artsy musings of a bibliophile

science fiction

Review: Vicious by V. E. Schwab

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ABOUT THE BOOK

Vicious by V. E. Schwab
adult fantasy science fiction published by Tor on 24 September 2013

A masterful, twisted tale of ambition, jealousy, desire, and superpowers.
Victor and Eli started out as college roommates—brilliant, arrogant, lonely boys who recognized the same sharpness and ambition in each other. In their senior year, a shared research interest in adrenaline, near-death experiences, and seemingly supernatural events reveals an intriguing possibility: that under the right conditions, someone could develop extraordinary abilities. But when their thesis moves from the academic to the experimental, things go horribly wrong.
Ten years later, Victor breaks out of prison, determined to catch up to his old friend (now foe), aided by a young girl whose reserved nature obscures a stunning ability. Meanwhile, Eli is on a mission to eradicate every other super-powered person that he can find—aside from his sidekick, an enigmatic woman with an unbreakable will. Armed with terrible power on both sides, driven by the memory of betrayal and loss, the archnemeses have set a course for revenge—but who will be left alive at the end?

THE RATING


THE REVIEW

What one can expect from a story that begins in a cemetery is not much. It is a place where guilt begs to be buried right along with a body. But this story does not begin in a cemetery because it is no ordinary story. Vicious is something else. From the cover where Victor stands for the last act in the show of his own making to the last page when the curtain is finally, finally drawn.
Yet, certainly, nothing good can come out of Victor Vale making his way through the Merit Cemetery. But then it isn’t about good; it was never about good. Vicious is a battle between bad and worse akin to the quote placed at the beginning of the book; before it all even begins.
Victor Vale and Eli Ever are heroes in their own stories. Perhaps each of us are. But when their stories are blended together, it turns them into villains fighting to end each other. To triumph. To come out as a better villain. ‘One devil to lure another.’
Victor Vale is a keen judge of character; able to distinguish the tiniest deviation. It is due to this keenness that Victor is fascinated by Eli. Eli, who is so good at hiding what Victor recognizes as easily as one does his own reflection. Eli, who is so good at masking his arrogance into charming confidence, his brilliance into intelligence and his sharpness into mere curiosity. Victor wants to know what goes on in Eli’s mind more than he wants to efface the books written by distinguished psychologists, the Vales.
Every misstep brings Eli’s terrible secrets closer to the surface and he is aware that Victor sees that surface more clearly than anyone ever has. But more than that, Eli needs an audience for his brilliance and Victor is willing to deliver. Where Victor brings out the darkness in Eli to feed his own curiosity, Eli makes Victor feel invisible. Not because Victor is always a step behind Eli, but because that makes Victor the first loser.
From then on, it is intriguing to see Eli winning at the game that Victor invented, the goal of which is to leave a mark. They were both damaged from the beginning but that is what made them invincible, intensified their damage, removed their fears and turned them into vicious men because ‘there are no good men in this game.’

The game that ends until only the winner is left standing.

THE QUOTES

‘By the time the first bell rang, signalling the end of Victor’s art elective, he’d turned his parents’ lectures on how to start the day into: 

Be lost. Give up. Give In. in the end It would be better to surrender before you begin. be lost. Be lost And then you will not care if you are ever found. 

He’d had to strike entire paragraphs to make the sentence perfect after he accidentally marked out ever and had to go on until he found another instance of the word. But it was worth it. The pages of black that stretched between if you are and ever and found gave the words just the right sense of abandonment.’

‘I watch you, and it’s like watching two people.’

O Good Scientist, Where Art Thou?

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Science is wonder. Science is life-saving. Science is golden. Scientists are- wait those are simply evil; especially in fiction. Aren’t they supposed to reveal the bad, the worse and the worst that scientists are capable of in the real world? Yes? No? What even?
Most good scientists are portrayed as aliens in science fiction. Spock (Star Trek), a half-Martian, science officer aboard the Enterprise. The Doctor (Doctor Who), an alien who relies heavily on science on his adventures. Liet-Kyne (Dune), a planetologist on planet Arrakis. Science in fiction, however, does portray scientists whose purpose is to explain the science because who’s going to believe non-scientists?

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A villain is a welcome distraction from the onslaught of heroes upon heroes in fiction, but a villain who is a scientist is simply an evil genius. Intellectually obsessed, morally crippled and emotionally detached, scientists know what the stakes are; in fact, they thrive on them. What could be better than this? Even the best of them are misguided in their intentions. The worst, come hell or high water, just want to take over the world. 
Did Dr. Frankenstein create a monster or he himself is one? The morals of Dr. Jekyll are tested to the extreme when he struggles between his good and evil selves. Why are scientists becoming more and more amoral in fiction? What is the science that decides what image of the scientist to represent? Could this be based on theories that were defied over and over only to have them proven true decades later? Galileo was suspected of heresy when his theory of how the earth moves around the sun was made public knowledge. Nikola Tesla’s peculiar nature gave him the image of a mad scientist. Einstein’s theories were regarded as highly controversial at first. Did all of this lead to scientists finding a common ground with their evil intentions in fiction? Or is it because villainy is best suited to the intellectuals?
There are good and bad sides of everything so why a scientist must be regarded with suspicion over his desire and curiosity to know more about the natural world? Why must they be the Faustians of the world; dissatisfied with their lives to the point that it drives them to sell their moral integrity in exchange for unlimited knowledge? Unless they have an agenda of their own, scientists are generally ignored in fiction. In the real world, we are grateful to science for making our lives easier than ever but in fiction, evil inventions and horrendous experiments are carried out for the greater good.

Roslynn D. Haynes says it best in her book, From Faust to Strangelove: Representations of the Scientist in Western Literature:

“With the exception of the superficial characters of much science fiction, the dominant picture has been of scientists who recapitulate the unflattering stereotypes of earlier centuries – the evil scientist, the stupid scientist, the inhuman scientist – or, as a peculiarly 20th-century contribution, the scientist who has lost control over his discovery.”

Do you think there is a lack of good scientists in science fiction? Or am I being delusional like I usually am? (No, I’m not). Seriously though, tell me what you think.

Review: Perfect Ruin by Lauren DeStefano

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ABOUT THE BOOK

Perfect Ruin by Lauren DeStefano
young adult science fiction published by Simon & Schuster on 1 October 2013
first book in the The Internment Chronicles series

On Internment, the floating island in the clouds where 15-year-old Morgan Stockhour lives, getting too close to the edge can lead to madness. Even though Morgan’s older brother, Lex, was a Jumper, Morgan vows never to end up like him. She tries her best not to mind that her life is orderly and boring, and if she ever wonders about the ground, and why it is forbidden, she takes solace in best friend Pen and her betrothed, Basil.

Then a murder, the first in a generation, rocks the city. With whispers swirling and fear on the wind, Morgan can no longer stop herself from investigating, especially when she meets Judas. He is the boy being blamed for the murder — betrothed to the victim — but Morgan is convinced of his innocence. Secrets lay at the heart of Internment, but nothing can prepare Morgan for what she will find — or who she will lose.

THE RATING

THE REVIEW

At a glance, Perfect Ruin seems to have it all; from the cover to the concept and the occasionally stellar writing. Yet I was left in a very conflicted state. Some characters in books ruin you while others just ruin the book for you (no pun intended). Perfect Ruin fit the latter category.

The people of Internment were banished from the earth by the God of the sky and forced to live in a floating island over the ground. Living in such a place, it is only inevitable that those without absolute faith risk questioning everything. Why are they all mated at birth? Why are there queues if you want to start a family? Why only the Furlows are royals? Questions Morgan would be better off not knowing the answers to.

But then Daphne Leander is murdered. Supposedly after she wrote a controversial essay on Intangible Gods; snippets of which start each chapter in the book. The essay fuels Morgan’s curiosity; taking over her tinted beliefs which she developed after Lex, her brother, jumped off the edge of Internment and almost died.

I get it. I get the desire to want to walk right over the edge of the world, to dream about disappearing into the unknown. But something is always stopping us. Whether it’s our conscience or the need to be normal. Morgan knows she has to be the saner child but when she encounters Judas, it’s like she has found her purpose in life. First, her passivity oozed from the pages and then her beliefs are stripped away fully in a shocking realization but she’s just… okay with it all.

‘Now, when I think I should be crying, all I can think of is the ground.’

It’s no wonder that I wanted to shake Morgan into oblivion after that. Her world is crumbling in front of her and all she can think about is running away still. Yes, she is selfish, flawed and unsure of herself but all of it is to the point that it makes me question if she really is that dumb. Unfathomable.

Basil, her betrothed, is clearly devoted to her while Pen, her best friend, is the complete opposite of Morgan. Her mother copes with her depression by cooking excessively for her children while, her father is burdened with his job as a patrolman. Lex, her brother, is too preoccupied with chasing his demons away by writing about them and Alice, his wife, has accepted to live life as Internment has chosen for her to live.

Despite all the eyebrow-raising questions and the history behind the island and the God of Internment, Perfect Ruin fell short. Catching all those glimpses of Daphne in her essay and reading about Judas’ closed off personality, I so wish that the book was written from her point of view. I really would have loved it then. I can’t help but think that Morgan is undeserving of the ending in the book. But hey, we can’t have everything now can we.

THE QUOTES

‘Time was our very first king. We all live our lives to the aggressive ticking of the clock. We don’t question that our lives are a grid of seconds; even our pulses oblige. No succeeding king can hope to hold this kind of power.’

‘People die, and everything they’ve ever said just echoes around and around. There’s nothing new. Only the same nonsense from their lives.’

Top Ten Tuesday: Books for Starters in YA Science Fiction

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Science fiction is currently divided into a dozen sub-genres which means that there’s something for everyone. So I decided to pick up ten of the most popular titles that YA science fiction has to offer. There are no descriptions because it’s all pretty self-explanatory.

So have you read any of these? If not, do you plan to?

Essentials of Science Fiction

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There is no one universally-accepted definition of science fiction and as the genre develops more and more, sprouting new sub-genres; the present definitions are blurred even further. Today, I talk about the science of fiction that turns it into science fiction.
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A SENSE OF WONDER

The concept of space and time is as old as the Big Bang itself and cocooned in our own world, we often tend to forget how vast it really is. As children, we used to find wonder in the every little thing, our curiosity spilling out in the form of endless questions. But as we get older, that curiosity is curbed to a great extent. We become overwhelmed with living our lives where studying and working are the top priorities. We simply lose the sense of wonder so much so that we wouldn’t mind going through sensory overload once in a while. 
Good science fiction contains an element of wonder; there’s always something we haven’t come across yet., something that hasn’t given away wonder in order to become mundane. A new possibility. A beginning of what-if. Something that pokes at your beliefs. We know it isn’t real but entranced by the possibility, the implications of the action being taken, the immense plot revealed for the reader in all its glory; we develop a sense of wonder.

PLOT REVELATIONS

There’s always the question of whether the plot will manage to leave us in shock and awe. This is a turning point in any science fiction because it tests the reader as much as it tests the character because both are experiencing the full force of it for the first time (usually). It can end either way. Probably why there are so many things one can simply love or hate, there’s no inbetween with them. It’s like the fate of the world depends in the hands of an 11-year-old Ender and everything is alright in the world again.

Or not.

The worst case scenario is when the revelation just leaves you indifferent. You cannot bring yourself to care no matter what you do. All you can think is why would any reasonable person do this. The fate of the world cannot depend on an 11-year-old Ender because duh.

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THE MYSTERY ELEMENT

Science delves into mysteries all the time whether it’s testing out a new technology or developing a cure for cancer. Science fiction works the same way. Sometimes it’s better to tell the backstory than to show it. The mystery can either be about what’s going on with the story of the characters in it as long as the reader doesn’t lose interest. If the execution is done right, our curiosity is fed.

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PLAUSIBILITY

It’s always been said that there’s only so much you can read about until it turns into a cliche. Science fiction hasn’t escaped that fact but this doesn’t mean that readers don’t want plausibility. I’d like to think that there’s a reasonable explanation, a science behind it all. Questions are just the beginning. As a reader, I want the book I’m reading to make me curious and not just gloss over the details to get to the romance or the main conflict.

Scientific plausibility is a plus in science fiction. Sometimes, TV shows and movies ignore it which only angers hardcore sci-fi fans. We all know time travel isn’t possible (yet) but if there’s a possible explanation of it, I’d like to know!

(This is not to say that I will hate a book if it doesn’t explain the science properly because a chance of it really happening on earth is really no comparison to teleporting but that doesn’t make teleporting any less awesome.)

EMOTIONAL PUNCH

You’re reading a science fiction book which has everything. An absolute sense of wonder about the setting, the plot reveal shatters your illusions about life, the mystery is too hard to handle and it feels like something that could totally happen right now- but the main character is a drab. Instead of the book giving you the emotional punch, you want to give the main character a kick in the gut. You’re baffled because the concept is out-of-this-world good but the character is ruining everything for you. You’re not emotionally invested, there’s no moment happening and you feel like you don’t care about the stakes because you don’t know their importance.
That’s the power of emotion; it can make or break a science fiction for you. Pixar knows it.
Oh, WALL-E… *goes into a corner and sobs* Source