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Madeleine Ashby, vN: In the future, a messianic tech genius has created von Neumann machines—robots who can’t bear to see humans in pain (and thus sometimes turn away so that they don’t have their response circuits triggered). Except Amy’s failsafe doesn’t work, something proved very publicly when her murderous grandmother comes for her at her kindergarden graduation (vN will iterate if fed well enough with the metals and plastics that make up their diet). Now Amy’s on the run, trying to stay away from her grandmother and the rest of her clade, trying to get back to her human father and vN mother. It was an engaging enough story, though I wasn’t sure the worldbuilding held up, what with the resource demands that iteration would place on the world—there were hungry vN and armored junkyards, but it seemed underthought.
Daniel Handler (art by Maira Kalman), Why We Broke Up: Girl meets boy. Girl falls in love with boy. Girl loses boy and writes him an epic letter, with demonstrative exhibits, about why they broke up. I think Handler’s best as Lemony Snicket, and this book didn’t convince me otherwise, though the tone of desperate, half-insightful and half-self-deluding teenagerhood rang true.
Stephen King, Mile 81: Classic King short story: at the abandoned Mile 81 rest stop, a car apparently crashes to a stop. Everyone who gets out to investigate has something very bad happen to them. Only kids believe, and only kids can stop it.
Shannon Phillips, The Millennial Sword: Urban fantasy in the Seanan McGuire vein, though lower-drama/angst. Viveka, newly arrived in San Francisco for an entry-level PR job, accepts Excalibur and becomes the Lady of the Lake. She collects a hacker knight, an intriguing boyfriend/investigative journalist with a name suspiciously like “Arthur,” and some enemies, most prominently the mad fairy queen Morgan. I was very grateful that she didn’t immediately become the best ever at fighting just because she had Excalibur—she needed training; plus she was still eking out a living as a junior PR person and had real budget issues in the midst of trying to save the city from fairy takeover.
Daniel Handler (art by Maira Kalman), Why We Broke Up: Girl meets boy. Girl falls in love with boy. Girl loses boy and writes him an epic letter, with demonstrative exhibits, about why they broke up. I think Handler’s best as Lemony Snicket, and this book didn’t convince me otherwise, though the tone of desperate, half-insightful and half-self-deluding teenagerhood rang true.
Stephen King, Mile 81: Classic King short story: at the abandoned Mile 81 rest stop, a car apparently crashes to a stop. Everyone who gets out to investigate has something very bad happen to them. Only kids believe, and only kids can stop it.
Shannon Phillips, The Millennial Sword: Urban fantasy in the Seanan McGuire vein, though lower-drama/angst. Viveka, newly arrived in San Francisco for an entry-level PR job, accepts Excalibur and becomes the Lady of the Lake. She collects a hacker knight, an intriguing boyfriend/investigative journalist with a name suspiciously like “Arthur,” and some enemies, most prominently the mad fairy queen Morgan. I was very grateful that she didn’t immediately become the best ever at fighting just because she had Excalibur—she needed training; plus she was still eking out a living as a junior PR person and had real budget issues in the midst of trying to save the city from fairy takeover.
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