Review: Echo by Pam Muñoz Ryan

I was unfamiliar with Pam Muñoz Ryan until I saw her most recent release, ECHO, mentioned as one of the few diverse-authored books honoured at this year’s Audie Awards. I immediately investigated it, borrowed it from Hoopla, and started listening.

That was one of my better choices. ECHO is my sixth five-star book of 2016 and the best children’s novel I’ve read (or listened to) in years.

The book explores four slightly interrelated storylines, each separated by years and miles. We begin long ago in the Black Forest with Otto, a young boy who meets three women who bear an eerie resemblance to the characters in the book he’s reading. Prompted by his story’s plot, he invites them to each play a tune on his harmonica, setting in motion a spell that could change their fate even as it links several children who're yet to be born.

Germany, 1932. Friedrich desperately wants to become a conductor, but he’s got a facial birthmark, a history of epilepsy, and a father and uncle who vocally disagree with the Nazis. He’s got one shot to prove his worth: ace his Conservatory audition on his extremely non-German harmonica.

Pennsylvania, 1935. Mike promised his grandmother he and his younger brother would always stay together; a prospect that’s all but impossible given the adoption climate at their orphanage. Mike dreams instead of joining a traveling harmonica orchestra so his brother can find a new home without worrying about Mike, but his plans change when a wealthy yet standoffish woman enters their lives.

California, 1942. Ivy’s family relocates in the hopes of finally earning their own home. Ivy makes the best of the sudden move by caring for an abandoned house and teaching her neighbor to play the harmonica, but her new town's racism threatens to derail her optimism.

Ryan introduces us to each of the main characters in fraught circumstances that push them in highly personal ways: a solo walk across a potentially hostile town; a new opportunity for adoption; a dream quashed, yet quickly replaced by a bright chance. These are all highly empathic struggles that tie into fears many children--many people--experience every day. Will I be too different? Will anyone ever love me? Will I have to abandon my aspirations so someone else can achieve theirs?

Diversiverse: Canadian Women of Colour

A More Diverse Universe (aka Diversiverse) is now underway. This two-week reading period centres on books by people of colour, and I’ve committed to providing recs lists that highlight a few of my favourite authors.

Today I want to turn the spotlight on four Canadian women of colour. Two of them write SFF. Two of them don’t (or maybe just haven’t yet).

Karin Lowachee

I discovered Karin Lowachee late last year, thanks to a rec from Kristen. She’s since become one of my most recommended authors.

Lowachee’s first book, WARCHILD [review | Amazon | The Book Depository], is the start of a science fiction series that’s everything my younger, SF-averse self never dared to hope science fiction could be. The settings are rich and complex, whether Lowachee takes us to an alien world or deep into the heart of a human space station that’s a planet in its own right. The characters are as multifaceted as the worlds they inhabit. And the things Lowachee does with narrative; with the sheer possibility she unlocks in mixing first person with second and third, past tense with present... oy. These books are a master class in how technical wizardry can enhance every element of the story.

If you only seek out one new-to-you SF author this year, make it Karin Lowachee. Please be aware, though, that her books travel to dark places and may be triggering for some readers.

WARCHILD is followed by BURNDIVE [review | Amazon | The Book Depository] and CAGEBIRD [Amazon | The Book Depository], with a fourth book, THE WARBOY, to come. The paperbacks are a terrible price, but the ebook editions are fairly reasonable. Lowachee has also written a fantasy called THE GASLIGHT DOGS [Amazon], but I haven’t read it yet and so can't comment on it.

An Assassin-Free Recs List, For Once

I write a lot of recs lists these days, partly because people keep asking me for them, partly because of My Year With Marvel, and partly because I like telling the world what to read. These lists cover a variety of territory, from knee-jerk recs to my top-rated Marvel comics, but whatever their focus, they all have one thing in common: they’re packed with assassins.

Turns out, all my top recs are assassin-oriented. Like, guess what profession Fitz trains for in Robin Hobb’s ASSASSIN’S APPRENTICE! (Go on. You’ll never get it.) The Will, the sorta-kinda villain of Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples’s SAGA, calls himself a freelancer, but dude, he’s been paid the big bucks to put an end to Our Heroes, and we all know what category that puts him in. Mildmay, co-narrator of Sarah Monette’s MELUSINE, dodges his assassin roots but can’t escape them entirely. Jos, protagonist of Karin Lowachee’s WARCHILD, doesn’t technically kill people for money (except for the whole soldier thing), but he’s trained as an assassin-priest so he gets the title free and clear.

And so on and so forth. Assassins, they follow me around.

Soon as I noticed this trend, I challenged myself to make a recs list without a single assassin on it. No assassin protagonists; no assassin antagonists; no secondary characters who occasionally assassinate people. No assassins lurking the background doing nothing of any great importance, even.

No assassins. None.

I opened my LibraryThing account and scrolled through my top-rated books in search of qualifying titles. A wealth of possibilities spread themselves before me. I could rec THE DREAM THIEVES by Maggie Stiefvater--except no, wait, the Grey Man is a hit man. Damn. Michelle West’s fabulous Averalaan novels were a clear choice until I remembered they’re packed with demonic assassins. I can’t immediately recall any assassins in THE SNOW QUEEN or THE SUMMER QUEEN by Joan D. Vinge, but neither can I swear to their absence given how that world works. The same is true of Kristin Cashore’s BITTERBLUE. And some of my other less frequently pushed top picks--A GAME FOR SWALLOWS by Zeina Abirached, THE MAGICIANS AND MRS QUENT by Galen Beckett, and THE SIREN by Tiffany Reisz--contain sneaky-ass, hidden assassins.

Even SKIP BEAT, my comic-du-jour, has an on-screen assassin tucked away in one of its storylines.

The hell, self? Why you gotta fixate on books about contract killers?

For that matter, why you gotta sneak a ton of assassin-laden recs into what is supposed to be an assassin-free recs list?

Um.

Moving on, I present to you five books I’m 98% sure are assassin-free, and which I loved and adored and think you should read: