Author Archives: sadie

The Tide of War

Book Review of The Tide of War, by Lori A. Witt

Leave a reply

The Tide of WarI received a copy of Lori A. Witt‘s The Tide of War from Netgalley.

Description from Goodreads:
Lieutenant Commander Kyle West is one of Earth Fleet’s greatest fighter pilots. Every day, he leads his squadron into battle over Earth’s cities in a seemingly endless war against a vicious alien race, defending his home and his loved ones.

Millions of miles away, the Fleet’s Elite Squadron attacks from another angle, engaging the enemy on its home turf. Casualties are high, and the Squadron needs more of the Fleet’s very best. But joining the Elite is a death sentence—a surety Kyle isn’t willing to face. Until a devastating attack wipes out the family he refused to leave.

Commander Andrei Dezhnyov, an Elite Squadron gunner, isn’t sure what to make of the cocky new American pilot. Kyle is equally uncertain about the snarly Russian, but as they warm up to each other, their tentative alliance becomes a deep bond—one that endangers them both when a daring and disobedient rescue reveals secrets that call into question everything they’ve ever believed about their enemy. Secrets that their .superiors would kill to protect.

Review:
This is one of those ho-hum, ‘it was ok’ kind of books. The writing was fine, the editing was fine, the dialogue was fine. There wasn’t a lot of sex, but it was fine. Nothing in the book blew my mind, but I didn’t hate it either.

Unfortunately, as much as I love me some M/M loving, I thought the book would have been stronger without it. Which is unfortunate, because the aspect of the book I appreciated most was that both men had serviceable, happy marriages that still accommodated their sexuality. One was bi and had an almost worshipful relationship with his wife who encouraged him to take male lovers. The other was gay and married to a lesbian, but had an obvious platonic love for his wife.

I liked the fact that Witt managed to show that love and sex don’t have to  look the same way in every marriage and that having sex with someone else, when done in an open and accepting relationship, doesn’t automatically invalidate the legitimacy of that same love for your spouse. Unfortunately, it also created a situation in which I very strongly felt that in order for a ‘romance’ to develop Witt had to get rid of the inconvenient wives and that sort of compromised the message a bit.

More than any of that though, the romance just wasn’t necessary for the plot to work. In fact, I think it cluttered up what might have be a perfectly readable sci-fi novel otherwise. And it was an acceptable sci-fi. I thought it got bogged down in endless dog-fighting at times and the solution came about with shocking ease, just before the book ended rather abruptly. But it was an all right read.

Impressed with Amazon’s customer service

Leave a reply

You may not know this about me, but I generally distrust large corporations. I always assume that, with millions of customers, they’d not be bothered with the loss of one. Thus, there’s no real incentive to go out of their way to be helpful. And while this may be true, true even for Amazon (I’ve heard any number of horror stories), it wasn’t at all true of my most recent interaction with them.

About 1:00 Friday afternoon, I had a crisis. I picked my Kindle up off the table and noticed what I thought was a scratch on my screen. That opinion quickly changed, as I noticed it was instead a crack! I had (have) no idea how it came to be. As far as I know, it’s never been dropped or sat on. My Kindle and I spend hours together most days. I treat it accordingly. I gentle it.

The crack was small. I was vexed, but thought I could live with it. However, within half an hour of reading, it grew to two – two and a half inches and was starting to affect the functionality of the touch screen. I sadly accepted that it was done for.

IMG_20150517_084422

I set the poor thing aside and contacted Amazon customer services, via the chat option (noticing as I did that the crack was still growing). I was transferred to Charan Teja, who asked me once if the device had been jarred or submitted to any sort of pressure. When I said ‘no,’ they immediately offered to replace the Kindle, as there is no easy fix.

Now, I’ll grant that I order a lot from Amazon and I rarely return items. On the matrix of customers most likely to be trying to pull some sort of fast one, I’m probably pretty low. But I contacted Amazon fully prepared to be told that screens weren’t covered by the warranty or that I must somehow be responsible. I at least expected to be grilled on the subject. I expected to terminate contact angry and impotent feeling. The painlessness with which it all transpired instead was awe-inspiring to me.

I was emailed a return shipping label to send the broken Kindle back for free (in the box the new one arrives in) and told that my replacement Kindle would arrive Sunday the 17th. I actually laughed at this, assuming (perhaps rudely) that Charan must not be American and know that there is no Sunday post.

Screen Shot 2015-05-17 at 8.47.12 AM

Regardless, I expected my new Kindle by Monday and was perfectly satisfied with this. I’d have actually been happy with regular old snail mail and a week-long delivery time. It’s still better than a permanently broken e-reader. Either way, I figured I’d finally get some of the physical books that I’d been meaning to read cleared off the shelf while I waited.

But the unexpected happened. Here I sat at about 8:00 this Sunday morning—unwashed, my hair pulled messily back, still in my pajamas, sipping idly at a cup of decaf coffee (yes, I know, but I’ve temporarily given up caffeine)—when there was a knock at the door and a USPS van in my drive.

IMG_20150517_084326

Less than 48 (weekend) hours from contacting Amazon I have a new Kindle in hand!  Any way I slice that it’s impressive. (And have I lived under a rock that I didn’t know there were Sunday deliveries?)

Thank you Amazon and USPS!

too far

Book Review of Too Far, by Rich Shapero

Leave a reply

Too FarI won a paperback copy of Rich Shapero‘s Too Far.

Description from Goodreads:
Rich Shapero’s Too Far follows an ultra-imaginative pair, Robbie and Fristeen, through a transformative summer spent exploring the woods behind their remote Alaskan homes. As their family lives become increasingly unstable, the characters travel deeper and farther into their private world. The forest—and the gods who inhabit it—becomes their refuge until, at summer’s end, they are forced to choose between the crushing prospects of the real world, and the lethal demands of their ideal one.

Review: 
Almost three years ago, I won a copy of the book in a giveaway, but I put off reading it because it generally has very poor reviews. (Averaging 2.8 and change on both Amazon and Goodreads.)

After reading the book and a number of those poor reviews, I think I have an explanation. I notice that an awful lot of those reviewers state that they had been given a copy of the book for free on their college campus. Now, I don’t know Shapero and I’m hypothesizing, but this seems to have been one of Shapero’s marketing techniques.

I can see why he might have gone that route. This is a book that speaks in symbolism and says a lot with what isn’t said. And I can follow the logic that a bunch of university students, still immersed in deconstructing the classics and, I don’t know, reciting Byronic verse or something might be a good audience for this type of literature. However, it ignores the fact that college campuses are also full of 22-year-old Engineering students, and football scholarship recipients, and any number of students that don’t fulfill the description of literati.

I mention all of this because, though I didn’t find myself a fan of the book, I think some of the poor reviews can be taken with a grain of salt as having been solicited from the wrong audience. (Not that that makes them less than legitimate, but the overwhelming number of poor reviews could stem from the book only making it into the hands of people who weren’t likely to enjoy it.)

Now, why didn’t I (a literati at heart) enjoy the book? Because I thought it was overwritten and indulgent on the author’s part. As I mentioned, it’s all symbolic. The children create a world of their own to deal with the troubles in their lives and much of it mimics those same troubles. But so very much of it is presented as actually happening, while the reader is left to remind themself that it’s only fantasy that it just feels like a drug fueled escapade. It felt as if the author used the excuse of everything being symbolic to go hog-wild and write anything he wanted. I wouldn’t be surprised to find much of it doesn’t actually mean anything, we’re just supposed to assume it does.

This was especially apparent when one looked at the language and the emotional, developmental and intellectual maturity of the kids. I understand the characters are six to maintain their innocence in a way older children could not, but nothing in these children’s behavior, language or understanding was that of a six year old and most definitely the narrator’s vocabulary wasn’t. It was envy-worthy.

What’s more, I found the strange erotic tension between the six year olds disturbing. Not just because they had the common, ‘I’ll show you mine, if you show me yours’ scene or even because they cavort around the forest naked, but because everything about their relationship is gendered. Robbie’s view of Fristeen is unabashedly tinged with subtle eroticism and Fristeen’s behavior toward Robbie is subtly inviting.

Beyond that, there is a definite feel of Robbie being a MAN and Fristeen being WOMAN that just shouldn’t be there. It shows up in everything from who speaks, to who leads, to who makes decisions, to who comforts or protects whom. I know children are culturally indoctrinated early, but this was far too strong for children so young. It simply felt artificial.

And on a personal note, I was consistently annoyed by the patronizing was Robbie and his father treated and spoke about his mother. Mental health issues or not, there was a problem there.

I will say that the book is well edited. I don’t remember a single error catching my attention and I think Shapero really just wants to write poetry, because though the story as a whole was a fail for me, the actual writing is beautiful.