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Turner: Bitter Change
Change happens. It’s a fact of life. But what if the change is so drastic it changes the world and everything in it? The world has changed but so has Juri Turner, and the change is bitter. She’s a teenaged runaway who since the age of three has been transforming into something that’s not quite human. She struggles to learn what she is and to understand what she is becoming. Does she hold the key to throwing off the yoke of alien invaders? This is a story of change, and of hate, love, and betrayal; of a coming of age, and of spaceships and magic…
510 pages, Paperback
First published November 18, 2014
1 person is currently reading
136 people want to read
About the author
P.B. Cannon
54 books103 followersP.B. Cannon lives in Charlotte, NC.
In addition to writing science fiction and fantasy (and a smidgen of horror), she enjoys a good read, working crossword puzzles, walking, drawing, and painting.
She is a retired electronics technician and admits to having worked at a variety of other jobs during her life, including being a dishwasher, a busgirl, a housemaid, a motel/hotel maid, working in a fast-food joint, a telephone operator, and a store clerk. There have been other, not-so-glamorous jobs, including picking cotton.
She also daydreams a lot.
Find her at Blue Sky: https://bit.ly/48hTbBH
In addition to writing science fiction and fantasy (and a smidgen of horror), she enjoys a good read, working crossword puzzles, walking, drawing, and painting.
She is a retired electronics technician and admits to having worked at a variety of other jobs during her life, including being a dishwasher, a busgirl, a housemaid, a motel/hotel maid, working in a fast-food joint, a telephone operator, and a store clerk. There have been other, not-so-glamorous jobs, including picking cotton.
She also daydreams a lot.
Find her at Blue Sky: https://bit.ly/48hTbBH
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
April 7, 2015
I love when authors can seamlessly blend science fiction and fantasy and this book does just that. What begins as a near future dystopia, complete with the stereotypical misunderstood teen, becomes so much more.
Earth has been conquered by an alien force and the majority of our big cities have been destroyed. Those who are left are required to live under martial law and with limited resources. Technology has been set back to a few decades ago. In the middle of this dystopian wasteland we have Juri, a fifteen year old runaway who is mysteriously covered with scales and hated by all who come into contact with her.
Judi soon learns what she really is and what her purpose is. This part is not very different from most coming of age stories, but Juri's voice is refreshing. I won't say too much about what happens, but I will note that the relationships formed between Juri and those around her, as well as their ups and downs, had me tearing up at times.
The fantastical element, along with the well done writing style, is what really set this book apart from the sea of sameness in the dystopian genre. I somewhat patiently await the next installment.
Earth has been conquered by an alien force and the majority of our big cities have been destroyed. Those who are left are required to live under martial law and with limited resources. Technology has been set back to a few decades ago. In the middle of this dystopian wasteland we have Juri, a fifteen year old runaway who is mysteriously covered with scales and hated by all who come into contact with her.
Judi soon learns what she really is and what her purpose is. This part is not very different from most coming of age stories, but Juri's voice is refreshing. I won't say too much about what happens, but I will note that the relationships formed between Juri and those around her, as well as their ups and downs, had me tearing up at times.
The fantastical element, along with the well done writing style, is what really set this book apart from the sea of sameness in the dystopian genre. I somewhat patiently await the next installment.
May 31, 2018
Where myth and science, magic and technology, intersect, there you’ll find Juri Turner in Bea Cannon’s groundbreaking first book in her Spaceships and Magic series, Turner: Bitter Change. Juri’s self-adopted last name is appropriate because as the book progresses, she finds herself inexplicably turning into something that’s “not quite human,” as the Amazon blurb suggests. To say anything more would be a major spoiler, so I’ll leave it at that, except to say that the changes keep unfolding. Narrated in the first person, Juri tells a truly mesmerizing tale of a one-of-a-kind 15-year-old who gradually learns she has unique powers capable of saving Earth from destruction. Juri’s personal narrative style is what you might term “folksy.” It’s a storytelling voice that grows on you. She sounds authentic and believable as she documents the various stages of her transformation, which are often as surprising to her as they are to the reader, not to mention her newfound friends, who form a teen and young adult resistance group called the Musketeers. Her relationships with friends, mentors, and family tie in with a major theme of the novel: the difficulties of hanging onto love and finding ways to forgive under the most stressful of circumstances. Overall, this is a novel that successfully and uniquely interweaves fantasy and science fiction, so if you’re a fan of either genre, you’ll no doubt find yourself spellbound. Having already read Books 2–4, and finding each to be a self-contained reading experience, I’m happy to see there’s a recent release of Book 5.
December 7, 2014
The best way to describe Turner is enjoyably "different", and three stars probably doesn't do it justice, but since Goodreads uses a more "subjective" rating system than other sites, I'm rating it three, i.e.: "I liked it". On other sites, three means "OK", and Turner is more than "OK".
On one hand it's a solid, professionally written Young Adult sci-fi (the first in a series) about a lonely, outcast teen coming to terms with both strange and transforming abilities and new found friends, then saving the world from alien invaders.
On the other it's what I can only describe as "experimental", in the sense that Cannon fearlessly combines elements of sci-fi with fantasy, dragons, magic, other dimensions and parallel universes, and even fairy-tales, with a teen coming-of-age/coming-to-terms-with saga. Being so "different" from your run-of-the-mill YA novel, this mixture is surprising at first, but as the story and characters grow it becomes both enjoyable and acceptable.
I've read Cannon's previous "Boucher's World" trilogy, and "Turner" carries many of the same hallmarks, but in a totally different context, which is a credit to the writer's imagination.
By hallmarks I mean that Cannon writes about heroines undergoing transformations and infuses her work with a positivity, a niceness, that, for me, can border on the utopic. In spite of her fictitious world's problems, she sees, or brings out, her characters' good sides. Even when they start out "evil", they're forced to change and make amends. I don't know whether this is conscious or unconscious, but for my tastes it *can* become a little too "sweet" in places. In others, it brings a tear to my eye by showing how, in spite of adversity, there's always a silver lining to be found.
We only get to see the "villains", the conquering aliens, from a distance. We get to know little about them and, in a way, they become almost tangential to the story which is as much about the different beings (humans, dragons and dragonbees) and these beings' relations with Juri, the pint-sized half-dragon, half-human heroine, as the story of the rebellion itself.
Three things that weren't to my taste as a reader:
1) One can see the engineer in Cannon's writing. A lot of thought went into the story and the plot is "tight", meaning there aren't any holes. Any that might appear are covered and/or explained satisfactorily. This is a quality, making what would be, on paper(!), a rather far-fetched story, believable. That said, there was, I felt, some unnecessary detail and explanation that sometimes detracted from the flow of the story. Somethings need a few words of explanation to be credible, and some don't.
2) Don't start reading expecting a rock'n'roller New York Times YA Bestseller type read, i.e. full of action and one dimensional kick-ass characters. As I said above, Cannon's work is about relationships, and she's very good at it. She just happens to situate these relationships in Young Adult, dystopic-type contexts. Now, I'm not saying I prefer New York Times YA Bestsellers, as I generally find them rather shallow and poorly written, but I do like "action" and "grit". I like to see the "Dark Side" affecting the heroes (and villains), and to feel the menace and threat of the underlying conflict. Cannon doesn't not do this, she just seems to focus more on the "behind the scenes", on the way the characters interact and respond to said conflict and each other. An example in point being the ending where, considering the ease with which the aliens conquered Earth in the first place, the coalition of humans, dragons and dragonbees *appear* to deal with them rather swiftly. Sure, people die and things get destroyed, but there never seems to be any doubt as to whether the coalition will succeed or not, and the fighting doesn't seem to be as important as Juri's feelings of, and reactions to, her supposed betrayal by her friends.
3) My third point is a result of the first two. The "plot" took, in my opinion, a long time to get going. We know, or we think we know, what "has" to happen - we've got a heroine and we've got an, albeit distant, villain - but I was 24% of the way through before this became explicit. Sure, there are some (I counted two) subtle "clues" that lead the reader in, but the lack of some initial conflict with the villain, something "terrible" (and personal) to make us hate and fear them and know that "they" really are the villain of THIS story, coupled with the volume of writing before we're certain we know where Cannon is going, may leave the more impatient reader confused and not really certain whether they're reading about a girl's adaptation to a new life in a dystopic world, or a girl's metamorphosis into the heroine that changes the dystopic world.
I can't say if this is a good thing or a bad thing. It's a question of taste. On one hand, writing so that the reader knows whats going to, or will have to, happen is a rather simplistic and unimaginative way of writing: "Give em what they want". Great for formulaic writing suited to the mindless masses that read what they're told to read.
On the other, when your characters are teens, and the genre can be called sci-fi or fantasy, the writer creates certain "expectations" in the mind of the average reader. To not cater to these expectations is risky.
Unless, of course, this is the writer's goal.
On one hand it's a solid, professionally written Young Adult sci-fi (the first in a series) about a lonely, outcast teen coming to terms with both strange and transforming abilities and new found friends, then saving the world from alien invaders.
On the other it's what I can only describe as "experimental", in the sense that Cannon fearlessly combines elements of sci-fi with fantasy, dragons, magic, other dimensions and parallel universes, and even fairy-tales, with a teen coming-of-age/coming-to-terms-with saga. Being so "different" from your run-of-the-mill YA novel, this mixture is surprising at first, but as the story and characters grow it becomes both enjoyable and acceptable.
I've read Cannon's previous "Boucher's World" trilogy, and "Turner" carries many of the same hallmarks, but in a totally different context, which is a credit to the writer's imagination.
By hallmarks I mean that Cannon writes about heroines undergoing transformations and infuses her work with a positivity, a niceness, that, for me, can border on the utopic. In spite of her fictitious world's problems, she sees, or brings out, her characters' good sides. Even when they start out "evil", they're forced to change and make amends. I don't know whether this is conscious or unconscious, but for my tastes it *can* become a little too "sweet" in places. In others, it brings a tear to my eye by showing how, in spite of adversity, there's always a silver lining to be found.
We only get to see the "villains", the conquering aliens, from a distance. We get to know little about them and, in a way, they become almost tangential to the story which is as much about the different beings (humans, dragons and dragonbees) and these beings' relations with Juri, the pint-sized half-dragon, half-human heroine, as the story of the rebellion itself.
Three things that weren't to my taste as a reader:
1) One can see the engineer in Cannon's writing. A lot of thought went into the story and the plot is "tight", meaning there aren't any holes. Any that might appear are covered and/or explained satisfactorily. This is a quality, making what would be, on paper(!), a rather far-fetched story, believable. That said, there was, I felt, some unnecessary detail and explanation that sometimes detracted from the flow of the story. Somethings need a few words of explanation to be credible, and some don't.
2) Don't start reading expecting a rock'n'roller New York Times YA Bestseller type read, i.e. full of action and one dimensional kick-ass characters. As I said above, Cannon's work is about relationships, and she's very good at it. She just happens to situate these relationships in Young Adult, dystopic-type contexts. Now, I'm not saying I prefer New York Times YA Bestsellers, as I generally find them rather shallow and poorly written, but I do like "action" and "grit". I like to see the "Dark Side" affecting the heroes (and villains), and to feel the menace and threat of the underlying conflict. Cannon doesn't not do this, she just seems to focus more on the "behind the scenes", on the way the characters interact and respond to said conflict and each other. An example in point being the ending where, considering the ease with which the aliens conquered Earth in the first place, the coalition of humans, dragons and dragonbees *appear* to deal with them rather swiftly. Sure, people die and things get destroyed, but there never seems to be any doubt as to whether the coalition will succeed or not, and the fighting doesn't seem to be as important as Juri's feelings of, and reactions to, her supposed betrayal by her friends.
3) My third point is a result of the first two. The "plot" took, in my opinion, a long time to get going. We know, or we think we know, what "has" to happen - we've got a heroine and we've got an, albeit distant, villain - but I was 24% of the way through before this became explicit. Sure, there are some (I counted two) subtle "clues" that lead the reader in, but the lack of some initial conflict with the villain, something "terrible" (and personal) to make us hate and fear them and know that "they" really are the villain of THIS story, coupled with the volume of writing before we're certain we know where Cannon is going, may leave the more impatient reader confused and not really certain whether they're reading about a girl's adaptation to a new life in a dystopic world, or a girl's metamorphosis into the heroine that changes the dystopic world.
I can't say if this is a good thing or a bad thing. It's a question of taste. On one hand, writing so that the reader knows whats going to, or will have to, happen is a rather simplistic and unimaginative way of writing: "Give em what they want". Great for formulaic writing suited to the mindless masses that read what they're told to read.
On the other, when your characters are teens, and the genre can be called sci-fi or fantasy, the writer creates certain "expectations" in the mind of the average reader. To not cater to these expectations is risky.
Unless, of course, this is the writer's goal.
August 24, 2025
I really liked it.
October 25, 2015
First, apologies to the author. It did not take me two months to read her book... life got busy and I neglected to update my status.
Aliens have occupied earth and humans are slaves, but Juri Turner has larger problems. Everyone who encounters her hates her. This mysterious ‘hate Juri’ pheromone spread to her family, forcing her to flee. At fifteen, Juri is caught stealing food and incarcerated, but when she meets the institution’s administrator, she learns the reason she’s different.
The informal style adds an emotional quality to the protagonist, and the character’s dry wit and pragmatic attitude is engaging. The protagonist has a unique speaking voice, but the reliance on non-verbal sounds to express emotion is distracting.
Settings are imaginative, subplots are relevant to the storyline, and the main plot unravels at a good pace. The ending provides sufficient resolution, which can be difficult to achieve when dealing with a multiple book saga.
Turner: Bitter Change is a fun novel that features magical creatures with lots of personality. I’d recommend it to fantasy and young adult readers.
To read a longer review, please go to Book Reviews
Aliens have occupied earth and humans are slaves, but Juri Turner has larger problems. Everyone who encounters her hates her. This mysterious ‘hate Juri’ pheromone spread to her family, forcing her to flee. At fifteen, Juri is caught stealing food and incarcerated, but when she meets the institution’s administrator, she learns the reason she’s different.
The informal style adds an emotional quality to the protagonist, and the character’s dry wit and pragmatic attitude is engaging. The protagonist has a unique speaking voice, but the reliance on non-verbal sounds to express emotion is distracting.
Settings are imaginative, subplots are relevant to the storyline, and the main plot unravels at a good pace. The ending provides sufficient resolution, which can be difficult to achieve when dealing with a multiple book saga.
Turner: Bitter Change is a fun novel that features magical creatures with lots of personality. I’d recommend it to fantasy and young adult readers.
To read a longer review, please go to Book Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews