The month's twelve reviews have been archived and cross-linked on the main Brightdreamer Books website.
Enjoy!
Friday, April 30, 2021
Thursday, April 29, 2021
Captain Blood (Rafael Sabatini)
Captain Blood
The Captain Blood series, Book 1
Rafael Sabatini
Penguin Classics
Fiction, Adventure/Historical Fiction
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: The Irishman Peter Blood thought himself done with his days of soldiering and fighting for king and country some years ago, having exhausted his youthful energies and retired to a quiet life as a country doctor. Indeed, as townsfolk rallied to the banner of the upstart Duke of Monmouth, who challenged the tyrant King James, he dismissed the matter as none of his concern. But Fate has other plans for the man. When, after a terrible rout, Blood finds himself summoned to treat a local lord wounded in battle, he cares not a whit for the politics and thinks only of his trade and his oath to tend the injured.. an oath that the redcoats likewise care not a whit for, when they arrive and arrest everyone they can lay their hands on under charge of treason. Blood and his fellows of circumstance are condemned in a trial with a foregone verdict, spared the noose only because the Caribbean colonies are in need of extra slaves. Thus is the Irish doctor forced upon a path that will lead him from the hold of a slaver ship to the brutality of a sugar plantation and onward to become one of the most famed pirate captains of the seas.
REVIEW: Sabatini's classic tale has all the standard trappings of a swashbuckling adventure yarn, with a larger-than-life hero patterned on Henry Morgan and other historic figures. Peter Blood starts out confident that, by simple virtue of not getting involved, he can avoid the problems washing over his country, but is quite quickly disabused of that notion, not to mention any lingering belief of the divine virtue of the king and the inherent goodness of a broad swath of humanity besides. Nevertheless, Blood manages to avoid falling into the pit of melancholy that swallows most of his compatriots, fighting back with his wits and a somewhat barbed sense of humor, and the lesson that inaction is not an option in the face of injustice sticks. He quickly gathers enemies who despise him largely due to their own failings, most ultimately driven by jealousy that he's a better, wiser, more virtuous man than they could ever dream of being and must therefore suffer; that's not particularly uncommon in this kind of story, which is ultimately about escapism and a certain degree of wish fulfillment. His ultimate drive, though, is found in Arabella, the innocent niece of brutal plantation owner Colonel Bishop; his unspoken and often tumultuous love for her is entirely unnoticed by a girl who seems impossibly naive for living on a slave plantation, yet it's the primary motivating factor of many of the Irish doctor's actions. (This is more or less standard for the style and era of story, though, the reduction of women to objects and a hero's love to something more like a religious devotion.) Try as Blood might, he finds his hands being bloodied more than once, but his motives generally remain pure, particularly in comparison to his enemies. In any event, there's plenty of action, many sea battles, and numerous instances where the Irishman's clever tongue and quick wit generate miraculous escapes and victories where defeat seems certain. Toward the end, the degree to which other people basically stand around singing his praises starts to get tiring, as do the borderline deus ex machina workings of Fate, plus the finale feels a trifle abrupt. Other than that (and, as mentioned, some of the flaws that are a result of the era in which it was written and the audience for which it was created, which can't help but age poorly - the less said about the story's dismissive depiction of other races, the better), Captain Blood is exactly what one would expect of an old-school swashbuckler.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Pirate's Passage (William Gilkerson) - My Review
Bloody Jack (L. A. Meyer) - My Review
Treasure Island (Robert Louis Stevenson) - My Review
The Captain Blood series, Book 1
Rafael Sabatini
Penguin Classics
Fiction, Adventure/Historical Fiction
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: The Irishman Peter Blood thought himself done with his days of soldiering and fighting for king and country some years ago, having exhausted his youthful energies and retired to a quiet life as a country doctor. Indeed, as townsfolk rallied to the banner of the upstart Duke of Monmouth, who challenged the tyrant King James, he dismissed the matter as none of his concern. But Fate has other plans for the man. When, after a terrible rout, Blood finds himself summoned to treat a local lord wounded in battle, he cares not a whit for the politics and thinks only of his trade and his oath to tend the injured.. an oath that the redcoats likewise care not a whit for, when they arrive and arrest everyone they can lay their hands on under charge of treason. Blood and his fellows of circumstance are condemned in a trial with a foregone verdict, spared the noose only because the Caribbean colonies are in need of extra slaves. Thus is the Irish doctor forced upon a path that will lead him from the hold of a slaver ship to the brutality of a sugar plantation and onward to become one of the most famed pirate captains of the seas.
REVIEW: Sabatini's classic tale has all the standard trappings of a swashbuckling adventure yarn, with a larger-than-life hero patterned on Henry Morgan and other historic figures. Peter Blood starts out confident that, by simple virtue of not getting involved, he can avoid the problems washing over his country, but is quite quickly disabused of that notion, not to mention any lingering belief of the divine virtue of the king and the inherent goodness of a broad swath of humanity besides. Nevertheless, Blood manages to avoid falling into the pit of melancholy that swallows most of his compatriots, fighting back with his wits and a somewhat barbed sense of humor, and the lesson that inaction is not an option in the face of injustice sticks. He quickly gathers enemies who despise him largely due to their own failings, most ultimately driven by jealousy that he's a better, wiser, more virtuous man than they could ever dream of being and must therefore suffer; that's not particularly uncommon in this kind of story, which is ultimately about escapism and a certain degree of wish fulfillment. His ultimate drive, though, is found in Arabella, the innocent niece of brutal plantation owner Colonel Bishop; his unspoken and often tumultuous love for her is entirely unnoticed by a girl who seems impossibly naive for living on a slave plantation, yet it's the primary motivating factor of many of the Irish doctor's actions. (This is more or less standard for the style and era of story, though, the reduction of women to objects and a hero's love to something more like a religious devotion.) Try as Blood might, he finds his hands being bloodied more than once, but his motives generally remain pure, particularly in comparison to his enemies. In any event, there's plenty of action, many sea battles, and numerous instances where the Irishman's clever tongue and quick wit generate miraculous escapes and victories where defeat seems certain. Toward the end, the degree to which other people basically stand around singing his praises starts to get tiring, as do the borderline deus ex machina workings of Fate, plus the finale feels a trifle abrupt. Other than that (and, as mentioned, some of the flaws that are a result of the era in which it was written and the audience for which it was created, which can't help but age poorly - the less said about the story's dismissive depiction of other races, the better), Captain Blood is exactly what one would expect of an old-school swashbuckler.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Pirate's Passage (William Gilkerson) - My Review
Bloody Jack (L. A. Meyer) - My Review
Treasure Island (Robert Louis Stevenson) - My Review
Monday, April 26, 2021
The Girl Who Raced Fairyland All The Way Home (Catherynne M. Valente)
The Girl Who Raced Fairyland All The Way Home
The Fairyland series, Book 5
Catherynne M. Valente
Square Fish
Fiction, MG/YA Fantasy
***** (Great)
DESCRIPTION: When last we left September - the human girl who rode the Leopard of Little Breezes with the Green Wind from Omaha to Fairyland, who had grand adventures and met wild beings and faced terrifying foes and made many mistakes but never ever gave up - she had been suddenly and unexpectedly crowed Queen of Fairyland... but not for long. The world of Fairyland is old, perhaps older than any other world, and has had more than its share of Kings and Queens and Emperors and Princesses and Prime Ministers - and, to be honest, it has had enough. Now all the rulers of the realm have been restored from their various exiles, endings, and extinctions, and only one may rule. The royal Stoat of Arms declares a Cantankerous Derby: a race across Fairyland, to find the world's Heart and bring it to the finish line, winner take all.
September didn't even want to be the Queen; it seems a thankless job, prone to abrupt and painful and lethal termination. But everyone else in the race has either proven themselves a tyrant or seems likely to turn into one. Besides, the Stoat explains, as the current Queen, she's as obligated to attend the Cantankerous Derby as a fox is obligated to attend a hunt. Thus begins a race the likes of which even a land as chaotic as Fairyland has never seen before, one with the highest of stakes and longest of odds. And this time, the girl from Omaha who has been so brave and lucky and clever may find that she's not brave or lucky or clever enough to survive, let alone win...
REVIEW: Valente brings the Fairyland series to an end in a spectacular fashion. September, now seventeen (again, after having spent a while in her forties due to the time dilation effects of Yeti proximity), has come a long, long way from the Mostly Heartless little girl who thought a trip to Fairyland sounded like a splended and harmless way to get out of washing the dishes. Her friends have grown with her (literally, in the case of the Wyverary A-through-L), and they've accumulated more allies (and enemies) through their travels. As appropriate for a race (and typical for the series), the tale takes off almost from the first page, winding through all manner of wild, borderline hallucinatory imagery and characters and personifications of concepts. Valente's Fairyland makes Lewis Carroll's Wonderland look downright mundane, with even incidental characters feeling full and rounded despite their peculiarities. Beneath the surface, as usual for the series, are deeper themes and commentaries that older readers will pick up on even if they might slip over younger heads. The tale revisits a few old faces and places while venturing into new territory, building to a fine climax that feels slightly rushed, but is ultimately more than satisfying enough to earn a solid fifth star. The whole makes for a fine and fascinating story.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Best of Lewis Carroll (Lewis Carroll) - My Review
The Divide (Elizabeth Kay) - My Review
100 Cupboards (N. D. Wilson) - My Review
The Fairyland series, Book 5
Catherynne M. Valente
Square Fish
Fiction, MG/YA Fantasy
***** (Great)
DESCRIPTION: When last we left September - the human girl who rode the Leopard of Little Breezes with the Green Wind from Omaha to Fairyland, who had grand adventures and met wild beings and faced terrifying foes and made many mistakes but never ever gave up - she had been suddenly and unexpectedly crowed Queen of Fairyland... but not for long. The world of Fairyland is old, perhaps older than any other world, and has had more than its share of Kings and Queens and Emperors and Princesses and Prime Ministers - and, to be honest, it has had enough. Now all the rulers of the realm have been restored from their various exiles, endings, and extinctions, and only one may rule. The royal Stoat of Arms declares a Cantankerous Derby: a race across Fairyland, to find the world's Heart and bring it to the finish line, winner take all.
September didn't even want to be the Queen; it seems a thankless job, prone to abrupt and painful and lethal termination. But everyone else in the race has either proven themselves a tyrant or seems likely to turn into one. Besides, the Stoat explains, as the current Queen, she's as obligated to attend the Cantankerous Derby as a fox is obligated to attend a hunt. Thus begins a race the likes of which even a land as chaotic as Fairyland has never seen before, one with the highest of stakes and longest of odds. And this time, the girl from Omaha who has been so brave and lucky and clever may find that she's not brave or lucky or clever enough to survive, let alone win...
REVIEW: Valente brings the Fairyland series to an end in a spectacular fashion. September, now seventeen (again, after having spent a while in her forties due to the time dilation effects of Yeti proximity), has come a long, long way from the Mostly Heartless little girl who thought a trip to Fairyland sounded like a splended and harmless way to get out of washing the dishes. Her friends have grown with her (literally, in the case of the Wyverary A-through-L), and they've accumulated more allies (and enemies) through their travels. As appropriate for a race (and typical for the series), the tale takes off almost from the first page, winding through all manner of wild, borderline hallucinatory imagery and characters and personifications of concepts. Valente's Fairyland makes Lewis Carroll's Wonderland look downright mundane, with even incidental characters feeling full and rounded despite their peculiarities. Beneath the surface, as usual for the series, are deeper themes and commentaries that older readers will pick up on even if they might slip over younger heads. The tale revisits a few old faces and places while venturing into new territory, building to a fine climax that feels slightly rushed, but is ultimately more than satisfying enough to earn a solid fifth star. The whole makes for a fine and fascinating story.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Best of Lewis Carroll (Lewis Carroll) - My Review
The Divide (Elizabeth Kay) - My Review
100 Cupboards (N. D. Wilson) - My Review
Friday, April 23, 2021
Small Spaces (Katherine Arden)
Small Spaces
Katherine Arden
Puffin Books
Fiction, MG Fantasy/Horror
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Last year, Ollie had a normal life, with an adventurous mother and an artistic father and friends, attending softball practice and chess club meetings. This year, everything's wrong, and has been since their family of three became a family of two. Shutting out everyone, even her father, she buries herself in books, her only steadfast friends. Books, after all, never talk to her like she's a fragile eggshell or give her the dreaded "sympathy face"... which is why she was so horrified the day she found the madwoman about to throw a book into the creek. Ollie snatches it from the woman and flees. It's a strange book titled "Small Spaces", which tells a strange, sad ghost story of two quarreling brothers, a tragedy, and a terrible bargain made with the Smiling Man who emerged from the mists after sundown. Only by hiding in small spaces after dark can one avoid his terrible minions.
When Ollie's sixth-grade class takes a trip to the local organic farm, things start seeming awfully familiar to her from the book, down to the names on the stones in the rundown graveyard. And when the bus breaks down on the way back to school and the teacher vanishes into the darkness, a strange mist creeps in... Now Ollie and a couple of unlikely classmates are caught in a ghost story of their own - but "Small Spaces" had no happy ending. Will their story end badly, too?
REVIEW: Small Spaces is a solid middle-grade horror tale of regret, loss, and the folly of bargains made on misty nights with smiling strangers. Ollie is having trouble processing the death of her mother, a woman so full of love and life that it seems impossible that either could simply stop existing in a single terrible moment. Her grief turns to anger and resentment at her classmates and teachers and even her own father at times, and the more anyone tries to help, the more she lashes out. The little black book's tale offers echoes of her own life-warping grief and the lengths some people will go to in order to cling to something that is lost - and the terrible price that effort exacts, often paid by others. Still, she's not so far gone that she's entirely oblivious, and she soon realizes that there's something very not right about Misty Hollow Farm and its staff... not to mention the numerous creepy scarecrows dotting the fields and gardens, scarecrows that become much more creepy (and ambulatory) after sundown. She has two companions essentially forced on her by circumstance, the last two people in the class she'd ever want with her - clumsy new girl Coco, with her pink hair and babbly mouth, whom nobody really likes, and popular hockey star Brian, whom Ollie always took for a brainless jock - but they turn into a decent team in their struggle to escape the Smiling Man's dark world, also helping her process the grief she's been avoiding. The tale does a pretty good job ratcheting up the tension and generating scares and conjuring spooky imagery, building up to a fine finale. (And I give marks to the audio presentation; even when the narrator dropped into creepy, creaky voices, the sound quality was decent.) The ending itself feels a little neat, given what everyone went through, but wraps things up well enough.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Something Wicked This Way Comes (Ray Bradbury) - My Review
Griffin's Castle (Jenny Nimmo) - My Review
Nightbooks (J. A. White) - My Review
Katherine Arden
Puffin Books
Fiction, MG Fantasy/Horror
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Last year, Ollie had a normal life, with an adventurous mother and an artistic father and friends, attending softball practice and chess club meetings. This year, everything's wrong, and has been since their family of three became a family of two. Shutting out everyone, even her father, she buries herself in books, her only steadfast friends. Books, after all, never talk to her like she's a fragile eggshell or give her the dreaded "sympathy face"... which is why she was so horrified the day she found the madwoman about to throw a book into the creek. Ollie snatches it from the woman and flees. It's a strange book titled "Small Spaces", which tells a strange, sad ghost story of two quarreling brothers, a tragedy, and a terrible bargain made with the Smiling Man who emerged from the mists after sundown. Only by hiding in small spaces after dark can one avoid his terrible minions.
When Ollie's sixth-grade class takes a trip to the local organic farm, things start seeming awfully familiar to her from the book, down to the names on the stones in the rundown graveyard. And when the bus breaks down on the way back to school and the teacher vanishes into the darkness, a strange mist creeps in... Now Ollie and a couple of unlikely classmates are caught in a ghost story of their own - but "Small Spaces" had no happy ending. Will their story end badly, too?
REVIEW: Small Spaces is a solid middle-grade horror tale of regret, loss, and the folly of bargains made on misty nights with smiling strangers. Ollie is having trouble processing the death of her mother, a woman so full of love and life that it seems impossible that either could simply stop existing in a single terrible moment. Her grief turns to anger and resentment at her classmates and teachers and even her own father at times, and the more anyone tries to help, the more she lashes out. The little black book's tale offers echoes of her own life-warping grief and the lengths some people will go to in order to cling to something that is lost - and the terrible price that effort exacts, often paid by others. Still, she's not so far gone that she's entirely oblivious, and she soon realizes that there's something very not right about Misty Hollow Farm and its staff... not to mention the numerous creepy scarecrows dotting the fields and gardens, scarecrows that become much more creepy (and ambulatory) after sundown. She has two companions essentially forced on her by circumstance, the last two people in the class she'd ever want with her - clumsy new girl Coco, with her pink hair and babbly mouth, whom nobody really likes, and popular hockey star Brian, whom Ollie always took for a brainless jock - but they turn into a decent team in their struggle to escape the Smiling Man's dark world, also helping her process the grief she's been avoiding. The tale does a pretty good job ratcheting up the tension and generating scares and conjuring spooky imagery, building up to a fine finale. (And I give marks to the audio presentation; even when the narrator dropped into creepy, creaky voices, the sound quality was decent.) The ending itself feels a little neat, given what everyone went through, but wraps things up well enough.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Something Wicked This Way Comes (Ray Bradbury) - My Review
Griffin's Castle (Jenny Nimmo) - My Review
Nightbooks (J. A. White) - My Review
Tuesday, April 20, 2021
The Merciful Crow (Margaret Owen)
The Merciful Crow
The Merciful Crow series, Book 1
Margaret Owen
Square Fish
Fiction, YA Fantasy
***** (Great)
DESCRIPTION: In the land of Sabor, one's birth caste determines one's gift, from the Phoenix's ability to conjure flame to the Hawk's blood magic to injure or heal, even down to the Sparrow gift for concealment and the Pigeon penchant for luck... except for the twelfth and lowest caste, the Crows. Their only birth-gift is their immunity from the illness known as the sinner's plague, and it is their divine duty under the Covenant of the dead gods to find the victims and deal them the mercy stroke, then remove the bodies before the sickness devours the rest of the settlement. Despite the fact that Sabor needs its Crows, the other castes treat them worse than animals, and some even blame them for the existence of the plague itself.
Young Fie knew she would someday be a chief of her Crow band. She was born with the power of bone magic like all chiefs, able to call power from teeth and memories from bone. But she didn't figure on Pa stepping down for a good long while. She also never figured they would be summoned by the smoke signals to the Phoenix palace; the plague hasn't touched the royal caste for five hundred years, until now. She never figured that she, of all Crows, would have to lead the Money Dance against the crown queen Rhusala herself when the royals try to short them their viatik, their fee for services rendered. And never in a thousand, thousand years of the wildest road stories and songs would she have imagined that the "bodies" they hauled away in bloody shrouds from the castle would in fact be Prince Jasimir and his Hawk bodyguard Tavin - faking their deaths to escape Rhusana's plot to steal control from the king. No matter who is on the throne the Crows suffer, but Jasimir insists that the new queen would be worse than anyone else; she has thrown in with the Oleander Gentry, a cultish group who harry and murder Crows and are determined the cleanse Sabor of their evil. Helping the prince reach his allies may offer a chance - a slim chance, but a chance nonetheless - at stopping the wholesale genocide of her caste, maybe even a first step toward being considered people instead of vermin. But that supposes Fie and their two unwanted guests survive the gauntlet of enemies Rhusana sends after them... and that, despite the boy's boastings and promises, Prince Jasimir still has any allies left in all of Sabor.
REVIEW: One sign of a good book is a hook that draws you into the first pages before you realize you're even turning them. Another sign of a great book is staying up two hours past bedtime to finish because the hook still hasn't let you go, and won't until you reach the end. By those metrics, and many others, The Merciful Crow is a great book.
The story starts with a strong lead character in Fie and a voice that rivals Martha Wells's Murderbot Diaries for compulsive readability, with an intriguing world and sharp dialog and a plot that moves like wildfire, without sacrificing worldbuilding or character development or any of the other good bits I read fantasy for. Fie is not one of those characters who has to grow into her spine and agency; from the get-go, she's more than willing to stand up for her fellow Crows, even against the Phoenix royalty, and if the bravery's born as much from knowing Crows literally have nothing to lose, it's still impressive and sets a strong precedent that never fails. Tavin and Jasimir are unwanted complications, thorns in the heels of a people already walking over nails every day (literally; their sandals are studded with nails, in no small part to help them scramble up trees and out of the reach of abusers and the Oleander Gentry murder gangs). But there's more to the pair than the spoiled castle boys she initially considers them, and there's far more to the life of a Crow than either prince or Hawk had ever understood. There's more than an echo here of systemic racism and prejudices from our own world, how the whole of a society can turn a blind eye to suffering (when it doesn't actively throw punches) and tolerate injustices in broad daylight on the flimsiest of excuses, blaming the gods or the victims or simply not wanting to make waves when everyone else seems to condone it, but the book avoids descending into preaching, making its point far more vividly through the story itself. There are a few young adult tropes at play - a girl coming of age into a harsh world and seeking to make it even a little less harsh, a little romance, a little jealousy, and so forth - but here they play as features instead of bugs, and never at any point derail the plot (unlike some titles). The story changes everyone involved, leading to an ending that is both satisfactory and not overly, unrealistically cheerful; only fireside tales get happily-ever-afters, but what Fie and the others achieve is about as good as one can manage in a complicated world. The author even includes an annotated section of the first chapter at the end, with margin notes and doodles that had me smiling. I am eagerly looking forward to the next installment, and whatever else Owen has lined up. This is definitely an author I will be watching eagerly.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Children of Blood and Bone (Tomi Adeyemi) - My Review
Endling #1: The Last (Katherine Applegate) - My Review
The Tiger's Daughter (K. Arsenault Rivera) - My Review
The Merciful Crow series, Book 1
Margaret Owen
Square Fish
Fiction, YA Fantasy
***** (Great)
DESCRIPTION: In the land of Sabor, one's birth caste determines one's gift, from the Phoenix's ability to conjure flame to the Hawk's blood magic to injure or heal, even down to the Sparrow gift for concealment and the Pigeon penchant for luck... except for the twelfth and lowest caste, the Crows. Their only birth-gift is their immunity from the illness known as the sinner's plague, and it is their divine duty under the Covenant of the dead gods to find the victims and deal them the mercy stroke, then remove the bodies before the sickness devours the rest of the settlement. Despite the fact that Sabor needs its Crows, the other castes treat them worse than animals, and some even blame them for the existence of the plague itself.
Young Fie knew she would someday be a chief of her Crow band. She was born with the power of bone magic like all chiefs, able to call power from teeth and memories from bone. But she didn't figure on Pa stepping down for a good long while. She also never figured they would be summoned by the smoke signals to the Phoenix palace; the plague hasn't touched the royal caste for five hundred years, until now. She never figured that she, of all Crows, would have to lead the Money Dance against the crown queen Rhusala herself when the royals try to short them their viatik, their fee for services rendered. And never in a thousand, thousand years of the wildest road stories and songs would she have imagined that the "bodies" they hauled away in bloody shrouds from the castle would in fact be Prince Jasimir and his Hawk bodyguard Tavin - faking their deaths to escape Rhusana's plot to steal control from the king. No matter who is on the throne the Crows suffer, but Jasimir insists that the new queen would be worse than anyone else; she has thrown in with the Oleander Gentry, a cultish group who harry and murder Crows and are determined the cleanse Sabor of their evil. Helping the prince reach his allies may offer a chance - a slim chance, but a chance nonetheless - at stopping the wholesale genocide of her caste, maybe even a first step toward being considered people instead of vermin. But that supposes Fie and their two unwanted guests survive the gauntlet of enemies Rhusana sends after them... and that, despite the boy's boastings and promises, Prince Jasimir still has any allies left in all of Sabor.
REVIEW: One sign of a good book is a hook that draws you into the first pages before you realize you're even turning them. Another sign of a great book is staying up two hours past bedtime to finish because the hook still hasn't let you go, and won't until you reach the end. By those metrics, and many others, The Merciful Crow is a great book.
The story starts with a strong lead character in Fie and a voice that rivals Martha Wells's Murderbot Diaries for compulsive readability, with an intriguing world and sharp dialog and a plot that moves like wildfire, without sacrificing worldbuilding or character development or any of the other good bits I read fantasy for. Fie is not one of those characters who has to grow into her spine and agency; from the get-go, she's more than willing to stand up for her fellow Crows, even against the Phoenix royalty, and if the bravery's born as much from knowing Crows literally have nothing to lose, it's still impressive and sets a strong precedent that never fails. Tavin and Jasimir are unwanted complications, thorns in the heels of a people already walking over nails every day (literally; their sandals are studded with nails, in no small part to help them scramble up trees and out of the reach of abusers and the Oleander Gentry murder gangs). But there's more to the pair than the spoiled castle boys she initially considers them, and there's far more to the life of a Crow than either prince or Hawk had ever understood. There's more than an echo here of systemic racism and prejudices from our own world, how the whole of a society can turn a blind eye to suffering (when it doesn't actively throw punches) and tolerate injustices in broad daylight on the flimsiest of excuses, blaming the gods or the victims or simply not wanting to make waves when everyone else seems to condone it, but the book avoids descending into preaching, making its point far more vividly through the story itself. There are a few young adult tropes at play - a girl coming of age into a harsh world and seeking to make it even a little less harsh, a little romance, a little jealousy, and so forth - but here they play as features instead of bugs, and never at any point derail the plot (unlike some titles). The story changes everyone involved, leading to an ending that is both satisfactory and not overly, unrealistically cheerful; only fireside tales get happily-ever-afters, but what Fie and the others achieve is about as good as one can manage in a complicated world. The author even includes an annotated section of the first chapter at the end, with margin notes and doodles that had me smiling. I am eagerly looking forward to the next installment, and whatever else Owen has lined up. This is definitely an author I will be watching eagerly.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Children of Blood and Bone (Tomi Adeyemi) - My Review
Endling #1: The Last (Katherine Applegate) - My Review
The Tiger's Daughter (K. Arsenault Rivera) - My Review
Saturday, April 17, 2021
Ring Shout (P. Djeli Clark)
Ring Shout
P. Djeli Clark
Tor.com
Fiction, Fantasy/Historical Fiction/Horror
***** (Great)
DESCRIPTION: America has always been the land of opportunity... but that opportunity was built upon the backs of generations of slaves. For all the bright lights the country brought to the world, with democracy and innovation, it hides numerous dark shadows in its racism and prejudices... as well as shadows of a different sort, demons unleashed by sorcery at the height of the Civil War, along with as haint spirits and magical traditions of many lands. Few know that better than Maryse. As a teen, she saw her family murdered by men in white robes - and things that were not men at all, but monsters wearing human skin. She and other colored folk with the Sight hunt down the Ku Kluxes, demonic entities that spread like parasites into souls weakened by hate-filled hearts, but nobody else has the weapon she does: a mystic sword gifted to her by foxlike haints that channels generations of anger and injustice and the powers of long-lost gods. Among other demon hunters like sharpshooter Sadie and Chef, demolitions expert and veteran haunted by the Great War in Europe, along with numerous others, Maryse has found a new family - but this one, too, stands threatened. The Ku Kluxes are changing, becoming more clever and more numerous, just as a new monster comes to their Georgia town. The demons, it turns out, were only ever the advance scouts. The true monster is about to arrive... and, in the coming battle, Maryse faces a choice and a temptation that might doom herself, her friends, and the whole world.
REVIEW: This award-nominated novella dives head-first into the skeletons piled in America's closet, bones of slavery and racism and hate that continue to haunt our country and threaten its future, with heavy shades of old folk tales and magical and spiritual traditions with roots stretching back to the shores of Africa. As I've come to expect from Clark, the story paints a vivid picture of history, one that doesn't whitewash the shadows away but which also doesn't feel too modern (as some historical fiction works can, projecting modern attitudes and sensibilities onto the past). Jim Crow rules in full force and klansfolk rally openly and proudly, and while the civil rights movement as an organized national phenomenon is some decades off, not everyone quietly accepts the status quo. The horror elements are a natural addition, evil given tangible and terrifying form in the Ku Kluxes and the nightmare-inducing butcher who is both their master and the servant of another, even greater emanation. Maryse struggles to navigate a world that melds demonic threats and various stripes of magic with everyday racism, with various ventures to the side of reality into the realms of haint spirits... all of whom have their own agendas and who cannot ever be taken at face value, even the friendlier ones. The tale dances deftly between light moments and banter and deadly serious battles, between realistic depictions of the 1920's Deep South and the supernatural realms of ghosts and spirits, between hints of hope and crushing fear and despair, all with threads of sometimes-gruesome horror. It all builds to a powerful and harrowing finale where Maryse must decide where she stands and what future she wants, not just for herself but for America and the world. The audiobook presentation almost lost a half-star for how the narrator's voice could drop into deep murmurs or rise into high keens or fade into breathy whispers, which were nice effects but not ideal when one is listening in a warehouse environment (as I tend to). That issue aside, though, I thoroughly enjoyed this work from an author who is quickly becoming one of my favorite new genre voices.
(And I know there are accent marks in the author's name, but I can't seem to get those to show up properly in Blogger. Hopefully it doesn't come across as a slight.)
You Might Also Enjoy:
Wild Seed (Octavia E. Butler) - My Review
The Black God's Drums (P. Djeli Clark) - My Review
The Ballad of Black Tom (Victor LaValle) - My Review
P. Djeli Clark
Tor.com
Fiction, Fantasy/Historical Fiction/Horror
***** (Great)
DESCRIPTION: America has always been the land of opportunity... but that opportunity was built upon the backs of generations of slaves. For all the bright lights the country brought to the world, with democracy and innovation, it hides numerous dark shadows in its racism and prejudices... as well as shadows of a different sort, demons unleashed by sorcery at the height of the Civil War, along with as haint spirits and magical traditions of many lands. Few know that better than Maryse. As a teen, she saw her family murdered by men in white robes - and things that were not men at all, but monsters wearing human skin. She and other colored folk with the Sight hunt down the Ku Kluxes, demonic entities that spread like parasites into souls weakened by hate-filled hearts, but nobody else has the weapon she does: a mystic sword gifted to her by foxlike haints that channels generations of anger and injustice and the powers of long-lost gods. Among other demon hunters like sharpshooter Sadie and Chef, demolitions expert and veteran haunted by the Great War in Europe, along with numerous others, Maryse has found a new family - but this one, too, stands threatened. The Ku Kluxes are changing, becoming more clever and more numerous, just as a new monster comes to their Georgia town. The demons, it turns out, were only ever the advance scouts. The true monster is about to arrive... and, in the coming battle, Maryse faces a choice and a temptation that might doom herself, her friends, and the whole world.
REVIEW: This award-nominated novella dives head-first into the skeletons piled in America's closet, bones of slavery and racism and hate that continue to haunt our country and threaten its future, with heavy shades of old folk tales and magical and spiritual traditions with roots stretching back to the shores of Africa. As I've come to expect from Clark, the story paints a vivid picture of history, one that doesn't whitewash the shadows away but which also doesn't feel too modern (as some historical fiction works can, projecting modern attitudes and sensibilities onto the past). Jim Crow rules in full force and klansfolk rally openly and proudly, and while the civil rights movement as an organized national phenomenon is some decades off, not everyone quietly accepts the status quo. The horror elements are a natural addition, evil given tangible and terrifying form in the Ku Kluxes and the nightmare-inducing butcher who is both their master and the servant of another, even greater emanation. Maryse struggles to navigate a world that melds demonic threats and various stripes of magic with everyday racism, with various ventures to the side of reality into the realms of haint spirits... all of whom have their own agendas and who cannot ever be taken at face value, even the friendlier ones. The tale dances deftly between light moments and banter and deadly serious battles, between realistic depictions of the 1920's Deep South and the supernatural realms of ghosts and spirits, between hints of hope and crushing fear and despair, all with threads of sometimes-gruesome horror. It all builds to a powerful and harrowing finale where Maryse must decide where she stands and what future she wants, not just for herself but for America and the world. The audiobook presentation almost lost a half-star for how the narrator's voice could drop into deep murmurs or rise into high keens or fade into breathy whispers, which were nice effects but not ideal when one is listening in a warehouse environment (as I tend to). That issue aside, though, I thoroughly enjoyed this work from an author who is quickly becoming one of my favorite new genre voices.
(And I know there are accent marks in the author's name, but I can't seem to get those to show up properly in Blogger. Hopefully it doesn't come across as a slight.)
You Might Also Enjoy:
Wild Seed (Octavia E. Butler) - My Review
The Black God's Drums (P. Djeli Clark) - My Review
The Ballad of Black Tom (Victor LaValle) - My Review
Thursday, April 15, 2021
The Expanse #4 (Corinna Sara Bechko)
The Expanse #4
The Expanse series, Issue 4
Corinna Sara Bechko and James S. A. Corey (creators), illustrations by Alejandro Aragon
BOOM! Studios
Fiction, Graphic Novel/Media Tie-In/Sci-Fi
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: On both Luna and Mars, the two-woman investigation into a system-wide ring of criminal corruption has struck a nerve with someone - someone willing to murder a high-profile (if faded) politician like Chrisjen Avasarala and unafraid of former Martian Marine Roberta "Bobbie" Draper. Rescued in the nick of time, Chrisjen wonders if perhaps she's sacrificed too much and stepped too far over the line... and, when her husband Arjun calls from Earth, she realizes what her commitment may be costing her. On Mars, Bobbie makes a horrifying discovery.
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: The fourth installment of this interlude series wraps things up (well, at least partially; it wraps up the character arcs, though the criminal network itself lives on into Season 5 of the show.) The two women each have gone further than they intended, but then the conspiracy they're investigating is vast on a scale they still can't quite comprehend, unprecedented in scope and scale and sheer audacity of purpose. This conspiracy is too big and too dark for them to stop on their own, but what choice do they have but pursue their investigation to the bitter end? Chrisjen's storyline has some extra poignancy given events in the show's fifth season, a moment lost and path not taken that she will come to deeply regret, while Bobbie's commitment to her changing, dying world only grows stronger. I'm still not completely a fan of the art style, but it does the job. Again, I'm pretty sure I would've enjoyed all four episodes more if I'd waited to read them in a complete volume, but the free library-associated digital lending site hoopla only offered them as singletons as of this review, and you really can't say no to free. (Well, yes, technically you can, but in this case I couldn't.)
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Expanse #1 (Corinna Sara Bechko) - My Review
Gods of Risk: An Expanse Novella (James S. A. Corey) - My Review
The Expanse series, Issue 4
Corinna Sara Bechko and James S. A. Corey (creators), illustrations by Alejandro Aragon
BOOM! Studios
Fiction, Graphic Novel/Media Tie-In/Sci-Fi
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: On both Luna and Mars, the two-woman investigation into a system-wide ring of criminal corruption has struck a nerve with someone - someone willing to murder a high-profile (if faded) politician like Chrisjen Avasarala and unafraid of former Martian Marine Roberta "Bobbie" Draper. Rescued in the nick of time, Chrisjen wonders if perhaps she's sacrificed too much and stepped too far over the line... and, when her husband Arjun calls from Earth, she realizes what her commitment may be costing her. On Mars, Bobbie makes a horrifying discovery.
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: The fourth installment of this interlude series wraps things up (well, at least partially; it wraps up the character arcs, though the criminal network itself lives on into Season 5 of the show.) The two women each have gone further than they intended, but then the conspiracy they're investigating is vast on a scale they still can't quite comprehend, unprecedented in scope and scale and sheer audacity of purpose. This conspiracy is too big and too dark for them to stop on their own, but what choice do they have but pursue their investigation to the bitter end? Chrisjen's storyline has some extra poignancy given events in the show's fifth season, a moment lost and path not taken that she will come to deeply regret, while Bobbie's commitment to her changing, dying world only grows stronger. I'm still not completely a fan of the art style, but it does the job. Again, I'm pretty sure I would've enjoyed all four episodes more if I'd waited to read them in a complete volume, but the free library-associated digital lending site hoopla only offered them as singletons as of this review, and you really can't say no to free. (Well, yes, technically you can, but in this case I couldn't.)
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Expanse #1 (Corinna Sara Bechko) - My Review
Gods of Risk: An Expanse Novella (James S. A. Corey) - My Review
Clash of Eagles (Alan Smale)
Clash of Eagles
The Clash of Eagles trilogy, Book 1
Alan Smale
Del Rey
Fiction, Historical Fiction/Sci-Fi
DESCRIPTION: In the second millenium of Rome's glorious rule, an emperor desperate for more wealth to fund ongoing border wars sends an expedition across the western seas to the land of Nova Hesperia. Leading this force is a great honor for Praetor Gaius Marcellinus, a man who - unlike many of his rank - worked his way up from the lowest recruit without leaning on family wealth or favors. This is a savage land, full of despicable and cowardly people... and, thus far, frustratingly empty of the gold his Imperator charged him with plundering. It's easy to dismiss the natives as little better than the other barbaric tribes Rome has conquered and either absorbed or utterly eradicated in its expansion, but the people are no fools, and his underestimation of them leads to disaster when his legions fall to attacks from - of all things - flying wings raining liquid fire upon them from the air.
The only survivor of his entire fighting force, Marcellinus expects to be enslaved, murdered, or tortured. Instead, the people of the great mound city of Cahokia keep him alive. Their war chief has determined that the Roman praetor may well be useful in their ongoing wars with the Iroqua nation - more specifically, Roman weapons and armor and tactics, which he is expected to instruct the local warriors in using. Marcellinus finds himself torn. On the one hand, he has a duty to Rome and the Imperator. On the other, the Iroqua proved themselves enemies of the Romans too in their march, plus he might avert another disastrous confrontation with future Roman forces if he manages to teach Cahokia some of his language and ways. His hand is soon forced by raiders, and the fact that - unless he plans to walk countless miles alone through hostile wilderness back to the landing camp on the Mare Chesapika - he has no choice but to throw his fate in with the mound-builders. Besides, he cannot help but be fascinated by their flying wing technology... not to mention the woman who leads the Hawk clan of winged warriors.
REVIEW: I needed a new audiobook to while away the hours at work, and this one was available on Overdrive when I looked, plus it was long enough to last me a few workdays, so I decided to give it a try. Smale's alternate history is oddly considered "fantasy" in some classifications, but there is no actual magic (beliefs in various gods and shamans notwithstanding, none are shown to be anything but just beliefs), and it extrapolates American cultures developing flying wings and a form of Greek fire for warfare, a "what if?" exploration of technology which reads more like science fiction to me, so that's how I classed it.
Moving past that, this book posits a Rome that never fell sending an exploratory fleet to North America in what would be the 13th century C.E., when the mound-builders along the Mississippi (or Mizipi) were still a thriving culture, a different take on alternate history than many overworked scenarios. Praetor Marcellinus is a man of his world, secure in the knowledge of Roman superiority, though he begins to realize earlier than his companions - who are generally more interested in jockeying amongst themselves for power and taking as much credit as possible for the presumptive success of the expedition - that the natives are not so stupid or backwards as they may initially appear; coming through a forest, he realizes that the land has been artificially cultivated for ease of hunting and growing preferred food sources. Still, he could not possibly anticipate the complete and utter rout awaiting him outside Cahokia, when the "hawks" and "thunderbirds" make quick work of one of the most well-drilled fighting forces the world has ever known. But Marcellinus, for all that he is a proud Roman, is also pragmatic enough to recognize when circumstances have changed, and adapt his mission accordingly. He still harbors some hopes of "civilizing" the locals, but comes to see them as more than just future subjects of Rome or potential enemies, and in doing so finds his worldview shifting in ways that make him quite a different person than he was when he first set foot on Nova Hesperia. Likewise, his presence - both the presence of Rome in general and himself in particular among the mound-builders - sends shockwaves of change up and down the river valley. The new tactics he introduces, the new tools he devises, even the new culture he represents all are transformative. This has more than a whiff of "white savior" stories, with the wise white man coming among the natives to help them when they can't seem to help themselves... but, ultimately, the American natives are not simpletons in need of saving, and Marcellinus's efforts (skirting spoilers) backfire spectacularly in the third act, just as he's convinced that he's succeeding in his efforts to bring Cahokia more in line with Roman thinking and methods.
While the whole work is heavier on military and tactics (and rather male-heavy in the cast and overall tone, even though native women are recognized as equals in war and power among most tribes) than I generally care for, on the whole this isn't a bad book, and does a decent job creating a sense of the land and the cultures as Marcellinus experiences them. (How close these are to the truth, or at least as much of the truth as can be deduced, I am too archaeologically and anthropologically ignorant to know, but for the purposes of the book it felt fairly immersive.) I might even be convinced to read (or listen) onward in the trilogy.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Ghost Hawk (Susan Cooper) - My Review
His Majesty's Dragon (Naomi Novik) - My Review
Island in the Sea of Time (S. M. Stirling) - My Review
The Clash of Eagles trilogy, Book 1
Alan Smale
Del Rey
Fiction, Historical Fiction/Sci-Fi
DESCRIPTION: In the second millenium of Rome's glorious rule, an emperor desperate for more wealth to fund ongoing border wars sends an expedition across the western seas to the land of Nova Hesperia. Leading this force is a great honor for Praetor Gaius Marcellinus, a man who - unlike many of his rank - worked his way up from the lowest recruit without leaning on family wealth or favors. This is a savage land, full of despicable and cowardly people... and, thus far, frustratingly empty of the gold his Imperator charged him with plundering. It's easy to dismiss the natives as little better than the other barbaric tribes Rome has conquered and either absorbed or utterly eradicated in its expansion, but the people are no fools, and his underestimation of them leads to disaster when his legions fall to attacks from - of all things - flying wings raining liquid fire upon them from the air.
The only survivor of his entire fighting force, Marcellinus expects to be enslaved, murdered, or tortured. Instead, the people of the great mound city of Cahokia keep him alive. Their war chief has determined that the Roman praetor may well be useful in their ongoing wars with the Iroqua nation - more specifically, Roman weapons and armor and tactics, which he is expected to instruct the local warriors in using. Marcellinus finds himself torn. On the one hand, he has a duty to Rome and the Imperator. On the other, the Iroqua proved themselves enemies of the Romans too in their march, plus he might avert another disastrous confrontation with future Roman forces if he manages to teach Cahokia some of his language and ways. His hand is soon forced by raiders, and the fact that - unless he plans to walk countless miles alone through hostile wilderness back to the landing camp on the Mare Chesapika - he has no choice but to throw his fate in with the mound-builders. Besides, he cannot help but be fascinated by their flying wing technology... not to mention the woman who leads the Hawk clan of winged warriors.
REVIEW: I needed a new audiobook to while away the hours at work, and this one was available on Overdrive when I looked, plus it was long enough to last me a few workdays, so I decided to give it a try. Smale's alternate history is oddly considered "fantasy" in some classifications, but there is no actual magic (beliefs in various gods and shamans notwithstanding, none are shown to be anything but just beliefs), and it extrapolates American cultures developing flying wings and a form of Greek fire for warfare, a "what if?" exploration of technology which reads more like science fiction to me, so that's how I classed it.
Moving past that, this book posits a Rome that never fell sending an exploratory fleet to North America in what would be the 13th century C.E., when the mound-builders along the Mississippi (or Mizipi) were still a thriving culture, a different take on alternate history than many overworked scenarios. Praetor Marcellinus is a man of his world, secure in the knowledge of Roman superiority, though he begins to realize earlier than his companions - who are generally more interested in jockeying amongst themselves for power and taking as much credit as possible for the presumptive success of the expedition - that the natives are not so stupid or backwards as they may initially appear; coming through a forest, he realizes that the land has been artificially cultivated for ease of hunting and growing preferred food sources. Still, he could not possibly anticipate the complete and utter rout awaiting him outside Cahokia, when the "hawks" and "thunderbirds" make quick work of one of the most well-drilled fighting forces the world has ever known. But Marcellinus, for all that he is a proud Roman, is also pragmatic enough to recognize when circumstances have changed, and adapt his mission accordingly. He still harbors some hopes of "civilizing" the locals, but comes to see them as more than just future subjects of Rome or potential enemies, and in doing so finds his worldview shifting in ways that make him quite a different person than he was when he first set foot on Nova Hesperia. Likewise, his presence - both the presence of Rome in general and himself in particular among the mound-builders - sends shockwaves of change up and down the river valley. The new tactics he introduces, the new tools he devises, even the new culture he represents all are transformative. This has more than a whiff of "white savior" stories, with the wise white man coming among the natives to help them when they can't seem to help themselves... but, ultimately, the American natives are not simpletons in need of saving, and Marcellinus's efforts (skirting spoilers) backfire spectacularly in the third act, just as he's convinced that he's succeeding in his efforts to bring Cahokia more in line with Roman thinking and methods.
While the whole work is heavier on military and tactics (and rather male-heavy in the cast and overall tone, even though native women are recognized as equals in war and power among most tribes) than I generally care for, on the whole this isn't a bad book, and does a decent job creating a sense of the land and the cultures as Marcellinus experiences them. (How close these are to the truth, or at least as much of the truth as can be deduced, I am too archaeologically and anthropologically ignorant to know, but for the purposes of the book it felt fairly immersive.) I might even be convinced to read (or listen) onward in the trilogy.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Ghost Hawk (Susan Cooper) - My Review
His Majesty's Dragon (Naomi Novik) - My Review
Island in the Sea of Time (S. M. Stirling) - My Review
Monday, April 12, 2021
Midnight Riot (Ben Aaronovitch)
Midnight Riot
The Rivers of London series, Book 1
Ben Aaronovitch
Del Rey
Fiction, Fantasy/Horror/Mystery
** (Bad)
DESCRIPTION: After two years as a probationary constable in London, Peter Grant's career aspirations appear to be headed for the wastepaper basket of the Case Progression Unit, glorified data entry to make the real detectives' work easier. But when he finds himself talking to a ghost about a recent murder, he comes to the attention of Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Nightingale, a man with an unusual reputation: he, alone of all of London's constabulary, is a trained wizard, investigating crimes with unnatural elements and through unconventional means. Peter didn't even believe in ghosts until he was talking to one, and now he's become an apprentice to a modern-day wizard. Plunged into the city's supernatural underbelly, he finds himself up to his eyebrows in feuding river spirits, ghostly apparitions, and monsters out of storybooks... not to mention a malevolent spirit that has just kicked off a spree of murder and mayhem unlike any he or his new master have seen before. Maybe that desk job with the Case Progression Unit wouldn't have been so bad, after all...
REVIEW: There seems to be a belief among some authors (and screenwriters) that simply setting a story in a big city - like New York or London - automatically makes it fascinating. There seems to be a further belief, particularly among authors, that describing every street, block, building, brick, crack, and pothole in minute and historic detail, to the point where there's little to no room for an interesting plot or characters, makes a story even more fascinating. To some people, this may well be true.
Unfortunately, I am not one of those people.
To be fair, the basic idea has plenty of potential, and it starts out interestingly enough, with a thick London flavor and rather dark sense of humor. If the narrating voice of Peter Grant showed him to be rather shallow and more than a bit slow on the uptake (not to mention so easily distracted one wonders how he remembers to lace up his shoes every morning, let alone hold down a job as a copper), well, I'd just met him, and surely that meant there was plenty of room for improvement... though Aaronovitch sure went out of his way to make sure I appreciated the geography and history of Covent Garden, the area where the first murder and ghostly encounter occur. Now, I don't mind a little setting and trivia, so long as I still get a decent story to go with it, with characters I can find interesting. As the story progressed, I was still waiting for Peter to improve, to learn, to become interesting, to grow on me as something other than an irritating rash, but he remained shallow and hormone-driven and so easily distracted that he derailed the plot itself, and the dark sense of humor that started out fun soon felt annoying. Along the way, the tale devolved into a driving, walking, and downright crawling tour of London. Not a street can be approached, not a corner turned, not a step taken without the author ensuring that I, the reader who was evidently as infatuated with London as Peter is with most of the female cast (barring the few who aren't considered sexually attractive, who are - surely by a strange coincidence, because it's the 21st century and thus authors have figured out that women have value beyond sex objects, right? - paper-thin caricatures, often laughably so), was treated to paragraphs or pages detailing London architecture or history or some other thing that utterly failed to arouse my interest on any level. If nothing else, surely the plot, with wizards and ghosts and vampires and a supernatural killer on the loose, ought to engage me... but, again, that was an afterthought, jumbled in among Peter's rambling efforts to learn about wizardry and place it in a modern context, start helping his master of marginal usefulness deal with the hidden monsters and spirits of London, and - in an entirely unrelated subplot that eats far too much page count, largely to give Peter someone not entirely human to lust over when he's not secretly hoping to get into his colleague's pants (because that's all women are for, even when they're clearly better investigators and should earn some manner of actual respect) - broker peace between the two master spirits of the Thames, a Mother surrounded by buxom seductresses and a Father surrounded by pastoral Gypsy figures. Peter bungles and stumbles and gets distracted by his own shadow, eventually groping his way toward the culprit and a resolution that feels flat, all of it playing clear second fiddle to the main attraction: London, as presented in near-pornographic detail.
I'd stopped caring about anything and anyone in the book long before the last page was turned, and didn't bother reading the teaser for the second book. Maybe I'm just too American (and too female) to get the appeal of this popular series, or understand why the mere fact that it was set in London was apparently supposed to be enough to keep me reading, which is why it sank below a merely bland three star rating to a distinctly irked two.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Stoneheart (Charlie Fletcher) - My Review
Neverwhere (Neil Gaiman) - My Review
Rosemary and Rue (Seanan McGuire) - My Review
The Rivers of London series, Book 1
Ben Aaronovitch
Del Rey
Fiction, Fantasy/Horror/Mystery
** (Bad)
DESCRIPTION: After two years as a probationary constable in London, Peter Grant's career aspirations appear to be headed for the wastepaper basket of the Case Progression Unit, glorified data entry to make the real detectives' work easier. But when he finds himself talking to a ghost about a recent murder, he comes to the attention of Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Nightingale, a man with an unusual reputation: he, alone of all of London's constabulary, is a trained wizard, investigating crimes with unnatural elements and through unconventional means. Peter didn't even believe in ghosts until he was talking to one, and now he's become an apprentice to a modern-day wizard. Plunged into the city's supernatural underbelly, he finds himself up to his eyebrows in feuding river spirits, ghostly apparitions, and monsters out of storybooks... not to mention a malevolent spirit that has just kicked off a spree of murder and mayhem unlike any he or his new master have seen before. Maybe that desk job with the Case Progression Unit wouldn't have been so bad, after all...
REVIEW: There seems to be a belief among some authors (and screenwriters) that simply setting a story in a big city - like New York or London - automatically makes it fascinating. There seems to be a further belief, particularly among authors, that describing every street, block, building, brick, crack, and pothole in minute and historic detail, to the point where there's little to no room for an interesting plot or characters, makes a story even more fascinating. To some people, this may well be true.
Unfortunately, I am not one of those people.
To be fair, the basic idea has plenty of potential, and it starts out interestingly enough, with a thick London flavor and rather dark sense of humor. If the narrating voice of Peter Grant showed him to be rather shallow and more than a bit slow on the uptake (not to mention so easily distracted one wonders how he remembers to lace up his shoes every morning, let alone hold down a job as a copper), well, I'd just met him, and surely that meant there was plenty of room for improvement... though Aaronovitch sure went out of his way to make sure I appreciated the geography and history of Covent Garden, the area where the first murder and ghostly encounter occur. Now, I don't mind a little setting and trivia, so long as I still get a decent story to go with it, with characters I can find interesting. As the story progressed, I was still waiting for Peter to improve, to learn, to become interesting, to grow on me as something other than an irritating rash, but he remained shallow and hormone-driven and so easily distracted that he derailed the plot itself, and the dark sense of humor that started out fun soon felt annoying. Along the way, the tale devolved into a driving, walking, and downright crawling tour of London. Not a street can be approached, not a corner turned, not a step taken without the author ensuring that I, the reader who was evidently as infatuated with London as Peter is with most of the female cast (barring the few who aren't considered sexually attractive, who are - surely by a strange coincidence, because it's the 21st century and thus authors have figured out that women have value beyond sex objects, right? - paper-thin caricatures, often laughably so), was treated to paragraphs or pages detailing London architecture or history or some other thing that utterly failed to arouse my interest on any level. If nothing else, surely the plot, with wizards and ghosts and vampires and a supernatural killer on the loose, ought to engage me... but, again, that was an afterthought, jumbled in among Peter's rambling efforts to learn about wizardry and place it in a modern context, start helping his master of marginal usefulness deal with the hidden monsters and spirits of London, and - in an entirely unrelated subplot that eats far too much page count, largely to give Peter someone not entirely human to lust over when he's not secretly hoping to get into his colleague's pants (because that's all women are for, even when they're clearly better investigators and should earn some manner of actual respect) - broker peace between the two master spirits of the Thames, a Mother surrounded by buxom seductresses and a Father surrounded by pastoral Gypsy figures. Peter bungles and stumbles and gets distracted by his own shadow, eventually groping his way toward the culprit and a resolution that feels flat, all of it playing clear second fiddle to the main attraction: London, as presented in near-pornographic detail.
I'd stopped caring about anything and anyone in the book long before the last page was turned, and didn't bother reading the teaser for the second book. Maybe I'm just too American (and too female) to get the appeal of this popular series, or understand why the mere fact that it was set in London was apparently supposed to be enough to keep me reading, which is why it sank below a merely bland three star rating to a distinctly irked two.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Stoneheart (Charlie Fletcher) - My Review
Neverwhere (Neil Gaiman) - My Review
Rosemary and Rue (Seanan McGuire) - My Review
Thursday, April 8, 2021
The Warehouse (Rob Hart)
The Warehouse
Rob Hart
Bantam Press
Fiction, Sci-Fi/Thriller
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: In the near future, venturing outdoors in a climate-baked world is a risk, especially in summer. Fortunately, there's Cloud, your one-stop source for every possible want or need, complete with drone delivery. Even better, the company uses its giant corporate footprint for good, slashing carbon emissions and providing not just good jobs to countless individuals, but a place to live. Once inside a "mother cloud" facility, you need never leave.
Not that you have much choice: most every business these days is affiliated with Cloud. They even have a sizeable hand in the government. A few brick-and-mortars still cling to life around the fringes, but it's pretty clear that Cloud is the future of humanity. The only future. But even revolutionary business magnates can't live forever; as company founder Gibson Welles makes his farewell tour across America, there are still those who hope to loosen his grip... and plot against Cloud.
Paxton left his job as a prison security guard to become an entrepreneur with his invention, The Perfect Egg, only to be driven out of business by Cloud's constant demands for lower and lower prices and more and more control. His patent is still pending, but until then he has little choice if he wants to eat: he has to apply for a job with the enemy. Zinnia is a professional corporate spy, sent to crack into one of the company's closest held secrets: how it manages to power its massive mother cloud sites. Despite the propaganda (and the tax breaks), there's no way their solar panels can provide nearly as much power as they consume, hinting at some very dirty laundry in the company closet. The two meet at the brutally competitive application and keep seeming to cross paths as they're pulled deeper and deeper into the dystopian nightmare of Cloud life. Can they be each other's salvation from oblivion, or will Cloud truly devour every last drop of freedom and happiness?
REVIEW: The Warehouse takes up the dystopian mantle of Brave New World, Metropolis, 1984, and other seminal works and crosses it with the modern culture of behemoth businesses devouring the world (in more ways than one), entirely untethered by morals or ethics or long-term considerations as to the effects of their actions as they handwave everything away as the result not of their own sociopathic ambitions, but nebulous "market forces" that they claim to be beyond anyone's control, even as they control them. Even when these businesses do ostensibly good things, those works are inevitably tainted by ultimately monstrous motivations. But what choice do people like Paxton have, when the system is so much larger than they are and gives them some approximation of they want (or have been told to want), lukewarm bottled water offered at a steep price in a desert of their own making?
Paxton starts out determined that this will only be a temporary stopover until his patent comes through, that he can still come up with some brilliant new idea and build his own business, but he seems to know he's lying to himself even as he fills out the application. Zinnia intends to get in and out as fast as possible, but gets caught in the gears of a corporate culture unlike any she's been trapped in before. For the first time, she finds herself reaching out for human companionship, even knowing any relationship will be made under false pretenses and is therefore doomed from the start. Throughout the story, the company is a tangible weight upon the world
and the characters, ugly and devouring and robbing everything, even
their privacy and any shred of dignity they managed to carry through the
front door. As Paxton is pulled into the orbit of a power-abusing superior in the Cloud security team, Zinnia fights her own battles against corruption and sexual predators in the hellscape that is the Cloud warehouse. In interludes, Cloud founder Gibson injects his own story about the rise of Cloud, one strongly colored by his own biases and deliberate blindness to the suffering he causes, smug in his own superiority over the rest of humanity; in the audiobook version I listened to, his narrator has a folksy down-home accent deliberately at odds with the soulless planet-eating monster he has become.
The story doesn't necessarily drag, but it does bog down in the dystopian details, even as it successfully evokes the nightmarish world of modern big-box retail and online behemoths which strive to crush human beings into servile and disposable robots, rewarding conformity and amorality and even depravity while punishing individualism and inquiry. Paxton rationalizes away the loss of his independence, tokens he hands over willingly, or as willingly as anyone can under constant psychological assault from a system designed to grind down any resistance, while even Zinnia finds herself pulled further into the company than she'd ever expected. At some point, it becomes clear that there will be nothing like a happy ending for anyone involved, though the characters may still make choices that could open possibilities for happiness (or something like it) for others. It ultimately felt like it was just grinding in the misery, even as that misery proved all to recognizable from the real world, as it trudged to a drawn-out finale with only the barest, faintest sparks of light.
While The Warehouse successfully explores the corporate beasts we all have had some part in enabling, it started feeling too long, with characters I no longer cared about and an ending that rang hollow.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Metropolis (Thea von Harbou) - My Review
The Fifth Season (N. K. Jemisin) - My Review
Altered Carbon (Richard K. Morgan) - My Review
Wednesday, April 7, 2021
The Boy Who Lost Fairyland (Catherynne M. Valente)
The Boy Who Lost Fairyland
The Fairyland series, Book 4
Catherynne M. Valente
Square Fish
Fiction, MG? Fantasy
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: The young troll Hawthorn never wanted to be a Changeling - a boy from Fairyland, wrapped up in human guise and sent to mundane Earth - but when the Red Wind comes calling, it's very hard to say no. He soon finds himself in a strange and wondrous world, one plagued by inscrutable rules and where the furniture never talks back or comes alive no matter how nicely he asks, and while he's forgotten his true name and troll self, he knows deep down in his bones that he doesn't quite fit in here and never will. Then he meets the girl Tamburlaine, who has a very special secret that might return him where he belongs... but Changelings are never supposed to go back home, and trying to do so may create more trouble than he can possibly understand.
REVIEW: Like the other installments in this enchanting series, The Boy Who Lost Fairyland is overflowing with wild imagery and fun ideas and memorable characters in a plot that hardly ever slows down. This installment shifts the focus away from the girl September, whom we last left in some peril, but returns to reveal what's become of her by the end... in doing so, unfortunately, stepping on the toes of Hawthorn and Tamburlaine, shutting them out of their own story as she becomes the focus and (not incidentally) sets up the fifth and final book in the series. It felt like a mild insult to the pair, whom the reader comes to know and love through their harrowing adventures in public school and a Fairyland that turns out to be less welcoming than they had hoped, but I'm willing to forgive it (somewhat - I still shaved half a star) on the precedent that Valente does not tend to leave loose ends; I expect them to be involved in the series finale. In any event, I'm looking forward to the next installment and the (probable) final adventure in this clever and imaginative take on Fairyland.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Over the Woodward Wall (A. Deborah Baker) - My Review
The Clockwork Fairy Kingdom (Leah R. Cutter) - My Review
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of her Own Making (Catherynne M. Valente) - My Review
The Fairyland series, Book 4
Catherynne M. Valente
Square Fish
Fiction, MG? Fantasy
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: The young troll Hawthorn never wanted to be a Changeling - a boy from Fairyland, wrapped up in human guise and sent to mundane Earth - but when the Red Wind comes calling, it's very hard to say no. He soon finds himself in a strange and wondrous world, one plagued by inscrutable rules and where the furniture never talks back or comes alive no matter how nicely he asks, and while he's forgotten his true name and troll self, he knows deep down in his bones that he doesn't quite fit in here and never will. Then he meets the girl Tamburlaine, who has a very special secret that might return him where he belongs... but Changelings are never supposed to go back home, and trying to do so may create more trouble than he can possibly understand.
REVIEW: Like the other installments in this enchanting series, The Boy Who Lost Fairyland is overflowing with wild imagery and fun ideas and memorable characters in a plot that hardly ever slows down. This installment shifts the focus away from the girl September, whom we last left in some peril, but returns to reveal what's become of her by the end... in doing so, unfortunately, stepping on the toes of Hawthorn and Tamburlaine, shutting them out of their own story as she becomes the focus and (not incidentally) sets up the fifth and final book in the series. It felt like a mild insult to the pair, whom the reader comes to know and love through their harrowing adventures in public school and a Fairyland that turns out to be less welcoming than they had hoped, but I'm willing to forgive it (somewhat - I still shaved half a star) on the precedent that Valente does not tend to leave loose ends; I expect them to be involved in the series finale. In any event, I'm looking forward to the next installment and the (probable) final adventure in this clever and imaginative take on Fairyland.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Over the Woodward Wall (A. Deborah Baker) - My Review
The Clockwork Fairy Kingdom (Leah R. Cutter) - My Review
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of her Own Making (Catherynne M. Valente) - My Review
Sunday, April 4, 2021
The Red Canary (Tim Birkhead)
The Red Canary: The Story of the First Genetically Engineered Animal
Tim Birkhead
Bloomsbury USA
Nonfiction, Animals/Biography/History/Science
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: Since its discovery by Europeans, the canary had fascinated the western world with its enchanting song, if not its original drab greenish coloring. Captive breeding became a booming industry, and soon gave rise to both brighter colors and greater song variations, but it wasn't until the early 20th century, in the canary breeding hotbed of Germany, that anyone thought to turn the fledgling concept of genetic inheritance to the matter of deliberately creating a canary not seen in nature or any domestic random mutation: a red canary. To do this, one would need to introduce genes from a related species and somehow get the hybrids to breed true without otherwise compromising the basic canary makeup: selective genetic introduction. The idea sent shockwaves through the highly competitive world of canary fanciers and breeders around the world. But even as amateur scientist Hans Dunckler turned his prodigious intellect to the task, aided by local Bremen fanciers, Germany was developing another, far less wholesome interest in the matter of genetics, one that would derail the experiment and bury its originator under a generation of scandal.
REVIEW: I obtained this as an e-book some time ago when it was discounted (possibly even free), and finally got around to clearing it from the backlog. Birkhead touts the long-unsung contributions of amateur scientists and domestic bird keepers and even medieval bird-catchers to modern ornithology (while glossing over the destruction to wild populations and somewhat questionable birdkeeping practices of the not-so-distant past, such as blinding birds so they'd sing more), as well as the long-besmirched contributions of Dunckler to canary breeding in particular and bird genetics in general. The author's opinions show fairly clearly beneath the research and retelling, occasionally compromising objectivity to the point where even I, a notoriously unobservant reader, noticed. He does, however, present a mostly interesting history of singing birds in captivity and the canary breeding craze that was, for a time, a very lucrative cottage industry in various parts of the world. Dunckler was indeed revolutionary in his way, seeing the potential for genetic transfer between species in a time when Darwin was still somewhat controversial. Politics, though, have a way of warping everything and everyone; Dunckler was swept up in the eugenics fervor of the Nazi party, not particularly against his will, and whatever his later rationalizations, a lot of harm was done by him and others like him. Because of that association, much of his work was swept under the rug of history, but his canary breeding experiments led to later breakthroughs, even as they showed that he was overlooking some key ingredients to success. (They also, sadly, likely helped contribute to the near-extinction of the tropical red siskin, the species chosen for the cross-breeding, which remains critically endangered and a target of bird smugglers to this day.) In any event, while the author's ideas and preconceptions had a way of coloring the narrative, overall it's not a bad exploration of its subject.
You Might Also Enjoy:
On the Origin of Species, 6th Edition (Charles Darwin) - My Review
How to Build a Dinosaur (Jack Horner and James Gorman) - My Review
The Invention of Nature (Andrea Wulf) - My Review
Tim Birkhead
Bloomsbury USA
Nonfiction, Animals/Biography/History/Science
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: Since its discovery by Europeans, the canary had fascinated the western world with its enchanting song, if not its original drab greenish coloring. Captive breeding became a booming industry, and soon gave rise to both brighter colors and greater song variations, but it wasn't until the early 20th century, in the canary breeding hotbed of Germany, that anyone thought to turn the fledgling concept of genetic inheritance to the matter of deliberately creating a canary not seen in nature or any domestic random mutation: a red canary. To do this, one would need to introduce genes from a related species and somehow get the hybrids to breed true without otherwise compromising the basic canary makeup: selective genetic introduction. The idea sent shockwaves through the highly competitive world of canary fanciers and breeders around the world. But even as amateur scientist Hans Dunckler turned his prodigious intellect to the task, aided by local Bremen fanciers, Germany was developing another, far less wholesome interest in the matter of genetics, one that would derail the experiment and bury its originator under a generation of scandal.
REVIEW: I obtained this as an e-book some time ago when it was discounted (possibly even free), and finally got around to clearing it from the backlog. Birkhead touts the long-unsung contributions of amateur scientists and domestic bird keepers and even medieval bird-catchers to modern ornithology (while glossing over the destruction to wild populations and somewhat questionable birdkeeping practices of the not-so-distant past, such as blinding birds so they'd sing more), as well as the long-besmirched contributions of Dunckler to canary breeding in particular and bird genetics in general. The author's opinions show fairly clearly beneath the research and retelling, occasionally compromising objectivity to the point where even I, a notoriously unobservant reader, noticed. He does, however, present a mostly interesting history of singing birds in captivity and the canary breeding craze that was, for a time, a very lucrative cottage industry in various parts of the world. Dunckler was indeed revolutionary in his way, seeing the potential for genetic transfer between species in a time when Darwin was still somewhat controversial. Politics, though, have a way of warping everything and everyone; Dunckler was swept up in the eugenics fervor of the Nazi party, not particularly against his will, and whatever his later rationalizations, a lot of harm was done by him and others like him. Because of that association, much of his work was swept under the rug of history, but his canary breeding experiments led to later breakthroughs, even as they showed that he was overlooking some key ingredients to success. (They also, sadly, likely helped contribute to the near-extinction of the tropical red siskin, the species chosen for the cross-breeding, which remains critically endangered and a target of bird smugglers to this day.) In any event, while the author's ideas and preconceptions had a way of coloring the narrative, overall it's not a bad exploration of its subject.
You Might Also Enjoy:
On the Origin of Species, 6th Edition (Charles Darwin) - My Review
How to Build a Dinosaur (Jack Horner and James Gorman) - My Review
The Invention of Nature (Andrea Wulf) - My Review
Thursday, April 1, 2021
The Loneliest Girl in the Universe (Lauren James)
The Loneliest Girl in the Universe
Lauren James
HarperTeen
Fiction, YA Sci-Fi/Thriller
*+ (Terrible/Bad)
DESCRIPTION: Romy Silvers is the girl who should never have been born, let alone been stuck alone in command of humanity's first colony exploration vessel to another star. But a series of accidents and disasters led to her conception, the failure of the stasis pods holding the rest of the crew, and the deaths of her parents, so NASA had no choice but to default to the only living human aboard the Infinity. Now sixteen, Romy's been on her own for five years, her only line of communication being audio messages exchanged (over a year delay) with her therapist Molly back at NASA. She fills her time with her studies, ship maintenance, and writing her own fanfic for her favorite TV show, Loch and Ness, using the characters to play out her own hopes and fears.
When Molly tells her that another ship, the Eternity, has been launched - a ship with vastly improved systems and greater propulsion, which will not only catch up to her but compress the journey ahead from decades to a mere four years - Romy is ecstatic, and when Commander Jay starts sending his own communication she can hardly contain herself. At last, she won't be alone anymore! She has someone else to talk to! But things take a strange, dark turn when her communications with NASA end abruptly, and someone else appears to take control of the mission. With her anxiety ramped up and nothing making sense anymore, Romy begins to fear the worst - but she needs to be stronger than her fear if she's going to figure out what's going on, let alone survive.
REVIEW: It's a bad sign when I want to smack a character across the face multiple times during a book. It's an even worse sign when, as the climax nears, I'm actively hoping for a "meteors fall, everyone dies" ending.
Things start a little shaky with Romy Silvers, a girl who essentially had to raise herself and is saddled with serious anxiety issues, issues which slide way past "understandable angst" into "how does she survive brushing her teeth?" territory. For all that she's supposed to be intelligent and self-sufficient, she has all the spine of cooked spaghetti and less agency than the origami chickens she makes as part of a borderline-disturbed daydream over how idyllic her life on Earth Two will be with her imagined version of Jay (the only unrelated male she has ever communicated with). She is such a victim, prone to making such stupid decisions and squandering every possible advantage, that sympathy soon jumped out the airlock as she repeatedly and invariably rationalized or cried away every chance to stand up. Seriously, at one point, she's fleeing from danger in her nightgown and bare feet. Romy Silvers, the ostensible heroine who had to raise herself on a spaceship and is supposed to have an IQ greater than the average ditzy blonde from a bad horror movie, running around in a nightgown, utterly incapable of concocting the most rudimentary of plans, and repeatedly being suckered back in even once she's figured out the game. There are also numerous nightmare "jump-scare" sequences, which lost their impact very early on, as the author deliberately dances about the details of Romy's childhood and the traumatic deaths of her parents... the truth of which she only fully understands at the climax, by which point events had gone so far beyond credulity that I honestly just did not even care anymore. The true reason for the rating has to do with spoiler-level details of the climax, which basically put this with Netflix's turkey Another Life as a PSA to spay and neuter astronauts. Or maybe NASA should just give up on sending live humans any further than the post office; if this book is any indication, either their screening process leaks like a screen door or people just aren't psychologically equipped to deal with space, even when they're born there.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Carico Trails (Nan C. Ballard) - My Review
Retrograde (Peter Cawdron) - My Review
Fangirl: A Novel (Rainbow Rowell) - My Review
Lauren James
HarperTeen
Fiction, YA Sci-Fi/Thriller
*+ (Terrible/Bad)
DESCRIPTION: Romy Silvers is the girl who should never have been born, let alone been stuck alone in command of humanity's first colony exploration vessel to another star. But a series of accidents and disasters led to her conception, the failure of the stasis pods holding the rest of the crew, and the deaths of her parents, so NASA had no choice but to default to the only living human aboard the Infinity. Now sixteen, Romy's been on her own for five years, her only line of communication being audio messages exchanged (over a year delay) with her therapist Molly back at NASA. She fills her time with her studies, ship maintenance, and writing her own fanfic for her favorite TV show, Loch and Ness, using the characters to play out her own hopes and fears.
When Molly tells her that another ship, the Eternity, has been launched - a ship with vastly improved systems and greater propulsion, which will not only catch up to her but compress the journey ahead from decades to a mere four years - Romy is ecstatic, and when Commander Jay starts sending his own communication she can hardly contain herself. At last, she won't be alone anymore! She has someone else to talk to! But things take a strange, dark turn when her communications with NASA end abruptly, and someone else appears to take control of the mission. With her anxiety ramped up and nothing making sense anymore, Romy begins to fear the worst - but she needs to be stronger than her fear if she's going to figure out what's going on, let alone survive.
REVIEW: It's a bad sign when I want to smack a character across the face multiple times during a book. It's an even worse sign when, as the climax nears, I'm actively hoping for a "meteors fall, everyone dies" ending.
Things start a little shaky with Romy Silvers, a girl who essentially had to raise herself and is saddled with serious anxiety issues, issues which slide way past "understandable angst" into "how does she survive brushing her teeth?" territory. For all that she's supposed to be intelligent and self-sufficient, she has all the spine of cooked spaghetti and less agency than the origami chickens she makes as part of a borderline-disturbed daydream over how idyllic her life on Earth Two will be with her imagined version of Jay (the only unrelated male she has ever communicated with). She is such a victim, prone to making such stupid decisions and squandering every possible advantage, that sympathy soon jumped out the airlock as she repeatedly and invariably rationalized or cried away every chance to stand up. Seriously, at one point, she's fleeing from danger in her nightgown and bare feet. Romy Silvers, the ostensible heroine who had to raise herself on a spaceship and is supposed to have an IQ greater than the average ditzy blonde from a bad horror movie, running around in a nightgown, utterly incapable of concocting the most rudimentary of plans, and repeatedly being suckered back in even once she's figured out the game. There are also numerous nightmare "jump-scare" sequences, which lost their impact very early on, as the author deliberately dances about the details of Romy's childhood and the traumatic deaths of her parents... the truth of which she only fully understands at the climax, by which point events had gone so far beyond credulity that I honestly just did not even care anymore. The true reason for the rating has to do with spoiler-level details of the climax, which basically put this with Netflix's turkey Another Life as a PSA to spay and neuter astronauts. Or maybe NASA should just give up on sending live humans any further than the post office; if this book is any indication, either their screening process leaks like a screen door or people just aren't psychologically equipped to deal with space, even when they're born there.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Carico Trails (Nan C. Ballard) - My Review
Retrograde (Peter Cawdron) - My Review
Fangirl: A Novel (Rainbow Rowell) - My Review
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