Thursday, February 28, 2019

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Demon's Surrender by Sarah Rees Brennan



The Demon's Surrender is the conclusion of the trilogy began by Sarah Rees Brennan in The Demon's Lexicon and continued in The Demon's Covenant.  I really enjoyed The Demon's Covenant when I got to it earlier this year, so while I waited about a year between going from the first book and the second, it only took me about a month to finish the series with this book.  Note that while in theory you could've started this series with the 2nd book, you really can't start with this book, as it deals with and wraps up plot hooks left open by the prior two books as a major part of its narrative.

As a trilogy-ender, The Demon's Surrender generally works, although it doesn't live up to its predecessor (it falls in the middle of the three books for me).  The characters for the most part remain excellent, and Brennan is phenomenal at witty dialogue and that totally continues here.  And the plot maintains a pretty strong pace with unpredictable moments here and there, with its new lead character (Sin, who was a side character previously) generally working....although not completely (I didn't quite buy the main romance honestly).

In short, I'm glad I read and finished this trilogy and will be back for more of SRB's works, but this isn't as clearly a winner as its predecessor.

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Wednesday, February 27, 2019

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Kingdom of Copper by S.A. Chakraborty



The Kingdom of Copper is book two in S.A. Chakraborty's "Daevabad Trilogy" and the sequel to last year's "City of Brass" (which I reviewed here).  I really enjoyed The City of Brass - if there was any book where a Game of Thrones-esque comparison would make sense, it would be that one, but it was so much more than that: yes it featured a world of gray, where those who try to be lawful good tend to suffer, but it featured a world based upon islamic/arabic myth (djinn!, ifrit! marid!), great characters in their own right, an unpredictable (somewhat) plot, and avoided the problematic elements that mar Game of Thrones (no sexual assault or rape involved here).  It also dealt with serious issues, such as that of cycles of revenge, conquered peoples living among the conquerors in their former city, prejudice, racial discrimination and violent extremism, etc.  The book had some issues (mainly pacing), but it was a really strong start to a trilogy and I was really looking forward to the follow-up.

The Kingdom of Copper mainly doesn't disappoint and is an excellent continuation to the story. Taking place after a five year time-skip, the book increases the number of viewpoint characters to three (readers of the prior book can guess the new POV) and follows up strongly on all of the tantalizing cliffhangers/sequel-hooks left open by City of Brass.  And while the book is well longer than its predecessor, it uses its extra pages well and doesn't drag too much, and the characters remain really damn good and compelling.

Note: I read this book, like its predecessor, as an audiobook.  The audiobook reader is the same as for The City of Brass and she is really good, although the increased length of this book means the audiobook is 23 hours plus, which is well longer than my usual maximum limit for audiobooks, so if you'd - like me - prefer shorter audiobooks so that it doesn't take 2+ weeks to finish them, maybe stick to the print edition of this book.
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SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Black Leopard Red Wolf by Marlon James




Books with a lot of press tend to get some weird and outlandish comparisons - generally for the worse in my opinion.  Your average "Game of Thrones" or "Tolkien" comparisons tend to be a double-edged sword - they may get more interest from potential readers, but they set high standards for books to live up to, standards which the books tend not even to be trying to meet.  For that reason I'm generally put off by those comparisons, but Black Leopard Red Wolf - comparisons labeling the book an "African Game of Thrones" of "African Tolkien" be damned - has gotten so much advance praise from writers I have enjoyed that I had to put the book on reserve the moment I saw it become available from my local library.

The result is definitely interesting...although I'm not so sure it was to my tastes.  None of the above comparisons really work (The Tolkien comparison is easily the closest but even then it's really superficial) and the book is very much its own thing - a wildly creative fantasy drawing from African mythology.  That said, it's a particularly dark and brutal fantasy, with a not always enjoyable protagonist/narrator, with some long rants and diatribes coming from characters' mouths, as well as long and vivid descriptions which make this book hit the high 600 page-mark.

Note:  Trigger Warning:  Rape - rape exists as backstory for quite a lot of characters and happens to a bunch of characters (more male than female for whatever that's worth).  Slavery is a majorly present feature of this world as well.  While none of this is described in great detail in the present of the story, it's the type of world that I usually would not be interested in, and I suspect it may be a dealbreaker for many others. 
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Monday, February 25, 2019

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Ship of Smoke and Steel by Django Wexler



Ship of Smoke and Steel is the first of a new YA fantasy trilogy by Django Wexler, and the first dip of Wexler into the world of YA - his prior books have been considered either middle-grade or "adult" SF/F.  I haven't read Wexler's earlier works, so this is my first experience with his writing.  But based upon this book, I'll probably be checking out his other stuff eventually.

Ship of Smoke and Steel is a rather dark-ish young adult fantasy, with a heroine who wracks up quite a body count - and is more pragmatic than good about her killing.  Despite her seemingly cold ruthlessness, Wexler manages to make her very likable, and the world he creates around her is extremely well done.  To top it off, while the book is the start of a trilogy, it is a totally satisfying story on its own, which I always appreciate.  The book isn't perfect and hardly unique, but it works fairly well and is worth a read.


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Friday, February 22, 2019

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Skin Hunger by Kathleen Duey




Skin Hunger is the first in an incomplete trilogy by Kathleen Duey, her "A Resurrection of Magic" trilogy.  Unfortunately, the author, due to medical issues I won't go into here, is unable to finish the trilogy, so the story will never actually be finished (a second book was published, but the third was still incomplete at the time of her ailment).  Still, a reviewer I like suggested the book and maybe its sequel were still worth reading, so I put it on my library reserve list, with the hope that what was complete would be a satisfying read on its own.

Unfortunately, that's not really the case.  Skin Hunger is certainly interesting, with a pair of main characters who are really well written and easy to root for, and a dual narrative structure that kept me interested throughout.  But it's clearly the first book in a longer story, with the story ending at a point that might represent the end of an arc of the longer narrative, but not one that allows it to stand alone.  So is this worth reading?  Hard to say, but definitely not if you'd like to read a story with some sense of a satisfying resolution.


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Thursday, February 21, 2019

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Edges (Inverted Frontier 1) by Linda Nagata




Full Disclosure:  This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the novel's release on April 2, 2019 in exchange for a potential review.  I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way (if I'd not liked the book, I just would not have reviewed it). 

 Edges is the first in a new Sci-Fi Series* - the Inverted Frontier - by author Linda Nagata.  I've read Nagata's "The Red" trilogy, which was a fun and interesting MilSci trilogy that I enjoyed but didn't quite love, and her short story from last year which I ranked #2 on my Hugo list (The Martian Obelisk).  So when I saw this book pop up on Netgalley, I was interested to see how much I'd enjoy her work when it's not in a genre I have a history of not particularly caring for (MilSci)

 *Note: Edges is the first in a new trilogy/series which takes place in the same universe as Linda Nagata's "The Nanotech Succession" universe, and judging from the book summaries on Amazon, several characters and parts of this setting were first introduced in those books.  However, I haven't read any of those prior books and had no problem following along with this story, so there's no need to go read those earlier books to enjoy Edges, though I may go back and try to track those novels down anyhow.

Edges is a high-concept SciFi novel, and it works particularly well after perhaps a rough start.  Like some other books (Yoon Ha Lee's Machineries of Empire trilogy comes to mind), Edges shows no interest in holding the readers hand as it introduces SF concepts without much explanation whatsoever (although it's possible explanations are in prior works of this universe), and the result is that it's kind of an awkward read for its first 20%.  But the result in the end is really well done and definitely different from what I'm used to, so I look forward to seeing how this series plays out.

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Wednesday, February 20, 2019

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: A Matter of Oaths by Helen S. Wright




A Matter of Oaths is an interesting story in terms of its place in the genre - it's an LGBTQ friendly Space Opera with a PoC main character that was published in 1988, when such a thing was pretty unheard of.  In a way it can be seen as a SF equivalent to Swordspoint (by Ellen Kushner), but unlike that classic, A Matter of Oaths went largely unnoticed.  But it was rereleased in 2017 with a preface by Becky Chambers and a number of authors I like have shouted it out, so I was interested in seeing how it worked today, when these type of stories are, while not common, certainly no longer unusual.

The answer for me at least is that A Matter of Oaths is a solid Space Opera story, with a trio of really strong main characters, and an outline of a plot otherwise that is a bit more bare-bones than I would have liked.  There's a lot of interesting ideas here in this universe, and for better or for worse the story is mainly more interested in exploring the relationships between characters as they struggle to survive and figure out themselves.  But those relationships are really well done, which makes this a very solid book, even if it never really became more than that for me.


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