Books you should have read already: The Flame Alphabet

And now begins the stand alone novels.

The Flame Alphabet

by Ben Marcus

The Flame Alphabet is a very hard book to recommend. I want to recommend it to you all, and since I'm writing this I suppose that I am. But, unlike Feed or The Magicians, I don't for a moment believe that this will have the same universal appeal.

The Flame Alphabet's plot is this: There is a plague striking the world, or at least America. The speech of children is striking those that hear it ill as well as leaving a salty residue that spreads in the wind and strikes bare the soil. As time goes on this plague gets worse until the very foundations of communication may become poisonous to all humans.

That doesn't sound too depressing. It's a new take on the apocalypse  In fact, it's a Jewish apocalypse story and it's reflected throughout. There are issues of community through ideas, independent reflection and the meaning of community. It's explicitly Jewish, though some aspects are very twisted to the point of grotesquery and horror.
But it's also a story of a world where isolation not only tears people apart but also makes them confront how alone they are to begin with. That's the scariest part of this book, which isn't explicitly horror though I did find it genuinely scary. The seeds of the main character's sadness and existential dread get traced back to his family before they are split apart by this disease. Think about it, if the speech of children is toxic then how long do you think parents would be able to stand the proximity of their children? How long could children stand to stay and slowly kill their parents? But also, upon reflection, once you can no longer talk to your family- what if you find that your relationship doesn't change as much as you feared?

That's all in this novel. Ben Marcus, the author, does perhaps too good a job at reflecting these themes in the tone of the book. By the end of the novel I was reading chapter after chapter in a single sitting, gnashing my teeth. But early on I had the hardest time getting into the prose. It's dry and depressing and more than slightly sickening. The text felt like the salty air in their world, slowly pulling the moisture from the air and hurting you from the inside. I kept wanting give up on it, rereading the synopsis, and realizing the concept still intrigued me. It took about halfway through before the book and my mind synced up and just clicked together.

So I do recommend this book. Highly. As soon as I completed it I was happy both to be through with it and to have the ideas it planted sitting in my head. In a way it's almost the antithesis of the movie "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid". In that movie the writer set out to create a script that showed two close friends that would ultimately become aware that they don't and can't truly know one another. By the time the writer finished the script he had a story that showed two people who did know each other and he had to reverse his thesis. In The Flame Alphabet we see that not only do some people get pulled apart by the enforced lack of communication but perhaps they were never even close to knowing each other even when they did talk.


I promise the next one will be a lot lighter in tone.

Books you should have read already: Feed

And now we come to the top series in this run of recommendations.

Feed

(Newsflesh, #1) by Mira Grant

This series has been a hard sell to most people I recommend it to (which is everyone). It presents itself so strongly as a certain book and it's not. This book takes place after a zombie apocalypse but it's not about zombies. The main characters are reporters and a large portion of world building is devoted to how news media was restructured after the rising of the dead but it's not a media study. The position that sets the group off on their adventure is to follow a politician who is running to be the Republican presidential candidate but it's not a political thriller.

This is technically a hard sci-fi medical thriller. But it's not really that either.

What it really is, is amazing. There are two types of people I know.

1. People I have recommended it to and have absolutely loved it.
2. People I have recommended it to and they have not read it.

With complete sincerity I tell you that this book has a 100% "love it" rate by those who I pushed it on and have read it.

Our narrator is Georgia Mason, a sharp edged, hard as nails news blogger who sounds like equal parts Rick Grimes and Hunter S. Thompson. It's 25 years after the zombie uprising. People have survived and learned how to keep living. Everyone is infected. Everyone is scared. And life goes on. The news media was hesitant to admit zombies were real. Sounds too silly. But bloggers jumped on that story and kept people posted. And so bloggers have survived into the new world. Her group lands a prime job, following around Peter Ryman who's fighting for the Republican nominee spot. And then things get intense.

I'm specifically light on plot details because this book absolutely speaks for itself. The Magicians made me fall in love with reading again and this series places a spot above that book.

And when you're done with the trilogy and the two novellas (the prequel takes place at San Diego Comic Con in 2014) then head over to my friend Mark's blog, Mark Reads, and reread it along with his chapter-by-chapter reaction/reviews.

Books you should have read already: The Magicians

The Magicians

(The Magicians, #1)

by Lev Grossman

The final two series reviews get a bit heavier. This penultimate series is the last fantasy series I'll try to sell you on. It sounds like Harry Potter but actually is incredibly far from it. I'm pretty sure some of the more dissatisfied responses to this book are from people expecting to find the next Hogwarts and instead getting highly flawed, modern literary characters.

The concept is that Quentin Coldwater is a student ready to leave the world of high school and enter college. He has a friend who's dating his crush and they are essentially a trio. But they vanish early on in the story when Quentin gets tested and accepted to Brakebills, a magical college.

In fact, that set of establishing a trope and then tearing it away to see how the characters react is the running theme of the first novel. Quentin is part of a tight knit trio, then they are gone and he must cope. Quentin is expecting his college days to me like Hogwarts but instead it's actually an incredibly dense and difficult curriculum and he's no longer acing tests effortlessly. And each time this reveal and revoke is called upon it makes the characters involved much deeper. Or at least makes them confront their flaws. Like real people, some of the students at Brakebills aren't necessarily looking to constantly be introspective and better themselves. Some want to get laid. Some want to just get by. Some want to put on airs and affectations in order to hide their insecurities.

I won't give away too much of the plot but I will say this. Do not go in expecting Harry Potter. Instead, realize that Quentin loves magic because of a series of books about a magical place called Fillory. It's a very thinly veiled substitute for the Narnia books, right down to the heavy handed Christian allegories. And it is this series that plants the seeds of what magic and wonder should be for Quentin and therefore influence The Magicians. These books have adventure but it is almost despite the characters, not because of them. While adventures seem like a great idea on paper most people wouldn't want to throw themselves out of their comfort zones and place their lives in jeopardy just as they're discovering magic and, by way of it, a life of unimaginable luxury and metaphysical academia. The conflict in these books, like most things, is a reveal and revoke. You see an adventure coming and then it's here. But it's the internal clash that everyone has to face because these adventures where the real story resides.

Another way to put this book in context. When I reread it this book was perhaps one of 4 novels I had reread in my adult life. This first book in this series is what set me evangelizing books again.

Books you should have read already: Skulduggery Pleasant

Skulduggery Pleasant

(Skulduggery Pleasant #1)

by Derek Landy

Young adult "chosen one" fantasy series are a dime a dozen. Before dystopian (Divergent, Hunger Games, Uglies, Delirium, Maze Runner, Cinder, Incarceron, City of Ember, etc) was in vogue you couldn't swing a dead house elf without hitting one. And as much as I enjoy the world of Harry Potter I will flat out admit that

[off topic criticism redacted]

So what does Skulduggery Pleasant have that sets it apart? So, so much. There' darkness, a snarky narrative that doesn't talk down, fantastic humor, more snark, interesting characters infused with magic, dynamic characters that have long term character arcs and sometimes relapse with lasting consequences. And snark.

In short, I was very nearly mad when I finished this book. I was so close to furious that I hadn't written it that the only reason I didn't tear it in half was that it was too damned good. I have laughed out loud while reading this series. I have gotten attached to these characters. Oh, fine, let me tell you a little about them.

Stephanie Edgley is the protagonist we follow. She's 12 at the time and her uncle Gordon has just died. Gordon was a horror writer but upon inheriting his estate, Stephanie finds out that much of what he wrote was based on the people he knew well. Soon Stephanie finds herself involved in the policing of this magical underworld of Ireland by way of Gordon's friend Skulduggery Pleasant. He's a smart ass, has a questionable past and is a well dressed skeleton.

The minor characters just flesh out the world with depth. Rather than trying to saddle Stephanie with some sort of male foil/romantic interest we are given Tanith Low, who becomes a running sister figure. In the later books Stephanie does meet some interesting male characters but her independence is never compromised and becomes a strong sticking point to her relationships. There's also a wonderful bit that brutally addresses some of the themes that are romanticized in Twilight.

Later on we have side characters that change allegiances with lasting consequences, studies on the effects of self sacrifice and whether self destructive behavior is warranted and when. This shit gets dark, all the while getting deeper and deeper into the world.

And unlike Harry Potter it does get around to dealing with the issues of superiority in the world between magical and mortal. It seems strange that in Rowling's world the magic community has this bizarre reverence for the non-magical people and practices. It seems pretty obvious that in that world magic is plainly superior. Well, that's not something Landy ignores. When crossing over to this magical new world what reasons would you need to go back? How important would your family life be when actually offered the chance to run off, live for centuries, and physically control the elements as well as life and death?

But don't get the wrong idea. These books are YA fantasy. They are adventure stories and they are, without hesitation, fun. I also recently gave away my dead tree edition of the first novel which just goes to show you how invested I am in sharing the wealth of this serie

Books you should have read already: Libriomancer

I consume what could be described as "copious amounts of media". I go through movies, TV series, and books. Part of this is due to my mastery over the mystical powers of insomnia. Some of it is just due to me loving the feeling of finding amazing stories. I also love seeing someone else discover something that they love, hence my constant recommendations to people. Movies and TV are easy. They tend to be social in that people get together to watch things. Books are a more solitary sport. People don't really have parties where they gather in groups and all sit down to read.

What I'm doing here is codifying recommendations of things I've read in the past year or so and I'll be grouping them in the following way:

• series
• stand alone
• collections
• ambiance

I will start with "series" and I will work my way from weakest to strongest recommendation. Of course, take that in context. That's the weakest "you should have already read this".

Oh, and if any of you are down with the e-readers, let me know. I might be able to help you out.

Libriomancer

(Magic Ex Libris #1)

by Jim C. Hines

I suppose this one counts for part of a series though there's only one book out at the moment. More than anything this book is cute. It's a smart take on magic and literature. The concept is that there's a class of modern sorcerers that can use collective belief and have focused that through books. The more people read and put emotion into stories the easier it is for them to pull out artifacts from the books. They are libriomancers. The actual story isn't astounding. The world itself isn't even as compelling as some other fantasy I've read. But there are parts to this book that shine.

The concept itself is a meta-aware love letter to readers themselves. The idea that the more invested people are in a book the more real it becomes (now literally) should speak to all readers. The author even plays around with that, touching on intent of the writer affecting the prose as well as self publishing.

But there's also another layer to this toying with tropes and creation. I won't regurgitate the character description but the side kick is an interesting take on the hot, sexy, magical urban fantasy female. For that alone I know some of my friends will love this.

And something else that impressed me was that Hines actually has characters that try to find and push the boundaries of their magical system. While one would think that this would be something nearly every strong, magic wielding character would try it's actually quite rare in fantasy. For the most part inhabitants of magical worlds are satisfied to learn the basics and use magic exactly as the instruction manual says to. But Hines realizes that his magicians are creative types. It seems that the standard cover for libriomancers are book store and library workers. How many of those people do you know that don't write? So of course you should have experimentation going on when your self selected magical population is mentally set to play games with power and concepts.

Of course, there's the added bonus that many of the items pulled out of books and used as tools are from real novels. So playing "spot the reference" is a bonus game woven into the text.

I don't want to talk this book up too much. I know this blog series is called "books you should have read already" and with a title like that there's a certain level of expectation established. This book, I feel, is not quite the sum of its parts. I finished the book feeling fair about it. I wasn't blown away and the story was good enough. But it stuck with me and it wasn't until I really thought about what I liked in it that I appreciated  Libriomancer more and more. Feel free to insert your own comment about this criticism being a parallel to the way in which libriomancers reach into books and extract the parts that resonate and give power. I just realized that too.

For more on pushing and exploring magical systems see "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality". It's ongoing, long and probably drier than many of you will want to deal with (natural born salesman right here!) but it's incredibly interesting. It also shows how utterly thin some popular fantasy realms really can be.