World War I, mechanical walkers, and VERY mixed-up animals

Steampunk fits in to many different time periods.  Gail Carriger integrates it into Victorian-era London in the Parasol Protectorate series.  Cherie Priest adds it to Civil War America in Boneshaker.  Here, Scott Westerfeld of The Uglies fame has combined steampunk and World War I in his newest teen book Leviathan.

The Clankers have put all of their science resources into machinery.  Steam-driven walkers are their war machines of choice.  They are also much more advanced with other weapons.  

The Darwinists, however, have mastered the art of genetically splicing animals.  The war effort uses some of them in the war, such as The Leviathan, which is a whale-like creature created to float over enemies, rather like a zeppelin.  The entire ship is a closed system, made of several different animals that each have a specific job to keep the airship afloat.

On a side, note, I read this book right around the time I was watching a lot of “Batman: The Brave and The Bold”, and I couldn’t help but think of the superhero B’wana Beast.  But that’s neither here nor there.

Deryn has always wanted to fly.  Unfortunately, she’s a girl, so that doesn’t work so well.  Her uncle had worked with the Darwinists’ airships, and she fell in love.  So, in intrepid girl style of old, she’s dressed herself as a boy and joined the army.

Prince Aleksandar isn’t in this for the fun, however.  Born the son of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, he was rescued from the assassination of the rest of his family, and is now on the run with a few old soldiers who were his trainers.

The story follows both of our young adventurers, and as their paths cross, they have to work together to stay alive.

If Westerfield wasn’t such an established Teen author, I’m sure that this book would have been classified as mid-grade.  While a lot of kids in middle school don’t learn much about World War I, a clever 12-year-old should follow along fine, and the type of story it is might be more suited to that age bracket.  For those of us who are still a kid at heart, though, it’s a fun, well thought out story that leaves us eagerly awaiting the inevitable sequels.

Highs:  Lots of action, sympathetic main characters

Lows:  The ideas of a prince on the run and a girl posing as a boy are a little overdone

Verdict:  More of a children’s book than a teen book, but entertaining for anyone who remembers being that age.

Further Reading:  Howl’s Moving Castle, Graceling

Manga Monday: A monkey-tailed boy, a turtle master, and a kid with no nose

For many people in the US, their first exposure to anime was badly cut and censored Dragon Ball Z.  Even now, with the proliferation of Japanese culture into many areas of the American airwaves, many people don’t know that Dragon Ball Z is only the second chapter of the story.  It all began with Dragon Ball.

Shonen Jump is finally giving the anime and manga fans what they want.  They’re releasing large-size versions of many of their more popular (and longer) series as three-in-one sets for $17.99.  Besides being much more affordable, the larger size lets the detail of the art come through better.  Admittedly, there’s not all that much subtlety to most shonen titles, but it makes some of the in-joke text to be a little easier to read.

Son Goku is a little monkey-tailed boy who’s living all alone in the backwoods.  When Bulma comes across him, he explains that his grandfather, Son Gohan, has died, and left him an orange and red glowing ball.  This glowing ball causes more trouble than either of them could have imagined.

Bulma, you see, is quite smart.  She was going through some of the old folklore, and discovered a story about the Dragon Balls.  It seems that if you can collect all seven and recite the right incantation, a dragon appears and will grant any one wish.  So she invented the Dragon Radar, and has set off on her summer vacation to find the dragon balls.

Of course, the #4 Dragon Ball is all that Goku has left of the man who raised him. He’s certainly not going to let Bulma take it from him, but he’s perfectly amenable to going on an adventure with Bulma to find the rest of them.  It’d be pretty cool to see the dragon, too.  So off they go, Bulma armed with her capsules and Goku with his magic staff, to see the world.

For the person who has only ever been exposed to Dragon Ball Z, or it’s more recent incarnation Dragon Ball Z Kai, the reader is quickly introduced to many of the main characters from that series.  Mugen Roshi, Yamcha, Pu’er, Kuririn, The Ox King and Chi-Chi are all introduced within the first half of the book.

What might also be interesting to American readers is the strong Teen rating of the manga.  There’s nothing really inappropriate in these books, but when compared to a show like Pokemon, there’s certainly some differences.  Being raised by an old man in an isolated area, Goku sees nothing wrong with running around naked, and is also not quite sure how tell boys and girls apart without...well...checking.  Also, Mugen Roshi rather likes the women, and isn’t terribly shy about it.  Nosebleeds abound.

The new format of the manga is a great way to draw buyers in to the series.  Seeing 26 volumes staring back from the shelf at a bookstore can be fairly daunting, but seeing nine nice volumes in a row is much more approachable.  The quality of printing is nice enough, with a few full-color additions, and the fact that it’s not censored is refreshing.

Highs:  Uncensored version of the story, the character Lunch

Lows:  A little heavy on the panty humor, but it’s a boy’s comic

Verdict:  A must-read for any Dragon Ball Z fan, or a fan of any shonen series

Further Reading:  One Piece, Dragon Ball Z

What if the Civil War lasted 20 years...and had a few zombies too?

The best thing about steampunk is that it’s not really a genre unto itself.  Good steampunk is just a backdrop to the rest of the story, and doesn’t get in the way.  It shouldn’t be so jarring that it snaps the reader out of the story.

Boneshaker is a steampunk setting with a zombie story.  It’s set in the time of the Civil War, but the war became so protracted that it's been going for 20+ years. The steampunk material fits, since technology could have easily diverged at that point, and wartime tends to bring out scientific advances.  And since the city in which the story takes place is so run down and post-apocalyptic, mad scientists and strange technology fits, too.

In this timeline, America is starting to debate whether it should by Alaska from the Russians.  But during the debate, Russia wants to know if the Yukon has gold before it settles on a price.  Enter Doctor Leviticus Blue and his Incredible Bone-Shaking Drill Engine.  Made to drill underground to look for veins of gold, something went wrong one night.  It drilled its way out of Blue’s basement laboratory, ran under half the town, and then returned to the lab.

Generally, cities don’t like having the ground drilled out from underneath them, so this caused a good bit of destruction.  Beyond the physical destruction, however, the Boneshaker released as gas known as Blight.  It is this Blight gas, when inhaled, which creates “rotters”, the half-dead creatures that we call zombies.

So what do the good people do to combat this?  They build a wall around the city, high enough to trap the gas, and keep in the rotters.  

Unfortunately, they also trapped healthy humans who couldn’t, for one reason or another, get out of the city.  The largest group of these was the people incarcerated in the city jail.  The police wanted to get out of the city themselves, and they left the jail closed, leaving the people there to die.  Local citizen Magnus Wilkes couldn’t leave these people to die, so he ran back in to the city himself to let them out.  While there, he was overcome with the Blight gas, and while two of the prisoners he released got him back out, he died.

Almost two decades later, Leviticus Blue’s wife, and Magnus’ daughter, now going by her maiden name of Briar Wilkes, and her son Zeke, live in the city outside the wall.  Briar works in the water works, which does its best removing the residue of the Blight from the area’s water supply, for a pittance.  Zeke is able to continue to go to school, but since he’s treated so badly by the people of the city (being the son of the person who brought about the zombie apocalypse does that), he’s been running with a bad crowd.  Most law-abiding citizens still see Magus’ final act as a crime, but the seedier side of town thinks of him as a hero.

After a particularly hard day for both of them, Zeke gets it into his head that he wants to go back in to the Blight to clear his father’s name.  There have been rumors that the Russians coerced Leviticus into testing the Boneshaker early, and it went out of control.  So, armed with an antiquated gas mask and an ancient revolver, Zeke makes his way into the walled city.

When his mother finds out what he’s done, she prepares to go in after him.  When an earthquake rocks the area, and the drainage pipes that Zeke uses to get in collapse and become impassable, Briar uses his father’s name to befriend an airship captain to get dropped into the city.  And from there, the gas-masked-wearing, dirigible-flying, steam-cleaned-air breathing adventure begins.

This book has a little bit of everything.  It has silent Chinese men working the unbearable steam jobs, a drug refined from the Blight gas called ‘lemon drop’ that they’re hoping will get some of the opium money flowing into the country, and of course the face-eating zombies chasing them whenever they hear living flesh around.

Cherie Priest has written a few books before this, but this book is getting her a lot of publicity.  For good reason, too.  This book sets up a great world for either sequels or parallel novels, and I can’t wait to see what else will be coming.

Highs:  Watching the mother Briar meeting the airship captains

Lows:  Uneven action, maybe too many stories in one.

Verdict:  A popcorn-munching, fun, fast romp

Further Reading:  Feed, Soulless, World War Z

Where the supernatural get a bit less super...

Note:  Changeless is the sequel to Soulless.  If you haven’t read it already, check out my review of Soulless here. Otherwise, read on!

A teen primer on urban fantasy

Charles deLint is the grandfather of urban fantasy. Without him, the whole scope of modern-day fantasy would be changed. His Newford series is his longest and probably most well-known series. He began to introduce teen readers to the series with The Blue Girl, and with Little (Grrl) Lost, he continues to introduce teens to his world. Since it’s a standalone novel, it’s a great place to jump in and see if the series is right for you.

It’s a fairly standard girls-finding-their-place-in-the-world story at heart. T.J.'s family had to leave their home in the country for financial reasons, and they’ve moved to the city. In the move, she had to leave behind her best human friend, as well as her best animal friend, her horse. Moving from the country to the city has other obstacles as well, since the types of cliques are different in different areas. So she’s having a pretty hard time fitting in.

Elizabeth appears in her room one night. She’s a Little, and lives in the walls of T.J.'s new house. A rebel in a fairly conservative, cautious family, she wants to go see what else there is in the world. Of course, being only a few inches tall makes this a more precarious venture than it would be for another girl her age. And since she was raised in such a cautious family, she’s never really encountered the perils of the outside world for herself. But she’s heard a legend that Littles used to be birds who gave up their wings, and there might be a way to learn to switch back and forth.

Along the way, both girls run up against a lot of the problems of growing up, just with a bit of a fantasy twist. We meet a few more creatures from European mythology, and travel to the underground world of magical beings that seems to exist under a lot of cities. We also learn what it means to make a promise, to keep one’s word, and to have a real friend.

Compared to some of deLint’s other stories, Little (Grrl) Lost is much more light, even during the relatively dangerous parts. It’s an easy teen book with easy, teen morals, but it’s still a nice, quick read to escape our much more mundane world.

Highs: An easy read, and a good introduction to the world of the series

Lows: A little simple, but fairly standard for the Teen Fantasy genre

Verdict: Worth the read, but don’t expect high art

Further Reading: The Blue Girl, City of Bones

Manga Monday: A cute kitten realizes cabbage isn't tasty

Note:Chi’s Sweet Home Vol. 2 is, of course, the sequel to Chi’s Sweet Home Vol. 1.  If you want to read that review first, check it out here.  Otherwise read on!

After the Zombie Apocalypse, life goes on

Most zombie stories take place during the initial outbreak.  That makes sense; action movies are based on action, after all, and normal humans first finding out that their loved ones want to eat them tends to create plenty of action.  Even movies like the recent Zombieland still have a post-apocalyptic atmosphere.

But what happens after the first outbreak?  Assuming that we normal folk can keep some kind of containment going, you might get a world like the one in Mira Grant’s Feed.

It all started out innocently enough.  In 2014, scientists use engineered viruses to cure both the common cold and cancer.  One would think that this would create a new renaissance.  But a few problems begin, snowballing into the greatest public health epidemic in world history.  

First, liberal do-gooders, who are afraid that the scientists might try to sell the cold virus cure, steal the new virus, called the Kellis virus, go up in crop dusters, and spread the cure around the country.  Some people hailed them as the greatest humanists of all time.  At the same time, the first cases of cancer are cured with the Amberlee virus.

What no one knows until it is too late, however, is that when the two viruses interact, they cause Kellis-Amberlee syndrome.  Generally benign as long as the host is alive, once the host dies, the virus becomes active within the host.  The body resurrects, with higher brain function destroyed, and an insatiable craving for fresh meat.  Every animal over 40lbs can, and is, infected (there’s at least one recorded death by giraffe bite at a zoo...).  Being bitten, even non-fatally, by a human or animal with active Kellis-Amberlee in its system will also cause the virus to manifest in the victim.

On top of that, when the virus first broke out, the Mainstream Media mocked the idea that zombies were among us, and actively tried to cover it up.  The internet, however, distributed the true information, along with ways to kill zombies, localized outbreak information, and theories about how the outbreak started.  Because of this, many, many people do not pay attention to the MSM anymore, and the idea of blogging news has taken off. 

This brings us to our intrepid reporters.  There’s Georgia, the leader of the group, and a staunch Newsie (fact with as little opinion or commentary as possible); Shaun, her not-quite-twin brother and Irwin (a little too dumb to survive, likes to poke at zombies with sticks, and gets everyone into trouble, but draws lots of ratings); and Buffy, the small, blonde, perky Fictional (writes the fiction, poetry, and soap operas of the ‘net).

Mira Grant has worldbuilding down to a science in this book.  She does enough that nothing pops out of nowhere to surprise us (except zombies, but that’s what they do), but not so much that it gets repetitive or boring.  Every leap that the country has done socially makes sense, and even the science seems plausible.  Nothing annoys me more than coming upon bad science in a novel, but Grant has audited virology courses to make sure that this book makes sense, and it shows.  It sets the stage well for the next two books for the trilogy, but still has closure unto itself.  Very nice novel.

Highs:  Worldbuilding, characters

Lows:  Some zombie cheesiness

Verdict:  Great start to the trilogy

Further Reading:  Boneshaker, World War Z