Saturday, October 30, 2021

Reviewing the 2021 Hugo Nominees: The Hugo Award for Best Novel

Hugo Award voting is open and will continue through the November 19, 2021 (The voting period is extra long this year due to COVID delaying the convention till December).  For those of you new to the Science Fiction/Fantasy genre, the Hugo Award is one of the most prominent awards for works in the genre, with the Award being given based upon voting by those who have paid for at least a Supporting Membership in this year's WorldCon.  As I did the last four years, I'm going to be posting reviews/my-picks for the award in the various categories I feel qualified in, but feel free to chime in with your own thoughts in the comments.

This is the seventh and final part of this series.  You can find all the parts of this series, going over each category of the Hugo Awards HERE.

Today I'll be looking at the nominees for the biggest award, the award for Best Novel.  It's an.....interesting ballot this year, which featured none of my own nominees, even if a few of these books came close.  It's also one that really badly lacks new blood - the six nominees feature three sequels to prior nominees/award-winners and three books from authors who have won Hugo Awards previously with prior works.  There usually aren't too many newcomers on a best novel ballot, but there's often 1 or 2 (2 last year), and we lack that this year.  

Which is not to say that there isn't some really good stuff on this ballot, or that the nominees aren't worthy.  Nearly all of them are.  So let's take a look at what made it, below the jump:




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Friday, October 29, 2021

Fantasy Novella Review: Stone and Steel by Eboni Dunbar

 



Stone and Steel by Eboni Dunbar

Stone and Steel is the debut novella of author Eboni Dunbar and a part of last year's Neon Hemlock series of novellas - a set of generally queer SF/F novellas, which I have generally enjoyed.  It also was an Ignyte Award nominee for best novella this year, which made me regret missing it when it came out last year.  

And after reading it, I can see why people really liked Stone and Steel last year - it's a solid story featuring a strong queer fantasy setting of a heroic general who put her adopted sister and magically powerful lover on the throne years ago only to return to her home to discover her lover has become as power hungry and awful to the people as the ruler they deposed.  The novella's lead protagonist is particularly strong, as she attempts to reconcile this new reality with what she thought was happening, and deals with her own feelings, her desire for justice, and issues of her past.  It's not a mind blowing novella, but it's very well done.  

More specifics after the jump: 


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Thursday, October 28, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: A Marvellous Light by Freya Marske

 




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 2, 2021 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.


A Marvellous Light is the debut novel from Australian author Freya Marske.  It's a fantasy (M-M) romance, featuring an early 20th century-esque Britain, in which magic is a real yet secret part of British society, with its protagonists being a non-magical and a magical cog in the bureaucracy that coordinates the magical and non-magical worlds/governments.  But the story isn't really about that bureaucracy, with it instead focusing the romance between two men in a still homophobic British society, men who are the odd ones out in supposedly privileged families, as they grow closer together investigating a dangerous conspiracy and mystery.  

And as a fantasy romance, A Marvellous Light is excellent, with the two leads having tremendous chemistry (even if it is a bit of a slow burn), the story featuring some excellent M-M sex scenes (that are magical in more ways than one), to go along with a plot that works in general very well.  The story follows a number of classical romance story tropes that you'll see coming, but it pulls them off rather well, and the magical world it presents is familiar but very understandable.  If the book has a flaw, it's that it hints at but doesn't really deal with the issues of colonialism that permeate its setting (the only notable persons of color are an Indian secretary and her sister).  Still I have hopes that the series will get to that in subsequent books, and everything else here is really good.  

Trigger Warning:  Homophobia - the story takes place in an alternate early 20th century Britain, complete with the homophobia prominent in that culture (and its laws).  It's not a major focus but it's an undercurrent for the characters to deal with in their romance.  

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SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Devil You Know by Kit Rocha

 




The Devil You Know is the second book in Kit Rocha's* "Mercenary Librarians" series of Dystopian Science Fiction Romance novels, after last year's "Deal with the Devil" (My review here).  I really enjoyed Deal with the Devil, with the world being fun (with great dialogue), the characters - four mechanically augmented men and three bio-engineered women - being great, and the romance having some really great moments.  The book even made me check out and consume pretty much all of Rocha's erotic romance series, Beyond, which they self published previously.  So I was eagerly anticipating The Devil You Know, and had preordered it a while back.  

*Kit Rocha is a pseudonym for authors Donna Herren and Bree Bridges*

And the Devil You Know is still pretty damn great, as it switches the focus from Nina and Knox - the leaders of the two (now one) groups of former corporate military experiments - to Maya and Gray, a much more withdrawn pair...and thus one that more appeals to me.  Maya was engineered to have perfect memory, but finds herself frustratingly limited in combat....and fears getting close to anyone due to what happened in her past, and of course due to how her brain is engineered to shut down after being overstimulated - while Gray is the calm sniper whose calm face betrays hidden emotions (and is dying).  The two make a great pairing and this a really enjoyable book, even if there's only one sex scene and it isn't quite as good as the last book (although I may just be spoiled by the Beyond series - this is a typical romance, not an erotic romance series).  

Trigger Warning: Physical Torture, PTSD

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Wednesday, October 27, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Skin of the Sea by Natasha Bowen

 



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 2, 2021 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.


Skin of the Sea is the debut novel by author Natasha Bowen.  The book is advertised as a young adult fantasy inspired by both the Little Mermaid and West African mythology, and very much fits that bill.  But it's also a story set during the height of the African slave trade, and the book doesn't shy away from the realities of that, even as it dives into a tales featuring West African mythological creatures and beings, gods, and Orisas.*

*I'm used to seeing the spelling as Orisha, but this book uses "Orisa", so I will as well for this review, since it's a non-English word anyway so presumably both are correct*

Skin of the Sea is predictable in some fashions, and should be even for its audience, but it is a really well done tale using parts of a mythology that many will not be super familiar with.  So you have a YA romance between a mermaid and a human, both of whom got caught up in the slave trade, a quest for mystical artifacts, and encounters with deities, Orisa, and the aforementioned creatures - some of whom are helpful and others of whom are enemies.  The characters are all very likable, especially its mermaid - or mami wata - main character, and my biggest complaint is only that the book's ending is kind of unsatisfyingly abrupt, as the first book in what is presumably a series.  But otherwise, this is a very solid YA fantasy.  

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SciFi/Fantasy Anthology Review: Spirits Abroad by Zen Cho

 




Spirits Abroad is an anthology of short fiction from Malaysian SF/F author Zen Cho, most well known for her Sorcerer to the Crown duology and this past year's Black Water Sister.  This anthology was originally published in 2014 with 10 stories from Cho, but is now being rereleased in an expanded addition with 9 additional stories by Small Beer Press (one of my favorite small presses for releasing things like this and other more obscure but very good works). 

I haven't always loved Cho's longer fiction as much as others, but the short fiction I have read has always been very good and fascinating to me, so I was excited to reserve this collection - a collection filled with unapologetically Malaysian fantasy (and science fiction), which is WELL worth your time.  When I read anthologies, what I'm generally looking for are a few real clear tremendous stories that standout, and Spirits Abroad definitely delivers on this one.  
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Tuesday, October 26, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Perhaps the Stars by Ada Palmer

 



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 19, 2021 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.


Perhaps the Stars is the fourth and final book in Ada Palmer's "Terra Ignota" quartet, which began with 2016's Too Like the Lightning, which won Palmer the Astounding Award for Best New Writer.  That book, along with its sequels Seven Surrenders and The Will to Battle (reviewed here), was a fascinating example of philosophical scifi, imagining a 25th century world whose major political groups lived according to the ideals and philosophies of Enlightenment thinkers (Voltaire and Hobbes for example), where openly discussing religion is verboten and most of the world belongs to one of various "Hives", which have no specific geographic tie, but only a shared concept of ideals of humanity.  For this reviewer, the books' interest in exploring how these philosophies play out often came into conflict with the effort of telling a story, with the first two books essentially feeling like a single story oddly cut in half, and the third book also feeling incomplete as a result.  And then the 3rd book was published in 2017, and this fourth book kept getting pushed back and back......

And now, in 2021 the fourth book is finally out, in Perhaps the Stars.  Now part of my review here is definitely colored by the fact I did not reread the first three books coming into this novel, relying instead on my recollection of what happened within - I did not have the time for a reread, nor do I expect many others will make time for such.  But even had I done a reread, I suspect my impressions would still be the same: Perhaps the Stars is overly long (basically twice the size of any of the other books), an utter mess, and its few efforts to correct for what were clearly correct complaints about the story just seem a bit jarring.  It also features further adherence to the works of Homer than before, in what doesn't really seem to add much.  On the other hand it's still a fascinating at times exploration oh philosophies, especially in its latter half, so if you really liked the first three books - and especially if you've an interest in enlightenment philosophy - you'll like Perhaps the Stars.  

Spoilers for the first three books are inevitable, to the limited extent they matter.

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SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Gutter Prayer by Gareth Hanrahan

 




The Gutter Prayer is the first in an epic fantasy trilogy recently concluded by Gareth Hanrahan.  It is very much a traditional-esque epic fantasy type novel - or at least traditional in the 90s and early 00s sense, featuring a world filled with warring gods and a city with various factions: a thieves guild that used to support the common man,  an alchemist's guild with magical cops, ghouls and non-human creatures, religions and priesthoods with power, etc.  It's not a novel that deals more than superficially with serious themes at all, and is the first in a trilogy, but does attempt to wrap things up here in a satisfactory fashion, so you can read this without committing yourself to reading the overall trilogy - which is good because each book is around 500-600 pages long.

And well, I think a younger version of me, less well-read, might've enjoyed the Gutter Prayer more.  It does nothing poorly, and works its characters and factions rather well, and again ends on a satisfying note to the point where I didn't realize at first this was meant to be the start of a trilogy.  And yet, I never really fell in love with any of the characters, the most prominent of which just felt like another version of a character I'd seen done many times before, the dialogue never really pops, and while none of the characters are done poorly, none of them stood out.  And without really any big dive into any serious themes as is common in many modern epic fantasy novels, it just made this book feel a bit empty as a result.  It's fine, and if it was 300 pages long instead of 500-600, I'd probably find it a lot more satisfying, but I expect more from a page length like this these days.  

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Monday, October 25, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Relentless Moon by Mary Robinette Kowal

 


The Relentless Moon is the third novel in Mary Robinette Kowal's "Lady Astronaut" series, which began with her short story "The Lady Astronaut of Mars" before expanding into a Hugo Award winning series of novels with The Calculating Stars (My review here).  The series features an alternate history in which a meteor hits the Atlantic Ocean in 1952, causing mass destruction and resulting in the slowly-encroaching doom of the Earth....and resulting in the US and its allies putting all their efforts into a bigger space program, as settling people off world is the only hope of humanity's survival.  And the story features, as you could imagine from the title, not just the typical white male astronauts, but the women who fight for their rights to go into space, as well as the people of color who also must fight.  

I have a weird relationship with the series - I really liked the first book, although not as much as others, and attempted to continue on immediately with book 2 - The Fated Sky.  But I wound up DNFing The Fated Sky, not because it was bad, but because it felt like just more of the same: a book about a white woman ally doing her best to both strive for acceptance due to her gender and for acceptance of the people of color also fighting for space...in the 1960s, where segregation and racism are of course still rampant.  Protagonist Elma York was easy to root for and likable, but she felt almost too perfect, and book 2 just felt too much like the same book all over again, so I dropped it and wasn't going to continue forward, until this third book was nominated for the Hugo.  

And The Relentless Moon, which takes place at the same time as book 2, was certainly enjoyable, especially once it got past the first act.  The story switches protagonists to a more flawed protagonist in Nicole Wargin, and becomes essentially a spy/mystery/thriller set on the moon, as Nicole has to deal not just with the politics involved with her marriage, but terrorists with understandable motives willing to do anything to make a point.  The prose didn't fully work for me still, but the story picks up momentum and is hard to put down, and I get why others really liked this, even if it won't be at the top of my ballot.  

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Saturday, October 23, 2021

Reviewing the 2021 Hugo Nominees: The Hugo Award for Best Series

Hugo Award voting is open and will continue through the November 19, 2021 (The voting period is extra long this year due to COVID delaying the convention till December).  For those of you new to the Science Fiction/Fantasy genre, the Hugo Award is one of the most prominent awards for works in the genre, with the Award being given based upon voting by those who have paid for at least a Supporting Membership in this year's WorldCon.  As I did the last four years, I'm going to be posting reviews/my-picks for the award in the various categories I feel qualified in, but feel free to chime in with your own thoughts in the comments.

This is the sixth part of this series.  You can find all the parts of this series, going over each category of the Hugo Awards HERE.

Today I'll be looking at the nominees for Best Series.  This is a newer category, although a popular one, which was originally introduced in theory to reward long running series whose individual works might not merit Best Novel consideration, but whose combined value might merit some sort of award.  In practice of course, that's not quite how the award has worked, with the award going to series that have had award winners and nominations in basically every year it's been awarded, and the nominations also featuring trilogies and shorter series quite frequently.  

This year really isn't any exception - of the six nominees, five of the six featured a nomination for either Best Novel (or one of the other short fiction categories) or Best New Writer for individual works within the series.  The one exception is a long runner that's been nominated twice before.  But these are the six nominees I have, so they're the ones I will rank.
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Thursday, October 21, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Lesson by Cadwell Turnbull

 




The Lesson was the debut novel of author Cadwell Turnbull, whose September 2021 novel No Gods No Monsters really got my attention and made me want to go back and read this earlier work.  Turnbull's second novel started an urban fantasy series dealing with themes of race, family, gun violence, being out vs being in the closet and allyship, all through a story that flitter between various points of view, such that it felt almost more like an anthology of really strong smaller character-based stories than one longer book. 

The Lesson is a very similar book, using various characters in an alien invasion story to draw parallels to the impact of colonization and (usually white) foreign oppression of locals in the US Virgin Islands, particularly St. Thomas.   Like his second novel, Turnbull doesn't stick with a single narrative, but jumps from chapter to chapter in perspective to deal with how different characters are reacting - the professor whose marriage was falling apart who thinks the aliens have a secret, the college boy with dreams of space who fell in love with an alien, the brother of a boy killed by the aliens who wanted revenge, the aging woman who believes the medicine of the aliens is unholy, etc.  The result is a novel that isn't always successful, due to feeling perhaps a bit too fragmented, but is still a really strong tale of colonization and its effects on ordinary people with their own problems.  

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Wednesday, October 20, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Far From the Light of Heaven by Tade Thompson

 



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 26, 2021 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.

Far from the Light of Heaven is the latest book from celebrated British/Nigerian author Tade Thompson, author of the Rosewater trilogy and the Molly Southbourne novellas (plus much other short fiction).  Thompson's debut novel, Rosewater, was an absolute triumph and one of the few books to which I've ever given a perfect score, and although I didn't love either of the sequels (which came out the last two years), his work has always been ambitious and interesting to me.  So I was excited to get an early copy of his latest novel, a scifi locked room mystery in space - a genre I'd seen done before by other authors to great effect.  

And like Rosewater and his other work, there's a lot of interesting ideas present in Far from the Light of Heaven.  However, unlike that trilogy (especially the first novel) which felt utterly unique, this novel feels very similar in concept to a bunch of other novels and doesn't quite measure up to some prominent ones that I've read (most notably Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty).   As noted by the author in the Afterword, the book also is the result of Thompson's attempt to portray realistic issues involved with dealing with what goes wrong amid a murder mystery on an actual ship in space, and that kind of in-book accuracy isn't really the type of thing I'm looking for in novels, so there's that as well.  The result is not a bad novel by any means - Thompson's craft remains excellent - but one that just doesn't really come together in a successful way, although if Thompson was to write a sequel, he does leave this world in an interesting place.  

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Tuesday, October 19, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy/Romance Book Review: Pretty Little Lion by Suleikha Snyder

 




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 26, 2021 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.

Pretty Little Lion is the second book in Suleikha Snyder's paranormal romance series "Third Shift".  If you're one of the probably like 5 people who actually follow this blog, you might have noticed that I never reviewed the first book - that's because I picked this one up on Netgalley before I realized it was part of a series, and thus have not read book 1 (the book's description does not make clear this is a series, although if you look it up on amazon, it's at least listed as one).  Needless to say, this is not the intended way to read this book, so take this review for what it's worth - BUT the book works quite well even if you do jump into the series with this one, with the characters both new and presumably old ringing true (a look at the prior book's description suggests that the main pairing from that book is a minor presence really in this one, which helps).  

So yeah, I actually liked Pretty Little Lion as a fun enjoyable SF/F romance....well as much as such a romance in a dystopian alternate present version of our world can be.  This is a story where the shapeshifters and supernatural beings are known to exist, and the 2016 election resulted in a fascist dark present for America even worse than our current world, making things difficult for the cast of mostly supernatural freedom fighters.  The characters, both the good guys and the one neutral one who gets POV segments, are all well done, and I really liked reading about their relationships as they worked together to try and fight against a racist gangster with plans for shapeshifters and the world.  The biggest complaint is that the sex scenes aren't particularly great, even though the book has a bunch of them, but everything else is good enough to make me want to catch up with book 1 eventually.  

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Monday, October 18, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Hollywood Heroine by Sarah Kuhn

 




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 26, 2021 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.

Hollywood Heroine is the fifth novel (and sixth story) in Sarah Kuhn's "Heroine" series (which began with Heroine Complex - My Review Here).  If you're unfamiliar with the series - and you shouldn't be, it's awesome - it's a really fun series featuring Asian-American superheroes, who have to deal with their own anxieties, romances, relationships and....demons who take really silly forms, like cupcakes or unicorns.  The first three books in the series (and the bridge novella) formed a trilogy which introduced each of the series' main heroines and their personalities, and Hollywood Heroine is the second book in a new trilogy returning to each heroine in turn to follow up on their adventures, their relationships, and their paths going forward.  I didn't quite love the first of this new trilogy, Haunted Heroine (Reviewed Here), finding it was a bit duplicative of the prior character work, but it was still fun, so I was super excited to get an advanced copy of this follow-up.  

And Hollywood Heroine is pretty much everything I could hope for as a new novel in this series.  The story switches back to following Aveda, the bludgeoning force for good, whose original book in Heroine Worship (Review Here) featured her struggling with no longer being the only superheroine and with her feelings towards her best friend Evie, bludgeoning her way through planning Evie's wedding, and dealing with her childhood love, the magic-wielding Scott.  Now, Aveda is comfortable being a co-heroine, but of course she's still a bulldozer (that'll never fully change), and so when she has to deal with anxieties like people leaving her, a new city to explore (LA) with racist white people, and her passive aggressive mother....well things go awry.  Add in more supernatural stuff around Hollywood, and some really fun dialogue and situations (Vampires!), and well this is another clear winner.  

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Saturday, October 16, 2021

Reviewing the 2021 Hugo Nominees: The Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult SciFi/Fantasy Novel

 


Hugo Award voting is open and will continue through the November 19, 2021 (The voting period is extra long this year due to COVID delaying the convention till December).  For those of you new to the Science Fiction/Fantasy genre, the Hugo Award is one of the most prominent awards for works in the genre, with the Award being given based upon voting by those who have paid for at least a Supporting Membership in this year's WorldCon.  As I did the last four years, I'm going to be posting reviews/my-picks for the award in the various categories I feel qualified in, but feel free to chime in with your own thoughts in the comments.

This is the fifth part of this series.  You can find all the parts of this series, going over each category of the Hugo Awards HERE.

This time around we're going back to the main fiction awards with the Lodestar Award, which is technically not a Hugo Award, but is awarded with them anyway, so it counts for this series.  The Lodestar Award is for the best Young Adult SciFi and Fantasy novels of the previous year - the Hugo equivalent of the Norton Award (which is the Nebula version of the same award).  It's a newish award, added only a few years ago, but one well needed as young adult books have made up several of my favorite novels over the past few years.  Indeed, two of the nominees for this award were also on my ballot for Best Novel*, so you can tell I really have high opinions of the works in this category.  

*My only complaint about this category is that I wonder if its existence is costing these books votes in Best Novel, which they rightfully deserve*.  

So yeah, the nominees are six really great books, all well worth your time although I do think they fit into several distinct tiers.  The six books also all come from different publishing imprints, interestingly, which is not something you usually see.  So after the jump, I'll post my rankings of the six works, as well as links to my greater reviews.  

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Friday, October 15, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Truth of the Divine by Lindsay Ellis

 




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 19, 2021 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.

Truth of the Divine is the sequel to Lindsay Ellis' "Axiom's End", and now the second part of what is now known as the "Noumena" trilogy.*  I liked Axiom's End (my review here), although it's not what fans of Ellis' youtube channel would really expect - the book was not a humorous takedown of tropes and ideas, but a serious first contact story dealing with an alternate 2007-2008 dealing with human reactions to aliens who have their own issues of superiority, caste, and morals that clash with human ones, all filtered through the perspective of a young good meaning woman sort of lost in the world due to the actions of her asshole father (who is basically an ersatz Julian Assange/Glenn Greenwald hybrid).  That said, the book ended incredibly abruptly, and featured a political situation that did not really make any sense to me and was a bit jarring, so I wasn't sure what to expect from book 2.  

*Ellis didn't sell books 2-3 of the trilogy iirc until after book 1 came out, so my review of book 1 treated it as a stand alone, as it largely was, even though it ended off on a weird stopping point with a lot of open threads*

Truth of the Divine is a more ambitious novel than its predecessor (and that's not calling Axiom's End unambitious), with its contents expanding to a second viewpoint character, plots with both the aliens and humans dealing with the question of personhood, and a secondary plot dealing with relationships, trust, and depression and suicide when those relationships break down...sort of.  The result however is a bit more of a mixed bag.  When it comes to the themes of personhood, Truth of the Divine is strong, with a strong exploration of the theme once you get over some political issues once again.  When it comes to its issues of relationships, of the major character's depression and relationships....I don't think it quite so much works, due to how it handles a relationship that's basically abusive in my opinion.  The story ends on a more satisfying cliffhanger than book 1, so I'll probably be back, but it still isn't quite as much a winner as I was hoping for.  

TRIGGER WARNING:  Suicide, On-Page Suicide Attempt of a Major Character, Depression and PTSD.  These are major plot elements not shied away from which weren't present in book 1, so be wary if those are triggering to you.  

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Thursday, October 14, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas

 




Cemetery Boys is the debut novel of author Aiden Thomas, and a book that received a lot of praise last year - even picking up a nominee for the Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult SciFi/Fantasy Novel, the young adult award of the Hugo Award ceremony.  I'd been meaning to get to it ever since an online friend really liked it, but well, I never had the time (and had a billion ARCs to get through first).  Still the Hugos gave me a great incentive to read this, and I finally did in October.  

And well, Cemetery Boys is a really solid story - telling a tale of a gay trans boy in a latinx-inspired urban fantasy world who accidentally raises his school's bad boy's spirit from the dead and starts to fall for him.  It's also the story of that same trans boy fighting to be accepted and recognized by his family and people for who he is - a boy and a brujo, despite that culture's strict gender rules for its magic.  For the most part its done very well, especially with the main protagonist Yadriel, his friend Maritza, and the spirit Julian, although it falls off a little bit towards the end.  Still an enjoyable read, and one that will very much please people looking for queer lit - and those not specifically looking for it as well, so it's very easy to understand its award nomination.  

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Wednesday, October 13, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: City of Shattered Light by Claire Winn

 



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 19, 2021 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.


City of Shattered Light is a YA scifi novel from debut author Claire Winn, and it's clearly the first in a series (whether that be a duology, trilogy, or something else, I don't know).  The story features a pair of point of view characters from divergent backgrounds - tech empire heiress (and hacker/tech expert) Asa and gunslinging smuggler Riven - and smashes them together in a story dealing with families (both blood and found families), AIs, aliens, crime lords, and questions about dreams and trust.  

It's also a story with a bunch of tropes that result in plot turns and twists often being a bit predictable, which does prevent this from really being a big winner....but still, the writing never drags, the characters are solid and enjoyable, and I never really wanted to put it down.  So yeah, this is a solid debut, even if it never quite hits that next level to make it an outstanding one.  

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Tuesday, October 12, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Wild Ones by Nafiza Azad

 


The Wild Ones is the second novel by Nafiza Azad, author of 2019's fantastic The Candle and the Flame (my review is here).  The Candle and the Flame was a book taking place in a Muslim-inspired world (with inspirations also from Hinduism and Buddhism) that featured a number of incredibly well developed women as its central characters, dealing with sexism, racism, and class, in a really well done plot.  The male characters were a bit paint by numbers, but the women were incredibly well done.  

And so it was with great excitement that I picked up The Wild Ones from the library, as The Wild Ones is a feminist YA fantasy featuring a group of young women, who suffered abuse from their families, loved ones, or circumstances, escape through magic into a magical Between and come together as their own found family to recover from their traumas.  It's a story that travels the world to show how women are mistreated everywhere - by both men and complicit women - and how the rich and powerful take advantage of the less fortunate and in their greed threaten to destroy the world.  But again, it's a story featuring a great set of women as its central characters, told in a fascinating way, that makes it all short but incredibly powerful.  Highly recommended, and Azad clearly has cemented herself as a truly fantastic newer writer of SF/F.  

Trigger Warning:  Physical Abuse, Sexual Abuse, and Rape as backstory, although never on page.  On Page Suicide.  

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Monday, October 11, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Within These Wicked Walls by Lauren Blackwood

 



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 19, 2021 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.

Within These Wicked Walls is a YA Fantasy novel from Jamaican-American author Lauren Blackwood.  It's what seems to be her debut novel, and one I have seen some praise for in advance on social media. It's a novel that takes a familiar gothic-esque* premise - main protagonist desperate for a job takes one at a haunted manor's, finds herself over her head all the while falling for the manor's main protagonist - and puts some different spin on it, one that takes it in a direction less gothic than its premise would seem.  

And the result is a solid novel, for the most part, with the protagonist being very likable, the dialogue banter between her and the love interest being often very amusing, and the setting feeling very well done and interesting to read - an unnamed desert country* where the evil eye can infect a person and/or a house, requiring debteras to make magical amulets to cast them out.  At the same time, the story grapples with themes and issues - such as power differences in a relationship, trust, and abusive parental relationships - enough to show it understands the issues are there...and then doesn't deal with the effects of those themes and issues, often seeming to assume they're just an issue for the main character she should get over, which is problematic.  It's an issue that I need more words to explain, but one that prevents this from being one I can super wholly recommend.  

*The story explicitly takes place in our world, with European Countries mentioned, but the setting's country is never named - although Debteras, per wikipedia, are part of Ethiopian churches, so the intended country is probably Ethiopia.   

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Saturday, October 9, 2021

Reviewing the 2021 Hugo Nominees: The Hugo Award for Best Novella

 


Hugo Award voting is open and will continue through the November 19, 2021 (The voting period is extra long this year due to COVID delaying the convention till December).  For those of you new to the Science Fiction/Fantasy genre, the Hugo Award is one of the most prominent awards for works in the genre, with the Award being given based upon voting by those who have paid for at least a Supporting Membership in this year's WorldCon.  As I did the last four years, I'm going to be posting reviews/my-picks for the award in the various categories I feel qualified in, but feel free to chime in with your own thoughts in the comments.

This is the fourth part of this series.  You can find all the parts of this series, going over each category of the Hugo Awards HERE.

This time around we're going back to the main fiction awards with the Hugo Award for Best Novella.  Novellas are defined as being between 17,500 and 40,000 words long, which tends to roughly come out to about 90-200 pages on average (although a lot of novellas don't count as such by the Hugo definition leading to some books missing out).  The result is that Novellas are a type of work that fast readers (like myself) might finish in one day, but others will take a few days to get through them, and they have a lot more substance for characters, story, and ideas.

In past years, there have been some nominees in this category that have been incredibly clear frontrunners and easy picks for this award.  This year the major awards have split on two novellas, which are both very worthy of the award, although neither obviously outshines the other.  Still, even beyond those two, in my mind there's at least one other solid contender.  

Okay rankings after the jump - I'll have a link to my longer reviews of each work with each work as I discuss them.

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Friday, October 8, 2021

Fantasy Novella Review: Come Tumbling Down by Seanan McGuire

 


Come Tumbling Down by Seanan McGuire

Come Tumbling Down is the fifth novella in Seanan McGuire's Wayward Children series, a perennial nominee for the Hugo Award for Best Novella over the past five years (I believe all five of the first novellas were nominated).  I've had mixed feelings about the series - with me being meh towards the first two stories, but really liking books 3 and 4.  

The series features a world in which portal fantasies are real, and children who find themselves uncomfortable with reality find doors to fantasy worlds...only many come back, unable to find their Door again, and find themselves unable to cope and thus wind up at the school known as the Home for Wayward Children.  Every odd numbered book in the series takes place in the present, at the school at least to start, while every even numbered book takes place in the past, showing the portal fantasy world of one particular kid at the school and how it all went wrong.

As the fifth book in the series, Come Tumbling Down returns to the present - but more than that, it's a continuity-laiden sequel to books 1 and 2 of the series as well, with the star of book 2 taking center stage once more.  And well, like the books its a sequel too, it just didn't quite work for me, with the continuity-heavy parts of this novella (with me not having read novellas 1-3 in a long while) falling a bit flat for me.  It's fine, and if you love the series you'll like this, but just wasn't as strong as the prior two stories for me.  

Spoilers for books 1-2 are inevitable below: 

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Thursday, October 7, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Broken Web by Lori M. Lee

 




Broken Web is the sequel to 2020's "Forest of Souls" and the second book in Lori M. Lee's YA fantasy series, "Shamanborn".  I really liked Forest of Souls (review here), which took a couple of classic YA fantasy premises - young woman raised to become the newest top spy in a Kingdom, young orphan girl discovers she has magical powers and has to deal with prejudice and her life changing as a result, etc. - and mashes them up into something that felt fairly original.  The story had a really strong lead character, a couple of excellent side characters, and a focus not on romance but on friendship, which really worked.  So I was curious where the series would take the cliffhanger at the end of book 1, one which was blatantly foreshadowed from the very beginning of that book.  

Broken Web takes that cliffhanger and runs with it to mostly strong ends.  With clearer antagonists than ever before, the story loses a bit of its gray nature - at least in its protagonist's heart - and a mid-book plot turn feels like it throws away much of the setup and development that the book started in the first half for little reason.  And yet the book makes up for it all with strong character development, and a story of bonds, found family, and again of friendship (and not romance) as its protagonist Sirscha takes a stand for who she herself is, and not who others think she might be.  Will be very eagerly awaiting book 3.

Spoilers for Book 1 are inevitable below:

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SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Quicksilver Court by Melissa Caruso

 





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 12, 2021 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 Quicksilver Court is the second book in Melissa Caruso's "Rooks and Ruin" fantasy trilogy, after last year's The Obsidian Tower (my review here).  The trilogy takes place in the same universe (albeit 150 years later) as her Swords and Fire trilogy, whose second and third books I really really enjoyed, particularly more than that trilogy's first book (The Tethered Mage).  I'd enjoyed The Obsidian Tower a bit, even though it was a bit less ambitious fantasy novel than its predecessor trilogy, and so was hoping this second novel in this trilogy would take a similar leap.  

And well, The Quicksilver Court is a fun and solid fantasy novel, with an enjoyable lead protagonist and a solid plot that never drags, helped by Caruso's very solid prose and dialogue, which I've always tended to rip through very easily.  At the same time, it doesn't really take that leap I'd hoped for, with the book relying upon a mid-book plot twist you'd see coming a mile away (if not a book away) and the secondary characters just don't quite match up to the prior trilogy's, which is a little disappointing.  Still this is certainly an enjoyable read, and I will be back for the conclusion for sure.  

Spoilers for book 1 are inevitable after the jump:

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Wednesday, October 6, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Destroyer of Light by Jennifer Marie Brissett

 



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 12, 2021 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.

Destroyer of Light is the second novel from Jennifer Marie Brissett, who wrote the novel Elysium back in 2014 with a smaller press.  Elysium* is a tremendous novel that I HIGHLY recommend, being one of only 26 books I've ever given a perfect score since I started reviewing books back in 2015.  I read Elysium in December of last year after I'd already heard about this book, and so I've been eagerly anticipating seeing Brissett's follow-up, which is described in the marketing as "The Matrix meets an Afro-futuristic retelling of [the story of] Persephone set in a science fiction underworld of aliens, refugee, and genetic engineering."  That description should get nearly anyone interested - even more so if you know that Brissett has written before non-fiction analysis about the Demeter/Persephone myth and its connection to Octavia Butler's "Parable of the Talents."  

*Destroyer of Light is technically a stand-alone sequel to Elysium, and the book contains a few easter egg references for readers of that book, but requires no foreknowledge for the reader, which makes sense as that book was published by a small press and this book is published by Tor/Macmillan.  You won't lose anything by reading this book first.  

And while Destroyer of Light isn't quite as tremendous as Elysium, it's still a pretty damn strong novel and well worth your time.  The story deals with themes of motherhood, class struggle even on what is supposed to be a new more equitable world, dealing with conquerors after the conquering is over, child soldiers, and children remaking themselves through trauma in both pleasant and not so pleasant ways.  It's also a scifi story taking place on an alien world that humanity has fled to and established new lives, alongside the aliens who once conquered them, dealing with genetically engineered humans with various mental powers.  There's a lot of depth here (although not quite as much as in Elysium, as this story is a lot more straight forward despite its multi-level narrative) and another winner of a novel, marking Brissett as clearly one of the top writers in the genre people should be reading and looking out for.  

Trigger Warning: Rape (on page, even if not described in great detail), Sexual Assault, Child Abduction and Child Soldiers.  These scenes aren't gratuitous, but are involved enough that many readers may not be able to get past them.  Reader discretion is very much advised.  

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Tuesday, October 5, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Yume by Sifton Tracey Anipare

 


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 12, 2021 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.


Yume is the debut novel by Canadian author Sifton Tracey Anipare, inspired clearly in part by her own experience as a foreigner teaching English in Japan.  It's an urban fantasy novel featuring as a Black Canadian woman, like Anipare herself, teaching English to kids....and struggling with the fact that after years of being in Japan, she's still treated as a foreign curiosity (or worse) more than anything else.  Oh and then there are the Yokai who thrive in people's dreams, and perhaps in the real world as well, and the boy turned man who found himself tied to one such deadly Yokai.  

The result is a novel that is fascinating to read, and a really strong debut novel.  The story deals with the difficulty in fitting in as a foreigner in a strange land, especially as an obvious one, how difficult it can be to stand up for oneself to one who might seem to be a protector at first, and how running away to a new place isn't going to make one whole and solve one's problems, even if it can result in some good.  And while parts can be painful to read, as main protagonist Cybelle deals with the shitty treatment by her boss and fellow teachers as well as just general strangers, it can also be pretty fun as its Yokai protagonist encounters other yokai in her hunt just to consume...and for home.

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Monday, October 4, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki

 




Light from Uncommon Stars is the latest novel from Ryka Aoki and was a novel I'd heard some praise for, to go along with a marketing comparison that naturally raised my interest - "Good Omens meets The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet."  I've actually never read Good Omens, but Becky Chambers' Wayfarer series is a major fave of mine, for its showing of groups of different people trying to make their different lives work together and alone, in a way that expresses hope for the future.  So a comparison to that - plus blurbs from Chambers, John Scalzi, Max Gladstone, TJ Klune, Charlie Jane Anders, Jenn Lyons....yeah that got my attention enough to request this book from the library long before it came out.  

And Light from Uncommon Stars is more than worthy of that praise - no it might be better than even the praise makes it sound.  It's the story of a group of people - a master violinist who made a deal with hell to train 7 geniuses and to give their souls to hell, a queer trans girl runaway with no possessions other than her violin and no hope of a future, an alien space ship captain hiding as a refugee as a donut store owner, and the daughter of a long line of obscure violin repairmen - who come together in strange ways (and others) as they struggle with their own internal and external conflicts.  It's a story about the power of music in a mindlessly cruel world to enlighten the soul, as well as the power of people to come together and work alone to do things they once thought impossible, despite a world which at times seems to put them down...but not always.  It's about far more than that to, like what it means for something to be home and comfortable....and well, I'm going to fail at conveying how much I loved this book in this review, but let's just say it's probably the best thing I've read all year - the themes are great, the characters will have you caring for them near instantly, and the dialogue and prose is just...great.  

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Saturday, October 2, 2021

Reviewing the 2021 Hugo Nominees: The Astounding Award for Best New Writer

 


Hugo Award voting is open and will continue through the November 19, 2021 (The voting period is extra long this year due to COVID delaying the convention till December).  For those of you new to the Science Fiction/Fantasy genre, the Hugo Award is one of the most prominent awards for works in the genre, with the Award being given based upon voting by those who have paid for at least a Supporting Membership in this year's WorldCon.  As I did the last four years, I'm going to be posting reviews/my-picks for the award in the various categories I feel qualified in, but feel free to chime in with your own thoughts in the comments.

This is the third part of this series.  You can find all the parts of this series, going over each category of the Hugo Awards HERE.

In this post, we're going to take a step away from the traditional categories and move to one of the "Not-A-Hugo" awards, the awards that aren't officially lHugos but are voted on alongside them and might as well be.  I'm talking this time about the Astounding Award, which celebrates the best new writers in SciFi & Fantasy, those who have published their first genre works in the last two years (and thus can have two years of eligibility).  

In a disappointing surprise, I'd actually read all six of these writers before the nominations were announced.  I say disappointing because the award isn't introducing me to any new works, NOT because the nominees aren't deserving - the nominees have written some of my favorite works over the past two years honestly.  So yeah these are all worth your time to some extent, but I will attempt to rank them below:  
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Friday, October 1, 2021

Fantasy Novella Review: Servant Mage by Kate Elliott

 


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 January 18, 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.

Servant Mage by Kate Elliott: 

Servant Mage is the latest novella by Kate Elliott, one of my favorite scifi/fantasy authors.  I will basically read anything new by Elliott at this point, and she has nearly always justified that decision - Elliott's books/novellas/short work features tremendous characters, really interesting themes and worlds that are highly imaginative and creative in very different ways.  

Servant Mage, announced originally a while back as "Lamplighter" and as part of a new series of novellas, is yet another winner, and one that promises some really interesting stuff to come.  It deals with some themes that are very familiar in Elliott's work - namely the theme of power, and how charismatic ambitious people of power may not really have the people's best interests at heart - as an indentured mage finds herself rescued by a man working to restore a monarchy, as part of a group of mages fighting for freedom.  Some really interesting stuff both here, and in how this sets up a potential sequel.  

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