Bubble by Anders de la Motte

Published in Sweden in 2012; published in translation by Atria/Emily Bestler Books on February 4, 2014

"We create our own realities," Tage tells Rebecca, "small spheres where we imagine we control what happens." Living inside a bubble has been an ongoing theme of the Game trilogy. The final novel makes the point explicitly: "In actual fact the feeling of control is just an illusion, and those spheres are nothing more than bubbles." But all bubbles eventually burst, along with the illusions they contain.

Having escaped it for a time in Buzz, HP is back in the Game. As you would expect in the last novel of a thriller/conspiracy trilogy, the purpose of the Game is finally revealed. The reveal is not shocking or even particularly surprising, but it is more plausible than most conspiracies in thriller fiction. Of course, some of the characters the reader meets in the first two novels play different roles than they first appeared to play, but -- like the conspiracy -- those revelations won't cause most readers to gasp with surprise.

The novels turn out to have a serious point, which has something to do with how easily governments can be persuaded to act against the interests of individuals and in favor of corporate interests when paid noisemakers make disturbing noises about national security and terrorist threats. It's a familiar point but Bubble gives it an interesting twist involving cybersecurity. On a level that's probably more fun, the novels are about how easily individuals can be manipulated, particularly insecure individuals who crave attention and fame, or at least acceptance.

Viewing the trilogy as a whole (and I think that's necessary because neither of the final two work well as a stand-alone), while there is nothing outstanding about the plot or Anders de la Motte's writing style, the story is entertaining, it moves quickly, the action scenes are plausible, and the novels include enough humor to make clear that we're not supposed to take the global conspiracy theme too seriously. That's a plus, since most conspiracy thrillers have become so over-the-top that they are unintentionally comedic. The characters -- particularly HP and to a lesser extent his sister -- are sympathetic and HP experiences some redemptive emotional growth as the novels progress. All of that was enough to make me feel that the novels were worth reading.

RECOMMENDED

The Sun and Other Stars by Brigid Pasulka

Published by Simon & Schuster on February 4, 2014

I'm a sucker for books that make me laugh out loud and then leave me sighing with appreciation for their subtle and touching moments. I am definitely not a sucker for love stories, but every now and then I'm totally entranced by one that is honest and original. I'm also a sucker for books that make me feel something I don't ordinarily feel. This one made me feel the joy of calcio (the Italian name for soccer), at least as it is played by aging but passionate fans who have a few weeks of glory kicking a ball around with a couple of authentic stars. But calcio is merely a backdrop to an engaging novel that is both a coming-of-age story and a father-son family drama, with a couple of love stories thrown in to sweeten the plot.

The less favored of two sons but the only one still living, Etto works in the family butcher shop, where he believes he is treated more as a slave than a son (the difference, if the is one, between slavery and family is one of the novel's themes). Etto's brother Luca is buried in an empty school's untended calcio field where Etto's father insisted he be interred. Etto's American mother died under circumstances that continue to anger him. Feeling alone in the world at twenty-two, confiding his thoughts only to his brother's headstone, Etto is stuck in San Benedetto, waiting for his life to "keep piling up" until he is "an old, bitter man." His life in the butcher shop has been planned out for him by his father and grandfather, and while others tell him he should be comforted by a life that is unburdened by hard decisions, Etto isn't so sure. He feels he is living with his face pressed to the glass, watching other people live real lives. Even worse, he feels increasingly estranged from his father, who is himself becoming "an old, bitter man," at least in his interaction with Etto.

Etto has few social skills, particularly with women, and few opportunities to polish them. He is therefore unprepared to respond (and so responds poorly) to the mild flirtation of a young woman named Zhuki who is spending three weeks in San Benedetto with her brother, a famous Ukranian soccer player named Yuri who now plays for an Italian team but might be corrupt. Etto would like to compete for Zhuki's attention but he is competing against athletes who have abs like tortoise shells. Etto has little competence on the calcio field. Having inherited his mother's love of art, he is better with a brush than he is with a soccer ball. Etto works out his frustration by recreating a version of the Sistine Chapel ceiling on the ceiling of the closed school, substituting people he knows for biblical figures (sometimes in unflattering ways). Still, Yuri insists that all problems can be fixed on a soccer field. That is the power of calcio.

Etto is a bit like the Italian Holden Caulfield, unimpressed with the phoniness of other people's lives but not sure what to do with his own. Like all good coming-of-age novels, The Sun and Other Stars is about self-awareness and making choices and the possibility of change -- not just changing where you live and what you do, but who you are and how you behave. There is more than a little wisdom to be mined from this novel, some of it coming from unlikely sources. The greatest lesson is: the power of calico is the power of hope.

Brigid Paasulka writes with zest and flair, bringing to life a memorable town populated with likable characters. I love the description of what occurs "whenever two or more are gathered in San Benedetto -- moving mouths and flying hands pulling air into air, crafting grand plans from nothing and into nothing." The Sun and Other Stars pushed all my emotional and literary buttons without being overtly manipulative. That earns it a strong recommendation.

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This is Not an Accident: Stories by April Wilder

Published by Viking on January 30, 2014

I had never heard of April Wilder before reading this collection of her stories. I am now a devoted fan. The characters in her stories are trying to decide what they want from life. They are forming and readjusting their understandings of relationships and families. They are quirky and lonely and usually a little messed up, but they're not giving up on the only lives they have.

Wilder often pulls off the neat trick of telling light stories about dark subjects. "The Butcher Shop" is about a man who, with little assistance from his friends, is trying to come to terms with the end of his marriage and the lesser disasters that make up his life. While discussing Sammy Sosa's corked bat with a group of friends, the narrator of "We Were Champions" thinks back to the man who coached her softball team when she was sixteen and who, like her current boyfriend, occasionally had sex with her but was really more interested in baseball. In that story, I love her comparison of sex to "two people struggling to fit through a turnstile."

Much of the title story takes place in traffic school. After racing to Iowa for a date she made online, Kit hears a story about a man who hit someone without noticing and begins to obsess about whether she has done the same thing. Her plan to cure the obsession, like everything else in her life, doesn't work out as she expected, but she finds inspiration to change in an unexpected place.

In "Me Me Me," a woman who compartmentalizes her life to the point of schizophrenia tries to decide what to do about a slightly dysfunctional sister who wants to adopt a troubled child. A woman in "Christiania" takes a post-divorce trip with a platonic vegan friend and finds that the relationship is just as exhausting as her marriage.

Alternately sweet and sad, hopeful and realistic, "It's a Long Dang Life" is one of the best madcap family dramas I've encountered in short fiction. Lacey's boyfriend, Paul Odd, 65-years-old and aptly named, wants to marry her but he's in love with Miller Genuine Draft. Odd (who understands that "it's a long life when it's the wrong life, man") gets up and tries his best every day for as long as he can before passing out. Still, he's more fun than the members of Lacey's uptight family. The final paragraph sums up the joys and sorrows of life about as well as anything I've ever read.

The novella "You're That Guy" is a departure from the family dramas that fill the rest of the book. Lurking in the background of this sad macabre comedy are a dead dog and a man who carries a grotesque doll wherever he goes. While some of the characters are strange, we are reminded that people are "only improbable at a distance." Up close, they're just people.

The only story that didn't work for me, "Three Men," is not so much a story as three character sketches of the flawed men in a woman's life: her husband, her brother, and her father. "The Creative Writing Instructor Evaluation Form" isn't a conventional story, but it's quite funny.

Wilder's observant writing style is clever and sharp without calling attention to itself. In their own way, each story reminds us that whether or not life is an accident, we need to make it purposeful. Many of these stories are worth reading twice, to better appreciate the subtle thoughtfulness and good humor with which Wilder teaches that lesson.

RECOMMENDED

A Darkling Sea by James Cambias

Published by Tor Books on January 28, 2014

The Ilmatarans inhabit Ilmatar, naturally enough, but since they live on the sea bottom, having evolved where volcanic vents warm the water far below the ice-covered surface, it isn't easy to observe them. An attempt to do so leads to an inadvertent first contact between a human and a group of Ilmataran scientists. It doesn't go well for the poor human, who is mistaken for a big fish. But just when you think this is a book about humans and intelligent crustaceans, aliens from Shalina show up. This isn't a first contact; humans and the Sholen are parties to treaties that govern places like Ilmatar and the Sholen are ostensibly present to investigate the human's inadvertent (and potentially treaty-breaking) contact. In truth, a political faction of the Sholen would like to restrict humans to Earth where their meddlesome ways will not trouble the rest of the universe and they intend to eject the human scientists from Ilmatar. Conflict ensues.

James Cambias gave some intelligent thought to the Ilmatarans' social structure and legal system. He imagines how books might be constructed that can be read underwater, how farms might operate, how sound becomes a weapon when wielded by or against a race that depends on sonar, how apprentices might be gained by capturing the young and forcing them to be educated. The Sholen are described in less detail. We know that they are stocky and have extra limbs and breathe oxygen but we don't know much else. Not much differentiates the Sholen from humans, although their social structure is even more dependent on sex and drugs than human societies -- yet the Sholen are not as fun as you'd think those traits would make them. The Sholen are just as scheming, manipulative, self-serving, and underhanded as humans tend to be (creating the risk of interstellar war) while the Ilmataran civilization, despite roving gangs of bandits and culturally controlled violence, has existed for millions of years in a state of relative tranquility.

As much as I liked the Ilmataran (I always like aliens who don't look like lizards), the humanlike (albeit kinky) behavior of the Sholen is unimaginative, as is the typical sf portrayal of scientists as enlightened and benevolent while politicians are selfish and warlike. The humans are the novel's other weakness -- their personalities (to the extent they have any) remain largely undeveloped until late in the story. A Darkling Sea is more a novel of ideas than of characterization, but the ideas are good (the descriptions of humans adapting to underwater life are particularly strong) and the plot pushes all the right buttons (at least for fans of interstellar conflict).

Although A Darkling Sea is a self-contained novel with an ending that completes the story in a satisfying way, it easily lends itself to a sequel, or perhaps to a series of novels about the conflict between humans and Sholen. The final chapter also sets up a reason to return to Ilmatar. I don't know what (if anything) Cambias has in mind, but I will gladly read the next book if he writes one.

RECOMMENDED

Buzz by Anders de la Motte

Published in Sweden in 2011; published in translation by Atria/Emily Bestler Books on January 7, 2014

After the excitement of Game, HP is restless. He has money and nothing but leisure time, but he begins the second novel of the Game trilogy in hiding, certain that the people who control the Game are after him. When he finds himself suspected of murder in a rather inhospitable country, the reader wonders whether this is part of the Vast Global Conspiracy that revealed itself in the first novel. To get himself into this mess, HP has behaved stupidly, but that's the story of his life. His sister, meanwhile, is searching for the blogger who is ruining her career.

HP's story eventually goes in a different direction as HP finds a job as an internet troll. Anders de la Motte has some interesting thoughts on the impossible task of controlling the internet. One small measure of control is exerted by professional trolls who are paid to leave encouraging or disparaging comments on social networking sites and blogs, praising a client's products and disparaging a client's detractors, writing posts that are fronted by actual (or created) bloggers. If they can't control the internet, they can at least influence trends and "steer the buzz in a direction that suits our clients." Carried to an extreme (as thrillers tend to do), the manipulation of internet content is a way to make the truth disappear. Of course, you don't need to carry the concept to an extreme to appreciate how much of this is going on in the real world.

Unlike many middle novels of a trilogy that seem like filler between two novels that tell most of the story, Buzz advances the overall plot, although not by much. While the first half of Buzz does seem like filler, it eventually tells a self-contained story that readers who have not read Game could enjoy. There is less character development in Buzz than in Game, but the story is smarter and more original than the story told in the first novel. If left me looking forward to the final novel.

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