CBR4 Book 45: "Cinder" by Marissa Meyer

Page count: 384 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Date begun: April 21st, 2012
Date finished: April 21st, 2012

Cinder is probably the best mechanic in New Beijing. She's also a cyborg. As cyborgs are generally shunned in society, she tries to hide this fact from as many as possible. The kind man who adopted her years earlier died shortly after, leaving her the ward of his cold and uncaring wife. She expects Cinder to work to support her and her two daughters, never showing the "unnatural" girl any appreciation or affection. Cinder is surprised to find the Prince Kai, heir to the Imperial throne, at her booth one day, urging her to fix one of his androids, but reluctant to share why it matters so much to him.

Scientists are working ceaselessly to find a cure for the deadly plague that's affecting the population, and when Cinder's stepsister is suddenly taken ill, her stepmother "volunteers" her for medical testing. Drugged and taken away in restraints, Cinder tries to escape the testing facility, but is with a strain of the disease, and shortly after released by the head medical expert. He reveals that Cinder is immune to the plague, and makes her promise to help him find a cure. As the stepsister who's ill is pretty much Cinder's only friend in the world, Cinder readily agrees. Working with Dr. Edlund, she keeps running into Prince Kai, whose father, the Emperor, is also ill with the plague, and eager for the doctors to find a cure.

Dr. Edlund agrees to pay Cinder for her assistance, and with the money Cinder plans to refurbish an old car, grab her sidekick android, and escape her stepmother's reach once and for all. Her growing feelings for Prince Kai are definitely complicating things, especially when Kai asks her to be his date to the annual ball at the palace. Dr. Edlund is acting strangely, and clearly knows more about her than he's willing to reveal. Why is he so determined that she stay far away from the palace when the Lunar Queen is visiting? Why is Cinder immune to the plague?

I love fairy tale retellings, and while I normally don't read a lot of sci-fi, this book was difficult to put down. The concept of Cinderella as a cyborg was a really cool one, and the futuristic world conjured up by Meyer is really well rendered on the page. The supporting characters are all well developed too, and I was genuinely affected when good (and bad) things happened to them. Cinder's a wonderful character, although I suspect only the really slow kids at the back will be genuinely surprised at the shocking revelation of her true identity (this is NOT a spoiler - Meyer leaves anvillicious hints throughout the story).

My main gripe is that the ending is rather sudden, and very open ended, and the next book isn't out until next year. As far as I can tell online, there will be four books in total in The Lunar Chronicles, and as far as I can tell each new book will be another fairy tale retelling. Not sure how she's going to tie each new book into the current story line, but with such a promising beginning, I'm choosing to be hopeful that it'll work out.

CBR4 Book 44: "One Dance with a Duke" by Tessa Dare

Page count: 400 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars
Date begun: April 21st, 2012
Date finished: April 21st, 2012

Spenser Dumarque, the fourth Duke of Morland, has the entire ton gossipping about his custom to show up at society balls at the strike of midnight, dance one set with a lucky young woman, escort her to dinner, and then leave. Every eligible young debutante wants to be the next lucky lady he selects, but so far none seems to have caught his eye.

Lady Amelia D'Orsay is old enough to be considered pretty much on the shelf by polite society, so she tries to stay away from gossip, and is certainly not interested in fighting the other young ladies for the "Duke of Midnight"'s attention. When she finds out from her scapegrace younger brother Jack that he now owes the Duke 400 pounds, and that this debt means that the family cottage (where Amelia spends every summer) will have to be let, she decides to confront the Duke, and persuade him to forgive Jack's debt. Spenser is flummoxed at being directly approached by the opinionated lady, and has no choice but to dance his customary midnight dance with her, to avoid losing face in public.

What no one in society knows, is that his midnight ritual has nothing to do with finding a suitable bride, but to control his massive fear of crowds, and to stave off anxiety attacks. By arriving precisely at midnight and making a brief public appearance, Spenser fulfils his social obligations, but can leave before the crowds become to overwhelming, and no one's the wiser. Dancing with the pushy Amelia, he's suddenly overcome with a panic attack, and as she refuses to be abandoned on the dance floor, he has to drag her with him out onto the balcony. She realises that something is not quite right, but before she can enquire further, Spenser is approached by two acquaintances, Rhys St. Maur (the Earl of Ashworth and a war hero - also the hero of the second book in the trilogy) and Julian Bellamy (rake, dandy, scoundrel and hero of the third book), announcing that Leo Chatwick, the founder of the exclusive gentleman's club in which all three are members has been murdered, and they need to break the bad news to his twin sister. Amelia insists on coming along, as Lily is an old friend of hers.

At the end of the night, having had a rather bad time of it, Amelia is shocked when Spenser proposes marriage to her in order to save her from any ton gossip (he did after all, drag her from a crowded ball room and disappear with her for most of the night). Even though the thought of becoming a wealthy Duchess is appealing to her, it's only after Spenser convinces her with some pretty head-turning kisses that he's genuinely attracted to her, that she accepts.

A few days after their first dance, Amelia is married to a man who is mostly a stranger to her. It doesn't make it easier that Julian Bellamy crashes their wedding to accuse Spenser of having murdered Leo Chatwick. While drawn to her husband, she makes him promise to prove his innocence before they consummate the marriage. Spenser promises reluctantly, and as he's more and more sure that his decision to marry Amelia impulsively was a good one, sets out to seduce his wife good and proper.

The romance in One Dance with a Duke is delightful, and while Spenser can seem domineering and aloof and frequently seems to say exactly the wrong and insulting thing in any situation, there are good explanations as to why he's like that. The gradual way in which Spenser and Amelia get to know each other and fall in love with each other is great. Unfortunately, however, there are two other subplots running throughout the book, both of which get seemingly forgotten about for huge stretches at a time, only to be reintroduced just as the main romance plot is getting really good.

First there is the murder investigation, where Spenser, St. Maur and Bellamy try to figure out who killed their friend (this plot is not resolved until Three Nights with a Scoundrel), and then there is the subplot of Amelia's wastrel brother Jack, who keeps getting himself further into debt and expecting Amelia to bail him out. Every time he showed up, I just wanted to scream and put the book away, and Amelia's refusal to see what a complete leech he was made me want to slap her. Apart from that, Amelia's a really nice character. I suspect the Jack subplot was supposed to show how kind and loving and all about family Amelia was, loyal to a fault to her brother, even when he kept disappointing her. Instead, it just made her look like an idiotic sap, and I absolutely sided with Spenser in all their arguments. The subplots also make the structure of the book a lot more loose and meandering, and detracted from my enjoyment of it. So in conclusion, a good book, but less focused on the main romance than I would have liked.

CBR4 Book 43: "Doctor Who and the Daleks" by David Whitaker

Page count: 192 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Date begun: April 21st, 2012
Date finished: April 21st, 2012

First published in 1964 with the title Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks (a title they really should have kept, in my opinion), this is the first Doctor Who serial to be turned into a novel. The book was written by one of the head screenwriters on the show,  in a time when it was not common to repeat television, and before Doctor Who was the long running cult (and now mainstream) television series that it is today. For many people, it was the first introduction to the story of the time travelling Doctor and his companions, and Whitaker was free to adapt and even alter the story from the television series.

In terms of the TV show, the seven episode run of The Daleks follows on from the very first episode of Doctor Who, An Unearthly Child, where viewers were introduced to the strange and brilliant school girl Susan, her teachers Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright, and her eccentric and mysterious grandfather, known only as the Doctor. At the end of the episode, Ian and Barbara are whisked away in the Doctor's time machine, the TARDIS (Time and Relative Dimension in Space) and in their first adventure on an alien planet meet the terrifying cyborg race known as the Daleks (long before these creatures became known as the Doctor's most feared enemies).

Whitaker starts by rewriting the events of An Unearthly Child somewhat, with Ian never having met Susan and Barbara before he finds them at the scene of a car accident, but the end result is still the same. He and Barbara, trying to help Susan, meet her seemingly misanthropic Grandfather, and end up in his wonderful space craft, kidnapped by the Doctor, so they can't reveal his or Susan's existence to the authorities. The story is told entirely from Ian's point of view. Ian is a trained scientist, and while he  is initially convinced that the TARDIS is some elaborate set, and the Doctor and Susan are delusional, he can't ignore the evidence in front of him as they arrive on and start exploring the alien home planet of the Daleks.

The Doctor, always interested in exploring alien civilisations, deftly sabotages his own ship, and the travellers have no choice but to explore the city they see in the distance in order to find mercury to fix the TARDIS' fuel supply. Ian is pretty sure he's being manipulated, but doesn't really have a choice but to go along if he wants to leave the planet again any time soon. He certainly doesn't want to send a woman and a young girl along with a bossy old guy who he's still not entirely convinced is completely sane. So off they go, through the strangely ravaged country side, to a city where the streets are paved with metal. Susan and Barbara start feeling ill, and soon the whole group are captured by the little robot creatures known as the Daleks.

The planet's atmosphere is slowly poisoning the humans, and Susan is sent off alone to find an antidote for Barbara and the others (left outside the TARDIS earlier). While away from the Dalek city, she encounters one of the Thal, a race of peaceful humanoids inhabiting the planet. He explains that there used to be a terrible civil war that left most of the planet scorched and petrified, but that the Thals only want peace and to be left alone by the Daleks. The antidote Susan has to find was created by the Thals, who can't breathe without it, and Susan promises to plead the Thal case to their Dalek captors.

While it seems as if the Daleks are receptive to a peace agreement with the Thals, just before the Thal delegation are set to arrive, Ian and the others discover that the Daleks plan not only to ambush the Thals, but their ultimate plan involves taking over the whole planet, killing off the Thal race completely. The Doctor and his companions escape the Dalek city with the surviving Thals, and try to assist them in setting up a rebellion against the ruthless Daleks.

Doctor Who and the Daleks is a book aimed for children, but is action packed, well written and surprisingly violent (at least to anyone who hasn't seen classic (or even current era) Doctor Who). Ian and Barbara are given a lot more characterisation than in the early episodes of the show, because in a novel that's much easier than on TV. There is also more of a romantic tension between Ian and Barbara than what is shown in the TV episodes, but as the series progressed, it was obvious that the two were meant to be together, so I think Whitaker was only hurrying along the inevitable.

The benefit of a novel over the TV series, is that in a book the author can conjure up exciting set pieces without having to worry about a budget. My husband, a massive fan of the show, confesses that having read the book as a boy, he was a bit disappointed when finally seeing the actual episodes, as the exotic and alien locations, characters and various action sequences were described so vividly in the book, and weren't quite as faithfully rendered on screen (no wonder, as the TV show came first, the book just elaborated on what had already been shown). It's a fairly short, and very exciting story. One of the most interesting aspects is the strange experience of Ian and the others trying to convince a pacifistic, harmonic people that they need to learn to fight and in effect resume a civil war, rather than continue their peace loving ways and be exterminated by the ruthless Daleks.

A very good choice for my first Read-a-thon book this spring, it can be read in a couple of hours, and gives a nice introduction to the first Doctor and his companions for new fans, or an interesting contrast to the TV series for existing fans. Well worth a read.

CBR4 Books 40-42: "Empowered vol 1-3" by Adam Warren

Total page count: 664 pages
Rating - All three volumes - 4 stars
Date begun: April 17th, 2012
Date finished: April 22nd, 2012

The somewhat ironically named Empowered is a C-list superhero whose powers are given to her by her ultra skintight supersuit (so much so that she can't wear underwear underneath it and even has to have very careful personal grooming so that nothing shows when she's wearing it). While the suit is intact, she's strong enough to lift and throw cars and even zap people from a distance, but the suit is also ridiculously fragile, prone to ripping if she catches on a nail, thorn, tack or say, gets shot at. The more the suit tears, the faster she loses a her powers, leaving her frequently captured, bound and gagged (in ridiculously skimpy, yet conveniently strategically covering tatters) by various super villains. Her team, "The Super-homeys" rarely take her seriously, and she's most frequently used as bait. She's blond and buxum, but has terrible self-esteem issues and is convinced that her butt is too big.

The first volume is pretty much a series of short vignettes, interrupted by fairly meta chapter breaks where  "Emp" explains her origin as a bondage prone sketch Adam Warren would draw for fans at conventions, then flesh out with a back story and turn into a surprisingly sweet and very clever satire on sexy superhero comics. Over the course of the first volume, Emp (her real name isn't revealed until volume 3) meets her boyfriend, a sometime super villain henchman, and her best friend, Ninjette (who is unsurprisingly a ninja), and ends up sharing a flat with the "Caged Demonwolf", a cosmic beast entrapped in alien bondage gear who lives atop her coffee table (possibly my favourite character). In volumes 2 and 3, the stories are longer, and continue to explore the world of Empowered, the Superhomeys, the various rather ridiculous super villains they fight, and the myriad ways in which  poor Emp can be captured, humiliated, bound and gagged.

While the art is very sexy, and Emp is frequently more unclothed than not, there is never any complete nudity, the book is very good about equal opportunity cheesecake art, with Emp's boyfriend Thugboy frequently shown just as scantily clad as her. It's clearly a aimed at an adult audience, with quite a few sex scenes in especially volumes 1 and 3 and quite a lot of violence (in a very manga style) in all 3 volumes. Refreshingly, as a female comics reader, I never felt this comic is as insulting to or exploitative of women as several more mainstream superhero comics. For all it's near nudity and bondage prone heroine, the main premise of the comic is sweet. I very much agree with this article on Comics Alliance, that Empowered is a comic that gets sexy superheroes just right. I will absolutely be getting more, as soon as my budget allows it.

CBR4 Book 39: "The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms" by N.K. Jemisin

Page count: 432 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Date begun: April 16th, 2012
Date finished: April 20th, 2012

Some months after her mother's death,Yeine Darr is summoned to Sky, the capital of the sprawling empire known as the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, by her grandfather, who is head of the Arameri clan, and the realm's undisputed ruler. Yeine the only daughter of his beloved daughter and former heir, who he disowned when she chose to marry Yeine's "barbarian" father. To Yeine's shock and the surprise of the court, he names her one of his heirs, and expects her to fight for the position as the next Arameri ruler with her cousins, his ruthless niece and nephew.

Brought up far far from Sky, in the simple northern province of Darre, a formerly matriarchal society of which Yeine was supposed to become the next chieftain, she is completely unprepared for the vicious machinations and power games at her grandfather's court. She also discovers that no one expects her to emerge victorious in her cousin's inheritance struggle, but has no choice but to adapt quickly. The Arameri have terrifying resources at their disposal, among them four of the realm's former gods trapped in human form.

 In a world where there were once three main gods, two male, one female (the God of Day, the God of Night, and the Goddess of Dusk and Twilight - or light, dark and all the shades in between). The priests would have it that Enefa, the goddess, rebelled against the god of Light, and was aided by the god of Night and various minor godlings. She was killed for her betrayal, and Nahadoth, the god of Night, and three of their children, were condemned to live forever chained and controlled by the Arameri, who can use them as weapons of mass destruction. Yeine is forced into an uneasy alliance with the four gods after it's clear that her fate is closely tied up with theirs, and their aid may be the only hope she has of coming through the bitter struggle for the throne without her home and life being completely destroyed.

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is N.K. Jemisin's debut novel, and a very impressive book, in that regard. The world she's created is fascinating, and I especially enjoyed the theology and mythology with the three gods and their conflict. The concept of gods trapped and forced to do ruthless rulers' bidding was also an intriguing one. In flashbacks the reader clearly sees what terrible power this bestows on the Arameri rulers, and how a slightly mis-spoken command can give them free reign to level whole civilisations.

Anyone expecting an epic and convoluted power struggle like that shown in George R. R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire or similar fantasy epics will be disappointed. While there is political intrigue and difficult choices to be made, the book has a relatively small cast of significant characters, and the whole story is really about Yeine trying to figure out who killed her mother, why her grandfather has suddenly decided to use her as a pawn in his power games, and ow her fate is connected with that of the trapped gods. While there are hints about the wider world of the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, the main story is set in the capital, Sky, and the closer details of even that society are not explored.

The story is told from Yeine's POV, in a sort of flashback, and she frequently interrupts herself, to go off on apparent digressions, and occasionally even seems to be arguing herself. This narrative device may annoy some readers, but I found that it made Yeine more relatable, and the somewhat disjointed style of narration becomes clear towards the end of the novel, when the full story is revealed. I enjoyed the book, and will absolutely be picking up the rest of the trilogy at some later date.

End of event meme

1. Which hour was the most daunting for you?

Probably the last few, when I was quite tired, and had to struggle not to nod off. Reading light and fun stuff was a good idea.

2) Could you list a few high interest books that you think could keep a Reader engaged for next year?

I liked all my books. The Doctor Who book would entertain any fan of the TV series, I think, even if they're not used to the classic series. One Dance with a Duke by Tessa Dare is a nice romance, if a bit heavier on the angst than some of her other ones. Cinder by Marissa Meyer was a fun reimagining of the classic Cinderella story, and as long as readers don't mind that it's the first in a series (which won't be completed until 2015 at the earliest), it's a good YA sci-fi story. 

3) Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year?

Not really. I thought it was pretty good both last year and this time. Possibly a clearer schedule of when all the various time zones are supposed to start. 

4) What do you think worked really well in this year's Read-a-thon?

The hourly updates on the blog were really nice. I'm glad I checked them this year.

5) How many books did you read?

5

6) What were the names of the books you read?

Doctor Who and the Daleks (originally titled much more awesomely Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks) by David Whitaker

One Dance with a Duke by Tessa Dare

Cinder by Marissa Meyer

Empowered volume 2 by Adam Warren

Empowered volume 3 by Adam Warren

7) Which book did you enjoy most?

Cinder by Marissa Meyer

8) Which book did you enjoy least? 

One Dance with a Duke, but that's not saying much, as I enjoyed ALL the books this year.

9) If you were a Cheerleader, do you have any advice for next year's Cheerleaders?

I was just a Reader, but would just like to encourage the Cheerleaders to keep up their good work.

10) How likely are you to participate in the Read-a-thon again? What role would you be likely to take next time?

I'm absolutely going to participate again. I hope there's another one in October. I'd be a Reader, because I love the absolute indulgence of devoting that much time to reading. 

Hour twenty-four: ok, I'm done

So it appears that due to daylight savings time stuff etc, I started the 24-hour Readathon an hour early. But that means I also get to complete my reading an hour early, and I am done now.

I have correction work to do, and I have to go to the gym, and judging by how tired I still am, I need to nap a bit as well. Still, I really enjoyed my reading experience, and will of course be doing it again in October, as long as my schedule permits it.

Pages read in the last hour: 136

Pages read in total: 1348

Total books read so far: 5!
Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks by David Whitaker
One Dance with a Duke by Tessa Dare
Cinder by Marissa Meyer
Empowered volumes 2 and 3 by Adam Warren

Snacks consumed: More Coke