Equoid by Charles Stross is a Hugo winner, in a year that's had quite a bit of controversy. Initially, I was impressed by the story, but the more I thEquoid by Charles Stross is a Hugo winner, in a year that's had quite a bit of controversy. Initially, I was impressed by the story, but the more I think about it, the less I am. Intelligent, articulate, and witty, it has undercurrents that are dark and disturbing.
It's hard not to see echoes of Larry "Lord of Hate" Correia in Charles Stross' Equoid. Sure, there are fewer guns in Equoid than, well, anything that Correia writes, but I suspect that's only because Correia knows his firearms better than Stross. Both deal with a world under assault from supernatural monsters and both are occasionally influenced by the Lovecraftian. Both fall into the category of fiction that could best be described as a cross between horror and what happens when the victims are armed to the teeth. And both have a really great voice.
End comparison. Stross's hero is a government bureaucrat who calls in the artillery , while Correia's protagonists usually ARE the artillery, and while they both have different means to accomplish the same ends, they are very different voices.
In Stross's Equoid, Bob Howard is a computer geek that works for a secret British government agency. It's his job to look into the things that go bump in the night, as well as to file the appropriate paperwork to deal with it. It's a soul crushing job--and that's just a comment on the paperwork.
This week Howard has been sent out in to the countryside to look into a rumor about unicorns, and lest you keep that fond smile on your face, be warned that unicorns in this construction are anything but rainbows and sparkles. Rather, the threat of a unicorn infestation is a Lovecraftian horror that would drown the world and end humanity.
It's just another day for Howard, though.
If you pick this up, note that it's not the first in the series, but this is one of those times when you can jump in mid-stream and never miss a beat. Equoid by Charles Stross is winner of the 2014 Hugo in the novella category, I picked it up primarily for that reason, but, due to how much I enjoyed it, I suspect that I'll go back and find others in the Laundry series, of which it is a part, as well. Stross has a style that is equal parts intelligent, relying on a reader's knowledge and reading outside the story, and humorous.
If you like British humor--heavy in sarcasm and dripping with grim humor--you might enjoy dipping into Equoid. Bonus points if you've any taste for Lovecraft. Be warned, though, that there are some disturbing aspects to the story--especially if you like unicorns....more
V-Wars, edited by Jonathan Maberry, is a collection of stories set in the same world but written by a bevy of talented authors.
In the world Maberry cV-Wars, edited by Jonathan Maberry, is a collection of stories set in the same world but written by a bevy of talented authors.
In the world Maberry creates in V-Wars, a prehistoric virus has been released from polar ice, awakening recessive genes in the human genome. The virus triggers changes in some humans, awakening physical changes that are varied and dramatic. Before long, vampires walk among us. Some are benign; many are not.
Maberry's collection of tales does well and more credibly what X-Men (at least the movies--I'm not familiar with the comics) tries to do: it portrays a genetic mutation that changes a portion of humanity, causing ostracization, fear, violence, and, of course, government action. I've always been dubious about what the reaction to the X-Men. After all, the powers they have seem to be magical and useful. On the other hand, the mutations in V Wars result in a change that seems to drive its mutants to, well, suck blood.
That seems a bit more against the public interest than the power to start fires, freeze objects, levitate, or any of the other number of changes that Stan Lee's X-Men undergo.
Maberry does an excellent job tying the stories together with a common story that intersperses the tales. While the majority of the stories seem to take place in and around the American northeast, especially New York City, V-Wars treats readers to a semi-global perspective, with stories from the American southern border with Mexico, in the shadows of the Appalachian Mountains, and one that crisscrosses the globe, starting in Antarctica, jetting off to Romania, and stopping through France, too. Some times we read from the vampire's perspective; other times, from the humans. Maberry breaks up the stories, too, giving the collection something of novel-like feeling.
As interesting as the collection is, the stories are not all created equal, and it's part of the reason I had a hard time settling on just three stars. I wanted badly to give the book four stars--but several of the stories disappointed, even bored me.
They were few, however, and generally the stories were creative and enjoyable, if occasionally not for the faint of heart. Here are a few of my favorites:
"Stalking Anna Lei" by James A. Moore brings together legends of vampires from East Asia, as John Lei searches for his sister while navigating the dangerous world of Asian gangs amid reports of a monstrous creature that seems to be haunting his every step. Told from John's perspective, Moore has a great voice that makes his story one of the most enjoyable, and his plotting makes the final twist satisfying and unexpected.
"Vulpes" by Gregory Frost begins in Antarctica and trails Ruksana back to her home in Romania. Beware, though: when the change comes to her, the results are anything but vampiric.
Yvonne Navarro's "Epiphany" asks what happens when society's most weak go through the vampiric change, trading vulnerabilities for superhuman power. Red Moon is the orphaned daughter of Native Americans, raped, pregnant, and infected by the virus. Beset by changes she cannot explain, she finds herself on the edge of motherhood in a world that threatens to destroy her for the changes that have come over her.
V-Wars deserves a second installment. It is, in many ways, only the opening chapter in the new world that emerges as vampire and human eye each other and wonder if they will live together or in conflict. ...more
Loading...
