tears for nanertak

Book Review of Tears for Nanertak

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Author/artist Skip Hofstrand sent me a copy of his juvenile eco-fiction book Tears for Nanertak .

What Happens When Your Home Disappears? For most of us, it’s hard to imagine our home vanishing. But for Nanertak, a polar bear cub, the melting of her Arctic homeland means that she has nowhere to live. She and her mother, Nanuck, are forced to escape. Their exit by iceberg is full of danger – the beginning of an incredible journey of survival. Many tears are shed along the way, but there is unexpected hope for Nanertak’s future…along with a solution to the problem of her disappearing Arctic homeland. Join Nanertak and Nanuck as they search for their new home in this beautiful story that is both educational and inspiring for children and adults alike.

When this book arrived my children got one look at the cover and elicited a promise to read it to them before I even finished opening the mail…with good reason. The artwork is stunning. I’m completely in love with it. I’ve always appreciated water-colours and Mr. Hofstrand has a spectacular talent. Plus, how cool is it that a book written with the intent of highlighting the plight of Arctic animals in the face of global warming has been illustrated with water from the melting Greenland Ice Cap. It forms a satisfying circle. There is an awful lot of blank space in the book though. I’m not sure if it is supposed to be a visual reminder of the white landscapes of the Arctic or just odd formatting.

The message in the book is a simple one, the next generation must be taught now to be responsible wardens of animal habitats. But I fear it might be lost on the primary audience (children). I don’t think it is particularly explicit and would likely need to be explained. However, the book could easily be used as a talking point to broach the subject of climate change with youngsters. Either way, it’s worth reading just for the artwork.

Book Review of Daniel J. Strait’s Trouganda

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Author Daniel J. Strait sent me a copy of Trouganda (Silver Tears, #1) .

Description from Goodreads:
A prophecy written over millennia ago. A baby girl is born with a birthmark matching the one described in the prophecy. Her parents feared the worst so they fled from the elders. They found solace in the small village of Jin, where Nakiata would be trained by the greatest SOT Master ever known. After years of intense training, Nakiata must face her Final Test. A test that would send her out into a world of danger, mystery, and death. Nakiata would have to use every skill she knew in order to survive the dangers and wonders of …Trouganda.

Review:

Trouganda is the first of a five-book series. It focuses on Nakiata, The First of five individuals (seeing a pattern here?) destined for some act of greatness. On the surface I really like Nakiata. She is a strong warrior woman and I generally love strong female characters. Unfortunately, I found her (and almost everyone except for Dravone) flat and emotionless. Her first response to any challenge is violence. Granted, she has been trained to be that way, but this repeated one trick left no room for variation and/or character development. She had one predictable response to all scenarios. Further, since she had mastered her art more fully than anyone else she was essentially untouchable. No one presented her with anything she was anything but confident in facing, so there was no reason for her emotional state or behavior to change at any point or for her to fear simply stating to anyone things one would expect to be a secret.

The writing is very much in the style of a storyteller. Everything is described in minute detail from the perspective of a disembodied narrator. There is very little internal dialogue or direct character interactions. Though it is my absolute least favourite literary critique, I suppose it would be accurate to say it is largely tell not show. Despite all of that I did really like the story. The concept a disembodied (or decultured) prophecy crossing millenniums, galaxies and species before fulfilment is really interesting. I suspect that as the series progresses the character list will increase, allowing for more variation. I’d be more than willing to read the second book when it is available.

Daughter Moon

Book Review: Daughter Moon, by @hg47

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Daughter Moon, by the mysterious @hg47. I for real bought this one. It wasn’t even free on Amazon. 

I normally start with a description of the book, but Daughter Moon has a ridiculously long (though accurate) synopsis which can be found here. I’ll sum it up by saying that an ace hacker is sent on a suicide mission to save a techno-goddess stranded in time. Then is forced to face an alien invasion, political infighting, and a whole horde of nanobots…not to mention a planet of horny virgins.

Review:
Oh wow, this is some serious hard sic-fi right here. I might even stretch it to speculative fiction. Either way it covers a lot of ground, from Dworkin’s `all sexual penetration is rape’ to Newtonian physics and functional nanotechnology…not to mention time travel. This book takes some thought to read though. I strongly recommend reading it, but not when there are too many distractions about. It would be easy to get lost in the multiple time-lines and overlapping ‘Direct Interface Lifetimes.’ You want time available to think through the information presented to you and appreciate the detailed science that the story is interlaced with. A lot of research must have gone into the technical writing. Whomever @hg47 is in real life, he/she has no shortage of education. (Unless he/she is just a simple genius. You never know.) The bibliography (yea there is one) kept my internal social scientist happy and lit my physicist husband’s eyes aglow.

But it’s also funny, though in a subtle kind of way. For example, a discussion of the works of Kate Gödel (a feminized reference to famed physicist Kurt Gödel) while the villainized Einstein got to keep his masculinity….Spielberg and Shakespeare, well maybe. I also found it endlessly amusing to spot all of the future huwomanity’s idolizations of famed feminists: the Shere Hite shuttle, Simone de Beauvoir museum, Andrea Dworkin and Avital Ronell ships, classic…or would undoubtedly be for a race of socially superior women. The use of feminized language (huwomanity, womanoeuvred, etc) did take some getting used to, but it works.

If you like your Sci-fi with a hard edge this is the book for you. The writing reminded me a lot of Heinlein with a little Douglas Adams humour thrown in for good measure. Some of the AIs even reminded me of Marvin at times. Seriously, if you’re into the genre pick it up.