Thursday, June 30, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Star Wars: Queen's Shadow by E.K. Johnston

 


Star Wars Queen's Shadow is the first book in a trilogy of books written by E.K. Johnston featuring Padme Amidala and her handmaidens - although this book is entirely stand alone, and it certainly seems like the trilogy was created more out of the success of the first book than out of intention.  I actually read the third book of the trilogy, Queen's Hope, first thanks to Netgalley and I kind of loved it, as it dealt with Padme after Attack of the Clones and featured Padme and her Handmaidens adapting and finding new paths forward in a dangerous galaxy riven by war - it was just a delightful character work even if there wasn't a single coherent plot or conflict to deal with.  So I wanted to come back and track down the other such books, starting with this book, which takes place midway between Episodes 1 and 2 and details Padme's first days as a Senator, and how she and her handmaidens - who are more like special agents than simple handmaidens - adjust to the new role and try to figure out how to move forward and help their people, the galaxy, and stay true to themselves.  

And the result is just as delightful as book 1, even if the epilogue (set after Episode 3) is very much out of place if this is considered part of a trilogy.  Padme and her handmaiden's earnest attempts to use their skills - taking each other's places, espionage and diplomacy, and just sheer determination - to help people and to show that they're not just some figurehead to be taken advantage of is just really enjoyable to read, as Johnston's character work of a really charming cast just finding ways to do things well amidst a Star Wars universe we're kind of familiar with is pretty great.  

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Tuesday, June 28, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Locklands by Robert Jackson Bennett

 




 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 28, 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.


Locklands is the conclusion to Robert Jackson Bennett's "The Founders" trilogy, which began in 2018 with "Foundryside" and continued in 2020 with "Shorefall".  The trilogy features a world in which technology has evolved based upon a magic known as scriving - in which certain glyphs written on objects will convince an object that reality is not how it really is, causing the object to react differently (so for example, wheels can be scrived to think they're on a downhill, causing them to roll forward).  Bennett has used this world and its characters to tremendous effect, telling a story with strong themes of people recognizing they are people instead of mere tools, about inequality of resources and power, and how attempts to universally spread power around may or may not simply result in new people being oppressed rather than a more egalitarian world - and the importance of empathy in ensuring that such a bad outcome doesn't happen.  As with RJB's "The Divine Cities", this series has been utterly tremendous through two books and I was incredibly eager to dive in to the finale.  

And Locklands remains a fascinating thriller novel, as - eight years after the last book - the protagonists attempt to save the world from the disasters they helped unleash in the last book, and to keep together the new society they've built with their twinning technology in the face of impossible odds.  Bennett really takes the (kind of well worn SF/F) trope of "Society would work better if people's thoughts were all connected so that they knew and felt the impact of their actions on others" in interesting directions, really exploring how that might look here rather than simply just assuming the concept.  And the main characters remain excellent, between Sancia, Berenice, and Clef, as they try to deal with aging, remedying their own mistakes, and tremendous grief for each other and those they have previously lost.  Oh and as usual, this is a hell of a thriller plot along the way too.  I'm not sure I'd rank this above The Divine Cities trilogy, but it's certainly close at the very least, and that's saying a lot.  

Note: Spoilers for Shorefall and Foundryside are inevitable below:  

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Monday, June 27, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Invisible Things by Mat Johnson

 




 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 28, 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.

Invisible Things is the latest book by author Mat Johnson, previously (among a bunch of other things) the author of 2011's Pym (my review of Pym is here).  Pym was a pretty strong satire of race, heritage, and whiteness in particular in a story taking inspiration from Edgar Allen Poe's only published novel - which has some severe racist issues underlying its text.  It was the type of satire that is only occasionally laugh out loud funny....and yet Pym maintained a consistently ridiculous and kind of hilarious take on its themes (and how people act due to these issues) that always made it feel like I was chuckling at what came next, and the satire was often so thick I had to put it down often before I choked on it all - which was not a bad thing.  

Invisible Things is similar in that way - it's once again a satire that is thick with things and issues that are both utterly ridiculous and utterly ordinary and so understandable to anyone who lives in society today.  This time, the satire is based upon a city-state similar to our own world made up of people who were abducted from our own world mysteriously by some sort of alien force, as humans from our world come and try to rescue those who were abducted....and find that the will for such a thing isn't quite what they expected.  And while Race is part of that satire once again, here the main themes are more the structures of society, how they wind up organized to benefit some more than others (in both race and class aspects), and how people wind up overlooking the so-called "invisible things" that underline society and keep the inequalities and increasingly fascist elements of society embedded without opposition.  And it works really well.  

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Sunday, June 26, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Our Crooked Hearts by Melissa Albert

 




 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 28, 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.

Our Crooked Hearts is a stand alone young adult fantasy novel by author Melissa Albert, who apparently is known for a trilogy that I haven't read.  It's a story featuring a pair of generations - a teen girl in the present who runs into a strange girl out of nowhere and who keeps finding weird signs that her mother is hiding a magical secret; and her mother in the past as she grows up poor, finds magic along with a pair of friends and gets into terrible trouble.  Multi-generational novels are a trope I've see a few times and they usually work pretty well - with the past is revealed to the reader and the protagonist along the way, leaving the present day character with a greater understanding of who their ancestors were, the protagonist growing closer and understanding more of who they themselves are.  

Alas, Our Crooked Hearts doesn't quite manage to make the trope work as well as it could, thanks to what feel like some shortcuts in the final act of what really isn't that long of a book.  Both main characters are very likable and their plots are easy to get caught up in, even if some background setting aspects are a bit cliched and shortchanged.  And the book moves at a very good pace through its first two acts.  But its third and final act is so short, and just doesn't really give the book time to really deal with its themes and impacts, which really makes this book feel kind of generic and disappointing in the end, even if it's never actually bad.  


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Friday, June 17, 2022

Fantasy Novella Review: A Spindle Splintered by Alix E. Harrow

 



A Spindle Splintered by Alix E. Harrow

A Spindle Splintered is the first in a new fairy tale based novella series by acclaimed author Alix E. Harrow (The Thousand Doors of January, etc.).  I have a weird relationship with Harrow's works - I've rarely disliked them (although her The Once and Future Witches was a bit of a miss for me), and sometimes have liked them a bunch....and yet I've often for some inexplicable reason struggled to read her prose, making getting through her works especially hard for me.  So I skipped this novella when it first came around, to be honest, and only circled back to read it when it was nominated for the Hugo and was part of the Hugo packet.  

And A Spindle Splintered is pretty fun novella, featuring a terminally ill 21-year old heroine from our world, who grew up obsessed with Sleeping Beauty, finding herself transported into a Sleeping Beauty-esque fantasy world where she becomes determined to subvert the story's narrative.  It's an enjoyable queer story with a fun heroine and some solid side characters, so definitely worth your time, even if it probably still wouldn't have cracked my nomination list had I read it last year.  

More after the jump:

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Thursday, June 16, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: August Kitko and the Mechas from Space by Alex White

 



 Full Disclosure:  This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on July 12, 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.


August Kitko and the Mechas from Space is the first in a new space opera series from Alex White, author of the Salvagers trilogy.  The Salvagers trilogy was a really great space opera found family series, with a hybrid magic/sci-fi system and a cast of characters that was both really good, and incredibly humorous at times as they dealt with a group of elites doing unspeakable things in exchange for power and acted to bring them down.  So I was excited to hear about this new series from White - especially given that it contained this title, suggesting a return to the humorous space opera that I loved from them.  

And yeah August Kitko and the Mechas from Space is fairly enjoyable, even if it doesn't quite have as much of the humor of the last series (or as much of the thematic resonance).  Instead you have a story focused upon two musicians - the eponymous Gus Kitko, a pianist with no one to care for from a has been minor band, and Ardent Violet, super pop artist with their guitar and voice - who get involved in humanity's last stand against a strange unknown enemy wielding giant mecha....one of which responds to Gus' music by switching sides and taking him on as essentially a pilot.  The result is a story about a pair of people with very different personalities and plenty of issues trying to figure out how to survive and handle this whole thing....even as official forces and others want to control them to try and ensure humanity's survival...for better or worse.  As the start of a new series, this is pretty good, especially if unlike me you really like combat scenes (between giant mecha!).  

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Wednesday, June 15, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher

 





Nettle & Bone is the latest book by author T Kingfisher (aka the Adult pen name of author Ursula Vernon), one of my favorite authors writing Science Fiction and Fantasy out there.  It's also the first in a while in certain ways - it's a clearly adult novel, but neither horror nor self-published (like her White Rat books, which are utterly incredible) and apparently is her first ever Bestseller.  And again, Kingfisher's works are usually brilliant, often taking classic fantasy concepts, mixing in horror and romance, and then adding in her wild imagination and oft-hilarious snappy dialogue to form poignant, entertaining and really relevant works that last for days in the mind and demand rereading.  

Nettle & Bone is no exception to that track record.  This is the story of a princess who doesn't want to be, who was happy all along in a convent doing menial work, who embarks on a journey to kill the prince who is abusing her sister - and who killed her first sister.  It's a story featuring a main cast that includes a dog made of bones, a fairy godmother who is better off at curses than blessings, and a dust-wife who manipulates the dead - all of whom have their own quirks and problems.  It's a story about duty, about caring and fighting to do what should be impossible because it's right, even when one's just a normal person, and it's oh so so good.  


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Tuesday, June 14, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Juniper & Thorn by Ava Reid

 



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 21, 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.

Juniper & Thorn is the second book from author Ava Reid, who previously wrote The Wolf and the Woodsman, an Eastern European inspired fantasy featuring an essentially half-Pagan half-Jewish girl and an essentially Christian* prince attempting to stop a fellow Christian Prince from using magic to enact an oppressive reign of terror over the country.  Although the romance between the main characters in that book wasn't the greatest, I enjoyed its setting a lot (not least of which for its portrayal of Jewish culture in such a land) and it got a lot of deserved hype from people I read.  So I was very curious to try the follow up novel, in Juniper & Thorn.  

*The book used other names for these religions, but they're transparently Judaism and Christianity.  The same is the case here, so I'm just going to use the real world religious names here.*

Juniper & Thorn is a very different book however - yes there's an Eastern European setting again, this type in a fantasy Russian-esque land, and yes there's a romance between a girl who doesn't know much of the world and a man, one of whom is Jewish (although it's the man and he's not religious this time).  And yet this is not an adventure story - this is a tale* of abuse, as a witch girl who is one of three daughters of an abusive and xenophobic/anti-semitic wizard, who is used to being a doormat and just accepting things, until one act of rebellion changes everything.  It's a very hard tale to read, and while somewhat effective, was not really a book I loved for various reasons, not all of which were this book's fault.  More specifics after the jump:

*This tale is apparently a retelling of the Grimm story, The Juniper Tree, which I was unfamiliar with, and from looking it up on Wikipedia - so take this for what it's worth - the story is a very generous retelling, with similarly named and situated characters at times, but a very different story, so don't expect it to follow the same story beats here*.  


TRIGGER WARNING:  Child Abuse, Sexual Abuse/Rape, Abuse by a Guardian.  Abuse is a major theme of this book, and the sexual abuse is at one point somewhat explicit in a really hard to read chapter.   These sections go to the book's themes, but they will almost certainly be a bit too much for some readers, and they almost were for me.

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Monday, June 13, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Final Strife by Saara El-Arifi

 




 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 21, 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 Final Strife is the debut novel of author Saara El-Arifi and the first in her "The Ending Fire" trilogy.  The story is inspired by Ghanaian Folklore and Arabian Myths, and features a world in which an Empire was formed by those who supposedly escaped the "Ending Fire" which scourged the rest of the world - an Empire ruled by those who bleed red blood and can wield powerful magic, with the red-blooded oppressing the blue-blooded (literally people who bled blue) and the horrifically maimed clear-blooded who labor for their benefits.  Except a revolutionary group of Blue Blooded people stole Red Blooded Babies from their cribs and swapped them with Blue Blooded ones, and planned to use the Red Blooded Children, raised by the oppressed, to ignite a revolution....only to seemingly fail.  

And so The Final Strife follows two products of that plot - a secretly red blooded girl, raised blue, as our main protagonist as she tries to emerge from despair when the plotters seem to reemerge and a secretly blue blooded girl, raised as the hated daughter of a powerful red blooded noble, who just wants to prove herself worthy.  And so it tells a story of class, race, and weaves in a lot of other themes, dealing also with a tertiary protagonist/large-side character who comes from the third clear-blooded race.  

But honestly, the story is kind of too long, taking far too long to develop to points that the reader knows have to be coming, and spends an awful lot of time setting up for developments and reveals that aren't really that surprising or interesting - and its biggest protagonist is incredibly frustrating by design, and the romance between major characters didn't really work for me.  I can see what the book was doing, and I've certainly seen similar things done well before, but it just didn't come together for me here.  

More specifics after the jump:

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Thursday, June 9, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Ballad of Perilous Graves by Alex Jennings

 



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 21, 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 Ballad of Perilous Graves is the debut novel by author Alex Jennings and is a story that is very much a love letter to New Orleans and to old time Jazz.  These are two things I am very much not super familiar with, but the story sounded really appealing and featured a blurb from a really enjoyable author (Victor Lavelle) so I decided to give it a try when I got a free ARC from the publisher.  

I lead with these things because The Ballad of Perilous Graves is very much a story I bounced off of, and I'm not really sure that how much of that is the book's fault as much as the fact that I'm not quite the right reader for it - a White New York Lawyer with no connection to New Orleans, Jazz, or any of the topics dealt with here.  The story also is very much descriptive and imaginative as it imagines two different versions of New Orleans - one of which is wildly magical even if still very relatable to our own world - and descriptive fiction also is a bit of something I struggle with.  So you may very well enjoy this book if the above (and the further description below) is more of your things.  



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Wednesday, June 8, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Vows of Empire by Emily Skrutskie

 



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 14, 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.

Vows of Empire is the finale to Emily Skrtuskie's Bloodright Trilogy, her M/M Space Opera Romance series that began with Bonds of Brass.  The series is very much inspired by Star Wars (and may have begun originally as Poe/Finn fanfiction) and well I've had mixed feelings about it: on one hand, I liked the first book, even if I had some reservations on how the book didn't really tackle some of its deeper themes of Empire and Rule in favor of trying to keep things fun and Star Wars-y.  The second book however kind of disappointed me as it again didn't go into the serious issues, failed to confront its protagonist's privilege, and focused instead entirely on his romantic feelings....and the book felt very much like a direct take on a Star Wars Expanded Universe plotline.  It wasn't bad, and it was entertaining for sure, but well I was hoping for more given the setup, and the author wasn't interested in taking the series there.  So I came to this book, the finale, with much lower expectations for what to expect.  

This was a correct approach honestly - Vows of Empire does try to take on some of the themes the earlier books missed of privilege, Empire, leadership by birthright and more, but rarely does so in more than a superficial way.  Instead it's more focused on a heist-esque (ala Oceans 11) style of space opera, with its protagonists clearly having some scheme that hasn't been revealed to the reader for most of the book, and the reader forced to guess how much of what's happening is part of that scheme and how much is things genuinely going wrong.  And well, it's actually pretty enjoyable at that to be fair, and the book is short enough that it never outstays its welcome.  The result is a solid ending to a trilogy that wasn't what I hoped it could be, but at least had its moments.  

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Tuesday, June 7, 2022

Science Fiction Novella Review: January Fifteenth by Rachel Swirsky

 



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 14, 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.


January Fifteenth by Rachel Swirsky

January Fifteenth is the latest work by Award Winning Author Rachel Swirsky.  The novella is in theory - per her own author's note - Swirsky's imaginative take on a world in which the US imposed Universal Basic Income ("UBI")*.

*For those who haven't heard of UBI, it's the policy of a government providing every person in a country with a basic income - basically a monthly or yearly stipend - so that in effect everyone has at least some money to spend.*

Per that author's note, Swirsky conceived of the scenarios in this novella based upon some research - although no sources or research is cited here, so it's hard to tell what she actually looked at - like if she looked at experiments that have been done in various places in the world of giving people money....or just listened to proponents and opponents of the policy suggest outcomes.  

Unfortunately it seems like Swirsky just listened to the latter, and then attempted to take the most outlandish and extreme scenarios she could think of being affected by UBI to create four unconnected scenarios to make up this novella.  The result is as subtle as a sledgehammer, and features Swirsky honestly more interested in most of it in attacking an idea that money brings happiness....which of course isn't actually the point of UBI.  The result is basically four dystopian stories, without much commonality or real interest to recommend, often dealing with other issues that the novella doesn't take time to actually deal with properly or interestingly.  

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Monday, June 6, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Grief of Stones by Katherine Addison

 




 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 14, 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 Grief of Stones is the sequel to Katherine Addison's The Witness for the Dead (my review here), her spinoff from the award winning The Goblin Emperor.  I liked The Witness for the Dead quite a bit - not a given since I didn't particularly love The Goblin Emperor - as its main character was really enjoyable and the plot was essentially a Holmes-esque slice of life mystery type story (unsurprisingly, Addison also wrote a direct Sherlock Holmes pastiche lately) that worked very well with that character.  And so even though not everything worked - like I didn't have any care for the political subplots and the biggest mystery ended kind of abruptly - it was still a very enjoyable novel and I was very happy to get a sequel.  

And The Grief of Stones is a really good sequel - absolutely delightful for its first half and then poignant and tense for its second half, as things get serious and contemplative and require a major shift for the protagonist.  I didn't reread book 1 prior to reading this one, so I often found myself at a loss as to who certain characters were or what certain titles were....and yet I didn't really feel that I lost anything out as a result, with there being more than enough present just in this novel to keep me very entertained and very satisfied, especially with main character Celehar having to take a new potential Witness under his wing.  My only real complaint is that the book ended where it did, in a way that is reasonable, but also makes me want more to see the main character wind up with a more happy ending, and therefore makes me wish badly for a book 3.  

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Wednesday, June 1, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Sweep of Stars by Maurice Broaddus

 





Sweep of Stars is the first in a new afrofuturist space opera trilogy by Maurice Broaddus.  The trilogy features a wide range of characters and envisions a solar system a bit over a hundred years in the future in which a nation-state known as Muungano has formed, spanning between the moon, space colonies, Mars, and elsewhere in the Solar System, that is based upon African culture, communal principles ahead of individual ones, and post-colonialism.  But the story is not an example of "hopepunk" (ala Becky Chambers' Wayfarer) as the old Capitalist and Fascist form of country controls Old Earth (the "O.E.") and remains interested in expanding its reach to the peoples of Muungano, and enemies from beyond the solar system - whether they be Aliens peaking through a mysterious wormhold gate or something else - are present and a threat.  

The story in essence reminds me of the Expanse, except if the Expanse was a lot more interested in dealing with Racial and anti-Capitalist and Socialistic and Cultural themes, rather than just using such themes as backdrop, and it works really really well.  The conflicts of ideas between the characters - even those on the same side as supporters of Muungano - is very well explored, and the mysterious conspiracies and conflicts they face are really fascinating.  Really my only negative comment on this one is that it is in no way stand-alone, and that its scope is kind of too large for the book's size, which isn't that long - as such some characters don't get as much development as I'd like, nor some concepts, but a lot of this could be remedied with later books in the trilogy.  This is some really good stuff, and if you're looking for space opera that isn't just the same old, I would highly recommend this.  

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