Greg van Eekhout

I'll just say this up front, because I'm one of the people for whom this is important: No dogs die in this book. We do get the story of Laika*, told by one of the dogs to the others so that, at a critical point, they can make an informed choice, but Greg Van Eekhout kills none of his fictional dogs in the course of this story.

Lopside, Bug, Daisy, and their pack leader, Golden retriever Champion, are Barkonauts, dogs specially trained and equipped to be part of the crew of Laika, the first show more Earth ship to head out to start a colony on an alien world in a distant solar system. There are four human crew as well, and we only meet two of them before one, Roro, helps the dogs into hibernation for the FTL portion of their travels.

When the dogs wake up, the humans are gone, having taken the lifepod, and the ship is badly damaged.

They're on the outskirts of their destination star system, but with with the ship's drives not working, too far from their destination planet, Stepping Stone. The dogs struggle to make repairs. They manage to redirect the communication antenna, and send a call for help to Earth.

They are good dogs, and they are Barkonauts. Barkonauts complete their missions, and their mission is to get to Stepping Stone.

There are real personalities at work. There is both conflict and cooperation among the dogs. Lopside, a little terrier mix, the only non-purebred, is our viewpoint character. From time to time he reminds us that unlike the others, he wasn't bred to please everyone. (Champion's a Golden, Bug is a Corgi, Daisy a Great Dane puppy. All bred to work with people, not to consider people's opinions and then make their own decisions.)

Looming over their efforts is the name of the ship, Laika. They know Laika was the first dog in space, the very first Barkonaut, but for some reason, her story is missing from The Great Book of Dogs, the book Roro read to them, full of the stories of heroic dogs. Lopside really wants to know that story. He's sure it would help inspire them to even greater heroism and ingenuity.

But with or without the story of Laika, these dogs love their people and their jobs, and are determined to succeed They don't quit. They don't fail.

This is a very satisfying story.

Recommended.

I bought this book.

*Considering how long it's been, and how much younger than me are the people raising young children today, I think I have to say outright what Laika's story is. She was the first dog in space, yes. She went up in Sputnik 2, on November 3, 1957. There was never a plan to bring her back, but she died within hours, when a malfunction caused the Sputnik cabin to overheat. This was the result of the Soviet space program taking barely four weeks to design Sputnik 2, and that wasn't enough time to make a reliable temperature control system for Laika. Laika's story is one of humans behaving badly. Greg Van Eekhout, on the other hand, is a good human, who gets well-deserved cuddles from his dogs. show less

There must be a magic to California that draws books of this genre. When I first read James Blaylock and then Tim Pratt all those decades ago, their stories tended to take place somewhere in the golden state, a place where a certain kind of magic still reigned. Sitting somewhere in the borderland between magic realism and urban fantasy, their books blended the ordinary with the extraordinary, hidden magic.

Greg Van Eekhout’s “California Bones” takes a rightful place in this pantheon. show more Set in a not so alternate world where magic is real and California has seceded from the United States, this is largely the story of Daniel Blackland, son of a powerful magician and orphaned at the age of 12. Fast forward to an alternate LA - one where the streets are watery canals and the movie wizard DIsney and the water wizard Mulholland are among the powerful - we find Daniel all grown up, a thief with special talents.

One of Van Eekhout’s smartest moves in this book was in not trying to tell us too much. This is a heist story, a crew of thieves sent out to lift some merchandise and a magic sword, and for the most part it stays within the confines of that story. Van Eekhout presents a concise story, one that rarely strays from the heist and the after effects of that heist. What little backstory we get is only in supporting our understanding of our focal character, Daniel. Even when we switch POV characters to Gabriel, grandson of the Heirarch of Southern California, we’re still moving towards bringing to conclusion the main story.

Even if you don’t care for heist stories (I’m not the biggest fan), you’ll still find yourself drawn into this well written story. Although the central story arc is around the heist, this story is really about power, both taken and earned. From the first moments when we see just how osteomancy works and how the Heirarch acquires his power, to the climatic end, we recognize the heist itself as just a means to an end.

Many thanks to Tor-Forge for sending me a copy for review - I devoured the book in five days, bones and all. show less

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: When Daniel Blackland was six, he ingested his first bone fragment, a bit of kraken spine plucked out of the sand during a visit with his demanding, brilliant, and powerful magician father, Sebastian.

When Daniel was twelve, he watched Sebastian die at the hands of the Hierarch of Southern California, devoured for the heightened magic layered deep within his bones.

Now, years later, Daniel is a petty thief with a forged identity. Hiding amid the crowds in show more Los Angeles—the capital of the Kingdom of Southern California—Daniel is trying to go straight. But his crime-boss uncle has a heist he wants Daniel to perform: break into the Hierarch's storehouse of magical artifacts and retrieve Sebastian's sword, an object of untold power.

For this dangerous mission, Daniel will need a team he can rely on, so he brings in his closest friends from his years in the criminal world. There's Moth, who can take a bullet and heal in mere minutes. Jo Alverado, illusionist. The multitalented Cassandra, Daniel's ex. And, new to them all, the enigmatic, knowledgeable Emma, with her British accent and her own grudge against the powers-that-be. The stakes are high, and the stage is set for a showdown that might just break the magic that protects a long-corrupt regime.

Extravagant and yet moving, Greg van Eekhout's California Bones is an epic adventure set in a city of canals and secrets and casual brutality--different from the world we know, yet familiar and true.

My Review: Want to know something amazing? My assisted-living facility's library, which I created from my own library, cannot keep this book on the shelves.

So what, I hear you think really loudly. So this: I'm in a place where I'm young at 55...most of these eager readers are over 70.

This gives me the happy. It proves to me that, if you tell a good story well, people it with easy-to-relate-to characters, and pull no punches, any and all ages will grab and snatch and fight to get their shot to read it.

I'm no fan of teen heroes, get highly irked by teen angst, and never want to hear the phrase "coming-of-age" again; I am usually bored into a coma by magic; altogether this book should have made me sleepily grouchy. Instead, I was flipping pages and holding my breath, and so are all the library users I've spoken to.

For me at least, one of the main appeals is the future L.A. van Eekhout posits, a place turned into a quasi-Amsterdam by the devouring sea. I love that idea mostly because I don't like California despite being born there. But also and more positively, I got the image fixed in my head immediately, enjoyably, and permanently. Now I see photos of the real L.A. and feel confused...where's the sea?

Greg van Eekhout changed my image of a place I've been to a zillion times. He's that much of a wizard with his words. I can't wait to be able to afford the next two books! C'mon February, Daddy needs new books! show less

this is BONKERS, but also superawesome? the magic universe within it was SO interesting and not at all like anything I've read before so now I'm furious, because I want a thousand stories in this place. gotta say, tho, that if you are not into the main conceits of the show Hannibal, I don't know if I'd rec this for reasons that should be, uh, sort of obvious.