Legend by Marie Lu (Reviewed by Mihir Wanchoo)

Official Author Website

Read an excerpt HERE

Order the book HERE

Watch the Trailer HERE

AUTHOR INFORMATION: Marie Lu was born in China but grew up in Texas, she was born in the year which is also the title of George Orwell’s most famous book. She graduated from the University of Southern California with a B.A. in Political science. She has previously worked as a flash & concept art developer at Disney Interactive studios as well as the lead artist designing MMO games for Hollywood Interactive Group, Inc. She also created Fuzz academy, a children's brand featuring a host of school-attending fuzzy animals that emphasize education and environmentalism. Marie Lu has also held the art director position at Online Alchemy, a video game company. Legend is her debut book and has also been acquired by CBS films with Jonathan Levine set to direct the movie.

OFFICIAL SYNOPSIS: Born into an elite family in one of the Republic’s wealthiest districts, fifteen-year-old June is a prodigy. Obedient, passionate, and committed to her country, she is being groomed for success in the Republic’s highest military circles. Born into the slums of the Republic’s Lake Sector, fifteen-year-old Day is the country’s most wanted criminal. But his motives may not be as malicious as they seem.

From different worlds, June and Day have no reason to cross paths—until the day June’s brother is murdered. And Day becomes the prime suspect. Now, caught in the ultimate game of cat and mouse, Day is in a race for his family’s survival while June tries desperately to avenge her brother’s death. But in a shocking turn of events, the two uncover the truth of what has really brought them together and the sinister lengths their country will go to in order to keep its secrets.

CLASSIFICATION: The Legend series is a dystopian YA series set in 2130 AD wherein the main series of events takes place on the flooded coast of former Los Angeles. The main stage of theater is led by the two warring nations of North America—the Republic and the Colonies. The book follows closely the path set by Suzanne Collins Best-selling Hunger Games trilogy of having YA protagonists in a dystopian world.

FORMAT/INFO: the ARC of Legend is 301 pages long spread over two titled sections and further divided over forty non-numbered, POV-titled chapters. Narration is in the first-person for Day and June Iparis. Day’s chapters are printed in gold while June’s are in the usual black ink. Legend is self-contained and is the first book in the Legend series.

November 29, 2011 marked the North American Hardcover and e-book publication of Legend via G.P. Putnam & sons.

ANALYSIS: Legend by Marie Lu is a book which has garnered huge amounts of pre-release publicity due to movie rights having sold off to CBS Films in a pre-emptive bid. Also helping was the fact that this book was acquired by its publisher in an auction bid. The author’s background also helped with the interest and publicity for the book as she had created a Facebook game around the world of the books, also called Legend that currently has over 13,000 subscribers. I was intrigued by all of this information and was looking forward to see how the story would be.

Legend begins with Day who is a person scorned and hunted by the republic of California for his activities against them. He however is a faceless person to them as never being identified has helped him to a life of anonymity. Things however soon take a downward turn for him as when he’s visiting his family in the lake sector; he finds that his younger sibling seems to have contracted a plague of sorts. To help his sibling Day has to break in the state hospital which leads him to meet Metias Iparis and things go south from there. June Iparis is the golden poster child of the Republic, having secured a score of fifteen hundred on the Trials which every child has to take at the age of ten to determine their future. These trials determine the social status and what type of future the child has. Every child has to take this trial which consists of written, oral and physical examinations and the children who get below a certain score are sent to work in the labor camps, thereby cutting off their contact from society & their family all together. June however is taking things to an extreme in her school often giving her teachers fits with her outrageous stunts as well stunning them with her grades. She however is shocked to learn that Metias has met his death at Day’s hands. She is inducted in the search to apprehend him and is sent undercover on the streets.

This book was inspired by the plot of Les Miserables as the author wanted to see what would happen with a rivalry between June and Day, two charismatic individuals who happen to be on the opposite sides of the coin in this world. The entire story hinges on these two individuals and the author has vividly created two smart and contrasting personas that are both pushed by familial reasons to do what they must. The plot opens up pretty quickly introducing the reader to a dark world wherein class barriers are erected by the state and enforced strictly. The author explains the situation and the characters quickly and without the use of excessive info-dumps.

The pace never slackens and this helps tremendously as the author introduces the twists in the story. This point was more akin to a thriller book as the POV shifts after every chapter as the author builds the tempo and leading up to a fantastic climax. The entire story has a very cinematic feel to it and it is very easy to imagine as a movie which will help when the movie actually releases (though I’m not sure how much similar it will be to the book it since its being helmed by the producers or the Twilight Franchise). The author has a very accessible prose style which helps in portraying the scenario as well as to not overwhelm the reader by the story’s inherent darkness. All these points efficiently convey why it has been getting so many positive reviews.

As much as I liked this book, I have to point out that there was a primary drawback to this story which is that the author only hints at the background of the world and nothing is sufficiently spelled out. One can make out that in the future the East Coast Colonies and West Coast Republic have been fighting a long drawn out war and there will be many more secrets revealed in the future. This can be a deterrent to readers who are looking for explanations. Another factor which irked me was that two crucial story twists hinged entirely on guesses/coincidences and this just went against the character history established so far. For that character to react that way was a bit stretched and in this regards the author fails to truly convince the reader about the direction which the story is taking.

CONCLUSION: An engaging story that is made very accessible by the author’s writing style makes this debut an exciting one. Marie Lu’s Legend will definitely find fans and it will be worth watching what she does in the sequel books. Fans of dystopian & YA fiction will like this new salvo by Marie Lu, check it out if you want to read a good book with interesting characters.

"Rise of Empire" by Michael Sullivan (Reviewed by Liviu Suciu and Cindy Hannikman)

Official Michael Sullivan Website
Order Rise of Empire HERE
Read FBC Review of Nyphron Rising
Read FBC Review of The Emerald Storm
Read FBC Review of Wintertide
Read FBC Review of The Viscount and the Witch
Read FBC Review of Theft of Swords HERE

INTRODUCTION: While we have reviewed the two books that form this omnibus close to their original small press publication, I am re-posting the reviews below. The official (US) publication date of the novel is December 14 but the book is available in stores today as I've just seen it in our local B&N here in Ann Arbor, while Amazon also lists it as available.

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Original 2010 Review of Nyphron Rising:

INTRODUCTION: In the space of a short year and a half, Michael Sullivan has moved from a small press debut author that featured in one of my first "Indie Spotlight Reviews" to a "name" in the fantasy field who sold-out his first novel and is getting both critical acclaim and fan appreciation.

So much so, that when I was doing my "2009 Remarkable Small Press Reads", I never even thought of including his superb novels there despite that they technically qualified. Instead in my end-of-the-year rankings, Avempartha went head to head against the "big names" and made both my Top 2009 Books list and Cindy's Top 2009 Book list, while The Crown Conspiracy made Mihir's Top 2009 Reads too. If you have not done so, read the series to date in order to see why, while Nyphron Rising is another great addition to it.

FORMAT/CLASSIFICATION: "Nyphron Rising" stands at about 350 pages divided into 17 named chapters that mainly follow our four main POV's: Royce, Hadrian, Arista and Thrace aka Modina. The novel starts with two detailed maps of the world and ends with a line that will only heighten the interest for what's next. While The Crown Conspiracy and Avempartha were mostly standalone adventure, though they started putting in place the elements of the "big-picture", "Nyphron Rising" gets into the heart of the main story of the series, starting three main threads that presumably will converge later on.

After the more adventure-like first two installments, the series moves firmly into epic territory here and while the building block nature of the novel means that it will be fully appreciated only together with at least the next installment "The Emerald Storm", "Nyphron Rising" moves the series toward the top-line of current fantasy offerings.

ANALYSIS/Cindy: Something about Michael Sullivan's writing has intrigued me from the start. I have been captivated with this series ever since the first two books came out. Nyphron Rising was something I was looking forward to for a while. I had really high expectations for this book, however it's a bit "out of the box" from the other two novels in this series.

Michael Sullivan is a masterful storyteller. The world and action that he has build up in his series is amazing. What's even more amazing is that it was done without having to make the book 600+ pages. Like all great storytellers at some point there has to be a step back from all the action and quest hopping to focus on a major key element in a series: the characters. Nyphron Rising is that book in the series that steps back and develops characterization in favor of a bunch of action sequences.

At first glance it might appear a bit odd that a middle novel would focus upon going back and looking at where the main characters come from and look further into the background that was hinted at within the first two novels, but it oddly fits with the series. If the series focused on non stop action there would be a lack of characterization. if characterization was focused on there would be a lack of action. It seems appropriate that after two up front novels there would be a calmer setting to the third book.

I look at Nyphron Rising almost like a bridge to the other novels to come in this series. It's a bit more toned down as far as action but very important to the series. It builds up the characters, yet at the same time starts paving the way for the future novels. While at first glance it might not seem important without it the series wouldn't hold up as well as it does without this type of novel.

Sullivan does an excellent job of fleshing out the characters from the information readers were presented with in the first two novels, yet is able to move the story along without it appearing the plot is growing stale. In a way this approach has made me even more attracted to this series as I can truly say this has all the elements to make it an epic fantasy series.

Although the Riyria Revelations is built up as a group of stand alone novels with common threads. It really is best to have read the first two novels as I don't feel a reader can fully appreciate what is going on or the build up for some of the plots. There are thread lines that have just started and are not resolved so in my eyes it's at the point where it could no longer be a stand alone.

Since the bar was set so high with the first two books it might appear as though Nyphron Rising doesn't match up to the previous two books, but that isn't the case at all. It just takes a different approach then the previous novels. This novel is still just as much of a page turner and attention grabbing as the other two. The events in this book have set me up to wait anxiously for the next book. I can't wait to see what happens and where Michael Sullivan will take his readers.

Liviu's short take: In hindsight I realize that I failed to fully appreciate Nyphron Rising the first time because it took the series to a different place than I expected after Avempartha which now reads more like a standalone as The Crown Conspiracy was; Nyphron Rising finally starts the maneuvers at the heart of the big-picture in the series and on re-read, a lot is much clearer; while the Thrace/Modina thread is not fully formed and Royce and Hadrian have more of an exploratory/back-story role here, though of course they have an adventure or two, the one following Arista is just superb and the ending line of the novel is for the ages.

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Original 2010 Review of The Emerald Storm:

INTRODUCTION:In the space of a short year and a half, Michael Sullivan has moved from a small press debut author that featured in one of my first "Indie Spotlight Reviews" to a "name" in the fantasy field who sold-out his first novel and is getting both critical acclaim and fan appreciation. In my 2009 end-of-the-year rankings, Avempartha went head to head against the "big names" and made both my Top 2009 Books list and Cindy's Top 2009 Book list, while The Crown Conspiracy made Mihir's Top 2009 Reads too.

"Nyphron Rising" started the epic part of the series which had a lot of ground prepared in The Crown Conspiracy and Avempartha which were mostly standalone adventures, but here in "The Emerald Storm" the series ramps up considerably and "Wintertide" became of of my top five titles of the second part of the year.

FORMAT/CLASSIFICATION: "The Emerald Storm" stands at about 400 pages divided into 26 named chapters that mainly follow our four main POV's: Royce, Hadrian, Arista and Thrace aka Modina, alternating between the adventures of Royce and Hadrian and the ones of Arista and Thrace. The novel starts with two detailed maps of the world and ends with a chapter that by itself shows how the series evolved to fulfill its early promise.

While "Nyphron Rising" started getting into the heart of the main story of the series, here the plot thickens, the world expands and we have action from the high seas, to the jungle, to the den of a barbarian warlord with allies in unexpected places and of course to the palace of the "Empress" where the main movers and shakers plot their takeover.

ANALYSIS: Cindy:
When setting out to write a series as Michael Sullivan has it can be quite an undertaking. The ability to keep the momentum going and not lose interest in the process can be very hard. Luckily Sullivan has done just that. In the fourth installment of the Riyria Revelations, the series is still running strong, possibly stronger now then when it first started.

When I read Crown Conspiracy I was amazed at this debut novel. Readers are now on the fourth title, and Sullivan still knows how to amaze readers with every twist and turn of the series. Every element that makes up an epic series is manifesting itself within these novels. After reading Nyphron Rising which gave everyone a bit more background and fleshed out the characters I was prepared to jump into Emerald Storm.

Emerald Storm has the gripping qualities that made me first enjoy this series. It's quick moving, action packed, but also character driven. There's a hard balance between action and character development, but Sullivan finds out to balance the two and not drag down the novel with lengthy paragraphs or time consuming character development. The main appeal to this whole series is just how natural the characters are developing, and really how each character grows as the series moves on. The bit of a darker approach to some of the aspects in the series was a nice touch. All threads that have been developing in the past 2 books are starting to really form and take shape, and that it what makes Emerald Storm so spectacular.

Every time I finish a book in this series it makes me want the next one instantly. As stated in Nyphron Rising review, the novels could be read as each individual book really doesn't properly show the whole picture without reading the series together. Emerald Storm would be a rough read if one didn't know the background, not an impossible read but it'd be a bit rough if you hadn't read the other books.

For those that are veteran readers of fantasy there is a little plot twist that will spice up a bit of the novels and makes the next novel something that readers will be waiting in anticipation for.

Michael Sullivan shows that he isn't just a one book wonder, or that his other novels were random hits. His Riyria Revelations series is taking shape very nicely, and it'll be amazing to watch where he takes the other novels after this because with each novel there is a new surprise or approach to his writing.


Liviu: "The Emerald Storm" was awesome and it finally realizes the strong potential of the Ryria series; it also made me reconsider Nyphron Rising which sets this one up and reads much more fulfilling once we can continue the story started there.

The part cliffhanger ending makes Wintertide a big asap, but "The Emerald Storm" sits well on its own and lots of things happen, while we have great, great stuff in opening more the world and exploring stranger parts of it, duels, magic, suspense and even the weaker Modina thread started getting much better; the super-twist at the end left me stunned since I really did not see it coming; also the novel is considerably darker than the rest and while it's no spoiler to know that the main characters (Royce, Arista, Hadrian) survive, the body count including secondary but interesting characters is rising.

"The Emerald Storm" is an A++ and a top fantasy of 2010.

Two 2011 SF Novels that are past their expiration date: John C Wright, Jack McDevitt (By Liviu Suciu)

In a tale of contrasts here are my short takes on two 2011 sf novels that are past their expiration date; modern content but very dated style versus superb storytelling skills in an universe that is homogenous 50's US ten thousand years in the future and ultimately crashes any suspension of disbelief...

I still believe that the best sf debut of the 00 decade in the US has been the Golden Age Trilogy of John C. Wright and because of that I have always had a soft spot for the author despite that his follow-up novels veered towards urban fantasy (War of the Dreaming) and then YA fantasy (Chronicles of Chaos of which the first volume was somewhat interesting but I never got the urge to read more).

These first lines that open The Golden Age show sf at its best and most wondrous:

It was a time of masquerade. It was the eve of the High Transcendence, an event so solemn and significant that it could be held but once each thousand years, and folk of every name and iteration, phe-notype, composition, consciousness and neuroform, from every school and era, had come to celebrate its coming, to welcome the transfiguration, and to prepare.

Splendor, feast, and ceremony filled the many months before the great event itself. Energy shapes living in the north polar magnetosphere of the sun, and Cold Dukes from the Kuiper belts beyond Neptune, had gathered to Old Earth, or sent their representations through the mentality; and celebrants had come from every world and moon in the solar system, from every station, sail, habitat and crystal-magnetic latticework.

Mr. Wright's detour in "classical" sf - Null A Continuum, sequel to one of the best golden age series of AE Van Vogt that has made me a lifelong sf fan - was a disaster as the author tried to imitate the dated prose of the 40's, but I shrugged and enjoyed some his more recent short length offerings that were superb, most notably The Far End of History, Judgement Eve or Murder in Metachronopolis.

So when his new space opera series that starts with Count to a Trillion has been announced, I was very excited and I asked for a review copy as soon as I could. To my surprise the novel turned out to be a major disappointment and for the same reason I strongly disliked Null A Continuum, though this one at least has updated sfnal content, so it is readable.

Here is the blurb which is reasonably accurate:

"Hundreds of years in the future, after the collapse of the Western world, young Menelaus Illation Montrose grows up in what was once Texas as a gunslinging duelist for hire. But Montrose is also a mathematical genius—and a romantic who dreams of a future in which humanity rises from the ashes to take its place among the stars.

The chance to help usher in that future comes when Montrose is recruited for a manned interstellar mission to investigate an artifact of alien origin. Known as the Monument, the artifact is inscribed with data so complex, only a posthuman mind can decipher it. So Montrose does the unthinkable: he injects himself with a dangerous biochemical drug designed to boost his already formidable intellect to superhuman intelligence.

It drives him mad.Nearly two centuries later, his sanity restored, Montrose is awakened from cryo-suspension with no memory of his posthuman actions, to find Earth transformed in strange and disturbing ways, and learns that the Monument still carries a secret he must decode—one that will define humanity’s true future in the universe."

The author tries to marry the pulp sf conventions - throw in concept after concept in a madcap non-stop action with no depth both in world building and characters, no particular bother to understand or explore human relationships beyond the surface - with modern high grade sf and it simply does not work since the book is way too self-serious for its style and way too silly in style for its content so to speak.

The novel abounds with moments where despite its supposed world encompassing milieu, it reads like something set on a bare stage with one or two participants that have delusions of grandeur. There is very little sense of the external world outside Menelaus and his friend/arch-nemesis and the declamations of both hero and villain simply sound ridiculous.

Not to speak of the math gibberish that annoyed me here and there but again I wouldn't mind such in a "fasten your seat belt and join the ride fun novel" that does not take itself too seriously, but I mind in sf that tries to get at Reynolds or Egan levels in content.

The ending is quite dramatic and a cliffhanger offering some hope that the series will improve, so I may just check the next installment to see if that is the case, but it will be far from the priority of this one.

Also on the plus side there were a lot of interesting concepts in the book and there were moments where I glimpsed the awesomeness of the Golden Age series - especially when the existential threat to life and all, casts its shadow, so who knows maybe the next book will return to a more suitable style that the author has shown he can command in his recent stories for example. I still believe that despite protestations to the contrary in some circles, there is no real yearning for sf to return to its "age of sf is 12" roots...

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Since I have read A Talent for War in the early 90's I have been a big Jack McDevitt fan and his subsequent novels mostly worked out very well for me with the Academy series being a huge highlight opened by the superb The Engines of God which alongside A Talent for War still ranks in my highly recommended list of A++ sf novels.

Here are the opening lines of A Talent for War that made my list of memorable first lines and note the mystery and sense of history they exude:

THE AIR WAS heavy with incense and the sweet odor of hot wax.
Cam Chulohn loved the plain stone chapel. He knelt on the hard bench and watched the crystal water dribble across Father Curry's fingers into the silver bowl held by the postulant. The timeless symbol of man's effort to evade responsibility, it had always seemed to Chulohn the most significant of all the ancient rituals. There, he thought, is the essence of our nature, displayed endlessly throughout the ages for all who can see.

His gaze lingered in turn on the Virgin's Alcove (illuminated by a few flickering candles) and the Stations of the Cross, on the simple altar, on the hewn pulpit with its ponderous Bible. It was modest by the opulent standards of Rimway and Rigel III and Taramingo. But somehow the magnificence of the architecture in those sprawling cathedrals, the exquisite quality of the stained glass windows, the satisfying bulk of marble columns, the sheer angelic power of the big organs, the sweeping choir lofts: it all got in the way. Here, halfway up a mountainside, he could look out over the river valley that the early fathers, in a burst of enthusiasm, had dedicated to St. Anthony of Toxicon. There was only the river, and the ridges, and the Creator.

So when Mr. McDevitt returned to the world of Alex Benedict and Chase Kolpath in Polaris, I was quite apprehensive as the mysterious far future of A Talent for War did not quite seem suitable for too much exploration. Still in Polaris, Seeker and The Devil's Eye (FBC Rv) the superb storytelling skills of the author managed to suspend my disbelief in an universe that while set some 10 thousand years in the future, looked not unlike the homogenous middle class US of the 50's with a few - but not that many either - new gadgets around. A sort of retro future sf which I heartily dislike in general as I think it has had its expiration date a long time ago.

When the author turned his hand to a light but ultra-fun time travel story in Time Travelers Never Die (FBC Rv), I hoped that Alex and Chase have been retired at the top, but it was not to be and last year's Echo just brought my suspension of disbelief to a crash in a novel that while readable - again as a testimony to how mesmerizing the author can be - was utterly laughable in world building from beginning to almost the end.

So this year's Firebird has been a very low expectation novel for me but I opened it and this time the story took over from maybe page 50 on and I turned the pages and enjoyed it till the end.

There are the usual McDevitt touches - Alex and Chase investigating, the blind alleys, the mysterious enemies, the stunning discovery - but this time the big picture of the universe is involved and it works much better than in Echo; the ending made me hope that Firebird is the last novel in this series since the author is way too good a storyteller not to have a better and more up-to-date tale to regale us with.

GUEST POST: “The Joy of Cooking Tropes” by Michael Dempsey

THE JOY OF COOKING TROPES

Tropes are tricky ingredients to handle. Even master literary chefs sometimes have problems with them. We've all experienced a meal of fiction where the trope was tough, or left a bitter aftertaste, or just plain seemed inappropriate to the dish. So when I set out to write my sci-fi noir novel Necropolis, I knew I had to be very careful in my use of them.

As most writers know, there are a wide variety of tropes. I myself prefer American-grown tropes. For instance, the crime story. Although initially cultivated by European growers like  Arthur Conan Doyle, in my opinion crime/mystery/detective stories came to full fruition in the States, with unique, new flavors developed by people like Chandler, Cain and Spillane. Connoisseurs of writers like Agatha Christie claim her tropes are more subtle and delicate, but personally I find them bland. American tropes often do have a grittier, rougher taste (like many things American), but I find these more exciting, even if sometimes they bluntly assault the palate. The same goes for science fiction tropes . . . Dick and Gibson's may come out of the ground unusually shaped, but they certainly provide a unique culinary experience.

Organic tropes are preferable. Are they just imposed onto the meal or do they arise naturally from the needs of the story? You’d better have a good reason why these characters behave the way they do, and why the plot progresses the way it does. Otherwise, tropes can overpower your other flavors. Besides being organic, the key is seasoning them in a unique way. Crime and science fiction tropes have certainly been combined in the same dish before, so my goal with Necropolis was to use them in familiar but still unique ways.

One of my first decisions with the book was to be bold with my tropes. Some authors try to hide them, to chop them up and bury them in the stew. I think this usually fails—for instance, it doesn't take an English professor to notice that there's nothing incredibly ground-breaking about a novel's vampire protagonist agonizing over whether to screw or exsanguinate his love interest. So I thought, don't try to hide them. In fact, showcase them, trumpet them, have fun with them! The trick is, as I said, to keep them organic and not become a total cliché. That would spoil the recipe.

The premise behind Necropolis is a detective solving the hardest crime there could ever be—his own murder. That gave me a great reason to put crime noir and science fiction in the same pot. After all, I had to bring him back in order to do it (well, I could have made him a ghost or a zombie, but I kept those ingredients on the shelf . . . they seem a tad overused these days, like mini hamburgers or chipotle).

The first trope that organically arose from this premise was the fish-out-of-water element. An appealing classic, it works especially well in science fiction. First, it solves all kinds of thorny exposition problems, because there's a justification to explore all the wonderful or terrible changes the world has undergone. And we can vicariously experience all the pitfalls right along with our hero, when he stumbles and falls as a result of his unfamiliarity with the new terrain. My protagonist, Paul Donner, stumbles a lot. He awakes fifty years in the future to a New York utterly transformed. A ubiquitous virus called The Shift is bringing dead DNA back to life. The city is now quarantined under a geodesic dome. The culture, completely freaked out over the laws of nature suddenly changing, has retreated into a nostalgic retro culture:  they dress and speak right out of “The Maltese Falcon,” and technology is hidden behind this noir façade. Donner suddenly finds himself a member of a hated minority—reborns. His life cycle has been thrown into reverse, so he's growing younger. And he's all alone—his friends and family are dead. As Donner says (in his first person detective narration—another trope!), “I'd survived my own death. No. Worse. I'd survived the death of my whole world. I was pretty sure I wouldn't be able to deal with this.”

The noir detective genre is chock-full of tropes, some of them pretty creaky at this point. It has a standard cast of characters, like the troubled, hard-drinking hero. Donner is certainly that, but I think that's justified considering the situation he's in. He was on his way to wrecking his marriage before he and his wife were murdered, and now, on top of this retrofuturistic nightmare he's in, he's consumed by survivor's guilt over his wife not coming back when he has.

Other noir character tropes include the femme fatale, the plucky sidekick and the mysterious villain manipulating things behind the scenes. The science fiction element gave me a great chance to riff on those archetypes, to explore them and play with them, maybe add a new twist.

For instance, our detective's assistant—his “Girl Friday”—is in this case a sentient hologram called a smarty. I realized that the spunky female sidekick archetype might be a little sexist and dated nowadays, so while Maggie may begin as a reluctant sidekick, she is eventually revealed to be much, much more, with a serious agenda of her own. (Sorry, no spoilers!) Also, through her, we get a window into smarty culture as well as some areas of Necropolitan society that Donner wouldn't otherwise have access to.

I could go on with other character tropes, but you get the idea. The point I'm trying to illustrate is that with this particular concoction, I was playing a tricky balancing act. I wanted to make familiar tropes fresh and fun, to allow us to relish them by winking once in a while at the reader, but still to ground them in a believable, tough and challenging world. In other words, cheese was not a flavor suitable to this meal.

The final story ingredient I have strong feelings about is reversals. I recently read a Hugo-winning novel (that shall go unnamed) where almost nothing happened for the first several hundred pages.  Many people love this book,  but while it was beautifully written, to me it was a slog. One of the reasons was the absence of reversals (or at least really big ones). My philosophy is, throw the kitchen sink at your hero! What kind of obstacles can you throw in the way of his achieving his goal?

One of the reasons I loved the TV series Lost was its reversals. The writers of that show were really courageous (at least until the finale...grrr). I could just picture them sitting in the writer's room, asking each other “what's the craziest, wildest thing we can throw at these characters,” completely without regard for how they hell they were going to justify it later or whether they were about to write themselves into a corner. They didn't eke out information to us like misers trying to prolong the change in their purse, they just threw every wild thing they could find into the pot and saw which ones rendered down properly. I may be wrong, but I really believe that they went, “Let's have this crazy metal hatch in the ground that makes absolutely no sense on a deserted island,” and then they figured out how to justify it. Some writers may find that dangerous and even irresponsible, but I think it's awesome. Sure, it makes the writer work overtime to integrate these wild changes into a cohesive story and resolve things properly, but one of the results is it gives the reader a honest-to-god roller-coaster ride.

That's how I operated when writing Necropolis—I asked myself, “what can happen now that will absolutely cut the legs out from under Donner?” or “What's the most bizarre or upsetting revelation I can introduce that makes the reader go 'Wha...??'” And then I tried to figure out how I could make it work. In a future where even death is no longer a constant, the sky is the limit, which helped a lot. So if you like your meal straight-forward and traditional, I must warn you that Necropolis is a real cornucopia of flavors: crime, mystery, horror, science fiction and romance, with plenty of humor for seasoning.

Okay, so I've worn this cooking metaphor down past all reasonable justification and likely have tried your patience something awful. So I'll stop now. I'll finish by saying that in my opinion,  there's nothing new under the sun anyway, so it's perfectly acceptable to use tropes you think are cool. But you better find an interesting, new way to integrate them into your story. Time and the critics will tell whether I've sufficiently accomplished that with Necropolis. But I must say, it was an absolute blast sweating in that hot kitchen.

Bon appétit.

ABOUT MICHAEL DEMPSEY:

Michael Dempsey is a novelist, actor, playwright and theatre director. He wrote for network television in the 90s, most notably CBS’s Cybill, and has sold and optioned screenplays & television scripts to companies such as Christopher Lloyd’s Tritone Productions and Carsey-Werner Productions (The Cosby Show, Roseanne, That 70′s Show). Necropolis is his first novel. For more information, please visit the links below:

Official Necropolis Website

Order “Necropolis” HERE

Read An Excerpt HERE (PDF)

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Spotlight on December Books

This month we are featuring 30 books. There are more than twice as many new sff and related releases this month in traditional publishing not to speak of the countless indies from Amazon and Smashwords but we are limiting ourselves to books that will be reviewed here or are similar with such. For the full schedule of December 2011 titles known to us, you can consult the Upcoming Releases page.

The release dates are US unless marked otherwise, though for books released in the UK and US in the same month but on different dates we use the earliest date without comment and they are first edition unless noted differently. The dates are on a best known basis so they are not guaranteed; same about the edition information. Since information sometimes is out of date even in the Amazon links we use for listings, books get delayed or sometimes even released earlier, we would truly appreciate if you would send us an email about any listing with incorrect information.

Sometimes a cover image is not available at the time of the post and also sometimes covers change unexpectedly so while we generally use the Amazon one when available and cross check with Google Images, the ultimate bookstore cover may be different.

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“The Hedgewitch Queen” by Lilith Saintcrow. Release Date: December 1, 2011. Published by Orbit. (FAN).
“Who Goes There?” by John W. Campbell. UK Release Date: December 1, 2011. Published by Gollancz. (Collection).

“Supervolcano: Eruption” by Harry Turtledove. Release Date: December 6, 2011. Published by Roc. (SF).
“Earthbound” by Joe Haldeman. Release Date: December 6, 2011. Published by Ace. (SF).

“Honor's Paradox” by P.C. Hodgell. Release Date: December 6, 2011. Published by Baen. (FAN).
“Galactic Courier” by A. Bertram Chandler. Release Date: December 6, 2011. Published by Baen. (Omnibus).

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“An Ill Fate Marshalling” by Glen Cook. Release Date: December 6, 2011. Published by Night Shade Books. (FAN).

“Himmler's War” by Robert Conroy. Release Date: December 6, 2011. Published by Baen. (AH).

“Of Limited Loyalty” by Michael A. Stackpole. Release Date: December 6, 2011. Published by Night Shade Books. (AH).

“The Miscellaneous Fictions of Clark Ashton Smith” by Clark Ashton Smith. Release Date: December 6, 2011. Published by Night Shade Books. (Collection).

“The Emperor's Knife” by Mazarkis Williams. Release Date: December 6, 2011. Published by Night Shade Books. (FAN).

“Myths of Origin: Four Short Novels” by Catherynne M. Valente. Release Date: December 6, 2012. Published by Wyrm Publishing. (MISC).

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“Planesrunner” by Ian McDonald. Release Date: December 6, 2012. Published by Pyr. (YA).

“Artemis” by Philip Palmer. Release Date: December 12, 2011. Published by Orbit. (SF).

“Rise of Empire” by Michael J. Sullivan. Release Date: December 14, 2011. Published by Orbit. (FAN / Omnibus).
“Count to a Trillion” by John C. Wright. Release Date: December 20, 2011. Published by Tor. (SF).
“Touch of Power” by Maria V. Snyder. Release Date: December 20, 2011. Published by Mira. (UF).

“City of Light and Shadow” by Ian Whates. Release Date: December 27, 2011. Published by Angry Robot. (FAN).

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“Babylon Steel” by Gaie Sebold. Release Date: December 27, 2011. Published by Solaris. (FAN).
“Empire State” by Adam Christopher. Release Date: December 27, 2011. Published by Angry Robot. (SF).
“The Demi-Monde: Winter” by Rod Rees. Release Date: December 27, 2011. Published by William Morrow. (SF).
“77 Shadow Street” by Dean Koontz. Release Date: December 27, 2011. Published by Bantam. (MISC).

“Hell Train” by Christopher Fowler. Release Date: December 27, 2011. Published by Solaris. (HF).

“Bestial” by William D. Carl. Release Date: December 27, 2011. Published by Permuted Press. (HF / Reprint).

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“Dark Revelations” by Anthony E. Zuiker & Duane Swierczynski. Release Date: December 29, 2011. Published by Dutton. (MISC).
“Phases of Gravity” by Dan Simmons. Release Date: December 31, 2011. Published by Subterranean Press. (SF).
“Gothic High-Tech” by Bruce Sterling. Release Date: December 31, 2011. Published by Subterranean Press. (SF).
“The Ballad of Ballard & Sandrine” by Peter Straub. Release Date: December 31, 2011. Published by Subterranean Press. (Novella).
“All About Emily” by Connie Willis. Release Date: December 31, 2011. Published by Subterranean Press. (Novella).
“Hidden” by Kelley Armstrong. Release Date: December 31, 2011. Published by Subterranean Press. (UF).