Saturday, August 8, 2020

A Pale Light In The Black (by KB Wagers) Reread - Chapters 43-44 (Really Chapters 35-36)



Welcome back to my reread of K.B. Wagers' "A Pale Light in the Black!"  You can find the other posts in this reread here.  For those somehow seeing this post first instead of the others, A Pale Light in the Black is a space opera featuring a SF space version of the Coast Guard in an optimistic future universe.

Finally it's time for the main event of this book, the Boarding Games!  Appropriate I get to this part of the book just as Ameican sports are coming back, honestly, except there's no danger of the spread of any dangerous diseases at these games.....except for the disease of some Navy assholes.

Okay enough prelims, let's get to it - we have our first cage match and lots of family drama this week!  Oy.

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Friday, August 7, 2020

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Archer at Dawn by Swati Teerdhala


The Archer at Dawn is the sequel to Swati Teerdhala's "The Tiger at Midnight" (reviewed here), a YA epic fantasy novel based upon Ancient India/Hindu Myth.  I enjoyed that novel quite a bit, which essentially featured a plot that featured a heavy "Catch Me if You Can"-esque setup in the chase between its two protagonists in a fantasy world suffering due to magic.  The two protagonists - were really enjoyable, and with that first book over (and it ending with a pretty strong sequel hook), I was really excited to see where the sequel took things now that the series' first arc was clearly over.

Alas, I wasn't quite as thrilled about The Archer at Dawn.  On one hand the two protagonists are mainly still great, and the world expands in interesting ways in this novel, which is everything I tend to want in the second novel of a trilogy.  On the other hand, the plot trades in two of my least favorite tropes, especially towards its ending, which was extremely frustrating to read.  I still enjoyed the plot and the way things expanded in new ways here, with not everything being as black and white as it seemed, but those annoyances were very real and took away a great deal of what I liked about the first novel....

SPOILER WARNING:  I will try to be as vague as possible about the reveals of the first novel below, but spoilers are inevitable as this book relies upon those spoilers.

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SciFi Novella Review: Finna by Nino Cipri






Finna by Nino Cipri

Finna is a SciFi novella written by author Nino Cipri, and is I think their long fiction debut (albeit still a novella).  It's a novella that takes a concept that you don't usually see that often in fiction - recent exes having to learn how to live/work with each other (instead of just moving on without them) and throws in some crazy SF concepts as well: a multiverse of worlds featuring very different versions of an Ikea-esque knock off!

And it's really well done in a rather short package, with some very good character and relationship development in ways you don't usually see in stories.  There's a sequel apparently on the way (although it seems to be featuring a different main character) and well, I'm definitely looking forward to it.


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Thursday, August 6, 2020

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: After Atlas by Emma Newman


After Atlas is the second book set in Emma Newman's Planetfall universe (which began with, naturally, the novel Planetfall).  I use the phrase "set in" there because the book isn't a direct sequel - it takes place in the same universe at a time that I think is before the events of Planetfall but in a totally different place:  Earth, the planet the characters in Planetfall had long left behind.  It's also sort of a different genre, with the plot taking the form of a scifi dystopian mystery for much of its runtime, which makes it very different from Planetfall in some ways.  I'd liked Planetfall a bit (my review here), and was curious to see where the series would go from that point, so it was inevitable I'd get to this sequel at some point.

And After Atlas is....interesting - like its predecessor it has a compelling narrator who makes it hard to put down and the book even has some similar themes, but its themes are far more cynical than its predecessor.  It's also far more dystopian in its future setting, featuring a world in which corporate entities have replaced governmental ones, with certain people being literally owned by such entities for many different forms of indentured service.  And the book's character work isn't quite as well done as in Planetfall, with it being devoted a bit more to ideas than that book was, which makes it a little less effective as a sequel.  Still, it's certainly a fascinating read that captured me from the beginning and I'll be back for book 3.


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Tuesday, August 4, 2020

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Forest of Souls by Lori M. Lee


Forest of Souls is the first in a new young adult fantasy series by author Lori M Lee.  It was not a novel on my radar until some authors I pay attention to on twitter threw some praise its way, so I put it on my list.  And when it showed up as available as a Hoopla Audiobook and I was looking to try to get back into audiobooks I picked it up.  And I'm glad I did in the end, as I enjoyed this one a good deal, with excellent worldbuilding and a very enjoyable lead character through it all.  I'll definitely be back for this book's sequel.


Note: I read this in audiobook format, and I do recommend the book in that format, as the reader is very good.  That said, it's very likely that I'm misspelling names of characters or places in this review as a result, and for that I apologize.


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Monday, August 3, 2020

July Book Club: Mexican Gothic, End of Month Post




Okay, so I posted my review of Mexican Gothic today HERE.  This post is for discussion in the comments of the book - I'll try to start with the first comment, since it's not like my review can cover everything and my review has to be largely spoiler free......

WARNING:  Spoilers are fair game in the comments here whereas they aren't in responding to my review directly.  So if you look at the comments here, you cannot complain about being spoiled: that's the point.


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SciFi/Fantasy/Horror Book Review: Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia



PRE-REVIEW NOTE:  This novel was my pick for my July Book Club (or well, my attempt at a book club).  That said, while discussion in the book club posts will involve spoilers, this review will NOT.  If you want to talk about this novel, because you've also read it this month, please do not comment on this review with anything that might constitute spoilers.  I have a spoiler-friendly post for discussing this book - as part of the Book Club - HERE: please feel free - in fact i hope that you will - to go full spoilery in thoughts on this book in the comments there instead.
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Mexican Gothic is the latest novel from Mexican/Canadian author Silvia Moreno-Garcia, who has over the past year or so become one of my favorite active writers in genre.  Moreno-Garcia's books cover a really diverse range - from basically straight romance (The Beautiful Ones) to vampire-fic (Certain Dark Things) to a journey with Aztec gods (Gods of Jade and Shadow) - although they very often are inspired by her Mexican heritage (and take place in some form of Mexico).  Mexican Gothic is another example of this: in it, she promises a move to Gothic Horror in a setting of 1951 Mexico.  Gothic Horror is not something I tend to seek out (nor Horror in general) - I can count one clear other example that I've read in the past two years - but with Moreno-Garcia writing, I was sure to give this a try - and felt confident enough to name it a pick for my first book club.

And Mexican Gothic is typical of Moreno-Garcia's excellence - a downright chilling horror novel featuring a strong setting, a terrific lead character, and strong themes to go along with everything.  These themes will resonate very much today - race and sexism prominent among them, as the story features a young Mexican woman coming face to face with an old family obsessed with purity and European ancestry among other things.  It's not a long novel, and yet it's exactly the right length to pull everything off, and I'd definitely recommend it for a read.

More after the jump:

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