ATLAS by Isaac Hooke

Self-published in 2013; published digitally by Amazon Digital Services on May 27, 2014

The opening chapters of ATLAS are promising. The novel is set in the near future. While the future is loaded with standard sf backdrops (robots, flying cars, glasses that function as wireless computers, embedded ID chips), Isaac Hooke sets the scene in meticulous and convincing detail. Unfortunately, all of that ends up being wasted.

Crossing the border to the United Countries (apparently the US and Canada) seems like a ticket to the good life, except for the catch: forced military service for immigrants. Anxious to put a dangerous and wasted life behind him, Rade Galaal enters the UC with his mentor Alejandro Mondego and new friend Taho Eaglehide. Rade wants to prove himself by joining the Navy's special operations division -- MOTH -- which is a space-faring version of the SEALs.

The story is narrated in a relaxed, unpretentious, first person voice. The writing style -- short sentences and a lot of single-sentence paragraphs -- follows a popular formula for fast-paced action novels. It works reasonably well, apart from occasional asides to explain a physics problem. The novel's problems have more to do with content than style.

Some scenes are much too familiar, to the point of being clichéd and trite. Basic training is filled with pushups and abusive drill instructors. MOTH training begins with the classic "Look to your left, look to your right, those people won't be here at the end." The story even has the "Ring the bell when you want to quit" scene from G.I. Jane. In fact, much of the first third of ATLAS seems like a prose version of G.I. Jane without the Demi Moore character (women being conspicuously absent from the MOTH ranks). You'd think an imaginative sf writer would imagine a future military that figured out a better way to train soldiers, but writers seem to enjoy regurgitating the twentieth century "abuse makes men tough" model. Fortunately the scenes move quickly.

Rade joins MOTH to see if he can "become a man." Becoming a man means you learn to endure a lot of abuse, to operate high tech weaponry, to clobber everyone you fight, and to bang a female when you get a chance. That's a fairly superficial mindset (although one that is popular with teenage boys) and I hoped that Rade would grow out of it before the novel ended. He doesn't.

Rade's dedication to the MOTHs also compels him to indulge in page after page of dumbed-down versions of the St. Crispin's Day speech. The "valiant brothers in arms" theme is way too heavy-handed. ATLAS is not a novel of subtle thought.

After we get through the familiar training scenes, the novel advances to familiar "the aliens just wouldn't stop coming" scenes. Many of those scenes reminded me of Armor, substituting crab aliens for ant aliens and skipping the depth of character that makes Armor a better book. Still, the novel improves considerably after the fighting starts. As a fast-moving action story, some aspects of ATLAS are enjoyable, but the novel is so derivative and unimaginative that readers would be better served by investing their time in better examples of military sf.

NOT RECOMMENDED

Far As the Eye Can See by Robert Bausch

Published by Bloomsbury USA on November 4, 2014

Far As the Eye Can See is in many respects an old-fashioned western informed by a modern sensibility. It is the story of a decent man living in a time and place that challenges decency. It is the story of a man who finds himself by helping others. It is sad, funny, exciting, and redemptive. This is one of the best westerns I've encountered and one of my favorite reads of 2014.

Bobby Hale (the most recent of many names he has adopted) made it through the Civil War knowing that if he died, nobody would give a lick. With a desire to roam and no desire to work, he hooks up with a wagon train, befriends an Indian named Big Tree, and takes up the life of a hunter and trapper. The story follows Hale on his wander through the West from 1869. His ambition is to live free, enjoy the empty spaces, and avoid death as long as he can. It turns out that life is not so simple.

Hale eventually takes a job as a guide for the Army, which is intent on solving the "Indian problem" -- although as Hale sees it, the problem is with the Army, not the Indians. He also befriends two women who are crossing the country in a wagon pulled by an ox, determined to reach Oregon. All of this (and a good deal more) occupies the first two-thirds of this eventful novel.

The prolog takes place in 1876, when Hale mistakenly shoots a teenage girl called Ink who is running away from her husband. The last third of the novel begins at that point. It leads to one of the most harrowing parts of a life that has been "one long everlasting war." Hale would like to make a different life but the west, and thus his life, is defined by violence. Yet that is not the only definition of life and change, Hale discovers, can come about in unexpected ways.

"There's a million ways to die out here," a character tells Hale, and that's the sense that the novel conveys. Isolated men in the wilderness die by mistake and by design. They die from disease, from bullets, from animal bites, from arrows. Hale is a frequent witness to the death that nature imposes without moral judgment. He also sees death imposed by man: Indians killing whites (usually in defense of their lives or liberty), Army troops slaughtering Indians, lone travelers robbed and hung from trees. He witnesses countless deaths at Little Bighorn. He causes a fair amount of death himself, usually with regret but always with the (sometimes mistaken) belief that he is doing the right thing. There are times when he feels "like ain't nothing under my skin but air, and I can't get enough of that to keep on living."

Robert Bausch writes the first-person narration in an uneducated voice that draws upon nature and experience for its eloquence. It is difficult to make that kind of a voice seem authentic rather than hokey, but Bausch manages the task with great skill. He softens the drama with humor and paints an unbroken landscape that stretches as far as the eye can see, but the novel's power comes from its descriptions of death and survival, humanity and inhumanity.

Hale experiences something like love on more than one occasion as the novel progresses, an emotion that surprises him with its intensity and that he nurtures as an antidote to all the harsh memories that haunt his dreams. At the same time, he can't quite decide what it is he wants (or needs). "It's a tragic kind of world we find ourselves in," he thinks, "all the time looking for some way to have what we want, hoping for nothing but a reason to hope." We make choices based on what we think we want, sometimes without appreciating what we have. Hale wonders if the things we want and for which we hope all just lies that we tell to help us cope with hardship of living. The question for Hale, and for the reader, is whether we can recognize something in life that is worth cherishing, something that makes us more than "a savage animal that can talk."

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Blue Labyrinth by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child

Published by Grand Central Publishing on November 11, 2014

I have never been a fan of Pendergast although I enjoy the Pendergast novels. Pendergast is such a pretentious snob that I often find his literary company to be disagreeable. When, in Blue Labyrinth, Pendergast accuses others of being officious, I wonder if he owns a mirror. The novels, on the other hand, are carefully plotted, never dull, and often feature absorbing mysteries.

When Pendergast's dead son is deposited at his door, Pendergast feels no loss -- his son was "a sociopathic killer of the most dangerous type" -- but since the killers found his son when the FBI and CIA could not, Pendergast knows that his murderers are formidable. Why his son was killed, why there was a turquoise jewel in his son's stomach, and what message the killers meant to send by delivering the corpse to Pendergast are the mysteries that both Pendergast and the reader must solve.

A second storyline involves a murder at the Museum of Natural History. The murder seems to be linked to a murder that occurred in the late nineteenth century but the connection baffles Detective Vincent D'Agosta. He's not happy when Pendergast provides five minutes of assistance and then disappears.

About a third of the novel passes before the inevitable linkage of the two mysteries occurs. The mysteries force Pendergast to confront a dark secret in his ancestry. The motivation for the crimes turns out to be laughably implausible. Pendergast's ability to see the past televised in his mind while meditating is just silly. Some other aspects of the story also plummet off the edge of credibility but that's common in modern thrillers. Believable or not, they provide a foundation for the action that follows. The action scenes are pure fun.

The behind-the-scenes look at the Museum of Natural History is rich with detail, as are descriptions of the crime-controlled slums of Rio. The plot moves forward briskly. While I can't say I warmed up to Pendergast -- quite the opposite -- I enjoyed the story and got a kick out of the secondary characters.

RECOMMENDED

Five Minutes Alone by Paul Cleave

Published by Atria Books on October 21, 2014

Except for Ahab and people who share his obsessive nature, the desire for vengeance is a passing emotion. Those who do seek revenge cause dire and unintended consequences without finding the closure they crave. On the other hand, those who want their better selves to prevail sometimes entertain a revenge fantasy, even if they never carry it out. The conflicting desires that are part of human nature are at the heart of Five Minutes Alone.

Paul Cleave writes novels that his publisher calls Christchurch Noir. Five Minutes Alone is the fourth in the Theodore Tate series. It makes frequent references to events from earlier novels that had a traumatic impact on DI Tate and two of his colleagues, but the backstory is filled in so completely that this can easily be read as a standalone novel.

Five Minutes Alone opens with Kelly Summers on the verge of being raped by Dwight Smith for the second time. In the chapters that follow, the police are investigating Smith's death, Smith having been splattered by a train. The police soon discover that the death was not be a suicide, which leaves Tate wondering who deserves New Zealand's gratitude for ridding it of Smith.

We learn early on that the vigilante dubbed The Five Minute Man by Christchurch journalists is Carl Schroder, who was a detective and Tate's partner until he was shot in the head. Crime victims used to say to Schroder, "Just give me five minutes alone with him." Freed from the constraints of law enforcement, Schroder has a new sense of what constitutes justice. He not only wants to give people their five minutes, he virtually forces them to rekindle the fires that have cooled with the passage of time.

The story pits old friends Tate and Schroder against each other, although Tate lacks the reader's early knowledge that Schroder is contributing to the latest crime spree in Christchurch. Tate has his own experience with revenge killing and is not well positioned to place moral judgment on Schroder. The question that the reader ponders for much of the novel is how Tate will handle the conflict. Five Minutes Alone is a story of divided loyalties -- each man has the ability to bring down the other, but will he do it?

When I started reading Five Minutes Alone, I thought it would be another mundane vigilante novel. I was wrong. The story is surprisingly subtle and its message reflects the complexity of human emotion. The struggles that the characters experience seem authentic and heartfelt. The novel features snappy action scenes that are more original than is common in action-based thrillers, but its true value lies in the evolution that its central characters experience and in the different perspectives that secondary characters provide to illuminate the meaning of justice. The novel's fault is its predictable ending, although the last few paragraphs I did not anticipate. Still, Five Minutes Alone is about characters and philosophy more than plot.

RECOMMENDED

The Wolf in Winter by John Connolly

Published by Atria/Emily Bestler Books on October 28, 2014

A girl named Annie is being held captive in an unfriendly town called Prosperous. Suspecting that his daughter is in trouble but finding himself unwelcome in Prosperous, Annie's homeless father hopes to get help from Charlie Parker. The father is found swinging from a rope before they have a chance to talk.

Prosperous, notable for its old English church that once hosted a now defunct religion, is one of the creepy, incestuous towns that writers of horror and crime novels like to create. The residents of Prosperous share a secret and are hostile to outsiders who might learn its dirty business. John Connolly provides enough background to the town and its people to make it believable but not so much as to slow the story with needless detail.

Connolly weaves the history of the mystic religious sect into a plot that takes Parker to Prosperous as he follows the trail of the homeless man's missing daughter. About halfway into the novel, the story takes a supernatural turn, as Parker novels usually do. The supernatural elements are the least interesting aspect of the story but The Wolf in Winter does have the creepy feeling of a good X-Files episode.

An extended section of the book takes place while Parker is out of action, giving series regulars Ronald Straydeer and the killer couple Louis and Angel a chance to be in the limelight. They are strong characters who easily carry the story. The Collector, a recurring villain in the series, makes an appearance, advancing an ongoing subplot while altering the mission that has recently motivated Louis and Angel.

Connolly writes with unusual sensitivity and compassion about the homeless. They are, in fact, some of the best characters in the book. The bad guys are also described in convincing detail. Some residents of Prosperous are just playing the hands they were dealt while the town's rulers are the embodiment of evil when they aren't behaving like ordinary folk.

Connolly's commentary adds personality to the characters and amusement to the story. A character's reference to readers who take "reading books very seriously without ever understanding how the act could be enjoyable as well" and his flaming condemnation of Look Homeward, Angel were among my favorites. I take reading seriously but if I'm not enjoying a book, I don't finish it. The Wolf in Winter was easy to finish.

RECOMMENDED