August Site Update

The month's reviews have been archived and cross-linked on the main Brightdreamer Books site.

In other news, I'm hoping to relocate site hosts this month, so there may be some hiccups related to that. (Nothing at all against my current host, but I just need something a little more budget-friendly, and I've basically been paying for a luxury SUV when all I really need is a motor scooter.)

Lost in the Valley of Death (Harley Rustad)

Lost in the Valley of Death: A Story of Obsession and Danger in the Himalayas
Harley Rustad
Harper
Nonfiction, Biography/Survival/True Stories
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION: For most of his life, Justin Alexander Shetler was driven to test himself against the wilderness, always pushing to climb higher and hike further and endure harsher and more primitive conditions. He was a restless soul, always searching for a connection or transformative experience that would give him peace and meaning, which always seemed to be just beyond the next bend or over the next hill. Justin chronicled his travels on social media, garnering a devoted following, even as he often dropped off the grid for more extreme adventures. As with so many restless souls seeking adventure and enlightenment, he eventually found himself in India, a land long elevated to mythological status by outsiders. Here, in the wild and nearly lawless hinterlands of the Parvati Valley, Justin hoped to discover the spiritual answers and peace that had always eluded him. He found a cave to live in, and a sadhu, or holy man, to teach him. Then, in late summer of 2016, the 35-year-old adventurer announced online that he was going on a trek to a holy lake high in the mountains in hopes of a transcendental experience. If he didn't come back, he told his audience with a winking emoji, don't look for him.
Those were the last words he would ever share.
As his days of silence grew to weeks and months, family and friends around the world began to worry, and realized something was very wrong. The Parvati Valley, after all, is not just known for its spiritual sites and natural beauty, but for a thriving (and illegal) cannabis trade and numerous unexplained disappearances. The sadhu he was last known to be associated with had a less-than-holy reputation, and some were concerned by how Justin seemed so enraptured by the man. And the local police were unmotivated to look into the whereabouts of yet another foreigner who was most likely just there for the high-quality hash and had probably fallen afoul of a trafficker, if he hadn't just slipped off a trail into the ever-hungry Parvati River. As overseas efforts to search out the truth coalesced, many reflected on Justin's life and the path that led him to India, and if that path suggested a way for him to still be alive when all evidence suggested otherwise...

REVIEW: Yet another random audiobook selection, this is the story of a man living a life without guardrails who seemingly finally took one risk too many. Rustad chronicles his life from a restless, nomadic, and troubled childhood where wilderness schools and programs were his only refuge to the man who never quite grew up or figured out how to settle or find peace, unwilling or unable to form deeper human connections while his inner turmoil and unanswered spiritual questions tormented him. He tried and discarded numerous spiritual teachings and personas, none seeming to offer what he needed or wanted, never at home in his own skin or life. Even his online persona was curated to present an image of himself that was more truth-adjacent than unvarnished reality, which ultimately hindered efforts to search for him, as too many believed he was indestructible or had just hared off on an even more extreme adventure than he'd started on. There is a faint hint of a possibility that maybe that is what he did - as more than one person pointed out, if anyone was capable of cutting all ties with civilization and living completely off the grid and out of contact, it was Justin Alexander - but Occam's razor suggests a more straightforward and ultimately tragic end, for all that no body was ever found. Along the way, Rustad explores how and why so many people seem compelled to turn to the "other" culture, or rather their outsider's distorted view of that culture, in search of greater meaning: for instance, appropriating sweat lodges and vision quests and mishmashed teachings from various Native American cultures without regard for the real roots and nuances and meanings of those rituals and teachings, or even honoring where they originated. India may well be the ultimate target of this mentality and has been for centuries via rhapsodic travel writing and literature, transforming the country in "Western" minds into something so exotic and steeped in spirituality and larger than life that there is an actual (unofficial) term for visitors who become overwhelmed and experience mental health episodes: India Syndrome. (The fact that there are certain native plants and drugs with potentially devastating effects, sometimes used by the unscrupulous to facilitate crimes, also may play into some outsiders' ideas that simply setting foot in India is enough to trigger a transformative spiritual experience.) Something about India exerts an inexorable pull on certain people, many of whom never return home for various reasons (not always accidents or foul play; every year, local authorities round up dozens of foreigners who simply chose to overstay their visas, unable to bring themselves to leave).
There are times when Rustad seems to be repeating himself, and later on he reveals some pretty important information on young Justin's formative years that might explain some of his unresolved pain and unprocessed traumas, the holes he was forever trying to fill, which casts his extreme life and probable death in a whole new light. He also ventures into the weeds a bit discussing other unresolved disappearances in the Parvati Valley that foreshadow Justin's fate, even as he offers a glimpse of just what it was about India in general and the Parvati Valley in particular that was so alluring. Ultimately, though, Rustad does a decent job summing up a man determined to live as full a life as possible and push himself as far as he could go, always hoping that the next adventure would be the one to give his life meaning and find peace, for all that he often seemed to be chasing phantoms so ill-defined he couldn't even say for certain just what "meaning" or "peace" would look like if he glimpsed them. One can only hope, whatever happened to him, that he found that peace he was searching for in the wilds of the Himalayas.

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Eagle Drums (Nasugraq Rainey Hopson)

Eagle Drums
Nasuġraq Rainey Hopson
Roaring Brook Press
Fiction, MG Fantasy/Historical Fiction
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION: In the long-ago days, when people rarely gathered and never trusted each other, the boy Piŋa lives with his mother and father and the memories of two elder brothers, vanished on the trip to the mountain for obsidian flakes. Now, he must make the trek, for his family needs the tools they knap with the black stone if they are to harvest and prepare enough food for the long northern winter. On his way, however, he encounters a great golden eagle god, who offers a choice: follow, or die as his brothers died. Fearful, the boy agrees.
Thus begins a long and arduous journey to the very peak of the world. The eagle gods have many lessons to teach the young hunter, lessons of the strange rhythmic speaking called song and the odd movements called dance and the peculiar stretched-hide hoops called drums, all leading the the greatest challenge of all. If he learns well, he might be allowed to leave - and if he fails, he will be killed.

REVIEW: First off, I apologize for probable bunglings of Native spellings; I often have trouble getting special characters and accent marks to appear properly in Blogger, even with special notations and copy-paste commands.
This story is a retelling of a Native Arctic tale about the origins of the Iñupiaq Messenger Feast and the birth of culture among humans, set in that old story world of animal spirits and gods taking human form at will. Before the boy's journey, people are shown as mistrustful of each other, only rarely meeting long enough to trade and never coming together in friendship. Then Savik the eagle comes to young Piŋa on the mountain with his unusual demand - nothing nearly so polite as a request. The fact that the boy's two brothers faced the same choice and did not survive is more than enough to convince him to follow Savik, though every step takes him away from his parents and the only home he has ever known. The eagles never become anything like friends; not a moment goes by where the boy does not understand just how other they are, how dangerous they can be, and how little they really understand his kind. Still, they seem determined to teach him these peculiar lessons, though Piŋa cannot imagine what purpose they might serve. It's only later that he understands just what the eagles are commanding him to do: change the world, or at least the human world, a gift that isn't entirely altruistic in nature but which he has no choice but to attempt. He does not come to this knowledge easily, or learn without struggles or setbacks, and his best often doesn't seem nearly enough to please the stern old woman who leads the eagle clan. Nevertheless, he perseveres, knowing that to do otherwise is to leave his parents truly childless and bereft for the rest of their lives, without so much as a body to tell them what happened to him.
Characterization may not be especially deep or complex, but it is ultimately a legend, a fireside tale with a little extra flesh added to enrich the sense of setting, and works for what it is. The ending twist is a little bit telegraphed, but satisfactory. The whole is an interesting glimpse at a Native culture and legend I don't see much of in my fiction.

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Age of Death (Michael J. Sullivan)

Age of Death
The Legends of the First Empire series, Book 5
Michael J. Sullivan
Riyria Enterprises, LLC
Fiction, Fantasy
***+ (Okay/Good)

DESCRIPTION: As another winter comes, the war between the humans and the elves looks more hopeless than ever. With the human's only trained mystic Suri a captive of Lothian - probably even now being tortured into giving up the secrets of the "dragon" that has defended the army - and the desperate expedition to rescue her lost in the Swamp of Ith, it seems only a matter of time before the Rhunes and their "traitor" elven allies are swept from the land. In this dark hour, Malcolm finally returns... but he brings little hope or comfort to a people on the verge of the ultimate defeat.
In Phyre, the land of death, eight people still struggle to follow the thin trail left by Malcolm's cryptic words that might turn the tide of the war - but things have gone terribly wrong in the afterlife, threatening their journey. When they draw the unwanted attention of the gods lording over Rel and the depths of Nifrel, doom seems all but certain...

REVIEW: Yes, I just reviewed the forth book about a week ago. I did not like being left on a cliffhanger, so I checked Libby for the next audiobook... only to find that the only copy available through my library was an e-book (except for an abridged "graphic audio" edition, and I avoid abridged editions if I can at all help it). So this is technically the first book in the series that I read in print. Whether that affected my reaction or not, I cannot say, but I did start to detect a certain stretched feeling, which makes me wonder if this "second trilogy" in the series really needed three full books to tell its story.
On the plus side, the pacing and characterization continues more or less at the same pace it has been, as new threats are revealed and twists and revelations unfold. The two realms of death that Tressa, Brin, Roan, Gifford, and the rest visit are intriguing takes on familiar tropes; the deeper realm of "Nifrel" isn't so much a place for the worst people, but those who are too ambitious and greedy in some aspect to settle for the more peaceful but undeniably duller ordinary afterlife of Rel, which is mostly like the living world only without death or hunger or other inconveniences; Nifrel, by contrast, is a chaotic fiery chasm of endless battles and repeated deaths. Nor are afterlives segregated by races, even if only one god presides over each realm; elves, dwarves, humans, and even goblins and others can be found in any realm that suits their soul's disposition. Just where each soul in the adventuring party "deserves" to be creates some inner tensions, and more than one pairing discovers that their permanent afterlives (assuming Malcolm spoke truly and they'll be able to return to life after their trek through all three realms of death) may not be the happily ever after they anticipated. During their journey, they encounter lost loved ones and relatives, as well as ancestors and cultural heroes, and have the expected perils and tight scrapes and the odd betrayal. Along the way, Keeper Brin finally works out some of Malcolm's secrets, which make her doubt the man's intentions even more, but they have little choice but to continue following his breadcrumb trail now that they've literally committed their souls to its completion.
In the land of the living, not too much happens on the human side of things. Persephone and Nyphron react to their ongoing stalemate in different ways, but have little to actually do. On the elven side of the river, Suri finds some unexpected allies, and Imalya progresses her plan to challenge an increasingly insane Lothian for the Forest Throne, while the mysterious figure Trilos still lurks and makes cryptic comments; more backstory on him, the creator gods of the races, and Malcolm is filled in around the edges, though I admit to some name overload here and won't pretend I'm keeping everyone straight in my head. And, yes, the spoiled prince Manwyndule continues to be whiny and spoiled and cluelessly self-absorbed.
Where this installment lost its half star was in some continued and excessive wallowing by the characters - rolling in their helplessness and miseries and such without advancing the plot or actually attempting to change the thing about themselves or their situations that's causing them so much distress - and the fact that, once again, Sullivan ends on a cliffhanger, which is a trick you can only pull so many times before the reader starts mistrusting you. Since there is only one more volume in the series, and since I'm still enjoying it more than not, I'll be reading on, but I'll probably take a longer break between installments this time.

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Once There Was (Kiyash Monsef)

Once There Was
The Once There Was series, Book 1
Kiyash Monsef
Simon and Schuster
Fiction, MG/YA Fantasy
***** (Great)

DESCRIPTION: Marjan's life has never been complete, not since her mother passed when she was eight years old. Always, there's been a sense that something is missing inside her. Now, with her Iranian-born father recently murdered in their own home, she feels even more broken, full of anger and crushed by a life that's going all wrong. His sudden death left her more or less in charge of his struggling veterinary clinic, but it was his life beyond the office that always mystified her, the strange phone calls and sudden trips that took him away for days, even a week or more at a time... and the way he'd often look at her, as even her friends sometimes look at her, as though seeing what she has felt: that missing thing she cannot name, cannot place, but which sits in the way of her life.
Then she gets a strange visitor and a phone call, very much like the one her father always received, which comes with plane tickets and directions to an estate in England - but why would anyone want a high school sophomore with no formal veterinary training? And is she really supposed to believe the patient is a griffin? Amazingly, there really is an ailing griffin... and, more amazingly, when she lays her hands on it, she feels a sudden, strange rush of sensations - as if she's touching its mind, feeling its pains and glimpsing its memories and thoughts.
Like her father before her, Marjan learns that she bears a rare genetic gift that enables her to connect with and treat beasts that most of the world believes to be imaginary. But the elite circle of people who know of these animals proves to be far more dangerous than she can imagine. Now she, too, is up to her neck, and in over her head, in a hidden world she never knew existed, among the very people who might well be responsible for her father's murder.

REVIEW: This could easily have been a simple, shallow story of a grief-stricken girl discovering a family secret and a hidden world of magical creatures. The characters could have been basic stereotypes and stock bin placeholders acting out an obvious plot extended by bouts of groanworthy stupidity. It could have had a childishly simple Moral and Lesson that pulled its punches. Once There Was is none of these things, consistently rising beyond the easy and obvious choices and following through on every emotional swing.
Rooted on Marjan's Iranian-American heritage and storytelling traditions from around the world, it starts with a girl struck numb by the second major loss in a life too full of loss for her to begin to process any of it. Her father was an often-unhappy and complicated man, more complicated than she ever expected, and though he told his daughter stories at night and welcomed her at work, he kept much hidden from her. Marjan grew up not knowing much about his past or his Iranian culture outside the stories and a few video calls with his relatives back in the old country, but doesn't realize just how much he left out until she meets the strange young woman who draws her into The Fells, the "family" of people who keep tabs on known magical animals. Marjan isn't entirely unprepared, though, because one of the many stories her father told her was the long-ago tale of a girl who rescued a unicorn from a hunter's trap and was "rewarded" with a mark and unusual blessing. In this way, the author avoids the usual trope of a character repeatedly denying the obvious and having to be spoon fed literally everything about the hidden world they discover, and Marjan is smart enough to realize the connection to Dad's tales without needing a two-by-four to the cranium. Still, there's only so much bedside stories can do to prepare a girl for a revelation like that, and the sudden burden of responsibility that lands on her shoulders by essentially inheriting a job she is ill-prepared to handle; just feeling that an animal is in pain doesn't definitively diagnose a problem or suggest a course of treatment, and knowing how much an animal is suffering without knowing what to do about it is its own sort of painful burden. Still, The Fells and their clients offer a financial lifeline to her and her father's struggling/failing veterinary practice; she knows she should probably sell it, as her dad's accountant tells her, but does her best to keep dancing one step ahead of creditors while holding onto this last piece of him and his legacy. It's a lot for one girl to deal with, and she realistically stumbles and scrambles even as she finds reserves of strength and ability under pressure.
As she becomes more and more involved with the world of magical creatures, she finds new acquaintances and possible allies, both in simply surviving and in maybe doing what law enforcement seems incapable of: solving her father's peculiar murder. It's clear almost from the start, to the reader and Marjan, that his hidden life as veterinarian to magical animals is almost certainly behind the violent death he suffered, but who did it? Or why? Could it be the Fell family, which claims to be interested in protecting the magical animals and yet also auctions them off to the "most deserving" bidder (who may not always be the most deserving, but usually has deep pockets)? The billionaire tech magnate with an extensive private collection and grand plans for a better future? Just reading that, you might guess; I know I did. But this story is never that easy or obvious, and whatever you're guessing is probably not correct. Everyone has complex motivations for what they do, and it's never so clear cut as flat out "good guys" and "bad guys". Marjan learns that even the father she loved wasn't always a great guy, and that she herself is not above morally gray territory. Even the magical beasts are rarely entirely good or evil, not in any way obligated to conform to idealized or moralized versions of themselves for the sake of humans.
The story moves well from the start, with intriguing characters and interesting creatures and nice emotional complexity all around. The ending, naturally, leaves the door open for sequels, but wraps up well enough it can work as a standalone, giving Marjan some needed closure on a number of matters even as she must accept that she never will truly know everything there was to know about those she loved the most, that there are sides to everyone, even her best friends, that aren't for her to see. I tried to think of a reason not to give it a full five stars in the ratings, and couldn't come up with a single one. I'm looking forward to the next book already, whenever it appears.

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News of the World (Paulette Jiles)

News of the World
Paulette Jiles
William Morrow
Fiction, Historical Fiction/Literary Fiction/Western
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION: "Captain" Kyle Kidd once fought for the Confederacy and later ran a printing press in San Antonio, but for years now he has traveled the wilds of Texas, reading news articles from around the world to paying audiences in small frontier towns - everything from the ratification of the fifteenth amendment to harrowing Arctic survival stories to scientific discoveries to fluff pieces about Pennsylvania ice skaters. In his seventies now, he's starting to feel his age and his loneliness, but feels more at home on the road than he does back home, especially with his wife long dead and his grown children back east in post-Civil War Georgia. Besides, he has friends in many of his regular stops... and one has just talked him into a favor, albeit a well-paid favor, he never expected.
The girl was once known as Johanna, but for four years - since she was abducted by a band of Kiowa natives, her family slaughtered - she has been called Cicada. Under government orders, her adopted family turned her over to Indian agents, to be returned to an aunt and uncle she doesn't remember. Now, she has been handed over to an old white-haired man traveling in a rickety wagon, taking her further and further from the only home and life she knows - even tearing away the feather of her golden eagle guardian spirit as she is forced into strange, ill-fitting garments. She'd rather die than live in this ugly, alien White world with its confusing rules and strange language.
On the long and perilous road to Castroville, Kyle and the girl form an unexpected, unlikely bond - a bond that will be tested more than once, as each is forced to consider their futures in different ways.

REVIEW: I remember being somewhat intrigued by this tale when I heard of the movie (which I haven't seen), and meaning to get around to reading it. Part literary tale, part Western, it's the story of a rapidly changing world and two outwardly mismatched souls trying to survive in turbulent times.
Kyle was a soldier long before he was a man, falling into the rank of captain almost by accident and by surviving when many did not, and for keeping a cool head in combat (again, while others did not). He was happiest, though, when he was running messages between army units, just him and a sealed envelope and a wide, wild wilderness. In that way, his itinerant life in 1870 is a return to those days, as he brings news (and a chance to temporarily escape the harsh reality of everyday frontier life) to the hinterlands of a Texas that still has not succumbed to the taming hand of civilization, where the government hardly seems to care who is cheating, robbing, or slaughtering whom (at least if more brown, black, and native bodies fall than white ones) so long as those at the top can stuff their pockets. It's almost as if Kyle never really stopped living in a war zone, with raiding bands and thieves and corrupt lawmen all too common on the roads. Still, he has always been a principled man, living by his own strong moral compass even if those around him are only out for themselves. It's this moral compass, the unshakable belief that a job started must be finished and a promise to a friend is as binding as any legal document, as much as the money he is offered - a fifty-dollar gold piece - that compels Kidd to take the more-than-half-wild ten-year-old girl Johanna across 400 miles of barely-civilized Texan terrain.
The girl, for her part, has been traumatized twice over in her young life. At six, she survived the brutal slaughter of her family, for all that she does not seem to remember the incident. Then, she was torn away from the only family she ever knew and loved, the Kiowa mother and father and brothers and sisters she had bonded so strongly with that she cannot even imagine life away from them. Whatever English (or German, her parents being immigrants) she ever knew has been forgotten, along with everything she ever knew about White ways. She clings to the lessons and strength of her Kiowa teachings even as she is taken further away from that life and back to "family" she can't even remember. Slowly, almost despite herself, she connects with the kindly yet firm old man she is stuck traveling with. When they are set upon by the worst sort of robbers, their bond is cemented in gunfire and blood... but inevitably their journey must end. Will their bond and friendship end there, too? The decisions they make will test them both, but ultimately ring true for the characters and their world.
The tale moves fairly well, as the pair encounter various characters and different challenges and towns along the way, each part of the complex, sometimes contradictory tapestry of Texan life in the late 1800's. It's a world in a state of rapid flux, the old frontier lawlessness clashing against the rising tide of settlers and their settled ways, where carving out a small pocket of stability and happiness is sometimes nigh impossible but about the most any individual can hope to manage against the greater tides of the world. I thought the ending was a slight bit telegraphed, and the bits after lingered a hair too long, but overall it turned out to be an entertaining, sometimes heartbreaking and sometimes heartwarming story of two lost souls finding a connection - and a better future - in a wild and harsh land.

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Age of Legend (Michael J. Sullivan)

Age of Legend
The Legends of the First Empire series, Book 4
Michael J. Sullivan
Del Rey
Fiction, Fantasy
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION: After their hard-won victory at Alon Rhyst, the human forces of the Rhunelands continue their advancement into Fhrey territory, but the going is slow, a years-long slog that ends in a stalemate, neither side able to budge against the other. Persephone still holds a dim hope that perhaps the years of bloodshed and heavy losses on both sides have softened the Fhrey fane Lothian to negotiating a peace treaty, while her elven consort Nyphron is convinced that victory will only come when the Forest Throne is in flames. Now, the words of Malcolm - the man who is more than a mere man, who may be older than the hills and has more secrets than the stars - might offer a path forward... if any are brave (or foolish) enough to follow.
In the Fhrey capital of Estramnadon, the war is also taking a heavy toll: the elves still see "Rhunes" as nothing more than bipedal animals, and cannot fathom how such beasts are causing so much trouble. Lothian himself is nearly driven to insanity by his failures, particularly vexed by the "dragon" that arrived at Alon Rhyst and continues to accompany the advancing human army. Still not believing that the "lesser" species could have practitioners of the Art, he's determined to figure out how they conjured the beast, no matter the cost.
The longer the stalemate in the war lasts, the more desperate both sides become, until each will take risks that might end in catastrophic consequences for all involved...

REVIEW: After the relatively fast pace of the first three installments of this series, this book slows down a little, spanning several grueling years of war and loss and sacrifice that change everyone, not always for the better. Persephone continues to reign as the human keening, though despite a half-elven son her relationship with Nyphron continues to be more professional and political courtesy than anything resembling love; her heart still belongs to the late Raithe, for all that she still understands and accepts the necessity of the sacrifice and her choice. Keeper Brin continues her work on her book and the new art of writing, though her relationship with warrior Tesh undergoes some serious strain as he becomes more and more enamored of bloodshed... particularly Fhrey blood, not necessarily making a distinction between ally and enemy. Inventor Roan and potter/fledgling mage Gifford are at last together, though her post-traumatic reactions after a lifetime of abuse still present some obstacles. Her inventions don't take center stage as much in this stretch of the tale, but she still has some significant contributions to the story, while Gifford begins to grow into his power more even beyond Suri's tutelage. As for the mystic Suri, her life remains hard and isolated, as people still ask so much of her without truly understanding the costs of what she's already done. When given a chance to act as ambassador to the Fhrey as a possible means to end the war, she is as eager as the keening for the violence and sacrifices to end, so she can finally be done with the whole business of humans and go back to her old home in the hawthorn glen beyond Dhal Rhen... though, of course, things do not go as smoothly as either envisioned. With that plan fouled, clan outcast Tressa steps up with a message from Malcolm, but few are willing to listen to her - and those who do may end up in more danger than Suri, a journey to a destination straight out of legend and a literal leap of faith.
On the elven side, fane Lothian starts to crack under the strain of a war he cannot truly fathom against an enemy he refuses to understand. Even having witnessed firsthand the incredible power unleashed by the human mystic, he will not even consider that "Rhunes" are more than simple beasts. Naturally, his spoiled son Manwyndule is even worse, though he also personally witnessed the same attack and defeat, yet even he sees how his father's grip is slipping; the prince remains as insufferable and ineducable as ever, though his role in the tale is relatively small. There's also some follow-up on Imaldy, who has her own ideas on the future of her people, though ultimately the Fhrey side of things feels a bit sidelined in this volume, with little tangible advancement.
The whole volume offers intrigue, danger, magic, mystery, interesting characters, a little humor, and new adventures... everything I read epic fantasy for. Sullivan has managed to maintain the quality, and my interest as a reader, admirably well, for all that I'm getting a little tired of the whiny Fhrey prince being so stubbornly whiny. The final pages end things on something of a cliffhanger for the major plot threads, though, more than previous installments. Hopefully my library and Libby have the next installment available sooner rather than later; I need closure here, dang it.

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Ocean's Godori (Elaine U. Cho)

Ocean's Godori
The Alliance series, Book 1
Elaine U. Cho
Zando - Hillman Grad Books
Fiction, Sci-Fi
*** (Okay)

DESCRIPTION: As a top-notch spaceship pilot, Ocean Yoon should have been the pride of the Alliance, the Korean space agency that dominates the solar system... but a hushed-up incident branded her as an insubordinate hothead, leaving her to scrape along in junker transport ships under questionable captains. It's just one more failure in a life that's been dominated by failures, ever since her prodigial elder brother died in a freak accident and devastated her family. Her Korean heritage should've been a bonus to her career, too, but she has spent too much time away to truly feel connected to her history, leaving her rootless, without a past and without a future.
As second son of the powerful Anand dynasty whose technology makes space travel possible, Teo has little to do but make an expensive spectacle of his life and disappoint his father, dating a string of celebrities (sometimes even for real and not for the cameras) and generally drifting through his life on the family name and bank account. Aside from his friend Ocean, he has few confidants who see behind the playboy mask, and no idea how to escape the gilded cage of his family.
Haven comes from a long line of outcasts, tenders of the dead often derisively called "Vultures" and who are considered unclean and untouchable. His father sent him away from their isolated colony to experience the wider world before settling into an arranged marriage, but Haven feels less at home in the wider spaceways than he did at home, where he was forever marked as a halfblood due to her light-skinned Alliance mother (who left the family when he was just a child). Still, he doesn't want to disappoint his father by returning without even trying, so he manages to land a berth as a healer on a low-profile ship, one whose captain is desperate enough to hire his kind (or greedy enough to accept the incentive money the Alliance offers to take on Vultures)... a ship whose executive officer is a surly outcast herself, named Ocean.
When a shocking terrorist attack brings the three together, exposing a nefarious plot against the corporations that run the solar system and the Alliance that protects the wealthy and powerful more often than the commoner, they must each confront the messes they've made of their lives, and finally decide what sort of future they want - what sort of future they're willing to fight for.

REVIEW: This Korean-spiced space opera looked like an interesting tale, with many familiar ingredients along with a nicely non-"Western" cultural focus. Unfortunately, it turned into a bland, under-cooked dish where none of the flavors came together in a satisfying way.
Ocean shows promise as a protagonist, even if Cho can get a bit too coy teasing the audience about her Scandalous and Hurtful Past that leads her to push others away and avoid close connections, earning a reputation for being rude and surly... wait, except for her eccentric (to the point where one wonders how they function in general society without a babysitter) crewmates aboard the Ohneul, whom she fairly dotes on and brings treats for and generally enjoys a better, closer connection with than their ridiculously incompetent captain, and completely-out-of-her-social-strata Teo. Haven's unhappy with everyone and everything, sick of being treated as an untouchable outcast and just wanting to go home... oh, wait, except for when he sees Ocean and feels an instant connection. (And, of course, she'll be surly and push him away - oh, wait, until she doesn't... but then she does... and then she doesn't.) I was getting characterization whiplash, how everyone seemed like completely different people every other paragraph. Everyone acts like teenagers, prone to brooding and excess drama, but they're all supposed to be in their thirties. I had trouble really caring about the greater issues of corporate exploitation and corrupted power (political and Alliance), because as the reader I never really see the people suffering most except at a distance, which makes the real antagonist seem like a cartoon villain when they finally show their face. The story itself felt twice as long as it needed to be, dithering and wallowing and sidetracking itself (even when the characters should've had more pressing concerns than sharing face masks and watching TV shows... oh, yeah, the guy whose culture and heritage brands him "untouchable" is casually invited to this touchy-feely beauty party too, even though he's only on the ship because the captain kicked out one of their oldest and most beloved friends/shipmates to get her hands on that hiring incentive money). Ocean becomes one of those main characters who can do almost no wrong, whom everyone is instantly and insanely loyal to because she's her. The ending sets things up for the next installment, but ends on such an awkward note I almost wondered if the audio file was incomplete. Instead of wondering "What's next?" at the end, I was left asking myself, almost out loud, "Who cares?".
I should have enjoyed this one. I should have been more entertained. I should have found a way to connect to even one character and care about their fate. Instead, by the end, I was just pushing food around my plate, hoping I wouldn't have to sit through a dessert before I'd be allowed to leave.

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Nightwatch Over Windscar (K. Eason)

Nightwatch Over Windscar
The Arithmancy and Anarchy series: The Weep series, Book 2
K. Eason
DAW
Fiction, Fantasy/Sci-Fi
****+ (Good/Great)

DESCRIPTION: The Brood - extradimensional entities whose very touch is death, given access to the civilized multiverse through the fissures of the Weep - were the one enemy who could unite both sides in an interstellar war, the one abomination that all sides could agree should be destroyed at all costs. Never in a million years would anyone conceive of intentionally summoning Brood... until strange attacks through B-town, on the Weep-touched hinterland world of Tanis, drew the attention of local authorities and the Aedis templar knights - devotees of a universal Elemental religion, infused with symbiotic nanotech that helps them fight Brood - stationed there. Thus, the tenju knight Iari, ex-military civilian investigator Corso, vakar ambassador (and SPERE agent, not to mention a top-notch arithmancer in his own right) Gaer, and a handful of others stumbled upon the audacious plot of a wichu separatist determined to undermine the Accords of peace and the Confederation of species. They barely survived the encounter... but their work is far from done.
With the use of a blood-soaked altar portal and devilish artificing, the wichu managed to flee B-town for the northern hinterlands of the Windscar, close to where the Weep fissure brushes the planet and far from civilization and Aedis outposts. Now a captain, Iari leads a small strike team to explore old ruins that might be the separatists' hideout - only to discover something even more dangerous than wichu artificing, a new enemy that speaks to a threat to all civilized worlds.

REVIEW: Much like the first installment, Nightwatch Over Windscar does not take time to slowly acclimate the reader and catch them up, but pretty much plunges straight into the action (with a few memory jogs along the way) and trusts the reader to keep up. It maintains the high-octane pacing, sometimes tangled threads of alliances and rivalries and politics, and relationships (which grow even more complicated), while ratcheting up the stakes.
Knight Iari is still a fairly devout templar, loyal to the Aedis, but has come to trust Ambassador Gaer - a vakar, once sworn enemies of most species (even though he is of the Five Tribes faction who defected from the greater vakari Protectorate to ally with the Confederation - a partial precursor to the devastating mistake that unleashed the Weep) - more than her own commander about some things... such as the changes her symbiotic nanotech, the syn, seems to have undergone after their close encounter with the wichu separatist. The syn seems to be able to channel bursts of great power, and may have reasserted the sentience it once possessed long generations ago. Iari still does not know what to make of this change, nor does Gaer, and the matter of pursuing the terrorists seems more pressing than parsing the peculiar intricacies of nanotech evolution at the moment. Gaer, for his part, feels his loyalties shifting in ways he never anticipated when he came to the world of Tanis as official ambassador and undercover SPERE agent for his government. He is no follower of the Elements, and still considers the symbiotic nanotech and other body modifications of the knights a form of blasphemy, but Iari has become a steadfast companion and even friend, and he finds himself pulled closer and closer into her orbit and inner circle as they encounter fresh dangers in the Windscar ruins and beyond. Fellow tenju Corso, too, becomes more entangled with the Aedis and the once-enemy vakari, as well as his former companion Iari, than he ever anticipated when they first reunited in B-town in the previous book. His native knowledge of the Windscar make him an ideal scout, though what he finds in the windswept north is far more than he bargained for. Also returning are the two riev Char and Winter Bite, largely artificial constructs built around dead soldiers predating the Weep, who have voluntarily joined the Aedis. The threat itself plays on inter- and intraspecies resentments and prejudices, where large portions of the hinterland populations of tenju have been left to their own devices beyond the southern cities and their garrisons; many grow increasingly resentful of the outworlder presence on their planet, supplanting their older ways and older beliefs and offering no tangible benefit as they are preyed upon by rogue Brood excursions. It's a deep wellspring of resentment for someone to tap - and someone seems to have indeed tapped it, in a way that might doom the greater multiverse. This time, Gaer's prodigial arithmancy skills and Iari's evolved syn may not be enough to stop an enemy neither could have imagined in their worst nightmares. The story takes some interesting twists and jags on the way to a solid climax, with a resolution that all but demands another installment... one I so far see no sign of, but which I hope is on its way some time soon (for all that I fear this one flew too far under the radar, or hit too far to the side of mainstream reading tastes, for the publisher to keep going with it).

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Bookshops and Bonedust (Travis Baldree)

Bookshops and Bonedust
The Legends and Lattes series, Book 2
Travis Baldree
Tor
Fiction, Fantasy/Humor
****+ (Good/Great)

DESCRIPTION: Young orc Viv joined up with Rackam's Ravens with high hopes of adventure and heroism and glorious battles... until her own foolish enthusiasm dropped her, an ill-advised solo charge into the thick of a necromancer's wight army leaving her leg (and her pride) badly wounded. While the rest of the mercenaries continue their pursuit of Varine the Pale, Viv is trundled off to the nearby seaside town of Murk, there to recuperate until Rackam passes back through in several weeks.
Viv chafes at the enforced rest. She's an orc warrior in her prime, gods curse it! She should be swinging steel with her mercenary comrades, not limping down decrepit boardwalks! "Sleepy" doesn't begin to describe Murk, a place as dull and gray as a foggy seascape... or so it seems at first. A mishap with her crutch leads her into the little town's dilapidated bookshop, and into the lives of stubborn bookseller Fern, flirtatious baker Maylee, and eager would-be mercenary Gallina, among others. While discovering the transformative power of a good book (and a little light romance of her own), Viv decides that maybe this detour in her own mercenary career won't be so bad - but there just might be a greater danger awaiting sleepy little Murk, as the necromancer Varine may not be as done with the local countryside as Rackam and the other Ravens believed...

REVIEW: This is technically a prequel to Travis Baldree's wildly popular "cozy" fantasy romance Legends and Lattes, but I haven't managed to get around to that book yet. Instead, I found this one on Libby when I was looking for an audiobook to fill a workday. I have mixed luck with works described as "cozy", so I admittedly went into this one with middling expectations... expectations that were quickly and surprisingly exceeded.
Set in a slightly soft-edged fantasy world reminiscent of a role-playing adventure, with a mix of humanoid races and magic not uncommon (if not necessarily an everyday thing), it starts with Viv in her element - perhaps a bit too much in her element, caught up in her own excitement, bloodlust, and youthful assurance of her own immortality. It only takes one rusty pike to the thigh to remind her that she is, indeed, mere mortal flesh after all. Left behind in a seaside inn while Rackam and the others continue their pursuit of the necromancer, Viv's hurt ego and the undeniable knowledge that this is her own fault are just more salt rubbed in the wound. She isn't a cruel or bad person, and she (usually) knows better than to take out her frustration on strangers, but she just plain does not want to be stuck here, particularly when she's left wondering if Rackam will even bother coming back for her after she disobeyed his orders to stay with the group. She never even meant to stumble into Fern's sad little bookstore until she literally stumbles into it, thrown by a broken boardwalk plank - and, from the start, Fern proves more than a match for the young orc's surly stubbornness, giving her what will turn out to be the first of many books that will awaken a new love of reading. But Fern is also in need of a friend; her store, inherited from her father, has seen far better days, and she's mere months (if that) away from giving up. It takes an outside eye to help her figure out how to turn her business around. As Viv is unexpectedly drawn into the struggle to save Murk's one and only bookstore, she also becomes entangled in other lives, notably Maylee, a baker with a diminutive stature and outsized personality, who provides a distraction of a different sort while Murk is in town. There's also an eager young gnome Gallina, who sees Viv as her ticket into a mercenary life (for all that Viv only had a few months with the Ravens before being sidelined), as well as a handful of other colorful locals. As one might expect, Viv's arrival triggers some needed changes and shaking-up, but Viv herself is also notably changed, both by her new friendships and by the books that Fern keeps pressing on her (even the "moist" ones, which prove a popular genre across the board and tie into a minor subplot about a reclusive romance writer living nearby).
If it seems like this is all low stakes frittering and a bit of a waste of a fantasy setting, things get more intense when a stranger turns up bearing the stench of Varine's necromancy about him. The enemy whose minions nearly ended Viv's mercenary career (and life) may be turning her eye back to Murk - and Viv is the only fighter who has any experience with her brand of evil. Even as Viv helps Fern spruce up the old bookshop and draw in new customers, she doesn't forget her true calling with the blade. That storyline takes some interesting twists and turns even as Viv grows more and more conflicted over how much she's come to care about parts of life that don't involve crushed skulls. Most of the storylines come to a satisfactory, if occassionally a bit bittersweet, conclusion that leaves many lives and outlooks changed. The epilogue ties it back into the first installment neatly, though in some ways I'm just as glad I read this volume first, as it made it a bit less obvious how the whole story would wrap up. I wound up adding an extra half-star for characters who became more interesting and insightful than anticipated, and a story that didn't always go to the most obvious places. (I also have to give Baldree credit for a very good audiobook narration, always easy to understand even in a moderately noisy warehouse environment.)

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The Faceless Ones (Derek Landy)

The Faceless Ones
The Skulduggery Pleasant series, Book 3
Derek Landy
HarperCollins
Fiction, MG Adventure/Fantasy/Horror/Humor/Mystery
****+ (Good/Great)

DESCRIPTION: Two years ago, Stephanie was an ordinary twelve-year-old Dublin girl living an ordinary life. That was before her favorite uncle was murdered and she found herself pulled into the hidden society of magic wielders... before she discovered her own magical heritage as a descendant of ancients who once helped free the world from the Faceless Ones, godlike entities of unspeakable malice. Now, having taken the name Valkyrie Cain, she spends most of her time as the apprentice/partner to the living skeleton Skulduggery Pleasant. It's a dangerous life, but she wouldn't have it any other way.
Six months after she and Skulduggery were summarily expelled from the Dublin Sanctuary of magic practitioners, they continue their now-technically-extralegal investigations. A string of murders has left most of Dublin's teleporters - people with the rare ability to instantaneously jump to different locations, sometimes miles away - dead, baffling Sanctuary officials. A longshot lead ties the recent killings to a strike fifty years ago, and puts Skulduggery and Valkyrie on the trail of the Diablerie, a cohort of dark mages who seek the return of the Faceless Ones via the remnants of the horrible Grotesquerie. While pluck and luck have worked in Valkyrie's favor in the past, it may not be enough to see her through this newest threat.

REVIEW: This series continues to impress me, melding magic, humor, a dash of horror, and a plot full of twists and turns and betrayals and surprises. Starting about half a year after the eventful climax of the previous installment, Valkyrie is even more immersed in the magical world than ever, to the concern of most everyone except herself and Skulduggery. Sometimes she does feel a twinge of guilt or loss, as her mirror self - left behind at home to cover for her increasingly-frequent absences - goes to school and makes friends and even experiences "her" first kiss, as several people warn her that not only is she missing an invaluable span of her life but that Skulduggery isn't always such a good and trustworthy guy, but she just digs in all the harder. Magic is her heritage, after all, and she and Skulduggery have proven they can be a formidable team... and now that Sanctuary officials are bungling things, it's more important than ever that she keep going. But this time, she might have jumped in over her head. She's faced dangerous foes before, but the Diablerie and their unseen master are a new order of magnitude, and while others have talked about bringing the Faceless Ones back to this world that they once ruled, these mages might actually pull it off. Friends and foes from previous installments turn up again, sometimes in unexpected places or roles, while new faces are introduced, including an immature teen teleporter and the petty new Sanctuary investigator who seems more interested in following strict protocols (and pursuing a personal grudge against Skulduggery, who is both terribly unorthodox and an undeniably superior detective) than actually tracking down criminals in the magical community. As in previous installments, the action kicks off early and rarely slackens the pace, ratcheting up to a climax even more intense than the previous volume's great battle - and a near-cliffhanger that almost demands I track down the fourth volume as soon as possible. Three books in, and it's still a very enjoyable series that retains some great humor, even as it edges deeper into horror-proper territory, growing up with Valkyrie Cain.

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Hallucinations (Oliver Sacks)

Hallucinations
Oliver Sacks
Vintage
Nonfiction, Biography/Medicine/Psychology/Science
***+ (Okay/Good)

DESCRIPTION: The first word that pops into most people's heads when someone mentions "hallucinations" is "crazy". After all, only a deeply disturbed mind could conjure images and voices from thin air, and only an equally disturbed person would actually believe these figments of imagination brought to apparent life, right? But hallucinations, of various forms and with various causes, are something most everyone has experienced at some time or another, from the phantom ringing phone at the edge of sleep to the "night terrors" associated with sleep paralysis. Medical doctor Oliver Sacks explores the causes, manifestations, and history of hallucinations through the lenses of medicine, psychology, and popular culture past and present.

REVIEW: This was another random selection via Libby. Like many people, I, too, have experienced what author Sacks would call "hallucinations" a time or two, mostly around the edges of sleep, though never to the extent of needing medical intervention. Referring to historical texts and recent investigations, as well as some personal experiences, Sacks relates the broad range of phenomena that could be called "hallucinations" - covering everything from seeing objects that do not exist to hearing voices to migraine "auras" to the phantom limbs felt by amputee patients and more - and how quite a few people who experience them aren't "crazy" in the least. Brains are tricky, complicated organs, about which quite a bit is still not fully understood, and the fact that we rely totally and utterly on them to interpret input from our senses to understand the world around us (and understand our own thoughts about said world) means that we can't always reliably sort out what's actual sensory input and what is a hiccup or glitch in the wiring or processing units. Historically, many cultures did not attach the stigma that the modern world often places on hallucinations, and sometimes they were deliberately sought out for healing or religious reasons. Likewise, not all hallucinations are necessarily harmful or indicative of major problems. Several of the stories were interesting, though the book as a whole seemed a little scattered, some parts feeling shallow or barely touched on before Sacks moved on, and I thought it could've used a stronger wrap-up at the end to summarize and tie together what it had covered. (Part of the problem may have been that the topic turned out to be too broad to adequately cover in a single volume of any reasonable length.)

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The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (Suzanne Collins)

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
A Hunger Games novel
Suzanne Collins
Scholastic
Fiction, YA Sci-Fi
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION: There was a time when the Snow family was among the wealthiest and most powerful in the Capitol of Panem... before the rebellion that devastated the Districts and the Capitol alike. Now, like the Capitol itself, the Snows have little but echoes of their former grandeur. Coriolanus Snow, his cousin Tigress, and his grandmother are all that remain of the Snows, but the young man is determined to restore their old fortunes. His late father always used to say "snow lands on top", after all. But the coffers are nearly empty, the illusion of wealth harder and harder to maintain among society peers, and as he nears the end of his days at the Academy he'll need a miracle to afford to attend higher education and secure a future for himself and his family. Fortunately, an opportunity has been dropped into his lap, courtesy of the tenth annual Hunger Games.
The Games - brutal annual contests where children from each of the twelve remaining Districts are forced to fight to the death in the Capitol as punishment for their parents' rebellion - have been waning in popularity as the war fades into the past. Even in the Capitol, many don't bother tuning in to watch two dozen half-starved kids, whom they barely see as human anyway, hack away at each other in a dusty arena. To try to make the Games more competitive and interesting to the viewing audience, this year the Gamemasters are assigning each District "tribute" a Capitol mentor, drawn from the Academy, to help prepare them for pre-Game interviews and strategize. Whoever mentors a victor is assured entry in the University. Coriolanus is initially dismayed when he is saddled with the girl from District 12 - a backwater of half-starved coal miners, who usually don't last long in the arena - but Lucy Gray Baird is not at all what he imagined. Feisty and colorful and full of tricks, she just might be the underdog contestant to beat the Games and win the Snows their old glory back, and more besides... or she just might be the ruin of him and his dreams.

REVIEW: I read and enjoyed the original trilogy (and watched and enjoyed the movies), but I hesitated a long while before trying this prequel. President Snow was an interesting but dark and devious antagonist, and I'm rather tired of the villain worship that seems to be so popular lately: turning evil people who do evil things into heroes (even though most of the best baddies think of themselves as the heroes of their own stories). But, as it turns out, this is not a redemption arc or a retcon that turns Coriolanus Snow into a "misunderstood" man, but an origin story that proves just how many chances at redemption or a less-horrific path he ignored to embrace his ultimate destiny.
From the start, there is something fundamentally flawed in Snow, a self-centered worldview that is blind to empathy or affection save how it serves him and his immediate family, though like many sociopaths he has learned "protective coloring" to emulate such emotions and manipulate them for his own goals. The reader sees how he is puzzled and amused by, and often disdainful of, such pointless distractions as friendship, even as he recognizes that he needs to fake it to get by. How much of this he was born with and how much was a result of wartime trauma, as his childhood was one of extreme devastation and loss and the drawn-out horrors of a city under seige during the failed rebellion (whose impact is still visible daily around a Capitol that still struggles to rebuild a decade after victory), is unclear, but the damage runs deep, for all that he doesn't see it; if one is born colorblind, after all, what does the word "green" even mean? His flawed viewpoint means the reader sees more than he does in the actions and motivations of those around him, as (most) everyone projects onto him emotions that he only dimly feels, if he feels them at all... and when he does feel them, even his emotions are warped by the cracked lens through which he views the world. Still, even he feels a certain level of revulsion for the Games and the Gamesmasters, particularly the sadistic geneticist Doctor Gaul, whose lab is full of abominations that turn even Snow's stomach. The fact that she seems to have taken a personal interest in Snow's education bodes ill for his future and hints that the poison runs deeper than one boy, but to the roots of an entire society warped by war and trauma until it actively rejects healing and can only think to seek new and more depraved ways to inflict pain. Still, little as Snow cares for the Games, the Masters, or other aspects of what he's asked to do, he recognizes this as his only chance to achieve his ambitions, so he wades in with a will, brushing off any vestigial bristling of a conscience. Until, that is, he has his first encounter with Lucy Gray Baird.
She is not actually a resident of District 12; she is actually of the "Covey", a pre-war nomadic people who traveled Panem freely, singing and entertaining, only to be trapped after the war when passage between Districts was forbidden. District folk don't embrace the Covey, even trapped as they are with them and ground under the same boot heel, nor do Covey embrace the District, and both loathe the Capitol and all it stands for, even as the Capitol sees all things beyond their borders as little more than animals. She was sent as tribute by a mayor who saw a chance to fulfill a personal grudge (and spare one of his own people), but proves early on she can be as quick on her feet and cold-blooded as Snow, even faced with near-certain death in the Games, determined to go out on her own terms and bowing to none. Snow's ambitions drive him above and beyond what his fellow mentors attempt in connecting with their District tributes, and one can see how Lucy takes his interest the wrong way. As for Snow, he starts feeling something that might, but for his fundamental flaws, be love... in another life, where he was capable of that emotion as it's generally meant. Even if he were able to truly feel for her what she grows to feel for him, the odds against them are immense, but they're both at that age where "impossible" just seems like it'll take a little longer to become inevitable. Together, they turn out to be a formidable team... but things do not work out as Snow had hoped. Even from a place of fallen grace, he still plots for a return to glory - but can that glory, that desire for order and control and prestige, ever stretch enough to encompass a veritable force of nature like Lucy Gray Baird? Even without knowing of the later trilogy, there is tragedy written all over this tale almost from the start.
Though I never truly empathized with Snow (nor was I supposed to), he made for a compelling and interesting character. In addition to showing the origins of Panem's future president, the book also explores the pivotal moments when the Hunger Games stopped even pretending to be about "justice" or vengeance for the war and began their transformation into the sickening spectacle that awaited Katniss Everdeen 64 years later. So much hinges on which view of humanity one's leaders embrace, whether they see people as generally good and decent or as inherently savage monsters who need to be collared and broken for the sake of social harmony, with no apparent room for overlap. When people incapable of understanding empathy are in charge, the latter is not only inevitable, but ensured as each generation grooms the next in their own image. It nearly earned another half-star in the ratings, barely held back by an occasional sense of wallowing in its own depravities (depravities that are all too recognizable in our own world) and stretching out Snow's journey.

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Empty Smiles (Katherine Arden)

Empty Smiles
The Small Spaces series, Book 4
Katherine Arden
G. P. Putnam's Sons
Fiction, MG Horror
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION: Last autumn, Ollie, Brian, and Coco first encountered the terrifying entity known as the smiling man, devious player of games and captor of the unwitting, on a school field trip to a farm near their small Vermont town. In winter, they had their second encounter at an empty mountain lodge. Three months ago, in spring, the smiling man made yet another play for the children... and, this time, Ollie struck a terrible bargain to save the lives of her father and her friends. Now, nobody but Brian, Coco, and Brian's friend and fellow survivor Phil remember anything about that terrible time on the island in Lake Champlain, where they faced ghosts and the legendary lake monster Champ itself. Even Ollie's dad thinks she drowned in a "boating accident", and doesn't recall how she leapt into the waters to free them all. But part of Ollie's bargain was that her friends would get one chance to win her freedom. Though they've watched and waited, there has been no sign of the smiling man - until, one hot August day at the local swimming hole, a terrified boy stumbles up the creek babbling words that seem like utter nonsense to everyone but the three kids. They know just what this means: the next game has begun. Only they don't understand the rules or the cryptic clues about missing keys, and time is already against them.
In the clutches of the smiling man, Ollie finds herself aboard a train that periodically transforms into a traveling carnival - but, as with all things related to the evil entity, the carnival is not at all what it appears. People have a way of disappearing at this carnival, and sinister beings stalk the midway after sundown. The smiling man keeps trying to convince her that her friends have given up on her, that there is no way out, but she cannot let herself believe that... nor can she sit idly by waiting to be rescued. The more she investigates, the more she realizes just how much trouble she and her friends are in, how much darker and more terrible this fourth and final "game" with the smiling man will be. This time, if Ollie and her friends lose, it's not just her own life that'll be forfeit: he'll take her friends, their families, their entire town, and maybe more.

REVIEW: The fourth and final volume (for now) in the deliciously creepy Small Spaces quartet pits the original trio of kids (and Phil, a relative newcomer to the group who was pulled into their circle during the events on Lake Champlain in the previous installment) against the smiling man and his minions in one last grand and terrifying game in a story that draws inspiration from Ray Bradbury's classic Something Wicked This Way Comes and elements of the cult-classic horror film (that's very much not a children's movie) Killer Klowns from Outer Space.
Things start at the tail end of August, where the three remaining kids have become further withdrawn, further alarming parents who already were growing concerned with their children's odd behavior. Coco's mother and Ollie's father have no recollection of the supernatural aspects of their lake disaster in spring, only "remembering" that Ollie drowned after their tour boat "sank", even though Ollie's dad still has the scar from the venomous sea monster bite that nearly killed him. All they know is that their once happy and outgoing offspring are acting like they're terrified of something and won't tell them... but people who are told about the smiling man don't tend to fare well, and all too often the smiling man has ways of manipulating memories. Still, Coco grows desperate enough to consider breaking their unofficial vow of silence on the matter; things have gone too far, and maybe the grown-ups can help somehow. Brian still advocates secrecy, terrified of losing his own family, while Phil still feels a bit like a third wheel in their group, the "lesser Ollie". When the smiling man sends his message that the new game is afoot, it comes via a boy who was reported missing from a carnival at a nearby town - a boy half-insane from what he's been through. The kids are both relieved and frightened by his words, even as they realize that, yet again, they're in way over their heads in a game they do not understand and with rules that always seem to favor the monster.
Ollie, meanwhile, must deal with the consequences of her bargain on the island, and days spent in the company of the smiling man. He can be disarmingly charming and almost normal, enough that she sometimes almost forgets how empty and amoral he is inside, how devious his mind is, and how often he seems to be playing one game but is actually playing another altogether. No passive, swooning girl in distress, she sets out to find her own way out and solve the riddle of the three keys that will let her escape the monster's clutches. This time, instead of stalking scarecrows, ghostly minions, or monstrous serpents, she faces grotesque clowns whose very touch has horrible consequences. She also faces the smiling man's persistent gaslighting and manipulations, making her question her own convictions, memories, and reality itself.
As fitting for a finale, the stakes are higher and more personal, the challenges more daunting, and the climax more tense. Given the darker tones of the series as a whole, and how much trauma and lasting consequences were woven into the whole story - they all still have nightmares going back to their first encounter with the smiling man -, I thought some elements of the wrap-up felt a bit clean and neat, but it's a decent enough place to leave things (and there's just a hairline crack in the door in case Arden ever wants to revisit).

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