Unbreakable by W.C. Bauers

Published by Tor Books on January 13, 2015

After she lost her parents, Promise Paen left the planet Montana to join the Republican Marines. The Marines send her back to Montana to act as a liaison between the planet's government and an Admiral who is trying to gain the planet's trust. The Republic is at odds with the Lusitanian Empire which has designs on Montana. Against all odds, Paen and the Marines she commands, along with a ragtag local militia, eventually defend Montana from the Empire's incursion.

As is common (and unoriginal) in military science fiction, flashbacks tell us about Promise's enlistment and training. Those obligatory scenes are not as lengthy or familiar as in some novels, but their inclusion makes Unbreakable read like formula fiction. Which, in fact, it is.

Like many military novels (not just sf), Unbreakable includes a scene in which a grizzled officer quotes from All Quiet on the Western Front and admonishes younger soldiers that they should never glorify war. The remaining scenes, of course, glorify war while pretending to do the opposite. Stories of that nature can be fun but they are rarely deep. Unbreakable isn't All Quiet on the Western Front. It is a moderately enjoyable novel that can be quickly read and forgotten. Phrases like "the weapon belched fire" and "give the [enemy] a one-way ticket to hell" and "grenades rained death" are best forgotten quickly.

Like the story, characters are superficial. The ghost of Promise's mother shows up regularly to offer unsolicited advice. That's a clumsy literary device that I could have done without. Promise's relationship insecurity ("I'm not good with men and I don't feel pretty") is more suited to a trashy romance novel than military sf. So are the scenes in which "Promise's insides turned to goo" because her dance partner touches her back. My brain turns to goo when I read sentences like that.

The last long stretch of the novel is a battle to save Montana from the Empire. It is filled with the usual chest-thumping Marine bromides about duty and loyalty and bravery and semper fidelis. Promise gets to make stirring speeches that make her ghost mother proud. Nothing in this section is fresh. Readers who enjoy reading this sort of thing over and over will be happy to experience standard battle scenes fought by standard soldiers with standard high tech weaponry. Readers looking for original thought will come away disappointed. Unbreakable is no worse than average military sf but it is certainly no better than average.

NOT RECOMMENDED

A Pleasure and a Calling by Phil Hogan

Published by Picador on January 6, 2015

William Heming is one of the most unusual protagonists I've encountered in a crime novel. He's likable enough if you overlook his penchant for killing people when it makes his life more convenient. He has some other odd habits that, in a real person, would be a bit frightening. At the same time, A Pleasure and a Calling is so well written that I was happy to get to know Heming as a fictional character, even if I wouldn't want to be his neighbor.

The Cooksons return from vacation to find a week-old dead body in their garden. Heming is their estate agent. About two-thirds of the way into the novel, we learn how the corpse arrived at its destination. We work our way there in a story that moves with a deliberate pace as Phil Hogan devotes attention to characters, setting, and dark humor.

Since he was a young boy, Heming has been a snoop. Early chapters in the novel recount his life-long obsession with stealing keys, entering homes and offices, learning people's secrets, and occasionally taking a souvenir (a ball of rubber bands, for instance). A career in real estate, where keys are simply handed to him, is a perfect calling. Heming is not a thief in the conventional sense. He steals the privacy of his victims, solely to satisfy his own curiosity. That makes him creepy but mostly harmless -- until his hobby gets the better of him.

Back in the present, Heming has a mild confrontation with a man named Douglas Sharp whose dog left an unwelcome deposit on a walking path. The intensely curious Heming makes it his business to learn about Sharp. He becomes convinced that Sharp is having an affair with a librarian named Abigail and, having taken an instant dislike to the man, decides to meddle in his life. In the course of meddling, William becomes unaccountably besotted with Abigail.

The consequences of Heming's prying and meddling occupy the last two-thirds of the book. Most of the consequences result from Heming's frequently mistaken certainty that something nefarious is afoot. He sets in motion a chain of events that are perfectly logical and highly entertaining. In fact, the logic of the story sets it apart from most modern crime novels. Events build upon one another in a way that makes an improbable story seem perfectly natural.

Heming is an engaging character although, in real life, he would justly be regarded as sinister and well deserving of incarceration. He is a bit of a rogue, using women and leaving them, although he leaves to protect himself from falling in love and the pain of love's inevitable loss. He's charming and polite and never dishonest about his intentions, so the women don't seem to mind being used. Firm in the belief that the only constant in life is change, William prefers "the intimacy of serial love" to the illusion of lasting love.

A Pleasure and a Calling is a leisurely novel of elegant prose. Hogan develops tension at appropriate moments but this is more a character-based novel than a thriller. It took me some time to invest in the story but Hogan's prose pulled me forward until I became hooked on the characters and the unusual plot. I'm not sure the story lends itself to a sequel, but if Hogan decides to revisit the character, I'd be happy to read more about his peculiar obsession.

RECOMMENDED

Aquarium by David Vann

Published by Atlantic Monthly Press on March 3, 2015

Aquarium is one of the most intense novels I've ever read. It isn't about fish, but it is, to the extent that fish teach us about people. In part, Aquarium is a coming of age story, the story of a girl named Caitlin who discovers her own identity and comes to accept harsh truths about her mother Sheri.

Aquarium is also about the possibility of change. The waspfish lives fifty feet underwater where light barely penetrates. Rise a few feet and the waspfish might experience a small change "as something enormous." So too might people who step outside the "narrow range" in which they live their lives. You cannot change the past, but it might be possible to change how your react to the past. Sheri hates her father but her father has changed. Can Sheri?

At 32, Caitlin Thompson looks back to the time when, at age 12, she visited an aquarium in Seattle every day after school before walking home. She likes the way the fish are protected from predators, unlike the real world, where people face all the risks of fish in the ocean. Every day, Caitlin runs into an old man at the aquarium who makes a point of talking to her. The encounters appear to be innocent but the situation is ominous. Is he a lonely old man or a child molester?

The leafy seadragon does nothing but hide. As the story progresses, Caitlin keeps parts of her life hidden but can't imagine living that way. "There has to be more than just hiding," the old man tells Caitlin, but hiding keeps the leafy seadragon safe. Caitlin values safety, enjoys being home with her mother even when Sheri is so wrapped up in her new boyfriend that Caitlin becomes invisible to her. Sheri is scraping by on the salary she earns unloading containers from cargo ships. The aquarium is her after-school babysitter. Sheri used to take Caitlin to work during overtime shifts until a customs inspector threatened to call social services. Caitlin's greatest fear is not of the old man but of social workers taking her away from her mother, particularly after the police correctly suspect that Sheri slapped her.

What Caitlin sees of adult life is unbearably sad. People are trapped by their lives. Sheri resents working a job "that meant nothing and would lead nowhere." Hatred inspired by the father who abandoned her to a hellacious existence consumes Sheri's memories. Sheri has good reason to feel angry but she is so consumed that she pollutes Caitlin with her rage and resentment. When Sheri lets the past control her, even Caitlin's home does not feel safe. The reader cringes at some of Sheri's behavior with Caitlin, but it is hard to blame Sheri for being the person she has become. At the same time, it is easy to be concerned about Caitlin. Many of the adults in the novel feel like they are living lives filled with dents that can never be repaired; they are Caitlin's role models.

I won't discuss what happens in Aquarium beyond the setup. The powerful story moves in unanticipated directions. Sensitive readers might find it too disturbing. It is often raw and painful, the kind of story that makes the reader want to scream at a character to make her understand how wrong she is. David Vann is able to spark that reaction by creating characters that are utterly convincing. Aquarium is not a sunny story of forgiveness, but it is a realistic story of redemption that reflects both the difficulty and the possibility of change.

Even if you do not read this extraordinary book, you should page through it to look at the pictures of fish. They are just as gorgeous as Vann's elegant prose.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

If I Fall, I Die by Michael Christie

Published by Hogarth on January 20, 2015

Tragedy is no respecter of wealth, power, or fame. It claims equally "those treasured and those ignored." No shield or spell can protect us. How can we live in a world that is poised to harm "every face at every address"?

The first time Will Cardiel ventures outside his home, he's plunked with a slingshot. At age 11, Will's rude introduction to the outside world is exhilarating. Will had to sneak outside because his mother, Diane, refuses to allow him to set foot in the world. Even inside the home, Will must wear a helmet when he changes a lightbulb (although to calm his mother's fears, Will wears it whenever he gets out of bed). Home schooled and sheltered, Will has little knowledge of life beyond the walls of his home. He knows only that it is a dangerous place.

Diane moved Will to Thunder Bay after a series of family tragedies that are revealed as the novel unfolds. Diane once made films about "modern urban malaise" before succumbing to a malaise of her own. Agoraphobia does not begin to describe her condition. She has frequent panic attacks; she is overprotective of Will; she lives in fear of her own unchecked thoughts. Yet she has convinced herself that she has constructed not a prison, but a fortress to shield Will from the ever-present risk of death. Will has internalized his mother's fear but he cannot restrain his curiosity about life outside. When he does finally venture into the world, he meets his first friend, a garden hose thief named Marcus, but stumbles into a mystery when Marcus disappears.

The plot begins to take shape after Will enters the world and attends school. Isolation has made Will inexperienced and peculiar, thus fodder for the other students. Fortunately, Will isn't the only child who doesn't fit in with the popular crowd. After gaining the reluctant friendship of a Native and learning the thrill of skateboarding, Will begins to unravel the mystery of missing garden hoses as well as his missing friend Marcus.

The plot revolves around a bigger mystery, the clues to which are cleverly woven into the story. I was able to guess the surprise well before it was revealed but I don't count that as a shortcoming in a book that isn't meant to be a mystery novel. The story might be a little too sunshiny and the ending too predictable -- lessons are spelled out explicitly in the apparent belief that readers aren't bright enough to learn them otherwise -- but I did not regard those as serious flaws since they did not impair my enjoyment of the story.

Fear is the dominant theme of If I Fall, I Die. The need to muster the bravery to confront fear is its message. Despite its serious theme, the first half of the novel is peppered with humor. Much of that comes from Will's unique perspective as he sees (and often misunderstands) the outside world for the first time. A character named Titus speaks a confused but lyrical language that is all his own -- almost reason in itself to read the novel. Other reasons I recommend If I Fall, I Die are the story's charm, the appealing characters, and the original plot.

RECOMMENDED

Bonita Avenue by Peter Buwalda

Published in the Netherlands in 2010; published in translation by Hogarth on January 13, 2015

Bonita Avenue is an intricate relationship drama, the kind of story I might deride as a soap opera if it were not crafted in such elegant prose. It is a big, complex novel. The characters are its strength, starting with Aaron Bever, self-destructive photographer whose shaky mental health deteriorates during the eight-year course of the novel. Bever once befriended (and practiced judo with) Siem Sigurius, a winner of the Fields Medal who taught at Berkeley. Aaron met Siem in Holland when Aaron was dating Joni, the daughter of Tineke, Siem's second wife. Other key characters include Joni's troubled younger sister Janis and Siem's troubled son Wilbert, who remained in Holland in the care of his uncle (and later in prison) after the Sigurius family moved to America.

The story swivels around the pivotal date of May 13, 2000, when a fireworks warehouse exploded in Roombeek, a suburb of Enschede. Much of the drama stems from a secretive but lucrative business enterprise in which Joni and Aaron engaged while they were dating. We learn about that time in Aaron's life in flashbacks that are inspired by a chance encounter Aaron has with Tineke on a train, eight years after Joni moved to America. We also learn about the Sigurius family history from Joni's perspective and from Siem's as the novel's focus shifts from chapter to chapter. It is a tortured history. This is a family of secrets, each more startling than the last. Their discovery tears lives and relationships apart.

The novel's theme is shame, living with it, living without it, choosing not to live because of it. Sometimes the story treads a thin line between drama and melodrama. Since Bonita Avenue scores points for both entertainment and literary value, that didn't bother me until late in the novel, when several scenes that are a bit over-the-top give way to a scene that is way over-the-top. There may be too many shocks in Bonita Avenue for a single novel to bear. At some point, the sheer weight of them begins to detract from the novel's credibility. Siem, who teaches probability theory, says that the probability of the improbable happening is huge, but when the improbable happens over and over, I have to wonder whether it is all just too much. Despite that, my interest in the improbable story never wavered. Still, the story ends quite abruptly and when it did, I felt relieved.

Peter Buwalda imagines an interesting continuum of characters that range from the sexually repressed to the shockingly liberated, from the relatively stable to the wildly unhinged. Point of view and time frames change from chapter to chapter, challenging the reader to understand who is speaking and when the described events took place. That's a reasonable literary technique -- there's nothing wrong with challenging a reader -- but I was troubled by the story's redundancy, particularly in explanations of central events in characters' lives. Buwalda's evocative prose and strong characterization earned my admiration and recommendation despite my reservations about the plot and the failure to deliver a tighter story.

RECOMMENDED