Tagged: jack
Crystal Deception by Doug J. Cooper
(Cover picture courtesy of Masquerade Tours via email.)
Criss lives in a special kind of prison. He can see and hear everything around the world. Yet a restrictor mesh restrains his reach and keeps him cooperative. His creator, Dr. Jessica Tallette, believes his special abilities offer great promise for humanity. But she fears the consequences of freeing him, because Criss, a sentient artificial intelligence with the intellect of a thousand humans, is too powerful to control.
Guided by her scientific training, Tallette works cautiously with Criss. That is, until the Kardish, an otherwise peaceful race of alien traders, announce they want him. With technologies superior to Earth’s, the Kardish express their desires with ominous undertones.
The Union of Nations is funding Tallete’s artificial intelligence research, and she turns to them for help. Sid, a special agent charged with leading the response, decides Earth’s greatest weapon is the very AI the aliens intend to possess. But what happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object? And what is humanity’s role if an interstellar battle among titans starts to rage?
[Full disclosure: I was sent a free physical copy from the author in conjunction with the blog tour in exchange for an honest review.]
I honestly have to admit I was more than a little skeptical about Crystal Deception when I signed up for the blog tour. A book about a sentient, talking crystal could either be really good or really terrible. Still, I decided to be open-minded because I’ve been skeptical of books before and they ended up being some of my all-time favourites.
As it turns out, my open-mindedness was rewarded. Doug J. Cooper’s story is much, much more complicated and engrossing than the blurb would have you believe. There are plot twists around every corner and the characters are very well-developed and interesting. Even Criss himself, the artificial intelligence crystal, has a distinct personality of his own and he grows throughout the novel.
We’re introduced to quite a few characters in the beginning, but I like how they’re all actually necessary to the storyline. In the end we only really focus on five characters and each of them has distinct personalities and backgrounds so it doesn’t feel like five versions of the same person. Surprisingly, Criss the crystal was my favourite character. He’s cold and generally unemotional in the beginning but after his exposure to humans for so long he starts almost becoming one, growing in self-awareness. It’s a very interesting transformation but at his core he’s still a brilliant supercomputer. Juice, Jack, Cheryl and Sid are also great characters and they’re all extremely well-developed and sympathetic.
As I said before, the plot is fairly fast-paced for this nearly 400 page book. There are twists and turns around every corner until you really aren’t sure what’s going to happen in the end. I can’t really go into much detail without introducing spoilers, but the way Doug J. Cooper handled the Kardish mystery was absolutely brilliant. At first it seems like there are holes in logic a couple of miles wide but there’s actually a very good explanation for why the Kardish have been orbiting Earth for 20 years.
You don’t have to be a big sci-fi fan to enjoy this book because you can enjoy it on many different levels. You can enjoy it as an exciting thriller/mystery or you can thoroughly enjoy Cooper’s scientific explanations for the creation of AI crystals and all of the technology that is available in his imagined future. Basically, there’s something for everyone here and I’m so glad I kept an open mind about the book.
I give this book 5/5 stars.
Amazon Barnes and Noble* Goodreads
*Not available.
Since Doug J. Cooper is so awesome, the blog tour will be having a giveaway of TWO $40 Amazon gift cards or PayPal cash. It’s even open internationally and doesn’t end until April 14. Just click the link below to start entering!
Genome by Gary Alan Henson
(Cover picture courtesy of Createspace.)
Jack Thomas is amazed to find himself heading the company of his dreams, nestled in the high-tech backdrop of beautiful Boulder, Colorado.
Built with his best friend and partner Frankie, the bio-genetics company has achieved success far beyond their wildest dreams. The company is poised to revolutionize the treatment of cancer and other diseases.
The only thing missing is Jack’s highschool sweetheart, Emily, who was brutally murdered, her killer never found.
With the help of PIP, a sexy artificial intelligent assistant, and beautiful green-eyed psychic, Samantha, Jack risks his life using the latest genetic technology to delve into a terrifying world of spirits that he didn’t even know existed.
Genome explores the boundaries between what we can create and what we may never fully understand—science and the afterlife, chance and destiny, and a love that crosses the chasm of life and death.
[Full disclosure: Gary Alan Henson sent me a free print copy of his book in exchange for an honest review.]
First off, I absolutely loved the blend of science and magic in Genome. Science has never been my strongest area, so I won’t even begin to pretend to understand half of the technical information Gary Henson included in his debut novel. However, the spirit world that Samantha and Jack encounter is very well-developed and is an interesting contrast to the logical, scientific parts of the novel. It’s not very often that you see a novel where there’s both science fiction and a bit of fantasy, but this odd combination works very well in Genome. If you’re a real science fiction lover, this book is perfect for you because of the insane amount of research Gary Henson obviously did to bring Jack and Frankie’s futuristic company to life.
The main characters like Samantha, Jack and Frankie were very well fleshed out. This was definitely helped by the fact that we got to look inside all of their heads, which also helped move the plot along. There were no sections that really dragged in the book because we could see the motivations and thoughts of all the major characters. Combined with some amazing plot twists, this made for a really fast-paced read.
However, I don’t feel that the characters lived up to their full potential because of the point of view Gary Henson chose. Genome is told in a sort of third person omniscient present tense, meaning that the narrative is in third person and switches between characters frequently but is also told in present tense (i.e.: he goes to the supermarket and picks out a nice fresh apple). This isn’t so much confusing as it is irritating at points because we are being told what happens rather than being shown.
I think part of the problem with the writing was that this was Gary Henson’s first novel. Now don’t get me wrong—it’s very good for a first novel—but I don’t think it lived up to its full potential. The writing wasn’t as polished as it could have been, some of the dialogue was stiff and there were some minor typos (mainly missing quotation marks).
Still, the plot twists, great world-building, realistic characters and the amazing amount of research that went into Genome suggest that we’ll see even better things from Mr. Henson in the future.
I give this book 3.5/5 stars.
The Land of the Silver Apples by Nancy Farmer
(Cover picture courtesy of Fantastic Fiction.)
Jack is amazed to have caused an earthquake. He is thirteen, after all, and only a bard-in-training. But his sister, Lucy, has been stolen by the Lady of the Lake; stolen a second time in her young life, as he learns to his terror. Caught between belief in the old gods and Christianity (AD 790, Britain), Jack calls upon his ash wood staff to subdue a passel of unruly monks, and, for his daring, ends up in a knucker hole. It is unforgettable—for the boy and for readers—as are the magical reappearance of the berserker Thorgil from a burial by moss; new characters Pega, a slave girl from Jack’s village, and the eager-to-marry-her Bugaboo (a hobgoblin king); kelpies; yarthkins; and elves (not the enchanted sprites one would expect but the fallen angels of legend). Rarely does a sequel enlarge so brilliantly the world of the first story.
First off, let me say that the ‘AD 790, Britain’ part of this blurb is complete nonsense. If you’ll recall, the first book apparently takes place in 793 AD. So either the blurb writer is confused about the timeline or does not know that AD goes forward while BC goes backward. If you’re really picky, let’s just say that this book takes place 3 years later, in 796 AD.
I love this book because we finally learn why Lucy is such a brat. That may seem like a lame reason to like a book, but I really, truly hated her in the first book and she’s even more obnoxious in this book. But Nancy Farmer has an excellent reason for adding what seemed like the token cute character at first and a seemingly unimportant event sets off a series of events in motion that will change Jack’s future forever.
Of course old favourite characters like the Bard, Thorgil and Lucy reappear, but we’re introduced to many new ones: the slave girl Pega; Brutus, a descendant of Lancelot himself; the Bugaboo, king of the hobgoblins; Ethne, a Christian half-elf and many others. My personal favourite characters include the charming and unpredictable Brutus, the Bugaboo and the Nemesis, who is a hobgoblin whose duty is to keep the Bugaboo from getting an inflated head. Now if only all leaders had someone like the Nemesis…
With amazing characters, a fast-paced plot and extraordinary world-building, The Land of the Silver Apples is a fitting sequel to The Sea of Trolls. readers will lose themselves in Nancy Farmer’s fascinating world where the old religion collides with the new rising religion, Christianity. I can’t think of an author who puts a better spin on old fantasy clichés than Nancy Farmer while still staying true to the time period.
I give this book 5/5 stars.
The Sea of Trolls by Nancy Farmer
(Cover picture courtesy of Tower Books.)
Jack was eleven when the berserkers loomed out of the fog and nabbed him. “It seems that things are stirring across the water,” the Bard had warned. “Ships are being built, swords are being forged.”
“Is that bad?” Jack had asked, for his Saxon village had never before seen berserkers.
“Of course. People don’t make ships and swords unless they intend to use them.”
The year is A. D. 793. In the next months, Jack and his little sister, Lucy, are enslaved by Olaf One-Brow and his fierce young shipmate, Thorgil. With a crow named Bold Heart for mysterious company, they are swept up into an adventure-quest in the spirit of The Lord of the Rings.
Award-winner Nancy Farmer has never told a richer, funnier tale, nor offered more timeless encouragement to young seekers than “Just say no to pillaging.”
I read The Sea of Trolls about three years ago, shortly after my library acquired it. Even though I didn’t quite get all of it, I remember enjoying it and picked it up again this week. Now that I actually know the basics of Norse mythology and culture, I managed to get a lot more out of it this time around.
Set in 793 AD and told by Jack, a Saxon boy who is an apprentice bard, it certainly offers a new look at the Vikings from an outsider’s perspective. It’s filled with historically accurate details, magic and Jotuns (trolls in Norse mythology). And of course it has an incredibly important message for all readers: Just say no to pillaging. Timeless. It helps if you know a bit of Norse mythology before picking up The Sea of Trolls, but it’s certainly not a requirement as Nancy Farmer is good at subtly conveying all of the necessary information.
Jack is an amazing character that has a nice amount of character development throughout the novel. Thorgil, the shieldmaiden, does as well. In fact, she pretty much does a complete about-face, but after all she goes through, it feels natural. Even Jack’s bratty little sister, Lucy, changes for the better, which was a huge relief for me as I can’t stand poorly behaved children, even in fiction. The Jotuns are also not what I expected, which keeps The Sea of Trolls from becoming too cliché.
Overall, a very enjoyable read.
I give this book 4/5 stars.