Thursday, September 17, 2020

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Star Wars: Shadow Fall by Alexander Freed


Shadow Fall is the second book in Alexander Freed's "Alphabet Squadron" trilogy, following the first book - conveniently named Alphabet Squadron - which I reviewed here.  Alphabet Squadron was seemingly planned as a big deal multimedia project, with the novels meant to tie in with a comic book from the other side, but the comic book petered out after five issues (which were merely okay), so now it appears to be only another trilogy of novels set in the Star Wars universe.  Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, because Alphabet Squadron was one of the most interesting Star Wars novels I've ever read, a dark cynical novel questioning what it means for Imperials to defect and fight for the New Republic after all they've done and how different the two sides really are on the ground level.  And it was really good at asking and dealing with those questions, making me really want to see where the story would go from there.

And Shadow Fall remains fascinating to read, in a way that still makes me so surprised that Disney was willing to publish this trilogy (in a good way).  The book doesn't lighten up its dark cynical take on Star Wars at all, and its lead characters - the four members of the squadron and a major antagonist character - remain fascinating in how they react to the dismal situations they find themselves in, in a galaxy on the edge of change....and yet not.  This is again really not the same type of book as the old X-Wing novels, being a far darker grittier piece of SciFi, but it's really damn good and I still highly recommend it.

NOTE:  Spoilers for book 1 are inevitable, but they don't really matter too much for your enjoyment of book 1.  That said, you may want to skim/reread book 1, or if you've read book 1 brush up on the characters again in Wikipedia, as this book doesn't recap exactly who everyone is in any way before it jumps in.


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Wednesday, September 16, 2020

SciFi Novella Review: Sweet Harmony by Claire North



Full Disclosure:  This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the novella'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 novella.


Sweet Harmony by Claire North:  

Sweet Harmony is a new SF (and arguably horror) novella by SF/F author Claire North, who has in the past written a bunch of interesting concept SF/F stories.  I'd read one of her works before, The Sudden Appearance of Hope, and was not as high on it as others - it had one really interesting idea that it explored well, but muddled it all in the end by trying to mesh it with some other less explored ideas.  Sweet Harmony is similarly a concept themed story and since I was given an advance copy by the publisher, I figured I'd try it out.  

And well, Sweet Harmony is fine - it explores an interesting idea: a future where people can use nanobots to alter their body's appearance and features - not just the obvious physical ones, but altering ones libido, making it so you never stop smiling (for women of course), making it so you don't need to brush your teeth, etc. - but the companies that offer those nanobots require monthly payments and god help you if you go into debt.  It then takes this idea and grafts it to the very real expectations society places upon women, and that men place upon women, to oft horrifying effect.  It's a melding of ideas that will become quite predictable early on in this novella to any reader, but North does take the plot in some different horrifying directions by the end - but well...even then it felt almost like there wasn't enough in the concept for a full novella.  

More after the Jump:

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Tuesday, September 15, 2020

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Ikessar Falcon by K.S. Villoso




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 Ikessar Falcon is the second book in K.S. Villoso's Filipino-inspired Epic Fantasy series, "Chronicles of the Bitch Queen" (My review of the first book, The Wolf of Oren-Yaro is up at the blog here).  I really liked the first book in this series, with its fascinating heroine, torn between what others - including her dead father - expect of her and her duties and lost in a part of the world she is unfamiliar with, and was really excited to see what was going to happen next.  As I noted in my prior review, I believe this series was first self-published, but Orbit picked it up for republishing, and it was through Orbit that I managed to snag an early copy to review.  

And well, The Ikessar Falcon is a damn hard book to review.  On one hand, our protagonist, Talyien, remains fascinating in how she's developed from book 1, and the world expands in many many ways as she and her few allies return home from the city of the first book, dealing with threats new and old.  On the other hand, I'd hoped that she would be able to make a "breakthrough" and take a stand for the idea of her having her own personal wants in this book, which uhhhh doesn't really happen, letting a real asshole of a character mostly off the hook.  This is very much a story in transition here, and it's a LONG one, the longest book I've read all year, which only makes it all a bit more frustrating.

NOTE:  This book comes with a few page long "The Story So Far" summary of book 1, to make it easier to jump right in without having to reread the first novel.  I cannot tell you how much I appreciated that.  

More specifics after the jump (minor spoilers for book 1 follow):

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Monday, September 14, 2020

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Doors of Eden by Adrian Tchaikovsky


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 Doors of Eden is the latest book from British SF/F author Adrian Tchaikovsky.  I've read one novel and one novella by Tchaikovsky and had mixed feelings.  The novel, the much acclaimed "Children of Time" (Reviewed Here), was a fascinating idea-based SF novel featuring the evolution of an alien species (Spiders!) over generations, but well it didn't have any characters that I particularly enjoyed, limiting my excitement about it (I'm more into character-focused stories).  The novella, his "Firewalkers" (Review Here), had much more interesting characters while still exploring interesting ideas about artificial intelligence, class, and more in a post-apocalyptic world.  So when I was given the chance to read his latest novel (out already in the UK) in advance, I was a little bit hesitant.

And The Doors of Eden kind of justifies my hesitancy.  Like both of the aforementioned works, it has strong interesting ideas - dealing with evolution, parallel Earths, and different ways of existence here - and it even has a few characters whom I really liked.  And then it has certain character relationships and behaviors that just seem treated kind of poorly - particularly in the transphobic actions of its villain - which kind of mar the whole thing.  The result is an uneven book with enough moments to keep me interested throughout, but repeatedly had me facepalming at times at how some things played out, which prevents me from recommending it wholeheartedly.

Trigger Warning:  The antagonist deliberately deadnames (and worse) a trans character, seemingly just to show how evil and transphobic he is.  It's....not done well.  More on this after the jump, but if that's a problem, this book is not going to be for you.

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Friday, September 11, 2020

Fantasy/Horror Novella Review: Yellow Jessamine by Caitlin Starling





Yellow Jessamine by Caitlin Starling:

Yellow Jessamine is a new horror novella by author Caitlin Starling, who I was previously familiar with from her excellent SF/Horror novel "The Luminous Dead".  Like that novel, this is very much a queer horror novel with much of the horror coming from an atmospheric horror, as it's not quite clear how much that's happening is real.

But whereas The Luminous Dead was quite clearly in the genre of SF horror, Yellow Jessamine is more in the form of not just fantasy, but honestly is just outright weird (I don't think of it as part of the "Weird" SF/F genre but I don't know a better word to describe it).  The story spends its entire runtime in the head of its protagonist, who the horror spends its entire time taking apart mentally....and I'm honestly not quite sure if it works?  I think it does, and it's at the very least quite interesting, but well....more after the jump:

Note: I listed to this in audiobook format, and I'm honestly ambivalent about whether I'd recommend that format or not - the reader is very slow and deliberate and at times, given the slow pace of the story, that felt kind of annoying, but by the end, it really added to the atmospheric horror of it all.  I'd probably not recommend it but it's a tough call.

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Thursday, September 10, 2020

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Raybearer by Jordan Ifueko




Raybearer is the debut novel from Nigerian-American author Jordan Ifueko.  It's a young adult novel featuring a world seemingly inspired by a non-Western mythology/setting (neither the marketing nor the acknowledgements seem to suggest a specific culture being the inspiration, so I won't try to extrapolate any further) and it was a novel that I saw a bunch of authors I like hyping up recently when it just came out.  And as it was available immediately as part of the Hoopla Library, I picked it up and read it fairly quickly (it's not a long novel). 

And Raybearer is a fairly solid fantasy debut; the first in a series (trilogy?) but one that ends with a decently satisfying ending.  The main character is really damn good, as a young girl who grows up desperate to both please her mother and to avoid the destiny that mother has enforced upon her, who has a good heart in a world filled with pleasant injustice.  There's also a lot of depth to this world, not all of which gets explored in this novel, to go along with a very solid mix of characters, so I am definitely interested in seeing where things go from here. 


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SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Tyrant Baru Cormorant by Seth J Dickinson


The Tyrant Baru Cormorant is the third book in Seth J Dickinson's "The Masquerade" series, after his brilliant "The Traitor Baru Cormorant" in 2015 and 2018's "The Monster Baru Cormorant" (which I reviewed here).  That said, Tyrant isn't really the third book - it's more like the 2nd half of the second book, with it and Monster forming one complete sequel to the original novel Traitor, which makes sense since the two were apparently one original novel split into two (moving the series from three planned novels to four). 

 Traitor is one of the few books to which I've ever given a perfect score and is still an all time favorite, telling a fascinating tale of a girl deciding to rise up and destroy the Evil Empire from within, going along with its methods to gain the power to do so, no matter how repressive of others and of herself those methods must be, with an absolutely devastating ending.  Its follow up, Monster, was a fascinating half of a story with some really interesting themes and really fun moments amidst the darkness, but was kind of a mess as Dickinson split the narrative into several additional points of view as everything in this world expanded in often contradictory ways.  And now we finally have the conclusion to that first half of a novel, in the form of a book that's an absolute doorstopper in length.

And well, Tyrant is a mixed bag, with its structure still a bit of a mess, as it attempts to wrangle multiple factions and a cast of dozens into a cohesive story for our protagonist - the unmistakable Baru Cormorant - to deal with as she struggles with both her goal and the costs she has incurred to try and get to the point where she can destroy the Empire from within.  The writing still contains a huge number of fantastic and often humorous moments (despite the generally dark tone) to carry this book, and the perspectives of different characters actually seem to work better here than in Monster.  But the book's most compelling ideas kind of get muddled in the process, including the primary conflict at the heart of Monster, which is a little disappointing. 

More after the jump - Spoilers for Traitor are inevitable, and some minor spoilers for Monster as well. 


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