Goodbye Mr. Bradbury

Dear Mr. Ray Bradbury,

I hope that you knew how you affected not just a generation, not just a country, but rather your reach spread globally. You made us think, ponder, and more importantly discuss ideas what had never really occurred to us before. You words were provocative but never trite. I don't really think that there is anyone who won't be touched by what you have wrote.

Today we celebrate your life and body of work, even as we mourn your passing. Thanks for the books.

Sincerely,
Anna

Ray Bradbury passed away this morning in Los Angeles. I really like this article about Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, and libraries.

Birds of Prey: Of Like Minds by Gail Simone, art by Ed Benes

Barbara Gordon, formerly Batgirl but now paralyzed from the waist, down continues to fight crime as Oracle, along with Black Canary.  Black Canary falls in to a trap set by Savant, a mentally unstable villain with a grudge against Batman.  Oracle finds she has to call on someone she doesn't fully trust - Huntress - if she wants Black Canary back alive.

I really liked it.  A lot.  I picked this one up because it was written by Gail Simone, and I've been curious to read her superhero stuff.  It was great.  The women are strong and capable and sassy.  They have exciting adventures.  They have each other's backs.  They take care of themselves and look out for each other.  They're smart and funny.  Awesome.  What's not to love?

The art.  Sometimes.  Sometimes it was totally fine.  Look, it's not a problem if the characters want to dress in fishnets or short-shorts, or if she has prominent breasts.  It's really not.  A character can choose to dress in a revealing way and still be a strong woman.  I don't want people to think I go in for slut shaming.  I totally don't.  It's how a character can be portrayed can be a problem sometimes.

One Soul by Ray Fawkes

The life stories of 18 individuals throughout history are told, from birth to death.

This was a fascinating read.  I didn't really know how to dread it when I started.  Every page is a double-page spread divided up into 18 boxes.  Each individual has their own box.  My first read through I looked at all the boxes on each page.  I found myself focusing on particular stories that drew my interest and ignoring others.  You can't keep all 18 in your head the whole time all the way though.

After I'd finished I started going back.  I would take a strip at a time and follow their stories all the way through.  I could keep three in my head at once.  Whenever an individual died, their box went black, and stayed black the rest of the way through, although sometimes there would be a few sentences in the boxes.

The stories span history and geography.  The first box seemed to be a man in an early civilization.  I think there was an Egyptian one.  One who fought in the Crusades.  A child who was left on the steps of a monastery.  One who fought in the Revolutionary War.  One from either WWII or Vietnam, I wasn't totally sure.  We don't just see their adult lives, but from the very moment of their birth.

So many of them seemed to have sad lives.  Life was very difficult for most of them, and people died early, because that's just how things were.  You didn't live very long when you live during a period of constant war and change.  There were moments of happiness as well, of course, but I was definitely struck by how sad it all seemed.  Out of all 18 lives, only one made it to be an old woman.

Was it supposed to be the same soul reborn throughout history?  The title would suggest that, or does it mean that people are contented throughout time?

I would highly recommend getting this one.

Waiting on Wednesday: The Forsaken by Lisa M. Stasse

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Breaking the Spine to spotlight an upcoming release that we're excited about. This week I'm waiting on The Forsaken by Lisa M. Stasse.

As an obedient orphan of the U.N.A. (the super-country that was once Mexico, the U.S., and Canada), Alenna learned at an early age to blend in and be quiet—having your parents taken by the police will do that to a girl. But Alenna can’t help but stand out when she fails a test that all sixteen-year-olds have to take: The test says she has a high capacity for brutal violence, and so she is sent to The Wheel, an island where all would-be criminals end up.

The life expectancy of prisoners on The Wheel is just two years, but with dirty, violent, and chaotic conditions, the time seems a lot longer as Alenna is forced to deal with civil wars for land ownership and machines that snatch kids out of their makeshift homes. Desperate, she and the other prisoners concoct a potentially fatal plan to flee the island. Survival may seem impossible, but Alenna is determined to achieve it anyway. (Summary from GoodReads)


Dystopia and violence? So there. Also can we just talk about how beautiful this cover is? It's more than a little awesome. Right?


The Forsaken comes out July 10th.

Uglies: Shay's Story by Scott Westerfeld, Devin Grayson, and Steven Cummings

Shay believes that before her transformation into a Pretty, she should enjoy life on her hoverboard, she doesn't mind breaking the rules once in a while especially after she meets the Crims. This rebellious streak leads to her meeting the charismatic David and her leaving the life she's known to live in The Smoke: free and physically unchanged. She learns to love her life surviving off the land, especially as David starts to return her feelings for her. But once Shay's best friend Tally joins The Smoke, everything seems to change, David becomes distant and Tally seems to be taking her spot in the commune. Where does Shay belong now?

This is a spinoff of Scott Westerfeld's wildly popular Uglies series. I have to admit that I tried to read Uglies but never got into it. I couldn't get into the culture that Mr. Westerfeld had made, and the characters were not engaging to me. But let's be honest, I'm in the minority because the series has taken off and is super well-known. Also I do like Scott Westerfeld's writing, I LOVED the Leviathan series and I think he's really gifted. This world is just not my thing.

I do like the fact that the haven't done a straight-up adaptation of Uglies to graphic novel, it's neat that they instead decided to elaborate on a secondary character. The artwork was really spot on for the storyline, and some of the double-spreads were really lovely. I just didn't like Shay. I think it goes back to the whole thing where I don't like the world that this is set in. Just a personal preference. Doesn't mean this was bad, just not my cup of tea, though it's a well-made cup. You know?

Nola's Worlds: Changing Moon by Minikim, Mariolle, and Pop

Nola lives in perfect yet boring Alta Donna, she just wants a little excitement in her life. Something to take her mind off of her dismal social life, horrible educational career, and the fact that her parents are completely uninvolved in her life. This starts to change when she decides to give herself an assignment: find out who the mysterious siblings Damiano and Ines are. But as she gets to know them, especially Damiano, Nola begins to notice more strange things about them.

I enjoyed this, you can tell it's got plans for more depth and development. The entire thing was just a tease though. Nothing was really fleshed out, you just got the surface view of the aspects of the story. Yet, SO INTRIGUED! Who are Damiano and Ines? What do they do? Who is the mysterious man trying to get them and why does he have weird doll minions? Will Nola's mother get a clue and actually become involved with her daughter instead of being an extreme absentee mother? The artwork is super fun, and I'm totally reading the next couple books. Awesome.

Under the Never Sky by Veronica Rossi

After being exiled from her underground commune of Reverie, Aria believes that she has a matter of days before she dies outside in the desert wasteland. But she feels that she must attempt by any means necessary to get back in, and find out what has happened to her mother. In the end, she must rely on the savage Outsider Perry for help. They make a deal in order for Aria to survive and Perry to find his kidnapped nephew. Each has their own agenda, negative stressors from home, and growing emotions. They must soon decide whether they can keep their goals separate from their emotions.

I really enjoyed this, but not how I expected to. The first thing that drew me in was the plot. It was really quite wonderful, full of twists that I never really expected and jumps that made me want to read more instead of annoying me. I loved the secondary characters. They were all super well-developed, with back-stories that I totally want to find out about. I found the world that Veronica Rossi to be pretty well-developed, she had some nicely put together cultural elements. I wouldn't say it's as fully developed like Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games, but it has a lot of potential.

Here was my niggle: I thought that Aria was going to be this deep, complex, smart character, instead I found her to be kind of whiny and oblivious. Thankfully she develops to be mostly likable by the end, but the person that really made the book for me was Perry. He was so in tune with himself, what he was, and his self-awareness really lends itself to the development of the story. Just so we're clear, the narration of the story switches between Aria and Perry every other chapter. I just really really enjoyed Perry's narrations. And I thought it was interesting to find that Veronica Rossi had an easier time writing Perry's part:

I just totally channeled Perry right from the beginning. At one point had the story all in his POV. I'm really glad I picked up Aria's voice, and she's as fun/difficult for me to write as Perry now. It just took me a little longer to find her.

But I did think it was interesting that she had more fun writing Aria's part. Which I guess I could see, considering that Aria probably has a greater emotional and personal journey to go on and she grows more. Anyways, I can't wait for the next book to come out. Supposedly it's coming out sometime in the new year... maybe there'll be an ARC at ALA! Fingers crossed!