"Sanctuary" by Caryn Lix: a review

Yello readers. I hadn't read today's book all the way through when I wrote my last blog post (and I was a little depressed when I wrote my last blog post), so you got no book review then. Now, though, I have the book read, but I'm not going to wait for November.

I present to you a YA/sci-fi novel that came out last summer: Sanctuary by Caryn Lix.

(I am considerate to post these links here, you know that? If you follow them, it could render my review redundant. If you're still reading, thank you. Have a cookie.)

Anyway, here's my half-minute summary of Sanctuary: Kenzie is a junior guard on a prison spaceship for superpowered teenagers, and her mom is the commanding officer. If Kenzie's life went awry when she was captured by the inmates, you can only imagine how sideways things go when an unknown being invades the ship...

And here's my three-second summary of Sanctuary: It's X-Men meets Alien.

Yet, in spite of that brutally blunt summary, I do recommend this book. I would read it again myself.

Let me begin by getting my petty complaints out of the way. To begin, Kenzie represents another (presumably) white-girl protagonist whose name begins with a hard "K" sound. Katniss, Cassie, Cia (OK, that last one is an "s" sound, but whatever), and now Kenzie. It gets hard to pick them out of a nominal lineup, and I have a hard enough time remembering names already.

Second, there were a few plot developments that I predicted would happen from anywhere between 20 and 200 pages before they actually occurred. If anyone reading this has read Sanctuary themselves, they might understand why I shouted around the middle of the book, "So TALK to them already, Dr. Doolittle!"

Third, there is a near-end plot point that feels a little unnecessary--and poached from Divergent. If you don't want spoilers, skip all of the nest paragraph. No peeking.

OK, just in case someone's trying to peek anyway, let's just say someone named M_____ gets killed in the climactic chapter. He/she was getting a beatdown from that mystery creature I alluded to earlier, but he/she was hastened on his way by a stray bullet as Kenzie tried to shoot said creature. It was an accident, but it's still a big deal; after all, Kenzie was a guard over the prisoners, so M_____'s death would sound suspicious. Heck, M_____ even had a significant other. The accident is kept secret, but it gnaws at Kenzie for the rest of the book. To me, that sounded too much like that protagonist from Divergent who killed her friend's zombie-esqe boyfriend, carrying over into an awkward part of Book 2 (what's it called? Insurgent or Allegiant?). I think. I've only read the first book of Divergent, and I've heard things get awkward in Book 2. In Sanctuary, the event was traumatic but felt unnecessary--especially because the book was by no means done with trauma or death, and it dulled the payoff that the reader should have felt at the end of the book.

If the author is reading this, I should let you know that I can rant forever about the smallest things that bug me. Don't worry; even though I can bang on about those details forever (and I could never really get a clear picture in my head of that mystery creature), I did like the book.

In my Dystopian Teen Novel Review Checklist that I haven't used in forever, Sanctuary scores low, which is a good thing. Also, the characters--main and side--have genuine complexity, which I've missed in YA books lately. Kenzie's mom is not a complete evil-corporation-brainwash-success-story, and the incarcerates are not 100 percent angels. You can see everyone pretty clearly, from their personality quirks to their special skills to their appearances (I will say, though, that you end up seeing the abs of Kenzie's love interest VERY clearly; I could never tell if he was wearing his shirt or not). Best of all, nobody felt token. Nobody felt thrown in to make a publisher's quota--there is even a good Catholic in there, which made me feel all happy inside. There were a good number of cutesy romances in there, but the characters never felt held together with duct tape. They were genuine complementary romances, to which I can only scream "Thank goodness!" Best of all, there were brief moments of actual levity. Y'know, human beings' indomitable tendency to be ridiculous. Dear author, thank you for leaving those moments in. I still want more of them, but that's because I'm probably the Joker's apprentice at my current stage of mental development.

The setting? Excellent. Ninety percent of Sanctuary took place on the prison spaceship that shares the book's title. I loved the way that Kenzie's surroundings went from familiar to menacing through her changes as a person. The surroundings were descriptive, but not so much that it left no wiggle room for the imagination. I did keep superimposing mental snapshots of System Shock 2 in my mental images, though. They were fitting, but the graphics quality wasn't great (and people who've played the original game will laugh at my joke there). The point is, even though it was the home of a part horror story, I wanted to hang out in Sanctuary.

The story arc has more of an extended climax, not so much of an...um..."Dun dun DUUNNN!" *tssshh!* climax. Does that make sense? I didn't think so. Basically, instead of one big crap bucket hitting the fan at once, it's more of a steady disgusting fire hose. Personally, I'm a little shaky on that technique--it tends to weaken the ending's overall impact, in my opinion--but I'll let it slide this time. It kinda works. The rest of the plot has believable character arcs, and thankfully Kenzie herself has the mental wherewithal to question whether or not she has Stockholm Syndrome. Excellent, even if it doesn't excuse her from a possible positive diagnosis.

Also, my occasional plot predictions aside, Sanctuary had a good number of actual surprising plot twists. Yes!

In short, Sanctuary is a good book. It still has things that annoy me a little, but I would accept a personal copy if one comes my way. I would put it alongside my other books on the shelf without fear of them being contaminated by association. Sanctuary does pinch a lot of elements from X-Men and Alien, but it makes those elements its own special thing. It burgles but doesn't bungle, if you get my turn of phrase there. I think it could afford a slightly higher score on Goodreads, too. Maybe not a perfect score, but a little higher.

And hey, there's a sequel out...

A Writer's Bad Day

Hello, readers.

I am writing to you from the evening of Friday, October the 12th--and now that I think about it, that's one day after the birthday of those twins in the 1998 version of The Parent Trap. Of course, that doesn't have anything to do with anything. Well, maybe a little. On birthdays, people are usually celebrating. Today, right now at least, I'm kind of sad.

In case you haven't read my blog posts here at all--which is a very strong possibility--you might have noticed that I do not write in a sad manner. I like comedy. Heck, one of my posts was basically a prescription on the benefits of writing pure nonsense. Those kinds of posts are fun to write. They're a good, honest kind of fun for me. But today I'm introducing you to the flip side of my honesty, the side that's not so fun.

If you are a writer too, you've probably felt what I'm feeling a lot. You might be going through it yourself. If you're not a writer, there's still a chance you'll know what I'm talking about.

You know...the feeling of hopelessness.

Might as well write about it as long as I'm in the middle of it.

Today, the last of my submissions for my manuscript, my dream project that I have spent--and am still spending--most of my time upon, the last of its potential open avenues to publication fell through. As I am writing this, my project is not submitted anywhere. Nobody wanted it. I began writing my manuscript over five years ago and shamelessly fell in love with it. I love it so much that I can't bear the smallest imperfection with it, and so I've polished it obsessively from day one. Now I'm sitting in my apartment's "office", contemplating the fact that it's likely still crap.

There are a lot of things I can blame. A low social media following, for example. My Twitter stalkers, for example, creep upward by the day, but at their current rate they will not hit agent-attractive levels until I am an old man (old-er man; I feel like 60 right now). Don't get me started on Facebook. Don't get me started on this blog. My platforms have had their flash-in-the-pan moments, but nothing that seems to have stuck with anyone.

Even with the blame cushion of low followers, I still can only blame myself.

And here I am. No leads, no contacts, just a file sitting on my laptop. It's my first child really, and it's like I've been trying to get him in those programs that will make him most-likely-to-succeed. Now the scores from the tests have come back, and I've got to tell my project that he is not a child prodigy.

He might not even be that special.

By extension, maybe I'm nothing special either.

But...

(This might not take long to read, dear reader, but it is taking me a while to write. Let's just say I'm having a hard time seeing my computer screen.)

But...

I'm not done yet. It would be nice if I could quit, but I won't. I can't. It's a weird state I'm in, really. I don't care about me. I don't care if forgetting about my manuscript is an easier path. I put so much into making that little guy grow up. I've done my best to amend his faults, and Lord knows there have been a lot of those. Whenever I take him out to play, man, I notice something new every time, something I've never thought about before. Something that could be special. Maybe someone else will see that someday. My project has grown beyond me. Instead of it being a world I have created, it is a world where I step inside and play, and it has been so much fun I'd die if I could get you to join me.

Please, dear reader, if you've had moments where you are where I am, and all my depressing drivel here is but an echo to you, please, don't give up your project. If you can't hold on for your own sake, then do it for mine. It's people like you, holding on to your dreams, that give me strength to carry on with mine. Maybe if enough crazy people are scrambling to find an exit out of the mundane chamber, maybe one of us will find it, and if we stick together maybe we'll both get through. Pray for me, and I'll pray for you. I could use strength, with a little hope if it can be spared.

Anyway...have a good rest of your month, dear reader. I should be back in November. Maybe I'll be reviewing a new YA sci-fi book I've been reading; it's called Sanctuary by Caryn Lix, and it's so far, so good. I'm up to Chapter 21 right now, and things look pretty bleak for our heroes at this point. I think there's a chance it could turn out OK for them, though.

Is it any wonder I love stories so much...

****ing Swearing in ****ing Books

Happy October, everyone! Today's topic: swearing in books, followed by a quick review of Emma Trevayne's "Coda". Let us begin.

Finally, finally, finally I have a library card! Now I have officially moved into this town. It was soon after receiving this pages passport, though, that I had to come to grips with an inconvenient reality: my library has a painfully small Timothy Zahn section. Oh well. There's always inter-library loans.

But I had to read something and fast before I went into withdrawl. After looking through the Young Adult section (how can they have a whole manga section with no Fullmetal Alchemist, One Piece, or One Punch Man??), I happened across one of the rare YA sci-fi titles - "Coda" by Emma Trevayne. I took it home and read it in less than a week.

What did I think of it? Keep reading 'till the end.

All prospective parents, take caution: the F-bomb is a primary weapon in this book, not to mention some non-explicit sexual scenes. It looks like "Coda" was intended for the upper end of the Young Adult market, if it doesn't cross over into New Adult entirely. No doubt the language reflects the harsh realities the characters much face, but it got me thinking. Thinking, in particular, about how swear words are used in modern literature.

I hope none of you are saying to yourselves, "Oh, that crazy Catholic! Thinking himself the bastion of pure language in a world that's beneath him!" Well, it's a good thing none of you can see me through this laptop, swearing a blue streak at Team Fortress 2 whenever it locks up. Even though I'm not proud of that fact, I have to concede that cussing your tongue black is a legitimate gut reaction. It's raw, it's honest, it's an immediate reaction that opens a window into the character's head.

But do not start sprinkling the verbo-nuclear weapons into your manuscript just yet. In order to get my ****ing Seal of Approval, the book's voice has to earn it.

Per ezzempio, one of my favorite books of all time, hand on heart, is "The Martian" by Andy Weir (and looking at his website, bloody hell, he's got another book coming out that's already earned all those Awesome Book Awards). For the benefit of both of you who haven't read it, Mark Watney is the protagonist of "The Martian"--and he has a famously foul mouth. It is awesome. I think one of the best things about his swear word arsenal is that it is rarely used in anger; heck, when it is an angry F-bomb, it is not often directed at people. He normally swears at himself or his malfunctioning equipment. That's something that draws me in as a reader. It shows me he has humility in addition to a relatable patience level.

When characters in other books swear at somebody, never in humor and never at their own foibles, it repels me and, if I may make a presumption, other readers as well. Granted, a well-directed string of F-bombs and D-bullets is understandable in those moments of extreme duress and tension--and hopelessness. Those instances in general are powerful. However, the fallout of a casual yet hateful F-bomb is more repellent than attractive.

Having mildly defended the F-bomb, though, there is one trend I would like to see in the future. I want to see the return of the Shakespearian Insult. I don't mean you have to call people those Elizabethan turns of phrase that you tend to see in Facebook memes nowadays; I mean that we need more creative insults. Salami brain. Thrice-cursed mudslinger. Half-gut. Weasel teeth. Muffin head (OK, I stole that last one from the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes). Those (most of those) I thought up on the spot, so obviously they're not that good; but I hope they symbolize the trend I'd like to see.

In essence: once the character's creativity and resourcefulness is established in both language and action, then I tolerate the F-bombs. Then those weapons have their intended effect--the intensification of feeling.

On to my quick review of "Coda".

Here's my one-sentence synopsis: A teenager named Anthem finds himself leading a musical revolution against an all-controlling dystopian corporation that keeps its citizens in line with drugged music. It's a rather original concept for a normally overworked setting, and thankfully the good stuff doesn't stop there. "Coda" seems to have a fairly thought-out world that the author had a good time making. The protagonists are a diverse bunch--mostly from the lower class, where the Anthem lives. The romance angle, while sometimes cloying (but I am a rather romance-low writer myself), had more than a few understandable and interesting turns that reflected the plot. Overall, I thought it was a good book.

It doesn't have a completely clean bill of health, I must admit. The interesting concept and world, while interesting, are often barely explained and hard to visualize. The Evil Corporation felt more cartoonishly evil than well-intentioned-but-selfishly-executed. Anthem himself could have used a little extra zing; while I was interested in him as a character, I don't think he'd make a good buddy in real life. Anthem is also a bisexual (HOLD IT--keep reading, and stop that "Crazy Catholic" chant), but that angle still felt off. I hesitate to say it, and I might be digging too deep or shallow in saying it, but it sounded like Emma Trevayne didn't believe in that angle herself. I mean, as Anthem gets progressively weaned off dependence on the drugged music, he swings more and more hetero. It gives a faint impression that homosexuality is synonymous with a lack of impulse control. Whether or not that was intended, it feels like the gay angle was there to check off the box on publishers' wishlists, a popular trend that could come at the expense of a healthy story scrutiny.

I still favor and recommend "Coda". Honestly, the cons don't sink it, and this is a debut novel for Trevayne. It was an interesting read, and I might even read it again so I won't be as confused as I was on my first go-round.

To end this post, I end with the most important point I can make about "Coda"; it is far and away better than Rick Yancey's "5th Wave". Sorry Rick, but odds are I'll be grinding my teeth at that book until my dying day.

Or at least until I get put on musical drugs.