Pure by Julianna Baggott

Published by Grand Central Publishing on February 8, 2012

Nine years after the Detonations, Pressia (who has a doll's head where her hand should be) is about to turn sixteen and is worried that she'll be picked up by the revolutionary group OSR and turned into a killer ... or perhaps a target. Her story initially alternates with that of Partridge, a boy who, though fortunate to live inside the Dome, resents his powerful father and wonders about his mother's fate. Inhabitants of the Dome think of those who live outside the dome as "wretches." The wretches disparagingly refer to those who live inside the Dome as "Pures." The wretches improbably experienced "mutations" during the Detonations; things they were carrying are now bonded with their bodies. Some less fortunate wretches fused with the earth, some fused with buildings, some with animals, some with machinery, some with other people (collections of people all fused together are called "Groupies"). All this fusing is supposedly the result of bombs that "disrupted cellular structures" combined with "nanotechnology that promotes the self-assembly of molecules." I'm not a scientist but his sounds more like doubletalk than science to me. If you can swallow the premise -- and it's difficult to take seriously a novel that gives new meaning to My Mother the Car -- Pure tells a surprisingly entertaining story.

Believing that his mother might still be alive, Partridge does the unthinkable: he leaves the Dome to search for her. It is of course inevitable that Pressia, fleeing from the OSR, will encounter Partridge, fleeing from the Dome. Although it seems that the story depends upon this fortuitous (and formulaic) coincidence, the plot is more complex than it first appears.

Pure is difficult to pigeonhole. It combines elements of a horror story (a wolfman carries off a child, a Dust creature reaches up from the ground to snatch Partridge) with a fantasy (the fused people strike me as more fantasy than science fiction), blends in a family drama, adds action scenes that echo The Hunger Games with a twist of Escape from New York, incorporates some Soviet-style darkness balanced with stirring heroism, and even sneaks in romantic subplots.

What to make of the resulting mashup? Labels aside, Pure is an appealing, smart, quirky addition to the ever-growing field of post-apocalyptic fiction. Although the plot is often derivative, the novel's strength lies in its characters. Except for a fused character who is very much like a two-headed character Harlan Ellison created for a short story and reprised in an episode of Masters of Science Fiction, Julianna Baggott's leading characters are unique individuals with surprisingly well developed personalities (something that is far too rare in fantasy and science fiction).

Dystopian fiction often offers a political point of view but it's rather subdued in Pure. In that regard, Baggott's best thought is that the prisons and "rehabilitation centers" of the future are built tall so that people know "that you live under their roof or in their shadow." Some of the wretches have developed odd religious beliefs -- they consider the Detonations to be punishment for their sins -- that cleverly reflect the oddness of some contemporary religious dogma. A group of (for lack of a better term) feminist wretches blame the mess that has been made of the world on men (a gender whose members are known to the women as "Deaths"); they prefer to live in a heavily armed collective. The mess came about, in part, because of the convolution of church and state. While all of this is interesting if not entirely original, the novel's larger message, I think, is that "when you live in a place of safety and comfort," it's easy to ignore the less fortunate who are hidden from your view. That's always worth remembering.

Still, Pure is more a well told story about troubled people than a novel of ideas. Neat plot twists require the characters to rethink their lives. Pressia's descriptions of her "heart-pounding" feelings for Bradwell occasionally come a bit too close to chick lit for my taste, but in most respects the writing is solid. Despite her deceptively ordinary prose, there's a poignancy in Baggott's writing that's rare in science fiction. Pure is a fine novel, one that makes me look forward to the remaining installments of Baggott's trilogy.

RECOMMENDED

The Eden Prophecy by Graham Brown

Published by Bantam on January 31, 2012

Stop me if you've heard this before: terrorists are about to unleash a dangerous new virus on an unsuspecting world. Yes, you've heard it before. You're also familiar with the chase scenes (this book features a car and motorcycle chasing a boat and dune buggies chasing ATVs), gunfights, explosions, hot women, studly men, and exotic locales, all standard ingredients in the recipe for a movie-style thriller. There's even a villain named Draco and some international finance intrigue involving stolen artwork. So why bother to open this book when it sounds like bad imitation of a Bond movie? A few reasons come to mind.

First, the virus is designed to infect cells but leave them intact, rather than destroying them as would a typical virus. The purpose of the infection isn't immediately clear, but once it was revealed I had to give Graham Brown credit for avoiding the obvious. His virus isn't unique -- I've seen the concept before -- but it isn't trite. Second, the terrorist group isn't one of the usual suspects (hint: it isn't Islamic!). Third, before it turns into a Bond film, the novel sounds like a Dan Brown story, complete with archeologists and a lost scroll written in a lost language that holds the key to .... something. The intersection of the two thriller subgenres produces an intriguing result, even if it's not quite new. Fourth, the novel has important things to say about overpopulation and torture and the inequities that result from making medical research largely dependent upon a market economy. There's also a useful theological message: Question authority, even (or especially) if the authority is biblical, but don't invite Armageddon to prove the falsity of divinity.

But enough of messages and plot points. The real reason to read The Eden Prophecy, despite its familiarity, is simple: it's a good book. In addition to the standard story about good guys saving humanity from bad guys, there is a more personal story about saving a child from a fast-approaching death, although it fades into the background until the final chapters. The good guys, National Research Institute operative Danielle Laidlaw and an ex-mercenary named Hawker, have been road tested in Brown's earlier novels, Black Rain and Black Sun. (Reading the prior novels isn't necessary to understand this one, but doing so would enhance a reader's appreciation of the secret revealed at the novel's climax.) Laidlaw and Hawker aren't complex characters but Brown gives them good chemistry. The story races along faster than a turbo-charged dune buggy. Brown's writing style is clean and direct, well-suited to an action-driven story. The "race against the clock" ending might be too predictable, too movie-like despite the insertion of a final plot twist, but it's consistent with the novel's slightly outrageous, cocky attitude.

The Eden Prophecy is well researched: in addition to the Old Testament (as suggested by the title), we hear about ancient languages and Gilgamesh and telomeres and Middle Eastern geography and the 5.9K event (a geological event, not a race). A surprising amount of information is packed into this novel. Still, I don't recommend The Eden Prophecy for its history or science lessons. I recommend it because it's fun.

RECOMMENDED

The Lost Saints of Tennessee by Amy Franklin-Willis

Published by Atlantic Monthly Press on February 7, 2012

In 1985, Ezekial Cooper is 42 and sufficiently depressed about his failed life to contemplate ending it. Having dropped out of the college life he loved and its promise of a rewarding future, Zeke returned to grunt work near his hometown in Tennessee. Years later, Zeke is experiencing something more serious than a midlife crisis. His ex-wife, Jackie, has recently remarried. He feels distant from his daughters. His mother has lung cancer. His twin brother Carter is nearly ten years dead and Zeke can't recover from the loss -- he wonders "how can there be me without him?" To show us why Zeke's life has gone so terribly wrong, Amy Franklin-Willis takes the story back to 1946, introducing Zeke and Carter as children. The story then alternates between past and present.

The chapters outlining Zeke's past focus on his relationship with Jackie and Carter. Zeke is bright enough to win a scholarship to UVA, which his mother pressures him to accept for her own vicarious pleasure, even though Zeke would be more comfortable attending UT. Carter is slow; he won't make it past eighth grade. Part one reveals little else about the past.

The 1985 Zeke is so in love with his old mangy dog Tucker that he's an easy character to like. His sister Rosie is equally easy to like: she's perceptive and sassy (his other sister is less endearing). Zeke's elderly cousin Georgia and her husband Osborne are hard-working and kind-hearted, although Osborne's poor health is affecting his behavior. Zeke eventually embarks on a trip to their Virginia home, where he stayed while attending UVA, a time when "life offered a thousand possible destinations." Journeying toward self-awareness by escaping to the past is a novelistic convention that's been done to death, but Willis offers a fresh take on a familiar plot.

The reader learns more about Carter in part two, which is told from the perspective of Zeke's dying mother Lillian, a woman who has experienced more than enough trouble to fill two lifetimes. Her tale of regret is often told in fiction: childhood dreams pushed aside by the consequences of poor choices, the burden of unwanted responsibilities, coping mechanisms that lead to equal parts of relief and grief, self-assigned guilt for tragedies beyond her control. Like her son, Lillian is ready to die. Her story is written in a distinctive voice that sets it apart from Zeke's, but -- perhaps because it lacks the immediacy of part one -- I found it less compelling.

Part two is merely a lengthy interlude, however, as part three returns the focus to Zeke. The novel has by that point lost some of its momentum, and the story of Zeke's present has lost some of its urgency, as well. The story of his past moves to the forefront in part three. It is dramatic and occasionally gut-wrenching. The flashbacks to Zeke's college years give meaningful context to Zeke's present. By the time the story brings us back to the present, when Zeke's potential new love interest (Elle) tells Zeke that "everybody's got a closet full of hurt tucked away somewhere," we are close to understanding the contents of Zeke's closet; we understand why Zeke might be just as incapable of growing his love for Elle as he was of sustaining his love for Jackie. We also understand why he rejects his mother's love, why he tells her "The way you love is like sucking all the air out of a person's lungs and then telling him you'll breathe for him."

The story of Zeke's present eventually turns into a fairly conventional portrayal of a man confronting (and coming to terms with) the demons that have tormented him for most of his adult life. The emotions displayed by Zeke and his family members come across as honest, the story isn't overtly manipulative or weepy, but it's the sort of family drama that has been written many times before. The novel builds to a climax -- the revelation of what really happened on the day Carter died -- that disappointed me; it isn't much of a revelation, and it certainly isn't climactic. Given the buildup, I expected a more powerful finish. It all wraps up too neatly and all the warm fuzziness in the last chapters is a bit much. For its strong characters and high points, this is a novel I recommend, but given its weak ending, I wouldn't put it at the top of anyone's reading list.

RECOMMENDED

Ragnarök: The End of the Gods by A.S. Byatt

First published in Great Britain in 2011; published by Grove Press on February 7, 2012

How does something come out of nothing? A thin girl in England during World War II compares creation myths as she ponders the question. Her church teaches her of a "grandfatherly figure" who created everything from the sun to the peacock in six days. Her reading of Asgard and the Gods introduces her to a more appealing explanation. In the empty gulf between the cold mists of the north and the hot flames of the south known as Ginnungagap, a giant named Ymir is formed in the steam of melting icebergs. Ymir becomes the father of "the frost-giants, who budded from his bulk" before he is slaughtered by the first gods: Odin, Wili, and We. The gods make the world from the flesh, blood, and bones of the dismembered giant. Yet nothing lasts forever; even gods must die. Ragnorök refers to the Norse end-times, the judgment of the gods, the twilight of their reign. The gods do not go down gently; as befits a myth, their battle to survive is epic.

The thin girl does not want to consider the possibility that the creation myths are related -- that, for instance, a flood in Asgard might be "an echo of the story of Noah and the Flood" -- because she likes to believe the Asgard stories have an independent foundation. She nonetheless sees similarities between biblical stories and those of Asgard, comparisons that are insightful yet plausibly within the ken of a bright child. The thin girl enjoys but does not believe the stories of Asgard, any more than she believes Greek myths, fairy tales, or the stories told by the vicar at her church. Reading the stories gives her reason to ponder the nature of belief and to ask herself not just why she doesn't believe, but why she doesn't want to believe.

Using the thin girl as a focal point, A.S. Byatt selectively retells the tale of the gods of Asgard from their beginning to their end. Unlike some other entries in the Cannongate/Grove series of books in which contemporary writers reimagine a myth, Byatt does not modernize the myth but uses the character of the thin girl to suggest the ancient tale's relevance to the modern world. The child, familiar with the news of the war that is killing and maiming her countrymen, finds it easy to relate to the brutality of the Norse gods. As the thin girl listens at night to "doom droning in the sky," she imagines Odin's warriors and hunters charging through the heavens. Byatt also analyzes the nature of storytelling as the thin girl anticipates events that are demanded by the conventions of fiction. For instance, a promise that a god will never be harmed assures the opposite: "the shape of the story means that he must be harmed."

The Norse myth of Yggdrasil -- an immense ash tree that is "a world in itself" -- will be familiar to dedicated science fiction fans as the inspiration for various worlds and vessels that share its name. Other familiar figures from the myth include the shapeshifter Loki ("a being who was neither this nor that"), and, of course, the thunder god Thor, complete with hammer. Less familiar (to me) are the goddess Frigg and her not-so-invulnerable son Baldur, whose story illustrates the mischief that gods can make.

Byatt's prismatic prose, sparkling and colorful, transforms the mundane -- mushrooms sprouting near a tree, fish carried by ocean currents -- into something glorious. As lovely as the prose is, however, a few lengthy descriptive sections of the text (particularly those concerning Jörmungandr the snake) are a bit too ponderous. And while Ragnorök: The End of the Gods is a solid and enjoyable retelling of the Norse myth, it is just that: as a retelling rather than a modernization, it offers little that is new, despite the thin girl's apt comparisons of the mythical warriors to the war that rages around her. (In a lengthy essay appended as an afterword, Byatt explains in greater detail than necessary why she wrote the story as she did.)

A final, post-war chapter addressing the thin girl's adjustment to peacetime seems uncomfortably out of place. Still, the retold Norse myths are enough. Norse gods, like nearly all gods, are petty and vengeful, qualities that lend themselves to entertaining drama, as well as lessons about how mere mortals might live richer lives than gods.

RECOMMENDED

The Third Coincidence by David Bishop

Published by Oceanview Publishing on February 6, 2012

A Justice of the Supreme Court is murdered. Inexplicably, the Supreme Court Police fail to enhance their protection of the remaining Justices, making it easy for a second Justice to be assassinated. Then a Federal Reserve Governor is killed, followed by more targets from the Court and the Fed. Despite the absence of evidence that a foreign power is responsible for the assassination, the president asks a CIA agent to assemble a task force to find the killer. In the real world, every available FBI and Secret Service agent would be investigating the murders, plus the local police, the U.S. Marshal's Office, the Supreme Court Police, and any other law enforcement agency that could reasonably justify sharing in the glory of finding the killer. In the world of The Third Coincidence, the crime is solved by Jack McCall and a handful of people who spend most of their time eating meals together and thinking lustful thoughts about each other.

Finding the killer should take all of thirty seconds given that he's a crackpot whose political grievances are inconsistent and laughable, but the novel posits this loony toon as a serious threat to governmental institutions. Frankly, if it were that easy for deranged individuals with screwy political beliefs to kill important members of government, we wouldn't have a government. That murders of highly placed officials would continue to occur when those officials are under constant surveillance requires more credulity than I was able to muster.

I'm tired of thrillers that imagine the hero to be a personal friend of the president, particularly when they lead to inane dialog like this: "`I often think about those nights we spent in embassy kitchens eating your homemade ice cream,' the president said .... `Do you still make those Grand Marnier bonbons?'" Friendship or not, it is impossible to believe that McCall would be given a leading role in the investigation. A president who puts his buddy in charge of the investigation despite his buddy's lack of law enforcement experience and who publicizes his idiocy by having the buddy give a televised news conference, would be committing political suicide.

I'm also tired of unoriginal supporting characters, including killers who taunt their hunters. McCall assembles a stereotypical "task force" that includes a sexy FBI agent who wants Jack to desire her so she can reject him, a gifted computer whiz, local cops who think the feds are snobs but love McCall anyway, and a former military sniper whose job is to sit around in case the task force decides someone needs to be shot from a distance. Of course, McCall, the hacker, and the sniper have no law enforcement experience, which makes it even less likely that real cops would take direction from the task force.

We're told that McCall is a stud who has had "flings" with women all over D.C.; if so, they must like his looks because he has no personality with which to wow them. The other characters are just as thin, but McCall is laughably one-dimensional. He pictures himself as a boulder "standing strong against the forces of evil." Sadly for the reader, McCall is about as interesting as a boulder. He is given to self-righteous platitudes and apparently views himself as more patriotic than other Americans because he works for the CIA -- as if patriotism has anything to do with catching a nutbag killer. My impression is that The Third Coincidence is intended as a message novel -- the message being "true patriots risk their lives for their country" -- but a message is no substitute for good storytelling. To the extent that a few paragraphs deliver a more salient message about the legitimacy of the Supreme Court's function as a guardian of constitutional rights, it gets lost in the morass that precedes and follows it.

In one or two chapters, David Bishop manufactures a high level of tension. Those are unfortunately offset by chapters in which characters sit around a table stating the obvious. They spend most of their time praising each other as government officials continue to die. By the end I was thinking "Just catch the guy already." I have no problem with Bishop's prose -- he is a capable writer -- but it takes more than a clean writing style to make a novel work. Dull characters and a silly plot make The Third Coincidence unworthy of attention.

NOT RECOMMENDED