Friday, September 28, 2018

SciFi/Fantasy Novella Review: Deadline by Stephanie Ahn




Deadline is a novella that serves as the first book in a new Urban Fantasy series by Stephanie Ahn.  It's only available as an ebook currently on Amazon, though you can read it with Kindle Unlimited if you're a subscriber.  And if you are, I would definitely recommend it, as it's a really fun start to a new series in the genre, featuring a lesbian (disgraced) blood witch in New York City dealing with demons, monsters, and other more....interesting beings.

*Deadline is marketed as "Book 1" of this new series, raising questions of whether it should be considered a novella or novel.  Due to its brief length (under 190 pages), I'm counting it as a novella, although it's on the border, and I'd be unsurprised if sequels reach a length more typical of a novel series - like one of the other urban fantasy series I read, Annie Bellet's 20 Sided Sorceress.

 Note: As this book makes clear in its author's note at the start, this book is definitely meant for adults and contains a significant scene containing consensual BDSM play.  If you have a problem with that, stay away.

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Thursday, September 27, 2018

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Wizard Hunters by Martha Wells




  The Wizard Hunters is the first of Martha Wells' "The Fall of Ile-Rien" trilogy, a trilogy of books set in her less well known fantasy world of Ile-Rien.  I've sung high praises of Wells' work quite a few times on this blog, from her Raksura books to her Murderbot series, and have even enjoyed one previous book in the world of Ile-Rien, the stand-alone The Death of the Necromancer (Review Here).  The Wizard Hunters requires no prior knowledge of any prior Ile-Rien book (although it features the daughter of TDotN's protagonists and fans of that book will enjoy some call backs) and forms an excellent start to a new fantasy trilogy.

   The Wizard Hunters features a very different protagonist from its predecessor: Tremaine Valiarde, ex-playwright, daughter of master thief Nicholas and master actress Madeline (from TDotN), but who lacks the confidence of either.  Moreover, the world it features is very different - Ile-Rien has advanced technologically another step, but much of the plot takes place in a parallel world which is much more primitive, with the native people there wielding bows and swords rather than guns and fearing any magic whatsoever.  It's almost a portal fantasy....except the portal our characters go through isn't from our world to another world, but between two different fantasy worlds altogether, and the result is a story with compelling heroes, interesting villains, and an all round satisfying plot even as it leaves open questions for the rest of the trilogy to solve.

Note:  I read this book as an audiobook, and the audiobook reader is excellent.  Worth your time in this format.

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Tuesday, September 25, 2018

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Temper by Nicky Drayden




Temper is Nicky Drayden's second novel, after last year's "The Prey of Gods" (Which I reviewed here).  The Prey of Gods was a scifi/fantasy hybrid novel set in South Africa which featured a ton of crazy ideas all mashed together (AIs, Ancient Demigods, mind control ethics, genetic engineering issues, among just a few) that somehow worked to create a pretty strong book.  With Temper, Drayden seems to be going with a more conventional story at first - the story features only one point of view character (who tells the story in first person) - even if the setting for the story is incredibly far out there from what we might think of as the norm.

That setting should be a hint to readers - while this novel may begin as a seemingly more conventional humorous SF/F horror story, it expands throughout into many many directions until it becomes far more ambitious than even The Prey of Gods, with ideas being thrown around like crazy.  The problem is that, unlike in her first novel, Temper has a massive pacing problem:  these ideas get added at a seemingly exponential rate as the plot gets further in, with its final act becoming so incredibly complicated so as to get overwhelming for the reader, and to make it hard to really grasp what Drayden is getting at with each of these ideas.

More after the Jump:

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Monday, September 24, 2018

Spoilery Discussion for Night and Silence and the October Daye Series as a whole.



If you couldn't tell from the name of this post, this is a post where I'm going to vent my thoughts about the October Daye series as a whole, and my speculations as to where things are going.  I'll also be talking about spoilers in Night and Silence that I tiptoed around in my review post.  So if you're interested in the series, and haven't read all 12 books, don't read any further.

For my non-spoiler review of Night and Silence, see THIS post.

You have been warned.


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SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Night and Silence (October Daye #12) by Seanan McGuire




Night and Silence is the twelfth book in Seanan McGuire's October Daye series, a fae/urban fantasy series set in San Francisco.  October Daye is one of my favorite ongoing series that I read right now, and I've looked forward to this book for quite some time.  The series can always/usually be counted on to give you fun characters and dialogue (even if the situations they find themselves in sometimes get very dark), plots that are interesting and twisting and often have roots in events from way back earlier in the series, and a lot of creative use of Fae and magic.

Alas, Night and Silence might be my least favorite October Daye book in quite some time, maybe of the series itself.  This is not due to any problem necessarily with the book in isolation, but due to the fact that the plot of the book is well....very very similar to that of some prior works in the series, particularly Book 5 (One Salt Sea) to a major extent and Book 9 (A Red-Rose Chain) to a lesser extent.  The book answers one major question the series had previously posed, but the answer was one I'd guessed (the danger of seeding plot points within past books is that reveals are guess-able), even if the method of reveal was a little surprising.  That's not to say the book wasn't enjoyable - I've already reread it three times lol - but it was disappointing in that it felt a bit like a retread and a placeholder for the series.

Note 1: If you couldn't figure it out, the twelfth book in this series is not a great starting point for new readers.  In theory, new readers could skip books 1-5 and commence with Book 6, I guess, but readers are strongly advised to begin the series from the beginning (even though I think books 1-2 are among the weakest volumes due almost certainly to McGuire still getting her bearings)

Note 2: This post will necessarily contain some spoilers for prior books in the series, but I will be spoiler free for Night and Silence itself. For a spoilery discussion of this book, see THIS post.

Note 3:  Like the prior two books in the series, Night and Silence comes with a bonus novella attached.  That novella's plot is even more of a direct response to the events of this book however, so while I will vaguely discuss it below, I will not be including it in the plot summary:

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Saturday, September 22, 2018

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Memories of Ash by Intisar Khanani



Memories of Ash is the successor to Intisar Khanani's earlier fantasy novella, Sunbolt (reviewed here).  Unlike Sunbolt however, Memories of Ash is a full novel as opposed to a novella.  More importantly, Memories of Ash feels a lot less derivative than its predecessor - it still shares some themes with Robin McKinley's "Sunshine" but the plot feels more inspired and less like a rip-off - and the result is a story that feels a little more fresh and surprising.  I'm not sure if future books in this series are coming, but I hope they do, because I have enjoyed these stories so far.  That said, the book has a satisfying ending in case future books do not come, even if it mostly sets up future plot arcs.

Note:  As I said in my review of Sunbolt, that novella felt very much like the prologue to a longer series, and this book reads more like Book 1 in a series thereafter.  As such, you can read this book without reading Sunbolt and I don't think you'll have much trouble, though you'll miss a little bit. 

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Thursday, September 20, 2018

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Planetside by Michael Mammay




Planetside is a MilSci mystery novel written by Michael Mammay.  I've stated before that MilSci is generally not something I'm that interested in - the only ongoing MilSci series I read is Marko Kloos' Frontlines series - but I was interested from the author's promo on Scalzi's blog and Kloos blurbed Planetside, so I thought I'd give it a try.

Unfortunately, Planetside didn't fulfill my expectations.  The MilSci elements were fine in general, but the book also tries to work as sort of a noir mystery, and the tone of the story as told by the main character just didn't work for me.  And then there's the ending which, hoo-boy, I'm going to have some spoilery discussion in ROT13 after the jump to discuss that.  If you enjoy MilSci a lot you might enjoy Planetside, but if you're like me and don't have a particular love for the subgenre, you might want to pass on this one.

Note:  I read Planetside as an audiobook, and the audiobook reader is incredibly dry.  As such, it's hard for me to tell if my negative feelings towards the main character are due to the bad reader or just not liking how he's written.  If you're interested in this book therefore, I recommend picking up the print edition instead of the audiobook.

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Monday, September 17, 2018

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Cold Magic by Kate Elliott




  Cold Magic is the first book in Kate Elliott's "Spiritwalker" trilogy.  As I've said before on this blog, Elliott is one of my favorite authors in SciFi/Fantasy today (though she's been around for a while at this point), with me having read 3/4 of her series in their entireties so far, each in some very different SF/F subgenres (Romance, Epic Fantasy, YA, etc).   The Spiritwalker trilogy, at least judging from this book, is a mix/muddle of a number of different subgenres - it's part steampunk, part fantasy with magic, arguably part YA (although it's not advertised as such), etc.

  More importantly, it's a decent start to a series, which left me looking forward to where the series is going.  The story takes place in an alternate version of industrial-era Europe, where magic - particularly cold magic (but not exclusively) and supernatural creatures are real - and where history played out very differently - our main characters for example are Phoenician in origin because Carthage didn't lose the Punic Wars.  The result of this very different world is a story that, despite some familiar touches, is very unpredictable in where its going at any given point in time, to a very effective end.

More after the jump:

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Saturday, September 15, 2018

SciFi/Fantasy Novella review: The Black God's Drums by P. Djèlí Clark




The Black God's Drums by P. Djèlí Clark

Quick Overview:  The Black God's Drums is an alternate history steampunk novella set immediately after/during the Civil War.*  It's a story of a 13-year old Black girl in New Orleans, possessed by an African goddess, working with a Haitian Lesbian Airship Captain/Smuggler to prevent a dangerous magical technology from getting into the hands of extremist Confederate Forces.  In my experience, mash-ups of all of these concepts into a single story often wind up disappointing, but The Black God's Drums is not one of those examples: it fulfills its potential in spades to form one of my favorite novellas of the year.

*Given how this alternate history changed the course of the Civil War amongst other Historical events, it's hard to say whether the setting is after or during when our Civil War took place.
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Friday, September 14, 2018

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal




  The Calculating Stars is the first in a duology of alternate history SciFi novels by Mary Robinette Kowal, with both books having come out in the past two months.  However, the novels are essentially a prequel to Kowal's earlier Hugo Award winning Novelette, The Lady Astronaut of Mars.  That story (which can be found here) featured a sixty-three year old woman named Elma York who had been the first "Lady Astronaut" and had years in the past helped lead humanity to Mars after a meteorite hit the Earth.  As far as the Novelette was concerned, the story of humanity's rise to Mars under the threat of extinction, and Elma's journey into space were part of the background (although important background) - and is not the story that is being told (the actual story being told by the novelette is incredibly powerful mind you, and well worth reading).

The Calculating Stars, and its sequel The Fated Sky, are that story - the story of Elma York and her drive to help humanity escape its doomed planet and get into space, the story of Elma attempting to get herself into space as an astronaut, and not least of all the story of Elma fighting not just for herself but for others to ensure that the space program, and eventual colonization in general, is not fatally tainted by the ills of prejudice and discrimination.  The result is a really really good book that flows incredibly well and makes me eagerly await the sequel.


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Wednesday, September 12, 2018

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold




Paladin of Souls is the second novel in Lois McMaster Bujold's Chalion series (also known as the World of the Five Gods), after The Curse of Chalion (which I reviewed here).  That said, the book works entirely as a stand-alone and doesn't require prior knowledge of this world for readers to enjoy - references are made to Curse, but they are always explained (and slightly spoil that book) and shouldn't confuse any new readers.  This book won both the Nebula and Hugo Awards, unlike its predecessor, so I had high expectations when I began it as an audiobook.  And those high expectations were certainly met.

Paladin features a different protagonist than curse - the Lady Ista, former Royina (Queen) of all of Chalion, the country in which these novels take place.  Ista is a very different protagonist than the usual female fantasy protagonist - she's middle aged, widowed, and quite simply wants to find her own life without being told what to do, and would rather not go on any grand quest of any significance - having had a tragic experience (to say the least) with trying to fulfill a grand destiny in the past.  But the gods - in particular one god - have other plans for Ista, and the result is a story that's absolutely fantastic from beginning to end, and well recommended.


Note: As with most of Bujold's work, I read this as an audiobook.  It's not the same audiobook reader as Bujold's Penric or Vorkosigan series, but the reader is still very very good (and in fact, she's also the reader for The Memoirs of Lady Trent by Marie Brennan, so I was in fact listening to the same reader for two books in a row, despite them being written by different authors.)

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Tuesday, September 11, 2018

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Dreadful Company by Vivian Shaw




Dreadful Company is the sequel to Vivian Shaw's Strange Practice (Review Here), of which I was a big fan.  The story takes a typical version of the urban fantasy genre - where the supernatural lives alongside us in the modern world albeit hidden and with literature's greatest monsters being real beings - but adds a different twist: our heroine isn't some monster hunter, but rather is a monster doctor.  Greta Hellsing is her name, and what she cares about is that every being of the supernatural, be they Vampire/Vampyre, Ghoul, Mummy, whatever, get proper treatment for their ailments in peace.

Readers should begin the series with the first volume, as while this story takes Greta to a new setting (Paris!) and features a number of new supernatural creatures (a werewolf & a bunch of psychopomps, amongst a bunch of other monsters and ghosts), it builds on the relationships built in the first novel.  Even with that foreknowledge, I do think Dreadful Company isn't quite as good as its predecessor, but it's still very good - this is a lighter form of fantasy than some other series, and it still works quite well.  I'm definitely looking forward to the next book in the series.

More after the Jump:

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Friday, September 7, 2018

SciFi/Fantasy Novella Review: The Million by Karl Schroeder



The Million by Karl Schroeder

The Million is a Science Fiction novella set in the same universe as Schroeder's 2014 novel "Lockstep," although as far as I can tell it has no direct connection to that novel.  I haven't read the novel (or had even heard of it prior to hearing of this novella) and had no problem understanding enjoying The Million or its main premise.

That premise?  That for all but one month every thirty years, most of humanity on Earth - over 30 billion people - lie dormant in hibernation, in the "Lockstep".  During the other 359 months of every 30 years, the planet is cared for by "The Million"one million people - no fewer, no more - chosen to living on the planet in luxury, ruling and caring for it.  That premise gives rise to a really interesting novella and I hope it is not the last novella in this world, although if it is, it's still a very satisfying novella that I would recommend.

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Thursday, September 6, 2018

SciFi/Fantasy Review: The Mere Wife by Maria Dahvana Headley




  The Mere Wife is a retelling of the classic old English story of "Beowulf," updated to a more modern setting (a wealthy U.S. suburb) and told from a very different perspective - the story is mainly told from the perspective of the modern version of Grendel's mother - a veteran with PTSD who went AWOL to raise her son in secret named Dana Mills - and the young mother/wife Willa of Herot Hall (this story's version of the poem's character of Wealhtheow) as she tries to avoid being miserable in the rigid societal rules of wealthy suburban culture and tries to raise her child.  The result is a book that is very ambitious - dealing with two lead characters with emotional traumas (Mills has PTSD, Willa has been emotionally abused by her mother and suffers from depression amongst other conditions), dealing with the societal constraints of wealthy suburban life, dealing with the difficulty of love between people of different social classes, dealing with the stress and challenges of motherhood, and more.

 Unfortunately, I found The Mere Wife to be perhaps too ambitious, both in form and content, and in trying to accomplish so many things wound up watering down its impact.  The book's experiments with form - such as chapters narrated by a location or by a greek chorus of other characters - are more distracting than anything and muddle things a bit.  Furthermore the reader is quite clearly aware that the book is destined to end in tragedy if they are familiar with the original fate of the old story's version of the book's protagonists, and the adaptation doesn't add enough or change enough to not make me disappointed in how it wound up playing out.  The result is still interesting and thought provoking and worth experiencing, but in my opinion it could've used a bit of editing to become a more strong final product.

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Tuesday, September 4, 2018

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Voyage of the Basilisk by Marie Brennan




Voyage of the Basilisk is the third volume in Marie Brennan's Hugo Nominated "Memoirs of Lady Trent," a series following her Dragon naturalist Isabella as she goes around the world trying to scientifically research different species of dragons (and promptly gets into crazier and crazier messes in the process).   I enjoyed the first two volumes (which you can find reviewed Here and Here) a good bit, so I expect to get my way through the entire series by the end of the year.  As for this volume, it's again pretty good and fun.

You should know the drill by now - Older Isabella narrates with wry asides her going on a journey to a part of the world to study dragons, has to ingratiate herself to the locals (and fails quite a bit at first) before achieving that in part, and then gets herself involved in a greater conflict through sheer happenstance/recklessness.  Voyage introduces a few new elements - traveling along with Isabella is her son Jake who is a nice new character and Isabella isn't visiting just one location, but is trying to travel around the world.  It also incorporates some of the series' larger plot arcs more smoothly within the narrative, whereas the prior volume had stuck the most major of those elements in the first few chapters, so this book moves along more quickly at a better pace.  The result is probably my favorite in the series, and I look more forward to seeing how these events play out in the final two books:

Note: I've been reading this series largely in audiobook format (though I read part of this in text) and the audiobook reader is very good.  So the format is recommended.  

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Monday, September 3, 2018

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The City, Not Long After by Pat Murphy




The City, Not Long After (hereafter "TCNLA") is a short post-apocalyptic SciFi novel written by Pat Murphy in 1989.  As with much SF/F written in that time, it is definitely influenced by the political situation of the time - the Cold War of course - but the book's setting and plot still works today (oddly, the plot almost seems like something that would've made sense being written in the 70s, rather than '89, but it doesn't really matter).  The result is a story about pacifist cooperation between artists to defend their home from an invading military force that somehow works without seeming too sappy or silly.


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