Yesterday was the day of the dog here in Nepal, the second day of Diwali (Tihar). On the first day, crows are worshipped as the harbingers of death. On the second, dogs are worshipped as the companions of humanity. When I stepped out briefly to buy some milk for tea I found that even the strays, no matter how mangy, had marigold garlands about their necks. After the previous night’s kumbaya-South-Asia feeling this suddenly felt alien. One can’t picture that in Pakistan.
I have been tearing through a Young Adult science fiction series which is quite gripping. It’s called the Illuminae Files by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff. The first book is about an illegal mining colony which gets attacked by a rival corporation. Two ships – a scientific research ship and a warship – escape, carrying refugees. The two protagonists, teenagers who just broke up that morning, are on the two ships. There are rogue AIs, space zombies, megacorp mischief, mistaken identities and all sorts of hi-jinks. The second book is set on the space station they are fleeing towards, which is the custodian of the local wormhole. The evil megacorp attacks the station to hide its tracks and the commander’s ninja daughter and her little band (including her drug dealer and his computer whizz cousin) lead the resistance. This one ups the stakes, with alien worms that feed on brain activity, elite killer squads, and exotic particles. Can’t wait to see what the third one has in hand. The books are extremely well designed – they are all dossiers of evidence, so chat transcripts, accounts of surveillance footage, etc, and make really great use of computer game graphic inspired design. I am reading them on my Kindle and it does feel a waste, I should have read them on my iPad. The characters are compelling, if a little samey – the girls are brilliant go-getters, the boys think with their dicks and are constantly making inappropriate jokes but are loving and step up when it’s time. But they’re fun to read about and their relationships are very believable. The action sequences are excellent – I’m amazed there isn’t a movie series yet – I gather it’s stuck in development.
I particularly enjoyed the first book which was really pulse raising and the villains were less clearcut evil than in the second. Whether the more exotic physics of the second will work I think will depend on the final book. In the second it was also a little too predictable by the second who would live and who would die. And strangely, the whiteness of the second was stronger than the first, though both definitely showed societies descended from a white middle-class suburb of an Australian city. But very enjoyable light fare, don’t regret shelling out for them in swift succession.
YA books are a curious phenomenon. I am not sure why they are so enjoyable to read when they certainly deal with big concerns and terrible things as much as any adult novel. I will have to think about it.
This was a very good article, about the search for mass graves in Guatemala.