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quirkycatsfatstacks · 1 year

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Review: Lute by Jennifer Marie Thorne

Author: Jennifer Marie ThornePublisher: Tor NightfireReleased: October 4, 2022Received: NetGalley What would you do if you were promised a perfect and safe life – on the condition that you and everyone you love had to face grave danger once every seven years? I imagine most of us would be more worried about the catch, thanks to our obsession with the cost of bargains. Enter the tale of Lute,…

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kjudgemental · 2 months

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Daemon - Thriller Novel Review

New review for a thriller novel, just in case you wanted to check it out. You know, as you do.

Author: Daniel Suarez Publisher: Quercus Country: UK (my copy) Year: 2010 (orig 2006) Normally, high-tech cyber thrillers are set in the future, in order to fully take advantage of the strange, sci-fi stuff they’re discussing. The most obvious case for this would be the original run of cyberpunk stories from William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, and that original pack of cyberpunks, which had their…

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#action book #action novel #book review #crime novel review #crime thriller review #critic #cyber thriller #cyberpunk #daemon book review #daemon review #daniel suarez daemon #daniel suarez review #FBI novel review #literature review #novel review #thriller novel #thriller novel review #thriller review

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emi12209-blog · 3 months

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Another writing meme! Let me know if you relate.

#women writers #books #wattpad #writing #thriller #writers on tumblr #books and reading #bookworm #book review #writerscorner #writing encouragement

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mostlysignssomeportents · 12 days

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Rebecca Roque’s “Till Human Voices Wake Us”

I'm touring my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me in TOMORROW (Apr 17) in CHICAGO, then Torino (Apr 21) Marin County (Apr 27), Winnipeg (May 2), Calgary (May 3), Vancouver (May 4), and beyond!

"Till Human Voices Wake Us" is Rebecca Roque's debut novel: it's a superb teen thriller, intricately plotted and brilliantly executed, packed with imaginative technological turns that amp up the tension and suspense:

https://www.blackstonepublishing.com/till-human-voices-wake-us-gn3a.html#541=2790108

Modern technology presents a serious problem for a thriller writer. Once characters can call or text one another, a whole portfolio of suspense-building gimmicks – like the high-speed race across town – just stop working. For years, thriller writers contrived implausible – but narratively convenient – ways to go on using these tropes. Think of the shopworn "damn, my phone is out of battery/range just when I need it the most":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIZVcRccCx0

When that fails, often writers just lean into the "idiot plot" – a plot that only works because the characters are acting like idiots:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiot_plot

But even as technology was sawing a hole in the suspense writer's bag of tricks, shrewd suspense writers were cooking up a whole new menu of clever ways to build suspense in ways that turn on the limitations and capabilities of technology. One pioneer of this was Iain M Banks (RIP), whose 2003 novel Dead Air was jammed with wildly ingenious ways to use cellphones to raise the stakes and heighten the tension:

https://web.archive.org/web/20030302073539/http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.03/play.html?pg=8

This is "techno-realism" at its best. It's my favorite mode of storytelling, the thing I lean into with my Little Brother and Martin Hench books – stories that treat the things that technology can and can't do as features, not bugs. Rather than having the hacker "crack the mainframe's cryptography in 20 minutes when everyone swears it can't be done in less than 25," the techno-realist introduces something gnarlier, like a supply-chain attack that inserts a back-door, or a hardware keylogger, or a Remote Access Trojan.

Back to Roque's debut novel: it's a teen murder mystery told in the most technorealist way. Cia's best friend Alice has been trying to find her missing boyfriend for months, and in her investigation, she's discovered their small town's dark secret – a string of disappearances, deaths and fires that are the hidden backdrop to the town's out-of-control addiction problem.

Alice has something to tell Cia, something about the fire that orphaned her and cost her one leg when she was only five years old, but Cia refuses to hear it. Instead, they have a blazing fight, and part ways. It's the last time Cia and Alice ever see each other: that night, Alice kills herself.

Or does she? Cia is convinced that Alice has been murdered, and that her murder is connected to the drug- and death-epidemic that's ravaging their town. As Cia and her friends seek to discover the town's secret – and the identity of Alice's killer – we're dragged into an intense, gripping murder mystery/conspiracy story that is full of surprises and reversals, each more fiendishly clever than the last.

But as good as the storytelling, the characterization and the mystery are, Roque's clever technological gambits are even better. This book is a master-class in how a murder mystery can work in the age of social media and ubiquitous mobile devices. It's the first volume in a trilogy and it ends on a hell of a cliff-hanger, too.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/16/dead-air/#technorealism

#pluralistic #books #reviews #novels #mysteries #thrillers #technorealism #gift guide #rebecca roque

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brandyschillace · 7 months

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First novel!

UNBOXING! With my cat Darwin to help. Just got the ARC for my book (coming out with Harper Collins this winter). It’s a mystery novel—sort of gothic, with murder and crumbling estates—and the protagonist is neurodivergent! (I’m autistic, myself). Ready for an openly ND citizen-detective? Message me if you’d like an ARC (I have 25 of them). Preview video on my YouTube https://youtu.be/ryJC_w-orzo?si=mXX36CE46wqrcI88

youtube

#book reviews #booksbooksbooks #books #bookblr #books and reading #mystery #thriller #gothic #author #neurodivergent #neurospicy #neurodiversity #being autistic #actually autistic #autism #autistic author #detective #cozy mystery #Youtube

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ruminiscence · 3 months

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Character Analysis of Johan Liebert - Monster, Naoki Urasawa (2004)

In my opinion, Johan represents Jung's concept of the shadow, which is why both Tenma and Nina couldn't kill him in the end. Despite tirelessly, and relentlessly going after him. If they did end up doing so, they would be destroying themselves in the process. The constant fear on Tenma's face once he heard the buzz words 'monster' and 'inside of me' highlights his underlying fear. It is, of course, aggravating, considering how close they both were to killing Johan (multiple times, might I add). But, to them, it would have come at too high a cost.

Consequently, Johan was not the monster he and everyone thought him to be. The forgiveness Nina offered to Johan (as well as) Tenma’s acceptance (in a way) gave Johan that validation. In my opinion, Johan had an identity problem, not a complete lack thereof, as most people say. Johan completely understood how senseless the world is; the picture book from his childhood made sense of that senselessness. That narrative (mostly born from the book) gave significance to his existence, whether he knew it or not. I found it interesting that he went through several names throughout his life, but ‘Johan Liebert’ was recurring. Whether this is just for convenience's sake, I don’t know.

The scene where we see his reaction when re-reading the book (likely the first time since he was a child) furthers this notion. Johan's facial expressions are to be paid attention to, every single one, even if they barely change. We see the most significant change in his face in the final scene: that of sheer disappointment, hopelessness, and defeat. His master plan did not go accordingly; the plan was for him to be completely wiped off the face of the earth, rendered fictitious. The drunk man who unexpectedly shot him stripped him of that. So did Tenma, in not allowing Johan to kill/destroy his (Tenma’s) altruistic nature.

Johan's perfect suicide ultimately fails because he is not the nameless monster he believed himself to be; this is shown merely in the fact that he does not kill (nor even think about killing) Nina & Tenma; he realised that they are the only two people to understand him in this world. This also explains Johan's bizarre attachment to Tenma from the get-go (which also makes a lot of sense). In the scene where we listen to the tape, we're made aware of Johan's desperation; he does not want to forget 'Anna'; he believes they are the only two people in the world. Later on, Tenma was added to that list. Hence, every other person's life is rendered meaningless to Johan; this is the reason for his remorseless killings, of course. He killed everyone that could eventually be tied into his and Anna/Nina's existence, and arguably Tenma, too.

I also think Johan eventually lets go of this (seemingly) obsession with names in the final scene. Whether the last scene of him and Tenma speaking was a dream or not remains significant. Before Tenma reveals his potential real name to Johan, the subject is changed. This is when we learn about the biological mother's sacrifice. Despite her not choosing to sacrifice Johan, he still doubts the decision. All of this is to say that perhaps the failure of his perfect suicidal plan was, in fact, the real success after all. He successfully kills everyone who does not know him but knows of the nameless monster's existence. This explains why the only two people on this earth who did are still alive and were eventually saved emotionally.

In a way, they also saved Johan too. Hence the *seemingly* peaceful disappearance from the hospital. He just wanted to be understood. This is also why I believe he asked Nina to shoot him as a child and then again all those years later. His mother placed this seed of doubt, which he seemed confident in, but because of Nina's existence, he could extend this and not be entirely solid in this sense of doubt. He latched this on to Nina's being, hence merging their identities. As a child, he did seek her forgiveness despite his contradictory actions (asking to be shot). When she finally offered forgiveness in a similar situation later on, the doubt was gone. That little spec of forgiveness and acceptance was all he needed. Acceptance is not to say that he wanted her or even Tenma to accept his actions; hence, Johan says, 'We can't turn back now' when Nina does forgive him. Other people and their deaths (at his hands) simply did not matter to him; he was utterly indifferent to it. So evidently, that one thing mattered to him, which he mostly did not believe to be real; it turned real, giving him what he had so desperately been looking for since childhood. He is saved. The only three people that mattered in the show (concerning Johan's essence) are saved.

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annoyingthemesong · 4 months

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SUBLIME CINEMA #675 - ANATOMY OF A FALL

Fully engrossing, beautifully written and acted film.

There's something so precise about the filmmaking, meticulous and rigid in its adherence to its own aesthetic rules. Even the cinematography is so purposefully, digitally bland that we rarely move or widen past the immediate confines of the characters states of mind, and are given no real sense of place.

We know we are in an alpine town, somewhere outside of Grenoble, but it could be anywhere really, cut off and isolated: the couple are living in an unfinished home and sleep in different bedrooms. They share a child, who survived an accident that left him partially blind. What he sees, or doesn't see, hears or doesn't hear.. Throughout we loop around the truth.

Brilliant stuff

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zisuniverse · 1 year

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Jean Reno and young Natalie Portman in Léon the Professional (1994)

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harringtonfan4 · 11 months

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#thriller books #books and reading #books #books & libraries #booksbooksbooks #book blog #book quotes #book recommendations #bookaholic #book review #booknerd #bookshelf #horror books

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behindthescreamz · 4 months

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newspaper reviews for “wild things” (1998)

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quirkycatsfatstacks · 1 year

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Review: My Wife is Missing by D.J. Palmer

Author: D.J. PalmerPublisher: St. Martin’s PressReleased: May 10, 2022Received: NetGalley Once again, I find myself reading thriller novels back to back, and you know what? I’m okay with that. I love diving into these different worlds of thrills and intrigue. They certainly help make the night go by quickly! My latest read is My Wife is Missing, by D.J. Palmer. It was supposed to be a fun…

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#Book #Book Review #Books #D.J. Palmer #Fiction #Literary #Literature #My Wife is Missing #My Wife is Missing by D.J. Palmer #Mystery #Mystery Review #Net Galley #NetGalley #Review #St. Martin&039;s Press #Thriller #Thriller Review

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kjudgemental · 5 months

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The Anatomy of Ghosts - Crime Novel Review

Author: Andrew Taylor Publisher: Country: UK Year: 2010 The Anatomy of Ghosts, right from the outset, finds a strangely modern line of thinking. Set at the end of the 1700s, nearly 100 years before SPR (Society for Psychical Research) was set up, we have a novel following Mr Holdsworth, who has lost his son and wife months before, and has recently published the titular Anatomy of Ghosts, a…

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#andrew taylor review #award winner #award winning book #book critic #book review #crime book review #crime books #crime novel review #critic #ghost book review #horror book review #literary critic #literature review #novel review #review #the anatomy of ghosts review #thriller review

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emi12209-blog · 3 months

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Writers meme!

#women writers #books #wattpad #writing #thriller #writers on tumblr #books and reading #book review #booklr #writerscorner #writer memes

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andreai04 · 25 days

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It was starting to sink in that for the rest of my life, the people I met, the people I became close to—there would always be a chance that they saw me as a payout.

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notexactlyrocketscience · 7 months

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I've been a longtime Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju fanatic. The historical theme is so well-done, it's engaging, the messy queer vibes are immaculate. I also love Banana Fish for its grungy city ambience, heart-wrenching romance and suspense.

I just finished watching Monster, which to me felt like a combination of the two (plus several other elements of course). It's seinen but honestly you could have fooled me—Women characters play prominent roles and are written to feel so real. There are subtle feminist undertones throughout, and sexual assault is very, very rarely used as a plot point. There's no service, and bodies are drawn so beautifully. There is a sense of precision towards each character’s race, backstory, and personality that also reflects in their design, no matter how unimportant they are. (Kenzo Tenma in particular was so swoon-worthy in the plain, fresh, Ghibli-esque way.)

Highly, highly recommended. Go watch it on Netflix, right now.

(The animation is already spectacular, but there are also upscaled versions of the episodes available online somewhere if you'd like better quality.)

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antoinemaillard · 10 months

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Cover llustrations for the New york Times Book review about the Stephen King review of "All the Sinners Bleeds" by S. A Cosby. Thank you so much AD James Blue and Alvaro Dominguez

#editorial illustration #new york times #book review #stephen king #s a cosby #pencil drawing #digital color #thriller #west virginia #small town

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