The month's reviews have been archived and cross-linked on the main Brightdreamer Books website.
Enjoy!
Thursday, March 31, 2022
March Site Update
How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse (K. Eason)
How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse
The Thorne Chronicles, Book 1
K. Eason
DAW
Fiction, YA Fantasy/Humor/Sci-Fi
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: It has been two hundred years and more since a daughter was born to the royal Thorne family, head of a consortium of worlds with subjects human and alien, but despite having spread across the multiverse with a melding of magic (more commonly known these days as arithmancy) and technology, certain traditions must be upheld... such as the naming ceremony for a princess, and the customary invitations left in the garden for twelve fairies to bring their gifts - and, if one is strictly following protocol, the thirteenth fairy to bring her curse.
Nobody expected the fairies to actually exist, let alone accept the invitations - or to bestow gifts upon the girl. As for the curse... while the thirteenth fairy burdens her with the ability to always see through falsehoods to the truth beneath, that is far less a curse than the worlds at large contrive to throw at her, curses involving a spoiled younger brother, a ridiculous tradition preventing girls from inheriting the throne, and a war against a tyrant and regicide whose resolution demands she marry a weakling prince whom she only ever met once. But Rory Thorne isn't some helpless, mindless romantic of a princess; she's well aware that royalty is about politics, and politics is all too often about accepting poor bedfellows to keep the peace (and stave off even worse bedfellows). She travels to the space station capital of Tadesh fully intending to go through with the marriage... but things go wrong from the moment of her arrival, pointing to even greater and darker schemes afoot.
Unfortunately for her enemies, this damsel isn't anything like her pining ancestral namesake, waiting for a prince to rescue her from the palace of brambles. If anyone's going to be saving anyone, it's Rory Thorne. Too bad she may just have to destroy the peace and the multiverse to do it...
REVIEW: To be honest, I wasn't entirely sure what to expect when I downloaded this audiobook, save that the title promised fun and the premise - melding fairy tale tropes with a space opera plot - intrigued me. It quickly pulled me into its amusing yet detailed and interesting world, a mash-up that probably shouldn't work but somehow does in Eason's hands. With few exceptions, nobody in this story is just who or what they appear to be, with hidden motivations and layers to them. Rory was raised with a keen understanding of the politics of her position, and harbors no illusions about happily-ever-after endings for someone in her position, but that doesn't means he has to sit back and play her harp (one of the skills a fairy granted her, which turns out to be more useful than anticipated) while other people use her for their own gains. Between a half-cybernetic bodyguard and the royal vizier, not to mention a mother from a less male-dominated culture than her father, she received a rather progressive education, which she puts to good use when she finds herself thrust into the interstellar game board as someone else's pawn. The story rarely if ever lags, as Rory pits her wits against a scheming usurper who has already killed more than one monarch and will not hesitate to kill another to get the power he craves. Along the way, the narrative, written by an unnamed historian chronicler, adds several amusing asides and flourishes to the tale. When I finished, I hit Overdrive almost immediately to see if the second installment of the duology was available for download, but unfortunately there appears to be a wait list. Dang it...
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Princess Bride (William Goldman) - My Review
Cinder (Marissa Meyer) - My Review
The Enchanted Forest Chronicles (Patricia C. Wrede) - My Review
The Thorne Chronicles, Book 1
K. Eason
DAW
Fiction, YA Fantasy/Humor/Sci-Fi
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: It has been two hundred years and more since a daughter was born to the royal Thorne family, head of a consortium of worlds with subjects human and alien, but despite having spread across the multiverse with a melding of magic (more commonly known these days as arithmancy) and technology, certain traditions must be upheld... such as the naming ceremony for a princess, and the customary invitations left in the garden for twelve fairies to bring their gifts - and, if one is strictly following protocol, the thirteenth fairy to bring her curse.
Nobody expected the fairies to actually exist, let alone accept the invitations - or to bestow gifts upon the girl. As for the curse... while the thirteenth fairy burdens her with the ability to always see through falsehoods to the truth beneath, that is far less a curse than the worlds at large contrive to throw at her, curses involving a spoiled younger brother, a ridiculous tradition preventing girls from inheriting the throne, and a war against a tyrant and regicide whose resolution demands she marry a weakling prince whom she only ever met once. But Rory Thorne isn't some helpless, mindless romantic of a princess; she's well aware that royalty is about politics, and politics is all too often about accepting poor bedfellows to keep the peace (and stave off even worse bedfellows). She travels to the space station capital of Tadesh fully intending to go through with the marriage... but things go wrong from the moment of her arrival, pointing to even greater and darker schemes afoot.
Unfortunately for her enemies, this damsel isn't anything like her pining ancestral namesake, waiting for a prince to rescue her from the palace of brambles. If anyone's going to be saving anyone, it's Rory Thorne. Too bad she may just have to destroy the peace and the multiverse to do it...
REVIEW: To be honest, I wasn't entirely sure what to expect when I downloaded this audiobook, save that the title promised fun and the premise - melding fairy tale tropes with a space opera plot - intrigued me. It quickly pulled me into its amusing yet detailed and interesting world, a mash-up that probably shouldn't work but somehow does in Eason's hands. With few exceptions, nobody in this story is just who or what they appear to be, with hidden motivations and layers to them. Rory was raised with a keen understanding of the politics of her position, and harbors no illusions about happily-ever-after endings for someone in her position, but that doesn't means he has to sit back and play her harp (one of the skills a fairy granted her, which turns out to be more useful than anticipated) while other people use her for their own gains. Between a half-cybernetic bodyguard and the royal vizier, not to mention a mother from a less male-dominated culture than her father, she received a rather progressive education, which she puts to good use when she finds herself thrust into the interstellar game board as someone else's pawn. The story rarely if ever lags, as Rory pits her wits against a scheming usurper who has already killed more than one monarch and will not hesitate to kill another to get the power he craves. Along the way, the narrative, written by an unnamed historian chronicler, adds several amusing asides and flourishes to the tale. When I finished, I hit Overdrive almost immediately to see if the second installment of the duology was available for download, but unfortunately there appears to be a wait list. Dang it...
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Princess Bride (William Goldman) - My Review
Cinder (Marissa Meyer) - My Review
The Enchanted Forest Chronicles (Patricia C. Wrede) - My Review
7 Ate 9 (Tara Lazar)
7 Ate 9: The Untold Story
The Private I series, Book 1
Tara Lazar, illustrations by Ross McDonald
Little, Brown Books
Fiction, CH Humor/Mystery/Picture Book
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: When rumors spread about 7, that he ate 9, a distraught number 6 turns to the letter detective Private I for help; after all, if 7's gone bad, surely 6 is next in line for the knife (and fork). Both 7 and 9 are conspicuously absent from the city, but does the story add up, or is this case a bad equation?
REVIEW: Most everyone knows the grade school joke ("Why was 6 afraid of 7?" "Because 7 8 9!" - read it out loud if you don't get it), but this "untold story" explores the case in detail, with several number-related puns and jokes along the way. I interviews 8 at the crossing of Second and Fourth streets, and picks up tips at the cafe while eating a slice of pi, before finally cracking the case. It's a clever (for the target audience) nod to private eye tropes.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Legend of Rock Paper Scissors (Drew Daywalt) - My Review
E-mergency (Tom Lichtenheld) - My Review
The Sad Little Fact (Jonah Winter) - My Review
The Private I series, Book 1
Tara Lazar, illustrations by Ross McDonald
Little, Brown Books
Fiction, CH Humor/Mystery/Picture Book
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: When rumors spread about 7, that he ate 9, a distraught number 6 turns to the letter detective Private I for help; after all, if 7's gone bad, surely 6 is next in line for the knife (and fork). Both 7 and 9 are conspicuously absent from the city, but does the story add up, or is this case a bad equation?
REVIEW: Most everyone knows the grade school joke ("Why was 6 afraid of 7?" "Because 7 8 9!" - read it out loud if you don't get it), but this "untold story" explores the case in detail, with several number-related puns and jokes along the way. I interviews 8 at the crossing of Second and Fourth streets, and picks up tips at the cafe while eating a slice of pi, before finally cracking the case. It's a clever (for the target audience) nod to private eye tropes.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Legend of Rock Paper Scissors (Drew Daywalt) - My Review
E-mergency (Tom Lichtenheld) - My Review
The Sad Little Fact (Jonah Winter) - My Review
Monday, March 28, 2022
Memory's Legion (James S. A. Corey)
Memory's Legion
The Expanse novellas
James S. A. Corey
Orbit
Fiction, Collection/Sci-Fi
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: A Martian engineer's new drive design will change the face of the solar system - but he will never live to see it. An Earthborn hero seeks atonement through death after a raid on a Belter station. A hardened boy on Baltimore's lawless streets faces a choice that will determine his future. An aging Belter, stranded on a colony world, sees history about to repeat itself. These and other tales from the Expanse universe are gathered in this print collection for the first time, including author notes and a new story, The Sins of Our Fathers.
REVIEW: With this book, the long-asked-for print compilation of the short stories and novellas, the long and winding journey of the Expanse universe seems to finally be at an end (though, of course, I've learned that "end" doesn't always mean "end"). I've read several of these as e-books, but a few I hadn't gotten to yet, and the author notes were interesting. As for the new story, it addresses a loose end while touching on events after the finale of the ninth book, as humanity is once again thrust into a new era of its existence with minimal warning, bringing with it the same habits and cycles that have both elevated and held back the species since its origins. Overall, it's a nice collection of stories to supplement the main books.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Martian Chronicles (Ray Bradbury) - My Review
The Expanse Volume 1: Origins (James S. A. Corey, Hallie Lambert, and Georgia Lee) - My Review
We Are Legion (We Are Bob) (Dennis E. Taylor) - My Review
The Expanse novellas
James S. A. Corey
Orbit
Fiction, Collection/Sci-Fi
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: A Martian engineer's new drive design will change the face of the solar system - but he will never live to see it. An Earthborn hero seeks atonement through death after a raid on a Belter station. A hardened boy on Baltimore's lawless streets faces a choice that will determine his future. An aging Belter, stranded on a colony world, sees history about to repeat itself. These and other tales from the Expanse universe are gathered in this print collection for the first time, including author notes and a new story, The Sins of Our Fathers.
REVIEW: With this book, the long-asked-for print compilation of the short stories and novellas, the long and winding journey of the Expanse universe seems to finally be at an end (though, of course, I've learned that "end" doesn't always mean "end"). I've read several of these as e-books, but a few I hadn't gotten to yet, and the author notes were interesting. As for the new story, it addresses a loose end while touching on events after the finale of the ninth book, as humanity is once again thrust into a new era of its existence with minimal warning, bringing with it the same habits and cycles that have both elevated and held back the species since its origins. Overall, it's a nice collection of stories to supplement the main books.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Martian Chronicles (Ray Bradbury) - My Review
The Expanse Volume 1: Origins (James S. A. Corey, Hallie Lambert, and Georgia Lee) - My Review
We Are Legion (We Are Bob) (Dennis E. Taylor) - My Review
Saturday, March 26, 2022
Guns of the Dawn (Adrian Tchaikovsky)
Guns of the Dawn
Adrian Tchaikovsky
Tor
Fiction, Fantasy
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: When the nation of Denland murdered their rightful king and set up a parliament of commoners to rule them, the people of Lascanne could only look on in horror - then in fear, as the Denland armies, not content with destroying their own monarchy, turned toward their neighbors and one-time allies. Surely such a rabble of commoners would be easy to put down, when Lascanne still had the best cavalry in the world, not to mention their royally-appointed warlocks and the will of God as embodied in their king, on their side. But somehow year followed year, both sides dug in, and more and more men were needed for the war (which, of course, must nearly be won, only needing a few more soldiers to button the whole unpleasant matter up). When there were no more volunteers, the draft took all men and boys between 50 and 15... and, when they were gone, the draft demanded a woman from each household - even the noble houses like the Marshwics.
Emily Marshwic and her sisters had already given to the war effort, first a brother-in-law and then a young brother, neither of whom send much in the way of letters back home. When the women's draft called, many high houses sent servants in their place, but the Marshwics had always served the king proudly. Thus Emily dons the red uniform and takes up the musket, confident in the righteousness of her nation and cause. But war is nothing at all like she could have imagined, and her old ideas of right and wrong and noble causes are the first in a long list of casualties.
REVIEW: Tchaikovsky is quickly becoming one of my go-to reliable authors for a solid, engaging story. Guns of the Dawn is by no means the first story to expose the horrors of war, especially in the musket and pistol era, but it successfully depicts one woman's awakening to those horrors and the gray areas that ultimately govern politics and life. She starts as a woman of a minor yet old noble line, convinced of the privelege of her rank and righteousness of her king without being excessively uppity or unlikeable; she takes to heart the idea that those of her rank should be caretakers of their lessers. She and her sisters carry a bitter grudge against the local acting governor Northway, a commonborn man with known shady dealings whose rise to power coincided with the fall of their father's fortunes, ending with the old man putting a bullet in his own brain. Emily and Northway's clashes - over class, over policies, over everything - become her first lessons in how far the real world is from noble ideals, for all that she does not recognize it for some time, and the war strips any remaining idealism from her as comrades in arms come and go, the latter often in rains of bullets from Denlander guns. Along the way, Emily grows from genteel middleborn noblewoman to true soldier, from mindless follower of propaganda to a more jaded viewer of events, through backdrops ranging from the aging family estate to a royal ball to the spirit-crushing swamplands where she spends the war. Action can explode from nowhere just like surprise gunfire from the swamp mists, though always Emily is moving and growing as a character, enduring setbacks and tragedies and battles that leave wounds physical and psychic. There are teases of romance along the way, but nothing like the idealized kind she might once have entertained, and her choices are nowhere near clear right up to the finale. The end feels just a hair abrupt, but brings Emily's journey and the story as a whole to a satisfactory and earned conclusion. While the world of Lascanne and Denland and the characters introduced could possibly carry a sequel or spinoff, things wrap up well enough here in one book, a somewhat rare phenomenon these days. I enjoyed it more than I expected to.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Blacktongue Thief (Christopher Buehlman) - My Review
The Forever War (Joe Haldeman) - My Review
War Girls (Tochi Onyebuchi) - My Review
Adrian Tchaikovsky
Tor
Fiction, Fantasy
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: When the nation of Denland murdered their rightful king and set up a parliament of commoners to rule them, the people of Lascanne could only look on in horror - then in fear, as the Denland armies, not content with destroying their own monarchy, turned toward their neighbors and one-time allies. Surely such a rabble of commoners would be easy to put down, when Lascanne still had the best cavalry in the world, not to mention their royally-appointed warlocks and the will of God as embodied in their king, on their side. But somehow year followed year, both sides dug in, and more and more men were needed for the war (which, of course, must nearly be won, only needing a few more soldiers to button the whole unpleasant matter up). When there were no more volunteers, the draft took all men and boys between 50 and 15... and, when they were gone, the draft demanded a woman from each household - even the noble houses like the Marshwics.
Emily Marshwic and her sisters had already given to the war effort, first a brother-in-law and then a young brother, neither of whom send much in the way of letters back home. When the women's draft called, many high houses sent servants in their place, but the Marshwics had always served the king proudly. Thus Emily dons the red uniform and takes up the musket, confident in the righteousness of her nation and cause. But war is nothing at all like she could have imagined, and her old ideas of right and wrong and noble causes are the first in a long list of casualties.
REVIEW: Tchaikovsky is quickly becoming one of my go-to reliable authors for a solid, engaging story. Guns of the Dawn is by no means the first story to expose the horrors of war, especially in the musket and pistol era, but it successfully depicts one woman's awakening to those horrors and the gray areas that ultimately govern politics and life. She starts as a woman of a minor yet old noble line, convinced of the privelege of her rank and righteousness of her king without being excessively uppity or unlikeable; she takes to heart the idea that those of her rank should be caretakers of their lessers. She and her sisters carry a bitter grudge against the local acting governor Northway, a commonborn man with known shady dealings whose rise to power coincided with the fall of their father's fortunes, ending with the old man putting a bullet in his own brain. Emily and Northway's clashes - over class, over policies, over everything - become her first lessons in how far the real world is from noble ideals, for all that she does not recognize it for some time, and the war strips any remaining idealism from her as comrades in arms come and go, the latter often in rains of bullets from Denlander guns. Along the way, Emily grows from genteel middleborn noblewoman to true soldier, from mindless follower of propaganda to a more jaded viewer of events, through backdrops ranging from the aging family estate to a royal ball to the spirit-crushing swamplands where she spends the war. Action can explode from nowhere just like surprise gunfire from the swamp mists, though always Emily is moving and growing as a character, enduring setbacks and tragedies and battles that leave wounds physical and psychic. There are teases of romance along the way, but nothing like the idealized kind she might once have entertained, and her choices are nowhere near clear right up to the finale. The end feels just a hair abrupt, but brings Emily's journey and the story as a whole to a satisfactory and earned conclusion. While the world of Lascanne and Denland and the characters introduced could possibly carry a sequel or spinoff, things wrap up well enough here in one book, a somewhat rare phenomenon these days. I enjoyed it more than I expected to.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Blacktongue Thief (Christopher Buehlman) - My Review
The Forever War (Joe Haldeman) - My Review
War Girls (Tochi Onyebuchi) - My Review
Thursday, March 24, 2022
Promise of Blood (Brian McClellan)
Promise of Blood
The Powder Mage trilogy, Book 1
Brian McClellan
Orbit
Fiction, Fantasy
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: Since the days when the god Kresimir and His saintly companions walked the world, divinely-appointed kings have ruled the Nine nations, protected by Privileged sorcerers of great power... but the monarchies grow fat and corrupt and the people and land suffer. Now, the nation of Adro has thrown down their king, a coup spearheaded by Field Marshal Tamas and a collection of powerful men and women. But casting down the king was the easy part. Now Tamas and his allies (and their conflicting agendas and loyalties) face the task of rebuilding an Adro bled dry by royal excesses, even as the neighboring nation of Kez readies their armies, assassins appear at every turn, and sorceries more powerful than any seen since Kesimir's age threaten to tear the fledgling republic apart.
REVIEW: This flintlock fantasy was clearly inspired by the French Revolution, with the added twist of various classes of mages: the relatively common Knacked with their minor and peculiar gifts of varying usefulness' the Marked, or powder mages, who sniff gunpowder like cocaine and can manipulate bullets (at the risk of addiction); and the elite Privileged sorcerers who can level buildings with their willpower alone. Nor are these the sole powers in the world, as there are teases and hints of other gifts and traditions from outlying nations beyond the Nine (which are generally dismissed as "savage" lands, to be colonized and conquered). The story starts on the very eve of the revolution, a dark and bloody night of intrigue that sets the tone for the rest of the tale, with an omen of trouble in the dying declaration of a royalist. From there, Tamas struggles to pull the fractured capital together while mopping up royalist pockets (including a painful reckoning with a man he'd once considered a friend and colleague), while dealing with strained relations with his powder-addicted Marked son Taniel. Taniel, meanwhile, has acquired some unusual dress and habits from his time abroad, helping a colonized nation throw off Kez's yoke - where he picked up the mute young "savage" woman Ka-Poel, who turns several tropes of the "noble savage companion" on their ear. Along the way, investigator Adamat pursues clues about the royalist's declaration and how great a threat it portends, while also being tasked with discovering the traitor among the ranks of Tamas's allies, and a possible madman sets himself up among the revolutionaries while claiming to be a god reborn. Intrigue, action, politics, history, betrayals, violence, surprises, and some needed spots of humor fill the pages, along with interestingly flawed characters and a world that's both familiar and original. I'm looking forward to the next installment, especially as this one ends on a bit of a cliffhanger.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Long Price Quartet (Daniel Abraham) - My Review
His Majesty's Dragon (Naomi Novik) - My Review
The Thousand Names (Django Wexler) - My Review
The Powder Mage trilogy, Book 1
Brian McClellan
Orbit
Fiction, Fantasy
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: Since the days when the god Kresimir and His saintly companions walked the world, divinely-appointed kings have ruled the Nine nations, protected by Privileged sorcerers of great power... but the monarchies grow fat and corrupt and the people and land suffer. Now, the nation of Adro has thrown down their king, a coup spearheaded by Field Marshal Tamas and a collection of powerful men and women. But casting down the king was the easy part. Now Tamas and his allies (and their conflicting agendas and loyalties) face the task of rebuilding an Adro bled dry by royal excesses, even as the neighboring nation of Kez readies their armies, assassins appear at every turn, and sorceries more powerful than any seen since Kesimir's age threaten to tear the fledgling republic apart.
REVIEW: This flintlock fantasy was clearly inspired by the French Revolution, with the added twist of various classes of mages: the relatively common Knacked with their minor and peculiar gifts of varying usefulness' the Marked, or powder mages, who sniff gunpowder like cocaine and can manipulate bullets (at the risk of addiction); and the elite Privileged sorcerers who can level buildings with their willpower alone. Nor are these the sole powers in the world, as there are teases and hints of other gifts and traditions from outlying nations beyond the Nine (which are generally dismissed as "savage" lands, to be colonized and conquered). The story starts on the very eve of the revolution, a dark and bloody night of intrigue that sets the tone for the rest of the tale, with an omen of trouble in the dying declaration of a royalist. From there, Tamas struggles to pull the fractured capital together while mopping up royalist pockets (including a painful reckoning with a man he'd once considered a friend and colleague), while dealing with strained relations with his powder-addicted Marked son Taniel. Taniel, meanwhile, has acquired some unusual dress and habits from his time abroad, helping a colonized nation throw off Kez's yoke - where he picked up the mute young "savage" woman Ka-Poel, who turns several tropes of the "noble savage companion" on their ear. Along the way, investigator Adamat pursues clues about the royalist's declaration and how great a threat it portends, while also being tasked with discovering the traitor among the ranks of Tamas's allies, and a possible madman sets himself up among the revolutionaries while claiming to be a god reborn. Intrigue, action, politics, history, betrayals, violence, surprises, and some needed spots of humor fill the pages, along with interestingly flawed characters and a world that's both familiar and original. I'm looking forward to the next installment, especially as this one ends on a bit of a cliffhanger.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Long Price Quartet (Daniel Abraham) - My Review
His Majesty's Dragon (Naomi Novik) - My Review
The Thousand Names (Django Wexler) - My Review
Wednesday, March 23, 2022
The In-Between (Rebecca K. S. Ansari)
The In-Between
Rebecca K. S. Ansari
Walden Pond Press
Fiction, MG Fantasy/Mystery/Thriller
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: Ever since the divorce split his home, when his father chose a new family over the wife and children he already had, Cooper has felt lost and unseen, even at home. He drifts away from his friends, even growing distant from his kid sister Jess, who still clings to the delusion that Dad just needs a little more time to come around. Then the family gets new neighbors, including a very odd girl just about his age who seems to do nothing but sit on the porch swing staring at him, not saying a word. Her arrival coincides with all the frustrations of his life seeming to come to a head. Then Jess becomes obsessed with an online article about an old English train wreck where a child's body was never claimed... a child wearing a school uniform with a logo that looks almost identical to the one the neighbor girl wears. A little digging reveals more disasters through the decades where the logo turned up. Is the strange, silent girl a harbinger of disaster - and, if so, are Cooper and Jess already doomed, or can they still be saved?
REVIEW: I wasn't entirely sure what to expect with this story, other than perhaps a way to pass the time at work. I was therefore pleasantly surprised by what I found. Cooper struggles with feeling invisible to the people he loves most, even as he actively withdraws from life. Being abandoned by his father and coping with Jess's grating optimism that he'll return (in addition to coping with her juvenile diabetes, one more thing that makes him feel invisible in his own home while she requires so much more attention) has done him no favors. Even his best friend only serves as a reminder of how screwed up he is, and for all that his head knows he's not to blame, somewhere deep down is that little voice that says his father would never have left if it weren't for him. Making a new friend helps, as does the mystery of the railway child. What started as an effort to bond with his sister quickly becomes much more, however, as he realizes there is indeed something very, very strange going on with the girl across the street and her house. The author employs a little clever misdirection on this part, as the secret of the girl isn't quite what it might first appear to be given certain hints dropped. The whole story is one about how invisible a person can feel even when surrounded by loved ones, how anger and grief and resentment can become an impenetrable wall within and without, and the long-term effects of slipping through the cracks in one's own life. The extra emotional depth and complexity that came off as truly genuine (and not an author "talking down" or turning characters into caricatured mouthpieces to lecture the readers about Issues), and the way it succeeded in making the work day fly by, earned it an extra half-mark.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Girl from Everywhere (Heidi Heilig) - My Review
Sparrow Hill Road (Seanan McGuire) - My Review
City of Ghosts (Victoria Schwab) - My Review
Rebecca K. S. Ansari
Walden Pond Press
Fiction, MG Fantasy/Mystery/Thriller
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: Ever since the divorce split his home, when his father chose a new family over the wife and children he already had, Cooper has felt lost and unseen, even at home. He drifts away from his friends, even growing distant from his kid sister Jess, who still clings to the delusion that Dad just needs a little more time to come around. Then the family gets new neighbors, including a very odd girl just about his age who seems to do nothing but sit on the porch swing staring at him, not saying a word. Her arrival coincides with all the frustrations of his life seeming to come to a head. Then Jess becomes obsessed with an online article about an old English train wreck where a child's body was never claimed... a child wearing a school uniform with a logo that looks almost identical to the one the neighbor girl wears. A little digging reveals more disasters through the decades where the logo turned up. Is the strange, silent girl a harbinger of disaster - and, if so, are Cooper and Jess already doomed, or can they still be saved?
REVIEW: I wasn't entirely sure what to expect with this story, other than perhaps a way to pass the time at work. I was therefore pleasantly surprised by what I found. Cooper struggles with feeling invisible to the people he loves most, even as he actively withdraws from life. Being abandoned by his father and coping with Jess's grating optimism that he'll return (in addition to coping with her juvenile diabetes, one more thing that makes him feel invisible in his own home while she requires so much more attention) has done him no favors. Even his best friend only serves as a reminder of how screwed up he is, and for all that his head knows he's not to blame, somewhere deep down is that little voice that says his father would never have left if it weren't for him. Making a new friend helps, as does the mystery of the railway child. What started as an effort to bond with his sister quickly becomes much more, however, as he realizes there is indeed something very, very strange going on with the girl across the street and her house. The author employs a little clever misdirection on this part, as the secret of the girl isn't quite what it might first appear to be given certain hints dropped. The whole story is one about how invisible a person can feel even when surrounded by loved ones, how anger and grief and resentment can become an impenetrable wall within and without, and the long-term effects of slipping through the cracks in one's own life. The extra emotional depth and complexity that came off as truly genuine (and not an author "talking down" or turning characters into caricatured mouthpieces to lecture the readers about Issues), and the way it succeeded in making the work day fly by, earned it an extra half-mark.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Girl from Everywhere (Heidi Heilig) - My Review
Sparrow Hill Road (Seanan McGuire) - My Review
City of Ghosts (Victoria Schwab) - My Review
Friday, March 18, 2022
Alone (Megan E. Freeman)
Alone
Megan E. Freeman
Aladdin
Fiction, MG Action/Thriller
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: When twelve-year-old Maddie wanted to throw a secret sleepover with her friends in her grandparents' empty apartment, she told a little white lie to her separated parents, telling each she'd be spending the weekend with the other. She's not a bad kid or prone to lying, and it's not like she doesn't like her parents or the new stepfamilies. It just feels good to get out from under her responsibilities and parental scrutiny once in a while, to just hang with friends and watch movies and stay up late on the weekend. Even when her friends had to cancel on her, Maddie decided to go on her own anyway. What could possibly go wrong?
The next day, everyone in her Colorado town is gone.
Sometime after midnight, a vague national threat - she never did get the details, having mostly slept through it - saw everyone evacuated in a rush, their cell phones and belongings left behind. Worse, Maddie realizes that both her parents think she's with the other family... and without cell phones, if they got separated, there's no way for them to realize she's not there. Now she's alone, save her neighbors' Rottweiler George. As one day becomes one week becomes months, Maddie realizes she doesn't know how long she'll have to survive before help comes. Worse, she doesn't even know if help is coming at all.
REVIEW: Alone is a decent, sometimes dark little thriller of survival in an abandoned American suburb. There are hints of things being wrong from the start, convoys of military vehicles passing through towns and checkpoints that her parents see more as a hassle than a warning, but like many kids, Maddie can't bring herself to bother about adult things like politics or nebulous threats to "national freedom". She has more important things to worry about, like dealing with a separated family and hanging out with friends and figuring out what she wants to be when she grows up, which still seems so far away it's nearly impossible to imagine. Waking to find herself all alone, she has to do some growing up pretty quickly, even though she initially believes that her isolation is bound to be temporary; Mom and Dad will surely move heaven and earth and even strongarm the military to come find her once they realize she's gone. It soon becomes apparent that she really is on her own, that she really could be lost for good - that she really could die here and nobody would know what happened to her. Still, even as Maddie faces internal crises of will and failures of hope, she digs in and pulls herself through, making a few mistakes but generally being smart enough to learn from them. The tale moves fairly well, acquiring an almost poetic quality (literally poetic towards the end, as her isolation leads her to a new appreciation for poetry in her trips to the abandoned town library) on its way to a slightly rushed but reasonably satisfactory ending.
You Might Also Enjoy:
My Side of the Mountain (Jean Craighead George) - My Review
I Am Still Alive (Kate Alice Marshall) - My Review
Saturday, the Twelfth of October (Norma Fox Mazer) - My Review
Thursday, March 17, 2022
The Shining (Stephen King)
The Shining
The Shining series, Book 1
Stephen King
Simon and Schuster
Fiction, Fantasy/Horror
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Frustrated in his writing efforts and fired from his teaching job, recovering alcoholic Jack Torrance knows that his latest job - live-in winter caretaker for a Colorado luxury resort, the Overlook Hotel - is likely his last chance, both for himself and his failing marriage. Being snowed in for months might be trying, but it just may be what he needs to rebuild his relationship (and trust) with his wife Wendy and young boy Dan. But the Overlook has a long and checkered history, and shadows just beneath the surface of reality... shadows that his son's unusual gifts waken...
REVIEW: Like some other King novels, this classic horror story explores the generational impact and lifelong scars of abuse - substance abuse, physical abuse, and psychological abuse - and whether it's ever possible to outrun the demons handed down from our elders. Jack is a man coming apart long before he sets foot inside the haunted hotel, a simmering stew of unhealed scars and resentments and self-hatred that he tried to medicate away with alcohol for too long. His marriage already hangs by a thread, trust irrevocably damaged after a drunken incident with his son that Wendy witnessed, for all that the boy Danny still sees Jack as the hero of his life. Wendy also comes from a bad place, struggling with feelings of inadequacy and jealousy. And while both love their son dearly, they can't help feeling like they don't understand him and his unusual ways, ways that go far beyond having an imaginary friend "Tony" who shows him things he could not possibly know. As for Danny, he's a kid struggling with burdens that would crush the average adult, trying to cope with abilities he doesn't fully understand on top of knowledge he shouldn't have - knowledge of the dark word "divorce" that flits through his parents' heads too often, knowledge of the darkness in the Overlook, and more. The hotel almost doesn't even need supernatural influence to set the ball rolling toward disaster, and yet it becomes a malevolent character on its own, delighting in tormenting its new toys with dreams and hallucinations and unearthing the darkest of dark ideas from their psyches. Trouble builds slowly and steadily as the winter sets in and options for escape dwindle, with Jack's mind slowly cracking from internal and external pressures, Wendy trying and failing to hold onto the man she loves (or the version of him she loves) and protect her son, and Dan under constant mental assault from the Overlook's evil, precognitive dreams, and the fraying sanity of his parents. The whole makes for an enjoyably dark tale.
You Might Also Enjoy:
NOS4A2 (Joe Hill) - My Review
It (Stephen King) - My Review
Griffin's Castle (Jenny Nimmo) - My Review
The Shining series, Book 1
Stephen King
Simon and Schuster
Fiction, Fantasy/Horror
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Frustrated in his writing efforts and fired from his teaching job, recovering alcoholic Jack Torrance knows that his latest job - live-in winter caretaker for a Colorado luxury resort, the Overlook Hotel - is likely his last chance, both for himself and his failing marriage. Being snowed in for months might be trying, but it just may be what he needs to rebuild his relationship (and trust) with his wife Wendy and young boy Dan. But the Overlook has a long and checkered history, and shadows just beneath the surface of reality... shadows that his son's unusual gifts waken...
REVIEW: Like some other King novels, this classic horror story explores the generational impact and lifelong scars of abuse - substance abuse, physical abuse, and psychological abuse - and whether it's ever possible to outrun the demons handed down from our elders. Jack is a man coming apart long before he sets foot inside the haunted hotel, a simmering stew of unhealed scars and resentments and self-hatred that he tried to medicate away with alcohol for too long. His marriage already hangs by a thread, trust irrevocably damaged after a drunken incident with his son that Wendy witnessed, for all that the boy Danny still sees Jack as the hero of his life. Wendy also comes from a bad place, struggling with feelings of inadequacy and jealousy. And while both love their son dearly, they can't help feeling like they don't understand him and his unusual ways, ways that go far beyond having an imaginary friend "Tony" who shows him things he could not possibly know. As for Danny, he's a kid struggling with burdens that would crush the average adult, trying to cope with abilities he doesn't fully understand on top of knowledge he shouldn't have - knowledge of the dark word "divorce" that flits through his parents' heads too often, knowledge of the darkness in the Overlook, and more. The hotel almost doesn't even need supernatural influence to set the ball rolling toward disaster, and yet it becomes a malevolent character on its own, delighting in tormenting its new toys with dreams and hallucinations and unearthing the darkest of dark ideas from their psyches. Trouble builds slowly and steadily as the winter sets in and options for escape dwindle, with Jack's mind slowly cracking from internal and external pressures, Wendy trying and failing to hold onto the man she loves (or the version of him she loves) and protect her son, and Dan under constant mental assault from the Overlook's evil, precognitive dreams, and the fraying sanity of his parents. The whole makes for an enjoyably dark tale.
You Might Also Enjoy:
NOS4A2 (Joe Hill) - My Review
It (Stephen King) - My Review
Griffin's Castle (Jenny Nimmo) - My Review
Sunday, March 6, 2022
Within the Sanctuary of Wings (Marie Brennan)
Within the Sanctuary of Wings: A Memoir by Lady Trent
A Natural History of Dragons series, Book 5
Marie Brennan
Titan Books
Fiction, Fantasy
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: In her years, Isabella, now titled Lady Trent, has made quite an impression, both in the field of dragon studies and in society as a notorious, occasionally scandalous woman who dares study science. With this memoir, she recalls her most famous excursion, the one that made her a worldwide celebrity and changed everything everyone thought they knew about dragonkind. During the so-called Aerial Wars, with the Yelangese and Scirlings one-upping each other in the development of airborne caeliger craft (a technology only made possible with preserved or synthetic dragonbone), Isabella and her linguist husband Suhail receive a most unusual visitor: a Yelangese man who wants her help investigating an unusual mummified dragon, found frozen in the forbidding Mrtyahaima mountains. This will put her right in the lap of hostile Yelang, with whom she already has contentious relations (not just due to being a Scirling woman, but personally)... but Isabella is stagnating at home after so many years abroad, and his imperfect descriptions of his findings are too great a temptation for her to resist. Along with her husband, her long-time associate Tom, and a colonel escort from the army, she sets out into the very jaws of danger, into regions few humans dare to tread... and into a discovery that rewrites the book on the dragons and the long-lost Draconean civilization whose remains dot the world.
REVIEW: The final book in the main series, this installment concludes the arc of Isabella's journey, from her childhood studying sparklings in the family garden to being recognized as the most preeminent dragon researcher of her time. She's a little older, a little wiser to the ways of the world (and its intractable politics), but still has her passion for dragons and her insatiable drive to push boundaries and explore and learn, even if it gets her in over her head. Tom has moved further into the background as her new husband and partner Suhail joins the crew, but it's Isabella who remains the driving force behind the story. This story moves into the in-world equivalent of the Himalayas, complete with a "lost world" that Isabella discovers in their forbidding heights; the story wavered on the edge of losing a half-star with some of the revelations here, but ultimately found its balance, and it was in keeping with the overall retro/Victorian adventure feel of the series. Like the other stories, it moves at a fair clip, and while characters make mistakes they generally figure out ways to rectify them on their own. The ending feels both a touch drawn out and rushed, if that makes any sense. Overall, though, this is a solid conclusion to a solid series, with some great adventures and excellent dragons along the way.
You Might Also Enjoy:
A Natural History of Dragons (Marie Brennan) - My Review
Dinotopia: A Land Apart from Time (James Gurney) - My Review
The Waking Fire (Anthony Ryan) - My Review
A Natural History of Dragons series, Book 5
Marie Brennan
Titan Books
Fiction, Fantasy
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: In her years, Isabella, now titled Lady Trent, has made quite an impression, both in the field of dragon studies and in society as a notorious, occasionally scandalous woman who dares study science. With this memoir, she recalls her most famous excursion, the one that made her a worldwide celebrity and changed everything everyone thought they knew about dragonkind. During the so-called Aerial Wars, with the Yelangese and Scirlings one-upping each other in the development of airborne caeliger craft (a technology only made possible with preserved or synthetic dragonbone), Isabella and her linguist husband Suhail receive a most unusual visitor: a Yelangese man who wants her help investigating an unusual mummified dragon, found frozen in the forbidding Mrtyahaima mountains. This will put her right in the lap of hostile Yelang, with whom she already has contentious relations (not just due to being a Scirling woman, but personally)... but Isabella is stagnating at home after so many years abroad, and his imperfect descriptions of his findings are too great a temptation for her to resist. Along with her husband, her long-time associate Tom, and a colonel escort from the army, she sets out into the very jaws of danger, into regions few humans dare to tread... and into a discovery that rewrites the book on the dragons and the long-lost Draconean civilization whose remains dot the world.
REVIEW: The final book in the main series, this installment concludes the arc of Isabella's journey, from her childhood studying sparklings in the family garden to being recognized as the most preeminent dragon researcher of her time. She's a little older, a little wiser to the ways of the world (and its intractable politics), but still has her passion for dragons and her insatiable drive to push boundaries and explore and learn, even if it gets her in over her head. Tom has moved further into the background as her new husband and partner Suhail joins the crew, but it's Isabella who remains the driving force behind the story. This story moves into the in-world equivalent of the Himalayas, complete with a "lost world" that Isabella discovers in their forbidding heights; the story wavered on the edge of losing a half-star with some of the revelations here, but ultimately found its balance, and it was in keeping with the overall retro/Victorian adventure feel of the series. Like the other stories, it moves at a fair clip, and while characters make mistakes they generally figure out ways to rectify them on their own. The ending feels both a touch drawn out and rushed, if that makes any sense. Overall, though, this is a solid conclusion to a solid series, with some great adventures and excellent dragons along the way.
You Might Also Enjoy:
A Natural History of Dragons (Marie Brennan) - My Review
Dinotopia: A Land Apart from Time (James Gurney) - My Review
The Waking Fire (Anthony Ryan) - My Review
Friday, March 4, 2022
An Unwanted Guest (Shari Lapena)
An Unwanted Guest
Shari Lapena
Pamela Dorman Books
Fiction, Thriller
*** (Okay)
DESCRIPTION: A winter weekend retreat in the Catskills at rustic Mitchell's Inn was supposed to be a break from the draining grind of their regular lives. They all came to the inn for their own reasons - to explore a new relationship, to finish a book, to deal with a marriage on the midlife rocks, to cope with trauma, to plan for a wedding, or just to get away from prying eyes and whispers - but when an ice storm shuts down the roads and takes down the power lines and guests start dying, murdered in the darkness, they share one new goal: survival.
REVIEW: This is perhaps the most forgettable book I've read (or listened to) in some time. It's composed entirely of familiar characters and situations, pushing well into cliche territory - cliches from a few decades ago, at that, with women being generally useless for various flimsy reason and men having to protect them (while too often reducing them to their relative sex appeal, if not in so many words, because a woman is nothing if she's not desired by a man apparently). The best any of them managed to elicit was apathy, and more than one I actively disliked. As for the thriller/mystery angle, too much information is withheld to make for a satisfying investigation, or even a satisfying thriller/"stay alive until morning" story, with characters inevitably doing the dumbest possible things at the dumbest possible times, especially toward the end. Several potentially interesting setups are never followed through on, and a lot of time is wasted on pointless wanderings and obvious red herrings and dull, repetitive whining (especially by the female characters). Skirting spoilers, the reader doesn't even get the satisfaction of a regular character solving the mystery, but an outsider turning up in the last few chapter does the honors. Some scenes work okay, and the setting is decently described, but even as I listened to it I found myself wanting to forget it. At least with my usual genre reads in science fiction and fantasy I might get some nice mind's eye candy that stands a chance of lingering in my brain, and I generally get more interesting characters and plots. Oh, well... it does a body good to venture beyond one's usual genres once in a while, if only to remind one why one returns to those usual genres.
You Might Also Enjoy:
And Then There Were None (Agatha Christie) - My Review
Nine Perfect Strangers (Liane Moriarty) - My Review
Rough Draft (Michael Robertson Jr) - My Review
Shari Lapena
Pamela Dorman Books
Fiction, Thriller
*** (Okay)
DESCRIPTION: A winter weekend retreat in the Catskills at rustic Mitchell's Inn was supposed to be a break from the draining grind of their regular lives. They all came to the inn for their own reasons - to explore a new relationship, to finish a book, to deal with a marriage on the midlife rocks, to cope with trauma, to plan for a wedding, or just to get away from prying eyes and whispers - but when an ice storm shuts down the roads and takes down the power lines and guests start dying, murdered in the darkness, they share one new goal: survival.
REVIEW: This is perhaps the most forgettable book I've read (or listened to) in some time. It's composed entirely of familiar characters and situations, pushing well into cliche territory - cliches from a few decades ago, at that, with women being generally useless for various flimsy reason and men having to protect them (while too often reducing them to their relative sex appeal, if not in so many words, because a woman is nothing if she's not desired by a man apparently). The best any of them managed to elicit was apathy, and more than one I actively disliked. As for the thriller/mystery angle, too much information is withheld to make for a satisfying investigation, or even a satisfying thriller/"stay alive until morning" story, with characters inevitably doing the dumbest possible things at the dumbest possible times, especially toward the end. Several potentially interesting setups are never followed through on, and a lot of time is wasted on pointless wanderings and obvious red herrings and dull, repetitive whining (especially by the female characters). Skirting spoilers, the reader doesn't even get the satisfaction of a regular character solving the mystery, but an outsider turning up in the last few chapter does the honors. Some scenes work okay, and the setting is decently described, but even as I listened to it I found myself wanting to forget it. At least with my usual genre reads in science fiction and fantasy I might get some nice mind's eye candy that stands a chance of lingering in my brain, and I generally get more interesting characters and plots. Oh, well... it does a body good to venture beyond one's usual genres once in a while, if only to remind one why one returns to those usual genres.
You Might Also Enjoy:
And Then There Were None (Agatha Christie) - My Review
Nine Perfect Strangers (Liane Moriarty) - My Review
Rough Draft (Michael Robertson Jr) - My Review
Wednesday, March 2, 2022
The Girl in the Well is Me (Karen Rivers)
The Girl in the Well is Me
Karen Rivers
Algonquin Young Readers
Fiction, MG Suspense
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Eleven-year-old Kammie had hoped that starting in a new school, albeit one in the geographic middle of nowhere, Texas, would be a chance to start over. She could use that, after everything went so very wrong with her life at her old home - after the police took her father away, after the trial, after the bank took everything that wasn't nailed down, after her best friend stopped talking to her even. But her plans to join in with the popular girls fell through... literally. During her initiation into their club (it was a real club, right, and not just a joke on the new kid?), she fell down an abandoned well and got stuck. As she waits for a rescue she's not even sure is coming, Kammie's mind drifts back over the events that brought her where she is, and what will have to change when - or if - she ever gets out of this cold, dark place...
REVIEW: Like other stories where people must face internal disasters by being stuck in external ones, The Girl in the Well is Me turns Kammie's greater life predicament into a metaphor made literal, having her stuck and sliding down a deep dark hole where nobody can reach her. Her tale unfolds in a stream of consciousness narrative, drifting into waking dreams that weave in fragments of stray thoughts and various incidents in her past. Along the way, she must come to terms with what has gone wrong, and how terribly complicated life can be, with no guarantees of happiness even when you're doing your best. She also learns that the deepest well in the world isn't far enough to fall to get away from herself, so she either needs to learn to live with who she is - the good and the bad - or... not. (There is some talk of self-harm and depression, and the catharsis of well-used curses.) The ending feels a little bit drawn out, but all in all it's a decent, occasionally trippy journey through a girl's mental and physical crisis.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Canyon's Edge (Dusti Bowling) - My Review
Adrift (Paul Griffin) - My Review
Hatchet (Gary Paulsen) - My Review
Karen Rivers
Algonquin Young Readers
Fiction, MG Suspense
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Eleven-year-old Kammie had hoped that starting in a new school, albeit one in the geographic middle of nowhere, Texas, would be a chance to start over. She could use that, after everything went so very wrong with her life at her old home - after the police took her father away, after the trial, after the bank took everything that wasn't nailed down, after her best friend stopped talking to her even. But her plans to join in with the popular girls fell through... literally. During her initiation into their club (it was a real club, right, and not just a joke on the new kid?), she fell down an abandoned well and got stuck. As she waits for a rescue she's not even sure is coming, Kammie's mind drifts back over the events that brought her where she is, and what will have to change when - or if - she ever gets out of this cold, dark place...
REVIEW: Like other stories where people must face internal disasters by being stuck in external ones, The Girl in the Well is Me turns Kammie's greater life predicament into a metaphor made literal, having her stuck and sliding down a deep dark hole where nobody can reach her. Her tale unfolds in a stream of consciousness narrative, drifting into waking dreams that weave in fragments of stray thoughts and various incidents in her past. Along the way, she must come to terms with what has gone wrong, and how terribly complicated life can be, with no guarantees of happiness even when you're doing your best. She also learns that the deepest well in the world isn't far enough to fall to get away from herself, so she either needs to learn to live with who she is - the good and the bad - or... not. (There is some talk of self-harm and depression, and the catharsis of well-used curses.) The ending feels a little bit drawn out, but all in all it's a decent, occasionally trippy journey through a girl's mental and physical crisis.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Canyon's Edge (Dusti Bowling) - My Review
Adrift (Paul Griffin) - My Review
Hatchet (Gary Paulsen) - My Review
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