Red by Jordan Summers
Series: Dead World
Publisher: Tor, 2008
Genre: Science Fiction
Sub-genre: Urban fantasy
Rating: 2 pints of blood
Cover art is by Chris McGrath, and well, I'm a bit of a McGrath fangirl. This one's been sitting in my TBR pile for quite some time, but I do know that the cover art is what drew me to it. I like the depiction of cover chick here, simultaneously strong and vulnerable. Her stance is strong, her clothes cover her body, and the bloody cover splotches are fantastic. Ok, I could do without naked man in the moon, but I really like the monochromatic tones, and despite the fact the book mentions her long hair or has the heroine pull her hair back in a ponytail more than once, the short and spiky look here suits her well enough that's pretty much how I envisioned her.
Also the edges of the pages have been dyed a deep red, which is pretty striking. And also cool.
Gina --known as "Red" by her teammates on the elite tactical team due to her reputation for causing bloodshed-- has devoted her life to protecting the world from the dangerous Unknowns and their criminal careers. She's among the best at what she does, but her way of working is different from the standard, and as a result her only friend is the AI in her navcom unit, Rita.
When she finds a dead woman torn to pieces, the official statement is that she was killed by animals, but something about the scene doesn't sit right with Red. She's driven to find justice for the woman, and the trail leads her to a nearby small town. If she wants to investigate, the only way she can do it is privately, without the backup of the tactical unit, so she books some time off and heads to Nuria. The sheriff, Morgan, promises to help her, but right away Gina discovers there's something unusual about this town. Nothing she can put her finger on exactly, but there are secrets here, and the sheriff might be at the centre of them. Which is unfortunate, because it means spending more time around a man she finds herself incredibly attracted to, despite having no intention of acting on those feelings.
Of course, Morgan and Nuria aren't hiding the only secrets around. The deeper she gets into her investigation, the more Red begins to wonder if she might not be involved in all this somehow. But of course that would be ridiculous, since her entire life can't possibly be a lie, can it?
The premise of Red is meant to be a genre-bending romantic/sci-fi/urban fantasy version of Little Red Riding Hood. The tagline at the back of the book asks "What if Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf turned out to be the same person?" It's not so much a retelling as it is a new story using the fairy tale as an inspiration, although references do abound, at first subtle, then moving to more blatant shout-outs.
At its best, the prose is passable and doesn't detract from the story. At its worst... well. On twitter a few days ago, Victoria Dahl mentioned the possibility of running a workshop on how to write sexy sex scenes. She said "First bullet point in my sex workshop: if a descriptive word about your heroine's genitals could also be applied to a cave or a wound, don't use. Examples: damp, moist, oozing, gaping, pulsing, weeping, stalagmite, may house bears, evidence of prehistoric use, required 32 stitches, guano." Suffice it to say Red fails this particular bullet point on pretty well every level, although at least there was no reference to bears or prehistoric use.
There's also a tendancy to abuse the poor comma. Either Summers or her editor had to be receiving cash every time they used a comma, because there's really no need for the extra bit of punctuation in a sentence like "The streets were just as quiet, as when she'd left." It's distracting, and blatant comma abuse makes the punctuation look like book tears. Why would you want to make the book cry?
The mystery itself builds pretty well, as does the tension between Red and Morgan. Readers will no doubt realize where the story's going before the characters do, but to the heroine's credit, it's not so much that she's slow as that she's lacking sufficient proof to make the accusation. Once she finally does make the accusation (with circumstantial evidence only), Morgan does take her seriously, although he has every reason not to. Unfortunately, all this build-up flatlines around where we should get a climax, since the reader misses most of it. Morgan goes to confront the culprint... and immediately the viewpoint changes to Red, who's nowhere near. By the time she gets there, the big showdown is half over, and she misses most of what's left dealing with a secondary troublemaker. Granted, secondary troublemaker is clearly being set up as the main antagonist for book two, but he's dealt with so swiftly in Red that it's not worth the exchange to miss the main event.
Something else that should be noted about the point of view: it shifts from Morgan and Red, both covered in third person past tense (and with bits of head-hopping) to having the occasional chapter narrated by the killer in first person present tense. In fact, the book opens with the killer, and there are all manner of trigger warnings here. He sexually pursues a young woman, intending to claim her as his mate and winds up being more violent than he means to, killing her before he gets a chance to do anything else, although he's still satisfied on more than one level by the encounter. Naturally the shift to first person is to hide the identity of the killer as long as possible, although the shift from past to present tense and back again is a little harder to adjust to.
The integration of technology with aspects that are usually supernatural (but here are explained through science) was really well done. The world-building might actually be the best part of the book, although there's not a lot of detail about anything outside the immediate story. The details that are there are nicely done, and I would imagine more is explored in the following two books, as once Red discovers the truth about herself and her background, she'd be naturally inclined to do a bit more research.
Red is currently out of print, but is readily available as an e-book or second-hand in mass market paperback
.
Publisher: Tor, 2008
Genre: Science Fiction
Sub-genre: Urban fantasy
Rating: 2 pints of blood
Cover art is by Chris McGrath, and well, I'm a bit of a McGrath fangirl. This one's been sitting in my TBR pile for quite some time, but I do know that the cover art is what drew me to it. I like the depiction of cover chick here, simultaneously strong and vulnerable. Her stance is strong, her clothes cover her body, and the bloody cover splotches are fantastic. Ok, I could do without naked man in the moon, but I really like the monochromatic tones, and despite the fact the book mentions her long hair or has the heroine pull her hair back in a ponytail more than once, the short and spiky look here suits her well enough that's pretty much how I envisioned her.
Also the edges of the pages have been dyed a deep red, which is pretty striking. And also cool.
Gina --known as "Red" by her teammates on the elite tactical team due to her reputation for causing bloodshed-- has devoted her life to protecting the world from the dangerous Unknowns and their criminal careers. She's among the best at what she does, but her way of working is different from the standard, and as a result her only friend is the AI in her navcom unit, Rita.
When she finds a dead woman torn to pieces, the official statement is that she was killed by animals, but something about the scene doesn't sit right with Red. She's driven to find justice for the woman, and the trail leads her to a nearby small town. If she wants to investigate, the only way she can do it is privately, without the backup of the tactical unit, so she books some time off and heads to Nuria. The sheriff, Morgan, promises to help her, but right away Gina discovers there's something unusual about this town. Nothing she can put her finger on exactly, but there are secrets here, and the sheriff might be at the centre of them. Which is unfortunate, because it means spending more time around a man she finds herself incredibly attracted to, despite having no intention of acting on those feelings.
Of course, Morgan and Nuria aren't hiding the only secrets around. The deeper she gets into her investigation, the more Red begins to wonder if she might not be involved in all this somehow. But of course that would be ridiculous, since her entire life can't possibly be a lie, can it?
The premise of Red is meant to be a genre-bending romantic/sci-fi/urban fantasy version of Little Red Riding Hood. The tagline at the back of the book asks "What if Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf turned out to be the same person?" It's not so much a retelling as it is a new story using the fairy tale as an inspiration, although references do abound, at first subtle, then moving to more blatant shout-outs.
At its best, the prose is passable and doesn't detract from the story. At its worst... well. On twitter a few days ago, Victoria Dahl mentioned the possibility of running a workshop on how to write sexy sex scenes. She said "First bullet point in my sex workshop: if a descriptive word about your heroine's genitals could also be applied to a cave or a wound, don't use. Examples: damp, moist, oozing, gaping, pulsing, weeping, stalagmite, may house bears, evidence of prehistoric use, required 32 stitches, guano." Suffice it to say Red fails this particular bullet point on pretty well every level, although at least there was no reference to bears or prehistoric use.
There's also a tendancy to abuse the poor comma. Either Summers or her editor had to be receiving cash every time they used a comma, because there's really no need for the extra bit of punctuation in a sentence like "The streets were just as quiet, as when she'd left." It's distracting, and blatant comma abuse makes the punctuation look like book tears. Why would you want to make the book cry?
The mystery itself builds pretty well, as does the tension between Red and Morgan. Readers will no doubt realize where the story's going before the characters do, but to the heroine's credit, it's not so much that she's slow as that she's lacking sufficient proof to make the accusation. Once she finally does make the accusation (with circumstantial evidence only), Morgan does take her seriously, although he has every reason not to. Unfortunately, all this build-up flatlines around where we should get a climax, since the reader misses most of it. Morgan goes to confront the culprint... and immediately the viewpoint changes to Red, who's nowhere near. By the time she gets there, the big showdown is half over, and she misses most of what's left dealing with a secondary troublemaker. Granted, secondary troublemaker is clearly being set up as the main antagonist for book two, but he's dealt with so swiftly in Red that it's not worth the exchange to miss the main event.
Something else that should be noted about the point of view: it shifts from Morgan and Red, both covered in third person past tense (and with bits of head-hopping) to having the occasional chapter narrated by the killer in first person present tense. In fact, the book opens with the killer, and there are all manner of trigger warnings here. He sexually pursues a young woman, intending to claim her as his mate and winds up being more violent than he means to, killing her before he gets a chance to do anything else, although he's still satisfied on more than one level by the encounter. Naturally the shift to first person is to hide the identity of the killer as long as possible, although the shift from past to present tense and back again is a little harder to adjust to.
The integration of technology with aspects that are usually supernatural (but here are explained through science) was really well done. The world-building might actually be the best part of the book, although there's not a lot of detail about anything outside the immediate story. The details that are there are nicely done, and I would imagine more is explored in the following two books, as once Red discovers the truth about herself and her background, she'd be naturally inclined to do a bit more research.
Red is currently out of print, but is readily available as an e-book or second-hand in mass market paperback
.