Sunday, December 31, 2017

2017 Year in Review - SF/Fantasy Reading, Part 1: Basic Summary



To celebrate the new year, I'm going to be spending a few posts looking back at what I've read over the past year throughout this whole week.  Post 1, which you're reading at this very moment, features a summary of what I've read and some basic facts.  Post 2, which will come out either tomorrow or the next day will go over some of my favorite novels from this year.  Post 3, coming out after that, will go over briefly my least favorite works - the novels I completed and didn't like and the ones that I began but failed to complete.

So what did I read this year?

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Thursday, December 28, 2017

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Tiger's Daughter by K Arsenault Rivera




The Tiger's Daughter is a fantastic example of the Fantasy Romance genre.  It's a complete fusion of both genres - this is clearly a fantasy novel - featuring demons, divinely gifted rulers, and incredible warriors - but the main focus of the story is of the journeys of the two main characters and their attempts to try to make their love work despite their differences and the troubles that come their way.  And god did I love the two main characters.  As I've said before, a good romance plot will have moments where the reader will both want to stop reading because the reader doesn't want to see the characters get hurt but also not want to stop because the reader wants to know what happens to those characters anyway - and the Tiger's Daughter has those moments in spades.

Please note that the plot summary/description on Amazon is totally misleading - as noted above, this is more of a fantasy love story than a fantasy adventure story, which the summary would have you believe.  If you're looking for an adventure story, you're looking in the wrong place.  But if you don't mind a love story in the fantasy genre, you will love the Tiger's Daughter.

Final Note:  The Tiger's Daughter is clearly a Chinese/Mongolian fantasy world, though the author is Puerto Rican/American.  I think the setting/characters are done tastefully, but as my heritage is neither of those cultures, it's possible I'm missing something.  That's all I'll say about in this review as that's all I'm able to contribute on this topic.  


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Tuesday, December 26, 2017

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Emperor's Blades (Chronicles of the Unhewn Throne #1) by Brian Staveley





The Emperor's Blades is the first in Brian Staveley's epic fantasy trilogy, Chronicles of the Unhewn Throne.  I didn't come into this series without any foreknowledge, as I read and reviewed (see HERE) Staveley's prequel novel, Skullsworn earlier this year.  I liked Skullsworn a lot - it was a nicely done gray world with some really interesting characters - and have been looking forward to reading the trilogy for a while to see more of this world.  Alas, The Emperor's Blade fails to live up quite so much to the standards of its later prequel, as it suffers from some fairly solid pacing issues.  There's definite potential here in the worldbuilding, but the book takes too long to get to obvious places to really fulfill that potential:

More after the jump:


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Monday, December 25, 2017

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Tongues of Serpents (Temeraire #6) by Naomi Novik




Tongues of Serpents is the sixth Temeraire novel, taking place after the events of Victory of Eagles.  Victory was the high point of the series, featuring fantastic character work (as I've stated repeatedly, the series is best with more dragon interactions and it had plenty) as well as a well paced plot that worked really well. Tongues of Serpents is a weird follow up in that it....doesn't really have much of a plot.  What it does have is more new dragons to interact with the main character and an expansion of worldbuilding.

Note:  Unlike some other long-running series (like Seanan McGuire's series that I've reviewed on this blog), Tongues of Serpents makes zero attempt to try to be a starting point for new readers in the series.   If you haven't read the first five books of this series, you will be well and truly lost - the main antagonist, to the extent there even IS one, in this book is a character who has basically been absent since Book 1.  This is an entertaining book if you have knowledge of the prior books in the series, even if it's not the best of the series by a long shot, but it is not a starting point despite being the start of what could be seen as a new arc.

Also, I read this book as an audiobook - the first one of the series that I've read in that format, and the audio-reader is pretty good.  So if you like that format, the series isn't a bad choice for the format.


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Thursday, December 21, 2017

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Magic for Nothing (inCryptid) by Seanan McGuire




Magic for Nothing is Seanan McGuire's sixth inCryptid novel, but the first in a new arc following the last of the Price kids, Antimony Price.  It's also the first novel in the series following a major change in the status quo, and as such it's not quite as beginner friendly as the start of the last new arc (Book 3, Half-Off Ragnarok).  You COULD start the series here - I think it would work, as again, this is the start of a new arc and McGuire does a decent job at the beginning of each book recapping what you need to know to start here.  But I wouldn't advise it, as the conflicts in the book work better if you have some background coming into this story.*

*You probably should read all of Verity's Books, which are Books 1, 2, and 5 (Discount Armageddon, Midnight Blue-Light Special, and Chaos Choreography) before this book, with the Alex Price books (Half-Off Ragnarok and Pocket Apocalypse) being optional.  But as I like the Alex Price books, you might as well read them.

 But here's the thing:  This is easily my favorite book in the series, and Antimony is easily my favorite character in the Novels (I think Francis Brown from the short stories is my favorite inCryptid character still, but Antimony comes close).  Whereas Verity and Alex, the protagonists of the prior five novels, are clearly adults with adult concerns, Antimony is more of a Young Adult heroine (even though at 22 I guess she's old for traditional YA) - she's still looking for what to do with her life and has never taken or even attempted to take steps toward traditional adulthood (such as finding a job or moving out of her parent's place).  Naturally her trying to find herself is a major part of this book, and it works tremendously well.

Warning: Spoilers for Chaos Choreography's ending are below - there's no way to avoid them here:

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Wednesday, December 20, 2017

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Chaos Choreography (inCryptid) by Seanan McGuire





Chaos Choreography is the fifth inCryptid novel, but resides in an odd place in terms of it's potential to be read as the first in the series.  Both Books 1 (Discount Armageddon) and 3 (Half-Off Ragnarok) are the starts of arcs centered around different characters and thus can be used as a new reader's introduction to the series  By contrast, Chaos Choreography returns after a two book absence to Verity Price (the protagonist of Book 1), even if it takes place in a different city, and thus kind of serves as a third book in an already completed plot arc (and a continuation of that plot arc in some ways can be found in a bunch of fun short stories on McGuire's website).

This wouldn't matter too much if this was a stronger book - but for reasons I'll lay out after the jump, Chaos Choreography is the weakest inCryptid novel.  It's still a well-paced read with several fun moments (despite you know, people being horribly murdered).  But it feels oddly duplicative of the first book in the series, Discount Armageddon, even though it ends in a way to set up a drastically new status quo for the series.

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Tuesday, December 19, 2017

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Pocket Apocalypse (inCryptid) by Seanan McGuire


Pocket Apocalypse is the fourth inCryptid book and the second book to follow Alexander "Alex" Price.  I reviewed the first book to follow Alex, Half-Off Ragnarok, yesterday HERE.  As I mentioned in the last review, you could have started the inCryptid series with Half-Off Ragnarok without any problems - but I would not recommend starting the series with this book, as it is basically building upon HOR (McGuire plants enough context in this book to allow a new reader to try to start here, but it seems inadvisable).

However, if you enjoyed Half-Off Ragnarok, you should enjoy Pocket Apocalypse.  Whereas the second inCryptid book (Midnight Blue-Light Special) with Verity delved deeper into the world built by the first book, this book moves the main characters wholly to a new part of the world: Australia.  Oh and it deals with werewolves.  Because things couldn't be dangerous enough for Alex Price.  But the end result is yet again a fun book.


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Monday, December 18, 2017

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Half-Off Ragnarok (inCryptid) by Seanan McGuire





Half-Off Ragnarok is the third in Seanan McGuire's inCryptid series, her second urban fantasy series, which focuses on a family, the Price-Healy family, devoted to the protection and preservation of species - sentient or not - that science doesn't acknowledge exist, Cryptids.  Or as human like to call them: Monsters.  This is actually the first book in a new arc, being the first book to be narrated by and focus on Alexander Price, the oldest son of the current generation of the Price Family.  So you can start the series with this book if you want and be totally fine; no prior knowledge of the series or even just the first two books is needed to enjoy this book.

That said, like the first two inCryptid books, Half-Off Ragnarok is a pretty fast paced and fun story that's really easy to read.  Is it groundbreaking work or something truly special?  Not really, but it's still a really fun book to read - with a fun bunch of characters - and sometimes that's all that matters.

More after the Jump:

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Saturday, December 16, 2017

Star Wars: The Last Jedi - Spoiler Filled Review/Thoughts



NOTE:  This Review of Star Wars: The Last Jedi contains SPOILERS.  If you are looking for a Spoiler-Free review, see HERE.  So if you're looking to avoid spoilers, please go no further.  This is your only warning.  
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Friday, December 15, 2017

Star Wars: The Last Jedi - Spoiler Free Review/Quick-Thoughts




NOTE:  This is a Spoiler-Free Review/Collection of Thoughts on Star Wars The Last Jedi.  A More Spoilery Review will be coming this weekend.  

The Last Jedi is very much unlike any Star Wars movie that has come before.  This is not to say it is a better or worse movie than any of the prior Star Wars films, but it is different in that the movie tries arguably to have more of a symbolic than straightforward message, unlike the past 7 movies in the main series (Star Wars movies are many things, but subtle isn't one of them).  It's still recognizably a Star Wars movie - and even in being more symbolic, it can't help but be sometimes laughably unsubtle about it - but it's definitely different in this way (and I'm not going to go more in depth on that since I want to avoid spoilers).  Overall, I think this shift in the character of the movie DOES work, though it leaves the series in an interesting place to conclude with Episode IX. 


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Tuesday, December 12, 2017

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Beautiful Ones by Silvia Moreno-Garcia




  When I sometimes describe SF/F books as being "Romance" novels, that description can mean many different things.  Some of these books are ones where Romance is a significant part of a Fantasy/SciFi plot; others are books where the Romance is simply part of a subplot of such a SF/F book instead.  But other books are essentially Romance Novels where the science fiction/fantasy elements are simply part of the background.  You could easily put such books in the Romance section of the bookstore/library without having any reader feel that you have "deceived" them into reading a genre book.

 The Beautiful Ones by Silvia Moreno-Garcia is such a book - it is entirely a Romance Novel, where the only fantasy elements (the presence of "talents" like telekinesis being the only such elements) are minor character traits.  This is not a bad thing by any stretch of the imagination - I enjoyed this book a lot, as the characters are really believable and the romance is extremely well done (okay, I shed a tear at one point near the ending).  Of course, if you aren't heavily into romance, you won't be into this book at all - so fair warning to you.

More after the jump:

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Friday, December 8, 2017

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Necrotech by K.C. Alexander





Necrotech is a SF book that tries to pull off one of the probably most difficult feats in fiction writing - writing a book with an asshole, even unlikable, protagonist hero.  It's a really difficult task, because it relies upon making both the plot and the other characters in the story interesting, when those elements are by definition going to get lesser screentime than the protagonist.  Necrotech doesn't quite pull it off - the plot is kind of interesting but not stellar, and the other characters are very underdeveloped.  There's clear promise in Necrotech, but it doesn't quite realize that potential.

One further note before the jump, as I'll make clear below, Necrotech is a book with a LOT of profanity - our main character, who narrates the story, swears profusely, often in some non-standard ways.  If that's a problem for you, you should skip this book.


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Wednesday, December 6, 2017

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Want by Cindy Pon



Want is a Dystopian YA novel by Cindy Pon, taking place in a near-future Taiwan where pollution has gotten so bad around the world that the true of the sky is now a myth and air pollution reduces the life expectancy of those who breathe the air significantly.  This situation is made worse by the fact that income inequality has only increased in this future, to the point where the Rich literally live in different spaces with "regulated air" and don't interact with those who have less except when they can be covered in protective suits.  It's in this environment that Pon tells a tale of a group of friends attempting a plot, partially out of revenge, partially out of the idea of trying to do something to help the world, only to possibly get sidetracked by a forbidden love.

Fair warning: if you're looking for dystopian fiction here that tells a tale of grey; you're not going to find that in Want.  The bad guys are clearly evil and the good guys are clearly good in this book, and the book lacks very much that could fall in that in-between area.  That said, despite the lack of moral ambiguity, the book actually works thanks to some really sharp writing and dialogue.  So if you're looking for a book that combines a dystopian setting, an infiltration/heist plot, and a romance element (and that' s YA), Want's a pretty a good book to read. 

Pre-Jump Disclaimer: I read this book as an audiobook, so if I misspell some names, that's the cause.  The audiobook reader is high quality, giving each character a unique recognizable voice without sounding exaggerated and helping the dialogue pop, so I recommend it if you are looking for a book in that format.

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Tuesday, December 5, 2017

SciFi/Fantasy/Horror Book Review: Into The Drowning Deep by Mira Grant





Into the Drowning Deep is a member of a genre which is generally not my thing:  it's not just a SciFi Novel, it's a Horror Novel.  Indeed, "Mira Grant" is the well known pseudonym for insanely productive SFF author Seanan McGuire, which she uses for her Horror books instead of her real name.  I'm a pretty big fan of some of McGuire's works (inCryptid, October Daye), and hadn't read a Mira Grant novel before this one, so I wasn't sure how I'd enjoy one of these works - especially again as I'm not much of a horror fan.  But after completing this book, I can say for sure that I'm really not into this genre, as while this book was certainly solid, certain clear genre tropes bugged me enough to keep me away from the genre for the future (barring certain exceptions).

Into the Drowning Deep has a pretty fun horror premise: our main characters are on a ship that is searching for killer mermaids that previously killed off all of the members of a prior exhibition.   As you might expect, they find those killer mermaids......and the killing commences.  The resultant story is pretty solid, and most of the main characters are nicely three dimensional (or at least two dimensional), but eh, again, the horror genre may just not be for me.

One quick note before the jump:  The book takes place after a novellette/novella ("Rolling in the Deep") previously published by the author, which describes the first exhibition to find mermaids.  I haven't read the prior story, and no prior knowledge is needed - the book describes what happens adequately enough.

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Friday, December 1, 2017

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Jade City by Fonda Lee




Jade City is the first in a new trilogy of Epic Urban Fantasy novels by Fonda Lee.  Note, unlike many other books I describe as Urban Fantasy, Jade City isn't a book about magical/mythological creatures in a modern world - instead, it's "Urban Fantasy" in that it takes place in an alternate world with mid-20th century technology (we're pre-computers, but cars and airplanes and electricity are commonplace), but also where certain individuals can gain magically abilities from pieces of Jade.  Really calling this "urban fantasy" might be the wrong way to put this book - to use an analogy from the author herself, this book can better be described as "The Godfather" but with Magical Ninja Clans in place of the Italian Mafia.  Which is a pretty good hook!

And for the most part, Jade City delivers.  This is a really enjoyable read (though at 512 pages, it's not short) that drew me in very quickly, with several excellent characters and a really interesting world.  While The Godfather parallels are very clear, the story clearly transcends its inspirations to become its own work, and unlike some other books I've read lately, this is a book that lives up to its extremely strong hook.  That said, the book basically doesn't have an ending and one of the main characters didn't really work for me, so it's far from perfect.  But if "The Godfather, but with magical ninja clans" seems appealing to you, you'll almost certainly enjoy Jade City.

More after the Jump:

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