The Trending Ten: Fall Edition

1. The Troupe by Robert Jackson Bennett: Even after almost a year no title has managed to budge The Troupe from its place on top of the growing heap of books I've read this year. Even now, more than six months later I consider the characters that became my friends and the nuance of the theme and Bennett’s prose. I haven’t recommended any book this highly since Rothfuss’ The Name of the Wind. And this one is even better, and I doubt there will be a sequel to tarnish its good name. Though I intend to read American Elsewhere before years end. Maybe Bennett can conquer himself.


2. Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey: I don’t do sci fi often, but when I do I hope they are all as good as Leviathan Wakes. Full of complex and unexpected heroes and a heavy dose of commentary on politics and human nature told through a tense and action packed narrative. Even though it's full of battles with bullets and torpedoes alike, it's the internal struggles of the characters that elevate this above a paint by numbers space opera. This book is so good, it’s no wonder it took two guys to write it.


3. The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman: I’m sure Gaiman will land on many “Best of” lists this year, and he deserves to. Gaiman has firmly cemented his mastery as the premier author of fables for adults and children alike. The Ocean at the End of the Lane is packed with Gaiman’s unparalleled talent for weaving modern day mythologies teeming with whimsy and insight. There is a strong sense that this is the reader’s story while also being Neil’s own, which makes this a tale with universal appeal. 

4. No Return by Zachary Jernigan: No Return makes this list for some unusual reasons. Not to say it isn' an excellent novel, because it is. But it was a difficult read for me. The world, characters, and themes of Jernigan’s debut are dense, packed with layers of meaning and subtlety I didn't grasp fully in my initial reading of the novel. Later reflection shone a light on the work that only served to elevate my opinion of the novel and my critical thinking skills moving forward. Jernigan definitely has with important things to say, and he does it in a sweeping style not unlike some of the grandfathers of the genre.



5. The Blue Blazes by Chuck Wendig: This novel marked my first foray into the mad, profane and bombastic imagination of Chuck Wendig. If you read his excellent blog, you’ll see that the author seems much like his work. The Blue Blazes is blood spattered; noir flavored family drama in an intriguing take on urban fantasy. To sum it up, imagine the characters from Sin City battling the best of Dungeons and Dragon's Monster Manual.  This book is like nothing I’d ever read and I found myself promptly reading two more of Wendig's novels in short order. 

6. Joyland by Stephen King: King is one of the few authors that rate a hardcover purchase with every new release. And Joyland is emblematic of all of the things that King does best. Fans of The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, and The Body shouldn't miss this story of nostalgia, growing up and growing old and the friends and lovers you make along the way.



7. The Lives of Tao by Wesley Chu: Chu’s debut novel, a comical mix of spy thriller and Invasion of the Body Snatchers, is a heart warming coming of age story that taps into the finding yourself living a life without joy and purpose and discovering the only way to change your life is to change yourself. Add in the protagonist’s running banter with his resident alien and action sequences that could only be written by an actual stuntman, and there’s no question that Chu has a stellar career ahead of him. 

8. Three by Jay Posey: Jay Posey's atmospheric post-apocalyptic adventure hit my from left field. The story of the titular Three, making his way through a futuristic wasteland with a troubled mother and her enigmatic son is full of world building and imagery as sparse and desolately beautiful as it's setting. Posey's tale of humanity lost and finally found is sure to gather plenty of jaded genre readers in its wake. The ending shocked and puzzled me, and I can't wait to see how Posey constructs a sequel from it's ashes.

9. Thieftaker by D.B. Jackson: I majored in history in college and while it has been helpful in my own attempts at writing, D.B. Jackson has certainly put his PhD to good use. Thieftaker's blend of historical fiction and urban fantasy is a breathe of fresh air and his world weary protagonist, Ethan Kaille is just the hero needed to navigate the treachery of Pre-Revolutionary Boston. Thieftaker succeeds as an exemplary novel in both of the genres it straddles. 


10. Daughter of the Sword by Steve Bein: With twenty years as a martial artist, I've an affinity for Japanese culture, history, and most importantly swordsmanship. Bein's blending of police procedural, historical, and subtle urban fantasy struck all the right notes with me. Using the series naming, Fated Blades as characters in and of themselves was a stroke of genius and allows readers to experience Japanese history and cultural through a variety of time periods. I'm anxious to discover what direction the series takes next. 

Under the Empyrean Sky by Chuck Wendig

I first heard of Chuck Wendig's YA novel, Under the Empyrean Sky in the interview I conducted with Chuck after reviewing The Blue Blazes. This is what Chuck had to say about it:

Under the Empyrean Sky, which is my young adult novel in a sunny dustbowl cornpunk future where a scrappy scavenger named Cael finds a secret forbidden garden in a world where their floating Empyrean overlords only allow them to grow a bloodthirsty variant of corn. It's got young love and adventure and piss-blizzards and motorvators and an agricultural pro-farmer pro-food message nestled in all the trappings. John Hornor Jacobs called it Of Mice and Men meets Star Wars, which I quite like.

So I have to be honest, I scoffed at the description, thinking there was no way that Wendig could pull of a novel targeted at a less than mature audience, and wasn't so sure about 'bloodthirsty corn' either. But when I found the title on Netgalley, I just had to give it a run. And, boy was I glad I did. Under the Empyrean Sky is everything that makes YA a powerhouse genre, a coming of age story that resonates with its audience while posing bigger questions for the cross over crowd. There is pathos, mystery, action, and a healthy dose of the bare knuckle prose that makes Wendig such a draw for me. This is no Hunger Games clone, Under the Empyrean Sky brings to mind both the classics like The Grapes of Wrath and mines the Hero monomyth with a rakish glee producing a hybrid much like the aforementioned corn; bloodthirsty and relentless.

We've seen Chuck's pitch for the novel, but lets take a look at the back copy before we move on.

Corn is king in the Heartland, and Cael McAvoy has had enough of it. It's the only crop the Empyrean government allows the people of the Heartland to grow and the genetically modified strain is so aggressive that it takes everything the Heartlanders have just to control it. As captain of the Big Sky Scavengers, Cael and his crew sail their rickety ship over the corn day after day, scavenging for valuables, trying to earn much-needed ace notes for their families. But Cael's tired of surviving life on the ground while the Empyrean elite drift by above in their extravagant sky flotillas. He's sick of the mayor's son besting Cael's crew in the scavenging game. And he's worried about losing Gwennie ? his first mate and the love of his life forever when their government-chosen spouses are revealed. But most of all, Cael is angry, angry that their lot in life will never get better and that his father doesn't seem upset about any of it. Cael's ready to make his own luck . . . even if it means bringing down the wrath of the Empyrean elite and changing life in the Heartland forever.

Wendig is obviously aware of the market trends toward dystopian YA novels, as much of the skeletal structure of the novel follows the formula. The stereotypical  oppressive government, teen aged protagonists, the beginnings of a love triangle, and the call to arms to fight the rule of the oppressors are all present here. But Wendig wisely turns it on its head, tackling real world issues that may seem too adult for the projected audience. Questions about the control and manipulation of the food that we put into our bodies and the long term effects of monkeying about with Mother Nature are front and center tied closely to the novel's worldbuilding. There are other social issues at play as well, but are much more tangential in this first novel, though I suspect that may change in subsequent volumes. But all of this social activism is handled deftly, with precious little preaching going on, either from the characters or exposition. Social issues may be a thread in the tapestry but Cael's journey for independence and freedom  is the focus and that is where the story shines.

Cael McAvoy is the epitome of a sixteen year old boy, surly with a complete disregard for authority, capable of both incredible kindness and callous indifference to the feelings of others. Self absorbed is the term that comes immediately to mind, but having been a sixteen year old boy I felt an immediate sense of authenticity to the portrayal. Wendig wisely uses the events of the story to soften the edges of his protagonist, giving both Cael and the reader the sense that Cael's world and the people in it don't fit as neatly into the preconceived boxes the sixteen year old might think. By the end of the novel, there is little doubt that Cael is poised on the brink of his true journey into manhood.

The other characters are equally well drawn and Wendig eventually shifts the point of view in such a way as to illuminate these secondary characters even more fully. Both genders get equal time to shine, with Wendig's portrayal of Cael's love interest showing particular maturity and depth without losing the naivete of youth.  I have a feeling that Gwennie Shawcatch will play a major role in later books and can't wait to see what adventures Wendig has in store for her. Cael sister, Merelda is also someone that I'm looking forward to sharing more time with. She gets just enough time in the novel to remain a pleasant cipher readers will look forward to unravelling.

But the real selling point of Under the Empyrean Sky for me was the fantastic job Wendig does of walking the line between the demands of the YA market and the reality of being sixteen. Too many YA books I've read stray so far toward the squeaky clean, that I wonder if the publishers have any idea what it is like to be a teenager. Wendig obviously hasn't forgotten. There is sex, profanity, and senseless bullying. It may not be as gloriously over the top as what Wendig's audience may have grown to expect after books like The Blue Blazes and Blackbirds, but it is there. Even in a YA novel, Wendig manages to still write in a way that doesn't castrate the voice that he's so well known for. He may have tidied it up a bit, but his touch on the pages is unmistakable. And that was the highlight of the experience for me. Seeing one of my favorite authors do something I didn't think they could pull off. In cases like this, I love being wrong.

Under the Empyrean Sky delivers on all levels with a cast of rich characters, a setting that seems limitless in possibility, a message that rides confidently beneath the current of the story and a real understanding of what it is to stand between being a child and an adult, complete with the requisite indecision and ugliness of youth. There's action, adventure, and even a bit of romance in this tale and I'm looking forward to the next installment in the Heartland Trilogy. And I've learned not to scoff at the plans of the incredibly versitile Chuck Wendig.

Blackbirds by Chuck Wendig

My love for Chuck Wendig is a new-fangled thing. It sparkles like a freshly minted coin. On the heels of reading his excellent new novel The Blue Blazes and the blast I had interviewing him not long after the review went live, I snatched up a copy of the first of the Miriam Black novels, Blackbirds with a promise to not crack the cover until I'd whittled down the books waiting in my Netgalley account. But Miriam Black just kept staring at me from the nightstand, whispering "You know you want to.." in my ear, night after night. I did a fine job of resisting until one night about a week ago, when I decided I'd just take a look at the first chapter. Big mistake. Miriam Black had me hooked by the lip by page five.

Synopsis:

Miriam Black knows when you will die.

She’s foreseen hundreds of car crashes, heart attacks, strokes, and suicides.

But when Miriam hitches a ride with Louis Darling and shakes his hand, she sees that in thirty days Louis will be murdered while he calls her name. Louis will die because he met her, and she will be the next victim.

No matter what she does she can’t save Louis. But if she wants to stay alive, she’ll have to try.

Blackbirds is vintage Wendig in every way. The novel feels like the bastard child of Tarantino's True Romance and Stephen King's The Dead Zone; an unflinchingly brutal road trip, disturbingly familiar underneath its otherworldly strangeness. This is a lushly profane novel with characters careening off one another in a twisted violent ballet of their own violence and vulnerability. If you came to the table thinking this is something akin to Mercy Thompson or Sookie Stackhouse, you'd better step slowly away from Miriam Black and try not to make any sudden movements. Psychic talent aside, Black has as much in common with Sookie Stackhouse as Amy Winehouse has with Annette Funicello. And that's the twisted genius of Wendig at work.

Miriam Black carries the novel on her weary cocksure shoulders, swearing like a sailor as she chain smokes her way through the narrative. Describing Wendig's protagonist in such simple terms may give a false impression though. Black is far more than that caricature allows. With an upbringing eerily similar to that of Carrie White, from the King novel that bears her name, Miriam reacts to series of traumas that leave her with a burden that removes the comfort of human touch and saddles her with a knowledge that is certain to haunt her. Knowing the intimate moments of death of any person she touches changes her into a tragic hero, a broken and defiant figure trying desperately to survive in a world filled with solitude and the ever present pall of mortality. And it's that vulnerability and Black's defiance of her 'curse' that makes her such a compelling protagonist, dragging readers in her wake full of hope that she'll find away to cope with the brutality of her circumstances with nothing more than bad attitude and a flea market butterfly knife.

Wendig does an excellent job grounding Miriam's tale with an atmosphere perfectly suited to the particular brand of story he's shilling. Miriam ricochets along a snarled chain of abandoned warehouses, grimy roadside hotels, murder scenes, and out of the way kill rooms. There is a stark discomforting familiarity to these locales, like a trash choked gutter best turned away from lest you stare too long and see something moving in the offal. And the other characters that populate this landscape are just as disconcerting, broken, damaged and often deranged, willing victims of their own psychology. No character is left without pathos, even if it's only by the smallest scrap. Some are horrifyng in their brutality, others heartbreakingly sympathetic as they are swept along in the crazed current of Miriam Black, twenty-something harbinger of death. I dare to say that at least one of these characters will live in the mind of any reader long after the final page is turned.

The action sequences in Blackbirds are a far cry from the bombastic gleeful slug fests that I loved so much in The Blue Blazes, but Wendig still knocks it out of the park in a completely different direction. The violence is matter of fact, unapologetic, and sickeningly brutal in the way only the mentally damaged and dispossessed can be. There is a loosening of social mores and inhibitions in the trailer park, truck stop, and roadkill strewn highways of the Miriam's stomping grounds, and it permeates the easy violence with it's casual indifference until Wendig turns up the volume and then the horror of human cruelty stuns you like an axe handle between the eyes.

In conclusion, I cannot recommend Blackbirds enough. Fans of The Blue Blazes will find just enough of Wendig's unmistakable voice to feel comfortable while ride along with the unforgettable Miriam Black as she smokes, curses and rages her way into the dark and warm center of their hearts. I'll be keeping my newly acquired copy of Mockingbird in a drawer so I can get some other reading done.

Interview with Chuck Wendig

Chuck Wendig is a new discovery for me. I planted my flag in his upcoming novel The Blue Blazes not too long ago. Long story short, I loved it and I immediately went looking for more of Chuck's particular brand of word salad. I found his blog, the excellent Terrible Minds, followed him on Twitter, and picked up another of his novels for my "to read" pile. Then I asked him to answer a few questions for me. Those questions are below, I hope you enjoy the answers.

52 Reviews: Robert Jackson Bennett talks a lot about the Big Ideas that drive his stories. What central theme or idea is at the heart of The Blue Blazes, and was this something that informed the writing from the beginning of your writing process, or did it develop more organically?

Wendig: I like to think that at the heart of many of my tales is family. What family means. How a family is ruined, and how it puts itself back together. The Blue Blazes, like with many of my stories, features a truly fucked up family: Mookie Pearl and his estranged daughter, Nora, who just so happens to be trying to steal a slice of his criminal operations right out from under his nose.

Family is fascinating. We all have it. And each of our version is a thing that is often equal parts love and dysfunction, and so I think one of the powers of fiction is to stick a thumb into that particular sponge-cake and see how it feels.

52 Reviews: I would agree that my favorite part of The Blue Blazes is the family drama between Mookie and Nora. What I found equally fascinating was the way you interposed the wholly non-existent character of Mookie's ex-wife into the tableau. While we know next to nothing about her role in the relationship between these two principals, she still manages to exert an almost tidal pull on them both. Mookie's arc with the ghost of his marriage is much more visible, but the reader can't help but wonder how she may have shaped Nora's character and choices. Was it your intention from the start to create this Unholy Trinity of Father, Daughter and Holy Ghost?

Wendig: Not an intention in the religious sense, but in a lot of my books you'll find that one parent is distant or estranged somehow -- Miriam Black's mother has been off the radar for years, her father long gone. Atlanta Burns is without a father. In my upcoming YA book, Under the Empyrean Sky, Cael McAvoy has both parents, but his mother is sick and bedridden with tumors. And here in The Blue Blazes we have the absent father -- Mookie Pearl -- actually being the protagonist of the book, and Nora, the poor daughter, becomes (in part) the antagonist. The disturbed, imperfect trinity is key, I think.

52 Reviews: Wendig does YA. I can't decide if I shudder with fear or quiver with excitement at that prospect. As someone who has only recently started reading your work, which of your other works would you recommend to someone who enjoyed The Blue Blazes and why? And just to get this out of the way early, are there plans for more novels featuring Mookie and Company?

Wendig: I'd like to think that anybody who likes The Blue Blazes will like anything I do because I try to inform all the work with my voice and whatever motifs and themes that obsess me and ALSO BECAUSE I HAVE THIS GUN POINTED AT THIS PONY.

But, really, if folks are looking for a next place to jump from The Blue Blazes, they might want to check out Blackbirds and Mockingbird, the first two Miriam Black books. Also by Angry Robot.

As to whether or not there will be more TBB -- well, hopefully. I have two more books planned to make it a trilogy. If Angry Robot says they want more, then the world gets more. If not -- well, maybe I'll still write them some day.

52 Reviews: As an author who has a very distinct voice, what would you recommend to aspiring writers who are struggling to find their own voice? Are there specific exercises you used or was your experience more organic?

Wendig: Here's how this works, I think:

Every author decides to go on a grand adventure one day, and that grand adventure is to find her voice. She leaves the comfort of her own wordsmithy and she traipses through many fictional worlds written by many writers and along the way she pokes through their writings to see if her voice is in there somewhere. She takes what she reads and she mimics their voices, taking little pieces of other authors with her in her mind and on the page.

Is her voice cynical? Optimistic? Short and curt, or long and breezy? She doesn't know and so she reads and she writes and she lives life in an effort to find out.

This adventure takes as long as it takes, but one day the author tires of it and she comes home, empty-handed, still uncertain what her voice looks like or sounds like.

And there, at home, she discovers her voice is waiting. In fact, it's been there all along.

Your voice is how you write when you're not trying to find your voice. Your voice is the way you write, the way you talk. Your voice is who you are, what you believe, what themes you knowingly and unknowingly embrace. Your voice is you. Search for it and you won't find it. Stop looking and it'll find you.

So, no exercises really teach you voice, I don't think, save perhaps for the exercise of simply writing.

52 Reviews: Speaking of 'simply writing' do you prescribe to the notion that success as a writer is more a measure of effort and dedication than actual talent? Creativity, in and of itself, seems to be pretty easy to come by while the tenacity to commit to the act of actually creating seems to be much more scarce.


Wendig: Talent is a function of excess desire. You really, really want something bad enough, you tend to manifest a "talent" for it. While I'm sure there's some argument to be made for the expression of genetics, I think mostly it's just -- if you really like architecture and have the desire to create architecture, you're probably going to manifest the "talent" as an architect.

Dedication and effort then turn that desire and talent into craft and creation. At least, in a perfect world

52 Reviews: If I can dig into your writing process a bit, could you tell us a little about the genesis of The Blue Blazes? Did you start with character, plot, or world building? Is your starting point the same for each novel, or does it change from project to project?

Wendig: The genesis for the book is remarkably ludicrous, but perhaps shows how long a story can gestate:

When I was a Wee Tiny Human, somewhere around 8-10 years old, I used to press my thumbs against my eyelids so I could see colors in the dark of my eye. Like, I dunno, elementary school hallucinogens or something. It's like, they tell you not to look at the sun and what do you do, first thing? Go and look at the sun like a dummy. Because all children are stupid.

One time I did it and received the most marvelous colors and then, just after and not coincidentally, I saw a lion in my backyard. I grew up in Pennsylvania so the likelihood of this being a lion -- in this case, a lion reclining as if after a glorious meal -- was nil. And yet it was so crisp, so clear, I was at the time convinced it was real, missing the connection that maybe, just maybe, I'd invoked the lion as a vision by thumbing myself in the eyes like a stupid person.

Years later, that story reoccurred to me as an adult and I thought, there's something there, yeah? Something about the eyes, something about the blue blazes seen behind the dark of the lid, something about how it reveals things you don't want to or don't expect to see.

And even there the story lived with me for the last six, seven years. Slowly growing. There came a point in the last couple years where the most excellent Robin Laws was editing an anthology called The New Hero, Volume One, and he wanted a story of an iconic hero -- iconic meaning a hero that changes the world but is not in turn changed himself. I came up with Mookie Pearl, bad dude with a heart of gold, head-breaker, knee-cracker, goblin-masher, a man with a tricksy daughter, a man with an impeccable taste in charcuterie, a man ultimately alone. From there I envisioned a whole novel with him at its fore -- and so, THE BLUE BLAZES was born.

52 Reviews: With Mookie serving as the rock that all the other players in the novel break themselves against, was it much more important to show character growth in the supporting cast?

Wendig: I'm less concerned with growth and more concerned with depth -- and, to a lesser extent, change. At the bare minimum, supporting characters need to be compelling in their own ways. Supporting characters don't know they're supporting characters. They're the main characters of their own lives.

52 Reviews: One of the things that I noticed in The Blue Blazes was that the end of one of the principle character's arc was heavily foreshadowed and telegraphed without diminishing the reveal at all. How do you strike a balance between revealing too much through foreshadowing and being so vague that most readers miss the anticipation and the payoff?

Wendig: A great deal of writing is drunkenly threading a needle. Thankfully, for during those times you prick your finger like a fool you have power of editing and rewriting to pull back on the obvious and push forward on the all-too-subtle.

Writing is one of the only jobs where you get a nearly endless amount of do-overs and take-backs.

52 Reviews: Editing and rewriting are often the bane of the aspiring author. Some can never seem to finish a project due to the need to get things 'just so', while others are daunted by the task after putting so much on the page. What approach do you take to editing and what advice would you give to those who are facing this issue their own writing?

Wendig: The worst advice is also the most tried and true: just do it.

For those looking for more nuanced advice, I offer that one approaches editing the way one approaches eating an elephant: one bite at a time. Editing a particularly troublesome novel feels dire because it's OH SO MUCH, a big bloated behemoth of problems and errors and plot tangles. But it's like cleaning a messy kitchen: it all starts with one dish. You move one dish, then another, then another, eventually you start to see it get cleaned up.

In terms of editing, I write in the mornings, and edit in the afternoons. That way I can work on two projects separately.

Oh! One more little piece of advice for editing: give yourself as much time away from the thing as possible. The ideal scenario is coming back to it like someone else wrote it. When we edit too soon we're filled with love for things that don't work and hate for things that do. Have to get our head clear and come at it as objectively as possible.

52 Reviews: The Blue Blazes is what I would consider a genre bender of a novel in that it takes elements from more than one genre and performs a sort of mystic authorial origami on it, with the resulting work being more than the sum of its parts. With that in mind, what do you think about the genre system as a whole? Is it an important tool for getting the right books into the hands of the people who are apt to enjoy them, or is it a limiting system of pigeon holing that authors are forced to abide by due to editorial or consumer fiat?

Wendig: The genre system is theoretically useful to the audience -- I mean, hey, if I want an epic fantasy, I can go to that shelf. But it's also hopelessly restrictive and what happens is, some authors get stuck on a given shelf and can never leave. (This is why author "branding" can be dangerous -- let's remember that a brand is the symbol a cattleman burns into the hide of his steers to signify ownership.)

Authors of my age, I think, were raised on a steady diet of pop culture from across a variety of genres -- my mother will read anything with the words "Robert" and "Ludlum" on it, but people my age often read widely beyond a single genre. And that shows in our writing, too -- we blend and mix and mash it all up in some new pulp slurry.

I suspect that one possible future is that authors become their own genres. Hell, Stephen King is his own genre. He's not a horror writer anymore. He's just… Stephen King. Doesn't matter what genre his novels are, his voice, his style, they're his own.

52 Reviews: For my last question, I'd like to try something I started in my last interview. Let's call it a Writer's Soapbox. Here's your chance to pontificate on your topic of choice, promote an upcoming project, or give the alchemical formula of Patrick Rothfuss' beard shampoo. The floor is yours, do your worst.

Wendig: *dons self-promotional cap*

*which is actually just a beanie with a propeller on it shut up*

I'm a lucky little writer-monkey because, by some weird confluence of fortune and hard work I have four novels coming out in the next couple months. So, I'm going to gesticulate wildly and froth a little at the mouth and point at those.

Because I'm wearing my beanie, you see.

So, let us begin.

First up: Gods & Monsters: Unclean Spirits. The gods fell to Earth. One man wants revenge on them for taking his family away from him. It involves various divine wangs and vaginas. No, really.

Next: The Blue Blazes. Which we have in part already talked about but hey, I'll entice with: mystical drugs! goblins! roller derby girl gangs! the criminal underworld! the mythic underworld! subterranean zombie town! charcuterie! family betrayal!

Then: Under the Empyrean Sky, which is my young adult novel in a sunny dustbowl cornpunk future where a scrappy scavenger named Cael finds a secret forbidden garden in a world where their floating Empyrean overlords only allow them to grow a bloodthirsty variant of corn. It's got young love and adventure and piss-blizzards and motorvators and an agricultural pro-farmer pro-food message nestled in all the trappings. John Hornor Jacobs called it Of Mice and Men meets Star Wars, which I quite like.

Finally! Beyond Dinocalypse, book two of the Spirit of the Century trilogy. Pulp heroes. Two-fisted jet-pack action. An apocalypse of psychic hive-mind dinosaurs. PROFESSORIAL APES IN KILTS.

*removes beanie*

I feel so dirty.

The Blue Blazes by Chuck Wendig

Chuck Wendig has been on the periphery of my to read list for a while. I'll admit, I'd mentally placed him in the same category as Richard Kadrey, whose Sandman Slim I'd enjoyed, but decided against devoting anymore time to. Grindhouse urban fantasy just isn't my thing. I probably wouldn't have ventured into Wendig's fiction, if I hadn't run across a EARC on Netgalley. After deciding to give The Blue Blazes a run, I'm happy to report that Chuck Wendig has a new fan. The easiest way to describe The Blue Blazes is to imagine Sin City after doing an 8-ball of mystic cocaine. I know that makes no sense, but Wendig's blend of pulp noir sensibilities with an interesting take on urban fantasy tropes defies conventional description. Unless awesome is descriptive enough for you.

The publisher's blurb is pretty basic, but I'm including it because it echoes Wendig's writing style fairly well.

Meet Mookie Pearl.

Criminal underworld? He runs in it.

Supernatural underworld? He hunts in it.

Nothing stops Mookie when he's on the job.

But when his daughter takes up arms and opposes him, something's gotta give...

Wendig's protagonist, Mookie Pearl is cut from the same cloth as other noir heroes, but the closest comparison that comes to mind for me is Warden from Daniel Polanski's Lowtown. These two are no choirboys, both violent and conflicted men with complicated histories. But unlike Warden, Mookie is actually a very sympathetic character. I wouldn't go so far as to say he has a heart of gold, but Wendig does an excellent job of showing that even the brutal and vile among us, still have families and people that they love. In spite of his violent nature, Mookie is a character that readers can cheer for. He may be a leg breaker and a poor excuse for a father, but he tries and there is value in the attempt.

The secondary cast is also well drawn, especially Mookie's wayward daughter Nora. Her tough as nails facade is deeply rooted in her psychology and Wendig does an excellent job making her far more three dimesional than she initially appears. The other denizens of Wendig's fictional New York are as varied and unique as you would expect, if a bit more outrageous in response to a world were goblins and naga prowl the streets in human guises. Between low level mobsters, roller-derby themed gang members, city maintenance workers, and an undead stunt driver Wendig keeps the cast well rounded and always entertaining.

The pacing is just short of break neck, but Wendig gives readers a well placed moment or two to catch their breath. But don't be shocked to find yourself reading well into the night. The action sequences are bombastic, brutal set pieces that leave the surrounding landscape in reduced to gleefully described rubble. It's all a hair's breadth from over the top, but Wendig manages never to lean on the gas enough to send the story into a tail spin. It's a blancing act to keep from slipping into parody  but Wendig manages it deftly.

The plotting is a bit predictable at times, but Wendig overcomes that with the character and panache of his prose, and the insightful characterization of his principle cast. I may have seen some of the concluding plot threads coming, due to Wendig's own foreshadowing, but the emotional resonance of those moments was no less palpable with foreknowledge.

As I've said, the real star of The Blue Blazes is the prose. Wendig writes with blunt force choreography, full of brutally disturbing descriptions, and wrecking ball action. Noir sensibilities are in full force here, and Wendig uses them brilliantly to craft a portrait of a New York that is at the same time instantly recognizable and disturbingly alien.  The staccato rhythm of Wendig's prose fits beautifully with the story he tells, and I've rarely seen such an usual voice used so effectively.

Fans of noir fantasy and urban fantasy with a bleeding edge should definitely explore the world of The Blue Blazes. I'll definitely be checking out Wendig's back catalog while I wait anxiously on a possible continuation of Mookie and Nora's dysfunctional family drama.