This one’s almost a month late, but in case you missed it, my review of Tobias S. Buckell’s latest novel The Apocalypse Ocean is live over at Bookgasm. And if you’re new to this blog, let me be among the many who will tell you that Buckell is one of the most original, relatively new writers to colonize the genre, and happens to be among my personal favorite authors. Like me, he cites Arthur C. Clarke as a major influence, and certainly belongs to the postcyberpunk subgenre, even if his work gets labelled as “postcolonial speculative fiction,” “Caribbean space opera,” or “near-future techno-thriller.” (All of those are valid labels for his various works, but I for one am drawn to his realistic extrapolations of current technologies and their implications for plausible far-future, spacefaring societies.)

Anyway, here’s an excerpt from the review:

Like RAGAMUFFIN and SLY MONGOOSE, THE APOCALYPSE OCEAN follows a cast of ordinary human beings as they become entangled in the interstellar affairs of various warring factions of humankind and aliens alike — namely, the “ragamuffins” of the Xenowealth and the League of Human Affairs; cyborgs with superhuman strength and survival capabilities; engineered human pets and slaves liberated from their Nesaru “Lords”; and the hooded monstrosity known as the Doaq, a robed figure that stalks the island of Placa del Fuego at night, swallowing up unfortunates with the wormhole that serves it for a mouth.

The novel’s true payoff isn’t the relentless, breathtaking action that carries much of the plot, but rather its heady climax, which reveals a great deal about the Xenowealth universe’s ancient past; its vast, ocean-like network of wormholes; and the origins of certain antagonists from the previous two installments in the series.

Over at Bookgasm, my review of Daniel H. Wilson’s sophomore novel Amped is live. There’s one comment posted so far, a knee-jerk political opinion I don’t particularly agree with, from a pragmatic standpoint. Feel free to sound off, and get a good discussion going.

Anyway, here’s an excerpt:

The novel traces the escalation of a civil rights movement, from opposing sides of a Supreme Court battle and surrounding protests, to revolution and the threat of all-out war, or even genocide. In Wilson’s convincing near-future America, Sen. Joseph Vaughn has called for the legal dehumanization of “amps” — human beings who, for either medical or military reasons, have been implanted with mind-enhancing devices designed to cure conditions like blindness or epilepsy, aid in the function of prosthetic limbs, or turn ordinary individuals into unstoppable killing machines.

In this way, it’s not impossible to sympathize somewhat with the antagonist’s cause. After all, any sufficiently advanced technology has the potential to become dangerous in the hands — or the brains — of individuals who are already dangerous beforehand.

But history has shown us that there is perhaps nothing so damaging to civilization as the denial of a particular group of human beings their basic human rights to freedom and opportunity. While reading the book in 2012, it’s hard not to imagine the “amps” as members of the LGBT community, an oppressed and misunderstood portion of society who as I type these very words are still marching and speaking out, writing and protesting — fighting, when necessary — for their right to love as they choose.

Classic rock titans Van Halen and opening act Kool & The Gang drew a full crowd last Friday night at Chicago’s United Center. Fans ranging in age from seven to seventy packed the stadium, most of them wearing red-and-white tour T-shirts, double-fisting warm nine-dollar beers, and having a fantastic time.

Kool & The Gang took the stage at 7:30 p.m. for an impressive performance that included numerous radio-friendly hits from their decades-spanning career, including “Jungle Boogie,” “Ladies’ Night,” and the crowd favorite, “Celebration.”

Boasting nine members, including two drummers and a three-man horn section, The Gang were never without a full arsenal of sound, at turns soulful, funky, and reservedly virtuosic. Indeed, the highlights of the opening band’s set were those moments in which the band departed from the comfort of the familiar in favor of solo spots and jazz-inspired jam sessions.

Van Halen didn’t take long before erupting onto the stage following Kool & The Gang’s set. Alex Van Halen stalked onto the stage from the rear staircase, unmistakable in his sleeveless shirt and signature dark shades. He began to thunder and crash at the drum kit quite suddenly, and a mere heartbeat later brother Eddie and nephew Wolfgang were striding across the stage, guitars slung low, strumming the opening riff to the band’s famous cover of The Kinks’ “You Really Got Me.”

The setlist kept within the span of original vocalist David Lee Roth’s involvement with Van Halen, from its inception in ’74 until their infamous falling-out in ’85, as well as a handful of new tracks from their 2012 studio album A Different Kind of Truth, which felt strangely at home alongside flagship tunes like “Runnin’ with the Devil,” from their self-titled 1978 debut, “Ain’t Talkin’ ’bout Love,” also from Van Halen, and “Dance the Night Away,” the breakout single from the band’s 1979 sophomore effort, Van Halen II.

Individual performances varied, with Alex Van Halen’s drums — including a stunning solo halfway through the show — being the most consistent, and younger brother Eddie’s legendary virtuosity and inventiveness falling not far behind. Eddie’s playing on the “Eruption”/”Cathedral” solo medley toward the end of the set, in particular, had the audience collectively gasping, and both his rhythm and lead playing were in full force on songs like “Everybody Wants Some!!” and “Somebody Get Me a Doctor,” which were played back-to-back and served as the too-early climax of the concert.

David Lee Roth’s second return to the band, following their high-grossing 2007-’08 North American tour, brought a visible warmth among the formerly conflicted group. Despite an uneven vocal performance throughout the night, Roth’s constant interactions with the crowd felt as warm and genuine as the embrace that he and Eddie shared at the show’s conclusion, when the band was showered with red-and-white confetti during the energetic encore song, “Jump.” With a widely acclaimed new album behind them, it’s fair to say that even after four turbulent decades, Van Halen still has plenty to offer rock and roll fans.

(This article first appeared in The Courier, Vol. 124, Issue 16, March 2, 2012. Consider it my first piece of published journalism, save for a number of middle- and high-school newspaper pieces and my almost constant output of book reviews.)

The month is July, and the year is 2003. I’m seated on the faux-leather sofa in the cool basement of the house I grew up in, sipping a tangerine Gatorade on ice. In my hands is an original Xbox controller worthy of any starship’s control yoke; large and heavy enough to take down a Krayt dragon, if necessary.

Rain is coming down hard outside, so I’m not playing golf today. To the thunderous riffs of Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir,” with my stereo set on one-track repeat, I’m staying home to conquer Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.

Over the course of ten, maybe fourteen hours, I walk the path of the Jedi: escape the orbital bombardment of Taris, learn the ways of the Force at a small enclave on Dantooine, and seek out the fragmented star maps that will lead me to the fearsome Star Forge, a colossal war factory located deep in the galaxy’s Unknown Regions.

As Revan, the Prodigal Knight — fallen Jedi, redeemed Sith — I uncover the forgotten truths of my past.

Well, some of the forgotten truths. Amid all the celebration and redemption, Bastila and Master Vandar forget to fill me in on the rest of Revan’s lost history…

The year is 2011, and I hear that Drew Karpyshyn, author of the Bane trilogy (Path of Destruction, Rule of Two, and Dynasty of Evil) has written a novel titled Revan, which is intended to tie up the handful of loose ends left at the end of the original Knights of the Republic game. In the intervening years, there was a sequel — fun, but lacking the rich story that made the original so enthralling — in which I learned that while Revan may still be alive, even his wife, Bastila, doesn’t know where he is.

Here we are in 2012, and I find myself in a place of mixed emotions, sad to have finally arrived at a kind of closure about the Prodigal Knight’s story. As a fan of Karpyshyn’s work, not only on the original Knights of the Republic and Mass Effect games, but also on the Bane novels — which are among the best in the Expanded Universe, particularly for their intimate portrayal of Sith sorcery and well-drawn characters — I’m ecstatic that Lucas Books continues to entrust Karpyshyn with his own contributions to the Star Wars universe.

I devour the novel; the first half over a couple shifts at work, the second in a single Saturday evening.

An ambitious Sith named Scourge reveals himself to me, as does the rest of the hidden Empire — Darth Nyriss, the weakening Darth Xedrix, and the millennia-old Emperor himself, Lord Vitiate.

These folks, I quickly realize, are Karpyshyn’s bridge between the first two Knights games and the brand-new MMORPG, Star Wars: The Old Republic, which I probably won’t bother playing since my laptop isn’t optimized for gaming.

But the novel isn’t populated entirely by unfamiliar names. In fact, old favorites from that rainy July afternoon make noteworthy appearances, or even play vital roles in the story: Bastila Shan, the astromech droid T3-M4, Canderous Ordo… The one called the Exile, Meetra, the protagonist from Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords plays an intriguing and important role in Revan’s ultimate fate. A Jedi archivist, named Atris, shows up in one tense confrontation. Countless others are mentioned, but never make an appearance.

My greatest disappointment with the novel has everything to do, however, with the glaring absence of one very beloved character — one who lovingly refers to organic beings as “meatbags,” to the constant amusement of his master. The assassin droid HK-47 is mentioned at multiple points throughout the story, and one late chapter seems entirely devoted to foreshadowing his eventual arrival at Revan’s side, but by the end of the novel his dark humor and murderous tendencies are nowhere to be found.

If the novel suffers for anything tangible other than its seemingly rushed copy edit — there are a lot of places where needless expositional passages are more or less repeated, and I found a lot of typographical errors as well — it is HK-47′s absence.

But perhaps Karpyshyn didn’t think comic relief was befitting of a novel this…well, dark.

Whereas the Star Wars films are recognizable for their endearing campiness, the many novels in the Expanded Universe tend to venture into more mature, at times even somber or disturbing, territory. Take the Matthew Stover novels, for instance; his Revenge of the Sith novelization far surpasses the depth of the Episode III film precisely because it doesn’t shy away from the sheer darkness of its subject matter.

Throughout Revan, Karpyshyn unflinchingly confronts very human, very this-worldly problems, such as slavery, prisoners of war, torture as a means of interrogation, and the age-old mythic quest for immortality. His worlds are stormy, devoid of life and its Force-essence, and rife with political corruption.

For this reason, as much as the ending feels at turns dissatisfying and even potentially offensive, I have to grant the author my utmost respect as an honest, competent, and admirably bold storyteller. His fourth addition to the Star Wars mythos reminds us that heroes are the stuff of legend, of utter embellishment; that, in truth, men and women at war are simply mortal creatures, seeking goodness in a universe filled with suffering and evil. The tale of Revan, whether concluded or forever left shrouded in mystery, strikes at the heart of many harsh truths about the horrors of warfare, whether among the stars of a distant past, or in our own troubling times.