The month's reviews have been archived and cross-linked on the main Brightdreamer Books site.
Enjoy!
Friday, September 30, 2022
She Who Became the Sun (Shelley Parker-Chan)
She Who Became the Sun
The Radiant Emperor series, Book 1
Shelley Parker-Chan
Tor
Fiction, YA? Fantasy/Historical Fiction
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: In 1345, China suffers under the heels of Mongolian conquerors. On a dead farm in a dying village stricken by years-long drought, one boy is foretold to rise to greatness, while his sister's fortune is nothing. Then bandits come to take what little they have left. In the aftermath, the boy Zhu Chongba and his father lie dead, and the girl is left with a slender chance at a future: by taking her dead brother's name, perhaps she can take his fortune as well, and become great. To do this, she will have to do more than just wish it, or wear a boy's garb and take a boy's name. She will have to struggle, suffer, and burn with her desire for greatness until the heavens themselves cannot deny her, until she outshines the sun itself.
REVIEW: Inspired by the rise of the first Ming emperor of China, She Who Became the Sun presents a vivid, often brutal exploration of the path to greatness and the desires that drive people to both bold and terrible acts. From the first page, the girl who will take the name of Zhu is a fighter; in a village where most every other girl has died - no family would waste scant food on a girl if they had a boy to feed, and other girls were either traded away to bandits or quietly vanished - she relies on skill and pure determination to survive. Hearing the village fortune teller give his verdict that she is to be nothing is a blow that sends her reeling, until the death of her brother opens up the possibility of a future that few, if any, other girls would even dare consider in her culture and era. It also gives her the unusual gift of seeing ghosts, part of the underlying fantastical elements of the story (along with the visible aura-like fires of the "mandate of Heaven" that great leaders can burn with, and perhaps a certain tangibility of Fate's threads binding Zhu and others to each other and to their destinies). Zhu starts out with little idea of what form of greatness she is grasping for, mostly concerned with mere survival, but slowly begins piecing together a clearer picture of the future she wants, the path that she determines to walk whether or not she was originally fated to do so. Every obstacle and setback only deepens her determination, spurred both by her unquenchable desire and her fear that the fortune teller was right and she truly is meant to be nothing. Meanwhile, other characters have their own desires and destinies driving them onward, from two conquering princes to a bitter eunuch to the compassionate woman promised to a foolhardy rebel general and more. Their tales unfold in a story rich in period culture details, with vivid settings and intricate power plays, military and political and personal. Nobody's hands or consciences are entirely clean by the end, some feeling the burden more than others as ends justify increasingly cruel and deadly means. It made for an enjoyable, if sometimes brutal, tale that kept my interest from start to finish.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Range of Ghosts (Elizabeth Bear) - My Review
The Grace of Kings (Ken Liu) - My Review
The Empress of Salt and Fortune (Nghi Vo) - My Review
The Radiant Emperor series, Book 1
Shelley Parker-Chan
Tor
Fiction, YA? Fantasy/Historical Fiction
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: In 1345, China suffers under the heels of Mongolian conquerors. On a dead farm in a dying village stricken by years-long drought, one boy is foretold to rise to greatness, while his sister's fortune is nothing. Then bandits come to take what little they have left. In the aftermath, the boy Zhu Chongba and his father lie dead, and the girl is left with a slender chance at a future: by taking her dead brother's name, perhaps she can take his fortune as well, and become great. To do this, she will have to do more than just wish it, or wear a boy's garb and take a boy's name. She will have to struggle, suffer, and burn with her desire for greatness until the heavens themselves cannot deny her, until she outshines the sun itself.
REVIEW: Inspired by the rise of the first Ming emperor of China, She Who Became the Sun presents a vivid, often brutal exploration of the path to greatness and the desires that drive people to both bold and terrible acts. From the first page, the girl who will take the name of Zhu is a fighter; in a village where most every other girl has died - no family would waste scant food on a girl if they had a boy to feed, and other girls were either traded away to bandits or quietly vanished - she relies on skill and pure determination to survive. Hearing the village fortune teller give his verdict that she is to be nothing is a blow that sends her reeling, until the death of her brother opens up the possibility of a future that few, if any, other girls would even dare consider in her culture and era. It also gives her the unusual gift of seeing ghosts, part of the underlying fantastical elements of the story (along with the visible aura-like fires of the "mandate of Heaven" that great leaders can burn with, and perhaps a certain tangibility of Fate's threads binding Zhu and others to each other and to their destinies). Zhu starts out with little idea of what form of greatness she is grasping for, mostly concerned with mere survival, but slowly begins piecing together a clearer picture of the future she wants, the path that she determines to walk whether or not she was originally fated to do so. Every obstacle and setback only deepens her determination, spurred both by her unquenchable desire and her fear that the fortune teller was right and she truly is meant to be nothing. Meanwhile, other characters have their own desires and destinies driving them onward, from two conquering princes to a bitter eunuch to the compassionate woman promised to a foolhardy rebel general and more. Their tales unfold in a story rich in period culture details, with vivid settings and intricate power plays, military and political and personal. Nobody's hands or consciences are entirely clean by the end, some feeling the burden more than others as ends justify increasingly cruel and deadly means. It made for an enjoyable, if sometimes brutal, tale that kept my interest from start to finish.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Range of Ghosts (Elizabeth Bear) - My Review
The Grace of Kings (Ken Liu) - My Review
The Empress of Salt and Fortune (Nghi Vo) - My Review
Thursday, September 29, 2022
The Cay (Theodore Taylor)
The Cay
The Cay series, Book 1
Theodore Taylor
Laurel-Leaf Books
Fiction, MG? Adventure/Historical Fiction
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: American-born Phillip loves his life in the West Indies, where his father moved their family as part of his job with the oil companies, though his mother still deeply misses their old home and friends back in Virginia. Now that there's a war on in Europe, his father's job - helping refine airplane fuel - is more important than ever... and more dangerous than ever, when the German U-boats show up. When at last Dad agrees to let Mom go back to America with the boy, Phillip protests, but there's nothing the boy can do to change grown-up minds. He'll be safer in Virginia, he's told, and the ship that's taking them is a nondescript Dutch vessel that should be beneath German notice.
The Germans don't care what Phillip's parents think; their torpedoes take out the ship and scatter the survivors across the waves.
Phillip wakes in a lifeboat with a terrible headache, the ship's cat Stew Cat, and an old Black sailor named Timothy. The boy's mother had very strong feelings about people of color, but as hope of rescue fades along with his eyesight, Philip has no choice but to trust Timothy with his life.
REVIEW: The Cay is a classic tale of survival at sea, inspired by a tragic passage in the log of a Dutch vessel sunk by Germans in the Caribbean. Though white Philip was friendly enough (if at a distance) with the Black people of Curacao, being in a survival situation brings up all of his mother's teachings about race and the inherent difference/inferiority of certain people compared to his own heritage. He has to literally be blinded to finally see the lie in those teachings, as Timothy endeavors to not only help the boy survive but teach him what he needs to know to survive on his own. The boy does learn, if stubbornly at first, and even has to step up to help the old man when needs arise. As hours become days become months without rescue, at first at sea then on the waterless small island they eventually land on, the bond between boy and man (and cat) grows into something akin to family, though it is only later on that Phillip truly understands the scale of Timothy's sacrifices and efforts. Things move fairly well from start to finish, still readable and memorable today.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Island: Shipwreck (Gordon Korman) - My Review
Hatchet (Gary Paulsen) - My Review
Rogue Wave (Theodore Taylor) - My Review
The Cay series, Book 1
Theodore Taylor
Laurel-Leaf Books
Fiction, MG? Adventure/Historical Fiction
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: American-born Phillip loves his life in the West Indies, where his father moved their family as part of his job with the oil companies, though his mother still deeply misses their old home and friends back in Virginia. Now that there's a war on in Europe, his father's job - helping refine airplane fuel - is more important than ever... and more dangerous than ever, when the German U-boats show up. When at last Dad agrees to let Mom go back to America with the boy, Phillip protests, but there's nothing the boy can do to change grown-up minds. He'll be safer in Virginia, he's told, and the ship that's taking them is a nondescript Dutch vessel that should be beneath German notice.
The Germans don't care what Phillip's parents think; their torpedoes take out the ship and scatter the survivors across the waves.
Phillip wakes in a lifeboat with a terrible headache, the ship's cat Stew Cat, and an old Black sailor named Timothy. The boy's mother had very strong feelings about people of color, but as hope of rescue fades along with his eyesight, Philip has no choice but to trust Timothy with his life.
REVIEW: The Cay is a classic tale of survival at sea, inspired by a tragic passage in the log of a Dutch vessel sunk by Germans in the Caribbean. Though white Philip was friendly enough (if at a distance) with the Black people of Curacao, being in a survival situation brings up all of his mother's teachings about race and the inherent difference/inferiority of certain people compared to his own heritage. He has to literally be blinded to finally see the lie in those teachings, as Timothy endeavors to not only help the boy survive but teach him what he needs to know to survive on his own. The boy does learn, if stubbornly at first, and even has to step up to help the old man when needs arise. As hours become days become months without rescue, at first at sea then on the waterless small island they eventually land on, the bond between boy and man (and cat) grows into something akin to family, though it is only later on that Phillip truly understands the scale of Timothy's sacrifices and efforts. Things move fairly well from start to finish, still readable and memorable today.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Island: Shipwreck (Gordon Korman) - My Review
Hatchet (Gary Paulsen) - My Review
Rogue Wave (Theodore Taylor) - My Review
Wednesday, September 28, 2022
Rocannon's World (Ursula K. Le Guin)
Rocannon's World
The Hainish Cycle, Book 1
Ursula K. Le Guin
Blackstone Audio
Fiction, Sci-Fi
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Among the numerous planets of the League of All Worlds, most only have one intelligent species. The League contacts these people, raising their civilization and collecting tax or tribute, in preparation for a coming intergalactic war, but mostly leaves them to their own devices. On one world, though, multiple species reached self-awareness. It is a world too small and otherwise unremarkable to have been officially named beyond its system designation Fomalhaut II, let alone thoroughly explored, and only one of the species, the Gdemiar or so-called Clay People of the nights and underground tunnels, was granted League secrets. But it was not a Clay Person who traveled to the offworld museum one fortuitous day in search of an old family heirloom, traded to the star travelers for their gifts many years past: it was one of the dark-skinned and golden-haired Angyar, ruling race of the Liuar species of humanoids. Interworld ethnologist Rocannon was captivated by her beauty and the many unexplored secrets of her world... enough that he undertook a mission to fill in the countless gaps in League knowledge about the place, for all that, due to the speed of bureaucracy and the time dilation effects of space travel, it would be decades before he set foot on the planet.
That is why he was on the world, in the company of the woman's grandson and current prince of their lands, when his ship and all his League companions were destroyed by offworld rebels. The League of All Worlds is under attack, and the attackers have chosen to set up their base of operations on the backwater Fomalhaut II... and, with the ansible device that allows instantaneous communication across space destroyed, there is no way for Rocannon to let his colleagues know where the rebels are, let alone summon help for a planet whose populace is largely in the Bronze Age. As he cannot, in good conscience, stand back and let the people whom he has come to admire and love be destroyed, he undertakes a quest halfway across the world to find their base and do whatever he can to protect the planet - even if it costs him his own life.
REVIEW: Part of the classic Hainish series by noted genre author Ursula K. Le Guin, Rocannon's World plays into the seemingly-popular "planetary romance" trend of its time (or, at least, I've read more than one other example from roughly the same era, so it appears to have been a trend) of projecting a near-fantasy epic adventure onto an alien world. (It also uses the then-popular, now-cringeworthy notion of tall, thin, blonde masters and "swarthy" dark-haired servants or slaves; even the clearly intelligent underground Clay People are portrayed as brutish and nasty beyond the less technically advanced Liuar race in no small part due to their appearance; even though the skin of the Liuar is dark and the servant/squat races are pale, it's a bit hard to edge around the implications of blonde-haired master/black-haired slave.) The planet itself is a world of many wonders; a slightly less than Earth-normal gravity gave rise to many species developing wings, albeit without any insect life to speak of. The Angyar tame and ride "windsteeds" of griffinlike appearance, and there have been rumors since the world's discovery and in myths of winged humanoids on the unexplored land mass Rocannon and his companions must visit. There's a certain air of mysticism to the cultures, with limited telepathy and talk of omens and destinies. Rocannon comes to the world as a wide-eyed outsider utterly enamored with the people (or at least the comely Angyars) and the planet; when his ship is destroyed, he hardly needs prompting to step up to protect them. There's an unavoidable shade of "white savior" to his actions, especially as he comes to be viewed as something akin to a wizard in his travels, for all that many on the world are casually familiar with the concept of aliens and the League of All Worlds even if they haven't met offworlders themselves. Setting that aside, though, this is a decently-told adventure story in a world of wonders and dangers, perhaps more akin to a classic fantasy story than science fiction as one would read it today.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Lord Valentine's Castle (Robert Silverberg) - My Review
The Snow Queen (Joan D. Vinge) - My Review
Cards of Grief (Jane Yolen) - My Review
The Hainish Cycle, Book 1
Ursula K. Le Guin
Blackstone Audio
Fiction, Sci-Fi
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Among the numerous planets of the League of All Worlds, most only have one intelligent species. The League contacts these people, raising their civilization and collecting tax or tribute, in preparation for a coming intergalactic war, but mostly leaves them to their own devices. On one world, though, multiple species reached self-awareness. It is a world too small and otherwise unremarkable to have been officially named beyond its system designation Fomalhaut II, let alone thoroughly explored, and only one of the species, the Gdemiar or so-called Clay People of the nights and underground tunnels, was granted League secrets. But it was not a Clay Person who traveled to the offworld museum one fortuitous day in search of an old family heirloom, traded to the star travelers for their gifts many years past: it was one of the dark-skinned and golden-haired Angyar, ruling race of the Liuar species of humanoids. Interworld ethnologist Rocannon was captivated by her beauty and the many unexplored secrets of her world... enough that he undertook a mission to fill in the countless gaps in League knowledge about the place, for all that, due to the speed of bureaucracy and the time dilation effects of space travel, it would be decades before he set foot on the planet.
That is why he was on the world, in the company of the woman's grandson and current prince of their lands, when his ship and all his League companions were destroyed by offworld rebels. The League of All Worlds is under attack, and the attackers have chosen to set up their base of operations on the backwater Fomalhaut II... and, with the ansible device that allows instantaneous communication across space destroyed, there is no way for Rocannon to let his colleagues know where the rebels are, let alone summon help for a planet whose populace is largely in the Bronze Age. As he cannot, in good conscience, stand back and let the people whom he has come to admire and love be destroyed, he undertakes a quest halfway across the world to find their base and do whatever he can to protect the planet - even if it costs him his own life.
REVIEW: Part of the classic Hainish series by noted genre author Ursula K. Le Guin, Rocannon's World plays into the seemingly-popular "planetary romance" trend of its time (or, at least, I've read more than one other example from roughly the same era, so it appears to have been a trend) of projecting a near-fantasy epic adventure onto an alien world. (It also uses the then-popular, now-cringeworthy notion of tall, thin, blonde masters and "swarthy" dark-haired servants or slaves; even the clearly intelligent underground Clay People are portrayed as brutish and nasty beyond the less technically advanced Liuar race in no small part due to their appearance; even though the skin of the Liuar is dark and the servant/squat races are pale, it's a bit hard to edge around the implications of blonde-haired master/black-haired slave.) The planet itself is a world of many wonders; a slightly less than Earth-normal gravity gave rise to many species developing wings, albeit without any insect life to speak of. The Angyar tame and ride "windsteeds" of griffinlike appearance, and there have been rumors since the world's discovery and in myths of winged humanoids on the unexplored land mass Rocannon and his companions must visit. There's a certain air of mysticism to the cultures, with limited telepathy and talk of omens and destinies. Rocannon comes to the world as a wide-eyed outsider utterly enamored with the people (or at least the comely Angyars) and the planet; when his ship is destroyed, he hardly needs prompting to step up to protect them. There's an unavoidable shade of "white savior" to his actions, especially as he comes to be viewed as something akin to a wizard in his travels, for all that many on the world are casually familiar with the concept of aliens and the League of All Worlds even if they haven't met offworlders themselves. Setting that aside, though, this is a decently-told adventure story in a world of wonders and dangers, perhaps more akin to a classic fantasy story than science fiction as one would read it today.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Lord Valentine's Castle (Robert Silverberg) - My Review
The Snow Queen (Joan D. Vinge) - My Review
Cards of Grief (Jane Yolen) - My Review
Friday, September 16, 2022
The Marrow Thieves (Cherie Dimaline)
The Marrow Thieves
The Marrow Thieves series, Book 1
Cherie Dimaline
DCB
Fiction, YA? Horror/Sci-Fi
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Francis, or Frenchie to his family and friends, is too young to remember the world before: before cataclysmic climate disasters, before the ecosystem collapse and wasting of the world's great cities, before so much pure water was irreparably polluted... before the mysterious plague that rendered most people unable to dream and Native Americans as targets. As the lack of dreams drove most of the world to madness, natives seemed unaffected... and what the white people could not learn or appropriate, they once again stole, harvesting their marrow for a serum to treat dreamlessness. Young or old, northern or southern tribes, even mixed bloods or those unfortunate enough to look "other", all are subject to the recruiters, and few who are taken to the new "schools" are ever seen again. For a while, Frenchie had his family, but one by one they've all been taken, until it was just him, a sickly boy on the run... until he encountered the others.
For several years, the now-sixteen-year-old Frenchie has been with Miig and a handful of other "bush Indians", fleeing through the northern wilderness toward rumors of possible sanctuary. He has learned to hunt, to track, to live off the land, and some scraps of the old ways and old languages... but still he lives a harried existence, always aware of the Recruiters and their agents - Native American traitors, who lure their kin to their dooms like Judas goats - who could be anywhere. His companions may not be family by birth, but they are family - and, soon, Frenchie will learn just how far he's willing to go for the sake of family.
REVIEW: This story takes the historical exploitation (and attempted erasure) of Native Americans and projects it into a dystopian future, where they and their dreams are literally hunted down and harvested for sale to white people. Frenchie is both a survivor and a teenager; driven by extreme circumstances, he grows up faster than he should have to, yet is still a teen boy at heart when it comes to girls and, later, rivals for attention and affection. Everyone comes to Miig's makeshift family bearing scars, often in the literal sense, and over the course of the book most of their stories come out, all of them dark in their own ways and revealing more about the future world they live in, the desperation and insanity that has driven things to such horrific extremes. It's ultimately a story about how far one will go for love and survival; even the white people are, in their own brutal and blindered way, driven by the desire to survive, as the lack of dreams pushes them to murder and suicide which, on top of plummeting birth rates, threatens their future at least as much as what they've done to the world, a sort of generational mass suicide they refused to see until the noose was too tight around their necks (and even then refuse to acknowledge). As one might expect in such a story, there's a fair bit of pain and despair and loss, but also strength and hope for renewal and rebirth. The tale moves fairly well, though it feels incomplete by the end, like a song paused in the middle of a verse (and with a slight hint of plot convenience around a few incidents). Even being the first of what is apparently slated to be a trilogy, it felt unfinished. Still, The Marrow Thieves is a justly-lauded tale of cultural and ecological devastation, the wages of racism, and dreams lost and found.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Firekeeper's Daughter (Angeline Boulley) - My Review
Ghost Hawk (Susan Cooper) - My Review
Trail of Lightning (Rebecca Roanhorse) - My Review
The Marrow Thieves series, Book 1
Cherie Dimaline
DCB
Fiction, YA? Horror/Sci-Fi
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Francis, or Frenchie to his family and friends, is too young to remember the world before: before cataclysmic climate disasters, before the ecosystem collapse and wasting of the world's great cities, before so much pure water was irreparably polluted... before the mysterious plague that rendered most people unable to dream and Native Americans as targets. As the lack of dreams drove most of the world to madness, natives seemed unaffected... and what the white people could not learn or appropriate, they once again stole, harvesting their marrow for a serum to treat dreamlessness. Young or old, northern or southern tribes, even mixed bloods or those unfortunate enough to look "other", all are subject to the recruiters, and few who are taken to the new "schools" are ever seen again. For a while, Frenchie had his family, but one by one they've all been taken, until it was just him, a sickly boy on the run... until he encountered the others.
For several years, the now-sixteen-year-old Frenchie has been with Miig and a handful of other "bush Indians", fleeing through the northern wilderness toward rumors of possible sanctuary. He has learned to hunt, to track, to live off the land, and some scraps of the old ways and old languages... but still he lives a harried existence, always aware of the Recruiters and their agents - Native American traitors, who lure their kin to their dooms like Judas goats - who could be anywhere. His companions may not be family by birth, but they are family - and, soon, Frenchie will learn just how far he's willing to go for the sake of family.
REVIEW: This story takes the historical exploitation (and attempted erasure) of Native Americans and projects it into a dystopian future, where they and their dreams are literally hunted down and harvested for sale to white people. Frenchie is both a survivor and a teenager; driven by extreme circumstances, he grows up faster than he should have to, yet is still a teen boy at heart when it comes to girls and, later, rivals for attention and affection. Everyone comes to Miig's makeshift family bearing scars, often in the literal sense, and over the course of the book most of their stories come out, all of them dark in their own ways and revealing more about the future world they live in, the desperation and insanity that has driven things to such horrific extremes. It's ultimately a story about how far one will go for love and survival; even the white people are, in their own brutal and blindered way, driven by the desire to survive, as the lack of dreams pushes them to murder and suicide which, on top of plummeting birth rates, threatens their future at least as much as what they've done to the world, a sort of generational mass suicide they refused to see until the noose was too tight around their necks (and even then refuse to acknowledge). As one might expect in such a story, there's a fair bit of pain and despair and loss, but also strength and hope for renewal and rebirth. The tale moves fairly well, though it feels incomplete by the end, like a song paused in the middle of a verse (and with a slight hint of plot convenience around a few incidents). Even being the first of what is apparently slated to be a trilogy, it felt unfinished. Still, The Marrow Thieves is a justly-lauded tale of cultural and ecological devastation, the wages of racism, and dreams lost and found.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Firekeeper's Daughter (Angeline Boulley) - My Review
Ghost Hawk (Susan Cooper) - My Review
Trail of Lightning (Rebecca Roanhorse) - My Review
Gods of Jade and Shadow (Silvia Moreno-Garcia)
Gods of Jade and Shadow
Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Del Rey
Fiction, Fantasy/Historical Fiction
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: If stars have any influence over a person's life, Casiopea Tun was born under the blackest, unluckiest star of all. Her mother's family disliked her even before she was born, daughter of a dark native Indian man instead of a proper light-skinned and wealthy man, and not a day goes by when her grandfather, aunts, uncles, and cousins let her forget her ignoble origins. She's little more than a servant in the wealthy family home, the most prominent in their southern Mexico village, far from the bright lights and fast music and scandalous fashions of the Jazz Age sweeping the globe. Much as she chafes, her mother keeps reminding her that wealth does not make one good or happy. Besides, her cruel grandfather has promised them one thousand pesos each on his passing - which must surely be any day now, at his age. So she keeps quiet (mostly) as she does chores (begrudgingly), tucking her dreams away for a nebulous future that will never be... until her cruelest cousin, Martin, tells her the old man's promise is so much smoke, that there is no money and never will be, and as soon as the old man passes she and her mother will serve him and his horrible whims instead.
Perhaps that's why she succumbed to temptation the day she was left all alone in the house and found the key to her grandfather's locked wooden chest. Or perhaps it was her unlucky star again, or the forces of fate. Within, she finds no treasure, no secret, but a pile of bones... a pile that, before her eyes, reconstitutes itself into the figure of a man... or, rather, a god.
Many years ago, the Mayan god of death, Hun-Kame, was betrayed by his jealous twin brother, Vucub-Kame, who had a different vision for their fading realm of Xibalba, a vision that involves a return to the old ways of war and blood sacrifices across the land. Having released his bones from their prison, Casiopea's fate becomes inextricably tied with his: the god of death cannot walk the mortal world for long, so every moment he is here he draws life essence from her. Unless he finds his missing parts - an eye, an ear, a finger, and his jade necklace of power - both of them will perish, possibly in a matter of days. But his brother soon learns of his escape, and isn't about to give up his stolen throne or his dark plans...
REVIEW: Gods of Jade and Shadow draws on Mexican and Mayan roots, grounded firmly in both the post-revolutionary 1920's country and the ancient mythology to create a modern (or near-modern) fairy tale with a decidedly non-European flavor. Casiopea is stubborn and somewhat embittered by a hard and thankless life, still mourning a father nobody save her mother seems to miss (and sometimes she questions whether her mom regrets her choice of husband, given how low it brought them upon the man's death, living as servants to her own moneyed family), clinging to her secret dreams even as part of her seems to suspect they'll never be more than that. In Hun-Kame's company, she finds herself whisked off on an adventure literally out of legend and story: their first stop is to meet a demon for information on the whereabouts of the god's missing ear. Even as she understands the gravity and danger, she can't help enjoying what little taste of freedom the quest gives her, for all that the risks are very real, for herself and Hun-Kame and the whole of Mexico and beyond should Vucub-Kame succeed. As for the god, he starts aloof and hard as stone, befitting his immortal nature as something more like an archetype or concept (the gods here know themselves to be shaped by mortal minds, and subject to fates beyond their control), but his time on Earth and his bond with Casiopea bring him closer and closer to mortality in more ways than he anticipated. Meanwhile, Vucub-Kame recruits brash, arrogant Martin as his own mortal agent. The tale wends through various odd encounters and odder characters, always with a certain fairy tale sheen that lends everything a larger than life aspect, before reaching a somewhat bittersweet conclusion. Sometimes the narrative felt a bit distance, holding the characters and situations at arm's length, and once in a while things moved by unexplained rules I probably would've understood more had I been more intimately familiar with Mayan culture and worldviews, but all in all it was a refreshingly different tale, a glimpse at a different mindset and part of the world than I normally see.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Jaguar Princess (Clare Bell) - My Review
Certain Dark Things (Silvia Moreno-Garcia) - My Review
At Road's End (Zoe Saadia) - My Review
Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Del Rey
Fiction, Fantasy/Historical Fiction
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: If stars have any influence over a person's life, Casiopea Tun was born under the blackest, unluckiest star of all. Her mother's family disliked her even before she was born, daughter of a dark native Indian man instead of a proper light-skinned and wealthy man, and not a day goes by when her grandfather, aunts, uncles, and cousins let her forget her ignoble origins. She's little more than a servant in the wealthy family home, the most prominent in their southern Mexico village, far from the bright lights and fast music and scandalous fashions of the Jazz Age sweeping the globe. Much as she chafes, her mother keeps reminding her that wealth does not make one good or happy. Besides, her cruel grandfather has promised them one thousand pesos each on his passing - which must surely be any day now, at his age. So she keeps quiet (mostly) as she does chores (begrudgingly), tucking her dreams away for a nebulous future that will never be... until her cruelest cousin, Martin, tells her the old man's promise is so much smoke, that there is no money and never will be, and as soon as the old man passes she and her mother will serve him and his horrible whims instead.
Perhaps that's why she succumbed to temptation the day she was left all alone in the house and found the key to her grandfather's locked wooden chest. Or perhaps it was her unlucky star again, or the forces of fate. Within, she finds no treasure, no secret, but a pile of bones... a pile that, before her eyes, reconstitutes itself into the figure of a man... or, rather, a god.
Many years ago, the Mayan god of death, Hun-Kame, was betrayed by his jealous twin brother, Vucub-Kame, who had a different vision for their fading realm of Xibalba, a vision that involves a return to the old ways of war and blood sacrifices across the land. Having released his bones from their prison, Casiopea's fate becomes inextricably tied with his: the god of death cannot walk the mortal world for long, so every moment he is here he draws life essence from her. Unless he finds his missing parts - an eye, an ear, a finger, and his jade necklace of power - both of them will perish, possibly in a matter of days. But his brother soon learns of his escape, and isn't about to give up his stolen throne or his dark plans...
REVIEW: Gods of Jade and Shadow draws on Mexican and Mayan roots, grounded firmly in both the post-revolutionary 1920's country and the ancient mythology to create a modern (or near-modern) fairy tale with a decidedly non-European flavor. Casiopea is stubborn and somewhat embittered by a hard and thankless life, still mourning a father nobody save her mother seems to miss (and sometimes she questions whether her mom regrets her choice of husband, given how low it brought them upon the man's death, living as servants to her own moneyed family), clinging to her secret dreams even as part of her seems to suspect they'll never be more than that. In Hun-Kame's company, she finds herself whisked off on an adventure literally out of legend and story: their first stop is to meet a demon for information on the whereabouts of the god's missing ear. Even as she understands the gravity and danger, she can't help enjoying what little taste of freedom the quest gives her, for all that the risks are very real, for herself and Hun-Kame and the whole of Mexico and beyond should Vucub-Kame succeed. As for the god, he starts aloof and hard as stone, befitting his immortal nature as something more like an archetype or concept (the gods here know themselves to be shaped by mortal minds, and subject to fates beyond their control), but his time on Earth and his bond with Casiopea bring him closer and closer to mortality in more ways than he anticipated. Meanwhile, Vucub-Kame recruits brash, arrogant Martin as his own mortal agent. The tale wends through various odd encounters and odder characters, always with a certain fairy tale sheen that lends everything a larger than life aspect, before reaching a somewhat bittersweet conclusion. Sometimes the narrative felt a bit distance, holding the characters and situations at arm's length, and once in a while things moved by unexplained rules I probably would've understood more had I been more intimately familiar with Mayan culture and worldviews, but all in all it was a refreshingly different tale, a glimpse at a different mindset and part of the world than I normally see.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Jaguar Princess (Clare Bell) - My Review
Certain Dark Things (Silvia Moreno-Garcia) - My Review
At Road's End (Zoe Saadia) - My Review
Wednesday, September 14, 2022
The Wild Robot Escapes (Peter Brown)
The Wild Robot Escapes
The Wild Robot series, Book 2
Peter Brown
Little, Brown Books
Fiction, CH? Sci-Fi
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: A year ago, the helper robot Roz washed ashore on an uninhabited island and was accidentally activated by the animals. Following her programming and impulse to help others (which were never specified to be humans), she learned the beastly language, adopted the gosling Brightbill, and became the animals' friend and protector... until a recovery team tracked her down and returned her to the mainland.
Refurbished at the factory, Roz has been purchased by a widower and his two children to help with his struggling dairy farm. Even as Roz settles into life among the cows and the fields, she yearns to return to Brightbill and the island, but how can she hope to escape when her every move is electronically tracked, and every human and robot of the mainland will surely try to stop her?
REVIEW: This is a fun, sometimes touching follow-up on the first Wild Robot book, where Roz won over the island animals and raised young Brightbill. On the farm, Roz finds herself unexpectedly torn; the family needs help, and they aren't bad or cruel people (and neither are the cows, whom she quickly befriends with her animal language skills), but she is ultimately a wild robot at heart and knows her animal friends miss her as much as she misses them. Meanwhile, the story of the robot with the goose son has spread among the wildlife, first among the geese and then among other animals. This proves instrumental in helping Roz once she finally manages to make a run for it - but even with animal assistance, humans aren't about to let a potentially dangerous anomaly like Roz go without a fight. The story feels a little drawn out at times, and there's a subplot about a vengeful wolf that didn't sit right and felt a little half-written compared to the rest of the story, but overall this makes for a satisfyingly adventurous and heartfelt conclusion to the story of the wild robot and her son (and friends).
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Wild Robot (Peter Brown) - My Review
Run Program (Scott Meyer) - My Review
Pax (Sara Pennypacker) - My Review
The Wild Robot series, Book 2
Peter Brown
Little, Brown Books
Fiction, CH? Sci-Fi
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: A year ago, the helper robot Roz washed ashore on an uninhabited island and was accidentally activated by the animals. Following her programming and impulse to help others (which were never specified to be humans), she learned the beastly language, adopted the gosling Brightbill, and became the animals' friend and protector... until a recovery team tracked her down and returned her to the mainland.
Refurbished at the factory, Roz has been purchased by a widower and his two children to help with his struggling dairy farm. Even as Roz settles into life among the cows and the fields, she yearns to return to Brightbill and the island, but how can she hope to escape when her every move is electronically tracked, and every human and robot of the mainland will surely try to stop her?
REVIEW: This is a fun, sometimes touching follow-up on the first Wild Robot book, where Roz won over the island animals and raised young Brightbill. On the farm, Roz finds herself unexpectedly torn; the family needs help, and they aren't bad or cruel people (and neither are the cows, whom she quickly befriends with her animal language skills), but she is ultimately a wild robot at heart and knows her animal friends miss her as much as she misses them. Meanwhile, the story of the robot with the goose son has spread among the wildlife, first among the geese and then among other animals. This proves instrumental in helping Roz once she finally manages to make a run for it - but even with animal assistance, humans aren't about to let a potentially dangerous anomaly like Roz go without a fight. The story feels a little drawn out at times, and there's a subplot about a vengeful wolf that didn't sit right and felt a little half-written compared to the rest of the story, but overall this makes for a satisfyingly adventurous and heartfelt conclusion to the story of the wild robot and her son (and friends).
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Wild Robot (Peter Brown) - My Review
Run Program (Scott Meyer) - My Review
Pax (Sara Pennypacker) - My Review
Tuesday, September 13, 2022
Bloody Rose (Nicholas Eames)
Bloody Rose
The Band series, Book 2
Nicholas Eames
Orbit
Fiction, Fantasy/Humor
***** (Great)
DESCRIPTION: Like many people in Grandual, Tam has looked up to the mercenary bands that protect the people from roving monsters (though these days bands are less likely to be found tramping around the Heartwyld forests seeking danger, instead putting on shows slaying monsters in arenas). She has family ties to the bands, including tangential ones to the beyond-legendary band Saga, saviors of the land and slayer of the cruel, nigh-immortal druin lord Lastleaf... but her father, heartbroken after the death of her mother, forbids her to so much as learn to carry a tune, let alone take up a harp and join a band as their bard. Tam is determined to prove herself and get away, but even in her wildest dreams, or the wildest tales of her formerly adventurous, now perpetually drunk and broke uncle Bran, she never imagined she'd end up with the band Fable, led by none other than Bloody Rose herself.
Daughter of Saga's former frontman, Rose has spent her whole life in the shadow of a man she's come to resent. Even when she held off a siege and helped liberate innumerable captives while waiting for rescue, all anyone saw her as was "Golden" Gabe's daughter - a daughter who needed rescuing by her daddy, not the young woman who beat impossible odds on her own. Everything about her, from her dyed red hair to her band Fable, is all about making a name for herself... down to the increasingly reckless contracts she takes on. Even now, when a horde of monsters led by a vengeful giant has every mercenary who ever picked up a weapon heading off to face the threat, she leads Fable the other way, intent on a contract that will, without a doubt, prove that she's more than just the daughter of the most famous frontman alive.
As their greenest member and their new bard, Tam's job is simply to observe and record (and embellish in verse as needed) the band's progress... but the more time she spends with them, the harder it is for Tam to stay on the sidelines, even as she comes to realize just what is at stake, for Rose and Fable and the whole of Grandual.
REVIEW: The first book in this series, Kings of the Wyld, was one of the most enjoyable tales I've read in years, but I'd heard some mixed reviews on this sequel. As far as I'm concerned, it more than lives up to the exceptionally high bar set by the first installment, serving as both a sequel and its own story that expands the lore, the world, and the characters into new places.
Tam is no reluctant heroine who must be drug out the door; she's been champing at the bit since childhood, training as a bard in secret to follow in her late mother's footsteps despite her father's edicts - but he has his reasons, and actually lets go when he realizes there is no stopping her "wyld" heart from following the path that destroyed his wife, himself, and too many others to count. At first, Tam dismisses his warnings as his grief talking, enamored with "Bloody" Rose (a longtime infatuation) and the life of the bands. Like any groupie who finds themselves on the inside, though, she soon realizes that everything she thought she knew about the people and the bands, even after growing up on her uncle Bran's stories, is so much smoke and mirrors: the reality is far less glamorous, far more complex, and in many respects far more dangerous (at least for a band like Fable that still ventures beyond arenas and the staged bloodsports they offer the masses - particularly when they're driven by a leader as single-minded as Rose). Other assumptions - about Fable and Saga, about her land's history, even about what constitutes a monster - fall by the wayside, too, sometimes slaughtered in a single blow and sometimes dying slow and agonizing deaths over the endless miles. Neither Tam nor her companions (nor many of the other characters, friend or enemy or incidental) are simple characters, broken in some way by the past and seeking redemption or escape (or both), all teetering on the edge of tragedy and sometimes slipping over. By the end, everyone and everything has changed and grown. (For the better? Maybe yes and maybe no...)
As in the first volume, there's plenty of humor in the continued exploration of adventuring "bands" with all the tropes of rock stars alongside wild adventure, unexpected wonder and even beauty, and moments that tear your heart out and skewer it on a sword, then trample it underfoot and light it on fire for good measure. It grabbed me from the first page, and kept me up well past midnight to finish the final stretch. As in the first volume, much is resolved here, but more than enough remains to justify at least one more future installment, not to mention innumerable potential spinoffs and companion works; nearly everyone they meet and every place they go hints at a world packed to the stratosphere with stories to be told. At this rate, and assuming the quality keeps up, I'm happy to keep reading as long as Eames wants to keep writing.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Coward (Stephen Aryan) - My Review
The Blacktongue Thief (Christopher Buehlman) - My Review
Kings of the Wyld (Nicholas Eames) - My Review
The Band series, Book 2
Nicholas Eames
Orbit
Fiction, Fantasy/Humor
***** (Great)
DESCRIPTION: Like many people in Grandual, Tam has looked up to the mercenary bands that protect the people from roving monsters (though these days bands are less likely to be found tramping around the Heartwyld forests seeking danger, instead putting on shows slaying monsters in arenas). She has family ties to the bands, including tangential ones to the beyond-legendary band Saga, saviors of the land and slayer of the cruel, nigh-immortal druin lord Lastleaf... but her father, heartbroken after the death of her mother, forbids her to so much as learn to carry a tune, let alone take up a harp and join a band as their bard. Tam is determined to prove herself and get away, but even in her wildest dreams, or the wildest tales of her formerly adventurous, now perpetually drunk and broke uncle Bran, she never imagined she'd end up with the band Fable, led by none other than Bloody Rose herself.
Daughter of Saga's former frontman, Rose has spent her whole life in the shadow of a man she's come to resent. Even when she held off a siege and helped liberate innumerable captives while waiting for rescue, all anyone saw her as was "Golden" Gabe's daughter - a daughter who needed rescuing by her daddy, not the young woman who beat impossible odds on her own. Everything about her, from her dyed red hair to her band Fable, is all about making a name for herself... down to the increasingly reckless contracts she takes on. Even now, when a horde of monsters led by a vengeful giant has every mercenary who ever picked up a weapon heading off to face the threat, she leads Fable the other way, intent on a contract that will, without a doubt, prove that she's more than just the daughter of the most famous frontman alive.
As their greenest member and their new bard, Tam's job is simply to observe and record (and embellish in verse as needed) the band's progress... but the more time she spends with them, the harder it is for Tam to stay on the sidelines, even as she comes to realize just what is at stake, for Rose and Fable and the whole of Grandual.
REVIEW: The first book in this series, Kings of the Wyld, was one of the most enjoyable tales I've read in years, but I'd heard some mixed reviews on this sequel. As far as I'm concerned, it more than lives up to the exceptionally high bar set by the first installment, serving as both a sequel and its own story that expands the lore, the world, and the characters into new places.
Tam is no reluctant heroine who must be drug out the door; she's been champing at the bit since childhood, training as a bard in secret to follow in her late mother's footsteps despite her father's edicts - but he has his reasons, and actually lets go when he realizes there is no stopping her "wyld" heart from following the path that destroyed his wife, himself, and too many others to count. At first, Tam dismisses his warnings as his grief talking, enamored with "Bloody" Rose (a longtime infatuation) and the life of the bands. Like any groupie who finds themselves on the inside, though, she soon realizes that everything she thought she knew about the people and the bands, even after growing up on her uncle Bran's stories, is so much smoke and mirrors: the reality is far less glamorous, far more complex, and in many respects far more dangerous (at least for a band like Fable that still ventures beyond arenas and the staged bloodsports they offer the masses - particularly when they're driven by a leader as single-minded as Rose). Other assumptions - about Fable and Saga, about her land's history, even about what constitutes a monster - fall by the wayside, too, sometimes slaughtered in a single blow and sometimes dying slow and agonizing deaths over the endless miles. Neither Tam nor her companions (nor many of the other characters, friend or enemy or incidental) are simple characters, broken in some way by the past and seeking redemption or escape (or both), all teetering on the edge of tragedy and sometimes slipping over. By the end, everyone and everything has changed and grown. (For the better? Maybe yes and maybe no...)
As in the first volume, there's plenty of humor in the continued exploration of adventuring "bands" with all the tropes of rock stars alongside wild adventure, unexpected wonder and even beauty, and moments that tear your heart out and skewer it on a sword, then trample it underfoot and light it on fire for good measure. It grabbed me from the first page, and kept me up well past midnight to finish the final stretch. As in the first volume, much is resolved here, but more than enough remains to justify at least one more future installment, not to mention innumerable potential spinoffs and companion works; nearly everyone they meet and every place they go hints at a world packed to the stratosphere with stories to be told. At this rate, and assuming the quality keeps up, I'm happy to keep reading as long as Eames wants to keep writing.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Coward (Stephen Aryan) - My Review
The Blacktongue Thief (Christopher Buehlman) - My Review
Kings of the Wyld (Nicholas Eames) - My Review
Friday, September 9, 2022
Clap When You Land (Elizabeth Acevedo)
Clap When You Land
Elizabeth Acevedo
Quill Tree Books
Fiction, YA General Fiction/Poetry
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Camina Rios lives in the Dominican Republic, but dreams of a future as a doctor with a degree from a prestigious American university. In the meantime, she lives with (and apprentices to) her Tia Solana, practitioner of healing rituals and prayers, and attends an international school thanks to money from her beloved Papi. He spends most of his time in New York City, being a very busy and important man, but tries to get home for a few months every year, even after her mother died. Some day, she wants to follow him back and see the city that seems more fable than reality from his stories... hopefully while she still has a chance to see her dreams come true.
Yahaira Rios lives with her mother in New York City, a solid (if quiet) student and chess master. At one time, she loved her father dearly, until she found a secret hidden in his papers while he was away visiting family back in the Dominican Republic: another wife, married a few months after he married her own mother. It's difficult to love a man who has lied to you since the day you were born, but she wants to love him, almost as much as she wants to expose him for the liar he is... but that will have to wait, as he's already on his flight out of the country. Maybe by the time he returns she'll know how to deal with the feelings tearing her apart inside.
Then comes the horrible news: Papi's plane has crashed into the Atlantic Ocean, with no survivors.
In their separate worlds, the two teenage girls - ignorant of each others' existence - grieve, even as Papi's death threatens to unravel their happiness and their futures.
REVIEW: Clap When You Land is a novel told in free verse, a story of how complicated feelings of love and family can be when the people involved are complicated. Papi was clearly a liar and a cheater, yet he loved his daughters dearly, and provided them with what means he could. Camina never suspected his deceptions, yet has known something wasn't quite right with the arrangement of her life for some time, that there were secrets her tia and other relatives were withholding after her mother's untimely death. She struggles, too, with holding onto her dreams in a place that all too often crushes them, especially the dreams of girls like herself; part of Papi's protection was actually paying people to help keep the leeches and bullies away from his daughter, because girls like her too often get drug into unsavory situations by men turning a buck off the Dominican Republic's tourists. Yahaira, meanwhile, leaves a fairly privileged life in New York City, but has her own problems and struggles, brought to the forefront by Papi's death. Despite mutual shock and distrust when they find out about each other, the girls must pull together if either of them is to have a hope in this world. There are no neat and easy answers, no simplistic moral judgements, but characters who have all been harmed by their great love for a greatly flawed man. The novel is written in verse; the narrators of the audiobook I listened to (one for each girl, as the tale switches back and forth between them) do a decent job evoking that sense of poetry in their reading. I felt parts of the climax were a bit rushed or forced, but overall it's a solid story of two worlds colliding and two people struggling to come to terms with their great and complex grief.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Tiger Rising (Kate DiCamillo) - My Review
Shadowshaper (Daniel Jose Older) - My Review
Long Way Down (Jason Reynolds) - My Review
Elizabeth Acevedo
Quill Tree Books
Fiction, YA General Fiction/Poetry
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Camina Rios lives in the Dominican Republic, but dreams of a future as a doctor with a degree from a prestigious American university. In the meantime, she lives with (and apprentices to) her Tia Solana, practitioner of healing rituals and prayers, and attends an international school thanks to money from her beloved Papi. He spends most of his time in New York City, being a very busy and important man, but tries to get home for a few months every year, even after her mother died. Some day, she wants to follow him back and see the city that seems more fable than reality from his stories... hopefully while she still has a chance to see her dreams come true.
Yahaira Rios lives with her mother in New York City, a solid (if quiet) student and chess master. At one time, she loved her father dearly, until she found a secret hidden in his papers while he was away visiting family back in the Dominican Republic: another wife, married a few months after he married her own mother. It's difficult to love a man who has lied to you since the day you were born, but she wants to love him, almost as much as she wants to expose him for the liar he is... but that will have to wait, as he's already on his flight out of the country. Maybe by the time he returns she'll know how to deal with the feelings tearing her apart inside.
Then comes the horrible news: Papi's plane has crashed into the Atlantic Ocean, with no survivors.
In their separate worlds, the two teenage girls - ignorant of each others' existence - grieve, even as Papi's death threatens to unravel their happiness and their futures.
REVIEW: Clap When You Land is a novel told in free verse, a story of how complicated feelings of love and family can be when the people involved are complicated. Papi was clearly a liar and a cheater, yet he loved his daughters dearly, and provided them with what means he could. Camina never suspected his deceptions, yet has known something wasn't quite right with the arrangement of her life for some time, that there were secrets her tia and other relatives were withholding after her mother's untimely death. She struggles, too, with holding onto her dreams in a place that all too often crushes them, especially the dreams of girls like herself; part of Papi's protection was actually paying people to help keep the leeches and bullies away from his daughter, because girls like her too often get drug into unsavory situations by men turning a buck off the Dominican Republic's tourists. Yahaira, meanwhile, leaves a fairly privileged life in New York City, but has her own problems and struggles, brought to the forefront by Papi's death. Despite mutual shock and distrust when they find out about each other, the girls must pull together if either of them is to have a hope in this world. There are no neat and easy answers, no simplistic moral judgements, but characters who have all been harmed by their great love for a greatly flawed man. The novel is written in verse; the narrators of the audiobook I listened to (one for each girl, as the tale switches back and forth between them) do a decent job evoking that sense of poetry in their reading. I felt parts of the climax were a bit rushed or forced, but overall it's a solid story of two worlds colliding and two people struggling to come to terms with their great and complex grief.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Tiger Rising (Kate DiCamillo) - My Review
Shadowshaper (Daniel Jose Older) - My Review
Long Way Down (Jason Reynolds) - My Review
Thursday, September 8, 2022
Strange Practice (Vivian Shaw)
Strange Practice
A Dr. Greta Helsing novel, Book 1
Vivian Shaw
Orbit
Fiction, Fantasy
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Doctor Greta Helsing is the latest in a long line of Helsings (formerly Van Helsings) to deal with the world's supernatural beings... not to hunt them, but to heal them. Her medical practice is dedicated to serving London residents that most people don't realize exist, mummies and ghouls and vampires and more. It's an arduous job, but a necessary one, and every day brings some new surprise - and sometimes a new danger. When an undead associate of her vampire friend Ruthven is attacked by an unknown assailant, struck by a weapon coated in supernatural-specific poison, Greta finds disturbing parallels to a serial killer terrorizing London with religious-themed slayings... and disturbing signs that, unlike most cultists, this one not only know hows to kill supernatural beings, but has inhuman abilities themselves.
REVIEW: I'd heard some intriguing things about this one before finding it on Libby, though for some reason I was expecting a period piece, not a modern urban fantasy. In any event, the story draws on various supernatural lore and famous classic stories such as Varney the Vampyre (plus more than a little Biblical and Biblical-adjacent traditions of angels and demons), creating a hidden London population of various inhuman beings who often aren't nearly as monstrous as popularly described, but which all have great potential to do harm if cornered or angered (or simply of unkind disposition). Greta, however, sees them as more than worthy of the same medical treatment and discretion as any fully human patient, having been brought up by her father with vampire and demon family friends, and always manages to honor her oath to serve her clients to the best of her ability, even if it risks her own life. As she investigates the attack on Sir Francis Varney, who becomes far more than a simple plot device as he finds himself drawn out of his broody, self-imposed isolation during his recovery in the home of the far-more-gregarious vampire Ruthven (Varney is a vampyre, a slightly different strain than the "draculine" vampires), she must rely on the assistance of a network of associates, human and otherwise, such as the museum worker Cranswell and old (ex-)demon friend Fastitocalon, plus her clinic assistants and a ghoul chieftain. Meanwhile, murders (and murder attempts) stack up as the force behind the cult escalates its campaign against London's magical and mundane populace. For the most part, people aren't unduly stupid or bumbling, and while there's an air of plot convenience around a few events and motives (and some elements of the resolution), it generally delivers on the story it promises. While the cult arc wraps in this volume, the ending promises more adventures to come for Dr. Greta and her companions. I'm not sure I feel compelled to read on, but I was decently entertained by this installment.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Brimstone Bound (Helen Harper) - My Review
Certain Dark Things (Silvia Moreno-Garcia) - My Review
The Vampyre: A Tale (John William Polidori) - My Review
A Dr. Greta Helsing novel, Book 1
Vivian Shaw
Orbit
Fiction, Fantasy
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Doctor Greta Helsing is the latest in a long line of Helsings (formerly Van Helsings) to deal with the world's supernatural beings... not to hunt them, but to heal them. Her medical practice is dedicated to serving London residents that most people don't realize exist, mummies and ghouls and vampires and more. It's an arduous job, but a necessary one, and every day brings some new surprise - and sometimes a new danger. When an undead associate of her vampire friend Ruthven is attacked by an unknown assailant, struck by a weapon coated in supernatural-specific poison, Greta finds disturbing parallels to a serial killer terrorizing London with religious-themed slayings... and disturbing signs that, unlike most cultists, this one not only know hows to kill supernatural beings, but has inhuman abilities themselves.
REVIEW: I'd heard some intriguing things about this one before finding it on Libby, though for some reason I was expecting a period piece, not a modern urban fantasy. In any event, the story draws on various supernatural lore and famous classic stories such as Varney the Vampyre (plus more than a little Biblical and Biblical-adjacent traditions of angels and demons), creating a hidden London population of various inhuman beings who often aren't nearly as monstrous as popularly described, but which all have great potential to do harm if cornered or angered (or simply of unkind disposition). Greta, however, sees them as more than worthy of the same medical treatment and discretion as any fully human patient, having been brought up by her father with vampire and demon family friends, and always manages to honor her oath to serve her clients to the best of her ability, even if it risks her own life. As she investigates the attack on Sir Francis Varney, who becomes far more than a simple plot device as he finds himself drawn out of his broody, self-imposed isolation during his recovery in the home of the far-more-gregarious vampire Ruthven (Varney is a vampyre, a slightly different strain than the "draculine" vampires), she must rely on the assistance of a network of associates, human and otherwise, such as the museum worker Cranswell and old (ex-)demon friend Fastitocalon, plus her clinic assistants and a ghoul chieftain. Meanwhile, murders (and murder attempts) stack up as the force behind the cult escalates its campaign against London's magical and mundane populace. For the most part, people aren't unduly stupid or bumbling, and while there's an air of plot convenience around a few events and motives (and some elements of the resolution), it generally delivers on the story it promises. While the cult arc wraps in this volume, the ending promises more adventures to come for Dr. Greta and her companions. I'm not sure I feel compelled to read on, but I was decently entertained by this installment.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Brimstone Bound (Helen Harper) - My Review
Certain Dark Things (Silvia Moreno-Garcia) - My Review
The Vampyre: A Tale (John William Polidori) - My Review
Wednesday, September 7, 2022
Great Classic Science Fiction (BBC Audio, editors)
Great Classic Science Fiction
BBC Audio, editors
Blackstone Audio
Fiction, Anthology/Fantasy/Sci-Fi
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Compiled in audio format, eight classic tales of speculative fiction from eight masters of the field:
"The Door in the Wall", by H. G. Wells: A prominent politician at the height of his career is haunted by a green door and memories of a garden of great joy and wonder that lies beyond.
"All Cats Are Gray", by Andre Norton: A derelict spaceship hides an elusive danger.
"A Martian Odyssey", by Stanley G. Weinbaum: Rescued after several days lost on the surface of Mars, an explorer relates his wild adventures and even wilder alien companion.
"Victory", by Lester del Rey: With aliens waging war against humanoid allies and our own colony worlds, Earth's strangely passive stance infuriates one veteran.
"The Moon is Green", by Fritz Leiber: With all of humanity under lockdown following nuclear annihilation, a housewife discovers a strange face outside her window, where no human should be able to survive.
"The Winds of Time", by James H. Schmitz: A captain-for-hire grows suspicious of his secretive passenger's true motives when something flings their ship into utterly unknown space.
"The Defenders", by Philip K. Dick: Eight years into a forced underground existence, while a global war is waged by specially-designed machines, one man learns the startling truth.
"Missing Link", by Frank Herbert: After a starship disappears, possibly at the hands of uncontacted primitive aliens, a young diplomat investigates to learn the truth and whether the chimpanzee-like beings pose a greater galactic threat.
REVIEW: Yes, another audiobook to kill time at my job... Like many anthologies, the selection feels a bit random; I can't help wondering if these were really the greatest stories these authors wrote, though they were decent enough (even if they age around the edges, particularly in their presentation of women and races, plus the persistent belief - repeated across more than one story - that humanity is simply going through a stage with its pesky wars and evolution dictates that it must inevitably "grow up" and become a responsible adult species that puts all conflict behind it). The first story doesn't even seem like science fiction at all; a randomly-appearing door to a garden paradise (which might or might not be Heaven), returning at particular junctures in a character's life, seems far more in the realm of fantasy, even if the author might be better known for his science fiction titles. Several evoke a decent sense of wonder and adventure, but a couple felt scattered and a bit pointless, not to mention drawn out (especially for "short" stories). None of them were outright clunkers, though, even if a couple edged close, so - given my usual iffy luck with anthologies - I rounded up a half-star for a Good rating.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Best of Damon Knight (Damon Knight) - My Review
I Am Legend and Other Stories (Richard Matheson) - My Review
City (Clifford D. Simak) - My Review
BBC Audio, editors
Blackstone Audio
Fiction, Anthology/Fantasy/Sci-Fi
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Compiled in audio format, eight classic tales of speculative fiction from eight masters of the field:
"The Door in the Wall", by H. G. Wells: A prominent politician at the height of his career is haunted by a green door and memories of a garden of great joy and wonder that lies beyond.
"All Cats Are Gray", by Andre Norton: A derelict spaceship hides an elusive danger.
"A Martian Odyssey", by Stanley G. Weinbaum: Rescued after several days lost on the surface of Mars, an explorer relates his wild adventures and even wilder alien companion.
"Victory", by Lester del Rey: With aliens waging war against humanoid allies and our own colony worlds, Earth's strangely passive stance infuriates one veteran.
"The Moon is Green", by Fritz Leiber: With all of humanity under lockdown following nuclear annihilation, a housewife discovers a strange face outside her window, where no human should be able to survive.
"The Winds of Time", by James H. Schmitz: A captain-for-hire grows suspicious of his secretive passenger's true motives when something flings their ship into utterly unknown space.
"The Defenders", by Philip K. Dick: Eight years into a forced underground existence, while a global war is waged by specially-designed machines, one man learns the startling truth.
"Missing Link", by Frank Herbert: After a starship disappears, possibly at the hands of uncontacted primitive aliens, a young diplomat investigates to learn the truth and whether the chimpanzee-like beings pose a greater galactic threat.
REVIEW: Yes, another audiobook to kill time at my job... Like many anthologies, the selection feels a bit random; I can't help wondering if these were really the greatest stories these authors wrote, though they were decent enough (even if they age around the edges, particularly in their presentation of women and races, plus the persistent belief - repeated across more than one story - that humanity is simply going through a stage with its pesky wars and evolution dictates that it must inevitably "grow up" and become a responsible adult species that puts all conflict behind it). The first story doesn't even seem like science fiction at all; a randomly-appearing door to a garden paradise (which might or might not be Heaven), returning at particular junctures in a character's life, seems far more in the realm of fantasy, even if the author might be better known for his science fiction titles. Several evoke a decent sense of wonder and adventure, but a couple felt scattered and a bit pointless, not to mention drawn out (especially for "short" stories). None of them were outright clunkers, though, even if a couple edged close, so - given my usual iffy luck with anthologies - I rounded up a half-star for a Good rating.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Best of Damon Knight (Damon Knight) - My Review
I Am Legend and Other Stories (Richard Matheson) - My Review
City (Clifford D. Simak) - My Review
Thursday, September 1, 2022
Black Leviathan (Bernd Perplies)
Black Leviathan
Bernd Perplies, translated by Lucy Van Cleef
Tor
Fiction, YA Adventure/Fantasy
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Teenaged Lian has lived his whole life in Skarkagar, on the edge of the misty aerial ocean known as the Cloudmere, watching the jager ships come and go with their cargo holds full of dead dragons and their crews full of adventurous stories. Lian's father was once a top dragon hunter, until the accident that claimed his legs and left him a broken drunkard. The boy always figured the closest he'd get to adventure himself is carving the kyrillian crystals that provide buoyancy to the flying ships and listening to tavern stories of dragon hunts after work... until the night everything went so terribly wrong, leaving his father dead, a bully slain, and the town's most powerful man after his hide. When he needs to get out of town in a hurry, only one jager ship is willing to take on him and his best friend Canzo (who takes the opportunity to go with him and fulfill a childhood dream - not to mention a chance at wealth to win the heart of his lady love): the Carryola, a notorious vessel rumored to be captained by a madman. Ever since an ancient beast of the cloudy deeps killed his true love and wrecked his ship decades ago, Adaron has bent his entire life toward hunting the legendary Gargantuan, the Black Leviathan, last relic of a lost age. With nothing but his father's old dragon spear and his best friend beside him, Lian sets forth into the unknown... and into adventures and dangers from which he may not return.
REVIEW: If the premise reminds you a bit of Moby Dick in the skies, you're not that far off; Adaron bears more than passing resemblance to Ahab, though Lian is far less self-absorbed than Ishmael and the setting is greatly improved for having flying ships and dragons (though I say that as someone who thinks a good dose of dragons can improve most any story). As whaling once fueled entire cities and economies, so dragon hunting keeps this skyward civilization afloat (though the antigravity kyrillian crystals do a fair bit of the lifting there, too), and not just for humans. This is a world with various other humanoid races, with scales or dog heads or wings, each with their own cultures; the winged Taijir'in in particular can be touchy to deal with, ever since the dog-headed Nonduriers introduced flying ship technology to the wingless races, forcing them to share the skies that were once theirs alone (theirs save for the dragons, of course). Hunting dragons is as much about survival as glory, and jager ships have their own culture to deal with their inherently deadly calling. Despite having had a father who was once one of the most renowned dragon hunters out of Skarkagar, Lian finds himself in far over his head when he and Canzo step aboard the Carryola and into the heart of that culture. For all the danger, though, there are also great wonders: floating islands known as lithos, the alien beauty of the Taijir'in cities, the Cloudmere aglow with moonlight under foreign stars. It makes a great setting for adventure, and delivers plenty of that, a melding of old-school nautical yarns and sheer fantasy with very real magic.
That said, there are some weak spots that held down the rating. The cast is exceptionally, conspicuously male-heavy, despite one lady dragon hunter and another later addition, with women tending to lesser, softer roles, which gets a bit old when the presence of that one woman shows that the world itself is apparently not supposed to be as inherently sexist as our own. The plot occasionally slows down and repeats itself as Lian gnaws on growing moral and ethical conflicts over Adaron's hunt. Also, many of the crewmen aboard the Carryola remain just names with little personality attached, making it harder to care about their ultimate fates. The ending felt just a touch forced and rushed, not to mention incomplete; it felt like there were some arcs unfinished, as if a sequel had been planned but inexplicably not pursued (as of this writing, at least).
On the balance, Black Leviathan delivers a truly adventurous tale of magic and danger and skies full of dragons.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Airborn (Kenneth Oppel) - My Review
Dragon Wing (Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman) - My Review
Updraft (Fran Wilde) - My Review
Bernd Perplies, translated by Lucy Van Cleef
Tor
Fiction, YA Adventure/Fantasy
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Teenaged Lian has lived his whole life in Skarkagar, on the edge of the misty aerial ocean known as the Cloudmere, watching the jager ships come and go with their cargo holds full of dead dragons and their crews full of adventurous stories. Lian's father was once a top dragon hunter, until the accident that claimed his legs and left him a broken drunkard. The boy always figured the closest he'd get to adventure himself is carving the kyrillian crystals that provide buoyancy to the flying ships and listening to tavern stories of dragon hunts after work... until the night everything went so terribly wrong, leaving his father dead, a bully slain, and the town's most powerful man after his hide. When he needs to get out of town in a hurry, only one jager ship is willing to take on him and his best friend Canzo (who takes the opportunity to go with him and fulfill a childhood dream - not to mention a chance at wealth to win the heart of his lady love): the Carryola, a notorious vessel rumored to be captained by a madman. Ever since an ancient beast of the cloudy deeps killed his true love and wrecked his ship decades ago, Adaron has bent his entire life toward hunting the legendary Gargantuan, the Black Leviathan, last relic of a lost age. With nothing but his father's old dragon spear and his best friend beside him, Lian sets forth into the unknown... and into adventures and dangers from which he may not return.
REVIEW: If the premise reminds you a bit of Moby Dick in the skies, you're not that far off; Adaron bears more than passing resemblance to Ahab, though Lian is far less self-absorbed than Ishmael and the setting is greatly improved for having flying ships and dragons (though I say that as someone who thinks a good dose of dragons can improve most any story). As whaling once fueled entire cities and economies, so dragon hunting keeps this skyward civilization afloat (though the antigravity kyrillian crystals do a fair bit of the lifting there, too), and not just for humans. This is a world with various other humanoid races, with scales or dog heads or wings, each with their own cultures; the winged Taijir'in in particular can be touchy to deal with, ever since the dog-headed Nonduriers introduced flying ship technology to the wingless races, forcing them to share the skies that were once theirs alone (theirs save for the dragons, of course). Hunting dragons is as much about survival as glory, and jager ships have their own culture to deal with their inherently deadly calling. Despite having had a father who was once one of the most renowned dragon hunters out of Skarkagar, Lian finds himself in far over his head when he and Canzo step aboard the Carryola and into the heart of that culture. For all the danger, though, there are also great wonders: floating islands known as lithos, the alien beauty of the Taijir'in cities, the Cloudmere aglow with moonlight under foreign stars. It makes a great setting for adventure, and delivers plenty of that, a melding of old-school nautical yarns and sheer fantasy with very real magic.
That said, there are some weak spots that held down the rating. The cast is exceptionally, conspicuously male-heavy, despite one lady dragon hunter and another later addition, with women tending to lesser, softer roles, which gets a bit old when the presence of that one woman shows that the world itself is apparently not supposed to be as inherently sexist as our own. The plot occasionally slows down and repeats itself as Lian gnaws on growing moral and ethical conflicts over Adaron's hunt. Also, many of the crewmen aboard the Carryola remain just names with little personality attached, making it harder to care about their ultimate fates. The ending felt just a touch forced and rushed, not to mention incomplete; it felt like there were some arcs unfinished, as if a sequel had been planned but inexplicably not pursued (as of this writing, at least).
On the balance, Black Leviathan delivers a truly adventurous tale of magic and danger and skies full of dragons.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Airborn (Kenneth Oppel) - My Review
Dragon Wing (Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman) - My Review
Updraft (Fran Wilde) - My Review
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