Wednesday, July 29, 2020

SciFI/Fantasy Book Review: The Tiger at Midnight by Swati Teerdhala


The Tiger at Midnight is the debut novel of author Swati Teerdhala, and first in a new YA* fantasy trilogy, one inspired by (per the marketing) ancient Indian history and (Hindu) myth.  Readers of this blog are well aware that I'm always excited to read SF/F based upon non White/European/American cultures, so I was intrigued when I first saw the sequel to this novel listed on a "new books coming out this Spring" and then found this first novel available in audiobook form on Hoopla.

*As I've noted before, one could argue this isn't YA since there's no schooling and the characters are somewhat out of their teens from what I can tell.  But it's marketed as YA, so that's what I'm going with, and there's nothing in this that I would think would be a problem for that audience.*

 And I really enjoyed The Tiger at Midnight, even if it never breaks out into a truly must read story.  The story features two lead characters both of whom have done some troubling things in their lives, and still feel it necessary possibly to do them if they are to help their peoples, in a land whose magic was torn apart seemingly by greed.  Both main characters are very solid and enjoyable and the plotting does take a few surprising turns along the way, keeping me interested enough to make me want to finish the book quickly in print after reading it for its first half in audiobook format.  I've already taken out the second book from the library and look forward to seeing where it goes from here.

Note:  I read this half in audiobook, half in print.  The audiobook reader is solid, so the book is worth a read in that format.

at No comments:

Monday, July 27, 2020

SciFI/Fantasy Anthology Review: Dominion: An Anthology of Speculative Fiction from Africa and the African Diaspora: Edited by Zelda Knight & Ekpeki Oghenechovwe Donald


Full Disclosure:  This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on August 17, 2020 in exchange for a potential review.  I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way - if I felt conflicted in any way, I would simply have declined to review the book.

 Dominion is an upcoming anthology of short fiction, ranging from short story to novelette length in size, featuring authors entirely from Africa or the African Diaspora.  It contains a set of authors with a certain amount of critical acclaim in various smaller awards, but who were mostly unknown to me (I've read a novel from one of the authors and that's it).  Reviewing anthologies is, as I have mentioned before often tricky because obviously story quality can vary from story to story, and depending upon the anthology, the themes that hold the collection together can be often be very loose, making the works not really feel like a collective whole (and if the collections are very large, it's not exactly easy to review every story).

Dominion could have been such a loosely themed anthology in that its collection is based upon its authors' background, but at the same time that background manages to ground many of the stories in some similar themes and ideas, even as the stories diverge wildly.  Some of the stories are very effective and interesting, covering a wide range of SciFi/Fantasy ideas, whereas a few fall flat - in particular two stories feel entirely incomplete, as if part of a larger series I can't seem to find anywhere.  But other than those two, this is a really different and interesting collection of stories with a worldview shaped by the authors' collective backgrounds and it's well worth your time.

 NOTE:  As I put up in the disclosure above, this book was read in a prerelease copy e-ARC, with at least one major omission: the book's cover promotes a foreword by Tananarive Due, but the foreword was not included in my copy.

TRIGGER WARNING:  Rape (kinda) and Domestic Abuse (Physical) in one story in particular.


at No comments:

Saturday, July 25, 2020

A Pale Light In The Black (by KB Wagers) Reread - Chapters 40-42 (Really Chapters 33-34)




Welcome back to my reread of K.B. Wagers' "A Pale Light in the Black!"  You can find the other posts in this reread here.  For those somehow seeing this post first instead of the others, A Pale Light in the Black is a space opera featuring a SF space version of the Coast Guard in an optimistic future universe.

Last time out, the crew arrived to the main event: The Boarding Games - and we ended with Max running into her older brother, who abandoned her years ago.  This time, we see the games get ready to begin, with a little extracurriculars between the NeoG and the Navy teams at a bar.....because of course.....


at No comments:

Thursday, July 23, 2020

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Haunted Heroine by Sarah Kuhn


Haunted Heroine is the latest novel by author Sarah Kuhn, and the fourth novel (and 5th installment) in her Heroine Complex series.  I have absolutely loved this series, which began with "Heroine Complex" several years ago, and was absolutely thrilled to hear that it would be continuing beyond the original trilogy.  Featuring Asian American superheroines in San Francisco who have to deal with their own anxieties, sudden and surprising romances (with some fun steamy sex scenes) - to go along with fantastic endlessly quotable dialogue and fun action sequences, the series was just absolutely a blast and so much fun, and I binge read each within a single day.  So I actually preordered this one rather than wait for it to come out from the library, and finished it within 14 hours of it downloading to my kindle app at midnight.

And the result is.....still fun, but a step down from its predecessors.  The book moves the setting to a private women only liberal arts school, and as such features classic college tropes, and is very fun in that regard - and remains nearly as quotable as its predecessor.  It also moves the perspective of the novel back to Evie (our protagonist from the original novel) and there it's a little less successful, with Evie's new emotional journey and character development feeling kind of duplicative of where it was in the prior novels.  Again this is still a really enjoyable novel that fans of the series will enjoy and I look forward to seeing the next novel (presumably shifting perspective back to Aveda), the series just has set some damn high standards.

Note:  Spoilers for the original trilogy are inevitable, but I don't know why you'd skip to this book when the others are so good.  Go read those first.


at No comments:

Wednesday, July 22, 2020

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Hunted by the Sky by Tanaz Bhathena



Hunted by the Sky is the debut novel by Tanaz Bhathena and the first in a new YA fantasy series (trilogy I think).  It's a novel with a setting inspired by medieval India and features a world with magical beings, gods, magic in general as well as a class divide based upon whether someone has or doesn't have magic.  It also features a pair of protagonists - a boy and a girl - whose childhoods have been shaped by the oppressive nature of this world and who have opposite dispositions as to what to do about it...but find their fates tied together anyhow.

And it works for the most part, with both of the main characters being very enjoyable and easy to like, and the plot providing an excellent amount of tension to keep everything moving.  It isn't a perfect debut - I didn't quite buy the romance between the two protagonists - but it's a solid first novel in a series and it ends with a cliffhanger that tantalizes more than enough to make me want more.


at No comments:

Tuesday, July 21, 2020

SciFi/Fantasy/Horror Book Review: The Hollow Places by T Kingfisher


Full Disclosure:  This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on October 6, 2020 in exchange for a potential review.  I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way - if I felt conflicted in any way, I would simply have declined to review the book.



The Hollow Places is the latest horror novel by author T Kingfisher (the pen name of author Ursula Vernon).  It's also a spiritual successor to her highly acclaimed "The Twisted Ones", which took a line from an old classic horror story and expanded upon it into a modern quaint horror story in rural North Carolina.  As I've said before on this blog, I'm not really a horror fan (though I love Vernon/Kingfisher's work) but I enjoyed The Twisted Ones, even if it didn't quite scare me as much as it seemingly did for others.

The Hollow Places however, was genuinely scary for me, relying a bit less on jump scares (though there are some) and more on atmospheric horror.  It's another novel based upon a concept from an old horror story that I've never read, and it works really really well, with a very strong lead character and sidekick, and a plot that kept me mostly on edge throughout.  It's not nearly as witty at times as The Twisted Ones could be, but it still works incredibly well and I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys horror.....


at No comments:

Monday, July 20, 2020

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians by H.G. Parry


A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians is the first in a new historical fantasy duology by author H.G. Parry.  And I would heavily emphasize the word "Historical" in that description: this is a novel that covers the time period of the French and Haitian Revolutions, and features those very same events and very prominent characters just in a world altered by the existence of one major fantastical element: the existence of magic.  Of course given the events of the time period, the use of magic is restricted by nature of class and magic plays a role in the actions of enslavement....

Unfortunately, while I appreciated the work that went into the setup, I kind of found the whole package kind of cold in the end.  The story features four main characters, 2 in England, 1 in France, and 1 in Jamaica/Haiti, but mostly focuses upon the French Revolution and England, and while the existence of magic causes some changes in circumstance, events proceed pretty much exactly as historically foretold.  And the book doesn't do enough to actually make me care about the characters as a result, making it by the end feel kind of pointless?

Let me try to explain further in depth after the jump:

at No comments:

Friday, July 17, 2020

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey



Leviathan Wakes is the first book in James S.A. Corey's (the pen name of SF/F creators Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck) space opera series, "The Expanse."  The Expanse, in case you've been living under a rock, has of course been turned into a major TV series by SciFi and now Amazon, and has gotten a lot of positive reviews in this form.  I'd actually watched the first season and a half of The Expanse and enjoyed it a lot, and after my enjoyment of Game of Thrones had been impacted by my foreknowledge and constant comparisons to A Song of Ice and Fire (the book version), I'd planned on skipping the books and watching the show blind.  Alas, I fell behind - I'm not very good on keeping up with long running shows - and have never caught up, and in the meantime, The Expanse just picked up its second nomination for the Hugo Award for Best Series (also being nominated in the award's first year).  So finally I opted to bite the bullet and give the books a try, starting with this novel.

And I was impressed by Leviathan Wakes - it's a really interesting first space opera novel, creating an interesting setting and characters and melding it all together into an interesting story with not only a satisfying ending, but also clear areas for the plot to move forward in the future.  The themes it deals with aren't anything unusual, but it works with them quite well.  I was also surprised by how straight the adaptation seems to have been, which made it easier to read through this novel in 2 days: pretty much everything from the TV show was straight from the book, so there was never a moment of surprise.  That obviously complicates my attempt to review this as a stand alone novel, but I'll try nonetheless.


at No comments:

Thursday, July 16, 2020

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Queen of Rhodia by Effie Calvin


The Queen of Rhodia is the third book in Effie Calvin's Tales of Inthya series, a series of F-F fantasy romance novels that began with "The Queen of Ieflaria".  I really enjoyed the first two novels in this series (reviewed here and here) - both feature fun F-F romances that feature characters of different temperaments put together by fate and finding they want the other more and more as events unfold and also threaten to put them apart.  At the same time, whereas other such novels would feature significant moments of trouble and heartbreak in these relationships, that's not really a thing either novel did - with the only kind of moment of that lasting just a few pages before it was remedied.  Calvin's books don't seem to be interested in that type of trouble for its lovers, and it makes them a joy to read. 

The Queen of Rhodia brings us back to our protagonists from the first novel, princesses Esofi and Adale, as they've officially gotten married and have been trying to figure out how to raise they're non-human son*.  So it's not quite a romance tale of two women getting together, but instead it's them trying to figure out the next steps of their marriage, especially as they deal with a problematic part of one of their pasts: an abusive parent.  Again, in another author's hands, this could go in a pretty dark direction, but it really doesn't here, and this short novel remains lovely from beginning to end as the two of them try to get through it all and figure it all out, ending on a wonderfully happy ending.  Add in small but important appearances from the main characters of the second book (Daughter of the Sun), and this was a really great book to read when I needed something to cheer me up.

*NOTE:  While the first two books are stand-alone, this one absolutely is not and relies upon foreknowledge of the first book - The Queen of Ieflaria - absolutely in order to work, and reading the second book first is also advisable.  As such, while I'm not spoiling anything above the jump, spoilers for the first book are inevitable in the review below.  Please be advised.  (Not that such spoilers will ruin the enjoyment you get from any of these books mind you).  

at No comments:

Wednesday, July 15, 2020

July Book Club: Mexican Gothic, Mid-month Post

Okay so this is the post for talking about this month's book, Mexican Gothic by Silvia , at the midway point of the month.  Everyone naturally reads at their own pace - I will undoubtedly have finished this book well before this post gets published (sorry!  I can't help myself and my library loan would've expired by July 15th anyhow so I have an excuse), but for the sake of spoilers, let's say posts in the comments of this post should only discuss thoughts and feelings on the book through the end of chapter 12, which is roughly the half-way point of the book.

Anyhow, spoilers up to that point after the jump:

at No comments:

Tuesday, July 14, 2020

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Chaos Vector by Megan E O'Keefe

Full Disclosure:  This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on July 28, 2020 in exchange for a potential review.  I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way - if I felt conflicted in any way, I would simply have declined to review the book.

 Chaos Vector is the second in Megan E O'Keefe's "The Protectorate" series, which began with last year's "Velocity Weapon" (which I reviewed here).  I enjoyed Velocity Weapon, the first in an Epic Space Opera, although I didn't quite love it: the book was very long and concluded on not just a big cliffhanger, but also had a major side plotline that repeatedly interrupted the main plot at annoying times and then ended with an utter dud, to diminish my enjoyment of it all.  The story was excellent at introducing a number of really interesting mysteries and had a very solid lead character, so I was interested in continuing it further however.....but I didn't love it enough that I didn't have to do a quick skim of the first book before I could continue to the sequel.

NOTE:  This book's summary on booksellers online is completely misleading, referring to cooperation and conflict between parties who basically never come into contact with one another in this entire book as if it's a main focus.  So yeah, ignore that if you're trying to decide whether to take a spin on this book after reading its predecessor.

 And well, Chaos Vector is very similar to its predecessor: it features a strong main plot with a strong lead character, some very interesting mysteries - some new and some old - and some clearly weaker side plots that the narrative keeps shifting to an inappropriate moments.  It's again a rather long novel, and it makes solid use of all of that page length - a lot of stuff happens here, to the point where events you might expect to happen at the climax actually occur at the 1/3-through mark, and again it intrigued me enough that I'm probably in for another novel in this series.  At the same time, I just can't shake the feeling that I should like this one more than I actually did, which is hard to explain.

 NOTE2:  It's impossible to avoid spoiling the main twist from Velocity Weapon.  So SPOILERS FOR VELOCITY WEAPON BELOW THE JUMP - I'm not going to try to avoid them here and you really can't read this book without reading Velocity Weapon first.  
at No comments:

Monday, July 13, 2020

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Worst of All Possible Worlds by Alex White


Full Disclosure:  This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on July 28, 2020 in exchange for a potential review.  I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way - if I felt conflicted in any way, I would simply have declined to review the book.
The Worst of All Possible Worlds is the third and final book in Alex White's space opera "The Salvagers" trilogy, which began with A Big Ship at the End of the Universe (Reviewed here) and continued with "A Bad Deal for the Whole Galaxy" (Reviewed here).  I enjoyed the first book in this series a good deal, but really loved the 2nd.  Both novels are fun space opera romps, featuring a disparate cast of oddballs each with a different magical power and some really fun dialogue - the books have been compared in reviews and the press clippings to "Firefly" and the comparison actually works.  So I was really really excited to get an advance copy of this novel and to dig into it.

And well, The Worst of All Possible Worlds may be the best in the trilogy, and if it isn't, it's pretty damn close. The characters remain tremendous - particularly Boots and Nilah, our two main point of view characters - as they face their toughest test yet, a really fun new character is introduced and the dialogue remains absolutely fantastic, causing me to crack up repeatedly, while occasionally saying something poignant to go along with it all.  The result was so much fun - even when the plot gets very very dark - that I simply could not stop reading, and before I knew it, I'd finished this roughly 600 page book in a single day.  So yeah, highly recommended.

More specifics after the jump:


at No comments:

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Kingdom of Liars by Nick Martell


The Kingdom of Liars is the debut novel and the start of a new (epic?) fantasy trilogy by author Nick Martell.  I'd seen some recommendations about it from some author I liked on twitter, so even though it really didn't have a clear appeal to me, I put a hold on it in the library when my library hold limit was no longer a problem.  And after a week without reading a novel, resulting in my library loan being a few days away from expiring, I sort of had to read this one quickly, even though it's not a short book (Amazon lists it as 607 pages).

And I liked The Kingdom of Liars for the most part - it's a fun fantasy tale of magical cities with nobles, commoners, conspiracies, magical powers, lethal mercenaries, a mystery, conspiracies, the works.  The narrative, which takes place mostly as a flashback, is really strong at drawing you in and so I actually finished this book in a single day, which was not my intent.  At the same time, the story's only interesting truly fleshed out character is the main one, several others make contradictory decisions at times that feel out of place, and it does rely a bit too heavily on coincidence for my taste.  I'll be continuing with this series, because there's a really good setup here and I do like the lead character a lot.


at No comments:

Saturday, July 11, 2020

A Pale Light In The Black (by KB Wagers) Reread - Chapters 37-39 (Really Chapters 31-32)





Welcome back to my reread of K.B. Wagers' "A Pale Light in the Black!"  You can find the other posts in this reread here.  For those somehow seeing this post first instead of the others, A Pale Light in the Black is a space opera featuring a SF space version of the Coast Guard in an optimistic future universe.

We're up to what is essentially the final arc of this novel (kinda), with the event we've all been waiting for coming up: The Boarding Games!  Well we're not quite there yet, but this week we get to see the final preparations and the team's arrival, as Max finally figures out her love life - or well, whatever we're calling what she has with Nika, Jenks discovers a new way to create "cover", and everyone has some family complications.....


at No comments:

Friday, July 10, 2020

Fantasy Novella Review: The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water by Zen Cho



The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water by Zen Cho

The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water is a brand new novella by award winning/nominated SF/F author Zen Cho, known for her novel Sorcerer to the Crown (and its follow up, The True Queen).  I actually didn't love either of those two novels, but I've really enjoyed Cho's shorter fiction, particularly last year's Hugo Winning Novelette and a short story in the upcoming anthology, The Book of Dragons.  And I'd heard good things in advance about this one, so I was excited to find myself first in line for it from the NYPL eLibrary when it was about to come out.

And my excitement was mostly justified - as I really enjoyed this novella.  It was sort of advertised as a Wuxia-esque novella, but Cho has walked that back in recent comments and correctly so: there's some martial arts fun, but this is mainly a story of a family of outcasts being met with an outsider in a war torn nation (based on Emergency Malaya).  There's a lot of comedy and kind of a quiet form of romance as well and the novella made me smile quite a bit throughout even as it became clear where it was heading.


at 2 comments:

Thursday, July 9, 2020

Reviewing the 2020 Hugo Nominees: The Astounding Award for Best New Writer

Hugo Award voting should open soon and will continue through the July 15.  For those of you new to the Science Fiction/Fantasy genre, the Hugo Award is one of the most prominent awards for works in the genre, with the Award being given based upon voting by those who have paid for at least a Supporting Membership in this year's WorldCon.  As I did the last three years, I'm going to be posting reviews/my-picks for the award in the various categories I feel qualified in, but feel free to chime in with your own thoughts in the comments.

This is the Sixth part and probably final part of this series, since I don't think I'm going to get to Best Series this year.  I have previously reviewed the nominees for Best Young Adult SF/F (The Lodestar Award) and for Best SF/F Short Story, Best SF/F novelette, Best Novella, and Best Novel.

You can find all the parts of this series, going over each category of the Hugo Awards HERE.

This post will look at the nominations for The Astounding Award for Best New Writer, formerly known as The Campbell Award (and good riddance to that name).  I normally mock the awards like the Lodestar that are technically "Not-a-Hugo" but awarded alongside the other Hugo Awards (cmon, seriously?) but the Astounding Award is actually different in that it covers two years of eligibility: these are writers who debuted in the genre over not just 2019, but 2018 as well.  This means that one of the nominees here were nominated last year, while others may be nominated a second time in the future if they haven't won already.

I'd actually only read four of the six authors on this ballot before the awards were announced, which was a pleasant surprise: it meant I had two new authors to check out!  And I was not disappointed when I did.....


at No comments:

Wednesday, July 8, 2020

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Ardulum: First Don by J.S. Fields


Ardulum: First Don is the first book in a Space Opera trilogy by author J.S. Fields.  I'd actually bought the book a long time ago when it was on sale, on recommendation from author Seanan McGuire, who praised it highly.....but I never got around to reading it, due to other library books and the fact that the series isn't held by any of my libraries.  Yet when my reading choices this past week were limited to a bunch of books I wasn't in the mood for due to depressing tones, I finally decided to pick it up.

And it's an intriguing start to a series, and does make me want to go further in reading it eventually, even if it's not quite yet reaching a level of greatness.  Featuring a mostly non-human world, in which humans are the side characters rather than the main ones, First Don tells an interesting story of sentience and the rights of beings as it follows an action packed at times space opera plot.  It's not a humor tinged space opera like a lot of the SO i read tends to be these days, but the characters are well enough done that I cared for the main duo at least, and the ethical questions the story brings up are interesting.


at No comments:

Tuesday, July 7, 2020

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Ashes of the Sun by Django Wexler

Full Disclosure:  This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on July 21, 2020 in exchange for a potential review.  I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way - if I felt conflicted in any way, I would simply have declined to review the book.


Ashes of the Sun is the first in a new epic fantasy trilogy by author Django Wexler.  Wexler is a bit of a prolific writer this decade in the genre but I've only read before his YA fantasy series, The Wells of Sorcery (Ship of Smoke and Steel, City of Stone and Silence).  I've really really liked the Wells of Sorcery so far, with its dark YA fantasy taking some very surprising turns, featuring very solid romantic subplots, and dealing with some very strong themes.  So I was interested to check out Wexler's newest work when I saw it pop up on NetGalley.

The result is a very enjoyable, if long (when he says "epic", he means it) epic fantasy novel, which begins a new trilogy but also manages to tell a satisfying self contained story at the same time.  Like Wells of Sorcery, there are clearly Star Wars influences here: this world features an organization of energy wielding crusaders called "Centarchs" who are supposedly independent arbiters of justice in a world mainly governed by a "Republic", which will call to mind some clear Star Wars concepts.  But Wexler takes these directions in different directions, with one of our protagonists being on the opposite side of the Centarchs resulting in a plot that is very much its own.  Add in some really interesting characters and very solid dialogue, and it all adds up to a very enjoyable trilogy starter.


at No comments:

Monday, July 6, 2020

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse


Note: This review is based upon an ARC (Advance Reader Copy) won through a Netgalley giveaway (a "Wish"), and this book is scheduled to be released on October 13, 2020.  This did not affect my review in any way.

 Black Sun is the start of a new epic fantasy series by Astounding Award winner Rebecca Roanhorse.  Roanhorse's prior novel work has been fascinating - SF/F inspired by her Native (Navajo/Diné) heritage, whether in her dark hybrid SF/F "Sixth World" series or in her Middle-Grade work "Race to the Sun."  It's all been really great stuff from a background not typically used in the field (although it's getting better).  Black Sun takes a different tack - it's epic fantasy inspired not by Roanhorse's native heritage, but instead by the pre-Columbian cultures of the Americas.  It's Roanhorse's first venture into epic fantasy and I was really excited to see what she'd do with it.

And it's really an interesting start to an epic fantasy, taking some very familiar devices of the genre and using them in some rather different ways.  So you have multiple character viewpoints, magic, gods, and religions of various kinds with different levels of power, and a cast of characters acting in very different places of a very large world all leading up to a major impact everywhere by the climax....what you might expect in an Epic Fantasy, it's all here.  But the cultures shown are very different from the classical European or Tolkien-inspired epic fantasy stories, and while the book has characters as deep and as enjoyable as the beset of any of those, it also has a story that manages to be both interestingly dark and grey without actually being grimdark.  It's not perfect, but it's a strong start to a new series and I definitely look forward to its continuation.


at No comments:

Saturday, July 4, 2020

A Pale Light In The Black (by KB Wagers) Reread - Chapters 35-36 (Really Chapters 29-30)




Welcome back to my reread of K.B. Wagers' "A Pale Light in the Black!"  You can find the other posts in this reread here.  For those somehow seeing this post first instead of the others, A Pale Light in the Black is a space opera featuring a SF space version of the Coast Guard in an optimistic future universe.

We're in the final third of the novel, as our crew and Max's sister finally are on the same page regarding the urgency of working together to figure out the mystery of the Dupe LifeEx.  Or seem to be on the same page at least.  That said, that doesn't mean the mystery will be easy to solve, and our heroes probably will need to do their favorite thing to blow off steam.....get into a bar fight.



at No comments:

Friday, July 3, 2020

SciFi/Fantasy Book Club: Book of the Month for July! - Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia




Okay I'm trying something new - a monthly book club!  As anyone who reads me on twitter or this blog knows, I read a ton of novels (and shorter fiction as well to a lesser extent) and love to talk about them online.  Of course, I don't tend to read the most popular novels - almost certainly because I try to read a wider diverse selection of books - which often leaves me with an issue of lacking people to talk about these books with.

So as I promised on twitter this week, I'm going to try and solve that by starting a book club on this blog.  Here's how it works (basically like any other book club) - I'm going to pick a book that I haven't read yet for each month (in this case July), for any others who are willing to pick up and read along with me.  I'll make another post mid-July to talk about the first half of the book and then a third post at the end of the month to discuss the book overall, with all the talk happening in the comment section.

The goal is to highlight books from a diverse set of authors, dealing with interesting themes and which aren't necessarily likely to hit the bestseller lists.  I also want to hit a wide variety of types of SF/F subgenres, since the scope of genre is very very large.

Anyhow, this month we're going to start with a very recent release: Silvia Moreno-Garcia's "Mexican Gothic"!  This book (A B&N link to it can be found HERE) came out on June 30th (just this past week) and is apparently a gothic fantasy horror novel.  Moreno-Garcia is a Mexican-Canadian author, whose work I have really enjoyed whether it follows vampires in a dystopian future Mexico, Aztec Death gods cerca 1900, or a man and two women in a romance story with mild fantasy elements, or something else.  These works tend to be really interesting in both themes and characters, and tend to take turns I did not expect, so I'm excited to see how she'll take the Gothic Horror genre.

Again around July 15 I'll post an update with my thoughts halfway through the book, and with space for people to comment and then at the end of the month we'll do the same with the full book.  It's very much a short novel, so I expect people should have no problem finishing it in a month.
at No comments:

Thursday, July 2, 2020

Reviewing the 2020 Hugo Nominees: The Hugo Award for Best Novel

Hugo Award voting should open soon and will continue through the July 15.  For those of you new to the Science Fiction/Fantasy genre, the Hugo Award is one of the most prominent awards for works in the genre, with the Award being given based upon voting by those who have paid for at least a Supporting Membership in this year's WorldCon.  As I did the last three years, I'm going to be posting reviews/my-picks for the award in the various categories I feel qualified in, but feel free to chime in with your own thoughts in the comments.

This is the Fifth part of this series.  I have previously reviewed the nominees for Best Young Adult SF/F (The Lodestar Award) and for Best SF/F Short Story, Best SF/F novelette, and Best Novella.

You can find all the parts of this series, going over each category of the Hugo Awards HERE.

This post is about what's generally considered the big award, the award for best novel (40K words or more) of 2019.  It gets the most attention and the most votes (although Best Series has matched it recently?) and serves not only as a mark of what is one of the best books in the genre, but as a historical marker of what is valued at any given time - at least to the type of voters who make up the Worldcon audience (admittedly a niche group).  We can see that pretty clearly with this year's Nebula Award winner, which was a book about a future world ravaged by pandemic forcing live music scenes underground as everyone instead lived in virtual space without human contact.

But that book - A Song for a New Day - did not make the Hugo Ballot.  So it's less clear what is going to win this year, and we have some pretty strong books on the ballot.


at No comments:

Wednesday, July 1, 2020

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Phoenix Extravagant by Yoon Ha Lee

Full Disclosure:  This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on October 15, 2020 in exchange for a potential review.  I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way - if I felt conflicted in any way, I would simply have declined to review the book.

 Phoenix Extravagant is the 4th novel by author Yoon Ha Lee, the author of the multi-award nominated Machineries of Empire trilogy (Ninefox Gambit) and of a number of shorter stories - may taking place in that same universe (resulting in a collection "Hexarchate Stories") and a few not.  This is the first novel of his taking place in a different world - in this case a fantasy world blatantly inspired by Japan-occupied Korea circa World War 2.  Lee's prior work used complicated (and I mean complicated) SciFi concepts and worldbuilding to create fascinating and entertaining stories dealing with issues of Empire/colonialism, individual rights and autonomy, and identity, in a way that made those works some of my favorite over the past few years (I had him tops on my Hugo Ballot multiple times).  So yeah, when I noticed this book up on Netgalley, I requested it instantly, and I was thrilled to receive an advance copy.

And Phoenix Extravagant is a fascinating and captivating book, reminding me for very obvious reasons of RF Kuang's "The Poppy War" in its themes and setting but more clearly featuring the same deft touches as Lee's own earlier trilogy.  The story features a really strong protagonist to go along with a number of other excellent characters, a plot that takes some incredibly surprising turns, all of which deals with some really strong and often hard to read themes dealing with Occupation and what comes afterward and what really remains, and whether it might ever really end.  It's not a perfect book - honestly some of the fantasy elements feel out of place - but it's very compelling in its own often brutal way, all the way up till its ending.  This is likely to find itself on award ballots next year, and it will be well deserved.


at No comments: