Polaris by Jack McDevitt

First published in 2004

Jack McDevitt is a skilled but uneven storyteller. His best work is found in his series of novels featuring Priscilla Hutchins. While the Hutchins series tends to be classic space opera that has characters charging around the galaxy and encountering aliens (or the artifacts left behind by long-dead alien races), the novels in the Alex Benedict series read more like mysteries. Benedict makes his living acquiring and selling antiquities. With his pilot, Chase Kolpath, Benedict zips around the galaxy solving puzzles that are related to recent acquisitions. Actually, Chase does most of the running. Benedict's strength is his reasoning ability; physical exertion is something he prefers to avoid. Chase's strength is her ability to improvise ways to keep Benedict from getting killed.

Polaris starts with the disappearance of the captain and passengers from a ship called Polaris that positioned itself to watch a star explode. Decades after the empty ship is recovered, Alex finds some artifacts that belonged to the missing travelers. After a number of attempts are made on the lives of Alex and Chase, it becomes clear that the artifacts may hold a clue to the disappearances -- a clue that someone does not want Alex to find.

Polaris moves at a good pace and the mystery is intriguing, although the solution is a bit too obvious. Characters are carefully developed but they are not as compelling as the characters in the Hutchins series. Alex is sort of aloof and not particularly likable, although Chase supplies a winning personality for readers who want to root for someone. My complaint about this series is that it does not give the sense that it is set in the far future. It could, in fact, be set in the present, but for the addition of convenient space travel and flying cars. Still, the novel is fun. It isn't the best in the series (Seeker might be) but it always held my attention.

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The Republic of Užupis by Haïlji

Published in Korea in 2009; published in translation by Dalkey Archive Press on October 14, 2014

I can't pretend that I understood The Republic of Užupis but I enjoyed it. I'll try to explain why although I'm not certain that I can.

The Republic of Užupis is at least in part about the disappearance of nations and the loss of identity experienced by a nation's inhabitants once the nation no longer exists. Užupis is actually a poor but artistic neighborhood in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania (the word užupis means "the other side of the river" in Lithuanian). Užupis declared itself an independent republic on April Fool's Day in 1997 -- a declaration that no country, including Lithuania, takes seriously, despite Užupis' adoption of a constitution, currency, a flag, and a president.

The novel's protagonist, Hal, insists that Užupis is an actual republic. While the story follows Hal's search for Užupis, the novel offers insight into the impact of conquest and political change on people who lose their homelands, an experience common to many Eastern Europeans as borders have been redrawn and divided nations have gained new names or lost old ones. The question that Haïlji contemplates is serious -- What becomes of a people who have lost their country? -- but he explores it with a playful (if puzzling) touch that makes The Republic of Užupis a pleasure to read.

Hal, an English speaking Asian from the country of Han, lands in an unwelcoming Lithuania and promises immigration officials he will soon depart for the Republic of Užupis. He isn't sure where to find Užupis but he has a postcard that says he can take a taxi across the border from Vilnius. Although nobody he talks to knows where Užupis might be found, a taxi driver takes Hal on a roundabout trip to the Hotel Užupis. A group of drinkers at the hotel bar assures Hal that Užupis is no republic and that "the Republic of Užupis" is a mocking reference to the poorest area in Vilnius.

Hal insists that he was born in Užupis and has family photos to prove it. He even has his father's medal, awarded by the President of Užupis. He wants to return to bury his father's ashes if only he can find his homeland. He meets people who claim to know about the history of Užupis but they are vague when asked where it is. Others deny it ever existed. Hal hears the Užupis national anthem and encounters several people who speak Užupis, a language he understands perfectly although he can't speak a word of it.

The story achieves new levels of weirdness when Hal learns that another Asian once came to Vilnius in search of Užupis -- an Asian very much like Hal. A number of similarities between past and present events occur that seem strange to the reader if not to Hal. They give the novel the air of an absurdist mystery, as do the arguments characters have about whether certain other characters are living or dead. Was the poet Urbanos just seen in Užupis or did he die years ago in Belarus? Is his famous poem about Belarus or Užupis? And if he is long dead, who fathered the young boy who is said to be his son?

How does one regain a lost country? That's the central question in this charming novel. One character answers that the key lies in regaining the country's lost poetry. There is a certain poetry in this novel -- meaning is very much a matter of interpretation; like poems, the novel can be understood in different ways. I don't know that I ever developed a good theory about its meaning (particularly the foreshadowed ending) but I easily became lost in the narrative and enjoyed being baffled by it all.

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Happy Holidays 2014

ATLAS 2 by Isaac Hooke

Published by47North on December 2, 2014

ATLAS 2 is long on action and short on substance. As was true in ATLAS, the novel starts with some excellent scene-setting before devolving into a predictable series of battles. The fighting scenes have a sameness (same weapons, same enemies, same fighting techniques) that eventually makes them wearisome to read. The novel too often has the feel of a point-and-shoot video game.

The aliens who troubled the heroes of ATLAS have found their way to one of the worlds colonized by Earth. They make their presence known by vaporizing humans with raindrops and by turning helpful robot into killer robots. After that promising start, Rade Galaal and his fellow MOTHs are dispatched to fight the aliens. They are tasked with capturing a "high value" target (not easily done since the targeted alien is composed of mist). Some of that was fun but the mission loses its interest as it drags on and on and on.

Galaal spent all of ATLAS trying to prove his manhood. He carries his insecurity into ATLAS 2. He continues to blame himself for everything that goes wrong, an annoying quality that makes him come across as self-pitying. Pages and pages of "I feel so bad about myself" whining could have been edited from the text to make this a tighter, more interesting story. And if I had a nickel for every time Rade refers to his "brothers" in combat, I'd have a whole lot of nickels.

About half the novel -- the better half -- is narrated by Shaw Chopra, the girlfriend Rade left behind in ATLAS. Her narrative voice is identical to Rade's but her story is more interesting. Shaw endures a moderately entertaining survival adventure that gives her some insight into the alien enemy. She is at least capable of insight, as opposed to Rade, who is long on platitudes (particularly "I would die for my brothers" and "I can't let another of my brothers die") but short on insightful thinking. He is apparently incapable of thinking or saying anything that isn't a cliché. Unfortunately, Shaw eventually adopts Rade's annoying tendency to feel guilt whenever the aliens kill someone else.

Well over 300 pages into the novel, the plot finally turns in a new direction. It isn't a particularly credible direction, but at least it is different. Maybe that means book 3 will be better, but I thought book 2 might be better than book 1, only to be disappointed with Rade's inability to grow up.

Isaac Hooke relies too heavily on a writing style that depends on one sentence paragraphs and three-to-five word sentences. That can work well in moderation, but too much of it creates the impression of a book written for a seventh grade reading level. In fact, I would be more inclined to recommend ATLAS 2 as a juvenile novel rather than an adult novel. Its simplistic story and unchallenging style make it a good fit for younger readers. Mature science fiction or action novel fans are likely to want greater depth than they will find here.

NOT RECOMMENDED

The Ploughmen by Kim Zupan

Published by Henry Holt on September 30, 2014

The Ploughmen will never be mistaken for a thriller or a typical crime novel. To a lesser and a greater extent, it is a discerning psychological study of two men. The lesser character is John Gload, a gristly man in his seventh decade of life who finds himself on trial for murder, one of the several he has committed, usually with greater success at concealing the victim's identity. Most law enforcement officers would prefer to keep their distance from Gload -- solving crimes isn't worth the risk of trying to deal with him -- and the animosity is mutual, but Gload seems willing to talk to Deputy Valentine Millimaki, who shares his interest in farming. They chat in the evening, after Gload finishes his days in court. Feeling a kinship with Millimaki, Gload discusses the origins of his antisocial life and confesses his sins (albeit without remorse for the blood he has spilled).

Millimaki is the more complex character and the one whose psychological profile is most finely tuned. When Millimaki isn't listening to Gload's confessions, he is using a dog to track missing persons in the woods. He usually finds them dead, a burden that adds to his mental deterioration during the course of the novel. Whether that deterioration is a cause or a result of his separation from his wife is difficult to say. Millimaki's inability to sleep, his growing depression, and his marital difficulties lead to some erratic behavior. He is nevertheless a likable character. Oddly, he finds Gload to be likable (or at least tolerable) although he would never admit it, even to himself.

In a strange competition with Millimaki are a couple of other deputies while the easy-going sheriff is on Millimaki's side. All of these characters are given believable personalities without wasting words. The novel is written with enormous sensitivity to the pain that people endure, pain that manifests itself in multiple ways -- emotional outbursts, suicide, and serial killing among them. Kim Zupan makes it possible to see beyond stereotypes, to understand that people who do good things and those who do evil all share the most common traits of humanity.

Understanding the affinity between Gload and Millimaki is the challenge that Zupan offers the reader. Do they have a friendship based on the fact that Millimaki is one of the few people Gload doesn't want to kill? "It doesn't get any truer than that," Gload says.

Zupan offers some excellent prose to the reader who follows the two men on their respective journeys. Here's a description of a prison: "He went slowly along a long gray corridor, the redoubtable masonry of clammy stone on either side stacked and mortared against the penetration of hope." Zupan also offers a truly chilling ending to the reader who follows the men to the final chapter.

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