August 30, 2008 at 2:04 pm · Filed under Book Reviews, Favourite Books, Mystery and Suspense, Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror
Quid Pro Quo by Manna Francis (Science fiction, mystery, short story collection)
This collection of one novella and five short stories is the sequel to Mind Fuck. As I mentioned in that review, almost the entire series is available online, but the print versions are much nicer.
Quid Pro Quo
The book begins with a novella which isn’t yet available online–it was written specifically for the print release, so that loyal fans of the online version would get a little something new as incentive for buying the book.
Liz Carey, a Specialist Investigator for I&I’s Corporate Fraud Department requests Toreth’s help with a joint CF/General Criminal investigation into a corporate kidnapping case. The kidnapping, rape, and dismemberment of 17-year-old Sofie Kenward would ordinarily be a job for the civilian police, rather than the Investigation & Interrogation division, but the possibility of corporate sabotage or fraud make it I&I’s business.
The team’s best lead seems to be a connection to the sensational kidnapping of Louise Selman fifteen years earlier, but her father wants the case buried–and when one of the Selmans, of Selman-Sterntech, one of the Administration’s more influential corporations, wants something buried, it’s more than an investigator’s job is worth to go digging.
“Quid Pro Quo” is another complex, twisty mystery, and quite satisfying in that respect. Surprisingly Warrick, the series’s other protagonists and Toreth’s regular lover, doesn’t appear in this novella beyond the first chapter. It makes sense, because so early in their relationship, when they haven’t even moved beyond their Friday night assignations, there’s no reason for Toreth to discuss his work or for Warrick to become involved in his cases the way he occasionally does later. I actually found the mystery so interesting that I didn’t even notice Warrick’s absence until the story was over.
Friday
This is quite a short piece, only eight pages long. A few months after “Quid Pro Quo”, Warrick thinks about some of the changes in his life since he’s been–involved–with Toreth. Looking forward to leaving SimTech for one of their regular Friday meetings, he has one last meeting with Cele, an old friend of his sister’s…and she’s sure to notice the fading bruises on his face.
“Friday” is one of the series’s first attempts to answer a recurring question: how can someone like Warrick, a fairly decent, ordinary human being, involve himself with someone like Toreth, a sociopath and professional torturer? Warrick will eventually come up with some answers, later on in the series.
Pancakes
Definitely no mysteries in this short story: Pancakes is all about relationships. Mainly, Toreth’s relationship (such as it is) with Warrick, but also some nice scenes between Toreth and the inestimable Sara, his admin (i.e. his secretary/personal assistant.) Toreth meets Warrick’s sister, Dillian, and in one of the funniest scenes from the series, Toreth meets Sara’s new cat.
For pretty much the first time since Mind Fuck, Warrick is forced to confront what Toreth does for a living, which doesn’t make him happy.
Surprises
Toreth proves his ability to maintain a semi-permanent relationship while taking commitment-phobia to new extremes when he has Sara help him pick out a gift for Warrick:
“Buy him something kitchen-y, then.”
Immediately he regretted telling her about his sudden gift-giving impulse, but it was much too late. Something kitchen-y. Something nice and domestic. For a moment he actually felt sick, the overly sweet smell of the melting chocolate catching at the back of his throat. “I wouldn’t know where to start,” he said, when the feeling passed.
Once again, no investigation. That’s not a complaint–as good a mystery writer as she’s proved herself to be, Francis is so good at writing complex, dysfunctional relationships that her short stories never feel like there’s anything lacking.
There are a lot of sex scenes, which usually aren’t my cup of tea. My automatic, completely involuntary reaction to graphic sex in a story is usually to skim rapidly through it–not because they make me uncomfortable, but because they’re almost always boring. Most of the time I don’t even notice I’m doing it. In The Adminstration, though, I really don’t mind them; this is one author who manages to make graphic bondage & donmination sex scenes interesting and funny, using them to explore characters and their relationships without putting me to sleep with tedious detail.
Family
For some reason, I’d forgotten how much I love this story. Toreth’s first meeting with Warrick’s family pretty much defines uncomfortable, with side orders of horror and hilarity. And the ending was so unexpected the first time I read, but so perfect, and it still makes me smile.
Family, besides being a really good character-driven short story, sets up a fair amount of background information that becomes important in some of the later novels.
Mirror, Mirror
This author really does have a way with sex scenes. Toreth just has so much fun setting up elaborate scenes for Warrick that I have fun reading about it. And the last line is just perfect.
It’s hard for me to evaluate this collection as a whole, because I’ve read all but the first story many times before, but I get the sense that it would work just as well for a first-time reader as it did for me. There’s a very nice progression in Toreth and Warrick’s relationship through the book, mirroring the ever-greater depth of characterization as the reader gets to know them better. The last two stories, Family Values and the very short Mirror, Mirror work well together to bring the collection to a close while leaving some interesting avenues for later stories.
This book won’t really make much sense without some of the background information from Mind Fuck, and it also contains spoilers for that novel, so the two should definitely be read in order. Quid Pro Quo is available to order from Casperian Books and from other major online booksellers like Amazon.
Except for the novella “Quid Pro Quo”, all the stories from this collection are available online (including “Unlucky Break“, the short story which became the first chapter of “Quid Pro Quo”).
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2008, Manna Francis, R.I.P. III, short story collection, The Administration
August 29, 2008 at 10:49 pm · Filed under Book Reviews, Favourite Books, Mystery and Suspense, Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror
Mind Fuck by Manna Francis (Science fiction)
This isn’t an easy book to summarize, and for once, I think the book’s blurb actually does a good job:
There are no bad guys or good guys. There are only better guys and worse guys.
One of the worse guys is Val Toreth. In a world in which torture is a legitimate part of the investigative process, he works for the Investigation and Interrogation Division, where his colleagues can be more dangerous than the criminals he investigates.
One of the better guys is Keir Warrick. His small corporation, SimTech, is developing a “sim” system that places users in a fully immersive virtual reality. A minnow in a murky and dangerous pond, he is only beginning to discover how many compromises may be required for success.
Their home is the dark future dystopia of New London. A totalitarian bureaucracy controls the European Administration, sharing political power with the corporations. The government uses violence and the many divisions of the feared Department of Internal Security to maintain control and crush resistance. The corporations fight among themselves, using lethal force under the euphemism of “corporate sabotage,” uniting only to resist attempts by the Administration to extend its influence over them.
Toreth and Warrick are more natural enemies than allies. But mutual attraction and the fight for survival can create unlikely bonds.
The story begins when Toreth and Warrick meet at a conference where Warrick makes a presentation about the new sim technology being developed by his corporation. A proposition by Toreth leads to sex, but in Toreth’s mind, that doesn’t constitute enough involvement to turn down a case involving SimTech. A student intern at the corporation has been found dead while using the sim, and the similarity to a previous death that was ruled accidental is enough to bring in I&I.
Mind Fuck is actually the first novel in a series of stories, of varying length, which make up The Administration series. I first read it online, and it is still available to be read for free. I’ve been in love with this series for a few years now, so I was delighted to find that a dead tree version is now available.
I ordered Mind Fuck and its sequel directly from Casperian Books, a self-publisher small press. I was a little concerned about the quality of the books, and the shipping time, since they ship only through US media mail. I needn’t have worried; the books arrived in exactly three weeks, reasonable for a package shipped from the US to Canada. The editions are wonderful, with beautiful covers and a crisp, clean internal layout that I find very pleasing, and very appropriate to the content. Each of the books came with a matching bookmark, printed with the book’s cover on one side, and the blurb on the back, which I thought was a very nice touch. I was also impressed with the quality; it’s my first time ordering online direct from a press, and I wouldn’t hesitate to do it again.
Even the price was reasonable–$15 US apiece compares favourably to the standard Canadian price for trade paperbacks, and even with the shpping charge included, they were pretty much equal to what I’d pay at an ordinary brick-and-mortar bookstore.
Mind Fuck is set in the near future, and has some of the best science fiction world-building I’ve ever read. Although the technology is new, most of it is clearly the result of believable advances in today’s technology. There is mention of terraforming of Mars and of deep-sea habitats, but the only new tech that gets any focus is the sim. And what a shiny new piece of tech it is.
The way the author writes about it, you would think she had already built and programmed a sim system herself. Without going into tedious detail, she gives an amazing idea of the scope of the sim project and the limitations and liabilities that come along with it. It really is hard to believe that no such system exists in the real world. That it all came out of her head.
The same is true for all the day-to-day details of the world of The Adminstration; from criminal law to corporate contracts, a few well-placed details make the Administration so real it’s hard to believe it doesn’t exist. The characters, too, though they are so different from anyone I’ve ever met or imagined, are walking, talking, breathing people so alive I wouldn’t be surprised if they walked off the page and into my living room.
I’m not a fan of police procedurals, nor dystopian fiction, nor books with graphic sex scenes, yet this novel is all three, and somehow I love it because of, rather than in spite of, those traits. Part of it is that Mind Fuck is, at its foundation, a difficult, fascinating, engaging mystery. The first time I read it, yes, I wanted to know what happened to the characters, and more about the world, but I also wanted, quite desperately, to know the solution to the case. When the book did give me the answer, it was perfectly satisfying, even though I hadn’t seen it coming.
The police procedural format is, surprisingly, one of my favourite aspects of the book. I find the world of the Administration fascinating, and no part of it more so than its criminal investigation procedures. Toreth is also a great viewpoint character, because his thoughts about his interviewees and the about the policies he has to follow are always amusing.
As for the dystopia aspect…Mind Fuck isn’t 1984 or Brave New World. It’s not a cautionary tale, and both Toreth and Warrick are more privileged than victimized by the system, so I find it interesting rather than depressing. The sex scenes, although they are graphic, are not gratuitous. When sex is shown, it always advances the plot or deepens our understanding of the characters in some important way.
I could write much more about how utterly amazing this book is, but ultimately, all I really want to say is: go read it. As I said above, it is available to read online for free, or you can buy a print copy directly from Casperian Books, or from Amazon (though the author and publisher get a bit more money if you buy direct from Casperian.)
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2008, A ~ Z Reading Challenge, Manna Francis, R.I.P. III, The Administration
