Furnace by Alexander Gordon Smith

 

Straight out of the mind of a very disturbing individual, this book tells the story of children who are sent to Furnace Penitentiary, a prison built under the earth where experiments can be conducted and seemingly gotten away with due to the little consequences.

This book is ideal for a teenager who loves to read and have his, or her, mind twisted up by the graphic violence. Yet for me, it swung for the fence and missed some way. It's not a bad book, I just cannot get behind a story like this where one of the main staples is violence for seeming violence sake.

I didn't really like this one, though have looser standards that standard books due to the teen rating for it. I have more tolerance for this type of fiction because there are some places that this fiction needn't go for the younger generation.

Vienna Blood by Frank Tallis

Being a Victorian-style detective thriller, though not explicitly set in those times, this book instantly caught my eye. I am a huge fan of stories that tell themselves from the point of view of an investigator like Sherlock Holmes or Endeavour Morse. Seeing the crimes from the point of view of these investigators then allows me to see whether the author will show off his knowledge of crime solving methods that are restricted before technology's now widespread usage.

Would I say that there was anything that I don't particularly like about this? Not really because I would say the author was knowledgeable enough to be able to spin a yarn that belongs on a coffee table as some light afternoon reading. It's not too heavy in detail yet manages to weave a complex tale of criminal behaviour that avoids the usual tropes in these types of stories.

After America by John Birmingham

In a world where a mysterious wave has inexplicably wiped out most of the population, what remains are bands of survivors ranging from pirates, to the remnants of a skeletal government.

This is pretty much where this book is coming from, the second in the series by author Birmingham who, until this book, I have never heard of before. It contains the standard fare from your Tom Clancy-types and yet at the same time manages to be different enough to attract my attention in the first place. I had never come across a story that intrigued me enough despite the content not being my initial go-to for reading material.

I wasn't disappointed, however, because the story is good, the writing is solid and, as much as it can do, it steps effortlessly around the tropes that, unfortunately, usually riddle these types of stories.