Serial Killer--Who? Me?

The Sixth Extinction:  An Unnatural History
by Elizabeth Kolbert
Published by Henry Holt and Co.
4 Out of 5 Stars

Looking for a good horror novel that will keep you up late at night? One that features the most remorseless, inventive, and successful serial killer to ever stumble into the written word? One whose body count grows exponentially as his appetite becomes more ravenous, never sated? One who is so adept at killing that he does so without even seeming to try? Well, I have just the ticket: The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert. This is as frightening as it gets, people, and the villain here is us: me, you, and everyone else inhabiting this little blue marble called Earth.

Throughout history, there have been five mass extinction events: the Cretaceous-Paleogene, the Triassic-Jurassic, the Permian-Triassic, the Late Devonian, and the Ordovician-Silurian. All of these involve a cataclysmic shift in environmental conditions, some the result of an external impact. And now Kolbert reports that there may be a sixth extinction: the Anthropocene, caused by the impact of humanity on the environment. Many may believe that this is a byproduct of the Industrial Age, but Kolbert shows us how humans have always had a knack for wreaking wide scale environmental havoc. Always needing and wanting more from our natural resources, we, like kudzu, multiply rapidly, take over every inch of land available to us, and choke out the life that surrounds us.

Kolbert makes the case for recognizing the Anthropocene as a mass extinction event by exploring its casualties and its future victims. As she relates the extinction of the American mastodon, the great auk, and the Neanderthal, as well as the near extinction of the Panamanian golden frog, Hawaiian crow, Sumatran rhino, and several types of bats, one truth becomes increasingly clear: most of these extinctions began to take place when humans entered the environment.

Despite the disheartening nature of the topic, Kolbert writes with dry wit and gallows humor which (for me) always made an appearance at just the right time before things became too depressing. While there is a lot of science here, Kolbert keeps it accessible for those of us who don't while away our days reading scientific journals (you know, while our basic needs and consumer choices destroy everything around us), and her first person narrative keeps it from veering into textbook territory.

There's a lot here that I enjoyed, but three highlights stand out:

1) Kolbert's early chapters about men like Cuvier, Lyell, and Darwin, who were among the first to speculate on extinction and evolution. From our modern perspective, it's easy to forget that extinction, in particular, is a relatively new idea. There was a time when many scientists believed that nothing could become extinct over the natural progression of time; the discovery of fossils began to shift human understanding of the world and of creation. Reading as these men stumble in their understanding of the world, shifting and revising hypotheses, and ultimately discovering that there was a world that existed before mankind is fascinating.

2) The chapters on the sea and corals (which may eventually become extinct, taking with them several organisms that live symbiotically with corals) is particularly interesting for someone like myself who is happily landlocked. For those who don't live near or have a relationship with our seas and oceans, it's easy to see it as a vast nothingness and forget about the world teeming below our waters. The rate of ocean acidification is frightening.

3) The concept of a new Pangaea is an intriguing one. The ease with which we travel to other states, countries, and continents has, in a sense, reconstituted Pangaea in that we knowingly (and unknowingly) introduce new and often invasive plant and animal species into new environments. In doing so, these new host environments haven't developed nature's evolutionary safeguards to keep the balance between predator and prey, often with disastrous results.

While Kolbert makes all of this lucid and entertaining, as well as terrifying, I must admit to some fatigue when I got to the final chapters. Reading about mass extinction can really take a toll on someone whose worldview can basically be summed up as "people suck." Reading such incontrovertible evidence, and knowing that I myself cannot escape the guilt of this accusation, is, in the words of Kolbert on The Daily Show, "kind of a downer." However, we need more downers. We need to be more educated about what we're doing to our environment. Early man deserves a pass: you come into a place and think, "Damn. Look at all these mastodons. We can feast like kings!" So you settle in, live a life filled with mastodon hunts and mastodon meat, have several children, dress them in mastodon onesies, kill more mastodons, always assuming there will be more. After all, you've found the great all-you-can-eat mastodon buffet! You have no concept of the impact your consumption is having on the environment. You haven't seen Disney's The Lion King and therefore don't know of the majestic power of the circle of life (nor of the comedic gold of pairing a warthog with a meerkat). Such days of ignorance should be behind us. We know better, so we should do better.

Although, many of us are 4% Neanderthal because apparently early homo sapiens just couldn't resist the seductive power of a ridged brow. So maybe we're not so smart after all.  

Catnip for Bibliophiles

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore
by Robin Sloan
Published by Picador
3 1/2 Out of 5 Stars

A charming, quietly amusing book, Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore is the literary equivalent of a congratulatory pat on the back in recognition of loving books. "Oh, you read? Well, good for you!" It's a book designed to make the bibliophile break out into a near terminal case of the warm fuzzies, overcome with a sudden desire to break out a blanket, brew a pot of tea or coffee, and settle into a comfortable chair for a day of hardcore reading until--oh, wait!--I'm already doing all of that! Silly me! So the only thing one can do is snuggle into the cushions more deeply and turn the pages more quickly.

Now, for those who know me, that probably comes across as a bit snarky and, to be fair, it is and it isn't. I admit that there's a part of me whose switch isn't flipped by these books that so overtly and blatantly cater to bibliophilia. After all, I'm a lifelong reader and it seems a bit daft me reading a book about loving to read a book. But, damn it, there's a part of me that can't help but be beguiled by it and, if I'm going to go down that road, it might as well be with Mr. Penumbra and crew. Despite a certain predictability and a certain lack of suspense, there's nothing too twee or adorable about it, and the characters are quirky without being too eccentric and are amusing without being too culturally hip, self-referential, and smugly ironic. These are people I wouldn't mind knowing and people I can imagine existing. 

Clay Jannon is struggling in his career and in life. A victim of the recession, Clay's once promising public relations career has imploded. Having to redefine his vision of the future, Clay needs both money and direction. He finds both in a "Help Wanted" sign outside of Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore. Thankful to find gainful employment, it takes Clay a while to acknowledge the peculiarities of a 24-Hour bookstore. An excited clientele eagerly returns night after night to check out books from the "Way Backlist," a group of books on impossibly high shelves. The bookstore doesn't so much sell books as loan them to members for purposes Clay can only imagine. It's not long before Clay finds himself embroiled in secret literary societies, an impossible ancient puzzle, an adorable Googler, and a breakthrough that may exist at the nexus of the written word and technology.

I loved the narrator's unusual sense of humor and, despite myself, even grinned over some predictable tropes. So why only a 3? Well, it's more like a 3 1/2. Despite enjoying it, it didn't linger long in memory and the unraveling of the mystery wasn't particularly satisfying. Granted, the mystery here serves as more of a MacGuffin that allows Sloane (via Clay) to wax at length about the glories of reading, whether they be in the form of a book, an ebook, or an audiobook (all readers are welcome here), as well as the glorious possibilities afforded the human imagination through technology, but I still wanted a resolution with more substance given the build-up.

Again, 3 1/2 stars. And I would be lying if I said that half star isn't being thrown in just because of the extra bit of delight in realizing that, when I placed the book on the nightstand and turned off the light, it freaking glowed in the dark! I felt like a 7 year old getting excited over those glow in the dark planetary stickers. I'm telling you, this damn thing is just a giddy machine.

An Uneven Effort for My Favorite X-Man

X-Men Gambit:  House of Cards (Volume 1)
Written by John Layman
Illustrated by Georges Jeanty
Published by Marvel Comics
3 1/2 Out of 5 Stars

Looking for a little non-X excitement, Remy LeBeau returns to Louisiana, lured by a job that he can't resist and a longing for home. Hired by the beautiful Lili Penrose to steal a deck of cards from her own uncle, Gambit takes on the heist as much for the excitement as for the payoff. However, he learns too late that there's nothing ordinary about this deck of cards--they're a powerful set of tarot cards that can tap into dark powers and blind those who look upon them. Of course, for Gambit, the added element of danger makes this an irresistible challenge.

I'm going with 3.5 stars here. It is a fun story, but there were a few disappointments along the way--first and foremost of which is the art. The characters look somewhat cartoonish and malformed, which is made all the more obvious when compared with the amazing cover work done by Greg Land. I also think the story should have taken advantage of the New Orleans setting. Oh, there's some stereotypical New Orleans-ish references here, but they're flat and unoriginal. It would have been nice to see Gambit's scoundrel side played up a bit more, too. While there are some witty quips here and there, he certainly doesn't read like the same cavalier, devil-may-care Gambit that I'm accustomed to.

There are some fun elements to the story, however. When Gambit and Wolverine rout several well known thief watering holes, I couldn't wipe the stupid smile off of my face. In addition, a sex tape featuring an encounter between Lili and Remy surfaces toward the end of the book, and promises to make for some interesting reading in Gambit: Hath No Fury. 

X-Men Gambit:  Hath No Fury (Volume 2)
Written by John Layman
Illustrated by Georges Jeanty
Published by Marvel Comics
4 Out of 5 Stars

There are 3 stories collected here:  Gambit versus zombies in New Orleans, Gambit trying to sneak into Rogue's room to retrieve a sex tape sent to her by a young woman with an unfortunate knack for hacking into surveillance cameras all over New Orleans and an unrequited school girl crush on Gambit, and Gambit returning to New Orleans only to run into Belladonna and her new beau during a heist.

While I still have the same complaints about the art work in this collection as I had for Gambit:  House of Cards (there's a bland formlessness to the facial features of most of the characters), the story lines were better and took more advantage of the New Orleans setting.  However, I still don't think they quite took advantage of Gambit being away from the X-Men.  These stories could have been grittier and not so "wink-wink-nudge-nudge" about things.  As one character says of Gambit, "I've seen evidence of a personality type that's narcissistic, kleptomaniacal, pathological, adrenaline-addicted, anti-authority, and given to reckless, suicidal tendencies."  That's the Gambit I was hoping to read about, but other than that piece of dialogue, that's not really the Gambit I got.  This is not the Gambit who saved Storm when she regressed into childhood, nor is it the Gambit who returned to New Orleans for the tithing.

The main reason I'm giving this one a 4 star is that I thought the narrative with Gambit trying to retrieve the sex tape before Rogue could discover it was much more in line with the kind of character I've come to expect.

Required Cyberpunk Reading

Snow Crash
by Neal Stephenson
Published by Bantam Books
3 Out of 5 Stars

Snow Crash is definitely unlike anything I've ever read. The novel is fast paced with moments of dialogue and original writing that made me laugh out loud (okay, perhaps just chuckle quietly in appreciation). I appreciate the book's originality and can only imagine how surreal it must have been to read when it was originally published in 1992 (by today's standards, the technology that plays an integral part throughout the book is eerily familiar, especially given the book's context). 

While I was sometimes lost during the technical discussions among the hackers about how computers work, I was still able to piece together what was going on (albeit, probably not at the level that someone with more knowledge about computer programming could). To me, the truly fascinating part of the novel involved its incorporation of Sumerian mythology and the biblical story of the Tower of Babel, providing a creative explanation as to the relevance of these ancient stories to a modern and technology based culture. While I enjoyed the novel, parts of it felt disjointed and it suffered a bit from the hype that surrounds it as this resulted in my having certain set expectations before I began reading the book. Otherwise, it was an enjoyable read that I think would be better served by a second reading. 

Been There, Done That

City of Bones:  Book One
Written by Cassandra Clare
Published by Margaret K. McElderry Books
3 Out of 5 Stars

Fifteen year old Clary is different: she can see the real world that's hidden from the rest of humanity. As such, she is the only witness to a murder in a hip nightclub and, when those responsible for this death find out, they have questions for her. Clary's world is turned upside down when she learns that what she witnessed was actually a demon-slaying at the hands of the Shadow Hunters, an elite group created by the Angel to rid the world of demons and protect the world of man. As Clary discovers the truth of her own connection to this world of faeries, vampires, werewolves, wizards, and demons, she comes to realize that she's not the person she thought she was.

This is yet another entry into the teen fantasy category and, as such, you can practically see Clare going down the checklist for popular teen fantasy. Like other books in this genre, it's well over 400 pages. There's also a love triangle between a girl and two guys, one of whom is oh-so-right for her and one of whom is oh-so-wrong (and later we find out just how really, really, really wrong he is). There's a smorgasbord of supernatural creatures and enough twists and turns to qualify for a ride at Six Flags. 

However, for the most part, the story takes some original twists and often veers away from the more predictable scenarios that tend to plague this type of book. There's also a dash of humor that was refreshing. The female character, while not as strong as Katniss in The Hunger Games and not as whiny as Bella, is a nice cross between the two, which makes her a little more realistic. However, the narrative could have been improved if the novel were around 300 pages in length and focused more on the shadow hunter story line (but, no, we must save that for the next two books, as all teenage novels are now required to spawn a trifecta). There is too much filler, which robs the story of any real momentum (the scene with the vampires comes to mind, a completely unnecessary chapter that seems to only exist so the novel can include the popular Supernatural Flavor of the Week).

Despite these weaknesses, it is overall a pretty good book for its ilk and I'm sure I'll read the sequels sometime in the future. The distant future. 

But Where Are the Werewolves? I Was Promised Werewolves!

Santa Olivia
by Jacqueline Carey
Published by Grand Central Publishing
2 Out of 5 Stars

The town of Santa Olivia lies between the U.S. and Mexican border, but becomes a sort of present day leper colony when it is walled off from the rest of the world. Apparently the epicenter of a particularly nasty flu virus, the U. S. military builds a base there so the soldiers can keep the townspeople in line. And, as governments are wont to do, it decides, "Hey, while we have this super-secret base cut off from the rest of the world, how's about we take the opportunity for a little genetic experimentation? Maybe splice some animal DNA into human DNA and create a super soldier? Anyone have any wolf DNA lying about?" Which is all fine and dandy until your super soldier escapes, impregnates a local waitress, and hightails it for Mexico after the townspeople turn against him. And so Loup Garron is born, a child with super-strength and an inability to feel fear. 

Following Loup throughout her childhood and teenage years, we witness as she deals with the deaths of loved ones, bands together with others in her orphanage to create miracles and punishments in the name of the town's patron saint, grapples with her identity and her sexuality, and enters into a military sanctioned boxing match as a means of avenging her brother's death. To have focused on any one of these stories might have made for a more cohesive (if not more satisfying) narrative, but, as it is, the plot structure seems clunky and jumps from one idea to the next. It doesn't help that, through it all, Loup doesn't seem to feel much of anything or develop a personality beyond "gee, I feel different from everyone else." The climax of the book leads to the aforementioned boxing match, which lacks any real sense of tension or drama.

I've seen summaries of Santa Olivia that claim it gives a new and intriguing slant to both the werewolf mythos and to the superhero concept. Except for it doesn't. Because, really, it's not about werewolves or about superheroes. The whole wolf DNA angle is basically irrelevant; the only wolfy characteristics exhibited by Loup are her super-strength and stamina, a keen sense of hearing, an increased appetite, and some poorly executed idea about her "mating for life." Any animal could have been selected for the same traits--there's no real reason as to why it had to be a wolf. In terms of her superhero abilities, see the list provided above. Not exactly thrilling stuff. She's no Wolverine (although one of the orphans compares her to him). Here she is, blessed with the strength of the big bad wolf, so what's she going to do? She's going to box her heart out, baby! This failed to blow my house down. 

There were some intriguing ideas here whose executions fell flat, but I did appreciate the inclusion of a strong lesbian character. However, even that feels a little disingenuous in that it seems to exist only as a means of reinforcing the idea that Loup never fits in, in case it's not really coming across that she's different. During her sexual experimentation with boys, the boys always reject her, saying that she just "feels different" when they kiss her or that sex with her is like putting a "penis in a vise." It's almost as if seeking out another female is her only option, although it's later connected to the whole tendency to have only one mate idea. I would have preferred it if her attraction to women had been separated from this strange connection to her lupine heritage.

Overall, I feel this is the type of book that was born out of a tongue-in-cheek conceit: "Hey, what if I named the main character Loup Garron? Get it? Like loup garou? As in werewolf? Why aren't you 'howling' with laughter?" 

Also, I'm pissed about that cover. Because that cover has nothing to do with the book.

Weak Rule

Emperor (Time's Tapestry #1)
by Stephen Baxter
Published by Ace
2 Out of 5 Stars

You know that whole "don't judge a book by its cover" thing? Yeah, well, I totally did. In a heady bit of book buying when I graduated from college and got a full time job, I may have celebrated by overindulging in a Books-a-Million and grabbing anything that struck my fancy. I may or may not have read the book blurbs. After all, I was young, financially independent, had a whole life ahead of me to read--who cared how many books I wantonly threw into my book basket? Life was a library, baby, and I was going to spend it all in the stacks.

Tragic mistakes were made that I'm still paying for years later.

For example, Emperor, a book that I feel must shoulder some of the blame for underwhelming me because of its blatantly misleading cover. There's a statue of Julius Caesar on the front pictured over what is clearly Rome. You might think that this is what the book is about. As did I. We're both mistaken because the book takes place in Britain and focuses on the rule of Claudius, Hadrian, and Constantine. It's the literary equivalent of being roofied and waking up next to an ugly book. 

Emperor revolves around a prophecy passed down from one family's generation to another in Britain around the time of Roman rule. Unable to understand the enigmatic message in its entirety, each generation uses it to its own ends: during the reign of Claudius, it is mistakenly believed to vouchsafe Britain against conquest by Rome; during the reign of Hadrian, it is used to gain the family profit by manipulating the emperor into building an ill-advised stone wall to protect his empire in Britain; and during the time of Constantine, it is used to make an assassination attempt on the emperor's life.

Consisting of three interlocking narratives that necessarily skip forward in time with only loose connections to the previous tale, the reader never really gets to know any of the characters--which is a shame because many of them could be fascinating if given more depth. Baxter writes with authority about the time periods involved, but the novel is billed as an alternative science fiction history. Without a historian's understanding of the time period, it is difficult to ascertain which parts are alternative and which are authentic. And the science fiction bit is definitely AWOL. There's some very brief philosophical debate about the nature of time (is it linear, or do the past, present, and future coexist at the exact same time?) and about whether or not the prophecy was sent by someone in the future (known only as the Weaver) attempting to change the past, but nothing that I would classify as "science fiction." 

The novel would have been far more successful for me if it had been a straight historical fiction (really the alternative part is virtually nonexistent and seems to stem entirely from the prophecy, which never really changes events) and focused on one of the three narratives presented. Baxter has the ability to bring the past to life in a real and satisfying way, but the lack of payoff in terms of the novel's presentation and in its use of the prophecy as an unnecessary device to explore the past make it a tedious read. While I will not read the other books in the series, I would not entirely rule out reading another Baxter novel.

So, the moral of the story is: the next time a cute little book starts making eyes at me from the shelf, I'm damn sure going to take the time to read the blurb before I take it home with me.