Guerric Haché

I think this has been the book I have enjoyed the most this year which I will try to heighten I liked it further given there has been quite a lot of books I've dnfed or taken ages to finish kicking and screaming. It was literally a breeze to read and I usually see this as a good sign.

In a way, this book reminded me of Planet of the Apes. Imagine a dystopian future where after a major war, humans have survived but are just well... not as smart as before. Nobody knows what reading or writing is and the ignorant superstitious masses inhabiting these dark ages tie old useless knickknacks from our era (like a flashlight for example) to their necks and embark on voyages to old space station platform elevators as religious rites. A world where children quickly die for no reason if brought to cities inhabited by more than a few hundred people, strangely very egalitarian in regards to women rights and zero curiosity about actually learning more about the ancient world in an effort to recover what was lost.

Amid this chaos, we have two heroines of sorts. Isabel Váldez is a mixed race daughter of a mexican immigrant who never quite felt at home in her ordinary village who was supposed to be murdered in a raid. Yanked back to the world of the living by the will of the gods with a healed body and her prior memories intact, she soon discovers much to her chagrin she has been gifted with not one, but two superpowers. Apparently in this primitive world, around 20% of humans develop during their teenage years a handful of different superpowers they can use at will for the rest of their lives. Some are common, others are extremely rare and we begin learning about them as the story progresses. Instead of feeling elated with her second chance at life, Isabel is horrified she is the first to ever possess two and can use either at the same time with seemingly ridiculous ease. In a world where people could kill her for even making such a claim, she is thrown into a conflict with more questions than answers.

Ada Liu on the other hand seems to have the opposite problem. Born with the gift of reading strange symbols to bend the traits of physical objects and make doors explode or eternal fires at will officially known as a Coder, she has an intelligence and innate curiosity for the world that has left her exiled from her people. Instead of feeling sorry for herself, she wants to learn everything and maybe even crush the gods themselves along the way.

Even though Isabel and Ada barely ever bump into each other during their equal voyage of self-discovery where other entities seem to be pulling the strings behind curtains, you want to root for both of them and maybe its even because they are such opposite people but at the same time, they want to be something greater, albeit for totally different reasons.

With a world building that slowly starts to reveal tiny glimpses here and there, some parts of the story will seem more interesting on Isabel's side, whereas Ada's story will then take the front row seat. Even more curious is not only how Isabel seems to have more than two gifts that not even she knows about or the real purpose of her second life, but I believe it is the huge value the story places on knowing the power behind reading.

I have interacted with people that unfortunately due to poverty were never able to learn how to read and write, and how their lives in an ever moving society were always hampered. To have an entire community of people that not only have forgotten to read but have never even heard of such a concept only heightens the sense of disgust and dismay Ada feels when she realizes despite her brashness, she isn't all too much better than the people she belittles. And maybe she should eat some of Isabel's humble pie because many of the same people I have known that could never read were intelligent in many other ways. They could count and run the inventory of their mom & pop stores like a real pro.

I felt more identified on a personal note with Isabel, but mainly because of her feelings of self-doubt partially influenced by her mixed ethnicity and culture in a society that even when she was an ordinary ungifted never really accepted her as one of their own.

One thing I always enjoy in a story is never knowing how the story ends, and this book was one such example. The pacing is pretty even most of the story, never too lagging, never too fast, so for people looking for a gripping cliffhanger, this book might not be up your alley. For the most part I wanted to give it 4 1/2 stars, but the multitude of typos did deter me. If the author feels okay, please feel free to ask me in this review some of the typos I found and I'll be glad to look them up in my tablet.

I definitely wish to read the sequels!… (más)

Ada's very own super awesome spaceship can teach her how to become an even better coder now that she has a special Arbiter permit from the gods of the ring?

Isavel is being dragged by an army of slobbering worshippers to destroy the Machiavellian plans of the body snatching ghosts without even knowing why she is doing it?

What could possibly go wrong?

I love it how Ada and Isavel would be the best lovers ever if they could rub off the problem they are... uh... supposed to be enemies without even realizing it. They are complete opposites in many ways. Ada sees her world via the lens of science whereas Isavel is superstitious with a tint of naïveté. Officially everyone back home hates Ada because of her revolutionary ideas to make the world a better place and Isavel just rubs people in the wrong way through no fault of her own even though she is desperate for a true friend.

But not everything is so obvious in this strange cat-and-mouse LGBT friendly dystopia adventure. Ada has friends that tolerate her brashness because at least she is being honest about her ideals (such as the funny cat aliens named "Outers" that live in a secluded city and the young guy named Tanos who was abandoned in the first book by Ada). Isavel starts to question everything she is being told when a few coders spot her dancing with Ada in a party and tell her to stay away from the woman because she is an exiled troublemaker heretic. Ada starts to care more about not hurting other people’s feelings and Isavel stops being a doormat.

Oh, and if you get those vibes Ada and Isavel could become an Avatar Korra/Asami couple sometime, I feel it too and I am so rooting for them!

The plot of the book sort of goes like this: there is an artificial virtual reality afterlife created for humans that some inept coders ruined 500 years ago by mistake and the world of the dead is this black hole where souls scream in misery forever. Ada is convinced she can fix it because she is the world's best coder, whereas Isavel is convinced the ghost army can be stopped if she destroys the shrine where this mysterious relic is being held. Both women have very good reasons why they have to save the day, neither one of them knows the full story to see where they might screw up.

I wouldn't like to spoil much about the story, but Hail and Sam are cool characters so keep an eye on them. We also discover there are machines called a Geneforge that can change your body up to a certain point. I'd love to say more but it could be a spoiler. Lest to say the technology sounds very cool and it was obvious Ada would kill to learn how it works to curb her curiosity.

We are hinted in book one the gifts some humans develop as they become teenagers aren’t magic per se, but a sort of "magic" created by nanomachines that is inside the blood. They are passed down to the next generation and while the ones Isavel uses are quite common, there are a lot of rare ones. Book 2 delves into this a bit further as Ada wants to know why she is immune to the technophage that ensures people are incapable of understanding written language and show very little interest in it. Curiously enough, people retain other semblances of intelligence such as learning other spoken languages (you won't be burned at the stake by terrified farmers for being bilingual).

It isn't a spoiler that Isavel is like some sort of Avatar who could potentially learn how to bend all of the gifts. Heck, she learns she can use two gifts around chapter 2 of the first book! So when Isavel transforms her skin into blinding light at the end of book 1, it was only natural to assume she awakened a 4th gift. One of the really fun things about this series is to cheer for Isavel and hope she keeps on awakening more and more gifts as the story advances. Much to my surprise, the light technique isn't a rare new gift; she just combined elements of her camouflage Pathfinder gift with a barrier particle field from the Warrior gift. Isavel does obtain a new gift in this book and we also discover the mechanism that is required to unlock more gifts. It's really nifty and I'm certain Isavel will continue to blend her new ability with the other gifts she has mastered to continue being even more badass. I'd say more but it would be a spoiler.

Ada of course doesn't stay in the sidelines. Taking advantage she learns new code sigils from her spaceship database and the library of the Outers, she also obtains a super nifty ability to etch better and impossibly faster code that will probably become even more awesome in the future. Would love to say more... but it's a spoiler too.

I didn't give the book 4 stars because I hated it. The ending is bombastic (literally), and even the endless typos didn't put me off too much. I feel like the middle stretches a tad bit too long and trying to find the shrine a turns into an endless quest.

However, the book ends on a high note and I'm starting the third already!… (más)

With Elysium saved and an unofficial peace agreement with the ghosts, Ada has invited these unwanted refugees to live with her in Campus, the city where the friendly cat aliens known as Outers reside.

With some assistance of some of the older ghosts that recall some extra knowledge of forgotten technology, the Outers manage to send a distress signal to their home planet and hope they can be rescued. The problem is, will they ever get an answer? Or have they doomed Earth?

There is only one big problem: the humans in Glass Peaks are still very, very angry at Ada for helping the ghosts without taking the annoyance of asking her WHY and wish to attack Campus and along the way, also kill the Outers because they are a bunch of neurotic ignorant fools who are being led to a senseless war by a religious leader... and the leader is not Isavel.

Isavel doesn't really understand what the hell she is doing. She now has 4 gifts and no answers from the gods. Doubt seethes within when she discovers the humans that used to obey her are now taking matters into their own hands by a priestess named Yera. She disagrees with being bullied into this battle, but she ends up cornered to a wall when Ada stupidly destroys a bridge that partially ocean locks Glass Peaks as a childish personal vendetta.

Isavel knows Ada has screwed up big time, but she knows there is more to the hostile woman everyone seems to hate. Risking alienating her friendship with the young coder siblings Zoa and Ren, Isavel visits Ada for a talk... where more than some battle strategies to save as many people as they can becomes the topic of conversation. Yes! We have a romance coming! And it's absolutely delightful!

One thing that is a stark contrast from prior books is how Ada is no longer super powered by the technical knowledge of her spaceship Cherry which is currently in a secret place the whole book. She is forced to put up with an ancient submarine called the Chang'e (and offers a lot of very funny scenes because the ship constantly tells her it doesn't understand her commands in Mandarin... a language she is incapable of learning for some odd reason).

With fewer resources at her hand, Ada learns new applications for her code to make it more offensive whereas Isavel begins to have a change of heart regarding her blind loyalty to the gods that Ada finds to be intolerable at best. The book is quite good, we wonder whether the scant audio replies to the Outers from outer space are good guys or bad guys, and Hail is feeling jealous Isavel likes Ada just a tad little bit more than her. Hail is cool, I definitely like her a lot.

I think the really big issue with the book is how frustrated I feel that most of the conflict of the book is all Ada's fault. Still, the ending is real great... and sooooooo touching. :'(… (más)