Afterlife (review of Reboot by Amy Tintera)

Reboot

Amy Tintera

Harper Teen 2013

When Wren was twelve, she was shot in the chest three times.  For one hundred and seventy eight minutes, Wren was dead.  And then she wasn’t.  Ever since humanity was struck by a virulent illness, some people, like Wren rise from the dead, returning better or worse than before.  They are, in effect, rebooted.  Rebooted adults return crazed and drooling, unable to function and dangerous.  Rebooted children, though, come back somewhat enhanced – strong, fast, fit.  Wren One-Seventy-Eight returned in particular good shape because the longer you’re dead, the more physically improved you are on return.  Yet the longer you’re dead, the more emotionless you are as a Reboot and Wren watches her life as if from a distance even as she is used by the HARC corporation to subdue and kill those who threaten a somewhat tenuous hold on order.  When not on assignment, Wren (now seventeen), trains new Reboots – which is how she ends up with Callum.  Callum Twenty-Two barely died at all and has Rebooted with all his human emotions and few of the usual Reboot enhancements.  He disregards orders, treats Wren like she is more alive than dead and slowly cracks open the shell she has placed herself in, leading her to question the life she has been leading for the last five years.

Wren, by her very nature, is a fairly remote character.  She finds it difficult to connect to others and her feelings appear to be completely cut off to her.  She enjoys her assignments, having no issue with pursuing rogue humans and Reboots, enjoying the chase and never wondering whether those she catches are innocent or guilty.  The closes thing that she has to a friend is her roommate Ever but even then she holds herself at a distance.  This, in part, is due to her One-Seventy-Eight status – she seems to inspire both fear and awe in those who encounter her which is why her surprise at Callum’s warmth and interest in her as a person is so utterly believable.  Even as she struggles to understand why he isn’t at all afraid of her, he allows her to access emotions she thought long dead.  What is particularly interesting about Wren is that her life before Rebooting was so horrendous that her emotional remoteness is as much to do with a lack of nurture before her death as it is to do with the minutes that passed after it.

Callum stands out in Reboot because he is so different to everyone else.  He’s not human and so doesn’t act with the barely disguised disgust of HARC when interacting with Reboots but nor does he really believe that he isn’t human.  His defining characteristic is an almost unwavering optimism even when faced with the most depressing of situations and his adamance that, human or Reboot, his principals will remain the same.  He seems at first entranced with Wren, almost seeing her coldness as a challenge but as the story progresses he grows genuinely fond of her, drawing her out of herself with a disarming charm that is hard to resist.  Other characters flit in and out, from the emotionally bizarre Reboots to fragile Ever to the human guards who can barely seem to look at their charges.  All are interesting and all are well written.

Plot-wise, Reboot is solid.  While many reviews have commented that it is primarily a romance, in actuality the growing bond between Wren and Callum only serves to drive the story that lies at the core of the book and which revolves around ideas of experimentation, imprisonment, equality and identity.  It’s all very well handled, as is the tenuous relationship between the two leads.  Reboot’s real strength, though, is in its originality.  Tintera has taken the idea of traditional zombies and turned it completely upside down while still alluding to the more traditional ideas of walking dead. It’s smart, compelling and the world building is great – evil corporations, when done well, are always a hell of a lot of fun.  Reboot is, rather inevitably, the first in a series but is both a solid start to what should be an interesting story and an excellent debut novel in that it’s hard to put it down once you pick it up.  Which you absolutely should.

This review was brought to you by Splendibird. Reboot is available now.  Thank you to the publisher, via Edelweiss, for sending us this title to review.

Top Ten Tuesday - Book Covers

This is my first Top Ten Tuesday!  I really enjoy reading this feature, hosted by The Broke and The Bookish and while I doubt I'll take part EVERY week (no point in actively setting myself up for a fall) I plan on taking part as often as possible.  This week, it's a topic close to my heart - book covers:

Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater

I love the minimal use of colours, the fairytale connotations of woodland and heart-shaped leaves and the blood spatter that hints at a darker story.

Sisters Red by Jackson Pearce

Another fairytale, clearly, and again using minimal colours, this one is beautifully clever in its double aspect.

The Fault in our Stars by John Green

Controversial in its simplicity I think this cover is rather beautiful.  It's eye catching and screams literary fiction.  Gorgeous.

The Radleys by Matt Haig

Er, clearly I like the use of red, white and black because this again is a cover that I found massively eye-catching.  A crossover novel, this is the YA cover - which, in all honestly, is far more striking than the adult one.

The Snow Spider by Jenny Nimmo

A change of pace here, but at eight years old this was the first book I ever bought for myself and that was largely due to the cover which my eight year old tastes thought was the most beautiful I'd ever seen.

Delirium by Lauren Oliver

This is the original UK hardback cover and is quite lovely.  Sadly, the UK publisher has seen fit to change the covers of Oliver's trilogy not once, but twice and they are now horribly generic and lack the beauty and simplicity seen here.

The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson

This is cheating slightly as the cover is enhanced by the packaging of this story as a whole. Still, the blue sky and rough texture of this cover image perfectly illustrate the bittersweet magicality of Nelson's wonderful story.

The Mockingbirds by Daisy Whitney

I like the starkness of this cover, the graphical nature of the bird and the colour scheme.  It's eye catching and simple making me want to pick up the book and find out more.

The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan

Again with the black and red, but this cover is so special.  Beautiful yet oddly discomfiting it has little relation to the contents of the book yet complements the feel of it perfectly.  Very clever.

Seraphina - Rachel Hartman

This is old school "here be dragons" sort of stuff.  Beautifully drawn, sumptuous to look at, perfect for the story found in its pages.  Sadly, the UK cover was far less alluring - I'm glad I have this one.

Shadow and Bone - Leigh Bardugo

Initially, this was published with a boring cover and a different title in the UK but now they've got with the programme and have produced this beauty.  Again, the simple colour scheme is eye-catching and the Russian aspects representative of the story without hitting you about the head with it.

And there you have it.  It appears that I like simple covers with few covers and, importantly, no people... who knew??  Let me know about your favourite pretties in the comments - I'm intrigued to see what others like.

The Light It Seeks (Review: Stone Junction by Jim Dodge)

Stone Junction: An Alchemical Potboiler  Jim Dodge
Rebel, Inc. 1997

Everybody has a few books which make a deep and lasting impression on them. Books which they read at just the right time, in just the right mood to ensure a well-worn copy remains on the nearest shelf for decades to come. Books which will inevitably worm their way into every single conversation about literature, no matter how tenuous the connection. For me there are three: Catch-22, my first ever 'serious' book and catalyst for my ever-strengthening pacifist views; Bad Wisdom for it's utterly compelling honesty and insanity; and Stone Junction: An Alchemical Potboiler, an indescribable wonder whose lack of general recognition both saddens me and makes me happy to belong to 'the club'. It is a masterpiece of magical realism, verging at times on urban fantasy and exhilarates as much as it breaks your heart. That it is one of only four volumes published by Jim Dodge (among them a collection of poems and a short children's book) makes it all the more precious.

Stone Junction is the story of Daniel Pearse, a young man emerging from a strange and wondrous childhood. Daniel finds himself adopted by the mysterious AMO, the Association of Magicians and Outlaws, an organisation his mother served throughout his early years. What follows is a coming-of-age story as Daniel finds himself passed from mentor to mentor through the ranks of the AMO, learning every imaginable trick of the trade along the way. From alchemy to card-sharking, he leaves no stone unturned in his quest for knowledge. Daniel is not just after an unorthodox education however; powering every step is his desire to finally discover what really happened on a pivotal night years before.

Throughout the course of his schooling Daniel is deposited with a number of unforgettable father-figures, some more than willing to take on a temporary apprentice, others less so. Here Dodge plays with the idea of Daniel's lack of a real father-figure, having never actually known his own. No matter how the mentors feel about their new charge, their vignettes are invariably as entertaining as they are inspiring and informative. Dodge draws on his own experience of inhabiting all manner of insalubrious worlds to paint each scene with enviable authenticity and warmth, suggesting an uncanny familiarity with everything from safe-cracking to drug ingestion. Even an extended game of Lo-Ball during the cards section is magically imbued with a level of interest and tension which should, given the subject matter, be impossible. When I first read this book back in university I even found myself hovering around the card games shelves in Waterstone's, pondering the feasibility of a career in Vegas (thankfully I had a combination of common sense and sloth to save me).

During the course of his training, Daniel begins to uncover his own hidden talents as well as honing those he has learnt and soon rises through the ranks of the AMO. Before long he is involved in the search for the Faith Diamond, a jewel of incredible size and purity which captures the imagination of all those who cross its path. Daniel is drawn to it instinctively and as time wears on it becomes more and more clear that the hunt for the diamond holds the answer to the fate of his long-lost mother and that which may await him as well.

Jim Dodge’s great strength is the warmth and authenticity which he manages to bestow on such a fantastical epic. You know you’re immersed in a world where magic is real, alchemy works and ornery old mules can speak but your disbelief remains suspended throughout. This is largely due to the strength of the characters themselves. Despite their otherworldly talents they remain the most down-to-earth, utterly real people you could hope to meet. You’ll find echoes of them in your own family and acquaintances and will even miss them once the story moves on and leaves them in the dust. Add to this cast an incredibly original, compelling and addictive story and you’ll wonder why this isn't paraded in bookstores everywhere as a paragon of modern literature.

Stone Junction is many things to many people. On the surface it’s an ensemble piece, focused on an unforgettable cast of characters who will carve out their own niche in your psyche and lurk there for quite some time afterwards, chattering and taunting. It’s a coming of age story revolving around a boy becoming a man and facing the demons of his past. It’s a tale of love, loss and redemption, of friendship and betrayal. It’s a touching homage to the author’s own youth, an autobiography viewed through the lens of an untamed imagination.

However you see Stone Junction, one thing is certain: it will not leave you unchanged. Take a deep breath, submerge yourself in it and let its wonders wash over you. You’ll not regret it.

This review was brought to you by Cannonball Jones. Both he and Splendibird read this book the same week, many years ago, and both urge you to pick up a copy NOW. Stone Junction is available in all good bookstores.