Karen found herself, however, thinking about him in that school girl way she knew was a one way ticket to Head Over Heals, Population Crazy Woman.

Troy fought dirty. Her daughter adored him, absolutely and completely. This played right into her insecurities of not having a man around the house. When she booted her worthless husband out, she didn’t expect him to abandon his own child, but he did. Troy however, though her daughter was more fun then all of his hobbies combined. Troy did not watch TV, instead, he played Barbie sparkle pony.

Troy’s negatives was his intensity. He was either all in or all out. His idea of relaxation consisted of biking down trails better left to mountain goats and climbing rocks with some “safety” line that didn’t look safe for an anorexic ballerina, much less his man-frame. Troy was an alpha but he had long hair, which for some reason bugged her to no end. Troy thought her friends’ politics were stupid and said so right to their faces. Troy could not cook. Troy’s tolerance for pretentious crap was zero.

In bed, Troy thought nothing of releasing his inner caveman. Grabbing a fist full of her hair was natural to him as kissing. He wasn’t content to be inside of her, her always pulled her as close to him as possible, as if he wanted to fuse their bodies by pressure and strokes.

Her brain usually shut off and she had trouble turning it back on afterwards. She loved every minute of it.

What really got her going, Karen realized one day, was that he never called her a pet name. Never once did he call her Baby, Honey, Sweetheart, or any other endearment. She asked him about it.

“I love to hear my name roll off your lips in a moment of passion,” he said, “so I assumed you like the same.”

Troy loved to kiss her neck. He was simultaneously teasing and demanding when he did so.

One day, after a five-hour marathon of sex and napping, she told him to stop screwing around and move in.

He told her to get dressed. When they did so, and went outside, his truck was already there, packed with his stuff.

For anyone new to Rehabilitated Hack Writer Recommends, I target my book reviews towards novelists (you can find my prior reviews here). I also need to point out that this is a review of the first book of a series, not the series itself.

Before we dive headfirst into the fantasy pool of epic goodness that is Tara Mara’s The Unfinished Song: Initiate, we need to take a step back and formally define what epic fantasy is in the novel landscape of 2012. The classic definition of epic or high fantasy is it’s a sub-genre of fantasy set in invented worlds.

I hate that definition.

To me, epic fantasy needs to be, well, epic. Epic. This is fun, but not epic, fantasy:

A mysterious, sexy pale-skinned sword dancer hires an infamous mercenary to find her kidnapped brother. The mercenary learns there is more to women than bedding them, while the sister learns that if she lets her quest define her life, she becomes defeated before the rescue of her brother ever begins.

Bonus points if you can guess that book, by the way.

Now this, this is epic:

The good peoples, it seemed, never defeated the evil that threatened to consume them all, only delayed the final battle. The dark and vile lord who threaten freedom everywhere wrapped his essence into a ring, and now a band of unlikely heroes must cast the ring into the fiery pit of its creation or see it reunited with its maker. Setting out on their quest with the best intentions, the task soon falls to the smallest and unlikeliest hero while the armies of evil marshal to crush everything in its path. If the hero doesn’t destroy the ring and thus the dark lord in time, there won’t be anything left to save.

Epic fantasy is ambitious. Epic fantasy is grandiose. Epic fantasy is bigger than the sum of its parts. It’s heroic, it’s classic, it’s is all-encompassing and all-consuming fantasy. There are stakes. The stakes are high. You could say that the stakes are (wait for it!) epic.

And Mara’s Unfinished Song: Initiate is an introduction into 21st century epic fantasy. Here’s the teaser:

Dindi can’t do anything right, maybe because she spends more time dancing with pixies than doing her chores. Her clan hopes to marry her off and settle her down, but she dreams of becoming a Tavaedi, one of the powerful warrior-dancers whose secret magics are revealed only to those who pass a mysterious Test during the Initiation ceremony. The problem? No-one in Dindi’s clan has ever passed the Test. Her grandmother died trying. But Dindi has a plan.

Kavio is the most powerful warrior-dancer in Faearth, but when he is exiled from the tribehold for a crime he didn’t commit, he decides to shed his old life. If roving cannibals and hexers don’t kill him first, this is his chance to escape the shadow of his father’s wars and his mother’s curse. But when he rescues a young Initiate girl, he finds himself drawn into as deadly a plot as any he left behind. He must decide whether to walk away or fight for her… assuming she would even accept the help of an exile.

Now I know what you are thinking. You’re thinking, wow, that sounds cool, but um, that doesn’t sound too epic to me.

Oh, my friends, pour a cup of hot tea and wait for it. Don’t let the girly frou-frou cover and character-driven teaser fool you. Behind the rich, detailed world-building lies the heartbeat of an epic fantasy tale that rises above the bounds of mythology and into a coming-of-age novel that will leave the reader yearning for more. Maya clearly dips her plot and characters in several different mythologies, yet the book has a distinctive voice that tugs at your heartstrings.

Let’s deconstruct the goodness going on here.

World-Building

Maya’s world building kicks ass. It’s unique, it’s ambitious, and it has an undercurrent of femininity that, without the advent of the interweb tubes, the story Maya is trying to tell never would have seen the light of day. It’s so different it is, and I say this with no exaggeration, a high fantasy literary bomb of mass destruction. It is not so much a filled with troupes and familiar themes as it becomes a classic example of the very idea of world-building.

How does she accomplish this? Maya’s neolithic setting latches on the magical undercurrents of the world she envisioned and never lets them go.

For example, stone-aged peoples in the real world were concerned primarily with survival. Gender roles and relations follow a path necessary for the continuation of the individual and the group.  There is a reason when an attractive woman smiles at a man she unconscionably puts her hair behind an ear, why rejection impacts men and women differently and why we are creatures of instinct despite our technological advancements.

Yet, toss magic into the fray. Magic, like technology, lends itself to the removal of the disparity of force. Maya takes this one step where few tread: it’s not necessarily what you can wield, but more what you know. Dindi’s quest isn’t so much a classic grab-onto-the-power but an unlocking of a mystery.

That moves us back to the impact of the type of magic Maya puts forth. Women, in her tribal society, have distinct roles but they are far from simple property. Women need to bear children so the society she has shaped takes that into account, but it’s not as if the magic is something that sits around in a feudal or even Victorian society as if it’s a character by itself rather than infused into the setting. It has a distinct feminine vibe without the politically correct bullshit.

This is evident from the ground up. It’s in the way characters talk. You might think ancient peoples would also have a primitive language and culture. But neolithic-era people with magic? Maya nails this. It’s in the way they dress, how they pick their mates, how they relate to other tribes, how they view politics, honor and duty. In a world where magic comes forth from a dance, where pixies, talking bears, and fae abound–Maya uses this magic as the glue to everything: setting, plot and characterization. It is the basis of her world-building and because of the creative and talented way she does it, Initiate comes off as highly original, unique and engrossing.

I’m not exaggerating here. World-building. How To. Tara Maya. Initiate. Read it.

Characterization

My number one surprise with this book is that this book has guy stuffs in it. I could talk at length how fascinating Dindi is, how she comes across as both vulnerable yet puts aside her fears to do what must be done. How she seems like she is fourteen going on eighteen one moment, and fourteen going on twelve the next. Maya pens her as tenacious and doesn’t shy away from giving her a sexuality. Dindi’s great.

My little fantasy heart, however, belongs to Kavio.

Because Kavio kicks ass.

Kavio, actually, is a tragic figure. Maya gives him nobility and youthful idealism as his moral fiber, and tosses him into situations of conflict where it becomes apparent that Kavio greatest enemy is himself. Kavio is a good guy, but he’s also a weapon of mass destruction. He follows the rules when obviously he could, quite simply, make up the rules himself with his magic. He’s like a Jedi Knight being given a ticket by a traffic cop. Press hard, Kavio, you’re making five copies. The cop has a gun and feels superior, but Kavio could turn him inside out, burn his cruiser, go to the station, and have it swallowed whole by a rent in the earth while blood pixies rip out everyone’s eyeballs through their noses making the police station scene in The Terminator look like a scene from a Jane Austin novel.

Instead, he signs.

Did I mention he’s a bad-ass?

As a writer, Kavio fascinates me mightily. I’m beginning to wonder if someone handed Maya an honorary penis because she hones in on the masculine feel of Kavio with laser-like focus. She nails what I call the Tragic Masculine Paradox: when confronted with an attractive young woman coming-of-age, the man of honor is torn with feelings of protectiveness as a father figure yet desires as a lover. You see this in fiction all the time. Rarely do you see it done with such empathy and understatement. Many writers go overboard with this, giving this a tragic (and pervy) element. Maya, however, simply presents it as-is. Kavio has bigger problems than his youthful naïveté.

Dindi’s feminine, innocent beauty, simply highlights Kavio’s main attraction: Dindi is magically powerful. Without going into the rest of the series, he’s slowly falling in love, and love, my friends, is messy. Dindi is more than a girl and then more than a young woman. She’s the catalyst to…

But I digress. Dindi isn’t the only character in a come-of-age journey in Initiate.

Plot

Which leads us to the clever, delicious plotting, and how we come full circle back to our discussion about epic fantasy.

A prevalent, and welcomed trend in speculative fiction is the come-of-age journey set in a fantastic (be it wonderful or dystopian) setting. I am a huge sucker for these types of stories, and in Initiate, Maya plots a literal come-of-age journey as Dindi goes out to become a woman, ready or not (and no, she wasn’t ready).

But epic fantasy has stakes. Big stakes. End-of-the-world (or worse!) type stakes, but unlike much of what is out there today, this book is surprisingly not a coming-of-age novel with an epic plot line to give the character’s punch and excuses to reveal their literary humanity. No, this is a book that provides the foundation for the true story: the battle with the malevolent forces out to crush humanity. It’s not exactly Clan of the Cave Bear meets The Lord of the Rings, but you get the idea.

Dindi is on a personal journey and she yearns to become a magical dancer in the society she was born in. However, if, as a reader, you’re paying attention, you can spot the epic plot that Maya is serving up like drops of water to the thirsty.

And this is where we depart the shackles of traditional publishing. Maya fearlessly has plotted out a twelve book series and each book is building  on that plot in a relentless, epic fashion. Let me be very clear, I am not a big fan of many-book fantasy series. Many of them have problems with continuity, editing, and, quite frankly, sometimes as a reader, I feel I’ve been ripped off around book four because I’m being milked rather than being cleverly entertained.

eBooks, and today’s book market, however, has expanded the types of books we can find and buy, and Maya’s greatest accomplishment as a writer is taking  full advantage of medium. The twelve book format, based on her world-building, is not only daring but also a little slice of epic fantasy goodness, and her skill at characterization draws the reader right into her world.

It’s epic fantasy by our very definition, and it’s yummy. Give me those twelve books. I’ll gladly ready every one of them. If you love a good fantasy series fix, Maya’s your drug dealer, Baby.

More Please

You can tell I’m a fan. Initiate is a wonderful, rich and diverse book and the series thus far is a fantasy reader’s fantasy series. I do have quibbles with it, but they are nits in the larger picture. I’m not a fan of the cover art. I disagree with some of the editorial decisions made and feel Maya’s talent could easily support books of larger word counts, smoothing some of the abruptness of the plot presentation.

Yet these are mere nits because from a storytelling standpoint, it just doesn’t work, it’s a slice of Awesome Toast with Bacon. I tell my non-writer, but reader friends, the Era of the Reader is upon us. Novels like Initiate proves that assertion. If you are a writer, take a step back from all the meta that goes on with writing, look at the bigger picture, and read Initiate. You’ll realize the sum of the book is bigger than its parts, and, at its heart, epic fantasy many readers want to buy, but haven’t really been able to do so.

I give Initiate four bacon strips out of five. And while this is a singular book recommendation, I’ll just drop a teaser that as good as it is, the other books in the series get better.

Oh, Liara!

In Mass Effect, it was FemShep, Liara and Tali. We saved the galaxy.

In Mass Effect 2, she broke my heart, but I won her back.

I wonder if I can get The Wife Unit to dye her hair blue on my birthday…

The following video is the culmination of two epic action role-playing games, with the last installment due in March.

I could write an entire essay over how emotionally compelling the female Shepard romance with Liara was. In Mass Effect, she was this naive, geeky beauty that endeared me to her feminine, yet alien, ways. On the battlefield, paradoxically, she was a holy terror.

In Mass Effect 2, she flat out broke my character’s heart. She was distant, hard, and withdrawn. Stepping outside the context of the Mass Effect Universe, I thoroughly felt the writers had lost it completely.

Then Lair of the Shadowbroker, the DLC of all DLCs comes around and smacks you alongside the head. The setup was perfect. The voice acting was perfect. It was epic.

And it was romantic.

My ending was slightly different because I didn’t lose any team members and I had a little black party dress on, but everything else is on the money.

Games like this is why I don’t go see movies hardly at all.

The first item had a line drawn through it. “Move the desk in the office to the other wall.” The desk was too heavy for her to move, but her husband had moved it around the office as if it weighed nothing. The item under it, “Change the smoke detector batteries,” and all the other ones that followed, remained unchecked.

She frowned at the list. Then she stuck her tongue at it. Then she tried to repress a giggle, but failed. It came out as a snort.

Tom knew she hated standing on a ladder. It gave her a mild case of vertigo, the feeling of falling while standing up. She could imagine falling off the ladder and landing on her head. Splat. Blood everywhere. Perhaps a broken neck. She could imagine a loud “snap” and then a feeling of oblivion before sliding into it.

She sighed. She didn’t want to do it. It was the husband’s job. Tom was a funny guy, he would do anything she asked as long as it was on a list and he could plan when he was going to do it, yet the items that remained undone clawed at her gut, a list highlighting a failure of… what, she didn’t know. Her husband? Her aptitude as a wife? How they were a couple?

Nagging of course was out of the question. She was not a nag. She was a beautiful, young, lady, thank you very much. Beautiful young ladies do not nag.

She got out the ladder and put on an apron. She put the batteries in an apron pocket, took a deep breath, and climbed the ladder.

When she got to the top, she grabbed the detector with one hand in a death grip. The feeling of vertigo was intense. A third of her felt like she was falling, another third felt like she was building up to an orgasm and the last third that she had to pee.

As she stood there, she briefly wondered if perhaps there was an upside to vertigo. That’s stupid, she thought. She closed her eyes. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. When she opened her eyes, the feeling was gone.

She changed the batteries. The worse part, actually, was pressing the test button. The noise hurt her ears. Then she got out earplugs, and that was that.

Look at me, I am all handywoman and stuffs, she thought. She crossed the item off the list.

She put back the ladder, went into her walk-in closet, and cried. She wrapped her hands around her knees and buried her face. Her lovely house didn’t feel so lovely anymore.

***

Katie wrinkled her nose at the next item on the list. It was a dozy. “Power wash the driveway.”

Using a power washer. Like she knew anything about that. Her dad tried to show her once, but by that time, she was putting on a cheerleader uniform and bouncing her boobs at athletic man-boys. One of them could do the power washing.

Her poor dad. Three daughters. And he was such a handyman. She made sure to find someone just like him.

Only Tom was a tiny bit different. Daddy never used a list. He just did it.

“Damn it, Tom,” she said, aloud.

She went to the garage with a little notebook, and wrote down what the washer was. Then she went online. Not only did she find the instruction manual on how to operate it, she found instructional videos.

She easily washed the driveway and porch. The next day, her arms and shoulders were sore. She took a hot bath and remembered the last time Tom and her made love it. She got several bruises, so he went with the not-so-subtle hint of cornering her in the shower instead.

She ran her hand down a soapy thigh before submerging it.

The Honey-Do List wasn’t the only thing under neglect.

***

The next item on the list was worse than the power washing. “Install a new sink trap.” She had to get under the sink, and couldn’t figure out how to uninstall the old one. She couldn’t find purchase to pry it out with her flat-head screwdriver. It seemed melded to the sink.

Vowing to do it all herself, she drove back to Home Depot where she got the new kit and the sealant goop, and tracked down the grandpa-looking guy who found it for her.

“Unhook the drain pipe, and then whack the assembly with a rubber mallet from the bottom.”

She smiled. She was thinking of something with a bit more finesse.

When she did that, the old sealant crumbled loose and landed in her eyes.

She envisioned hitting Tom with the rubber mallet. It was an unkind thought, but it made her feel better. She crossed off the item on the list with a vicious stroke of her felt pen.

***

She hated the next item, feeling like a complete and utter fool for putting it on the list. “Make slow, hot love to my hot little body,” she had put. She thought it would be a cute reward for getting halfway down the list.

Her hot little body. Oh, how vain and stupid she was. She still had a hot little body, all right.

Sometimes she wanted touch so much, she felt like going down to the seedy bar outside of town, in a miniskirt without panties, and fucking the first guy who sent a pickup line her way. Against the dumpster out back. Bonus points if he was wearing a ball cap and needed to see a dentist.

Instead, she got a glass of wine and drank half of it.

She walked over to Tom’s piano. He loved his piano almost as much as he loved her. They met that way. She was sitting in the hotel lobby during a sorority trip waiting for her sisters, looking at this cute guy with quite the bored expression on his face reading a book.

It must have been a bad book, because Tom threw it in the trash, looked around, and spied the piano there. He walked up to it, contemptuously tossed the “Please Don’t Touch the Piano” sign aside, and started to play.

And oh, how magical that was—it was beautiful and sexy and perfect.

And damn it all, if that man didn’t even know she existed. The music consumed him so, that she might as well have been invisible.

But he stopped playing when she sat down next to him on the bench. He looked very surprised.

“I know chopsticks,” she said, and he laughed. She played it for him and he smiled with flashing eyes and that’s when she knew her heart wasn’t her own. Two weeks later, she gave him her virtue.

Now his piano, like her body, had been silent for months.

She drank some more of the wine, and dumped the rest on the hammers in the middle.

“Whoops,” she said.

***

Tom’s piano tuner wasn’t the cuteness of her husband. He was an older gentleman, with an elegant wedding band. Where Tom was tall, he was average. Where Tom was muscular, he was almost too skinny. Where Tom had bright, brown eyes, Rich’s eyes had the beginning of crows-feet behind glasses.

But his eyes were blue. They went quite nicely with his blond and grey hair. She always liked blue eyes on an older gentleman.

Rich played the piano with precision and perfection. Tom played it with passion. Rich was Bach. Tom was Beethoven.

When she called, Rich said of course he could fix it. She insisted on making sure he replaced the felt, not simply repaired it.

How much wine did you spill? he asked.

An entire glass, she said. I feel so stupid, she added.

No worries. I just wanted to know how much time to book.

I would appreciate it if you took your time. The piano means a lot. Could you come on Friday?

I have a volunteer gig at my son’s school, but after that, sure, Katie. You bet. Be there at 1:00.

Thanks, Rich.

More importantly, Rich loved to look at her legs. Rich had a fine appreciation for the beautiful things. His occasionally friendly-wandering eye had made her feel appreciated.

Wanted.

***

Rich was punctual.

“Hey, how are you?” he said when she let him in.

She closed the door. She locked it.

“I’m okay. Do you need something to drink or something?”

“No, I’m good,” he said, heading towards the piano.

“Okay.”

She went upstairs and stripped. She put on black stockings, reapplied her makeup, and put on a black silk slip that stopped halfway up her butt.

She came downstairs as Rich was leaning the lid to the piano on the wall.

“I lied,” she said, feeling hot. She was sure her face was red. “I only spilled a bit of wine.”

“Katie…”

“I know you’re married, Rich. That’s why I picked you. I’m not some pathetic basket case. You’ll never tell, and neither will I. I don’t want men sniffing around me like I’m some lonely loser.”

He stood up straight. He looked uncomfortable, but his eyes betrayed desire.

“You’re taking one for the team, Rich, no more, no less.”

He hesitated.

She walked over and kissed him.

***

Where she would ride Tom’s passions in bed holding on for dear life, Rich was altogether something different. He was in bed as he was—gentle, giving, precise.

But he was also an experienced man. She wanted him to take her from behind, but he did not, ignoring her request and pressing down on her, face-to-face. She wanted him to satisfy his lusts and leave, but he kissed her and filled her with loving strokes until she peaked. She wanted to lie there like a passive lump, the prom queen taken by the band nerd, but she wrapped her legs around him and used her body as she best she could.

Afterwards, Rich held her. She felt like biting him, hard, but kissed him instead.

***

She watched him warily as he dressed. Snuggle time over. He had to go home to his wife.

“You need a lover who isn’t going to leave you lying there, Katie,” he said, stating the obvious.

“That’s what I had,” she whispered, turned her head, and stared at the closed blinds.

When he was gone, she took her pen and put a line through the item on the list.

As if anyone would notice.

Surprisingly, she didn’t cry.

What did that mean?

***

“Put rat poison in the attic.”

The last item on the list.

It took her a long time to find the stuff. She found it in a locked cabinet in the garage of which she had to search all around for the key. The box had a Mr. Yuck sticker on it.

Like she was going to have children. Ha. That would mean having sex. With a husband. Or, at least, with a man without a vasectomy.

As she put down the traps and baited them, she sniffed at the poison. She briefly wondered what it tasted like, and then thought that was the most stupid thing she had ever thought, in, well, ever.

Enough, she thought.

She grabbed her list, crossed the last item off of it and headed towards the city.

Halfway there, she pulled off the road and threw up.

Confession may be good for the soul, she thought, but it was certainly eating her insides.

***

“Tom, I had an affair. I made love to another man. It wasn’t just get-it-over sex, either. I loved every minute of it,” she said.

Tom didn’t say anything back, of course, his headstone silent as always.

She sat next to his grave.

“I finished your list, Babe. See?” She held it out. Then she rolled it up and put it in the flower holder.

“I want someone to pick me,” she said. “Next time. Man Number Three. I’ve picked you and I picked Rich.”

The wind rustled through the trees.

“Yes. I think it’s time for me to be chased. I’m chased-able material.”

She closed her eyes. She could practically feel his arms around her.

“Damn, Tommy, I miss you so, so much.”

She got up and walked away, vowing never, ever, to put a list on the refrigerator again. Her daddy didn’t need a list, and neither did she.

The Fleet officer and her attaché, two human women in their impeccable uniforms, turned to her as they were about to enter the tower gleaming in the sunlight. Heisa was amazed at how tall it was. Humans were builders, indeed.

The officer graced her with a frown.

“Huntress, please. You are making a mistake. We’ve trained for this and you have not. Mr. Belton is not your average person. He is a telepath of vast and unknown power. He’s not the type of telepath you’ll run into in Fleet, classified and sorted by ability. It’s all a big question mark. You’re a sish—you don’t have the telepathic ability to help yourself or him.”

Heisa realized she had stopped walking.

Out of all her dealings with humans, no human had ever spoken to her as forcibly as this one did. Indeed, a little part of her brain was now going danger! danger! and that gave her pause.

“Captain. How bad could it be? What’s the worst that can happen?”

“You don’t understand. Fleet doesn’t even allow telepaths like Belton to join. We don’t know. Really. Here’s a scenario. His grief consumes you like flame. It burns into your mind and swirls there like the Winds of Despair, and stays there until you die. We can’t shield ourselves and you at the same time.”

“But humans don’t grieve that way,” she whispered.

“Damn it, Huntress. Stop it. You’ve never lived on Earth. So I’m going to let you in on the big human secret. Are you ready?”

Heisa frowned. She did not like the officer’s tone. “Tell me.”

The officer leaned forward. “Telepaths like that aren’t human. The look human, they were born human, but past puberty, they turned into something else.”

Heisa rocked back on her heels. She licked her lips and swallowed.

She took a deep breath. Then she reached out her hand. The officer looked surprised, but she slowly held her hand.

Heisa held the hand to her breast. Then she let go of the heartache she was holding inside. Her husband. Her daughter. Her mother. Her symbiant and wife, Jennifer. Natalie.

The human hissed, actually hissed, and jerked back her hand. “Oh, Huntress, I am so, so, sorry.” Her eyes watered over, and she looked so sad.

Humans have such expressive, pretty eyes, thought Heisa.

“You see, Captain, I already live in the Eye of Despair. But this day isn’t about me. It’s not. It’s about a promise I made to return a ring. You call me Huntress. You should not. I am, only what you see before you. My only goal is the ring. My life is this ring. Donavan will get this ring, and I will give it to him.”

The human wiped her eyes. “You want to die,” she whispered.

“I’m dead already.”

***

Young girl in the market
Music to the men
When the men leave
Her eyes are red
When her eyes are closed again she sees the dark market of above

And she sings
‘They say the most horrible things
But I hear violins, when I close my eyes
I am at the center of the sun
And I cannot be hurt
By anything this wicked world has done’

Young boy in the market
Follows all the men
When the men leave
He’s out of his head
When his eyes are closed again he sees the dark market of above

And he sings
‘They break the most beautiful things
But I hear violins, when I close my eyes
I am at the center of the sun
And I cannot be hurt
By anything this wicked world has done
I look into your eyes
And I am at the center of the sun
And I cannot be hurt
By anything this wicked world has done’

Center of the sun

Young boy in the market
Sees the girl alone
And asks her
‘Have you lost your way home?’
She sings
‘You say the most beautiful things, just like my violins’

I look into your eyes
I am at the center of the sun
And I cannot be hurt
By anything this wicked world has done

When I close my eyes
I am at the center of the sun
And I cannot be hurt
By anything this wicked world has done

‘Cause
I hear violins
I hear violins

I hear violins
I hear violins

Center of the sun

I hear …violins

Other times, I have a plot and no characters. There is no distinctive character voice(s) that draws me in to start writing.

At some point, I’m going to have a setting show up waiting for both a plot and characters.

Maybe, just maybe, if I have enough of this going on in my brain, they’ll get together and knock some socks off.

I’m hoping!

“Princess, you are not trained for rescue operations. We’re hot docking to a heavy cruiser that may lose gravity compensation and turn everyone inside into pasty goo. I request you stay on the ship.”

Leiesha stared at James. He was being oh so respectful and oh so proper.

She was going to oh so bite him.

Here at the R.H.W. Blog, we target book reviews to people who write novels. There are many other book reviews on Across the Universe out there tailored for readers.

Across the Universe by Beth Revis is a contemporary young adult science fiction book of monumental science fiction YA goodness. There is a particular fondness for YA sci-fi on this blog, as the 9.3 blog readers will attest. Before we get into Across the Universe, let’s talk about that topic specifically: YA science fiction. We need to go there to come to grips on why Beth Revis has awesomesauce for blood.

Dystopian Settings in YA Science Fiction

YA science fiction has historical roots in dystopian settings. What industry labels as simply “dystopian” really used to be thought of, by readers, as “science fiction”, if they thought about the genre label at all.

Enter vampires, urban fantasy, contemporary and paranormal (although vamp fic is a paranormal offshoot). You could say these killed off classic science fiction under the guise of character-driven stories marketed (successfully) to girls, and science fiction stories along “classic” lines was not meeting the needs of a new vastly expanded audience.

We could say that… and it’s BS. Science fiction is alive and well, simply nudged into a little dystopian niche that is selling like chocolate in an all-girl high school student store. There are only so many books and book publishers to go around, in the traditional sense. What sells, sells. That “classic” science fiction for young adults fell by the wayside wasn’t elitism, but it wasn’t the fault of science fiction itself. It was capitalism.

This is only brought up because as novelists, we need to practice the art of eye-rolling. Take for example the following conversation:

“Science fiction as a market for youth is dead.”

“What? What about The Hunger Games? Uglies? Unwind? Or…”

“That’s dystopian fiction.”

(rolls eyes)

“Don’t roll your eyes at me! It’s true. Simply placing a book into the future doesn’t make it science fiction…”

(rolls eyes)

“Maybe classic science fiction for youth is dead…”

“You mean, maybe classic science fiction for youth is underutilized and underrepresented?“

This was an actual conversation, by the way. No names are given to protect the guilty.

Why digress to talk about the current YA book market in speculative fiction? Because the current market has its roots in the older market. And there were some amazing young adult science fiction books in dystopian settings.

Enter John Christopher

The king of dsytopian settings is John Christopher. His legendary Tripod trilogy was a chilling tale of alien conquest and subversion, where as a teen, your own parents turn against you because they have been “capped”. It’s a mind-control device turning people into hypnotic slaves for unseen alien masters.

Christopher nailed all the dystopian YA elements, and one could say, defined them. There is one complete and utterly horrific subplot, where the unseen aliens (in the first book) take the prettiest young girls to “the masters” city once winning a beauty contest, and these girls are never seen again.

Once the truth is known what happens to these girls, oh my. There’s nothing explicit about it. It’s just evil. Pure, understated, evil, and from a literary standpoint, so very delicious.

We’ll come back to John in a moment.

What Makes Dystopian YA So Delicious

There no mystery why dystopian fiction provides a fertile ground for young adult novels. It’s delicious because the setting is great for the come-of-age story. As teens and adults, we yearn for places to put context to growing up, and nothing says “grow up!” like oppression and tyranny, especially in the future.  In dystopia, everything is about the removal of choice. And nothing makes a greater young adult story than a teen trying to make choices where it seems like there is none. It often is a choice of defining oneself correctly, or dying.

So much goodness.

Enter Across the Universe. Across the Universe nails the dsytopian feelings of oppression and tyranny, and as a dystopian novel it just doesn’t work, it sparkles brightly (sparkles like stars, heeee). The setting, particularity for Amy, the main character, goes from a disturbing familiarity to an assault on everything it means to be a teen girl growing up. Like Christopher, Revis serves up the terrible with glee, and like Christopher, it is both hauntingly subtle yet at times overpowering and overt.

The Value of Choice in Across the Universe

Unlike Christopher, Revis parties in the gray areas of choice and consequences. She parties hard. Right at the beginning of the book, Amy must make a choice and ho-boy (ho-boy being a technical term), is it a doozy. When she “wakes up”, the novel is a quest for the truth. A mystery presents itself and it spirals out of control as she and Elder (a teen boy training to become a leader) come to grips with the awesome evilness of a society built on lies.

And here is where we depart our dystopian study, and how Across the Universe plays in the genre, because the book is so much more.

Ho-boy is it ever.

What is Classic Science Fiction, Anyway?

Let’s not be coy. There are certain elements of science fiction that can be called “classic” and applied to books aimed at young adults, such as Rite of Passage by Alexei Panshin and to a larger extent, Cities in Flight by James Blish. I could go on and on but those are “classics” and not “dystopian” (although in Rite of Passage the main setting is not perfect by any means).

Science fiction, in essence, is more than a look in the future and the use of some thing that, if it didn’t exist, the story would come apart.

Classic science fiction holds elements of what I call The Want. The want to know. The need to know. The yearn to understand. Star Trek was up front about this: this is a story of people who want to know more.

There’s a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode where the Enterprise is on a mission. On the way, they find a curious hole in space and wonder what it is. The plot is summed up like this:

“Hey, there’s this funny hole in space.”

“Not really relevent to the current mission.”

“Let’s look at it anyway. It’s kinda cool.”

“Okay.”

(soon afterwards)

“Whoops.”

That right there is classic science fiction.

Across the Universe is Classic Science Fiction

Beth Revis nails this. She sticks the yearn to know, the itch to understand, in a 10-point landing. The story takes place on a colony ship, the Godspeed, and what a brilliant story it is. There are problems with the Godspeed. Deep problems. People problems. Technology problems. Problems with simply being in space.

The colony ship is a familiar troupe, and as a science fiction setting it works: a big ship in space going from point A to point B.

Setting, though, is only a small part of it. Science fiction authors should pay close attention to the underlying thematic in this book. Revis goes so far as to place Amy, a runner, in a place where she can run, but soon she realizes there is nowhere to run to. She just isn’t metaphorically trapped by her youth and inexperience, she’s trapped by the cold, hard, reality of space. There is nothing for Amy. Labeled as “nonessential” and alone from anything familiar (including safety), she turns to the search for truth, not simply as a means for survival, but because that’s all she has left.

And oh, Ender, the boy born on the ship. How he yearns. He yearns both for knowledge and the right to know knowledge. He yearns for the stars. He also yearns for the truth.

Indeed, at one point, someone in the novel dies for the yearning. It drives him crazy because he literally is designed to know and question, but because of the dystopian society he lives in commits the cultural equivalent of the  Russian Winter Mistake, his creative intellect never goes anywhere. It drives him to the edge of disrepair and beyond.

So Brutal. So full of storytelling goodness.

So classic.

And Finally, Character Driven vs. Plot Driven Elements in Across the Universe

Is Across the Universe a character driven novel mercilessly targeted to teen girls, because, you know, boys don’t read and that’s what sells to girls?

Do it with me folks:

(eye-roll)

No. It is not, and a novelist wanting to write a page-turner targeted to teens should pay close attention. Revis drives the central elements of the novel by events that are both based on character motivations and actions, but also plot elements that interject themselves into the story in which Amy and Elder have to react.

That is, of course, life, and especially a poignant way of looking at the process of growing up. If a writer takes anything from Across the Universe, study how Revis does this, because she pulled it off like this was her tenth published novel, not her first.

Final Thoughts

So here we are. We have a brilliant come-of-age story in a dystopian setting with classical science fiction themes delivered by the yin-yang dance of characterization and plotting. How wonderful Across the Universe is!

While I am loath to even type the word “I” in a book review (witness the thousands of book reviews where the “reviewer” simply talks about themselves), I need to confess I had a dream about Across the Universe the night I finished reading it. I can’t even remember the last time I did that. To say the book sticks with you after you finish it would be an understatement.

Now that I have read the book, I don’t particularly like either the cover or the title. While the starry background makes sense given the way some of the characters feel about stars, both the title and cover art do not convey the wonderful, yummy mystery hidden inside. That’s just me. It’s also me that I didn’t like one of the intense scenes where I felt a different outcome would have made Amy more of a young woman many girls yearn to be.

Of course, the book was expertly written with a distinctive voice even when the viewpoints flipped back and forth between Amy and Elder. Readers will appreciate the subtle foreshadowing and the mystery-in-a-mystery plotting. Readers will also appreciate masterful world-building that never bores you, only teases you and makes you thirsty for more. All these things are the hallmarks of an excellent novel, and as a debut it was a stunning and thrilling page turner. On the Rehabilitated Hack Writer Scale of Book Goodness, I give it four slices of bacon out of five, and it is literally a genre defining book in the Young Adult market segment.

If there were stages of grief, he felt he was at the very most bottom, standing in a hole, looking up at a sky getting farther and farther away.

Reality suddenly intruded on his circular thoughts. Someone else had left flowers. They weren’t even wilted, but the petals where sagging in the rain.

Davis added his own. They made a nice, soggy, arrangement.

***

Two months. Summer gone. Today it was a teacup, with a teabag of jasmine tea. The rain had filled the cup, the raindrops going plip and sending small waves of water over the rim.

She never drank jasmine tea.

At least, she never drank jasmine tea in front of him.

***

A winter rain. More flowers. These were bright and vivid, as if picked to dispel the ever-present grey winter gloom. A beacon of color.

He left the mistletoe next to the flowers. He could imagine holding the sprigs above her head, giving her the flowers and receiving a sweet kiss in return.

The kisses were the most cruel of daydreams.

***

At his apartment, Davis stared at the calendar.

I see you, he thought.

***

Early spring.

The man was tall and well-dressed in his trench coat, expensive shoes and tight-fitting black leather gloves. One of those men would would look good in a hat, only he wasn’t wearing a hat, and the rain was in his dark hair.

Davis walked to his side and stood next to him, both of them silent. They were silent for a long time.

“She always liked the rain,” the man said, staring in his cup of petals. Japanese maple petals.

“She loved Japanese maples, she did,” said Davis.

The man turned to him.

“Joshua?” David asked.

The man nodded.

Joshua. The boy who moved away. She confessed to him one day after a glass of wine in the late hours, that her first love was a boy named Josh. Her parents told her she could not follow the boy.

She was too young to be married, they said.

There would be other loves, they said.

Davis remembered the look on her face when she told him this. There were other loves all right. Other loves after a broken heart. She cried, finally, when he touched her face after she sat there staring into her empty wine glass.

Crying like Joshua. Silently.

Davis set down the very same glass, or the glass he liked to think was the same, and grabbed the man. Joshua was stiff and then it was as if he melted.

“Why? Why do we tell girls those lies? Why do we hurt them so?” Joshua whispered.

“They were just trying to hold onto something they loved. But it’s never right to lie to a girl.”

“No,” said Joshua, “it’s not.”