SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Ivory Key by Akshaya Raman

 

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Ivory Key by Akshaya Raman: https://t.co/F6J6oqqxaZ

Short Review: 6 out of 10
1/3

— Josh (garik16) (@garik16) March 11, 2022

Short Review: The First half of a Indian-inspired YA Fantasy Duology featuring four royal siblings each searching for a legendary source of magic for their own purposes which is too short to really develop any of the characters or plots beyond archetypical tropes
2/3

— Josh (garik16) (@garik16) March 11, 2022

The Ivory Key is the first in a Indian inspired YA Fantasy duology by debut author Akshaya Raman.  The story features a country known for its ability to excavate physical magic from its mines, a country that is falling apart due to foreign pressure, internal poverty, and the secret decline in magic.  In that country the story follows a family of four royal siblings, children of a father who once dreamed of a long lost artifact that could unlock other sources of magic but of course never found it - leading the protagonists to believe it just a myth, until their own individual goals lead them to go on a desperate quest to find it themselves.  

Unfortunately, the result is very meh, and not particularly interesting, even if it's done competently enough.  The book is not very long, and tries to feature four main characters with their own points of view, along with a country and geopolitical situation and long lost myths and well....books that try to do all that generally can work by focusing on certain elements, like 1-2 specific characters, and to develop them well while leaving the rest underdeveloped.  Instead, The Ivory Key tries to develop all four characters, as well as the world to some extent, and as a result they all feel underdeveloped, like stock characters, and the plot really doesn't hit any surprising or truly interesting plot beats to make carrying on further with these characters feel worth it.  It's not bad in any way, it's just meh, which makes this hard to recommend with so much else great out there.  

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Blood Trials by N.E. Davenport

 

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Blood Trials by N. E. Davenport: https://t.co/71XTFQBE5L

Short Review: 8 out of 10
1/3

— Josh (garik16) (@garik16) March 10, 2022

Short Review (cont): A Brutal YA SF/F novel (1st half of a duology) featuring a mixed-race girl with a magic secret who enters the Trials to become a member of a prejudiced Empire's toughest legions to avenge her grandfather. Really good & interesting, but abrupt in ending
2/3

— Josh (garik16) (@garik16) March 10, 2022

Full Disclosure:  This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on April 5, 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 Blood Trials is the debut novel of author N.E. Davenport, and the first half of a new YA SciFi/Fantasy Duology.  The story features a young woman, Ikenna, who is the granddaughter of a famous soldier who saved his Republic from the armies of a powerful conquering Empire...even despite that Republic's racist prejudice against his mixed blood heritage....and who suddenly and mysteriously died three months prior to the story's beginning.  And of course when Ikenna gets the word that he might have been murdered, she enlists herself in the dangerous trials that determine who becomes the Republic's elite soldiers in order to discover who killed him and to get her revenge.  

It's a pretty classic setup, but Davenport tells it in ways that are both brutal and often surprising in how it shows the brash Ikenna trying to get her revenge amongst horrifying odds and tremendous racial prejudice, with a setting that features honestly too many interesting parts for the book to really get into.  As a protagonist Ikenna is highly enjoyable in her impulsive good hearted but unabashedly brutal at times behavior and is easy to care for, and several other major characters are really well done side characters.  Still, the final act of the book introduces a part of this world only hinted at previously, such that it feels really really rushed, as the book rushes towards a cliffhanger ending to end before book 2.  But there's enough compelling and different here to keep me interested to try out the sequel.

SciFi/Fantasy Novella: Ogres by Adrian Tchaikovsky

 


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 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.


Ogres by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Ogres is the latest novella by prolific British author Adrian Tchaikovsky, whose novellas I have really enjoyed (much more so than his novels) in the past.  Tchaikovsky has a tendency in his novellas to do fun or interesting things with his writing and the plot concepts involved, from a story dealing with perspectives of people from very two different technological worlds who see the same story as a fantasy vs SciFi story (Elder Race) to a comedic story featuring a man living at the end of time who tries to destroy anyone else who builds a time machine to get to him (One Day All This Will Be Yours).  The results have always been highly interesting and entertaining....and Ogres similarly tries to do something different as well.

In Ogres case, that something different is a story told in the second person (not that uncommon these days) featuring a man in a world ruled by Ogres - giant people - in what seems at first to be a feudalistic fantasy society and soon becomes apparent is something more.  The story plays with the concept of what builds a hero, of horrors rich and powerful people inflict upon others, the power of knowledge and common interest to rise up, and more.  And the result, especially its ending, is rather strong and very well done.  Not sure this rises up to the level of some of his other (and more award worthy in my opinion) novella work, but it's definitely worth a read.

A Chorus of Dragons (by Jenn Lyons) Reread: Book Three: The Memory of Souls

 


Welcome to Part 3 of my reread of Jenn Lyons' A Chorus of Dragons, with this post featuring book 3 in the series, 2020's The Memory of Souls - probably my favorite of the series.  You can find all my posts in this Reread - 1 post per book - by clicking this link here.

The Memory of Souls is where A Chorus of Dragons, with the groundwork underlying the series being largely laid, finally spreads its wings and really goes all out.  Book 1 told the story pretty much entirely from Kihrin's perspective - yeah we had bits told from other perspectives all over the place, but it was Kihrin's story, which generally hindered the narrative.  Book 2 told the story half from Janel's perspective and half from Qown's (with Kihrin in the framing device).  

By contrast the Memory of Souls jumps all over the place.  Kihrin still probably gets half the chapters, but you have parts from Janel's perspective, from Tereath's perspective (finally), from Senera's perspective, from Talea's, from Grizzst's perspective, from Therin's, etc. etc.  In book 1, the wide spread of the plot was a problem, as the story couldn't focus upon a single story arc, leaving large parts feeling unsatisfyingly unresolved or pointless.  But here the wide spread of perspectives all come together in one epic end that massively changes the status quo of the series, to the point where we'll need a whole next book to come to grips with that new status quo (but we'll deal with that next week).  And well, not only do these perspectives give us an interesting story, they build the side and main characters up tremendously, build relationships to the point where I loved so many people here, and well....it's just generally great.  

More specifics after the jump, going heavily into spoilers of course:

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi

 

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi: https://t.co/nxS6lMlrh2

Short Review: 7 out of 10
1/3

— Josh (garik16) (@garik16) March 4, 2022

Short Review (cont): A short sci-fi novel featuring a geek fired by his asshole venture capitalist boss and finding himself recruited to a secret multinational org dedicated to protecting and researching Kaiju on an alternate Earth. Typically Enjoyable Scalzi

2/3

— Josh (garik16) (@garik16) March 4, 2022

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 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.    


John Scalzi is one of the most successful modern SciFi/Fantasy authors out there, at least from the subset of writers who haven't had major works made into major TV shows or motion pictures (Yet).  At one point in 2015-2016, I went on a big kick of reading Scalzi novels, from his entire Old Man's War series to his Hugo Award winning Redshirts to some of his other works, and I've now read 11 Scalzi books prior to this one.  And well, outside of Redshirts and maybe the Old Man's War series, I've kind of come down in my opinion on Scalzi - his works are always enjoyable and entertaining, and often have really relevant underlying themes (the dangers of capitalism, overlooking dangerous environmental disasters for short term gain, etc.) but they rarely go more than skin deep into those themes and I never really find myself blown away anymore.  

And The Kaiju Preservation Society is pretty much another great example of that.  To be fair, Scalzi admits in his acknowledgements in the end that he intended this to be a light enjoyable book because that was all he could manage during the pandemic, and well he's certainly done that here: a book featuring a bunch of scientists (and its protagonist dropout) going to a parallel world to help protect the nuclear powered Kaiju found there from each other....and from rich and powerful humans with dumb ambitions.  It's a short novel again, and it's stand alone, and again it's highly enjoyable and fun at times.  On the other hand again there really isn't anything spectacular about it, even from the standpoint of being a light humorous and enjoyable ride, so yeah

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Arkhangelsk by Elizabeth H. Bonesteel

 

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Arkhangelsk by Elizabeth H. Bonesteel: https://t.co/oQ3suQ6yMe

Short Review: 7.5 out of 10
1/3

— Josh (garik16) (@garik16) March 3, 2022

Short Review (cont): A noirish SciFi tale, as a long lost space colony struggling to survive on a harsh cold world is found by a new starship from Earth, forcing two women from different worlds to work together to survive and to unearth secrets behind it all. Solid story
2/3

— Josh (garik16) (@garik16) March 3, 2022

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 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.


Arkhangelsk is an upcoming scifi novel from author Elizabeth H. Bonesteel.  Prior to me starting this blog, back in 2016, I read the first in Bonesteel's space opera "Central Corps" series, which I didn't quite love (and thus didn't continue).  Still it had enjoyable prose, so I was curious to see how her other work would turn out when this popped up on NetGalley, 

And Arkhanelsk is a pretty interesting novel, even with a premise that will be very familiar to those who read a bunch of scifi: a long lost space colony, struggling to survive on a harsh world while thinking they're the last humans in the universe...only to be found by a new starship from Earth, who left a very different planet than their ancestors.  Add in some noirish elements - colonists who go missing, parts that are breaking down and/or sabotaged - and two protagonists: a well meaning colony security chief and an unwilling ship captain, and well there's plenty here that's familiar.  But it's done rather well, as its two protagonists are quite strong in their perspectives, troubles, and relationships - and even some of the setup is slightly different than usual, as it tells a story of the tough choices peoples make when desperate, and the costs they are willing to pay.....

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Circus Infinite by Khan Wong

 

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Circus Infinite by Khan Wong: https://t.co/YB5xvJI0QS

Short Review: 7.5 out of 10
1/3

— Josh (garik16) (@garik16) March 2, 2022

Short Review (cont): A found family story featuring a sci-fi universe filled with different aliens with various powers, featuring an empathic asexual protagonist on the run and finding a home with a multi-species circus. Very enjoyable even if the last act isnt as good.
2/3

— Josh (garik16) (@garik16) March 2, 2022

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 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.

The Circus Infinite is a SciFi novel by author Khan Wong, featuring a universe where a bunch of different species are connected to a single force that unites them, and provides certain members of each with their own special powers when they are on their own worlds.  It's a setup that isn't quite as ideal as it sounds, with various prejudices hindering the unity of all, such as a prejudice against the children of mixed-race parentage.  So naturally this story follows one such hybrid, Jes, a Human/Rijala hybrid on the run from those who would torture him for his special powers, as he discovers a circus made up of many different species and finds a family he never expected.  

This is hardly a unique setup, but the found family story is prominent for a reason, and it works very well here.  The characters are very well done, and the combination of Jes' powerset - not just gravity powers, but also empathic feeling of emotions - with his asexuality causes him mental stresses and difficulties in ways that I haven't seen done before, and it works pretty well.  On the other hand, most of the conflict plotline faced by Jes, featuring a gangster kingpin blackmailing him and more, is a bit generic and is resolved in a way that is a bit too easy and abrupt.  Still, the result is highly enjoyable and different enough to be well worth your time, even if its last act doesn't quite live up to the rest of it.