Friday, July 29, 2022

Reviewing the 2022 Hugo Nominees: The Hugo Award for Best Short Story

 


Hugo Award voting is open and will continue through the August 11, 2022.  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 five (wow, 5!) 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 second part of this series.  You can find all the parts of this series, going over each category of the Hugo Awards HERE.

Today I'm going over the nominees for Best Short Story, which covers works of fewer than 7500 words long.  This year, as is frequent, the nominees are all available for free online, so I'll try to link them below as I discuss them.  It's a really strong ballot, which makes this one incredibly hard to order, especially as we have a mix of types of stories - one enjoyable tie-in story (to Magic the Gathering), one creepy horror story, a couple of bittersweet stories, and well, others that aren't so easily categorizable: we even have one story that was actually a twitter thread at first.  

But after the jump I'll try.  

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Thursday, July 28, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Art of Prophecy by Wesley Chu

 



Full Disclosure:  This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on August 9, 2022 in exchange for a potential review.  I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way - if I felt conflicted in any way, I would simply have declined to review the book.     


The Art of Prophecy is the first in a new epic fantasy/wuxia trilogy from author Wesley Chu, whose previous work (The Lives of Tao trilogy, The Fall of Io series) has been really entertaining.  Wuxia* works kind of fit in an odd place for me as a reader - I've come to not particularly love action scenes in most books, since my eyes tend to skim over some words and struggle to focus upon intricate sequences (and I have issues visualizing)....and yet Wuxia works tend to be so over the top with their action scenes and martial arts moves that it becomes entertaining again to read...hence why I was able to enjoy all four volumes of Legend of the Condor Heroes.

* Wuxia, for those who don't know, is a genre of Chinese Martial Arts stories, in which such Martial Arts often have ridiculous names and often go along incredible magical seeming powers.  Think Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon for example.*

And I really did enjoy The Art of Prophecy, which starts off with a major prophecy twist - the ultimate bad guy that the prophesied hero was supposed to grow up and kill is dead and his forces are defeated years before the hero has trained out of boyhood - and uses that to start up an enjoyable, fun and action packed story following a number of main characters struggling to figure out what to do next in a world upended.  The characters are terrifically fun, reminding me of Chu's Tao/Io series, and the stories contain lots of interesting themes/questions - questions about destiny, about conflicts between peoples, about fighting for freedom as opposed to collaborating, and more.  There's even some science fiction-y or steampunky things going on with one group of people as well.  The result is highly enjoyable, and this is a series I'll definitely be coming back to for its sequels....

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Wednesday, July 27, 2022

Reviewing the 2022 Hugo Nominees: The Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult SciFi/Fantasy Novel

 


Hugo Award voting is open and will continue through the August 11, 2022.  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 five (wow, 5!) 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 first part of this series.  You can find all the parts of this series, going over each category of the Hugo Awards HERE. 

To start this series, we're looking at 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).  As a huge fan of YA works, I love going through the nominees of this award every year, and unsurprisingly I had read all of the nominees of this one prior to the shortlist being announced.  None of the nominees were on y nomination ballot....and yet there's a number of works here on this list that I really liked, and a few very deserving winners.

So without any more preamble, let's go through the ballot and reveal my rankings:

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Tuesday, July 26, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Primeval Fire by C.T. Rwizi

 




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 26, 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.     


Primeval Fire is the third and final book in C.T. Rwizi's Dark Epic Fantasy Trilogy which began with Scarlet Odyssey and continued with Requiem Moon.  The series features a setting heavily inspired by - and seemingly taking place in an alternate version of - Africa, where various tribes and peoples exist with different magics (which often seem very code-based and Clarke-ian in how it often seems like technology) and traditions (as well as prejudices) and where peoples from outside this continent keep a tenuous eye on the happenings within.  It's also a dark series, with horrifying backstories (including at least one involving rape), and atrocities that happen in the modern day as the series' main characters attempt to do the right thing in a world where there are no right answers....and the only path may be to act according to the whims of some who are evil.  It's a series that has had a LOT of balls juggling in the air through two books, with plotters and powers on multiple levels, so I was kind of surprised to find out that this third book would be the conclusion - I expected this to be a longer series.  

And well, Primeval Fire is an enjoyable and very readable concluding volume, but it suffers quite a bit from being the third and final volume of this series, resulting in the book not really having time to deal with the ramifications of many of its parts.  With the story's two most prominent protagonist characters at least temporarily out of the picture, the story is told from the perspectives of a bunch of new and old secondary characters, as they each try to find a way to survive in a world that has changed massively - often for the worst - and to prevent it from further being devastated by dark powers.  These plotlines are all compelling, and the conclusion is very enjoyable, but there's enough potential obviously not realized here that it still feels like a disappointment to some extent.  

NOTE: Spoilers for Books 1-2 are unavoidable below.  If you intend to read the first two books, avoid the rest of this review. 


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Monday, July 25, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Stars Between Us by Cristin Terrill

 



Full Disclosure:  This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on August 2, 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 Stars Between Us is a romantic young adult science fiction novel by author Cristin Terrill.  The book takes a pretty classic romantic premises - girl from a lower class background, scrambling to survive who is surprisingly given the chance to thrive in an upper class city with wealth and fortune - and marries it to one twist (the rich boy she's supposed to marry dies immediately) and to a science fiction setting (with the upper and lower classes on separate planets.  Add in an underground resistance movement and well there's certainly plenty that could be done here with the setup of The Stars Between Us.

Unfortunately, The Stars Between Us doesn't really take this setup in any particular interesting direction, with its characters and plotline going in pretty standard directions.  The characters are fine, as the book splits its narrative after the first act into a two protagonist SF romance, but the romance never really did too much for me, and the mystery the book presents to keep throwing difficulties in its protagonists' paths is laughably obvious.  And well the book's dealings with class, revolt, and the powers and dangers of money are paper thin and rarely delved into as deeply as one would hope.  The result is a book that's inoffensive, but not really that interesting at its core.  

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Friday, July 22, 2022

Fantasy Novella Review: Across the Green Grass Fields by Seanan McGuire

 



Across the Green Grass Fields is the sixth novella in Seanan McGuire's critically acclaimed and enormously popular "Wayward Children" series (which began with Every Heart a Doorway).  For those unfamiliar with the series, the overlying premise is that there are a multitude of portal fantasy worlds out there that kids with troubles stumble into....and find themselves lost when they stumble back out of such worlds, leading to such children often being sent to a special school run by Eleanor West to help those kids move forward.  Each odd numbered book in the series features the kids post-portal fantasy life dealing with their issues on a new adventure at the school and beyond, whereas Even numbered books - like this are the individual stories of a single kid in their fantasy world - how they got there, what it was to them, and what caused them to return to our world.  

As I've said previously on this blog, I'm a huge McGuire fan, but have found this series kind of hit or miss....some installments have been really great, and others I've found hard to care about the contents and characters within.  

Fortunately, this sixth installment is another winner for me, dealing with new character Regan - an intersex girl with a love of horses, who flees bullying into a world where every creature is a magical kind of horse - centaurs, unicorns, kelpies, etc. - and grows into someone more comfortable with herself, with friendship and family, and into the hero that this world deserves.  Some really great stuff here, and well worth its Hugo nomination.  

Some more specifics after the jump:  

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Thursday, July 21, 2022

Horror Book Review: Cherish Farrah by Bethany C. Morrow

 





Cherish Farrah is a psychological/social horror novel written by author Bethany C. Morrow, most well known for her YA duology, A Song Below Water and A Chorus Rises, but also her short novel Mem.  I've really enjoyed all three of those works, with her YA works using a more magical version of our world to deal with race, prejudice, teen pressure, social media culture and hatred, and the usage of minorities by others against other minorities, and Mem featuring some really interesting ideas about memory and one's self/personhood.  So I was interested to see what she'd do with this novel, advertised as a psychological thriller/horror, even if it didn't appear to be science fiction or fantasy, my usual interest.  

And well, Cherish Farrah is a gripping psychological horror, featuring a kind of sociopathic protagonist in 17 year old Black girl Farrah Turner, raised by black parents among a rich white country club community, who reacts to her family's finances falling apart by trying to manipulate herself into her black friend Cherish's White family instead of her own.....only to find things aren't quite like she expects.  It's a story dealing obviously with race, with class, with privilege, and how both Whites and Blacks perceive that privilege and prejudice - and most significantly a story about how much control a person without privilege truly has over their own narrative.  It largely works pretty well, leading to an incredibly chilling ending, although I think it takes a few too many shortcuts in its final act for that ending to truly work perfectly.  

Some more specifics after the jump, with some spoilers in ROT13.  


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Tuesday, July 19, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Violet Made of Thorns by Gina Chen

 



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 26, 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.     


Violet Made of Thorns is a new dark YA fantasy novel from debut author Gina Chen.  It's the type of story that very much feels like it should be one I've read before: commoner girl born with magical powers (foresight) saves life of Prince as a child, then years later has an antagonistic relationship with him that hides what really is hot attraction.  Well that's a classic set of tropes for a reason, dealing not just with romance, but themes of class as well, and so I went into this story pretty interested and optimistic.  

And that optimism was rewarded with a story that very much is not like the usual one I've read before - which takes that romantic setup in some very different ways, and changes the political and character background to ones that are a lot more interesting.  This is a story that isn't just dealing with romance and class conflict, but also with issues of Empire, Greed, Foresight/Destiny, and powers of Storytelling...especially storytelling with the right combination of Lies and Truth.  I really liked this one, and look forward to its eventual sequel.  

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Monday, July 18, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Anthology: Never Have I Ever by Isabel Yap

 




Never Have I Ever is an anthology of science fiction and fantasy stories from Filipino Author Isabel Yap, who per her bio was born and grew up in the Philippines before moving to the U.S.  The culture of being Filipino, and of being Filipino in the U.S. is thus infused into her short fiction, which is captured here - with the collection featuring 13 short stories (some reaching novelette length), of which 10 were originally published elsewhere and three were published for the first time in this anthology.  

The result is a truly really interesting anthology of science fiction and fantasy from a largely non-Western viewpoint, even as it features stories that sometimes take place in the U.S.  The stories are frequently queer and range from love stories, to tragedies of the real world, to introspective, to speculative, to more, and it's a really interesting range to cover, and one well worth reading.  

Some more specifics after the Jump:


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Wednesday, July 13, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

 



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 19, 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 Daughter of Doctor Moreau is the newest novel by Mexican-Canadian author Silvia Moreno-Garcia, who is a big favorite of mine (Gods of Jade and Shadow, Mexican Gothic, The Beautiful Ones, etc. etc.).  This time around, the story is a take on the classic The Island of Doctor Moreau, with the story moved to the Yucatán Peninsula in 1870s Mexico - a time of colonial unrest between the colonial powers (The Mexican territory and the British colony in Belize known as British Honduras) and Indigenous Mayas.  Moreno-Garcia's works are usually excellent at taking typical plots and taking them to different directions, especially with her use of Mexican settings, so I was really eager to see where she went here.  

And while The Daughter of Doctor Moreau is a solid story, it also doesn't really go in any particularly interesting directions so as to stand out.  The story's Mexican setting works well as foreground but is mainly background until the book's final act, and really doesn't change much, and the story's biggest plot twist is one that pretty much every reader will guess from page 1.  Again though, it's all solidly done, and the main two protagonists have interactions and plot arcs that don't quite go as you might expect, with the book nicely averting the easy choice of how to develop their relationship, which I appreciated.  But Moreno-Garcia has just set such a high standard that this book just can't quite live up to my expectations.  

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Tuesday, July 12, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Eclipse the Moon by Jessie Mihalik

 





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 12, 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.    


Eclipse the Moon is the second book in Jessie Mihalik's second space opera romance series which started with Hunt the Stars (I assume book 3 will be something like Shatter the Sun).  Mihalik's works - both her previous Consortium Rebellion trilogy and this trilogy's opener - are something I've devoured really quickly....they're incredibly fun, with some really great sex scenes, and while the space opera plots never really are super unique or special, they're more than serviceable (with a prose that is very easy to read).  And again, the sex scenes and romantic chemistry is just so so hot....even if Mihalik seems to love teasing readers with incomplete and interrupted scenes until the final acts of each book.  So yeah I was thrilled to get an early copy of this one.  

But Eclipse the Moon is even worse at taking its time to get to the hot and steamy stuff, with there not even being a sex scene (interrupted or otherwise) until the book's final pages....and the scenes we get don't quite live up to the last book, which was insanely hot and steamy.  To the book's credit, it's still a lot of fun, and the space opera action goes down really well - and it's so easy to like the book's characters that it's not like the book is bad or anything, this is still an enjoyable romp.  It's just well, I (and I suspect many other readers) really was hoping for something to live up to that last book in hot and steaminess, and this didn't quite do that enough for me.  More specifics after the jump.  

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Monday, July 11, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Wake the Bones by Elizabeth Kilcoyne

 



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 12, 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.    

Wake the Bones is a Young Adult Southern (or South Midwestern?) Gothic novel written by debut author Elizabeth Kilcoyne.  Southern Gothic novels are an interesting subgenre of fantasy horror, of which I've had mixed feelings in the past - some of those mixed feelings are undoubtedly caused by the fact that I'm well an American from the North (despite 4 years in Durham for college), which leaves me with less familiarity with the settings involved in such books.  There's also the fact that Southern Gothics rely heavily on atmospheric setting descriptions, which I don't particularly love due to some difficult visualizing I have.  But Wake the Bones got some recommendations from some authors I followed and had an interesting cover, so I requested it on NetGalley anyway to see how I'd feel about it.  

And well Wake the Bones is a fine YA Southern Gothic, even as it ties together a number of elements I've seen before in both Southern Gothics and other novels.  You have a strong central protagonist with ambivalence about the future she wants for her future to go along with a tragic past and magic; you also have a pair of gay secondary protagonists who have different wishes and struggles, and well you have a solid horror plot that takes some interesting turns.  But the book very much is tying together a bunch of classic plot beats together, even if not in a typical combination, and it just didn't quite do it for me yet again, so if you're like me and not super into such novels (southern gothics, or stories that rely heavily on atmospheric horror to go with emotional struggles), this might not do it for you either.  

Trigger Warning: Self-Harm, Parental Abuse, Homophobia, among other things - the book is prefaced with a more explicit trigger warning, so as to not surprise, so I won't repeat that here.  

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Friday, July 8, 2022

Fantasy Novella Review: Knot of Shadows by Lois McMaster Bujold

 

Knot of Shadows is the latest edition in Lois McMaster Bujold's Penric & Desdemona series, and the latest chronologically in the series (which sometimes comes out with midquels instead of sequels).  The series is generally fairly fun, featuring sorcerer "Pen" and his demon "Des", as they get into adventures and situations regarding the Five Gods.  The last work in the series, the first novel length story - The Assassins of Thasalon - was very good, making it so I dove right into this one immediately after finishing it. 

Knot of Shadows unfortunately is one of the lesser installments in the series, not really bringing us anything new.  Instead, the story brings us a mystery that calls back all the way back to The Curse of Chalion, the first book in her World of the Five Gods.  And it's fine, and Pen, Des, and apprentice Alixtra remain solid characters, but there just really isn't much substance here to really keep my interest, as some of the better recent Penric stories have done.  

Note:  I read this as an audiobook and the reader is as usual very good.  If you are looking to read this, the audio format is always a good choice, as it is for the rest of this series.  

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Wednesday, July 6, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Assassins of Thasalon by Lois McMaster Bujold

 




Disclaimer: This Review is based in part upon an eARC provided by the publisher in exchange for a review.  I give my word this did not affect the tone of this review.

The Assassins of Thasalon is the first full length novel of Lois McMaster Bujold's Penric & Desdemona series, which has otherwise featured only novellas set in her World of the Five Gods.  The series features goodhearted studious sorcerer Penric and his demon Desdemona as they get into various adventures - often unwillingly (as Pen would rather spend time with his studies and in later works, with the woman he loves and marries) - and gets into conflict due to events that implicate the gods.  At their best, the series is incredibly entertaining in its dialogue and characters, and occasionally poignant as the characters get into new and interestingly different situations.  At their worst, they can kind of feel like Bujold is just going through the motions, and just kind of feel like more of the same.  

Thankfully, The Assassins of Thasalon uses its greater length to tell an actually interesting story, featuring one of the better Penric subplots from prior works - Penric the mentor - and adding in Penric the Secret Agent (always fun), some really excellent side characters both old and new, as well as a plot that takes some surprising swerves.  It's still not a series that is ever really hitting a "must read" kind of level, but this is it at its best: comforting, entertaining, and filled with characters that make you want to read a little more.  

Note: I read this in part via e-ARC and in part in audiobook via my Hoopla Library.  The audiobook reader is as always the great Glover Gardner, who does an excellent job with this series, so I definitely recommend it in that format if you're looking to continue the series in audio.  

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Tuesday, July 5, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Charmed List by Julie Abe

 



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 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 Charmed List is a Young Adult Modern Fantasy Romance Novel by author Julie Abe.  The story advertises itself as essentially an enemies to lovers novel (or well, friends to enemies to lovers), featuring Asian-American characters in California in a world with secret little magics, and well a lot of that sounded real fun to me - making this an easy request on NetGalley.  

And The Charmed List is an incredibly cute young adult romance novel, even if certain aspects are very predictable.  Main character Ellie is adorable as an anxious someone introverted high school girl trying desperately to come out of her shell, who is forced by a series of coincidences onto a road trip not with her best friend as planned, but with the boy who used to be that for her until they became enemies.  Add in a touch of a magical world, and well you have a very enjoyable sweet romance - even if it's a very chaste one that only even has a kiss at the very end.  This will be an excellent romance for younger young adult (or even middle grade) readers.  

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