I wasn’t a hundred percent wrong, but almost. Jinks quickly downplayed the Potterisms, and Evil Genius became the most suspenseful young adult novel I’ve ever read, bar none. The way the tension kept ratcheting up and the pervasively paranoiac atmosphere reminded me of no one so much as Patricia Highsmith. I could usually tell when something was about to go horribly wrong, but seldom guessed exactly what it was; once it really got cranking, Evil Genius held me riveted right up to the last page.

Also like Highsmith, I thought Jinks did a good job of keep the reader’s sympathy with Piggot, even when he’s undertaking not particularly pleasant pursuits. In fact, some of Piggot’s less lovable behavior struck a little close to the bone, reminding me of how being picked on in my own adolescence sparked some grandiose revenge fantasies. I wonder if many of the people who eventually grow up to be novelists and/or volunteer critics on the Interwebs — not to mention readers drawn to a book where the bad guys are at least nominally the protagonists — might not have had some similar dark thoughts at one point or another.

Evil Genius additionally impressed me because its smart people consistently really sound smart (if twisted). It’s sprinkled with mentions of mathematics, chemistry, and, particularly, computer hacking topics that are much more credible than the usual fictional depiction.

One the negative side, near the end I had trouble keeping track of all the crosses and double-crosses — but then again, many of the characters were in the same bind.

needs more demons? no.

I had a studio apartment in the West Village, which people were impressed by until they came up for a look. The place was the architectural equivalent of a biscuit dough remnant, a two-hundred-square-foot waste shape of crannies and recesses left over when the rest of the building had been sectioned into proper places to live.

Tower’s people are generally broken in one way or another. The streak of dark humour in many of these stories reminded me to varying degrees of Gates, Saunders, and Antrim, but Tower’s characters are often unusually clear-headed about where they went wrong:

Bob had not been close with his father, so it was puzzling for him and also for his wife, Vicky, when his father’s death touched off in him an angry lassitude that curdled his enthusiasm for work and married life. He had fallen into a bad condition and,in addition to several minor miscalculations, he’d perpetrated three major fuckups that would be a long time in smoothing over.

Tower’s approach to plot generally eschews obvious conflict/resolution narrative arcs. Things happen in the corners of these stories as well as in their foregrounds. These aren’t stories for the squeamish. The bone-chilling nightmare logic of “Down Through The Valley” snapped into sharp focus for me days after I finished it.

The title story is a startling departure from the more-or-less contemporary naturalism of the others: a compelling account of world-weary Vikings whose pillaging arises from a sort of dreadful inertia. It’s probably my favorite.

needs more demons? no. recommended.

Spencer doesn’t seem concerned with creating a believable consistent future. Hers is the sort of universe where a starship will radio its position to home base if its warp jumps takes it a few light years off course. Other than warp drives, there’s only one major piece of technological innovation on display, genetically augmented humans. Outside the Sargasso, altered humans are at best treated as second-class citizens, at worst as property — the historical antecedents are unambiguous. The approach to genetic engineering serves Spencer’s plot more than the dictates of logic; if you were modifying humans to make them more docile and easily controlled, for instance, you wouldn’t want to also make them hyper-intelligent. Spencer’s alien races are distinctly star Trek-y: they’re either humanoid enough to be played by human actors, or they’re nonhuman enough to be a special effect, usually modeled on one or more terrestrial critters.

The novel badly needs a good edit. There are some terrible sentences. One that took me a while to parse describes how Captain Paige Bailey stalls an alien race called the civ by giving them glass blanks that take a long time to move: “To a civ, with their smaller hands, the blanks would be nearly impossible to carry more than one, thus perfect for her needs.” This awkward construction could be easily fixed: “The civs’ smaller hands would find it nearly impossible to carry more than one of the blanks. They were perfect.” There are also numerous copy editing errors. One line of dialogue reads, “You’ve got to be fucking me,” with “kidding” or “with” missing. A crucial, absent “not” made me stumble over “New Washington was only slightly better, as they might see offspring as freeborn people.”

If you can put these flaws aside, however, Endless Blue is a fast-paced, mildly racy adventure with likable, if thinly drawn, protagonists. It’s the sort of book for which descriptions like “science fantasy” and “yarn” are tailor-made. Spencer manages to wrap up the major plot threads, although the denouement feels a little rushed, but there’s clearly enough room in the “Sargasso of Space” for a sequel. If she writes it, I’ll probably read it.

needs more demons? not really, but does need an editor.

But Everything I’m Cracked Up to Be is by no means only for aspiring record-deal-signers, or obsessive students of music culture. In fact, one of the awesome things about the book is how thoroughly outside-the-industry Trynin’s vantage point is. She found herself the object of an archetypical major label bidding war without having much prior knowledge of how such things work, and she doesn’t expect the reader to bring that knowledge either, nor does she get bogged down with business specifics. Although I think this memoir works well as a cautionary tale, it’s also a highly entertaining rags-to-riches-to-rags story, and Trynin brings the same sort of not-quite-what-you-expect sly wit and acuity to her prose that she once brought to her songs.

Needs More Demons? No. The only thing I want to change about this book is to tack on a feel-good happy ending where Trynin had a long, productive, if perhaps niche-y career as an independent artist. Unfortunately, although she played guitar with Loveless for a while, that hasn’t exactly come to pass so far.

While I don’t want to change the book, I do hope somebody assembles a glossary of all the names-changed-to-protect used in it, and I’m not steeped enough in Boston-ania to get very far. “Flint Raft” would seem to be Gravel Pit. “The Front Load” seems to be The Middle East. And…? Please feel free to help in comments.