Monday, May 31, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: A Game of Fox & Squirrels by Jenn Reese

 




A Game of Fox & Squirrels is a middle grade novel written in 2020 by Jenn Reese.  It's a novel that I hadn't heard of in 2020 - despite my ever increasing reading of YA, my reading of Middle-Grade generally is limited to authors I know of already - but which came to my attention by being nominated for the Norton Award, the Nebula Award for YA/Middle-Grade fiction.  It was in fact the only book nominated for the Norton that I hadn't read, so I reserved a copy from my local library to try and remedy that fact.  

And A Game of Fox & Squirrels reminds me of last year's Norton Award winner (Fran Wilde's Riverland) in that it's a middle grade novel that's a tale of abuse and written for kids suffering from same.  Of course unlike that novel, which took place while the kid protagonists were still dealing with the emotional abuse, this novel takes place in the aftermath - featuring an 11 year old girl named Sam who, along with her older sister, has been taken from her abusive father in LA and placed with an Aunt she doesn't know in Oregon.  The result is a powerful story that I again wish probably wasn't so applicable to many kids in this world, as Sam struggles to deal with a situation that isn't abusive and gets involved in a magical world that absolutely is......

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Friday, May 28, 2021

Fantasy/Romance Novelette Review: The Disastrous Debut of Agatha Tremain by Stephanie Burgis

 




The Disastrous Debut of Agatha Tremain is a fantasy F-F romance novelette by Stephanie Burgis, which was originally released as part of an earlier anthology under a slightly different title (The Unladylike Education of Agatha Tremain), but now has been released as a stand alone 99 cents novelette for purchase.  If you've ever read Burgis' Harwood Spellbook series, the content here shouldn't surprise you: it's a pretty fun romance featuring magic and a world with strict gender roles, and a protagonist fighting against them for the magic - both literal and figurative - in her own life.  

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SciFi Novella Review: The Membranes by Chi Ta-wei (Translated by Ari Larissa Heinrich)

 


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 June 1, 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 Membranes is a novella first published in Taiwan back in 1995, which was remarkable for being a queer piece of Science Fiction dealing with cyberpunk themes.  It's a piece of literature held up as a classic of Taiwanese/Chinese SF, and this June it's being translated into English in a publication from Columbia University Press, complete with an analysis of the novella and its themes attached to the end.  

It's a really nice package honestly, of a novella I would not have gotten to otherwise, and that shows its age in some respects but in others is still very relevant.  Dealing with themes of privacy, of body transplants, of cyborgs and androids, of growing up in a world environmentally ruined, etc.  Just as importantly, it's a story about isolation and growing up, in a world where gender and sexuality is not a big deal (nearly every relevant character is a woman and one major character is trans).  And it's really interesting even now and well worth your time if you haven't encountered it before.  

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Thursday, May 27, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Wayward Witch by Zoraida Córdova

 




Wayward Witch is the third book in Zoraida Córdova's Brooklyn Bruja series* of young adult fantasy novels which began with Labyrinth Lost (Review Here) and continued with Bruja Born (Review Here).  I've really enjoyed this series, which features a Latin-American/Ecuadorian inspired world of Brujas (witches) and Brujos in various environments: first a portal fantasy to a fantasy-filled purgatory-esque land and then an urban fantasy adventure in Brooklyn/New York City in general.  The books have often featured some pretty common plot elements and tropes, but have always done those tropes really well, and each of its main characters - a trio of bruja sisters struggling with their teenage lives and their magical powers - have been really tremendous, which has led me to devour this series within a month. 

*The series was advertised at first as a trilogy and apparently there are no future books scheduled to be published; however, the series leaves open a clear fourth book possibility which the author has said in an interview might eventually come in the future.*

Wayward Witch focuses upon the third and last of the Mortiz sisters, 15 year old Rose, who was thought previously to have psychic powers dealing with the dead, but was revealed instead in book 2 to have powers based upon power-copying from other magical beings. Rose's mentality is sort of a combination of her older sisters from the prior books - like Alex, she feels disturbed by the expectations people now have of her new powers and like Lula, she feels a bit like no one understands the trauma she's undergone as a result not just of her older sisters' actions, but also her father's disappearance and reappearance without memory.  The result is another portal fantasy story like book 1, but one tailored quite differently as a result.  To be honest, this is probably my least favorite of the trilogy because it doesn't quite get as resolved as effectively on a character level, but it's still a strong YA novel and I really do hope it's not the end of the series.  


Note:  This book, like the rest in the series, is stand-alone in terms of its plot, but a lot of its character work and background is based upon developments from prior books in the series.  As such, I would not recommend starting with this book if you haven't read the prior works.  

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Wednesday, May 26, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy/Romance Review: Beyond Ruin by Kit Rocha

 




Beyond Ruin is the seventh novel in Kit Rocha's "Beyond" series, their post-apocalyptic erotic romance series which began with Beyond Shame.  If you haven't read my other reviews of the series and are starting here, let me give you a quick breakdown of what the series is:

In a future where solar flares wiped out technology and caused a breakdown of society, a city called Eden exists for the wealthy and supposedly puritan around what used to be Nevada and thinks themselves above it all.  Surrounding Eden are the eight Sectors, in which people live with whatever law their leaders can impose, which provides for the city in their own various ways - drugs from Sector Five, farming from Sectors Six and Seven, sex from Sector Two.  But the series revolves largely around Sector Four, led by bootlegger Dallas O'Kane and his O'Kane gang, who preaches the right people to freely live their lives, loving and fighting for others, and a whole lot of passion(ate sex), with each novel featuring at least one member of his gang and at least one other person falling together into a passionate romance, before their own issues and outside circumstances threaten to force them all apart and require them to figure a way to make up to each other and make it work.  Oh yeah and each novel features a LOT of sex scenes - and quite frequently orgy scenes - along the way because this is an erotic romance series, and they are really damn hot.

Beyond Ruin takes a new leap for the series in that it not only features a quartet (five of the six previous book featured a pairing at its center, with only book 4 Beyond Jealousy dealing with a trio) but also in how it manages to split the focus nearly evenly among the main quartet in such a way that the usual book arc doesn't apply.  And it throws in major new developments in the series' overall plot arc, which turns things on their head.  The result is a hot as hell erotic romance book featuring a M-M-F-F grouping, with characters struggling to reconcile their wants, their pains, and their hopes for themselves and others, in passion and otherwise, that comes together incredibly incredibly well.  Oh and did I mention how insanely sexy it all is?  Good lord.  Yeah this is a series highlight.  

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Tuesday, May 25, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri

 


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 June 8, 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 Jasmine Throne is the first book in Tasha Suri's new epic fantasy trilogy, The Burning Kingdoms.  Suri came onto the SF/F scene with her tremendous Books of Ambha duology (Empire of Sand, Realm of Ash).  Those books each featured mixed-race protagonists dealing with the after-effects of colonization and empire, re-discovering their heritages, and dealing with unexpected difficult romance to partners with their own issues.  They were really strong books, which made this book one I've been looking forward to even before it started getting serious hype.  

And The Jasmine Throne rewards the hype in spades.  Once again, this is an epic fantasy story featuring a pair from opposite sides of an Empire, who fall into an uneasy and this time sapphic romance.  And once more we deal with themes of power, colonization, and the aftermath thereabout, as we deal with a world with forgotten magic and an Empire ruled by an absolute monster.  And the story features a large tremendous cast of characters, all with their own agendas and interests, many of whom struggle with whether seeking the power to obtain their goals makes them monsters....and what will be left of them in the aftermath.  It's a hell of a trilogy opener, and well worth your time. 

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Monday, May 24, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy/Romance Review: Instructions for Dancing by Nicola Yoon

 



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 June 1, 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.

Instructions for Dancing is a Young Adult Romance/Rom-Com* novel by bestselling author Nicola Yoon.  Yoon is an author I'd peripherally been aware of but never tried, and to be honest when this book turned up on NetGalley under the YA category, I requested it more on a whim than anything - I'd been on a run of good SF/F romance novels, saw this listed and figured it kind of counted (and featured a non white couple at its heart), so why not.  

*There is a fantastical element to this book in that the protagonist begins to have visions after meeting a strange figure early on, visions that show her the past and future.  So I guess this could sort of count as modern fantasy, but for the most part this is a YA Romance Story.*

And Instructions for Dancing is just tremendous, sort of half coming of age story, half rom-com, dealing with a high school age girl whose family heartbreak has caused her to stop believing in the idea of love.  The protagonist, Evie, caught her divorcing father cheating on her mother, shattering her ideas of a happily ever after, and soon begins to have magical visions of couples getting together and then seemingly always breaking up in inevitable heartbreak, reinforcing her idea that love isn't worth it.  But of course fate brings her and a guy together and.....well, the result is both heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time in the end and will absolutely make you tear up as Evie realizes that love can be worth it for the moments in between, even if it may not last forever. 

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Friday, May 21, 2021

SciFi Novella Review: The Annual Migration of Clouds 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 September 28, 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 Annual Migration of Clouds by Premee Mohamed

The Annual Migration of Clouds is an upcoming novella by Indo-Caribbean/Canadian author Premee Mohamed, whose work I'm most familiar with from her Lovecraftian horror-thriller series that began with Beneath the Rising (Reviewed Here).  Mohamed's an author other writers I follow have highly recommended, and I've enjoyed a little bit, but hasn't really clicked for me the way she has for others.  So I was interested to see if my opinion would change outside of the Beneath The Rising setting.  

And this novella is really interesting and very much the type of story that generally appeals to me - a character focused story - set in a post-apoc Canada - featuring a young woman/teen in a world with seemingly no escape, with a parasitic illness affecting her mind and a mother who depends on her, given a chance at a new life in a better outside world, and feeling all the guilt that entails.  It's a story about relationships, about one's own will, about the risks one takes, and it works really well.  

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Thursday, May 20, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Siege of Rage and Ruin by Django Wexler

 




There are few books I've looked forward to more than Siege of Rage and Ruin, the third book in Django Wexler's "Wells of Sorcery" series.  This dark YA Fantasy series began two years ago with Ship of Smoke and Steel (Reviewed Here) and continued last year with City of Stone and Silence (Reviewed Here).  And when I say Dark, I mean there's some dark shit here - our heroine from book 1, Isoka begins that book by murdering one of her allies (and a lover) to stop him from selling her out and our other protagonist, her sister Tori in book 2, possesses the power of mind control and does a lot of dark shit with it.  But it's not pointless darkness, but instead one that's used to deal with interesting themes of power, leadership, and trying to do the right thing for oneself and perhaps for others, and how far is too far to go to ever be redeemable.  And book 2 was just tremendous on that score, as it introduced and really dealt with our second protagonist, Tori.  

Siege of Rage and Ruin isn't quite as good - it has to try to wrap things up, and I think it can't quite go where it probably should in terms of the ultimate fates of Tori and Isoka, two teenage girls with incredible powers who have done some pretty unforgivable things.  It also kind of cheats a bit by introducing a plot element that allows for an ending that wraps things up a bit too nicely.  And yet, it's still a really strong conclusion to the story of two really strong protagonists, complete with some really great action scenes, and is short enough to never wear out its welcome.  There could've been a lot more here, but I still really enjoyed this series and would be interested to see more in this world if Wexler ever wants to go there.  

Spoilers for Books 1 and 2 are inevitable.  

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SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Absolute Book by Elizabeth Knox

 




The Absolute Book is a fantasy novel by New Zealand author Elizabeth Knox, which came out last year in New Zealand and on Western shores this year after what was apparently some good press and a bidding war for the publication rights.  A review of the book on the Tor.com website, where I find a lot of my more obscure books (believe it or not), put it on my radar, although I had to push it back a few times from my library holds due to having too many books to read.  So when I finally had time to read it, I was curious how it would turn out, especially with me having kind of forgotten most of the context of the original review that I read of the book.  

Unfortunately, The Absolute Book just did not work for me and feels like an utter mess.  The book attempts to combine a number of religious, mythological, and fantasy concepts and settings, often without explanation, without taking the time to develop believable character reactions to facing such concepts.  It's a book that's a bit too obsessed for me in descriptions over characters, although to me even those descriptions (which I am never really that caring about) are often not done well to my eye, and has a bad habit of just assuming that readers and the characters are familiar with the mythological concepts being referenced so it never has to explain them.  Add in some really bad references to my own religion, and well - this is the rare book I have to give the contrary opinion of, and recommend against picking up.

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Wednesday, May 19, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Sweet Black Waves by Kristina Pérez

 




Sweet Black Waves is the start of a YA fantasy trilogy by Kristina Perez based upon the legend of Tristan and Isolt (aka Isolde or various other slightly different spellings), with the story taking place instead from the point of view of Isolt's lady maid Branwen.  I was largely unaware of the story - other than being familiar with the names - coming into this first novel, so I couldn't really be spoiled through this first novel (I've since looked up the story) which Pérez uses to tell her own story around the required plot beats of the classic tale.  The series managed to pick up some award recognition somewhere I can't recall among a bunch of other series I'd enjoyed, so I reserved this book a while ago for interlibrary loan to see how It'd stack up.  

And Sweet Black Waves is a strong and hard hitting first novel, in a very tragic fashion.  The story isn't hitting many significant modern themes - the most we have here really are the classic conflicts of love vs duty and the question of the "ends vs the means" - but it works really well as the start of a tragic romantic fantasy.  That's helped by its heroine, Branwen, being a really great characters, a teenage girl who finds her life upended by a man from the people who killed her family, her magical powers of healing and harm, and her closest family bond being stretched and torn.  If you aren't familiar with the legend, you'll find this a tale with some shocking and tragic turns that keeps you guessing - if you are familiar, you'll still find a number of surprises in how this winds up, and I'm really curious to see how this goes in book 2.  


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Tuesday, May 18, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Bruja Born by Zoraida Córdova

 





Bruja Born is the second book in Zoraida Córdova's young adult fantasy Brooklyn Brujas series, after Labyrinth Lost (Review Here).  This series features a trio of sisters from a family and underground community of Brujas (Spanish for Witches), each with their own sets of powers and a penchant for trouble.  The first book featured the middle girl, Alex, in a portal fantasy adventure to the magical realm of Los Lagos, a realm to which Alex had accidentally banished her entire family.  Alex had to rescue her family from seemingly days/weeks of imprisonment by an evil monster that had taken over Los Lagos, and the result was a really enjoyable fantasy story that combined a plot that follows a very classic portal fantasy script improved by a different cultural inspiration - Latin American/Ecuadorian Culture - and a non-het focused romantic subplot. 


Bruja Born shifts the focus to the oldest sister, Lula, an 18 year old girl with the magical power of healing, who used to love life and her magic....but has come out of her imprisonment with what is essentially PTSD and no one she feels she can really talk to about the whole situation.  And so when her boyfriend and most of her friends die in a bus crash, she attempts in desperation, haunted by having nothing else, to bring him back...to devastating results.  It's a much much less conventional narrative than the first book in the series - and urban fantasy instead of portal fantasy - and it mostly works really really well, as Lula has to get over her own trauma to make the realization that she actually does want to keep on living, and that there is a future for her to build off of.  Again, it's not perfect but it's still a strong YA fantasy that has me already reserving book 3 from the library.  

Note that while each book in this trilogy is kind of stand alone, this book builds upon book 1 significantly such that you will be lost if you start here, so don't really try.   

Note2: I read this in audiobook, and while the reader is different than the reader of book 1, she's still very good.  Recommended in that format.

Spoilers for book 1 below, but they don't matter much.

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Friday, May 14, 2021

SciFi Novella Review: Defekt by Nino Cipri

 



Defekt by Nino Cipri

Defekt is a stand-alone sequel to Nino Cipri's Hugo and Nebula nominated novella from 2020, Finna (which I reviewed here).  Finna was great - a story set in an alternate version of Ikea, whose corporate structure involves stores that occasionally feature wormholes to other universes, some of which were wild and crazy as they showed the (often-literal) vampiric nature of capitalism.  But what made Finna special was that it featured at its heart two queer exes after a breakup having to work together and to build a relationship without romance between the two of them.  It was a great piece of character work and a joy to read, even if it wasn't very long.  

Defekt continues the setting of the alternate Ikea (known as LitenVärld) but features a new main character - the supposedly perfect employee Derek who lives for nothing but helping others and more importantly, helping the store.  It's not quite as great as Finna, but it's still very good as it tells the story  - through magically coming to life furniture, clones, and the occasional wormhole to another world - of a guy having to realize there's nothing wrong with being different and with wanting something for himself, instead of just helping the entity he works for.  Once again it's an anti-capitalist story with a fun character arc alongside it, which makes it incredibly easy to finish in a single sitting, even if it doesn't quite match the relationship building of Finna. 

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Thursday, May 13, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: A Curse of Roses by Diana Pinguicha

 



A Curse of Roses is a YA Fantasy book written by Portuguese Author Diana Pinguicha.  It's a book that combines a few tales, but mainly focuses upon reimagining a Sainted Portuguese Queen from the 13th century (Rainha Santa Isabel).  In particular, the story reimagines Yzabel, and her legendary charity and act of turning food to roses, as a young lesbian woman struggling with her feelings towards other women - in particular one magical woman - in a world where every religious and other teaching would say such a thing is wrong.  As Pinguicha notes in her author's note at the beginning of the book, she wrote this story for other girls like her growing up who needed to know what they felt was absolutely normal and nothing to be ashamed of.  

And at that, A Curse of Roses works pretty well, featuring a protagonist with an unquestionably good heart struggling with feelings that go against all that she's been taught, with a magical power that she can't seemingly control, and a double standard she just can't seem to let go of.  It's not an easy book to read at times, as Yzabel takes drastic steps to punish herself for what she sees as sin, but it's very well done and ends in a very nice happy fashion.  If the book has issues, it's eliding over the Christian-Muslim conflict that was an issue at the time and underlines some of the characters (especially at the end), and well, any book that valorizes a historical figure probably has some issues...but even so, this is a very solid YA novel that will be helpful for LGBTQ teens in areas of the world where such a thing is shunned, like the author's hometown - and as such, it's a success.  

Trigger Warning: Self-Harm, Eating Disorders, and Homophobia.  Yzabel in an attempt to deal with her own emotions physically abuses herself and has herself whipped.  Her magic causes her to refuse to eat, and due to religious homophobia, she and others struggle to live with themselves.  May be difficult for some readers.  

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Wednesday, May 12, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Star Wars: Victory's Price by Alexander Freed

 





Victory's Price is the third and final book in Alexander Freed's Alphabet Squadron trilogy (which began with 2019's "Alphabet Squadron", which I reviewed here), a new canon Star Wars trilogy that I really went into with a lot of trepidation.  After all, the old X-Wing novels were probably up there in terms of most beloved old EU novels for Star Wars fans - and that was especially true for me.  But Alphabet Squadron, and its sequel Shadow Fall, really surprised me by taking a very different tone, a much more cynical tone than the old X-Wing novels ever did even as it again features a crew of starfighter pilots in the post RotJ fight against the Empire.  The first two novels dealt heavily with the questions of what to do with defectors, and people from the Empire who may have committed atrocities in the Empire's name, and what is there left to fight for when a war seems about over and so much has been lost. 

Victory's Price concludes the trilogy in tremendous fashion, featuring our main five characters - plus Rebels fan favorite Hera Syndulla - as they reach an ultimate conclusion in their journeys.  The plot manages to answer some questions while at least exploring other themes that can't really have an easy conclusive answer, as our traumatized group of pilots, and their seemingly turncoat leader, attempt to figure out what comes next and what really matters.  In a way, this book and the trilogy seems very much to be a darker, more serious take on the old Wraith Squadron trilogy, right down to the question of a defector and whether she can ever be redeemed, but with more depth than that trilogy ever even tried to pull off.  And it works, for the most part, really damn well, being one of the few new canon works I've read that I will highly recommend.  

Spoilers for books 1-2 are inevitable below:

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Tuesday, May 11, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Blackwing War by K.B. Spangler

 





The Blackwing War is the first in K.B. Spangler's Deep Witches trilogy, a SF/F series she's been working on and occasionally tweeting about for a long time.  Spangler is best known for her A Girl and her Fed webcomic and its related spin-off novels, as well as for her amusing social media presence, which I've enjoyed quite a bit.  In 2017, she released Stoneskin (which I reviewed here), which she described as a "prequel" to the Deep Witches trilogy, introducing the central concept of the series and its main character, Tembi Stoneskin.  I liked Stoneskin a bit, and really was interested in the story's potential, so I was excited to try and read the start of the series proper when it came out this year.  

And The Blackwing War is a really interesting, often strong novel.  The novel deals essentially with two themes: first, how do you deal with a power that can massively change the universe when that power has its own mind and interests and is almost like a child, and second, when one has power, how can one stay on the sidelines and watch when others are suffering....or are being subject to genocide?  This second theme, guided by the book's pretty strong cast of characters, works really well and takes the plot in an interesting direction , although how it's intertwined with the first isn't nearly as successful.  Still, Spangler's prose made it impossible for me to put this down, and I am really excited to see where this goes from here.  

*NOTE:  You do NOT need to read Stoneskin before reading this novel - in fact, I'd argue you're better off starting with this novel if you haven't already read Stoneskin for reasons I'll explain after the jump.  


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Monday, May 10, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Galaxy Game by Karen Lord

 





The Galaxy Game is the sequel to Karen Lord's sci-fi novel, The Best of All Possible Worlds (which I reviewed here).  However, while this is very much a sequel (see below), it is a very very different book from its predecessor.  The Best of All Worlds was essentially a scifi romance/anthropological novel, featuring an empathic heroine helping a group of telepaths whose world was destroyed visit different communities and cultures settled long ago by distant ancestors, in the hopes of saving the telepaths' race by marrying back in.  Along the way you got a really lovely and charming slow romance to go along with some really interesting examination of different cultures, as well as a few ethical dilemmas as to what to do when those examinations go very very wrong.  It wasn't a simple narrative, but it wasn't particularly hard to understand and it was oh so charming.  

By contrast, The Galaxy Game takes those same characters a few years later, particularly our former heroine's nephew Rafi, and throws them into a new story about essentially the power of connections, rather than romance in any fashion.  It's a story that takes a lot of what made The Best of All Possible Worlds into a happy ending and throws it out - and the story that it creates out of that mess is often incredibly confusing...especially due to the sheer number of perspectives we see the story from.  There's an interesting story here at this one's core, as the 2-3 main protagonists find their way in a new universe based upon their connections to other people, but it's kind of overwhelmed by everything else, and thus a bit of a miss for me.  

NOTE:  This book is in absolutely no way a stand alone.  The book is confusing enough for a reader who has read The Best of All Possible Worlds within the same week - if you don't have the background from that novel, you will be hopelessly lost here.  


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Friday, May 7, 2021

Fantasy Novella Review: The Silence of the Wilting Skin by Tlotlo Tsamaase

 


The Silence of the Wilting Skin by Tlotlo Tsamaase 

The Silence of the Wilting Skin is a 2020 short novella (probably more qualifies as a novelette by Hugo definition) that I missed when it first came out in 2020.  But despite its short length, its a novella with a ton of symbolism and a lot of power, telling the tale of a young African woman whose family, culture and heritage are steadily being steadily erased, stolen, and trampled on by privileged other, with no regard for what it is doing.  And I mean a lot of symbolism, but whereas such works (often annoyingly referred to as "literary") sometimes bounce off me, this one really works and is well worth your time.  


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Thursday, May 6, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Córdova

 


Labyrinth Lost is the start of Zoraida Córdova's YA fantasy trilogy: Brooklyn Brujas.  The title of the series is a bit misleading - this first book features very little of Brooklyn and instead is mostly a portal fantasy that takes place in a fantasy world.  But the story does feature a fantasy magic world filled with Brujas (and Brujos) inspired by Latin-American (and the author's Ecuadorian background) culture.  I've read one prior book by Córdova which I enjoyed a bit, so I was curious to try out this finished series in audiobook at some point.  

And Labyrinth Lost is a pretty enjoyable YA portal fantasy.  It takes a pretty classic YA fantasy portal fantasy plot that will remind you of probably a million other stories, but bases its magical world on a non-English culture and features a really strong lead character.  And while a lot of it is very predictable it does enough differently to keep me invested and to make me interested in continuing to the next book in the series.  It never really reaches a level that makes me definitely WANT to recommend it to more adult readers, but it's still very enjoyable so I can hardly complain.

Note: I read this book in audiobook format, and the reader is very good, so I recommend the book in that format.

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Wednesday, May 5, 2021

Book Review: The Quiet Boy by Ben H. Winters

 



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 May 18, 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 Quiet Boy is not my usual type of book I review on this blog - it's arguably a legal/detective thriller, rather than science fiction or fantasy, although potential fantastical elements are present at times throughout and pose potential explanations for some of what is going on.  I'm an attorney in real life, practicing in New York, and so while I grew up loving legal dramas on TV (hello Law & Order), I've found it hard to enjoy legal matters in fiction recently, due to inaccuracies driving me a bit crazy.  But in books, trials and other legal references can often make me smile when done right, and so when I was offered an ARC to The Quiet Boy, which suggested two trials as well as a potential tie to the supernatural, I was willing to give it a shot.  

The Quiet Boy is unfortunately, everything I absolutely despise about the worst legal dramas in fiction, despite the claims by the author in the acknowledgements that he did research at a medical malpractice firm.  The book features an exaggeratedly incompetent and somewhat awful med-mal/personal injury attorney, two timelines featuring two trials - a civil in the older one and a criminal trial in the present day timeline - that are portrayed horribly unrealistically for no good reason, with just bad legal practices shown repeatedly in unrealistic ways, and then relies upon a totally impractical legal solution to come up with a "happy" ending.  And the characters themselves aren't really that interesting, or develop in interesting ways, with the more interesting of the two storylines essentially falling apart in the end into a really boring done way too many times before ending.  Just like, no.  Maybe for non-lawyers this might be okay, but even then I don't think it's worth your time - if you are a lawyer, skip this one HARD.  

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Tuesday, May 4, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Son of the Storm by Suyi Davies Okungbowa

 





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 May 11, 2021 in exchange for a potential review.  I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way (if I'd hated the book, I just would not have reviewed it). 


Son of the Storm is the start of a new epic fantasy trilogy by Nigerian author Suyi Davies Okungbowa, who previously debuted with 2019's "David Mogo, Godhunter" (which I reviewed here).  That book featured a post-apoc Nigerian story of a demigod dealing with the interference of actual African gods on what's left of life in the country, and had a really strong lead character....and pretty much nothing else.  The result was interesting, but not really something I loved due to the lack of character depth.  But that book was stand alone (and a debut) and so I was curious how the first book in an epic fantasy trilogy - a genre that more specifically relies upon a breadth of interesting characters - would work out in his hands.  

Son of the Storm very much justifies my decision, with the novel featuring really strong lead characters, and a fascinating dark epic fantasy plot with some really interesting themes.  The story takes a classic fantasy protagonist trope - the hero with a thirst for knowledge in a land that has clearly suppressed it - and subverts it in interesting ways, while centering particularly two characters who don't fit in a society with a strict caste system and who react to it in different ways.  Add in themes of race and being mixed-race (built into said class system), immigration, and the costs of defiance and you have some really strong themes that this story takes in some surprising directions....and the novel ends off in a place that makes me really curious what's coming next.  A really really strong start to a new series.  

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Monday, May 3, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Angel of the Overpass by Seanan McGuire

 




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 May 11, 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.

Angel of the Overpass is the third book in Seanan McGuire's "Ghost Roads" series, featuring the adventures of Hitchhiking Ghost and urban legend Rose Marshall, set within the InCryptid Universe.  The first book, Sparrow Hill Road (Reviewed Here) was essentially a collection in order of a set of short stories published originally elsewhere, and while I enjoyed some of those stories a lot - particularly McGuire's imagination as she describes Rose's adventures dealing with the various types of ghosts and other beings that inhabit the Twilight/Other Ghostly Planes - they didn't quite form a fully cohesive whole.  The second book, The Girl in the Green Silk Gown (Reviewed Here), was a more cohesive novel but one that took Rose out of the Twilight and back into the living for most of it, which kind of ruined a lot of my enjoyment in the series.  So while I enjoy McGuire in general, and very much love InCryptid, which this kind of spun-off of, I wasn't that excited for book 3 of this series.  

Angel of the Overpass however delivers on pretty much what I was hoping to find in this series after book 1.  This novel, which might or might not end the series, features both a cohesive whole story that still finds time for smaller adventures where Rose Marshall - now back to being a hitchhiking ghost - has to deal with other beings and interactions with the non-mortal planes, and they're an absolute blast to read.  And the overall story is nice and conclusive and follows cleanly from what came before, for the most part.  If this is the end of this series, it's a really strong one, and if it's not, well now for the first time I'm really excited to read more.  

Note:  More so than the other two books in the series, events in this book are very much influenced by the 8th InCryptid book, 2019's "That Ain't Witchcraft."  You don't need to read that book to enjoy this one - enough is explained I think that you'll be okay without it - but it probably helps.  

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