SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty

SF/F Review: The City of Brass by S. A. Chakraborty https://t.co/qS8L7GF46X - Short Review: 9 out of 10 (1/3)

— garik16 (@garik16) November 30, 2017

Short Review (cont): The City of Brass is the first in an Epic Fantasy Trilogy which features a City of Djinn on the verge of civil war due to clan rivalries and racial prejudice...as well as other magical creatures w/their own agendas. Phenomenal Characters in a grey world (2/3)

— garik16 (@garik16) November 30, 2017

  The City of Brass is the first in a new Epic Fantasy trilogy by S.A. Chakraborty (The Daevabad Trilogy) based upon an Islamic mythology-based world.  Nearly all of our main characters are Djinn, and the story also features Ifrit, Peri, and Marid in various roles - not to mention the book's name comes from one of the stories in Arabian Nights.  While this is the author's debut novel, it doesn't feel like it - this is a pretty expansive piece of worldbuilding and character work, with the latter being particularly excellent.

  That said, The City of Brass is the type of trilogy-opener that does not really attempt to resolve many, if any, of the plot threads it raises throughout the book, preferring to end in a cliffhanger that presumably will set off some of the rest of the trilogy.  So if you're looking for a book that will be satisfying on its own, this book is not for you.  This is also a fantasy world filled with grey - while one of our protagonists may be the closest thing possible to an actual good guy, his attitude isn't treated well by the narrative and the sides in conflict in this story are not all good or all evil.  This is a story where prejudice, racism, religious-extremism and violent resistance are major forces and there are no easy answers.

More after the jump, but a quick warning before I go further, I read this book as an audiobook, which means that my spellings of character and place names is very likely going to be off.  It should be noted that while the audiobook is long (19 hours is long even for a 500 page book), it's very well narrated, and so I do recommend the audiobook format if you're looking for one.

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Midnight Blue-Light Special (inCryptid) by Seanan McGuire

SF/F Review: Midnight Blue-Light Special (inCryptid) by Seanan McGuire https://t.co/hX2eBsP3op Short Review: 8 out of 10 (1/3)

— garik16 (@garik16) November 28, 2017

Short Review (cont): The 2nd inCryptid Novel follows directly up from the 1st one, as Verity Price finds that the monster-exterminating Covenant of Saint George has come to Manhattan, seeking to kill her & destroy her inhuman allies. Fun & oft-witty Urban Fantasy (2/3)

— garik16 (@garik16) November 28, 2017

Midnight Blue-Light Special is the second Novel (though not story) in Seanan McGuire's inCryptid series, following the first novel, Discount Armageddon, which I previously reviewed for this blog.

For those new to the series, inCryptid is an urban fantasy series focusing upon the Healy/Price family, a family of cryptozoologists who attempt to preserve and help Cryptids in North America - Cryptids being the name for beings that are unknown/unexplainable by modern science (think Monsters/Mythological creatures like Gorgons, Bogeymen, Dragons, and Talking Mice).  The family also tries to help save the Cryptids from their former organization, the Covenant of Saint George, which has a strictly "kill-on-sight" policy toward Cryptids, no matter how harmless, or how helpful, they might be to ordinary humans.   Despite the seriousness of the conflict, members of the Healy/Price family tend to be sarcastic/deadpan-snarkers, and so the series has a lot of humor in its tone.

Midnight Blue-Light Special is the second book following Verity Price, one of the youngest generation of the Family who tries to juggle her Cryptozoologist work with her love of Ballroom Dancing, all the while living in one of the biggest Cryptid communities you can find:  New York City.  It is very much a direct sequel to Discount Armageddon, and while McGuire spends part of the early narrative rehashing what a new reader might need to know that was explained in the first novel, you probably shouldn't start the series here with this book.

More after the jump, with spoilers for Discount Armageddon ahead:

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Barbary Station by R.E. Stearns

SF/F Review: Barbary Station by R.E. Stearns: https://t.co/bb42mZ8p94 Short Review: 3 out of 10 (1/3)

— garik16 (@garik16) November 25, 2017

Short Review (cont): This story of a pair of Lesbian Engineers hijacking a Colony Ship in order to impress Space Pirates only to run into a murderous A.I. is certainly ambitious, but has meh characters & a plot that fails to meet expectations (2/3)

— garik16 (@garik16) November 25, 2017

Few Books might have a basic plot concept as appealing as Barbary Station:  "A pair of Lesbian Engineers hijack a ship in order to join a band of famous pirates at a space station, only to find themselves forced to contend with a murderous A.I."  You got Engineers!  Space Pirates!  AIs!  Hacking! This just sounds like it should be a fun and exciting adventure.  And the story even starts off with a bang - the aforementioned hijacking occurs and is completed within the first two chapters.

Unfortunately, Barbary Station, which is author R.E. Stearns' first novel, fails to synthesize all of these ideas together and the result feels very much like an unsatisfying mess.  There's clearly a lot of interesting potential ideas here, but many of them are raised and never followed up on, and the direction the plot takes just isn't particularly satisfying either due to a pair of main characters who don't quite gel. 

More detail on this after the jump:

SciFi/Fantasy Anthology Review: Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View

SF/F Anthology Review: Star Wars: From A Certain Point of View https://t.co/K91KirSHwD Short Review: 8 out of 10 (1/3)

— garik16 (@garik16) November 23, 2017

Short Review (Cont): This Anthology commemorates the 40th anniversary of Episode IV by telling 40 short stories from the points of view of minor characters during the events of ANH. Some real gems, mixed with others that are merely okay. But a few gems are great (2/3)

— garik16 (@garik16) November 23, 2017

I've not been particularly pleased with the three new canon Star Wars novels that I've read so far (two Aftermath books and Thrawn), but still, this old Star Wars fan was extremely excited when From a Certain Point of View was announced earlier this year.  This Anthology features forty different authors telling 40 different "stories" (in various form) from points of view of side characters during the time period of A New Hope - the number "40" being used as this year is the 40th anniversary of the original Star Wars' opening in 77.  This sort of anthology is not exactly new to Star Wars - in a sense it's reminiscent of the Tales' series of anthologies from the old canon, such as Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina (although as I'll note before, the focus of this anthology is slightly different).

What is different, and what was exciting about this book when first announced, is the talent that is involved in it.  The forty authors involved include some of the best and/or most well known talent in the SciFi/Fantasy writing scene - whether it be in the form of books, animation, or comics.  So we have SF authors like Ken Liu and Nnedi Okorafor; Comic Book writers like Matt Fraction and Greg Rucka; TV cartoon writers like Paul Dini; and even an actor like Wil Wheaton.  Most of the stories aren't very long, but they cover seemingly every side character imaginable - and sometimes more.

As with any anthology - especially one involving multiple authors - the quality of the stories can vary pretty wildly throughout this collection.  But there are some real games that make this a pretty easy pickup for the typical Star Wars fan.

More after the Jump

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Sparrow Hill Road by Seanan McGuire

SF/F Review: Sparrow Hill Road by Seanan McGuire: https://t.co/SbCKrbOQl4 Short Review: 6.5 out of 10 (1/3)

— garik16 (@garik16) November 21, 2017

Short Review (cont): Sparrow Hill Road combines a series of short ghost stories about the hitchhiking ghost Rose Marshall and her adventures into a single novel and while its often pretty fun, some of the stories are less successful and it lacks a satisfying ending (2/3)

— garik16 (@garik16) November 21, 2017

  Like a few other books I've reviewed, Sparrow Hill Road is a book that did not start its life as a Novel.  Rather, it was originally a set of short stories released over a year in a publication by Seanan McGuire, supposedly based upon several ghost/urban legend stories of the road.  The novel essentially takes an edited versions of 11 of the 12 short stories and puts them together into one complete story.  That said, the book's origin is quite evident as each of the 11 chapters is quite clearly a single story, even if the stories eventually build upon one another to a final ending.

  Sparrow Hill Road is set in the same universe as McGuire's inCryptid stories, although there are only minor references toward the inCryptid universe in the book, so one doesn't need to have any knowledge before reading it.  That said, if you've read any of McGuire's inCryptid short stories or some of her October Daye books, you'll be very familiar with what you're getting here - a fun breezy book with an entertaining heroine in an urban fantasy world.  Unfortunately, while parts of the book are as entertaining as any of McGuire's other works, some parts (really, some of the short stories) don't really land as well and the book kind of lacks an ending.

More after the Jump:

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon

SF/F Review: An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon: https://t.co/tPiM18ERks Short Review: 9.5 out of 10 (1/3)

— garik16 (@garik16) November 18, 2017

Short Review (cont): A brutal tale of racism, homophobia, and oppression on a generation ship is often hard to read, but in the end is an incredibly powerful tale of people trying to survive and find meaning in small acts of resistance in the present and the past (2/3)

— garik16 (@garik16) November 18, 2017

  The SF/Fantasy Genre is very often (if not mostly) used by writers to tell stories about real world issues in different frames in order for the writer to address those issues.  For example, the amount of Fantasy or SF Books that feature elements of racism (or similarly, class-ism) as key elements of the plot has got to be extremely high - 5 of the 10 last books I've read have had such plots.  That said, few SF/F books really deal with the brutality of racism in its most primal form -racism/prejudice/oppression may be central elements of those books, but the true horrors of these issues is often kept at a remove from the reader.  Perhaps the authors of these books wish not to make their books too brutal to read or in many cases simply finds that to do so would detract from the story they wish to tell. 

   Then there are books like An Unkindness of Ghosts, which not only feature the horrors of racism/sexism/oppression at the forefront, but makes absolutely no effort to lighten the topic for the reader.  This is a brutal book, which opens with the main character having to amputate a little girl's leg due to the living conditions imposed upon the Black underclass by the ruling White powers, and only gets more brutal from there.  An Unkindness of Ghosts is in no way a read that can be characterized as "fun."

  However, it is absolutely a WORTHWHILE read, maybe even an ESSENTIAL one.  It's a book that essentially translates the horrors of slavery/plantation life/racism to a scifi world - well, Generation Ship - to form a truly terrifying but impactful story.  If you're looking for a fun story, this isn't your book, but if you're looking for a book that is simply powerful....this might be the most worthwhile read of the year.

(If you couldn't guess from this type of description, trigger warnings certainly apply to this book - rape, abuse, and beatings are all parts of this story, but they're essential to the tale.)  

More after the Jump, where I'll try to not babble - sorry, a review of this type of book is difficult.

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Terminal Alliance by Jim C Hines

SF/F Review: Terminal Alliance by Jim C Hines: https://t.co/fbzqltT217 Short Review: 8 out of 10 (1/3)

— garik16 (@garik16) November 16, 2017

Short Review (cont): A Space Opera meets Comedy tale featuring a bunch of human janitors, some of the last survivors of the human race, having to learn to fly a battleship and unravel a galactic conspiracy. Lot of fun. (2/3)

— garik16 (@garik16) November 16, 2017

As I've said before, sometimes one wants to read a book that is not interested in really deep questions as the core element of the plot, but one that is just plain fun.  Even one involving Toilet Humor.  Well, Terminal Alliance, if you couldn't tell by its series title: "Janitors of the Post-Apocalypse," is such a book.  That said, while the book is definitely on the "very silly" side of the scale, it manages to do so in a way that actually works really naturally, and never feels off as a result.  This is a humorous scifi book done extremely well, and it's easy to appreciate that once in a while.

One note before the jump: I listened to this as an e-audiobook from the library.  Despite my enjoyment of the book itself, the audiobook reader is NOT good - while her voices are solid for each of the characters, when she is reading general narration it tends to sound like the computer generated voices an old apple would speak on request and it was extremely jarring.  This book is worth a read, but the audiobook format is not really one I'd recommend as a result.

More after the Jump:

SciFi/Fantasy Anthology Review: The Legends of Luke Skywalker by Ken Liu

SF/F Anthology Review: The Legends of Luke Skywalker by Ken Liu https://t.co/A8hwNbVsM1 Short Review: 9 out of 10 (1/3)

— garik16 (@garik16) November 14, 2017

Short Review (cont): An All-Ages anthology of tall tales and myths about Luke Skywalker and his adventures as heard by a bunch of teenagers on a space ship features several excellent stories using the Star Wars universe, fun even if you're a full grown adult. (2/3)

— garik16 (@garik16) November 14, 2017

The Legends of Luke Skywalker is the 4th book in the new Star Wars Canon that I've read since the old EU was blown up.  As a big fan of the old EU, I haven't been exactly impressed by the prior 3 works (Aftermath, Aftermath Life Debt, & Thrawn), but Ken Liu is one of my favorite authors and he's particularly notable for his short fiction work.  And what do you know, The Legends of Luke Skywalker is an anthology of short stories set in the Star Wars universe written by Liu, so I was extremely excited to hear of this book's existence - even if the stories were marketed toward children and a lower age group (Amazon lists the recommended age group for reading as 8-12).

My excitement appears to have been justified - several of the stories in The Legends of Luke Skywalker are simply great, even though I'm well over the recommended age group.  The basis of the book is that a crew of teens on a space ship traveling to the city of Canto Bight (which will be part of Episode 8) and are telling the stories they've heard about Luke Skywalker.  Remember how Han in TFA told Rey and Finn that all of the stories they might've heard about Luke are true?  Well.....if Han heard these stories, he might have to amend that statement somewhat.  But even though these stories are presented as tall tales (and thus might not be trusted), they're still incredibly fun and well worth your time.

More after the Jump:

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Orbital Cloud by Taiyo Fujii (Translated by Timothy Silver)

SF/F Review: Orbital Cloud by Taiyo Fujii (Translated by Timothy Silver) https://t.co/MpS1QsBY9M Short Review: 6.5 out of 10 (1/3)

— garik16 (@garik16) November 14, 2017

Short Review (cont): A book filled with interesting ideas about space propulsion and future space travel development is undermined by the main characters being constantly fawned over for their brilliance by everyone else. (2/3)

— garik16 (@garik16) November 14, 2017

Orbital Cloud is the second novel by Taiyo Fujii, a Japanese Science Fiction writer, after his first novel "Gene Mapper," which I reviewed earlier this year on this blog HERE.  Reading foreign/translated Science Fiction is always an interesting experience (which I heartily recommend), as you often find different ideas and biases in work that doesn't come from a familiar viewpoint.  Orbital Cloud is no exception to this, although the book's biases are maybe a bit too blatant to my taste.

Fujii's first book, Gene Mapper, contained some really interesting hard scifi ideas but some rather weak character development.  It was also a significantly shorter book than Orbital Cloud, so I speculated the book could've been improved with another 50 pages for character development.  Orbital Cloud is such a bigger book.....but suffers still from weak character development.  And unlike Gene Mapper, which had a number of really interesting ideas, Orbital Cloud's ideas aren't quite as interesting or as diverse, which makes this not nearly as successful a book.

More after the Jump:

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Winter Tide by Ruthanna Emrys

SF/F Review: Winter Tide by Ruthanna Emrys: https://t.co/z9PfNPL0Rz Short Review: 8 out of 10 

— garik16 (@garik16) November 9, 2017

Short Review (cont): Winter Tide is a story that subverts Lovecraft in that his monsters - such as our Deep One protagonist - are the heroes of the story as they deal with racism and ignorance that threatens their existences. Very well done. 

— garik16 (@garik16) November 9, 2017

Winter Tide is a novel of a genre that seems to be expanding these days: the Lovecraft subversion genre.  I've never actually read any of Lovecraft's actual work and really don't have an interest in doing so - the racist ideas behind the guy and behind his writing are fairly well known, and nothing about the ideas of his I've heard about has drawn me in enough to really try to read his work despite that.  That said, Winter Tide marks the 5th story in the past year that I've read or started reading that attempts to put a spin on the Lovecraft mythos, in a way that Lovecraft would hate as it subverts the very hatred that inspired his work.

That said, Winter Tide is a pretty good work even for someone like me, who has basically no knowledge of the Lovecraft work it is subverting.  The story inverts the Lovecraft work in that our main protagonist is one of the monsters themselves, a premature Deep One who still has a human-like form, and well...the only evil actions in this book are taken by humans, not the monsters.  That may sound simple, but the overall product is a nicely complicated tale that features protagonists dealing with issues of racism and nationalism.  If you enjoy Lovecraftian works, I suspect you'll REALLY enjoy Winter Tide, but even if you aren't a clear fan, this book works pretty well.

More after the Jump:

SciFi/Fantasy Audio Show/Podcast - Steal the Stars

Steal the Stars is a 14 part audio drama/podcast that's been being released every week for the past 4 months.   A novelization is also being released this month, but as I listened to the audio drama in its original form, this review is going to concern that format and not the novelization.  For the time being, the audio drama/podcast is still available as a free podcast download - I'm not sure when that will end.  As it tells a full SF story, I do think it's worth a review, so here we go.

Steal the Stars tells the story that is essentially a love story......except in a future US where a Corporation basically controls the Country and involving an Alien and his crashed spaceship.  The story is really well acted - while we're solely in the head of main protagonist Dakota "Dak Prentiss," - each of the various voice actors are extremely good in their roles. And until the very very end, the story's twists and turns kept me on the edge of my seat - it's only the last twist that kind of doesn't work.  In short, Steal the Stars is a pretty fun audio drama/podcast and well worth listening to.

More after the Jump

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Quantum Night by Robert J Sawyer

SF/F Book Review: Quantum Night by Robert J Sawyer https://t.co/chnCvJoOSy Short Review: 4 out of 10 (1/4)

— garik16 (@garik16) November 6, 2017

Short Review (cont): Quantum Night is a thought experiment dressed up like a thriller that uses some really silly ideas & plot setups (2/4)

— garik16 (@garik16) November 6, 2017

Short Review (cont): in order to setup the central proposition the author wants to deal with. Sometimes Interesting, Often BONKERS. (3/4)

— garik16 (@garik16) November 6, 2017

Quantum Night is......an interesting book.  The book is definitely written in the form of a SciFi Thriller - like a novel by Michael Crichton for example - but while the book adheres in large part to that format - infodumps as to science developments and theories, a mystery involving the science that drives a good portion of the plot, etc. - the book turns out to want to be something else entirely: A book that has a couple of ideas and wants to explore the intersections of these ideas.   This is not a character driven novel in any way shape or form and well the book isn't trying to be.

It's also - and I'm not sure I can stress this enough - INCREDIBLY silly.  The book's ideas in the abstract aren't silly - mainly the book is concerned with what makes someone a psychopath and what makes someone have a conscience, as well as the ethics of utilitarianism as a guiding philosophy in the face of these ideas - but the execution of these ideas is often extremely laughable.  I did not buy at all the scientific ideas that form a foundation for this book but maybe others might buy those more credibly, but well - the book sets up a global political crisis that is INCREDIBLY laughable and with little justification other than "we need something to drive the characters to make choices in the end!"

In short, I'm not sure this book can be considered good...but it certainly can't be considered boring in any way.

More after the jump:

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Bloodprint by Ausma Zehanat Khan

SF/F Review: The Bloodprint by Ausma Zehanat Khan https://t.co/Q0Vw1p6ncr Short Review: 5.5 out of 10 (1/4)

— garik16 (@garik16) November 3, 2017

Short Review (cont): The first book in an Middle-Eastern/Arabic inspired Epic Fantasy Series features interesting ideas involving (2/4)

— garik16 (@garik16) November 3, 2017

Short Review (cont): fighting perversions/destruction of holy scripture but fails due to plot repetition & an unsatisfying conclusion (3/4)

— garik16 (@garik16) November 3, 2017

One of the authors I try to keep track of on twitter recommended The Bloodprint a couple of months ago, and as such, I quickly reserved the book when I saw it show up as available from one of my online libraries.  The Bloodprint is the start of a four-book Epic Fantasy series that's influenced by Middle-Eastern/Arabic culture (as opposed to the Western-Europe focus of a lot of "classic" Epic Fantasy) and the modern day world in those areas (one of the several major evil forces in the book is clearly influenced by the Taliban).  And it certainly is a lot different from much of the standard fare in the genre that I've read.

Unfortunately, while The Bloodprint shows some great potential and some fantastic worldbuilding, it fails to fulfill on that promise, even to the limited extent required of a book that is only telling 25% of the whole series.  The characters frequently show limited agency and get repeatedly into very similar situations, and questions posed by the storyline are never satisfyingly answered or even confronted a large portion of the time.  This novel is seemingly another example of a first in a series that spends too much time in setup and not enough time actually getting things done, and it leaves the reader disappointed that he spent such time on this novel.

More detail after the Jump:

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Arabella of Mars by David D Levine

SF/F Review: Arabella of Mars by David D Levine https://t.co/lBm2jTL6Jr Short Review: 5 out of 10 (1/4)

— garik16 (@garik16) November 3, 2017

Short Review (cont): A YA Tale of an alternate 1800s where a young woman dresses as a boy on a ship sailing to Mars is solid but (2/4)

— garik16 (@garik16) November 3, 2017

Short Review (cont): unspectacular and sometimes utilizes some not well-aged tropes. Good potential but not one lived up to. (3/4)

— garik16 (@garik16) November 3, 2017

Arabella of Mars is a young adult steampunk (well, clockpunk) fantasy novel that won last year's Norton Award (the Nebula's YA award) for best SFF young adult novel.  Set in an alternate early 1800s in which it has been discovered that the space between the planets is filled with air and in which the major colonial powers have thus discovered it is possible to Sail to Mars (and Venus), the story follows a tomboyish young woman, the titular Arabella, who was born on Mars and has an aptitude and understanding automata and has to take a dangerous journey disguised as a male airmen on a ship traveling from Earth to Mars in order to save her family.

In large part, the book feels very much like a book written in an earlier time, before some sensibilities had changed.  If you're expecting a subversion of some classic book tropes, you're looking in the wrong place - this is a pretty straight forward version of this tale.  Unfortunately, even as a new version of a tale filled with classical genre tropes, it's....just sort of fine.  Whereas some YA books are ones I'd recommend to readers of any ages (see my last review of In Other Lands), this one really won't interest readers above middle school age - and I'm not sure it'd be a must read of any type for even the target audience.

Final note before the jump: I listened to this as an audiobook, and the reader is pretty solid.