Death of an Eye
The Eye of Isis series, Book 1
Dana Stabenow
Head of Zeus
Fiction, Historical Fiction/Mystery
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: The city of Alexandria thrives under the twin reign of Cleopatra and her brother Ptolemy, though it's Cleopatra - thanks to her canny ruling and the support of the Roman Julius Caesar, whose child she carries - who is most responsible for turning Egypt around after recent unrest. Still, there are those who grumble and plot in the shadows: those who resent the Roman presence, those who resent how much power Cleopatra holds and would prefer a man, even a cruel weakling like Ptolemy, to rule alone. Now, it seems someone has actually acted on those grumblings... and the Eye of Isis, Cleopatra's secret personal investigator, lies dead in the streets.
Tetisheri lives with her wealthy merchant uncle, helping him run his trade business after escaping a horrific marriage. She and the queen were childhood friends, though the gods have guided them on separate paths as they've grown. Then Apollodorus, Cleopatra's personal guard (and Tetisheri's childhood crush) comes calling with a summons from the palace. The Eye was cut down while investigating the theft of a shipment of new coins intended to reinvigorate Alexandria's economy; the brazen theft was no random act, but calculated by her enemies to weaken her hold on power. But the only ones who knew of the shipment were in her closest circles, meaning that she cannot trust anyone in the palace. Hence, calling on their childhood bond, the queen requests that Tetisheri act as her Eye in this matter.
Though she's in no position to refuse, Tetisheri doubts she will be of much use. She's never investigated more than the prices or provenance of her uncle's trade goods. Nevertheless, she finds herself on a twisting trail through the streets of Alexandria and the halls of power, with nobody but Apollodorus as her guide. The last Eye to follow this trail ended up in the city morgue with a shattered skull - how can Tetisheri hope to escape the same fate?
REVIEW: This is an interesting, fast-paced mystery set in the days of Cleopatra's reign, in an Egypt whose ancient glory has faded but not yet been entirely eclipsed. Alexandria is a city not unlike modern cities, where various cultures mingle and occasionally clash and where schemes seem to hatch in every shadow. Here, Tetisheri enjoys a fairly independent existence, having secured a divorce from a power-hungry and abusive husband. She and her uncle regularly take in and free women slaves, teaching them their letters and often sending them off into prosperous occupations around the city and greater Egypt, a sharp contrast to the interloping Romans who only allow women to be wives and mothers (and a handful of other, usually unsavory occupations). She and Cleopatra were once best friends, but power has naturally changed their relationship. Still, when Cleopatra comes calling and makes her request, it's not just royal obligation that makes Tetisheri take up the Eye, even though in her mind it's only a temporary thing. Despite herself, she takes to detective work fairly rapidly, starting in the trail of the fallen Eye and continuing past where that woman met her untimely end, encountering numerous diplomatic bumps along the way as the case veers into the thorny, tangled politics of the palace. Around her, the world of ancient Egypt comes alive, both like and unlike modern times, with a host of colorful and interesting characters. There's a bit of character overload at times; it's clear that this story is also setting up a longer series where several people introduced here will be recurring figures, which might also explain why more than one didn't seem to quite live up to their potential in this installment. The international politics can also be a bit convoluted to pick through. Nevertheless, it all makes for a decent investigation, and Tetisheri is an intriguing detective.
You Might Also Enjoy:
A Master of Djinn (P. Djeli Clark) - My Review
The Eye of Jade (Diane Wei Liang) - My Review
Crocodile on the Sandbank (Elizabeth Peters) - My Review
Friday, September 13, 2024
Thursday, September 12, 2024
What We Found in the Sofa and How It Saved The World (Henry Clark)
What We Found in the Sofa and How It Saved the World
Henry Clark
Little, Brown Books
Fiction, MG Humor/Sci-Fi
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Nothing much ever happens to middle-schoolers River, Freak, and Fiona... well, nothing much good, anyway. River's mother and father died in a car crash when he was two years old. Freak's dad spends most days at the bottom of a beer can after his real estate business cratered. Fiona keeps trying to be friends with the popular girls in school, but they never stop mocking her behind her back. All three also live at the edge of the coal seam fire that has rendered a huge swath of the town uninhabitable, the last three houses left in a once-thriving suburban development (once the pride of Freak's father's real estate business).
Then one day, at their bus stop (just beyond the walls of reclusive Old Man Underhill's castle-like compound), they find a strange green sofa... and in its cushions, they find some odd stuff: a double-headed coin with strange writing, a fish hook, and a weird green crayon labeled "zucchini". It turns out that crayon is a collector's item, potentially worth hundreds, even thousands of dollars - but is it right to sell something they found in someone else's furniture, even if that furniture was sitting out by the curb and clearly destined for the junkyard?
When they decide to ask the old man in the castle if he meant to get rid of the crayon with the couch, the trio find themselves pulled into some very strange goings-on involving the local chemical company, the peculiar wave of flash mobs sweeping the area with spontaneous dance performances (that nobody admits to seeing or participating in), furniture that might be more intelligent than the world's top supercomputers, and the small matter of a madman threatening to enslave the planet.
REVIEW: From the title alone, What We Found in the Sofa and How It Saved the World starts on a whimsical note, but it also has a little character depth and solid heart to it. The trio are all misfits in their way, though Fiona goes out of her way to deny it, to the point where she only associates with the other two before and after school. Freak's home life is a mess, and though nobody outright says the word "abuser", River keeps an eye on him for fresh bruises whenever his friend's father raises his voice. As for River, though he has a loving aunt taking care of him, he's never gotten over the scars from the accident that took his parents (and left one leg slightly shorter than the other, so he limps when he runs). In their own ways, they all could use a good break for once in their lives, but none expected it to come from the cushions of a sofa, let alone within the forbidding walls of Old Man Underhill's property. It turns out the old man passed away some years ago, and the new owner, Alf, is at least as eccentric. He also clearly has a hidden agenda, even when he tries to win over the children, and there are some very bizarre things in his house, including what might be a murderous ghost-granny with an axe. Freak clings to his skepticism a little long, given what they witness, but all three have some legitimate concerns about how far to trust the strange man and just what of his outlandish tale can be believed... especially when another party is telling them conflicting information. It goes without saying that the sofa is much more than an ordinary piece of fancy furniture, and in its way it becomes a character in its own right. As the kids become more and more involved, often without intending to, they learn truths about their town that they never thought to question before, and just how much danger they've always been in without realizing it. It's as much to avenge lost loved ones as to help Alf that they become committed to stopping the terrible plot unfolding around them, centered around the world's rarest crayon.
While the overall tone is light, as mentioned previously, there's also a decent dash of real danger to give it weight, and times where the kids have to use their heads and some light science to get through problems. Once in a while the plot feels slightly manipulative, events being orchestrated in ways that stretch the suspension of disbelief, and something about the ending feels like a pulled punch given how the book hadn't hesitated to let the baddies kill people earlier on (mostly long before the book begins, but still for-realsies, no-crossed-fingers death), with some threads left over that don't feel properly tied up. For all that I'm not entirely sure the ending did justice to the beginning and middle, overall this is a fun, fast-paced adventure.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Game of Sunken Places (M. T. Anderson) - My Review
Only You Can Save Mankind (Terry Pratchett) - My Review
Cold Cereal (Adam Rex) - My Review
Henry Clark
Little, Brown Books
Fiction, MG Humor/Sci-Fi
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Nothing much ever happens to middle-schoolers River, Freak, and Fiona... well, nothing much good, anyway. River's mother and father died in a car crash when he was two years old. Freak's dad spends most days at the bottom of a beer can after his real estate business cratered. Fiona keeps trying to be friends with the popular girls in school, but they never stop mocking her behind her back. All three also live at the edge of the coal seam fire that has rendered a huge swath of the town uninhabitable, the last three houses left in a once-thriving suburban development (once the pride of Freak's father's real estate business).
Then one day, at their bus stop (just beyond the walls of reclusive Old Man Underhill's castle-like compound), they find a strange green sofa... and in its cushions, they find some odd stuff: a double-headed coin with strange writing, a fish hook, and a weird green crayon labeled "zucchini". It turns out that crayon is a collector's item, potentially worth hundreds, even thousands of dollars - but is it right to sell something they found in someone else's furniture, even if that furniture was sitting out by the curb and clearly destined for the junkyard?
When they decide to ask the old man in the castle if he meant to get rid of the crayon with the couch, the trio find themselves pulled into some very strange goings-on involving the local chemical company, the peculiar wave of flash mobs sweeping the area with spontaneous dance performances (that nobody admits to seeing or participating in), furniture that might be more intelligent than the world's top supercomputers, and the small matter of a madman threatening to enslave the planet.
REVIEW: From the title alone, What We Found in the Sofa and How It Saved the World starts on a whimsical note, but it also has a little character depth and solid heart to it. The trio are all misfits in their way, though Fiona goes out of her way to deny it, to the point where she only associates with the other two before and after school. Freak's home life is a mess, and though nobody outright says the word "abuser", River keeps an eye on him for fresh bruises whenever his friend's father raises his voice. As for River, though he has a loving aunt taking care of him, he's never gotten over the scars from the accident that took his parents (and left one leg slightly shorter than the other, so he limps when he runs). In their own ways, they all could use a good break for once in their lives, but none expected it to come from the cushions of a sofa, let alone within the forbidding walls of Old Man Underhill's property. It turns out the old man passed away some years ago, and the new owner, Alf, is at least as eccentric. He also clearly has a hidden agenda, even when he tries to win over the children, and there are some very bizarre things in his house, including what might be a murderous ghost-granny with an axe. Freak clings to his skepticism a little long, given what they witness, but all three have some legitimate concerns about how far to trust the strange man and just what of his outlandish tale can be believed... especially when another party is telling them conflicting information. It goes without saying that the sofa is much more than an ordinary piece of fancy furniture, and in its way it becomes a character in its own right. As the kids become more and more involved, often without intending to, they learn truths about their town that they never thought to question before, and just how much danger they've always been in without realizing it. It's as much to avenge lost loved ones as to help Alf that they become committed to stopping the terrible plot unfolding around them, centered around the world's rarest crayon.
While the overall tone is light, as mentioned previously, there's also a decent dash of real danger to give it weight, and times where the kids have to use their heads and some light science to get through problems. Once in a while the plot feels slightly manipulative, events being orchestrated in ways that stretch the suspension of disbelief, and something about the ending feels like a pulled punch given how the book hadn't hesitated to let the baddies kill people earlier on (mostly long before the book begins, but still for-realsies, no-crossed-fingers death), with some threads left over that don't feel properly tied up. For all that I'm not entirely sure the ending did justice to the beginning and middle, overall this is a fun, fast-paced adventure.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Game of Sunken Places (M. T. Anderson) - My Review
Only You Can Save Mankind (Terry Pratchett) - My Review
Cold Cereal (Adam Rex) - My Review
Wednesday, September 11, 2024
Dark Days (Derek Landy)
Dark Days
The Skulduggery Pleasant series, Book 4
Derek Landy
HarperCollins
Fiction, MG/YA Action/Fantasy/Horror/Humor
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: After cultists succeeded in opening a portal to the realm of the Faceless Ones, malevolent godlike entities that once ruled the Earth and have long wished to return to their former home (which would not bode well for pretty much anything currently inhabiting the planet), the living skeleton Skulduggery Pleasant, his apprentice Valkyrie Cain, and a handful of allies managed to drive the monstrous, madness-inducing beings back where they belonged... only Skulduggery was dragged through before the portal could be closed. That was nearly a year ago, and while most everyone in Dublin's magical community considers him gone (or as good as gone; if he hasn't succumbed, he's likely been driven insane by the Faceless Ones), Valkyrie will not rest until she gets her friend and teacher back, even accepting the tutelage of a necromancer to learn tricks that no elemental can teach her. At last, she stands on the cusp of victory - which, of course, means something is about to go terribly wrong, because that's when things always go terribly wrong.
Two hundred years ago, the sorcerer Dreylan Scarab was imprisoned for assassination, but confinement has not reformed him. Instead, the first thing he does on his release is organize the Revengers' Club, consisting of people with a bone to pick with the Dublin Sanctuary. A pack of villains like this isn't going to cooperate for long, but they only need to work together long enough to bring down the Sanctuary... and take down their mutual enemies, Skulduggery Pleasant and Valkyrie Cain. As if that weren't bad enough, every seer in the area has started getting visions of a new, darker danger on the horizon: a potentially world-ending mage known only as Darquesse - and, if the seers are right, that woman will not only slaughter Valkyrie's family, but her and Skulduggery too.
REVIEW: Taking up about a year after the previous volume ended, the reader finds a Valkyrie Cain who has only grown more powerful and more determined without Skulduggery around, willingly dabbling in necromancy despite how that force is viewed by most magic users and finding an unexpected talent there. If she had any misgivings about spending so much time among magicians in earlier adventures, those were sucked through the portal after Skulduggery; she's spending even more time out of the house in her laser-focused pursuit of a way to re-open the portal and rescue the living skeleton, relying more and more on the mirror image decoy to cover for her with family even though it's been glitchy. Not even her parents announcing that she's about to become a big sister is enough to get her to stay home and invest more time in her mundane life, not when she has a mission (and when the magical world continues to draw her like a magnet; she can try blaming her however-long-ago ancestor, the last of the Ancients, for the attraction, but at this point it's nearly an addiction). Even her closest friends are concerned for her, but she won't hear a word of caution. It goes without saying that she succeeds (just as it also goes without saying that success is hard-won by the skin of her teeth), but that's only the start of bigger problems as the Revengers' Club and their campaign of, well, revenge sweeps through the magical community of Dublin. The returned Skulduggery is not the same as he was, but then neither is Valkyrie the same girl he left behind, far more of a partner than an assistant or apprentice. They still make a formidable team, each using their new powers and resilience to great effect as the stakes inevitably ratchet higher with every chapter.
Baddies from previous books return as Revengers' Club members, naturally... and, as before, the Sanctuary magicians are not exactly pure as the driven snow in their histories and intentions; there's a very good reason so many people hold such hard feelings towards them, and the attacks are in no small part composed of metaphoric chickens coming home to roost. Corruption in power has been a theme since the start, and here it comes to a head for the Dublin Sanctuary in quite catastrophic ways. Add that to the visions that put Skulduggery, Valkyrie, and the other Dublin mages at the heart of the possible end of the world in a few years (as close as they can guesstimate; Valkyrie looks a few years older, at least), and things can only go from bad to worse.
As before, there's still humor threading through several moments and interactions, but the horror elements are only growing stronger as Valkyrie grows up. At around 15 now, the girl and the series are wading into Young Adult territory with both feet; indeed, she's getting involved in her first fledgling romance with a side character, even though her greater destiny and probable doom constantly lurks over her shoulder. Everyone she loves, and even people she dislikes, go through the wringer here on the way to a tense climax that creates lasting ramifications for all concerned and altering the trajectory of the series.
If this entry has a slightly lower rating than previous outings of Skulduggery Pleasant and Valkyrie Cain, it's a very near thing, and partly due to it feeling a little rushed and overwhelming at times, standing at a pivot point in the larger arc (at least, that's what I assume, given events). It's shorter than the others, and could've used a slight bit more breathing space between All The Things happening and all the characters that come together. The ending twist is also a touch telegraphed. Still, this remains a highly entertaining and exciting series, one where the main characters aren't bubble-wrapped and actually experience consequences from their mistakes - and even their victories. I'm looking forward to reading (or listening) on.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Library of the Dead (T. L. Huchu) - My Review
Skulduggery Pleasant (Derek Landy) - My Review
A Darker Shade of Magic (V. E. Schwab) - My Review
The Skulduggery Pleasant series, Book 4
Derek Landy
HarperCollins
Fiction, MG/YA Action/Fantasy/Horror/Humor
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: After cultists succeeded in opening a portal to the realm of the Faceless Ones, malevolent godlike entities that once ruled the Earth and have long wished to return to their former home (which would not bode well for pretty much anything currently inhabiting the planet), the living skeleton Skulduggery Pleasant, his apprentice Valkyrie Cain, and a handful of allies managed to drive the monstrous, madness-inducing beings back where they belonged... only Skulduggery was dragged through before the portal could be closed. That was nearly a year ago, and while most everyone in Dublin's magical community considers him gone (or as good as gone; if he hasn't succumbed, he's likely been driven insane by the Faceless Ones), Valkyrie will not rest until she gets her friend and teacher back, even accepting the tutelage of a necromancer to learn tricks that no elemental can teach her. At last, she stands on the cusp of victory - which, of course, means something is about to go terribly wrong, because that's when things always go terribly wrong.
Two hundred years ago, the sorcerer Dreylan Scarab was imprisoned for assassination, but confinement has not reformed him. Instead, the first thing he does on his release is organize the Revengers' Club, consisting of people with a bone to pick with the Dublin Sanctuary. A pack of villains like this isn't going to cooperate for long, but they only need to work together long enough to bring down the Sanctuary... and take down their mutual enemies, Skulduggery Pleasant and Valkyrie Cain. As if that weren't bad enough, every seer in the area has started getting visions of a new, darker danger on the horizon: a potentially world-ending mage known only as Darquesse - and, if the seers are right, that woman will not only slaughter Valkyrie's family, but her and Skulduggery too.
REVIEW: Taking up about a year after the previous volume ended, the reader finds a Valkyrie Cain who has only grown more powerful and more determined without Skulduggery around, willingly dabbling in necromancy despite how that force is viewed by most magic users and finding an unexpected talent there. If she had any misgivings about spending so much time among magicians in earlier adventures, those were sucked through the portal after Skulduggery; she's spending even more time out of the house in her laser-focused pursuit of a way to re-open the portal and rescue the living skeleton, relying more and more on the mirror image decoy to cover for her with family even though it's been glitchy. Not even her parents announcing that she's about to become a big sister is enough to get her to stay home and invest more time in her mundane life, not when she has a mission (and when the magical world continues to draw her like a magnet; she can try blaming her however-long-ago ancestor, the last of the Ancients, for the attraction, but at this point it's nearly an addiction). Even her closest friends are concerned for her, but she won't hear a word of caution. It goes without saying that she succeeds (just as it also goes without saying that success is hard-won by the skin of her teeth), but that's only the start of bigger problems as the Revengers' Club and their campaign of, well, revenge sweeps through the magical community of Dublin. The returned Skulduggery is not the same as he was, but then neither is Valkyrie the same girl he left behind, far more of a partner than an assistant or apprentice. They still make a formidable team, each using their new powers and resilience to great effect as the stakes inevitably ratchet higher with every chapter.
Baddies from previous books return as Revengers' Club members, naturally... and, as before, the Sanctuary magicians are not exactly pure as the driven snow in their histories and intentions; there's a very good reason so many people hold such hard feelings towards them, and the attacks are in no small part composed of metaphoric chickens coming home to roost. Corruption in power has been a theme since the start, and here it comes to a head for the Dublin Sanctuary in quite catastrophic ways. Add that to the visions that put Skulduggery, Valkyrie, and the other Dublin mages at the heart of the possible end of the world in a few years (as close as they can guesstimate; Valkyrie looks a few years older, at least), and things can only go from bad to worse.
As before, there's still humor threading through several moments and interactions, but the horror elements are only growing stronger as Valkyrie grows up. At around 15 now, the girl and the series are wading into Young Adult territory with both feet; indeed, she's getting involved in her first fledgling romance with a side character, even though her greater destiny and probable doom constantly lurks over her shoulder. Everyone she loves, and even people she dislikes, go through the wringer here on the way to a tense climax that creates lasting ramifications for all concerned and altering the trajectory of the series.
If this entry has a slightly lower rating than previous outings of Skulduggery Pleasant and Valkyrie Cain, it's a very near thing, and partly due to it feeling a little rushed and overwhelming at times, standing at a pivot point in the larger arc (at least, that's what I assume, given events). It's shorter than the others, and could've used a slight bit more breathing space between All The Things happening and all the characters that come together. The ending twist is also a touch telegraphed. Still, this remains a highly entertaining and exciting series, one where the main characters aren't bubble-wrapped and actually experience consequences from their mistakes - and even their victories. I'm looking forward to reading (or listening) on.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Library of the Dead (T. L. Huchu) - My Review
Skulduggery Pleasant (Derek Landy) - My Review
A Darker Shade of Magic (V. E. Schwab) - My Review
Friday, September 6, 2024
Flux (Jinwoo Chong)
Flux
Jinwoo Chong
Tantor
Fiction, Literary Fiction/Sci-Fi
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: 28-year-old Brandon is a marketer at a once-popular fashion magazine... or he was, until a buyout led to his termination, not to mention a breakup with his boyfriend/boss. Strangely, he almost literally falls into a job offer not long after; after surviving a plunge down an elevator shaft at a mall, a man approaches him with an opportunity he can't refuse, a cushy job at a startup touting a new kind of battery and power generator. With blackouts an increasing problem for the country's straining, aging power grid, this company has the potential to remake the entire energy sector, and Brandon's getting in near the ground floor. But there's something very, very odd about this job. He doesn't actually seem to be doing anything, and he has a hard time remembering just what happens in his spacious office between the start of the workday and when he finds himself back home. The more he digs into the question, the more pushback he meets.
It's only four days before Christmas when 8-year-old Bo loses his mother in a terrible accident right in front of their school - an accident Bo blames himself for, because she was coming to bring the boys the lunches he forgot to grab on his way out the door. While his kid brother is too young to process it, Bo finds himself stuck between grief and rage and self-hatred, lashing out at his father, his brother, and everyone around him. His only solace is a detective show from the 1980's, once a favorite of his father's and now a favorite of his, too, about hard-nosed detective Thomas Raider investigating the gritty underbelly of Chinatown, but even Raider can't help him escape his misery.
Twenty years ago, Blue was the whistleblower who brought down a massive corporation that turned out to be a scam - one where three people were murdered to cover up the crimes. Now 48 and mute after a stroke, Blue is about to set foot in the defunct headquarters of Flux for the first time since the trial, part of a prime-time news retrospective. But he has his own reasons for returning, ghosts from his past he needs to confront and a plan that, if it works, will finally give him the closure and peace he has sought most of his life.
REVIEW: Yet another random audiobook selection on Libby, Flux takes a literary approach to time travel tropes while also exploring mixed race identity (and how often the non-white side seems to lose out as younger generations seek to be more "American"), the lingering scars of childhood trauma and family dysfunction, and the power of a beloved franchise to give a person strength and grounding during difficult times.
The three threads mostly focus on Brandon, though of course they're all connected in ways that become clear fairly early on - even earlier if you read the blurb and realize this is a time travel story. (Not a spoiler if it's all but spelled out in the blurb...) From the outset, it's clear that Brandon is an unhappy man in many ways, as well as selfish in that way of people who have been emotionally scarred in the past and react by pushing others away (and self-sabotaging). Even before his termination from the magazine, he can see the writing on the wall, not just for his career - magazine readership has been plummeting across the board - but for his relationship with his supervisor. He meets a potential new girlfriend (Brandon is casually bisexual) while impulsively blowing his severance check at the mall... just before stepping into the open elevator shaft, and the plunge that leads to a strange job offer that seems almost too good to be true, sweeping him into a surreal situation where his new boss doesn't seem to demand any actual work, dragging him to parties and meet-and-greets with the company owner, and time seems to be slipping away from him far faster than his memories can account for. Meanwhile, young Bo crumbles after his mother's death unravels his family, leading to lifelong rifts with his brother and his father - neither of whom truly deserve his wrath, yet he can't seem to stop the flow of anger. Blue prepares for his big interview by revisiting an old colleague from the company he helped the feds pull down, the two reminiscing about the past as the aging man sets himself on one last, desperate task that might finally even the books in a life he has come to loathe... or might destroy everything.
The focus in this book is much more on the "literary" side than the "sci-fi" side, slowly building up the characters and layering in the themes and meandering through the invented cop show's arcs and plot lines and stumbling attempts at racial representation (that come across as very stilted, even insulting to most people viewing it in modern times), and even venturing into the lives of the lead actor and his offspring, before finally getting into the time travel aspect. When it does address that concept, the book recognizes the paradoxes involved, how unlikely it is for anyone to actually change the past or break a loop. The ending feels unsatisfactory on some level, shrugging away questions of how or why.
While Flux is, on some levels, an interesting exploration of a broken biracial man who finds himself navigating a nightmarish situation while somehow having fallen into a life he has come to regret and despise, I also found myself frustrated by the plodding pacing, the tendency to wallow in misery and self-created problems, and a resolution that seemed to disregard previously established rules. I can't say I hated it, but I wish it had lived up to its potential a little better.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Fifth Season (N. K. Jemisin) - My Review
Oona Out of Order (Margarita Montimore) - My Review
Interior Chinatown (Charles Yu) - My Review
Jinwoo Chong
Tantor
Fiction, Literary Fiction/Sci-Fi
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: 28-year-old Brandon is a marketer at a once-popular fashion magazine... or he was, until a buyout led to his termination, not to mention a breakup with his boyfriend/boss. Strangely, he almost literally falls into a job offer not long after; after surviving a plunge down an elevator shaft at a mall, a man approaches him with an opportunity he can't refuse, a cushy job at a startup touting a new kind of battery and power generator. With blackouts an increasing problem for the country's straining, aging power grid, this company has the potential to remake the entire energy sector, and Brandon's getting in near the ground floor. But there's something very, very odd about this job. He doesn't actually seem to be doing anything, and he has a hard time remembering just what happens in his spacious office between the start of the workday and when he finds himself back home. The more he digs into the question, the more pushback he meets.
It's only four days before Christmas when 8-year-old Bo loses his mother in a terrible accident right in front of their school - an accident Bo blames himself for, because she was coming to bring the boys the lunches he forgot to grab on his way out the door. While his kid brother is too young to process it, Bo finds himself stuck between grief and rage and self-hatred, lashing out at his father, his brother, and everyone around him. His only solace is a detective show from the 1980's, once a favorite of his father's and now a favorite of his, too, about hard-nosed detective Thomas Raider investigating the gritty underbelly of Chinatown, but even Raider can't help him escape his misery.
Twenty years ago, Blue was the whistleblower who brought down a massive corporation that turned out to be a scam - one where three people were murdered to cover up the crimes. Now 48 and mute after a stroke, Blue is about to set foot in the defunct headquarters of Flux for the first time since the trial, part of a prime-time news retrospective. But he has his own reasons for returning, ghosts from his past he needs to confront and a plan that, if it works, will finally give him the closure and peace he has sought most of his life.
REVIEW: Yet another random audiobook selection on Libby, Flux takes a literary approach to time travel tropes while also exploring mixed race identity (and how often the non-white side seems to lose out as younger generations seek to be more "American"), the lingering scars of childhood trauma and family dysfunction, and the power of a beloved franchise to give a person strength and grounding during difficult times.
The three threads mostly focus on Brandon, though of course they're all connected in ways that become clear fairly early on - even earlier if you read the blurb and realize this is a time travel story. (Not a spoiler if it's all but spelled out in the blurb...) From the outset, it's clear that Brandon is an unhappy man in many ways, as well as selfish in that way of people who have been emotionally scarred in the past and react by pushing others away (and self-sabotaging). Even before his termination from the magazine, he can see the writing on the wall, not just for his career - magazine readership has been plummeting across the board - but for his relationship with his supervisor. He meets a potential new girlfriend (Brandon is casually bisexual) while impulsively blowing his severance check at the mall... just before stepping into the open elevator shaft, and the plunge that leads to a strange job offer that seems almost too good to be true, sweeping him into a surreal situation where his new boss doesn't seem to demand any actual work, dragging him to parties and meet-and-greets with the company owner, and time seems to be slipping away from him far faster than his memories can account for. Meanwhile, young Bo crumbles after his mother's death unravels his family, leading to lifelong rifts with his brother and his father - neither of whom truly deserve his wrath, yet he can't seem to stop the flow of anger. Blue prepares for his big interview by revisiting an old colleague from the company he helped the feds pull down, the two reminiscing about the past as the aging man sets himself on one last, desperate task that might finally even the books in a life he has come to loathe... or might destroy everything.
The focus in this book is much more on the "literary" side than the "sci-fi" side, slowly building up the characters and layering in the themes and meandering through the invented cop show's arcs and plot lines and stumbling attempts at racial representation (that come across as very stilted, even insulting to most people viewing it in modern times), and even venturing into the lives of the lead actor and his offspring, before finally getting into the time travel aspect. When it does address that concept, the book recognizes the paradoxes involved, how unlikely it is for anyone to actually change the past or break a loop. The ending feels unsatisfactory on some level, shrugging away questions of how or why.
While Flux is, on some levels, an interesting exploration of a broken biracial man who finds himself navigating a nightmarish situation while somehow having fallen into a life he has come to regret and despise, I also found myself frustrated by the plodding pacing, the tendency to wallow in misery and self-created problems, and a resolution that seemed to disregard previously established rules. I can't say I hated it, but I wish it had lived up to its potential a little better.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Fifth Season (N. K. Jemisin) - My Review
Oona Out of Order (Margarita Montimore) - My Review
Interior Chinatown (Charles Yu) - My Review
Thursday, September 5, 2024
How to Fracture a Fairy Tale (Jane Yolen)
How to Fracture a Fairy Tale
The Yolen's Short Fiction series, Book 1
Jane Yolen
Tachyon Publishing
Fiction, Collection/Fantasy/Poetry
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: An Appalachian daughter confronts a mother risen from the grave as a vampire... a Jewish girl follows the prophet Elijah to a dark place and time in history for an important task... a lamb nurse listens to the tales of the residents of Happy Dens, a home for retired fairy tale wolves... an elderly woman discovers a strange old man with an ancient secret on the rocks near the lighthouse where she lives... These and other folklore-inspired tales written by fantasy master Jane Yolen are collected in this volume, with a foreword by Marissa Meyer and an afterword about the author's inspirations.
REVIEW: Though her stories aren't always my cup of cocoa, nobody can dispute the mastery evident in the breadth and depth (and length) of Jane Yolen's work. As in pretty much every anthology and collection, though, these are a mixed bag, some feeling rounded and complete and others fragmentary and almost dreamlike. Likewise, some feel a bit long for their premises while others seem truncated. Styles vary from the old-school storyteller cadence and repetition of classic fairy tales to lighthearted snark to darker and/or more literary takes. I've read a few before, while others were new to me. Endings are only rarely clear-cut happily-ever-afters, several skewing rather dark, but then the original stories were far removed from the sanitized versions many are familiar with today. I added the extra half-star for the notes at the end, which go into a bit of "behind the scenes" details on how Yolen conceived and developed the included stories, along with poems matching the themes.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Oddest of All (Bruce Coville) - My Review
Book of Enchantments (Patricia C. Wrede) - My Review
Here, There be Dragons (Jane Yolen) - My Review
The Yolen's Short Fiction series, Book 1
Jane Yolen
Tachyon Publishing
Fiction, Collection/Fantasy/Poetry
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: An Appalachian daughter confronts a mother risen from the grave as a vampire... a Jewish girl follows the prophet Elijah to a dark place and time in history for an important task... a lamb nurse listens to the tales of the residents of Happy Dens, a home for retired fairy tale wolves... an elderly woman discovers a strange old man with an ancient secret on the rocks near the lighthouse where she lives... These and other folklore-inspired tales written by fantasy master Jane Yolen are collected in this volume, with a foreword by Marissa Meyer and an afterword about the author's inspirations.
REVIEW: Though her stories aren't always my cup of cocoa, nobody can dispute the mastery evident in the breadth and depth (and length) of Jane Yolen's work. As in pretty much every anthology and collection, though, these are a mixed bag, some feeling rounded and complete and others fragmentary and almost dreamlike. Likewise, some feel a bit long for their premises while others seem truncated. Styles vary from the old-school storyteller cadence and repetition of classic fairy tales to lighthearted snark to darker and/or more literary takes. I've read a few before, while others were new to me. Endings are only rarely clear-cut happily-ever-afters, several skewing rather dark, but then the original stories were far removed from the sanitized versions many are familiar with today. I added the extra half-star for the notes at the end, which go into a bit of "behind the scenes" details on how Yolen conceived and developed the included stories, along with poems matching the themes.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Oddest of All (Bruce Coville) - My Review
Book of Enchantments (Patricia C. Wrede) - My Review
Here, There be Dragons (Jane Yolen) - My Review
Wednesday, September 4, 2024
Beacon 23 (Hugh Howey)
Beacon 23
Hugh Howey
John Joseph Adams/Mariner Books
Fiction, Sci-Fi
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: Once, lighthouses were the beacons that guided seagoing vessels to safety. In the twenty-third century, beacons serve the same function for faster-than-light vessels traversing asteroid belts and other treacherous routes... and every beacon needs an overseer to keep it functional. Not everyone can handle the isolation, but some crave it... such as a one-time war hero, call name "Digger", suffering crippling post-traumatic stress in addition to horrible scars from an encounter with an enemy alien Ryph Lord. At Beacon 23, he hoped to hide away from his undeserved fame, from humanity, from the entire universe - but it's impossible to outrun a war that hasn't ended, just as it's impossible to hide from his own fracturing mind.
REVIEW: Beacon 23 transports the isolation of the lighthouse keeper to deep space in a series of linked stories that also explore the insanity of war, the price paid by those on the front lines who are forced to sacrifice their innate humanity in the name of often-nebulous (and often profit- and power-driven) causes, and how sometimes a mind must be completely broken to begin to heal.
The overseer, never directly named, came to Beacon 23 intending it to be the last stop in a life he can barely stand living anymore; the only question is whether he'll re-up after his two-year shift in perpetuity, or if he'll simply take a stroll outside without a suit to end his stint. Howey dances around the core trauma that left him scarred and broken and not particularly invested in his fellow humans, part of which is the character struggling to come to grips with his own actions (or inaction) and part of which just feels like an author playing coy with the reader - not helped by the repetition across the different stories that are stitched together in this omnibus edition. As the tale opens, he's already convinced he's going insane, plagued by little noises that NASA claims ignorance of... until the near-impossible happens and his beacon fails, just as a ship is passing through his region of the asteroid field. With some fast thinking and improvisation reminiscent of Andy Weir's The Martian, he manages to figure out the problem, but it's just a prelude to more troubles that exacerbate his ever-increasing mental health issues, presented in a way where the reader is never quite sure what is real and what is delusion. These episodes start to feel disconnected from each other, without a solid through-line, not helped by how long the author still keeps dancing about the roots of his guilt; I have to wonder how far apart the different stories were written, as sometimes it felt like things didn't quite line up with each other despite the recapping. I'm also not entirely sure the sabotage incident was where his story really starts, as the tale meanders a bit before hitting on its strongest themes, involving the Rhyph war, the battle that made him a hero in the eyes of humanity (and a traitor in his own eyes), and coming to grips with the costs of war and what it will take to end the abomination. The story is at its best exploring Digger's psychological damage and his journey toward self-forgiveness and healing, while other elements start feeling extraneous or excessively grandiose and/or coincidental... and it also goes out of its way to provide him with female companionship in the galactic middle of nowhere. The wrap-up almost feels like another delusion (I can't get into why without spoilers).
Ultimately, while it has some very solid themes and ideas and a few decent action moments, plus a little humor, the parts always felt a little too mismatched to stand together as a solid whole.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Ender's Game (Orson Scott Card) - My Review
The Forever War (Joe Haldeman) - My Review
The Martian (Andy Weir) - My Review
Hugh Howey
John Joseph Adams/Mariner Books
Fiction, Sci-Fi
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: Once, lighthouses were the beacons that guided seagoing vessels to safety. In the twenty-third century, beacons serve the same function for faster-than-light vessels traversing asteroid belts and other treacherous routes... and every beacon needs an overseer to keep it functional. Not everyone can handle the isolation, but some crave it... such as a one-time war hero, call name "Digger", suffering crippling post-traumatic stress in addition to horrible scars from an encounter with an enemy alien Ryph Lord. At Beacon 23, he hoped to hide away from his undeserved fame, from humanity, from the entire universe - but it's impossible to outrun a war that hasn't ended, just as it's impossible to hide from his own fracturing mind.
REVIEW: Beacon 23 transports the isolation of the lighthouse keeper to deep space in a series of linked stories that also explore the insanity of war, the price paid by those on the front lines who are forced to sacrifice their innate humanity in the name of often-nebulous (and often profit- and power-driven) causes, and how sometimes a mind must be completely broken to begin to heal.
The overseer, never directly named, came to Beacon 23 intending it to be the last stop in a life he can barely stand living anymore; the only question is whether he'll re-up after his two-year shift in perpetuity, or if he'll simply take a stroll outside without a suit to end his stint. Howey dances around the core trauma that left him scarred and broken and not particularly invested in his fellow humans, part of which is the character struggling to come to grips with his own actions (or inaction) and part of which just feels like an author playing coy with the reader - not helped by the repetition across the different stories that are stitched together in this omnibus edition. As the tale opens, he's already convinced he's going insane, plagued by little noises that NASA claims ignorance of... until the near-impossible happens and his beacon fails, just as a ship is passing through his region of the asteroid field. With some fast thinking and improvisation reminiscent of Andy Weir's The Martian, he manages to figure out the problem, but it's just a prelude to more troubles that exacerbate his ever-increasing mental health issues, presented in a way where the reader is never quite sure what is real and what is delusion. These episodes start to feel disconnected from each other, without a solid through-line, not helped by how long the author still keeps dancing about the roots of his guilt; I have to wonder how far apart the different stories were written, as sometimes it felt like things didn't quite line up with each other despite the recapping. I'm also not entirely sure the sabotage incident was where his story really starts, as the tale meanders a bit before hitting on its strongest themes, involving the Rhyph war, the battle that made him a hero in the eyes of humanity (and a traitor in his own eyes), and coming to grips with the costs of war and what it will take to end the abomination. The story is at its best exploring Digger's psychological damage and his journey toward self-forgiveness and healing, while other elements start feeling extraneous or excessively grandiose and/or coincidental... and it also goes out of its way to provide him with female companionship in the galactic middle of nowhere. The wrap-up almost feels like another delusion (I can't get into why without spoilers).
Ultimately, while it has some very solid themes and ideas and a few decent action moments, plus a little humor, the parts always felt a little too mismatched to stand together as a solid whole.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Ender's Game (Orson Scott Card) - My Review
The Forever War (Joe Haldeman) - My Review
The Martian (Andy Weir) - My Review
Gallant (V. E. Schwab)
Gallant
V. E. Schwab
Greenwillow
Fiction, YA Fantasy/Horror
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: Olivia Prior has no memory of her mother. All she has is a worn green journal whose words document a slow, confusing slide into madness before the woman dropped Olivia off at the Merilance School for Girls. Merilance is a dismal place, made worse by how Olivia is treated: a mute orphan girl who cannot even look forward to the menial life of servitude the other girls are groomed for. It would be worse if they knew the truth, that Olivia can see "ghouls", half-formed ghosts with pieces missing who drift in the shadows and vanish whenever she looks directly at them. Sometimes she wonders if her mother saw ghouls, too, or if the mysterious madwoman is one herself now.
One day, Olivia is summoned to the headmistress's office. A letter has arrived for her, from an uncle she never knew about, summoning her "home". It seems odd that any relative who claims to love her, as the letter writer does, left her to languish in Merilance's cruelties for most of her childhood and adolescence, but anywhere must be better than the boarding school, and maybe this "uncle" will have answers about her mother. Only when she finally arrives, she sees a name she recognizes from her mother's journal: Gallant.
Mom seemed convinced that Olivia would only be safe if she never went to Gallant; it may have been why she was abandoned in the first place. But Olivia cannot bring herself to leave, not even when she learns that nobody knows who actually sent the letter summoning her. The pictures on the wall, with her own features looking back at her, make it clear enough that this is her family home, that her mother once lived here, and the young woman will not go until she finally has some answers. Unfortunately, Gallant's secrets may have been the death of Olivia's mother... and if she doesn't escape soon, it might be the death of her, too.
REVIEW: Gallant is a nice take on the traditional gothic horror trope of family curses and brooding old manors full of ghosts and secrets. From the start, Olivia is no passive victim, but a willful young woman determined to fight back against a life that keeps trying to keep her down "in her place", not above the odd petty act of vengeance against her tormentors. Even the "ghouls" she sees do not bring her fear or have her cringing in terror, as she learned they can't touch her and she can banish them with a hard glare; they're just one more piece of a puzzle she doesn't have nearly enough clues to solve, the puzzle of her mother's madness and disappearance and the strange entries in the green journal. Being mute only makes her that much more observant of other people, even as it can be frustrating trying to communicate with those who won't or can't understand what she's trying to tell them via sign or writing. Her hope at finally escaping Merilance is quickly dashed upon her inauspicious arrival at Gallant; instead of a loving uncle and a family opening its arms in love and acceptance, there are a pair of aging servants and a brooding, angry cousin whose first words are to order her to leave at once. There is also a mysterious wall in the back garden with an iron door that appears to go nowhere... until approached at night...
In keeping with the story's gothic roots, a grim atmosphere permeates the book and the characters, a sense of foreboding and doom that is present from the first pages to the last. From the gruesome, partially erased figures of the ghouls - which can appear as single eyes and arms with partial or absent torsos - to the nightmares that begin to torment Olivia from her first night in Gallant to interludes between chapters that point to a lurking evil waiting patiently as a spider with an inescapable web, Schwab does not stint on the darkness, though Olivia only rarely succumbs to the weight of it, always managing to find more fight in her, and she is not entirely without allies. Adding to the atmosphere are illustrations from Olivia's mother's notebook, dark and haunting renderings like shaped ink blots on the page, that eventually tie into the unfolding mystery. There are no easy answers or easy wins, and every step of progress comes at a terrible cost.
Though the tale moves fairly well, the ending feels abrupt, with a few stray threads left over that don't tie up neatly. Otherwise, it's an excellent, if very dark, story.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The In-Between (Rebecca K. Ansari) - My Review
Dusk or Dark or Dawn or Day (Seanan McGuire) - My Review
The Screaming Staircase (Jonathan Stroud) - My Review
V. E. Schwab
Greenwillow
Fiction, YA Fantasy/Horror
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: Olivia Prior has no memory of her mother. All she has is a worn green journal whose words document a slow, confusing slide into madness before the woman dropped Olivia off at the Merilance School for Girls. Merilance is a dismal place, made worse by how Olivia is treated: a mute orphan girl who cannot even look forward to the menial life of servitude the other girls are groomed for. It would be worse if they knew the truth, that Olivia can see "ghouls", half-formed ghosts with pieces missing who drift in the shadows and vanish whenever she looks directly at them. Sometimes she wonders if her mother saw ghouls, too, or if the mysterious madwoman is one herself now.
One day, Olivia is summoned to the headmistress's office. A letter has arrived for her, from an uncle she never knew about, summoning her "home". It seems odd that any relative who claims to love her, as the letter writer does, left her to languish in Merilance's cruelties for most of her childhood and adolescence, but anywhere must be better than the boarding school, and maybe this "uncle" will have answers about her mother. Only when she finally arrives, she sees a name she recognizes from her mother's journal: Gallant.
Mom seemed convinced that Olivia would only be safe if she never went to Gallant; it may have been why she was abandoned in the first place. But Olivia cannot bring herself to leave, not even when she learns that nobody knows who actually sent the letter summoning her. The pictures on the wall, with her own features looking back at her, make it clear enough that this is her family home, that her mother once lived here, and the young woman will not go until she finally has some answers. Unfortunately, Gallant's secrets may have been the death of Olivia's mother... and if she doesn't escape soon, it might be the death of her, too.
REVIEW: Gallant is a nice take on the traditional gothic horror trope of family curses and brooding old manors full of ghosts and secrets. From the start, Olivia is no passive victim, but a willful young woman determined to fight back against a life that keeps trying to keep her down "in her place", not above the odd petty act of vengeance against her tormentors. Even the "ghouls" she sees do not bring her fear or have her cringing in terror, as she learned they can't touch her and she can banish them with a hard glare; they're just one more piece of a puzzle she doesn't have nearly enough clues to solve, the puzzle of her mother's madness and disappearance and the strange entries in the green journal. Being mute only makes her that much more observant of other people, even as it can be frustrating trying to communicate with those who won't or can't understand what she's trying to tell them via sign or writing. Her hope at finally escaping Merilance is quickly dashed upon her inauspicious arrival at Gallant; instead of a loving uncle and a family opening its arms in love and acceptance, there are a pair of aging servants and a brooding, angry cousin whose first words are to order her to leave at once. There is also a mysterious wall in the back garden with an iron door that appears to go nowhere... until approached at night...
In keeping with the story's gothic roots, a grim atmosphere permeates the book and the characters, a sense of foreboding and doom that is present from the first pages to the last. From the gruesome, partially erased figures of the ghouls - which can appear as single eyes and arms with partial or absent torsos - to the nightmares that begin to torment Olivia from her first night in Gallant to interludes between chapters that point to a lurking evil waiting patiently as a spider with an inescapable web, Schwab does not stint on the darkness, though Olivia only rarely succumbs to the weight of it, always managing to find more fight in her, and she is not entirely without allies. Adding to the atmosphere are illustrations from Olivia's mother's notebook, dark and haunting renderings like shaped ink blots on the page, that eventually tie into the unfolding mystery. There are no easy answers or easy wins, and every step of progress comes at a terrible cost.
Though the tale moves fairly well, the ending feels abrupt, with a few stray threads left over that don't tie up neatly. Otherwise, it's an excellent, if very dark, story.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The In-Between (Rebecca K. Ansari) - My Review
Dusk or Dark or Dawn or Day (Seanan McGuire) - My Review
The Screaming Staircase (Jonathan Stroud) - My Review
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