Publishers Weekly: Christopher (The Machine Awakes) merges pulp SF and crime novels in the pleasing launch of his L.A. trilogy. In an alternate 1960s America, Raymond is a robot PI, the last of his kind. He’s hired to find a missing movie star with secrets as deep as Raymond’s own. Raymond and his computer partner, Ada, would be at home in an Asimovian retro-future, but Asimov’s three laws of robotics are broken with impunity. The pacing, banter, and descriptions are classic noir, yet the stakes are higher, as Raymond learns that future of the free world is in his mechanical hands. The robot detective is morally gray and instantly likable, and the limitations placed on his abilities help maintain a heightened sense of danger and struggle. Genre mash-ups don’t always succeed, but this one will please fans of both gumshoes and laser beams.
Oct 122015
October 12, 2015
NPR: To read The Traitor Baru Cormorant is to sink inexorably into a book that should not be anywhere near as absorbing as it is — to realize that the white-knuckled grip with which you hold it was provoked by several consecutive pages of loans, taxes and commodity trading. It seems impossible that the economics of a fantasy world should be so viscerally riveting, but they are, and it’s incredible: You think you’re on solid ground right up until you feel that ground closing around your throat.
Kirkus: A minute-by-minute account of mass murder at a high school by a former student. Four students from a range of different backgrounds at Alabama’s Opportunity High, all of whom have a history with Tyler, the gunman, take turns telling this harrowing story in the first person. They include his sister, Autumn, and her clandestine girlfriend, Sylv, who have only each other for solace as the home lives of both are in upheaval. Tomás, Sylv’s brother, recounts his and his friend Fareed’s desperate efforts to help from outside the school’s auditorium, where their fellow students and teachers are locked in with Tyler as he picks them off one by one. Finally, Claire, Tyler’s ex-girlfriend, realistically agonizes over what to do when she and a few others outside running track realize that the gunshots they hear are coming from inside the school. Grounded in the present, the story makes effective use of flashbacks that lay bare the pain and deception that have led up to the day’s horror. The language can occasionally feel a bit melodramatic, with lines like “we’re fighting for hope and a thousand tomorrows,” but this is a minor side note to this compelling story of terror, betrayal, and heroism. This brutal, emotionally charged novel will grip readers and leave them brokenhearted.
School Library Journal: When a new social network pops up promising to fulfill any need, 16-year-old Kaylee Dunham knows it’s too good to be true. […] Charbonneau delivers a tightly paced thriller packed with enough tension to keep teens hooked until the dramatic finale. Readers will root for Kaylee as she faces down hateful classmates, a mother who doesn’t trust her, and an out-of-control social network bent on turning everyone she knows into a killer. Told through the perspective of multiple students entangled in NEED, this work raises interesting questions about the real-life dangers that could arise from operating anonymously online. Well-defined conflict and plenty of action also make this a good choice for reluctant readers.
VOYA: This is an intriguing, powerful narrative told through seventeen unique points of view, each of which have some sort of contact or connection to a school shooter. […] The storytelling is wonderfully intense and distinctive on such a difficult, tragic topic. Readers will be captivated, not wanting to put the book down, but also needing a break due to the extremely engaging, emotionally charged content of characters’ feelings and thoughts. No clear, neat, and clean answers are given as to why someone would commit such a heinous crime but all the points of view humanize everyone involved, including the shooter, making for uncomfortable, realistic, hard truths about society and culture in America. This exceptional book will haunt the individual reader for days and it is a perfect book for group discussion in a book club or classroom setting. This tough topic but excellent book is a must-have purchase for all young adult collections.
Library Journal: VERDICT: The author blends familiar steampunk and fantasy elements (airships, wizardry, and heroes from a monarch’s guard) in a fresh and wonderful way that results in a fantastic ride. This should well satisfy fans of fantasy, sf, or their stepchild steampunk.
RT Book Reviews: Planetfall is a strange but mesmerizing book in which almost nothing is as it seems. The protagonist is… fascinating, and the book reads at once like a character study, a mystery, a hard science fiction tale about the survival of colonists on an alien world, and surrealist science fiction about alien life. Above all, this is a book about the price of secrets.