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Up The Tower
In the dystopian slum of Junktown, death is commonplace, trust is a liability, and friendship is a curse. But disaster brings everybody together. A cloned corporate assassin; a boy genius and his new robot; a tech-modified gangster with nothing to lose; a beautiful, damaged woman and her unbalanced stalker—these individuals couldn't be more different, but somehow they must work together to save their own skin. Stranded in the epicenter of a monumental earthquake, there is only one way to survive. These unlikely teammates must go...UP THE TOWER.
200 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 11, 2014
2 people are currently reading
792 people want to read
About the author
J.P. Lantern
12 books14 followersJ.P. Lantern lives in the Midwestern US, though his heart and probably some essential parts of his liver and pancreas and whatnot live metaphorically in Texas. He writes speculative science fiction short stories, novellas, and novels which he has deemed "rugged," though he would also be fine with "roughhewn" because that is a terrific and wonderfully apt word.
Full of adventure and discovery, these stories examine complex people in situations fraught with conflict as they search for truth in increasingly violent and complicated worlds.
You can find his website here, his
Facebook page here, and you can buy his books at Amazon here. Thanks!
Full of adventure and discovery, these stories examine complex people in situations fraught with conflict as they search for truth in increasingly violent and complicated worlds.
You can find his website here, his
Facebook page here, and you can buy his books at Amazon here. Thanks!
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
August 1, 2014
(Note: I received a digital copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review.)
So, Up the Tower is not really my cup of tea, but it's definitely something a little different than most of the other YA dystopia/post-apocalyptic novels that I've read in the last couple of years.
The story is presented as a historical record of a disaster in St. Louis. There is a rather lengthy (or at least lengthy-feeling) introductory bit that I sort of hated from the perspective of the historian in which we find out that we're going to read about an earthquake in (to us) future St. Louis. The first few pages of the book felt almost incomprehensible to me, written in a loosely conversational tone rather than a scholarly or academic one. Later interludes, in which the historian explains more, are significantly less confusing, but it's as if they are written by someone else entirely.
I think I would have left these pieces out entirely, to be honest, and worked the exposition they contain into the story elsewhere. The actual story, which follows a handful of characters through a catastrophic disaster, is compelling, and I found the historian's interludes annoying as I was anxious to get back to the characters' journey.
Future St. Louis is well-described and mostly believable, although I thought there was a bit much going on with various speculative elements--genetic engineering, clones, robots, AI, cyborgs, organized crime, evil corporations and so on. I tend to prefer speculative fiction that focuses more closely on one idea--too many concepts can quickly become overwhelming and chaotic. However, it actually mostly works in Up the Tower, which centers on how several characters survive an event that creates far more than the usual chaos of their world.
Regarding the characters, I sort of have a thing for unlikeable women, so of course I loved Ore and Ana. Ana, especially, is awful, but that makes her fascinating. Samson and his robot friend Partner could easily have carried a book all on their own.
All in all, Up the Tower is, I think, a fun read for the right reader, and if you like disaster survival stories, I'd suggest checking this one out.
So, Up the Tower is not really my cup of tea, but it's definitely something a little different than most of the other YA dystopia/post-apocalyptic novels that I've read in the last couple of years.
The story is presented as a historical record of a disaster in St. Louis. There is a rather lengthy (or at least lengthy-feeling) introductory bit that I sort of hated from the perspective of the historian in which we find out that we're going to read about an earthquake in (to us) future St. Louis. The first few pages of the book felt almost incomprehensible to me, written in a loosely conversational tone rather than a scholarly or academic one. Later interludes, in which the historian explains more, are significantly less confusing, but it's as if they are written by someone else entirely.
I think I would have left these pieces out entirely, to be honest, and worked the exposition they contain into the story elsewhere. The actual story, which follows a handful of characters through a catastrophic disaster, is compelling, and I found the historian's interludes annoying as I was anxious to get back to the characters' journey.
Future St. Louis is well-described and mostly believable, although I thought there was a bit much going on with various speculative elements--genetic engineering, clones, robots, AI, cyborgs, organized crime, evil corporations and so on. I tend to prefer speculative fiction that focuses more closely on one idea--too many concepts can quickly become overwhelming and chaotic. However, it actually mostly works in Up the Tower, which centers on how several characters survive an event that creates far more than the usual chaos of their world.
Regarding the characters, I sort of have a thing for unlikeable women, so of course I loved Ore and Ana. Ana, especially, is awful, but that makes her fascinating. Samson and his robot friend Partner could easily have carried a book all on their own.
All in all, Up the Tower is, I think, a fun read for the right reader, and if you like disaster survival stories, I'd suggest checking this one out.
September 11, 2014
It reminded me of The World Inside at the start, which is probably why I kept on reading. Lots of character insight and fun soft Sci-Fi stuff going on (some of it golden age Sci-Fi, like the flying eyebots and robot cops etc.) but still a fairly decent read.
February 19, 2015
Plot: Up the Tower is a dystopian novel which has an historian telling us about life on Junktown – the slum area of a town called St Louis – before an earthquake hit it. As the book advances, we are introduced to a handful of characters, first getting to know a bit about their history and then accompanying them through the day when the disaster happened.
Characters: We have a student who is not particularly brilliant, quite an outcast hiding behind a persona really, and has a major crush on a gorgeous girl (who happens to have the same name as yours truly, teehee); said girl wants nothing more than to get out of that place, so she will subject herself to her rich and powerful boyfriend in all means necessary; we have a young woman who is in charge of a gang and sees her life turn around; a 12 year old who is a tech genius; a half cyborg assassin clone and even a robot. As you can see, quite an eclectic mix. These characters, having lived in a world dominated by technology, poverty and power, try to survive the day where it all went crumbling down.
Positives: The story is, at times, quite engaging and interesting. I enjoyed how the characters were described and most of all how each of them seemed to have their own voice. Unlike some books, in this one each character has their own background and mannerisms in both speech and action. I appreciate that a lot. It makes a book a whole lot more interesting in my opinion.
I think overall the idea was well developed. We are presented a world which was pretty much carefully planned and it is fairly believable, though it still has several flaws. There was enough suspense to keep me wanting to keep reading.
Negatives: The book almost feels as if it was written by two different people – the historian and then someone more objective, a normal narrator who gives us an account of what happens with characters as they feel it, as a normal author would; so while the historian gives us not only the background on Junktown society but also his own point of view about everything that happened then and up to that point and wonders about what everyone (not just the main characters) was thinking and feeling, the narrator clearly dictates what each character felt and thought as the action progressed. How could an historian know that? He only had records to back his conclusions, not a direct link to the characters’ emotions.
While that is not necessarily bad, it gets confusing, especially because of how it was done. For instance, in part 1, we start with historian, then narrator steps in, telling us about what the characters went through during that day and a bit of their background and then historian steps back in, with the whole more or less subjective speech once again. And it’s like that throughout the whole book. The lack of cohesion is unnecessary in my opinion and breaks the rhythm of the book. It’s not that either voice is bad, it’s just that when you were just getting comfortable with one, enter the other one. Personally, I would only have one voice, the narrator. Or at least a justification to how the historian knows how the characters felt and thought. Otherwise, it’s just not believable.
Another negative is, although we are told how St Louis came to be under the dominion of one corporation and not the other, we are not told how they came to have that power in the first place, instead of having the government in control.
And last but not least, I actually wondered if the book was edited at all. There are a number of redundancies (“The stretch of St Louis’s influence stretched…”, “left all the merchandise left on the floor”) and just plain sentence construction errors (“what did she say was…”, “When we do start?” and many, oh so many more). That lowered the book’s value, in my opinion.
Conclusion: Up the Tower is a good read, if you are willing to keep up the pace with all the back and forth between narration styles and look past the poor sentence construction and some fairly minor plot fails. It’s books like this that make me wish we could rate based on more than 5 stars because, due to all the negatives, I don’t feel it deserves 4, but I do believe it is worth more than 3. If the book was properly edited, I would definitely give it 4 stars or more.
Disclaimer: I have received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
Characters: We have a student who is not particularly brilliant, quite an outcast hiding behind a persona really, and has a major crush on a gorgeous girl (who happens to have the same name as yours truly, teehee); said girl wants nothing more than to get out of that place, so she will subject herself to her rich and powerful boyfriend in all means necessary; we have a young woman who is in charge of a gang and sees her life turn around; a 12 year old who is a tech genius; a half cyborg assassin clone and even a robot. As you can see, quite an eclectic mix. These characters, having lived in a world dominated by technology, poverty and power, try to survive the day where it all went crumbling down.
Positives: The story is, at times, quite engaging and interesting. I enjoyed how the characters were described and most of all how each of them seemed to have their own voice. Unlike some books, in this one each character has their own background and mannerisms in both speech and action. I appreciate that a lot. It makes a book a whole lot more interesting in my opinion.
I think overall the idea was well developed. We are presented a world which was pretty much carefully planned and it is fairly believable, though it still has several flaws. There was enough suspense to keep me wanting to keep reading.
Negatives: The book almost feels as if it was written by two different people – the historian and then someone more objective, a normal narrator who gives us an account of what happens with characters as they feel it, as a normal author would; so while the historian gives us not only the background on Junktown society but also his own point of view about everything that happened then and up to that point and wonders about what everyone (not just the main characters) was thinking and feeling, the narrator clearly dictates what each character felt and thought as the action progressed. How could an historian know that? He only had records to back his conclusions, not a direct link to the characters’ emotions.
While that is not necessarily bad, it gets confusing, especially because of how it was done. For instance, in part 1, we start with historian, then narrator steps in, telling us about what the characters went through during that day and a bit of their background and then historian steps back in, with the whole more or less subjective speech once again. And it’s like that throughout the whole book. The lack of cohesion is unnecessary in my opinion and breaks the rhythm of the book. It’s not that either voice is bad, it’s just that when you were just getting comfortable with one, enter the other one. Personally, I would only have one voice, the narrator. Or at least a justification to how the historian knows how the characters felt and thought. Otherwise, it’s just not believable.
Another negative is, although we are told how St Louis came to be under the dominion of one corporation and not the other, we are not told how they came to have that power in the first place, instead of having the government in control.
And last but not least, I actually wondered if the book was edited at all. There are a number of redundancies (“The stretch of St Louis’s influence stretched…”, “left all the merchandise left on the floor”) and just plain sentence construction errors (“what did she say was…”, “When we do start?” and many, oh so many more). That lowered the book’s value, in my opinion.
Conclusion: Up the Tower is a good read, if you are willing to keep up the pace with all the back and forth between narration styles and look past the poor sentence construction and some fairly minor plot fails. It’s books like this that make me wish we could rate based on more than 5 stars because, due to all the negatives, I don’t feel it deserves 4, but I do believe it is worth more than 3. If the book was properly edited, I would definitely give it 4 stars or more.
Disclaimer: I have received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
September 4, 2014
In Junktown, if you don't work for the gangs, then you don't stand much of a chance at staying alive. The world as we know it is gone, ruled by dueling corporations that are constantly trying to topple each other and in St. Louis if you aren't a citizen, then you live in Junktown. Ruled by the five faces and their various gangs, staying alive means getting in good with the right people. Life is harsh, death is common place, and you're only as good as your next job. Everything changes in the blink of an eye when a massive earthquake strikes and brings together an unlikely group of people who must make it to the top of the tower as people die in the aftershocks of the quake as well as drowning when a dam gives way and water floods the already dying city. A boy and his cop bot, a trophy girlfriend, her stalker, and a cloned corporate assassin make their way through the perils of the tower and meet up with a low level gangster and together they fight their way to the top.
The premise of this book is that a historian has looked into the personal data recordings of victims of the flood, detailing the moments of their lives before, during, and after the quake and flood. These are the only records left after such a major catastrophe wiped out almost all of the inhabitants of Junktown. This is a tale of corporate greed, showing what could happen to us all if corporations are allowed to take over the world and tech becomes king. People can have cybernetic upgrades and clones are a common tool used by the rich. I really enjoyed this book, it definitely fits into the genre of cyberpunk. Think, Blade Runner, or anything written by William Gibson. This book has the same feel, but it details only about a day in the lives of these unlikely companions. This has everything, big tech, robots, gangsters, tough women, death, and mayhem. It's a wonderful way to get your cyberpunk fix all in one story.
If you enjoy reading books about dystopian futures and getting a glimpse of what might be around the corner for us then you will like this book, If you've read Gibson's Johnny Pneumonic, or Mona Lisa Overdrive then I think you'll want to pick this book up and give it a chance. You won't be disappointed.
Reviewer for Paranormal Romance and Authors that Rock.
The premise of this book is that a historian has looked into the personal data recordings of victims of the flood, detailing the moments of their lives before, during, and after the quake and flood. These are the only records left after such a major catastrophe wiped out almost all of the inhabitants of Junktown. This is a tale of corporate greed, showing what could happen to us all if corporations are allowed to take over the world and tech becomes king. People can have cybernetic upgrades and clones are a common tool used by the rich. I really enjoyed this book, it definitely fits into the genre of cyberpunk. Think, Blade Runner, or anything written by William Gibson. This book has the same feel, but it details only about a day in the lives of these unlikely companions. This has everything, big tech, robots, gangsters, tough women, death, and mayhem. It's a wonderful way to get your cyberpunk fix all in one story.
If you enjoy reading books about dystopian futures and getting a glimpse of what might be around the corner for us then you will like this book, If you've read Gibson's Johnny Pneumonic, or Mona Lisa Overdrive then I think you'll want to pick this book up and give it a chance. You won't be disappointed.
Reviewer for Paranormal Romance and Authors that Rock.
September 5, 2014
I received an advanced, pre-final edit digital copy in exchange for an honest review.
Amazon Book Description:
In the dystopian slum of Junktown, death is commonplace, trust is a liability, and friendship is a curse. But disaster brings everybody together. A cloned corporate assassin; a boy genius and his new robot; a tech-modified gangster with nothing to lose; a beautiful, damaged woman and her unbalanced stalker—these individuals couldn't be more different, but somehow they must work together to save their own skin. Stranded in the epicenter of a monumental earthquake, there is only one way to survive. These unlikely teammates must go...UP THE TOWER.
Review:
Science fiction is often referred to as future histories. Up the Tower is exactly that. The story is a history text of an important moment in St. Louis that takes place in a dystopian future. The author builds a future St. Louis that is an extreme version of a capitalistic society where corporations are the ruling bodies. Class structure has been re-instituted with additional classes based on corporate hierarchy, i.e. the leader of a gang is now the C.E.O. of the gang. The technology of this society is way more advanced than ours, and this allows the author to show further rifts between the classes.
As disaster strikes, a band of characters work their way towards each other in an effort to survive. The characters are engaging with author creating distinct voices for each that pulls the narrative along.
The world building works for me - the assassin, the corporate control of everything, the gangs, all of it. The world set down here is ripe with possibilities for new stories.
I actually wish that I had gotten to see a little more of the world. I wish the author had taken more time with some of the scenes so that I could fully entrench in the setting and the characters. I would have liked to gotten to know the characters a little more. It was the difference between sitting down to have a beer with someone and sitting down to a ten course meal. I liked what I got, but I wanted more.
Conclusion:
The unique setting and fast paced action made for a fun read in a world, to which the author will hopefully return. Recommended.
Amazon Book Description:
In the dystopian slum of Junktown, death is commonplace, trust is a liability, and friendship is a curse. But disaster brings everybody together. A cloned corporate assassin; a boy genius and his new robot; a tech-modified gangster with nothing to lose; a beautiful, damaged woman and her unbalanced stalker—these individuals couldn't be more different, but somehow they must work together to save their own skin. Stranded in the epicenter of a monumental earthquake, there is only one way to survive. These unlikely teammates must go...UP THE TOWER.
Review:
Science fiction is often referred to as future histories. Up the Tower is exactly that. The story is a history text of an important moment in St. Louis that takes place in a dystopian future. The author builds a future St. Louis that is an extreme version of a capitalistic society where corporations are the ruling bodies. Class structure has been re-instituted with additional classes based on corporate hierarchy, i.e. the leader of a gang is now the C.E.O. of the gang. The technology of this society is way more advanced than ours, and this allows the author to show further rifts between the classes.
As disaster strikes, a band of characters work their way towards each other in an effort to survive. The characters are engaging with author creating distinct voices for each that pulls the narrative along.
The world building works for me - the assassin, the corporate control of everything, the gangs, all of it. The world set down here is ripe with possibilities for new stories.
I actually wish that I had gotten to see a little more of the world. I wish the author had taken more time with some of the scenes so that I could fully entrench in the setting and the characters. I would have liked to gotten to know the characters a little more. It was the difference between sitting down to have a beer with someone and sitting down to a ten course meal. I liked what I got, but I wanted more.
Conclusion:
The unique setting and fast paced action made for a fun read in a world, to which the author will hopefully return. Recommended.
August 26, 2014
Review coming soon!
January 30, 2015
UP THE TOWER is not your "normal" YA distopian. This is an ensemble cast that includes a wide variety of characters. There is also a historian who bookends the narrative and who periodically explains some of the background and the "history" behind this event. The book reads like a documentary interspersed with vignettes of the real action.
JP Lantern takes us so a dark place--there's not a lot of redeeming qualities to the setting. People strive to achieve citizenship where they receive free healthcare, government benefits, etc. But, the best situation would be to be a shareholder in one of the major megacorporations that run everything.
My favorite characters are Samson and Partner--although the stories of all the characters are interesting.
UP THE TOWER is not a "feel good" book nor is it a book of fast-paced action. Even though it's relatively short (less than 200 pages) there's a lot packed into those pages. Pick it up when you have some time to read it carefully and digest the story the author has to offer.
JP Lantern takes us so a dark place--there's not a lot of redeeming qualities to the setting. People strive to achieve citizenship where they receive free healthcare, government benefits, etc. But, the best situation would be to be a shareholder in one of the major megacorporations that run everything.
My favorite characters are Samson and Partner--although the stories of all the characters are interesting.
UP THE TOWER is not a "feel good" book nor is it a book of fast-paced action. Even though it's relatively short (less than 200 pages) there's a lot packed into those pages. Pick it up when you have some time to read it carefully and digest the story the author has to offer.
May 1, 2016
I was given this book in exchange for an honest review.
I was really looking forward into liking this book, but sadly i did not. It is a different kind of genre that I'm used to reading so I wanted to give another genre a try, like sci-fi. Don't get me wrong, the book is good but I wasn't at all interested in keep reading it although, I did because I was curious on how the story ends. If this is your kind of genre I think you might like it, like I said, it is a good book.
I was really looking forward into liking this book, but sadly i did not. It is a different kind of genre that I'm used to reading so I wanted to give another genre a try, like sci-fi. Don't get me wrong, the book is good but I wasn't at all interested in keep reading it although, I did because I was curious on how the story ends. If this is your kind of genre I think you might like it, like I said, it is a good book.
October 1, 2014
The story reminded me of the Poseidon Adventure or any post catastrophe story line. Futuristic references to technological augmentation and social class segregation added a nice touch to the plight of the characters and a need to escape the city.
The plot was somewhat disjointed jumping between a narrator and multiple characters, some which were not integral to the story. The story was enjoyable but the writing style was a little difficult to follow.
The plot was somewhat disjointed jumping between a narrator and multiple characters, some which were not integral to the story. The story was enjoyable but the writing style was a little difficult to follow.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews