The Bern Saga by Hugh Howey
Usually when a movie or book attempts multiple genres, they all wash out. Either so many things blow up you're lucky if the High Concept get a single sentence; or, as in Embassytown, there's so much High Concept, you're lucky if you get any story; or the romance feels tacked on; or the invented technology or world is so inadequately explained, you can't help laughing; or the military storyline drowns everything else out; or the time travel doesn't make sense, etc.. Usually you walk out of or close these things wishing to God there'd been one, just one truly suspenseful build-up and climax that brought it all together. Aw hell, most of the time you wish any one goddamn book or movie in any one genre manages a suspenseful build-up and climax. Hugh Howey's "YA" Bern Saga tetralogy grants you that wish like a masterful fairy godfather in about eight genres.
The self-published author was told by a traditional publishing house to change the titles and he refused. Good for him. If people are turned off by the kiddie-sounding titles, it's their loss. Ditto if they can't handle a few typos and at least one odd scene ending. Self-published and self-proofread --it's homemade--better cause it ain't perfeck!
Molly Fyde and the Parsona Rescue,
Molly Fyde and the Land of Light,
Molly Fyde and the Blood of Billions, and
Molly Fyde and the Fight for Peace as a tetralogy does start out juvie--there is a teenaged protagonist-- but in the few months the four books chronicle, it becomes a story about very un-childish things, e.g. genocide, a masochist, hyperboreal steampunk sociopaths, blood-draining politicos, etc.. Martin Luther King, Jr., once said, 'the true measure of a man is not where he stands in times of complacency, but where he stands in times of adversity." Howey excels in measuring his characters, no matter what age or species. From the first we see Molly Fyde bucking the system at an all-male starship academy and, like Larssen's Salander, getting bucked right on back. From there on out, Howey's Molly uniquely draws together a most unlikely cohort to beat the odds, end a war, and root out the evil in two universes. But it's never easy work. Adversity is the fertile soil of Molly's genius. She busts out of certain death situations using math, physics, psychological appeals, you name it-- this is one helluva teenager.
Highly recommended. Nonstop action, great characters and prose that doesn't get in the way of keeping you on the edge of your seat, not even in the eight or so genres it takes to tell this one story.
The self-published author was told by a traditional publishing house to change the titles and he refused. Good for him. If people are turned off by the kiddie-sounding titles, it's their loss. Ditto if they can't handle a few typos and at least one odd scene ending. Self-published and self-proofread --it's homemade--better cause it ain't perfeck!
Molly Fyde and the Parsona Rescue,
Molly Fyde and the Land of Light,
Molly Fyde and the Blood of Billions, and
Molly Fyde and the Fight for Peace as a tetralogy does start out juvie--there is a teenaged protagonist-- but in the few months the four books chronicle, it becomes a story about very un-childish things, e.g. genocide, a masochist, hyperboreal steampunk sociopaths, blood-draining politicos, etc.. Martin Luther King, Jr., once said, 'the true measure of a man is not where he stands in times of complacency, but where he stands in times of adversity." Howey excels in measuring his characters, no matter what age or species. From the first we see Molly Fyde bucking the system at an all-male starship academy and, like Larssen's Salander, getting bucked right on back. From there on out, Howey's Molly uniquely draws together a most unlikely cohort to beat the odds, end a war, and root out the evil in two universes. But it's never easy work. Adversity is the fertile soil of Molly's genius. She busts out of certain death situations using math, physics, psychological appeals, you name it-- this is one helluva teenager.
Highly recommended. Nonstop action, great characters and prose that doesn't get in the way of keeping you on the edge of your seat, not even in the eight or so genres it takes to tell this one story.