Walking Contradiction By Nancy Jane Moore

Walking Contradiction

 By Nancy Jane Moore

10 Words: Future worlds, Future worries. All based off current problems extended.

     Walking Contradiction is a collection of seven short stories. Each story is set in some time along the Earth's future. All the stories are self contained, but I do think a few of them are directly related. It also feels like its possible that they all are related.
     The stories talk about the consequences of the actions of present day people living on earth, the way we have treated natural resources, the way we are often at war.  They expand and explore the direction our actions could take us, and show a not too hopeful future, yet for the most part it is one that is trying to redeem itself.
     My favorite of the stories happens to be the first one, the one the book is named for. Walking Contradiction. The main character of the story is a detective, what makes them different is that they are niver male or female. They are Ambigendered, a person who has both sets of working sexual equipment (thats the way the story explains it). She is asked to investigate a group who are called The True Virgins, a group who chose to remove their gender completely. It makes for an interesting contrast and comparison story when a person who has embraced both genders is forced to face the ideas of a person who has chosen to move beyond gender. The disgust she feels over the idea that these people would want to creat an artifical way of reproducing themselves.
   

Maze by J. M. McDermott

Maze

By: J.M McDermott

10 Words: Lost, Confused, and Wondering. The end is never in sight.... 

... and I mean that for both the reader as well as the characters. This book really didn't make sense to me. It jumped between the lives of different people as they just tried to survive in a strange and confusing place that those living in know as The Maze. The stories reflect different events that happen over many different years in the maze. 

     The book is built strangely, and is non cathartic, which is a complicated thing to attempt to do... but left me lost reading the story and I probably wouldn't have bothered finishing it, if it wasn't for my determination to give it the best try I could because I was given it for free. 

     Yet given that the story doesn't make sense the writing is well done, the world described well and you can see that things are happening, that the world exists and that there is something strange but important going on here... its just disappointing that you are never really able to tell what that is... 

     

Faery Swap by Susan Kaye Quinn

 

 Faery Swap 

By Susan Kaye Quinn

10 words:  Finn must help farry destroy King's plans to invade world.

     The story is a cute, fun tale about finding those lost, learning powers you didn't know you had, and saving two worlds. Its a safe, fun story that is somewhat predictable but I am also not really its intended audience so it might be less predictable to them... 
     Overall, I liked it. It was fun and simple but not in a bad way. The thing that I don't get about it is the idea - and almost obsession - that the magic in the book has something to do with Math, and knowledge that the humans have and the faeries don't. It feels like the book was written, and then someone said it was flat/normal. They didn't think it would have any real drive and so they added the idea that it could teach math some how (I haven't figured out really how) in order to give a way to disingenuous it from any other, simple fiction story. 
     I understand the idea behind making math fun. I like books that make math fun a LOT (if you want this kind of book see Math for Smarty Pants its AMAZING), as a kind I obsessed over them. That was why I wanted to review this book.Aside from saying over and over again how math was important it was never really applied in any way, AND there was still a second, more prominent explanation for the magic. That it came from nature/"elements" (not real elements, but the fire/water/air/earth kind... if something like Chlorine or Nitrogen had been used as the source of magic that would have made me SO happy!). This explanation was much more explained, and prominent part of the story than the Math knowledge part which is stressed so much in the ads / on the authors website. So I don't exactly understand what they were getting at. 

     The ads claim that math is the key used to stop the king... but its Magic that was used... its half explained that this spell was created through math... but it doesn't attempt to actually show us how (it would have been so cool if they had used some funky 4d geometric shape to trap the king, instead of a cube... or one of these!! (ya they are 2d but so what its MAGIC!)) There are so many interesting things about math that make it feel magical but over that it being said over and over that its important to these fairies its never shown or explained. I know the book is for grade 3-6... but your taking the goal to make math fun you should really include some math. The Math for Smarty Pants book above I bought myself with babysitting money in grade 5. It taught me what factorials are ( N!), they amused me greatly but i had no idea what they could be used for. If you are trying to combine real world math with magic you can make your math do whatever you want, just give me some math. 
     Aside from the book the author has a few learning things on her website. The game she made is kinda neat, and does attempt to put some of the Math/knowledge thing the book talks so much about into effect... so she is trying but when I was a kid I read 5 books for every book we talked about in class... I wouldn't have found this stuff if I was in grade 5. Also most of it is the normal, english book reviewing stuff.
     Overall I liked the story, my biggest problem is I don't find the book matches up very well with the advertisements of it. Which to me, seems strange but a 5th grader wouldn't care and would have a fun time with the story. 

What Ho, Automaton!

What Ho, Automaton!

By Chris Dolley

     This is a short and sweet steam punk mystery. Consisting of one very short tail of how the main character, Reggie Worcester and how he becomes to be acquainted with the Automation Reeves. The first little story and the way the second started gave me the feeling that the book was to be a set of a few short story, not just one that was a chapter long and the rest of the book covering another.  I liked the idea of this, but no just the two adventures are present. 

     Reggie is a young Englishmen, loving his bachelorhood and intrigued when he comes across a situation that seems odd. He decides to find the root of the problem announcing himself as a "consulting detective." Feeling that with all his reading of Sherlock homes story's he is the perfect man for the job. Especially with his talent for seeing the connection to the (extremely) unusual. 

     This is a cute short adventure where all seems odd and everyone seems steps ahead of the main character.  Who sees connections to things from nowhere... The story tries to be connected to the first short tail but doesn't really feel like it quite gets that connection, and the end feels about as out there as any of Reggie's odd ideas... 

     I think I would have liked this a fair bit more if there was at least one more little adventure in the book, it fell like it just kinda ended in the middle of things. But its a short, 140 page book you can find for 2.99 and that is the best kind of e-book's out there. 

Any Witch Way by, Annastaysia Savage

Any Witch Way

by, Annastaysia Savage

  This is a coming of age story... a girl feels an outcast and alone only to find she is a witch and the center of a great battle. It's realy kinda pridictible. It's not bad realy, and I probably would have it enjoyed it well enouth in grade 6. I guess it just feel's done too death now, and done really well too. You can't recreate Harry Potter any better than Harry Potter...
  That being said I really do think the grade 6 me would have liked it. It's got all the things needed, a relatable  young girl finds power in herself she never expected right when she needed it the most. War happens, she saves the world, everyone is happy. It happens a little to fast for my real liking. I think one of the really good parts about Harry Potter is there is a lot of time on other things his life, the school. Adventure and danger happen... but under a more realistic time frame... this makes everything feel like it happened in a week.
  I am sad that I cant find anything really good to say because I really feel meh about it. Not good or bad... just smack dab in the middle. A real 3 out of 5 is the best way to describe my feelings...

Tarantula Woman, by Donald O’Donovan

Tarantula Woman,

by Donald O’Donovan

     An American writer lives on the Mexican side of the border, spending most of his life floating around Mariscal Street A place also known as the Boulevard of Broken Dreams. He spends his days writing letters to the many men who the whores pay special attention too, or whatever random job he has found at any given time. His nights are spent wondering from club to club with his good friend Roscoe and ending is one of the many girls’ bedrooms. Though he cares for one the most, Ysela; a girl with a Tarantula on her shoulder as well as one for a personality. She still is and always will be a whore.     

     This story is not about the Tarantula woman… giving her the place in the title still this feels a little odd to me. She doesn’t axially show up in the story for a good 40 pages. The story is the author’s story, as he wonders around Mexico and try’s to find a place where he belongs. He moves from job to job, living space to living space. Trying to be a writer in some sense of the word and trying to find his place.

       The story it’s self isn’t that intriguing. Not a lot happens and I found it jumps from location to location, as well as the amount of time that has passed in between each chapter a fair bit.  What this story does give you is a true sense of the life of the pore in Mexico. Those that are the lowest of the low, who do everything and everything they can to get just enough food for today, to have that place to sleep for the night. It shows you how those in that situation have hope. They have nothing but still believe there is a way for them to get out. To get to a better place… they just have to find it.  Some even do.

     The other thing with this novel is it takes an odd (and what could be done very wrong) topic of a man who visits whore houses continually, in a very classy way. It’s not crude or explicit at all. It doesn’t hid or deny what is going on. But it’s described in the same voice as cooking chilly. As if it’s just part of life.  

     Overall I didn’t really enjoy reading this book, but I think there are some who might. It’s a little odd and all over the place for me, thought I think I saw what the author was trying to show me.