Bad Glass by Richard E. Gropp

Pub date: September 25, 2012.

Author website.

Something has happened in Spokane. The military has evacuated the city and locked it down. Even so, disturbing rumors and images seep out, finding their way onto the Internet, spreading curiosity, skepticism, and panic. For what they show is-or should be-impossible: strange creatures that cannot exist, sudden disappearances that violate the laws of physics, human bodies fused with inanimate objects, trapped yet still half alive. . . . 

Dean Walker, an aspiring photographer, sneaks into the quarantined city in search of fame. What he finds will change him in unimaginable ways. Hooking up with a group of outcasts led by a beautiful young woman named Taylor, Dean embarks on a journey into the heart of a mystery whose philosophical implications are as terrifying as its physical manifestations. Even as he falls in love with Taylor-a woman as damaged and seductive as the city itself-his already tenuous hold on reality starts to come loose. Or perhaps it is Spokane's grip on the world that is coming undone.  

Now, caught up in a web of interlacing secrets and betrayals, Dean, Taylor, and their friends must make their way through this ever-shifting maze of a city, a city that is actively hunting them down, herding them toward a shocking destiny.  (netgalley.com)

BAD GLASS is something different.  In a good way.  It's part horror, part apocalyptic, part science fiction and fantasy, hitting on every thread that each of those genres can unwind.  I had moments reading this book that actually made my stomach churn.  Of course I was eating lunch at the time and vomiting all over the lunch room table at a place I've worked at less than a week would certainly leave an impression.  Not a good one.  I really like where I work so I breathed through it.

In terms of character I felt it was a little thin.  I didn't really have any motivation to care about any of the characters and when things really started to happen I felt more like I was watching the news than I was invested in reading a novel.  The emphasis of the story was on Spokane.  It was the antagonist here, as the blurb says, hunting them.  Literally.  I LOVED Spokane and I talk about it as if it were a fleshy type of character.  It was the most dynamic thing here, morphing itself to engulf the more static characters.

Taylor was your typical hard ass, stand-offish girl that leads by example.  Not unlikable but she wasn't anything I warmed to.  Then her character took a major shift towards the end and I don't think it quite fit.  It was too out of character and felt more like a contrivance to catapult the story forward than anything else.  I didn't mind per se because I was still interested in the story but it was a point of contention.  I'm not a fan of characters deviating for the sake of plot.

Amanda is one character one day and then goes off the deep end the next without much segue, throwing another shock factor into the spokes of the plot.  Charlie was endearing, being the youngest of the group.  He was the techie, helping the rest of the gang keep in contact with the outside world all the while continuously searching for his parents whom he KNOWS are still in town.  Floyd is hung up on the death of his brother, Mac's a clingy dick from the beginning and Dean himself wants to believe he dissolves into the town with the rest of them but I didn't buy it.  He's there for less than a week, put through all kinds of shit for the sake of his art but won't simply walk away when things get really bad (and everything will gladly get out of his way to walk and once he gets out of Spokane all the craziness will stop but nooooooooo).  He sacrifices his life for Taylor, whom he's known A WEEK but will not return the affection nor even much of a hint that it's reciprocal, because he just can't leave her.  No.  I don't buy that either.

I don't buy it as much as I don't buy Taylor's character shift.  Dean's very presence beyond the first few days felt forced, his reasons for staying insubstantial at best.  Eventually it stopped being about his photography and started being about Taylor, again a stand-offish girl that would barely look at him.  I'm going to keep driving right past that tag sale and move on to the next one.

Spokane on the other hand was a living, breathing character consuming all the others, eventually literally.  The things that happen within the city, whether they just happen to the surroundings or to the people themselves, were so incredibly vivid that I could almost feel all of the panic and worry and wonder at what was going on.  From the weird bodily mutations to nature bucking it's own trend, I believed it all.  It was the most vivid part of the story.  If it weren't such an integral part, if the story focused more on the characters than on the surroundings, I would have lost interest pretty quickly.  But I kept reading for Spokane.  I wanted to see what the hell was going on with it.

I almost expected the ending to crap out.  I don't know why but I was anticipating the whole thing ending up being a dream.  It was alluded to.  I'll spoil it for you: it's not.  Thank god.  I would have been so incredibly pissed off I don't know what I would have done.  You get an answer but it leaves a lot of whys hanging out there and you still don't REALLY know what's going on by the time the story ends.  You have an idea and I think it's enough to satisfy the curiosity that the plot brews but there's definitely room for more.

BAD GLASS is, atmospherically, a great blend of horror and apocalyptic, the latter really just on the edge of the world about to go to hell in a Pinto.  There are some truly terrifying moments and the way Gropp wrote all of the changes it really plays with your mind and you won't know what to think about everything that's happening.  You'll start to second-guess things and you'll be trying to figure it out right from the moment Dean gets into the city and starts seeing these things first hand.  It's light on character development but the city itself is such a huge personality in the book that it'll just overwhelm everything else.  Really I don't think there's room for much else in terms of the other characters.  And I'm okay with that.

Ban Factor: High - Swearing, m/m sex, drug use and the world going to hell.  Not a good combination for the banners.

Cinder by Marissa Meyer + Giveaway!

Published January 3, 2012.

Author website.

Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, the ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth’s fate hinges on one girl. . . .


Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She’s a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister’s illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai’s, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world’s future.  (goodreads.com)

I really, really liked CINDER.  I haven't read too many retold fairy tales but CINDER is something written so uniquely that you really have to dig around for any kind of fairy tale resemblance.  Sure it's there but you need to work to see it.  In reality though it's a story that stands on its own legs, a light sci-fi that, even for someone like me, ropes you into this vaguely familiar world with characters that you can get infuriated about and for and watch them plow through the plot of their own accord.

Cinder herself definitely got some swirling emotions going on in me, mainly how she was treated by her adoptive mother and elder of two adoptive sisters.  Granted you can't have Cinderella without some kind of wicked pseudo-family going on but I liked the deviation with Peony.  It gave Cinder an ally for a short time, something that made coming home for her a little more bearable.  And then there was Adri, Cinder's pure robot sidekick that gave her another crutch in a world where she was all alone.  Neither of these lifelines last very long and when they're taken away you kind of hate the world a little more.  Here you have a girl that's a victim of her own life that really doesn't hold it against anyone and she just keeps getting shit on and shit on and shit on.  I think Meyer toed the line of what could have been too much FML plot device but I don't think she ever overdid it.  If there was much more it would have been an "oh come on!" moment but I think there was just enough to get the point across without it being ridiculous.

I really liked Prince Kai if for nothing else than he had the reactions I expected him to have.  He set himself up as a certain type of character and he played into it well.  He's your average cool guy except he's a prince.  I liked that.  And I liked him at the end.  I'm sure some people would be like "OMFG how could he just drop her???" but it worked.  Cinder built up the world from the beginning, how droids aren't even looked upon as human and as Kai is built up, and based on other YA boys' reactions in similar situations, you'd have expect cuddly froo froos at the end with the big reveal.  BAM!  Expectations thwarted.  Maybe I'm demented.  Maybe his was a reaction to her lies more than her bot body.  Either way he didn't deviate him his character or the expectations of his character built throughout the story.  Kudos to that.

The world itself, as a total world slut, I loved.  And I'm not a sci-fi fan.  Which is probably why I liked it.  As I said above it's pretty light sci-fi, there's still a lot of our world prevalent in this new one that can anchor it in something more realistic and there aren't any weird alien things milling about.  It's still Earth, and a very recognizable Earth, with some homicidal moon people.  I liked the homicidal moon people.  In fact I really liked Queen Levana.  She played a good villain; a bit over the top but it seemed to fit for me.  I believed it.  The insane vanity, the mind manipulation, the mutated super soldiers.  Yes, I could buy into that.

There was one thing that really bothered me about the whole book though: the ending.  Holy mother of god I wanted to murder the book at the end.  This quite possibly could have been an editorial decision but the ending basically chops off right when the real plot is just starting, making the whole of CINDER one big expository dump.  Don't get me wrong, I LIKED the backstory dump.  It was a good story.  But it wasn't the real story.  It was character-building for Cinder, a peek into her life before the fecal matter hit the fan.  Why isn't CINDER the real story?  Because the story arc isn't closed.  Closing the story arc means that there is an actual story there to close.  The end of CINDER is WIDE OPEN.  Nothing has been resolved.  Not a thing.  A BIG REVEAL has been made but even I could see that one coming from the 1/3 point.  There is no resolution to anything.  Read the next book to find out more.

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

It's a shameless way to hook people into the next book.  Will I read it?  Damn right.  But I would have read it anyway, I liked the story that much.  No need to pull a "Find out what's killing your children, tonight at 11" moment on me.  The book stood on it's own, cliffhanger need not apply.

If you're into fantasy and may want to try a little sci-fi I think CINDER is a good place to start.  It worked for me.  It's definitely a great retelling of a classic fairy tale in a new, gritty and disheartening world where happy endings don't really exist.  My kind of book.  I'm demented.  I know.

Ban Factor: High - No Christianity and moon people.  There can't POSSIBLY be anyone else in the universe except for Earth people.  It's God's way.

Listen to an audio excerpt of chapter one here!

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• Giveaway ends June 25th at midnight, EST.

Human.4 by Mike Lancaster + Giveaway!

Published March 8, 2011.

Author website.

Kyle Straker volunteered to be hypnotized at the annual community talent show, expecting the same old lame amateur acts. But when he wakes up, his world will never be the same. Televisions and computers no longer work, but a strange language streams across their screens. Everyone’s behaving oddly. It’s as if Kyle doesn’t exit.

Is this nightmare a result of the hypnosis? Will Kyle wake up with a snap of fingers to roars of laughter? Or is this something much more sinister? (goodreads.com)

That cover kind of squicks me out a bit. Those tentacle-like things coming out of the hand? And then when it happens in the book . . . *shudder* Topics like what HUMAN.4 is about usually succeed in creeping me right the hell out, especially when written well. And this one is. Lancaster did a great job of posing the what-if question and making the execution believable. And again it's why we're back to the creepy part.

Another one of my favorite aspects of HUMAN.4 was giving an alternate explanation to something that could be supernatural. That something that you see out of the corner of your eye? What if it's not a ghost but something that came before? Something now rendered irrelevant and no longer worth our time? I don't want to give spoilers because the book is awesome and I don't want to ruin it but that irrelevance notion is totally horrifying to me. That something, someone, can still exist perfectly fine and as normally as we are, but we've rendered them so irrelevant that our eyes no longer recognize them. Now imagine you are that irrelevant thing . . .

I'm just enamored with the different road HUMAN.4 took on its quest to tell the story. Kyle turned out to be an excellent MC and someone that you can connect with almost immediately. He does have that natural young boy syndrome that makes him somewhat unlikable but when the fecal matter starts flying at the rotating device he, and his slightly jerky love interest, start taking on different tones and you get to see them in new light. Maybe their personalities adjust a little too quickly to the changing situation but I'm okay with it. The greater story was just so fantastic that I was able to overlook whatever might have been wrong with the rest.

The world that Lancaster built, while solidly anchored in our reality, is something otherworldly without being unrecognizable. He didn't have to alter it much but what had been changed was something shaped into a digital unreality. It leaves you wondering what if? Of course it's a comment on the digital revolution we're currently living in but it's so adeptly touched upon some of our current unknowns that the 'what if' couldn't be kept from your mind if you tried.

A little bit of horror, a little bit of digital, a lot of awesome, HUMAN.4 puts an excellent spin on our current dystopia craze, makes it something more relatable and a hell of a lot more horrifying. The 'what if' factor is so much more immediate and you won't be able to help but wonder . . .

Ban Factor: Medium - It's short on any kind of touchy subject but it does have a couple of kids bucking the trend and going against the "greater good." That might anger them. Assuming they can actually read.

Giveaway time!!!

Want my ARC? Then just fill out the form below for your chance to win!

• Open to US residents 13 years of age and older only.
• One entry per person per email address.
• Duplicate entries will be deleted.
• Entrants must be a follower of Bites via one of the following mediums: GFC, RSS, Goodreads, Twitter, Facebook.
• Giveaway ends April 15th at midnight, EST.

A Week with Carolrhoda Lab Review: Ultraviolet by RJ Anderson

Published June 2, 2011.

Author website.

Once upon a time there was a girl who was special.

This is not her story.

Unless you count the part where I killed her.

Sixteen-year-old Alison has been sectioned in a mental institute for teens, having murdered the most perfect and popular girl at school. But the case is a mystery: no body has been found, and Alison's condition is proving difficult to diagnose. Alison herself can't explain what happened: one minute she was fighting with Tori -- the next she disintegrated. Into nothing. But that's impossible. Right? (goodreads.com)

ULTRAVIOLET threw me a bit for a loop because it's not what I was expecting out of Carolrhoda Lab. See, CL puts out mainly very gritty contemporaries. Ilsa Bick's DRAW THE DARK had a hint of something nominally paranormal but it could have rightly been psychological. Here it actually takes that leap and I was insanely surprised by it. I didn't think it was going to go there. And I really didn't mind.

As the reader you're in Alison's head the entire time and really it's not a bad place to be. She's not crazy. She's just SUPER sensitive because of her synesthesia. A synesthete is someone that processes letters and numbers as colors and/or feelings. Those symbols might even have particular moods and noises usually carry with them their own shapes. Yes, this is a real issue. Look it up. I don't know whether to call it a disorder or problem or just a quirk. It really just seems like a different way for a very few people to process information. But it was alive in ULTRAVIOLET. I've read one other book where the MC was a synesthete and it fell completely flat. Here, with Alison, I was able to see what she saw. When she reacted so did I. I could see the shapes the noises around her made and I could feel what she felt at the mention of a name. The writing was exquisite in its ability to do that. Alison's synesthesia was so realistic that it in and of itself was its own character.

In context of the greater plot is was all encompassing. It's because of this issue that Alison believes she disintegrated a girl that she was less than thrilled about. Now reading this, and knowing CL's deal with what they published, I absolutely did NOT see it going where it went. I don't want to go into detail because that would spoil it but it totally swept the rug right out from underneath my feet. But the thing is, it was written so well and, really, so scientifically, that I believed it. Within the story and the imprint itself, I bought it. I still feel it a little odd for CL but if this is what they're gearing towards, the little toe dip in the pool, I'll take it. It was pretty awesome.

Alison as a character is someone you can't help but root for. Here's a chick that's basically nothing more than hypersensitive stuffed in a psych ward against her will because people believe she's crazy and a threat to herself and others. Being in her head you know this isn't the case. Sure, you share her blackouts of past events but given everything you can see her sanity and it's angering because she just can't express that without it being flipped around on her. There are times when I wanted her to just come out with it and tell her doctor what was going on. It would have made things so much better! Someone would have understood and someone did. But that was wrenched away from Alison and I couldn't help but feel wrecked when it happened. Her one lifeline gone and she was convinced she'd never see him again.

While the spin ULTRAVIOLET took isn't necessarily something I'd normally be in to and threw me off totally, it was still a phenomenally written book. When I say you feel everything Alison goes through, you really FEEL it. It just can't be helped. Anderson really has a grasp on synesthesia and was able to write it in such a way that it was both beautiful and terrifying at the same time. My understanding is this is the first in a series so I'm definitely looking forward to the next installment. There are relationships established in this book that I really want to see morph in the next. It'll be interesting to see how those dynamics changed from one to the other. Overall well worth the read and definitely a kick to the teeth at the end! Totally didn't see it coming!

Ban Factor: High - Between the psychology and the older man/younger girl potential relationship, the banners would be twitching.

I Am Number Four by "Pittacus Lore"

Published August 17, 2010.

We may be walking past you right now.

We are watching as you read this.

We may be in your city, your town.

We are living anonymously.

We are waiting for the day when we will find each other.

We will make our last stand together. If we win, we are saved, and you are saved as well. (book back blurb)

DNF with a big fat woof. I wanted to go Hulk on this thing 10 pages in but what kind of chance would I be giving it if I didn't give it a little more than that? It was really hard for me to get past the terrible writing. It was even harder for me to get past the cliche orgy writhing on the pages. I had nominally higher hopes for this one because a lot of people said it was good, or at least enjoyed it. A bunch of them said the writing left something to be desired but how bad could it be, right?

O_o

I didn't expect this. I didn't expect to be pounded with the same exact information three times within the first five pages. I didn't expect it to read like a sterile, fluffed up movie script. I didn't expect it to be the basest, mediocre form of writing I've yet to find in a book. SMeyer's work was better than this. Yeah, what does that say? At least she purpled up her prose a little. This? This was a sickened gray.

The story was nominally interesting but slogging through cliche after cliche after cliche proved futile for me. The thing is, I don't have a problem with cliches. Use them to your heart's content. But for god's sake dress them up a little. Make them stand out. Make them different. This one didn't even try. From the Chosen One Syndrome to the Mr. Miagi father figure to the geeky sidekick to the uber-jocks at school to the super awesome popular girl at school that's totally down to earth, I just couldn't take it anymore.

The writing was devoid of emotion. I felt nothing for the characters. It had some okay world building but the focus of the story was so off. It couldn't decide if it wanted to focus on the characters, the plot, or the super cool powers and medallions and stuff that they had. Product marketing much? Let me rephrase that - it knew it didn't want to focus on the plot.

And all that's irrespective of Frey taint.

With it? I wanted to light the book on fire. Frey, you disgusting human being, if this is what you think defines "the next big thing" in the book world, if this is how you plan on making your bajillions of dollars all the while raping naive writers of everything they have, dear god I hope you meet Karma face to face with a big, fat, capital FUCK YOU. This is disgusting. This is insulting. What made you think you had it all figured out? What made you think you found something the other publishing houses and agents didn't? What made you think horseshit like this is what's going to bring in the dough? I know you're not looking for prestige or legitimacy. You're looking for money. Plain and simple. You won't deny it. Well, look for it somewhere else. Go insult another medium of buyers. YA is shit on enough without you thinking you can butt fuck it to get it to say uncle.

Atrocious. From what I hear the movie is pretty decent but I sure won't be seeing it. And all I can say is thank god I didn't pay for my copy of I Am Number Four. Remind me to avoid any of Full Fathom Five's future releases as if they were carrying Ebola. The last thing we need to do is encourage trash cans like Frey from spilling their filth over.

Choker: One of Six by Ben Templesmith and Ben McCool + Contest!

Published March 2010.

It's a comic book that takes place in a gritty, dirty world where sex, drugs, mutants and vampires rule, "where angels go to die." It stars an ex-cop screwed over by his boss, forced into an underbelly world as a dirt-scrubbing PI for the dredge that no one else wants to deal with. Johnny Jackson hates his life. All he wants is his old one back. And he can get it. For a price.

I snagged this at this year's BEA. Funny how every time I hit up BEA I realize more and more how much I like comic books. I was actually wandering around the comics section looking for another signer when I came across Ben McCool who signed off a copy of Choker to me. It's hard for me not to accept a comic. I mean, they're so easy to read!

But this is a good one. It's gritty, it's nasty, it's ugly. The language is foul, the characters are immensely representative of the scuzzy world they live in and yet it's horribly appealing. From jerk-off machines to black market vampire DNA E tabs, if it's underhanded and leaves a layer of grime on your skin, this comic's got it.

It starts off pretty ordinary, with the down and out PI kicked off the force for one reason or another. And while we're introduced to the guy that screwed Jackson over, we don't know why. We just know what Johnny has to do to get his life back and it doesn't look too pretty at all.

Number one ends just as it's broaching the topic of vampire DNA drugs and damn, is it gory. This comic hides nothing. No sparkling glitterpires here. In fact, they would probably get beaten by the Men Plus and sucked up by the Vacu-Corpse 3000 in this blend of science fiction and nightmares of a world.

While the wording is simple, it's hard-hitting, the pictures behind it only slamming it harder. It's nasty, it's disgusting and it's oh so goddamn compelling. I wanted more the second it ended. Hopefully you will too.

Contest Time!!!

Just fill out the form below for your chance to win a signed copy of Choker #1 by Ben Templesmith and Ben McCool! Due to the content, only those 18 and older may enter.

The Gardener by SA Bodeen + Contest!

Pub date June 2010.

Mason has never known his father, but longs to. All he has of him is a DVD of a man whose face is never seen, reading a children's book. One day, on a whim, he plays the DVD for a group of comatose teens at the nursing home where his mother works. One of them, a beautiful girl, responds. She is part of a horrible experiment intended to render teenagers into genetically engineered, self-sustaining life-forms who don't need food or water to survive. And before he knows it, Mason is on the run with the girl, and wanted, dead or alive, by the mysterious mastermind of this evil plan, who is simply called the Gardener.

Will Mason be forced to destroy the thing he's longed for most? (book back blurb)

Depending on how this book is pitched, it could either be science fiction or horror. The whole genetic mutation slant can totally be science fiction but creating a master race of kids that don't need to eat is kind of Children of the Corn-ish. Very creepy.

The plot was a little slow to start but once the robotic girl got involved, things got interesting. While I felt the writing dragged in some parts, alluding way too long as to what was all really going on, it kept me wanting to read until the end, especially when Mason started to develop feelings for the girl whose name, for most of the time, he didn't even know.

Is that wrong of me? Here I stand, slamming those horrible "OMG I lurve heeeeeeeeeeem" plots where the MC's female and has known the dude for like 30 seconds. Mason's situation, on the surface, isn't any different. The main plot takes place over the course of about 24 hours. 36 at most. Yet by the end he's so compelled to make sure this girl is okay and drawn to her that he can't bear to leave her behind. But to me they are profoundly connected. To the outside world, they're both freaks: Mason with his scarring and the girl with her being, you know, part plant. Yet they understand each other and both see beyond that. Not to mention I think anyone would want to make sure a human they connected with was okay after finding out they're being used as a science experiment. I would think that's inherent. But does this make me a hypocrite? It's okay because it's a guy but not if it's a girl? Maybe it's okay because the girl doesn't berate Mason and treat him like shit? Maybe because she's not a stalker but merely pseudo-plant life seeking sunlight? Maybe because Mason isn't so fantasmagorically in love with the girl that that's all he talks about? Someone help me here.

The whole "world gone crazy" aspect is pretty damn creepy. The science they talk about in the book, the inevitability of the earth running out of food, is true. Like The Hunger Games takes reality TV to a whole new level, The Gardener takes sustaining human life to a whole new level. The scary thing is, who's to say this concept, of creating a race of people totally self-sustaining, hasn't been thought up already? Who's to say it's not in the developmental stages yet? It's freaky the lengths people might go to in order to survive. I liked that creepy aspect and I think because of the fact that it's thisclose to being real, it's even creepier.

The writing itself, I don't think, was anything to write home about. It was compelling enough. It got me from one end of the book to another. I wish I felt what Mason was going through more than be told what he was going through. While I liked his story, I felt he was a little hard to connect with at times, like the story was just being reiterated to me.

I didn't see the twist at the end coming, not entirely anyway. I have my suspicions about what the deal was with Mason's dad but they were only half right. Sort of. Still, I liked it. Not the most original of endings but I can deal.

Overall, a decent read but I think one that only needs to be done once. It has a good creep factor and the story will probably skeeve you out a bit but it'll lose it's luster if you read it more than once.

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