SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Moonstorm by Yoon Ha 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 June 4, 2024 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.

Moonstorm is the first in a new Young Adult Science Fiction (Mecha) trilogy written by author Yoon Ha Lee. I believe this is Lee's first work in the YA space - Lee has previously written adult novels (Machineries of Empire, Phoenix Extravagant) and middle grade novels (the Dragon Pearl trilogy), but never YA. As someone who has greatly enjoyed Lee's work, which often deals with fascinating themes of Empire and of colonization and competing powers and cultures, I was eager to see him ply his trade in YA (which I also read a lot of).

But any review of Moonstorm is going to struggle for this reviewer because the book's setup feels almost like a more junior version of the Machineries of Empire trilogy - for example, here the Empire fights a battle over its own definition of gravity which is strengthened by the beliefs of its own people. The book has a very solid YA Protagonist in Hwa Young, a girl taken from her destroyed homeworld and adopted into the Empire, where she becomes pressed into service against her former people as one of the Empire's lancer (mecha) pilots. But a large portion of the plot feels very paint by numbers in classic YA fashion despite the typical themes and concepts Lee throws in. A new YA reader who hasn't read any of Lee before might really find this fascinating and like it, but even they might find themselves calling what will happen way too early. More specifics after the jump.

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Installment Immortality by Seanan McGuire

 

Installment Immortality is the 14th mainline* novel in Seanan McGuire's InCryptid urban fantasy series: which follows the Price/Healy family as they attempt to safeguard Cryptids (creatures not believed by science) from the monster hunting Covenant of St. George and other often inhuman threats. This is also the second novel to center around former Crossroads ghost Mary Dunlavy, as she figures out who she is after the death of the Crossroads and the explosive events of the last book. As people should know, I'm a rather big fan of this series, so I managed to grab this book to read despite being way way behind on my TBR, although I have mixed feelings about how dire events in the series have gotten the last few books.

*McGuire releases InCryptid short stories on her Patreon, and one of those short stories was itself a novel, hence me using the word "mainline" to not mess with the count.

And I really liked Installment Immortality for the most part as it took the characters' struggling with some pretty tragic events, trauma and grief, and managed to examine it at the same time it also managed to give us some of the better parts of InCryptid: the encounters with the different Cryptid communities (in this case also some of the ghost communities) and how they work and survive in a human dominant world. In some ways it felt like a Rose Marshall book at times with its focus on the various types of ghosts (not really a problem for me), and the attached novella dealing with a spoiler character's grief over last book also worked really well. InCryptid fans will enjoy this one and people who haven't tried out the series will only have more reason to (although do NOT start here).

Spoilers for book 13 - Aftermarket Afterlife - and earlier books are below, so if you haven't read those books, be FOREWARNED. Also, this is not a good place to start this series, which has a few earlier jumping on points (Books 1, 3, and 6 work well in particular, plus online short stories).

Video Game Review: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

 

Anyone who follows me on social media or this blog and sees my rare video game playthrough talk may know two things: one I love JRPGs and two, I rarely play anything that is a major new game, with most of my gaming over the last few years being dedicated to the Trails series. But I follow a bunch of people in the video game sphere, and they would not stop talking and hyping Clair Obscur, a brand new RPG, with inspirations from Final Fantasy, that was released by a brand new French Studio to massive critical and seemingly financial success. And so, with a gaming laptop that was only a year old, I decided to give it a try, even despite some things that I suspected would cause me to not be in love with the game - particularly the game's reliance upon reflex-based dodge and parry mechanics in the middle of its Turn Based Gameplay.

I'm pretty glad I did, despite the dodge and parry mechanics being a major issue for me (as I'll go into later, I basically eschewed the tighter parrying mechanics entirely and tried to just get by with dodging and by using various other techniques to limit the damage from failing to dodge). Clair Obscur has a largely really great story (I think the ending is a failure, but everything leading up to it, especially the characters and plot development is excellent) and combines that with largely excellent gameplay that kept me enraptured....I picked this one up under the promise that the game was on the shorter scale for JRPGs and only 30 hours long and probably played closer to 70 hours since I did an extremely large percentage of the side content. The battle system is largely excellent, even if it does get to insanely unbalanced in the final act (a problem in a lot of JRPGs, such as my favorite series Trails), and much of the way the game works is intriguing and rewards someone who just wants to find one more thing to keep the game going. There's a lot of things that don't work in the gameplay as well, many of which feel like the things a more experienced game maker might've fixed, but the complaints are - except for one bit - mostly minor annoyances that I forgot about a short time after getting past them. This game is highly acclaimed and for largely good reason, so I definitely recommend it.

More specifics after the jump - note that I won't be talking graphics or music really down below as those aren't my things, but the graphics here are very good (even if I found them a bit too dark for my taste at times) and the soundtrack is incredibly French but also incredibly excellent and I have been listening to the OST for quite some time.

SciFi/Fantasy/Romance Book Review: Witch You Would by Lia Amador

 

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 2, 2025 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.

Witch You Would is the first fantasy romance - or Magical Rom-Com as the marketing material calls it - by Lia Amador (aka humorous Sci-Fi author Valerie Valdes). The novel features a world where magic is as ubiquitous as cooking - indeed, they work in very clear similar ways - to the point where a reality show has sprung up around it: Cast Judgment, in which spellcasters compete to prove they're the best and are worthy of both a cash prize and a year residency at a super fanciful magical arts center. Into this world we have our romantic duo: Penelope, a spell technician obsessed due to trauma with making sure every spell component is exactly right and who wants the residency so she can finally decipher the spells in her late Abuela's spellbook - and Gil, an adjunct professor of magical theory who's secretly the popular joke influencer Leandro Presto, who posts on the magical version of tik tok videos of him messing up spells and getting into trouble. And with Penelope and Gil have serious pen pal crushes with each other....but Penelope also hates the screwing up of Leandro, so when she gets paired up with Leandro on Cast Judgment.....boom, magical romance.

And it's a romance that's a lot of fun to read, with excellent romantic main characters, a solid enjoyable setting and a pace that tantalizes and eventually delivers as much as I hope for in a romance. The reality show setting is clearly modeled after cooking shows - which I enjoy, so no complaints there - and the comedic tones of the characters, setting, and dialogue work pretty damn well. And most importantly, the romantic sparks between Gil and Penelope are very real, with some very believable and enjoyable sex scenes and romantic ups and downs, and it all winds up being a very cute enjoyable package. Definitely will read this one's sequel.

More specifics after the jump:

Fantasy Novella Review: Yoke of Stars 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 July 16, 2024 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.

Yoke of Stars is the latest story in R.B. Lemberg's Birdverse world, a world featuring queer characters (sometimes oppressed, sometimes not) and magic based upon "deepnames", whose power depend upon the number of syllables in those names and the number of them possessed by their holder - and whose various permutations can result in different powers and personalities.  It's a setting that has produced some remarkable works such as the novella The Four Profound Weaves - in which a pair of older protagonists try to assert their queerness in an anti-queernnorm world - and the short novel The Unbalancing - featuring a queer-friendly setting that dealt with a neurodivergent protagonist, issues of power, duty, romance and consent.  I'm oversimplifying both of those works in that one sentence description by the way, they're both very deep and really well written for their short lengths.  

Yoke of Stars is largely the stories of two people - Stone Orphan, a siltway (fish-like) woman cast out from her people's collective under the sea under the guidance of the Star of the Shoal and now an assassin under the Orphan Star; and Ulín, a woman with a love of languages who wanted only to learn more about them throughout the world...only to find herself controlled and destroyed by those who supposedly love her.  It's a really interesting story dealing with themes of language, translation, control, and freedom, and I'm still thinking about it as I write this review.  

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: That Devil, Ambition by Linsey Miller

 

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 3, 2025 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.

That Devil, Ambition is the latest dark YA Fantasy novel by author Linsey Miller, author of the Mask of Shadows duology, as well as the stand alone novels Belle Revolte and What We Devour (to name just her YA Fantasy work). The novel is based upon an idea that I feel is becoming rather common/overplayed of late: teens going to a school - usually of magic - that is deadly to its students, whether that be through the acts of the teachers, the students themselves, or the school building and spirits hanging around there (see Naomi Novik's Scholomance among others). Miller's work is generally extremely dark and uses her dark fantasy settings to play with some really interesting themes, so I was very curious to see her take on this setting.

And That Devil, Ambition pays off by really interrogating the reasoning and concepts behind this setting, all through a plot that follows 3 students involved in the deadly honors class: Fabian - an ambitious former noble looking to redeem his family line, Credence - a math genius from a foreign country who is relying upon her to succeed, and Euphemia (Mia) - a seemingly aloof an absent minded genius who struggles with other people. As part of the Honors Class, they will only graduate if they manage to kill their professor, an immensely powerful summoned Devil - but they will be killed if they fail in an attempt or if they fail to kill him by the end of the year. The three of them, and their classmates, are all forced into this honors class by oppressive student debt and impossible circumstances, and the story uses this setup to tell a strong tale about power, corrupt institutions perpetrating that power and trying to maintain it over others, debt (student debt especially) and the way it crushes those who have it, and more. It's some really good stuff and I highly recommend this book as usual for Miller.

More after the Jump:

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Proliferation by Erik A. Otto

 

Proliferation is a self-published epic post-apocalypse (Post-Apoc) Scifi novel by author Erik A. Otto. The novel is technically the second in a series (after a book called "Detonation", which I think is meant to explain some of this book's setting) but is meant to be entirely stand-alone, and the book is one of this year's Self-Published Sci-Fi Competition semifinalists (#SPSFC4). It's a book filled with ideas, as we see a series of AI-centered cities wake up with powerful weapons and issues over how they protect their residents, a major political power that seems to be an alliance between anti-technology cultists from the American west coast and a military dictatorship from what remains of Japan, and some technology-based cultists who are extremely antisocial in their ways among other things.

And yet, those ideas somehow more frustrate than anything else, as Proliferation lacks some of the core things such a book would need to actually be interesting. For one, the setting is so unexplained as to be frustrating, and the book's plot arcs seem to just reset and go nowhere repeatedly. For another, the characters are largely uninteresting and every faction we follow is just seemingly made up of assholes: why do we care about any of these people? What do they want in life? I have no idea for large parts. And then there's the fact that the book relies on certain tropes - like a character committing self-harm to mitigate some kind of unspecified disease - without any justification, and uses them really badly. In short, I cannot recommend Proliferation at all.

TRIGGER WARNINGS: Self Harm, Suicide Attempts and Suicidal Ideation, Drinking. These ideas aren't really handled very well either, just to be clear.