Karen S. Wiesner {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Reviews: The Martian, Artemis, and Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

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Book Reviews: The Martian, Artemis, and Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

by Karen S. Wiesner

After I watched The Martian movie with Matt Damon, I immediately bought and devoured the 2014 book from start to finish. I honestly believed the author must work for NASA. But, no, Any Weir was a computer programmer and software engineer before he made it big with his first title. He didn't even finish college, which doesn't really mean anything other than I'm pretty sure most people who work for NASA do. Not surprisingly, his parents were a physicist and an electrical engineer. His website describes him as "a lifelong space nerd and a devoted hobbyist of such subjects as relativistic physics, orbital mechanics, and the history of manned spaceflight". Everything in Weir's first bestseller felt so authentic and believable to me.

The concept for this science fiction story is simple: A team of astronauts is on Mars exploring, mega bad weather hits, so the part of the team that's still alive bugs out and heads home. Turns out, though, that the guy they left for dead isn't, and he has to survive until NASA (and later, the Ares III team of astronauts he came with) can figure out how the heck to rescue him…if they even can.

The actor Damon's performance was so phenomenal as Dr. Mark Watney, a botanist and mechanical engineer, I couldn't help seeing the character that way while I read the book. Watney had a sense of humor at nearly all times and a brain that just wouldn't quit as he faced every seemingly insurmountable hurdle that could possibly be thrown his way. Resourceful is a mild word for this dude. He just kept going and going even when most people would have reached the point of defeat long ago.

I binge read this book each time I pull it down from my keeper shelf. The only downside of reading it is the swearing. The four-letter word that starts with an 'f" is used so often, I'm convinced it accounts for at least 20,000 words (or 40 pages) of the book. If the author had only done a search for that word and seen just how much it's overused, I think he might have cut out most of them. If he'd just started the first few chapters with the character using the word often, we would have gotten the hint that Watney didn't actually stop using it after that point--the author just stop beating us over the head with the word. But that is honestly the only negative.

Weir initially self-published the book as a free serial on his website, then, at the request of his fans, made it a Kindle book on Amazon, where it became a bestseller. After a literary agent approached him, the book was sold to Crown Publishing Group. Andy Weir, the bestselling author, became a household word.

Interesting tidbits: The authors of The Expanse Series (which I reviewed a few weeks back in this column) were so influenced by The Martian, they gave a nod to it in that series, where the Mark Watney is a long-haul freighter used as a colony transport. Additionally, a species of bush tomato from Australia was named after the fictional botanist. In October 2015, along with announcing its next steps for a real-world human journey to Mars, NASA presented a web tool that tracked Watney's fictional trek across the planet.

  

The Martian was so good, I knew I wouldn't be able to wait for the paperback before purchasing Weir's next release in hardcover, the 2017 published Artemis. This science fiction thriller novel is set in the 2080s-2090s on the moon's first city of Artemis, populated with some 2000 people comprised mainly of tourists but a good share of criminals as well. The heroine of the book is no exception. Jasmine "Jazz" Bashara is a porter who dabbles in smuggling to not only make ends meet but to pay back a debt she owes. When the biggest score of her life comes along, she can't turn it down, even when things turn ugly and what appeared to be a mere smuggling job becomes all-out war for control of the city.

Jazz is very similar to the character of Mark Watney. She's smart, resourceful, always fighting when life throws the worst it has at her, and none of it defeats her. Instead, it hones her, bringing out the best, most innovative aspects of her.

I wanted to dislike Artemis. Jazz makes one stupid decision after the other, not 'fessing up to her own initial crime that caused her to become a criminal in order to pay back the very personal and still tender "debt" she owes. When the truth is finally revealed, I couldn't help feeling for Jazz and even believing the best of her. I rooted for her to win and overcome the demons hounding her for bad choices in the past that led her where she ends up in this novel.

I read Artemis very fast, unable to put it down, just as I do each time I read The Martian. It's an irresistible story of a good girl in a bad situation that she brought about herself with poor choices. Though it's been optioned and reports of the script being written have cropped up, the movie prospects are a bit uncertain. It may be renamed Project Artemis and might star Scarlet Johansson and Chris Evans--yeah, you read that right. Black Widow and Captain America...in space. Weird. No release date has been set.

  

The title of Weir's third science fiction, published in 2021, threw me for a loop. I couldn't imagine, based on the name, what it could be about, thought religious, spacy connotations were at the forefront. But, no, not at all. In fact, Project Hail Mary goes back to Weir's roots with The Martian.

Set in the near future, a global dimming event with the potential to bring about the extinction of the human race is what forces the world's first cooperative government to try to solve the problem. They make Ryland Grace, a high school teacher and former molecular biologist, into an astronaut and send him to study alien microbes that consume all forms of electromagnetic radiation, using radiant energy to move. Because it consumes energy from the sun and also feeds on Venus' carbon dioxide, this organism is named "Astrophage" (star eater). Astrophage has also infected and dimmed nearby stars. Only Tau Ceti, which is 12 lightyears from Earth, resists. Scientists figure out how to use Astrophage as rocket fuel, they build a starship, the Hail Mary, and send Grace off on a suicide mission to figure out why Tau Ceti is resistant so they can reproduce the effect. Unmanned mini ships will return his findings to Earth.

The book opens with Grace waking in the Hail Mary from a coma, initially afflicted with amnesia. As his memory comes back, all the intelligence and resourcefulness in the face of extreme challenges that motivated Weir's previous main characters Mark and Jazz are evident in Grace. His spaceship reaches Tau Ceti, where Grace meets "Rocky", an alien with a stone-like exoskeleton from 40 Eridani, a planet also plagued by the Astrophage infection. Rocky is a skilled engineer and the last survivor of his crew, sent for the same reason Grace was.

What follows in the story after that is a much more sophisticated and emotionally compelling version of Enemy Mine, best known from the 1985 sci-fi action drama featuring Dennis Quaid and Louis Gossett Jr. but originating from the Barry B. Longyear novella of the same name published in the September 1979 issue of Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine.

I was engrossed in Project Hail Mary until Rocky's introduction, at which point I became full-on, single-mindedly absorbed. Even as I saw the silly connections the book had with that sappy old movie Enemy Mine, I couldn't help falling for Rocky. Grace was a compellingly drawn character, but Rocky was the star of this show. I rooted for both of them in the face of absolutely impossible challenges. Two guys from separate planets had to design a language they could both understand before they could even communicate were somehow supposed to save the entire universe? Come on! But I desperately wanted them to succeed, and the thought that they might not (and, wow, did it look bleak and black right up until the final moment!) was devastating. I'd be hard-pressed to remember a time I wanted a happy ending more for both these main characters. For sci-fi fans, this one is a must-read. With Ryan Gosling signed on to star in and produce Project Hail Mary, it was announced in May 2023 that the film would begin production in early 2024. Fingers crossed the movie comes to fruition. Until such a time, if any, I'll just have to re-read the book.

Andy Weir has a lot of works available (which used to be available on his website but not currently even mentioned on it now https://andyweirauthor.com/), and I confess I haven't been as interested in the ones that aren't science fiction and aren't published by a major conglomerate like Crown Publishing. That could be a failure on my part, as well as short-sighted. Even the tie-prequel to The Martian, "Diary of an AssCan", has me hesitating in no small part by the title.

I will say that Weir found a winning type and stuck to it. It's very true that this trio of books stars very similar lead characters and they're all placed in impossible, no win situations. There's a theme that's haunting familiar from one book to the next. I don't doubt it. I doubt the author could refute the claim. But the bottom line is, it ain't broke and there's no need to fix this. So what if these stories are all variations on the same theme? I like that theme, and I want more of it.

I'll also add that all three of these bestselling science fiction novels would make my Top 50--maybe even 25--Favorite Books list, and I'm in good company with Bill Gates and Barack Obama over recommending them--along with the movie counterparts, if the latter two ever get their own adaptations. These are all read-in-one-sitting (if you can) novels, and they're definite keepers you'll want to re-read at least every couple years.

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor 

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Karen S. Wiesner {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: The Death of Jane Lawrence by Caitlin Starling

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: The Death of Jane Lawrence by Caitlin Starling

by Karen S. Wiesner

In the 2021 Gothic romantic horror The Death of Jane Lawrence, Caitlin Starling presents an imaginary, dark-mirror world version of post-war England, approximate 1890s. Jane Shoringfield is a war orphan. Her parents were killed when "Ruzka" began gassing Camhurst, capital of Great Breltain. She was young and given into the care of the Cunninghams, who raised her. After attending Sharpton School for Girls until she was 15, she's been handling Mr. Cunningham's finances for the last six years. Jane is nothing if not practical. Being of a marriageable age and realizing her guardians will be moving to Camhurst within the month for Mr. Cunningham's new judgeship position, she's done her homework. Rather than engage in courtship that would require a level of foolishness she can't abide, she proposes to marry for convenience. Finding a partner who will merit from the practicality, if not the passion, of an arranged marriage becomes her goal.

The rumored reclusive Dr. Augustine Lawrence is ideal. This skilled surgeon could command a lucrative, lofty position anywhere, yet he's mysteriously chosen to set up a small-town family practice in Larrenton in the last several months. Jane submits to her potential fiancé a written business proposal that will benefit both of them.

The first chapter, with Jane meeting with Augustine for the first time to discuss the written marriage proposal she'd sent earlier, struck me as unrealistic, strange, and very nearly lost me. However, the Gothic setting with the mysterious hero who could equally qualify as the villain and the driven, practical Jane falling in love practically at first sight when she didn't expect to at all is what kept me reading. Whether initially against my will or voluntarily step by drudging step, I was drawn into this story from that point on and could hardly put it down.

At first, Augustine is taken aback by Jane's very unromantic proposal, but she quickly proves that her business acumen tempered with unfailing commonsense and her steady hand in the surgery are boons for any man who's avoided marriage as long as Augustine unfathomably has. The fact that the two of them are attracted to each other from the start disturbs both of them. But an agreement is quickly reached between them: Following their wedding, Jane will live in town at his practice while Augustine returns to his ancestral home, Lindridge Hall, alone each evening.

An unfortunate series of events forces the newlyweds to Lindridge Hall, where Jane has no choice about spending the night in the ruin and wreck of a house filled with ghosts and previously unimagined horrors. It's there that her brand new husband becomes transformed from the intelligent, compassionate man she'd assumed she was marrying into a agitated, broken figure with a tragic, dangerous, and even immoral past. The clues to Augustine's downfall begin to manifest with a padlocked basement, the red-eyed spirit of a betrayed lover, to the coven of doctors who dabble in black magic that show up on his doorstep.

One wonders if Jane's tenacity in attempting to fix the fractures that make up the man she rapidly falls for--despite her fear of him, his lies, and all he might have done to deserve the catastrophes he's brought upon himself--is wise or even warranted. Part of Jane's problem is that math rules her world just as the promise of magic once ruled her husband's. Instead of seeing math as magic, magic is seen as math in Jane's eyes, and this is an equation that she alone must balance--at all cost.

One of the most memorable scenes of The Death of Jane Lawrence came early on, and it was unknowingly a foreshadowing of all that was to come. When Augustine's patient dies, Jane, who has never before assisted in a surgery, blames herself for her inexperience and the way it distracted the doctor while he was trying to save a life. His reply captures the heart of this novel: "Jane, if the fault lies in anybody, it lies in me. I am the one with training and, more than that, I was the one in charge of the operating room. You cannot blame yourself. That shame is a path you cannot come back from, once you start down it…"

The author describes the difference between shame and guilt in this way (emphasis is mine): "Guilt is over something you have done; shame is over something that you are." In The Death of Jane Lawrence, shame is both a motivator and a horror that drives the pragmatic heroine to seek redemption for her beloved--even if he's a monster who may not deserve the forgiveness she seeks to procure for him, nor the happily ever after she wants for the two of them.

I admit, the end of the story became a frenzied, uncertain, blood-soaked mess in which I was never quite certain what was going on. I didn't believe for a second a joyful resolution was possible, yet strangely the author's love of "not happy endings" but "endings with potential" ultimately satisfied me.

Lovers of Gothic fiction complete with (if not loveable than nevertheless) likeable, compelling lead characters, and extreme amounts of horror and epic romance will enjoy this unconventional walk on the macabre side of love as much as I did.

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Karen S. Wiesner {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: The Expanse Series by James S. A. Corey

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: The Expanse Series by James S. A. Corey

by Karen S. Wiesner

I started reading The Expanse Series when I found the boxed set with the first three novels in Orbit Books newsletter. I love science fiction, especially when it's combined with horror, similar to the Ridley Scott Alien franchise, which, not surprisingly, was a major influence for this particular series. The short story, "Drive", is the prequel to the entire series, and James S. A. Corey (authors Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck, using the joint pen name) offered a free download of it from their website, which I printed and read after I'd finished the first three novels. From that point on, I purchased each novel and short story/novella as it was released. In the years the authors actively worked on this series, I followed it, purchasing each book in hardcover, since that was the fastest way to get it ASAP after release.

The premise of The Expanse Series is that future humanity has colonized most of "The Solar System", but they don't yet have interstellar travel. Mankind has settled in the asteroid belt (Ceres and Eros), Mars and the moon with domed settlements; and some outer planets (several Jupiter moons including Ganymede and Europa; Saturn's Phoebe; and Uranus's Titania). In the time the series is set, tensions are rising. Earth's United Nations and Mars' Congressional Republic are the superpowers that exert their combined hegemony over Belters--those who populate the asteroid belt. Because of the low-gravity environments they live, their bodies tend to be longer and thinner than other humans. Belters (who use a form of modified Creole speech) are the blue collar workers of the galaxy, working to provide the system with the natural resources needed by all, and, as such, they're disrespected by other humans in the galaxy. In order to fight exploitation at the "Inners" hands, Belters have formed loose military groupings within the Outer Planets Alliance (OPA). The OPA is considered a terrorist organization by other humans.

In Leviathan Wakes, Book 1, readers are introduced to several of the core characters in this series. James "Jim" Holden, a former UN Navy officer from Earth, is XO of an ice hauling ship called Canterbury along with chief engineer Naomi Nagata, a Belter; pilot Alex Kamal, who's a Martian navy (MCRN) veteran; and engineer Amos Burton with a background that, let's just say, grows more interesting with each installment. These four become the original members of the Rocinate or Roci, a state of the art Martian frigate they claim as their own. A distress signal leads them to a derelict transport vessel, the Scopuli, and from there to Julie Mao, the rebellious daughter of a wealthy magnate.

At the same time, a washed-up detective named Josephus "Joe" Miller, a Belter from Ceres Station's Star Helix Security, is also searching for Julie Mao.

The investigation of Jim and his crew and Miller converges on Eros, where Julie is found…afflicted with an alien organic biohazard growth that quickly spreads across the entire station. Life as anyone knows it will change from this moment forward when humanity gains access to thousands of new worlds via the use of an artificially constructed ring network created by a long-dead race of aliens. The number of directions that this series goes as it explores all of this potential boggled my mind as the saga became bigger and bigger with each book.

While the characters mentioned above comprise the major players, there were so many fascinating, richly embellished, unique cast members. While Jim Holden always came across as a good, incorruptible man and, as such, was my favorite, so many of the characters were so complex, it was hard to pin short-sighted labels like "good" or "evil" on any of them. They were each completely human with all the moments of cringe-worthy regret and heroic larger-than-life altruism. Amos was another favorite who compelled me to think deeply as he evolved into the person he became at the end.

Some other intriguing players that make frequent appearances throughout the books are Bobbi Draper, a Martian gunnery sergeant in the MCRN; the foul-mouthed Chrisjen Avasarala, UN Assistant Undersecretary of Executive Administration on Earth; Fred Johnson, the leader of the OPA, who's a former UN marine (and the subject of the short story "The Butcher of Anderson Station"); Marco and Filip Inaros, father and son with Marco commanding a radical OPA branch called the Free Navy; Camina Drummer, chief security of Tycho Station; and Clarissa Moa, another daughter of the magnate that Amos calls Peaches.

The first installment in the series is the one that I binged-read in a matter of days because the biohazard aspect utterly fascinated me, as did pretty much anything Jim Holden did from start to finish in every story he was in. But several other stand-out offerings were "The Churn" novella and the eighth novel in the series, Tiamat's Wrath.

At the announcement of the last one, Leviathan Falls, I know I wasn't the only obsessed reader who felt we'd only touched the tip of the iceberg in exploring all the saga had to offer. The series left me wanting more while at the same time satisfying all my main requirements. I simply wasn't ready for it to end, though I suspect the main crew of the Roci might have, given what they went through in the countless years that encompass the whole of this exciting sequence.

As most probably already know because many sci-fi readers prefer a more visual medium over book format, The Expanse became a TV series that went through countless upheavals and ended far too soon, not covering as much ground as the book series did. The perfectly chosen cast gave it their all, and I applaud the show for how well they portrayed something so big, it was hard to contain it the way they had to. Both the novel and TV series are well-worth your time, and they've got a permanent place on my keeper shelves. Comic versions, board and roleplaying games are also available for the series.

One of the most defining factors about The Expanse was just how realistic it all seemed. I was sold completely on the premise, and I can easily imagine so many aspects of the "science" and politics to this series happening in the near future just as they're portrayed in this saga.

I do have to comment that the titles of the novels are annoying obscure and really have nothing whatsoever to do with the stories within them. Whenever I try to remember which story belonged in which novel, I'm completely lost--and that's a direct result of the fact that the titles that were saddled on the novels in the series seem arbitrary and not clearly defined. If there was a trick to understanding why they were named as they were, the authors should have given readers a clue what it was to prevent us from becoming lost and confused. That is the sum total of my complaint with this series. Incidentally, the shorts all had titles that made sense and described the stories contained within.

A quick word about the book order, which is a bit of an issue since short stories and novellas were published between the main novels that don't necessarily follow the main storyline chronologically. Frequently, the shorts covered past events as well as pivotal character backgrounds. The publisher suggests reading them in the order they were published since that way characters first introduced in the novels gain further background characterization through the shorts. With prior knowledge and familiarity, the novellas can be enjoyed and understood in context. Also, the shorts may contain spoilers to the novels, which could be a deal-breaker to some. That said, the suggested reading order is this:

1.     Leviathan Wakes, Book 1

2.     "The Butcher of Anderson Station" (set before Leviathan Wakes)

3.     Caliban's War, Book 2

4.     "Gods of Risk"

5.     "Drive" (set before Leviathan Wakes)

6.     Abaddon's Gate, Book 3

7.     "The Churn" (set before Leviathan Wakes)

8.     Cibola Burn, Book 4

9.     Nemesis Games, Book 5

10.  "The Vital Abyss" (set between Abaddon's Gate and Cibola Burn)

11.  Babylon's Ashes, Book 6

12.  "Strange Dogs"

13.  Persepolis Rising, Book 7

14.  Tiamat's Wrath, Book 8

15.  "The Last Flight of the Cassandra" (set during Leviathan Wakes)

16.  "Auberon" (set between Persepolis Rising and Tiamat's Wrath)

17.   Leviathan Falls, Book 9

Note that all of the shorts are all published in a compilation called Memory's Legion that's well worth investing in for collectors.

 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Karen S. Wiesner {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: The Dark Elf Trilogy by R.A. Salvatore

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: The Dark Elf Trilogy by R.A. Salvatore

by Karen S. Wiesner

I came into the character of Drizzt Do-Urden through a side door. I hadn't read the author R.A. Salvatore's first trilogy, Icewind Dale, featuring this dark elf (or drow), nor did I have the slightest experience with the world of Dungeons & Dragons Forgotten Realms campaign setting, or the Underdark, one of its most popular locations. Nor had I ever played any of the videogames set within this realm. Apparently, arguably, Drizzt was the most famous and most influential dark elf within the fictional settings created for and by these mega popular games and books. Yet I knew absolutely nothing about him when I purchased a used, very old collector's edition of The Dark Elf Trilogy. By that time, the drow had already become a legend.

Salvatore says that the idea for this iconic character came to him in his office while he was at his day job. He'd been asked to write the second Forgotten Realms novel and the senior editor at that time wanted him to create a new sidekick for the character of Wulfgar, a young barbarian in the region of Icewind Dale, where Drizzt had settled. Salvatore said he'd get right on that…but the editor didn't have time to wait a week. She was heading into a meeting at that very moment and she needed to sell this proposal. On the spot and off the top of his head, Salvatore came up with a drow ranger named Drizzt Do-Urden of D'aermon N'achezbaeron, Ninth House of Menzoberranzan. The author intended him to be nothing more than a sidekick, like Robin to Batman. Instead, after writing the first chapter of The Crystal Shard, the first installment in The Icewind Dale Trilogy, Salvatore knew a star had been born.

I had no expectations for The Dark Elf Trilogy--a prequel to Icewind Dale that tells the origin story of Drizzt--when I opened the massive 805 page collector's edition which had all three novels inside it. I will admit that I tend to stick with the fantasy series I've known and loved most of my life--Tolkien's Middle Earth and Terry Brooks' Shannara and Landover series novels. While I've always found most fantasy novels to have some of the highest quality of writing, there's something about the sprawling, enormous tomes that intimidate me, and I think the culprit is that fantasy novels tend to be intricate and slow-moving with an almost oxymoronic amount of high action that seems totally at odds with just how plodding they tend to be in terms of their meticulous setting and character building. In fantasy stories, nearly everything has to be created from scratch--and that absolutely demands that readers have patience in allowing the development required to tell such a complicated tale.

The Dark Elf Trilogy is no exception to everything I said in the last paragraph. However, I was instantly sucked into the first story, Homeland, in no small part because the Underdark absolutely enthralled me. Imagine if you will a prodigious, connected subterranean network of labyrinthine caverns and tunnels that run beneath entire continents and form an underworld for places on the surface. The prelude of Homeland begins with a description of the setting:

Never does a star grace this land with a poet's light of twinkling mysteries, nor does the sun send to here its rays of warmth and life. This is the Underdark, the secret world beneath the bustling surface of the Forgotten Realms, whose sky is a ceiling of heartless stone and whose walls show the gray blandless of death in the torchlight of the foolish surface-dwellers that stumble here. This is not their world, not the world of light. Most of who come here uninvited do not return.

               Those who do escape to the safety of their surface homes return changed. Their eyes have seen the shadows and the gloom, the inevitable doom of the Underdark.

               Dark corridors meander throughout the dark realm of winding courses, connecting caverns great and small, with ceilings high and lower. Mounds of stone as pointed at the teeth of a sleeping dragon leer down in silent threat or rise up to block the way of intruders.

               There is a silence here, profound and foreboding, the crouched hush of a predator at work. Too often the only sound, the only reminder to travelers in the Underdark that they have not lost their sense of hearing altogether, is a distant and echoing drip of water, beating like the heart of a beast, slipping through the silent stones to the deep Underdark pools of chilled water. What lies beneath the still onyx surface of these pools one can only guess. What secrets await the brave, what horrors await the foolish, only the imagination can reveal--until the stillness is disturbed. This is the Underdark.

               There are pockets of life here, cities as great as many of those on the surface…

You can read more of an excerpt at any book distributor's website. This world and the city of Menzoberranzan are unlike anything I'd ever read before this point. But it wasn't just the gasping setting descriptions that drew me into this story. The drow who live in this place worship the Spider Queen Lolth. In this dark locale of cunning, scheming, unscrupulous politics, there is no room for concepts such as honor, love, or even friendship. Drizzt was born into this society and was fated to be a sacrifice to the Spider Queen at birth. When one of his brothers kills the other, Drizzt becomes the second son, sparing his life, which is already laid out before him. Disobedience is not an option. Yet Drizzt is nothing like the others that make up this arena of ruthless and senseless violence. He's strange to those around him, an almost cheerful little boy with purple eyes and an unfathomable compassion and defiance against the norm in his disturbing world. After he's given to his sister to raise, she sends him to the finest weapons master to be had--Zaknafein--his own father, who allows Drizzt the forbidden: To think for himself.

One of the biggest reasons I was so fascinated by this trilogy was that, in normal stories, good characters are in a place where basically good is done and expected by all. A villain enters and disrupts that equilibrium. But in The Dark Elf Trilogy, we have a good character surrounded by the worst kind of evil, in a location where all of society and its' mores is centered on cut-throat survival of the fittest. This trilogy turned the anticipated right on its head and made for compulsive reading from start to finish.

Homeland leads into Exile, Book 2, and Sojourn, Book 3 as Drizzt's innate moral code is tested, develops, and leads him inexorably to the light. The fascinating characters he meets along the way only added to the intrigue of this trilogy and all the many Drizzt stories that follow. Some favorite characters of mine are Zaknafein; Guenhwyvar, the magical panther "statuette" companion that Drizzt can summon; a blind human ranger named Montolio Debrouchee; the dwarven king Bruenor Battlehammer, and his adopted human daughter Catti-brie.

I went on to read many of the other Drizzt stories, and I'll include a list of those available below, but the Dark Elf Trilogy is the one that will always hold a special place on my keeper bookshelf.

Below are all the Legend of Drizzt books in chronological order:

The Dark Elf Trilogy

1. Homeland

2. Exile

3. Sojourn

The Icewind Dale Trilogy

4. The Crystal Shard

5. Streams of Silver

6. The Halfling's Gem

The Legacy of the Drow Series

7. The Legacy

8. Starless Night

9. Siege of Darkness

10. Passage to Dawn

The Paths of Darkness Series*

11. The Silent Blade

12. The Spine of the World

13. Servant of the Shard*

13. Sea of Swords

*Book #3 of this series, Servant of the Shard, was moved to the The Sellswords Trilogy written by R.A. Salvatore, which includes Servant of the Shard, Promise of the Witch-King, and Road of the Patriarch and focuses on main characters Artemis Entreri and the Basadoni Guild instead of on Drizzt or his usual companions.

The Hunter's Blades Trilogy

14. The Thousand Orcs

15. The Lone Drow

16. The Two Swords

The Transitions Series

17. The Orc King

18. The Pirate King

19. The Ghost King

The Neverwinter Saga

20. Gauntlgrym

21. Neverwinter

22. Charon's Claw

23. The Last Threshold

The Sundering

24. The Companions

The Companion's Codex

25. Night of the Hunter

26. Rise of the King

27. Vengeance of the Iron Dwarf

The Homecoming Series

28. Archmage

29. Maestro

30. Hero

The Generations Series

31. Timeless

32. Boundless

33. Relentless

The Way of the Drow Series

34. Starlight Enclave

35. Glacier's Edge

36. Lolth's Warrior

The Collected Stories: The Legend of Drizzt Anthology contains stories written by Salvatore related to the Legend of Drizzt setting.

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Karen S. Wiesner {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling

by Karen S. Wiesner

In the 2019 sci-fi horror The Luminous Dead, Caitlin Starling's first novel, the protagonist, 22-year-old Gyre Price, has risked everything to join the Lethe expedition, supposedly tasked with mapping the cave system, performing mining surveys, and restocking the camps set up along the way. This job will require top-tier cave climbing and diving skills. Because of the extreme danger involved, a hefty reward is promised once the task is completed at the end of the allotted weeks. Gyre's not only lied  by embellishing her work history, but she's also had medical procedures that bolster her credentials as an expert instead of the rookie she actually is, providing physical evidence of prior experience she doesn't actually possess.

Growing up on the mining colony Cassandra-V, Gyre had spent most of her time in slot canyons and pseudocaves near her home (avoiding her dad), teaching herself the ropes of climbing. She has no actual experience diving, something she'll need as this cave system is partially underwater.

In order to qualify for this mission, she was required to have intestinal rearrangement surgery and a catheter put in, custom-fitting her to a drysuit that becomes her home for the duration of the mission. What she's wearing and has to keep on and sealed at all times during her trek is what allows a life-and-death voyage like this to be possible, as it's capable of keeping her alive and protected in numerous ways. The suit maps the terrain, takes and stores samples, along with providing details far superior to human eyes in absolute darkness. Additionally, it allows for the administration of nutrients, water, and medication, but can also be accessed by the handler on the surface, providing real-time communication and intervention, and so much more.

Gyre grew up without a mother. This conflict and motivation is at the core of the plot in this story. It's the reason Gyre signed on for this deadly expedition and what keeps her going even when all logic tells her to abandon her contract with Lethe and haul ass out of the cave ASAP--at the risk of losing her payout in part or the whole, as well as being sued for breach of contract, which will destroy her chance of ever finding future work again in this field.

Gyre quickly learns as this story opens that her handler isn't a team of professionals on the surface working together to keep her alive but a single person: Em, who owns the company and has poured a fortune into this cave and investing in perfecting a suit capable of functioning on so many levels to keep cavers alive. Having a single handler is suicide, as at least two are needed to allow for sleep and downtime.

Before long, Gyre learns Em isn't what she seems, nor is this mission or its endgame. Em has hired on cavers like Gyre often in the past, losing 34 to the horrors of the cave. Her justifications for her actions parallel Gyre's own for signing up in the first place. Their mothers. Em lost both her parents to this cave. Her mother escaped the first time without her husband or the rest of her team, but she was never the same afterward and never healed from her traumatizing losses. Yet the cave called her back, forcing the child Em to endure the loss of her mother all over again.

In this tale, the labyrinthine cave is very much like the third main character, and most definitely a villain with death written all over it at every level, not the least of which includes a humongous monster called a Tunneler that calls the mine its home. This creature is attracted to living beings, the sounds they make, the scents, the very air they breathe. The suit has been designed to mask the person wearing it from its sensors. A Tunneler travels through solid rock, forcing the ground around it to give way, expanding and distorting and exploding it. If a human is nearby, death can be instantaneous as spaces, tunnels, and caves collapse, shatter, and are reformed in incalculable ways. The horror angle of the Tunneler was a very nice touch in this story, adding another layer of tension when it was most needed. But it's not the focus of the story, just a "fun perk" to ratchet out a little more suspense throughout.

From the very first page of this book to the last, I found it hard to put the story down for any length of time. Gyre isn't the kind of character I'd normally root for. She's a head case with mother issues so deep, disturbing, and violent, it's hard to feel sympathy for her, even as I could understand the pain she felt having her mom walk away when she was just a child and also finding out in the course of the book exactly who her mother is--and how selfish. Gyre's whole point signing on to this mission was to get a huge payoff to fund her ability to leave Cassandra-V, find her mom, and kick her in the face. While I get the gut reaction, Gyre was so badly twisted by this driving force that is nearly her entire focus and motivation as a human being that she was forever making impulsive decisions with no basis in logic or reality.

In large part, this was needed for the story's suspense. It was the beauty of it. As Gyre descends further and further into the black hole, it was hard to know how much the darkness, silence, and loneliness; the vast and mysterious abyss all around her with strange, unnatural creatures, flora, and fauna; her complete reliance on the technological marvel of her suit that, at the end of the day, was little more than a fancy cage; and the uncertainty at any given moment about whether her handler Em--her only connection to the surface--was friend or foe contributed to Gyre's growing insanity. The combination of a defeatist attitude toward life was at complete odds with Gyre's extreme will to survive. And that is, oddly, one of the major selling points of this story. In any other story, I'm not sure it would have worked, but the tension it created here was amazingly propelling. I literally never knew from one moment to the next what would happen.

In pairing this main character who lives her life on the knife's edge every second with secondary character Em, who's just as much of a lunatic, the story went back and forth between these two pitted against each other on one end of the spectrum and then fighting together tooth and nail to ensure survival on the other. I consider that the very definition of a nail-biter. At the end of the day, though, crazy plus crazy equals psycho all over the place, not a match made in heaven, as I got the impression it was supposed to ultimately be. 

The author clearly knew a considerable amount about diving, climbing, caves, spelunking, and just about every scientific topic she delved into within this story. I loved every aspect of those breathtaking descriptions. It was the reason I picked the story up in the first place, and Starling delivered in spades.

Anyone who likes sci-fi horror with tension that escalates continuously, filled with flawed and unpredictable characters, and a landscape that's so real and visual it could actually exist in the real world won't want to miss this story. As a testament to the author's finely tuned writing skills, before I was even half done with The Luminous Dead, I bought everything else she has available. Fingers crossed I find another favorite, must-read author.

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Read What You Love, Part 3 by Karen S. Wiesner

            Read What You Love, Part 3

by Karen S. Wiesner

In this three-part article, I talk about what conditions, if any, cultivate or discourage a love of the written word as well as about the importance of reading what you love, regardless of your age, the genre or content appropriateness, your gender, or what's considered your "level". In the last two segments, I'll also review two of my favorite Young Adult book series that any fan of the supernatural should love as I much as I do.

In the first part of this article, I talked about how, in the general sense, people should read what they're interested in. It doesn't matter if someone else dubs it above or below your proper reading level, too mature or immature, if it's in a genre that social convention says adults or kids shouldn't be reading, or if it's something most people think of as gender specific. A love of the written word transcends any boundaries. And don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Read what you love! In the second article, I provided an in-depth review of Brandon Mull's phenomenal Young Adult Fantasy series Fablehaven and its sequel Dragonwatch.

In this final installment, I'll review Joseph Delaney's Spooksworld, which is, in my opinion, the best Young Adult Fantasy multi-series in existence. Many people may have heard of this series based on the film adaptation that came out in 2015 called The Spook's Apprentice, which was adapted as a play script originally by the author's son. The film featured Ben Barnes playing Tom Ward (he also played Prince Caspian in The Chronicles of Narnia film series), Jeff Bridges as John Gregory, Julianne Moore as Mother Malkin, and Kit Harington (yes, John Snow from HBO's Game of Thrones) as Billy Bradley, among many others. My opinion (which may not mean a lot) is that this movie didn't even come close to capturing the magic found in the books. I find it difficult to watch, honestly, because it was such a poor adaptation of what could have been nothing short of amazing, had the books been followed much closer.

Spooksworld began as a dark fantasy novel saga written by Joseph Delaney. Three separate series comprise this "arc" that includes Thomas "Tom" Ward as a central character in each. In this fictional world, the seventh son of a seventh son (and sometimes the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter) is a unique being equipped above all other humans to sense the supernatural and become a defender against "the Dark", which can include all manner of beasties like ghost, witches, boggarts, and demons. Such a fighting master is referred to as a "Spook".

Before I dive into this unique world, I'll point out that Joseph Delaney is a British author and all of the Spooksworld books were originally published in the UK by The Bodley Head division of Random House Publishing (which is now Penguin Random House). That said, it'll make more sense to explain that the three separate Spooksworld series have different names (for pities' sake, sometimes more than one for each!) in the UK and the US, and that includes the titles in the differing series names also being changed. So I'll start with a basic listing of the original series name and title differences between the UK and the US. You can find out more at the author's website: https://josephdelaneyauthor.com/.

In the United States, the original series that began with Tom Ward being apprenticed to the County Spook John Gregory is called The Last Apprentice Series, with the following titles available:

Revenge of the Witch (Book 1)

Curse of the Bane (Book 2)

Night of the Soul Stealer (Book 3)

Attack of the Fiend (Book 4)

Wrath of the Bloodeye (Book 5)

Clash of the Demons (Book 6)

Rise of the Huntress (Book 7)

Rage of the Fallen (Book 8)

Grimalkin the Witch Assassin (Book 9)

Lure of the Dead (Book 10)

Slither (Book 11)

I Am Alice (Book 12)

Fury of the Seventh Son (Book 13)

In the UK it's called The Spook's Series and the individual titles are shortened considerably to:

Apprentice (Book 1)

Curse (Book 2)

Secret (Book 3)

Battle (Book 4)

Mistake (Book 5)

Sacrifice (Book 6)

Nightmare (Book 7)

Destiny (Book 8)

I Am Grimalkin (Book 9)

Blood (Book 10)

Slither’s Tale (Book 11)

Alice (Book 12)

Revenge (Book 13)

Just to make this as confusing as possible, this same series has also been referred to as The Tom/Thomas Ward Chronicles or The Wardstone Chronicles. In French, strangely, it's called L'apprenti L'Épouvanteur, which means "The Scarecrow's Apprentice". Either that's poorly translated or "Spook's" is simply not a word that can be grasped in the French language. Go figure.

In any case, there are also several interconnected offerings to this original series that are occasionally included with further (seemingly conflicting) book numbers in the series. These include: A stand-alone story called Seventh Apprentice, which is an introduction to the series that has an earlier apprentice, Will Johnson, left to fend for himself while his master is away. Bestiary (also called The Guide to Creatures of the Dark), which is a practical record of dealing with the Dark and features John Gregory's personal account of "the denizens " he's encountered, combined with his lessons learned and mistakes made. Short stories are also combined with different stories with varying titles in the UK and US in collections, namely Grimalkin's Tale, Witches, The Spook's Tale and Other Horrors, and A Coven of Witches. Finally, a fun little scary story set in the same world is called The Ghost Prison.

Tom Ward is just a boy when John Gregory comes to claim him as an apprentice. Tom's mother promised her seventh son of a seventh son to the local Spook, who's more than a little cranky and irascible. Though Tom isn't sure about being apprenticed to a hard man like this, he dutifully leaves with the Spook, resigned to being apprenticed by him. Soon, he discovers that most of the man's previous apprentices failed, fled, or were killed in the process of learning the ropes of fighting the Dark. Not surprisingly, Spooks are feared and shunned everywhere…you know, up until ordinary people have need of their unique abilities.

Everything Tom faces as the plot progresses from one book to the next makes for chilling conflict and soul reflection. The uncertain but morally grounded boy grows into a young man changed not only by those he meets, the creatures he fights, and the mystical skills he possesses but by his own convictions about his place in the world.

Seeing Tom mature and become powerful, embracing his role of responsibility to the County he serves, his master, his family, and the world at large was a fascinating byplay of shades of gray. On the surface, as this saga progresses, a hero could easily be a villain while just as easily a former monster may end up becoming an ally. Light and dark coexist, and no one is really what they seem here. My favorite characters can't really be short-listed because there are so many intriguing ones, but those that stand out to me would include Tom first and foremost; his master; his parents and family; Alice Deane, the young witch Tom is warned early on not to trust; the former apprentices of John Gregory who serve in other parts of the world, Bill Arkwright and Judd Brinscall; Grimalkin, the Malkin witch assassin who has many faces, and her apprentice Thorne; and finally Meg, John Gregory's former lover, who lives in his winter house.

When I discovered the first book in the series, I bought all the subsequent ones in one fell swoop, including the miscellaneous bonus offerings. I read them compulsively over the course of about a week, barely sleeping because I was so enthralled, wanting to know what would happen to Tom and his master John Gregory. While there is a point where the books slow down and things are all moving in one direction (toward the defeat of the arch villain, the Fiend, which I didn't find quite as interesting as previous enemies), I've still read the series multiple times. After completing it the first time and feeling sad that there weren't more books about Tom Ward, I went searching for follow-up and discovered that there was indeed a spinoff series to be had.

With the conclusion of the original series in 2013, the author started a spinoff trilogy in 2014 with The Starblade Chronicles (the UK versions go by "Spook's" with the same individual titles) that follows the continued adventures of Tom Ward. The apprentice is now the master Spook, responsible for fighting the evil threatening the County and the surrounding world. The three books include A New Darkness (Book 1), The Dark Army (Book 2), and The Dark Assassin (Book 3).

Tom is now 17 but he never finished his apprenticeship as a Spook. Nevertheless, the County needs his unique skills more than ever and there is no one else willing or able to do what he can. To further complicate his life, a young girl named Jenny, a seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, comes, asking to be his apprentice. Never before has a girl been a Spook, and Tom isn't sure how to feel about it. Yet Jenny has vital information and knowledge that he needs to defeat a new evil threatening humanity. Like it or not, he has to take a chance on her.

Returning to Tom's life after the events of the original series was a thrill for me. I wasn't disappointed, but I was very surprised by a lot of the changes in store that weren't ideal and weren't necessarily what I would have hoped for in a spinoff. However, I enjoyed these books very much, read them just as voraciously as the original series, but I will say I was blindsided by the events in the conclusion. As a tremendous fan of the series, I wasn't entirely happy with the outcome and resolution either. Luckily for me, it wasn't actually the end of Tom's story, though fans of the series did have to wait nearly three years before the author brought back our most beloved Spook.

In 2020, Tom Ward, Alice, and other series favorites returned in a new spinoff series, Brother Wulf, which includes four offerings: Brother Wulf (Book 1), Wulf's Bane (Book 2), The Last Spook (Book 3), and Wulf's War (Book 4, coming 8/17/23).

A young novice monk, Brother Beowulf, is being manipulated and sent by the church to spy on Spook Johnson, who takes Wulf along on his monster battles. After Spook Johnson is captured by one of the very creatures he was supposed to be eliminating, Wulf has no choice but to seek out Tom Ward's help. In this spinoff series, Wulf is the main character, while Tom is the secondary, though still a major protagonist. As with the young Tom Ward in the original series, I was charmed by Wulf, who isn't tainted by the evil that plagues the world around him. He remains pure and determined to do good in a world with so many contradictory players. But Wulf is more than he seems, just as this author's characters always prove to be in the end, and that makes him another hero to root for.

Those new to these books may not realize that Joseph Delaney was battling illness while he was writing the last few books in this series. I'd read all three of the first offerings in it. (Incidentally, I had to purchase Book 3 from Blackwell's booksellers in the UK https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/home because it wasn't available in the US, nor do I believe it is even now.) I went to the author's website to find out when the conclusion to the series would be released, and it was there that I was devastated to learn Joseph Delaney lost his battle. The third story ended on a cliffhanger with no satisfactory resolution. It took a long time to resign myself to the fact that I would never learn the conclusion of such a wonderful saga. But then, while I was researching for this review, I discovered that a fourth book would be released posthumously August 2023, on the anniversary of the author's death. Wulf's War was apparently the last book Delaney wrote. I hope this final book provides an ideal conclusion to the series, though I will be more understanding, given how hard it must have been for the author to write this one.

I've also read Delaney's Aberrations series, another dark fantasy sequence, that currently has two installments. I actually talked to the author several years ago (before the Brother Wulf series was published), asking him if more books would follow in that series. I believe he was writing more, but he said that the publisher hadn't yet committed to releasing the next. I'm strongly hoping this series will also be finished at some point in the future, but I don't expect that will be the case. I'll be devastated, since Crafty and his friends may never defeat the evil mist that brought the aberration monsters to their world. Naturally, I'll blame the publisher. I've written a note to those responsible for the upkeep of his website, requesting information about potential future offerings in the series. We'll see if I get a response.

As I said early in this article series, I discovered Spooksworld as a 30-something year old adult and would have missed it (and been the worse for it) and so many others if I cared a whit about maturity, appropriateness, genre, and level classifications when it comes to selecting my reading material.

Life is too short to read only what's expected of you. Instead, make the most of the remaining years you have exploring an entire universe of wonderful reading material available to you.

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/