SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Diablo's Curse by Gabe Cole Novoa

Full Disclosure: This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on February 20, 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.

The Diablo's Curse is the second YA novel by author Gabe Cole Novoa, after his novel "The Wicked Bargain". It's essentially a stand-alone sequel to that book, featuring as one of its protagonists Dami, the demonio who was a minor character in that first book, who now seeks to become fully human by revoking all of the magical bargains they tricked humans into making with them. But the last such human, Silas, is cursed with deadly bad luck and the only thing keeping them from dying - permanently at least - is the bargain Dami struck with Silas. And so, to get that last deal done, Dami agrees to help Silas break said family curse by finding a long lost treasure on a magical island

It's a pretty standard YA setup to some extent, albeit one a lot more queer (Dami is NB/genderfluid, Silas is bi (but mostly prefers guys), and third protagonist Marisol is a trans girl) and with a Hispanic Spanish speaking protagonist in Dami. And it's generally pretty well executed even as it plays to the typical plot beats - like Silas and Dami falling for each other - and the story of each main character fighting to be able to be who they want to be and with the people they want to be with works well even as it does mostly eventually turn into the trio of protags looking for treasure on a dangerous mysterious magical island and falls into some very tropey parts in the book's ending.

Fantasy Novella Review: The Brides of High Hill by Nghi Vo

The Brides of High Hill is the Fifth Novella in Nghi Vo's wonderful award winning Singing Hills Cycle of novellas. The novellas follow Cleric Chih and their Neixein (sp?) Almost Brilliant (a bird who remembers everything) as they go around collecting and telling stories around an Asian-inspired world. It's a formula that has allowed Vo to tell a wide variety of sub-genre stories, from a Wuxia story (Into the Riverlands) to a Romance story (When the Tiger Comes Down the Mountain) to a story filled with grief and memories (Mammoths at the Gates) etc.

The Brides of High Hill is Vo's take, kinda, on the gothic horror subgenre, specifically a horror modeled after the classic Bluebeard story. Here we find Cleric Chih, alone without their trusted companion Almost Brilliant, accompanying a young noble girl from a relatively poor family and her parents as they go to meet her older promised husband...who has secrets of his own. It's a well done story, that doesn't play things straight and features great atmosphere (and the audiobook reader is excellent), but it also seems less interesting than some of the prior Singing Hills stories by comparison. More specifics after the jump:

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Conquer the Kingdom by Jennifer Estep

 

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.

Conquer the Kingdom is the final book in Jennifer Estep's "Gargoyle Queen" trilogy, which is itself the second trilogy in the world that Estep started with her Crown of Stars trilogy (so this is really the sixth book in this universe, and events and characters from the first trilogy are important here, even if readers didn't necessarily need to read those books to enjoy this trilogy).  This trilogy has followed princess Gemma - known for being a ditzy princess but really an intelligent adventurous spy who relies upon her mind magier magic (telepathy and telekinesis) to try and protect her country from the forces of the sinister Morta.  There's just one problem: while Morta's evil Queen Maeven is a clear threat and her son Milo is a monster whose plans to grab power involve destroying her country,  Maeven's son Leonidas is another mind magier with whom Gemma has shared a connection since childhood...and a passionate attraction.  

This has resulted in a trilogy that deals with the same type of simple fantasy adventure as the first trilogy - there's nothing particularly complex or deep in themes here and will never be - but that has added just a little (but not much) more depth to the romance, including a few actual decent if unexceptional sex scenes.  The trilogy has been enjoyable, if often predictable and never really that super exciting and Conquer the Kingdom is the same: a fan fantasy adventure conclusion to this trilogy as Gemma and her friends try to lay a trap to stop the evil Milo and save her kingdom.  At the same time, six books in - and three books into this trilogy - it does kind of feel like this style of book and plot is getting old, and I kind of had trouble maintaining my interest enough to finish it.  

Note: I read part of this in audio format, which helped me finish it.  The audio reader is very solid, if unexceptional, so this is not a bad choice in that format.  

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Sky on Fire by Jenn Lyons

 

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 9, 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.

The Sky on Fire is a stand alone epic fantasy/heist novel by author Jenn Lyons, who burst onto the SF/F novel scene with her 5 book epic fantasy series "A Chorus of Dragons".  After a rough start in book 1 (The Ruin of Kings), A Chorus of Dragons soon became one of my favorite fantasy series of the last few years.  In that series, Lyons built a phenomenal set of characters and relationships/romances (both in the present and through reincarnations) and used an incredibly pageturning prose (so so so many end of chapter cliffhangers) to keep readers on the edge of their seats and it worked so well.  It was a very queer epic fantasy series that dealt with some serious themes and often was unforgiving of what might happen to its characters, and Lyons wrapped it up in an incredibly satisfying fashion.  So even if I hadn't heard two authors/reviewers praise this new book of hers, I'd have been extremely eager to give it a try.  

And well, The Sky on Fire is indeed as excellent as I'd hoped.  The story is kind of a Heist novel, featuring protagonist Anahrod being recruited - not as willingly as she'd like - to help an oddball team rob Neveranimas, the present queen of the dragons who rule the human cities in the sky.  But Anahrod was thrown off the sky cities - literally - on behalf of Neveranimas and, after barely surviving, has spent the last few years rebuilding her life in the deadly jungles of the deep with her animal controlling powers and has little interest in returning to the sky cities that once tried to kill her.  Add in a pair of romantic interests - a handsome and way too smart but ruthless warlord of The Deep and a mysterious dragon-rider woman who is planning the heist for revenge - and well, you have an excellent mix of characters and developments to underpin this novel.  It all works really well, even if early on some of the end of chapter cliffhangers can get maybe a little repetitive, and I would gladly welcome a second book in this world if Lyons ever wants to return to it.  

Fantasy Novella Review: Bitter Waters by Vivian Shaw

 

Bitter Waters is the fourth story in Vivian Shaw's Dr. Greta Hellsing series - her series following Dr. Greta Hellsing, doctor to the Monsters of London (and further in Europe). I'd loved the series, which I thought was a finished trilogy (Strange Practice being book 1, Dreadful Company book 2, Grave Importance book 3), but it turns out to my pleasure that there are two additional stories: this novella and a forthcoming fifth and final book (for now?). For those new to the series, the series follows Greta and a few famous monsters from old time pulp fiction (although less famous than the ones most Americans know) as they deal with supernatural happenings and try to ensure peace and happiness and health for the supernatural world. There are vampires, werewolves, demons, angels, ghouls, mummies and more and well, it's just a really fun and often sweet series.

Bitter Waters is a pretty good example of that, with the story being a simple one at its heart as the cast wrestles about how to handle and treat a not-even 11 year old girl who was turned into a vampire and then abandoned. It winds up being incredibly cute, both for a surprise guest appearance and for how the main cast comes to further their character developments from the prior 3 books and is another reason to recommend this series.

Video Game Review: The Legend of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak

 

Trails Through Daybreak is technically the eleventh game in Nihon Falcom's "Trails" (Kiseki in Japanese) series of Japanese Role Playing Games (JRPGs). That said, like a long running book series (which I and others have compared the series to in the past), the Trails series contains a number of arcs, each of which form kind of a distinct plot grouping. Trails Through Daybreak is thus the start of a new (the fourth) arc, dealing with events in the nation of Calvard - one of this world's two most pre-eminent superpowers, and the one which we've really only gotten glimpses of in prior arcs. What that means is that the game's plot isn't nearly as reliant upon past games to work and the story can be used as a jumping on point for new players - some old characters show up and past events are referenced, but they are always to the side rather than the center of attention. Just as importantly, the start of a new arc allows developer Falcom to shake up the way the game plays: oh it's still recognizably a Trails game and certain systems from the past return, but much of the gameplay is drastically overhauled. Given that the last arc featured FIVE games (prior arcs were three games and two games respectively) all with the same system....well, fans who have played the whole series like myself are probably very welcome to try something different and new in both gameplay and story.

Now I am a big Trails fan. I've played all 10 prior games at least once if not multiple times and even played the second arc - the Crossbell games Trails from Zero and Trails to Azure - via a translation patch prior to the games being officially released in North America. So I have supremely looked forward to playing this game - even basically dropping my reading on the train for like a month to play this game all the way through - and am not the most neutral observer. That said, despite being a huge Trails fan, I haven't always loved every game in the series: the last arc, the Trails of Cold Steel games, drove me nuts in a couple of directions: the games were ridiculously easy mostly and incredibly easy to break in gameplay and the story in the last two games got really really cliche and bad, as Falcom seemed to avoid taking any difficult choices and relied on laughable plot turns to close everything down. The last game though, Trails Into Reverie, was a really fun fanservice-y game and the characters involved even in the bad games were still largely very enjoyable (except for Cold Steel protagonist Rean, who sucks), so I still had hopes for the series. And Daybreak delivered heavily on that front in both the story and gameplay...even if I had some minor complaints here and there.

I'm probably going to spend way way too long on this review after the jump, sorry, but the short of it is, Trails Through Daybreak is a really fun JRPG that I happily recommend to both newcomers and old players of the series alike.

SciFi/Fantasy Anthology Review: The Grimoire of Grave Fates, edited by Hanna Alkaf and Margaret Owen

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 6, 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.

The Grimoire of Grave Fates is a multi-author young adult anthology that features 18 different authors - of various backgrounds - each contributing a story that seemingly responds to the following premise: Showcase a teenager at an international magic school that used to be stolidly traditional and is now opening up to a more diverse - in race, culture, sex, and queerness - student body. The anthology further adds an extra bit to the premise by centering the book around a murder mystery - the murder of a bigoted traditionalist professor who nearly everyone hates.

And so we have 18 stories showcasing the 18 very different magically gifted teenagers as they deal with their own internal struggles - caused by conflicts of culture, typical teenage love (often queer) struggles, of queerness and struggles with identity, etc. - as well as these teens' responses to the murder. And well given that these are teenagers who have often had dreams of being a chosen one, well, for a lot of them that involves trying to solve said murder mystery. And that's where this book kind of struggles, because the multi author approach - and constant shifting of characters - to the mystery makes it feel incredibly disjointed, so anyone who comes here looking for a coherent mystery, rather than a collection of solid YA flash fiction, will be a bit disappointed.

More specific safter the jump: