Infinityglass by Myra McEntire

What I liked:

• It kept my interest. I finished it in two days.
• The split point of view between Dune and Hallie. The back-and-forth works great, and sparks flew in the romance. The two POVs didn’t differ a whole lot in voice, but I found the male voice adequately masculine and believable as a boy.
• The New Orleans setting is vivid. I got the feeling like I was vacationing there.
• The ending is adorable.

What I didn’t like:

• Dune’s powers rarely show themselves, but his powerful backstory makes up for this.
• The romance might have overshadowed the sci-fi/fantasy elements of the plot at points, but I didn’t mind.

All in all: 5 stars.

The Walled City by Ryan Graudin

At the SCWW Conference, I was lucky enough to attain a stack of signed ARCs. It made my soul extremely happy. I loved the first of these so much, I might have made a fan video. Pardon my overenthusiasm — I’ll certainly take it down if it offends. But who could resist?

I gobbled the vast majority of this book in an evening. The pages of this book turn themselves. I have never read a thriller—because a book this compelling is certainly thrilling—that gets away with so much poetry.

“ . . . their cigarettes glow like monsters’ eyes in the dark.”

“ . . . the blood that’s not mine washes away, swirling like phoenix fire to the bottom of the bowl.”

“But the bruises kept blooming—yellow, green, bright pink, purple, blue—a garden of marks . . .”

“Koi swim to the edge of their small world and back again: fire white and liquid amber, scales shimmering.”

And here’s the kicker: The book stands for a cause! Human trafficking, no less. Modern slavery.

Support this! Read this! Seriously, it’s my dream to write something like this.

Footnote: The cover makes it look like horror. I find that a little deceptive. 

The Storytelling of Ashes by Ilsa J. Bick

I write this with a bias toward the first half of the book, which frames this apocalyptic story in a wilderness survival story, a hiking endeavor that’s tense and harrowing even before the electromagnetic “zap” fries all watches, phones, pacemakers. I’m a fan of wilderness survival stories. Growing up, I loved reading The Cay, My Side of the Mountain, Julie of the Wolves. The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon was my first Stephen King (and I’d bet money Ms. Bick has read it). 

Why set a zombiepocalypse story in the wilderness? Wouldn’t a city have more advantages: the contrast between the advanced civilization of city life gone to ruins, masses of people who can run about and devour and advance shock factor, Interstate crashes, etc.

From the wilderness, “the apocalypse” emerges more quietly and spookily. (Some slight spoilers ahead!) At first, Alex thinks the zap happened very locally, in a place with few people: The damage is horrifying, but not cataclysmic. From that vantage, the damage broadens like a cancer: From the mountain, to the mountain and the valley. From the mountain and the valley, to an 80-square-mile segment of mountainous Michigan. From the 80 square miles, to all of Michigan. From Michigan to half the United States.

The wilderness characterizes the horrifying extent of the zap’s power like no other setting possibly could: It is not a dropped bomb with a radius of radiation, or a virus to which one could be miraculously immune. It is not escapable. Even 25 miles out from the nearest ranger tower, it kills and infects.

That said, I've got just one more comment on Ashes' storytelling: I’ve heard numerous writers comment that smell is an underutilized and neglected sense in our writing. Naming how a place smells can bring it to life for a reader more than its colors ever could. Bick maximizes the olfactory, and I lahhv it. Exploit that competition’s weakness!

What I Learned About Storytelling from Karsten Knight's Wildefire

The story of Polynesian volcano goddess Ashline Wilde is sublime and sublimely underrated.

I've found myself coming back to it again and again. Here are some of the things I admire it for.

3. Humor. I can never forgive character flaw so easily as when it's delivered in a funny way. Got snark? "Do you two need to be alone? I'm suffocating on testosterone."

Got a blind girl who makes everybody uncomfortable? She should point out the window and say, "Look, a moose!" then crack up.

2. Wildefire condenses its huge scope & maintains a point-of-view character by using Ashline's visions. The story crosses time and continents, but it never leaves Ashline Wilde's perspective. Through visions, she understands the backstories of her friends and distant dangers heading her way.

1. Knight draws upon a vast number of mythologies, and it creates a sense of the epic in story with relatively narrow scope. To be technical about it, I mean, holy crap. We rediscover the Polynesian stories of Pele, the legends of the Hopi Native Americans and Shintoism, Zulu and Norse gods, Egyptian Isis. Greek mythology's sirens and blind prophets converge with Christianity as a little girl sings hymns about Immanuel. These dominate plot and inform characters, but little references find their ways in all over the story:

"Hello, Pandora's box," when the power goes out.

"'Colt Halliday?' she repeated, but ignored his outstretched hand. 'Sweet name. Isn't there a stagecoach somewhere you should be robbing?'"

In a note:

Sleeping Beauty,
We knocked for several minutes.... But you did not wake. We leave you now; however, please follow the marshmallow trail to Turtle Rock in the woods when you wake. 
Love,
J, D, and the Seven Dwarves

And of course, in reference to the emergence of more recent religious mythology:

"This is kind of like a really shitty version of The Breakfast Club, huh?"