Wednesday, September 9, 2020

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Beyond Shame by Kit Rocha


Beyond Shame is the first in a self published series of erotic fiction novels by author "Kit Rocha" ( a psuedonym for authors Donna Herren and Bree Bridges), set in a dystopian post-apocalyptic world.  The series came to my attention after Rocha published under a mainstream press the first in a sexy romantic science fiction series, Deal with the Devil (Reviewed Here), which I enjoyed a lot - the perfect blend of fun dialogue and characters and steamy sex scenes, to go along with a fun SF plot.  And with the first book in this series available free from online ebook retailers, I couldn't help myself in giving it a try, figuring hey, I enjoyed the sex scenes in that book, how about a book in which they're the primary focus, and the SF the background?

And uh, yep, Sex is definitely the primary focus of this novel, with the science fiction aspects limited entirely to the deep background.  Fortunately, the sex scenes in this novel, making up something like 80% of the novel in its entirety, are ridiculously fun.  The lead characters - a young woman from a sheltered rich city where sex is heavily restricted who wants far far more and a lieutenant to the top gang in an area outside the city who is far far more accustomed to the many pleasures of sex - are really well done, as are the secondary characters as the more experienced lead guides the other through the pleasures of the flesh.  I will probably be back for more of this series, because well....sometimes this is what you want, and damn is it good.

Note:  If you couldn't tell from the description as an erotic romance series, this book is entirely graphic and quite pornographic, so if somehow you just want romance with a little bit of sex, this won't be for you.


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Tuesday, September 8, 2020

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Silvered Serpents by Roshani Chokshi



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 September 22 2020 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 Silvered Serpents is the sequel to last year's "The Gilded Wolves" (Reviewed Here).  The Gilded Wolves was a novel a lot of people I trust seemed to love - a heist novel featuring an alternate early 20th Century Paris/France, featuring a with a secret Order of Magic behind the scenes, and a crew of outsiders (due to race, class, and other reasons) aiming to pull off a series of heists regarding hidden and lost magics for both fortune and recognition of their own worth.  Unfortunately, I just couldn't find myself to love the novel as much as others, especially as its magic system and one major character were so close in nature to that of another novel I loved (Robert Jackson Bennett's Foundryside) that it was distracting.  Still, there was enough here between the characters, and the very strong setting (which dealt with themes of race and colonialism) to make me want to see where the series would go from the end of the first novel, and I applied for an e-ARC of this sequel as soon as I saw it on NetGalley.

Unfortunately, I honestly found The Silvered Serpents to be an inferior novel to its predecessor, to the point where I actually had a bad taste in my mouth by the ending.  The book takes its predecessor's biggest fault - its least interesting character being its primary protagonist, who was honestly a little annoying in his motivations and actions - and makes it far worse, turning that character into an utterly unlikable person in response to the prior book's happenings.  The rest of the cast has some highlights, but otherwise this novel turns into a heist novel in which the characters just aren't fun or interesting to read, the themes of the setting aren't really explored too heavily, and certain plot elements are both predictable and lead to a cliffhanger ending that is utterly unsatisfying.  There are some highlights where I can see how I might've loved this book otherwise, but they're the exception not the rule.

NOTE:  A Major Spoiler as to The Gilded Wolves' ending is unavoidable in further discussion, so it will not be hidden in the rest of this review.  You are forewarned.


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Monday, September 7, 2020

Book Review: The Disaster Tourist by Yun Ko-Eun (trans. by Lizzie Buehler)


The Disaster Tourist is a short novel by Korean author Yun Ko-Eun, translated from the original Korean text by Lizzie Buehler.   The review which brought the novel to my attention considered it to be SF/F, but I'm really not sure that designation fits, nor is it advertised as such online, so I won't use the designation here.  What it is however is definitely literally fiction that is very much a satire on the real world, and its treatment of many people in different ways.  Like I noted above, this is a "Short Novel", that probably could've been called a novella, but it packs a lot into its page time, and is well worth your time as a result.


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Thursday, September 3, 2020

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Shadowshaper Legacy by Daniel José Older



Shadowshaper Legacy is the third and final book in Daniel José Older's YA Shadowshaper Cypher trilogy, which began with Shadowshaper (Reviewed Here) and continued in Shadowhouse Fall (Reviewed Here) with a pair of novellas in the middle of it all.  It's been a really strong YA series, using a modern family setting of New York City - largely Brooklyn - to deal with issues facing people of color in the real world - like cultural appropriation/gentrification (book 1) and police brutality (book 2).  Each of the first two books had some pacing issues and were probably too short, but the characters were great and the themes were dealt with really well.  Book 2 ended with a major cliffhanger for a number of the characters, so I was really curious to see how the trilogy would be resolved.

And well....Shadowshaper Legacy is an okay ending to the trilogy, with the series' narrative expanding to show perspectives from several of the major side characters, and it all coming to a conclusion that is mostly satisfying.  On the other hand, the plot deals far more heavily with the magic side than the mundane side, which is what had previously allowed it to deal with the serious themes so well, and its exploration of its themes kind of suffers.  And the pacing issues again haunt this book, which is just way too short for all that happens.  But again, the characters remain great and the story for the most part works, it just doesn't meet the prior high standards.

Note: Spoilers for books 1-2 below

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Wednesday, September 2, 2020

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Seven Devils by Laura Lam and Elizabeth May



Seven Devils is the first in a new space opera duology by authors Laura Lam and Elizabeth May.  I haven't read any of May's other works, but I did find really interesting Lam's solo published work from earlier this year, the feminist SF novel "Goldilocks."  Seven Devils is also described by the press marketing as "Feminist Space Opera", and received some positive push from other writers I followed, so I tried to get a copy through NetGalley when it was posted there (I was rejected) and put it on my TBR pile when it came out.

And I have very odd feelings about Seven Devils - I really liked it for most of its page-length, with some strong characters and a strong setting, which made it hard for me to not finish it all in one day (it took me two).  On the other hand, perhaps because I didn't quite realize it was a duology, I really hated the book's eventual ending, which ends not just on a tremendous cliffhanger, but in a really dark place that felt somehow out of tone - even for a book in which the heroines are fighting against an evil fascist Empire that controls its citizens often with a mind controlling AI.  The result just wasn't really satisfying for me, which gave me a bit of a bad taste in my mouth, even though I enjoyed nearly everything up to that point and would almost certainly read the concluding half of this duology.


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SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Deal with the Devil by Kit Rocha


Deal with the Devil is the first in a new series by Kit Rocha - a psuedonym for authors Donna Herren and Bree Bridges.  They're mostly known for their long running post apocalyptic erotic SF series "Beyond", and this novel is the first in their "Mercenary Librarians" series...which is also post apocalyptic romantic SciFi.  I've read one half of the Rocha on twitter a bit and have come to really enjoy romantic and sexy parts of the genre, so despite originally skipping over this novel, I decided to give this one a try and put on a library hold.

And Deal with the Devil is a blast - a sexy as hell post apocalyptic romp as a pair of sets of super soldiers - 4 mechanically augmented men and 3 biologically engineered women - go on a journey through a post apocalyptic US and their leaders try desperately not to act on their own attraction....and well, fail utterly.  The book is incredibly fun and quotable, and yes, very damn sexy, with two strong main characters to go with a solid support cast, who it appears will be explored as main characters of subsequent books.  And yeah I'll be there for sure (I've also downloaded the first in Rocha's erotic series because well....yes).


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Tuesday, September 1, 2020

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Dawnhounds by Sascha Stronach



The Dawnhounds is a SF/F novel by Kiwi author Sascha Stronach, and the winner of this year's Sir Julius Vogel Award for best SF/F novel from New Zealand in 2019.  Those who don't keep up with the fandom of the genre might not have known that the Hugo Awards - one of the biggest awards in the genre - were awarded this year in New Zealand at WorldCon, with the awards going to some great works but the actual ceremony and convention being an utter mess (to put it mildly).  One annoyance in particular was that the virtual ceremony included no celebration of the local scene at all, with the Sir Julius Vogel Awards essentially grafted onto another award ceremony in a way so as to give it little viewership (among other problems again).  So I was rather curious to actually check out The Dawnhounds to see what fandom had essentially missed out on, and as it was in Kindle Unlimited, it was an easy choice to obtain.

And The Dawnhounds is.....interesting.  One on hand it's a SF/F story with very strong themes, with a bi main character who became a cop to try and do some good in a corrupt system that upholds a hetero-norm, and in death obtains magic and discovers a whole other world of queerness that the guardians of the norms seek to obhold....that also throws in odd concepts like technology and magic being mostly biological in nature and some odd perhaps dead gods with their own agendas into the mix.  On the other hand, the book starts with its lead heroine getting high on opiates and thus being an insanely unreliable narrator, and even after she gets sober early on isn't particularly clear as to what exactly is happening at any given moment, as she stumbles around without a clue for much of the story.  This is not a story where the author finds a way to directly explain concepts to the reader, and it didn't quite work for me as much as I'd wanted as a result.  Still, it's again certainly an interesting read, and I'd be very curious to read a sequel to see how things move on from there.


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