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WORK TITLE: Ninth City Burning
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://www.jpatrickblack.com/
CITY: Boston
STATE: MA
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/2135933/j-patrick-black
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Male.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer; has worked as a bartender, lifeguard, lawyer, homebuilder, and costumed theme park character.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Before publication of his first novel in 2016, sci-fi/fantasy writer J. Patrick Black held jobs as a bartender, a lifeguard, a lawyer, and a builder. He also worked in a theme park as a costumed character. Black lives in Boston.
Black’s debut novel, Ninth City Burning, is the first in a projected series and has been praised as an enjoyable blend of science fiction, fantasy, and post-apocalyptic adventure. Five hundred years after an alien army had destroyed most of the Earth’s population centers, most of the planet’s human survivors eke out a living as nomads or exploited workers in hellish militarized zones. But a small group is intent on repelling the invaders, using the enemies’ own weapon–a mysterious force known as thelemity–against them. The magical workings of thelemity are extremely difficult to understand and master. Those who can produce or channel this force acquire super powers, including the ability to change the laws of physics.
Black tells his story through the voices of seven different characters: twelve-year-old Jax, a reluctant recruit to the military academy that trains future thelemity warriors; Vinneas, the academy’s procurator; Torro, a military draftee; sisters Rae and Naomi Walker; the mysterious Kizabel; and special ops soldier Imway. Despite the bleak odds against them, these characters are determined to do whatever is in their power to save their planet from the forces that would destroy it.
A writer for Kirkus Reviews enjoyed the book’s “sly” pop-culture references, but found other elements incongruous or insufficiently explained. Black does not provide a motive for the aliens’ attack and devastation of Earth, said the reviewer; nor does the author explain how certain cultural artifacts, such as television and special kinds of cooking, have survived. Describing the novel’s plot as “formulaic,” the reviewer called Ninth City Burning “a Hunger Games/Star Wars remix featuring tweens trapped in an unmotivated war which will make them unlikely-but-relatable heroes.” Samantha Nelson, in an A.V. Club review, also found weaknesses in the book, including its surfeit of irrelevant detail and its heavy reliance on genre clichés. Acknowledging that Black provides his characters with “intriguing” ideas for solving the challenges they face, Nelson concluded that the novel’s strengths “are drowned by [the author’s] abundance of jargon, clichés, and geek culture pandering,” but expressed hope that the book’s expected sequels would provide Black with opportunities to “make better use of his world-building.”
Ninth City Burning received a more favorable review, however, in Publishers Weekly, where a contributor hailed Black as a “fresh new voice” who skillfully weaves classic genre elements into his narrative. The Publishers Weekly reviewer praised the author’s well-drawn characters, and observed that Black “takes care to represent each stratum of the war-focused Earth.” Noting that the author’s detailed world-building sometimes slows the book’s pace, the reviewer nevertheless found that the book’s various elements cohere to create a “fascinating” world and a thrilling adventure.
Rob H. Bedford, writing in SFF World, expressed similar praise for Ninth City Burning. The author’s use of multiple narrators emphasizes the fractured nature of the book’s world, said Bedford, even though it sometimes crowds the narrative; in the reviewer’s opinion, one or two fewer points of view would have tightened the narrative and made the book better. Bedford also felt that the book provides too little information about the aliens. But he added” What Black gets right, he gets right very well.” Inspired by themes, tropes, and settings from iconic genre works such as Star Wars, The Hunger Games, A Song of Ice and Fire, Red Son Rising, and Ender’s Game, the novel, as described by Bedford, is a work of impressive ambition and enjoyment.
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, July 1, 2016, review of Ninth City Burning.
Publishers Weekly, July 18, 2016, review of Ninth City Burning.
ONLINE
A.V. Club, http://www.avclub.com/ (April 20l, 2017), Samantha Nelson, review of Ninth City Burning.
J. Patrick Black Home Page, http://www.jpatrickblack.com (April 20, 2017).
SFF World, http://www.sffworld.com/ (April 20, 2017), Rob H. Bedford, review of Ninth City Burning.*
J. Patrick Black has worked as a bartender, a lifeguard, a small-town lawyer, a homebuilder, and a costumed theme park character, all while living a secret double life as a fiction writer. While fiction is now a profession, he still finds occasion to ply his other trades as well. He lives in Boston, Massachusetts, where he likes to visit the ocean. NINTH CITY BURNING is his first (published) novel. He is at work on his next book.
Photography courtesy of Beowulf Sheehan.
KIRKUS REVIEW
After an alien invasion and near-instantaneous human extinction that unleashed a force called “thelemity,” which "certain people can use to affect reality,” most humans live in militarized zones under siege; but there are also warring, nomadic tribes from whose “coda” come two sisters, thelemity adepts, who tip the balance of power.
Narrated by seven characters, Black’s debut novel, the first in a new series, situates a future Earth in a parallel and “infinite web of worlds—the Realms” which, “drawn out as a map…look something like a tree,” a shameless steal from Marvel’s Thor. Unknown aliens, nicknamed "Romeo" or the “Valentines,” arrived on Valentine’s Day through the gateway called Lunar Veil to devastate Earth—why is never clear. The rare humans known as fontani, who produce thelemity, or revenni, "who can use thelemity to impose their will upon the world,” fight back. After 500 years of battle, Earth’s fate will be in the hands of the seven young narrators, who range from Jax, a 12-year-old military cadet and fontanus, to the easygoing Vinneas, Procurator of the Academy; from the Walker sisters, Rae and Naomi, to drafted soldier Torro; from “artifex” Kizabel—who speaks in footnotes—to elite fighter Imway. Peppered with both irritating incongruities—what happened to global warming? did it just go away? how can Romeo concoct long-gone human things like lobster bisque or television?—and with sly pop-culture references, this tediously militaristic potboiler is formulaic: the underdogs, through honor, strength, and thelemity, become heroes with a little help from their friends.
Black borrows a long list of sci-fi/fantasy ingredients to cook up a Hunger Games/Star Wars remix featuring tweens trapped in an unmotivated war which will make them unlikely-but-relatable heroes.
Pub Date: Sept. 6th, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-99144-2
Page count: 496pp
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: June 22nd, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1st, 2016
PW:
Ninth City Burning
J. Patrick Black. Ace, $27 (496p) ISBN 978-1-101-99144-2
Black is a fresh new voice who pays respect to the classics of SF in this enjoyable adventure debut. The mighty defenses of Ninth City stand together with the remaining cities on Earth to protect humankind in a centuries-long war against an alien race. Black takes care to represent each stratum of the war-focused Earth: advanced societies in the cities, outpost towns that exist only to supply the war effort, and the marginalized “unincorporated” people who live beyond the protection of the cities. And he creates memorable characters, including the powerful human fontani (who are few but vital to the magic/technology hybrid weapons) and a factory worker drafted into the Legion, to inhabit his thrilling scenarios. Though the array of protagonists slows the pacing and the exploration of the strategy and magic systems diverts too much attention from the main plot, the details eventually come together in a fascinating world. Given this strong foundation, readers can expect more thrilling adventures from this new author. Agent: Kirby Kim, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc. (Sept.)
DETAILS
Reviewed on: 07/18/2016
Release date: 09/06/2016
NINTH CITY BURNING by J. Patrick Black
Rob B September 27, 2016 2 Comments
Post-apocalyptic alien invasion stories are a staple in the Speculative Fiction genre so when a debut novel comes along telling such a story it either has to hit the highpoints of such a story very well or throw something new into the mix. In Ninth City Burning, J. Patrick Black’s debut, he does just that. As a primer, here’s the jacket copy of the book:
th_b_black_ninthcityburning
For fans of Red Rising, Starship Troopers, and Ender’s Game comes an explosive, epic science fiction debut…
We never saw them coming.
Entire cities disappeared in the blink of an eye, leaving nothing but dust and rubble. When an alien race came to make Earth theirs, they brought with them a weapon we had no way to fight, a universe-altering force known as thelemity. It seemed nothing could stop it—until we discovered we could wield the power too.
Five hundred years later, the Earth is locked in a grinding war of attrition. The talented few capable of bending thelemity to their will are trained in elite military academies, destined for the front lines. Those who refused to support the war have been exiled to the wilds of a ruined Earth.
But the enemy’s tactics are changing, and Earth’s defenders are about to discover this centuries-old war has only just begun. As a terrible new onslaught looms, heroes will rise from unlikely quarters, and fight back.
The novel takes place about a half millennia after the “Valentines” (so called because their arrival was on Valentine’s Day) came through the Lunar Veil and (to put it lightly) made their presence known. While the world was devastated and only a dozen cities remain with the scattered remnants of humanity have gathered in small settlements. In a sense, a small percentage the survivors were uplifted. These few humans, known as fontani, now have access to thelemity, a force akin to magic which provides them with willpower to affect reality.
The first thing that sets Black’s novel apart is not just the rotating cast of characters, but that each point of view/character chapter is told from in the first person. This establishes an intimacy that a story with such a global scale might otherwise lack. Through each character’s eyes, we see how vastly different portions of the world have reacted to an alien attack and the decimation of technology and infrastructure. Some peoples have reverted to nomadic tribes (Rae and Naomi of the Ochre family), others have helped in the fight against the “Valentines” or “Romeos” through recruitment and honing of special skills (Jax, Kizabel, Imway, and Vinneas), or from the streets and every-day youth through the yes of Torro in the titular Ninth City. This mode of storytelling also illustrates just how broken down technology is, particularly communication as the Ochre family has a vastly different understanding of the state of the world compared to the people who live in Ninth City.
Black does many things well in his debut; he creates a great sense of a fractured world and because he shows it through multiple viewpoints, it feels much more immediate. There is mystery around the aliens themselves as their appearances are minimal at best, and primarily through their weaponry. He also does a very good job with the characters, at least most of them….which leads into some of the issues I had with Ninth City Burning. While I appreciated what Black was trying to do in showing the decimated world defending and rebuilding through the eyes of people from various social strata and background, I felt it was too much of a stretch, a bit crowded. I thought Rae, Naomi, Jax, Kizabel, and Vinneas were the strongest characters of the bunch. However, I felt the story would not have lost much if we didn’t see things through Torro or Imway’s point-of-view and would have made for an all-around stronger and more tightly-woven novel.
I’m of two minds on the aliens themselves. On one hand, I really would have liked to see and know more of the aliens, at least to know them more than simply as the faceless invading force they were for much of the story. On the other hand, I think keeping them somewhat faceless allowed Black to invest more of his creative energies into the characters, allowing readers to build empathy for them. I also would hope Black provides more information about the aliens in future volumes. (Yes, this is the first of a trilogy.) The glimpses he did show of a multiverse, parallel worlds, and grand universe beyond Earth’s atmosphere; however, were enticingly strong (and reminded me a bit of Jason M. Hough’s awesome Zero World reviewed here).
Black is weaving elements from quite a few popular works, like Star Wars (thelemity and the fontani), The Hunger Games (the fractured city states), Red Son Rising (the bleak setting and tone), A Song of Ice and Fire (rotating POVs) and even Ender’s Game (the militaristic feel of the “recruits”). It also blends elements of futuristic SF with the aliens and multiverse with more fantastical elements like the all-but-magic-or-force of thelemity. What Black gets right, he gets right very well. Some of the disconnectedness and wide-spread point of views detract from the novel a bit as I’ve said. One thing is definite, Black’s ambition is quite impressive and even though a reining-in wouldn’t have hurt this novel, that ambition and the delight he seems to have taken in crafting this tale come through quite well.
Overall, Night City Burning is a mixed bag at worst (with more good in that proverbial bag than negative), and an ambitious novel with much promise for future volumes in this trilogy at best. Based on this first book in the series, patient readers would seem to be rewarded.
Recommended.
© 2016 Rob H. Bedford
J. Patrick Black adds the manic engineering student Kizabel to his extensive roster of narrating characters about halfway through Ninth City Burning. The addition is jarring not just because she’s another voice in an already crowded narrative, but because the prose about her secret cutting-edge project is punctuated by footnotes to explain all the technical terms she’s introducing along with her references to “Common Era” pop culture like The Clash. While Kizabel tries to work out what’s wrong with her new alien-fighting war mech, her first chapter provides a perfect encapsulation of everything that keeps Black’s ambitious debut novel from succeeding.
Set 500 years after an army from another universe invaded Earth and destroyed most of the planet’s major cities, Ninth City Burning follows seven characters from three societies with very different views on the conflict. Humanity has been able to fight back because a small percent of the population can harness the invader’s primary weapon, a poorly understood force called thelemity. Those who can produce thelemity, dubbed fontani, become near godlike beings that can power entire armies and are only threatened by mystical duels of wills set in anachronistic mindscapes. Humans who directly channel the power are capable of bending the laws of physics to their whims. While the denizens of the planet’s 12 cities use that power to fight off the invaders, the rest of humanity lives in either depressing settlements, where they toil for 16 hours a day to support the war effort and hope not to be drafted to the front, or eke out survival as nomadic tribes.
Black devotes a huge amount of space to detailing how his world works, whether or not it’s plot relevant. There are names for everything from mijmere—a dreamlike place fontani go when they’re using their powers—to the disappearing disappearing blood-like substance, dubbed gwayd, used to conduct power in the animated monsters that the Ninth City’s cavalry units pilot. Delivering both a lexicon and setting is a burden for any genre work, but the problem is that Ninth City Burning’s plot is too thin to be worth the effort of keeping up.
While it’s not billed as YA, the book draws heavily from genre clichés, starting with an excruciating chapter from Jax, an insecure 12-year-old fontani wishing he didn’t have the responsibility of being chosen to defend his whole city from an alien attack. Then there’s Kizabel and the brilliant young officer Vinneas who use math to discover that the aliens are changing their tactics, but are ignored and sidelined by a resentful leader who’d rather keep telling everyone what they want to hear. Of course the young heroes and some sympathetic adults come together to save the day using their ingenuity and passion, but not before some of Earth’s cities are utterly annihilated. But given how everyone who matters was already located in Ninth City, the losses feel utterly meaningless.
Black tries to distinguish the denizens of the cities, settlements, and “Unincorporated Peoples” through linguistics. That mostly translates as the four city-dwelling characters’ chapters teaming with technical information, while the nomads are more matter of fact and prone to referencing the pre-invasion stories they like to keep alive like Gulliver’s Travels and Harry Potter. Most discordant is the character Torro, whose settlement’s slang—like “boyo” and “kiddos”—makes him feel like a Greaser dropped into the plot of Starship Troopers. That quirk would again be much easier to deal with if Torro wasn’t also the book’s most unnecessary character, basically just an add-on to show war is hell but nice people will do well if they stick together. The tone also changes wildly with the language, moving from Naomi and her tribe running from vicious Nworkie warriors—marked by their I ❤ New York tattoos—to Jax’s fanciful training session with his 500-year-old Yoda-quoting mentor.
Black’s mix of fantasy and science fiction and his ideas for solving the problems endemic in other alien-invasion stories are intriguing, but Ninth City Burning’s strengths are drowned by his abundance of jargon, clichés, and geek culture pandering. This is the first in a promised series, so hopefully he’ll learn from his debut’s failings to pen a sequel that can make better use of his world-building.
By Samantha Nelson