this match of Battle of the Books will be the champion of the 16 books placed in this bracket. I (Jackie), after reading 200 pages of each book in this last battle, have a difficult decision to make because both books have their positives and negatives. However, I find myself drawn to the book where I like the characters enough to read about what happens to them and that also suggests that a possible romance is afoot. Despite that last revelation, which I do so grudgingly, I plan to finish reading both books. Well done I say to these two novels!

THE WINNER: The Best of All Possible Worlds by Karen Lord

The Best of All Possible Worlds wins Bracket One of the Fantastic Reviews Battle of the 2013 Books. Congratulations to Karen Lord as our newest Battle of the Books champion!

To see the completed bracket, click here.

We've crowned a winner for this bracket, but soon we'll announce a whole new bracket of sixteen books. Aaron will be judging the next bracket of Battle of the Books. Stay tuned for more book battles to come!

Battle of the 2013 Books, Bracket One, First Semifinal :: Electricity & Other Dreams by Micah Dean Hicks vs. The Best of All Possible Worlds by Karen Lord

Our first semifinal match in Bracket One of the Battle of the 2013 Books features Electricity & Other Dreams by Micah Dean Hicks going against The Best of All Possible Worlds by Karen Lord. In the semifinal round, the books are judged after reading a total of 100 pages. The winner, the book I (Jackie) most want to continue reading after 100 pages, will advance to the championship round.

Electricity & Other Dreams:  New American Press; May 2013 (the collection of 26 stories were published individually from 2010 to 2012); 224 pages; cover design and interior art by Liz Green. Micah Dean Hicks writes "magical realism, modern fairy tales, and other kinds of magical stories."

Electricity & Other Dreams got past The Returned by Jason Mott in the first round, and edged by Fiend by Peter Stenson in the second round to reach the semifinals.

After reading 50 pages of short stories in Electricity & Other Dreams, I met alligator men, chickens who ran a meth lab, Lijah and his car, a contractor with a jinn ring, a plumber ghostbuster, and a man who lived in cans. The second 50 pages brought us more fantastical tales that twist and turn in magical directions.

"How the Weatherman Beat the Storm" -- Carlos drives the van that takes the TV camera crew to their various locations. The "weather girl" is beautiful and Carlos can't take his eyes off her. One day he ends up on the smoking balcony with the weather girl. He tries to impress her and says he has always wanted to be a weatherman, which is a big lie. The weather girl says, really? He says yes. The weather girl brings down a storm cloud onto his back. She tells him that when he can make the storm go away, then he'd be a real weatherman. Carlos's life just got complicated.

"The Famine of Music" -- A beautiful inventor uses her beauty to lure people to her home so she can experiment on them. She's changing their ears to ones made of satellite dishes, ear buds, guitar strings, and trumpet valves. Men and women let her alter their ears and forgive her, probably due to their weird attraction to her. The modified people, who soon number in thousands, find that "Everything is music." Seven brothers sit on a cliff and listen to the sound of waves crashing on the rocks. Sadly, the sound is music and not waves. They go into town to find the missing sound of waves, which happens to come from the mouths of whores. "Keep talking," say the brothers. Then a mariachi band rolls into town.

"The Butcher’s Chimes" -- An old woman who makes chimes is raising her deceased daughter's nine kids. She takes the kids to the dump where they find old appliances or craft pieces that the old woman can fix and sell or use to make chimes. The woman takes the fishing line and wire and runs it through her teeth to make it straight, and anything she strings seems to come to life. A meat fair comes to the area. The old woman tells her grandkids to line their pockets with plastic bags and newspaper. They will go to the fair and steal meat and put it in their freezer. At the fair, "The Cleaver" watches the kids steal meat. He keeps track and will get his money's worth when the time comes. As the woman and kids put the meat in the freezer, she sees that she only has eight kids. She goes back with the oldest kids to look for the missing girl. Meanwhile the other kids take the meat and string it together into the shape of a boy they call Pigboy, and he comes to life.

"The Hairdresser, the Giant, and the King of Roses" -- Marti is a high school scientist, building dangerous science projects. Great things are expected of her.

A witch visits Marti while she is packing for college. The witch touches Marti on her head and steals Marti's charmed life. The witch goes to college, and Marti becomes a hairdresser, but she has a special power. Her fingers, running through people's hair, change hair to gold. Her business flourishes while the witch enjoys all the things Marti was supposed to have – fame, money, self-fulfillment.

Ricky Long is a tycoon. He has a wife and seven daughters. Every couple of months, he brings his family to Marti's hair salon to have their hair turned to gold. At home, he cuts their hair of gold and sends it all to a Cash for Gold company. Ricky begins buying up the town. He surrounds every property with a moat of thorny rose bushes. He hires ten-foot-tall Bryon Cox to plant the bushes. The men who work for Ricky would like to see Bryon kill Ricky, but Ricky has a hold on Bryon.

One day Marti invites Bryon in to get his hair washed and changes it to gold. Ricky sees this and cuts Bryon's hair and keeps the gold. Marti gets mad and comes up with a plan.

"Bluebeard’s Daughter" -- Bluebeard likes the check-out girl at the grocery store. She eventually moves in with him. There's a locked drawer that Bluebeard doesn't want her to open, but she eventually finds the key. In the drawer are photos of all Bluebeard's past wives. Each wife has committed suicide. Soon, the grocery clerk climbs a tree and jumps, killing herself. Bluebeard is devastated. He gets married again, and this wife gets pregnant. He's so excited. Will the curse strike again?

The Best of All Possible Worlds:   Del Rey; February 2013; 306 pages; book design by Victoria Wong. Keren Lord's debut novel, Redemption in Indigo, was published in 2010 and won the Frank Collymore Literary Prize in Barbados.

The Best of All Possible Worlds defeated 23 Years on Fire by Joel Shepherd in the first round, and overpowered The Secret of Abdu El Yezdi by Mark Hodder in the second round to reach the semifinals.

The first 50 pages of The Best of All Possible Worlds find us on the planet Cygnus Beta. "Councillor" Dllenahkh, a Sadirian, is on a mission to find other humans with Sadiri genetic heritage. His own planet was poisoned, killing most of the females, since they rarely go off-planet. Male Sadiri want to find suitable Sadiri-genetic-compatible females, with which to mate, in order for their race to continue. They are telepaths.

The Cygnian Delarua is assigned to travel with Dllenahkh and others to the various distant villages to do genetic testing. Discussions with the leaders of each settlement are undertaken to work out possible mating agreements. During these village visits, Dllenahkh and the team find various telepathic abilities being used. Delarua is also found to have some "psi" abilities.

In the second 50 pages, we discover more about the characters. Dllenahkh needs to "realign his nodes," or something like that, at the nearest monastery since he was affected by surges of anger that were difficult to control. Delarua drops Dllenahkh off at the Monserrat monastery, and takes a side trip to visit her sister Maria and her family. Maria married Delarua's past love interest Ioan. He seems to have a hold on Delarua's mind, which is a punishable offense. When Dllenahkh, and Fergus another team member, arrive in the shuttle to pick her up, Dllenahkh feels the mind control Ioan has on Delarua. On the shuttle, Dllenahkh touches Delarua's forehead, draining the mind-hold. Delarua suddenly feels whole again. Delarua contacts the authorities to turn in Ioan, which she couldn't do until now. Delarua needs her own therapy, which Dr. Daniyel, part of their team, can perform.

The group decides to split into two groups to hit more settlements. Delarua, Dllenahkh, and others travel to the next settlement on forest elephants. Along the way they must cross a rushing river. The mahout swims with the elephants and urges the others to do so, but they decide to take a rickety rope bridge instead. As Delarua and Dllenahkh cross, a surge in the river washes them off the bridge, and Delarua loses consciousness. She comes to in a hidden monastery filled with monks — men, women, and children. They are Sidiri and have surpassed the mind control that Dllenahkh's race has achieved. Delarua wonders what she and Dllenahkh should do next.

The Battle:  We have two different books battling it out to make it into the finals. The fantastical short-story collection Electricity & Other Dreams works its magic against the galaxy-spanning science fiction epic The Best of All Possible Worlds.

Through 100 pages, I am enjoying the bizarre, varied tales found in Electricity & Other Dreams. However, the rich planet of Cygnus Beta and the variety of settlements in The Best of All Possible Worlds seems like I'm traveling to different settings and experiencing new peoples with each sojourn. Both books are written with flourish and detail and keep me entertained.

Electricity & Other Dreams takes me to the world of magical realism. In "How the Weatherman Beat the Storm" we watch the weather girl as "she tumbled up into the wind and was gone." It happily reminded me of Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude when Remedios the Beauty flies into the sky holding a sheet that she was pinning on the clothesline. Just as good and just as amazing! There is humor within the stories as well as horror. Give me another short story to read!

The Best of All Possible Worlds is more than a story of one race's fight to survive. The character development unfolds with each chapter. Details emerge about the world as the characters travel the planet. I find more humor with each chapter. When Dllenahkh needs to rejuvenate at a monastery, Delarua says to herself, "My God, get this man to a meditation chamber, stat!" Quite funny when reading the book!

I still dislike all the names beginning with a "D." Really? We have Dllenahkh, Delarua, Darithiven, and Dr. Daniyle, who has Dalthi's Syndrome. Also, something was compared to an "Indiana Jones classic holovid." That brought me out of the story.

In Electricity & Other Dreams, there were seven brothers in one short story and seven daughters in another. I wondered if the author's favorite number was seven or maybe the reference went past me.

After reading 100 pages, I (Jackie) must choose which of these two well-written, romp-filled, entertaining books will go on the battle in the championship round. One book grabs my attention a bit more at this time, and I want to follow the characters on their planet-wide journey.

THE WINNER: The Best of All Possible Worlds by Karen Lord

The Best of All Possible Worlds advances to the championship round to face either Burning Paradise by Robert Charles Wilson or The Cusanus Game by Wolfgang Jeschke.

To see the whole bracket, click here.

Battle of the 2013 Books, Bracket One :: Final Four

We're down to the Final Four in Bracket One of Fantastic Reviews Battle of the 2013 Books:

Electricity & Other Dreams by Micah Dean Hicks
vs.
The Best of All Possible Worlds by Karen Lord

Burning Paradise by Robert Charles Wilson
vs.
The Cusanus Game by Wolfgang Jeschke

We hope you've enjoyed this tournament so far. Now only four books remain of the starting sixteen. This bracket contained books from across the genre. There were fantasy novels, YA fantasy, science fiction, mainstream speculative fiction, story collections and a horror novel. To get to the Final Four, these four books won their first two matches. The other books in the competition, and some of them were quite good but by chance faced a strong competitor, have been knocked out of the running, like in college basketball's March Madness.

Judging between books, which can be totally different, based on reading only 25 or 50 pages can be difficult. It's also inherently subjective. But our Battle of the Books format allows us to sample and spread the word about many more new books and authors than we otherwise could.

In this bracket, two of the four books which were "seeded" reached the Final Four. The unseeded books which made it to the Final Four are Electricity & Other Dreams by Micah Dean Hicks and Burning Paradise by Robert Charles Wilson.

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. Several future brackets of Battle of the Books are now in the hands of our reviewers, so check back for many more battles to come.

Battle of the 2013 Books, Bracket One, Second Round :: The Best of All Possible Worlds by Karen Lord vs. The Secret of Abdu El Yezdi by Mark Hodder

Continuing with the second round of Bracket One of the Battle of the 2013 Books we have The Best of All Possible Worlds by Karen Lord going against The Secret of Abdu El Yezdi by Mark Hodder. In the second round, the books are judged after reading a total of 50 pages. The winner will be the book I (Jackie) most want to continue reading after 50 pages.

The Best of All Possible Worlds:  Del Rey; February 2013; 306 pages; book design by Victoria Wong. Keren Lord's debut novel, Redemption in Indigo, was published in 2010 and won the Frank Collymore Literary Prize in Barbados. The Best of All Possible Worlds defeated 23 Years on Fire by Joel Shepherd to get into the second round.

In The Best of All Possible Worlds, the first event is a Sadirian genocide. The Sadirians are an introspective people whose males go off-world on meditation retreats. The women rarely go off world. While Dllenahkh was off-world on a meditation, he learned that his home world had been poisoned, killing most of the females.

The people responsible for the vicious murders are the taSadiri or Ainya people, who are originally from the Sadirian home world. They do not practice the meditation discipline and had left the home planet, or possibly were ousted.

Sadirian Counsellor Dllenahkh travels to the planet Cyrus Beta. Dllenahkh is on a mission to find mates for the planet-wide multitude of males who lost their wives. If they cannot secure mates with similar Sadiri genetic heritage, their race might become extinct.

Biotechnician Delarua of Cyrus Beta has been demoted to Civil Service liaison, which mostly involves working with Counsellor Dllenahkh and the Sadiri people. Delarua is not happy to relinquish her biotechnician job to the famous Dr. Freyda Mar, although a friendship between them is easily established.

Delarua travels with Dr. Mar and Dllenahkh in the province. During the hours of driving time, Dr. Mar likes to sing loudly. One day, Dllenahkh shows up with Dr. Lanuri and suggests Lanuri and Mar take one car, and Dllenahkh and Delarua take another. Delarua thought the move was to separate Dllenahkh from Dr. Mar's singing. The actual purpose was to put the other two together. Dllenahkh believed they’d make a good match since Mar and Lanuri had similar personalities and Dr. Mar had Sadiri heritage. And he was right.

Soon, Delarua and Dllenahkh set out with a mission team on a year-long mission to travel around the planet, looking for genetic matches for the Sadirian males. Other team members include Dr. Qeturah Daniyel, who does the lab work and Sadirian Jorel who seems bent on finding a mate. Jorel asks Delarua if Lian is a female. Delarua is taken aback saying it's not polite to ask the gender of someone who claims to be gender-neutral, and "Lian has decided to live without reference to gender."

The team comes to a fishing settlement and discovers Sadirian genetic matches. When their work is done and it's time to leave for the next settlement, a boat shows up with a dead fisherman. This settlement has quarreled with another settlement over fishing boundaries. The community leaders ask the team to stay out of their fight, but the team seems to have other ideas.

The Secret of Abdu El Yezdi:  A Burton & Swineburne book: Pyr; July 2013; 438 pages; cover illustration, John Sullivan; cover design by Jacqueline Nasso Cooke. Mark Hodder is the author of A Red Sun Also Rises and the Burton & Swinburne books, which also include The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack, The Curious Case of the Clockwork Man, and Expedition to the Mountains of the Moon. The Secret of Abdu El Yezdi won a decision over Mage's Blood by David Hair to get into the second round.

The Secret of Abdu El Yezdi begins on a British dirigible, the HMA Orpheus, in 1859. The feverish Captain Burton is recovering from malaria, which he contracted while on the expedition in Africa looking for the source of the Nile. Burton enjoys drinking Saltzmann's tincture that has cocaine as a major ingredient because it seems to help him function. Sister Raghavendra, Burton's nurse and fellow explorer, says the Captain's misconceptions stem from the malaria medication, and he'll be better soon.

Burton soon hears chanting and decides to investigate. In a distant cabin Burton sees Mr. Oliphant, Lord Elgin's secretary, standing in the center of a pentagram drawn on the floor, chanting over a kneeling and dazed Stroyan – Burton's friend. Oliphant then slits Stroyan's throat. The walls are covered with symbols and numbers. Oliphant declares that Burton can't stop him now because the master has been summoned. Burton whips out the sword from his walking stick and attacks Oliphant, eventually knocking him out. Fortunately, others soon arrive to help Burton. Oliphant is shackled and stowed in a cabin to await further questioning when he gains consciousness.

Around this time the telegraph develops problems. It is disconnected but still reveals a disjointed message with English words and "nonsensical balderdash," which no one understands. Also, strange lights are in the sky, like an aurora borealis.

Meanwhile the dirigible lands in Vienna to pick up Lord Stanley, Lord Elgin and Prince Albert, widower of Queen Victoria.

Lord Elgin reveals info about his secretary, Mr. Oliphant, to Burton. Oliphant had become overly involved with a book, which stated that there are multiple levels of existence that can be seen by using mind-altering drugs. Burton replies, "Utter claptrap!"

The airship lands at London's Royal Navy Air Service Station. Prince Albert, Lord Elgin, and Lord Stanley climb into a six-wheeled armor-plated carriage pulled by two steam horses. Captain Burton, Sister Raghavendra, and Royal Geographical Society (RGS) member Sir Roderick Murchinson depart in another growler, a steam-horse conveyance. Burton is disgusted with the smell in the air but learns that the sewage system is being revamped and should smell better in a couple months.

On the way to the RGS welcome-back-reception, Murchinson discusses the Society and its connection to communicating with the dead and the connection to the Afterlife. Sister Raghavendra is skeptical but open to the ideas while Burton believes the concepts are absurd. Murchinson says that Burton is in the minority, and even the Prince backs the RGS.

After the reception and after downing more Saltzmann's tincture, Burton walks home alone under the strange aurora borealis lights. He takes a shortcut through some seedy part of town. Burton gets accosted by a man who accuses Burton of being part of the assassination of Queen Victoria some 20 years earlier. But once discovering that it would be impossible, due to Burton's age, the man who calls himself Macallister Fogg takes off.

The next day, Burton does his best to find Fogg to no avail. From a paperboy, who is also a Whisperer who gathers information, Burton finds out that "Macallister Fogg" is the name of a fictional detective in a periodical. Burton will have to try a different path to find the elusive man.

The Battle: We have The Best of all Possible Worlds, a galaxy-spanning science fiction epic, battle a dark, alternate-history, steampunk novel The Secret of Abdu El Yezdi.

The Best of all Possible Worlds has us follow the Sadirian Dllenahkh and the Cygnian Delarua. In the first 25 pages, I wrongly assumed Delarua was male. The first person narrative didn't give me a clue. In the second 25 pages more details arose as to Delarua's gender as well as to the non-importance of gender identity with the Cygnians. This fact now seems important and a bit amusing since the Sadiri males are looking for Cygnian females with Sadiri genetic heritage. Looking for females in a sometimes gender-neutral society might prove difficult.

Delarua has genetic bloodlines to the Ntshune, who have the ability to make people laugh, "giving people the giggles," which I find to be a unique gift. Dllenahkh has some ability to be genetic matchmaker, which he demonstrates by pushing Dr. Mar together with Dr. Lanuri.

A simple plot gets more interesting as details show up within the story. I'm enjoying the interaction between the characters. The reader learns at the same time the characters do. I felt surprise yet amused when I found out the true sex of Delarua.

In the earlier pages of The Secret of Abdu El Yezdi, the concept of multiple levels of existence is proposed. When Burton talks with the RGS about the Afterlife, the thought arises about how these two ideas might be connected.

When Burton is accosted by "Macallister Fogg," another mystery pops up, and I’m curious to learn more about this fake character. I think he might be Sherlock Holmes, but that’s just a wild guess.

After Burton arrives in London, he grabs life by the horns and takes no flack, even when accosted at gunpoint. I like Burton and root for him as he tries to fit into civilian life after his African expedition.

Sometimes alternate reality novels stick in historical characters, which I like when they are major or minor characters in the story but not when they enter the story just as tidbits of fact. In The Secret of Abdu El Yezdi, Sir Murchinson brought up famous civil engineer Bazalgette who oversaw the rebuilding of London's sewage system. We'll probably not hear about him again.

Both stories continue to evolve and go in directions that capture my attention, with good writing and bizarre worlds. Neither story provided more information about the Caretaker in The Best of All Possible Worlds or Swineburne in The Secret of Abdul El Yezdi. I’m sure that details will come in later chapters.

After reading 50 pages of each, I (Jackie) like both novels, however, only one of these books can continue in Battle of the Books. I choose to continue reading about people on another planet instead of people in an alternate reality.

THE WINNER: The Best of All Possible Worlds by Karen Lord

The Best of All Possible Worlds advances to the semi-finals round to take on Electricity & Other Dreams by Micah Dean Hicks.

To see the whole bracket, click here.

Battle of the 2013 Books, Bracket One, First Round :: 23 Years on Fire by Joel Shepherd vs. The Best of All Possible Worlds by Karen Lord

The third match in the first round of Bracket One of the Battle of the 2013 Books features 23 Years on Fire by Joel Shepherd doing battle with The Best of All Possible Worlds by Karen Lord. The winner will be the book I (Jackie) most want to continue reading after 25 pages.

23 Years on Fire:  Pyr; 2013; 438 pages; cover illustration by Stephan Martiniere; cover design by Jacqueline Nasso Cooke. The novel 23 Years on Fire is the fourth book in the military science fiction Cassandra Kresnov series. Joel Shepherd has written nine science fiction and fantasy novels.

23 Years on Fire begins with Ari, creeping through a dark city on planet Anjula, then entering Vice President Moon's apartment to steal security codes. He plans to overthrow the government with help from his fellow terrorists that are, at the same time, entering the atmosphere in their pods. The 56 pods are transporting manufactured GIs (which include Cassandra Kresnov, part of the "elite six") who are created for war.

While Ari continues his quest to control the security systems of the city, Kassandra and her warriors break out of the pods on their "jumpjet" vehicles, landing on roofs and working their way into the government buildings, hoping to take over the city as quickly as possible.

Kassandra enters a building with a few of her elite group. They separate and Kassandra goes alone, fighting and destroying with her amazing guns and incredible agility. The government workers are experimenters, doing genetic manipulation on the GIs. They are actively breeding, creating, and killing these GIs in the name of science. Kassandra and her elite GIs and other GIs plan to eliminate this government program, by taking control of the island city.

The Best of All Possible Worlds:  Del Rey; 2013; 306 pages; book design by Victoria Wong. Keren Lord's debut novel, Redemption in Indigo, was published in 2010 and won the Frank Collymore Literary Prize in Barbados.

The Best of All Possible Worlds, galaxy-spanning science fiction epic, begins with a third-person narrator. Dllenahkh, who is on an off-world meditation retreat from his home world. A messenger tells him that the people on his home planet have been destroyed, all poisoned. Very few Sadiri females are left from this race because the females don't meditate off-world, thus most of them were on the planet when it was attacked.

Dllenahkh's people, the Sadirians, have discovered that the Ainya people from planet Ain were responsible for poisoning the Sadirians.

The Ainya people, also called the "taSadiri," are the same race as the Sadirians, but do not practice the mental disciplines like the Sadiri. This offshoot group left planet Sadiri to settle on planet Ain, although they felt they were ousted from the homeworld, which might be the reason for their poisoning of that world.

Chapter 2 changes voice to the first-person viewpoint of biotechnician Delarua, the Second Assistant of Tlaxce Province on planet Cyrus Beta. Delarua must work with the Sadirian Counsellor Dllenahkh, who left the meditation world and has moved to Cyrus Beta, which is a planet that has been described as "a galactic hinterland of pioneers and refugees."

Other male Sadirians join Dllenahkh on the planet Cyrus Beta. The Sadirians have an agenda.

Second Assistant Delarua takes Dllenahkh on a tour of the Tlaxce Province. Delarua deduces that the male Sadirians' goal is to procreate with genetically-compatible Tlaxcian women, hoping to increase the Sadirian race. Delarua calls Dllenahkh out for being an arrogant race. Dllenahkh seems impressed that Delarua is so astute.

Delarua arrives at work one day to find he has been demoted from Second Assistant to Civil Service liaison, which mostly involves working with Counsellor Dllenahkh and the Sadiri people. Delarua is not happy to relinquish his biotechnician job to the famous Dr. Freyda Mar. Delarua has two months left before his career takes a detour.

The Battle: An epic science fiction novel The Best of All Possible Worlds battles against the fourth book in a science fiction series 23 Years on Fire, which puts a lot of pressure on the beginning structure of the latter book-in-a-series.

The Best of All Possible Worlds introduces two interesting people: Dllenahkh and Delarua. Delarua is a humorous, fun-loving, blunt guy, who tells-it-like-it-is, which is very refreshing, and his bantering humor keep me engaged in the story. I like Delarua, and his first-person observations help move the story along without getting bogged down in too much foreshadowing.

The arrogant Dllenahkh is faced with the possible extinction of his race after the Ainya poisoned his home world and killed most of the females on the Sadirian planet. The two plots intertwine as do the lives of these two characters, Delarua and Dllenahkh. I want to know more about these people as well as other curiosities (like who are the Caretakers) that were mentioned within the first 25 pages of the book.

Despite how much I, Jackie, have enjoyed these chapters so far, I was greatly upset that these two main characters have names that begin with the same letter. It's always easier for me to keep people straight when names are not similar.  Fortunately, I didn't have any other issues with this novel.

In 23 Years on Fire I had problems with how the author introduced the back story, since we are reading the fourth book in a series. I had to decipher and remember too many acronyms: VTS, VR, CNS, NCT, CDF, FSA, NCT. I also had to figure out too much military tech vocabulary: tacnet, armscomp, optocam, UAVs, AMAPS. Finally, after trudging through 19 acronym-filled pages, the story began to get interesting.

Following Ari from page one, I didn't realize that he was part of the "good guys" until Kassandra entered the story. I had to do a reversal in thinking, deciding that I should now be on the side of Ari and Kassandra instead of rooting for the "innocent" sleeping city.

My curiosity grew about the details of the GI soldiers. However, I did not find out what the difference was between "straight humans" and GIs. I’ve deduced that the GIs are manufactured (cloned?) people, which is fascinating because (just a guess) they must "awake" as an adult soldier. I have no idea how they wake up as a fully-functioning adult—or if they do. One of the soldiers was a series 47, 4-year-old.

When introduced to Kassandra, I do become interested in the story. Kassandra and her modified human GIs made me realize why the attack was necessary. She has great insights. Commenting on why the government scientists on Anjula were experimenting and genetically messing with the GIs without questioning the humanity of their actions, Kassandra says, "All human psychology has a natural inclination toward consensus." Good observation, but it’s not a new concept.

I feel 23 Years on Fire would have stood out better had I previously read the first three books in the series.

In conclusion, after reading 25 pages of each book. I (Jackie) found 23 Years on Fire failed to garner my attention until about 20 pages into my reading. Although I’m interested to know more about the GIs, I was disappointed with most of the pages I read. Too many acronyms, for me, cluttered the beginning of this book.

The Best of All Possible Worlds caught my attention from page one. Although my only complaint so far dealt with both main characters having names beginning with a "d," I am intrigued and want to know more.

THE WINNER: The Best All Possible Worlds by Karen Lord

The Best All Possible Worlds advances to the second round, to take on either The Secret of Abdu El Yezdi by Mark Hodder or Mage's Blood by David Hair.

To see the whole bracket, click here.