SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Ka: Dar Oakley in the Ruin of Ymr by John Crowley

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Ka: Dar Oakley in the Ruin of Ymr by John Crowley https://t.co/KgwEI25BJ7 Short Review: 4 out of 10 (1/3)

— garik16|CanesFan (@garik16) August 29, 2018

Short Review (cont): A book following the tales of an Immortal crow (Dar Oakley) throughout time as he encounters both a growing humanity and a changing afterlife, has interesting moments but fails to come together to form a cohesive whole. (2/3)

— garik16|CanesFan (@garik16) August 29, 2018

Ka: Dar Oakley in the Ruin of Ymr is a genuinely strange book.  The book is ostensibly the stories of an immortal (maybe?) crow over thousands of years, as it and its fellow crows first encounter the humans of Europe and then later America and modernization.  The single theme that recurs in these stories is that crow's - the eponymous Dar Oakley - frequent journeys to what seems to be a strange other realm, seemingly inhabited by the dead.  All of these stories are told by Dar Oakley to an old man in the modern day world who is mourning the recent death of his wife to disease.

The result is....well, uneven would be the wrong word.  Many of the stories told in this book are interesting, often heartbreaking, and yet they're kind of all over the place.  Some of these stories include the journeys to the realm of the dead which seems to be the constant theme throughout the book, while others are just Dar Oakley and the crows learning to adapt to more modern humans coming around them, and the result is less than the sum of its parts, leaving me feeling like I'm not sure what the overall point of the story was.

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SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Deep Roots by Ruthanna Emrys

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Deep Roots (The Innsmouth Legacy #2) by Ruthanna Emrys https://t.co/8iwjDRZiQm Short Review: 9 out of 10 (1/3)

— garik16|CanesFan (@garik16) August 27, 2018

Short Review (cont): The sequel to "Winter Tide," Deep Roots continues the series' subversion of Lovecraft as our Deep One protagonist, Aphra Marsh, tries to rebuild her family from its racist genocide and faces an unearthly threat to her newfound bonds/family. Really good (2/3)

— garik16|CanesFan (@garik16) August 27, 2018

Deep Roots is the sequel to last year's Winter Tide, a book by Ruthanna Emrys that I liked a lot (Review Here).  Lovecraft adaptations are not usually my thing, as I've never read any of the source material or had any interest in doing so - although knowing about the racism inherent in those stories is probably a large part of that lack of interest (my lack of interest in horror is the other part).  Still, Winter Tide was a member of an increasingly more common genre - the Lovecraft subversion - and flipped around Lovecraft's ideas to address issues of racism and persecution and their effects on families and the result was a really interesting and effective story.

Deep Roots continues with these themes - following Aphra Marsh and her brother Caleb - the last survivors on land of the Deep Ones of Innsmouth after the US Government rounded them up into camps - and their friends (gathered in Winter Tide) as they arrive in New York City and search for extensions of their family.  Naturally what they find is far more than they bargained for, and they wind up facing other Lovecraftian creatures from outside our world who threaten Aphra's connection to her family.  The result is a book that's at least as strong as Winter Tide, and is definitely recommended.

Note:  While Deep Roots is a stand-alone sequel, it's still a sequel and you will undoubtedly be a little lost if you start the series with this book instead of Winter Tide.  I definitely recommend picking up Winter Tide first.

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SciFi/Fantasy Novella Review: Rogue Protocol (The Murderbot Diaries #3) by Martha Wells

Rogue Protocol (The Murderbot Diaries #3) by Martha Wells:

Rogue Protocol is the third novella (of four) in Martha Wells' "The Murderbot Diaries", which began with last year's "All Systems Red." (Review Here) and continued with this year's "Artificial Condition" (Review Here).  As I've said before, All Systems Red was my pick for this year's Hugo Award for Best Novella (and it won the Award) and I enjoyed Artificial Condition as well, so I was eagerly anticipating this volume becoming available from the library and snatched it up as soon as it was.  The good news is that the quality of this novella has not gone down one bit from its predecessors, with it maybe being as good as the initial novella.  I continue to recommend this series to anyone looking for short fiction.

Note:  The Murderbot Diary novellas essentially function and feel like episodes of a TV Show - Each follows from the events of the other, even if a small time period elapses between them.  The Result is that they are not really stand alone outside of the first novella, so do not begin the story with Rogue Protocol - you won't be hopelessly confused if you do so, but you'll miss enough to lose most of the impact and goodness I would think.  

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik

Fantasy Book Review: Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik: https://t.co/AxkofRkVtz Short Review: 5.5 out of 10 (1/3)

— garik16|CanesFan (@garik16) August 23, 2018

Short Review(cont): The spiritual successor to Uprooted, this book tells of a group of young women trying to outwit those who would use them-a Jew wanted by a Fae king for being able to turn silver to gold, most prominently. But the result is very muddled & disappointing (2/3)

— garik16|CanesFan (@garik16) August 23, 2018

Spinning Silver is the second novel (as far as I can tell) by Naomi Novik outside of her most well known work, her 9 book Temeraire series.  It is essentially a spiritual successor to her award winning Uprooted - not in a sense of the book having any shared continuity with Uprooted, but in it being another book where Novik weaves a story based around her own adaptation of various threads of folklore.  You may have seen Spinning Silver advertised in a fashion as a modern retelling of Rumpelstiltskin, but outside of the broadest outlines, it's more of a fresh adaptation of a hodgepodge of folklore into a more new story

That said, while I really enjoyed Uprooted (which deservedly won the Nebula), Spinning Silver was a bit more of a miss for me.  Where Uprooted had a single strong voice as its narrator, Spinning Silver begins with two narrators and adds more as the story goes along, with new voices showing up all the way through around 50-60% of the way through (there are six or seven such first person narrators in all, if I'm not miscounting).  Between that and the multiple plots of various scopes going on at the same time, the result for me was a book that was a bit muddled and often had me not caring at what was going on, even though I was interested in seeing what happened next for other parts.

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SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Witchmark by C.L. Polk

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Witchmark by C.L. Polk https://t.co/3nHMVEJW8j Short Review: 7.5 out of 10 (1/3)

— garik16|CanesFan (@garik16) August 20, 2018

Short Review (cont): A fantasy story featuring magic that's part mystery, part conspiracy thriller, and part LGBTQ romance, Witchmark is a decent start to a new fantasy duology, even if it's not the most unpredictable of books (2/3)

— garik16|CanesFan (@garik16) August 20, 2018

Witchmark is the first in a fantasy duology by CL Polk, featuring an alternate fantasy world in which is recovering from its version of a world war.  It's a world of open and hidden magic that forms the basis for a plot that is a combination of a mystery, an LGBTQ romance, and a conspiracy thriller.  How well does it mold these elements?  It's a bit of a mixed bag - the mystery and thriller elements are done perfectly well - if being done in a way that is fairly predictable - while the romance didn't quite work for me.  Still, overall it's a solid start to this new 2 book series and I will be coming back for the sequel most likely.

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SciFi/Fantasy Novella Review: The Descent of Monsters by J.Y. Yang

The Descent of Monsters by J.Y. Yang

The Descent of Monsters is the third in J.Y. Yang's "Tensorate" series of novellas, the first two of which - The Black Tides of Heaven and The Red Threads of Fortune - came out simultaneously last year (I reviewed both HERE).  Descent can stand on his own probably pretty well, although readers of the prior two novellas will probably get a little more out of it (particularly those who have read "The Red Threads," as this novella heavily involves that novella's major character "Rider"), and since those novellas are very good, I do recommend you start there instead.  Either way, Descent, while shorter than the original two novellas, is very good and by far the wittiest of the series, while still having some strong emotional impact.

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Cryoburn by Lois McMaster Bujold

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Cryoburn (Vorkosigan Saga) by Lois McMaster Bujold: https://t.co/xhnfb0d2sG Short Review: 7 out of 10 (1/3)

— garik16 (@garik16) August 17, 2018

Short Review (cont): The most recent Miles Vorkosigan adventure features him in an investigation on a planet obsessed with cryo-freezing and finds him nosing his way against a conspiracy led by a powerful cryocorp. Fun but non-essential, best for lovers of this great series (2/3)

— garik16 (@garik16) August 17, 2018

Cryoburn is most recent book in the Vorkosigan Saga to feature the series' most prominent hero, Miles Vorkosigan.*  As with the last two Miles adventures, Komarr and Diplomatic Immunity, it features Miles being sent to a new place to investigate what seems like a simple-ish mystery only for him to get involved in something far larger.  And since Miles is a manic nutjob whose brilliance results in him acting quite often on crazy instincts and taking crazy risks, the result is yet again a fast paced and often nutty adventure.

*Two books have been published since - Captain Vorpatril's Alliance which I reviewed previously and features Ivan and Gentleman Jole which features Cordelia.  Miles is in both, but in smaller less central roles.  

That said, it's probably my least favorite of the books to feature Miles in his second career as Imperial Auditor (as a detective basically).  The world featured in the book is done extremely well, with a really interesting premise: like you might guess from the title, the book features a world obsessed with Cryo-freezing, to the point where its entire political system is based upon the votes of people who are actually frozen.  But the actual adventure featured just doesn't live up to the earlier ones for me, though it's still enjoyable.

Note:  You could in theory start this book as your first novel in the Vorkosigan Saga - as nothing up until the very ending chapter requires any foreknowledge.  That said, I wouldn't begin here, given there are similar entry points earlier in the series which don't have that ending problem (see Komarr, for example).