As I mentioned in my last post, I was asked to read and review Socialpunk, a new novel by Monica Leonelle. After reading the first 10 chapters in the preview, I anxiously waited to receive my copy of the full text. Thankfully it arrived in my inbox early enough last Thursday for me to load it on my Kindle before leaving for the airport to head to Boston.  I just want to give fair warning that the following review may contain spoilers and plot points, so if you don’t like that kind of thing, be aware.

Had I not fallen asleep for the first hour or so of the flight, I probably would have finished the book on the plane. This is huge change of reading pace from Game of Thrones, which I have been making way through (I am in the middle of book five). I suppose my reading speed didn’t really change, so much as the length of Socialpunk is much shorter.

Socialpunk was a fun read, I didn’t want to put the book down while I was in the middle of it.  I haven’t read any  ”cyberpunk” style books before (that I can think of off the top of my head), but  I did enjoy this one.  It seems to me to be a fairly traditional, post-apocalyptic, sci-fi novel and love story. I can see a lot of parallels to other sci-fi stories spanning the years from Logan’s Run to The Matrix, including an almost verbatim reference to The Terminator movies. I have nothing against formulaic stories, I mean six out of seven Harry Potter books had exactly the same story with a slightly different cast and minor details, but I and most of the world still love them.  Socialpunk follows the line of girl meets boy, boy takes here from the fake world to the real world where she breaks out her shell of a sheep to become the leader who will save her friends and the world.

Ima/Cinder is a great character, I enjoyed watching her story develop.  I thought it was a little unfortunate that instead of really learning to change and growing out of her shell, she is “upgraded.”  That area alone leaves so much room for character development, love story development and just more story.  I realize the characters are supposed to be working under the time frame of something like a week, but still.  She is a character who I found interesting to explore and who I cared about.  I have definitely met characters in other books who I really could have cared less about, but Ima/Cinder was not one of those.

One of the other interesting references that I noticed that seemed out of place to me was one to Jane Austin’s Emma. All things considered, had I not just recently worked on the stage adaptation of the book, I probably would not have got the reference.  I only question if the target audience of Socialpunk (and even the character who makes the reference) would really know Jane Austin.  She wasn’t required reading when I was in school, is she now?

I also noticed a host of little technical issues with the book.  To an avid reader you would probably look at them and go “huh?!” and then figure it out and move on.  They really amount to a handful of typos, some pronoun and name inconsistencies and a few other small things.  My hope is that I was just reading a preview copy that was going to get at least one more once over by the author or her editor before publishing.  It didn’t detract from the story at all, but it is something you don’t expect to see in published books.

The last thing that really struck me was length of the book and the ending.  Amazon says that the paperback edition is 400 pages.  I read it on my Kindle, so pages are kind of meaningless. It took me less than a day to finish the whole book, and then it ended in a place where you might expect your favorite TV sitcom to end.  I realize that this is supposed to be the first book in a trilogy, but given the length, I felt you could probably wrap all the books into one and still be happy.  On the other hand, I guess maybe I am feeling this way because I was attached to the story and I want to find out what happens next.  That is a great way to set up a cliffhanger, if your audience is wanting more!

Overall, I would recommend the book. If you like any of the genres or similar stories that I mentioned before, you will probably like Socialpunk. If you are looking for a fairly fast read (at least until the sequels are ready) then this is also a good book for you. The story has likeable characters with a plot line that is pretty easy to follow, and the story is fun.

Socialpunk is the first book in the Socalpunk Trilogy by Monica Leonelle. Monica Leonelle is a well-known digital media strategist and the author of three novels. She blogs at Prose on Fire (http://proseonfire.com) and shares her writing and social media knowledge with other bloggers and authors through her Free Writer Toolkit (http://proseonfire.com/free-writer-toolkit).

So, it turns out that some people actually notice my blog that I have not been so faithful to this past year (along with some other things that I really should have been). I suppose that is neither here nor there though.

Anyway…. It turns out that last week I was contacted by a young author/blogger because her boyfriend has been by my blog to read about photography. Actually, I almost dismissed the email as SPAM because probably most of the email that I get in reference to my blog is SPAM. However, I took the time to actually look at this one ad reply to it.

The email was from Monica Leonelle from monicaleonelle.com and proseonfire.com, and it was asking if I would be interested in reading and reviewing her new book “Social Punk.” So, me being skeptical, wrote back a fairly skeptical response that was met with an almost immediate response. Made me feel better to know that there was a real person behind the emails.

So, I popped over to her blog, read some of the preview chapters and figured that it couldn’t hurt to sign up for the blog tour and write a real review. I am still waiting on the full copy of the book to read, but I am certainly looking forward to it. So, check back in the coming weeks for a real review of the book and possibly an interview with the author. In the mean time, you might enjoy the following snippet from the book:

After playing God for six years with the world he created, he couldn’t control any of his subjects, none at all. Over the years, he had watched them evolve and become the sum of their own choices rather than the sum of his; and for that, he regretted ever giving them life.

A small, blinking red light from just inside his eyelid reminded him of the news they sent him earlier that morning. The company had cancelled his funding and would shut down his project within three months. According to them, the project cost too much and took up too much space, and the inconclusive results couldn’t be published reputably, now or in the future.

Six years of his work, tens of thousands of lives at stake—and he could do nothing to save any of it. He bowed his head, letting his chin rest on the rim of his breakfast smoothie. The smoothie reeked of powder—crushed pills—but he supposed he had better get used to it. He wouldn’t be able to afford the luxury of real food after they canned him.

He closed his eyes and called up the camera view of one of his favorites, number 3281. She fascinated him; he couldn’t deny it. When he had designed her, her pre-teen rebelliousness lit fire in her eyes. A survivor, he’d thought. He’d meant for her to have it all—to grow up, to get married to the love of her life, and to have a beautiful family of her own someday.

But he had only given her sadness so far. Instead of creating a strict father, he had given her an abusive one. Instead of creating a loving boyfriend, he had given her a friend who could never love her. And instead of creating a strong, proud mother, he had given her a meek one, who watched the whole thing unfold and did nothing about it.

He looked at his last and final creation sitting in the chair across from him—his own son, not awakened yet. The law forbade him to have any children of his own, so this boy would substitute.

But he had done the unthinkable with this creation—he had bestowed on it his own thoughts, emotions, and decision-making processes. He’d given the boy his own mind, his own physical characteristics, his own wants and desires.

He had never done so with any of the others because of the dangers of investing too heavily in any one of his subjects. But who could he kid? He had not stayed objective thus far, watching some of his subjects more closely than others, wishing for the happiness of some at the expense of others. He had become an abomination, a monster of his own doing, who had created subjects only to watch them suffer.

He couldn’t forgive himself; not now, not ever. His eyes lingered on the vial that sat next to his breakfast smoothie, that he’d stowed away for the day when they destroyed all his work, his entire world. He would save it, tuck it away for now, for as long as he could protect them. When things spun out of his control, he would drink it and end himself the way he had ended them.

In the ancient stories, gods frequently gave their sons as gifts. Now, he would give his son as a gift to her, number 3281. So she could be happy in her last months on earth, before they destroyed her with the rest of them.

So, I have seen on a few of the blogs that I read that people are participating in Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop.  Basically, the idea is that she posts a set of prompts and people pick one or more to write about and then post their links on her site.  It has been something that I have thought about trying, and just have not got around to it.  So, now I am getting around to it and I think it will be fun, plus it will also give anyone reading my blog a little more insight into me.  So, from this weeks prompts, I chose number two: “What book captured your heart? Write about why the first book you loved is the first book you loved.”

I think the book that captured my heart was The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman.  It is the first part of the His Dark Materials trilogy, which is also my favorite series of books ever.  I first picked up the original hard cover edition of The Golden Compass after reading a review that had been cut out of the newspaper and was posted on the end of a shelf at the Borders in the Atrium Mall in Newton, MA.  I think that it is amazing that I remember that much detail, but i can’t remember who I was at the bookstore with, though I think that it was my grandmother.  Needless to say, I picked up the book very close to when it was released in 1995.

I remember the first time that I opened up the book to start reading it.  I felt like I was a little over my head and only a few pages in I was lost and couldn’t figure out what was going on.  I mean, I was only 11 at the time.  So, I put the book down for a while.  however, when I came back to it later on I was completely sucked into the story.  I have always been a fan of sci-fi/fantasy books and this story was no exception.

I am not even really sure what it is about the book that really sucked me in.  This is one of those stories that I really let take over my world.  This was a story that I could see all of the events unfolding in my head like they were real or a movie in my mind.  I would read into the night, lying in bed and then I would fall asleep thinking of all the things going on in the world of the story.  Sometimes I would even fall asleep making up my own stories that included me in the story.

Then, while I was in college, there was a fire at my parent’s house.  The biggest loss (aside from the back of the house) was books.  I think I lost the entire series.  So, my girlfriend at the time bought me a new set of the entire series as a birthday gift the year after the fire.  So of course I had to re-read the entire series.  I also picked up the audio books of the series to listen to.  Every time I re-read or listen to these books I get more out of the story or I uncover something that I haven’t noticed before.

These stories touch on so many different themes and ideas.  Pullman creates such an amazing world and characters that I think both children and adults can relate to.  Whenever people ask me for a book to read, The Golden Compass is the first one that I suggest.  Most of the time I don’t even really tell people what the book is about.  Some of the themes in the books may be a little edgy for some people, but I hope that people can can get over that and really enjoy the adventure.

This is a book that I go back to whenever I can’t find something new to read.  It sits in a prominent place on my shelf, and probably will always be my favorite book and one of the only books that I can really say that I love.