New release review: 1-23-18

I did not finish this book. I even broke my rule about getting to 30% before passing judgment. This book was so bad in the first 20% that I had to force even that, but then I just had to stop.

I'm not sure how Chandler Klang Smith managed to make the dragons the most boring part of the book. They just swirl above the metropolis burning random stuff and it's SO. BORING.

There is a prison complex in the middle of the city that is locked and surrounded by a huge wall and generations of people have lived and died inside. It's basically its own society and it's also where the dragons burn the most. That could be like Batman: Arkham City cool, and honestly it should be a little depressing, but overall it just read as...normal? Which made it lacking in interest, what's the word? BORING.

There is an immature rich boy who is engaged to a "duchess" with endless teeth(?) that runs away and finds a girl and her dead mom (?) on the central garbage island and fucks her even though she's childlike and doesn't even know what having sex is (and neither does he so he doesn't even make her feel good). She thinks that robots have taken over the city and are waiting to kill her if she goes back.

This book is confusing, unnecessarily obscene, kind of rapey, and the fun parts are somehow boring and ancillary AND THAT'S JUST THE FIRST TWENTY PERCENT. 80ish PAGES.

To be fair I'll include the description from Goodreads here too. I think it's a little extra but hey, you gotta try to sell the book, right?

Read this book if you want, but I say skip it because it's gross and boring and there are SO MANY GOOD BOOKS TO READ THIS YEAR. I added some of my own commentary for flavor. Enjoy.

***

A sprawling, genre-defying epic set in a dystopian metropolis plagued by dragons, this debut about what it’s like to be young in a very old world is pure storytelling pleasure. (NO IT'S NOT OMG DID WE EVEN READ THE SAME BOOK)

In the burned-out, futuristic city of Empire Island, three young people navigate a crumbling metropolis constantly under threat from a pair of dragons that circle the skies. (This makes it seem like it's suspenseful. IT ISN'T) When violence strikes, reality star Duncan Humphrey Ripple V, the spoiled scion of the metropolis’ last dynasty; Baroness Swan Lenore Dahlberg, his tempestuous, death-obsessed betrothed; and Abby, a feral beauty he discovered tossed out with the trash; are forced to flee everything they've ever known. (This sure sounds like a neat journey, right? I DIDN'T GET HERE BECAUSE THE BEGINNING WAS SO BAD) As they wander toward the scalded heart of the city, they face fire, conspiracy, mayhem, unholy drugs, dragon-worshippers, and the monsters lurking inside themselves. (Oh my god no one wants this) In this bombshell (REACHING) of a novel, Chandler Klang Smith has imagined an unimaginable world (with dragons and horny dudes? Oh my goodness I can't even imagine that kind of world...WAIT...): scathingly clever and gorgeously strange, The Sky Is Yours is at once faraway and disturbingly familiar, its singular chaos grounded in the universal realities of love, family, and the deeply human desire to survive at all costs. (Honestly I think we'd all be better off if these characters died. Especially the stupid dude whose nickname is, I shit you not, THE DUNK.)

The Sky Is Yours is incredibly cinematic, bawdy, rollicking, hilarious, and utterly unforgettable, a debut that readers who loved Cloud Atlas, Super Sad True Love Story, and Blade Runner will adore. (This is all false advertising, don't be lied to.)

***

"The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades", (Timbuk3)

This is a rollicking bizarro-lite that does a bunch of jazzy-lit improvs on post-apocalyptic standards. We follow our three heroes as they explore an urban core decimated by a pair of dragons and post-electronic post-capitalist ennui. It's blurbed as "sprawling", and that's certainly fair. This is the kind of book that's made up, paragraph by paragraph, of riffs and throwaway lines and bits of business, and showy writing that is by turns clever, sly, aware, juvenile, knowing, brittle, and generous.

When I first started to read this I wasn't really inclined to try to suss out its deeper allegorical meaning or literary structure. I was happy to enjoy the insightful and/or funny throwaway lines, the occasionally brutal satire, and the frequent sly and amusing set pieces. But, the travails of the three protagonists start to draw you in.

We follow three different protagonists, who come together and then go their separate ways in the wrecked metropolis. I guess we could have had three books, or this very long book with three intertwined stories. Spoiled rich kid Ripple is sort of a childish pill, and his ride struck me as the least interesting. Wild child Abby is a feral festival of quirks, and she is loaded up with so much symbolic clutter she's like a walking post-postmodern lit class. Swanny is either the most interesting character, (because the most realistic and human), or the most boring character, (because the most realistic and human). Add literally a dozen supporting characters who sustain their own substantial storylines and you have the main players.

But maybe this isn't really meant to be much in the way of an actual story with a plot and characters. It's certainly a great showy buffet of outrageous and weird circumstances and behaviors. And it's loaded with sharp, sometimes brutal, one-liners and throwaway lines. It sort of reads at a high-YA level, with the kind of careless youthful vigor I sometimes associate with that kind of writing. But hey, for readers who are often only presented with earnest messaging, serious drama, or formula escapism something jazzy and spacey and strange and uncompromised like this could be a nice change of pace and maybe an eye opener.

So, I enjoyed this book's style; it had strong features and weak features, and was sometimes way over the top. But there's a lot to be said for helter-skelter style and energy, and I was happy I dipped in to this.

(Please note that I received a free advance ecopy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)

I did not finish this book. I have to admit that I was put off by a negative gender comment in the early pages of the book, but I pressed forward, assuming there were... reasons. I stopped reading for a few weeks to try to see if post-holiday reading would improve my take. But after getting to the halfway mark, I just found the characters unlikable. Coupled with a meandering plot, I found myself not even looking forward to my available reading time to continue. I have enjoyed complicated and stylized books such as those by Ada Palmer but here I feel like I just do not see this author's "point." Rather than post a negative review on Goodreads, I just marked it DNF. As a courtesy to the author, who has not published much, I am not distributing this review on social media.

The nitty-gritty: A big, bold, and chaotic futuristic story where the absurd is commonplace, dragons patrol the skies, and everyone has a chance at redemption.

I knew when I was only 100 pages into this book that it would end up being a favorite this year, and I was right. I can’t tell you how excited I am to have read The Sky is Yours, although I guess that’s the point of writing a review, to tell people how excited you are! This is a very strange book, and I suspect you’re either going to be on board for this story or you’re not. But sometimes books touch you on an emotional level that’s hard to explain, and this is that book for me. Some reviewers are going to argue that the characters are horrid and unlikable (they are); other reviewers will mention that the plot is a bit convoluted (it sort of is) and some might be disappointed that this isn’t really a story about dragons (the dragons are part of the story but yep, this isn’t really about them). So why did I love it? I think for me it was a perfect storm of elements that came together in just the right way, an odd combination of future tech (flying cars, "People Machines" and more) and old-fashioned, Jane Austen-like mannerisms. 

The story takes place in the crumbling, apocalyptic city of Empire Island, where fifty years earlier the skies were taken over by the sudden appearance of two flying dragons. Since then, the people of the city have lived in fear of the dragons, who circle overhead non-stop, spitting fire on the structures below them. This has resulted in a city filled with charred buildings and a dim, smoky atmosphere. The story begins with the impending arranged wedding between Duncan Humphrey Ripple V and the young and very naive Baroness Swan Lenore Dahlberg. Swanny and her mother Pippi arrive at the Ripple mansion to prepare for the ceremony, but meanwhile, Duncan has crash-landed his HowFly in a garbage dump, fallen in lust with a homeless waif named Abby and brought her home with him. When Swanny happens upon Abby while exploring the mansion (and realizes that Duncan has been having sex with her), she understands on some level that this is her life now, and she needs to accept it. After all, she is going to be rich.

But the wedding reception is interrupted by a home invasion of the worst kind: “Torchies” with chainsaws have broken into the mansion (despite Humphrey Ripple’s expensive and private security system) and are on a rampage to kill everyone in sight, grab the family jewels and get the hell out. In the chaos, everyone in the mansion scatters, and so begin the adventures of Ripple, Swanny, Abby and the rest.

OK, I have to get something out of the way. The dragons are not a big part of this story. Or rather, they are constantly there in the background, and they are certainly the reason that everyone is living in a burnt-out, apocalyptic city, but this story is really all about the characters. My favorite part of Emerald Island was probably Torchtown, a walled-in city-within-a-city where criminals are dumped, to live out their lives behind the walls. A drug kingpin named Sharkey was born in Torchtown and grew up to be the most feared man in town, making his own drug called “chaw” and peddling it to the denizens of Torchtown. Sharkey was the one character who really didn’t have any redeeming qualities. He’s simply a horrible person, and when Swanny (unwisely) enters his orbit, his controlling personality made me want to go after him with a chainsaw. Alas, poor Swanny doesn’t always make the best choices.

In fact, most of the characters in this story make terrible choices at one time or another. There’s Duncan Ripple, who, despite the fact that he’s signed a marriage contract with Swanny, brazenly picks up a girl and brings her home to the mansion (on the day of his wedding!); Abby, the girl in question, who blindly proclaims her love for Ripple and follows him away from the only home she’s ever known; Pippi, Swanny’s mother, who agrees to the marriage, consigning her daughter to life with the sex-crazed Ripple; Katya and Humphrey, Ripple’s parents, who—well, I can’t even tell you the terrible mistake that they make! Then there’s uncle Osmond, confined to a wheelchair after a terrible accident, who simply sits in his chair and observes everyone else’s horrible mistakes. Yes, this book has a big cast of characters. And I haven’t even mentioned Trank, Duluth, or Hooligan (the apehound)!

Did I mention this book is funny as hell? Well, it is. I laughed my way through most of it, but it was an uncomfortable kind of laughter, when the humor is black and you know you’re really not supposed to be laughing. One of the funniest scenes was the marriage ceremony, which I’d love to quote in full, but it’s just too long. Here’s a snippet:

“A marriage is a mutation, the artificial merging of discrete elements from nature that turn monstrous when combined. But we would not be human if we did not summon monsters into our midst. Today, young Duncan will devour the baroness whole, and he will die of her poison.”

Just when you think there isn’t possibly anything else that the author could possibly think up, she throws in another side story at the end that (dare I say it) made me love Ripple just a little. What I loved about this story is that each character is on their own journey, making their own mistakes and learning their own lessons. At the end, Abby finally realizes her purpose in life, and not only was I surprised and delighted with the way her story line plays out, but I loved the way the story comes full circle and ties everything up.

One thing’s for sure. I have never read anything quite like The Sky is Yours. Chandler Klang Smith—in lovely, pristine prose, I might add—has created a world and characters that still haunt me, and I know I’ll be mulling over this story for a long time. For discerning readers who aren’t afraid to read something completely outside the box, you should not miss this book.

Big thanks to Goodreads and the publisher for supplying a review copy. Above quotes were taken from an uncorrected proof, and may differ in the final version of the book.

The Sky Is Yours by Chandler Klang Smith is a recommended mix of a dystopian, fairy-tale fantasy, and a coming of age novel.

Local royalty of the wealthy still around, Duncan Humphrey Ripple V has been the star of his own reality show. Now he is eighteen and his engagement is finalized and the wedding contracts have all been written and negotiated. He is to marry Baroness Swan Lenore Dahlberg (Swanny). When Duncan's small airplane is knocked out of the sky, he lands on an island of trash where he meets Abby, a wild child who has grown up on the garbage island. They fall in love and Duncan takes her back to his mansion right when Swanny arrives for the wedding. But, there were a whole lot of things that happened before and during the previously mentioned action. Then other stuff happens and the three are out and about in the decaying city. Then lots more happens and the three find their destinies.

The first part of this novel felt interminable - it is too slow and has no clear direction in sight. I almost set The Sky Is Yours aside several times while reading it. This is never a good sign. I'm not sure what kept me reading beyond the fact that I had no other book reviews due soon. The quality of writing is quite good, but the plot at the beginning meanders and wanders around taking w-a-y too much time to get from A to B. Actually, A visits many other letters before it even thinks of B. You do need to expect plot holes.

The first part of The Sky Is Yours focuses more on developing the bad traits of the characters, before the other stuff happens. When you start out with characters that were written to be unappealing, or laughed at, they have more to overcome as the plot progresses. But still I kept reading, if only to find out how all the characters and parts introduced early on were going to play out in the end. A point is earned for keeping me reading - and keeping me guessing what would happen next. Another point is earned for the ending which manages to resolve most of the loose ends in an interesting way. The third point is for the world building.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Hogarth via Netgalley.
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Sometime in the future, the world is destroyed by a pair of fire-breathing dragons. There was probably more, but that was all I needed to decide I wanted to read The Sky is Yours. I wish the ending had excited me as much as the premise.

The first thing I’ll say is that this book was too long for my liking. Nothing much happens in the first act. Maybe it’s because I entered into this book thinking it was about dragons. But truthfully, the dragons have as much impact on the story as sporadic rain showers.

This first act has a ton of character building. It’s done well, but I think it would have been better if we were dropped in at the end of the first act, and the same character development spread over the remainder of the book.

It’s at that point (the end of the first act) that the book gets going. And really, it becomes pretty interesting pretty quickly. Each of our main characters heads off in a different and exciting direction. These kids, who didn’t seem capable of much of anything, are suddenly showing that they can be survivors.

Unfortunately, as each of these threads reaches its height, they’re snipped off. The choices they’ve been making, the direction they’ve been going, is almost completely wiped away. If I’m honest with myself, it’s not a terrible ending. It just wasn’t the ending I was hoping for. I personally didn’t find satisfaction in any of the resolutions.

The characters are the saving grace of this book. Each character is as deep as an ocean. Independent, developed, and so ridiculously real that it’s easy to forget you’re reading fiction. You’ll feel like you know each character’s extensive history as well as friends you’ve had for decades.

If you’re the type of reader that loves nothing more than character development, this is definitely one to check out.

Way back in 2014 I wrote about Smith’s first novel, Goldenland Past Dark, a strange and creepy novel about a traveling circus that I recommend for fans of American Horror Story: Freakshow. When I heard about her next novel, The Sky is Yours, about a burned-out, futuristic city plagued by dragons, I assumed I was in for something equally strange and bizarre. And I wasn’t wrong. Part dystopian, part fantasy, and part cyberpunk, this novel is a feast for the senses. The world building is so detailed, so complete, that you will feel like you can see, hear, touch and even smell every scene. The characters are unique as well, though not all as appealing as you might expect. In fact, some are quite annoying/distasteful (especially the former reality star Duncan Humphrey Ripple V). But distasteful though they may be, you can’t help reading on to find what obstacle the story will throw at them next and who they might turn out to be when, or if, they survive.

Genre bending novels used to be my thing — after all, before finding out that he was a total arse, I used to love Jonathan Lethem’s early novels. So when a book that describes itself as a cross between Blade Runner and Super Sad True Love Story comes along, I had to jump at the chance to read it. That novel is Chandler Klang Smith’s The Sky Is Yours, and, boy, does it bend genres. It is equal parts science fiction and fantasy, blended with fairy tales and gangster novels and quite possibly even more. (Romance?) The novel is ambitious, too, as it features three young protagonists that essentially get equal billing.

The novel starts with the impending marriage between Duncan Ripple, an 18-year-old geek and former reality TV star, and Baroness Swan Lenore Dahlberg, (also known as Swanny) a young lady who grows so many teeth constantly inside her mouth (and body as it turns out) that she has a dentist on call to help fix her gums. However, before the wedding, Duncan — travelling to meet his future wife in an air car — crashes into two dragons that circle the city state he lives in. He falls to an island full of trash where he is rescued by a feral young woman named Abracadabra, or Abby for short. Duncan falls in love with Abby, and that sets off complications that resonate throughout the entire novel.

Needless to say, there’s a lot going on with this book, and I’ve only just sketched out the very first 10th of it or so, which means that readers will probably not be very bored — though there are some slow spots here and there. I didn’t know until I finished reading this book that Chandler Klang Smith was a woman, and I say that because she gets the dodderheadded Duncan Ripple down right — right down to the fantasy porn collection that he harbours. Indeed, the world these characters inhabit is quite colourful. Your imagination will be working triple overtime while reading this book.

Alas — and there is an alas — there’s a major flaw with The Sky Is Yours. The author seems to hold her characters in contempt, which means that they are not very likable. Granted, the characters grow and mature as the novel wears on, which is a relief, but, at the outset, Duncan and Swanny are spoiled little brats as are their extended family members. It’s really hard to dig into this book because the characters are just so entitled and irritating. That might be part of the book’s thematic, but, still, it makes for a rather tough slog.

The best science fiction doesn’t necessarily predict the future but works as a metaphor for how things are now. To that end, I wasn’t really sure what the book was all about. Duncan could be seen as a Trump-like figure, except he’s not callous enough, and that’s where the comparisons to our current living environment seems to end. I’m not sure who Swanny represents, and I’m definitely not sure what Abby means to mirror. Even the setting — a burned out cityscape that seems to double for New York City — isn’t quite clear because the downtown core is called Torchtown and that’s where all of the criminals are sent to live. I don’t know how things are currently in New York for sure, but I thought that the rundown boroughs have been significantly cleaned up since the high crime of the ’70s and ‘80s.

Still, if you take the book for what it is — a mashed up fairy tale — it does have its pleasures and its joys. The crew eventually encounters a vicious drug dealer named Sharkey, who may just be the best character of the book. He wheedles and deals with his clientele, and harbours secrets from the main characters that would ruin him if they were to find out. When Sharkey’s on the scene, the book is quite magical, because he’s so violent and unpredictable. True, he’s not very likable either, in a sense, based on his occupation and personality, but following him is a pleasure.

The Sky Is Yours has another problem, and that is that it feels somewhat stitched together and made up as the author went along. This does introduce the odd plot hole or two. For instance, I don’t think it’s really explained how Sharkey can venture out in a limo beyond Torchtown, even if it isn’t really defended well. And since its occupants have a means for getting out, why is it that they choose to stay and not leave? The book isn’t very clear on this. It’s probably best that you don’t think too deeply about this novel, as you might run your brain up in knots.

In the end, The Sky Is Yours is a pleasant enough book that is coming out in the dead of winter — normally a dull time in the book publishing world. It reminded me somewhat of Kristopher Jasma’s Why We Came to The City in places, at least in tone not content. I’m not so sure that the book is very Blade Runner-esque, except in how it treats the cityscape as a triumph of production design, but for those who like their stories to be mashed like potatoes, there is enough grist here to really bite into. You may find the first half of the book to be somewhat grating, as I did, but stick with it as the characters change and grow up to a degree, which means you’ll eventually get to places that are slightly more edifying. But as to what The Sky Is Yours is actually trying to say, it beats the heck out of me. Still, this book is worth a look for the curious.

Review to come at end of dec with cross posted link

Not really sure what I just read but it was hilarious, weird and brilliant..

I unfortunately could not really break into the story and was unable to finish the book.

Unfortunately I didn't care for this one. I just couldn't get over how much I hated the main characters. I get unlikable narratives, but there are just sometimes that the characters are so unlikable that I can't get past it. If you don't mind that, you might enjoy this. The writing was fine and the world-building was good - I just couldn't get past the characters.

Two dragons terrorize a city and its people by consistently setting it ablaze in The Sky is Yours by Chandler Klang Smith, where the focus is on three teenagers navigating both the city and their future. 

Duncan Humphrey Ripple V, a.k.a Dunk or Ripple, is an incredibly spoiled eighteen year old acclimating to life without his reality television show and on the brink of wedding his betrothed, Baroness Swan Lenore Dalhburg, a decision agreed upon between the couples' parents. After taking his HowFly for a spin in the skies, Ripple manages to crash on a remote island, where he meets a strange, feral teenage girl, whom he calls Abby, short for what she thinks her name is, Abracadabra. Bringing Abby home creates problems in Ripple's domestic life and seems to act as a catalyst in the lives of the entire Ripple and Dalhburg families, drawing the violence rampant throughout the rest of the city dangerously close, threatening their lives and forcing Ripple, Swan, and Abby to take their survival, and future, into their own hands.   

The story encompassed a fair amount of both literal and metaphorical ground; it incorporated the lives, recollections, motivations, and desires of the three teenagers, as well as valuable insights from various adult characters that complemented the narrative's overall path and emotional exploration. The futuristic world in which the narrative took place was relatively well-realized while also being a rather bleak and empty world that allows readers to overlay their own imaginings on the skeleton canvas of the city. I thought that it was odd to have notes come at the end of the chapter instead of as a footnote on the page where the note applied, particularly as they relate quite closely with the current moment of the text and waiting until the end of a chapter to provide more detail derails momentum (and reader recollection of what the note related to).

Overall, I'd give it a 4 out of 5 stars.