Lou Anders

Thrones & Bones: Frostborn is a Norse-influenced fantasy about a 12-year-old farmer's son named Karn and a 13-year-old girl named Thianna whose father is a frost giant and her late mother was a human. The book opens with a dire chase scene.

"Thrones and Bones" is the board game Karn is obsessed with rather than farming. His father is the elder of twins, and Karn's uncle is quite bitter about being the second son. If Karn were actually paying attention to what his uncle tells him, he might not show more have followed his uncle down to a barrow and then followed "dear" uncle's instructions. This leads to the uncle getting his wish, and Karn having to run for his life with three draugr (undead rotting corpses) after him.

Thianna is skillful, but faces prejudice from some of her father's people because she's shorter than a normal frost giant (and looks like her mother). She is most reluctant to accompany her father to trade with humans, but that's how she meets Karn.

Thianna also has to go on the run from the same villainesses (who naturally think of themselves as righteous warriors) who were responsible for her parents meeting. They want the little horn Thianna inherited from her mother.

As will probably satisfy video/computer game enthusiasts, Karn's obsession helps to save the day more than once as soon as he begins to think of his surroundings as a game board and his attackers as playing pieces. Thianna's strength, magic, and practical knowledge also save the day several times. They make a good team.

I think my favorite adventure was when they had to flee into a ruined city and meet Orm the enormous dragon. Orm just loves playing cat-and-mouse. These 'mice' give him a bigger workout than he anticipated. Thianna puts her mother's horn to good use. The name of the ruined city sounds like 'Sardeth,' which amused me because Orm is the doom that came to Sardeth and one of famed horror writer H. P. Lovecraft's short stories is 'The Doom That Came to Sarnath'. If it's a homage, I like it!

Karn and Thianna do get captured. How they turn the tables on their respective captors was a lot of fun.

I enjoyed Fabio Tassone's narration. If there is a downside to listening to an audio book, though, it's not learning how to spell the names of characters who aren't listed on the box.

Book one is enjoyable enough that book two should be worth encountering. show less

Frostborn is advantageously placed in a trend of interest in Norse mythology and things involving ice, what with Thor, the Loki craze (Marvel version and otherwise), and Frozen. It’s similar enough to those things to make a good recommendation — it’s similar enough to The Hobbit to make a good recommendation! — but as with all the best books for kids, it’s full of substance, and it has a flavor all its own. It’s well-written and well-plotted. It’s clear what’s happening and show more accessible for those who are just getting into longer books, but it’s complex enough to get your teeth into. It’s light and fun, but it has serious themes about acceptance, family, and loyalty (both when you should have it and when you shouldn’t). None of those themes are driven in with a sledgehammer, they’re just there if you wanna talk about them.

My favorite thing is how the book is explicitly for both boys and girls, not just a “boy book” that girls will also like. Karn and Thianna always get equal billing, and they’re always equally important.

Full review (with more details about Karn and Thianna) here: http://hannahgivens.wordpress.com/2014/08/30/review-frostborn-by-lou-anders/ show less

An anthology of fifteen stories and novellas (several pieces are pretty darn long) about superheroes and -villains. Sure, we’ve all read these kinds of collections before, and they’re usually very much hit-or-miss affairs, but this is a really good collection.

I’ll provide a few thoughts on each story (with minor plot spoilers, but I won’t ruin any endings or big twists, I promise).

"Cleansed and Set in Gold" by Matthew Sturges: This is one of the strongest openings to an anthology show more I’ve read. It takes place in a world beset by seemingly unstoppable monsters who have already killed that world’s most powerful superheroes. A second-string super with a mysterious power must save the day. (And that quick summary doesn’t capture any of this story’s magic. You are just going to have to read it because I wouldn’t dare spoiler it.)

"Where Their Worm Dieth Not" by James Maxey: A dark, dark tale dealing with the themes of sin and punishment that riffs off the comic trope that superheroes and villains never really die, they always end up coming back somehow. These first two stories are so good that they make this perhaps the best anthology opening I’ve ever had the pleasure to come across.

"Secret Identity" by Paul Cornell: This one really looks at the issues of secret identities and sexual identities. The Manchester Guardian is one of those heroes – like Shazam, Marvel’s Thor, or The Hulk – who is a normal man part of the time who can transform into a larger-than-life superhero. But what happens when these two forms have different sexual identities? Frankly, it’s confusingly told, with unclear prose and a few too many Britishisms. I didn’t like this one much.

"The Non-Event" by Mike Carey: Second-string supervillains getting involved in a bank heist. Very interesting powers (and effects of those powers on the world around them). I liked this one a lot.

"Avatar" by Mike Baron: An ordinary person decides to become a vigilante. Brutally realistic and a very powerful story.

"Message from the Bubblegum Factory" by Daryl Gregory: I really don’t want to give much away regarding the plot of this one so as to not spoil it for other readers. I’ll just say that it’s a very good story, well-told, and set mostly inside one of those super-prisons they incarcerate super-powered folks in.

"Thug" by Gail Simone: Written in a kind of “Flowers for Algernon” prose format, this story is another of my favorites in the collection about a minor supervillain and why he ended up the way he did. Poignant stuff.

"Vacuum Lad" by Stephen Baxter: This one wasn’t exactly a superhero kind of story, in my view, being set in a near-future world where the worst nightmares of global warming believers have come true but is otherwise our world. There are no costumed heroes or villains, just a young man who seems to be able to survive exposure to vacuum. The reason why he has this ability is kind of interesting, but overall I was disappointed in this story, which just seemed out-of-place in this anthology.

"A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows" by Chris Roberson: Really spooky and evocative pulp vigilante story involving Mexican magic and some other cool abilities. I’d love to see more stories about the protagonist.

"Head Cases" by Peter David and Kathleen David: The worst story in the book. Boring, boring, boring. Set in a bar. I have no real idea what happens in it, and couldn’t care less.

"Downfall" by Joseph Mallozzi: This story was way too long. Mediocre and not much of it stuck with me. Eminently forgettable.

"By My Works You Shall Know Me" by Mark Chadbourn: A hero and his archenemy locked into mortal combat as they each strive to take the other down in a long-term campaign. Nice twists and turns. Good stuff.

"Call Her Savage" by Marjorie M. Liu: A weird alternate history story, with the Americans allied with the Chinese against the British empire. The backstory is important, but it’s poorly presented in dribs and drabs, and never really sucked me in. Also, not much on superpowers.

"Tonight We Fly" by Ian McDonald: Cute little story about what happens when heroes and villains grow old.

"A to Z in the Ultimate Big Company Superhero Universe (and Villains Too)" by Bill Willingham: A nice long novella told in A-Z sub-sections, each named after a different character, that describes a massive battle royale by assorted heroes and villains. Nothing too unusual happens here, but it’s nice to see a titanic comic book brawl and its lead-up described in prose format.

As I’ve noted, I didn’t care for a few of the stories, but I have to give this one 4.5 stars out of 5 because of the strength of the remaining tales. I really, really enjoyed this one, and would love to see a follow-up volume, also edited by Lou Anders and featuring many of these authors.

Review copyright 2011 J. Andrew Byers show less

"Catherine Drewe" by Paul Cornell
Despite it being what drew me to this book, I was actually somewhat underwhelmed by Paul Cornell's contribution. Not to say that it was bad. But it was sort of insubstantial, really-- Jonathan Hamilton of British intelligence infiltrates a mercenary gang on Mars to stop the Russians from gaining hold of a piece of alien technology. It's a bit consciously James Bond, and Cornell plans to turn it into a series, apparently; story #2 will be appearing in the show more forthcoming Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, Volume 3. But despite Cornell's usual mixture of deft characterization and fun antics, I find it hard to get very excited about another Hamilton story. (I'll buy the book anyway, though.)

"Cyto Couture" by Kay Kenyon
This is fun little story about a genetically mis-engineered child working in a factory that grows clothes from plants. Enjoyable.

"The Sun Also Explodes" by Chris Nakashima-Brown
Another story about genetic engineering, and it won't be the last. There's some interesting ideas in it, but none of the characters ever really interested me.

"The Kindness of Strangers" by Nancy Kress
Aliens destroy most of the world's major population centers yet do their best to assist the survivors. Why could this be happening? You won't really be surprised by the answer, and neither was I. These sort of better-than-you-primitives aliens who like lording over us were sort of done to death by Star Trek in the 1960s, you know? Except here, there's no getting out of the situation with a grand, moralistic gesture, just some empty nihilism. I'm pretty sure this same story turned up at least twice in Brian W. Aldiss's Galactic Empires collections, anyway.

"Alone with an Inconvenient Companion" by Jack Skillingstead
After reading this, I felt vaguely unsettled and unsure of the world around me-- which was exactly what Skillingstead was going for, I assume. Strange and really quite good.

"True Names" by Benjamin Rosenbaum and Cory Doctorow
The longest story in the book, I wasn't quite sure what had happened after I read it, because I didn't know what the protagonists were. Artificial intelligences? Memes? Post-singularity entities? Disembodied consciousnesses? Biological programs? Demiurge knows. But I enjoyed the story anyway. Whatever the protagonists actually are, they have a fascinating culture and way of life, one that Rosenbaum and Doctorow exploit to good effect. The characters are actually quite well drawn for entities of uncertain provenance, and there's some serious craziness going on at times to add to further enjoyment. Another good one.

"Molly's Kids" by Jack McDevitt
It's like McDevitt thought of a good problem for his characters, but he couldn't think of a solution. So he ends the story with the characters promising they'll think of a solution. And I don't understand why waning public support for a space probe would result in its launch being terminated mere minutes before its scheduled time. Surely by that point you've spent all the money; what would you gain? The characters themselves almost point this out, but no one ever answers it.

"Adventure" by Paul McAuley
At times this reads like a synopsis of a good story, but it comes together in the last few scenes, which make you realize that human existence will probably be just as meaningless and purposeless once we can live on other planets, and that growing up will still suck. Thumbs up.

"Not Quite Alone in the Dream Quarter" by Mike Resnick and Pat Cadigan
This one left me lukewarm. It's well-executed, but most of the ideas are a bit old hat, and I'm not sure that the spin the authors put on them is that different from what's gone before.

"An Eligible Boy" by Ian McDonald
A contender for my favorite of the collection, this is a story of Future India, 2047. The culture McDonald devises for the subcontinent in the mid-21st century is fascinating, and it makes a welcome break in a genre where the only country in the future always seems to be America. It's a great look at what these amazing technologies would do to society other than my own. The story's only flaw is that though the plot is quite good, it's wrapped up with some fairly humdrum stuff about two AIs falling in love, meaning that the story doesn't really live up to the potentials of its fascinating setting. Apparently McDonald's written a novel and several other short stories about this Future India; I'll certainly be checking them out.

"SeniorSource" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
The entire story of this story turns out to be a distraction for the real story, which is brought up and resolved in one scene. Not so great.

"Mitigation" by Karl Schroeder and Tobias S. Buckell
This is a fun story about an environmental terrorist working for the Russian mafia who's not quite the player that he thinks he is.

"Long Eyes" by Jeff Carlson
A story about an intelligent spaceship with a human brain in it feels like it should be old hat, but it really works in Carlson's hands for some reason, probably the good characterization of the spaceship itself.

"The Gambler" by Paolo Bacigalupi
A sweet little story about an ex-Laos journalist, and his attempt to change a world that increasingly doesn't care about the kind of stories he has to offer. A little simplistic and preachy perhaps, but still effective because it feels all too plausible.

I didn't really hate anything in this book-- even the worst stories just left me disinterested more than anything else-- but I didn't really love anything, either, though several of the stories were quite good. Oh, and for an ostensibly unthemed anthology, there sure were a lot of stories about a future Earth with its ecology either on the verge of collapse or already collapsed. Maybe that happened because it's what's actually going to happen, but it got a little tiring after a while. Overall, a fine enough anthology, but I wish that it had provided a little bit more bang. show less