Thursday, December 29, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti by Genevieve Valentine

 



Mechanique is a novel by Genevieve Valentine, an author more known for her work in comics than in novel-writing. I actually really liked Valentine's more recent (but still a few years back) duology, Persona/Icon, which did some really interesting things with a setting dealing with fame and papparazzi. Valentine hasn't written a novel since that duology (around 2016) but this earlier work came to my attention when NK Jemisin (one of my favorite authors) recommended it in a recent interview as a favorite of hers.

And Mechanique is a really fascinating, and perhaps phenomenal novel, which deserves greater attention. The novel takes place in a dystopian post-apocalyptic (perhaps?) world, in a land where there is constant conflict and upheaval, and follows a circus as it travels across this land trying to avoid conflict and just put on a show. But not just any circus, but a circus made up of people who are impossibly part mechanical, like a man crossed with a piano or a trapeeze, who live only through the work of the circus' magical boss. The story is told through a sort of third person omniscient viewpoint that jumps back and forth in terms of its perspective, and it works really well to tell a story of traumas, solitude, belonging, and more in a time where the only way back to normalcy may be the tragic governing of the monstrous.

TRIGGER WARNING: Suicide, Torture, Suicidal Ideation, and more. All topics are dealt with reasonably and are not gratuitous, but you should be warned this is a serious book dealing with some real tragedies.

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Tuesday, December 27, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Bloodmarked by Tracy Deonn



Bloodmarked is the second novel in Tracy Deonn's Legendborn Cycle, which began with 2020's Legendborn. Legendborn was one of my two favorite books of 2020, a phenomenal YA Urban Fantasy novel dealing with the mythology of King Arthur, the struggles of a black teenage girl against generational trauma and systematic racism, and a struggle in particular with personal grief of losing a loved one. It was a tremendous novel, with a tremendous heroine in its teen girl Bree, a student in an early high school program at UNC, and a tremendous setting that took, respected, and subverted all at once the Arthurian Mythos as it married it to the realities of today's world for Black Americans. So I have been looking forward to Bloodmarked for a long time.

And Bloodmarked continues the story in generally really strong fashion, continuing Bree's story now that she's recognized the historical sources of her own power and as she struggles to deal with others' expectations and wants of her now that that power is out in the open....expectations that are tempered by how Bree doesn't look like how those others were raised to believe such a power-wielder should be. The story again works really well as it deals with more struggles not only now with grief, but with the historical burdens of one's ancestors, especially the ancestors of black slaves in today's African Americans like Bree. Bree faces a struggle to control her power and an internal conflict due to these burdens, as well as the modern racism and prejudice Bree faces as the unwilling heir of a mostly White European power order, and it all comes together largely well. That said, the novel's love triangle romance is a bit frustrating and formulaic, it doesn't have enough time devoted to breathing and examining various status quos, and it again relies upon a cliffhanger setup that feels more added on last minute than a natural part of the book. So it's very good, even if not as good as Book 1, but an excellent bridge between that book and the eventual conclusion.

Trigger Warnings: Historical Rape of an Ancestor during Slavery as Backstory.

SPOILER WARNING: It is impossible to discuss this book further or in more detail without spoiling the ending of book 1. If you intend to read book 1 and haven't yet, stop here and do not go further.

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Thursday, December 22, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Neom by Lavie Tidhar

 


Full Disclosure:  This book was read as an e-ARC Audiobook (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on November 9 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.
Neom is an odd book for me to read - it's a book set in the same world as Tidhar's acclaimed novel "Central Station", which featured humans, robots, cyber-beings, and other entities in a future Tel Aviv/near Tel Aviv city called Central Station, which connected Earth to various outposts in the stars. Tidhar's work has often interested me, especially his shorter fiction (and he has edited some really good anthologies of world science fiction), and yet I didn't particularly love Central Station, which was written essentially as a series of stories in the same setting and then combined through editing into a single novel....and I didn't find the combination really did anything for me. So there as a good chance that Neom, an explicit return to the Central Station world, although in Saudi Arabia (currently in real life the dream city of Saudi autocrats) rather than Central Station, would not work for me either.

But to my pleasant surprise, Neom works really well, despite sharing a lot of similarities with Central Station: once again this is a story with no overarching conflict, no real antagonist, and no major plot momentum or tension that relies instead on characters' stories and interactions coming together to showcase character development in very very different peoples. In Neom, this is mainly an old Robot, a veteran of wars on Earth and in Space who is trying to resurrect a lost part of his past that he mourns tragically for, a middle aged woman working multiple jobs in a class-stratified city of Neom, and a boy whose family was lost trying to scavenge in the deadly remains of a terror artist who is trying to escape the world which holds only tragedy for him and to find a way into space. The characters here are really well done, the vignettes are strong, and the stories of people trying to survive, to love, to find their ways past their pasts and into new futures come together really nicely - and the story is highly entertaining at times too in how it's told. All in all, I really liked Neom, despite it not really fitting into my normal reading.

Note: I read half of this in audiobook and the reader is very very good. Recommended as a book in that format, and it's only 5.5 hours at normal speed there to boot.

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Wednesday, December 21, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The World We Make by NK Jemisin

 



The World We Make is the conclusion to NK Jemisin's Great Cities Duology*, which began two years ago with her "The City We Became" (itself an expansion of her short story, The City Born Great). Jemisin is one of my favorite writers, with more perfect score books from me (The Stone Sky, The Broken Kingdoms, and The Kingdom of Gods) than any other writer. Add in the fact that The City We Became and this series eschewed the normal secondary worlds Jemisin has thrived in for a magic filled and Lovecraftian-assaulted version of New York City, and well - this New York native could not be more primed to enjoy this series. And The City We Became was very good as it showcased the personifications of the various boroughs of New York City fighting against a Lovecraftian other - a "Woman in White" - who is trying to get them to conform and standardize (from the perspective of a White person of course) before their originality can emerge as one power, even if it didn't quite hit the marks of Jemisin's earlier works for me.

*This was originally marketed as a trilogy but was condensed for reasons I might discuss later into a duology*

The World We Make continues the story of the boroughs, now aided by the general avatar of the City (named Neek), as it faces new threats - such as a mayor who preaches the return to a time that never was when the city was "Great" or foreign forces who want to change the conception of the City to what they see in their own fears - as well as new plots by the Lovecraftian Woman in White. Once again the story is hardly subtle, but it works real well, even as it weaves in more concepts, more things ripped straight from our own lives, and the reactions of other personified Cities around the globe who should band together with New York but often refuse to admit the danger. Jemisin again ends this on a hopeful note, one that is very satisfying, even as she portrays a ton of evils that you'll recognize in our own world, and makes clear how difficult fighting this enemy can be (although perhaps the conclusion and things are a bit too rushed for this to be as good as it might otherwise be).

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Tuesday, December 20, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Exin Ex Machina by G.S. Jennsen

 



Exin Ex Machina is the first in a self-published Sci-Fi trilogy (but one of many in a similar setting) written by author G.S. Jennsen. It's a novel that was submitted for consideration to my Judging Team for the Self-Published Science Fiction Competition (SPSFC), and two of my co-Judges liked it enough to make it a Quarterfinalist. As such, it was up to me and the team's other remaining Judge to pick this up and evaluate it to see if it would go forward, and I was excited to see what had appealed to my co-judges in this book which takes far future science fiction and cyberpunk as the backbone of its setting.

And I liked Exin Ex Machina a good bit, and definitely will consider it highly for the semifinals. The novel reads really well as it tells the story in a far future society, where the population consists of beings called Asterions who can update their own programming to try to make themselves better in ways they so choose, and who can back up their minds for reuploading into new bodies if things happen to them. Here we have an Amnesiac Heroine in Nika, a woman whose memories/psyche was seemingly wiped and then her body left in an alley, who finds herself leading a rebellion against a government led by Guides that seems to be tolerating an ever growing number of disappearances and who enforce justice in harsh obtuse ways through their underlings, the Advisors. Nika's story, and the story of those around her is told really well, and while the story rarely touches on themes deeply as it might, it is always engrossing and entertaining in at least a popcorny way, which makes this a very satisfying first novel in a trilogy that I'll definitely consider continuing.

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Monday, December 12, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Fortunes of Jaded Women by Carolyn Huynh

 


The Fortunes of Jaded Women is a story dealing with a family/generations of Vietnamese and Vietnamese-American women who were cursed generations ago to never find love or happiness and to only give birth to daughters, not sons. It's a book that apparently has gotten a bit of mainstream press (the book is listed as a "Good Morning America Book Pick") and is genre in the same sense as Magical Realism (although as a non-LatAm book, it doesn't fit that classification), with the magic being largely in the background and things really proceed much as they would in our own non-magical world. The book thus wanders from character to character, showing their lives as they struggle to try and find meaning and happiness in family and relationships, to finally break the curse once and for all.

And well, I can see why this book was recommended, because the writing and characters - although somewhat shallow due to how little time the book has to spend on the lot of them - are really done well, with the book often being highly amusing and enjoyable in how things play out with its squabbling Vietnamese family of multiple generations. There isn't really much depth here - there's little great revelations, and characters largely figure things out, or don't, on their own, and the coincidences that lead to conflict when characters come together and discover them are very unlikely...but those moments when these coincidences are discovered lead to some of the funniest and most enjoyable parts of the book, even if this is not a comedy (although it's not really a drama either). It's a book that works as a story about a family dealing with generational traumas just well enough to succeed, with a lightish touch that will make it appeal to many, even if it isn't really saying all that much when it comes down to it.

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Thursday, December 8, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Station Eternity by Mur Lafferty

 




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 4, 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.


Station Eternity is the latest novel by Hugo Winner (for her podcast) and nominee (for Best Novel) Mur Lafferty, whose Six Wakes was a really tremendous cyberpunk-y/space opera/locked generation ship murder mystery, and earned her the aforementioned nomination for Best Novel. Lafferty's works sometimes touch serious themes, but often also are light and fun - like her Shambling Guide series which detailed a human working for a travel guide for monsters in New York and New Orleans. Her writing is very enjoyable and she often has protagonists who are very easy to root for, even in Six Wakes which again was dealing with a lot more serious stuff amidst its incredibly creative murder mystery setup. So I was super excited to see this book show up on NetGalley, which was basically her first new novel since Six Wakes, even more so after one of my friends loved it.

Unfortunately, I'm a bit more ambivalent about Station Eternity, due to really the book trying to do in my mind too much at the same time. As the series title (the Midsolar Murders) suggests, the novel is in some ways a SciFi take on the British Murder Mystery genre (or the Murder She Wrote version we had in the US for sometime), but the twist is that the protagonist is haunted by the fact that she is somehow always right around a murder that only she can solve, and has come to the conclusion that she is somehow causing the murders to happen, causing her to run away into space to stop it from continuing. This is a very clever idea (a twist on the Jessica Fletcher is the real murderer theory) but Lafferty combines it with an alien space station where every alien is bizarre and works in symbiosis with another alien species, with a human government conspiracy plotline, and a potential conflict between humanity and aliens to go along with some inter-alien conflict over freedom and lifestyle choices (kinda). And it's a lot all at once, and while the book starts on a really strong note up through its first third, the second third features a mass introduction of characters through flashbacks that really lost the momentum and made it harder for me to care, and I didn't feel the conclusion really worked to make all that sudden setup payoff in the end.

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Wednesday, December 7, 2022

Fantasy Novella Review: The Jade Setter of Janloon by Fonda Lee

 
Full Disclosure:  This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on November 30, 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 Jade Setter of Janloon by Fonda Lee:

The Jade Setter of Janloon is a prequel novella to Fonda Lee's Green Bone Saga (Jade City, Jade War, and Jade Legacy), her fantasy trilogy that was self-described essentially as a mash-up of Hong Kong, Kung Fu and Wuxia with the Mafia Genre/The Godfather. It was a trilogy I had a lot of mixed feelings about, with me liking book 1, really disliking book 2, and then loving how Lee concluded the trilogy, as she dealt with not only gangster and kung fu tropes, but also ideas of legacies of old families moving into a more modernized and more globalized world. The trilogy also dealt with issues of empire, colonization, and racial discrimination (among indigenous peoples as well), even as it centered around a powerful mafia-esque (or Triad-esque) family who was trying to stay in power as one of the two great families in the old status quo after the island achieved its independence. It turned out really good in the end, even if I didn't always love every plot turn. So I was really interested in seeing this prequel when I heard it announced.

And the Jade Settlor of Janloon may not be a must read, but it's a very enjoyable prequel that will be a winner for anyone who enjoyed the Green Bone Saga and wanted more (although if you aren't familiar with this series, I would probably suggest starting elsewhere). The story follows Pulo, an apprentice Jade setter of a neutral Green Bone clan who works for one of the most trusted setters of Jade, the source of magical kung fu powers and prestige, on the island and wants to break out possibly on his own and to expand...only to get wrapped up in a mystery when a major client's sword gets stolen and the store's indigneous Abukei worker Malla gets blamed for the threat. It's a story in which parts of the main cast of the series do get cameos, but is really about our neutral heroes attempt to set things right, his discovery of how unjust this world really is to those without power, especially the indigenous Abukei community, and what he actually wants out of life for himself. It's very enjoyable if unessential.

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Monday, December 5, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Backpacking Through Bedlam 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 March 7, 2023 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.

Backpacking Through Bedlam is the 12th main-series novel in Seanan McGuire's InCryptid series, her urban fantasy series following a family, the Price/Healy family who tries to protect cryptids - sentient and non-sentient species whose existence isn't believe by science and who are hunted by human-centric killers.  This is also the second novel to feature as its protagonist Alice Price-Healy, grandmother of some of the first few protagonists, after last year's Spelunking Through Hell.*  I'm a huge fan of this series, and am a big fan of Alice as a character from earlier short stories and features, so I basically read this book in one day the moment I got it through NetGalley, despite having older stuff on my TBR that I needed to read first.

*I'd noted in my review of that book that Alice's present-day story appeared to be a one-book arc - this was apparently incorrect, so here we are with book 2.*

And well Backpacking Through Bedlam is still enjoyable InCryptid, as it combines the fight against the Cryptid-hunting Covenant of St. George with Alice's difficulty reuniting with Thomas and figuring out how to act after 50 years apart.  The character beats between Alice, Thomas, and Sally are very good, and the bonus story at the end does the same with James Price as it deals with the impact of last book's epilogue.  Still, this doesn't quite reach the heights of the series as it trods some well-traveled ground in its plotting, as the book again features Alice joining Verity in New York City to hunt the Covenant, and while I enjoy the return of some of Verity's supporting cast, this series is always best when we meet new Cryptids and their communities, which isn't really the case here.  But that familiar setting works to ground the character development, which is topnotch, and Alice is delightfully violent and fun, and it all mainly works.  

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Thursday, December 1, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean

 



The Book Eaters is the debut novel from author Sunyi Dean, which takes place in Northern Britain (Dean is currently based in the UK, although she was born in Texas and grew up in Hong Kong per her bio).  The story features a novel take on vampire-like beings, families of Book Eaters who feed literally on books, learning from the content that they eat, but who are unable physiologically to write/type language on their own, even as they're fully functional in all other ways.  There are also a variant for of this race, the Mind Eaters, who can write but must consume the minds of other beings in order to survive, taking their personalities and memories into themselves...unless they subsist instead off a chemically created drug.  Like Vampires in other stories, the Book Eaters live in families that keep to themselves with their own practical rules, rules that are designed to ensure the continued health of the families and the further propagation of their species, something made more difficult by their species' low fertility and low rate of having females.  Dean uses this setup to create a story around a Book Eater mother and her Mind Eater son who are on the run, jumping back between the mother's past and her flight in the present, as she finds herself constantly trapped by Book Eater gender rules and discipline.  


The result is a story that's generally really well done, and is incredibly compelling as it slowly reveals itself in both timelines, featuring LGBTQ characters, themes of love and motherhood and family, and a really enjoyable interesting setup about what really makes someone a monster.  The story does have some issues with its ending, with the ending resolving everything really easily and abruptly after a long tense setup, but it works thanks to the story's really great lead character in Devon, who you will root for incredibly, and the story also hits some horror beats along the way as well, including in that ending, which stun in their own way.  It's a story that's well worth your time, and one that makes me excited to see more from Dean in the future, as she's created some really excellent characters and world here.


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Wednesday, November 30, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Road of the Lost by Nafiza Azad

 


Road of the Lost is the third novel by Young Adult Fantasy author Nafiza Azad, who burst onto the scene with Muslim/Djinn inspired "The Candle and the Flame" and followed that up with the angry feminist YA "The Wild Ones". I really liked both of those novels quite a bit - both featured unconventional protagonists dealing with sexism and patriarchy, strong rough worlds - a secondary one in The Candle and the Flame and a version of our own world in The Wild Ones - and themes that work really well even as their plotting might be a little predictable and the secondary characters were often underdeveloped . So I was very much in for this novel to see how Azad would approach another favorite subgenre of mine, fae fantasy.

And the answer is fascinating, as Road of the Lost features a really fascinating protagonist in Croi, a girl who discovers that her true form is not what she has been led to believe, and finds herself wandering through a Fae world, drawn in by spells and quests not under her control, as she struggles with her new body's changes, struggles with connection for the first time while she's in dreams, and with people who often try to use her or expect her to care for them without much basis, only adding to her disorientation. It's a story featuring a fascinating protagonist in how Croi is both good at heart and often cold and indifferent to those around her, as she sees through lies people all refuse to disbelieve, leading to an ending that is satisfying while also raising the possibility of a sequel that I'd be very interested in reading.

More specifics after the jump:

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Tuesday, November 29, 2022

Fantasy Novella Review: Into the Riverlands by Nghi Vo

 

Into the Riverlands is the third book in Nghi Vo's fantasy series of novellas, the Singing Hills Cycle, which follows Cleric Chih of the Singing Hills Monastery as they, along with their talking bird Almost Brilliant (who has a perfect memory), go around this East Asian inspired queer fantasy world in search of stories and histories to memorize/memorialize. The series, which won a Hugo for its first installment The Empress of Salt and Fortune, is made up of entirely stand alone novellas, with each novella kind of placing Chih in the place to hear a story of a totally different kind of genre - in the first novella, it was an epic story of Empire, sexism, and fighting back; in the second novella (which I LOVED), it was a romance between a Tiger-woman and a Woman, told in two different styles. Each installment does feature similar themes of how tales can be changed by the perspectie of who tells it, but otherwise, they're very different in tone and kind.

And Into the Riverlands is no different, with this time finding Chih and Almost Brilliant involved in a Wuxia story (Chinese/East-Asian Kung Fu Story), as they hear stories of legendary kung fu fighters dealing with bandits in a dangerous area of the world, and find themselves getting caught up in those very same stories. It's wonderfully done and a lot of fun, and even if where part of the story is going becomes fairly obvious pretty quickly, it's really executed well and the novella is short enough that you never feel frustrated at how things are turning out. Fans of Wuxia will really enjoy this, and those who haven't read Wuxia will find a great introduction here, as Chih encounters a young Kung Fu master and an elderly couple with stories of their own of those in the past. This is another winner and a likely Hugo/Nebula nominee for next year.

Note: I read this as an audiobook, and the reader is the same as in the past novellas, Cindy Kay. She's very enjoyable and I like her, although I'd previously heard her narrate more of a YA story and I had some trouble dealing with what felt in those stories like a very bubbly narrator using the same voices here, where that didn't seem what was what the story called for. This is more a problem with reading the same audiobook reader in different genres than it is any problem with the narration, which is very good, but I just figured I'd point it out.

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Monday, November 28, 2022

Fantasy Novella Review: Even Though I Knew The End by CL Polk

 
Full Disclosure:  This book was read as an e-ARC Audiobook (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on November 8, 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.

Even Though I Knew the End by CL Polk.

Even Though I Knew the End is a Lesbian/Queer Fantasy Noir by author CL Polk (Witchmark), in a story that takes place in an alternate version of 1920s Chicago in which magical orders, demons and angels are very real (although the public might not know too much about them). Demons/Angels-based Noir stories are not new to me - see Rebecca Roanhorse's Tread of Angels which is coming out the same month as this - but I've liked the few I've read and Polk is an excellent writer, so I was looking forward to this one, which I read in eAudiobook form over a week.*

*The audiobook reader is excellent by the way, so I definitely recommend this novella in that format.

And Even Though I Knew the End is really strong and very enjoyable noir - an excellent example of the form. The story follows a Lesbian Warlock who was cast out from her magic order - after making a deal with a devil/demon to save the life of her brother - as she begins a dangerous quest to solve a strange magic and possibly demon-influenced set of murders in her last days before her soul is forfeit, in hopes at first of helping her beloved who is ignorant of the whole thing....before everything goes to hell. It works really well with a strong voiced lead protagonist, a really well done world, and a satisfying short plot, and some strong themes of dealing with homophobia and sexism and what one would do and give up to be with the ones they love, so definitely recommended, even if I don't think it transcends the form.

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SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

 

Nona the Ninth is the third book in Tamsyn Muir's "The Locked Tomb" series, which burst onto the scene a few years back with Gideon the Ninth to both critical and popular acclaim. My feelings on the series are a bit more mixed - I very much enjoyed Gideon the Ninth, with its Lesbian Necromancers in Space concept, locked room mystery, and sarcastic backtalking heroine, but despite all that found that the setting of the story was kind of barebones. This became a problem for me in the second book, Harrow the Ninth, which cultivated mystery upon mystery that I just couldn't find it in myself to care about, as it relied upon aspects of the setting and other characters who were never really explored...and never really provided much answers to grab onto. It doesn't help that my fast reading style apparently missed quite a bit of context that as put into the margins, as I've found out since from looking at Harrow's wikipedia and tvtropes pages.

Still, I was willing to give book 3 a try, and I found myself actually liking Nona the Ninth. This book was not originally planned - it was apparently part 1 of what was originally a trilogy's finale (Alecto the Ninth) before it was spun off into its own book after it got too long and substantive on its own merit. And despite that, it feels like a complete book, not half of one, and its main character - while very different from prior protagonists Gideon and Harrow - is really enjoyable, as an optimistic 19 year old girl without memories of who she is and a bright disposition in a world going to hell around her. The story still has issues of way too many mysteries going on, not all of which I cared about, but actually provides some answers finally to ground the setting, something I have been missing for 3 books now. The result will definitely please anyone who loved the first two books, and if you were on the fence about continuing like me, I do think Nona is worth a try.

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Thursday, November 17, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Empress of Time by Kylie Lee Baker

 





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 4, 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 Empress of Time is the sequel to Kylie Lee Baker's phenomenal YA Fantasy novel, The Keeper of Night.  I really loved that novel (my review here), which featured Ren, whose father was a British Reaper and whose mother was a Japanese Shinigami, and who fled Britain with her fully Reaper brother after harming a noble Reaper family and attempted to find the home she never had with the Shinigami of Japan.  However, things don't go according to plan, and even though Ren attempts to complete the three tasks (and the Japanese Yokai she encounters along the way) the Japanese Death God Izanami sets her upon in order to be accepted into their ranks, she never really finds that acceptance...and her determination to prove herself at any cost leads her to a devastating ending.  It's a truly tremendous novel, which surprises often, and deals with both Japanese mythology and themes of fitting in, of love and family, and of the feeling of being a foreigner due to being not "pure" of blood or of not being the same type of people as the locals and how wrong such treatment is.  

The Empress of Time follows that book's devastating ending, and once again sets Ren on a quest through various parts of Japanese mythology, this time the myths of its Gods, and it works tremendously once more as it concludes the duology on an excellent note.  Once again we see Ren struggling with her failure to gain acceptance, despite all the power she has acquired, an her struggle with loneliness and regret as her worst enemies from her past, the British Reapers, finally come after her in Japan.  But this time, even as things once again surprise in ways I did not expect, we get a conclusion that satisfying finishes this duology and really hits the themes of how acceptance is something you find all around you from the family you make even if the society around you is too prejudiced to realize it should give it.  It's great, is what I'm saying, without spoiling.  

Note: I read the first few chapters in audiobook format, and the reader was excellent. And so while I didn't continue the novel in that format, I would recommend it to anyone seeking an audiobook.

MAJOR SPOILERS FOR BOOK 1 AFTER THE JUMP:  \

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Tuesday, November 15, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Bindle Punk Bruja by Desideria Mesa

 




Bindle Punk Bruja is the debut novel from Mexican American author Desideria Mesa. The story is a historical fantasy, taking place in Prohibition-era Kansas City, and features as its first person protagonist a half-Mexican-American young woman who can and does pass for White, despite her magical Bruja heritage and minor powers, as she tries to become successful as an independent owner of a Speakeasy in a racist, sexist, and classist world.

And it's a story with a ton of elements - questions about identity, about being self-sufficient vs being supported by others, about dealing with prejudice from many angles, and more - that generally work pretty well. Significantly, its main character Luna/Rose is really excellent, as she finds herself in more and more trouble from outside forces wanting in on her success, to internal struggles over her identity and her need to protect those she cares about - her family and her staff. That said, this is a book that has so so so many elements - too many really for it to deal with, which weakens its power and plotting in the end because it tries to do too much. Still, it's a very good first novel and I do recommend it.

Trigger Warning: Homophobia, Racism, Sexism, overtly so due to the time period and the subject matter, as the story features multiple POC, women and LGBTQ characters. 

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Monday, November 14, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Seasonal Fears by Seanan McGuire

 




Seasonal Fears is the second book by Seanan McGuire in the universe she created with the critically acclaimed Middlegame (my review here).  I'm a huge fan of McGuire, but at the same time, didn't quite love Middlegame as much as other people - the story's world filled with alchemists who were trying to embody various concepts about the universe in human form, for the sake of acquiring power....leading to a pair of separated twins, Dodger and Rodger, struggling to figure themselves out as they manifested the forces underlying our entire universe.  The story had some great main characters, but the book's parallels with McGuire's invented children's book quoted throughout and the final revelations near the end just left me uninspired.  

Seasonal Fears is a companion novel which is entirely stand-alone and does not require knowledge of the original book, although it will certainly help due to that first book's protagonists showing up for a significant part midway through.  It's also a book clearly playing upon tropes and ideas that McGuire clearly likes and uses in other books - the idea of humans who are tied to and manifest powers depending on the seasons, the teenage loves who find themselves confronted by tragedy, and a race across the country to escape forces trying to threaten those lovers.  

And yet, Seasonal Fears was a huge miss for me.  I really never found myself caring for the two main characters or really invested in the conflict that brews all book between them and one of the major antagonists, and the plot here, like that in Middlegame, never really made an impact on me.  Whereas with Middlegame I really liked the protagonists and felt tremendously for them as they were put through the ringer, I really just found myself reading this without much interest, all the way through its conclusion.  

I'll try to explain more after the jump:  Trigger Warning: Suicidal Ideation (more like Self-Euthanasia of a dying girl) is a minor part of this book, although not nearly to the extent as in Middlegame and is never discussed in imminent detail

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Thursday, November 10, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Godslayers by Zoe Hana Mikuta

 



Godslayers is the conclusion to the story that began in Zoe Hana Mikuta's YA dystopian and mecha-based SciFi novel Gearbreakers (My review of Gearbreakers is here).  Gearbreakers was a novel that I really liked - a dark novel featuring a pair of teen girls trying to fight back against an evil Empire using mecha to control the populace, which featured the two girls falling for each other even as they came from very very different backgrounds....and which featured some really dark plot turns as they each had to sacrifice so so much in their efforts at revolution...and not just things, but people.  I know that was a run on sentence, but well, it gets the point of how much Gearbreakers dealt with, and it worked really well in everything - in its themes, in its romance/characters, and even in its mecha action.  And it ended with a hell of a cliffhanger, which I'll discuss after the jump to avoid spoilers.  

Godslayers meanwhile manages to really nail its themes and atmosphere, as it deals with themes of how war and Empire chews up children on all sides, whether they be those pressed into service in support of the Empire, those who rise up to rebel against it, and even those forced to lead it and keep its bloody operations going and going.  It does a really good job with these stories, especially as it portrays the dark end results of an Empire possibly on its deathbed, the actions of people who have been raised and essentially brainwashed by propaganda and worse to treat the Empire's symbols - its mecha - as gods, and how this all affects even those who have tried to fight the Empire at great cost.  It does a bit lesser of a job at developing its characters individually and the main characters' romance, where the book really relies upon the work from its predecessor to make events happening to the characters, and the separation of its main duo, to have meaning.  The result is a really solid conclusion, especially if you reread Gearbreakers first (which I did not), but not quite one that may fully live up to the expectations set by book 1.  

MAJOR SPOILERS for book 1 after the jump:  

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Tuesday, November 8, 2022

SciFi Mini Book Reviews: Syn City: Reality Bytes by Lewis Knight and The Audacity 3: Be Kind Rewind by Carmen Loup

As I'm no longer having as much free time for reviews anymore, I'm going to be trying something new on this blog: Mini Book Reviews...posts with multiple smaller book reviews for books I have less to say about than normal.  

So below the jump I have reviews of two self-published works I found through the SPSFC: Syn City: Reality Bytes and The Audacity 3.  Syn City just isn't super interesting enough to be worth a full review, even if it's not bad, and The Audacity 3 is a sequel to a book I did do a full review of, and is more of the same of that book - which is a good thing mind you, but it means it doesn't really require a full review as a sequel.  

My thoughts on these books is below:


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Monday, November 7, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy/Horror Book Review: Just Like Home by Sarah Gailey

 



Just Like Home is the latest novel from author Sarah Gailey, one of the more fascinating authors of both long and short sci-fi/fantasy in the past few years.  Their works are always really interesting in themes and characters, whether that be a story dealing heavily with abuse and how it shapes generations and perpetuates itself like The Echo Wife or a Queer YA Fantasy like When We Were Magic, etc etc.  I haven't always liked Gailey's works - I find they tend to struggle with endings, which tend to seem abrupt and ill fitting of what came before, but they're almost always fascinating...and sometimes very powerful as they deal with serious and strong themes.  

Just Like Home is another strong work - this time a psychological and maybe more horror novel about what it is to be monstrous, and about parental abuse and caring and how that shapes someone - particularly its protagonist Vera, the daughter of an abusive/neglectful mom and a loving dad who turned out to be a horrifying serial killer.  The story works pretty well atmospherically as Vera returns home at the behest of her dying mother, deals with a creepy artist fascinated by her old house, and deals with strange visions and messages popping up, and doesn't go in some of the directions you might have guessed as it jumps back and forth in time to reveal the events of the past.  It's really well done, creepy and strong at times, but at the same time, parts of the setup feel kind of abrupt, so it still doesn't quite all work.

More after the jump:

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Thursday, November 3, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: A Strange and Stubborn Endurance by Foz Meadows

 




A Strange and Stubborn Endurance is the long awaited* fifth novel from author Foz Meadows, whose Manifold Worlds YA Portal Fantasy duology made waves in 2016-2017.  I really really liked the first of those two novels, An Accident of Stars, which to be honest was one of the first really queer novels that I think I read since I started reading back in 2015, and pulled it off in a novel filled with themes about identity and more in ways that I really liked - although I didn't quite love some of the twists in its sequel.  But I was really looking forward to more from Meadows, and finally I am getting my wish in A Strange and Stubborn Endurance, which is not a YA novel but instead a M/M fantasy romance....

*The wait was exacerbated by Meadows having to deal with an essentially abusive agent with regards to her last books*.  

And the wait was largely worth it, as I really liked A Strange and Stubborn Endurance - it tells a really strong M-M romance in which one of the two partners deals with coming from a homophobic country and trauma from rape, and the other deals with a surprise partner he never expected.  Add in some court intrigue, which winds up coming down to plot elements - showing how much a loved one is valued is  major theme - that tie in really well with the recovering from abuse and the romance plot, and well you have a book that generally works really well.  The only major problem for me was the early rape scene, which, if you can get past that (and I advise skimming), you'll find a really really solid and enjoyable romance.   


TRIGGER WARNING:  RAPE - The book's second chapter features from first person a rape in detail and this goes on for thee hardcover pages, and honestly is a bit more than it needs to be.  As noted in the rest of this review, the book uses this well, and the story of main character Velasin's trauma and recovery from trauma as a result of the rape are handled really well as a major theme of this book, so the book is still well worth reading.  And the scene is skimmable like I eventually did.  But it very well may be too much for some readers.  

Also Trigger Warning for Suicidal Ideation and self-harm as a result of the above.  


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Wednesday, November 2, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: This Wicked Fate by Kalynn Bayron

 





This Wicked Fate is the second book in Kalynn Bayron's young adult modern fantasy duology which began with This Poison Heart (reviewed here).  That book and this one were hyped up quite a lot by people I respect, and I enjoyed This Poison Heart for what it was: a YA modern fantasy featuring a Black (Queer) Teen Girl and some of the usually more reviled parts of Greek mythology (most notably Medea, Jason's wife).  At the same time, the book never really hit super high moments for me, with it relying on some very ordinary YA tropes and genre blindness that worked but prevented it from really impressing this reader who is out of the book's expected audience.*

*It should be noted I am very much not this book's best audience.  As much as I enjoy YA works, I am not a young adult reader, nor do I teach such readers.  I am also a White Cis Man, who tries to read works from people of color as often as possible to expand my horizons and to read more interesting and different things, but at the same time, that means that I won't feel the impact of books directed at POC or Black Readers like this book which are seemingly directed at similar White audiences all the time.  So take all this review for what it is.*

This Wicked Fate is kind of more of that same.  The story is very enjoyable for what it is, with it being a Black YA Fantasy dealing with Greek Mythology, featuring basically only women as major characters, with the story dealing with struggles and traumas over generations as its heroine Bri tries to save her family in a race against time.  At the same time, the book again relies on what for older readers may be an appalling amount of blindness to the obvious from Bri at times, and takes about half the book for the main plot to get going, which can be really frustrating.  The result is enjoyable and a solid YA work, and one that may be especially resonant to Black readers, but one which doesn't rank as high for me as it apparently does for others. 

Spoilers for Book 1 are inevitable below:

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Tuesday, November 1, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Dance with the Devil by Kit Rocha



Dance with the Devil is the third book in Kit Rocha's "Mercenary Librarian" series of Post-Apocaplytic SF Romance novels, which began with Deal with the Devil and continued with The Devil You Know.  The series features two groups of super-soldiers: genetically modified Maya, Nina, and Dani (to start) and mechanically augmented Knox, Rafe, Gray and Conall, all of whom escaped from the Corporate powers that rule this post-apocalypse version of the US, as they attempt to make a better life for the people of Atlanta despite it all...and maybe fall in steamy love with one of the others along the way.  The first two books were very enjoyable sexy* fun, and so I was very happy to preorder the third, especially given my enjoyment of Rocha's other works.  

*Note that this is not an "Erotic Romance" like Rocha's Beyond Series (technically set in a different part of the same world) and thus while there is sex, the book isn't chock-full of it like in that series, relying more on action and romantic moments that aren't simply sexual exploration (although that is there too).  

Dance with the Devil follows Dani - the girl modified to feel no pain - and Rafe - former intelligence agent who got into the Techcorps world to support his family - as they both attempt to deal with their steaming attraction to each other (and Rafe's wanting of something more permanent than mere sex) and with the need to infiltrate the Techcorps to gather intel necessary to help their people...and to possibly inspire a revolution to make things better.  You have steamy spy moments, strong characters (including the fun main duo, who I'd been waiting to see featured since early in book 1), decent action and well a plot that works pretty well as both a stand alone and a potential conclusion to this series....even as it also sets up the potential for a continuation at some point (the authors have said they're taking a break from the series).  I needed a fun read when I started this book, and I got it.  


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Thursday, October 27, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez

 



Full Disclosure:  This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on August 30, 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.

Simon Jimenez burst onto the SciFi/Fantasy scene with 2020's The Vanished Birds, which was an utterly fascinating book, even as it was kind of a bit more in the literary direction than my usual read. The story followed a number of characters who interacted with a mysterious boy, and dealt with the choices and sacrifices those people made for their professional and personal lives, among other themes, and featured some really great character work, even if its ending felt a bit rushed and the antagonist just felt kind of there. It was a really well done and interesting novel, especially for a first novel, which made me very eager to get to Jimenez' second novel, The Spear Cuts Through Water.

And The Spear Cuts Through Water is honestly my book of 2022 so far, even as it is a very very different kind of novel than The Vanished Birds. Told with phenomenal prose as if the story is a stage play of the past shown in a dream-like magical theatre (to an unnamed but not undefined narrator), The Spear Cuts Through Water is a love story, a quest story, a story of memory and who we are, of guilt and redemption, and more. It's a beautifully told story that had me gripped from its very beginning and while it takes its time getting to its main two protagonists, it never felt slow or tiring...and once it got to the protagonists, I fell slowly but deeply in love with them. This is going to be a difficult review to write because of the type of novel this is, but let's just be clear up front, this novel is fantastic and I cannot recommend more highly that you give it a try.

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Tuesday, October 25, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Novella Review: Kundo Wakes Up by Saad Z. Hossain

 



Kundo Wakes Up by Saad Z. Hossain


Kundo Wakes Up is a new novella by author Saad Z. Hossain, author of The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday and Cyber Mage.  It's advertised as a companion novella to The Gurkha (which I have not read) but really it's just set in the same cyberpunk universe as both of these past works, a cyberpunk India/Bangladesh in which cities are run by AIs, virtual reality games are in vogue, and Djinns secretly influence events from behind the scenes.  I really liked Cyber Mage, even though there were some cringey parts, so I was interested to try this new Hossain novella.  

And Kungo Wakes Up takes this setting and makes it work really well, bringing together a cast of those left behind - an artist who never realized as things were falling apart around him, a woman and her child who didn't realize the neighborly hacker had a crush, an elderly crime lord cast away due to his age, a hacker with a drug addition etc. - as they try and figure out what's taking away more and more people from the City and disappearing them.  Along the way of this very entertaining cyberpunk and djinn flavored plot we have a theme of realizing what you have and letting what you don't have and lost go, and it works pretty well, even if this never comes close to the "must read" level of work.  


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Monday, October 24, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Red Scholar's Wake by Aliette de Bodard

 

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 November 24, 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 Red Scholar's Wake is the latest work from one of my favorite authors, Aliette de Bodard, known best for her Dominion of the Fallen series (and its spin-off Dragon and Blades) as well as her Xuya universe in which she has set a number of short stories and novellas.  This book is the first full length Xuya novel, and is also a project which de Bodard has teased on twitter, her newsletter, and her Patreon (yes I follow all three) for some time: the space pirate lesbian book inspired by the real life pirates in the South China Sea who were supported by Vietnam in taking ships belonging to the then Chinese Empire.  It's a book that I've been looking forward to for some time, so I pre-ordered it the moment it became available in North America and then requested an e-ARC the moment it showed up on NetGalley...and then read it the next day despite having way too long of a TBR already.  

And The Red Scholar's Wake delivers largely as I'd hoped - with an excellent Lesbian romance between Space Pirate/Spaceship Rice Fish and engineer Xich Si that develops both characters really well, along with a bunch of side characters in this clearly inspired by the real world universe.  And the romance is - as you should expect from de Bodard - accompanied by a story that deals with the unjustness of various systems of society, drawing a parallel between the indentures allowed by the lawful government and the taking and selling of prisoners by pirates, as well as the other ways each system can be unjust despite the good people trying to make either system better - and these themes of justice and whatnot work really well.  There's even, to add to it all naturally, themes of grief and of what turns out to be unintentionally neglectful parenting amidst a relationship in which one party is not getting exactly what she needs or wants.  All together it's pretty damn good and I really recommend it if you like space opera romance.  

More after the jump:

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Thursday, October 20, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Audacity by Carmen Loup

 


The Audacity is the first in a self-published sci-fi series by Carmen Loup, with the series openly inspired by the work of Douglas Adams (think Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy). I enjoyed the Hitchhiker's Guide when I read it back in High School (and on rereads since) but I've often found books taking after Hitchhiker's to not really work for me. Those books often are non-stop with the jokes and ridiculousness to the point of overwhelming everything else (for example, Cat Valente's Space Opera), seemingly forgetting that Hitchhiker's wasn't quite that, even as filled with language-filled humor as it was. But I've enjoyed a few novels in this vein, and with this book being one of those I was to judge for this year's Self-Published Science Fiction Competition (SPSFC), I had to give it a try.*

 *Disclaimer: Due to a snafu involving the books provided to us as SPSFC Judges, I actually read about 40% of one of this book's sequels (book 3) before I gave this book a try - this may have colored my opinion a little, but hopefully not too much*

To my pleasant surprise, The Audacity struck to me the right balance of jokey, ridiculousness, and plot/characters. Our main character May, who finds herself abducted by aliens (led by a Chaos Goddess) and then accidentally rescued and going around the galaxy with a bonkers alien gig (& occasional sex) worker - where she more than anything tries to find a way to live without feeling like a freeloader. And of course there's rocket ship racing, obnoxious men and aliens to deal with, and yeah the saving of the Earth from the aforementioned goddess in the plot as well and somehow it all combines into a highly enjoyable if ridiculous ride.

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Wednesday, October 19, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Babel: or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution by R.F. Kuang

 



Full Disclosure:  This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on August 23, 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.

Babel, or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution (hereinafter, I'm just referring to the book as "Babel") is the newest novel from author R.F.. Kuang, who previously wrote the incredible Poppy War trilogy.  That novel was a second world fantasy based heavily upon the modern history of China, especially the atrocities its people suffered in the Sino-Japanese Wars, the Opium Wars, and from Imperialist interference, and was powerful and devastating to read.  So it's hardly a surprise that Kuang would write a Historical Fantasy novel as her next novel, which is what Babel is, taking place in an alternate 1830s, in which the British Empire wielded its power through at type of magic centered around Oxford, based upon linguistics and the ability to translate foreign used languages.  And with a full title like Babel has, you have an idea that what's coming is going to be similar in theme and message to that of the Poppy War, in the necessity for violent action in dealing with oppressors.  

And Babel is just that, and it is really powerful and incredible as a result, as the book follows a boy, who takes the name Robin Swift, as he's taken from his dead family in China by a racist colonialist English Professor and taught the power of learning and using different languages...and the magic of translation of such languages, like the Cantonese that is his native tongue.  There, alongside others at Oxford, at their own tower known as Babel, he comes together with others like himself, taken from various native lands to exploit for England's own use....and Robin and the other struggle with how they're both privileged and still treated as Others, and struggle with the need to rebel and do something about the injustice at great cost to themselves.  The result is a novel that is often devastating as we follow Robin throughout a situation that only gets worse and worse, and while it's never anything close to subtle, it's all the more incredibly powerful as a result.  


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Tuesday, October 18, 2022

Fantasy Novella Review: Tread of Angels by Rebecca Roanhorse

 



 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 November 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.


Tread of Angels by Rebecca Roanhorse

Tread of Angels is a new stand alone fantasy novella by author Rebecca Roanhorse, known for her Navajo inspired Sixth World fantasy series and her pre-Colombian inspired epic fantasy Between Earth and Sky (Black Sun) series.  Unlike those works however, Tread of Angels is a stand alone novella, featuring a noir-esque mystery in a world in which Demons and Angels are present on Earth to some extent, and their byblows - the Elect for Angels, the Fallen for Demons, and hybrids in between, - form the basis of this society in Colorado. 

The results is a story that starts out with some familiar beats - the Angel/Demons thing among us, with prejudice for those with Fallen blood is something I've read before, as is the Noir-ish story with the sister looking to save the accused of murder criminal by finding out a truth - but then shifts to something a bit more interesting and unique along the way.  And this winds up working really well, as the investigation reveals corruption and people being not what they seem, and a main character who makes choices you might not expect....to what turns out to be a pretty crushing ending.  If there's a fault here other than parts of this having been done before, it's that this is so short that some of the impact is blunted by not being together with characters long enough....and yet the shortness also allows this to form a pretty efficient complete story, so yeah this is a winner that's worth your time.  


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Monday, October 17, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Speaking Bones by Ken Liu




Speaking Bones is the fourth and final book in Ken Liu's Epic Fantasy (or perhaps more accurately, Silkpunk, as he calls his melding of a genre based upon the technology language and ideas of East Asia and the Pacific Islands) series known as The Dandelion Dynasty, which began in 2015 with his classic "The Grace of Kings".  The series was originally labeled a trilogy (although The Grace of Kings works entirely as a stand alone), but after a four year gap after book 2 (The Wall of Storms), it was announced that the final book in the trilogy would be divided into two more novels - 2021's The Veiled Throne and 2022's Speaking Bones.  And rest assured, the division did nothing to reduce the page length of these novels, the physical copy I borrowed from the library of Speaking Bones is 900+ pages long, and packed full of story, content, and characters.

Of course page length is far from all this series has to offer, and what books 1-3 did was offer a story of generations of peoples coming into conflict over leadership of at first one nation, Dara, and then two once a faraway land (Ukyu-Gondé) seemingly impossible to access has its people (the Lyucu) invade.  The result has been an absolutely sprawling epic over long years, as characters fight over how to govern, how to wage war, how to advance people technologically, how to try to assist different subpeoples and minorities and poor move forward, and more.  The last book, The Veiled Throne, was incredibly sprawling, and while clearly incomplete, it told a fascinating series of tales of peoples struggling in a difficult status quo - one nation where an oppressed group was hoping to fight back with help from outsiders from Dara, and another nation in essentially a cold war with invaders who had seized a major island and who had waged previously a devastating war - with the Veiled Throne asking quite frequently what is the truth amongst stories that different peoples tell and contradict one another. 

Speaking Bones continues that story, picking up the threads of its predecessor, but being just as sprawling, for generally better rather than worse.  As before, the story jumps between nations and times and characters frequently, with certain characters disappearing for long stretches, but most things do come together in the end, with an epilogue that was exactly what I wanted.  And these characters remain terrific, and Liu does a tremendous job in setting up their inner hearts, their identities, and how they try to push forward in making a better world...and how those conflicting ideals result first in conflict and then eventually come together to a conclusion which tries to answer the questions: how do you handle going forward in a world where two rival peoples have committed horrible acts against each other and need to possibly live together?  Is there any possibility for peace amidst all this, and if there isn't, will war go on forever in cycles of vengeance?  What type of leadership should a nation have going forward, and how can it both move forward while not forgetting the lessons of the past?  These are common questions in a lot of books, and Liu's answers are as interesting as any I've seen anywhere...and perhaps just as importantly, Liu doesn't pretend his answers are clearly right both in story or out.  The result is a story that is a tremendous finish to one of the more tremendous series over the past 10 years, which I highly recommend. 

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Thursday, October 13, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Unbalancing by R.B. Lemberg

 



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 20, 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 Unbalancing is billed as the first full length novel in author R.B. Lemberg's acclaimed "Birdverse" fantasy universe, which previously featured the critically acclaimed novella The Four Profound Weaves.  Now the Unbalancing is not much longer than that novella (I'm guessing the ad press refers to it crossing the word count for the Hugo/Nebula definition of "Novel"), but honestly - that's fine, as The Four Profound Weaves (Review Here) was an incredible queer fantasy novella that was one of my favorite works in 2020, dealing with queerness and the right to choose one's own identity and path in a world filled with authoritarians and others fighting against change.  So I was exceedingly thrilled to hear that this longer story (one that apparently was a full story adaptation of an earlier poem by Lemberg) was coming in the same universe. 

And the Unbalancing is really interesting and really good, even as its very different from The Four Profound Weaves, featuring not a battle for one's right to assert queerness in an anti-queer world, but rather a queer-friendly world in which one queer main character isn't quite sure how they should identify themselves amidst all the options open to them.  The story features a romance between an autistic protagonist, whose ancestor constantly urges to take steps towards power and leadership for the good of all despite their lack of comfort in it, and a woman who does take that power and leadership and tries to use it, sometimes impatiently, to remedy and save a land she sees her predecessor as having failed...and to prove herself despite the abuse she suffered emotionally from a parent growing up.  It's a story that really surprises in how it unfolds, without really any true villains, as it deals with issues of consent, of power, of how people act in different speeds and have different wants, and about mistakes of the past and ways forward in the future.  It is naturally well worth your time, in what little time it takes to finish.  

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Monday, October 10, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The City Inside by Samit Basu

 




The City Inside is a novel originally published in India by author Samit Basu.  It's a release I'd seen hyped up a bit, featuring a dystopian future India where progressive protesting movements failed and dystopian governments emerged in their place, who use incredible surveillance and camera technology to punish dissenters.  In this world, we find the daughter of such protestors, who tries to make a name for herself as the "reality coordinator" for the future equivalent of a famous instagram/tiktok influencer by managing his streams like no one else can as well as the son of a wealthy family who ran away and finds himself rudderless in a world as heartless and as artificial....and cruel...as anything else.  

The result is a really interesting novel dealing with how people cope with a seemingly hopeless dystopia, how they try to manipulate reality, and how they either fade into the crappy background or somehow find a way to make a stand.  You have empty relationships, media driven by what the viewers supposedly want to see, as well as games played by those in power to manipulate such desires...and the result deals with some really fascinating themes and ideas.  I'm sadly writing this review a few days after finishing it, which will make this review a bit more muddled than it should be, but trust me this is well worth your time.  


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