Monday, January 31, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Azura Ghost by Essa Hansen

 




Full Disclosure:  This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained from the publisher in advance of the book's release on February 1, 2022 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.      


Azura Ghost is the second book in Essa Hansen's "Graven" trilogy, which began in 2020 with her "Nophek Gloss" (reviewed on this blog here).  Nophek Gloss was a pretty interesting trilogy starter, featuring as its setting a "multiverse" of different worlds and species - where the worlds "multiverse" and "universe" aren't really used to describe whole fully scoped out universes, but different worlds and even smaller sized spaces featuring different physics and other rules that make certain universes better or worse for certain beings, depending on their physical traits.   The story also dealt with not just a space opera found family situation, as protagonist Caiden finds himself rescued from a massacre by an oddball crew of explorers, but also heavily with the ideas of consent and supernatural persuasion, as various characters, including the leaders of two factions and the protagonist, find themselves with nearly uncontrollable abilities of persuasion, which make it impossible for them to stop others from loving them and wanting to follow their every desire.  In this world, Caiden had to figure out who he was as he grew up, sought out his revenge, and had to deal with the fear that his friends' support was only due to this power, and not their own free wills. 

It was a really interesting story, although it didn't quite fully work due to not having enough time to really spend developing the character relationships, and left off with an intriguing cliffhanger, promising a dangerous reunion between Caiden and the childhood sister figure, Leta, now in the hands of one of the most dangerous persons in the multiverse.  

The result is a story that is at times really fascinating, especially when it comes from the struggles of Caiden and Leta to deal with who they each have grown up to be, and what remains of their relationship.  The story contrasts that with the relationship between the sibling antagonists, and this works really well.  The story's dealing with the Graven (charming) power and its implications, doesn't always get the focus it should, with Caiden's ability to control it making him a little less interesting, but it still largely works and keeps this story feeling fairly fresh as events go further and further out of control.  And then there's the further exploration of the multiverse, which works as well.  All in all, Azura Ghost is a very enjoyable second installment, leaving me eager to see how this trilogy concludes.  

Spoilers for Book 1 below.  Note that I wound up doing a full reread of book 1 prior to reading this book, and I probably recommend that for any readers here - as this book annoyingly does not contain a summary or any in-text recaps of what happened previously for readers to catch up:

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Friday, January 28, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Actual Star by Monica Byrne

 





The Actual Star is a novel by Monica Byrne, which I've seen show up on a few "best SF/F books of the year" lists.  It's a story based in three time periods - each a thousand years apart, with the first being set in Ancient Maya Civilization cerca 1012, the second being set around the modern day in 2012, and third being set in a distant future in 3012, with the story rotating between the three timelines every chapter.  The book is clearly the result of a lot of research into Ancient Maya Civilization and other topics and languages, as made clear by the very impressive author's note prior to the beginning of the story, and it does show, with the author not only featuring the Ancient Civilization as a setting, but also incorporates various languages as best as she can, ranging from recognizable Spanish to various creoles.  

Unfortunately, The Actual Star very much did not work for me, with its three timelines not really going anywhere that interested me, the story's messages seeming often muddled and then not really working in the ending.  The three storylines do coalesce in the end - more literally than I expected - but the way they do didn't really work, with several of those storylines featuring late act twists that seemed counterproductive to the messages/stories being told.  There are some interesting ideas here about progress, utopia, and the risk in trying to better the world by breaking the rules without moving backwards to the worse times that required those rules to begin with, as well as about families found and blood, but they really are not served by the ending, which just sort of gives up on it all.  

Trigger Warning: Self-Harm (Cutting).  Also Incest.  Euthanasia of a Dying individual.  

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Thursday, January 27, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Cyber Mage by Saad Z Hossain

 




Cyber Mage is a cyberpunk novel by Bangladeshi author Saad Z Hossain.  The book features a combination of classic cyberpunk themes - a world where corporations have taken over, the poor are exploited for the sake of the rich shareholders and seemingly anything goes among the slums, hackers are a major big deal as are AIs and nanotech etc. - with Muslim/Bangladeshi myth, most notably that of Djinn.  It's also a book, that uses its 2089 setting to make a ton of references, some of which will make you laugh or smile and others of which will make you groan.  

Overall I liked Cyber Mage more than I expected from the start, as the book's narrative features as one of its protagonists the eponymous Cyber Mage, a teenage boy hacker named Murzak, whose initial plot of going to high school solely to woo a pretty girl and getting bullied as a result is cringey at best, and made me very much want to stop reading.  But the rest of the book, featuring the unstoppable Djinn-armed and sword-wielding Djibrel (who has a tendency to cut off heads), massively powerful AI, and a massive conspiracy works really well and is highly entertaining, getting me really into seeing how it all finished.  More specifics after the jump:


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Wednesday, January 26, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Untold Story by Genevieve Cogman

 


The Untold Story is the eighth book in Genevieve Cogman's "Invisible Library" series. one of the most fun and enjoyable scifi/fantasy (sort of a hybrid) series to come out over the past couple of years.  The series, which features an interdimensional library that steals unique books from various worlds, worlds caught up in the conflict between chaos (fae) and order (dragons), is a blast to read, and I've basically read each book in a single day because I've been unable to put each installment down.  It helps that protagonist Irene is an inventive, fun and easy to root for and care about character, as she tries to deal with Fae, Dragons, Rogue Librarians, and anyone else who gets in her way as she tries at first to track down unique copies of books in the multiverse and then - as the series develops - to help keep the balance of power between the Fae, Dragons, and the Library.  

The Untold Story is book 8 of this series, so unsurprisingly it's not a place to start this series, as this story follows up on major plot developments at the end of the last book, The Dark Archive.  It's also - to my surprise - the end of the series' major story arcs, although the author makes it clear in the acknowledgements that she hopes to one day return to the series for further stories in this multiverse.  

And more importantly, the Untold Story is still tremendous fun, with great dialogue, a still terrific set of main characters, and a plot that once again kept me riveted and forced me to keep reading until I finished the book in a single day (on my morning commute, my lunch break, and my commute home).  So yeah, still highly recommend this series if you want some fun SF/F and look forward to what Cogman puts forward next.  

Spoilers for the rest of the series below (although the major spoiler is one you could've guessed after book 1):

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Tuesday, January 25, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: You Sexy Thing by Cat Rambo

 



You Sexy Thing is a space opera novel - and presumably the opener in a series - by well known SF/F author  (although usually for short fiction) Cat Rambo.  The novel features a crappy world - a galaxy filled with empires with wishes on expansion, war and control, as well as pirates, rich assholes, and more - and a cast of people who escaped from the militaries of one of those empires by becoming restaurantors.  The result is a space opera in the vein of Tim Pratt's The Axiom or Valerie Valdes' Chilling Effect (Both of which were really good), although it's a bit darker than either of those series.  

Still, even with it not quite being as humorous as those two series, I liked You Sexy Thing a good bit.  The story takes place from a Third Person omniscient point of view (as pointed out by the dedication), and uses that perspective to give us a cast that is very very likable, and who you will easily start to care about as they face rough situations.  Those situations wind up in some dark places, and not every character survives, but the wit of some aspects of the situation and the likability of the cast, and the very solid enjoyable prose and dialogue makes it easy to keep reading.  This appears to be the start of a new series, with several sequel hooks, and I'll be very interested to see those followed up upon.  

Trigger Warning: Torture.  


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Monday, January 24, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Violence by Delilah S. Dawson

 



Full Disclosure:  This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained from the publisher in advance of the book's release on February 1, 2022 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 Violence is the latest novel from author Delilah S. Dawson, who has written a ton of works under at least three different names - although I honestly haven't read too much of her long fiction.  As explained by the author's note that opens the novel, it's also a very personal novel, because it uses its science fiction concept - a new pandemic that makes people go into mindless violent rages with superhuman strength, pummeling and usually killing those in their way - to deal with the subject of spousal and domestic abuse, and how it perpetuates and how the victims are changed and react to the abuse.  

And the result is often hard to read, but is still very powerful and very good in the end.  The story follows three generations of women in a family: mother Chelsea, spouse to an abusive husband who belittles and physically abuses her along with his friends; daughter Ella, scared of her father and stuck in a relationship with the boy at school everyone loves, who tries to make her do things she's uncomfortable with; and grandma Patricia, who escaped an abusive mother and has camouflaged herself as a trophy wife for a series of rich husbands and pushed away her blood family as an inconvenience for her security.  The characters (especially Patricia) aren't always likable, and the story sometimes gets almost a bit too ridiculous for believability, but it really works at showing the horror of abuse even in a world with truly random violence, and ends thankfully on a happy note.  Mainly.  

Trigger Warnings: Domestic Violence, Physical and Emotional Abuse and how it affects people and how tough it is to get through it are the central theme of this book.  The book also features animal and pet death, brutally so in at least one case.  As noted above and below, this is a very strong book for its themes, but how it gets there will not be for everyone.

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Friday, January 21, 2022

SciFi Novella Review: Sisters of the Forsaken Stars by Lina Rather

 


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 February 15, 2022 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.  


Sisters of the Forsaken Stars by Lina Rather

Sisters of the Forsaken Stars is the sequel to 2019's Sisters of the Vast Black (Reviewed Here), scifi novella featuring a convent of very different nuns traveling the outskirts of human space on a living ship, who found themselves struggling with their pasts, their faiths, and their duties towards religion and to helping other most of all when they find themselves in the middle of a conflict between a corrupt Earth government and a distant colony world.  It was a solid story with some very nice themes and pretty good characters...but it was also so short that it didn't really make as much of an impact as it might have otherwise.  

Sisters of the Forsaken Stars follows up on that first novella (don't read this one first) with a story that feels more like the middle of a trilogy, and again feels awfully short.  Still it's again a solid story, of a group of women now seemingly adrift on the run, unsure what to do now that their circumstances have changed, with their faith challenged, and with their life on the run hindering them from the one thing that kept them together - helping people, especially with the galaxy on the verge of war due to their actions and the actions of the tyrant Earth government.  It's again very solid, but again feels almost too short for what it's trying to do, in addition to feeling like a middle chapter in a longer story.  


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Thursday, January 20, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Club Ded by Nikhil Singh

 



Club Ded is the second novel from South African author Nikhil Singh.  The book was a finalist for this year's Nommo Award - an award celebrating the best African work of speculative (science fiction/fantasy) fiction.  It also picked up a nomination for the BSFA Award which is awarded by the British Science Fiction Association.  

And its well.....something for sure, a psychedelic satire (not always in the humorous way) featuring a set of characters coming to or living in South Africa all of whom come into contact with a new psychedelic drug.  The book features a ton of characters, a ton of different plotlines, not all of whom ever connect with each other - and the book jumps back and forth between them and various characters in ways that make this feel as disoriented as the characters on the drug. And the story uses it all to critique colonialism and foreign interference, racist and sexist behavior, as well as to deal with issues of abuse and the struggles to stay on the straight and narrow (ish) towards healthy desires.  This book is so jam packed I definitely missed some of what happened and some themes.  

Trigger Warning:  Rape, Abuse (of Adults and a Teenage Girl), Alcoholism, Racism, Sexism, transphobia, Drug Usage - both voluntary and forced - and Suicide.  These things are not without purpose for the most part, but this may be too much for a lot of readers, even if nothing is heavily descriptive.  

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Wednesday, January 19, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Mage of Fools by Eugen Bacon

 



Full Disclosure:  This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained from the publisher in advance of the book's release on March 15, 2022 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.     

Mage of Fools is the latest novel by African-Australian author Eugen Bacon, and the third experience I've had with her work.  The first was in her novelette/short story "A Maji Maji Chronicle", which was published as part of the Dominion anthology (Reviewed Here), and which I really enjoyed.  The second was as part of an anthology of her work that was, well, different, hitting a number of interesting ideas while also being so weird that sometimes I honestly had little idea what to think.  Mage of Fools is the first novel-length story of Bacon's I've had the opportunity to try, and so I was really curious what I'd be getting here.  

What I got is a novel that might not make full sense if you think about it in pragmatic terms, but is rich in themes and ideas.  The novel features a young mother in an African country Mafinga, turned into a dystopian socialist state where all the men have been killed by an alien sorcerer and follows that young mother Jasmin as she struggles to remember the better times and fights for a return to such times despite her lack of power.  It's a story of love - both romantic and communal, of ties together and of losses, and of how that can get lost when loses the individual as well.  There's also a part where the story gets incredibly weird scifi-y all of a sudden, in a way that feels very differen tfrom everything else.  I'm honestly not sure I've gotten all of what Bacon is going for here, but well, I'll try to explain the best I can.  


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Tuesday, January 18, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi

 



The Death of Vivek Oji is the third novel by author Akwaeke Emezi, who previously wrote the acclaimed books "Freshwater" and "Pet" (I reviewed Pet here).  I really liked Pet, which featured a trans girl in a seeming utopia that had supposedly gotten rid of the "monsters" of society, and has seemingly forgotten how to recognize a monster when it comes back.  This third novel of theirs was just declared the winner of this year's Nommo Award for best African Speculative Fiction book in 2020*, so I immediately picked it up from my elibrary to give it a read.  

*Note:  Though this won the Nommo Award, this book features only minor speculative elements - the eponymous character is implied to be the reincarnation of their grandmother, as exemplified by them being born with the grandma's distinctive scar/birthmark and then later seems to be viewing events as a ghost.  So fair warning for those looking for explicit SF/F*

The Death of Vivek Oji is a powerful story of a younger LGBTQ generation in a still very homophobic Nigeria.  The story is told from multiple perspectives: the two first person perspectives of its two main characters (Vivek and Osita) as they (especially Osita) struggle to understand their feelings and desires, and a third person more omniscient perspective following their parents and the older generation as they struggle to understand Vivek and themselves during Vivek's life and afterwards.  It's a short novel, but took me a while to read due to its difficult and yet impossible to ignore material.  

Trigger Warnings:  Homophobia, Transphobia, Rape (off page, but an attempt on a prominent character), Domestic Abuse, Child/Religious Abuse, Incest (first cousins) etc.  None of this is gratuitous and nearly all of it serves an essential purpose towards the story's message, but this is not an easy book to read.   

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Monday, January 17, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Veiled Throne by Ken Liu

 



The Veiled Throne is the third book in Ken Liu's Dandelion Dynasty trilogy, a series which started with 2015's "The Grace of Kings", and continued with 2016's "The Wall of Storms".  The Grace of Kings was in fact one of the first books I read once I got back into reading in 2015, and it was one of the first books I tried to review on twitter (sadly the tweets are seemingly lost), and it was one of my favorite books of that year, as an epic fantasy with a sprawling narrative that often defied Western ideas of clear protagonists and antagonists, or straightforward story-arcs at all.  The follow up book, The Wall of Storms, was a bit more conventional, but still really good with its new generation of characters, including two who I fell in love with (and who fell in love with each other).  The Wall of Storms ended in a clear cliffhanger, unlike its predecessor, which I didn't give much thought to at the time given that the first two books came out a year apart.  

Naturally it took four years before any word would come of the next book in the series - and that word came with an announcement that said book was being split into two - this book, The Veiled Throne, and a fourth and final book, The Speaking Bones.  And well...though I remembered the general ideas of the series, I needed to do a reread of at least book 2 before I felt comfortable tackling this one, which was not a minor undertaking as each of these books are like 700 pages long.  

So was The Veiled Throne worth the wait and the reread?  Mostly.  The book is, despite being ~900 pages depending on the format, clearly incomplete, as many plot threads don't even get cliffhangers but just aren't followed up on and left for the next book to go anywhere.  At the same time, the book is, like The Grace of Kings, a story that jumps around constantly between characters and arcs old and new, large and small, hitting on many themes such as the means of power, the wants and desires of people small and great, and most significantly the power of storytelling and the question of what is truth and what are lies.  It's a fascinating work that just makes me want the conclusion of this series all the more, to see where Liu is going with everything.  

Note: Spoilers for Books 1-2 are inevitable below:  

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SciFi/Fantasy Anthology Review: Reclaim the Stars (Edited by Zoraida Córdova)

 



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 February 1, 2022 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.    

Reclaim the Stars is an anthology of short science fiction and fantasy stories from authors of the Latin American diaspora.  The anthology features a number of well known and acclaimed authors who I've read and loved - Romina Garber, Mark Oshiro, Lilliam Rivera, Zoraida Córdova, David Bowles, Daniel José Older - as well as a few authors I'd never heard of before.  Per the publishing, two of the stories are even by authors who had yet to publish anything in genre before.  Seeing the authors I've loved being part of this anthology made it a no brainer for me to request on NetGalley, and I decided to read it differently than I usually did - by reading a few stories a day for about a week and a half, rather than treating it as single book to be enjoyed in a single sitting.  

And well this anthology is very much worth your time, featuring stories of romance, of bittersweet memory and moving forward, of families, of traditions and cultures, and more.  There are 17 stories in all, split into three groups - the first dealing with science fiction, the second dealing with modern fantasy tales, and the third dealing with fantasy tales from the past and out there.  And each category has some clear winners, which makes this one easy to recommend.  

More specifics after the jump:


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SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Machine by Elizabeth Bear



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.


Machine is the latest book by prolific and renowned Scifi/Fantasy author Elizabeth Bear, and the second book in her "White Space" series, following 2018's "Ancestral Night" (which I reviewed on this blog here).  I really liked Ancestral Night a lot - it took a space opera setting and made it a fascinating exploration of who one really is in a world where emotions can be controlled on demand with chemicals.  Oh it also included space pirates, ancient precursor technology and a praying mantis space cop.  So I was really excited to get an advance copy of this book, which is a stand alone* sequel in the same universe.

*Yes Machine is perfectly stand alone, with only small references to Ancestral Night and only one major shared character, whose experiences in the prior book basically don't come into play.  You don't need to read Ancestral Night first to enjoy this book.*

 And Machine is another really interesting SciFi novel, if not quite as effective as Ancestral Night.  Like its predecessor, it uses its setting and plot - a SciFi mystery/conspiracy/thriller plot centering around a galactic hospital in a socialist galaxy! - to propel a story really about a single character's development and a single theme.  In this case, the theme is about "Faith" - not in the religious sense, but in having something or someone one can believe in, and what happens when that belief is shaken.  Again, I don't mean to make this sound like some boring novel about introspection: we have aliens, multiple AIs, ancient ships with frozen people, a hospital run by a space tree, and a billion other interesting concepts to go a long with a compelling if sometimes a bit confusing scifi mystery plot around it all.  So maybe this isn't quite as fantastic as its predecessor, but it's still very good and well worth your time.


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Thursday, January 13, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Our Violent Ends by Chloe Gong

 




Our Violent Ends is the second half of Chloe Gong's YA* fantasy adaptation of Romeo and Juliet set in 1920s Shanghai, which began with last year's "These Violent Delights" (Reviewed Here).  Shifting the two protagonists - now Juliette Cai and Roma Montagov - to leaders of gangs in 1920s Shanghai, which is controlled in large part by foreign powers and also faces rival Nationalist and Communist Chinese factions, the story felt incredibly fresh even as it hit familiar plot beats.  So you had your classic Romeo and Juliet plot points (your balcony scene, your fake death) to go along with themes of colonialism, what it means for a place to be a home and a family to be a family, of love and of being one's self and more.  Oh and Juliette here is a ruthless heir to the gang more at home with garotte wire than a dress too, just to mix things up, and she and Roma worked so well, right up until the cliffhanger of the last book split them apart.  

*This duology is marketed as Young Adult, but other than the two leads being nineteen, there really isn't anything young adult about it, just as the original Romeo and Juliet isn't considered young adult.  I would easily recommend this series to adults, as it's just as serious and contemplative of real historical events and serious themes as any adult work, and similar books in the genre have been marketed specifically not as YA*

Our Violent Ends picks up months later and forms a very impressive conclusion to this duology.  1927 Shanghai was a volatile place that resulted in a horrific tragedy, and that forms the backdrop to this book, as Roma and Juliette are forced back together, as they try to save the ones they care about.  Their love is tested by a situation both fantastical - the monsters from the last book sort of return - and historical, as they find themselves caught up even worse in a conflict without any good sides or good answers, leading to an explosive conclusion.  I loved these characters in book 1, and I loved them again here, and this is a hell of a conclusion, once more dealing with serious themes as it challenges its protagonists' loves.  

Spoilers for book 1 below:  

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Wednesday, January 12, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy/Romance Book Review: The Magic Between by Stephanie Hoyt

 




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 February 15, 2022 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 Magic Between is a fantasy M-M romance novel by author Stephanie Hoyt, coming out of queer press Ninestar Press.  The book's description feels like it was pretty much targeted directly at me - it's a fantasy romance featuring not just a pop star as a protagonist, but more importantly....a hockey player (a goalie prospect).  Needless to say, it was an easy click once I saw this pop up on NetGalley, because my interests don't align like this in a book too often, outside minor things like a character from a Seanan McGuire novel popping up with a CWHL jersey.  That said, I worried that a lot of things could have gone wrong in featuring a M-M romance in hockey, which (like most pro sports although probably worse) is known to feature plenty of homophobia in the culture and locker rooms.

I needn't have worried, as The Magic Between is an absolutely charming romance story, featuring two Bi protagonists - one of which doesn't realize he's Bi at first but does not react poorly to the revelation - and handles the issues of homophobia in sports/hockey fairly well.  The romance is absolutely delightful, aided by both the fantasy backdrop in which pretty much everyone has some degree of magic and by the characters themselves - pop star with OCD/trauma issues AB and top NHL goalie prospect and NCAA goalie Matthew.  Both members of the couple deal with their doubts as they try and explore their love, a magical bond, and more, and the side characters who support them are lovely, even as they both deal with the awfulness of people on social media and in other places.  It's not the greatest romance I've read, and if you're looking for hot sex scenes you won't find it here, but if you're a hockey fan and a romance fan, or even just a fantasy romance fan, this will be very much up your alley.  

Trigger Warning: Homophobia, Biphobia.  

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Tuesday, January 11, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: In the Serpent's Wake by Rachel Hartman

 
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 February 1, 2022 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.    

In the Serpent's Wake is the long awaited sequel to 2018's Tess of the Road (My review here) by Rachel Hartman, one of my favorite books of the last 5 years.  The story, a spin-off from Hartman's Seraphina duology (which I didn't read before reading Tess) featured its protagonist, 17-year old Tess, escaping a family who treated her as a shame due to a childhood pregnancy (caused by rape), and going on an adventure on the Road alongside a childhood friend to find a mythological creature, encountering others suffering and thriving alongside the road, and both finding and not finding a way to overcome her own trauma, as well as a purpose for her in life.  The story doesn't provide easy answers, and makes it clear that one can heal and not heal at the same time, and worked perfectly as a stand-alone, even as it promised a further adventure.  

But In the Serpent's Wake is a VERY different book from its predecessor, not just in expanding its viewpoint to other characters, but in moving the plot beyond Tess dealing with her own trauma into Tess trying to discover the traumas and pains of others in the world - especially those suffering from the evils of colonization in a fantasy archipelago.  Pairing Tess with a Countess who at her heart knows what her people are doing is wrong but insists upon staying neutral and not doing anything because of her own perilous standing as a woman, the story takes on not just the evils of colonization, and all of its horrors, but both the white liberal and the white savior tropes/phenomena.  Like its predecessor, In the Serpent's Wake offers no easy answers, and the answers it offers are often contradictory, but it works, even if not quite as well put together as Tess of the Road.   

TRIGGER WARNING:  As you should expect from the first story, Rape is part of Tess's backstory, and that plays a role here as well.  Meanwhile this story deals heavily with the evils of colonization, particularly of Island peoples (by essentially a European stand-in), complete with torture, brutality, religious and cultural oppression, racism - both explicit and implicit.  This is all handled well, but it may not be for all readers.  

Note:  I do not think you can read this book without reading Tess of the Road first, but the book includes a recap of that book (amazingly, in verse), so if you've read the first book, you will not need to reread it to jump right into this book.  

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Monday, January 10, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Seven Mercies by Laura Lam and Elizabeth May

 


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 January 25, 2022 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.    

Seven Mercies is the second half of a "feminist"* space opera duology by authors Laura Lam and Elizabeth May, which began last year with "Seven Devils" (reviewed by me here).  I really liked Seven Devils' strong setting - crapsack space opera world largely ruled by an Empire that utilized terrifying AI and bio-engineering technology to control its citizens - and main characters, and Lam and May's prose was really easy to read, making me tear through this book quite quickly.  On the other hand, I did NOT love its ending, which was incredibly dark and kind of jarring in how it came about, leaving things in a really crappy cliffhanger ending.  If this wasn't a duology, I probably would've been put off enough by that not to come back, but it is, so I was willing to give this second book a try to see if it would resolve the cliffhanger in a more satisfactory way.  

*I put feminist in quotation marks because, as I noted in that review, very little about this space opera's first half was feminist other than our main characters all identifying as women - which might've been enough to define something as feminist in the past, but I don't think it does nowadays.  The Empire they're fighting against is dystopian and evil, but doesn't seem sexist or chauvinist, nor is that really a theme.  The Empire does enforce a gender binary, but that's an issue of Queerness, not Feminism?  So it's kind of an odd word to use. 

To my pleasure, Seven Mercies does exactly that, with its seven main characters all now getting point of view chapters (previously, only 5 did), and them having deal with that dark crappy ending in a way that works fairly well - which is impressive given how low the authors left those characters at the end of book 1.  Again, I'm not sure I'd call it feminist, but it's certainly Queer, featuring trans and non-binary characters in the main cast, and the story's themes of free will, of struggling with one's past misdeeds, and of found family and working towards a better future vs simply accepting the awful world for what it is work really really well.  It's still not something I'd describe as must read, but it is very enjoyable, and I'm happy I came back for book 2.  Spoilers for Book 1 below:

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Friday, January 7, 2022

Fantasy Novella Review: Masquerade in Lodi by Lois McMaster Bujold

 


Masquerade in Lodi by Lois McMaster Bujold

Masquerade in Lodi is the 8th novella in Lois McMaster Bujold's Penric & Desdemona series of fantasy novellas (which take place in her larger World of the Five Gods).  Like she once did with her Vorkosigan Saga, Bujold has not written the Pen & Des novellas in chronological order, with the novellas jumping back and forth between seemingly two time periods - early Penric experiences on one hand, and then Penric's experiences with Nikys and afterwards on the other.  This is one of the former, so it technically is the 4th novella in chronological order and is thus a "midquel", rather than a straight sequel or prequel.  

And Masquerade in Lodi is a perfectly enjoyable midquel, with the story following Pen & Des as they are forced to search the city of Lodi for an ascendant crazy demon, with the help of a young woman who happens to be a Saint.  Like a lot of other recent Pen & Des novellas it isn't anything groundbreaking, but it's entertaining and different enough to justify its own existence (as opposed to 6th such novella) and is very solid "comfort food."  

Note: As usual, I read this as an audiobook, so if I get some names wrong that's why.  But it's still a highly enjoyable listen in this format so I recommend it.  

Trigger Warning: Minor Discussion of Suicide.

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Thursday, January 6, 2022

Book Review: The Midrange Theory by Seth Partnow

 




Fun fact: This blog was originally used for me to put non-team specific sports posts.  And so it's only appropriate that I manage to review a sports book on this blog....although I suppose it's hilarious that the first such book I review covers Basketball, rather than hockey or baseball.  But so it is, and that book is The Midrange Theory, written by former Milwaukee Bucks Director of Basketball Research Seth Partnow* (now writing for the Athletic).  

*Disclaimer: I've met Seth at at least one Hockey/Sports Analytics Conference and he's a cool dude both in person and on twitter.  No that doesn't affect my review.  

The Midrange Theory is Partnow's explanation of the evolution of Basketball over the last few years, when "analytics" is said to have taken over the game, and the game evolved into a more 3 point and seemingly offense-friendly style.  Coming into this book, I was not exactly super knowledgeable about basketball analytics - where to find various stats I don't really know, but I did understand a lot of the concepts that have guided the game.  So I was curious to see how much I would learn from this book, or whether it would be for people either less knowledgeable than me or more so. The result....is a bit of a mixed bag, although this will very much be a good read for anyone who is a basketball fan who is pretty much unfamiliar with any analytics stuff whatsoever.  

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Wednesday, January 5, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Heartbreak Bakery by A.R. Capetta

 




The Heartbreak Bakery is the latest young adult novel by author A.R. Capetta, known for writing really well done queer YA fiction (I really enjoyed Capetta's The Brilliant Death, and their co-written Queer SF retelling of the King Arthur story with their spouse, Once & Future/Sword in the Stars).  Capetta's prior solo work that I've read has dealt with genderfluid protagonists (The Brilliant Death duology) in ways that were really well done, and so I was unsurprised to find from a review I read that this one stars an agender protagonist, and was excited to see what Capetta would do with this story.  

And well....I almost DNFed The Heartbreak Bakery, for reasons that are mainly not the book's fault.  The book does a wonderful job portraying its agender protagonist Syd, a 16 year old baker who works at a queer bakery but still feels at times like people don't understand what it means for Syd to be "agender", and struggles with relationships as a result.  The book also includes very cutesy recipes which probably work, even as they're plot relevant and carry snippets related to the plot.  At the same time, the book focuses very much on Syd's need to be in a romantic relationship (and Syd's breakup at the beginning) as a 16 year old, and well....I very much had trouble relating to that.  Others will have less problems with that and if you're queer and looking for affirmation, this book will be great for you, so that is less a problem with this book than my own.  

More after the Jump:

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Tuesday, January 4, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Skyward Inn by Aliya Whiteley

 



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 in paperback on January 18, 2022 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.    


Skyward Inn is a short science fiction novel by Aliya Whiteley which came out this past March in hardcover, and is set to be released in paper back in January 2022.  It had a hook that caught my eye when I saw in in a Rebellion (the publisher) newsletter earlier this year, but I never got to it at that time.  So I took a chance on it when it popped up on NetGalley in advance of the book's release in paperback, hoping the hook - aliens who surrendered without firing a shot, but with things not as they appear - would turn out as interesting as it seemed.  

And well, Skyward Inn is an interesting novel for sure, dealing with themes of imperialism, of isolationism, of being together and alone (and both at once), and of issues of language and understanding perhaps most of all.  The story does so through its two protagonists: first person protagonist Jem and third person protagonist Fosse, who is essentially autistic in a community that doesn't understand his struggles with language and identity, in a galaxy where alien-human interactions, even in an isolationist community, is seemingly falling apart.  And yet while there's a lot of interesting stuff here, a lot of the themes are kind of muddled by the book not dealing with much of them directly, instead relying upon things being weird and indirect (I've seen some VanderMeer comparisons, and that's not too far off, although this doesn't quite work as well).  


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Monday, January 3, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Star Wars Visions: Ronin by Emma Mieko Candon

 



Released this fall, Star Wars Visions was a revelation - a series of nine short (10-20 minutes) pieces of animations from prominent Japanese Anime studios set in the Star Wars Universe (although non-canon).  I reviewed the nine shorts here - but honestly, would recommend you ignore my reviews until you get to experience them yourself - they are tremendous in both animation and how they explore the Star Wars universe from a different point of view - an Eastern POV, which was all the more fitting how much George Lucas tried to mimic the style of Akira Kurosawa in creating Star Wars in the first place.  

The first of those shorts was The Duel, a glorious bit of animation featuring a mysterious lightsaber wielding character named the Ronin facing off with a Sith Bandit in a samurai/ronin alternate Star Wars universe.  It was only about 14 minutes long, but it was perfect on its own, and really didn't demand more, and was basically universally acclaimed.  Naturally as Disney correctly figured fans would want to see more of the Ronin, it was this short that was quickly announced as being expanded into a full length novel, by Japanese-American author Emma Mieko Candon.  

And so I came into Star Wars Visions: Ronin with trepidation as we really didn't need more from The Duel - it was perfect as is.  But to my surprise, after the first two chapters retell the Duel, this book becomes a fascinating story about the souls and justifications of Jedi/Samurai and Sith/Ronin in a very Japanese/Samurai inspired galaxy that really does justify its own existence.  I'll explain a bit more after the jump:  

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SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Beholden by Cassandra Rose Clarke

 



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 January 18, 2022 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 Beholden is a new stand alone fantasy from author Cassandra Rose Clarke, being published in January by small SF/F press Erewhon Books.  I haven't read Clarke before, though I had heard of her, but Erewhon's publishing output has been truly tremendous in its short existence (Folkorn, The Scapegraers, The Midnight Bargain, On Fragile Waves to name four such books), which made me very much want to try this book out.  

Unfortunately, The Beholden is perhaps the most ordinary Erewhon book I've read, with some really interesting ideas and one well done relationship buried underneath a plot and trio of main characters who largely don't really work.  The book is long (500 plus pages) but reads quick, and does contain a plot dealing with the importance of death/decay alongside life/growth, the difficulty of being hated for doing what's necessary and how self-destructive humans can be in pursuing short-sighted goals over more important ones, alongside the importance of love.  So there's certainly something underlying this book, but the book's ignorance of its opening concept and how that reflects on the protagonists, as well as its failure to actually make those protagonists truly interesting actors, prevents it from being one that I can really recommend.  

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Sunday, January 2, 2022

2021 Year in Review: My Favorite Works of the Year

 



This is the second post in my 2021 Year in recap, with this post featuring me discussing my favorite works of the year.  Traditionally that's featured me posting my few perfect scores and maybe the books I've graded a 9.5 or a 9 out of 10, and then maybe discussing my favorite characters of the year.  I've kind of eschewed the latter because I've read so many characters and books that it's hard to recall who are really my favorites - for that matter, I have over 30 books with a 9 out of 10 this year, so I'm going to skip that list here as well.  

Instead, I'm going to post my top 12 graded books here in this post, and discuss what I really found that I liked over this last year of reading.  As I mentioned in my last post, this has been a good one.  

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Saturday, January 1, 2022

2021 Year in Review: Basic Summary of my Reading

 


2021 was Year 4 of this blog as a dedicated (mostly) book review blog, and year 6 really of my return to reading Science Fiction and Fantasy.  I expected this to be a relative down year - meaning I'd read less books than last year, when I spent six months furloughed in COVID-quarantine.  But I shifted jobs in April to one that provided me with a two hour commute, which meant I was suddenly reading 200 pages a day, and well, I basically matched my reading output from last year. 

That said, it was a very different year of reading - as I managed to accomplish a feat I'd thought was unlikely in prior years - I managed to read more works written by people of color than not, for the first time ever (and it wasn't particularly close).  And in the process I've found a lot of really great new-to-me authors and as usual, some really really great works - for the 2nd straight year my average grade has smidged upwards, and only some of that is grade inflation I swear.  

As usual for these recap posts, this series will consist of three posts as follows:

Part 1 (This post) will be a quick summary of what I've read and how that worked out.
Part 2: Will go over my favorite works of the past year.
Part 3: Will go over the works I would recommend NOT reading or that I couldn't finish for various reasons. 

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