Tuesday, March 30, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Helm of Midnight by Marina Lostetter

 



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 April 13, 2021 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 Helm of Midnight is the first in a new epic fantasy series by author Marina Lostetter, previously known for her Noumenon trilogy.  I read the first Noumenon novel before abandoning the trilogy - the book featured issues involving a generation ship, and while I enjoyed much (though not all) of the character work, I found that not all parts of the novel, as it moved into later parts, really worked for me (My review is here).  Still, I tend not to love generation ship-type narratives, so I was interested to see how Lostetter's character work would translate to epic fantasy and I was happy to request this off NetGalley.  

And The Helm of Midnight was well worth it.  The book features a world with a fascinating magic system (sort of), an interesting fantasy setting with a really interesting, if possibly inaccurate, mythology.  And most importantly, it features a number of storylines which center a number of really great characters, such that I really really felt for them all whenever things inevitably went wrong.  The story doesn't fully deal with some of its more interesting potential themes - issues of class, of power, of lies and myths and debts - which prevents it from truly being one of my all time favorites.  But as its own story it works really well, and as a series starter, I am very intrigued to see how the story plays out from here.  


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Monday, March 29, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Paladin's Strength by T Kingfisher

 





Paladin's Strength is the second book in T Kingfisher's (aka children's author Ursula Vernon) Saint of Steel series - her Paladin Romance series that began with last year's "Paladin's Grace" (Review Here).  It's also the fifth book this universe that started with her Clocktaur Wars duology (and continued with Swordheart), but this book can easily be read standalone if you wanted, or at the very least immediately after Paladin's Grace (a Swordheart character has a minor role where he makes one reference to that book).  I have loved these books so much, and while Paladin's Grace was not my favorite, its romantic pairing was just perfect for me as a pair of lovable introverts.  And so when Paladin's Strength was announced, featuring a really fun side character from that book as one of the new protagonists, well, I knew I was going to finish this book on the day it was released....and I did.  

And Paladin's Strength is again pretty great, even if I didn't quite love it as much as its predecessor.  Its Paladin protagonist this time is Istvhan, the charming and hilarious and a lot better with women Paladin from our last book, and he's really fun here as he's confronted with his match in Clara, a nun from a special order of nuns with a secret who is every bit his physical and charming match.  But don't worry, even though the characters are no longer awkward introverts who can't quite spit anything out, Kingfisher manages to make this the slowest of slow burn romances all the same, and the result is tremendously fun.  Oh yeah and there's also severed heads and a horrifying anarchic city of crime and some other craziness, in case you were thinking this would be tamer than your typical T Kingfisher romance, and it all works so so well.  

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Friday, March 26, 2021

SciFi Novella Review: Prime Meridian by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

 




Prime Meridian by Silvia Moreno-Garcia


Prime Meridian is a novella by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, a Mexican-Canadian author whose work is getting more attention these days due to the success of 2020's "Mexican Gothic" (my review here).  I've been a big fan of Moreno-Garcia's work and have read nearly all of it - all but this novella.  Her work spans numerous genres - Magical Realism, Noir, Vampires, Romance, Horror, etc. - but has always been really good, with stories taking place generally or setting in Mexico, and so when my elibrary finally got a copy of this novella in stock to allow me to complete her long-fiction bibliography I jumped at the chance. 

And Prime Meridian is really interesting - a character study of a young woman whose future path has been sidetracked and whose dreams of Mars seem dashed, with only grips at the fading past left in her life.  All of that is interspersed with scripts from an old B adventure movie taking place on the red planet, as the story deals with how women used to be trapped and often still are trapped just for making a single "mistake" in their past.  

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Thursday, March 25, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Lobizona by Romina Garber

 



Lobizona is a 2020 young adult fantasy novel by author Romina Garber, featuring as its protagonist an undocumented girl in Miami, part of a family on the run from bad circumstances in Argentina. It's not the first YA fantasy novel I've read featuring fantasy beings as illegal immigrants and ICE as a (side) antagonist, and almost certainly won't be the last given the horrors that have been committed against innocents on the run in the name of immigration enforcement.  Still Lobizona is a book trying to take on far more injustices than just those committed against illegal immigrants and refugees, using its Argentinian-inspired fantasy story to show the injustice of a system devoted to enforcing a strict gender binary, to centering only the heteronormative, and to only accepting a racial purity. 

And while Lobizona is not a subtle book (again, YA), it's a pretty damn incredible one in how it deals with all these issues throughout the course of its story.  The book is clearly at times channeling Harry Potter,* if Harry Potter wasn't dealing with a white-centric, queer-absent world but instead was dealing with a fantasy world and school of Werewolves (Lobizones) and Witches (Brujas).  But not only are Lobizona's characters at least as compelling as Harry Potter ever was, but Garber somehow also manages to weave a plot about the plight of not fitting into the norms of the system - whether that be because one is undocumented, queer/trans, or anything else - that works tremendously well.  The book doesn't quite stick the landing but as it's only the first of a series (second book coming out in June), well I look forward to how it goes from here.  

*I tend to avoid Harry Potter comparisons because honestly, we can do better for comparisons in fantasy books.  But Lobizona's heroine Manu references Harry Potter herself at times, and this book clearly is drawing parallels.  So it can't really be avoided.*

Note: I read this in audiobook and the reader is very good - fittingly the reader is also Argentine, which allows her to read the occasional spanish dialogue and names in a proper Argentine accent, which makes it a really strong way to follow the story.  

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Wednesday, March 24, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Memory Theater by Karin Tidbeck

 


The Memory Theater is the latest book by Karin Tidbeck, a Swedish author known for their brilliant weird fiction (think Jeff Vandermeer's work).  Their previous novel, Amatka, is one of the few books I've ever given a perfect score to, being a brilliant dystopian scifi novel exploring the power of language and their collection Jagannath was once nominated for a bunch of English awards (I reviewed the collection here).  So yeah when I heard they were coming out with a new novel in 2021 in English, well I was hyped.  

And The Memory Theater is really interesting, even if it's not up to the same level as Amatka.  It's an expansion of one of the stories from Jagannath ("Augusta Prima") featuring a Fae world without time, only with the story being rewritten with two new central characters as the novel's first act, before it moves on to what happens afterwards.  The new story, featuring not just the spoiled Fae woman who wanted to learn about time, but also a quiet but calm giant girl and a human boy searching for his name, works pretty well even if it's really short and can easily be finished in one sitting.  And then there's the troupe of actors from whom the novel gets its name, who act out the stories of the many worlds and peoples as well as a bunch of other trademark Tidbeck weirdness.  


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Tuesday, March 23, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Soulstar by C.L. Polk

 




Soulstar is the third and final book in C.L Polk's "Kingston Cycle", which began with 2018's "Witchmark" (Reviewed Here) and continued in 2020's "Stormsong" (Reviewed Here).  The series is one featuring queer romances (M-M in Witchmark, F-F in Stormsong) as major elements, but also featuring court intrigue and thriller/mystery plots in an alternate fantasy version of England with themes of oppression, of unjust uses of power, of revenge and justice and fear of consequences and the ends justifying the means.  I didn't quite love Witchmark as much as others did (it was nominated for a Nebula and won the World Fantasy Award) mainly because I didn't quite love the romance, but Stormsong's romance and plot worked significantly better for me...up until it ended seemingly on a cliffhanger for everything except the romance.  So well, I was really interested to see how the cycle would pick up those threads in the final book of this series.

And well.....Soulstar doesn't, wiping away the majority of that cliffhanger unceremoniously in the first chapter, and taking the story in a new direction (kinda).  The book still features a queer romance (F-NB), but it's shunted more to the side than in the prior books, with Soulstar instead focusing on the struggle of the oppressed, now seemingly freed and trying to deal with the aftermath of atrocity demanding reparations, facing off against an entrenched power structure refusing to give anything more than the bare minimum of recognition as to the harms they have done.  It's a very 2019-2020 kind of book, with the events described within (police brutality, kettling, voter suppression, etc.) all being very much taken out of the modern day and put into this world.  And it both works and doesn't - on one hand, how very easily the reader can recognize what is happening from our own world makes it very powerful, on the other hand, the book tries throwing in so much of these modern forms of oppression so as to dilute the individual aspects of the plot such that it doesn't quite work as a story, especially with an ending that perhaps puts too much of a bow on it all.  

DISCLAIMER:  I have a strong suspicion, given the focus and subject matter, that this book will play very differently, and have perhaps a stronger power, if the reader is a person of color. I am not a person of color - I'm a White Cis Male - so that is not my perspective on this one, which might be affecting my feelings on this book.  

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Monday, March 22, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: We Could Be Heroes by Mike Chen

 



We Could Be Heroes is a new scifi, well superhero-based, novel by author Mike Chen.  Chen is the author for a book I actually DNFed - the time travel novel Here and Now and Then - but that was as much about the format I was reading that book in (audiobook) as the writing, so I was always very interested in giving him another shot.  And so with this new release, a rather short novel, I figured now was a good time to give that a try.  

And well....We Could Be Heroes is fun, but honestly, it's too short to really make any lasting impression.  There's nothing wrong with short books in general, but short books naturally have less time to build up their characters and to make us care about them for reasons beyond simply being the protagonists/antagonists/whatever, and We Could Be Heroes really could've used the extra time to pull that off.  It's still a fun adventure of a pair of amnesiacs, one of whom has become a superhero and the other of whom has become a supervillain, who meet up and wind up trying to figure out what happened to them - but without the extra page-span, there wasn't enough here to get me really caring about what was going on. 


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Friday, March 19, 2021

Fantasy Novella Review: The Big Score by KJ Parker

 
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 March 31, 2021 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 Big Score by KJ Parker

The Big Score is an upcoming fantasy novella from author KJ Parker, and the third in his Saloninus series of novellas, although it works perfectly fine as a stand alone (indeed, I haven't read the prior works in the series).  It's more of a comedy/heist novella than a fantasy story, featuring Saloninus, Parker's vain as hell supergenius always down on his luck theif/con-man and unreliable narrator, as he tries to start anew after faking his death, only to get involved with one of his old associates, a woman who always cheats him.  

The Big Score is the first I've read of Parker's works, and honestly it's pretty fun for its short duration, which makes me want to check out the prior works at least in this series.  Still, even though I enjoyed this one, it definitely lost steam in its second half, as the novella lost its free form narrative and focused more specifically on the titular "big score."  So I probably wont' be in too much of a hurry to catch up with the rest of the series.  

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Wednesday, March 17, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Ink & Sigil by Kevin Hearne

 



Ink & Sigil is the first in a new urban fantasy series by author Kevin Hearne, set in the same world as his Iron Druid Chronicles (which I have not read).  I'm not too familiar with Hearne's work, having not even realized I had DNFed a comedy book he co-wrote until after I finished this novel, but this book was recommended highly by one of the authors/editors I follow on twitter, so I figured I'd give it a shot.  So that, plus my love of Urban Fantasy, made me decide to give this one a shot with an open library borrow.  

And I enjoyed Ink & Sigil a bunch - it's a short first novel, featuring a cranky "sigil agent" (basically a wizard whose magic is based entirely on drawing sigils with special ink) dealing with being cursed, interactions with the fae, and humans who get too ambitious for their own good and get involved with the supernatural.  The Scottish setting works really well, as does the voice of the protagonist and the side characters, keeping things generally pretty light and humorous even in some dark situations, and the whole thing works without any foreknowledge of this universe.  I can't say yet whether I will add this to my list of favorite urban fantasy series that I consume at the moment, but I'm definitely interested in seeing where things go from here.  

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Tuesday, March 16, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: A Broken Darkness by Premee Mohamed

 



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 March 2, 2021 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.       

A Broken Darkness is the sequel to Beneath the Rising (Review Here), a 2020 Lovecraftian horror/thriller novel that got a lot of praise last year from people I follow.  And I did like Beneath the Rising a decent bit, as the dynamic of its two major characters - protagonist Nick and his supergenius best friend Johnny - worked really well as they globetrotted in search of a way of stopping the ineffable.  The story's horrors weren't particularly scary or even interesting, but the relationship between the main duo was fascinating, especially with its final act reveal.  So I was very curious to see how the sequel handled the change in that relationship.

And the answer is....mixed.  On one hand the story moves quick and reads really well, so I had no problem finishing this in around 3 and a half hours despite the book being around 400 pages long, and our main character's internal conflict from the last books' reveals are done well.  On the other hand, this book relies a lot more on the technobabble magic/science/math tricks from Johnny to advance the plot, and it just doesn't do it for me, and neither does the nameless lovecraftian horrors that attack our protagonists and the world.  And it all ends up in an ending that is either unsatisfying or a cliffhanger (without a book 3 seemingly announced), so I'm not as enthused about this series as I once was.

More after the jump: WARNING:  MAJOR SPOILERS for book 1 - if you haven't read book 1, the below will spoil that book's big twist.  You have been warned.






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Monday, March 15, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Vela: Salvation by Ashley Poston, Maura Milan, Nicole Givens Kurtz, and Sangu Mandanna

 



The Vela was one of the latest offerings from Serial Box Publishing, a publisher of SF/F and other genre stories in serialized weekly forms, in both print and audio.  The first season, which I reviewed here, was a space opera-ish story written by some of the most acclaimed writers in the genre today - SL Huang, Yoon Ha Lee, Becky Chambers, and Rivers Solomon - and dealt with some really interesting issues like refugees, climate change, nationalism, etc.  It was mainly held back by Serial Box's trademark episodic formula and its cliffhanger ending, but I did enjoy the main characters and how it explored its interesting world. 

For The Vela's second season, Salvation, the publisher opted unusually not to bring back the original cast of authors but instead featured a new set of less well known authors: Ashley Poston, Maura Milan, Nicole Givens Kurtz, and Sangu Mandanna.  I've read three of these four (I haven't yet read Poston) and have really enjoyed these authors, even if they aren't quite as well known as their predecessors, so I was interested to see where they'd take the story after its cliffhanger ending.  Alas, the result is kind of disappointing, with the story not really dealing with as many interesting themes as its first season, featuring aa greater lack of cohesion between episodes, and a story that seems designed due to editorial mandate to wrap things up in a tight bow that just feels inappropriate for where things started.  The main characters are still really enjoyable and there's still some interesting stuff here - and audio narrator Robin Miles is always a treat to listen to - but it just doesn't live up to the potential of the first season.

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Friday, March 12, 2021

SciFi Novella Review: Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells

 

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 April 27, 2021 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.

Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells

Normally I spend the first paragraph of my reviews talking about why I was interested in checking out the novel/novella I'm reviewing, but Fugitive Telemetry is the 6th Murderbot story (5th chronologically), so I really shouldn't have to explain much.  Murderbot, the socially awkward construct/SecUnit who just wants to watch media in peace and ends up having to save stupid humans and maybe feel feelings, has taken the genre world seemingly by storm, and well, it's pretty well deserved.  I'll honestly be shocked if the most recent Murderbot novel, Network Effect, isn't nominated for a Hugo.  

And well Fugitive Telemetry is more Murderbot, which is to say it's pretty great, featuring an adventure in between the original novellas and the novel, as Murderbot gets involved with Preservation security to investigate a mysterious murder.  Needless to say, snarky internal dialogue ensues, as Murderbot deals with humans who don't know how to deal with it and have their own opinions and emotions as it tries to figure out the mystery, which once again has to deal with corporate scummery.  Still, while the dialogue and action and plot is classic Murderbot, Fugitive Telemetry is a bit of an oddball - coming in between stories it can't really develop Murderbot's own character and feelings too much, and thus doesn't quite have the same impact of any of the other 5 stories.  

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Thursday, March 11, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Winter's Orbit by Everina Maxwell

 




Winter's Orbit is a Space Opera (M-M) Romance written by Everina Maxwell.  The novel, which began as a story on AO3, has been getting hyped up tremendously by the corners of the SF/F fandom I pay attention to on social media, so I was at first really excited for this - especially because of my growing love of SF/F Romance.  Still a friend of mine and fellow reviewer who got an early copy wasn't as enthused about this book as the general commentary seemed to be, noting that it wasn't what they had come to expect from the praise.  

And I see both viewpoints really.  A large part of this book for example is the charming story of two princes, each of which doesn't think the other could really be interested in the other, trying to make an arranged marriage work for the sake of the Empire and Territory they each come from, all the while dealing with occasional side things like a murder mystery along the way.  On the other hand, the story also attempts to deal with the ramifications of an abusive relationship and doesn't quite fully commit to this, despite hinting at it, until the final third of the book.  Similarly the book also kind of hint at dealing with the complications of Empire, only to chicken out on dealing with the actual implications of how that affects people and the central relationship of the story.  So I can see why some might really love this one, while others might find it not for them.  

Trigger Warning: Domestic/Physical Abuse/An Abusive Relationship described in flashback-esque scenes in detail.

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Wednesday, March 10, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: A River of Royal Blood by Amanda Joy

 




A River of Royal Blood is a YA Fantasy novel written by Amanda Joy and the first half of a duology that is being concluded in March of 2021.  It's a book I might have skipped, except that it showed up on a Tor.com listicle filled with other interesting books that I'd enjoyed and the book was immediately available from one of my elibraries. So I picked it up, noticed how short it was and how many books I was due to have off hold soon, and figured I'd shortcut it to the front of my reading list. 

And A River of Royal Blood is solid and fine YA Fantasy, but it very much fails to go beyond that.  The story features a princess (Eva) who possesses a potentially horrifyingly violent magic in a world where human princesses have to fight each other to the death in order to determine who becomes Queen....of a kingdom filled with other races whom seem to have second-class citizen status.  It's a solid setup, and the main character is enjoyable, but the book is too short to truly go through all the implications or to setup the book's main antagonist in a way that gives her the depth she really needed. 

More after the jump:

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Tuesday, March 9, 2021

SciFI/Fantasy Book Review: The Sound of Stars by Alechia Dow

 




The Sound of Stars is a YA SciFi novel by author Alechia Dow.  It features a number of classic YA tropes - you have two protagonists of opposite genders (although there is a bunch of LGBTQ rep) from very different backgrounds who begin to fall in love, with the story being told mostly from their alternating points of view. You even have the two characters having a love of different media and experiencing their love and adventures through that media - books and songs here - to go along with a story of alien invasion.  

But The Sound of Stars differs from the standard formula in a key way - our heroine is a black teen from New York, who has faced racism and oppression and seen all the horrors of modern America even before her life was upended by alien invaders.  As such, her views and actions are colored by these experiences, with as much fears and doubts about humanity as about the aliens...and about the place for her in any future, regardless of whether humanity is able to come back.  It's hardly subtle - and the book's plot kind of just ends when the character journey does, which is a bit off-putting - but it mostly works and is well worth your time.  

Note: I read this book as an audiobook.  The two readers - a male for the male protag's chapters and a female for the female protag - are fine although their voices for the same characters don't really match well.  Still the book features a number of passages that are supposed to be songs sung by the characters and the audio-readers (nearly always the male reader) treats them like spoken word poetry and it really doesn't work - so I'd recommend reading this in print.  

Also as I read this in audiobook if I misspell any names/concepts, that's why.  

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Monday, March 8, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Two-Faced Queen by Nick Martell

 



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 March 23, 2021 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 Two-Faced Queen is the second book in Nick Martell's epic fantasy series*, "Legacy of the Mercenary King" which began last year with The Kingdom of Liars (Reviewed by me HERE).  I had mixed feelings honestly about The Kingdom of Liars - on one hand, its protagonist was a genuinely compelling voice, torn between his ambitions of restoring his blood family and heritage and the found family he had discovered in their place, the setting of court intrigue was fairly solid, and the hints of a more epic scope were intriguing.  On the other hand, the book barely touched some of the issues it presented, like class conflict and a corrupt nobility, with some characters who are basically just blatant archetypes, and the sheer amount of long-term mysteries it was juggling was a bit much.  

*I could've swore I first saw this series advertised as a trilogy, but now I only see it listed as a "series".  

The Two-Faced Queen.....is very similar to the first book in many regards, with the story still juggling a LOT of long-term plot mysteries in the background of a single book-long plot.  In a way, it's a weird second novel, as its central plot features characters and character-arcs that feel like they should have played a more prominent role in the first novel, and nearly all of the long term plot arcs of this series barely move forward at all.  The series' central protagonist remains decently compelling in his oft-reckless crazy nature (and yet definitely a little more mature) as he tries to navigate it all....but I'd hoped for more through 2 installments this long.  

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Friday, March 5, 2021

Fantasy Novella Review: How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories by Holly Black, Illustrated by Rovina Cai

 


How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories by Holly Black, Illustrated by Rovina Cai

From 2018-2019, YA Fantasy Author Holly Black released the Folk of the Air trilogy, beginning with 2018's "The Cruel Prince" and continuing with 2019's "The Wicked King" and "The Queen of Nothing."  It was a trilogy I loved a lot (my review of book 1, The Cruel Prince can be found here), featuring a human girl Jude taken into Faerie by her Fae stepfather and fighting for her right to have a place in Faerie, despite the Fae World's cruel treatment of humans.  Featuring Jude scheming, fighting, and well occasional romancing from beginning to end, it was a trilogy whose individual installments might never have been the greatest, but as a whole trilogy, it worked really well and was highly enjoyable as a dark YA tale.  

This novella is essentially both a sequel to the trilogy - the framing device leads to a story that follows the trilogy - and a recasting of events in the trilogy from the perspective of a different character: Cardan, former prince of Faerie.  To say anything more about it above the jump would risk spoiling the trilogy, but what I will say is that this novella is a really cute revisiting of this world which will make fans of the trilogy very happy and will be absolutely pointless to read for anyone who skipped out on the novels.  

SPOILERS for the trilogy's ending after the jump - YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED: 


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Thursday, March 4, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Requiem Moon by C.T. Rwizi

 


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 March 23, 2021 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.

Requiem Moon is the second book in C.T. Rwizi's epic fantasy series which began last year with Scarlet Odyssey (which I reviewed here). I liked Scarlet Odyssey but had some substantial reservations - it was a bit more grimdark than I'd liked, featuring things like rape and horrific murder as backstories for characters, and didn't quite address one major potential consent issue in the story.  Still, its epic fantasy storyline was really interesting, its characters were very solid even if none truly broke out into greatness, and the tantalizing mysteries of its world and greater scope villains made me curious to see how things would play out in book 2...which I happened to have an advance copy of.  

And Requiem Moon continues to be tantalizing just enough to keep me intrigued in the events of the series while at the same time featuring enough plot choices that prevent me from giving a full-throated endorsement.  The story actually isn't as grimdark as its predecessor - oh there's dark stuff in the background, but events like rape and horrific mass murder aren't as prominent, making this a lot easier type of book to consume.  And the main cast remains solid even as things get more and more dangerous for them, and some of the mysteries begin to be answered.  Still, the mysteries continue to pile up here, with more and more greater scope threats being revealed to make some of the more present threats seem kind of meaningless and these books are so long that I'm more disappointed that I'm not more satisfied after finishing a book of this length.  

More explanation after the jump:


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Wednesday, March 3, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Unbroken by C. L. Clark

 



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 March 23, 2021 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 Unbroken is the epic fantasy debut of author C. L. Clark and one of the more hyped books I've seen among the authors I follow on social media for a while.  It's an epic fantasy novel that deals heavily with themes of Empire and Colonialism, just like a lot of stuff I read nowadays (it's a pretty relevant topic), but it centers its story on a less usual area: conscripted soldiers from a conquered land, and the forces that tear them in so many directions.  Add in the promise of a potential (F-F) romance to go along with it all, and The Unbroken was definitely on my TBR list even before I was lucky enough to land an early copy.

And The Unbroken definitely delivers a hell of a narrative, with an incredible central protagonist and a story that takes so many turns it will leave you dizzy.  I'm still not quite sure whether the ending fully works - things get cleaned up a bit too tidy in the finale - but the story's turns and character developments had me gasping repeatedly in shock, and I was invested from the near start.  So yeah, this is definitely one to watch for award consideration next year and - even though it has a satisfying ending - merely the start of a series which leaves a number of questions potentially open, which makes me eager to see where it goes from here.  

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Tuesday, March 2, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Conductors by Nicole Glover

 


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 March 2, 2021 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 Conductors is the start of a new Historical Fantasy series by debut author Nicole Glover.  It's a novel that I'd heard some other authors talking about a bunch of months back, and so I placed a request on NetGalley hoping to get early access.  The book combines a noir-like murder mystery plot with a historical setting of post-Civil War Black Philadelphia and adds in magic as a very real and known part of this version of our world: magic of course, that is practiced differently by Blacks and Whites (with threats of imprisonment or death for Blacks to appropriate White magic, of course).  The combination of subgenre I like (Noir) with fantasy and real world elements combined to really intrigue me.  

And The Conductors very much delivers on that promise, consisting of a mostly excellent murder mystery plot, with a really strong protagonist to go along with some very solid side characters, all reflecting the real life situation facing freed Blacks in Reconstruction-Era America.  It's a story that drew me in from the start, with the storytelling creating a world that feels utterly real and a plot that pretty much worked from beginning to end.  And best of all, there's places for this story to go in the future, with a sequel apparently due to come in November, and I cannot wait.  

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Monday, March 1, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Dealbreaker by LX Beckett

 




Dealbreaker is the sequel to LX Beckett's "Gamechanger" (My review here) and the second in her "The Bounceback" series.  Gamechanger was set in a fascinating universe, which attempted to portray a story featuring virtual reality, social media, dueling artificial intelligences, cruelties of capitalism, and first contact/alien beings.  More interestingly, perhaps, it featured a world that portrayed a hopeful future, in which society was trying to rebuild (first with the "clawback" and then with the "bounceback") after a collapse (the "setback") at the end of the 21st century.  It was a really interesting world with really interesting characters, which made it work for me...even though I was really irritated at the same time with the book's insistence on throwing social media marks - hashtags, @s, superscripts, etc. - all over the place in distracting fashion.

And Dealbreaker remains really ambitious with its plotting and in how little it holds the reader's hands explaining things, as it follows a new generation of characters from the first book, but it just isn't as interesting as its predecessor, while carrying all the same issues that annoyed me in the first book.  The story skips forward 22 years in time and follows the prior book's kid character Frankie and her poly-am family, particularly her wife Maud, as they attempt to push Earth forward against the intentions of greedy and capitalistic aliens.  There's some interesting stuff going on here - the continued story of the power of the human collective against those who would act in greedy self-interest, as well as more emphasized story of how people cope and deal in different ways with childhood trauma - but it just gets lost in all that's going on.  

Note:  The plot description on booksellers and I suspect the back cover is badly incorrect/misleading - it suggests that book 1's protagonist Rubi is once again the protagonist, whereas Ruby only makes what amounts to a cameo in this story (this is her stepdaughter Frankie's story).  I suspect there was a big shift in the plot late in drafting too late for the book summary to be changed, but in any event, please disregard the plot summary on Amazon in favor of the one below.

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