Author Archives: Cathy Hatterman

In Ruth Ware’s The Woman in Cabin 10, it’s the old set up on a cruise ship, there’s a lady in a cabin, but she isn’t really there. There were sounds of a struggle, and a body hitting the water, a smear of some substance on a privacy screen like blood, but in the morning, nothing. The night before there had been suitcases, and clothing in the cabin. In the morning it is completely bare

The Woman in Cabin 10

Lo (Laura) Blacklock wouldn’t have heard the sounds from the cabin next door, except, within days of the trip, her flat in London was broken into while she slept. The burglar actually locked her in her bedroom while he burgled her flat. She’s gone through the trouble of replacing her phone, money and credit cards, but the break in has deeply disturbed her. To top it all off, she’s had a fight with her boyfriend, a photojournalist just back from a foreign shoot. She’s sleep deprived. anxious, and now, can’t find the mysterious young woman, approximately her age, who she borrowed mascara from in cabin 10 next door. Worse, none of the crew or passengers are missing.

But this time, the cruise ship, the cruise, and the passengers are all rather unique. It’s a very, very small, very exclusive cruise ship, more like a large yacht. Fitted out sumptuously, with guests to both fit the setting, and to advertise it–a few of the rich, the owner and his dying wife, travel journalists, a renowned photographer, all to advertise the maiden voyage of the Aurora Borealis, as it sets off from London to sight see the fjords of Norway, cities of the cold northern waters, as well as watch the Northern Lights. And Lo has gotten the chance of a lifetime to go, instead of the owner/head writer of the travel magazine she works for.

On top of the regular narrative are inset emails and online conversations from family and friends unable to contact Lo, foreshadowing a darker, more personal fate for Lo. It all works together to come to an altogether unexpected series of twists. The book is definitely a page turner, as Lo gets herself into trouble taking us right with her.
The Woman in Cabin 10, a novel, by Ruth Ware, Scout Press, imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc., hardcover 9781501132933, softcopy 9781501132957, e-book 9781501132940

The Great Mistake

In the mystery series “Death on Demand”, by Carolyn Hart, several women authors of the golden age are mentioned: Agatha Christy, Ngaio Marsh, Dorothy Sayers, Margery Allingham, and our own Mignon Eberhart. But one author I’d never heard of was Mary Roberts Rinehart. So when an e-book edition of The Great Mistake, one of her titles, popped up on BookBub,  I bought it.

And I wasn’t disappointed. Set in a small town called Beverly set near Town, it is large enough to have a hunt club, and Society. After some digging online, I discovered the book was published in 1940, but nothing of World War II, politics, or international tensions shadow this book. I was a third of the way through before I could clearly say, “well, we don’t do that anymore”.  The characters are from all sections of society, and for the most part are treated very fairly. If anyone comes off looking churlish, it’s the homicide officer from Town, and of course, it’s part of his job, as the outsider. The main characters are all definitely rounded. There is a love story, but surprisingly enough for the time, it is low-key.  The foundation of the mystery is built skillfully, adding to the suspense.

The main character, Pat, comes into “the big house on the Hill,” to be a secretary to the widow of the billionaire who built the house for her and her son.  Maude, the widow, is a vibrant, attractive personality, and busy hostess in need of help for her parties and social responsibilities. And Pat is fond of her.  Tony is the son,  who runs the family firm in Town  and at first they merely get on each others nerves.  Pat never sets out to be a detective of any type, unlike many other main characters of mystery fiction, particularly cozy mysteries. She is meant to be more of a way for us to be a part of the mystery. The events of the story tell on her, as her employer falls mysteriously ill. Then a dear friend’s runaway & divorced husbanded returns for nursing for a terminal illness, (he says.)  A mysterious figure is seen peering in a window, and a night watchman is mugged, stripped of trousers (& keys).  The entire mystery is framed by remarks about writing the entire story down for everyone, which serves as a fine way to find out how the dangling threads are tied up. It all flows so well, the language enhances the story and never shouts out the time period. A smoother read in that regard than Christie.

Mary Roberts Rinehart, (August 12, 1876-September 22, 1958) was often called the American Agatha Christie. While she is considered the source of the phrase “the butler did it”, from her novel The Door, 1930, the writer never used that phrase in the book. She is also considered to have invented the “Had-I-But-Known” school of mystery writing in her book The Circular Staircase, 1908. She wrote novels, plays, short stories, travelogues, and was a war correspondent. With her sons she founded the publishing house Farrer & Rinehart, and served as director.

More about Mary Roberts Rinehart and lists of her titles from Wikipedia

The Invisible Library

Irene is a librarian, a junior librarian of The Invisible Library, which spans alternative worlds and saves and secures copies of unique books. She answers to a senior librarian, much older & more experienced, and unable to leave the library to secure texts for the library. She’s not unique except that both her parents are librarians, as well. She isn’t 007. She knows she has a lot of experience to gain yet, and one of those experiences she needs to face is training an apprentice. And the time has finally come. Her first trainee is Kai, a tall, dark, beautiful young man of mystery. And their first mission together is nearly stolen by a competitor of Irene’s.

The world they enter is a clockwork world of 1890 era, but also infected with “chaos”, meaning that there are creatures of magic and legend at work here. The most chaotic of them all are the Fae, personified in Lord Silver, a diplomat. The book they were to take, has already been stolen, but it’s unclear who’s done the deed–a famous catburgler who may have killed the new owner, or a cult of clockwork engineers who are anti-magic (the deceased was a vampire.) The waters are further muddied by the “great detective”, who has a better relationship with the local police than S.H. And a particularly frightening rogue librarian that was once one of the library’s greatest librarians.

The characters are wonderful, Irene is someone you will want to read about–whether she’s running from granite gargoyles or escaping from cyborg crocodilians. And unlike 007, she’s often wondering why she can’t just have a nice screaming fit, oh yes, that’s right, she has to get herself out of this. Whatever this is.  Kai has his secret, which I won’t reveal, but he is young, and while handy to have around, he’s still learning. Irene and other librarians have the ability to use “the Language”, to open, close, manipulate objects, and to a certain limit, people. It’s a sort of World re-arranging type of magic, rather than the chaotic brand that the Fae use. Kai has his own talents.

The world building is excellent. Just when you think, oh, yes, I’ve seen this, something new happens, a mini zeppelin takes off from the roof of the British Museum, headed for the British Library.  Or at Lord Silver’s ball, when Irene’s just about to get information about the book they are after, her competition strolls in, wearing a stunning Worth gown, with an adoring pack of men. But you’ll have to read it yourself! I’m waiting for the sequel, The Masked City.

The Magicians and Mrs. Quint

At first all I could see where the parallels with Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice,  in The Magicians and Mrs Quint, by Galen Beckett, but they fell away. While the era it reverberates with to me is definitely the Regency era in England, the story is at the same time familiar, and strange. When the characters discuss something that in our world would be unusual, in  the most normal way one is jarred away from the everyday Regency path. The characters can’t be certain the amount of day or night they will have, except by an almanac. A night may be 30 hours long, and a day less than eight hours of sunlight. And yet this oddity is not ruled by the season or any obvious astronomic explanation.

The story begins with a family just hanging on to gentility, just barely staving off the poorhouse. The father was a magician, until an event working with “magick” cripples his mind. The wife will not have magic spoken of in the house, but the oldest, most sensible sister of three, is fascinated with it, and reads as many books on it as she can in hopes of helping her father. The only thing odd about this is that she’s a woman. Women cannot work magic, of course, or so it is said.

Additionally, two young men who are friends, one attempting to find the financial means to return to College, and the other living a frivolous life, with occasional demands from his father to take on responsibility, go down their paths. While the poor one moves on the edge of conspiracies to make ends meet, the other begins to find magic invading his life.

This is an intriguing book with appealing language and the sparkle of magic. It also has appealing characters, delightful turns of phrase, and plot that never quite moves as you think it will.

Book review of The Magicians & Mrs Quent by Tammy Moore on the SF Site.

They tried to create a teleportation machine (a transporter, if you’re familiar with Star Trek), but after much study, came to the realization the present technology can’t support the theory. So they moved the project and attempted a different approach.   This team of  DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) scientists in the California desert who believe they have created a portal that “folds” dimensions so a traveler may move hundreds of miles with one step. At budget time the agencies involved aren’t getting the information they believe they should. And even the head of their project in Washington is getting some odd vibes from the group, so he sends his own form of investigative team in to check on everything. A high school English teacher, Leland “Mike” Erikson, who looks like Servius Snape, college edition.

Mike, as he prefers to be known, had an eidetic memory, and an extremely high IQ. The combination makes him a perfect fit for the  Sherlock Holmes role. Mike is interesting, and the way he handles his memory makes the concept approachable. It also adds an interesting dimension to some of the things we take for granted, like forgetting painful experiences, and the immediacy of grief.

And yet, even for Mike, it’s hard to see what’s wrong with the Albuquerque Door, as they’ve named this machine that fold space. There have been nearly 400 human tests, without an injury. “Nine people, two hundred and sixteen rats, six cats, and a chimpanzee,” (p.49) have been through the door, and not one lost. And yet all the scientists, engineers, and programmers, who have been the test subjects are uneasy, and want to continue to do tests. Until something does go wrong. Of course, it goes so badly wrong that everyone is stunned, and someone dies.  This group is small, again, just six people, who outsource for medical or any other services.

Oh, yes the secret comes out, and the situation goes downhill fast. This becomes on of those Nantucket sleigh rides, and with very interesting twists. Just as you think you understand what’s going on, Mr. Clines throws you a curve, some from left field. And in the end, some logic, luck, and fast thinking saves the day. Just not neatly, cleanly, and with some odds and ends.

It is definitely an adult work of Science Fiction, Fantasy/Horror, some parts are not for the squeamish, and it is thriller territory. But it is a fun, and satisfying read, with quips, humor, and interesting characters.

This book is a first for the author, who is known by her short stories, according to the book blurb. This tale, is one of redemption in a postapocalyptic world set far, far in the future, of, I would guess, Earth, since there are familiar species of birds. But it’s the juxtaposition of the familiar birds with the strange that makes it so compelling.

Humans live in towers of living bone, the higher in the tower, the higher your social status, and as the towers grow, the lower levels are abandoned, since they get more crowded by the growth of the bone.  Travel between the towers is allowed, and is accomplished by flying with one’s own set of wings, which one is tested for at a certain, young age. Travel inside the towers is accomplished by ladders.  But the outcasts of the culture are also left in the lower levels of the tower to live or die. It is a very rule orientated way of living, where the main character, Kirit, longs to be a trader, like her mother, attain the right to fly to other towers and trade and also bring medicine. She is close to earning the right to fly free, as well as earn her apprenticeship as the story opens, when she and her once closest friend Nat, break the Tabu/Law, she goes outside during an attack, and he doesn’t let her back in. So they are equally at fault, and get caught by one of their officers, called a Singer. But in being caught outside, Kirit displays a unique skill that the Singers need. But the skill gets in the way of her dreams.

In another story, she might have simply gone with the authority figure, but not this one. She and Nat both work to get through their punishment in time for both to take their flight tests. To get done in time they meet and receive help from one of the cast off citizens of the towers, Tobiat, old, with injuries badly set and healed, and mind a little scattered.  He turns out to be key to many of the mysteries  come to face.  The tests seem to be passed, but the Singers have skewed them, and both Kirit has to go with them to their tower. She learns secrets that turn many of the things she’s learned in the towers inside out, and finds that the strange creatures that attack their towers were once much different. Not only does so much she has learned about her family change, but also about her culture.

So much happens in such a short pace of time. But it changes so many lives of this small  civilization on the edge of survival.  The disruption spreads from one life, to a family, to an order keeping service type organization. It’s interesting to see, after reading the book, how the character of one actor, can serve as a catalyst to expose the wrongdoing of an entire organization.

Reviews

Book Review by Julie Novakova, in Fantasy Scroll Mag

The Illustrated Page blog

Bibliosanctum blog

It’s the story of the unwanted, unloved fourth, and extra son of an elven Emperor, who unexpectedly, violently, becomes the next emperor. With no training and no one to trust, he’s thrust into a fully imagined court and political wrangling of a complex government that he hasn’t even been fully educated about. On top of all that, he is half Goblin, a distrusted minority in his country. The unexpected part of the story is that, of course, that living with a greedy, selfish, violent guardian has taught him survival skills that he can use. And he has more than a few. And despite all the difficulties, the story is a hopeful one.

The author has not only packed the story with the edgy subject of race, and all the differences that can mean, but many other lines that she handles well. The accident that ends his father, the emperor’s life, and the lives of his three older half brothers, was aboard an airship (dirigible). Two people are set to guard the emperor at all times, one his soul and the other his body. But the one who guards his soul can also cast what we would call spells. New ideas are part of the difficulties the new emperor must deal with, including a new bridge. There is also an ongoing investigation into the deaths of his father and half brothers, which threads through the story, as well as 2 assassination attempts.

The world building is wonderful. One can tell where the origins of many of the foundations come from, but the author handles them in ways that seem fresh. While magic and steam punk flourishes exist, the story, the politics, the struggles, and the people are more interesting. In many ways though, it feels more like a historical story, than a fantasy, despite that fact that the character’s ears move to indicate their emotional state, much like a cat’s.

Katherine Addison, is actually a pseudonym for Sarah Monette.

The novel has received the Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel and nominated for the Nebula, Hugo and World Fantasy Awards.

Reviews:

Strange Horizons: The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison, reviewed by Foz Meadows
Building Bridges: The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison reviewed by Liz Bourke

The Bone Clocks moves along quicker than The Cloud Atlas, by the same author, and seems to flow better, in my opinion. It begins in 1980 with Holly Sykes, a 15-year-old London girl, who has an ugly row with her mother, then the earth shattering betrayal by her older, illegal,  boyfriend and her best friend. Then she runs away.

But she can’t run away from the radio people. The paranormal entities that she’s been hearing and been in contact with much of her life. And she isn’t just hearing things. They’re real. The genius of this writer is that he’s writing perfectly fine real life coming of age story, war story, writer’s life story and then in walks the paranormal, and it’s not the one you think it’ll be from all your mystery or horror reading. Eventually you learn who the sides are. Both are immortal, One “eats” the gifted souls to live eternally, carnivores, or Anchorites. The other dies natural deaths and continues on, only if not killed unnaturally, the Horologists, following a script (as in a play.)

Slowly, we go through personal stories of each individual, with sudden steps into the paranormal. Each interweaves with the other, a 14-year-old girl, a war correspondent, a young con man, a literary writer, and more. Getting closer to an event of proportions we cannot guess. But it will change lives.

Review by William Skidelsky in the Gaurdian

Review by Derek Thompson in the Atlantic

It’s a Greek god like rollercoaster, with the politics of nations, the politics of gods (a family), and the politics of the emperor’s family and succession, and all of it interrelated and convoluted. All of it in a city created by magic in a palace that resembles a rose which towers far above the capital city. Into all of this you follow the trajectory of Yeine Darr (a forgotten, dismissed, “half breed” heir, but ruler of her own country in the heretical North), from the start, plunging into this seeming tranquil pool, to plunge through its roiling depths.
Yeine, also has her own agenda, to discover why her grandfather, the emperor killed her mother, after letting her live for 20 years in a foreign land. Not to mention why she’s now an acknowledged heir, and competitor for the throne (excuse me, stone chair.)
And of course, there’s magic and gods. But the gods are bound, and living at the palace, doing the ruling family’s every whim. No matter who gets hurt, including themselves, or entire nations.
Watching Yeine try to manage her way through all the protocols, snares, and attacks, without injuring the innocent, is worth the read. A fresh voice, and a very different world view. This is the first book of The Inheritance Trilogy.
Reviews & an excerpt:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/valerie-stiversisakova/review-nk-jemsins-the-hun_b_5585765.html
http://www.amazon.com/Hundred-Thousand-Kingdoms-Inheritance-Trilogy/dp/0316043923

What if you could protect someone by pulling a ray gun out of the book Slan, by A.E. Van Vogt? That’s what Isaac Vainios of Codex Born, the book I’ve been reading, can do. He is investigating a murder by using a machine that views the past written in a short story called The Dead Past by Isaac Asimov (in his anthology, The Best of Isaac Asimov), which leads to an attack on his girlfriend. And the price of using too much of his book magic in too short a space of time, is losing his mind or his life. The characters are fun and irreverent, the action is fast, and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed as much as I’ve read so far. There are definitely adult sexual situations.

Magic systems interest me, and this is one is a fit for librarians. Any book, as long as the person with the talent can concentrate, and imagine it, can draw any item out of a book. If the item is larger than the book when the book is open, it can’t be pulled through…usually. And of course, a lot can go wrong. There are of course, bad guys, and a force on the inside of the book world that is inimical to humans that Isaac calls the Devourers. Some of the side effects of the magic from the books is that there are several types of vampire—defined by the writers of the books: Sanguinarius Meyerii (a sparkler, from the Twilight trilogy), Sanguinarius Meadus (from the Vampire Academy novels), etc., with powers defined by those described in the books. There are other magical creatures as well: werewolves, dryads, golems, and more.

Also a fun plus, the author includes a list of the books mentioned in the text, and marks the titles fabricated for the story. Included are references to A.E. Van Vogt’s Slan, Isaac Asimov’s The Best of Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein’s Friday, Randy L. Daly’s African Honey Bees in North America, and others.

Codex Born, by Jim C. Hines, 2013, Daw Books, ISBN 978-0-7564-0816-9, Magic Ex Libris, Book Two.