Friday, January 29, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Galaxy and the Ground Within by Becky Chambers

 


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 April 20, 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 Galaxy and the Ground Within is the fourth - and seemingly final (according to the acknowledgements) - book in Becky Chambers' Hugo Winning "Wayfarer" series of novels, which began with A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet.  I've said on this blog many times before how much I prefer character-focused novels to plot or idea-focused ones, and the Wayfarer novels take that to an extreme: they feature practically no overarching plot, but instead stories of characters in a scifi world in which humans have left a devastated earth and met a mostly peaceful coalition of alien races.  It's an optimistic setting, and the first three books have all been tremendous, especially the first book and third (Record of a Spaceborn Few), so when this fourth book showed up on Netgalley, I requested it immediately and didn't dare hope to get a copy....and was extraordinarily excited when I did. 

And for the first time, I found myself not really thinking a book in this series actually worked.  The book has perhaps even less of a plot than its predecessors, and Chambers does an excellent job with the four main characters - this time around, there isn't a human among them, so we're dealing entirely with alien species and personalities here.  As usual, the book is pretty much a stand-alone exploration of these characters, something Chambers usually excels at.  But this time, Chambers attempts through one of the characters to also cover important issues of oppression, colonization, and the aftermath of it all and the attempt to touch on those themes clashes with the otherwise optimistic tone and it doesn't work at all.  It results in a a major misstep which for me almost overshadowed everything else. 

Read more »
Posted by at No comments:

Thursday, January 28, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Interference by Sue Burke



Interference is the sequel to Sue Burke's Semiosis from from 2018 (which I reviewed here).  Semiosis is usually not the type of book I love - it's an idea based sci-fi novel, featuring a story over a number of generations of humanity on an alien planet.  Yet unlike most "generation ship" type novels, it spent enough time with each generation, who often overlapped, and had an idea interesting enough - humans getting essentially domesticated by super-intelligent plants! - that it kept me hooked and interested throughout.  If you liked Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Time for example, you'd like Semiosis, which is similar (with plants instead of spiders) but a little more in depth with its characters, to my satisfaction.  

Interference takes place after Semiosis and features a new party of travelers from Earth going to check on the Pax colony that was the setting of Semiosis, in which the human settlers now use mostly primitive technology in cooperation with another alien species, the Glassmakers, all under the authority of Stevland, a super-intelligent rainbow bamboo plant.  Needless to say the modern humans, coming from a crappy Earth setting, do not understand what they find, and set off a new round of conflicts between human, alien and plant.  It's an interesting story, but one that honestly doesn't feel like it adds too much more than Semiosis did originally.  

Read more »
Posted by at No comments:

Wednesday, January 27, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Redemption in Indigo by Karen Lord

 



Redemption in Indigo is a short novel by Karen Lord, taking Senegalese folktales and adapting them into a cohesive fantasy story for new audience.  Lord's an author who I've read before - her Unraveling is actually a stand-alone sequel to this novel (kinda - it features several recurring characters, but the stories are unrelated) and I read that book a few years back and resolved to come back for this more well known story at some point.  And so when I saw this was available in audiobook on Hoopla, I decided to give it a shot.

And Redemption in Indigo is pretty tremendous - a really fun retelling of folktales in a modern fashion, taking place in an unnamed African nation (again the inspiration is Senegalese folktales, but the country isn't mentioned) at a non-specific time that is both modern and not.  It's a story with a lot of charm and funny moments to make you smile, to go along with a strong tale of a young woman with a good heart and a strong sense of duty dealing with the absurdity of humans and the manipulations of immortals, told by a narrator in a slightly irreverent and yet still respectful tone.  Well worth your time and it won't take much of your time to read.

Note: I read this in audiobook and so if I misspell any of the names of the characters, that's why.  Still, I highly recommend the book in this format, which features the strong voice work of Robin Miles, known for a lot of other great works of audionarration.  

Read more »
Posted by at No comments:

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune

 




The House in the Cerulean Sea is a stand alone fantasy novel by author TJ Klune and it's been a book that I've seen a ton of love for online.  I'd skipped it originally - I think I saw one review that was merely okay and so hadn't quite expected all the gushing - but eventually weeks of seeing it on people's top books of 2020 list wore me down and I reserved it from the library.  And so, when I was looking for something delightful with a happy ending and joyous plot to read for the first book of 2021, I picked this up.  

And yeah, The House in the Cerulean Sea is utterly delightful - a queer story of a middle aged man going to inspect a home for magical kids with extraordinary powers who are feared by the world and falling in love with them and the home's caretaker.  It's not a story that will provide many surprises - you will expect most of the plot developments to some degree before they happen - but it pulls them off with just enough variety and good execution to make them all work, and all the characters are wonderfully well done.  I can't quite call it one of the best books of 2020, but it's certainly one of the more delightful and I definitely recommend it for someone looking for a happy ending despite some serious themes.  

Read more »
Posted by at No comments:

Monday, January 25, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Beyond Addiction by Kit Rocha

 




Beyond Addiction is book 5 in Kit Rocha's erotic and explicit post-apocalyptic romance "Beyond" series.  If you're reading this review you're most likely familiar with the series and its first four books, and well, as a result I won't be going too in depth here.  The series has a very comforting formula usually....a couple - or a trio or larger grouping on occasion - tries to figure out the other through lots and lots of sex, with each other and with others, figuring out each other's kinks, while also trying not to harm the other's emotions as they deal with the struggles of gang life in their post-apocalyptic slum of a puritan city. 

That said, Beyond Addiction actually messes with the formula a little in some interesting ways, and so even though it features a middle portion that will be familiar to series readers, I doubt anyone who enjoyed the first four books will find themselves feeling it is repetitive in a disappointing way.  If you liked the earlier books in the series, you'll enjoy this one, if not, you won't. 

TRIGGER WARNING:  Rape as backstory.  

Read more »
Posted by at No comments:

Friday, January 22, 2021

SciFi Novella Review: Local Star by Aimee Ogden

 


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 April 5, 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.    

Local Star is one of two novellas coming out in the first half of 2021 by SF/F writer Aimee Ogden, who has seemingly only before written shorter SF/F fiction.  It's a stand alone novella (although I really wonder if she's written in this world before) featuring a space opera setting in which polyamory and queerness is utterly normalized, with people living in triads or quads utterly normally.  And I enjoyed it quite a bit, as it managed to deal with some serious themes while showing a solid space opera conflict (bad guys and fighting and war) while dealing with interesting themes of love, acceptance and more along the way.  

More specifics after the jump.

Read more »
Posted by at No comments:

Thursday, January 21, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Scarlet Odyssey by C. T. Rwizi

 



Scarlet Odyssey is the start of a grimdark epic fantasy series by C. T. Rwizi.  It's a series published by 47North, which is Amazon's own book imprint for science fiction and fantasy.  As such, like a lot of 47North books - Marko Kloos' works are also under this umbrella for example - the books are available under the Kindle Unlimited service, so if you're a subscriber (I think it comes with some Amazon Prime subscriptions), it's fairly easy to pick up.  And well, this book's sequel, the 2nd in the series, is due out in March (I have an eARC of that incidentally), so now is a solid time to get into it.  

And Scarlet Odyssey is well worth your time - if you can handle its grimdark world.  I don't use the word grimdark lightly, and I'm willing to deal with a bit of brutality when it fits the story, but this is on the border even for me - a story where deaths of innocents and children occur multiple times through its content, along with multiple mass slaughters.  But if you can deal with those things, you have a really interesting epic fantasy story with solid characters who are just beginning their story, with a background that is clearly African-inspired in origin instead of the "Western"-inspired origins that many will be used to.

TRIGGER WARNING:  Rape as backstory, Deaths of innocents and children.  This is a story in which multiple characters preach about power being only accessible at the price of emotional agony, and multiple characters are more than willing to inflict that agony. 


Read more »
Posted by at No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)