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.

Ashfall by Mike Mullin + Giveaway!

Published October 11, 2011.

Under the bubbling hot springs and geysers of Yellowstone National Park is a supervolcano. Most people don't know it's there. The caldera is so large that it can only be seen from a plane or satellite. It just could be overdue for an eruption, which would change the landscape and climate of our planet.

Ashfall is the story of Alex, a teenage boy left alone for the weekend while his parents visit relatives. When the Yellowstone supervolcano erupts unexpectedly, Alex is determined to reach his parents. He must travel over a hundred miles in a landscape transformed by a foot of ash and the destruction of every modern convenience that he has ever known, and through a new world in which disaster has brought out both the best and worst in people desperate for food, water, and warmth. (goodreads.com)

I've known about the caldera for a while so when Mike approached me to review ASHFALL, it was an instant yes. How I missed this one in my NetGalley wandering, I have no idea but Mike was kind enough to send me a copy and OMG am I glad he did.

The first couple of chapters were absolutely horrifying. Like literally had me shaking, horrifying. The thing is, I think what made it really horrifying is that this is something that's going to happen. Not if, but when. We have no idea and we can only pray to whatever god exists that we'll have some kind of warning sign to help prepare us but that doesn't make it any more palatable. Knowing that a popular tourist attraction can and will annihilate us can tend to keep one up at night.

The story is told from the POV of Alex and almost immediately it starts into the destruction in Iowa from the erupting volcano. Alex's house gets hit by a volcano-projected meteor, nearly trapping him inside of it. It's a total down-slide from there but the sheer resilience of this kid is absolutely astounding. Of course he had help along the way (he'd literally be dead if he didn't) but his will to reconnect him with his family was so strong that he pushed on to walk from Iowa to Illinois to find his parents and sister that were only supposed to be away for a weekend. You see Alex start from a little boy (despite his 15 (16?) years) and morph into this young man that can field dress a pig and survive the elements.

Of course, Darla helped him along there. If it wasn't for her, Alex would have been left at the curb well before the end of the book. Darla starts off overly strong but it's a logical strong. It's not the type of attitude where it's 'I can do anything better than you' but more like 'holy crap, we don't have enough food to feed a drifter, we need to think of ourselves first.' Her logic really grounds out Alex's inherent altruism that, at times, can really bite them in the ass. What's even better is when they actually point out his stupid altruism. Self-deprecation is always a win for me.

But Darla functions as his rock and, quite frankly, it's nice and refreshing to see the boy having to get rescued time after time after time in a story. Not that Alex is a little pansy weakling but Darla's a farmhand. Her ability to survive and adapt is a little better than his. And the relationship they form is something unlike what I've seen in other books. I liken is to Alex in Ilsa Bick's ASHES and her relationship with Tom. ASHFALL'S Alex's relationship with Darla is a little more intense but there's something purer about it. Their survival depends on each other. They actually have to work at it. Where they are didn't come free. They earned every second of it and, for me, that makes it that much sweeter and far less lust-at-first-sightish.

As I said before, this book had me shaking. The setting was realistic to the point where I could feel the ash on my skin, taste it in my mouth, hear the roaring of the erupting volcano. And the fact that it actually reads accurate makes it all the more realistic. I had a little bit of issue with how the military was portrayed (I could ask soldier boy for clarification, just haven't gotten around to it yet). The whole situation seemed a bit dramatized for the sake of, well, drama. Although I do know that true martial law is quite possibly one of the most horrifying things on the planet and while they'd get shit done, it'd be at the sacrifice of a lot of people, the individual actions of the soldiers that Alex and Darla interacted with just didn't seem right to me. They just seemed far too douchy. I am a touch biased but I'd like to think that even in martial law, most soldiers would maintain a modicum of humanity and douche nozzles like those guys would be the exception, not the norm. That could just be me being hopeful. Like I said, I could get more accurate clarification on that but it's based in hypothetical, technically. There's some experience there when dealing with vets so I guess it'd be a little less hypothetical than normal.

ASHFALL was easy to read and while I felt, at times, it read a little too simplistically (I would have liked some greater detail in some parts, less inane description in others), it made its point. It got Alex's story across without flowery prose and without pretense. I really felt like I was reading about Alex from Alex. For the most part I didn't read the book and feel like I was reading anyone other than Alex (there were a few times where I felt the wording was a bit out of character but not enough to have a major effect).

The best part, I think? There's nothing paranormal about ASHFALL. No zombies, no mutant hybrids. Just science. The earth's biggest zit explodes and this is the aftermath of that. Really, people losing their minds was scary enough. And that's what made this book really hit home: just how real it was, and could be. You don't close the book and go whew! That was freaky! Glad I don't have to worry about it. You close the book when you're done and go, oh shit. I need to stock up on bottled water. The lack of anything paranormal, to me, makes it all the scarier because it's that much more rooted in reality.

For apocalyptic stories, ASHFALL comes in second to ASHES by Ilsa Bick for me. Everything that happens is based on science, nothing seems out of place and at the end it'll leave you shaking just a little bit harder than when you started. The ending leaves a few things open but the sequel comes out next year so you won't be left hanging for long. Yet another apocalyptic book that I'm proud to say rockets itself up and over nearly everything else that's out there. Read it and get scared.

Ban Factor: Medium - There is premarital sex but it's fade to black and I believe subtle enough that the banners wouldn't be smart enough to pick up on it. Swearing's on the low side but it's there a little. If anything I think it'd be the sex that'd kill it but they'd be happy about the Christianity (not that it's a Christian book).

Giveaway Time!!!

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• Open to US residents 13 years of age and older only.
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Ashes by Ilsa J. Bick + Contest!

Pub date September, 2011.

An electromagnetic pulse sweeps through the sky, destroying every electronic device and killing billions. For those spared, it's a question of who can be trusted and who is no longer human . . .

Desperate to find out what happened and to avoid the Changed, Alex meets up with Tom - a young army veteran - and Ellie, a young girl whose grandfather was killed by the electromagnetic pulse.

This improvised family will have to use every ou

nce of courage they have just to survive. (book back blurb)

When I first saw Ilsa's new book in a Publisher's Weekly article highlighting look-out YA books at BEA this year, I emailed her immediately and started hunting for her publicist's information to get a copy. I loved, loved, LOVED Draw the Dark so much that Ilsa could have written PUDDING!!! in blue crayon for 180 pages and I still would have wanted to read it. Guys, I don't love books like this very often but DRAW? OMFG love. So I saw a chance to jump at ASHES and I took it.

After some back and forth I ended up with a copy and my ultimate goal was to read it before BEA and then gush about it here and send my attending readers over to her signings to get copies. Obviously I'm just reviewing it now but gush I did already. And I hadn't even finished it at that point. Now that I've finished it, I want to consume it piece by piece, perhaps marinated in a nice remoulade sauce, so I an absorb her talent for my own.

Srsly, ASHES is an apocalyptic/dystopian novel that all other YA apocalyptic/dystopian novels should aspire to. None of those lazy worldbuilding, OMG lurve triangle piles of horse poop. Well, there's a little bit of a love triangle but it's more like two disjointed lines that haven't connected yet that are on like 25% opacity in Photoshop. It's all about the world and the characters surviving in it. Everything is so expertly figured out that it's hard, if not impossible, to find loopholes in the logic. The shit that should happen does. Nothing is conveniently explained away. There are no fades to black and then POOF everything is better. Logic rules. Science rules. This all makes the story pwn.

Alex is one hell of a strong, resilient character that almost wasn't. To keep this review spoiler-free, I won't say why but I will say when this girl needs to keep pushing forward, there isn't much that'll be able to stand in her way. And just when you think she gives up, she slaps you upside the head and proves you wrong. Ellie is the type of character you want to slap. Yeah she's young and scared but Alex is a better person than I probably would be if our roles were switched. Would I leave Ellie behind? No. Would I slap the snot right out of her when she gets petulant? Probably. At the very least be screaming my head off. My patience with children is pretty low under normal circumstances. And Tom. Dear Tom. What a saving grace he was. A perfect compliment, filling in the gaps in Alex's survival knowledge. And I loved how Ilsa balanced that relationship that, for the most part, wasn't there like it is in many other similar books.

One of the reasons why I liked ASHES so much. Romance isn't the focus. It's hardly even a blip on the radar. The book is about the world, the destruction of it and these characters' subsequent survival. Romance is tertiary at best and that's how I like it. There's just enough in there to spark something but she has you so sucked into the world that it doesn't really matter.

Ilsa's writing is detailed almost to a fault. There were a couple of places where it went on a little too long and gave a few too many details that probably wouldn't have hurt the story if they were removed but ultimately I didn't mind. All that detail played well when it mattered. Again, no spoilers but I will recommend not reading this book while eating anything. There were many times I found myself a little nauseous reading some of the things that happened. In a good way, if that's possible.

I alluded to it before but I'll say it straight out: Ilsa is merciless with her characters. She shows them no mercy. Anything that can happen to them will. They don't get reprieves, they don't get spared, they don't amazingly escape dangerous situations without some damage done at least. Logic holds strong to these characters and just because Alex is the MC doesn't mean she's boo-boo free. Holy hell no. If anything she gets it the worst. Ilsa does everything with her characters that I hope to do with mine. It takes true bravery to submit your babies to this kind of torture and I commend her for it. Not many authors do this and it makes her work all the stronger for it.

And last but not least, there are zombies. Sort of. They're not the already-dead-and-then-alive type of zombies. They're Changed. And evolving. Oh man they evolve and that makes them all the more terrifying.

Seriously, this book is terrifying. It will have you looking up at the sky and wondering what if. Because it could happen. It makes sense. So why wouldn't it? Truly frightening that at any second ZAP! Gone. And what then? ASHES is the type of apocalyptic/dystopian novel that gives other like-minded novels complexes. It puts them to shame in terms of worldbuilding and character development. And the ending? GAHHHHHHHHHHHH! If you don't want to read more after that ending, then go to a hospital and have them check your pulse because I think you might be dead.

Read ASHES. Now. Or when it comes out. You will not regret it.

Contest time!!!

You want an ARC of ASHES? You know you do. Because you want to bask in its awesomeness. So just fill out the form below for your chance to win a copy. Open to US residents 13 years of age and older only. One entry per person per email address. Duplicate entries will be deleted. Contest ends June 14th at midnight, EST.