And somehow February's over already... The month's reviews have been archived and cross-linked at the main Brightdreamer Books site.
Enjoy!
Tuesday, February 28, 2023
Saturday, February 25, 2023
The Book Eaters (Sunyi Dean)
The Book Eaters
Sunyi Dean
Tor
Fiction, Fantasy/Horror
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: In centuries past, the lore says, an entity known as the Collector created the book eaters, a secretive black-blooded subspecies of men and women who feed on written words, absorbing their knowledge. But sometimes, among them, rises a dangerous mutation, one born to feed not on ink and paper, but on human minds. For a long time these children were killed as babes, until one of the Families, the Ravenscars, developed a way to subdue their hunger... subdue, and harness, under watch of those trained as knights. It is a cold and cruel life, that of the barely-human beings known as dragons, even colder than life for an ordinary 'eater. And it is a life Devon Fairweather cannot allow to befall her son Cai.
In modern times, the 'eater Families have dwindled and faded, plagued by persistent fertility issues and their own insular, backward-looking nature. Only six viable brides remain in the British Isles, their marriages carefully arranged and escorted by knights to reduce inbreeding. Devon knew from childhood this would be her future: to bear two children (if fortunate), one each to a different Family husband, to be the treasured princess in the isolated castles and keeps of the Families, to be barely seen and never heard. She thought that she could bear that fate. But reality and motherhood soon set her at odds with her own people's traditions... and when her second child is both an unneeded son and a mind eater, she is driven to acts of rebellion that might topple the fragile house of cards on which the Families have built their power.
REVIEW: The concept intrigued me, with clear inspiration from vampire lore but with a nice spin, but if it seems like a story about vampires who feed on ink instead of blood would not be as violent, think again. The Book Eaters is chock full of cruelty, both casual and maliciously active, with a higher body count than some vampire stories I've encountered, in a story steeped in brooding gothic overtones and the horrible acts love can drive one to both endure and commit.
In chapters that alternate between the now of a Devon on the run with Cai, a five-year-old who acts far beyond his years at times (a side-effect of his need to feed on brains; as book eaters absorb knowledge from words, the boy integrates memories and personality traits from the people his mother finds to satiate his hunger, trying to restrict his diet to "good" people lest he become too uncontrollable), and her childhood and marriages, the isolated and inherently brutal nature of the Families and 'eater culture unfold, her own childhood happiness and rebellions smothered by those whom she thinks love her best and have her best interests at heart. Raised on a deliberate diet of weak fairy tales (save when she steals forbidden volumes), she, like all Family women, thinks of herself as a princess who can't help but have a happily-ever-after once she's married and has a child, even though she knows, from her own upbringing, that Family mothers are never allowed to raise and bond with their own offspring - one of many, many things she doesn't think to question until it's her own child that her husband is trying to tear from her arms. Here is where the story started to hit a snag for me, as once again a woman can only find agency and purpose by becoming a mother. For the sake of her children, she finally starts pushing back against the rules and traditions of the Families... and also, for the sake of her children, she can be lured right back into chains more than once. What was meant to be harrowing, no-win choices sometimes started feeling more like a tooth-grinding and irritating lack of ability to think for herself at all. All the horrible, evil, rotten things the Families do also becomes numbing, creating a race of humanlike beings that, while intriguing, became so deeply repelling and unpleasant and with such an irredeemably cruel culture that I sometimes found myself rooting for their extinction.
The story starts fast, if dark, though it bogs down more than once as it unfolds, sometimes feeling repetitive in its rubbing in of the Families' terrible deeds and natures (and the horrific dilemmas of Devon as she struggles to raise her boy and save him from his own inherent hunger). It does come together by the end, though, and manages to earn a Good rating, though if it had lasted too much longer it would've lost a half-star. There is a limit to how much flat-out depravity I can endure in a given story, especially when I don't really like any of the people in it...
You Might Also Enjoy:
Wake of Vultures (Lila Bowen) - My Review
Those Across the River (Christopher Buehlman) - My Review
Carmilla (Joseph Sheridan le Fanu) - My Review
Sunyi Dean
Tor
Fiction, Fantasy/Horror
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: In centuries past, the lore says, an entity known as the Collector created the book eaters, a secretive black-blooded subspecies of men and women who feed on written words, absorbing their knowledge. But sometimes, among them, rises a dangerous mutation, one born to feed not on ink and paper, but on human minds. For a long time these children were killed as babes, until one of the Families, the Ravenscars, developed a way to subdue their hunger... subdue, and harness, under watch of those trained as knights. It is a cold and cruel life, that of the barely-human beings known as dragons, even colder than life for an ordinary 'eater. And it is a life Devon Fairweather cannot allow to befall her son Cai.
In modern times, the 'eater Families have dwindled and faded, plagued by persistent fertility issues and their own insular, backward-looking nature. Only six viable brides remain in the British Isles, their marriages carefully arranged and escorted by knights to reduce inbreeding. Devon knew from childhood this would be her future: to bear two children (if fortunate), one each to a different Family husband, to be the treasured princess in the isolated castles and keeps of the Families, to be barely seen and never heard. She thought that she could bear that fate. But reality and motherhood soon set her at odds with her own people's traditions... and when her second child is both an unneeded son and a mind eater, she is driven to acts of rebellion that might topple the fragile house of cards on which the Families have built their power.
REVIEW: The concept intrigued me, with clear inspiration from vampire lore but with a nice spin, but if it seems like a story about vampires who feed on ink instead of blood would not be as violent, think again. The Book Eaters is chock full of cruelty, both casual and maliciously active, with a higher body count than some vampire stories I've encountered, in a story steeped in brooding gothic overtones and the horrible acts love can drive one to both endure and commit.
In chapters that alternate between the now of a Devon on the run with Cai, a five-year-old who acts far beyond his years at times (a side-effect of his need to feed on brains; as book eaters absorb knowledge from words, the boy integrates memories and personality traits from the people his mother finds to satiate his hunger, trying to restrict his diet to "good" people lest he become too uncontrollable), and her childhood and marriages, the isolated and inherently brutal nature of the Families and 'eater culture unfold, her own childhood happiness and rebellions smothered by those whom she thinks love her best and have her best interests at heart. Raised on a deliberate diet of weak fairy tales (save when she steals forbidden volumes), she, like all Family women, thinks of herself as a princess who can't help but have a happily-ever-after once she's married and has a child, even though she knows, from her own upbringing, that Family mothers are never allowed to raise and bond with their own offspring - one of many, many things she doesn't think to question until it's her own child that her husband is trying to tear from her arms. Here is where the story started to hit a snag for me, as once again a woman can only find agency and purpose by becoming a mother. For the sake of her children, she finally starts pushing back against the rules and traditions of the Families... and also, for the sake of her children, she can be lured right back into chains more than once. What was meant to be harrowing, no-win choices sometimes started feeling more like a tooth-grinding and irritating lack of ability to think for herself at all. All the horrible, evil, rotten things the Families do also becomes numbing, creating a race of humanlike beings that, while intriguing, became so deeply repelling and unpleasant and with such an irredeemably cruel culture that I sometimes found myself rooting for their extinction.
The story starts fast, if dark, though it bogs down more than once as it unfolds, sometimes feeling repetitive in its rubbing in of the Families' terrible deeds and natures (and the horrific dilemmas of Devon as she struggles to raise her boy and save him from his own inherent hunger). It does come together by the end, though, and manages to earn a Good rating, though if it had lasted too much longer it would've lost a half-star. There is a limit to how much flat-out depravity I can endure in a given story, especially when I don't really like any of the people in it...
You Might Also Enjoy:
Wake of Vultures (Lila Bowen) - My Review
Those Across the River (Christopher Buehlman) - My Review
Carmilla (Joseph Sheridan le Fanu) - My Review
We Shall Sing a Song into the Deep (Andrew Kelly Stewart)
We Shall Sing a Song into the Deep
Andrew Kelly Stewart
Tor
Fiction, Sci-Fi
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Remy is one of the lucky ones, or so she is reminded every day. She was rescued from the sinful, poisoned Topside and taken into the sanctuary of the Leviathan, the submarine that helped render God's punishment upon the wicked. She is even luckier than almost anyone else on board knows: though the rest of the crew is made of men and boys, the Choristers cut to preserve their purity and voice, she is a girl. Caplain Amita always said he saved her and kept her secret because God told him she had a role to play in the coming of the End Times, the launching of the last nuclear missile known as the Last Judgment that will destroy the world. But now Amita is dying, and has entrusted her with a burden she can scarcely bear. When a raid brings back a rare prisoner from the Topside, Remy finds everything she thought she knew about the Leviathan and its holy mission turned upside down.
REVIEW: As one might expect from the description, this is a dark story of an apocalypse that came all too close to reality, the story of a rogue nuclear submarine crew has become a Biblical death cult, convinced their final missile will usher in the End Times and wake all souls for eternal judgment. Remy and the others sing and pray aboard their nautical cathedral, wholly convinced of the righteousness of their cause and the deceitfulness and damnation of "Topsiders" from the fallout-poisoned lands of wickedness above the waves. Already holding one secret from the others, Remy finds more piling on her young shoulder, cracking the surety of her faith in the Leviathan's cause. To doubt is to risk being sent aft to the reactor, a death sentence, yet to adhere to blind faith is to face a future measured in days, weeks at the most, when the new caplain, a man full of hellfire and brimstone and a fanatical certainty in the cause, means to launch the final missle and send them all to the depths. Remy struggles, torn by faith and loyalty and doubts and deception, and the more she learns about the Leviathan and the outside world, the more she realizes is at stake for everyone, on the submarine and above the waters. Even given how short it is, it sometimes feels a little stretched, and the relentless oppressiveness of the cultish crew can grow wearing, but all in all it's a decent, if grim, story of twisted faith and patriotic fervor.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Into the Drowning Deep (Mira Grant) - My Review
The Fifth Season (N. K. Jemisin) - My Review
The Golden Compass (Philip Pullman) - My Review
Andrew Kelly Stewart
Tor
Fiction, Sci-Fi
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Remy is one of the lucky ones, or so she is reminded every day. She was rescued from the sinful, poisoned Topside and taken into the sanctuary of the Leviathan, the submarine that helped render God's punishment upon the wicked. She is even luckier than almost anyone else on board knows: though the rest of the crew is made of men and boys, the Choristers cut to preserve their purity and voice, she is a girl. Caplain Amita always said he saved her and kept her secret because God told him she had a role to play in the coming of the End Times, the launching of the last nuclear missile known as the Last Judgment that will destroy the world. But now Amita is dying, and has entrusted her with a burden she can scarcely bear. When a raid brings back a rare prisoner from the Topside, Remy finds everything she thought she knew about the Leviathan and its holy mission turned upside down.
REVIEW: As one might expect from the description, this is a dark story of an apocalypse that came all too close to reality, the story of a rogue nuclear submarine crew has become a Biblical death cult, convinced their final missile will usher in the End Times and wake all souls for eternal judgment. Remy and the others sing and pray aboard their nautical cathedral, wholly convinced of the righteousness of their cause and the deceitfulness and damnation of "Topsiders" from the fallout-poisoned lands of wickedness above the waves. Already holding one secret from the others, Remy finds more piling on her young shoulder, cracking the surety of her faith in the Leviathan's cause. To doubt is to risk being sent aft to the reactor, a death sentence, yet to adhere to blind faith is to face a future measured in days, weeks at the most, when the new caplain, a man full of hellfire and brimstone and a fanatical certainty in the cause, means to launch the final missle and send them all to the depths. Remy struggles, torn by faith and loyalty and doubts and deception, and the more she learns about the Leviathan and the outside world, the more she realizes is at stake for everyone, on the submarine and above the waters. Even given how short it is, it sometimes feels a little stretched, and the relentless oppressiveness of the cultish crew can grow wearing, but all in all it's a decent, if grim, story of twisted faith and patriotic fervor.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Into the Drowning Deep (Mira Grant) - My Review
The Fifth Season (N. K. Jemisin) - My Review
The Golden Compass (Philip Pullman) - My Review
Flesh and Fire (Laura Ann Gilman)
Flesh and Fire
The Vineart War trilogy, Book 1
Laura Ann Gilman
Pocket Books
Fiction, YA? Fantasy
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Long ago, powerful priest-mages, drawing power from magical grapes and infused wines, nearly destroyed the people and the world with their corruption. Then the gods sent the Sin Washer; when the priest-mages cut him, son of the gods Themselves, down, his blood ended their reign and forever touched the vines. In the centuries since, by his command, none who study the arts of the vine may seek power, and none who hold power may wield magic, while the Collegium of Washer priests ensures balance and peace and adherence to the Sin Washer's edicts. The land of Vin has been thus ever since, and though it's not without its squabbles and strifes and injustices, none wish to return to the terrible times of the power-mad mages...
Or, at least, that is what most people think.
The boy slave was once named Jerzy, but that was beaten out of him, along with all but the vaguest memory of his homeland. All he truly knows, or cares to remember, is life on Master Malech's lands, tending the special vines from which the master derives the power-infused wines for which he is known: healing wines and fire wines, mostly. He tries to keep his head down and do his job, lest he feel the overseer's lash. But when the master learns he can sense the powers in the grapes, the man takes him on as apprentice... just as some new, unknown force begins striking against prince and Vineart alike, threatening to end generations of relative peace. And the new, untried apprentice Jerzy finds himself in the very heart of it all...
REVIEW: Flesh and Fire is fairly decent as fantasies go, creating an interesting world and a decent gimmick with wine magic. There's a not-so-subtle religious angle with the Sin Washer and wine as divine blood, though the Collegium of Washers is not the blameless, devout institution it presents itself as. But, then, the princes and Vinearts also are men of weaknesses and hungers. (And they are men, across the board; a few women hold minor positions of power, but this is not a gender-blind world, and women are firmly the lesser powerholders in it.) Into this world is plunged Jerzy, a boy of no seeming specialness or inherent ambition, but who happens to be touched by the innate talent that could, with proper tutelage, turn him into a Vineart. As he learns the ways of winemaking, the reader learns, too, with many details about the land and the vines and the process, mundane and magical. The boy must also learn how to behave as a future master, with lessons in self-defense and etiquette and politics and history, another way to guide the reader through the setting. Meanwhile, elsewhere in the world, an island nation faces traitors in the royal court and makes a drastic decision, and later, when Jerzy finds himself sent abroad to further his studies, more of the rot infusing the world comes to light. The story can sometimes wend and meander between plot points, occasionally repeating itself, and Jerzy isn't always that great at being a protagonist, but overall the story's solid enough for what it is. I'm not sure if I'm interested enough to continue with the series, but I'm definitely not ruling it out, which counts in its favor given the iffy reading month I've been having. I wound up rounding it up to a solid four stars.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Long Price Quartet (Daniel Abraham) - My Review
The Thief (Megan Whelan Turner) - My Review
The Black Prism (Brent Weeks) - My Review
The Vineart War trilogy, Book 1
Laura Ann Gilman
Pocket Books
Fiction, YA? Fantasy
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Long ago, powerful priest-mages, drawing power from magical grapes and infused wines, nearly destroyed the people and the world with their corruption. Then the gods sent the Sin Washer; when the priest-mages cut him, son of the gods Themselves, down, his blood ended their reign and forever touched the vines. In the centuries since, by his command, none who study the arts of the vine may seek power, and none who hold power may wield magic, while the Collegium of Washer priests ensures balance and peace and adherence to the Sin Washer's edicts. The land of Vin has been thus ever since, and though it's not without its squabbles and strifes and injustices, none wish to return to the terrible times of the power-mad mages...
Or, at least, that is what most people think.
The boy slave was once named Jerzy, but that was beaten out of him, along with all but the vaguest memory of his homeland. All he truly knows, or cares to remember, is life on Master Malech's lands, tending the special vines from which the master derives the power-infused wines for which he is known: healing wines and fire wines, mostly. He tries to keep his head down and do his job, lest he feel the overseer's lash. But when the master learns he can sense the powers in the grapes, the man takes him on as apprentice... just as some new, unknown force begins striking against prince and Vineart alike, threatening to end generations of relative peace. And the new, untried apprentice Jerzy finds himself in the very heart of it all...
REVIEW: Flesh and Fire is fairly decent as fantasies go, creating an interesting world and a decent gimmick with wine magic. There's a not-so-subtle religious angle with the Sin Washer and wine as divine blood, though the Collegium of Washers is not the blameless, devout institution it presents itself as. But, then, the princes and Vinearts also are men of weaknesses and hungers. (And they are men, across the board; a few women hold minor positions of power, but this is not a gender-blind world, and women are firmly the lesser powerholders in it.) Into this world is plunged Jerzy, a boy of no seeming specialness or inherent ambition, but who happens to be touched by the innate talent that could, with proper tutelage, turn him into a Vineart. As he learns the ways of winemaking, the reader learns, too, with many details about the land and the vines and the process, mundane and magical. The boy must also learn how to behave as a future master, with lessons in self-defense and etiquette and politics and history, another way to guide the reader through the setting. Meanwhile, elsewhere in the world, an island nation faces traitors in the royal court and makes a drastic decision, and later, when Jerzy finds himself sent abroad to further his studies, more of the rot infusing the world comes to light. The story can sometimes wend and meander between plot points, occasionally repeating itself, and Jerzy isn't always that great at being a protagonist, but overall the story's solid enough for what it is. I'm not sure if I'm interested enough to continue with the series, but I'm definitely not ruling it out, which counts in its favor given the iffy reading month I've been having. I wound up rounding it up to a solid four stars.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Long Price Quartet (Daniel Abraham) - My Review
The Thief (Megan Whelan Turner) - My Review
The Black Prism (Brent Weeks) - My Review
Wednesday, February 22, 2023
A Mirror Mended (Alix E. Harrow)
A Mirror Mended
The Fractured Fables series, Book 2
Alix E. Harrow
Tordotcom
Fiction, Fantasy
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: Five years ago, Zinnia Gray was dying when her best friend, Charmaine, threw her a fairy tale themed birthday party, centered on Zinnia's favorite story, Sleeping Beauty. Pricking her finger on the spindle, Zinnia fell into a swoon... and into a story, following a call for help from a princess under a very familiar curse. Since then, Zinnia's bounced around the multiverse of stories, saving other princesses (and princes, and more) and arranging more happily-ever-afters - for everyone but herself. Every time she returns to Earth, the disease that was going to kill her recurs, a reminder that no matter how many fairy tales she fixes, her own last page is still waiting for her, and it's anything but happy.
Then Zinnia sees a face in the mirror, another call for help from across the multiverse of tales. Only there is no magic mirror in any iteration of the Sleeping Beauty story (as she should know, having a degree in fairy tale studies and more than enough practical experience living it time and again in its many iterations). But there is one in Snow White - and it belongs to the Evil Queen.
The Evil Queen who has just asked for help to escape her own terrible ending.
On the one hand, Zinnia's not in the habit of helping out villains. On the other, she may not have a choice if she ever wants to see her real home and real family and friends again... even if it means she'll have to confront the very thing she herself has been avoiding for five years, the final pages of her own life.
REVIEW: Like the first installment of the series, A Mirror Mended opens fast with plenty of action, spunk, and heart, as well as plenty of darkness and doom just beneath the surface. Zinnia convinces herself the multiverse needs her more than mundane Earth, but at what point does selfless heroism become selfish avoidance, and when does interfering in other people's stories and worlds do more harm than good? Already she's lost her best friend over her constant world-hopping, which she uses to avoid difficult conversations and hard realities. The Evil Queen starts out every inch the cold, menacing witch every reader is familiar with, willing to go to any length to save her own skin from the dark ending she brought upon herself... but, as always, there's more to her story than was written. Hard as Zinnia tries to condemn her and leave her to her fate, much as she tries to tell herself that the woman's just plain evil and evil people always deserve their gruesome endings, she can't help listening, especially when the Queen's plight strikes too close to home. When she learns that her world-hopping has been having unintended consequences, she finally has to look herself in the mirror and ask what she's becoming, what kind of story she's writing for her own life - and if, rather than being the selfless and blameless heroine of dozens of fairy tales, she has more in common with the queen than she wants to admit. As in the first story, Zinnia wrestles with an unfair hand dealt by an unfair life and her own looming mortality, even as she delves into the deeper symbolism and darkness of familiar (and often watered-down) stories that reveal so much about the societies that tell them. It wavers a bit at first, as Zinnia leans hard into her self-assigned role as the innocent protagonist out to right wrongs and give other people the happy endings she knows she'll never have herself, but once the story digs into the Evil Queen's struggle it rises easily to the level of the first story. Also like the first one, the ending's not the simple sweetness-and-sunshine fairy tale conclusion some might have offered, but a perfect and bittersweet finale. Especially given my iffy reading luck this month, I enjoyed it all the more.
You Might Also Enjoy:
A Spindle Splintered (Alix E. Harrow) - My Review
How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse (K. Eason) - My Review
The Enchanted Forest Chronicles (Patricia C. Wrede) - My Review
The Fractured Fables series, Book 2
Alix E. Harrow
Tordotcom
Fiction, Fantasy
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: Five years ago, Zinnia Gray was dying when her best friend, Charmaine, threw her a fairy tale themed birthday party, centered on Zinnia's favorite story, Sleeping Beauty. Pricking her finger on the spindle, Zinnia fell into a swoon... and into a story, following a call for help from a princess under a very familiar curse. Since then, Zinnia's bounced around the multiverse of stories, saving other princesses (and princes, and more) and arranging more happily-ever-afters - for everyone but herself. Every time she returns to Earth, the disease that was going to kill her recurs, a reminder that no matter how many fairy tales she fixes, her own last page is still waiting for her, and it's anything but happy.
Then Zinnia sees a face in the mirror, another call for help from across the multiverse of tales. Only there is no magic mirror in any iteration of the Sleeping Beauty story (as she should know, having a degree in fairy tale studies and more than enough practical experience living it time and again in its many iterations). But there is one in Snow White - and it belongs to the Evil Queen.
The Evil Queen who has just asked for help to escape her own terrible ending.
On the one hand, Zinnia's not in the habit of helping out villains. On the other, she may not have a choice if she ever wants to see her real home and real family and friends again... even if it means she'll have to confront the very thing she herself has been avoiding for five years, the final pages of her own life.
REVIEW: Like the first installment of the series, A Mirror Mended opens fast with plenty of action, spunk, and heart, as well as plenty of darkness and doom just beneath the surface. Zinnia convinces herself the multiverse needs her more than mundane Earth, but at what point does selfless heroism become selfish avoidance, and when does interfering in other people's stories and worlds do more harm than good? Already she's lost her best friend over her constant world-hopping, which she uses to avoid difficult conversations and hard realities. The Evil Queen starts out every inch the cold, menacing witch every reader is familiar with, willing to go to any length to save her own skin from the dark ending she brought upon herself... but, as always, there's more to her story than was written. Hard as Zinnia tries to condemn her and leave her to her fate, much as she tries to tell herself that the woman's just plain evil and evil people always deserve their gruesome endings, she can't help listening, especially when the Queen's plight strikes too close to home. When she learns that her world-hopping has been having unintended consequences, she finally has to look herself in the mirror and ask what she's becoming, what kind of story she's writing for her own life - and if, rather than being the selfless and blameless heroine of dozens of fairy tales, she has more in common with the queen than she wants to admit. As in the first story, Zinnia wrestles with an unfair hand dealt by an unfair life and her own looming mortality, even as she delves into the deeper symbolism and darkness of familiar (and often watered-down) stories that reveal so much about the societies that tell them. It wavers a bit at first, as Zinnia leans hard into her self-assigned role as the innocent protagonist out to right wrongs and give other people the happy endings she knows she'll never have herself, but once the story digs into the Evil Queen's struggle it rises easily to the level of the first story. Also like the first one, the ending's not the simple sweetness-and-sunshine fairy tale conclusion some might have offered, but a perfect and bittersweet finale. Especially given my iffy reading luck this month, I enjoyed it all the more.
You Might Also Enjoy:
A Spindle Splintered (Alix E. Harrow) - My Review
How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse (K. Eason) - My Review
The Enchanted Forest Chronicles (Patricia C. Wrede) - My Review
Friday, February 17, 2023
Under an Outlaw Moon (Dietrich Kalteis)
Under an Outlaw Moon
Dietrich Kalteis
ECW Press
Fiction, Crime/Historical Fiction/Thriller
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: In 1930's Kansas, young Stella Mae Irwin isn't even sixteen years old when she meets Bennie Dickson at the roller rink. In his twenties, Bennie already has a record and prison time under his belt, offshoot of youthful missteps, though he's trying to turn his life around by driving a taxi and training as a boxer, with an eye on law school. The two fall head over heels at first sight, and before long have promised to marry each other (even though she's too young for a formal engagement). But when Bennie finds himself on the wrong side of the law again, Stella willingly risks everything to join him. Together, they become bank robbers in the vein of Bonnie and Clyde - and also find themselves at the top of the FBI's Most Wanted list.
REVIEW: Based on the real-life story of Bennie and Stella Mae Dickson, this is a novel about lives gone wrong and the blind faith of young love, as well as how the law sometimes creates its own monsters to justify its own draconian responses. Bennie isn't necessarily a bad person or even a sociopath, but is branded as a criminal from an early age and pushed until he decides to simply embrace the label, putting his talents to use in robberies when doors to a more legitimate future are slammed shut in his face. Stella may be young, but she's not a fool; she knows full well Bennie is dangerous, but knows too that there's more to him and his story, and is all too willing an accomplice in the name of love. As for their crimes, their two bank robberies - the first on Stella's sixteenth birthday, to fund their newlywed life - are handled in an almost benevolent fashion, without a shot fired or life endangered. Still, FBI director Hoover makes it his personal mission to hunt them down and turn the public sentiment against them, setting up a disproportionately drastic response to their relatively minimal crime spree; the field agent charged with tracking them down grows rather disillusioned with the bureau and the whole process (and the heavy propaganda angle, fed by a compliant press) as he watches it play out. Meanwhile, Bennie and Stella, driven as much by the endorphin rush as by the need for cash, veer from the giddy triumph of a successful heist to the struggles of life on the run and the necessity of using more crimes to escape the ones they've already committed, chasing an ever-more-elusive dream of someday going straight and putting it all behind them to raise a family in a nice house. Stella seems to recognize it as a lie they're telling themselves long before Bennie, but the two also realize that some roads can't be turned back from, especially not when the entire federal government's bound and determined to make an example out of them. The ending is as tragic as it is inevitable, as is the spin put on it for the public eye. The novel manages to humanize the characters and bring the era to life while also working as a solid story of doomed love and a crime thriller. Given my somewhat iffy reading luck of late, I enjoyed it all the more.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Boys in the Boat (Daniel James Brown) - My Review
Water for Elephants (Sara Gruen) - My Review
Seabiscuit (Laura Hillenbrand) - My Review
Dietrich Kalteis
ECW Press
Fiction, Crime/Historical Fiction/Thriller
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: In 1930's Kansas, young Stella Mae Irwin isn't even sixteen years old when she meets Bennie Dickson at the roller rink. In his twenties, Bennie already has a record and prison time under his belt, offshoot of youthful missteps, though he's trying to turn his life around by driving a taxi and training as a boxer, with an eye on law school. The two fall head over heels at first sight, and before long have promised to marry each other (even though she's too young for a formal engagement). But when Bennie finds himself on the wrong side of the law again, Stella willingly risks everything to join him. Together, they become bank robbers in the vein of Bonnie and Clyde - and also find themselves at the top of the FBI's Most Wanted list.
REVIEW: Based on the real-life story of Bennie and Stella Mae Dickson, this is a novel about lives gone wrong and the blind faith of young love, as well as how the law sometimes creates its own monsters to justify its own draconian responses. Bennie isn't necessarily a bad person or even a sociopath, but is branded as a criminal from an early age and pushed until he decides to simply embrace the label, putting his talents to use in robberies when doors to a more legitimate future are slammed shut in his face. Stella may be young, but she's not a fool; she knows full well Bennie is dangerous, but knows too that there's more to him and his story, and is all too willing an accomplice in the name of love. As for their crimes, their two bank robberies - the first on Stella's sixteenth birthday, to fund their newlywed life - are handled in an almost benevolent fashion, without a shot fired or life endangered. Still, FBI director Hoover makes it his personal mission to hunt them down and turn the public sentiment against them, setting up a disproportionately drastic response to their relatively minimal crime spree; the field agent charged with tracking them down grows rather disillusioned with the bureau and the whole process (and the heavy propaganda angle, fed by a compliant press) as he watches it play out. Meanwhile, Bennie and Stella, driven as much by the endorphin rush as by the need for cash, veer from the giddy triumph of a successful heist to the struggles of life on the run and the necessity of using more crimes to escape the ones they've already committed, chasing an ever-more-elusive dream of someday going straight and putting it all behind them to raise a family in a nice house. Stella seems to recognize it as a lie they're telling themselves long before Bennie, but the two also realize that some roads can't be turned back from, especially not when the entire federal government's bound and determined to make an example out of them. The ending is as tragic as it is inevitable, as is the spin put on it for the public eye. The novel manages to humanize the characters and bring the era to life while also working as a solid story of doomed love and a crime thriller. Given my somewhat iffy reading luck of late, I enjoyed it all the more.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Boys in the Boat (Daniel James Brown) - My Review
Water for Elephants (Sara Gruen) - My Review
Seabiscuit (Laura Hillenbrand) - My Review
Thursday, February 16, 2023
Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore (Robin Sloan)
Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore
Robin Sloan
Picador Paper
Fiction, Adventure/Fantasy
*** (Okay)
DESCRIPTION: Clay Jannon really thought he'd be going places as a web design specialist in San Francisco, until the Great Recession hit. Worse, every gig he might qualify for pits his less-than-a-year of practical experience against the hordes of other web designers and computer specialists who also lost their jobs when the startup bubble popped. He finally manages to land a job - not behind a computer, but at the counter of a peculiar San Francisco bookstore. From the moment he walked in, Clay knew something was odd about Mr. Penumbra's place, but he doesn't realize how strange until he works there. First off, the shop barely sells any of the used books in the front. Secondly, the handful of eccentric regulars only want to borrow from the ceiling-high shelves in the back, peculiar tomes whose contents appear to be gibberish when Clay takes a peek inside. When his curiosity gets the better of him, he manages to sneak a volume out of the store to investigate further... and ends up over his head in a hidden world of secrets, cults, and the search for a possible formula for immortality encoded in some of the first books ever printed.
REVIEW: This is one of those books I keep hearing about, so I had reasonably high expectations going in. Maybe that was my problem; I should've kept the bar lower. Or maybe the world has changed so much, generally for the worse (particularly the image of Big Tech), that it doesn't have the same impact in 2023 as it did in 2012. It's also possible that I've just consumed too much media that had a similar message (and similar "love letter to books" theme), that this one didn't blow my metaphoric socks off like I'd been promised it would.
Things start on an iffy note with twenty-something Clay, a typically shallow and short-sighted computer guy who is thrown for a loop when the "sure thing" promise of fortune and job security in his field crashes against the reality of a rough economy and a glut of others who all thought the same thing and got the same training has he did. (I say "typically" for the sort of character he is, naturally, not "typically" for real-world people of his profession or age. Because by now, I think we've all read quite a few characters written to this template with minimal variation... but I digress.) He's not the kind of person I enjoy being around, yet the first-person narration sticks me in his head for the entire story, even when he's being an idiotic and hormonal young man. He stumbles into a job with elderly eccentric Mr. Penumbra, securing the position when he admits a love for an obscure fantasy trilogy that turns out to have greater plot significance later on, and takes a little too long (i.e., wastes the reader's time) before deciding to actually investigate the strangeness. In this endeavor, he's aided by an FX expert roommate and a best friend/former gaming party companion, as well as by a new girlfriend who happens to work at Google. The author practically worships the vast benevolent power of Google and Big Tech, presenting the campus and company as a budding utopia destined to solve all the world's problems, up to and including conquering death itself. How different things look a mere ten years later, where tech is less a genial divinity and more a tool too often exploited by the worst impulses of humanity and capitalism (and I'm not even getting into the idea of piracy as a victimless crime that somehow coexists with this golden vision of a blameless corporate behemoth like Google)... but, again, I digress. In any event, the investigation and Clay's discoveries, made with the help of wonderful and beautiful technology, ends up causing big problems for the bookshop and Mr. Penumbra, who is part of something much larger and older and potentially more dangerous and world-altering than simply selling used books, or even lending old tomes of encoded text to a select group of obsessed eccentrics in the Bay area. When it looks like Penumbra may be punished for his actions, Clay sets out to make things right, and gets in even deeper than anticipated. All of this eventually builds to a climax where medieval printmaking and modern technology intersect, and... well, to get much further ventures too deep into spoiler territory, eventually culminating in a message that was not exactly the earth-shaking revelation it had been built up to be for me.
There's something strangely throwback about the book, despite the prominence of modern technology and Google product placement. (One very refreshing aspect was that tech was not inherently wrong or evil, for all that Sloan went a little too far the other way by doing everything short of offering sacrifices before graven images of a company logo. Penumbra recognizes the potential for technology in increasing the spread of stories and literacy, and even in solving mysteries of the past.) The cast is exceptionally and conspicuously male-heavy, and the women, barring a few extras, were almost invariably included to give the geek guys suitably hot girlfriends; cross this with an overall shallowness to characterization (especially of anyone with XX chromosomes), and it gives the story a retro vibe in a not good way. Even the conclusion to the great mystery feels like something that would've been revelatory maybe in the 1980's, but by now is more than played out. (And it's not exactly retro, but I also have to note that the audiobook presentation included a few parts that were supposed to be a recorded book being listened to by Clay, and the way the production made it sound like a tape, with degraded audio quality and all, was distinctly unpleasant.)
That said, there are points in its favor. As mentioned previously, it manages to embrace the wonder and beauty of old books and beloved stories while not excluding newer technology and its potentials, pointing out that, at the time of their invention, printed books themselves were the bleeding-edge tech of their day, the industry as tumultuous and competitive as any Silicon Valley startup culture. It offers some interesting glimpses into the many hidden obsessions and collections of the world, for all that there's not a lot in the way of actual magic in the story itself (I hesitated to even label it as "fantasy", but Amazon claims that's what it is). And, as tooth-grinding as the Google worship became over the course of the story, the glimpse into the inner workings of a tech behemoth could be interesting (in limited doses), as well as the nostalgia for the days when it seemed companies like Google could indeed potentially deliver the tech-driven utopia they promised. It's also not too long of a book, even though some scenes could've used a little trimming. Thus, Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore lands a midrange Okay rating.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Ink and Bone (Rachel Caine) - My Review
Libriomancer (Jim C. Hines) - My Review
Endymion Spring (Matthew Skelton) - My Review
Robin Sloan
Picador Paper
Fiction, Adventure/Fantasy
*** (Okay)
DESCRIPTION: Clay Jannon really thought he'd be going places as a web design specialist in San Francisco, until the Great Recession hit. Worse, every gig he might qualify for pits his less-than-a-year of practical experience against the hordes of other web designers and computer specialists who also lost their jobs when the startup bubble popped. He finally manages to land a job - not behind a computer, but at the counter of a peculiar San Francisco bookstore. From the moment he walked in, Clay knew something was odd about Mr. Penumbra's place, but he doesn't realize how strange until he works there. First off, the shop barely sells any of the used books in the front. Secondly, the handful of eccentric regulars only want to borrow from the ceiling-high shelves in the back, peculiar tomes whose contents appear to be gibberish when Clay takes a peek inside. When his curiosity gets the better of him, he manages to sneak a volume out of the store to investigate further... and ends up over his head in a hidden world of secrets, cults, and the search for a possible formula for immortality encoded in some of the first books ever printed.
REVIEW: This is one of those books I keep hearing about, so I had reasonably high expectations going in. Maybe that was my problem; I should've kept the bar lower. Or maybe the world has changed so much, generally for the worse (particularly the image of Big Tech), that it doesn't have the same impact in 2023 as it did in 2012. It's also possible that I've just consumed too much media that had a similar message (and similar "love letter to books" theme), that this one didn't blow my metaphoric socks off like I'd been promised it would.
Things start on an iffy note with twenty-something Clay, a typically shallow and short-sighted computer guy who is thrown for a loop when the "sure thing" promise of fortune and job security in his field crashes against the reality of a rough economy and a glut of others who all thought the same thing and got the same training has he did. (I say "typically" for the sort of character he is, naturally, not "typically" for real-world people of his profession or age. Because by now, I think we've all read quite a few characters written to this template with minimal variation... but I digress.) He's not the kind of person I enjoy being around, yet the first-person narration sticks me in his head for the entire story, even when he's being an idiotic and hormonal young man. He stumbles into a job with elderly eccentric Mr. Penumbra, securing the position when he admits a love for an obscure fantasy trilogy that turns out to have greater plot significance later on, and takes a little too long (i.e., wastes the reader's time) before deciding to actually investigate the strangeness. In this endeavor, he's aided by an FX expert roommate and a best friend/former gaming party companion, as well as by a new girlfriend who happens to work at Google. The author practically worships the vast benevolent power of Google and Big Tech, presenting the campus and company as a budding utopia destined to solve all the world's problems, up to and including conquering death itself. How different things look a mere ten years later, where tech is less a genial divinity and more a tool too often exploited by the worst impulses of humanity and capitalism (and I'm not even getting into the idea of piracy as a victimless crime that somehow coexists with this golden vision of a blameless corporate behemoth like Google)... but, again, I digress. In any event, the investigation and Clay's discoveries, made with the help of wonderful and beautiful technology, ends up causing big problems for the bookshop and Mr. Penumbra, who is part of something much larger and older and potentially more dangerous and world-altering than simply selling used books, or even lending old tomes of encoded text to a select group of obsessed eccentrics in the Bay area. When it looks like Penumbra may be punished for his actions, Clay sets out to make things right, and gets in even deeper than anticipated. All of this eventually builds to a climax where medieval printmaking and modern technology intersect, and... well, to get much further ventures too deep into spoiler territory, eventually culminating in a message that was not exactly the earth-shaking revelation it had been built up to be for me.
There's something strangely throwback about the book, despite the prominence of modern technology and Google product placement. (One very refreshing aspect was that tech was not inherently wrong or evil, for all that Sloan went a little too far the other way by doing everything short of offering sacrifices before graven images of a company logo. Penumbra recognizes the potential for technology in increasing the spread of stories and literacy, and even in solving mysteries of the past.) The cast is exceptionally and conspicuously male-heavy, and the women, barring a few extras, were almost invariably included to give the geek guys suitably hot girlfriends; cross this with an overall shallowness to characterization (especially of anyone with XX chromosomes), and it gives the story a retro vibe in a not good way. Even the conclusion to the great mystery feels like something that would've been revelatory maybe in the 1980's, but by now is more than played out. (And it's not exactly retro, but I also have to note that the audiobook presentation included a few parts that were supposed to be a recorded book being listened to by Clay, and the way the production made it sound like a tape, with degraded audio quality and all, was distinctly unpleasant.)
That said, there are points in its favor. As mentioned previously, it manages to embrace the wonder and beauty of old books and beloved stories while not excluding newer technology and its potentials, pointing out that, at the time of their invention, printed books themselves were the bleeding-edge tech of their day, the industry as tumultuous and competitive as any Silicon Valley startup culture. It offers some interesting glimpses into the many hidden obsessions and collections of the world, for all that there's not a lot in the way of actual magic in the story itself (I hesitated to even label it as "fantasy", but Amazon claims that's what it is). And, as tooth-grinding as the Google worship became over the course of the story, the glimpse into the inner workings of a tech behemoth could be interesting (in limited doses), as well as the nostalgia for the days when it seemed companies like Google could indeed potentially deliver the tech-driven utopia they promised. It's also not too long of a book, even though some scenes could've used a little trimming. Thus, Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore lands a midrange Okay rating.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Ink and Bone (Rachel Caine) - My Review
Libriomancer (Jim C. Hines) - My Review
Endymion Spring (Matthew Skelton) - My Review
Tuesday, February 14, 2023
Remarkably Bright Creatures (Shelby Van Pelt)
Remarkably Bright Creatures
Shelby Van Pelt
Ecco
Fiction, General Fiction/Mystery
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: Tova's been a hard worker all her life, and sees no reason to stop just because she's in her seventies. Though most of her dwindling circle of friends have long since retired, she still spends nights cleaning at the Sowell Bay Aquarium on Puget Sound, keeping the glass clean and the floors mopped and the trash can bags tucked just so. Besides, being at the aquarium is as close as she can get to the memory of her long-dead son Erik; he was a teen working at the ferry dock next door the night he disappeared over thirty years ago, and she's never understood why he left the ticket booth and took a dinghy out on the Sound in the middle of his shift. The night Tova finds the aquarium's aging Pacific Giant Octopus, Marcellus, out of his tank and tangled in extension cords, she makes a new friend of sorts with the invertebrate. But as her age and loneliness begin to catch up to her, Tova realizes maybe she's clung to the past for too long. Maybe it really is time to retire, to downsize, to leave Sowell Bay and her memories, good and bad, behind.
Cameron's in his thirties, going on teens. After his addict mother abandoned him with an aunt when he was not even ten, he's struggled. Now he's lost yet another job, been dumped by yet another girlfriend, and his best friend Brad - expecting his first child - has quit their indie rock band, about the only thing Cameron thought was going well in his life. He's sick and tired of being stuck, but can't seem to stop sabotaging himself and blaming others. When he finally comes into a box of old memorabilia from the mother he barely remembers, Cameron stumbles across a clue to the father nobody ever told him about: a picture of his teen mother with a real estate magnate from up near Seattle, in a place called Sowell Bay, along with a class ring. Surely, if this Simon Brinks really is his dad, he'll be more than able to pay back the eighteen years of back child support he got away with by not being there all through Cameron's childhood... or maybe he'll pay just to have an inconvenient deadbeat son disappear and not ruin the sterling reputation he appears to have built for himself. Either way, Cameron decides he has nothing to lose.
In the Sowell Bay Aquarium, the octopus named Marcellus endures captivity, even as he feels his body wearing out. For all their great intelligence and abilities, Pacific Giant Octopuses only live about four years, and his time is almost up. He does what he can to stave off boredom, sneaking out of his tank at night to explore (and snack in other tanks) in what time he can manage before suffering the Consequences of being out of the water, finding trinkets in forgotten corners for his hidden stash, studying the humans who visit and work at the aquarium, but he never really had a friend before the cleaning woman freed him from the tangled power cords. He knows a secret that might help the old woman in her own declining years... but can he figure out a way to tell her before his time is up?
REVIEW: For a book with the title Remarkably Bright Creatures, I expected more intelligence from the characters, particularly the human ones. Unfortunately, despite some promise in the setup, the story relies a little too much on people being stubborn and willfully stupid, or being interrupted right on the cusp of any major revelation. Tova's an old woman set in her ways and fossilized in her own grief, still bleeding from the unhealed wound of her son's death (moreso than for the loss of her husband many years later). When her estranged brother passes away and she experiences a fall that reminds her that she's wearing out herself, she takes it as a sign to get her own affairs in order... while being willfully and deliberately blind to any option other than the somewhat extreme one she sets up for herself, particularly options involving Ethan, the owner of the town grocery store who couldn't be more obvious about his interest in widowed Tova if he spelled it out with tomatoes in the produce aisle. (If only he'd use actual words...) Cameron is supposed to be a hurt, confused man, evoking sympathy from the reader, but comes across as a selfish twerp, a moody teenager at heart despite his age, incapable of even basic survival skills and utterly unwilling to look himself in the mirror and take any responsibility at all, always blaming his absentee mother or his unreasonable bosses or the sky for being blue when his own actions explode in his face and damage not only himself but innocent bystanders. He carries a clue to his real father, but deliberately ignores and misreads and flails and tantrums until it's almost too late. As for Marcellus... well, he's the smartest of the bunch, for all that he's not in it quite as much as I might have hoped, him being my favorite character of the lot. Marcellus also has the excuse of not being human to explain his actions (or lack thereof), though at least he consistently tries.
As for the storyline, it does a decent job establishing the setting and its cast, but can wander and wallow in the characters' inertia. Also, as mentioned, it leans on people not listening, not paying attention, or being interrupted (or simply doing something profoundly dumb, at least once - and not just Cameron) just to draw things out for another few dozen pages. At least the octopus has an excuse for not just spitting out what he knows. Needless to say, a lot of the story ultimately ties into the mystery of the fateful night of Erik's disappearance (a fact the reader gets long before anyone in the book clues in), but the idea that none of this came out at all in thirty years felt a bit stretched, especially in a town established to be as small and gossip-heavy as Sowell Bay. The ending isn't bad, and brings some sense of closure, though it felt like it took a bit too long to get there, and I'm not sure I totally bought some of the transformations. It wasn't a complete disappointment, and has some high points and decent moments, but given the hype and talk around this book, I'd hoped for something a little better.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Benefits of Being an Octopus (Ann Braden) - My Review
Unflappable (Suzie Gilbert) - My Review
Swamplandia! (Karen Russell) - My Review
Shelby Van Pelt
Ecco
Fiction, General Fiction/Mystery
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: Tova's been a hard worker all her life, and sees no reason to stop just because she's in her seventies. Though most of her dwindling circle of friends have long since retired, she still spends nights cleaning at the Sowell Bay Aquarium on Puget Sound, keeping the glass clean and the floors mopped and the trash can bags tucked just so. Besides, being at the aquarium is as close as she can get to the memory of her long-dead son Erik; he was a teen working at the ferry dock next door the night he disappeared over thirty years ago, and she's never understood why he left the ticket booth and took a dinghy out on the Sound in the middle of his shift. The night Tova finds the aquarium's aging Pacific Giant Octopus, Marcellus, out of his tank and tangled in extension cords, she makes a new friend of sorts with the invertebrate. But as her age and loneliness begin to catch up to her, Tova realizes maybe she's clung to the past for too long. Maybe it really is time to retire, to downsize, to leave Sowell Bay and her memories, good and bad, behind.
Cameron's in his thirties, going on teens. After his addict mother abandoned him with an aunt when he was not even ten, he's struggled. Now he's lost yet another job, been dumped by yet another girlfriend, and his best friend Brad - expecting his first child - has quit their indie rock band, about the only thing Cameron thought was going well in his life. He's sick and tired of being stuck, but can't seem to stop sabotaging himself and blaming others. When he finally comes into a box of old memorabilia from the mother he barely remembers, Cameron stumbles across a clue to the father nobody ever told him about: a picture of his teen mother with a real estate magnate from up near Seattle, in a place called Sowell Bay, along with a class ring. Surely, if this Simon Brinks really is his dad, he'll be more than able to pay back the eighteen years of back child support he got away with by not being there all through Cameron's childhood... or maybe he'll pay just to have an inconvenient deadbeat son disappear and not ruin the sterling reputation he appears to have built for himself. Either way, Cameron decides he has nothing to lose.
In the Sowell Bay Aquarium, the octopus named Marcellus endures captivity, even as he feels his body wearing out. For all their great intelligence and abilities, Pacific Giant Octopuses only live about four years, and his time is almost up. He does what he can to stave off boredom, sneaking out of his tank at night to explore (and snack in other tanks) in what time he can manage before suffering the Consequences of being out of the water, finding trinkets in forgotten corners for his hidden stash, studying the humans who visit and work at the aquarium, but he never really had a friend before the cleaning woman freed him from the tangled power cords. He knows a secret that might help the old woman in her own declining years... but can he figure out a way to tell her before his time is up?
REVIEW: For a book with the title Remarkably Bright Creatures, I expected more intelligence from the characters, particularly the human ones. Unfortunately, despite some promise in the setup, the story relies a little too much on people being stubborn and willfully stupid, or being interrupted right on the cusp of any major revelation. Tova's an old woman set in her ways and fossilized in her own grief, still bleeding from the unhealed wound of her son's death (moreso than for the loss of her husband many years later). When her estranged brother passes away and she experiences a fall that reminds her that she's wearing out herself, she takes it as a sign to get her own affairs in order... while being willfully and deliberately blind to any option other than the somewhat extreme one she sets up for herself, particularly options involving Ethan, the owner of the town grocery store who couldn't be more obvious about his interest in widowed Tova if he spelled it out with tomatoes in the produce aisle. (If only he'd use actual words...) Cameron is supposed to be a hurt, confused man, evoking sympathy from the reader, but comes across as a selfish twerp, a moody teenager at heart despite his age, incapable of even basic survival skills and utterly unwilling to look himself in the mirror and take any responsibility at all, always blaming his absentee mother or his unreasonable bosses or the sky for being blue when his own actions explode in his face and damage not only himself but innocent bystanders. He carries a clue to his real father, but deliberately ignores and misreads and flails and tantrums until it's almost too late. As for Marcellus... well, he's the smartest of the bunch, for all that he's not in it quite as much as I might have hoped, him being my favorite character of the lot. Marcellus also has the excuse of not being human to explain his actions (or lack thereof), though at least he consistently tries.
As for the storyline, it does a decent job establishing the setting and its cast, but can wander and wallow in the characters' inertia. Also, as mentioned, it leans on people not listening, not paying attention, or being interrupted (or simply doing something profoundly dumb, at least once - and not just Cameron) just to draw things out for another few dozen pages. At least the octopus has an excuse for not just spitting out what he knows. Needless to say, a lot of the story ultimately ties into the mystery of the fateful night of Erik's disappearance (a fact the reader gets long before anyone in the book clues in), but the idea that none of this came out at all in thirty years felt a bit stretched, especially in a town established to be as small and gossip-heavy as Sowell Bay. The ending isn't bad, and brings some sense of closure, though it felt like it took a bit too long to get there, and I'm not sure I totally bought some of the transformations. It wasn't a complete disappointment, and has some high points and decent moments, but given the hype and talk around this book, I'd hoped for something a little better.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Benefits of Being an Octopus (Ann Braden) - My Review
Unflappable (Suzie Gilbert) - My Review
Swamplandia! (Karen Russell) - My Review
Friday, February 10, 2023
Killing Mr. Griffin (Lois Duncan)
Killing Mr. Griffin
Lois Duncan
Little, Brown Books
Fiction, YA Suspense
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: High school is one of the most stressful times of a young person's life, and one bad grade can derail a teen's future. In Mr. Griffin's English class, failure isn't just an option, it's almost a given. Nobody pushes students harder, with a zero-tolerance policy for everything from tardiness to late assignments (even with legitimate excuses, such as family emergencies). Nothing is ever good enough for him. He doesn't actually seem to like anyone or anything, and never bothers explaining what he actually wants or clarifying his demands. He's the kind of teacher many students wish would just drop dead.
Nobody actually expected him to die...
It was just supposed to be a prank, a way to rattle the stiff-necked man, maybe remind him that everyone - even he - has a breaking point. Five of Mr. Griffin's students - shy good girl Susan, basketball star Jeff, senior class president Daniel, head cheerleader Betsy, and troubled teen Mark - conspire to kidnap him after school and take him to a remote spot in the hills, make him beg for his freedom, so he can feel one ounce of the desperation and helplessness that kids feel in his classroom every day of the semester. But something goes terribly wrong. Now Mr. Griffin is dead. The more the teens try to cover up the truth, the more comes undone, a snowball that will destroy far more than a failed class ever could... and possibly claim even more lives.
REVIEW: Every high school has at least one teacher that nobody likes, the relentlessly strict one who seems utterly incapable of conceiving of students as human beings and never has a kind or even neutral word to offer, who walks a fine line between setting "high expectations" and outright tormenting and degrading their classes (and would step over that line more than once). Killing Mr. Griffin plays out the secret fantasy of more than one student of said teachers, showing how they're pushed to the brink even as it shows his (somewhat faulty) reasons for being so harsh that he often openly crosses into cruelty. It's one thing to set high standards, but it's another to completely ignore students who are flailing and asking for help, or to forget that teenagers are still kids, and also humans, and therefore perfection at all times and in all things is an unrealistic expectation. If you keep kicking kids while they're down, flaunting your power over their lives and futures and setting up "damned if you do, damned if you don't" as their only experience, something is bound to give.
What starts as a somewhat impulsive act spurred by frustration quickly snowballs out of control, little things going wrong at every step to accumulate into much bigger problems down the line. The five teens each have their own reasons for feeling justified in taking vengeance on the teacher, but once they find themselves with a dead body on their hands, momentum and peer pressure keep them bound together in an increasingly ugly and messy conspiracy, dragging even good girl Susan down to levels of deception she never imagined herself capable of. The story unfolds at a decent pace, establishing why each kid feels justified in seeking vengeance against the teacher, what they think they'll get out of it, and what they have to lose - and how everything goes sideways when the prank becomes more than just a simple kidnapping. This being from 1978, there are some tinges of sexism that date the story, particularly the assumed roles and capabilities of women (especially mothers), but the core high school experience hasn't changed much in the intervening years; it's still a pressure cooker of hormones and confusion and bewilderment over a future rushing headlong at kids who feel (and often are) entirely unprepared for adult expectations that are about to be thrust upon them. I also found a few elements of the finale a bit too neat, given how everything else was falling apart by the climax. Overall, though, this is a solid, decidedly dark tale of suspense and plans going terribly awry in the worst possible way.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Wolf Rider (Avi) - My Review
Scat (Carl Hiaasen) - My Review
13 Minutes (Sarah Pinborough) - My Review
Lois Duncan
Little, Brown Books
Fiction, YA Suspense
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: High school is one of the most stressful times of a young person's life, and one bad grade can derail a teen's future. In Mr. Griffin's English class, failure isn't just an option, it's almost a given. Nobody pushes students harder, with a zero-tolerance policy for everything from tardiness to late assignments (even with legitimate excuses, such as family emergencies). Nothing is ever good enough for him. He doesn't actually seem to like anyone or anything, and never bothers explaining what he actually wants or clarifying his demands. He's the kind of teacher many students wish would just drop dead.
Nobody actually expected him to die...
It was just supposed to be a prank, a way to rattle the stiff-necked man, maybe remind him that everyone - even he - has a breaking point. Five of Mr. Griffin's students - shy good girl Susan, basketball star Jeff, senior class president Daniel, head cheerleader Betsy, and troubled teen Mark - conspire to kidnap him after school and take him to a remote spot in the hills, make him beg for his freedom, so he can feel one ounce of the desperation and helplessness that kids feel in his classroom every day of the semester. But something goes terribly wrong. Now Mr. Griffin is dead. The more the teens try to cover up the truth, the more comes undone, a snowball that will destroy far more than a failed class ever could... and possibly claim even more lives.
REVIEW: Every high school has at least one teacher that nobody likes, the relentlessly strict one who seems utterly incapable of conceiving of students as human beings and never has a kind or even neutral word to offer, who walks a fine line between setting "high expectations" and outright tormenting and degrading their classes (and would step over that line more than once). Killing Mr. Griffin plays out the secret fantasy of more than one student of said teachers, showing how they're pushed to the brink even as it shows his (somewhat faulty) reasons for being so harsh that he often openly crosses into cruelty. It's one thing to set high standards, but it's another to completely ignore students who are flailing and asking for help, or to forget that teenagers are still kids, and also humans, and therefore perfection at all times and in all things is an unrealistic expectation. If you keep kicking kids while they're down, flaunting your power over their lives and futures and setting up "damned if you do, damned if you don't" as their only experience, something is bound to give.
What starts as a somewhat impulsive act spurred by frustration quickly snowballs out of control, little things going wrong at every step to accumulate into much bigger problems down the line. The five teens each have their own reasons for feeling justified in taking vengeance on the teacher, but once they find themselves with a dead body on their hands, momentum and peer pressure keep them bound together in an increasingly ugly and messy conspiracy, dragging even good girl Susan down to levels of deception she never imagined herself capable of. The story unfolds at a decent pace, establishing why each kid feels justified in seeking vengeance against the teacher, what they think they'll get out of it, and what they have to lose - and how everything goes sideways when the prank becomes more than just a simple kidnapping. This being from 1978, there are some tinges of sexism that date the story, particularly the assumed roles and capabilities of women (especially mothers), but the core high school experience hasn't changed much in the intervening years; it's still a pressure cooker of hormones and confusion and bewilderment over a future rushing headlong at kids who feel (and often are) entirely unprepared for adult expectations that are about to be thrust upon them. I also found a few elements of the finale a bit too neat, given how everything else was falling apart by the climax. Overall, though, this is a solid, decidedly dark tale of suspense and plans going terribly awry in the worst possible way.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Wolf Rider (Avi) - My Review
Scat (Carl Hiaasen) - My Review
13 Minutes (Sarah Pinborough) - My Review
Thursday, February 9, 2023
The Face in the Frost (John Bellairs)
The Face in the Frost
John Bellairs
Open Road Media
Fiction, Fantasy
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: In a time of magic and wizardry, in a divided land of squabbling rulers, the wizard Prospero (not the one you're thinking of) becomes aware of a dark force stalking him - sometimes in his own home: haunting dreams, strange shadows and visions, and a constant feeling of being watched and hunted. When his friend, the necromancer Roger Bacon, comes to call, he, too, reports odd occurrences and encounters. Some malevolent force is reaching out to darken the whole land, spreading fear and hate and foulness. The two set out to track down the source of the scourge, but might discover something far more powerful than the both of them.
REVIEW: This title is something of a classic, first published in 1969. As such, the style is a bit throwback, but still eminently enjoyable. The tone is often light and riddled with anachronisms, but can also veer darker, moreso as it goes on and the full strength and power of their foe becomes more apparent, with numerous dangers and deadly traps awaiting the wizards. The plot and characters aren't particularly deep, but the story is generally entertaining and never dull. The ending, though, feels unsatisfactory, and some developments drop in out of the blue. On the whole, I've read a lot worse.
You Might Also Enjoy:
A Wizard of Earthsea (Ursula K. Le Guin) - My Review
The Color of Magic (Terry Pratchett) - My Review
The Once and Future King (T. H. White) - My Review
John Bellairs
Open Road Media
Fiction, Fantasy
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: In a time of magic and wizardry, in a divided land of squabbling rulers, the wizard Prospero (not the one you're thinking of) becomes aware of a dark force stalking him - sometimes in his own home: haunting dreams, strange shadows and visions, and a constant feeling of being watched and hunted. When his friend, the necromancer Roger Bacon, comes to call, he, too, reports odd occurrences and encounters. Some malevolent force is reaching out to darken the whole land, spreading fear and hate and foulness. The two set out to track down the source of the scourge, but might discover something far more powerful than the both of them.
REVIEW: This title is something of a classic, first published in 1969. As such, the style is a bit throwback, but still eminently enjoyable. The tone is often light and riddled with anachronisms, but can also veer darker, moreso as it goes on and the full strength and power of their foe becomes more apparent, with numerous dangers and deadly traps awaiting the wizards. The plot and characters aren't particularly deep, but the story is generally entertaining and never dull. The ending, though, feels unsatisfactory, and some developments drop in out of the blue. On the whole, I've read a lot worse.
You Might Also Enjoy:
A Wizard of Earthsea (Ursula K. Le Guin) - My Review
The Color of Magic (Terry Pratchett) - My Review
The Once and Future King (T. H. White) - My Review
Wednesday, February 8, 2023
Sister of the Chosen One (Erin Armknecht and Colleen Oakes)
Sister of the Chosen One
Erin Armknecht and Colleen Oakes
Colleen Oakes, publisher
Fiction, YA Fantasy/Sci-Fi
*** (Okay)
DESCRIPTION: Being the Chosen One is a tough job. Just ask Valora Rigmore. Since her birth, she's been a celebrity, named by prophecy to be the eventual slayer of the evil Erys, the woman responsible for gathering monsters from the hidden corners of the world and imbuing them with a ravenous hunger for human flesh. Even at Proctor Moor, a Connecticut school devoted to Extraordinary students with unusual gifts, she stands out, followed by reporters and sycophants, always the center of attention - even when she's not saving people from marauding beasts. But every victory only leaves her feeling emptier, leaves her more vulnerable to the whispers in the back of her mind that, strong as her telekinesis is, she's not strong enough and never will be strong enough. Of course, she'd never admit that out loud. Not when everyone is counting on her to save the world.
If being the Chosen One is tough, then being the Chosen One's twin sister is even worse. Just ask Grier Rigmore. Quiet, bookish, curvy, and perpetually overlooked, Grier's own talent - opening small portals to move objects short distances - is never going to save anyone, let alone any world. The only reason anyone ever seems to notice her at all, she's sure, is probably because they think she can give them access to Valora, but the sisters haven't been close since almost before either can remember. When a new boy in school finally seems to see her for her, just as a teacher begins to take an interest in her teleportation and its potential, Grier has some small hope that maybe, just maybe, she can find a future away from Valora's outsized shadow.
As sibling rivalry sparks and burns, driving the two further apart, the final confrontation with Erys and her monster hordes grows ever closer... a confrontation that may well prove Valora's doubts true, and leave the world unprotected against a madwoman's ultimate triumph.
REVIEW: The premise had definite potential, showing the fractured family life of heroes and "chosen ones" and what it's like to be forever fame-adjacent, on top of the already-tumultuous trials of being a teenager and trying to figure out one's own self and life when everyone seems to have already decided both. At first, that is indeed what the story offered me. Valora and Grier have grown apart since childhood, when Valora was named Chosen One (seemingly confirmed when her Extraordinary talent, telekinesis, not only mimicked the last great hero of the world - the one murdered by archnemesis Erys - but was far more immediately useful in a fight than Grier's little portals) and their father dove head-first in to the stage parent role, hiring agents and publicists and milking the fame for every last drop of influence and secondhand glory... leaving Grier in the dust, overlooked and forgotten. Both seem to have reasonably legitimate reasons for the rift and why it can never be mended, as revealed in chapters that alternate their points of view. When Grier finally starts finding her own empowerment, the status quo of their lopsided relationship is shaken, threatening to make the rift a permanently unbridgeable canyon between the sisters. Even though they both vaguely feel saddened by the loss of something they feel they should have had, neither can figure out how to stop the momentum. Meanwhile, all signs point to the final confrontation between Erys and Valora coming sooner than anyone anticipated - not only the final proof or negation of the prophecy, but possibly the literal last chance for the twins to mend their relationship.
At some point, roughly just past the halfway point, the story stopped being as interesting. The plot started to feel less organic and spontaneous and more manipulated and forced, the back-and-forth between the characters no longer feeling natural. Backstory gets shoehorned in as Valora finally takes a tangible interest in her own fate and starts researching her enemy and her fallen predecessor, uncovering some secrets that came across as more than a little stale. Here and there, increasingly toward the end, were lines and sentences that were conspicuously on the nose, stock phrases and language that felt less like actual teenagers and more like an adult who had watched a lot of movies and TV shows starring teenage characters but had little to no recollection of what being a teen had actually been like as a lived experience. But what really tanked the rating was in the final act, the revelation of a betrayal and the arrival of Erys. The villainess, who was always a bit vague as a baddie, turns out to be a cheap cliche from the bottom of the stock bin, with paper-thin motivations and goals. The final battle is far too drawn out, and one final revelation just had me rolling my eyes... after which the battle kept going. And going. And, oh wait, it's still going... Yeah, it felt way too long, the tension long since drained, and by the time it ended I no longer cared who lived or who died so long as it finally, finally ended. Then an epilogue offered the wrap-up I really didn't need or even want, its chief benefit being that it lasted just long enough to take me to the end of the workday so I didn't have dead audio time.
There were times when Sister of the Chosen One lived up to the promise of its concept, but by the end I just couldn't care about either sister, let alone the world one of them was supposed to save.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Rampant (Diana Peterfreund) - My Review
Steelheart (Brandon Sanderson) - My Review
Hench (Natalie Zina Walschots) - My Review
Erin Armknecht and Colleen Oakes
Colleen Oakes, publisher
Fiction, YA Fantasy/Sci-Fi
*** (Okay)
DESCRIPTION: Being the Chosen One is a tough job. Just ask Valora Rigmore. Since her birth, she's been a celebrity, named by prophecy to be the eventual slayer of the evil Erys, the woman responsible for gathering monsters from the hidden corners of the world and imbuing them with a ravenous hunger for human flesh. Even at Proctor Moor, a Connecticut school devoted to Extraordinary students with unusual gifts, she stands out, followed by reporters and sycophants, always the center of attention - even when she's not saving people from marauding beasts. But every victory only leaves her feeling emptier, leaves her more vulnerable to the whispers in the back of her mind that, strong as her telekinesis is, she's not strong enough and never will be strong enough. Of course, she'd never admit that out loud. Not when everyone is counting on her to save the world.
If being the Chosen One is tough, then being the Chosen One's twin sister is even worse. Just ask Grier Rigmore. Quiet, bookish, curvy, and perpetually overlooked, Grier's own talent - opening small portals to move objects short distances - is never going to save anyone, let alone any world. The only reason anyone ever seems to notice her at all, she's sure, is probably because they think she can give them access to Valora, but the sisters haven't been close since almost before either can remember. When a new boy in school finally seems to see her for her, just as a teacher begins to take an interest in her teleportation and its potential, Grier has some small hope that maybe, just maybe, she can find a future away from Valora's outsized shadow.
As sibling rivalry sparks and burns, driving the two further apart, the final confrontation with Erys and her monster hordes grows ever closer... a confrontation that may well prove Valora's doubts true, and leave the world unprotected against a madwoman's ultimate triumph.
REVIEW: The premise had definite potential, showing the fractured family life of heroes and "chosen ones" and what it's like to be forever fame-adjacent, on top of the already-tumultuous trials of being a teenager and trying to figure out one's own self and life when everyone seems to have already decided both. At first, that is indeed what the story offered me. Valora and Grier have grown apart since childhood, when Valora was named Chosen One (seemingly confirmed when her Extraordinary talent, telekinesis, not only mimicked the last great hero of the world - the one murdered by archnemesis Erys - but was far more immediately useful in a fight than Grier's little portals) and their father dove head-first in to the stage parent role, hiring agents and publicists and milking the fame for every last drop of influence and secondhand glory... leaving Grier in the dust, overlooked and forgotten. Both seem to have reasonably legitimate reasons for the rift and why it can never be mended, as revealed in chapters that alternate their points of view. When Grier finally starts finding her own empowerment, the status quo of their lopsided relationship is shaken, threatening to make the rift a permanently unbridgeable canyon between the sisters. Even though they both vaguely feel saddened by the loss of something they feel they should have had, neither can figure out how to stop the momentum. Meanwhile, all signs point to the final confrontation between Erys and Valora coming sooner than anyone anticipated - not only the final proof or negation of the prophecy, but possibly the literal last chance for the twins to mend their relationship.
At some point, roughly just past the halfway point, the story stopped being as interesting. The plot started to feel less organic and spontaneous and more manipulated and forced, the back-and-forth between the characters no longer feeling natural. Backstory gets shoehorned in as Valora finally takes a tangible interest in her own fate and starts researching her enemy and her fallen predecessor, uncovering some secrets that came across as more than a little stale. Here and there, increasingly toward the end, were lines and sentences that were conspicuously on the nose, stock phrases and language that felt less like actual teenagers and more like an adult who had watched a lot of movies and TV shows starring teenage characters but had little to no recollection of what being a teen had actually been like as a lived experience. But what really tanked the rating was in the final act, the revelation of a betrayal and the arrival of Erys. The villainess, who was always a bit vague as a baddie, turns out to be a cheap cliche from the bottom of the stock bin, with paper-thin motivations and goals. The final battle is far too drawn out, and one final revelation just had me rolling my eyes... after which the battle kept going. And going. And, oh wait, it's still going... Yeah, it felt way too long, the tension long since drained, and by the time it ended I no longer cared who lived or who died so long as it finally, finally ended. Then an epilogue offered the wrap-up I really didn't need or even want, its chief benefit being that it lasted just long enough to take me to the end of the workday so I didn't have dead audio time.
There were times when Sister of the Chosen One lived up to the promise of its concept, but by the end I just couldn't care about either sister, let alone the world one of them was supposed to save.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Rampant (Diana Peterfreund) - My Review
Steelheart (Brandon Sanderson) - My Review
Hench (Natalie Zina Walschots) - My Review
Sunday, February 5, 2023
A Psalm for the Wild-Built (Becky Chambers)
A Psalm for the Wild-Built
A Monk and Robot book, Book 1
Becky Chambers
Tordotcom
Fiction, Sci-Fi
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Centuries ago, the moon world of Panga stood on the brink of total collapse. With the Awakening, the robots of industry gaining awareness and leaving their endless, pointless toil, society remade itself. Today, Panga thrives, sustainable and ecologically balanced. But what became of the robots? They have faded to legend, long since disappeared into the re-invigorated wilderness. No human and robot have stood face to face in generations... until now.
Sibling Dex grows restless with monastic life. Becoming a traveling tea monk, they pedal their wagon around to villages and towns and the big City, offering brews and comfort and a sympathetic ear to those in need. For a time, that helps, but then the restlessness returns, a wild and reckless impulse to hear for themselves a sound they've only ever heard on old recordings: a cricket song. Crickets didn't fare well in the collapse, and only a few populations survive in the most remote of places, like the long-abandoned Hart's Brow Hermitage. When Dex turns their ox-bike wagon toward the abandoned roads of the wilderness, they become the first human in ages to encounter a robot when they meet Mosscap. Like Dex, it is on its own journey of discovery. In exchange for information about humanity, Mosscap acts as guide and companion for the tea monk, who quickly realizes just how far out of their element, in every way, they have traveled.
REVIEW: Becky Chambers writes hopeful, cozy tales of brighter futures and better societies, a nice break in a genre that tends to skew darker and heavier and more pessimistic. Sometimes it's good to change perspectives, to see a light at the end of the tunnel that isn't an oncoming planet-killer asteroid of a train, but sometimes it can feel a little... I don't want to say "preachy", but mildly self-righteous, as if the only reason people see dark things or feel unsettled or uncertain or end up stuck in bad places (or living in self-destructing civilizations) is because they simply aren't enlightened enough to do better.
As Dex pushes themselves in new directions, driven by a restlessness even they can't quantify, they make sure the reader appreciates just how wonderful and utopian Panga has become, how much better everything is now. But even this perfect image of a sustainable civilization can't satisfy that nameless itch that first drove Dex from the monastery, for all that they still believe in the lessons of the world's Six Gods (which seem to be less independent anthropomorphic identities than embodiments of ideas and principles, objects of meditation more than supplication). Mosscap provides a needed new perspective, for all that the meeting isn't without its bumps and misunderstandings. The robot is endlessly curious about everything, both like and unlike the curious tea monk, offering its own lessons to enlighten Dex (and, naturally, the reader). There's a definite charm about their relationship and inevitable partnership and how they relate to their world.
There isn't much of a plot or strong story arc here, more of a series of incidents in Dex's travels and continued search to satiate an inner yearning even they can't articulate, so the ending isn't so much a satisfactory conclusion or answer as a resting point along a journey that may well be endless. While there's a certain sense of wonder and gentleness about the book and Panga, and it is nice to see something unrelentingly positive about the world's ability to recover from even the worst human civilization can throw at it, at some point I felt less like I was exploring a new world and more like I was being smothered under pillows while someone tried to convince me that I'd be a better person if I liked tea, enough to keep the story down to four stars in the ratings even though parts wanted to rise above that. I'm sure that says something dark and cynical and irrevocably broken about my own inner nature. Or maybe I'm still just more of a cocoa person than a tea drinker...
You Might Also Enjoy:
To Be Taught, If Fortunate (Becky Chambers) - My Review
The Tea Master and the Detective (Aliette de Bodard) - My Review
The House in the Cerulean Sea (TJ Klune) - My Review
A Monk and Robot book, Book 1
Becky Chambers
Tordotcom
Fiction, Sci-Fi
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Centuries ago, the moon world of Panga stood on the brink of total collapse. With the Awakening, the robots of industry gaining awareness and leaving their endless, pointless toil, society remade itself. Today, Panga thrives, sustainable and ecologically balanced. But what became of the robots? They have faded to legend, long since disappeared into the re-invigorated wilderness. No human and robot have stood face to face in generations... until now.
Sibling Dex grows restless with monastic life. Becoming a traveling tea monk, they pedal their wagon around to villages and towns and the big City, offering brews and comfort and a sympathetic ear to those in need. For a time, that helps, but then the restlessness returns, a wild and reckless impulse to hear for themselves a sound they've only ever heard on old recordings: a cricket song. Crickets didn't fare well in the collapse, and only a few populations survive in the most remote of places, like the long-abandoned Hart's Brow Hermitage. When Dex turns their ox-bike wagon toward the abandoned roads of the wilderness, they become the first human in ages to encounter a robot when they meet Mosscap. Like Dex, it is on its own journey of discovery. In exchange for information about humanity, Mosscap acts as guide and companion for the tea monk, who quickly realizes just how far out of their element, in every way, they have traveled.
REVIEW: Becky Chambers writes hopeful, cozy tales of brighter futures and better societies, a nice break in a genre that tends to skew darker and heavier and more pessimistic. Sometimes it's good to change perspectives, to see a light at the end of the tunnel that isn't an oncoming planet-killer asteroid of a train, but sometimes it can feel a little... I don't want to say "preachy", but mildly self-righteous, as if the only reason people see dark things or feel unsettled or uncertain or end up stuck in bad places (or living in self-destructing civilizations) is because they simply aren't enlightened enough to do better.
As Dex pushes themselves in new directions, driven by a restlessness even they can't quantify, they make sure the reader appreciates just how wonderful and utopian Panga has become, how much better everything is now. But even this perfect image of a sustainable civilization can't satisfy that nameless itch that first drove Dex from the monastery, for all that they still believe in the lessons of the world's Six Gods (which seem to be less independent anthropomorphic identities than embodiments of ideas and principles, objects of meditation more than supplication). Mosscap provides a needed new perspective, for all that the meeting isn't without its bumps and misunderstandings. The robot is endlessly curious about everything, both like and unlike the curious tea monk, offering its own lessons to enlighten Dex (and, naturally, the reader). There's a definite charm about their relationship and inevitable partnership and how they relate to their world.
There isn't much of a plot or strong story arc here, more of a series of incidents in Dex's travels and continued search to satiate an inner yearning even they can't articulate, so the ending isn't so much a satisfactory conclusion or answer as a resting point along a journey that may well be endless. While there's a certain sense of wonder and gentleness about the book and Panga, and it is nice to see something unrelentingly positive about the world's ability to recover from even the worst human civilization can throw at it, at some point I felt less like I was exploring a new world and more like I was being smothered under pillows while someone tried to convince me that I'd be a better person if I liked tea, enough to keep the story down to four stars in the ratings even though parts wanted to rise above that. I'm sure that says something dark and cynical and irrevocably broken about my own inner nature. Or maybe I'm still just more of a cocoa person than a tea drinker...
You Might Also Enjoy:
To Be Taught, If Fortunate (Becky Chambers) - My Review
The Tea Master and the Detective (Aliette de Bodard) - My Review
The House in the Cerulean Sea (TJ Klune) - My Review
Friday, February 3, 2023
Trigger (N. Griffin)
Trigger
N. Griffin
Athenium
Fiction, YA Thriller
*** (Okay)
DESCRIPTION: Didi can't even remember her mother, but can guess why she left: it's because of her. Because she's not smart enough, not fast enough, not a good enough daughter. Every day, her father pushes her harder, even as he forbids her to get too close to anyone, in town or at school. She runs laps around their country property, she plays chess at championship levels, she gets straight-A report cards (which was fine until her father realized she could get an A+), she even shoots and hunts, but somehow she's never good enough. Somehow she always deserves the wrong end of the "trouble stick" above the fireplace. Somehow she's still unworthy of his love, let alone her mother's.
Then she finally learns what her father is training her for... and everything changes.
REVIEW: An isolated girl, an abusive parent, a brutal mental and physical training regimen under the fist of a mentally unstable and intrinsically angry man... this book has all the trappings of a solid thriller, but somehow it comes across as hollow, stretched, and increasingly hard to believe. The short, choppy, chaotic chapters (narrated by an often-frantic audiobook reader) depict Didi's desperation as she tries (and often fails) to earn her father's approval and not break his ever-shifting rules. She fends off the few people who realize something's amiss, though it starts seeming a little odd that more people don't notice her increasingly obvious neglect and impending mental collapse and not one of them even tries pushing harder or investigating the situation in some way. She finds some solace in books and even an imaginary friend, but even those refuges are stripped away until nothing stands between her and her greatest fears. Her father is a vague smear of rage, increasingly difficult to swallow as a real person with real motivations and not a plot-shaped bogeyman. (I can't get into more details without spoilers, but he's almost a caricature by the end, and nothing really adds up about what he's doing or even why he's doing it.) The story starts feeling stretched and repetitive by the halfway mark, and the climax, while tense and exciting, feels a bit contrived. At some point, I just wasn't believing it anymore. (There was one chapter in particular that, especially in audiobook format, darned near drove me to give up because it was not only very irritating but went exactly nowhere with all that auditory irritation.) I've encountered worse stories, but this one ended up feeling like one of those empty thriller movies with a lot of quick camera shots and tense music and action sequences that can't quite hide an ultimately forgettable script.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Girl in Red (Christina Henry) - My Review
Run (Patti Larsen) - My Review
I Am Still Alive (Kate Alice Marshall) - My Review
N. Griffin
Athenium
Fiction, YA Thriller
*** (Okay)
DESCRIPTION: Didi can't even remember her mother, but can guess why she left: it's because of her. Because she's not smart enough, not fast enough, not a good enough daughter. Every day, her father pushes her harder, even as he forbids her to get too close to anyone, in town or at school. She runs laps around their country property, she plays chess at championship levels, she gets straight-A report cards (which was fine until her father realized she could get an A+), she even shoots and hunts, but somehow she's never good enough. Somehow she always deserves the wrong end of the "trouble stick" above the fireplace. Somehow she's still unworthy of his love, let alone her mother's.
Then she finally learns what her father is training her for... and everything changes.
REVIEW: An isolated girl, an abusive parent, a brutal mental and physical training regimen under the fist of a mentally unstable and intrinsically angry man... this book has all the trappings of a solid thriller, but somehow it comes across as hollow, stretched, and increasingly hard to believe. The short, choppy, chaotic chapters (narrated by an often-frantic audiobook reader) depict Didi's desperation as she tries (and often fails) to earn her father's approval and not break his ever-shifting rules. She fends off the few people who realize something's amiss, though it starts seeming a little odd that more people don't notice her increasingly obvious neglect and impending mental collapse and not one of them even tries pushing harder or investigating the situation in some way. She finds some solace in books and even an imaginary friend, but even those refuges are stripped away until nothing stands between her and her greatest fears. Her father is a vague smear of rage, increasingly difficult to swallow as a real person with real motivations and not a plot-shaped bogeyman. (I can't get into more details without spoilers, but he's almost a caricature by the end, and nothing really adds up about what he's doing or even why he's doing it.) The story starts feeling stretched and repetitive by the halfway mark, and the climax, while tense and exciting, feels a bit contrived. At some point, I just wasn't believing it anymore. (There was one chapter in particular that, especially in audiobook format, darned near drove me to give up because it was not only very irritating but went exactly nowhere with all that auditory irritation.) I've encountered worse stories, but this one ended up feeling like one of those empty thriller movies with a lot of quick camera shots and tense music and action sequences that can't quite hide an ultimately forgettable script.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Girl in Red (Christina Henry) - My Review
Run (Patti Larsen) - My Review
I Am Still Alive (Kate Alice Marshall) - My Review
Wednesday, February 1, 2023
Looking Backward (Edward Bellamy)
Looking Backward: 2000 - 1887
Edward Bellamy
Blackstone Audio
Fiction, Sci-Fi
*** (Okay)
DESCRIPTION: In late 19th century Boston, a moderately moneyed gentleman named Julian West looks forward to marrying the love of his life, as soon as he can finish building the house in which they'll live... construction delayed time and again by inconvenient labor strikes. Like many in his social circles, he may feel some distant twinge of sympathy over the plight of the workers, but is far more dismayed with how their disobedience inconveniences him and his plans; a man's first and foremost concern, naturally, should be himself, and if him having more means others have to make do with less, well, that's the way it's always been and always shall be. Stress over the delays has led to chronic insomnia, to the point where he's had to construct a soundproof subterranean sleeping chamber in his own home, and occasionally resort to the services of a mesmerist to enable rest. Some worry about the possible drawbacks of mesmerism, but West has never had anything go wrong... until now.
He wakes one morning in a strange room, with no sign of his manservant or his things, and a man - Doctor Leete - telling him impossible absurdities. How could Julian have fallen asleep in 1887 and woken in the year 2000? What kind of cruel practical joke is being played at his expense? But it is no joke, as he learns all too soon. The Boston he knows is almost entirely gone. In its place is a society so strange as to seem alien, a world in which the maxim that governed his age - dog eat dog - has been rendered utterly obsolete. As Julian learns more of this utopian future and experiences its wonders, he starts to see his own era in a new light.
REVIEW: Though very popular and heavily influential in its time (first published in 1888), Looking Backward is another classic that hasn't aged particularly well, save as a quaint-seeming relic of lost hopes for a future that would never be. It's not really so much about the characters or the plot, but more about Bellamy using both as mouthpieces and structures by which to lay out (at tedious length) his grand vision of a future free from greed and want and artificial class divisions/warfare, a clear hope that the violent strikes and unrest he saw erupting all around him would result in some lasting positive change for society (a change that, as we know all too well in 2023, never came to pass). It's unfortunately a "utopia" with some glaring flaws and holes, particularly related to its idealized vision of human nature, and the nature of the very class of people one would have to go through in order to reach anything like its utopia. That said, Bellamy put a considerable amount of thought into creating his future society, even if some elements are handwaved or glossed over. He even allows some place for women at the newly rounded table of opportunity and prosperity, for all that the relationship depicted in the (thin) plot could come straight out of Bellamy's own time. Some "wonders" are notably predictive: a "credit card", goods distributed through massive centralized warehouses, even 24/7 home entertainment via "wires" and telephone (a primitive vision of radio or the internet, without the spam or conspiracy rabbit holes). On the whole, while it deserves some credit for its vision and influence, Looking Backward today is less a call to action and more a wistful dream of a more optimistic yesteryear, when it seemed something better must be just over the horizon.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Caves of Steel (Isaac Asimov) - My Review
Metropolis (Thea von Harbou) - My Review
Saturday, the Twelfth of October (Norma Fox Mazer) - My Review
Edward Bellamy
Blackstone Audio
Fiction, Sci-Fi
*** (Okay)
DESCRIPTION: In late 19th century Boston, a moderately moneyed gentleman named Julian West looks forward to marrying the love of his life, as soon as he can finish building the house in which they'll live... construction delayed time and again by inconvenient labor strikes. Like many in his social circles, he may feel some distant twinge of sympathy over the plight of the workers, but is far more dismayed with how their disobedience inconveniences him and his plans; a man's first and foremost concern, naturally, should be himself, and if him having more means others have to make do with less, well, that's the way it's always been and always shall be. Stress over the delays has led to chronic insomnia, to the point where he's had to construct a soundproof subterranean sleeping chamber in his own home, and occasionally resort to the services of a mesmerist to enable rest. Some worry about the possible drawbacks of mesmerism, but West has never had anything go wrong... until now.
He wakes one morning in a strange room, with no sign of his manservant or his things, and a man - Doctor Leete - telling him impossible absurdities. How could Julian have fallen asleep in 1887 and woken in the year 2000? What kind of cruel practical joke is being played at his expense? But it is no joke, as he learns all too soon. The Boston he knows is almost entirely gone. In its place is a society so strange as to seem alien, a world in which the maxim that governed his age - dog eat dog - has been rendered utterly obsolete. As Julian learns more of this utopian future and experiences its wonders, he starts to see his own era in a new light.
REVIEW: Though very popular and heavily influential in its time (first published in 1888), Looking Backward is another classic that hasn't aged particularly well, save as a quaint-seeming relic of lost hopes for a future that would never be. It's not really so much about the characters or the plot, but more about Bellamy using both as mouthpieces and structures by which to lay out (at tedious length) his grand vision of a future free from greed and want and artificial class divisions/warfare, a clear hope that the violent strikes and unrest he saw erupting all around him would result in some lasting positive change for society (a change that, as we know all too well in 2023, never came to pass). It's unfortunately a "utopia" with some glaring flaws and holes, particularly related to its idealized vision of human nature, and the nature of the very class of people one would have to go through in order to reach anything like its utopia. That said, Bellamy put a considerable amount of thought into creating his future society, even if some elements are handwaved or glossed over. He even allows some place for women at the newly rounded table of opportunity and prosperity, for all that the relationship depicted in the (thin) plot could come straight out of Bellamy's own time. Some "wonders" are notably predictive: a "credit card", goods distributed through massive centralized warehouses, even 24/7 home entertainment via "wires" and telephone (a primitive vision of radio or the internet, without the spam or conspiracy rabbit holes). On the whole, while it deserves some credit for its vision and influence, Looking Backward today is less a call to action and more a wistful dream of a more optimistic yesteryear, when it seemed something better must be just over the horizon.
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