Two new MG/YA releases I read this week

Both of these books are fresh, new, well-written additions to the MG/YA shelves. I highly recommend the two of them.

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Cinder, by Marissa Meyer

I have my friend to thank for lending me this one... the same friend who convinced me to read The Perilous Gard, so you see I owe her a lot.
Cinder is ... a sci-fi retelling of Cinderella, set in New Beijing, far into the future. There's a Lunar colony (with a mind-controlling ruler), a bunch of neat technology, a lightly-written romance, a terrificly sad event that I still am trying to figure out how the plot could have worked without, and a mint of good writing.
Plus, the Cinderella character is a cyborg. Yes, I said a cyborg. And the whole thing works, yes, it works! Even though I guessed one of the twists, I didn't care. There were others I didn't. Also, I appreciated the Chinese culture references throughout the book. Though I've nothing against most of the futuristic novels out there, they seem to focus on the United States, and it was refreshing to see a different setting and society. One plot point seemed a little weak to me, but that's the only objection I could think of.
There's lots to love in this book.
Even though if you carry the book around without the dustjacket, you may get asked about the "Meyer" in metallic red type on the spine... (Had to explain to a pal of mine, no, not THAT Meyer!)

Age rec: Really, this could be MG. I can't recall anything that would stop me from giving it to a middle-schooler... no mature content, not even any swearing that I remember. The only problem would be some rather chilling descriptions of the letumosis plague hospital - and, of course, the nasty behavior of a few characters.

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Winterling, by Sarah Prineas

I got this one for fun from the local library. I'd read enough reviews to believe there was nothing really amazing on the plot front, but I'm glad I picked it up anyway. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it!

It's nothing too amazing on the surface... girl discovers her parents belonged to another world, finds gateway, enters, has adventures... but Sarah Prineas weaves the loveliest story together. The elements may sound cliched - an evil Lady who must be defeated, a land bound in winter, a tricky shapeshifter boy as companion to the heroine - but don't be deceived. Winterling is far more than the sum of its parts.

There's the imagery of the "dying crown" of leaves, of Fer's jacket, of the black feathers; the swift poetry of the Hunt's ride through the night; the strict rules of the land involving threes and oaths and bindings; the herbal magic, concrete and yet symbolic at the same time. The writing is simple and flowing.
For all that I thought the plot sounded cliched at first - its individual parts were not, though the main concept was... familiar. Yes, that's the word for Winterling: "familiar." But in a good way, like N. D. Wilson's Dandelion Fire felt familiar. Stories like that can be retold because they work.
And I haven't even gotten into all the neat stuff that makes this book special - the landscape descriptions, the moon reflection in the water, the subtle humor spread throughout - and the wolf guards! Those wolf guards! ...Words fail me.

Age rec: I would say MG and up. Nothing I can recall that would give any trouble.

Incarceron, by Catherine Fisher

I found the audiobook version of this one because I a) didn't want to wait for the 2 or 3 people ahead of me on the holdlist to read the paper copy and b) had just had my wisdom teeth out and wanted something fun to do. As for the notion of the book itself, I found that it was on the Mythopoeic Award finalist list, which made me interested enough to start reading it one day at Barnes & Noble. After the first chapter and some of the second, I was quite intrigued.

The book in a nutshell (really, this is a terribly unfortunate thing to say if you've read the book!):
Two worlds, or two sides of the same world. A boy named Finn, living mysteriously in a gigantic, sentient prison called Incarceron. A girl named Claudia, caged in a land that disguises its technology with facades of nearly-Victorian era life.

Oh, neeps, I really don't know how to describe this book. It's like trying to summarize The Hunger Games. I'm going to use the synopsis from Goodreads.

""
Incarceron -- a futuristic prison, sealed from view, where the descendants of the original prisoners live in a dark world torn by rivalry and savagery. It is a terrifying mix of high technology -- a living building which pervades the novel as an ever-watchful, ever-vengeful character, and a typical medieval torture chamber -- chains, great halls, dungeons. A young prisoner, Finn, has haunting visions of an earlier life, and cannot believe he was born here and has always been here. In the outer world, Claudia, daughter of the Warden of Incarceron, is trapped in her own form of prison -- a futuristic world constructed beautifully to look like a past era, an imminent marriage she dreads. She knows nothing of Incarceron, except that it exists. But there comes a moment when Finn, inside Incarceron, and Claudia, outside, simultaneously find a device -- a crystal key, through which they can talk to each other. And so the plan for Finn's escape is born ...
""

There; that's better than I could have done at the moment. And it's a book that deserves the best. It's not perfect but it's good, quite good.

I suppose, essentially, Incarceron is a sci-fi dystopia disguised as a fantasy. It feels like a fantasy, and it always does. (I wonder if anyone is ever put off by this? Has anyone spent the whole book waiting for technical details to be discussed, or, worse yet, thought it was the epic fantasy it's dressed up as?)

Thank heavens there's not much romance, I say, thank heavens there's nothing too icky and uncomfortable, and thank heavens there's more than one female character. It's really a large relief to me, this book. I was tired of romance and tired of inappropriate hints or actions. True, a nasty character tries to cast slurs on a protagonist's behaviors with someone else, but the protagonist is as shocked and offended as anyone should be under the circumstances.

Characterization isn't really the strongest, but I didn't care. It's a well-done book, very interesting and fine reading (or listening, as the case may be). Frankly it's action-driven, if not settings-driven. Yes, settings-driven would be the word for it... a book that was the setting in action. I like to write that sort of thing, and I love to read it. The world lives in this book, from the Warden's study to the galleries of Incarceron, from the glass globes in Gildas's tower to the snail-crossed door in the basement. I felt as if the square plastic thing of the audiobook case were my own crystal key, allowing me a glimpse through to a place beyond my ordinary sight.

Talk on the author's website (warning, beware spoilers) says that there is a movie more or less being worked on. I think this book would make a terrific movie, and I for one would watch it - as long as no one put in extra romance.

This book has some subtle and not-so-subtle threads about loyalty and friendship. Is Finn doing right to trust and stand by Keiro so much? Claudia is on Jared's side for a while, but is she risking him too much by the end?
Claudia's two father-figures, Jared and the Warden - how do they each relate to her? How does this correlate with their actual feelings toward her?
What about "protocol"? Is it really solving anyone's problems? Why was it set up, and why does it continue, and is it a good idea? A lot of us like to think about "the good old days" of history, when things were "simpler."How would that really play out?

Quotes are regrettably unobtainable, as it was an audiobook...

Age rec: Honestly, I want to call it MG as well as YA. It's a fairly clean, fast-paced, exciting and mind-bending tale. It won't rock anyone's world, but it's good as books go. My main issues were that, in emotional situations, the characters do air some fairly strong language - and there's some talk of questionable behavior, but it's only approved of by a vile and obviously unsavory character, and Claudia is entirely incensed by the notion.
With a warning for the above, though, I would give it to a ten-year-old.

The Green Book, by Jill Paton Walsh

How I found this book: I was messing around a library one day and happened to see it.

More or less, this book is -
The story of a colony ship of people from Earth departing for a new home planet. They escape a Disaster on Earth that we never learn much about. Eventually they reach another planet and begin to settle in, dealing with issues like reading matter, the possibility of native species, and - most importantly - whether they will be able to grow more food before their supplies run out.

It doesn't sound like much, I will admit - but it is a perfectly beautiful child's book, sweet and simple and a glimpse of a world utterly other and yet peopled with those like us. There's a sense of loss regarding the old Earth, a sorrow as things like literature and clouds are forgotten, when the old stories get garbled. There's the wonder of the planet itself. There's the fear of whether or not survival will be possible.

It's a thin little tale, hardly a novella even at 69 pages.

Quotes:

...and so Shine was transformed. For the buildings at night were now a soft pale green, with points of emerald visible where the lamps were hung, and the leaping glow of the fires made a ruby-red glow in the middle. The blurred and magnified shadows of the people moving inside their houses cast dark figures softly over the walls of the fluted, shimmering green and red shining houses, and Shine at night looked like a scatter of blocks of fire opal, lying on a dark land under the stars.

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All those years closed inside the spaceship, and the time on the new planet, had made Pattie forget the air could move, the air could touch you, as the quiet air of the new place never did.

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I love, love, love this book. I suppose it must be science-fiction, but I don't think it feels like it. It's just a child's viewing of a great and strange and wondrous business.

Age rec: anyone. Anyone at all. Even an adult would like it, I think.

Mercurial Monday: Asimov's Fantastic Voyage

This book is very fast-paced. That's probably because it's a novelization of a movie - a movie simply doesn't have as much time to develop backstory or detailed characterizations. A book can easily devote four scenes to what a movie has to get out in one. Of course, a novelization can easily expand on a movie (the reverse of the distilling that normally happens when a movie's made into a book), but Asimov probably felt he couldn't change anything significant without talking to the movie producers first.

So, don't open this book expecting any great depth. The premise touches on numerous major issues: during the Cold War, Dr. Benes, a scientist who's helped develop the new science of miniaturization - shrinking something to microscopic scales without any loss of detail - defects from the Soviet Union to the United States. A Soviet agent tries to assassinate him; Benes survives, but a blood clot in his brain will kill him soon if not removed. So, our protagonists must be miniaturized and navigate a submarine through Benes' bloodstream to destroy the clot. All of this is moved over quite quickly, though, and the rest of the book follows our protagonists inside Benes' body. This probably came from the movie. It reminded me most of a movie I'd seen: Pearl Harbor is merely mentioned in the opening crawl; the film itself talks about the reaction in California.

That movie told a fun story, though, and this book does it even better. The moment I saw the protagonists almost get seasick from random Brownian motion of air molecules buffeting the submarine around, I knew Asimov would use science to tell a good story. And he does: each hazard they face in Benes' bloodstream is plausible and exciting. You needn't be an anatomy major to read this; as long as you know that the heart pumps blood around the body, Asimov will explain enough for you to enjoy this fast-paced, exciting book.

It isn't just a travel story, though, even through such an unorthodox clime. Our protagonist has reason to believe that one of the people aboard the submarine is a Soviet secret agent who'll try to sabotage the mission. But whom? I kept watching and waiting for the saboteur to be caught in the act. Eventually, he was. But the protagonist was ready for him - why, he is asked? Because I already knew who he was, he responds - and then proceeds to explain how he kept watching through the voyage, picking up on clues which seem so obvious in retrospect but I totally missed at the time.

Anyone from age ~12 up, I'm convinced, can enjoy this fun tale. No warnings apply, unless you feel the saboteur's death (after he's already tried to kill the protagonist) deserves one. Don't expect it to be deeper than it is, but have fun with what Asimov did write.