Thursday, June 30, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Star Wars: Queen's Shadow by E.K. Johnston

 


Star Wars Queen's Shadow is the first book in a trilogy of books written by E.K. Johnston featuring Padme Amidala and her handmaidens - although this book is entirely stand alone, and it certainly seems like the trilogy was created more out of the success of the first book than out of intention.  I actually read the third book of the trilogy, Queen's Hope, first thanks to Netgalley and I kind of loved it, as it dealt with Padme after Attack of the Clones and featured Padme and her Handmaidens adapting and finding new paths forward in a dangerous galaxy riven by war - it was just a delightful character work even if there wasn't a single coherent plot or conflict to deal with.  So I wanted to come back and track down the other such books, starting with this book, which takes place midway between Episodes 1 and 2 and details Padme's first days as a Senator, and how she and her handmaidens - who are more like special agents than simple handmaidens - adjust to the new role and try to figure out how to move forward and help their people, the galaxy, and stay true to themselves.  

And the result is just as delightful as book 1, even if the epilogue (set after Episode 3) is very much out of place if this is considered part of a trilogy.  Padme and her handmaiden's earnest attempts to use their skills - taking each other's places, espionage and diplomacy, and just sheer determination - to help people and to show that they're not just some figurehead to be taken advantage of is just really enjoyable to read, as Johnston's character work of a really charming cast just finding ways to do things well amidst a Star Wars universe we're kind of familiar with is pretty great.  

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Tuesday, June 28, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Locklands by Robert Jackson Bennett

 




 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 June 28, 2022 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.


Locklands is the conclusion to Robert Jackson Bennett's "The Founders" trilogy, which began in 2018 with "Foundryside" and continued in 2020 with "Shorefall".  The trilogy features a world in which technology has evolved based upon a magic known as scriving - in which certain glyphs written on objects will convince an object that reality is not how it really is, causing the object to react differently (so for example, wheels can be scrived to think they're on a downhill, causing them to roll forward).  Bennett has used this world and its characters to tremendous effect, telling a story with strong themes of people recognizing they are people instead of mere tools, about inequality of resources and power, and how attempts to universally spread power around may or may not simply result in new people being oppressed rather than a more egalitarian world - and the importance of empathy in ensuring that such a bad outcome doesn't happen.  As with RJB's "The Divine Cities", this series has been utterly tremendous through two books and I was incredibly eager to dive in to the finale.  

And Locklands remains a fascinating thriller novel, as - eight years after the last book - the protagonists attempt to save the world from the disasters they helped unleash in the last book, and to keep together the new society they've built with their twinning technology in the face of impossible odds.  Bennett really takes the (kind of well worn SF/F) trope of "Society would work better if people's thoughts were all connected so that they knew and felt the impact of their actions on others" in interesting directions, really exploring how that might look here rather than simply just assuming the concept.  And the main characters remain excellent, between Sancia, Berenice, and Clef, as they try to deal with aging, remedying their own mistakes, and tremendous grief for each other and those they have previously lost.  Oh and as usual, this is a hell of a thriller plot along the way too.  I'm not sure I'd rank this above The Divine Cities trilogy, but it's certainly close at the very least, and that's saying a lot.  

Note: Spoilers for Shorefall and Foundryside are inevitable below:  

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Monday, June 27, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Invisible Things by Mat Johnson

 




 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 June 28, 2022 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.

Invisible Things is the latest book by author Mat Johnson, previously (among a bunch of other things) the author of 2011's Pym (my review of Pym is here).  Pym was a pretty strong satire of race, heritage, and whiteness in particular in a story taking inspiration from Edgar Allen Poe's only published novel - which has some severe racist issues underlying its text.  It was the type of satire that is only occasionally laugh out loud funny....and yet Pym maintained a consistently ridiculous and kind of hilarious take on its themes (and how people act due to these issues) that always made it feel like I was chuckling at what came next, and the satire was often so thick I had to put it down often before I choked on it all - which was not a bad thing.  

Invisible Things is similar in that way - it's once again a satire that is thick with things and issues that are both utterly ridiculous and utterly ordinary and so understandable to anyone who lives in society today.  This time, the satire is based upon a city-state similar to our own world made up of people who were abducted from our own world mysteriously by some sort of alien force, as humans from our world come and try to rescue those who were abducted....and find that the will for such a thing isn't quite what they expected.  And while Race is part of that satire once again, here the main themes are more the structures of society, how they wind up organized to benefit some more than others (in both race and class aspects), and how people wind up overlooking the so-called "invisible things" that underline society and keep the inequalities and increasingly fascist elements of society embedded without opposition.  And it works really well.  

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Sunday, June 26, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Our Crooked Hearts by Melissa Albert

 




 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 June 28, 2022 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.

Our Crooked Hearts is a stand alone young adult fantasy novel by author Melissa Albert, who apparently is known for a trilogy that I haven't read.  It's a story featuring a pair of generations - a teen girl in the present who runs into a strange girl out of nowhere and who keeps finding weird signs that her mother is hiding a magical secret; and her mother in the past as she grows up poor, finds magic along with a pair of friends and gets into terrible trouble.  Multi-generational novels are a trope I've see a few times and they usually work pretty well - with the past is revealed to the reader and the protagonist along the way, leaving the present day character with a greater understanding of who their ancestors were, the protagonist growing closer and understanding more of who they themselves are.  

Alas, Our Crooked Hearts doesn't quite manage to make the trope work as well as it could, thanks to what feel like some shortcuts in the final act of what really isn't that long of a book.  Both main characters are very likable and their plots are easy to get caught up in, even if some background setting aspects are a bit cliched and shortchanged.  And the book moves at a very good pace through its first two acts.  But its third and final act is so short, and just doesn't really give the book time to really deal with its themes and impacts, which really makes this book feel kind of generic and disappointing in the end, even if it's never actually bad.  


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Friday, June 17, 2022

Fantasy Novella Review: A Spindle Splintered by Alix E. Harrow

 



A Spindle Splintered by Alix E. Harrow

A Spindle Splintered is the first in a new fairy tale based novella series by acclaimed author Alix E. Harrow (The Thousand Doors of January, etc.).  I have a weird relationship with Harrow's works - I've rarely disliked them (although her The Once and Future Witches was a bit of a miss for me), and sometimes have liked them a bunch....and yet I've often for some inexplicable reason struggled to read her prose, making getting through her works especially hard for me.  So I skipped this novella when it first came around, to be honest, and only circled back to read it when it was nominated for the Hugo and was part of the Hugo packet.  

And A Spindle Splintered is pretty fun novella, featuring a terminally ill 21-year old heroine from our world, who grew up obsessed with Sleeping Beauty, finding herself transported into a Sleeping Beauty-esque fantasy world where she becomes determined to subvert the story's narrative.  It's an enjoyable queer story with a fun heroine and some solid side characters, so definitely worth your time, even if it probably still wouldn't have cracked my nomination list had I read it last year.  

More after the jump:

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Thursday, June 16, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: August Kitko and the Mechas from Space by Alex White

 



 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 July 12, 2022 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.


August Kitko and the Mechas from Space is the first in a new space opera series from Alex White, author of the Salvagers trilogy.  The Salvagers trilogy was a really great space opera found family series, with a hybrid magic/sci-fi system and a cast of characters that was both really good, and incredibly humorous at times as they dealt with a group of elites doing unspeakable things in exchange for power and acted to bring them down.  So I was excited to hear about this new series from White - especially given that it contained this title, suggesting a return to the humorous space opera that I loved from them.  

And yeah August Kitko and the Mechas from Space is fairly enjoyable, even if it doesn't quite have as much of the humor of the last series (or as much of the thematic resonance).  Instead you have a story focused upon two musicians - the eponymous Gus Kitko, a pianist with no one to care for from a has been minor band, and Ardent Violet, super pop artist with their guitar and voice - who get involved in humanity's last stand against a strange unknown enemy wielding giant mecha....one of which responds to Gus' music by switching sides and taking him on as essentially a pilot.  The result is a story about a pair of people with very different personalities and plenty of issues trying to figure out how to survive and handle this whole thing....even as official forces and others want to control them to try and ensure humanity's survival...for better or worse.  As the start of a new series, this is pretty good, especially if unlike me you really like combat scenes (between giant mecha!).  

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Wednesday, June 15, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher

 





Nettle & Bone is the latest book by author T Kingfisher (aka the Adult pen name of author Ursula Vernon), one of my favorite authors writing Science Fiction and Fantasy out there.  It's also the first in a while in certain ways - it's a clearly adult novel, but neither horror nor self-published (like her White Rat books, which are utterly incredible) and apparently is her first ever Bestseller.  And again, Kingfisher's works are usually brilliant, often taking classic fantasy concepts, mixing in horror and romance, and then adding in her wild imagination and oft-hilarious snappy dialogue to form poignant, entertaining and really relevant works that last for days in the mind and demand rereading.  

Nettle & Bone is no exception to that track record.  This is the story of a princess who doesn't want to be, who was happy all along in a convent doing menial work, who embarks on a journey to kill the prince who is abusing her sister - and who killed her first sister.  It's a story featuring a main cast that includes a dog made of bones, a fairy godmother who is better off at curses than blessings, and a dust-wife who manipulates the dead - all of whom have their own quirks and problems.  It's a story about duty, about caring and fighting to do what should be impossible because it's right, even when one's just a normal person, and it's oh so so good.  


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