January Site Update

The January site update for the main Brightdreamer Books site has been posted, archiving and cross-linking the month's reviews.

Enjoy!

Hollow Kingdom (Kira Jane Buxton)

Hollow Kingdom
Kira Jane Buxton
Grand Central Publishing
Fiction, Fantasy/Humor/Sci-Fi
**+ (Bad/Okay)

DESCRIPTION: The first sign of something undeniably wrong came when Big Jim's eye fell from its socket onto the lawn of his home in Seattle... and he didn't seem to care. With growing alarm, his pet crow S.T. (short for "Shit-Turd"; Big Jim wasn't a particularly intellectual sort) watches the man degenerate into a mindless, drooling undead creature, abandoning both S.T. and his once-beloved (if roughly as smart as a chewed sock) bloodhound Dennis. S.T's not into the survival gig; at heart, he's more "mofo" (what Big Jim calls his fellow humans) than bird, happiest watching TV and munching Cheetos. But zombie apocalypses evidently don't care what he thinks. Thus begins the transformative odyssey of one domesticated crow and a rock-headed bloodhound, as the abrupt fall of humanity sets the stage for a new natural order, one haunted by the mutant remnants of the former masters of the earth.

REVIEW: Hollow Kingdom starts with plenty of foul-mouthed sass and fun. S.T.'s narration is littered with snark and swear words, giving the reader a crow's eye view of the end of the world and of the foibles of American redneck Big Jim. He struggles at first to help Jim, raiding a drug store for random pills (and even grabbing Summer's Eve in the hopes it helps with the man's unfortunate skin condition), then turns his attention to the depressed bloodhound Dennis - depression diagnosed by memories of an antidepressant commercial, which also provides the cure in its images of random people frolicking. When S.T. picks up news of what sounds like the uniquely human activity of war through "Aura", basically Nature's internet, he sets out with fresh hope of seeking help for Big Jim, thus embarking on a series of adventures and mishaps that lead him and Dennis into the heart of a world remaking itself in the aftermath of humanity. Every few chapters, the narrative jumps to other animals (and even a tree) as they experience the transformed earth from their various vantage points. At times, the tale could be touching, even horrific, but S.T's narration keeps it snapping along, even when he sadly misreads the situation with more optimism than is warranted; seeing a "superhero family" logo on an abandoned car, he figures that the occupants maybe flew away to safety with their superpowers. That optimism must inevitably run beak-first into the glass door of reality, yet S.T. still refuses to give up all hope.
And round about here is where the first tremors could be felt, the ones that led to the low rating. Sprinkled here and there are Profound Ideas, musings on the nature of life and reality and even a prophetic Destiny awaiting our foul-feathered hero. These Ideas grow more heavy-handed as the story winds on... and on... and on. S.T.'s journeys never stray far from the greater Seattle region, but feel drawn out and meandering. S.T. himself starts to wander on poetic and repetitive tangents as he's repeatedly reborn in this harsh new world. The intercut chapters begin to wade a little too deep into New Age territory, related a little too earnestly by the narrator of this audiobook version. And then, towards the end, there are a few developments that, while I can't discuss them without spoilers, really crashed the rating into the ground, one of which was blatant plot manipulation. (By this time, there were also a few tired animal stereotypes and other inaccuracies that were wearing on me, not helping my increasingly low mood.) And then it wraps up with a premise-warping finale that had me literally rolling my eyes as the Profound Ideas and prophetic Destiny that had circled over the tale on roaring jet engines finally cruise down the runway for an exceptionally unsubtle landing. It left me feeling manipulated and more than a little disappointed. Despite the snarky humor and moments of true interest and emotion, even beauty, Hollow Kingdom ends up floundering under the weight of forced Messages.

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The Autumnlands Volume 1: Tooth and Claw (Kurt Busiek) - My Review
Pax (Sara Pennypacker) - My Review
Mort(e) (Robert Repino) - My Review

A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking (T. Kingfisher)

A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking
T. Kingfisher
Red Wombat Studio
Fiction, YA? Fantasy
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION: Like many people in the land, fourteen-year-old Mona has magic, but isn't much of a wizard. She can't summon lightning bolts or move mountains or wake dead soldiers to fight on the battlefield. Her gifts are smaller and more practical, over baked goods and yeast; she can keep the biscuits from burning, make the gingerbread men dance, and one time accidentally put too much power into a batch of sourdough starter and thus created Bob, the yeast blob which now lives in a bucket in the cellar and has been known to devour rats (but which still makes the best sourdough in the city.) Fortunately, she lives in Riverbraid, where people aren't as fussed about wizards in their midst as some places. But when she discovers a dead body on the bakery floor one morning, Mona learns of a dark side to her city, a hidden assassin striking down Riverbraid's wizards - and a plot that could leave the city at the mercy of vicious mercenaries.

REVIEW: I wanted something quick and fun, and this fit the bill nicely. Mona's just a girl who wants to be left alone to bake sweet rolls and sourdough; she fights being drug into nefarious plots and potential coups, just as she fights the idea that her gifts could be much more than she's made of them. At times, the story reads light and almost simplistic, with Mona a little too stubborn and slow to pick up on obvious danger signals; if it weren't for her partner of convenience, the street thief Spindle, she'd be dead a few times over by the time she figures out how to stand on her own two feet. At other times, the tale offers some pointed commentary on the nature of heroism, the dangers of xenophobia (and how it can be harnessed and inflamed by those with the worst of intentions), and how politics and power have a way of manipulating truths and bending people until they break. The concept of bakery as wizardry makes for an enjoyable plot device, reasonably well explored, as Mona learns that it's not the strength of your power, but how creatively you can employ it, that makes the greatness of a wizard. It reads fairly fast and reaches a reasonably satisfying conclusion, with enough sacrifices and pain along the way to add substance and keep it from being just a puff pastry of a tale.

You Might Also Enjoy:
The Girl Who Drank the Moon (Kelly Barnhill) - My Review
Confessions of a Gourmand, or How to Cook a Dragon (Tom Bruno) - My Review
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To Be Taught, If Fortunate (Becky Chambers)

To Be Taught, If Fortunate
Becky Chambers
Harper Voyager
Fiction, Sci-Fi
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION: At the close of the twenty-second century, space exploration rides largely on the work of crowdfunded nonprofit efforts, sending astronauts to explore distant planets - not for potential colonies or resource mining, but for the sake of exploration itself, seeking answers to questions about life and the universe that can't be found on Earth. Ariadne O'Neill and her three shipmates knew that the voyage would bring great personal sacrifice: due to the time dilation effects of space travel, it would be eighty years before they returned home, and transmissions from Earth would be at least a decade out of date by the time they reach the ship. But they always thought that there would be an Earth to go back to... and when communications mysteriously cease, the scientists find themselves torn.

REVIEW: I've been working overtime at my job, and finally decided that audiobooks might help relieve the tedium, so this novella - only the second audiobook I've reviewed - got the honors of being my test case, by virtue of being relatively short, looking interesting, and being available on Overdrive when I looked.
The story is not so much about action or a strong narrative arc as it is about the characters, the discoveries they make on their four-planet itinerary (each planet with a different overarching mood, reflecting in some way the scientists' own states of mind), and the overall human inclination toward exploration and science even when it brings no immediate or tangible benefit save the answering of a question (or the discovery of new questions to ask, which to science is at least as exciting.) At times, the narrative grows wandering and circular, repeating itself and meandering off on tangents, while at others it captures the raw sense of wonder of scientific discovery and exploring truly alien worlds - and the psychological highs and lows of the mission, each of the four dealing with the breakthroughs, setbacks, stresses, and isolation in their own ways. Beneath it all is a sense of hope, that somehow, despite all the setbacks and all the politics, we humans will keep reaching outward to find untold wonders, an instinct towards discovery that will not be denied. As for the audio presentation, it was decent and kept me listening. The whole makes for an immersive, if sometimes drifting, story.
(And, for the record, yes, it did a good job of helping work go by a little faster. I will likely be reviewing more audiobooks; even without overtime, it's not like the job is getting any more interesting.)

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Raybearer (Jordan Ifueko)

Raybearer
Jordan Ifueko
Amulet
Fiction, YA Fantasy
****+ (Good/Great)

DESCRIPTION: Tarisai has always been able to draw memories from people or things with a touch, but never knew what was different about her until the night she ran away from home and encountered the captive fairy-man at the waterhole. That is when she learns that she's half-human, and that her mother - a distant mystery of a woman, only ever known as the Lady, whose visits are rare and affection almost nonexistent - intended the girl for a dark purpose: to murder a boy she's never seen.
Years later, after long and grueling sessions with a series of tutors at the isolated savanna fortress she called home, Tarisai finds herself sent to the royal palace. Young Prince Dayo is assembling his council, the eleven boys and girls from the diverse realms of Arit who will be bonded to him by the imperial power known as the Ray, and will protect him from twelve of the thirteen ways a mortal can die. It is a great honor, and great burden, for the members of the council not only help run and protect the empire, but cannot be separated from each other for long without suffering from council sickness that can cause madness and death. In return, they develop a bond deeper than blood. Tarisai longs for a family and the affection her mother never showed her... until she sees Dayo, and realizes he is the boy the Lady raised her to kill.

REVIEW: Raybearer came highly recommended, and happily lived up to its reputation (not always a given, by any means.) It presents a wonderfully diverse and different fantasy world, one with strong African roots that also mingles other cultures to create an empire of many voices and traditions... traditions that do not always coexist well. Imperial edicts intended to bring greater unity end up causing even more trouble; there's a theme of the harm caused by efforts to force a single one-size-fits-all way of life on a world whose strength is in its diversity, not to mention the long-term costs of rewriting history - especially when certain populations and classes inevitably end up paying a disproportionate price for imposed ignorance. Tarisai's sheltered upbringing does little to prepare her for life in court. She quickly gets a harsh education in the realities behind the gilded facades and storyteller's pretty fables about the marvelous perfection of the Emperor and his rule. Among the young prince's court, she finds new friends and potential allies, but the burden of her mother's curse creates a wedge that threatens any happiness she finds, and even if she discovers way to break the curse, there are serpents aplenty more than willing to poison her as a threat to their plans for power. The world's magics add extra wonder and danger and plot complications, as does a dark pact with demons of the Underworld who demand sacrifices every hundred years. With a fairly fast-moving plot and many interesting characters, most of whom have extra layers and hidden motivations, it makes for a marvelous, beautiful, sometimes heartbreaking tale. If the finale felt like a few threads were left dangling, I can assume that there's likely a sequel in the works. Even if not, none of the unresolved issues are major deal-breakers insofar as enjoying Raybearer as it stands.

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The Caves of Steel (Isaac Asimov)

The Caves of Steel
The Robot series, Book 1
Isaac Asimov
Spectra
Fiction, Sci-Fi
***+ (Okay/Good)

DESCRIPTION: It has been thousands of years since humanity lived under open skies on Earth, retreating to vast covered Cities of steel and concrete even as some of their number escaped to colonize nearby worlds. Since then, not much has changed, people falling into well-worn ruts of civilization even as a booming population strains Earth's dwindling resources... until the Spacers returned, bringing with them dangerous new ideas. Now, their robot helpers are threatening jobs; for now, they're just performing menial tasks, but it's no secret the Spacers have robots to do just about every conceivable job a human currently does - even investigate crimes.
Plain-clothes detective Elijah "Lije" Baley, like most in the City, has little love for the aloof Spacers or their job-stealing robots, but neither does he hold much sympathy with the rising tide of Medievalists: malcontents and rabble-rousers determined to take humans "back to their roots" and a more primitive existence... maybe even, blasphemously, under open skies. Then his boss and friend assigns him to a most delicate case: the murder of a Spacer. Worse, he insists Baley partner with a Spacer robot, one R. Daneel, which was purposefully designed not only to mimic a human but to act as a detective itself. It is both a diplomatic nightmare and a test; not only are the Spacers capable of massive retaliation if a City human murdered one of their own, but if R. Daneel solves the crime before Baley, it will prove once and for all that robots are indeed better at complex human tasks like detective work, rendering the City's police department obsolete overnight. What Baley discovers in his investigation will change his views of robots, Spacers, and humanity itself.

REVIEW: Asimov is a foundational writer, and this is one of his many foundational works, forming the underpinnings of many ideas and tropes still in use today; his three robotic laws are so ubiquitous many people even outside genre circles assume they're real things in today's robots. As with many older works, though, it can't help showing its age. While the ideas presented are grand and interesting, the future created here feels not only dated (very white, very Western, very male, with women as shrill and irrational and foolish creatures and minorities or other cultures apparently as extinct as every animal more exotic than dogs or cats or sparrows), but deliberately skewed and warped around a very definite Idea of how humanity should (not does, but should) evolve and operate, creating a very specific problem for which Asimov offers his own very specific mouthpiece solution. I understand that, to a degree, that's what most authors do (create their own problem, solve with their own solution), but the world and characters here are just too obviously spouts for his arguments to flow through. He even stops to analyze the Bible. So, while there are some very relatable elements - the displacement of human labor by new technology (without viable options for the displaced) causing resentment and pushback, the lack of official planning or vision to counter said pushback before it reaches a boiling point, the rise of cultish groups built around a nostalgic vision of a history that never was (not to mention how such groups tend to have two layers: the reactionary masses on the lower levels being led and manipulated by an elite few for their own purposes) - the world just plain doesn't feel realistic or organic. As for the characters, Baley is, frankly, not that great of a detective, especially at first, vision riddled with cultural and personal blind spots, leaping to conclusions without doing the smallest testing of them first, spending more time defending his prejudices and City culture than actually considering the case at hand objectively. The culprit is obvious very early on from their actions, though some nuances and shades of the case only become clear through the course of the investigation. Much like Asimov's Foundation, while it held my interest (more or less) and still has some nice ideas, ultimately I just found the story a little too dated to fully enjoy.
(On a completely unrelated note, my first exposure to this story was as a child, when my father would sing a filk - fannish "folk" song - based on it to us kids, to the tune of "She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain." In the interest of nostalgia and posterity, here is the link to the lyrics: Caves of Steel. No, I did not recall details of the lyrics when reading.)

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The Expanse #1 (Corinna Sara Bechko and James S. A. Corey)

The Expanse #1
The Expanse series, Issue 1
Corinna Sara Bechko and James S. A. Corey, illustrations by Alejandro Aragon
BOOM! Studios
Fiction, Graphic Novel/Media Tie-In/Sci-Fi
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION: Mars is dying. With the opening of the ring gates and the thousand habitable worlds beyond rendering the terraforming of an airless red rock quaintly obsolete, not to mention the collapse of the old rivalry with Earth that fueled their mighty military industry, the pillars of the Martian economy and society are in freefall... and someone is taking advantage of the chaos. Ex-Marine Bobbie Draper stumbled into Mars's underworld and discovered a greater conspiracy. With off-the-books backing from Chrisjen Avasarala, a fading political force on Earth (now essentially exiled to Luna by the new secretary general), Bobbie plucks at threads hoping to find the center of the web - but that web may spread as far as Earth, and beyond, and for once Avasarala may have found an enemy even craftier than herself.
This series takes place between Seasons 4 and 5 of the Amazon Prime series The Expanse, based on the books by James S. A. Corey.

REVIEW: Filling in some backstory of events between the two seasons, this story follows Bobbie Draper's efforts to find out who is behind the growing web of corruption and Mars's burgeoning black market in military surplus, and Chrisjen Avasarala's efforts to both help Bobbie and keep her own head above increasingly murky and turbulent water in Earth's politics, as she realizes there's something not right on Luna. The two make a decent, if outwardly mismatched, team, both driven and dedicated and somewhat neglectful of personal and family lives in pursuit of greater justice... and both willing to bend a few rules to get what they need. It almost lost a half-mark for being so short (I prefer reading these things as single volumes once all issues are out, because it feels more like a finished story in a volume) and for the art sometimes being a bit sketchy. Still, it does what it sets out to do, creating a story and capturing the essence of the characters I recognize, so I cut it a little slack given that it's just the first installment of a four-issue arc.

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The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (V. E. Schwab)

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
V. E. Schwab
Tor
Fiction, Fantasy
***+ (Okay/Good)

DESCRIPTION: Since her earliest memories, Adeline LaRue had looked toward the edge of town and wondered what lay beyond. Her first trip to the walled city of Le Mans with her woodcarver father only whets her appetite for new sights and sounds and wonders... but a French country girl in the 1700's can't expect that kind of life, only a husband and children and a small plot in the village cemetery when she's worn down to nothing. Neither the old gods, to whom local eccentric Estele still prays, or the new God in His stone church can help her - until, fleeing a wedding she does not want, Addie encounters a figure of darkness and deceit who offers her the freedom she wants, at a price she does not understand until it is too late.
For three hundred years, Addie has wandered the world as a living ghost. Her bargain grants her eternal life and youth and a crystal-sharp memory to retain it all, yet erases every memory of her in the world, every mark she tries to make. The closing of a door or the passage of sleep wipes her from minds as if she'd never been. She cannot even say her name or tell her story without her tongue betraying her. And all the while, the dark god whom she calls Luc teases her, taunts her, threatens her to surrender her soul to him at last. So she clings to what beauties and wonders she can, finding small cracks in the walls of her curse. Then, in a dusty used book shop in New York City in 2014, she meets Henry - the first person who actually remembers her from one day to the next. Perhaps she has finally found a way out of her ill-advised bargain... or perhaps Henry's curse, like Luc's deviousness, is greater than she imagined...

REVIEW: I went into this with high hopes and good recommendations. Early on, those were well met. Addie is a determined, if impulsive, young woman, born in the wrong time (or at least the wrong social class) to follow the path she craves, willing to take any chance to escape a life that will crush her to nothing... even though she was well warned not to pray to the gods that answer after dark. Luc is an inhuman creature, somewhere between a god and a devil, who finds himself oddly fascinated by his latest catch. Henry is a man who was cursed, in some way, from birth, a boy who feels so much he can barely function without being overwhelmed. As Addie and Henry develop a relationship that seems to defy both of their curses, flashbacks reveal her duels with Luc... duels that, naturally, she tends to lose, save her stubborn determination not to surrender when he calls. Early on, it's an interesting examination of two wounded souls (three, perhaps, if you count Luc; his obsession with Addie is a weakness he does not want to admit), delving into the world of art and how ideas can thrive in various media even when memory is unreliable, set against the backdrop of history.
At some point, though, it settles into a circular pattern of brooding, hurt, and angsty people being broody and hurt and angsty, going through the same motions of the same hurts again and again and again in their lives, punctuated by the odd trip to an underground music club or experimental art exhibit or obscure theatrical performance. Around and around and around again, then back around, and for all that it was decently written, it wasn't progressing the plot, or even deepening the characters, because it was showing me things I already knew, if in a very slightly altered setting, at each pass. Even the best music grows monotonous when it refuses to end. By the time it finally came to the climax, I was more exhausted than truly invested, and the wrap-up... without spoilers, I can't go into specifics, but it felt like it cheapened one character and my investment in them. Possibly that was a result of how I'd grown weary of the seemingly-endless circling and prodding of the same wounds. Or possibly The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue just plain wears out its welcome well before it ends. Overall, it's a decent book, but I found myself thinking I'd have enjoyed it more had there been a little less of it.

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