No Right Way: A Thriller Involving Syrian Refugees in Turkey

No Right Way is the second book I've read in Michael Niemann's thriller series dealing with the cases of U.N. fraud investigator Valentin Vermeulen.  I reviewed the third book in the series, Illegal Holdings, here.  Like all the books in this series, No Right Way involves fraudulent misuse of U.N. funds.  I really liked the protagonist's sense of justice and Niemann's focus on important themes in Illegal Holdings.  So I accepted a free review copy of No Right Way from the publisher via publicist Wiley Saichek.

                              

This fourth novel in the Valentin Vermeulen series takes place in the Middle East.   Vermeulen has been sent to Turkey to make sure that Syrian refugees were receiving the family allowances provided by the U.N.   I had never previously heard of U.N. funding for refugees. I found a Cash Assistance  page on the United Nations Refugee Agency site which appears to be the same program described in No Right Way. Protagonist Vermeulen  does discover that a substantial part of the funds intended for refugees had actually been stolen.

There is other mistreatment of refugees shown in this novel  through the experiences of  Rina Ahmadi, a refugee from Aleppo who is a prominent character in No Right Way.    Yet there are those who are helpful to Rina.  Rina is portrayed sympathetically though she does make some foolish decisions so that she ends up needing to be rescued.

Admittedly, Vermeulen also displays a lack of judgement at times, but Vermeulen is a resourceful survivor who can usually manage to extricate himself from the most dangerous situations.

I think that readers will consider No Right Way a very current book since so many news stories deal with the horrifying circumstances of refugees.   Michael Niemann gives us a window on every day tragedies that are happening to entire populations in our real world. 

                         

                

Mem: Why This Incredible Science Fiction Debut Turned Out To Be Not Credible

The premise of Mem by Bethany C. Morrow sounded both amazing and original.  As I began to read, I could definitely say that this science fiction debut is incredible in the sense of marvelous.  I initially thought it had the potential to be one of the best science fiction books I'd ever read. The story line had tremendous emotional impact, the protagonist was well developed and it had a fresh approach to some significant themes.

So why did I ultimately consider the concept on which Mem was based unworkable as it was presented?  Many reviews of Mem are full of nothing but praise.  Shouldn't debut authors be encouraged?  Indeed they should.  Bethany C. Morrow should be praised for the strengths of her work, but I will not fail to mention that something as important as the central concept was flawed.   I recently finished reading this 2018 release and this is my honest review.

                           

I take no pleasure in writing a critical review of this book.  I wanted to say that I loved it without reservation. Unfortunately, Bethany C. Morrow never convinced me that Mems could exist as described.

First, let me tell you what Mems are supposed to be.  Then I'll describe two possibilities for them to exist as described believably within the context we are given.  Mems are supposed to be entities that are the repositories of specific memories that have been extracted from human beings called Sources.  Mems are identical to their Sources at the time of extraction  of those memories.  Mems never age.  They were first invented in Montreal in the early 20th century.

Here are two feasible paths for the existence of Mems:

1)Mems are magic.   They are created by sorcery through the law of similars.  This explains why they don't age once they are created.  The advantage of a fantasy origin is that it doesn't require any technology that didn't exist in the early 20th century.

2)Mems are androids. Their mechanical nature explains why they are identical to their Sources at the time of memory extraction and why they never age.  This conceptualization has the advantage of  being directly relevant to some the themes of this novel.   The Star Trek: The Next Generation android Data was declared to be a "toaster" in one episode.

 Morrow strongly implies that Mems are clones.  A being cloned from the DNA of a Source would be born as an infant, and would definitely age.   The protagonist was born at the age of nineteen identical to her 19 year old Source.  She remains nineteen throughout the narrative.  This flies in the face of what is known about cloning.  I am sorry, but my disbelief  suspenders broke while I was reading this book.  Morrow owes me a new set of suspenders.

What I loved most about the book was the themes and the way they were illustrated by the narrative.   I believe that Mem shows that memory is identity.  We need to remember who we are.   So it's very possible for a Source who has had a great many memories extracted to have lost all sense of themselves.  Some memory extractions that were key events in this book weren't the decisions of Sources.  They were done at the behest of fathers or husbands who may have believed they were acting in the best interests of their daughters or wives.  So another significant theme is male control over the lives of women.  It is also of particular importance to mention that in the Author's Note, Morrow indicates that Mems as the property of  Sources were intended to represent slavery in our real world.

I identified with the Mem protagonist, and was moved by the dramatic power of her struggle to be recognized as sentient.  So I was very engaged with this book despite the flaw at the core of the novel.  

Yet I have to conclude that Mem is a failure as science fiction.  It's a very interesting and absorbing failure, but nevertheless a failure.  I have no idea how to rate Mem on Goodreads.  So I probably won't rate it.   

                           

         

Song For A Lost Kingdom # 2: Jacobites, Romance and Epigenetics

                   
When I reviewed the first Song For A Lost Kingdom novel here, I said that it might be described as Outlander with music because Adeena Stuart, the time traveling protagonist, is a musician whose main concern in both  21st century Canada and 18th century Scotland is her music.  This is what I loved most about Song For A Lost Kingdom.  I was looking forward to reading more about this singer/cellist in the  Song For A Lost Kingdom #2 ARC that I received for free from the author.

                                 

 Music is still present in the life of protagonist Adeena Stuart, but it has receded into the background as she has become much more involved in a romantic relationship with James Drummond.

James Drummond fights in the Jacobite cause because his mother, a devout Catholic, is deeply committed to the re-establishment of the Catholic House of Stuart. Previous generations in his family had also supported the Stuarts. So he's a Jacobite due to family connections.  This sets him apart from Outlander's Jamie Fraser.  Jamie strongly believed in the Jacobite cause because he wanted to see an end to English rule of Scotland.  It's important to realize that a novel dealing with time travel to 18th century Scotland that also focuses on a romantic relationship shouldn't be regarded as a reiteration of Diana Gabaldon's bestselling book.

Charles Edward Stuart, also known as Bonnie Prince Charlie (BPC), was the figure on which dedicated Jacobites pinned all their hopes.   Moretti's portrayal of BPC as ruthless, arrogant and short sighted may cause readers to think that he didn't really merit the support that he had.  I found this lack of romanticization refreshing ,and more in accordance with what is historically known about Charles Edward Stuart.

One example of foolishness shown by BPC in Song For A Lost Kingdom #2 is that just before the Battle of Culloden when he should have been discussing military strategy with his generals, he is totally immersed in the design and production of a Jacobite currency that would have been unlikely to be accepted widely.  I decided to check this out to see if BPC had actually done such a thing.  I discovered an article about An Exhibit at the Bank of England Museum where a design for such a currency was displayed.  In the second paragraph of this article, it states that engraver Robert Strange was asked  by Charles Edward Stuart to create printing plates for his currency.  This account also says that it did indeed happen right before the disastrous defeat of the Jacobite cause at Culloden.  I would never have believed it if I hadn't seen the evidence.

The most interesting and original aspect of this time travel fantasy is the 21st century effort by Adeena's doctors to explain what was happening to her scientifically by consulting with experts in the relatively new discipline of epigenetics. I've linked to a Wikipedia article about it written in simple non-technical English.  Other readers may disagree with me, but my feeling is that Adeena's time travel is paranormal, and not explainable by current science.  Yet the content dealing with epigenetics in this book was absolutely fascinating.

Despite having several different focuses, Steve Moretti didn't lose the thread of the plot.  There were no unnecessary digressions.  Everything was relevant.  All the characters had understandable motivations even if they weren't likable.

The only thing that disappointed me about Song For A Lost Kingdom #2 is the cliffhanger ending.   I have always believed that a well-written piece of fiction like this one doesn't need to emotionally manipulate readers into buying the next book.

                         

War of Mist: Blog Tour, Review and Excerpt From Last Book in YA Fantasy Trilogy

Welcome to my second Caffeine Book Tour post.  My first was the tour for Dreamer by Ja-Mel Vinson which can be found here.  It's so far been my most viewed 2019 post on this blog.  Here's hoping that this post for War of Mist by Helen Scheuerer is also successful.

I was generously provided with free copies of the entire Oremere trilogy by Helen Scheuerer so that I could get caught up on the previous books before reviewing War of Mist.  I reviewed Heart of Mist here and Reign of Mist here.

For this blog tour post, I am providing an excerpt as well as a review.  Below is an excerpt from the prologue of War of Mist.

                                  

Title: War of Mist
Author: Helen Scheuerer
Publisher: Talem Press
Publication Date: July 15, 2019
Genres: Young Adult, Fantasy

Synopsis:
War is here.

Toxic mist drives all life to the brink of destruction and the conquerer queen, Ines, has her talons in the kings of the realm.

Bleak, having discovered her true heritage, must now scour the lands for the one thing that might save them all.

But the search is a treacherous one, one that will push her to the very limits of endurance.

Amidst secrets, lies and the intricacies of battle, Bleak and her companions learn just how far they'll go for the ones they love.  But will it be enough.

As deadly forces grapple for power across continents; families, friends and allies unite to take one final stand.

Explosive revelations, heart wrenching betrayals and breathtaking magic soar in the epic conclusion to Helen Scheuerer's bestselling trilogy, The Oremere Chronicles.

Goodreads — https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44780383-war-of-mist

                                                                      EXCERPT

 Now, a pair of great doors greeted her. Valian oak, carved by a talented sculptor, the elaborate scrollwork and open books signposting the castle's original library.  She ran her fingers across the design, tracing the detailed lines of the work. Ashai folk before her had done the same; she could feel a lingering trace of their magic in the grain of the wood.  Their power tickled her fingertips, but there was not enough to collect.  Not enough to sate that roaring hunger for more within her.

Beyond the doors, a different power thrummed.  The power of Casimir's damned amulet.  She opened the doors and entered the library.  It was somewhere in here.  She could feel it.  Its magic, and a kernel of her own within it, taunted her.

With a furious flick of her hand, dozens of books shot from the shelves and scattered across the stone floor.  With another sharp gesture, an entire shelf collapsed into rubble.  The strange magic pulsed just out of reach, as though some sort of barrier stood right before her face.

She let out a strangled cry of rage.  The amulet was here.  And she would find it, long before they could use it against her. 

Copyright 2019 Helen Scheuerer

                                                                 REVIEW

I found War of Mist faster paced with more emphasis on action than the earlier books in the trilogy. Sometimes it seemed as if the characters were racing toward their separate destinies.  The faster pace is dictated by the story that's being told in this novel.  It's a war for the souls of the peoples in Scheuerer's world.  It would be difficult for the stakes to be any higher.  My choice to read the previous novels in the trilogy allowed me to fully understand the price of defeat.  I definitely wouldn't recommend skipping those books and starting with War of Mist.

Another good reason not to start with War of Mist is that lack of background on these well-drawn characters will mean that you won't appreciate some intensely moving scenes that had tremendous impact on them.  I said in my review of Reign of Mist that I thought that characterization is Scheuerer's greatest talent.  So you won't want to miss two novels worth of character development.

After successfully completing her first trilogy, this author has a choice of future directions.   I hope she chooses to explore new territory in some form--a different sort of character, a theme that she hasn't previously addressed, a new aspect of her world, or even an entirely new context.  Authors can expand their audience when they take a fresh approach.  So I would recommend that she should take full advantage of this opportunity to do that.
                                


                                                    Helen Scheuerer

 Author Information

Bio:

After writing literary fiction for a number of years, Helen Scheuerer was inspired to return to her childhood love of fantasy thanks to novels like Throne of Glass, The Queen's Poisoner and The Queen of the Tearling.

Helen is also the Founding Editor of Writer's Edit, an online learning platform for emerging writers.  Writer's Edit reached thousands of new authors, and soon became its own small press with Helen overseeing the production and publication of three creative writing anthologies.  It's now one of the largest writing websites in the world.

Helen now lives by the mountains of New Zealand and writes full time.  She has many more books planned for the future.

Author links:

Author website and newsletter-- http://helenscheuerer.com
Goodreads--https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/9898249.Helen_Scheuerer
Instagram--http://www.instagram.com/helenscheuerer/
Facebook--https://www.facebook.com/helenscheuererauthor
Twitter--https://twitter.com/HelenScheuerer 

                                                       
Here is the link to the blog tour launch post:
https://shutupshealea.com/2019/07/15/war-of-mist-tour/



                                         Invitation to Twitter Chat

The twitter chat on War of Mist is hosted by Caffeine Book Tours @CaffeineTours on Twitter. It's spoiler free, so participants don't need to have read any of the Oremere books.

The twitter chat #CBTTC has been unavoidably postponed and will now take place on August 3, 2019 at 9 am EST.

                                            

The Calculating Stars: A Woman's Fight To Be An Astronaut in an Alternate Timeline

I'm seriously interested in woman aviators.  The very first post on this blog was a review of a novel dealing with Russian WWII ace Lydia Litvyak which appeared here.   My most recent post on this blog dealing with a woman pilot was a review of The Lost Pilots which I wrote about a year ago. It can be found here. I'm also fascinated by woman astronauts.

It's these enthusiasms that made me such a fan of Mary Robinette Kowal's  Lady Astronaut series which she began with a succession of several short stories that I read first.  They can be found in Kowal's anthology, Word Puppets.  Though I have just learned that there is a more recent Lady Astronaut story that I haven't yet read called "Articulated Restraint" that takes place between the first two Lady Astronaut novels.  I immediately purchased it from Amazon.

My only problem with reading the first Lady Astronaut novel, The Calculating Stars, was setting aside the time to do it when I have so many review commitments.  A buddy read on a Goodreads group gave me an excuse to shoehorn it in between a background book for a July blog tour novel, and an ARC I won  that I'm supposed to be tweeting about this month.  I'm just glad that I finally got to The Calculating Stars.

                           

The protagonist, Elma York, was a Women's Airforce  Service Pilot (WASP) in WWII.  I'm a WASP afficionado too.  On this blog,  I wrote a review of  Marge Piercy's  Gone To Soldiers which contained a character who was a WASP.  You can read that review here. 

 Elma also had a strong background in mathematics and physics which qualified her to be a computer.   Before the existence of machines called computers, humans known as computers did calculations.  Many readers will have learned about them from the movie called Hidden Figures about African-American women who were computers for the American space program.

In the Lady Astronaut series the American space program was launched under different circumstances.  It takes place in an alternate timeline in which a meteor fell on Washington D.C. in 1952, killed a great many people and altered Earth's climate.  It was decided that finding a new home for humanity should be an urgent priority.   Although I was pleased to see that the space program was regarded as vitally important, I wondered why there wasn't any serious consideration being given to the possibility of interventions that would prevent severe climate change.      

I also have a small quibble over Elma's Jewish background.  Her ancestors were apparently Yiddish speaking Ashkenazis like mine.  Yet she says that they settled in Charleston, South Carolina in the 18th century.  The Jews that arrived in Charleston during that period were Sephardic.  Sephardic Jews were originally from Spain.  They spoke a Spanish derived language called Ladino rather than Yiddish.   According to  the Jewish Virtual Library's page about Charleston's Jewish history here, there was no Ashkenazi synagogue in Charleston until 1854. 

Yet I was so inspired by Elma's struggle to open the space  program to women who were pilots.  So I'd definitely give this novel five stars.

                                               

                           

Reign of Mist: A Satisfying Middle Book of a Trilogy

Reign of Mist was sent to me by author Helen Scheuerer via Book Funnel, so that I could catch up on the earlier books in the YA epic fantasy Oremere trilogy before participating in the blog tour for the final novel in the trilogy, War of the Mist. I reviewed the first volume, Heart of Mist on this blog here.   My non-spoiler review for Reign of Mist is below.

                       

   In Reign of Mist, the characters that were introduced in Heart of Mist are developed further.  This means that these familiar characters and their relationships are portrayed with more depth.  The characters that were new to me opened up doors that allowed me to understand more about Scheuerer's world.  I consider characterization the strongest talent of this author.  She understands people and how to make characters come alive for readers.

In the acknowledgements Helen Scheuerer states that Reign of Mist focuses on the bond between sisters.  There are characters who are sisters that are prominent in this book.  I can see how the sister bond inspired Scheuerer to write Reign of Mist, but for me the central issue is the difficulty of weighing the consequences of actions.  Indeed this  novel shows that in some circumstances, the full ramifications  of a decision may not even be imaginable.

The ending of Reign of Mist seemed more resolved than the first novel in the trilogy.   It didn't feel like a cliffhanger.   I also thought that this is what was supposed to happen.  It makes for a satisfying reading experience.

                       

                         

The Raven and the Reindeer: A Snow Queen Retelling For Pride Month

When The Raven and the Reindeer by T. Kingfisher was nominated as a June Book of the Month on a Goodreads group,  I was most interested in the Sami character that the nominator mentioned.  I have been interested in the Sami since childhood when my favorite book was Lapland Outlaw by Arthur Catherall.  The books that I've reviewed on this blog dealing with the Sami have been the thriller Forty Days Without Shadow by Olivier Truc  which I reviewed here and the mystery In The Month of the Midnight Sun by Cecilia Ekbäck which I reviewed here.  Although there is indeed a Sami character who plays an important role in The Raven and the Reindeer, she doesn't appear until late in the narrative.

Nevertheless, there were other very good reasons for me to read this T. Kingfisher book which I found delightful.  I'm glad that I purchased it on Amazon.

                             

The Raven and the Reindeer didn't become a book of the month, but there is currently an ongoing buddy read of the novel.  This is an adult retelling of The Snow Queen, a fairy tale by Hans Christian Anderson.   Participants, including me, have marveled about the elements from HCA's original tale that Kingfisher included which we hadn't remembered.  So it could be considered a fairly faithful retelling with several differences.

One difference is that the two crows in HCA's version are combined into one talking raven who is very snarky and entertaining.

Another more significant difference is that the protagonist needs to change shape in order to survive the cold of the journey to the Snow Queen's palace far in the north. Livli, the Sami character, has a very interesting idea about shapechanging.   She says that someone won't have barriers to such a transformation "when your own shape does not quite fit."  To me, this implies that non-cisgender individuals would be the humans who are most open to changing into another species.   Kingfisher doesn't actually explore this idea.  To my best knowledge, no one has written fiction about a pre-operative transsexual who also changes into an animal.   If someone has written fantasy or science fiction with that focus, I would love to read it.

The main reason why The Raven and the Reindeer was nominated for Pride Month is because it contains a lesbian relationship which definitely wasn't in HCA's original tale.  This relationship provided an ending to this retelling that made for a much better story for LGBT friendly readers.